Read Summer in Napa (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel) Online
Authors: Marina Adair
Summer in Napa (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel)
Also in Marina Adair’s St. Helena Vineyard Series
Kissing Under the Mistletoe
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright ©2013 Marina Adair
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781611099737
ISBN-10: 1611099730
For my grandmother,
who taught me that fluffy
biscuits and a flaky crust
are the true ingredients to
happily ever after.
Sneak peek:
Autumn at the Vineyard
I
f there was one thing Alexis Moreau knew, it was how to make an entrance. Timing, posture, and that enchanting smile that had been passed down from Moreau mother to Moreau daughter for over five generations were key to a lasting—and impeccable—first impression.
Which was why, after driving three and a half days across the country, Lexi planned a middle-of-the-night arrival and snuck into the vacant apartment above her grandmother’s bakery. She needed a good cry, a hot shower, one of Pricilla’s famous éclairs, and at least ten hours of solid sleep before she could face the residents of St. Helena.
Unfortunately, she found a bottle of her grandmother’s Angelica stashed behind a rack of day-old pastries in the bakery kitchen, which was the only way to explain how she woke up on the bathroom floor, eyes swollen shut, wearing yesterday’s clothes and half of an éclair.
She stumbled into the bedroom to grab her things and shower, then remembered that her dress—the outrageously
expensive sundress from Neiman Marcus that she’d charged on Jeffery’s account, the same one she intended to wear when she walked out onto Main Street to announce that Alexis Moreau, former prom queen and current five-star chef, was back—was sitting in the trunk of her car.
Maybe they would be so dazzled by her Moreau smile and culinary prowess that they wouldn’t notice her bare ring finger?
Yeah, right. They would take one look at her custard-stained sweats and realize that Lexi had gone from overachieving to barely surviving. And for a girl who, until recently, had received a gold star in the game of life, that didn’t sit well with her current, and rapidly depleting, average.
Lexi looked down at herself, picked a curl of chocolate from her cleavage, and groaned. “Crap.”
Her return home, much like the past six months, was turning out far differently than she’d envisioned.
Most people only got one shot at their dream. Lexi was about to get her second chance at running an acclaimed eatery, and she wasn’t going to blow it. Making the right impression felt like the first step toward her new life.
She looked at the dozen or so boxes piled in the corner of her childhood room and forced herself to breathe. The last thing she wanted to do right then was unpack what was left of her marriage to find an outfit that didn’t have melted ganache on the rear.
So, tossing her pants in the hamper and her custard-smeared tank top in the trash, she riffled through her grandmother’s closet, coming up with a handful of old concert T-shirts, an aqua pantsuit in size twenty, Lexi’s favorite pair of cutoffs from senior year, and her prom dress.
She grabbed the shorts and her grandmother’s shirt, which said
Hoff This
under a smiling David Hasselhoff giving the finger, and tugged them on. The shirt came down to her thighs and her shorts came up to her butt, the last in a long list of things she wished she could reverse.
Lexi looked at the clock and her heart went heavy, because erasing the past ten years wasn’t going to happen. Neither was ignoring the fact that her grandmother was expecting her in less than an hour, or that she would have to face her family and friends eventually. But when she did, it was going be on her terms. And in that damn sundress. Which meant she needed to get to her car.
Lexi grabbed her car keys and headed down the rear stairs. Cracking the door open, she glanced around, her shoulders relaxing slightly when she saw that the alley next to the bakery and the back parking lot where she’d parked her car was reassuringly empty.
She had snuck in and out of this apartment so many times as a teenager there was no reason that her heart should be pounding out of her chest right now. It was like riding a bike, right? The only difference was that back in high school, she had snuck around so that no one would know she was having sex with Jeffery, and now she was going stealth because she didn’t want people to know that Jeffery had stopped having sex with her a long time ago.
“A quick grab and dash. That’s all.”
Coast clear, Lexi took a single step toward her car, then stiffened at the sound of feet pounding the pavement, followed by the instant clang of jangling metal. Both sounds were wild and hurried. And both sounds were moving.
Toward her.
“Shit!” Lexi reached back for the doorknob, twisted—nothing.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
It was locked. In her grandmother’s mission to protect Lexi’s teenage virtue, Pricilla had installed safety measures: a doorknob that was extremely loud to open, with a lock that was always engaged.
Lexi patted down the sides of her shorts, as though expecting to find magical pockets containing a set of apartment keys. Sadly, she found neither.
“Come here, boy,” a distinctly male, and distinctly familiar, voice called out. Followed by a playful bark that sounded much closer.
Lexi froze, and last night’s pastry dinner declared war on her stomach.
“That’s it, come on. Good boy.” Claws clicked excitedly on the pavement. A dog tore around the corner. He was some kind of mastiff-Thoroughbred mix with paws the size of a polar bear’s and covered head to tail in mud. And he was headed directly toward her. “Damn it, Wingman, I said come!”
This could not be happening.
Fear had her feet moving—and fast. Lexi would rather explain to her grandmother that she had snuck into the apartment than face
him.
She shot around the corner of the building and, deciding that running didn’t make her a coward, made a beeline down the alley next to the bakery, hoping to slip in the delivery door without being noticed.
She got to the corner of Main Street and stopped, her stomach plummeting to her toes.
The one-lane road was backed up with a line of cars that went past the Paws and Claws Day Spa, made its way beyond Bottles and Bottles—the local pharmacy
and
wine retailer—and continued toward the highway and the bright-green sign that read:
W
ELCOME TO
S
T
. H
ELENA
, C
ALIFORNIA
P
OPULATION
5,814
B
LENDING
P
OETRY IN A
B
OTTLE
S
INCE
1858
The sidewalks were even worse. The brick-and-awning storefronts and lamp-lined streets were filled with tourists, tourists, and more tourists, who were admiring the rows of old wine barrels filled with seasonal flowers and taking in the large banner advertising the St. Helena Summer Wine Showdown. Wine-tasting season was in full swing, and people were out in masses, which meant that Pricilla’s Patisserie would be overflowing with locals, weekend warriors, and Sunday shoppers.
The second she walked into the bakery, she would run into a dozen people she knew, all with a dozen inappropriate questions that would lead to a dozen or more rumors about how Lexi had come crawling home—a divorced failure.
A gentle breeze blew past her, carrying with it the smell of freshly baked choux pastry. Lexi followed the scent and found that both of the windows her grandmother used to ventilate the rear kitchen were opened a crack.
She pried the first window open, her body turning on adolescent autopilot as she hoisted herself through. She got that same old high school thrill until she realized she didn’t have the same old high school hips and found herself ass up, wedged between the window casing.
“Oh God, no.” Lexi rocked, trying to gain enough momentum to tumble to the other side of the windowsill. “Please, no.”
Seconds ticked by, and sweat beaded on her forehead. She clawed at the sill and kicked at the planter box she stood on, mentally willing her hips back to prom night—but she didn’t move, or lose, an inch. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t squeeze herself through the window.