Chapter 4
Savannah began to relax and enjoy the drive as she guided the Mustang along the winding highway through San Carmelita’s outskirts. Although the steering was a bit off, the car drifting to the right. The temporary tires that Dirk had provided, while they waited for the city to come through with the new radials, were mismatched, and she was pretty sure he hadn’t paid the extra few bucks to have them balanced. Tightwad. She’d have to give him a verbal slapping-around.
Atlanta sat in the passenger’s seat, for once having little to say. There were a few advantages to quarreling—blissful silence being one of them.
Having left the beaches and citrus groves behind, they gradually climbed tawny velvet hills, dotted with copses of dark oaks, into California’s Gold Coast wine region. On either side of the highway, perfectly straight rows of vines, heavy with fruit, glistened in the sunlight. And the smell of sun-warmed grapes scented the air.
All along the highway, at the end of each row, a rosebush had been planted, each blooming in a different shade of crimson, pink, yellow, and coral—Villa Rosa’s trademark. Local legend had it that the winery’s founder had planted them for his wife, Rosa, and they had been maintained and replanted in her memory since.
“We’re there,” Savannah told her silent passenger. “This is Villa Rosa, the winery where your pageant is being held. They’re one of the oldest, but fastest growing wineries in the area . . . and they never pass up a publicity opportunity.”
“Humpf.”
Ignoring the less than enthusiastic reply, Savannah continued. “How about that . . . both of us winding up there, you competing and me working security.”
“Yeah, it sucks. It major sucks.”
Savannah looked over at the petulant face and ignored the itch in her palm. It was an irritation she often felt when she badly wanted to slap somebody.
“Sorry, Twerp,” she said, knowing how much the nickname irked the kid. “I didn’t mean to sneeze on your ice cream, rain on your parade, et cetera.”
“Yeah, sure. Once again, Big Sister is watching every move I make.”
Savannah gritted her teeth as she turned down a private road, marked with ornate wrought-iron gates and a carved, gilded sign which read: VILLA ROSA.
“I’m not sure how I turned out to be the bad guy here,” she said. “You were the one who signed up for this thing, saying you’d been living in San Carmelita for the past five years, using my address without asking me.”
“I saw it on the Internet, okay?” Atlanta said, examining the nail cuticles of her left hand. “It sounded cool, so I signed up on-line. How was I supposed to know that you’d be stingy with your ol’ address?”
“Come on, ’Lanta. I may not be everything you want me to be, but the one thing I’m not is ‘stingy’ where any of you kids are concerned.”
They were approaching the Villa Rosa complex, a sprawling but lovely configuration of buildings that resembled an elegant Italian villa more than a highly successful commercial enterprise. Ordinarily, Savannah would be looking forward to spending the next few days in such luxurious surroundings, but . . .
“You’re acting like I’m some sort of silly kid with a pipe dream,” Atlanta moaned. “This is for my career, you know.”
The only “career” Savannah was aware of was Atlanta’s weekend job at the Dairy Queen, but she thought it best not to ask for clarification on the subject.
“There are going to be talent scouts at this pageant,” the teenager continued. “And when they hear me sing, I’ll probably get a contract offer right on the spot.”
“I hope you’re not expecting too much from this,” Savannah said dryly. “They’ll probably wait until an intermission to make that offer, rather than disrupt the pageant with a lot of contract signing there on stage.”
“Don’t be a smart-aleck. Of course they’ll wait until later. But that’s how a lot of female country singers got discovered, you know.”
“No . . . I wasn’t aware of that fact. Who exactly got her start that way?”
Atlanta hemmed and hawed for a moment, then shrugged. “I can’t think of names right this minute, but take my word for it . . . a bunch of them . . . a big bunch.”
“So, you don’t care if you win the pageant or not, as long as you get discovered.”
“That’s right. Although I’ll probably win, too. And that would be pretty neat.”
Savannah had to laugh. The Reid women possessed many virtues, but humility wasn’t among them. The Fear of Failure gene didn’t appear to be swimming around in their pool.
As she pulled the Mustang up to the front of the Villa Rosa visitors’ center, she saw Ryan Stone standing beside the door, wearing a tuxedo that complemented his dark good looks—as if they needed enhancing.
“Ryan is here?” Atlanta nearly bolted out of her seat. Like most females between the age of eight and eighty, Atlanta was wildly smitten with the handsome hunk. On her subsequent visits to California, she had fallen madly in love with him, convinced that if only given the chance, she could permanently alter his sexual preference. “Oh, wow! You didn’t tell me that Ryan was going to be here!”
“Yes, he’s working security with me. But don’t worry . . . like I told you before, we’ll be sure to stay out of your way. I don’t want you to feel smothered or—”
“Oh, hush up. You know what I meant. I don’t care if you and Ryan hang around me . . . some.”
“Especially Ryan?”
“Well, he is mighty easy on the eyes.”
Savannah gave Ryan a wave as she headed into the parking lot. He waved back and flashed her a breathtaking smile that set her hormones aflutter.
“Oh, yeah . . . Ryan’s easy to look at,” she agreed. “This is gonna be fun. A nice, easy gig . . . hangin’ out with the gorgeous and genteel Mr. Stone. The worst thing that’s apt to happen is a couple of girls wrestling over a can of hair spray. We’ll stay out of your way, so that you don’t feel smothered.”
She shot a sideways look at her baby sister.
Pouting . . . again.
“What if I don’t like this girl they stuck me with . . . this Barbie Matthews?” Atlanta’s lip was protruding even farther than Savannah thought was physically possible.
Hefting two suitcases under each arm, Savannah led the way from the gallery down the center hall of the adjoining guesthouse. “You don’t have to like her. You’re not marrying her; you’re rooming with her. And it’s only for a few days.”
“But I thought we were going to get rooms of our own. That’s what it said on the web page.”
Halfway down the long hall, they found the door with the brass “1D.” Savannah set two of the suitcases on the floor and gave it a “shave-and-a-haircut” knock.
“Yeah, whaddaya want?”
Savannah flinched. If the current occupant of 1D was as rude as she sounded, this pageant could be a long, dreary experience.
One glance at her younger sister told Savannah the kid was ready to do battle. A harbinger of evil to come.
Atlanta pushed the door open with a much harder shove than was necessary, and it flew open, slamming against the wall.
Inside was a cozy, delightfully feminine room, a vision of hand-carved antique furniture, rose-printed damask spreads on the twin beds, and wallpaper sprinkled with tiny pink-and-red rosebuds. Atop a marble-topped dressing table was a lush spray of spring flowers.
The only item that seemed out of place in this dainty room was a young lady who was stretched out on one of the beds, drinking diet cola from a can. Though the term “lady” might be used loosely, considering the skimpy leopard-print teddy she was not-quite-wearing and the fact that she had one leg raised and propped on a bookshelf on the wall.
The teenager had impossibly red hair—a color that could have been achieved only with a bottle of hair coloring that contained the word “fiery” on its label. Her makeup was the heaviest Savannah had seen on a young woman north of the Mason-Dixon line. Beneath all the caref
ully applied goop, her face might have been considered pretty, had it not been pulled into a nasty frown.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, lowering her leg from the shelf and tucking it under her. “Nobody invited you in here.”
Atlanta stormed into the room, tossed one of her suitcases onto the floor, and said, “I registered. They told me room ‘1D.’ That’s all the invitation I need, thank you very much.”
“Oh goody, a So-o-o-outherner. What are you, a Georgia peach? Or are you just a Georgia pee-can?”
Savannah winced, expecting the fur to start flying any minute.
Atlanta bristled. “As a matter of fact I am from the proud state of Georgia . . . originally, that is. Have you got a problem with that?”
“No problem at all,” she drawled in an exaggerated and—as far as Savannah was concerned—downright vulgar impression of a Southern accent. “Yeah, boy, howdy . . . I whup Dixie belles in pageants every day o’ the week and twice on a Sunday.”
Now she was asking for it.
Savannah decided that if Atlanta didn’t thrash her, she would. She could always claim the girl had presented some sort of grave security risk, and anyone who knew the kid would probably be grateful that she had beaten her.
But, ever the consummate professional, Savannah repressed her homicidal tendencies and stepped between them. “Okay, okay, girls, this is no way to start off the weekend. You’ll be pulling each other’s hair out by the roots, and heaven knows, you need every lock you’ve got to achieve that pageant ‘big hair’ look.”
She walked across the room to the vacant twin bed and started to lay the luggage on it. But Atlanta grabbed her arm. “Wait a second,” she said. “Mrs. Lippincott told me that I was supposed to have the bed against the wall. I’m sure that’s what she said.”
Savannah could practically hear the bell sounding “Round Two.” “Well, it doesn’t really matter all that much which—”
“It matters to me!” Barbie snapped. “I got here first, so I get to pick which bed I want. And I want the one by the wall. So there.” She painted a saccharine smile across her suspiciously full lips, which looked like they had been plumped with collagen or repeatedly stung by honeybees. “You don’t mind do you, Little Miss Pee-can?”
Atlanta turned from her obnoxious roommate and faced her sister. “You do understand, don’t you,” she said with a deadly calm that scared Savannah, “that the next time she calls me that, I’m gonna beat the tar outta her. And if I do, it’s for sure that neither one of us is gonna win ‘Miss Congeniality’ in this pageant.”
“I understand completely,” Savannah assured her. “In fact, you have my blessing. But, if you would, please wait until I’m out of the room before you stomp a mudhole in her. As much as I’d like to watch, as Security, I’m supposed to stop that sort of violence if I see it happening.”
“Security?” Barbie was instantly alert. “You’re Security? I thought you were the Georgia peach’s mommy.”
“Oh, now you are askin’ for a beatin’,” Savannah said. “But I’m not going to give it to you. You see, I’ve sworn a sacred oath to make sure that you young things stay safe and sound this weekend. And that means: no boys in your rooms, no smoking, no drinking booze . . . basically, no fun of any kind at all.”
She walked over to the bed where Barbie lay, looking more glum by the moment. “And in your case, Ms. Matthews, rest assured I’m going to take my duties very, very seriously.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said dryly as she tossed her empty cola can onto the floor. “I was worried, but you’ve set my mind at ease.”
Savannah leaned over, picked up the can, and sniffed it. Satisfied that it had held only soda, she tossed it into a wicker wastebasket.
She looked around at the marble-topped vanity with its gilded mirror, the ornately carved armoire, and the damask bedspreads. “Such a pretty room,” she mused. “Y’all enjoy it now, and Atlanta . . . don’t be getting any of Ms. Matthews’s blood on the linens. You can just tell by lookin’, they’re expensive.”
Chapter 5
Savannah found Ryan Stone standing near the door of the gallery, explaining the workings of the ancient press to a bevy of giggling beauties. When she beckoned him with a crooked finger, he excused himself to the girls and joined her beside the display case filled with awards.
“Sorry to take you away from all of that adoration,” she said.
“Ah, that’s quite all right.” He bent his dark head down to hers and whispered, “Tell me something, Savannah; I wasn’t raised with sisters. Do girls always giggle that much?”
“Not that much. That sort of ridiculous tittering is usually done only in the presence of a gorgeous hunk.”
He actually blushed. That was one thing Savannah loved most about Ryan Stone—his humility. A Greek god who was actually down-to-earth. Who could resist such an enticing combination?
“Did you get Atlanta settled into her room okay?” he asked.
“Well, she’s settled. Only time will tell how ‘okay’ it is. She isn’t too crazy about her roommate, a little priss named Barbie Matthews. To be honest, I’m not exactly nuts about the kid myself.”
Ryan raised one eyebrow. “Barbie Matthews? I just turned away one of her admirers at the doorway. He said he was her boyfriend and had to talk to her about some urgent matter. He didn’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer. I ah . . . escorted . . . him to the front gate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up again sometime this evening.”
“What does he look like?”
“About six feet tall, long brown hair, black heavy-metal T-shirt and jeans, tattoos on both forearms—skulls and crossbones.”
“Hmm . . . what mother wouldn’t dream of a son-in-law like that? Is there anyone else we’re looking out for?”
Ryan gave a discreet nod toward a group of people, who had congregated on the other side of the room beneath a plaque that bore Benjamin Franklin’s quote: “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
“See the guy in the Brioni suit, fiftyish, salt-and-pepper hair?” he said.
“Yeah, nice threads.”
“True, but in his case, clothes can’t turn a pig into a gentleman. I don’t like the way he’s looking at some of the girls. A definite Dirty Old Man Alert.”
Savannah watched for a moment, and just as Ryan had said, the guy’s eyes were following each girl who passed with less than wholesome interest.
“Who is he?”
“Name’s Frank Addison, a neighboring vintner and one of the pageant’s judges, if you can believe that.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll believe about anything if it supports my supposition that human beings are mostly turkey butts . . . no disrespect to the turkeys.”
A tall, elegant woman, wearing a black-silk evening sheath and a strand of lavender-jade beads left the group beneath the plaque and walked over to Savannah and Ryan. In one hand she held a glass of red wine, the other she used to tuck a wayward strand of fine, blond hair back into her perfect French twist.
As she approached them she offered her hand to Savannah. “Good evening, I’m Catherine Whitestone-Villa. And I’m so glad you’re with us this evening.”
Savannah glanced sideways at Ryan; he seemed as surprised as she was at this gracious greeting. Apparently Mrs. Whitestone-Villa thought they were honored guests.
“I’m Savannah Reid,” she said, returning the firm handshake. The woman’s fingers were a bit cool and damp, and Savannah assumed it was from holding the wineglass. “This is Ryan Stone,” she added. “We’re working Security for you this weekend.”
“Oh, yes, I know.” The lady smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of perfectly straight, dazzlingly white teeth. “I’m delighted that we have professionals like the two of you. We want everything to go well for the girls and all of our guests here at Villa Rosa. We’ve never hosted a beauty pageant before, you know. Some cross-country runs for breast-cancer research, canoe-racin
g on the lake for muscular dystrophy . . . that sort of thing. But never a beauty contest. This is so exciting!”
“I can’t imagine that you lack for excitement here at Villa Rosa,” Ryan said. “Your winery produces pure artistry in a bottle.”
Her green eyes glistened with pride. “Ah, then you’ve sampled our wares?”
“I’ve enjoyed your wines for years. Your 1982 Cabernet Sauvignon and your 1983 Zinfandel Ruby were amazing.”
She nodded approvingly. “You have a discriminating palate. Those were two of my husband’s favorites.”
Savannah recalled hearing that Anthony Villa’s grandfather had emigrated from northern Italy to the United States and founded Villa Rosa. She also remembered that Anthony Villa had political aspirations. Was it a seat in the state senate?
One quick glance-over told Savannah that Catherine Whitestone-Villa was the perfect, politically correct wife for a politician.
“And is our future senator with us this evening?” Ryan asked.
“I believe he’s still up at the house, reading bedtime stories to our two boys,” she said. “But he’ll be joining us later. He’s giving the welcoming speech at dinner. He’s quite a powerful speaker. Have you had the pleasure of hearing him yet?”
Savannah was quickly amending her initial evaluation of Mrs. Villa. Old Kate was just a little too perfect, a tad too correct. Listening to her talk about her beloved gave Savannah that same slightly nauseous feeling that she got when she polished off an entire box of assorted chocolates by herself at home on Saturday night.
“No, but we’re looking forward to hearing him,” Ryan replied, “although we won’t be able to give him our undivided attention.”
“Yeah,” Savannah interjected, “nose to the grindstone and all that.”
“Of course, you have work to do,” Catherine said. “Please keep a close eye on our lovely young ladies. Most of them came without their parents, and I feel like a surrogate mother to them.”
Sour Grapes Page 5
