Just Like That

by Karin Kallmaker

  “At last,” Toni said quietly, “I understand you perfectly.”

  “You think you do, at last. Syrah Ardani is a beautiful woman. You didn’t do right by her, though.” Mira’s eyes glittered. “I think she really wanted you to be masterful, but you weren’t, were you?”

  Toni wasn’t about to let Mira discuss anything about Syrah. “Stay away from her, Mira. There’s nothing in it for you to make her hate me more.”

  “Oh, all right. I’ll stay away from the adorable creature. She is a bit young for you, isn’t she? What—thirteen, fourteen years?”

  Toni shrugged. The decade or more gap in their ages was the least of the problems between her and Syrah. “It’s really none of your business.”

  Mira moved to within Toni’s grasp. “Was she sweet? You were with her so soon after me. Was it just that she was so different from me? But now I fear she’ll have nothing to do with you.”

  Toni was afraid of that, too, but she wasn’t going to show it to Mira. “I intend to tell her all about you, Mira, and all about me with you. And then we’ll see what happens.”

  “You do that. You go right ahead. I’m not going anywhere near the girl, Toni. You’ve given me what I wanted.”

  With a nod, Toni let herself out. She heard Mira laugh, as if pleased, and then she let it go. Mira was the past. The present needed some fixing. Then she would see about the future.

  * * *

  Another sunset, another day closer to harvest and another day closer to the inevitable arrival of Toni Blanchard or someone just like her. Syrah leaned on the porch railing, musing about how the hills of their holdings were curved like a woman could be.

  Her father’s step, surprisingly quick, brought her out of her reverie. “Still guarding the grapes, pumpkin?”

  “Yes.” She gave up the view in favor of looking at her father. He seemed happier than he had been in over a week. “You do have a bit of a cat-that-ate-the-canary look on your face. What’s up?”

  “I’ve just sold the Tarpay fields. For nearly what I paid. There’s enough at least to pay off that loan. Or nearly.”

  “You’re kidding!” Syrah stared at her father in shock. “To whom?”

  “Do you remember a charming woman who visited us a week or two ago? Petite, pale skin, British accent?”

  “Yes,” Syrah said warily.

  “She said that day she was hoping to invest in a vineyard, and she liked ours. She asked me if there was any chance of being a part-owner in our winery and I told her no, but she still left her business card. Then, after our talk last week I sent her an e-mail and she wrote back.”

  Syrah wished she could close her mouth. Mira Wickham had bought the fields they had for sale? “If she bought the Tarpay fields she owns them, right? And she knows the fruit is pledged, right? And when the time comes, she has to harvest or face rotting grapes by Thanksgiving?”

  “What we’ve discussed is her being an advisory partner. We keep control of the Tarpay vines, which is the best part of the deal.”

  “I don’t get what’s in it for her.”

  “I asked and she said she wanted to be part of ‘art in a glass.’ Said you would get that.”

  Oddly flattered that some portion of their conversation had remained in Mira’s memory, Syrah asked him for the sale papers. She tried to read them carefully but the small print from Mira’s attorneys was difficult to decipher.

  Missy and Jane were dropping by to pick Syrah up for dinner. She hurried upstairs feeling cautiously hopeful that Mira’s investment was a turning point in this horrible year. At the last minute she grabbed the sale papers and put them in her pocket. Missy might be able to help make sense of them.

  * * *

  “Barth, I need a flight to California.” Toni leaned on Barth’s desk, trading receipts and old files for new ones.

  He tapped his keyboard to call up Toni’s calendar. “Your next free day is not for a week, unless you want me to juggle something.”

  “No, a week is fine. And I’ll be there three days at least.”

  “Got it.”

  Valerie joined them, holding out a sheath of papers. “I think you should see this.”

  Toni took the stack. A fax cover sheet was on top. All it said was “TONI! HELP! Call me! Missy.”

  “Thanks.” She nodded at Barth. “I’ll let you know if this is something to log.”

  As she walked to her office she read the first page of the legal document Missy had faxed. She sat down in a daze, then checked the last page. Damn it, the sales agreement was signed.

  “Anthony, Anthony,” she whispered, “how could you do this to us?”

  But it wasn’t trusting, simple Anthony who was at fault, Toni knew that. How could she have thought that Mira was done? Mira had promised to leave Syrah alone, but not her father, and Toni knew better than anyone else how subtle Mira could be about truth and promises.

  She called Missy once she had the import of the entire agreement in her head.

  “I’m not wrong, am I?” Missy sounded frantic. “It’s a horrible deal!”

  “You’re right, unfortunately.” Toni cleared her throat. “Mira has bought the fields, contracted with Ardani to service the fields for which she pays them nothing, and she gets all the revenue.”

  Missy said quickly, “And she doesn’t pay them for the land for another four years. So they’ve kept the expense, given away the income and won’t have anything to show at the end of the year.”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “I don’t know how Mr. Ardani thought he could trust Mira after the way she’s behaved. She screwed Crystal over, royally. Mr. Ardani never said a word about this to Syrah until it was done. Syrah looked like she wanted to kill someone.”

  “Me, she wanted to kill me. He didn’t know about Mira. I never got around to telling him or Syrah about Mira’s finer qualities.”

  “Why not, T.B.?” Missy sounded shocked. “I was so wrapped up in Jane I never realized Mira was even at my party. Now I want to make it my life’s work to precede her wherever she might go and be the town crier shouting, ‘Lock up your silver, the reech beech is in town.’”

  Toni stared at the sales agreement and called herself a fool for still being able to be surprised by the depths of Mira’s malice. She must have been chortling inside last night, when Toni had thought she had the upper hand. Mira had already trumped her, and she had known it all along. She’d even kept it legal by delaying the promise to pay money she did not currently have.

  With a groan, Toni recalled the language of the loan on the Tarpay fields. It was hardly unusual. Now that the fields had been sold, the loan principal was payable in full. Ardani Vineyards did not have the cash to pay for another four years. The lenders would sue and all the other creditors, including the shareholders, would descend in a feeding frenzy that would terrify a piranha. Meanwhile, Mira had the land and it wouldn’t cost her a dime for four years.

  “Missy, I think she covered all the angles,” Toni admitted. “Damn her but she’s smart. All I can think of is that failure to use a proper title transfer company for completion of the sale might actually invalidate it. You can’t sell something a bank has a lien on without telling the bank.”

  “So how did he get away with it?”

  “The sale was handled privately. They do that all the time with grape auctions. I don’t think he thought anything of it.”

  “I can see that,” Missy said tiredly. “That damn sales agreement hurt my head it was so convoluted. We must have studied it for hours last night. So you think the sale might be invalid?”

  “Maybe, but the damage is still done. Mira really thought it through. If we petition to invalidate the sale, the lenders will find out that Anthony Ardani, certified babe-in-the-wood, tried to pull a fast one. It’s enough to call the loan due anyway. And they have no buyer, so the fields go on a public auction block.”

  “And they get screwed, again. I could kill that bitch!”

  “Imagine if
she put that intellect to use on world hunger.”

  “I’ll imagine nothing of the sort,” Missy replied sharply.

  “This was my fault,” Toni said. She had had the power to prevent this. If she’d been honest with Anthony about their circumstances and not found a way to string along his hopes, they would not be in this position. If she’d been honest with Syrah about her past and at least tried to explain what kind of woman Mira was, they might not be at this crossroads.

  “Toni? Toni? What are we going to do?”

  There was only one thing to do, and Toni told her.

  Chapter 13

  “I do believe this may kill your father.” Bennett pressed her hand to her heart. “I’ve never seen him this way before, in all my days. You can’t trust these people, these outsiders.” Bennett poured another cup of coffee for Missy. “Not one of them has an ounce of worth.”

  Bennett stomped over to the stove, leaving Jane, Missy and Syrah alone at the kitchen table.

  “She doesn’t include you as an outsider, Missy, just so you know.” Syrah chewed a bit of apple pie without really tasting it.

  “I’m glad to hear that. I wish Bennett had a sister because I could really use someone like her at Netherfield. I am getting so tired of Pop-Tarts for dinner.”

  “I made you chili just last night,” Jane protested. “It may be the only thing I know how to make, but it was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, sweetie pie.” Missy stroked Jane’s arm. “You’re always good.”

  Syrah restrained an inner blech. Missy and Jane could put anyone into insulin shock.

  An overnight delivery truck creaked up the road to the house, bringing Hound out to bark in a ferocious show of protective instincts that lasted until the usual driver stepped down, laughing as Hound licked her knees. Syrah met the woman at the door and for the first time the sight of shorts, tanned legs and a clipboard didn’t set off a little fantasy about changing places with Hound.

  She went back to the kitchen with the large, heavy envelope. “I may not survive this either,” she announced. “I just had no lascivious thoughts whatsoever about the delivery woman.” She pushed the package to one side, having no heart to cope with it.

  “Are you ill? Do you have a fever?” Jane played mother hen to the hilt, making a show of feeling Syrah’s forehead.

  “Aren’t you going to open the delivery?” Missy closed the landscaping book she and Jane had been discussing at length. “It looks like documents of some kind.”

  “I don’t want to,” Syrah said childishly. She glanced at the label. “Hell, it’s from some bank.”

  “Can I open it?” Missy reached for the container. “I can’t stand unopened mail.”

  Syrah shrugged. “Okay by me.”

  Jane promptly supplied her Swiss Army knife so Missy didn’t risk a fingernail.

  “Let’s see,” Missy said. “We have a lien. We have an assignment document. Here, look.” She pushed the papers toward Syrah.

  Even with Jane and Missy to help her, it took some time to make sense of it. “This lien is canceled, isn’t it?” Syrah showed the paper to Missy again.

  “That’s right,” Missy confirmed with a shining smile. “It’s marked Paid in Full, just like these others.”

  “How can that be? And this—why was there a transfer of shares?”

  Missy seemed hesitant but then said quickly, “All the shareholders have sold their interests to something called Crystal Clear Holding Company. It and your father own all the shares there are.”

  Syrah looked at Missy expectantly. Surely something would make sense to her if spelled out another way.

  “So,” Missy said earnestly, “someone paid off the loans Ardani had. That same someone is also the sole shareholder of Ardani Vineyards—that is, except for your father. Instead of all those nagging voices there’s just one for him to make happy now.”

  Jane got up to add some cool water to her tea. “How does this affect Mira’s purchase of the Tarpay fields?”

  Shaking her head, Missy said, “As far as I can see, it doesn’t. Mira’s sitting pretty. She’ll even make money. But she has no one to make trouble with now, except your father and whomever owns Crystal Clear. Of course, if a court eventually agrees the sale was invalid, she gets a big, fat nothing. Either way, she’s got nothing to do or say of any influence on Ardani.”

  “That’s too good to be true,” Syrah said. Her barely banked anger at Mira threatened to consume her for a moment. She took a deep, steadying breath. “Why would someone do this? Why would someone want to spend all that money to get so much control if we don’t pencil any longer?”

  “With no debts, I bet the winery pencils just fine.” Jane scooted into the chair next to Missy again.

  “Maybe,” Missy said softly, “someone was doing the right thing for once.”

  More than a little overwhelmed, Syrah escaped to the porch for a few minutes, lips pursed in thought. Another sunset and she didn’t know what to think. She had braced herself for losing the vines, the barrels, the heritage of her family. She wanted to hope they had been saved but couldn’t let herself believe it, not quite yet.

  Missy and Jane were smooching at the table when Syrah went back inside. “How do we find out if this is all real?”

  Missy patted Jane on the collarbone. “You hold that thought.” Looking up at Syrah, she asked, “Call the banks tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” Syrah agreed. “That’s what I’ll do.” She looked at Missy speculatively but Missy suddenly wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  Over the next few days, Syrah received confirmation after confirmation. Yes, the loan was paid off. Yes, it had been paid off by Crystal Clear Holding Company, LLC.

  She could find out nothing about Crystal Clear. With summer ripening toward harvest it wasn’t as if she had a lot of time to spend on the mystery, either.

  The change in her father was palpable. He walked taller, moved faster. Syrah tried to caution him that even though the bankruptcy receivership had been ended and no disgruntled creditors sent consultants to study their every move, one day somebody from Crystal Clear was going to show up and want something for their money.

  “It’s all going to be okay now, pumpkin,” was all he would say and as the days ticked by Syrah actually began to believe it, too. They’d been delivered from the fire by an anonymous hand. Syrah suspected who it was, and the idea pleased her.

  Jane and Missy were increasingly inseparable. Summer eased into moderate temperatures, but Syrah joked that if Missy and Jane walked in the fields, the grapes quickened on the vines.

  Of Toni Blanchard she heard nothing. A single sheet of paper from a Delaware court arrived stating a petition to end receivership had been approved. She knew now that Mira Wickham was no reliable witness regarding Toni’s character, and she discounted everything the woman had said as a half-truth at best, and more likely outright lies.

  Toni’s own admission—that she had been using Mira’s debts to compel her behavior—was the harder issue to think about. She could understand why Toni might have done that, given how duplicitous Mira was, but it was difficult to reconcile the hard consultant who could make such a decision with the soft, vulnerable woman on the hood of the car.

  Gay Pride came and went, then Independence Day brought the county fair and fireworks. Grapes darkened, sweetened. The time had long passed when she might have asked questions and discussed it like a rational human being.

  Harvest descended in the first week of September for the shortest-season fruit. Those grapes were no sooner picked and processed into crushers than the next to ripen were ready. Chardonnay, Riesling and Gewürztraminer were harvested in a flurry of round-the-clock activity.

  Syrah ached in her bones after two weeks, and they were only through the whites. The reds, slower to ripen, were showing all good signs that they were also due for picking and processing. Petite Sirah, zinfandel and Merlot finished together though their locations on the grounds were far apart. Carlo was fran
tic trying to get enough temporary labor to pick, and Syrah pitched in as best she could, despite the amount of time she spent in the office, recording the harvest statistics.

  “Can we spare anyone to cull the Chardonnay vines?”

  Chino dropped into the desk chair. “I don’t think so.”

  Syrah looked up tiredly from her intake estimates of pounds of grapes by vine group and what that would result in for finished liquids. It hit her that not having the fear of foreclosure hanging over her head was making her more proactive. As soon as she finished with the estimates she was ready to place the bottle orders for each of the varietals ready to come out of barrels and spend the winter going cool. “Even one crew?”

  “The Pinots are ripe. Your father pulled half the people from the Cabernets this morning.”

  “Dang.” Culling the vines of all remaining grapes was good for them, and the wine that resulted from grapes left to overripen on the vine turned out their highly prized noble and late-harvest dessert wines.

  “Maybe we can borrow someone else’s crew for a night shift. Drag out the generators and set up lights.”

  It was a lot of work, but perhaps the only way to manage it. It would cost money but the harvest volumes were so high that she couldn’t believe that such measures wouldn’t be offset by the rewards.

  Her boots had never felt so heavy, but she could not recall a time when she’d felt more like an Ardani.

  When the massive labor effort finally began to wane, there was time to enjoy the early October air. One relaxed evening Syrah coaxed Missy and Jane out to the last of the unculled vines, her own Syrahs.

  “If it’s fruit, pick it,” she told Missy. “If we get enough we’ll make our own little batch and this time next year we’ll be sipping it and feeling pleased with ourselves.”

  Missy, who had stopped to watch Jane carry a loaded basket to the bed of the truck, said, “I’ve never made wine before. Are we going to stomp it?”

  “Only if you want to. I have to warn you, though, I’m not drinking anything you and Jane fall down in.”