Joe nodded and shook hands with Blair, thanking him for the tour and his time. Blair gave him a firm handshake in return and a wide, welcoming smile. “Any time.”
“I may take you up on that in the next few days,” Joe told him. “I feel like I’ve just skimmed the surface of what goes on out here. I’d really like to come back and learn more.”
“Absolutely,” Blair agreed and Tara scowled at him. He noticed her black look and his smile faded.
“Let’s go,” she said to Joe and stalked out of the building, aggravated by the sound of her flip-flops slapping against her feet.
“Would you like me to drive?” he offered as they neared her car.
“No.” She slid into the driver’s seat and slammed her door. Joe climbed into the passenger seat.
“Okay. Just thought you might like some time to review that information Blair gave you on high density planting. Mind if I look at it while we drive?”
She paused, hands tight on the wheel. Shit. She did not want him becoming an expert on high density planting before her. But she’d already said she didn’t want him to drive.
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth and hauled her briefcase up from the backseat. She pulled out the thick folder and practically threw it at him.
His lips twitched, which only annoyed her more, and she slammed the car into reverse, backed up with a spinning of wheels and took off out of the parking lot. She drove home through the mountains on the winding highway at hair-raising, stomach-dropping speeds, taking perverse pleasure every time Joe grabbed for the door handle.
Chapter Five
“How was your day?” Tyrone Lockhart greeted Joe with a smile that split his brown, weathered face.
How had his day been? Fucking unbelievable. He was eager to jump in, get his hands into the olives, so to speak. But Tara hated his guts and trying to tell her what she needed to do differently was going to be like WWE Smackdown. And that, strangely, was a huge turn-on for him. An image of him wrestling her down and covering her body with his…stop! Jesus.
The olive groves had been amazing. He couldn’t even describe how he’d felt there, in fact he was a little embarrassed to have been so strongly affected by the atmosphere in the groves.
Then there was the olive oil tasting. Oh man. Tara watching his mouth the whole time, heat clearly visible in her eyes. His brain had been instantly flooded with…sex. Sex with Tara. Hot, slippery, rolling-around-in-olive-oil sex.
“Interesting,” he finally replied to Tyrone in egregious understatement, slamming a door shut in his head on the nasty thoughts he was having about Tyrone’s granddaughter as he took a seat in front of Tyrone’s desk. “I’m actually surprised how fascinating this business is.”
And not just the business. He was fascinated by Tara Lockhart. Moody and complicated, intelligent and knowledgeable, strong and forceful, that passion and hint of submission simmering beneath the surface made her sexy as hell and kept causing his mind to wander away from business to thoughts of tying her up naked and paddling her sweet little ass.
That door in his head kept popping open. He had to slam it shut again.
“Great.” Tyrone walked around behind his desk, thankfully unaware of his dirty thoughts. The image of Tara in shiny black latex holding a flogger flashed into Joe’s mind. Christ, what would the old man think of that? He’d probably have a heart attack. “So, tell me your first impressions of the business.”
Joe thought back over the day. “It’s amazingly complicated.” He remembered with a twinge of embarrassment his sarcastic comment to Tara about the olive business. Jesus. What an idiot he was.
“Seeing the olive groves and the amount of knowledge needed to just grow the olives is overwhelming. You have a guy with a degree overseeing just that part of the business. Irrigation, propagation, ripeness, fertilizing, pruning…I haven’t got a hot clue about any of that stuff.”
Tyrone just nodded and smiled. “That’s okay,” he said. “What else?”
“Well, then the mill…it too is complex. Again, highly technical. The place looks like a laboratory. The equipment, the capital expenditures for that alone—wow. But that’s the kind of manufacturing environment I’m more familiar with.”
Again, Tyrone nodded.
“I learned a little about olives and oil and curing,” Joe said. “I guess what I mostly learned is how much I don’t know. The business things I understand—the costs of processing, packing, marketing, input output relationships—but oil extraction rates and net extraction recovery rates…uh-uh.” He smiled ruefully.
“What do you think about high density planting?” Tyrone asked.
Was this a test? High density planting was Tara’s pet project.
“I think we need to do a detailed cost-benefit analysis,” he answered. “I see a lot of advantages to it. To be competitive, it seems to me economies of scale in a few different areas is the answer. But there are some disadvantages to it that we would need to be clear on before we start spending money.”
Then Joe realized what he’d said. “Uh…when I say ‘we’…”
Tyrone laughed. “I’m happy to hear you talk like that. First day on the job and you’re already taking ownership of the company. I have to say, I wondered how committed you’d be to this job.”
“Well, to be honest, I did have some doubts. In fact, I still do.”
Tyrone raised his white brows. “Such as…?”
“I gotta ask…why am I here? Tara is obviously capable of running the show. She knows this business. I’ve never met someone with more passion for what they do and she has incredible vision.”
Tyrone sat back in his chair, frowning. “Yes, Tara is a visionary. She has ideas. But she’s a woman. She relies too much on her gut and not enough on careful business planning.”
Joe almost winced. Talk about politically incorrect. He couldn’t disagree with Tyrone’s opinion of Tara, but no way in hell would he ever be stupid enough to say it was a gender thing.
“I’ve worked hard over the years to get this company where it is and I don’t want to risk it all,” Tyrone continued. “And I’m getting too old to fight over things all the time. I want to make sure we have someone here who can keep things going when I’m gone.”
“But—”
Tyrone held up a hand. “I know. Tara thinks I’m stuck in the past, too traditional and conservative. But I know times are changing. This whole olive oil thing…who would have thought twenty years ago we could actually sell oil for fifty dollars a liter? Ha! That’s crazy!”
Joe smiled and nodded.
“But it’s selling. People are going crazy for good olive oil. People are tasting it like wine, for God’s sake.”
“My parents own a couple of Italian restaurants in San Francisco and, man, good olive oil is important to them.”
Tyrone shook his head. “So you know it too. Well, like I said, that’s the way the world is going. I’m not resistant to change, despite what Tara may think. But someone needs to make her stop for a moment, back up a bit, do her research, make the best business decision. When I try to tell her that, we just end up at each other’s throats.”
Joe nodded. “So that’s how you see my role here? Someone to balance Tara’s creativity with some careful business planning?”
“Exactly.” Tyrone beamed. “Although I’d really be happier if she were out of the business altogether.”
Joe tightened his jaw to keep his mouth from dropping open. “Why? She obviously loves the business.”
“It’s not a woman’s world,” Tyrone said, again startling Joe with his out-of-date attitude. “My son was supposed to run this business. Not his daughter.” A flash of pain darkened the old man’s eyes.