Too Close to the Sun

by Dempsey, Diana

  "That's a risk we'll have to take," he said, finality in his voice. "We need to satisfy Suncrest's longtime customer base. And to do that we have to keep the two main varieties of wine that Suncrest has always made as unchanged as possible. That necessitates retaining the current winemakers."

  After that, the discussion veered onto less controversial territory. Will told himself that his forcefulness on the winemaker issue was entirely a function of good business sense.

  That's what he told himself.

  *

  The breakfast of champions, Gabby thought, standing beside a fermentation tank swishing baby cabernet in her mouth. She bent and spit it out, rose to check the tank's digital-red temperature reading, then carefully wrote 81 in her notebook, alongside the tank number, the date, and the hour. The digits took their place in neat, steadily lengthening columns, little numeric soldiers goose-stepping down the page.

  As they had most of her life, the winemaking rituals gave Gabby comfort. They allowed her to move through her day without giving much thought to anything: first do this, then do that, then do the next thing. She would intersperse these automatic tasks with simple pleasures, things she knew would soothe her soul in small ways, massage around the edges of the big ache. She made a point of taking her mug of morning coffee outside the house for the sheer joy of feeling dawn's cool air on her face. She treated herself to a daily pastry from Dean and DeLuca and didn't lament long if she failed to balance it with a workout. She loaded up on escapist novels and in the evenings disappeared into fictional lives, where she could feel confident that everyone's problems would handily work themselves out by The End.

  She had no idea how her own difficulties would find solutions. Time, she supposed, would do most of the trick. Time, enough of it, would scab over the loss of Will, though the hole would always be there. Time would sever her official ties with Suncrest, though exactly how it would happen remained a mystery. She knew she wouldn't leave before her father did, because she refused to abandon him to all the changes the winery would undergo, most of which he would hate. When he was ready to walk away, she'd follow. But not before.

  She was hosing down the floor around the tanks when her father came to find her. "It's Hannah," he said without preamble. "She wants to see us in Mr. Winsted's office."

  Gabby turned off the hose, tossed it aside. "What about?"

  Her father shook his head. Gabby knew he wasn't overly fond of the new CEO, either. To them, the fact that Hannah Harper had presided over a jug wine operation was hardly a recommendation. Yet, apparently it was to Will.

  She trailed after her father as he trod slowly up the stairs. He looked tired these days, and did things he never had before. Like count the hours until five o'clock, when in the past no one in the family could get him away from the winery. On weekends he wouldn't go in unless he had to. His heart wasn't in it anymore, Gabby knew. Neither was hers.

  Hannah waved them inside Mr. Winsted's office. "Come in, come in. Sit down." Her smile flared, then evaporated just as fast. Hannah struck Gabby as an older, less charming version of Dagney. Her efforts to be winning were even more cursory, but maybe her elevated position on the corporate ladder required less.

  When they were all arrayed on the tartan sofas, Hannah leaned forward with an earnest expression. "I want to reassure the two of you about your futures here at Suncrest. I value your work very highly and look forward to a long and productive work relationship with both of you."

  She stopped, gazed at them with brows raised expectantly. She thinks we're thrilled, Gabby thought. She expects us to gush with gratitude. If she only knew.

  "Well, Hannah," Gabby's father said, "I appreciate that, and I know my daughter does as well." He patted Gabby's knee as if to preclude any ill-advised remarks. Gabby remained dutifully silent, though she practically had to bite her tongue to manage it.

  Hannah bestowed another fleeting smile. "So many exciting things are going to happen here at Suncrest. I know you'll enjoy being a part of them." She cleared her throat. "Cosimo, there is one matter I would appreciate your handling for me."

  "And what is that?"

  "We'll be bringing in a new vineyard manager, someone I've worked with a great deal in the past and think very highly of. What I would—"

  "You're demoting Felix?" Gabby heard herself say.

  Again Hannah's brows shot up. She seemed affronted that one of her new employees had the temerity to interrupt her. "Actually, we're letting him go."

  No. This time Gabby's father spoke, his tone disbelieving. "Excuse me, Hannah, you're firing Felix?"

  "I'd rather not use that word." Of course not, Gabby thought, you want to use some euphemism. No wonder Will had hired this woman. She was just like him.

  "Cosimo," Hannah went on, "I know you've worked with Felix for many years. You have an enduring personal relationship. I believe the news would be better coming from you than from me."

  Silence. Gabby couldn't bear to look at her father's face. Felix. This bitch is firing Felix. Even worse, she wanted Gabby's father to fire him so she wouldn't have to do the dirty work herself.

  Gabby found her voice. "Felix has been here for 25 years. Ever since Mr. Winsted founded Suncrest. Just like my father, he's a good part of the reason this winery has been so successful, and that it now presents such an opportunity for you." Gabby paused to take a breath, noted the fierce light in Hannah's dark eyes, but did not let it stop her. "There is not a single vineyard manager in this valley who is better at his job, or more devoted to it, than Felix Rodriguez. It is absolutely unconscionable of you to fire him."

  Hannah looked as if she might spit fire, but her voice was ice cold. "I applaud your defense of your coworker, Gabriella. It is laudable. But the fact remains that this decision has been made. It has been made," she repeated, raising her voice over Gabby's objection. "And I have done you and your father a courtesy by giving you the option of informing Felix yourself. If you would rather pass on that opportunity—"

  "We have no intention—" Gabby started to say, but her father interrupted her.

  "No, Gabby," he said. "I will tell Felix."

  She was stunned. "Daddy . . ."

  "No, Gabriella." He lay a restraining hand on her knee. She couldn't stand the stoicism on his face, in his voice, when she knew that his heart was breaking. "I think it is better that Felix hear this from me."

  I'll call Will, she thought suddenly. I'll make him stop this. "All right," she told her father, and nodded at the despicable Hannah, whom she would dearly love to grind into Napa's dust with the wheels of her Jeep. "Then let's go," and she stood to leave.

  When they hit the bottom of the stairs, she whipped out her cell phone. She wished she didn't, but she still knew the number by heart. "I'm calling Will," she told her father. "He's Hannah's boss and he can tell her where to shove this idea of hers."

  They went out to the pebbled path so Gabby could put the call through. But according to Will's secretary, he was unavailable. That worried her. Maybe he's just dodging me, she thought. Maybe he knows about this Felix thing and that it's happening today and that I might try to get him to stop it. "Janine," she said into the phone, "can you pull him out of his meeting? This is important."

  "Gabby, I can't." She sounded apologetic. "It's the Monday partners meeting. I really can't. But it shouldn't last much longer."

  "Please have him call me." She repeated her cell number on the chance that Will had burned it from his memory. Then she snapped her phone shut. "We're not doing anything till I talk to Will," she told her father. "I'm sure I can get him to stop this," she added, though she wasn't sure in the least. But there was no pride involved here. She would beg if she had to.

  The sun traveled west across the sky, and still Will did not call. Gabby tried again, only to be informed by Janine that the partners meeting was over but that now Will was tied up on an international conference call. Are you sure he knows I'm trying to reach him? Yes, Janine was quite sure.

 
Shortly before five o'clock, Gabby saw Hannah corner her father. Afterwards he came to find Gabby in the barrel-aging room, looking older than she'd ever seen him. "I can't put it off," he told her. "Otherwise Hannah's going to do it. I can't let that happen. I have to talk to him, Gabby."

  She couldn't stop him. She watched him hail Felix as he came in on the tractor, watched him lead the other man down the long sloped drive that led to the Trail, where they might have something like privacy.

  With dread in her heart, Gabby stayed in the dark cocoon of the barrel-aging room, and through the open door spied on their two figures. She watched her father put an arm around Felix's shoulder, watched Felix pull a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and swipe at his face. All the while she cursed Will and the troubles he had wrought, wished she could turn back time, make life go differently, just a change here and there that would keep the people she loved safe and sound and happy.

  Her phone didn't ring.

  She was returning it to her pocket after checking its battery one more time when she happened to look up. She frowned when she realized the picture before her had changed. Now Felix was running up the drive toward the winery. Alone. His face twisted. She looked beyond him and let out a gasp. Her father was lying crumpled on the drive, nearly at the bronze gate where the two men had been standing, but now he was in a heap, unmoving.

  She raced out the door. Felix caught her halfway down the drive. He was panting, with tears on his cheeks. "He collapsed. He was telling me about my job, and then he said he felt light-headed and he collapsed. He just collapsed."

  Out came her cell again as she raced with Felix toward her father, punching in the emergency digits as her feet pounded the ground. No, with every step, no, no, no.

  With a plea to 911 to please hurry, she reached her father. She dropped to her knees beside his inert body and struggled to reconstruct the CPR lessons she and her mother had taken after his heart attack. Jumbled instructions crowded her mind. Listen for his breath. Not a whisper. Is there any movement in his chest? Nothing. Feel for his pulse. None.

  Oh, my God. Gabby jerked upright. His heart's stopped.

  At that moment her very world ceased spinning. The heart of the man who had given her life was still.

  No. She clenched her jaw and stared down at him, battling to maintain some kind of grip on herself. Give him mouth to mouth, her training reminded her, then do the chest compressions. With Felix kneeling beside her, she did what she could, relieved to have something she could try. Her movements felt jerky and awkward; thoughts swooped around her brain in a delirium of fear and crazy hope. Lay one palm on the bottom of his sternum, the other crossways on top. One push every second. She counted off fifteen, then remembered to give him two breaths before continuing on.

  The ambulance came quickly, in a jarring blur of light and sound and motion. Curious eyes watched from cars slowing on the Trail as the paramedics bent over her father, yelled questions about what had happened, ripped his shirt open and lay paddles on his chest. They gave him the electric shock, shouting at everyone to stay clear, once, twice, then again, his body arching off the ground each time with a horrible shudder.

  Her cell rang. Fear, frustration, a desperate prayer to God to save her father one more time gathered in Gabby's chest as her clumsy fingers answered the call.

  It was Will. She didn't wait past the first word from him but shrieked into the phone, watching the paramedics lift her father's stretcher into the ambulance. "My father's having another attack! Hannah made him fire Felix and now he's having another attack." She couldn't stop herself from heaving the accusation that flew to her lips. "His heart stopped and it's because of you! It's because of you," she yelled. She slammed the phone shut and scrambled inside the ambulance after her father.

  As the ambulance sped toward the hospital, Gabby wedged herself into a tiny space behind the paramedics and willed her father to find the strength to survive. This was the worst possible thing that could have happened, the thing she'd been trying most to prevent. But still it had sneaked up, attacked her father like a mugger on the street.

  And, oh God, what she had just said to Will. She shut her eyes. It tore at her soul, how extremely cruel she'd been to him. Somewhere in her soul she knew Will wasn't to blame for her father's condition. He'd practically saved his life once, when they were only strangers. But anger and pain and desperate hurt had made her lash out at him, the very man who meant the most to her after her father.

  Out the ambulance window, the vineyards that Gabby loved rushed past in a blur of brown and green and gold.

  Chapter 19

  "Dammit!" Will slammed an open palm against his steering wheel. The car in front of him rolled to a stop at a yellow light, forcing Will to halt behind. All he could think as he sat pinned in Napa Valley's rush-hour traffic, stymied and nerve-racked, was that his fellow drivers on Highway 29 were conspiring to keep him from his goal. Which was Gabby and St. Helena Hospital.

  And, possibly, relief. How he longed to hear that Cosimo DeLuca was all right. But relief might not come, he knew. He might well get the opposite. Tragic news. Blame. Recrimination. A lengthening, deepening of the nightmare.

  After everything that had happened, now this. Another attack, Gabby had called it. But the words that had followed tore at his soul, fanned the flames of the guilt he couldn't quench. His heart stopped and it's because of you. It's because of you . . .

  Was it? Will's head said no but his heart didn't allow so clear-cut an answer. Certainly the doctors would attribute this cardiac episode to Cosimo's prior condition. But Will knew better. He knew the poor man's heart was broken. Will wasn't sure where he had gone wrong anymore. He just knew that he had and that he wasn't the only one paying for it. But he couldn't go back; none of them could. What was done was truly done.

  The light turned green. The white sedan ahead of him inched forward as if its tires were filled with lead. Will crawled along behind, nearly pushing into the infuriating car's bumper, willing the traffic to part in front of him.

  He hadn't thought for a moment about not going to the hospital. Though he dreaded what he might find when he arrived, he'd flown out of his office as if the devil were on his heels. A few times he'd called patient information from his car phone, but all he could get out of the on-duty nurse was that Cosimo DeLuca had been admitted to urgent care. Was Will a family member? No. Even in emergencies, he had a hard time lying. And the nurse wouldn't divulge much to a man who could only claim the ill-defined role of friend of the family.

  Will grimaced thinking of the phrase. In its own way, it was a lie. What kind of friend was Will to the DeLucas, really? True, he mouthed platitudes and sent flowers. But in the clutch, did he come through for them?

  I protected their jobs, he told himself. But how much did that count for now? It barely registered on the cosmic scale. It would go unremarked, unrewarded, while the sin of hiring Hannah Harper, who had put Cosimo DeLuca in an untenably stressful position, would be added to the litany of his transgressions.

  Maybe it deserved to be. Maybe it was unfair. Who knew anymore? And who cared? Not him. He no longer gave a flyer who got blamed for this or who got points for that. Keeping a balance sheet of good versus evil doings, which he'd spent a lot of time updating in recent weeks, was a small-minded, mean-spirited enterprise, beneath the man he tried to be. But lately he couldn't get past nursing a malevolent grudge. And for what? Did it make him happy? Did it give him intellectual satisfaction? Did it get him what he wanted? He couldn't even find an equation to weigh the importance of what he wanted against what he'd been focused on for so long.

  An opening appeared in the lane to Will's left. He veered into it and sped past the stop-at-every-yellow-light sedan. Finally, finally, he was making real headway. He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. 6:34. Cosimo DeLuca had been at the hospital about an hour. A lot could happen in that time.

  Will took a deep breath, maneuvered around another vehicle that had the ga
ll to clog the roads by moving at the official speed limit. Gabby's voice screeched in his head. His heart stopped. Because of you. The accusation cut at him, chipped at his beliefs about himself. He'd felt so much pain walking away from her, yet also a sort of soothing righteousness. She'd betrayed him; therefore, he was right to leave her. He'd taken a macabre satisfaction in the cool logic of it. He'd hardened his heart and shoved aside everything that didn't fit his own neat analysis of what had transpired. Including every single word that Gabby told him.

  Maybe she really had felt caught between him and her family. Maybe going to Vittorio really had been an agonizing choice. Surely if he knew one thing about this woman, it was that she was devoted to her family. Maybe she, unlike him, actually did the tough things her family needed. Maybe she, unlike him, didn't always choose for herself. Maybe she sacrificed for them, something Will had never even considered, let alone put into practice. He'd pushed her aside for reasons that now seemed so obviously wrongheaded. Yet that damage, too, might never be undone.

  A few turns more, and the hospital appeared in front of him. It looked like every other such institution he'd ever seen, its sterile facade masking the turmoil within, the joys, the hopes, the dashed dreams of so many. Will screeched the car into a space and ran through the sliding front doors, doing a deal with God. He wasn't a praying man, but he was a dealmaker. If ever there was a You give me this, I'll give you that moment, this was it. Yet as he raced inside and headed without directions for cardiac urgent care, he knew there was only one kind of deal he was willing to strike: the kind that had no losers. Will wanted Cosimo DeLuca alive and well and Gabby willing to forgive, willing to love him again. Those were long shots, and Will didn't have much to bargain with. All he could count on were the good heart of a man he had come to admire, and the good heart of a woman he had never stopped loving.