A Taste of Sauvignon (18 page)

E
steban tore the
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
sign next to his family's market stall out of the ground. Because they'd be back. Next week, and every week after that.

He jerked together the canvas-covered legs of the portable market canopy, impatient to finish cleaning up so he could get to the work that needed doing back home. The canvas felt even heavier than usual this morning, soaked with dew from sitting out overnight. Thankfully, their neighbors at the next stall had crated up all the Moraleses' unsold produce and taken what money was in the till home with them for Esteban to pick up later.

He loaded the unsold food back into the truck. They'd lost a lot of money by having to leave right in the middle of one of the busiest market days of the year. He should be calculating their loss. But all he could think about was Savvy.

He pictured her the day they'd met. So poised behind those black frames. Big contrast between her then, and the way she'd become so flustered in the greenhouse when he'd hidden her glasses. He'd only teased her a minute, but there was no faking that kind of terror. Come to think of it, she'd looked just as scared in the hospital parking lot yesterday. . . .

Angrily, he brushed away any hint of sympathy he might feel for her.

Shane and his gang were right. How had he ever believed there was any way in hell he could be with Sauvignon St. Pierre in the first place?

He grunted as he heaved the heavy canopy into the truck bed, trying awkwardly to maneuver it to where it wouldn't crush everything else.

She was the devil's daughter. Sizzling hot, smart, rich . . . and totally out of his league.

Resting a hand on the edge of the truck bed, he peered around at the deserted stalls. A cumulous cloud passed over the sun, bringing with it a sense of cold, hard reality.

He'd been deluding himself. Trying to grow lavender in clay? Believing for one second that the son of an immigrant truck farmer could be enough for a wine heiress?

He got into the truck, his face hot. He'd been such an idiot. No wonder people had laughed at him.

All that was over now. That was someone else. A man who hadn't yet had his heart ripped out of his chest. Hadn't seen his father collapse onto the pavement in front of half the town, heard his mother's screams. With all that had happened since yesterday, Esteban almost didn't recognize that man anymore.

 

Jeanne was layering turkey and cheese on a sliced baguette. “I am taking Maria a little lunch. She's spending long hours at the hospital. Maybe you would like to come?”

“I'd love to, after the way I dashed out of the ER yesterday. But I can't. Esteban has banned me from seeing his family.”

“Esteban won't be there. He went to the market to collect all their things.”

Savvy took a shaky breath, considering. She was dying to see Mrs. Morales.

“Maria asked about you.”

“Really?”

Jeanne nodded, smearing her special sauce along the sandwiches. “You would prefer to wander around this big house alone all afternoon?”

“I'm going to the office.”

Jeanne scowled. “Today—Sunday?”

“There won't be any distractions there today. No bosses, no phone calls. I need to do some research without anyone looking over my shoulder.”

“You could stop at the hospital on the way. It will do both you and Maria good.”

When they arrived, Maria Morales stood to welcome them to the cardiac floor's reception room with kisses and hugs.

“He is sleeping,” she said softly, as if her husband could hear them.

“Good. You can have a bite while he rests,” said Jeanne, handing her a brown bag and a to-go cup of coffee.

“You are so wonderful,” said Mrs. Morales, “but I don't think I can eat right now. Would you mind . . . ?”

“Of course! Eat it whenever you like. I made enough for Esteban, also. What are the doctors saying?”

Hooded black eyes darted between Jeanne and Savvy. “The doctor says Geraldo can't work anymore.” She wrung her hands. “Esteban says his
padre
can retire and he will do all the work himself. But that's not possible. It's too much for one man alone, even a man as strong as my son. And we can't afford to hire outside help.”

“It seems Esteban is making these decisions very quickly. Why not wait a bit, see how Geraldo progresses?

“You know how stubborn he can be. Just like his father.” She shook her head. “Such a shame. His lavender plants were finally growing. . . .”

Savvy shrank with remorse and regret.

Mrs. Morales reached for Savvy's hands, layering them between her own. “Don't feel bad,” she said. “I always try to encourage Esteban, but it's hard to watch his disappointment these last months, when the rains keep coming and coming. In the end, it's probably for the best that he gives up on his lavender. He does everything he can to fix it, but it's just not the right kind of soil where we live.

“And another thing,” she said, squeezing her hands again. “I know you would not lie on purpose. I believe you when you say you didn't know your papa was behind the offers from the beginning.”

At least someone did. “Honestly, Mrs. Morales, I feel terrible. I should have known, but I didn't. I would never have believed Papa could stoop so low.”

Mrs. Morales took a seat, Jeanne and Savvy flanking her. “Between you and me, I was getting a little excited about those houses at Verdant Acres,” she said wistfully. “Fireplaces . . . laundry rooms right off the master bedroom. One whole room, just for the laundry. And the walk-in showers! But then, I think about how much I would miss my
chicas
. . .”

“What will be, will be,” said Jeanne soothingly. “For now, you should concentrate on getting your husband better.”

“Yes, but then there's the doctor bill, and the hospital.... I can't begin to imagine what they will be like. . . .”

An RN carrying a tablet strode briskly down the hall toward the nurse's station.

“There is Sophia, Geraldo's nurse,” said Mrs. Morales, rising again, looking after her anxiously. “She's very kind. Explained to me everything when Geraldo was transferred here from the ER. She promised to keep me updated. Maybe she has some news.” She kept her eye on the nurses' station, as if hoping for good news could make it materialize.

“I'm going now,” Savvy said. “If there's anything I can do for you or Mr. Morales, don't hesitate to call.”

“Don't work late,” Jeanne said. “You must start taking better care of yourself.”

 

If anyone spotted Savvy going into the office looking the way she did that Sunday afternoon, with the circles under her eyes, sagging ponytail, and boots still dusty from the ranch, he'd think some stranger was breaking in and call the cops, especially if he saw the way she propped her boots on her desk and swiveled back and forth while she pondered her next move.

She looked down at the file labeled NTI/M
ORALES
. Even if all the pieces of that real estate transaction had fallen neatly into place, she would've needed a little hand-holding from one of the partners at closing. After all, Savvy was what was called a “baby lawyer.” An apprentice. But now? A transaction
this
complicated was way, way out of her realm.

What was the best outcome for everyone concerned?

She looked down at her hands spanning her flat tummy.

And then she put down her feet, opened her laptop, and started to open tabs.

Cardiac prognoses.

Real estate sales agreements.

Every possible version of legal partnerships. General, limited, LLC, and so on.

For the answers to questions she couldn't find online, she got up and went down the hall to the firm's law library.

She had no idea how many hours she'd spent plowing through the heavy law books and trolling the net before she finally looked up and noticed it was growing dark and she was so hungry she could eat her keyboard.

 

Monday morning, Esteban hurled the last of the limp Rathmell Ranch lavender plants into the wheelbarrow with the others. Then he wheeled them over to the compost pile. Compost was all they were good for.

He returned to the freshly turned soil and stared blankly down at it. It was still early in the season. Made way more sense to plant that bed in something they could actually make money off of. What had been planted in that spot last year? Right now, he couldn't remember.

Earlier that morning, while Madre was at the hospital, he'd canceled the Realtor appointment for her, rather than put her through the embarrassment of explaining what had happened. Then he'd called up the HR guy at the utility company to tell him he wouldn't be taking that lineman job, after all.

And that was it. Now the only thing left was to finish where Padre had left off with the
Plan Familiar . . .
growing only what thrived on their patch of earth. It wouldn't be easy doing the work of two men, but he was strong. And even if growing vegetables wasn't Esteban's dream, it put food in their mouths and a little money in the bank. Families like the Moraleses didn't have the luxury of chasing rainbows. They'd be fine. He could do this.

He turned and trudged back to the barn to see what seed Padre might have stored up that he could sow right away, before the season got any later.

There was something he
couldn't
do, though,
Plan Familiar
be damned.

Maybe if he had never known Savvy's eager optimism, never held her supple body in his arms, never watched her face contort with pleasure at his touch, he could eventually find someone to settle down with. There were plenty of
chulas
out there.

But now? Seemed like he was fated to take after Uncle in more ways than just his name and his unusual height. Because after Savvy, there could never be anyone else.

The realization left him hollow and listless.

He stared unseeing at the bags of seed Padre had stacked up in the barn. There, in the quiet dimness, where no one could see, he couldn't hold back his hurt any longer.

As he imagined the years stretching out endlessly before him, the tears ran down his face.

Maybe the family's luck would change. Maybe, by some miracle, Esmerelda and Pete would have a son, or one of their daughters would come back here and farm instead of going to college and getting a desk job. At least Padre would be happy.

There would be no sons for Esteban, though.

Así es la vida,
he thought.
That's life.

“S
avvy,” Robert Witmer said, glancing up briefly from his laptop.

“Come in.”

She sat down straight across from him. It was Monday, almost one week since NTI had accepted Geraldo Morales's outrageous counteroffer.

“What can I do for you?” he asked absent-mindedly.

“Did you hear about an incident over the weekend at the opening of the Napa farmers' market?”

“My wife does all the food shopping.”

That sounded exactly like something one of Papa's cohorts would say.

“I had to ask. The Morales family has a stall there.”

Robert looked up then, his hands freezing on his keyboard. “What sort of incident?”

“Someone informed Esteban Morales that my father was a partner in Napa Terroir Investments.”

The skin on Robert's neck above his silk repp tie turned a mottled red.

“And if he were?”

“That would be a problem. Mr. Morales and Papa have never seen eye to eye. I assured Esteban that what he heard wasn't true, but I'll need to take a look at NTI's partnership agreement, to confirm. Would you know where I could find a copy?” Coolly, she glanced around the room.

“I er, uh—” he sputtered.

“Another thing. Can you tell me why an old-boy firm like Witmer, Robinson and Scott hired a young female associate who couldn't care less about golf in the first place?”

Her boss face tried on a variety of expressions while he pondered how to respond.

“Could it have been only as a favor to a friend?”

No wonder Helen and the other assistants had resented Savvy from the get-go.

She got up and crossed Robert's spacious, wood paneled office to the window. “Exactly what kind of a future would said associate have here? I mean, being that she's so,
so
different from all the other partners?”

Her perch on the windowsill gave her a prime view of Robert's bald spot. “Not much, I'm guessing. Now, granted, I'm new at all this. But I always thought the goal of a transactional attorney was to
avoid
litigation, not provoke it. To see into the future of a contract. Scrutinize the language from every party's perspective.”

Robert swiveled around to face her. “What are you getting at?”

“I'm trying to keep all our asses out of court.”

She rose and walked back to the other side of his desk. He was forced to circle his chair to keep up with her.

“Because right now, the NTI deal is shakier than a subprime mortgage. Esteban Morales is threatening to sue me. And if that happens, guess who I'm going to go after?”

Robert rose from his seat. “Now, look here. There's nothing illegal about—”

“No, you look here.” She flattened her palms on his desk and leaned in toward him. “Regardless of whether or not it was illegal to keep me from knowing Papa was involved in a transaction I was tasked with negotiating, there's no question that it was unethical. You used me. Papa used me. Used both of us.”

Robert started out from behind his desk. “Ho-hold on. Let's get John and Mike in here.... Helen?” He craned his neck around Savvy, directing his voice to his assistant's office across the hall.

“Never mind, Helen,” Savvy hollered over her shoulder. “We don't need John and Mike,” she told Robert. “I've got it all figured out.”

Back at her desk, Savvy punched in a number with a Cupertino area code.

“Hello?”

“Anne? Savvy St. Pierre. Sorry to interrupt your research. I'll get right to the point. I have a proposition for you.”

Anne chuckled. “You want me to buy back the still already?”

Savvy smiled for the first time in days. “No, not that. Hear me out. . . .”

 

“Heard from Papa?” Savvy asked Jeanne that evening, before she even set down her satchel.

Jeanne stretched to put a glass into a tall cupboard. “Not I. You can't reach him?”

“I've called him twice. He must be either tied up”—
ha, poor choice of words
—“or he's avoiding me.”

Jeanne's head disappeared below the island as she continued to unload the dishwasher. “Why would he tell me when he's returning? I am merely the
cuisinier
in this house.”

“You're way more than the cook, Madame Jeanne, and you know it,” Savvy said, pacing between the window and the kitchen island. “I need to talk to him,” she muttered, “right after I talk to Mr. Morales.”

“Maria is hoping her husband can go home tomorrow or the next day.”

Savvy sucked in a breath between her teeth. “That's good news for her. Not for me, though.”

“Why not?”

“Once he's discharged, I'll never get to talk to him alone.” She bit the inside of her cheek, considering.

“Well then, you had better go and see him soon.” Jeanne closed the dishwasher and looked up. “Is there something I can do?”

“Do you speak Spanish?” asked Savvy with a twisted grin.

“You know the answer to that. But maybe there is another way I can help.”

Jeanne picked up her phone from the table.

A few minutes later, she filled Savvy in. “Maria is getting ready to go back to Queen of the Valley now, to be with Geraldo over dinner. Visiting hours are over at eight, but she feels very tired this evening, as if this entire incident has finally caught up with her. She doesn't think she will stay all the way 'til the end tonight.”

“What about Esteban?”

“Her son was at the hospital this morning. He's back home now. Maria says he has been in the fields until long after dark these past couple of days. Last night he almost fell asleep at the supper table. She's becoming as worried for his health as she is her husband's.”

From where she was parked a few rows back, Savvy drummed impatiently on the steering wheel, watching and waiting for Mrs. Morales to step through the sliding glass doors of the hospital. It was after seven when she finally appeared. Savvy recognized her from the weariness in her bearing as much as from her apple shape.

Seven-twenty. Forty minutes until visiting hours ended. Forty minutes to convince a stubborn, sick man to do a complete one-eighty on his philosophy of life—and she didn't even speak his language.

Hopefully, her stint on moot court would come in handy tonight.

She marched down the hallway of the cardiac unit to Mr. Morales's room, one hand on the strap of her satchel containing all the necessary documents—in both English and Spanish. She'd even spelled out her argument and translated that, so she could read it to him. With so many lives at stake, she couldn't just wing it.

She paused in the doorway when she saw Mr. Morales's nurse, Sophia, at his bedside, conversing with him in his native tongue.

“Come in.” Sophia smiled in greeting, switching to English. “Tell Señor Morales I'll come back later, when his pretty guest is gone.” She turned to leave.

“Actually, would you mind staying? There's something important I need to discuss with him, and I could use your help. My Spanish stinks.”

Sophia checked the clock on the wall. “I can stay for a minute or two.”

A warm wave of relief washed over Savvy. Not only could Sophia interpret, she would make the perfect witness to the signature Savvy desperately needed to make all of this come together.

 

After the fight with Esteban last Saturday in the hospital parking lot, Savvy had gone home devastated—and livid. If Papa had been around then, she'd have laid into him without thinking, which would've gotten her exactly nowhere. Now it was Thursday. Waiting all this time to finally confront him was excruciating, but maybe his absence had been a godsend. It had given her time to come up with a plan and set the wheels in motion.

Everything was squared away with her boss, Anne, and Mr. Morales. All she needed now was Papa.

At the office, she bided her time and kept her head down. Papa had to come home eventually.

Then again, Xavier St. Pierre was no typical dad.

Thursday afternoon Savvy's intercom buzzed. “You have a box out here,” said Karen.

Savvy sighed. Apparently it was too much trouble for Karen to carry the box down the hall to her.
Oh well.
She wasn't able to concentrate on the dull contract on her desk, anyway. She got up and walked down to the reception area.

The plain cardboard box didn't look like anything special. But when she saw the New York postmark, Savvy remembered.

“Thanks.” She smiled politely at Karen.

Once she got into the hallway, she let her face light up. She had to restrain her feet from hurrying. When she reached her office, she closed the door with a soft click, then dashed to her desk to grab the scissors and slit the tape on the package.

Inside she found an envelope.

Savvy tossed the letter aside. Blindly, she thrust a hand into the finely shredded paper and pulled out a brown glass bottle.
Oriental
, said the label. She dug back in.
Citrus.
Next was
Woody.
Then came
Aromatic, Floral,
and
Chypre.

She cradled each of the cool bottles in her palm, turning it around and around until the heat from her body warmed it. She was dying to open every single one of them, to inhale their magic, learn their secrets.

With a tug of regret, she carefully packed them up again, replaced the letter in its envelope on the top, and folded in the flaps to keep the contents safe.

The day would come when she could trust her sense of smell again. Until then, she would have to be patient.

She tried Papa's phone once more. Nothing. Dropping her phone to her desk with a clatter, she propped her head with her hand and gazed at the papers strewn across her desk. She was behind schedule. She'd have to stay late.

At six-thirty, her phone rang.

“Mademoiselle? Your papa, he is home.”

 

“Papa?”

Savvy stormed into the house, popping her head into one after another of the rooms off the foyer.

“Papa!”
Her voice sounded strident to her ears.

Char appeared over the second-floor balustrade with a look of concern. “Savvy?”

“Where is he?”

“Have you checked the lab?”

Savvy turned to go back outside, to the building that housed the blending lab. “If you see him”—she pointed up at Char—“don't let him leave.”

Outside, she swept down the curved staircase and took off to where the outbuildings sat, great black rectangles in a darkening sky. Sure enough, there was a light on, over in the lab. The minute it took to march out there was enough to regenerate the full head of steam that she'd had to suppress for the past six days.

“Sauvignon!” Papa looked up from where he held what looked like a skinny turkey baster, piping jewel-red liquids—cabernet, merlot and other varietals—from their graduated cylinders into a wineglass. “
Ça va
?”

In her fury, the lab aromas of cherry, tobacco, and licorice that usually piqued her interest barely registered.

“Never mind how I am. Why didn't you tell me?”

“Tell you what,
chèrie?”

“You know what! The Morales land! NTI!”

“Ah. You know.”

“Agggh!” She put her hands to her head. “Did you actually think you could get away with this?”

“You could have asked to see the partnership agreement at any time.”

“Why should I do that when I assumed everything was on the level? That the only person I needed to deal with was Don Smith—the general partner, the decision maker? Why should I even have considered that you might be involved? I suppose that's one of the reasons you picked me to do your dirty work, huh? Because I was so inexperienced?”

Papa rose from the table. Before his next words left his lips, Savvy moved in on him.

“And now I find out Smith is nothing but a straw buyer, and you're the real one! You're Napa Terroir Investors! Only you! Tell me this, Papa. Did you cook this up before you even got Robert to hire me?”

His guilty face said it all.