She got to the elevator before Aidan had even stood Narek up. Come on! she told the elevator. I don’t want to ride with them. Narek might not be done puking.
And she didn’t have to. She was inside the elevator and the doors were closing before Aidan was halfway down the hall. Perfect timing.
“Hold the elevator!” Aidan called.
“Too late,” she answered as the doors slid all the way closed.
Crisis averted, she texted Jaxon asking him out on a date. He texted right back, not waiting for ten minutes like Aidan said he should. I have a show tonight. Ride tomorrow? 11?
She could wait that long. Ice cream sundae at the end? Count me in.
She was walking out to her car, feeling pretty good, when her phone rang again. It was her ex-agent, Jeffrey. He’d probably ruin her mood, but it was best to get whatever he wanted over with. He was a terrible pest if she ignored him.
“Sofia,” she said. “But I only have a minute.”
“Why?” he asked. “What are you doing?”
Good question. Heading home to feed Fred, maybe take her mother out to dinner and explain that the Internet was wrong and she wasn’t dating Aidan. Nothing too urgent.
“Stuff,” she said. “The clock’s ticking.”
“Your friend Annabelle Befort called. Are you using me to screen your calls from her? Because I can totally do that if you give me the heads up.”
“I’m not using you for that.” But she didn’t want to give Annabelle her phone number, and she wasn’t sure why, so, technically, she was using him for that.
“She wanted to invite you to her husband’s wake, which is kind of grim. It’s a week from tomorrow.”
She didn’t want to go. She’d barely known Marcel, and she hadn’t liked what he’d seen. They could probably fill up the wake with women he’d slept with. She didn’t particularly like Annabelle either, and she wasn’t sure why she was being invited. But she’d been on this train from the beginning. She might as well ride it out to the bitter end.
“Text me the details,” she said.
CHAPTER 38
So it was that a week and a day later Sofia was driving up the windy road to the vineyard, hopefully for the last time. As much as she enjoyed the drive, she wasn’t looking forward to what she would find at its end.
“We’ll only stay a little while,” she said. “Express our condolences and move on.”
“Take as long as you need.” That was Jaxon. They’d gone out a couple of times in the intervening week, and when he’d said he wanted to meet the killer horse, she’d brought him along. He looked good in a dark suit and open-necked black shirt, his hair brushing his shoulders. “We don’t have to go at all if you don’t want to.”
He was so reasonable and easy-going. She thought of him as the anti-Aidan. “I want to wrap things up.”
“I thought the case was wrapped up.” He leaned back in his seat and stretched. It was distracting, and she reduced the speed of the car a little to take in that sight.
“Umm...the case. Yes. It is.” She pulled it together. “Narek is no longer under suspicion, so we don’t have to worry about that part of it, but it still feels wrong to me.”
“Wrong how?” He turned those sexy hazel eyes on her and she regretted, again, the decision they’d made to take this slow. She seriously considered jumping him right there in the car.
“Would a horse really rear up like that and kill someone? I thought horses were fairly mellow,” she said.
Jaxon laughed. He had a great laugh—deep and infectious. “Some are mellow, some are high-strung. Just like people. It’s rare for a horse to kill someone like that, especially in a wide open area, but it could happen. Horses spook. Maybe she saw something that scared her.”
“Like what?” Sofia asked.
“Hard to say. Could have been something totally innocuous, like an empty plastic bag blowing by. Or a deer. Or a coyote. Do you guys have coyotes around here?”
“We do. A couple of cats and small dogs have disappeared at Nirvana Cove, and Tex said coyotes are probably responsible. She sees them sometimes when she’s running in the early morning.”
“A coyote could panic a horse. She might have seen it, smelled it, even heard it. That’ll set a horse right off.” Jaxon braced as they went into a curve. He never complained that she was driving too fast. It was another thing that made him an anti-Aidan.
“Maybe when you see the horse, you’ll be able to tell something. You’re a horse whisperer, right?” Sofia felt dumb the second the words left her mouth.
Jaxon chucked. “I’m not a horse mind reader. It doesn’t work like that. I can read body language, sure, but a lot of what I do with horses is about time and training.”
“Like whistling to make a horse pee?” She was glad Aidan wasn’t here to make a crack in front of Jaxon.
“Like that, for instance. Horses are very sensitive to sounds and touch. If you treat them right, they’ll do most anything they can for you.”
“But Annabelle’s horse doesn’t pee when you whistle. She comes like a dog,” Sofia said.
“Same stimulus, different response,” Jaxon said.
“I think Annabelle can only get one response, because she once told me that she can only whistle the one note.” Sofia remembered when Annabelle had taught it to her.
“Then I guess she needs to learn another whistle to teach the horse another trick,” Jason said.
“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” It was Sofia’s best Lauren Bacall impersonation.
“To Have and Have Not!” Jaxon said immediately.
It was a game they’d invented where one of them would do an impersonation from a movie, and the other one would guess the movie. Jaxon had seen a lot of old movies up there on his ranch, but not a lot of recent stuff. She liked that, too.
“Got it in one,” she said.
She slowed as they went through the gates and up to the vineyard. The parking lot was full, and she had to park the Tesla off to the side in the dirt. She eased it in as slowly as she could. The car had a low center of gravity, and she didn’t want to damage the bottom.
Jaxon gaped. “These folks have money.”
“Or they look like they do,” Sofia said. “Southern California’s like that. Lots of people seem rich, but they’re really in debt up to their eyeballs. From what Aidan told me when we were researching, the vineyard’s actually doing pretty badly. She might even have to sell it.”
Jaxon opened his door, then came around to open hers. It was old-fashioned and gentlemanly, and she loved it.
“What’ll happen to the horse if she has to sell this place?” he asked.
“She’ll probably have to board her somewhere. Or sell her, too.” That thought made her feel bad for Annabelle. She loved that horse.
Jaxon offered her his arm and she climbed out. The ground was uneven, and she was glad for the support. She’d worn her black Jimmy Choos—shoes she could easily afford when she was acting, but ones she couldn’t so easily replace now. She’d wanted to look nice for the wake, but maybe the shoes had been a bad idea.
She recognized a few people by sight—the man who’d been wearing the purple suit at the key party; a few of the women from the party, all dressed in black; the lead singer from the French heavy metal band—but she didn’t know any names.
She didn’t see Annabelle.
“Let’s go to the stable first,” she said. “Before we get waylaid.”
Jaxon had seen her get waylaid by fans before, although it didn’t seem to bug him like it did Aidan. “OK.”
She led the way to the stable, not letting go of his arm.
“That’s the outside trough,” she said quietly as they passed it. “Where Marcel died.”
Jaxon looked at the metal rectangle and dusty ground with interest, but there wasn’t really anything to see there.
“Hey, Sofia!” called a familiar voice.
B
ambi?
Bambi tottered over to meet them. While Sofia had tried to dress demurely, Bambi had clearly aimed for the opposite. A leopard-print dress clung to every curve. Her heels were so high they looked like stilts.
“Hello, cowboy!” said Bambi to Jaxon.
How did she know he was a cowboy? He wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat or anything. Sofia’s stomach clenched. Bambi had probably seen him online on some gossip site that called him her sexy stallion or cowboy crush.
“Howdy, ma’am.” Jaxon tipped an imaginary hat at her.
“Jaxon, this is Bambi.” Sofia wasn’t sure what else to say. “She knew Marcel, too. She works at Nails and Whimsy. Where I got the seagull on my thumb.”
The seagull was a little chipped, but she hadn’t had the heart to remove it.
“I sure do!” Bambi leaned forward, giving Jaxon a good view of her ample cleavage.
“We’re heading over to the stables.” Sofia started walking. “We’ll see you in the house in a minute.”
“The stable sounds like fun,” Bambi said. “I’ll tag along.”
She took Jaxon’s other arm and pressed up against him. Jaxon didn’t seem to mind. That easy-going personality was starting to annoy Sofia.
While she didn’t say anything, she increased her pace so Bambi had to work to keep up in those shoes. If it was too fast for her, she could always drop off and head back to the wake.
No such luck.
But she needn’t have worried. As soon as Jaxon got into the stable, he ignored both of the human women and focused all his attention on the mare.
“Aren’t you beautiful?” he said to her, and Percy reached her head toward the sound of his voice.
“Annabelle said that Percy doesn’t like men,” Sofia said.
“We’re not all bad,” Jaxon crooned and stroked Percy’s nose. “She’s a fine horse, Sofia. Top breeeding. And look how well she’s been taken care of. A pretty girl like her could start in our show tomorrow.”
Sofia let him bond with the horse. Maybe he’d be able to see into her memory and figure out what happened on the night Marcel died. OK, not likely.
“Is the sweatshirt OK?” Bambi asked. “I might have spilled some wine on it.”
Might? It had taken three trips through the washing machine to get the stain out. “It all came out in the wash.”
“Check out the stallfount!” Jaxon said. “I wouldn’t mind having one of these for my stable in Colorado.”
Sofia remembered Annabelle’s conversation with Pankhurst on the night Marcel died. She’d used that word. “What’s a stallfount?”
“It’s a self-waterer.” Percy nuzzled Jaxon’s shoulder, and he kissed her on the nose. The horse was getting more action than Sofia. “Makes sure she always has clean, fresh water. This one’s top of the line, even heats the water. You probably don’t need that so much here, but up where I live this thing would save a lot of time.”
Sofia looked out through the open stable door at the trough where Marcel had died.
“Why would Marcel need to take her outside to water her if she had water right there?” Sofia was thinking aloud.
But Bambi seemed to take her words personally. “That’s what he said!”
“I know.” Sofia didn’t doubt her. She’d heard the information from Bambi and via Aidan’s bug. She knew what Marcel had said.
“Maybe she liked the taste of the water in the other trough better. Horses can be very picky about the water.” Jaxon stroked Percy’s face with the back of his hand. He always looked sexier with horses. “I put some apple juice in with my horses’ water for about a week before we travel, so they get used to the taste. That way I can juice up the water everywhere we go and they’ll drink it.”
“She likes this man more than the last,” said Annabelle from the doorway. “Perhaps she is wise?”
Sofia wasn’t sure how to react. “She seems much better than the last time I saw her.”
Annabelle stepped into the barn, and Percy whickered. “She needed time to recover, time and good care. Thank you for bringing her back to me.”
“Of course,” Sofia said.
Rick came in, too, and Sofia nodded to him.
“Back from where?” asked Bambi. “Was she stolen?”
“She was lost,” Annabelle slipped an arm around Rick’s waist, and smiled up at him. “And then she was found.”
CHAPTER 39
A nnabelle sure wasn’t putting a lot of effort into playing the grieving widow, even if she looked the part in a slim black dress and a hat with a short veil followed the same angle as her asymmetric bangs.
Rick shifted his feet, as if he knew how inappropriate that comment was at her husband’s funeral. “Thank you all for coming to Mr. Befort’s wake. There’s food inside.”
Sofia took the hint and started toward the stable door. Jaxon kissed the horse one more time and followed. Annabelle waited for them.
“She’s a gorgeous animal,” Jaxon said to Annabelle. “She must have an amazing bloodline. Egyptian?”
Annabelle’s face lit up. “Exactly! Her sire traces his lineage back to Egypt. So few people can see that.”
“I work with horses,” Jaxon said, rather modestly. “And I know a prize mare when I see one. She has a great temperament, I’m guessing.”
“She is a lamb!” Annabelle said. “So gentle.”
Rick pulled away from Annabelle and started walking back to the house at a pretty good clip. Bambi wobbled along behind. Apparently even Bambi wasn’t going to hit on him at the wake right in front of Annabelle. Or maybe she would when she caught up to him.
Sofia trailed along behind Bambi until Annabelle reached out and took her arm.
“This one is delightful!” Annabelle said.
Like Sofia had to start numbering her men.
“This one?” Jaxon mouthed to her.
“He is, indeed!” Sofia answered, being chipper. She’d explain about Aidan and the case and the key party later.
“I can see that the two of you might be interested in a vineyard and a stable.” Annabelle smiled. “It is most rewarding to own one, do you not agree?”
Sofia’s heart sank. Just like Marcel had said on their very first meeting, Annabelle really did think Sofia was a celebrity investor. Aidan had said their business was in trouble, and an outside investor was what they needed. Annabelle’s peculiar attitude toward Sofia suddenly became clear. That’s why she’d invited her to the key party, acted like her friend when she sent her off to find Percy, and invited her to the wake. Annabelle wanted Sofia to invest in the winery.
That wasn’t going to happen, even if Sofia’d had the money, which she didn’t.
Jaxon didn’t seem to get the memo though.
“We love riding,” he said. “And we love wine. You have an amazing set up here for both.”
Sofia wanted to tell him not to get Annabelle’s hopes up, but of course he had no idea what this was about. He was just being polite.
“Indeed?” said Annabelle. “It is exactly that kind of outside innovation that we would welcome here.”
“We’re more into recreational wine and riding,” Sofia said.
“I have a ranch,” Jaxon pointed out. “So it’s not entirely recreational.”
“A ranch! Tell me all about it.” Annabelle squeezed his arm.
Sofia tuned out Annabelle’s sales pitch. Her husband’s wake probably wasn’t the right time to tell Annabelle that she didn’t have an investor lined up after all. At least theoretically, she had a lot of grief and trouble on her plate right now.
Rick got them settled in the kitchen with wine, bread, and amazing cheese. He was solicitous to Sofia, making sure she paired every cheese with exactly the right kind of wine, and kind to Jaxon as well. Unlike Marcel, he was the perfect host. She could see why Annabelle had picked him over her contemptuous husband. She even started to feel guilty that she’d sicced the cops on Rick. He seemed so darn nice.
Sofia glanced around the r
oom. Everything was Annabelle’s now—giant kitchen, luxurious living room, and a dining room table big enough to use as a raft. If Aidan was right, Annabelle probably wouldn’t be hanging onto it much longer.
A gray Mercedes pulled up in the parking lot out front. Sofia recognized Narek and Milena inside. She hadn’t expected them to be here, and certainly not together, but they were neighbors and had once been friends, so it made sense.
“Excuse me,” Rick said. “I should go move my truck so the Grigoryans have someplace to park. Maybe make some peace.”
Annabelle smiled at him indulgently. “Such a tender heart.”
Rick pulled his keys out of his pocket and walked toward the door. Light flashed off the whistle on his key chain. Sofia sat up straight and watched him twirl his keys.
“What do you and Jaxon think of the wines?” Annabelle asked. “Are they not exquisite?”
Jaxon looked at Sofia helplessly. He was clearly not a wine man.
“They’re amazing!” lied Sofia. “I love how each wine complements the flavor of the cheeses. How do you know how to do the pairings?”
“It is in art,” Annabelle launched into a long explanation of wine and cheese. Jaxon nodded politely, but Sofia could see it didn’t make any more sense to him than it did to her.
Milena and Narek waited in the hall. Milena looked uncertainly at Annabelle.
“You must excuse me. I must greet our lovely neighbors. They have been through so much.” Annabelle stood gracefully. “They are potential investors too, and it would not do to alienate them.”
Jaxon ate another cheese cracker and mouthed the word, “Investor.”
“I’ll explain later,” Sofia said quietly. “But basically it’s all just a big misunderstanding.”
Annabelle reached Milena, took her in her arms, and kissed both cheeks. She repeated the gesture with Narek. “Welcome again to my home.”
Milena’s eyes were red from crying, but she smiled at Annabelle’s words.
“They look like old friends,” said Jaxon.
“The thing is,” said Sofia, “they’re not.”
Rick appeared behind them, stuffing his keys into his jacket pocket.
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