“You okay, baby?” he asked, low enough so that only she could hear.
She gave him a dazed-looking nod.
“Ice,” he yelled to the bartender, his voice cracking. He caught the plastic bag midair even as he ducked his head to cough again.
“C’mon.”
The cops would be there any minute. He snatched one of Char’s hands, pressed the crunchy cold icepack into her other one, then used his body to carve a path toward the door, dragging her behind.
To hell with the team.
And if she wanted to sue him later for socking her, she could. But right now all he could think of was getting her out of there, out of the public eye.
As Ryder hauled her through the parking lot toward his pickup, the wail of a distant siren grew louder by the second.
He swung open the passenger door, stuffed her in, and sprinted around to the driver’s side.
“What about my car?”
“Throw me your keys. I’ll drive you up to get it tomorrow, after the race. Or, if you’re tied up, I’ve got two kid brothers who’d love to get their hands on a CL-Class.”
“This is all my fault,” she said as the truck lurched over the curb and turned south on 29. “I was avoiding you tonight, but that was wrong. We need to talk. . . .”
A sickening shame washed over her as she faced the inevitability of discussing Papa’s connection to the migrant camp fire.
But Ryder’s thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
“Just keep that ice on your face while I get us out of here.”
Gingerly, she touched the coolness to her cheekbone. She couldn’t decide which hurt most: the bruise, the ice, or the fact that gossip about Papa had ruined the prerace supper for everyone.
A single black-and-white car, lights flashing, passed them going in the opposite direction.
“Thanks,” she said in a subdued voice.
“You can’t afford any more notoriety.”
Char lowered the ice pack and turned to him. “How do you know?”
Here it came. She braced herself for his accusations.
When he didn’t respond, she asked more sharply, “What about my notoriety?”
It was making her crazy, not knowing what he knew.
In the dark, he sighed audibly.
“My mom told me some stuff. She’s lived in Napa city all her life. She knows everyone. Hears everything.”
“Like what, exactly?” Char braced herself for the worst, taking scant comfort in the idea that he couldn’t be that outraged, or he wouldn’t be here, driving her home. Or—to wherever they were headed.
“It’s not important.” Whatever dreck he’d heard, he was downplaying it. That much was for sure.
“How’s your cheek? Keep that ice on it.”
“Just tell me what you’ve heard. I’ll tell you which parts are true or not.”
He slid down the windows, letting in the night air—unusually balmy for early June—and combed his fingers through his hair.
Char sat stiffly, waiting. But after a few minutes, the steady whoosh of tires on pavement helped normalize her heart rate, and her spine relaxed a bit. There, in the shadowy cab of his truck, his striking good looks were obscured. And he couldn’t see her, either . . . or her top-of-the-line running shoes . . . her one-of-a-kind silver jewelry. For the moment, he wasn’t an egotistical movie star, and she wasn’t an empty-headed heiress. For just this moment, she could almost pretend they were ordinary people with ordinary lives.
And ordinary, if powerful, feelings.
She nursed a perverse hope that he might still be aware of her rose perfume, even with the cross breeze from the open windows diluting it.
“Okay. To start, Mom said you were pretty well known around here.”
Char rolled her eyes and made a face, though it was useless in the gloom.
“You can do better than that. You want some help? How’s this: I have four living male relatives, and all of them have been in jail at least once. Even as we speak, my cousin is locked up in the drug treatment facility in Corcoran.
“The last time Papa was arrested was just last week, for shooting at an eagle on our property—I know you heard about that,” she added with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Props to Miranda. Is that enough? Hold on, ’cause I’m just getting started. Maman left us for some lowlife player when I was ten and got herself killed in a car crash down in South America. My sisters and I were sent packing, all the way across the country. And ever since, Papa’s been an active member of the tramp-of-the-month club.”
That last remark made Ryder laugh, which led to a coughing spasm.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded vigorously but couldn’t yet speak.
Then Char remembered.
“The fire alarm, when you tore off in the middle of your run yesterday! We saw you and your team, hightailing it back to your cars . . . and then you were on the evening news, fighting that brushfire.”
He snorted. “That’s the press for you—making it all about one part-time firefighter. Did the reporter even talk to the chief?”
“You didn’t see the news?”
“I told you before, it’s not like I google myself every morning.”
He took a swig from the water bottle in the console, which calmed his windpipe.
“How are you going to run tomorrow with that sore throat?”
Dark as it was, she sensed his droll smile from the way his chin rose.
“Best you worry about yourself, little lady,” he said in a bad John Wayne imitation. “Team Chardonnay’s gonna get an ass-kicking tomorrow.”
He was being incredibly generous, using humor to let her off the hook before she’d confessed the most damning part of her lurid family history.
“Are you talkin’ trash to me?” she teased back.
“I’m dead serious. I just run for fun. But Dan runs an eight-minute mile. He’s my main man.”
And now, to her disappointment, they were almost at her house.
He turned right at the tasteful “Domaine St. Pierre” sign.
So. He was taking her home. This was the first time they’d ever been truly alone together, and now it was ending.
Despite the disaster at Diablo, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so gloriously alive.
Chapter 21
Ryder paused at a fork in the drive. Mercedes, BMWs, and Range Rovers clogged the right branch.
“Looks like Papa’s party’s still going full swing. Take a left.”
He turned the wheel toward the business side of the winery, now deserted, his headlights picking out neatly lettered signs: Visitors’ Parking, Production Facilities, Caves, and Gardens.
It was an unlikely time for a tour.
Char pointed to a large outbuilding. “You can park behind there.” He pulled up next to a tractor and cut the engine.
“Sorry, but I wasn’t ready to go in the house yet.”
“And . . . you also didn’t want to take me in.”
She paused. “Yes,” she admitted. “I mean, no. I mean, I don’t know.”
Ryder snorted softly. “You think I have paps in there?” He had his pride, too.
She dismissed that with a disillusioned look, then turned toward the open window and inhaled deeply. “It’s a beautiful night. Smell the honeysuckle? Let’s get out.”
An errant flame of anticipation sparked inside him. She started down a path, and he found himself trotting after her like a Pomeranian behind a Beverly Hills socialite.
“These are chardonnay vines,” she said, fingering a branch. “There’s no fruit on them yet, just these tiny green berries. Did you know that even white wine comes from purple grapes?”
“Not much of a drinker. Just a beer now and then.”
His eyes were already adjusting to the dark. The limbs on a single peach tree were silhouetted black against a moon that was close to full.
Char reached back and took his hand. “Come on. I want to show you somethin
g.”
They hiked through a neat furrow, across the field and up a rise, where she stopped and gazed back on the mansion and the ribbon of highway below.
“This is the heart of our chardonnay plantings. The very center of a tiny microclimate. The terroir here is different from that even one hectare away—right across the road. Those blocks are planted in merlot. Up there”—she pointed north—“is cab.”
“All vineyards look the same to me, even in broad daylight.”
He planted his hands on his hips and peered out on the moonlit scenery.
“Who taught you about grapes? Your dad?”
She huffed. “Hardly. Jorge, our vineyard manager, started giving me some pointers a long time ago. Before I was sent away.”
“Must have been tough—being uprooted like that.”
“Children don’t have a choice, do they? They have to take whatever fate hands them. I suppose that’s what drew me to my work with migrant kids.”
He went quiet, thinking about children and fate.
And fires.
“View’s impressive,” he admitted.
“When my sisters and I were small, the vineyard was our playground. Neither of our parents were around much, and the au pairs they hired were barely out of their teens, so we were left to run wild, out here in the middle of nowhere. Even then, I knew it was magical. But it didn’t last. There were lots of lonely nights at prep school—even college—when I worried I’d never find my way back.”
“Tell me about your mom,” he said.
Char gazed out at the stars. Where to start? How much to tell?
“I’ve been asked about her a million times. Have you seen any of her movies?”
“Who hasn’t? Fairmount Park is a classic.”
“Then you’ve seen her film persona. Cool—as in distant. I wish I could tell you she was warm and fuzzy off-screen. It’s not that she was mean; she loved us in her own aloof way. Maman was already in her late twenties and famous before she ever came to the states, married Papa, and got pregnant. She was the only child of a much older couple—what used to be called a midlife baby. So along with that natural French reserve, she’d been pampered all her life. She never really learned how to nurture.”
He felt a stab of empathy, as much for her actual history as for the pitiful excuse she’d made up to absolve her mom from being a poor parent.
“Papa always had a thing for actors. Still does.”
“Is that why you don’t like them?” he asked.
She looked taken aback.
“You made it pretty clear, the night we met.”
She considered before replying. “There are actors, and then there are actors. Let’s just say that most of the ones I’ve known were only looking out for themselves. What about your mom?” she asked.
That caught him off guard. Suddenly, he decided his mom was perfect—warts and all—compared to Char’s.
“She’s a good mom. No complaints. A little overprotective at times, but then she has to be. . . .”
They were headed toward dangerous territory. All well and good for him to feel sorry for someone else, but he hated being the object of pity himself. Because of that, he rarely opened up about what had happened seven years ago.
Ryder’s head turned back toward the ridges, but his vision turned inward. He had just turned nineteen when it happened. Too young to have considered researching the ownership of the Southside Migrant Camp, even if he hadn’t just taken on the sudden burden of becoming the man of the family. There’d been more immediate concerns than going after blame.
At Mom’s insistence, he’d gone on to San Jose State, as planned. It wasn’t easy, carrying a full class load and working, but he got through two and a half years. Thanks to his academic scholarship, tuition wasn’t a problem, and he had tons of friends for moral support.
Then, the day before the special mass honoring the third anniversary of Dad’s death, he’d come home early to find his mom still at work and the mailbox stuffed with late notices. When he laid them out before her, she broke down and admitted it. The insurance money from the fire was running out, and they were barely getting by. She hadn’t wanted him to know—had wanted him to focus on his education. But things had been spiraling out of control for a long time. The house was near to foreclosure . . .
Ryder shook his head to clear his thoughts. All of that was in the past now.
Tell him. He doesn’t read the headlines. Tell him now that Papa owned that camp where his dad got killed.
As Char watched Ryder, staring out over the fields and scattered lights of the Napa Valley, she knew this was the time. But she let her second chance slip away. Because at that very same moment, looking at his easy stance outlined by the moon, it hit her—what it was that had made Ryder an overnight success in show business.
It was his unself-conscious exterior, blended with a genuinely caring soul. His body was fit and relaxed, while his mind was thoughtful . . . determined . . . magnanimous, creating an intoxicating contrast. No wonder women from twelve to one hundred and twelve were so hot for him.
“All this,” she murmured, eyeing him from behind, “and a firefighter?”
If he heard her, he didn’t let on. But then, his modesty was part of his charm. It was clear he put others before himself. He’d decked his own team member tonight to defend one of Char’s, and then whooshed her away from prying eyes. Helping others was his real talent.
She took a step, closing the distance between them. A twig snapped underfoot, and he swiveled around from the hip.
He pointed east, to the opposite side of the valley. “Those hills look like a pod of humpback whales, don’t they?”
“ ‘America’s Eden,’ ” purred Char. “Napa’s nickname.”
There atop the ridge, the night was warm and blue and still. But Char wasn’t looking at the topography any longer.
From behind, she placed her hands on his shoulders, her stack of spaghetti-thin bracelets tinkling.
He turned fully then, and the moon illuminated his hazel eyes. A lock of brown hair curved perfectly across his forehead.
Seemingly of their own accord, her arms twined around his neck.
His hands found her waist, and she trembled. From his contrived PR kisses—was that only two weeks ago?—she already knew that their bodies fit together perfectly.
Tenderly, he touched her cheek again where he’d inadvertently hit it. Then he brushed his lips across it.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered.
“Not anymore.”
“Doesn’t look real swollen.” He squinted. “If we’re lucky, you won’t even bruise. Did I say I was sorry?”
“Apology accepted,” she breathed.
Her guilt tried to pry its relentless head between them. It was she who owed him an apology. At the very least, an explanation. But she pushed it away yet again, unwilling to spoil the moment.
Melting into his eyes, her fingers traveled up to caress his nape. She dropped her gaze to his mouth in a blatant invitation.
Ryder’s thumb stroked her lower lip. He pulled her in closer until their bodies met, and he looked into her upturned face. Sliding his hand behind her jaw to support her head, he closed his eyes and kissed her in a way that wasn’t meant for any camera. This was an intimate, lingering kiss that searched and probed her to her very depths. When he’d exhausted all the possibilities at one angle, his nose moved to the other side of hers, and he started all over again.
An overwhelming euphoria sluiced through Char, finally tugging her swollen lips into an uncontrollable smile. She tucked her chin and spit out a sound that was half laugh, half gasp.
“What?” he asked, his eyes now dark with ardor.
“I’m just so happy,” she beamed. “Happy to be with Ryder McBride. The man, not the movie star.”
He smiled too then and pressed his forehead against hers.
“Well, I’m happy to be with Char St. Pierre. The woman, not the heiress.”
She glanced up, and the mood changed yet again. Their smiles faded as she slipped her hand beneath his shirt, sliding it across the warm, smooth skin of his back.
He responded in kind, and she reveled in the feel of his large hands spanning her bare torso. He brought one around, slid his fingers under her bra, and kneaded her nipple into a bud.
Char held her breath. His other hand unclasped her bra on the first try like a seasoned pro, but she was beyond caring how many starlets he’d probably bedded in the past year.
Her breasts freed, Ryder took possession of them. He left her mouth and tucked his head to wash first one nipple, then the other with a broad stroke of his tongue through the thin knit of her shirt, making them pucker even tighter. Her eyes closed, her head fell back, and a moan escaped from her throat into the summer night sky.
Char grasped the hem of her sweater and yanked it over her head.
Ryder’s tongue swirled and painted her naked breasts as he molded them in his hands. He explored her shoulder blades, spine, and waist, down over the curves of her hips to her jeans. Bringing his mouth back to hers, his splayed fingertips dug into her behind, pressing her body into his. Instinctively she rocked against him, feeling the hard, male ridge along her belly, thrilling to her effect on him.
He held her close, one hand still planted on her rear, the other tangling her hair, the sound of their breath coming fast and hard.
His voice was hoarse in her ear. “I’m awake, right? This is happening.”
Char stifled a giggle. She was snogging Ryder McBride. And he thought he was the lucky one?
She smiled. “It’s happening.”
“Say when,” Ryder warned.
“What do you mean?”
“Say the word and we’ll stop.”
Fired up as he was, he couldn’t take her here, among the vines, where there wasn’t so much as a tree to lean up against or a blanket to lie on. Especially their first time. Because if there was going to be a first time, he’d make damn sure it was good enough for her to come back for seconds.
“I don’t want to stop.”
His mind was screaming foul, but his body was already revving in third gear.
A Taste of Chardonnay Page 11
