A Taste of Merlot (19 page)

“My spontaneous girl actually thought about something before going through with it?”

“I couldn't find anything I liked enough to make it part of me forever. Besides. I'm scared of needles,” she added, honking into the balled-up tissue in her hand.

Mark squeezed her. “I like you without tattoos. It'd be a crime to mar that creamy skin.”

“So there's no way anyone would know that's me in that film? I have to be sure.”

“Tall, skinny brunette with a great ass? Could be anyone.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn't help grinning.

He drew a line along the curve of her jaw with a fingertip, then pulled her close again and murmured, “Got to admit. Over the past few months, you've shown me more moves than an acrobat.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. Maybe she wasn't too far gone. She still had enough grace left to blush.

He lifted her chin and his eyes probed hers. “But I hope I've taught you something too: sex doesn't have to be just a mash-up of body parts. It seems to me we both still have a lot to learn about love. About trust. Maybe we can figure it out together.”

“Now.” He held her at arm's length. “Are we good?”

Good?
She felt like a new person.

“No more guilt?”

She gave him her very best smile.

Mark rubbed his stomach and looked around. “I'm starved. Are there any leftovers?”

E
xactly one week later, Meri welcomed her fiancé, fresh from yet another round of meetings with DeVon, for a do-over of the engagement party. March had come in like a lamb, soft and warm, and the cellophane on the enormous bouquet he'd brought her crackled when they hugged. “You're early.”

He grinned. “On my best behavior to make up for keeping your family waiting last week.”

“You had a good excuse. Tell me the latest.”

“Gloria signed the papers this morning.”

With a little squeal, she hugged him again, accepted the flowers, and gestured him toward the solarium, where Savvy, Char, and Papa paced with their wineglasses.

“Let's go share the news.”

“Hold on. I have something else to tell you.”

Her smile faded.

“This morning I called the head of the jewelry department at Gates to tell him Harrington's is going to make college visits a regular part of their new buying routine. After all, that's how I found you. He remembered you well. Talked about how deserving you were of the Purchase Prize.”

Meri's brows twitched.

“Do you know how it was that your work was selected?”

She shrugged. “The faculty picks the one they like best. Pretty straightforward.”

“The faculty does not pick. They recruit outside judges to select the winner. Working artists, other schools' faculty. It's a blind judging. You have no reason to doubt that you won on merit.”

Meri stood up straighter. “Who told you that I doubted myself?” Then it hit her. “Jasmine. Hannah.” She shouldn't be surprised. They'd already demonstrated a tendency to talk.

“They care about you. That's why they told me. Maybe your father did give that school a pile of money, but none of the judges knew about that. You won that prize anonymously, fair and square.”

Now Meri had a twin triumph to add to his. Their eyes met, brimful of meaning as her heart swelled with joy at the promise of the future next to this man who was always thinking of her needs, even when they weren't together. Because of Mark, she'd dropped her obsession with proving her self-worth as easily as shedding a winter coat on the first day of spring, and her shoulders went back with a newfound dignity. Mark loved her just the way she was. And because of him, maybe for the first time, she loved herself.

This evening, the moment Mark and Meri presented themselves with arms draped around each other's waists, her sisters gave a collective sigh of relief.

When Meri informed Papa what the Harrington's CFO had done, his outrage over employee misconduct overshadowed his fury at Mark leaving his daughter high and dry at her own engagement party. Right or wrong, that was Papa. Business trumped love.

Papa seized Mark's hand and clapped his shoulder.

“
Bonsoir, monsieur.
I regret to hear of your recent troubles. I can think of nothing worse than corporate treason.”

“I appreciate it, sir.”

“What is the current state of affairs?”

With a hand to his forearm, Savvy said, “Papa, not now. You can talk business later.” She turned to Mark with a bottle and a glass. “Champagne?”

“It's okay.” He accepted the flute, then turned to Papa. “I bought out my aunt today. Harrington's belongs to me now.”

Papa beamed with admiration. “And your aunt. How is she?”

“Gloria once said she wanted to die at her desk at age ninety. Didn't trust anyone else with the reins of the company—even her own nephew, thanks to Dick conspiring to make me look incompetent. Dick was the only one who could have eventually persuaded her to retire, if he'd just played it straight, hung in there a couple more years. She was completely sucked in by the guy—still is. But he knew Harrington's was in trouble. He got impatient, started manipulating people and events.” Mark grimaced. “I caught him. Now she'll be enjoying her beach house without him.”

“You will prosecute, of course,” said Papa.

“I promised Gloria I wouldn't, in return for selling me her interest. Even though she won't have anything more to do with him, she can't bear the thought of him in jail.”

Char stepped toward them. “Shouldn't we have a toast or something?”

Xavier raised his glass and puffed out his chest. “
Félicitations
.”

Five glasses clinked.

Still facing Mark, Papa indicated Meri with a head toss. “And
bon chance
. You are going to have the need of it.”

Without warning, Papa pursed his lips and dove left. When Mark realized what was happening he scrambled to his own right, resulting in a crashing of noses and an unintended brushing of male lips.

Feminine laughter rang through the big house. Mark couldn't scrub the back of his hand across his mouth hard enough, while Papa affected a look of grand hauteur and pretended nothing had happened.

Even Bruno couldn't hide the twinkle in his eye as he announced that dinner was served.

 

F
rom NapaUnbound.com.

Keep reading for an excerpt from

A TASTE OF SAUVIGNON

The next book in Heather Heyford's

Napa Wine Heiresses Series

S
auvignon St. Pierre pulled the first little black dress from the left side of the rod in her precision-tuned walk-in closet. Later that evening, she would take that one off, replace it on its padded hanger and hang it to the far right, and so on for the next two months, until today's dress came back into rotation.

From neat rows of boxes, each with a photo of its contents taped onto the end, she picked out a pair of two-and-a-half-inch black pumps.

The only aspect of her daily routine that wasn't prearranged was deciding which fragrance matched her mood. Her hand hovered over myriad bottles of every shape and pastel hue before landing on Maman's special rose perfume—for luck.

Savvy had made a calculated decision to become a lawyer when she was thirteen. Fourteen years, three hundred thousand dollars in tuition, and two progressively thicker lenses later, she had been offered a position with a small firm in her Napa hometown—either
because
her last name was St. Pierre, or in spite of it. And today, at the weekly meeting, she was finally being assigned her very own case.

At precisely eight-thirty-five, one porcelain cup of herb tea, one bowl of Greek yogurt, and half a banana later, she slid into her black Mercedes to make it to her law office just in time for the crucial nine o'clock meeting.

She looked both ways before steering the sleek sedan out of the long gravel drive of Domaine St. Pierre onto Dry Creek Road. Her car cut a perpendicular path between bushy rows of sunshine-yellow mustard flowers alternating with what appeared to be dead sticks, wedged upright in the soil. But it was only March. By summer, the mustard would be over and those “sticks,” laden with leaves and berries, would steal the show, drawing thousands upon thousands of tourists to the Napa Valley—and doubling her drive time to and from work. But this morning there was no other vehicle in sight.

She double-checked her reflection in the rearview to make sure the gold clasp on her pearls lay on her collarbone, just so. Then she pinched an ear lobe to secure a diamond ear stud, brushed a microscopic speck of lint from her shoulder and cupped the chignon at the base of her neck.

Satisfied that all was in order, she began a mental preview of the day. She fast-forwarded, picturing herself seated side by side with the firm's partners around the long conference table, eager for the chance to finally prove herself.

 

“Diana! Susanna!
¡Vuelve!
Come back!”

Esteban leaned on the handle of his pitchfork, grinning as he watched his mother toddle after a clutch of her errant Ameracaunas. Expertly, she snatched up a hen into the crook of her arm and brandished a threatening finger in her face.
“¡Chica traviesa!
You naughty girl. How many times do I have to tell you do not go down the lane, eh?” Beneath her long strokes, the chicken's feathers flickered iridescent gold, green, and orange in the morning light. She softened her tone to a tender purr. “My beautiful little
chica
.”

Esteban shook his head. Madre was as fond of those stupid birds as she was of Esteban and his sister. If possible, her attachment to them seemed to have only deepened, now that Esmerelda was married and living in Santa Rosa.

“Esteban! Can you look at the fence again? My
chicas
must have poked another hole somewhere,” his mother pleaded, gently setting Marlena down with the others to shoo them back toward the paddock.

“
Sí, Madre
,” he said, lapsing briefly into his native tongue. Away from the farm, he prided himself on his English. Mr. Bloomquist at Vintage High had even offered to write him a college recommendation. “Your bio teacher said she'd write one, too,” he'd coaxed. “You can start out at N.V.C.C. and transfer later…” For five minutes, Esteban had pictured himself in a lab coat, peering through a microscope at slides of plant cells. But what would Padre do without him? Who would take over the farm? Besides, he loved having his hands in the dirt.

“This afternoon,” he told Madre. First he needed to check on the effect of last night's rain on his tender lavender plants. The worst thing for lavender was mold.

Another stray—Natalia?—ran helter-skelter into his field of vision, down the muddy lane from where Padre had already thinned celery seedlings in the truck gardens earlier in the morning, past the paddock and the house toward Dry Creek Road.
¡Mierda!
Was he actually beginning to distinguish one of the flighty creatures from another?

“Not this afternoon—now!” Madre scolded. She grabbed her broom from the porch and used it to sweep Natalia back toward the paddock. “You see this?” She gestured animatedly. “Before they all run onto the road and get hit by a car, and I have no chickens, no eggs, no money to pay the bills!”

Esteban chuckled under his breath. The Morales family would never be rich, but they were hardly in dire straits. Losing a random eight-dollar chicken here and there wouldn't break them.

“Okay, okay,” he said.

Madre's appreciative grin was a reminder of her unconditional love, no matter how stern she pretended to be.

He continued in the direction of the shed. “I'll go get my tools.”

Seconds later, he cringed to the squeal of rubber on asphalt and a sickening, avian screech.

 

Savvy slammed on the brakes the moment the chicken darted into view, but too late. She felt a thump, heard a squawk, and winced. Her fantasy thought bubble—“For Immediate Release: Sauvignon St. Pierre Promoted to Partner in Law Firm”—popped, pitching her abruptly back into reality.
I can't be late for work! Not today!
But something about the stricken expression on the face of the farmwoman toddling toward her stabbed at her heart.

Mrs. Morales.
She'd seen her stout silhouette a hundred times from a distance while driving past the modest ranch house on Dry Creek Road, but she'd never met her next-door neighbor face-to-face. Still, thanks to Jeanne, the St. Pierre cook, she felt as though she knew all about the Moraleses. Jeanne bought vegetables from their stand at the Napa Farmer's Market. As far back as grade school, Jeanne had been rattling on about the Moraleses, their daughter, Esmerelda, and their son, what's-his-name. But while Jeanne had nothing but good things to say about the family, Papa said Mr. Morales was nothing but a big pain in the
derriere
.

Savvy threw the gearshift into Park, got out, and strode around to the right front tire, bracing for what she might find.

Just behind the front passenger-side tire lay the deceased—intact, thankfully, but motionless, its beak frozen open in its final squawk.

“Marlena!” The older woman stopped short at the edge of the lane, chest heaving with her effort, calloused palms flung in helplessness toward the dead animal. “
Marlena!
” she sobbed, bringing her hands to her cheeks in anguish.

Savvy looked from Mrs. Morales's red face and furrowed brow to Marlena—er, the chicken—and back.

Lips pressed into a tight line, she swallowed her squeamishness, squatting down for a better look. The last time she'd been this close to a chicken it had been covered in a delicate morel sauce.

What was she supposed to do? She glanced back up at Mrs. Morales to see her genuflect, then back down at Marlena. Didn't birds carry all kinds of diseases? Bird flu? Salmonella? Mites?

She took a resigned breath, the farm odors of wet earth mingled with manure assaulting her senses. She steeled herself. This was all her fault. It was her responsibility to fix it.

Gingerly, she slid her bare hands under the hen's body. The unfamiliar feel of stiff feathers atop warm jelly—apparently Marlena had been neither smart, having run smack into the path of a car, nor athletic—brought up the taste of bile, but out of respect for Mrs. Morales she fought back a gag.

Slowly, she turned and gently deposited the animal into its owner's outstretched arms.

“Dios mío.
Omigod
.”
Mrs. Morales hugged the hen to a bosom that threatened to ooze from between the buttons of its flowered cotton shirt and rocked it, chanting
sana, sana, colita de rana
—whatever that meant. Obviously, the chicken had been a well-loved pet.

“I'm so sorry!” Savvy cried, torn between the urge to embrace the grieving woman and the longing for a hazmat shower.

And then from out of nowhere, an agrilicious, king-sized man in faded jeans, a snug plaid shirt, and a silver belt buckle the size of a turkey platter jogged up to them, and in a flash, Savvy forgot all about death and God and germs. She even forgot about work.