Cabernet Zin (The Southern California Wine Country Series)

by J Gordon Smith

  Zack came close and put his hand around her, turning her slightly. Tears rolled down her face. “I can assure you I had nothing to do with the lost dog, officer.”

  Claire moved away, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Zack took a step toward her, “I don’t know how to help if you don’t tell me what is going on.”

  “Family stuff.” She wiped her tears away. “You don’t need to hear it.”

  “You can tell me. Maybe I can suggest something – or just listen.” He took another step toward her. “But I have to warn you I might try to fix it.”

  Claire showed a brave smile. “No. I’ve got it.” She wiped her face on her shirt sleeve. “Why don’t you not let me interrupt your work and I’ll hang out here with you.”

  “That doesn’t sound too fun for you.”

  “You’re helping though.” Claire rubbed at her face to wipe new tears away.

  Zack put his gloves on and said, “Why don’t you come over here and I’ll show you how to trim the vines.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Here –” Zack stood behind her facing the trellis that dripped with fluttering dark green leaves and nearly hidden bunched grapes behind them. He placed his arms around her. “Slide your hands in my gloves and put your fingers against mine.” Zack started moving along the vine touching leaves with one hand and trimming stems with the other. It was awkward at first, they both laughed, but Claire quickly moved fluidly with him as if they ballroom danced. Zack loved the feel of her body against his, her warmth, how her arms touched and moved with his, and the smell of her so close, intoxicating. The sun lowered, casting longer and longer shadows over the field. How her graceful neck moved so close within range of his lips. He leaned …, stopped inches from her skin, and pulled back. He took a deep breath. “You are a natural at this trimming task.”

  Claire slipped her hands from his gloves and turned into him. Her fingers came to his face as if she strained against a wall. “How much do you have left to finish?”

  “I told our field foreman I’d get as far as the end of this row. I thought I might carry on into a few more for good measure though.”

  “Now that I know what to do. How about I finish?”

  “And what would you have me do?” Zack searched her face but no hints came.

  “Get a bottle of wine from the winery and meet me at the top of that hill? I saw them setting up a wedding at the winery when I was asking for you. I’d like to see some of the reception without actually crashing it, since we are not really dressed for it.”

  “It’s a big June wedding so it’s been busy over there - a very popular time at the winery.”

  “Hey Martin, put a bottle on my account.” Zack held up one of the old slower selling blends from the prior year.

  “Zack, I’ll put it down because we are required to track the entire inventory, but I’m not worried about you paying. You’ve spent all day out in that field. I really appreciate the help.” Martin came closer to Zack, “You’ve been helping so much … I’ve been talking with a few of the others on the management committee and we all agree that we need to pay you something. It won’t be a lot but maybe we can cover the hotel room you’re at?”

  “That would be nice, Martin. You know, I’ve been using the work here as a cheap psychiatrist.”

  Martin laughed, “Can’t have idle hands.”

  Zack slid a pair of wine glasses in the back pockets of his pants, smiling to himself at remembering a movie where the romantic lead fell on similar pocketed wine glasses and was injured the rest of the movie. He walked past the rows where he had left Claire trimming and she had gone. He panicked. He looked to the dirt and saw her footprints leave the end of the row toward the winery complex. He thought about exploring for her but decided he had better go to their meeting place and wait or else they could both be needlessly searching. Especially in the darkness, that now hovered over the vineyard. A few brighter stars sparkled overhead.

  “I’m over here.”

  Zack ducked under the lowest trellis tension wires of several rows crossing up the hill toward her voice. He found Claire sitting on a wide blanket. The top of the hill held an old, fragrant grapefruit tree and several newly planted olive trees placed there to see if the winery might offer fancy olive oils in future years. The hill was too sharp to run grape trellises over without posts being pulled out elsewhere down the slope. The same ground cover planted down the rows of the vineyard topped the hill between the trees.

  “I just saw the limo roll around the drive. The couple is getting out.”

  “I like the blanket.”

  “It’s my emergency car blanket,” she didn’t mention that the blanket was a gift from her father nor that he had given it to protect her in an emergency. She couldn’t hold back all of her tears. Zack saw how the drops leaped from the edges of her lashes like cliff divers disappearing into the surf and how she clenched her hands until they went away. He wanted to ask or say something but he did not know how. He took his boots and socks off and walked on the blanket with his bare feet. Claire pulled the hammer loop on the side of his overalls and he knelt down, almost forgetting – “Hey, I almost broke these.” He pulled the wine glasses out of his pockets.

  “That would have been bad. I saw Sabrina a dozen times when I was young, that injury enabled his brother to get the girl.”

  “I saw that movie, too.” Zack held out the goblets, “Hold these.” He took out his pocket knife and used the corkscrew, twisting it with expert speed into the stopper. He gripped the bottle tight and pulled roughly on the cork. It loosened in halting fits, wiggled and encouraged, until it came to the top. “Now listen for it.”

  “Listen for what?”

  “This.” The bottle popped as the cork came from it, the sound echoing across the quiet vineyard and against the hills. “That’s a wonderful sound.”

  “That is a great sound.” Claire wiggled the glasses in her hands, “Now pour me some wine.”

  Zack filled the two goblets more than half way. He took the cork, twisted it back down into the mouth of the bottle, and set it aside upright next to the vines. He took a glass from Claire and clinked it against hers, “To … you. I feel fortunate you’re here.”

  Claire touched Zack’s arm with her light fingers, their eyes meeting over the wine, “I’m fortunate you’re here too.”

  Flashing strobes from dozens of cameras lighted the night around the winery plucking their attention away. The lucky couple ran inside among their friends. The band played on the patio while the staff served dinner across the tables spread in the tasting room, the conference banquette spaces in the wings, and the patio. “That is the largest wedding I’ve ever seen.”

  Claire nodded.

  “Would you like a snack?” Zack held a paper bag that Claire had not noticed in the darkness. He opened it and fragrant food wafted out. “Debra gave me a care package from the kitchen.”

  They ate and drank the wine.

  “This wine is really good, Zack.”

  The reception dinner cleared and the band consolidated everyone around the dance floor. The volume went up and dancers pressed tight across the dance floor flailing in a surging mass to the hammering beat. The music rushed across the vineyard and up their hill.

  “That is a really huge wedding,” Zack said.

  Claire said, “That’s what I thought too. How many guests do you estimate?”

  “I cheated. Debra told me there are nearly a thousand guests.”

  “Wow. That’s why they are spilling all over the grounds.”

  “My wedding had three hundred and it was a lot, I thought.”

  “I bet it was nice.”

  “Could have been. Lydia was mad the whole afternoon about something. I should have taken it as a sign. I should have walked out of the ceremony right there. It would have saved a lot of heartache.”

  “You must have had some good times?”

  “A few. We did have fun. But it turned in
to a slog.”

  “Did a part of you love her?”

  “I thought so, but constant fighting, the abrasive arguments about everything, and anger over years ground any feelings out – replacing them with indifference, dread, and despair.”

  “I think if you have True Love – then it all works out.”

  “Like the movies? True Love only exists at twenty-four frames per second.”

  “You just haven’t found True Love, yet,” Claire leaned her shoulder against his.

  “Maybe not.” Zack took a long sip of his wine. The flavor coursed across his tongue and the vapors of alcohol bent up through his nose in a comfortable burn. The breeze swirled around and brought Claire’s delicious scent to him. He closed his eyes and held the delicateness balanced on his senses. Meeting Claire had unlocked something in him. Did he find True Love? He opened his eyes and gazed across the wedding.

  Claire watched Zack’s eyes as he looked at the wedding before them but she could tell he looked somewhere else in place and time. The flickering light from the winery brushed a ruddy trace across Zack’s features. She wanted to kiss him, press her burning lips against his, her body urged her on, but she held back.

  Zack’s gaze came to Claire. No words passed between them. Neither knew what to say or how to move. Too much going on, pressing on their thoughts, keeping them back from one another other.

  Zack broke with, “How has your car been running?”

  Claire tore her eyes from his, “Fine. Burns oil. I have to check it every week.”

  Claire rested her hand on Zack’s thigh. She leaned toward him. The surge at her nerve endings rose and crashed like the ocean surf. Her lips parted. Soft and inviting.

  Zack wavered toward Claire and her intoxicating presence. He reached to her face and ran his fingers thickly through her hair, freeing misbehaving strands that fluttered in the breeze. He leaned in.

  Claire wrapped her arm around his neck increasing the pressure between them. They kissed and forgot about the scent of grapefruit, the whispering ground cover, and the music from across the winery. Zack’s gentle touch strummed her nerves. Her back arched toward him and pressed her breasts comfortably against him. He moved his lips across her cheek, along her jaw, and then high on her neck. Claire’s eyelids fluttered as the pleasure moved throughout her. His fingertips caressed the little hollow in her lower back, a light touch that tingled like a growing shiver but turned luxurious and firm. Pleasure warmed and coursed through her forcing her body to melt against him like smooth chocolate between hot fingers. Her body ached for him.

  Mixed among the pounding dance music from the winery came a boiling and rushing patter. Light drips like rain against dusty stones flipped into the dirt to each side of them. Pressure built, preparing the first volley of opposing revolutionary era armies aligned against each other up to the top edge of the elevation. The battle forces flanked every side of the hill.

  Zack’s lips returned to Claire’s seeking ragged passion. Claire nudged Zack back against the blanket.

  The hiss of ignited fuses and lines of liquid musket powder snaked along every row of vines and burst into the air drowning the music. The trellis irrigation pipes sprayed water from every direction like musket and cannon fire, bursts into the night air dowsing the whole hill in the wet drippy gray fog of war. Pipes connecting the small olive trees with their own water supply blasted all around Claire and Zack.

  “Ah!” Claire shrieked. They tumbled forward and threw the blanket over their heads as some sort of ineffective umbrella. The irrigation sprayed from every direction flooding the world and blinding them in the battle. They shoved their feet into their muddying shoes, scooped up their things and raced down the hill, laughing. Zack stopped Claire in the middle of the field, holding the blanket, dripping around them and kissed her again. Claire forgot about the wet spraying world and pulled Zack to her. When Zack dropped the blanket, lost as he was in her, Claire laughed and hurried back to her car.

  They stood in the parking lot near Claire’s car away from the wet spray. Dry dust coated their muddy shoes. She opened the trunk and threw the soggy blanket in where it slapped down on the trunk liner in a pooling pile.

  Zack said, “The vineyard must be on a timer.”

  “You think?” Claire giggled, shaking out her arms and running her fingers through her hair. “Probably a sign that I should be home.”

  “Are you fine to drive?” Zack asked pointing to her empty wine glass.

  “I was only sipping. It’s all in the field. Sad really.” She swung the car door open and slid into the seat.

  “Did you want to come to my motel room?” Zack put out his hands, “Completely honorable. The building has a clothes dryer and the room a hot shower. Otherwise you’ve got an hour or so drive in itchy wet clothes.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Claire thought it only appropriate she was soaked. As if the vineyard protected Zack from her predations, a vampire that came to consume his soul. She shook her head. How could she be the hunter when she had fallen this hard for him? “The heater in the car warms up fast. I’ll cook the water out of my clothes on the way home.” She needed to burn the remains of the other feelings from her body too – urges the icy water had proven insufficient to flood away.

  When Claire put the window down, Zack said, “I enjoyed being here with you tonight.”

  She twisted the key in the ignition. The car idled rough and labored moving itself from the parking space. “Bye Zack, I had fun tonight … too.” Claire flipped the heater’s knob to roasting and accelerated along the wide blacktop of Rancho California road.

  Chapter 13

  Zack woke in his house to the sounds of heavy cold rain and the absence of another particular sound. Lightning flashed outside transforming the night into a ghostly apparition of the day. Hollows in the lawns of his neighbors pooled with water that came too fast for the sewers and ditches to remove. The downspouts off his house rattled as a full load rushed through them. Still, too much water fell on the roof for the downspouts and the excess roiled over the edges of the eve troughs. Zack didn’t hear the sump pump that should be clicking on and off like a mad pirate crew bailing and struggling against the inevitable sinking of their wounded vessel. He jumped off the couch and went to the kitchen. The microwave clock was dark and dead. The power at the house was off! He grabbed a flashlight from the cabinet, clicked it on, and only saw a dull glow as the bulb faded. He shook it and the light remained off. He unscrewed the top and poured the batteries into his fingers. A flash of lightning showed him the crusty leakage around the rim of the top battery. He dropped the dead battery on the counter. He specifically bought new batteries for the light so it would be ready and tested it last month. He rummaged in the dark cabinet for the rest of the battery pack and found them. He scraped the crust from the bottom of the bulb with his thumbnail and shoved the batteries into the unit. When he touched the button, the light burst bright and piercing.

  He trudged down the basement stairs but his feet splashed in icy water before he reached the bottom. He shined the flashlight at the stairway below him. Water covered the bottom three steps. He swept the light across the floor and saw his two couches floating, pushed slightly askew as they came up with the swirling water. His mind raced. He hurried back up the steps and opened the closet. His father’s old fishing waders hung in the back. He put the boots on and went down the steps. Another crash of lightning burst outside. The flash and boom within microseconds. He waded through the water that filled their finished basement to the utility room where he opened the electrical panel. He flipped the main over. He didn’t want anything shorting out in this water. He ran his flashlight across the main room. The television hung on the wall above the flood line. He unplugged it and hung the cord over its top edge so it could drip dry. He went into his office and his computer swam under the water. He lifted it up and set it on top of a box on top of his desk that sat under several inches of water where it drained like a sieve. All the papers, eve
rything on his desk, were under water. All his file cabinets with work and personal records sat submerged and soaked through. He slid open the closets and storage room doors and saw how all their holiday things, toys, boxes of excess clothes for the kids swelled with the water and burst in soggy lumps. Boxes of things they moved here, and had not unpacked yet, sagged in wet piles; the water wicked up higher than the flood line. Those boxes could hold anything from memories to useful things – but all destroyed. Everything under water.

  Zack trudged back to the utility room and looked down the list of circuits. The sump pump was on its own line. He flipped that circuit off then back on. Then he went down all the other circuits and made sure everything was off. He looked up through the glass block windows hoping to see a street light. Between the lightning flashes, he saw only darkness. Then he glimpsed a pale orange flicker as the street light glowed with weak determination. He watched it go from feeble and thin to bright and strong – a beacon staving back the black night. He rechecked that all circuits except the pump remained off and then he threw the main.

  The pipe from the pump gurgled as it started up. The pump whined and growled as it fought against the water and bubbling air caught in its throat. Then like a banshee, it hit full speed and pulled at the water. Zack hoped the pump could keep ahead of the incoming water as the rain still splashed from the sky. He could think of nothing more to do. He sloshed back to the stairs and out of the basement. His father’s waders squeaked on the dry steps. He shut off the flashlight and left the waders flopped on the boot mat. He sat in the big stuffed chair where his bare feet felt the hum of the pump through the floor as it continued drawing the water away. All of their old photos. His little bits of life on the computer. The trinkets of their lives drowned. He thought it fitting.

  Grace waddled out of her room with a blanket in one hand and her hair pointed in every direction. She stood looking at Zack for a moment sucking her thumb. Zack said, “It’s the middle of the night, you need to go back to bed.”