"You seem to be doing all right for yourself," she said, looking around at the polished cement floors, the floor-to-ceiling bottles of wine, the spotless, shining stainless-steel equipment.
He thrust his hands into his pockets with uncharacteristic disregard for the lines of his neat slacks. "Yeah, well, you know. Appearances can be deceiving."
Yes they can, she thought, remembering what Ian had said. The life she and Jonathan had lived had been a good example. The good clothes, the fast cars, the appearance of being opera's "golden couple," even meriting an occasional photograph in glossy magazines.... And it had all turned out to be a sham. Once again painful memories flooded through her: Jonathan's rage when she had asked about the blond woman; his jerk of the steering wheel as he had turned to glare at her at just the wrong moment....
"Ray Henderson said that's why you want to buy my land," she said, anxious to change the subject of her thoughts. "To expand your vineyard. But I only own a couple of acres. That hardly seems enough to make a difference."
He nodded. "But your house is the first thing drivers see when coming around that big curve from town. I'd like to move my sign there. It would enhance our visibility. I was thinking of building the tasting room and gift shop there. And yes, I would like to add more vines; even an acre or two would help us more than you might think."
"Us?'"
"Kevin and I." He paused. "I might as well tell you that I'm putting in paperwork to legally adopt him. Since I'm his guardian, it seems the right thing to do. That way, the vineyard will go to him some day, since I have no children of my own."
"I see." She wondered what Kevin thought of the idea. From what she had seen, he didn't seem overly fond of his new "father." She was diverted from the thought when they stepped into a larger room lined with multi-tiered rows of enormous wooden barrels stacked along the sides. A wall of wine bottles reached the ceiling in the back.
"Things are quiet right now," Steven said, the look of pride increasing, "but after the grapes are picked in late September, they'll be dropped into the crusher outside—that's the large metal equipment you passed when we came in—then pumped into those stainless steel tanks for a day or so, to give time the juice and skins to interact. That's for red wine only, of course. We don't use skins for white wine."
"Uh huh."
He smiled down at her, as if sensing her lack of interest, but finished explaining the process. "Then we press the mixture and store the wine in these oak barrels. Each one holds fifty-nine gallons. Within one to three years, the wine will be ready to bottle."
To be polite, she asked, "How do you know when it's ready?"
"We taste it of course. That's the hardest part of the job." His teeth glinted. She suspected everyone in Northern California had heard the joke hundreds of times.
"I'm sure it is," she said dryly.
When they walked back toward the house, she asked the question that had been bothering her since her talk with her attorney, shortly after her release from the hospital. "Do you know how Esther ended up with the old Perleman house?" she said. "It used to belong to Jonathan's parents and grandparents, didn't it? I never understood how she came to be the owner."
"Good question." He frowned in concentration. "Let's see. I believe the house originally belonged to the first Perlemans to immigrate from Poland. They were peddlers, making their way out west around the turn of the 20th century, arriving about the same time as my own ancestors. The first Perlemans opened a general store in River Bend and became fairly prosperous. Esther was from another branch of the family; she didn't move here from Europe until she was a young girl, some time in the 1930s."
Paisley nodded. She was familiar with this part of the story. "Didn't Esther move to Sacramento, eventually?" she prompted.
"That's right. She taught high school there until Jonathan's father retired and moved to San Francisco." He looked over at her. "He and his wife both died relatively young. Must have been before you and Jonathan married."
She nodded again.
"When Jonathan's father put the house up for sale, Esther bought it," Steve continued. "Jonathan was already at Julliard by then. The old lady seemed nice enough, but I didn't pay much attention. I was into sports, cars, girls, that sort of thing."
"Why did she come back?" Paisley wanted to know.
He shrugged. "Sentimental reasons, maybe. Like I said, I didn't pay too much attention to the Perleman place after Jonathan moved away."
Back in the living room, he sank into the leather sofa after she chose an equally comfortable armchair. She was glad he seemed contented to leave things at being friendly neighbors.
"That's interesting to know that Esther lived away from the house for so long," Paisley mused. "Somehow I've always felt as if she had always been there. Her presence is so strong...."
Steve looked at her strangely, and she realized what she had said made her sound as if she were some sort of superstitious lunatic. She didn't believe in ghosts, and he didn't seem the type to believe in them either. Abruptly, she changed the subject. "You said you moved away too? For college?"
He shook his head. "College wasn't for me. I'm not the intellectual type. I did go back east for a while—that was when I was married to Kevin’s mother. But after my dad’s death and my divorce, I came back and turned the ranch into a vineyard. Seemed to make sense, being so close to Napa valley. Same climate, same soil conditions. Wine's always been a sort of passion of mine."
"Did you keep in touch with Jonathan over the years?" she wondered. "You said you used to hang around him a lot when you were little."
"Not much, after we grew up. I did send him a congratulatory email when his picture was published in Time Magazine. He always was a lucky guy. Everything always went his way." His expression changed. "Sorry. I guess that was thoughtless of me to say that."
"It's all right. I know what you meant." She paused, looking around the room. "And when during all this time did you take up painting?"
He looked at her, startled. "How did you know I paint?"
She gestured at the enormous painting over the couch. "That's your signature at the bottom, isn't it? It's really good. Better than some I've seen in galleries. Do you do representational art also?"
He shrugged. "It was just a hobby. Now I'm too busy with the vineyard. I still pick up a brush now and then, when I have time, but that's as far as it goes."
"Too bad. I don't suppose I could talk you into helping with the sets for the play?" she asked hopefully. "We need someone to help paint the pirate ship and some of the backdrops."
Steve grinned at her. "You're just like her, aren't you? Give or take sixty years."
"Like who?"
"Esther, of course. She'd rope everyone in town into helping with one of her causes, making them donate either time or money. That old gal would have liked to have turned River Bend into another Ashland or Cedar City. You know, one of those small towns with first-rate annual theater festivals. I remember her saying so, once, at one of her fundraisers." He paused. "Might have worked, too: we're halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco, close enough to pull in a decent crowd from both directions. That's why I'm hoping to get more tourists out to the vineyard."
"Well? Will you paint the backdrops?" She refused to be distracted, although she was intrigued by what he had said. A summer theater festival at River Bend, using local talent? Why not? Although they'd need a decent theater venue and a lot of good publicity. The high school theater wasn't really adequate for anything that ambitious. With enough donations, though, some big fund-raisers, and support from the local residents....
"Paint the backdrops? We'll see," he said, and changed the subject without committing himself. That seemed to be something Steve was good at.
#
By the time she stood to go, she thought again that her handsome dark-haired neighbor reminded her a little of Jonathan; not just in his physique and coloring but in his self-confidence and poise. When he surprised her by leaning o
ver to kiss her good-night, however, she pulled away. Steve lifted his head and shrugged wryly. "Too soon?"
"I didn't think this was a date. Wasn't this was supposed to be a neighborly get-together?"
He smiled down at her ruefully. "I can see you’ve had a lot of experience beating off members of the opposite sex. Can I drive you home, at least? All one hundred yards away?"
"No thanks, I need the exercise. The doctors said it would be good for my leg."
She felt him watching as she set off toward Esther's little white house. No, not Esther's house, not anymore. Her house. It was time to remember that.
Paisley wondered why she hadn't been moved by Steve's attempt to kiss her. It wasn't just because of Jonathan's recent death: those wounds were beginning to heal. Steve looked like one of the dark, brooding men on the covers of the paperbacks on the racks at airport bookstalls, so why didn't his good looks have more of an effect on her? Maybe she sensed something lacking, she decided. Steve was great to look at in the same way as a hand-painted porcelain statue that was hollow inside and could easily crack.
Wryly, she reminded herself that she was not a particularly good judge of character. Maybe she should give Steve a chance. Heaven knew the poor guy had his plate full, with a troubled step-son to care for and a winery that he was trying single-handedly to save. And she had felt some physical response. Maybe, with time....
It wasn't until she was well on her way home that she realized she hadn't thought to bring up the burglary. It was just as well. She had seen how strict Steve could be with Kevin. Since his way of dealing with the troubled boy did not seem to be working, maybe this was a matter she could deal with better on her own.
#
The insistent trill of the doorbell the next morning was as effective as an alarm clock. Groaning, Paisley fumbled for her cell phone on the bedside table and glanced at the time: seven forty-eight. She swung out of bed, and threw on her bathrobe, swearing under her breath. She wasn't surprised to see Ian leaning against the doorbell, freshly showered and wearing his usual outfit: clean but rumpled plaid shirt and khakis. She wondered if he owned any other type of clothes. She'd always liked men to dress well, but for some reason, Ian's habitual dishevelment didn't bother her. If he dressed any other way, he wouldn't be ... well ... Ian.
As she fought back a yawn, she wondered ruefully how she had ever got the impression that he was habitually a late sleeper. He seemed to rise with the larks, even after a late night on the road. It was one of those admirable habits that annoyed someone less self-disciplined. Like her.
Nonetheless, she was glad to see him. Something about him always made her feel like good things were about to happen. He smelled good, too, she thought, sniffing. Not just traces of the aftershave she had noticed the other night, but his usual scent of Irish Spring soap and clean skin.
"Well?" Paisley asked, stepping back for him to come in. "What did you find out at the library in Berkeley?"
Instead of responding, he studied her face critically. "You look better today," he decided. "No purple circles under your eyes. And all that tousled hair around your shoulders gives you a sort of sexy, Sophia Loren look. So the intruder didn't return?"
"No," she said carefully. No reason to mention those betraying Vans tread marks in the garden. She would deal with Kevin in her own way. "What did you learn in Berkeley?" she repeated.
"Unfortunately, nothing about the Nightingale of Warsaw," he said, falling onto the sofa and crossing his sneakers on the coffee table. Worn out black-and-white Converse high-tops, not Vans, she noted. "But if you want some juicy stuff on other scandalous 19th century babes, like Lola Montez or Helena Modjeska, I'm your guy. Did you know Lola lived in Grass Valley after breaking up with the King of Bavaria, and that she carried a stash of jewels with her wherever she went? She also kept a pet bear tied up in her front yard, that is, until it attacked her."
She drooped with disappointment. "So your trip was a waste?"
"Not at all. I had a great time with my college friends last night, whooping it up until two o'clock in the morning at a popular vegan restaurant in downtown Berkeley. Too bad you didn't join me," he added. "All this moping around the house isn't good for you. And you would have enhanced my prestige as well. You should have heard what my buddies said when I told them I was working for a hot young opera star. One of them has actually heard of you. Said you'd won some prestigious competitions a few years ago."
She ignored the compliment. Her brief-lived opera career was not something she wanted to think about right now, nor the competition where she had met Jonathan. "Here." She held out the diary, pleased to see his eyes light up with curiosity. "Take a look and tell me what you make of it."
Ian took the small book, handling its brittle pages as carefully as she had, his lean face glowing with curiosity. "So this is Esther's childhood journal? Find anything helpful?" he asked, leafing through its pages.
"I'm not sure. I want to see what you think."
He was a fast reader. As the minutes passed, his face grew absorbed. The light from the reading lamp cast dark shadows under his heavy brow ridges and highlighted the prominence of his high cheekbones. Finally he looked up, his eyes sober. "I feel a definite chill between young Esther and Auntie Henka. Interesting."
"So you gathered that too? Did you ever meet her? She was Jonathan's grandmother, so she might still have been alive when you were growing up."
He nodded. "As a matter of fact, yeah, I saw her occasionally when I was a kid, when she was eighty years old or so. She would come outside in an old-fashioned dark dress to sweep the porch or cut the roses. By then she was widowed and living with Jonathan's parents. Jonathan was just about to leave for Julliard, and had no use for snotty younger brats like me. Yeah, I remember her. You don't forget a woman like that."
"So?" Paisley tried to hide her impatience. "What was Henka like?"
His face grew thoughtful. "Severe. Didn't smile a lot. To be honest, Great-grandma Perleman always looked as if she had sucked on a proverbial lemon. I don't envy poor little Esther, growing up under that woman's thumb. No wonder she lit out as soon as she grew up and didn't come back until the witch was dead."
As Paisley pondered this, her gaze wandered out the parlor window. Then she gasped, forgetting Aunt Henka, Esther, and the diary. "Is that the car?"
He followed her regard indulgently. "Yup. That's my baby. I haven't had time to wash it yet, but…."
She rushed outside. It was even older than she had expected, faded yellow with hand-painted black racing stripes, and bore a striking resemblance to Herbie from The Love Bug. She could tell the stripes down the hood were hand-painted because they were slightly crooked. The vinyl seats were cracked, held together with black electrical tape. She ran her hand over the warm hood.
Ian watched her like a mother noting a stranger's reaction to a remarkably ugly baby: protective and poised to take umbrage. "Like I said, it's been in the garage for a long time. But it should be reliable."
"It's perfect," she said promptly, banishing forever memories of Jonathan's shiny red Porsche. Her old self would have turned up her nose in disgust, but her new self knew this was exactly what she needed: something cheap that would get her from point A to point B.
Ian visibly relaxed. "Now that you've got wheels, you can explore. There's a lot more to Northern California than River Bend. How about a drive to test it out?"
"With you?" Lately, their relationship seemed to be progressing rapidly beyond that of employer/employee, and she sensed that going for a drive with Ian would do just that. She was tempted, but, still bruised by her rocky relationship with Jonathan and by her conflicted feelings toward Steve, she was reluctant to add more complications to what had been supposed to be a relaxing, peaceful summer in limbo.
He shrugged, unoffended. "I grew up here. I can point out all the sights."
What sights he could be referring to, she could not imagine. She hadn't noticed much more than a few spindly vineyards an
d boring subdivisions between here and the freeway. Besides, he had just got back from a long trip to Berkeley; he ought to have had his fill of driving.
But after writing him a check to pay for the Volkswagen, wincing a little at the thought of how little funds remained in her account, she found herself getting behind the wheel, adjusting the driver's seat to fit her shorter legs, and waiting patiently while he folded himself into the passenger side.
"How did you ever fit into this thing?" she wondered.
Ian slouched in his seat, but his head still scraped the car's ceiling. "I was shorter in high school. I grew my last four inches in college."
Laughing, she turned the wheels in the direction of the Fish Shack. They passed wineries and rolling fields of grape vines and lavender just starting to bloom. The river for which River Bend was named, a tributary of the Sacramento River, wound lazily across the landscape. She relaxed. There was something therapeutic about the peaceful fields rolling by outside the window.
As she drove, Ian regaled her with stories about eccentric professors who locked themselves accidentally out of their classrooms, and sophomoric pranks he had pulled with his friends, the latest of which involved parking a car on top of one of the university buildings during spring break. Ian was surprisingly interesting, she thought, listening. So many men only wanted to talk about sports, or politics,or themselves.
After a while, she found herself talking as well, and Ian listened. She told him about bouncing around the country as a military brat, settling in Omaha, the summer with the children's opera company, and, finally, the fateful singing competition where Jonathan had noticed her and decided to direct her career. The increasingly prestigious roles. Winning the part of Mimi, the role that would have cemented her career and put her in the top flight of sopranos. She found that she was able to talk about Jonathan without that old, dull pain in her midsection.
The Jewelry Case Page 16