TamingTara

Chapter Four

Was that some kind of reference to sex?

Tara stared at him and he held her gaze as he lifted his fork to his mouth. He had to be making some kind of perverted reference to their meeting at Le Château. Heat sizzled over her skin at the memory. She’d managed to pretend it had never happened all morning, but now one little comment had her burning. She looked down at her desk.

All those muscles must let him eat that much food. All that muscle must burn a whole hell of a lot of calories. And, as she knew only too well from seeing him Friday night, those were some really nice muscles.

Really nice.

Her cheeks heated even more as she peered down into her coffee cup.

The caffeine probably wasn’t necessary. She was alert, edgy, almost vibrating with nerves and energy. All due to her new colleague, who followed her around, listening to her with such focused intensity it was making her self-conscious.

He was making her more than self-conscious. He was making her feel like an idiot. Intelligence shone in those black-coffee eyes and he asked smart, succinct questions about stuff she—and it killed her to admit this—knew nothing about. Dammit.

She wanted to growl, wanted to pick something up and throw it. Throw it at him. She clenched her fists. “Okay,” she said, covering her feelings with briskness. “We should go. It’ll take about forty minutes to get to the ranch.”

The thought of being in a car alone with him for the next hour or so was almost enough to make her lose what little control she still had, but she grabbed her purse, briefcase and cell phone. Joe again followed as she ran down the stairs, this time turning left and exiting the building through a back door. She strode up to her car, all sparkling chrome and glass in the hot mid-day sun, and dug around in her big purse for her keys.

“Nice car.”

She glanced at him as she pushed the button to unlock the doors. “Thanks.” Her BMW Cabriolet was okay and it got her around.

He slid into the passenger seat beside her and fastened his seatbelt. She pulled out onto State Street, then turned right onto Chapala, the route to the ranch so familiar she could drive it in a trance. In fact, she sometimes did. Soon she was accelerating rapidly onto the freeway, merging closely into the speeding traffic. Joe gripped the door handle. She smiled.

“Don’t worry, I’m a good driver.” After a short stretch on the freeway they exited onto Highway 154 and started climbing into the mountains that snuggled Santa Barbara between them and the Pacific Ocean.

The sky was a cloudless blue and Tara spared a thought for the beauty surrounding her despite her mind being crowded with thoughts and sensations, most of them to do with the man sitting beside her, taking up a lot of space in her small Beamer. He smelled good, kind of spicy-citrusy, he was big and, God, he was sinfully gorgeous. She had to admit it. He’d pushed the seat back as far as it would go and his long legs still looked crowded under the dash. His thighs were big and muscular under the fine dark wool of his suit trousers.

She cranked up the air conditioning.

“I just have to make a couple of calls,” she told him. “Then I’ll tell you more about the ranch and the mill.”

“You’re going to talk on a cell phone on this road?” he asked, incredulity straining his voice.

“I’ll be quick.” She fitted an earpiece to her ear, punched in some numbers on the phone and called back the distributor who’d left her a message that morning. “Yes,” she told him. “We want into Safeway. No, we’re not paying that much rent.” She outlined her negotiating position. “Call me back once you’ve talked to them,” she told the man and ended the call. Then she called the ranch.

“You’re kidding,” she said when Juan answered. “Customs found some dirt on the roots? They quarantined them? Damn it. What do we have to do?” Juan didn’t know. She sighed. “I’m on my way. I’ll call them myself once I’m there.”

She snapped her small phone shut and tossed it on the dash, then told Joe about the calls. It was strange to be telling a total stranger such private details about the business. She gnawed on her bottom lip, and her annoyance at her grandfather for putting her in this position revved up again like the motor of her Beamer as they climbed the steep mountain road at seventy miles an hour.

“How far is the ranch?” Joe asked.

“About twenty-five miles from Santa Barbara. Near Santa Ynez. It’s about a thirty, thirty-five-minute drive in all. We’ll be there soon.”

“Tell me more about olives.”

She needed no urging to do so. “Well, the first olive trees were brought here by the Franciscans. Those were Missions, a variant of Spanish trees the conquistadores brought to North America. Then Manzanillo olives were brought to America in about 1875, and about ten years after that, Sevallanos were planted and an Italian variety, Ascolano. Now there are so many varieties, probably over a hundred. But a lot of other ranches around here have been turned into wineries.”

Joe nodded. “This area is known for its wineries. Not so much for olives.”

“That’s because you don’t know anything about the olive business.” She paused. “Anyway, the temptation has been there to go into grapes instead of olives for us too. I can totally understand why some people turned to vineyards and wine, rather than olives. Now some have gone back to olive growing, but it’s difficult. It takes so many years of care for trees to produce enough olives, careful pruning and irrigation. Luckily most of our trees are mature, although we’re always adding new stock.”

“That’s what the call was about.”

“Yes. We’ve brought in some nursery stock from Italy. Importing trees from Europe can be frustrating. There can’t be any soil on the roots of the trees, which means they have to be cleaned and packaged to retain moisture on the roots while they’re shipped. And then if Customs finds a bit of soil—which apparently they did—well, I’ll have to deal with that, dammit.”

She shook her head, turning the wheel as her BMW hugged a mountain-wrapping curve in the road. She’d seen the spectacular view so many times she hardly noticed anymore. Today, she spared a glance for the sweeping vista dropping away from the highway, wondering what this looked like through Joe’s eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” he observed, gazing out the window, although his knuckles were still pale where his hand gripped the door handle.

Soon they were descending into the valley, acres of rural landscape, gold fields shimmering under the hot summer sun, stretching away to rolling green hills dotted with round trees. In the distance, neatly planted rows of trees climbed up a hillside toward the dark outline of the mountains.

The road curved back the other way and Tara leaned into the curve, enjoying the way her car handled the winding roads without reducing speed. Soon, though, she slowed and turned onto a narrow road where a large green, red and gold sign at the highway said “Santa Ynez Olive Company”. She followed the narrow, tree-lined road for about five minutes.

“Is that a house?” Joe asked, looking around with clear interest.

“Yes.”

“Who lives there?”

“Nobody now.” She tried not to sound sad about that. “Grandpa used to, but after my parents died he moved to Santa Barbara to live with us. He thought it was better for us to stay in our own home. Sometimes I stay out here if I don’t feel like driving back to town.”

“When did your parents die?”

She pressed her lips together. “A long time ago. I was fourteen, my sister Sasha was twelve.”

“I’m sorry.”

She felt his eyes on her, shrugged. “It’s okay. Grandpa brought us up.” She stared straight ahead out the windshield, tightening her fingers on the steering wheel. Since the day her parents had died, Grandpa had drilled it into them that you showed no emotion about that, in fact, didn’t even talk about it. “The house actually belongs to my sister and me now. I’ve thought of buying out Sasha’s half, but I can’t do that until she turns twenty-five.”

“Why not?”

“It was the terms of my parents’ will. Everything is held in trust for us until we’re twenty-five. When I turned twenty-five, I got access to my trust fund, and Sasha will turn twenty-five in about five months. Until then, jointly held property—really only the house—can’t be disposed of. We each have part ownership of the company, although Sasha’s not interested in it at all.”

“I see.” He paused. “You love it out here, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “I suppose. I’ve thought of moving out here, but it just seemed easier to stay in the city.” She did love it out here. So much. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. That was way too personal.

She drove past the house, a sprawling ranch-style with white stucco and red clay tile roof, surrounded by huge cacti, flowers and mature olive and oak trees. Around another curve in the road they came to some other buildings.

“This is the mill,” she told him, rolling into a parking spot and coming to a quick, jolting stop. She flicked off her seatbelt and turned off the ignition. When they stepped out of the car, the heat slammed into them.

“Wow,” Joe said. “It’s a lot warmer here.”

“Yes.” She slid her arms out of her suit jacket and tossed it into the car. “Away from the coast the temperatures get a lot warmer. That’s what makes it ideal for growing olives here.”

Joe again followed her example, removing his suit jacket. His white shirt still looked crisp despite the heat. He slung the jacket over his shoulder, then loosened the knot of his tie as he gazed around, taking everything in with alert, interested eyes.

Tara was proud of the family business and everything they’d accomplished, and after feeling humiliated by him that morning, she wanted to impress this man. After his earlier sarcastic comment, she wanted to dazzle him with how complex the olive business was, prove to this hotshot MBA he didn’t know everything.

The large building that housed the mill, with metal walls and roof, was designed for function, not beauty. She started across the ochre-colored, packed-earth parking lot toward it, her spiky heels sinking into the ground.

Damn. She usually didn’t dress like this when she came to the mill. The black skirt was warm in the hot sun and her heels were extremely impractical for tramping around outside.

“Hold on,” she muttered to Joe and turned back to her car. She unlocked the trunk and reached in to pull out a pair of flip-flops. Standing on one leg, then the other, she slid her black pumps off and tossed them into the trunk, then slipped her feet into the flip-flops. She slammed the lid of the trunk back down. “There.” She dusted her hands off and picked up her purse and briefcase again, then turned to see him watching her with amusement and…oh hell…unmistakable sexual interest.

She’d given him a bit of a show of her legs as she changed shoes, dammit. She licked her lips, met his gaze. “I…um…don’t usually wear heels when I come out here.”

He nodded, his eyes on her mouth as her tongue moved over her lips, and heat flooded over her that was definitely not from the summer sun. This man was not intimidated by her like so many others. And that was such a knee-weakening turn-on, she had to suck in a deep breath. She swallowed and then, getting a grip on herself, she turned and strode across the parking lot, trying to look confident and professional in flip-flops with big pink daisies on them.

Tara and Joe entered the mill through a side door and walked into a cool office area. Air conditioning, thank God. She was still having that hot flash.

“Hi, Tara!” Donna, the receptionist-slash-secretary-slash-office manager greeted her with a smile, which Tara returned. They exchanged some small talk, and then Tara introduced Joe with a lack of enthusiasm she knew was noted by both Donna and Joe. “Is Juan in his office?”

“I’m in here,” a voice called through an open door and Tara walked over, feeling Joe close behind her. Again she performed introductions. Juan’s eyebrows drew down, then lifted. He shot Joe a narrow-eyed glance then turned back to Tara.

“I’ve already called Customs again and found out what we need to do,” Juan told her. “We have to go there and clean off the roots of every tree.”

“How many trees had dirt on them?”

“Only one. But to make sure, we have to open every one.”

“Oh my God,” she groaned. “That’s a hundred trees.”

“I know. I’ll go tomorrow and I’ll take a couple of the guys with me.”

“Where are the trees?” Joe asked.

“Los Angeles.” Juan grimaced. “They’re being held by Customs at LAX.”

“Great,” Tara said with a sigh. “That’ll take you guys all day. I’ll come with you.”

“Uh…” Juan hesitated and glanced at Joe, which made her frown.

“I don’t think you need to go along to do that,” Joe said to her casually. “I’m sure Juan is capable of handling it.”

She tried to keep the frown from taking over her face even as annoyance rose up inside her. Who the hell was he to tell her what Juan was capable of? But another glance at Juan told her that, yes, Juan had taken her remark to mean she thought he couldn’t deal with the issue himself. And that he wanted to.

And dammit, she didn’t have time for that anyway. Swallowing a sigh, she nodded. “Of course he is.” She gave a tight smile.

“The trees are Grappolo from Italy,” Juan explained to Joe. “Some kinds of trees we buy here, some we propagate ourselves, but these ones had to be ordered from Italy.”

Joe nodded his understanding. “Pain in the ass, having to go all the way to LA.” He and Juan shared a look and this time Tara couldn’t stop her scowl.

“Okay,” she said briskly. “I’ve got to talk to Blair about some things. I’m hoping to have time to show Joe around the mill and the ranch. Maybe later you can take us out?”

“Sure,” Juan said. “Just come on back when you’re ready and we’ll go for a drive.”

“Juan’s young, but he has a degree in crop science and management,” Tara told Joe after they left his office. “He’s so smart about the horticulture part of the business. He and Blair keep the ranch and the mill running.”

They spent the next hour with Blair, manager of the mill, discussing problems with pressing equipment, replacement parts and the information Blair had on mechanical harvesting. He and Juan had just toured a ranch up in Sonoma that was using the new high density planting methods and mechanical harvesting Tara was anxious to explore.

“But they only produce oil,” Blair reminded Tara. She frowned.

“Probably a stupid question,” Joe said. “But what does that matter?”

“Not stupid at all. Mechanical harvesting can damage the olives,” Blair explained. “Olives that are going to be eaten need to be hand picked.”

Tara was nodding, thinking. “I still think it’s worthwhile exploring,” she said. “I’d like to go see that ranch too.”

Blair nodded. “Of course. Why don’t you take all this information I brought back and have a look at it. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“Okay.” She stuffed the thick folder into her briefcase.

“I’ll e-mail you some links too,” Blair said. “There’s a lot more information on the internet.”

Joe grinned. “No internet fear here?”

Blair smiled back. “Nah, not me,” he said. “I spend hours online doing research on equipment, pressing techniques…you name it.” Again, Tara bristled at the easy way Joe seemed to connect with the two men here at the ranch. Not that she didn’t have a good working relationship with them—they did whatever she told them to do. But it was a distant, reserved relationship—almost like they were afraid of her.

“Okay, time for more olive education,” she told Joe. “There’s not too much happening at this time of year, as we harvest in the fall, but we can show you around.” Blair came with them and she was glad because he was the expert. She knew the basics of milling, but that wasn’t her area of expertise. Joe seemed fascinated by all the equipment and the huge steel tanks that stored oil.

Blair and Tara showed him the route olives took, starting from their arrival at the mill. “This is where we weigh them, then they get dumped into a hopper to separate them from any leaves and twigs.”

“From there they go on a conveyor belt to a washer,” Blair explained. “They travel through a water bath that removes any other foreign materials. Then they go to the hammer mill where they’re crushed to a paste.”

They walked through the mill and Tara watched Joe, taking in his careful attention. “In the malaxor, the paste is slowly turned to separate the oil from the paste, then pumped to that big horizontal centrifuge where the oil is removed and the remaining paste is sent outside as waste. The oil and some remaining vegetable water are sent to this smaller vertical centrifuge. Any water left is removed and the olive oil is collected in these stainless steel drums. The oil is decanted for about a month before being bottled. Eventually it’s pumped into the big storage tanks.”

He nodded to the huge tanks. “These twelve stainless steel storage tanks hold over a hundred thousand gallons of just-pressed oil. We maintain and monitor the storage tanks in a strictly regulated, climate-controlled environment to preserve the fresh taste and integrity of the natural oil. To be called an ‘estate-grown’ olive oil, the final product has to be grown, harvested and processed on the same farm or estate.”

“Remember, I said that we’re one of the few olive oil producers that grow all our own olives?” Tara reminded Joe. He nodded.

“We’re always in total control of our olive oil from the first bud on a tree branch to the last bottle on the processing line,” Blair continued. “We have strict quality control. We constantly do product testing and periodic tastings to ensure the highest quality of our oils.” He pointed to some highly technical equipment where a staff person in a lab coat and gloves was removing a sample of oil.

“There are standards established by the International Olive Oil Council,” Tara explained. “In order for an oil to be labeled extra virgin, it has to have an oleic acid content of below one percent. Then we have our own standards…the organoleptic properties.”

“Huh?” Joe grinned.

“The taste, the aroma, the feel of the oil on the tongue…those are organoleptic properties. We’ll taste some oils and I’ll tell you more about that.”

“We also do canning and curing here,” Blair explained. They went on a quick tour of that part of the building too, a large manufacturing enterprise where mostly black olives were canned.

“Would you like to go for a drive through the groves or would you like to taste some oils?” Tara asked.

Joe smiled and shrugged. “Let’s go for a drive.”

Back outside, they climbed into a dusty old jeep, with Juan driving. The wind blowing over them was only slightly cooling in the hot afternoon sun.

Tara let out a sigh as they drove through the quiet groves shifting with shadow and light. The trees were so old, growing in neat rows, the small leaves shimmering as the slight breeze teased them in the sunshine, changing them from green to gray to silver and silvery-green. There was an intimate atmosphere in a grove of mature olives, the twisted trunks and branches hanging with heavy, still-green fruit giving a feeling of peace, strength and anticipation. It always brought to Tara’s mind all the stories of olives in mythology and literature she’d read.

Today, though, the only feeling the groves brought to her was irritation at having to do this with Joe Scaletta.

“There are over seven hundred olive cultivars in the world. We grow seven here at Santa Ynez,” Juan said. “These ones here are Mission olives.”

“Your mainstay,” Joe murmured.

Blair glanced sideways at him and nodded. “Right. Up ahead are Manzanillas and Luccas. There are olives grown for eating and olives grown for pressing. Kind of like grapes…some are grown for eating, some for wine. But unlike grapes, you can’t just pick a drupe and eat it. They’re bitter as hell.”

“They have to be cured.”

“Yes. They have to be picked at the right stage of ripeness. And flavor depends on many other things—rains, pests, the pressing process, how the oil is stored.”

They continued driving through the groves. “These are Sevallano olives. We grow these for eating.”

“The stuffed Sevallanos are very popular,” Tara put in. “We make some stuffed with California almonds—another local partnership—and some with garlic.”

When they returned to the mill and the offices awhile later, Tara felt dusty and windblown and only slightly less irritable than she had when they’d arrived. Usually she enjoyed a chance to get outside and into the olive groves, but Joe’s huge presence was distracting and unsettling.

They went inside and she led the way to a back room where they would do the tasting.

“One day,” she told Joe as she assembled oil and cups, “I’d like to do tours of the farm, like they do with so many wineries now. And have tastings here. We do tastings at the store sometimes, but not here. It could be really awesome.”

He nodded and she could see he was thinking more about that. Dammit. Why did she keep spilling her guts to this guy?

She poured a small amount of olive oil into a plastic cup. “Place it in the palm of your hand and cover it with your fingers to warm it,” she instructed Joe, showing him with a small cup of her own. “After a minute or two, hold the cup under your nose to appreciate the bouquet of the oil.”

They lifted the cups to their noses.

“Remember earlier I said the organoleptic properties were taste, aroma, feel?”

He nodded. “It smells like olive oil,” he said, wrinkling his nose and flashing those appealing dimples.

She laughed. “Okay. Now place a small amount of oil on your lower lip, and with the tip of your tongue, taste the oil for its degree of sweetness.”

Oh God. This might have been a big mistake. Watching his tongue come out and lick his full bottom lip was so sexy. She cleared her throat. “Now, sip the oil and taste for spiciness, using the sides of your tongue.”

She waited.

“First, what do you feel?” she asked him, watching his face.

“Mmm…” His dark brows drew down. “It feels smooth…oily.”

“How about thick? Sticky? Cooling?”

He shook his head. “Yes. It’s thick and smooth but…not cooling, it’s…warmer.”

Huh. How about that. “Good. And what do you taste?”

“I would say this is…kind of peppery.”

“Wow. I’m impressed. Here, try it with some bread.” She ripped a hunk off a crusty loaf and handed it to him. He dipped it in the oil and chewed on it thoughtfully.

“It’s peppery and warm, but not really biting.”

“It’s not making you feel like you have to cough? Not burning in the back of the throat?”

“I do feel it in the back of my throat, but not like I’m going to cough.”

“Good. It mellows over time. This is our Arbosana. It’s a perfect complement to traditional, rustic dishes such as bruschetta with garlic, pasta and beans, panzanella.”

Joe grinned. “Sounds like home. And it’s not pasta and beans—it’s pasta e fagioli.”

He said it with an Italian roll to the words that was so freakin’ sexy she felt herself melt deep inside. Drawing in a deep breath, she poured more oil into a clean cup and they continued their tasting. Watching Joe savor the tastes, closing his eyes to get a deeper appreciation of the aromas and tastes and feel of the oils was a disconcertingly arousing experience. He was a sensual man, obviously enjoying the sensory pleasures of the olive oils. Her lower abdomen grew warm and achy and she squeezed her thighs together.

“This one tastes buttery,” he told her.

“That’s right. It’s nice with broiled fish, steamed vegetables and some cheeses. Now try this one.” She poured yellowish oil into a cup and handed it to him. He performed the ritual and tasted it, then made a face. “It tastes like alcohol. Bitter.”

She grinned. “That’s cheap olive oil from a supermarket. It demonstrates the four enemies of oil—time, oxygen, temperature and light. Freshly milled olive oil is green, but if it’s bottled in clear glass, it will turn yellow. To avoid that, we bottle ours in colored bottles.

“The polyphenols are the first to go,” she explained. “Polyphenols are light-sensitive antioxidants that give the peppery taste to the olive oil. Temperature is important too. Olive oil always should be stored between sixty and seventy degrees.”

They tasted a couple more, and by the time they were done, she had a warm flutter low in her tummy. Dammit.

She glanced at her watch. “It’s after five. We should start back to the city. Grandpa said he wanted to meet with you at the end of the day.” One corner of her mouth turned down.

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.