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.
Chapter 33
“Savvy,” 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 smi
led 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.
Ms. St. Pierre, Enclosed are samples of the basic olfactive groups used in perfumery. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with each of these families, studying no more than two groups in any single day. When you feel you have fully internalized them, let me know and we will progress to the next step. Sincerely yours, Lawrence Van Horne.
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.
She began to stalk him. “Of all the things you’ve ever done,” she said, struggling to maintain her composure. “Forcing me to bail you out of jail . . . running around with women younger than Meri, for God’s sake.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Not coming home for Christmas last year after you promised us. . . . Do I have to go on?”
His cocky smile wavered.
“This is the worst.” He flinched when she poked his chest. “Everyone in this valley knew you were behind that land grab except me. How is that? How does that even happen?” She stabbed him again, harder.
He inched backward as she trailed him around the lab.
“Do you know what you’ve done?”
His hand went down on the edge of a sink to steady himself, sending a glass pipette crashing brittle-y to the floor.
Savvy barely blinked. “Your sleazy underhandedness has cost you this deal. And it’s cost me the man I love!”
“Ah!” He brightened. “You did sleep with Esteban Morales!”
Savvy steamed. “Yes! I slept with him! And I’ll admit, my motives were selfish, in the beginning. Then I got to know Esteban and his family. I’ve never met more noble, self-effacing people than the Moraleses. They live for each other, not only themselves. Imagine that, Papa!”
“It is possible to sleep with a man without falling in love with him.”
“Don’t give me your damn French platitudes!” She swung away, sickened by the sight of him. “You really don’t get it, do you? I fell in love with Esteban because of his goodness, not to get something out of him. Leave it to you to twist things around!”
Gingerly, he approached her back. “Chèrie. Esteban Morales is a poor truck farmer. He is no one to become distraught over.”
Savvy pressed her lips together, her self-control unraveling like a pulled sweater.
“He is nothing but an immigrant.”
She whirled around. “Seriously? Esteban speaks better English than you do, even though you were born here!”
“Calm down, ma chère. We will fix this.”
“Uh, no. We won’t fix this. I will fix it. And I’m going to tell you how.
“Vraiment?” He lifted a brow.
“Yes, really. You’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do.”
His confident smirk faded. “Or what?”
“I’ll tell you what,” she snarled. “Now, sit down.”
Chapter 34
I need you.
That’s what the text said. Not I need to talk to you, I need to see you, or any variation of that. Just I need you.
Cristo. Why now?
Padre was back home where he belonged. He was a couch jockey nowadays, not toiling next to Esteban in the garden. Madre hovered over him like a hyperactive honeybee. At least that kept her off Esteban’s case about how hard he was pushing himself.
Padre’s mood was surprisingly chipper. Esteban could hardly believe how accepting he was of his diagnosis. The day he’d come home from the hospital, he’d given his son an awkward one-armed hug and told him how proud he was of him. Maybe having a heart attack had done something to the wiring in his brain.
Esteban had too much on his mind already to wonder what had gotten into Padre.
George had given Esteban some flak about reneging on the lineman job after he’d put himself out there for him. Esteban didn’t blame him, but what else could he do? He was needed here, at home.
Bottom line, though, was that as hard as the St. Pierres had tried to screw up everyone’s lives, they’d failed. All that was in the past. Now all the Morales family felt was relief that Padre was out of danger. They were settling into their new normal: Padre guarding his fragile health, Madre caring for him, and Esteban only coming in from the fields to eat and sleep. Doing what any son would do for his family.
The last thing he needed right now was a cryptic text from a wine heiress. He deleted her words, rejecting the pounding of his heart. But the second he shoved his phone back in his jeans it pinged again.
Meet me tomorrow, 10am, Rathmell Ranch.
The next morning he found himself driving up the steep grade to the ranch, kicking himself all the way.
Dios, though, it was gorgeous up here. That, he couldn’t deny.
There was Savvy’s black Mercedes, sitting at the top of the hill.
He parked his Chevy and set out for the distillery, betting he’d find her there. But before he’d gotten far, his peripheral vision caught a figure standing like a sunflower in thigh-high Hidcote with her back to him.
A Taste of Sauvignon Page 19
