I’m no expert on the subject of wine . . . in fact, one of the things I like best about it is the long learning curve. My mind, nose and palate can never run out of surprises! But if you’re even newer at oenology than I, it’s helpful to remember that ‘white’ grapes appear light green on the vine. All the other ones—the gorgeous purples, the reds, the bluish ones—are referred to by wine makers as ‘black.’
Cabernet sauvignon (let’s say cabernet here to avoid confusion, or even shorter, ‘cab’) is a red wine from a black grape. The wine is usually described as full-bodied and high in the tannins that give it a faint, tea-like bitterness. You might also taste blackcurrant or pencil shavings. The good thing about cab—which is also the bad thing—is that it’s amenable to being made into so many variations . . . from fresh and fruity, to highly complex. As a result, when you order a random glass of cab, you can never be sure what you’re going to get.
So to say that you like or don’t like cab is almost like saying you like or don’t like vegetables. Are you talking about carrots? Brussels sprouts? Lettuce?
On the other hand, the name sauvignon blanc doubles as a white grape and a light-bodied, dry white wine known for its grassy, grape-fruit-y character. It’s tangy and pungent, delightful on a hot summer day. Lots of people far more knowledgeable than I say sauvignon blanc from the town of Marlborough, New Zealand is the standard by which to judge all the others, and I happen to agree. My BFFs know they can’t go wrong showing up at my door holding a bottle of Kim Crawford.
So which is my heroine Savvy based on, cabernet sauvignon or sau vignon blanc? Write to me at [email protected] with your guesses!
The St. Pierre sisters have been through a lot, but they never expected a bombshell like this. Keep reading to discover what happens when the trio finds out there’s a fourth!
A TASTE OF SAKE
Available Fall 2015
In the vineyard under a pergola dripping with wisteria, the priest smiled and said, “Please hold hands.”
‘The farm boy and the heiress.’ That was the phrase whispered among the out-of-towners during the long wait for the ceremony to begin.
And that’s exactly what it looked like on the surface . . . groom’s deltoids threatening to bust the shoulder seams of his suit, bride the epitome of elegance, auburn hair pulled back to accent her oval face.
The reality was a little more complicated. True, the bride had been born into one of California’s wealthiest wine families. But when it came to substance . . . character—call it what you will—the Moraleses had it all over the St. Pierres. Every Napan here knew it, but not one dared utter it out loud.
When Bill Diamond got the phone call inviting him to the Domaine St. Pierre estate on this late June afternoon, he had no idea what it was all about. Figured it was one of Xavier St. Pierre’s summer galas . . . the high point of the summer social calendar. As real estate agent to Chardonnay and Merlot St. Pierre, Bill had been mildly pleased to find he’d made the guest list.
Then to find out that this was a wedding—of St. Pierre’s oldest daughter, no less? Even cooler. Bill didn’t even mind the delay in the start of the ceremony. How could anyone complain, when St. Pierre kept the wine flowing freely? Bill passed the time making new acquaintances. No such thing as a shy successful Realtor.
St. Pierre knew how to throw a party, that’s for sure. Star-studded crowd, flowers everywhere you looked. Live music and butlered hors d’oeuvres passed before the ceremony. Even an altar made out of a wine barrel. Then again, what else would you expect from Xavier St. Pierre?
Bill was seated in the second row on the bride’s side of the aisle. The lady with the big pink hat in the front row must be a close family friend. St. Pierre’s wife was gone, killed years ago in a car accident. Everyone said those girls had it all, but they forgot they’d grown up without a mom.
The music stopped. The wedding party was in position, under the pergola. Game time. So why wasn’t Savvy mooning back at Esteban during this special moment? Why was she peering out into the distance, her smooth brow pinched with concern?
A faint chug-chug-chug entered into Bill’s consciousness. He’d filtered it out until then, to focus on the spectacle a few yards away. Now he looked in the direction of the sound, up and to the left. That’s when he saw the chopper, the size of an acorn, coming up from the south.
No big deal. Any second its course would take it veering away.
But as the seconds passed, instead of veering away it seemed to be making a bee-line for the winery. When even the groom swiveled his head around to look, polite twittering rippled through the crowd.
The priest was going on about love and trust and how marriage was a sacred oath. Bill couldn’t be sure, because now the noise from the chopper distracted from his voice.
Undaunted, the priest cranked up the volume. “Esteban Morales, do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold—“
Esteban interrupted him. “I do,” he said, loud and clear. Following another backward glance, Esteban’s right foot turned almost imperceptibly in the direction of the sheltering mansion.
The murmuring grew into nervous laughter. Bill kept a discreet eye on the helicopter. Around him, a head turned here, a chin pointed there. Something about the chopper’s trajectory didn’t seem right. It wasn’t flying in a straight line, or at a consistent altitude. It swung from side to side, rising and falling at random.
“Sauvignon St. Pierre, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded hus—“
“I do!” Bill saw her lips move but he couldn’t hear her soft voice at all above the racket.
Now the foreboding was chilling, palpable. The helicopter drew closer and closer, larger and larger, threatening the party like a bigeyed bug.
It shouldn’t be rocking like that—as if the pilot were drunk at the controls.
Was he actually going to bring it down here? Right here, in the middle of the wedding?
The tall cypress trees surrounding the estate swayed and pitched. Looking at the sky, the priest yelled as loud as he could. “Thenbythepowerinvestedinmebythe ChurchofAlmightyGodandtheStateofCaliforniaIherebypronouceyoumanandwife. Run!”
Shit just got real. The groom grabbed his bride’s arm and tugged toward the protection of the house, but Savvy’s feet were rooted to the grass, her mouth hanging open in horror. Not wasting a second he swept her up—piece of cake for a man of his size—and took off at a tear.
“Go!” shouted Bill, hand on the back of the man standing next to him. Women screamed and men yelled under the now-deafening machine- gun drone of the chopper.
“He’s coming down!”
“Get out of the way!”
Chairs toppled like bowling pins. One heavy woman was knocked to the ground by another terrified guest. Bill stopped and yanked her up by the arm.
“He’s not going to make it!” somebody cried.
“Get up!” yelled Bill to the woman. “Come on!”
The woman winced in pain. “I can’t! My ankle!”
Thanks only to adrenaline, he was able to haul her to her feet. “Put your arm around my waist!”
Burdening himself with her was going to be the death of him, but he couldn’t just run away and leave her to burn up in the imminent fireball.
“It’s going to crash!” said the lady in a wobbly voice, some perverted fascination making her look back, slowing them up even more.
Bill jerked her onward toward an outbuilding. “Keep going! Don’t look back!”
This was happening.
Bill managed to get her around the back of the shed, where she melted onto the grass. It wasn’t much in the way of shelter but it was the nearest structure. Ignoring his own advice, he peered around the corner. Directly above the altar, the helicopter’s engine sputtered, died, revived and sputtered again. It shuddered and swung in mid-air for a surreal moment, like a puppet on a string.
Bill crouched and covered his head with this arms, steeling
himself for the impact.
There was a dull thud, a sharp crack, and an earthshaking jolt beneath his feet.
Next to him, the woman whimpered.
And then there was only the sound of the cypress branches, swooshing softly back into place.
Bill peeked around the corner of the shed. The lawn was in a shambles. Chairs upended, a portion of the pergola sagging all the way to the ground, floral arrangements broken apart and scattered. In the middle of it all sat Xavier St. Pierre’s helicopter, tilting sharply to the left.
The rotors were still. There was no smoke, no fire. No twisted metal.
From somewhere in the distance came a faint sob. From somewhere else, a masculine voice intoned, call 911.
Gradually, the surroundings came back to life. Guests crept tentatively out of the far corners of the winery grounds and buildings, brushing themselves off, retrieving lost hats and heels.
Esteban Morales sprinted from the mansion to the crash site, followed by his wife, ignoring his shouted plea to stay back.
Merlot dashed out of the building housing the blending lab, into the arms of her relieved boyfriend.
“You okay?” Bill asked the trembling woman next to him. At her nod, he jogged toward the wreckage to see if he could be of assistance.
The chopper’s left landing skid lay some distance away, snapped off in the impact, which explained why the cabin was leaning so hard. But wait—there was movement behind the reflective windscreen. The pilot’s door cracked open.
Out on Dry Creek Road, a siren wailed.
And then Xavier St. Pierre climbed out, ducked beneath the blades, and waved to Bill and the stunned semicircle of onlookers that was accumulating.
“Bon après-midi!” he called, zipping around the chopper to the other side.
He yanked on his passenger’s door. Its bottom edge ripped into the lawn, building a dam of dirt. Using both hands this time, he yanked again.
Bill gestured to the others. “C’mon, help me prop it up.” He and a few men pushed the chopper upright, holding it there until Xavier got the door open.
Onto the lawn fell a female with long black hair.
Carefully, they set the chopper back down.
Savvy and her sisters ventured closer to the victim. Everyone knew St. Pierre was a player. Was this his latest fling? The poor girl lay face down, unmoving. Was she hurt?
“Is there a doctor here? A nurse?” called Bill. Now would be a good time for one to step up. But all he saw was a wall of St. Pierre’s cronies—vintners, politicians, entertainers—staring back at him. None of them were any better equipped than a Realtor when it came to caring for a plane crash victim.
His gaze swung back to the passenger on the ground.
“Don’t touch her,” yelled a woman on the fringe, cell phone glued to her ear. “There’s an ambulance on its way.”
Bill crouched and gently lifted the girl’s hair from her face. “Are you okay?”
Just then a terrier-like object flew out of the helicopter, scrabbling up next to the girl. He barred his teeth and growled, revealing a prominent under-bite.
Bill held out a hand. “Easy, boy.”
The dog whimpered, licked his chops, and panted.
“Hang tight. Help’s on the way.”
Unceremoniously, St. Pierre reached between Bill and the passenger and pulled her up by the hand. “She is not hurt.”
“She” was no girl. Her silhouette went in and out, not straight up and down. Beneath thick dark brows, her brown eyes projected terror, but she wasn’t bleeding and everything looked like it worked. The only visible evidence that she’d just crashed into a wedding was the grass staining the tip of her longish nose and the yellow rose petals stuck to her dress.
The dog ran a joyful circle around her. St. Pierre slung an arm across her shoulders.
“Sauvignon? Chardonnay? Merlot?”
Savvy and her sisters stared, stupefied.
Behind them, all was silent. Everyone wanted to be able to say later that they heard the first words out of Xavier St. Pierre’s mouth after he crash-landed smack into his eldest daughter’s wedding.
“I present to you your half-sister, Sake.”
Love the Napa Wine heiresses?
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Available now from Lyrical Press
A TASTE OF CHARDONNAY
“Are you my Realtor?”
Chardonnay St. Pierre tried to hide her wariness as she approached the man who’d just stepped out of his retro pickup truck. This wasn’t the best section of Napa city.
Their vehicles sat skewed at odd angles in the lot of the concrete building with the AVAILABLE banner sagging along one side. Around the back, gorse and thistles grew waist-high through the cracks in the pavement.
A startlingly white grin spread below the man’s aviators.
“Realtor? You waiting for one?”
For the past half hour. “He’s late.” Char went up on her tiptoes, craning her neck to peer down the street for the tenth time, but the avenue was still empty. She tsked under her breath. She should’ve taken time after her run to change out of her skimpy running shorts, she thought, reaching discreetly around to give the hems a yank down over her butt. And her Mercedes looked more than a little conspicuous in this neighborhood.
Where was he? She pulled her cell out of her bag to call the Realtor back. But something about the imposing stranger was distracting her, demanding another look. “Have we met?” She squinted, lowering her own shades an inch.
He turned sideways without answering and examined the nondescript building, and when he did, his profile gave him dead away.
Oh my god. Char’s breath caught, but he didn’t notice. His whole focus was on the real estate. She’d just seen that face smiling out from the People magazine at the market over on Solano when she’d picked up some last-minute items for tonight’s party.
“What have you got planned for the place?” he asked, totally unself- consciously.
Then she recovered. To the rest of the world, he was Hollywood’s latest It Man. But to Char, he was just another actor. Who happened to have a really great dentist.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I asked first.”
Though she wasn’t at all fond of actors, her shoulders relaxed a little. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get raped out here in broad daylight by the star of First Responder. It was still in theaters, for heaven’s sake. He couldn’t afford the press.
Still. This building was perfect. And it’d been sitting here empty for the past three years. Just her luck that another party would be interested, right when Char was finally in a position to inquire about it.
To Char’s relief, a compact car with a real estate logo plastered from headlights to tailpipe pulled up and a guy in his early thirties bounded out with an abundance of nervous energy.
“This business is insane,” he said by way of introduction. “Dude calls me from a drive-by and wants me to show it to him, like, now, right? So I drop everything, even though I’m swamped with this new development all the way over on Industrial Drive. And then he doesn’t show up till quarter of—”
He caught himself, pasted on a proper smile, and extended his hand toward It Man.
“Bill Diamond. And you’re Mister . . . ?”
“McBride.” The actor shook his hand, then turned and sauntered back to the building with his hands on his hips and his eyes scrutinizing its roofline.
“Ryder McBride?” asked Diamond. “The Ryder McBride? Oh!” A smile overspread his face. “Cool! Very cool. Nice to meet you, man.” He nodded once for emphasis.
Char stepped up, removing her sunglasses and slipping them over the deep V of her racer-back tee.
“Hi.” She thrust out her arm. “I’m—”
The Realtor’s eyes grew even wider, as his hand reached for hers. “I know who you are . . . . Chardonnay St. Pierre.”
He was still holding on when Char’s ph
one vibrated in her other palm. One glance at the screen and she sighed.
“Excuse me.”
But Diamond didn’t let go.
“I’ve got to take this,” she repeated, pronouncing each syllable slow and clear. She gave a little tug, and he came to, his fingers relaxing. “It’s my little sister.”
She ducked her chin and pressed answer.
“Where are you?” Meri’s voice sounded tense.
“Downtown.”
“You’ve got to come meet Savvy and me. Papa’s in jail.”
Bill Diamond was still gaping when Char dropped her phone into her shoulder bag.
“I’m so sorry. Something important’s come up and I have to run.”
Like a guy who’d come to expect disappointment at every turn, his face fell. “Oh.”
Char felt a stab of empathy.
“Did you want to reschedule?” His brows shot up hopefully.
It was a given. But right now concern for her family eclipsed everything else. “I’ll have to call you.”
As she turned to go, Ryder spoke up.
“I’m staying. Mind showing me around?”
Char stopped in her tracks halfway to her car and glared back at him. She thought he’d barely noticed her. But she’d swear his broad grin was designed purely to tease.
“Excuse me? This is my Realtor.”
“Ah, actually . . . ” Bill cleared his throat, looked at the ground, and then back up at her. “I work for the seller.”
“But I’m the one who called you to meet me here,” she insisted.
He looked from Char to Ryder and back as he juggled his options, then shrugged. “But you’re leaving.”
Char’s thoughts raced. She hated to leave those two here together, to cook up some deal to steal the building out from under her, but she had no choice. “Fine. Bill, I’ll be in touch,” she called, climbing into her car, then pulling out of the lot a little too fast.
A Taste of Sauvignon Page 21
