Too Close to the Sun (41 page)

She paused, regarding him. Then, "I don't
mean to downplay his contribution, Will, which I'm sure is
substantial. But the person I'm thinking of is truly exceptional.
He's one of the top talents in the valley. And unlike Mr. DeLuca,
he's accustomed to a larger operation."

"Perhaps down the road," Will said, "it would
make sense—"

"He won't be available down the road."

This had become a pissing match, Will
realized, one Dagney and Jacob were finding both instructive and
entertaining. It was time for him, as Hannah's boss, to end it.

"That's a risk we'll have to take," he said,
finality in his voice. "We need to satisfy Suncrest's longtime
customer base. And to do that we have to keep the two main
varieties of wine that Suncrest has always made as unchanged as
possible. That necessitates retaining the current winemakers."

After that, the discussion veered onto less
controversial territory. Will told himself that his forcefulness on
the winemaker issue was entirely a function of good business
sense.

That's what he told himself.

*

The breakfast of champions
, Gabby
thought, standing beside a fermentation tank swishing baby cabernet
in her mouth. She bent and spit it out, rose to check the tank's
digital-red temperature reading, then carefully wrote 81 in her
notebook, alongside the tank number, the date, and the hour. The
digits took their place in neat, steadily lengthening columns,
little numeric soldiers goose-stepping down the page.

As they had most of her life, the winemaking
rituals gave Gabby comfort. They allowed her to move through her
day without giving much thought to anything: first do this, then do
that, then do the next thing. She would intersperse these automatic
tasks with simple pleasures, things she knew would soothe her soul
in small ways, massage around the edges of the big ache. She made a
point of taking her mug of morning coffee outside the house for the
sheer joy of feeling dawn's cool air on her face. She treated
herself to a daily pastry from Dean and DeLuca and didn't lament
long if she failed to balance it with a workout. She loaded up on
escapist novels and in the evenings disappeared into fictional
lives, where she could feel confident that everyone's problems
would handily work themselves out by The End.

She had no idea how her own difficulties
would find solutions. Time, she supposed, would do most of the
trick. Time, enough of it, would scab over the loss of Will, though
the hole would always be there. Time would sever her official ties
with Suncrest, though exactly how it would happen remained a
mystery. She knew she wouldn't leave before her father did, because
she refused to abandon him to all the changes the winery would
undergo, most of which he would hate. When he was ready to walk
away, she'd follow. But not before.

She was hosing down the floor around the
tanks when her father came to find her. "It's Hannah," he said
without preamble. "She wants to see us in Mr. Winsted's
office."

Gabby turned off the hose, tossed it aside.
"What about?"

Her father shook his head. Gabby knew he
wasn't overly fond of the new CEO, either. To them, the fact that
Hannah Harper had presided over a jug wine operation was hardly a
recommendation. Yet, apparently it was to Will.

She trailed after her father as he trod
slowly up the stairs. He looked tired these days, and did things he
never had before. Like count the hours until five o'clock, when in
the past no one in the family could get him away from the winery.
On weekends he wouldn't go in unless he had to. His heart wasn't in
it anymore, Gabby knew. Neither was hers.

Hannah waved them inside Mr. Winsted's
office. "Come in, come in. Sit down." Her smile flared, then
evaporated just as fast. Hannah struck Gabby as an older, less
charming version of Dagney. Her efforts to be winning were even
more cursory, but maybe her elevated position on the corporate
ladder required less.

When they were all arrayed on the tartan
sofas, Hannah leaned forward with an earnest expression. "I want to
reassure the two of you about your futures here at Suncrest. I
value your work very highly and look forward to a long and
productive work relationship with both of you."

She stopped, gazed at them with brows raised
expectantly.
She thinks we're thrilled
, Gabby thought.
She expects us to gush with gratitude. If she only knew
.

"Well, Hannah," Gabby's father said, "I
appreciate that, and I know my daughter does as well." He patted
Gabby's knee as if to preclude any ill-advised remarks. Gabby
remained dutifully silent, though she practically had to bite her
tongue to manage it.

Hannah bestowed another fleeting smile. "So
many exciting things are going to happen here at Suncrest. I know
you'll enjoy being a part of them." She cleared her throat.
"Cosimo, there is one matter I would appreciate your handling for
me."

"And what is that?"

"We'll be bringing in a new vineyard manager,
someone I've worked with a great deal in the past and think very
highly of. What I would—"

"You're demoting Felix?" Gabby heard herself
say.

Again Hannah's brows shot up. She seemed
affronted that one of her new employees had the temerity to
interrupt her. "Actually, we're letting him go."

No
. This time Gabby's father spoke,
his tone disbelieving. "Excuse me, Hannah, you're firing
Felix?"

"I'd rather not use that word."
Of course
not
, Gabby thought,
you want to use some euphemism
. No
wonder Will had hired this woman. She was just like him.

"Cosimo," Hannah went on, "I know you've
worked with Felix for many years. You have an enduring personal
relationship. I believe the news would be better coming from you
than from me."

Silence. Gabby couldn't bear to look at her
father's face.
Felix. This bitch is firing Felix
. Even
worse, she wanted Gabby's father to fire him so she wouldn't have
to do the dirty work herself.

Gabby found her voice. "Felix has been here
for 25 years. Ever since Mr. Winsted founded Suncrest. Just like my
father, he's a good part of the reason this winery has been so
successful, and that it now presents such an opportunity for you."
Gabby paused to take a breath, noted the fierce light in Hannah's
dark eyes, but did not let it stop her. "There is not a single
vineyard manager in this valley who is better at his job, or more
devoted to it, than Felix Rodriguez. It is absolutely
unconscionable of you to fire him."

Hannah looked as if she might spit fire, but
her voice was ice cold. "I applaud your defense of your coworker,
Gabriella. It is laudable. But the fact remains that this decision
has been made. It has been made," she repeated, raising her voice
over Gabby's objection. "And I have done you and your father a
courtesy by giving you the option of informing Felix yourself. If
you would rather pass on that opportunity—"

"We have no intention—" Gabby started to say,
but her father interrupted her.

"No, Gabby," he said. "I will tell
Felix."

She was stunned. "Daddy . . ."

"No, Gabriella." He lay a restraining hand on
her knee. She couldn't stand the stoicism on his face, in his
voice, when she knew that his heart was breaking. "I think it is
better that Felix hear this from me."

I'll call Will
, she thought suddenly.
I'll make him stop this
. "All right," she told her father,
and nodded at the despicable Hannah, whom she would dearly love to
grind into Napa's dust with the wheels of her Jeep. "Then let's
go," and she stood to leave.

When they hit the bottom of the stairs, she
whipped out her cell phone. She wished she didn't, but she still
knew the number by heart. "I'm calling Will," she told her father.
"He's Hannah's boss and he can tell her where to shove this idea of
hers."

They went out to the pebbled path so Gabby
could put the call through. But according to Will's secretary, he
was unavailable. That worried her.
Maybe he's just dodging
me
, she thought.
Maybe he knows about this Felix thing and
that it's happening today and that I might try to get him to stop
it
. "Janine," she said into the phone, "can you pull him out of
his meeting? This is important."

"Gabby, I can't." She sounded apologetic.
"It's the Monday partners meeting. I really can't. But it shouldn't
last much longer."

"Please have him call me." She repeated her
cell number on the chance that Will had burned it from his memory.
Then she snapped her phone shut. "We're not doing anything till I
talk to Will," she told her father. "I'm sure I can get him to stop
this," she added, though she wasn't sure in the least. But there
was no pride involved here. She would beg if she had to.

The sun traveled west across the sky, and
still Will did not call. Gabby tried again, only to be informed by
Janine that the partners meeting was over but that now Will was
tied up on an international conference call.
Are you sure he
knows I'm trying to reach him?
Yes, Janine was quite sure.

Shortly before five o'clock, Gabby saw Hannah
corner her father. Afterwards he came to find Gabby in the
barrel-aging room, looking older than she'd ever seen him. "I can't
put it off," he told her. "Otherwise Hannah's going to do it. I
can't let that happen. I have to talk to him, Gabby."

She couldn't stop him. She watched him hail
Felix as he came in on the tractor, watched him lead the other man
down the long sloped drive that led to the Trail, where they might
have something like privacy.

With dread in her heart, Gabby stayed in the
dark cocoon of the barrel-aging room, and through the open door
spied on their two figures. She watched her father put an arm
around Felix's shoulder, watched Felix pull a handkerchief out of
his shirt pocket and swipe at his face. All the while she cursed
Will and the troubles he had wrought, wished she could turn back
time, make life go differently, just a change here and there that
would keep the people she loved safe and sound and happy.

Her phone didn't ring.

She was returning it to her pocket after
checking its battery one more time when she happened to look up.
She frowned when she realized the picture before her had changed.
Now Felix was running up the drive toward the winery. Alone. His
face twisted. She looked beyond him and let out a gasp. Her father
was lying crumpled on the drive, nearly at the bronze gate where
the two men had been standing, but now he was in a heap,
unmoving.

She raced out the door. Felix caught her
halfway down the drive. He was panting, with tears on his cheeks.
"He collapsed. He was telling me about my job, and then he said he
felt light-headed and he collapsed. He just collapsed."

Out came her cell again as she raced with
Felix toward her father, punching in the emergency digits as her
feet pounded the ground.
No
, with every step,
no, no,
no
.

With a plea to 911 to please hurry, she
reached her father. She dropped to her knees beside his inert body
and struggled to reconstruct the CPR lessons she and her mother had
taken after his heart attack. Jumbled instructions crowded her
mind.
Listen for his breath
. Not a whisper.
Is there any
movement in his chest?
Nothing.
Feel for his pulse
.
None.

Oh, my God
. Gabby jerked upright.
His heart's stopped
.

At that moment her very world ceased
spinning. The heart of the man who had given her life was
still.

No
. She clenched her jaw and stared
down at him, battling to maintain some kind of grip on herself.
Give him mouth to mouth
, her training reminded her,
then
do the chest compressions
. With Felix kneeling beside her, she
did what she could, relieved to have something she could try. Her
movements felt jerky and awkward; thoughts swooped around her brain
in a delirium of fear and crazy hope.
Lay one palm on the bottom
of his sternum, the other crossways on top
. One push every
second. She counted off fifteen, then remembered to give him two
breaths before continuing on.

The ambulance came quickly, in a jarring blur
of light and sound and motion. Curious eyes watched from cars
slowing on the Trail as the paramedics bent over her father, yelled
questions about what had happened, ripped his shirt open and lay
paddles on his chest. They gave him the electric shock, shouting at
everyone to stay clear, once, twice, then again, his body arching
off the ground each time with a horrible shudder.

Her cell rang. Fear, frustration, a desperate
prayer to God to save her father one more time gathered in Gabby's
chest as her clumsy fingers answered the call.

It was Will. She didn't wait past the first
word from him but shrieked into the phone, watching the paramedics
lift her father's stretcher into the ambulance. "My father's having
another attack! Hannah made him fire Felix and now he's having
another attack." She couldn't stop herself from heaving the
accusation that flew to her lips. "His heart stopped and it's
because of you! It's because of you," she yelled. She slammed the
phone shut and scrambled inside the ambulance after her father.

As the ambulance sped toward the hospital,
Gabby wedged herself into a tiny space behind the paramedics and
willed her father to find the strength to survive. This was the
worst possible thing that could have happened, the thing she'd been
trying most to prevent. But still it had sneaked up, attacked her
father like a mugger on the street.

And, oh God, what she had just said to Will.
She shut her eyes. It tore at her soul, how extremely cruel she'd
been to him. Somewhere in her soul she knew Will wasn't to blame
for her father's condition. He'd practically saved his life once,
when they were only strangers. But anger and pain and desperate
hurt had made her lash out at him, the very man who meant the most
to her after her father.