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I was pacing in the direction that had my back to the door when I heard Cameron greet his brother Kane. I turned around, and my eyes widened. I knew from the beginning they were all brothers, but no one had let me know there was a set of identical twins. Exceptionally identical twins.
They looked eerily alike. The same dark hair and dark eyes. The same lazy smile. Both absolutely gorgeous. The only thing I noticed that seemed to differentiate Kane King from his brother Cameron was that Kane had tattoos covering every visible inch of his left arm. As far as I could tell, Cameron didn’t have any.
I stood there feeling almost dumbstruck by them. It felt highly unfair that I was going to be surrounded by so many handsome men all week and wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Even if I was the forward and flirting kind of woman, I couldn’t be that way with my clients. I had to put those thoughts away and do my job, no matter how stupidly hot the men were.
Maybe I would just look at it as a perk. They just added to the beauty of the vineyard backdrop.
Kane stood there and stared at me for a few seconds, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Was this part of him being difficult to get through to? Cameron looked between us, then gestured at me.
“Kane, this is Danica Peters. She’s here to do your inspection.”
Kane’s eyes widened a little more as it sank in who I was. That made me wonder who he thought I was to begin with. And what he was expecting from the inspector.
“Hello,” Kane said, coming toward me with his hand extended. “Kane King.”
That was enough to snap me out of my daze and put me into official work mode. I shook his hand.
“Yes, hello.”
I pulled on my professional mask, which I had been told looked an awful lot like resting bitch face. He didn’t seem affected by it.
“How are you?” he asked.
Were we really doing this? He’d kept me waiting all this time, and now he wanted to saunter in here like the James Dean of grapes and engage in some banter? I wasn’t going to bite. If I was going to try to salvage the schedule I had for the week, we needed to get started.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I answered, not wanting to be rude but also not particularly wanting to give any sort of gateway for more small talk. “Can you please show me to the grapes?”
Kane nodded once. “Sure.”
He saluted his brothers and led me out of the building. I could hear the other two men talking under their breath to each other as soon as I walked away, but I wouldn’t let myself wonder what they might be saying.
5
Kane
Once we were introduced and headed out of the office, Danica was nothing short of the perfect professional. She mentioned notes that had been left for her by the last inspector and had some pointed questions about them. I told her that any request for repair we had received up to that point had been satisfied, but she seemed less than impressed.
“We’ll see,” she said.
“Well, if you would like to join me out there, I am happy to show you around,” I said.
“That would be where we are going right now.”
I realized how ridiculous I sounded, but I couldn’t help it. There was something about her that was making me sound like a certified idiot.
“We can start in the fields right behind the building and make our way around to the front, if that’s fine with you,” I said. “The legacy vines are in the very back, and the newer stuff is around front. We can start wherever you would like, but the door back here leads right into some of the vines that I know you will want to see.”
“That’s fine. I will need to see all of it, so it doesn’t really matter where we start.”
I nodded. “Ok great, follow me.”
I guided her to the back door, heading out into the fields and beginning the walk-through. She clearly knew her way around a vineyard. Stomping through the mud in her boots, she didn’t seem bothered by getting a little dirty, and I was caught off guard by how quickly she began to ask questions about methods I was using to get the soil to the right pH levels and how I was taking care of the vines.
“These over here,” I said as we made our way deep into the vineyard, “are some of the older legacy vines. A few of these are ones my grandfather began back when they first opened the place.”
“Yes, I can tell. They haven’t been cared for terribly well, have they?” she asked. It was a bit of an insult the way she said it, but there wasn’t any emotion in the question. She was simply stating what she saw as a fact. I didn’t think she meant it to come off as harsh as she had.
