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Smiling up at her granddaughter, Lila Baron waved her arm at Eve. “For a wedding at the vineyard.”
Paige’s gaze whipped around to Eve. “You interested?”
Lips pressed tightly together, the corners of Eve’s mouth began to tip upward as she bobbed her head slowly. “Maybe.”
Slapping her hands together with enthusiasm, Paige took her seat and leveling her gaze with her older sister, waved a finger at her. “After dinner. We’ll talk.”
The two siblings grinned at each other like the little girls at the table he remembered from so long ago. Though he knew there had been a lot of discussion on Paige’s ambitions for the family winery, somehow, he hadn’t realized she’d made enough progress to host a Baron family wedding.
“Where are you filming this week?” The Governor sliced his beef tenderloin, and stabbing at the piece, held it on the fork dangling in midair, waiting for Craig’s response.
“Vancouver.”
“Long flight.”
Craig nodded. Didn’t he know it. As Executive Producer he didn’t need to be on set for filming every minute of every day, but his grandfather had taught him a long time ago that the only way to get ahead of the next guy was to work twice as hard. Besides that, the old man had also taught them all that the best way to avoid unpleasant surprises was to always keep at least one eye on any project. Whether business or pleasure, Craig had done just that, and more than once it had saved his bacon.
“Any luck with that option you were telling us about?”
Craig had to think which the heck option was his grandfather talking about.
“You know,” his grandfather continued, as if he’d read Craig’s mind, “that actress who lives near Austin that you were so excited about.”
Oh yes. The difficult diva who had moved to Hill Country over a decade ago after completing one of her many blockbuster movies. The woman no longer considered starring in movies filmed outside of her state,andjust happened to own the rights to the hottest commodity out there at the moment. The potential golden goose. A slam dunk for an Oscar nomination if handled correctly, which his production company would do, and the movie that would be the ultimate deal to put him at the top. “Still a negotiation in progress.”
“Texas studio still the sticking point?” Holding a glass of water, the Governor lifted it to his lips in a show of casual chit-chat when in fact, much like his grandmother’s approach to Eve’s wedding, there was nothing casual at all about the question.
Craig nodded. One of many where this particular diva was concerned.
“A studio closer to home wouldn’t be a bad thing. Give it any more thought?”
“Some.” That was most likely not the response his grandfather wanted, but it was the truth. Or at least part of the truth. With productions often running simultaneously all across the country, and his constantly catching red-eye flights to keep up, he’d more than thought about it. Including the expense and headache of undertaking the kind of project he would need, especially his preferred location in or near Houston and the ranch—a part of the country that was virtually a production desert. Austin was closer to his condo, but considering he spent more free time at the ranch than his own place, and that the cost and availability of land in the popular metroplex was beyond prohibitive, even for a Baron, that option was out of the question. Which left the idea of instead focusing on Dallas, a city that would bring him closer to his brother Chase, and that already had a healthy pool of industry professionals. Despite the head start the North Texas location offered, he couldn’t bring himself to be enthused about driving four hours to visit family and the ranch any more than sitting on a plane for that amount of time. So instead, he’d done his best to charm the diva out of Texas—so far to no avail.
“You do know that the legislature has just passed approval for new tax incentives for just this type of project?”
He couldn’t help but lift his gaze to meet his grandfather’s. Honestly, he hadn’t paid any attention to whether or not the State of Texas had perks lined up for such a project. “I’ll have to look into it.”
The Governor gave a single dip of his chin. “There’s a folder with the highlights in my office. If you’re interested, you can take a look after dinner. There also may be a few property suggestions your cousin Devlin left in the same folder.”
Again, Craig nodded. Whether he was interested or not, which he was most definitely at least curious, a suggestion from the Governor might as well have been a military order. The civilian equivalent ofvoluntold. The military concept of being told to volunteer was not lost on his family. Of course, now the question that ricocheted in his mind was whether or not this particular idea would be the Holy Grail solution to his travel exhaustion and negotiation frustrations, or a suicide mission.
“Next time anyone shouts road trip after a plethora of chocolate martinis, remind me to insist we at least stay in the state of Texas.” Kathleen Elizabeth Donovan, more commonly known by Kate, was most definitely a through and through extrovert with a side of gypsy. She was also getting too old to sit in a car for most of the day after joining her friends on a spontaneous trip across two states.
“Are you saying you didn’t like the hot springs?” Joan, her best friend since kindergarten, didn’t bother to take her attention away from the road ahead. Most likely because Joan already knew the answer.
“You know I loved every relaxing minute.” And she had. Whether it was the refrigerator that insisted on freezing your milk, the neighbor’s teen whose high school band chose the middle of your online meeting to practice Metallica songs, badly, or some moron who didn’t understand why you couldn’t play with nesting sea turtles, some days life just came at you from every direction. Not till three whole days in the peace and quiet that Mother Nature intended and all the little critters that came with it did Kate realize just how draining the real world had become. “We really do need to escape more often.”
“Amen to that. Though it would help if you spent at least a fraction of the time you spend saving the world on pampering yourself.”
“Maybe.” She couldn’t say much more, after all, Joan had a good point. For as long as Kate could remember, she worried more about helpless and abandoned animals than humans. Not everyone had the privilege of growing up and making their passion their career. She just wished having become a successful environmentalist didn’t include having to deal with the money loving, profit above all, side of society. Preserving at risk species and their natural environment had proven to be a lot more demanding than fostering a few abandoned kittens when she was nine. Even so, she wouldn’t change a thing—except maybe from now on a few more girls’ weekends away.
Less than an hour from home, the computerized voice of the GPS stiffly instructed them to take the next exit. A quick glance at the map and the long line of orange then red along the freeway explained why. Within moments of the redirection, traffic began to slow just as they approached the suggested exit.
Joan shook her head and sighed. “I suppose the extra twenty minutes this little detour is going to cost us is less than the time we’d lose if we stayed on the freeway.”
“No doubt.” For the next few minutes, they followed the service road and could see the parking lot the freeway had become. “I feel sorry for those folks. From the looks of it, they’re going to be sitting there a good long while.”
“Thank heavens for whoever invented GPS. I think I’ll have a glass of wine when we get home in his—or her—honor.”
