Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,23

bills.

He hadn’t even thought about that, but now that his employer had brought it up, Oliver couldn’t help worrying about it. Buddy had sunk his life savings into this place. God, he hoped this accident didn’t bankrupt the man.

Caught up in the old man’s excitement, he’d stopped by the store to pick up reference books with grades, rankings and values of old wine. Once he’d found the room and gotten started, he’d been shocked by the sheer quantity of bottles. Obviously, his own great-uncle, who’d bought out his siblings, including Oliver’s grandmother, hadn’t even realized what he had in his possession. He’d been from back East and never done a proper inventory on the place. The group that had bought the estate from him had intended to get investors to renovate it into some corporate retreat, but had never fully investigated, either.

Buddy had bought the whole place—and its contents—out of bankruptcy and was legally entitled to everything here. Including this treasure trove. If the previous owners had realized what they’d had, this stuff would have been on auction blocks around the world, not still stored in this secure room, created solely for keeping wines in pristine condition.

Okay, there was dust. A few cobwebs—Candace would hate the spiders. But for the most part, the setup was ideal and the bottles—more than one hundred of them, possibly close to two—looked sealed and correctly colored. It was very likely many of them were aged to perfection.

This collection could be the answer to Buddy’s financial problems. Some of the bottles weren’t easily cataloged and an appraiser would have to do it. Many, though, had been listed in the books he’d brought with him as being worth thousands of dollars. There was a small fortune within these walls, and, frankly, Oliver couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more.

They weren’t all gems. He had found a few broken ones, dry corks or just plain duds according to the books. Some that were good wines still weren’t worth much, even if in mint condition. Those included vintages that had been bottled during a surplus production year and just weren’t collectible.

It was one of those he was eyeing now. A 1971 burgundy from one of his favorite vintners that was still around today. Buddy had told him to feel free to help himself to anything that wasn’t too valuable, and this one wasn’t worth more than about a hundred bucks.

He deserved a hundred bucks worth of wine, especially after putting up with Buddy’s sexy, infuriating granddaughter.

“How’s it going?”

Said sexy, infuriating granddaughter who almost startled him into dropping the bottle. He spun around, seeing her eyeing him from the doorway. “Oh. You’re back.”

Obviously he had lost track of time down here. It was probably a good thing she’d come looking for him—fully, if sexily, dressed in a pair of slim-fitting jeans and a lightweight pink sweater. With his luck, he’d have consumed the bottle of wine and headed upstairs after she was home and ready for bed, wearing that flimsy little bathrobe and nothing else.

His horny-man brain quickly rebelled at the idea that that would have been bad luck. But he shut that part of his brain down.

“Visiting hours are over. It’s after eight. I saw the lights were on upstairs and thought you might still be here. Grandpa told me where to look for you.”

She looked like she wanted to come in, but was carefully eyeing the cobwebs and shadowy corners.

“All clear,” he told her with a smile, knowing what she was looking for. “I think the mutant spider from outer space is still trying to find his way home.”

That was a lie—there were enough webs down here to house the spiders from Harry Potter’s Dark Forest. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.

She managed a weak smile and slowly entered, her attention focused on shelf after shelf of bottles. She whistled as she walked around the twelve-by-twelve chamber. “Wow. He wasn’t exaggerating, was he?”

“Definitely not.”

“Amazing!”

“You have no idea.”

He quickly filled her in on what he’d discovered, and saw her eyes light up with hope as she realized her grandfather might have actually stumbled into a treasure to help him make this old house into the showplace he envisioned.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m no expert,” he told her. “I can only judge by what the books say. Buddy will have to get an appraiser out here. And of course it depends on whether the wine is any good, or if it’s gone over.” Then he lifted the bottle,