Jane touched Syrah’s hand. “Yeah, it is. Don’t be going off to foreign lands again, okay?”
“Who me? Never.”
The afternoon mail brought an invitation to the Netherfield Wine for Dimes auction and reception. Syrah nearly threw it away. She finally stuck it on the business events calendar, wondering if Missy would select them for the wine, and she made herself think of the party strictly in those terms. When a caterer called to order their Riesling Syrah felt very much in control. She also included, as promised, two bottles of their ’ninety-three Cab reserve for auction. Since it wasn’t available for general purchase, she sent out a few e-mails to collectors in the area, urging them to attend the event.
Life had reached a semblance of neat and tidy. She and Jane looked happy and whole again, and even a trip to Nate’s didn’t fill Syrah with pain and regrets. They were both all better. Syrah assured herself of that fact often, but was careful not to look overlong into her own eyes.
Not having to manage the tasting room was a great relief. Syrah could come and go as she pleased. The early June afternoons, however, were increasingly warm, and it had always been her habit to come in from the fields and have a half-glass of a light white and cool off.
Two days before the party at Netherfield, she followed her usual routine. The afternoon was airless and warm, warning of a thunderstorm during the night, and she was looking forward to the Gewürztraminer she knew was chilled. As always when the weather allowed, she lifted her glass to the sunlight and looked at the color it cast onto the stone floor.
“You look pleased.”
Syrah smiled, then nodded at the elegant woman who had spoken to her. “I am. The color is uniform and lustrous. The grapes were small and intense that year.”
“Stressed vines.” Clear, delicate skin was shaded by a wide-brimmed white hat.
“Yes, exactly. Are you a grower?”
The woman’s British accent was as charming as her smile. “No, just a wine scrounge.” She held out her hand. A very real-looking amethyst bracelet circled her wrist but she wore no rings. “Mira Wickham. You must be Syrah Ardani.”
“Yes, I am.” She gave Mira an inquiring look.
“We have a mutual friend of a friend, Caroline Bingley. Caroline waxed rhapsodic about the valley and the wine, so I decided it was high time I visited my uncle. He has a—what’s your American word for it? Spread? We’d call it an estate.”
“Spread works.” She was taken aback to meet someone who called Caroline even a friend of a friend. The world was small indeed.
“So here I am and I have had the most wonderful tour so far.” A customer distracted Syrah and it was several minutes before she again found herself within chatting distance of Mira Wickham. As soon as it seemed polite, she asked, “How do you know Caroline?”
“Oh, I don’t. Caroline and I have never…run in the same circle.” Mira’s look held some significance but Syrah wasn’t sure how to read it.
Syrah offered to pour the next white for two cozy men at the bar before turning to Mira again. “I’d have been surprised if Caroline were to mention us to anyone.”
“Actually, it’s not Caroline I know, but Toni.”
Syrah felt herself stiffen. “Toni Blanchard?”
Mira was studying Syrah intently. “Yes, unfortunately, but I shouldn’t say that.”
“Oh, don’t be polite on my account.” The words were out before Syrah could stop them, but she didn’t really regret them.
“I knew Toni was out here on business and I made inquiries of mutual acquaintances. I suppose I ought to let it go, but it all turned out so badly…”
Against her will, Syrah wanted to know more. Maybe it was the idea of knowing someone else who had the Toni Blanchard blues. “I guess I’m not surprised. She was very good for our vineyard, but…” She shrugged. “Other things didn’t go well.”
“Are you sure she was good for your business? How do you know?”
“We’re not getting letters from banks anymore.” Syrah drew back then, realizing she was being indiscreet with a stranger.
Mira only nodded and seemed to know not to pry further. “That certainly seems like a step forward. I hope all does go well for you, then.”
Syrah would have chatted with her some more, but customers divided her attention. She noticed Mira speaking to her father for some time, then she left.
The encounter depressed Syrah as she tried to sort out if she’d really wanted to know Mira’s history with Toni or if she’d merely been grateful for any news of Toni, good or bad. Like Mira, she ought to let it go. After the Netherfield party, the last reason she had to mingle in any way with the Bingleys, she would make forgetting Toni Blanchard her number one priority.
* * *
“It’s just a short plane ride,” Missy pleaded. “Fly up here, stay for the party and fly home again. I need you here, please, Toni.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Missy.” Toni paced the Los Angeles hotel room, liking its anonymity. “There are people I don’t want to see so soon.”
“You have to face her sometime. You were going to be back next month anyway, right?”
“I was hoping to send someone else for the two-month follow-up.”
“Please, Toni.” Missy sounded near tears. “I’m so weak and I know if we talk I can stick to my resolve.”
“You invited her?”
“Of course I did. I’ve invited every lesbian on the planet, it seems like. If I left her out it would be obvious why.”
Toni dug her toes into the thick carpet. “I think she’d have understood. And I doubt she’ll come.”
“Syrah R.S.V.P.’d and where Syrah goes…”
“I can’t, Missy.”
“If you can’t face Syrah, how am I supposed to face Jane?” Missy’s sniff was audible. “You weren’t even in love.”
Yes, I was, Toni wanted to say. “We don’t need to face either of them. You don’t have to show up to your own party. You’re selling and moving, aren’t you?”
“Yes, though I love what’s been done. You should see it—”
“Missy…”
“Just get on a plane, would you? I’m only asking for a one-hour plane flight and Saturday night. Call me when you’re boarding at LAX and I’ll meet your flight. Just do it or I’ll tell Caroline where to find you.”
“Please tell me Caroline won’t be there.”
“Of course not. She’s not speaking to me since I somehow forced you on her. She’ll forgive me at some point.”
“I really am sorry about that.” Toni idly reviewed the room service menu. No Laundry salmon, no pub fish and chips.
“Caroline is consoling herself with some singer in Texas. But she could get to L.A. in twelve hours or less, I’m guessing.”
She knew Missy wasn’t serious, but maybe she was right. She had to face Syrah sometime, so why not get it over with? It was her second weekend in Los Angeles, and it was going to be as dull as the first.
It was a short, painless commuter flight and sure enough, Missy was waiting in her convertible at the curb. Unlike the last trip, there was no race to get to a dance and Missy took the long way around, treating them both to a nighttime drive across the Golden Gate Bridge.
“I can’t quite afford both houses,” Missy said. “I don’t want to give up either.”
“But you’re ready to get out of advertising, aren’t you?”
“I have been for three years. I liked owning my own shop but now that I’m in my forties—”
“The horror.”
“You know what I mean. It seems silly to work so hard when I can enjoy life. There are so many good books I haven’t read and places I haven’t been. Caroline had that part right, I think. Why work?”
Toni relaxed in the night air, liking the way it whipped through her hair. “I think working gave you a lot of character that Caroline doesn’t have.”
“Why do you work, Toni? You could have retired after that Silicon V
alley deal fifteen years ago.”
“The deal was why I didn’t. It was pure luck, absolutely pure luck, that we bought the bankrupt holdings, and that I used my own money to get it over with. I just wanted away from the place.”
“And then the empire from Redmond wanted the patent.”
“Another piece of pure luck. And pure luck that it was just after Black Monday and they had to give us ten times the stock in trade. It wasn’t me, it was luck. And what luck gives, luck can take away. I couldn’t stop working until I felt like I had enough.”
Once they were clear of the last large town, Missy moved into the fast lane and set the cruise control. “And now that you have enough and you’ve proven that luck has nothing to do with your success? You’re still working.”
“Yeah. I’m not done yet.”
“Done with what? Bailing people out?”
“If you put it that way. Maybe I’m just kidding myself, Missy, but especially after all the accounting scandals it seems like somebody ought to be doing honest business.”
“You’re a sentimental fool, T.B., and I love you for it.”
Toni studied her friend in the passing highway lights. She was thinner but still delightfully femme with her curls wrapped back by a pink scarf. Wild horses wouldn’t make her point out that Missy also looked older. She felt a pang—was it because of Jane? Had Missy cared more than Toni had understood?
The bed at Netherfield was familiar and she slept better there than she had at the hotel. She stirred reluctantly in the morning, awakened by hammering. When she opened her eyes she realized the change that had been wrought in this guest room. Faded wallpaper had been replaced with lustrous fabric. The furniture was the same but the ceiling was refitted with new lighting and the mirror reframed in heavy gold gilt. Simple changes, but Toni felt as if she woke up in another century.
She pulled on a T-shirt and running shorts and wandered the house. Missy had pulled off an amazing transformation. Netherfield now seemed like the lovely old estate home it had once been. The common room was broken into several seating areas, all looking inviting and comfortable. It suited Missy, every stick of it.
She was sipping coffee in the remodeled kitchen, staying out of the way of a testy caterer, when Missy appeared.
“It’s fresh,” she said, indicating her cup.
“Have you seen the garden? Come on!” Missy pulled Toni after her, and even though there were still heavy lines around her eyes, she seemed happier than she had the night before.
They strolled through some newly paved cobble walkways as well as freshly cleared paths between tall box hedges. “You should be so pleased with yourself. The house is beautiful.”
“It just took hold of me.” Missy sighed. “I don’t think I can stay here and watch Jane be with other women. But I love this place.”
Toni could still hear Syrah demanding why it mattered how many women Jane had been with if Missy was the last. Tonight, she thought, she’d watch them together and, who knew, maybe change her mind. Missy was not happy, and she’d never failed to quickly get over her previous broken hearts, infrequent though they had been. As surely as she had thought Missy was nothing but a checkbook to Jane, she’d also thought Jane was nothing but a hot time to Missy.
She’d been a fool about her own heart, and all of her perceptions had been wrong. She could admit that to herself now. She had no need to admit it to anyone else. That thought was no sooner formed than she called herself a liar.
* * *
Jane’s wolf whistle was heartening. The vintage suit Bennett had unwrapped from a chest in the basement was unlike anything Syrah had worn before, but she did have to admit it looked…good.
“Girlfriend, you’ll break hearts tonight. Who knew your mother was such a babe?”
“Oh, she was.” Syrah realized her father had come out of the office and was gazing at her somewhat mistily. “You look as lovely as she did in that suit. I’d strut around with her on my arm, the proudest rooster in the farmyard.”
“It’s not too long?” Syrah didn’t like skirts, as a rule, but when she did wear one she liked the hem above her knee. The pencil line of the thick sapphire silk ended halfway down her calf.
“Hound, stop that!” Bennett snapped her fingers and Hound reluctantly left his adoration of Jane’s slacks.
Jane sighed as she picked a few hairs off her pants leg. “You look like a movie star, but watch the dog hair.”
“So do you,” Syrah said. They’d shopped the secondhand stores in Petaluma for something Bennett would agree was “dressed to kill” for Jane. The charcoal pinstripes with the button-up bib front white shirt was stunning. “That suit is perfect. You look very butch and very female. Yowza.”
“You make a charming couple,” her father said. “Have a good time.”
“And come back with your hearts in one piece,” Bennett said from the kitchen doorway. “I’m sure those high and mighty types at the party won’t appreciate either of you.” She darted over to Syrah and settled the collar on the tight-fitting jacket. “Your mother wore it just like that.”
Syrah took one last glance in the hall mirror. The jacket allowed for no blouse underneath and draped off her shoulders to display an expanse of chest that nearly made Syrah blush. Then she thought of the possibility of competing with the likes of Caroline Bingley. In the chest department, at least, there was no contest, and sometimes a girl just had to lead with her best assets.
“Shall we?” She turned to Jane with a brave smile. They didn’t have a care in the world, did they?
The first familiar face Syrah saw at the party was Mira Wickham. Not that she knew Mira, really, but the friendly smile made her feel much less foreign.
“What a wonderful suit,” Mira said sincerely. “You look ravishing. Ravishable, even, though I’m not sure that’s a word.”
“There might be a person or two I wouldn’t mind leaving wanting.” Syrah snagged a glass of wine as a uniformed waiter went by. “What do you think of it?”
Mira lifted her own glass and the light caught earrings that matched the amethyst bracelet she once again wore. “It’s lovely. Light and party perfect. Missy chose well.”
“I’m glad we’ve met again. I wanted to ask you—”
“Oh, heavens, what’s she doing here?” Mira’s consternation was so complete that Syrah knew to whom she was referring before she turned around. “I had no idea.”
“It was a possibility,” Syrah said calmly. At least she thought she sounded calm.
Mira gave her an odd look. “Shall we move to the garden for a while?”
“Certainly,” Syrah agreed.
Toni saw Jane almost right away. She was smiling congenially at a pretty redhead who was all but draping herself on Jane’s arm. She studied both of them for several moments, then saw the little motion that said Jane was trying to extricate herself.
“Jane,” she said jovially. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.” She detached her from the redhead and steered her away.
“Thank you, but you didn’t have to do that.”
“Did she matter to you?”
“Of course not. I just hate to be rude to anybody.” Jane stopped walking and Toni had to admire the way she didn’t flinch from meeting Toni’s steady regard. “I’m in love with Missy and I don’t know why I should have to convince you of that.”
“Convince Missy and I’ll be convinced.”
Jane stared into Toni’s eyes without flinching. “Give me a chance to, then. That’s all I want.”
“Don’t hurt her. She’s too sweet.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I want to spend the rest of my life making the perfect pillow so I can put her on it and protect her from everything mean and rotten in the world.” Jane spread her hands in front of her, openly pleading. “I know she won’t let me do that. She’s strong and smart and independent. But I think she’d like to let me try.”
Toni took a deep breath and then did what she had rarely don
e before in her life. “I apologize. I was wrong to interfere. I think, however, all is not lost.”
Jane likewise took a deep breath, then she said steadily, “Apology accepted. Where is she?”
“Probably in the kitchen. There was some last-minute catastrophe with the…”
Jane was no longer looking at her, and likely no longer heard Toni, if she was even aware Toni was in the room. She made a tiny little gasping sound and walked past Toni without a word.
Turning, she watched Jane cross the room, making a beeline toward Missy, who stood frozen in the doorway.
People in the way didn’t matter to Jane, and when Missy hurried forward, the layers of her cocktail dress shimmering, they didn’t seem to matter to Missy either. She fell into Jane’s arms and Jane’s whoop of joy brought all conversation to a halt. Even the string quartet stopped playing.
Missy’s tears sparkled on Jane’s face and Toni found herself dabbing surreptitiously at her own eyes. She’d been wrong and looking at the two of them, holding each other tight, was somehow breaking her heart. How could one look make it all so simple between them? As the musicians resumed playing she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed her emotional display, and that was when she saw Syrah.
Syrah was alternating between dabbing at her eyes and looking as if she wanted to clap for joy.
She looked amazing, Toni thought, when she could breathe again. Her hair was up, revealing the long line of her neck, and smoky, sexy didn’t even begin to capture the beauty of her nearly bare shoulders and curves of her tummy and hips. Toni was suddenly awash with the memory of touching that body, of having been the focus of Syrah’s black and gold eyes, even if only for the few minutes in the starlight.
Missy and Jane finally drew apart and Toni’s gaze met Syrah’s at last.
Syrah smiled defiantly, her eyes flicking to Missy and Jane, then back to regard Toni again. Toni nodded and made a small clapping motion with her hands, thinking it more discreet than a thumbs-up.
Syrah stiffened nevertheless, then turned to say something to the woman next to her. They moved toward the window, and Toni shifted position to see who Syrah was with.
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