French Twist

by Roxanne St Claire

  She nodded and sat, looking straight at him and not even glancing at Janine. Of course, she assumed the American didn’t follow their rapid French. “I do the bookkeeping for the vineyard. I know his password.”

  Luc walked her through the basics of his tracking program, and she seemed to understand what he needed. She promised to print out everything she could and bring it back later.

  “And, Lisette, there is a car in your garage. I need you to remove the registration badges and keep the garage locked all day.”

  Her gaze flitted to the back of the room again, before she started up the stairs. She looked so anxious, as though Bérnard’s ghost could appear at any minute from an alcove of Pinot.

  Luc put a sympathetic arm around her as she started up the stairs, then held the flashlight to her feet to guide the way.

  “I’ll come back as soon as I can,” she promised, and left.

  When the door closed behind her, Luc put the flashlight upright on the table. Janine had moved into the shadows of one alcove.

  “She never speaks to me,” she said.

  “She doesn’t think you’d understand her.”

  She stepped closer to the circle of white light shed by the flashlight. “She acts like I’m not here. Or that she wishes I weren’t.”

  “Here.” He held the blanket out to Janine. “She’s in shock. Forget about it.”

  She waved off his offering. “You need it more than I do.”

  He put the blanket on the table and reached back into the knapsack. He found another sweater, one he recognized immediately. He slipped it over his head and inhaled the faint cigar smell that clung to the rough wool, giving him the sudden image of his friend’s knowing gaze, his crooked smile. Bérnard, who’d loved Gabrielle Sauterville Jarrett…until the day he died. Bérnard, laughing and proclaiming, “You should have been my son, Luc.”

  In the knapsack, he also found a brown paper sack. He opened it and looked up with a quick, teasing smile. “Brioches.” He held the bag to her. “You shouldn’t drink wine on an empty stomach.”

  Her jaw slackened, and she bit back a laugh. “I don’t want wine. It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”

  “It will warm you.” He picked up Bérnard’s corkscrew. “And I doubt you’d say no to a 1978 La Romanée Conti Grand Cru.”

  “Then you’d be wrong.” She took the blanket over to the steps, settling under it in a corner.

  He shrugged and picked up the flashlight. “You might change your mind if you’re cold enough.”

  The phone rang almost immediately after she’d returned from the wine cellar, yanking Lisette’s attention from Bérnard’s computer screen. She watched her own hand reach for the receiver. That couldn’t be hers, could it? That withered old thing, with brown spots that looked like noble rot on the Pinot Noir? That couldn’t be the hand of Lisette Soisson. It looked like it belonged to someone else. To a person who could murder.

  Then it must be mine. A rock-hard lump formed in her throat. Her fingers hadn’t pulled the trigger, but her hand had killed Bérnard just the same.

  She picked up the ancient black receiver, so cold and heavy. Bérnard might have had his computer, but he couldn’t part with the old steel telephone that had belonged to his father.

  “Allo?”

  “Have you given him any information yet?” The thick foreign accent offended her ears.

  “Non.” She kept all emotion from her voice. She knew what she’d agreed to do. And she knew what it had cost her. He might think she was too stupid to figure out that Bérnard’s death was a result of their peculiar relationship, but she knew.

  “Have you been able to access the program?”

  “Oui.”

  All she had been trying to do was save Bérnard, to save him from the painful memories of his past. And now he was gone.

  “Read me the coordinates.”

  She read a meaningless string of numbers across the bottom row.

  He grunted in response. “Now replace them with these. Listen carefully.”

  She said nothing, self-disgust filling her. If she did this, she’d probably have two more deaths on her already guilty conscience. All because of her own petty jealousy. All because Gabrielle Sauterville had never really left this farm or her husband’s heart.

  Ah, mon Dieu. She was the one deserved to die, not Bérnard. And not Luc and his American friend. Her stomach turned as she remembered the feel of Luc’s comforting hand, his sympathy for her when his own heart was breaking.

  “Are you ready?” he growled in her ear.

  “Oui.” Sacrificing Luc and the woman would be the only way to save her own life. She began to type as he said the numbers, each keystroke changing the information into something entirely different.

  Why did Luc have to appear in their lives? She’d been so successful in erasing every trace of Gabrielle from Bérnard’s memory. Then he showed up. And Bérnard, taking him in like a son, hadn’t even had the decency to confide the truth to his own wife. But she’d discovered the truth.

  “Did you get that?” he demanded.

  “Oui.” She read them back to him to prove how cooperative she was being, her mind whirling with guilt and grief.

  She’d already manipulated the course of history by destroying all the letters that came from Boston, Massachusetts, in those early years. Pages of apologies and explanations that Bérnard never saw. And then she’d sent that picture and forged a letter so curt and ugly that it had to end any hope Gabrielle might have harbored about seeing her long-lost love again.

  That had been enough manipulating for Lisette.

  Until that horrible day when a man arrived at the door by the name of Luc Tremont. Did Bérnard actually think she couldn’t see the beauty of Gabrielle in her son’s eyes? That it wouldn’t send her digging for information and an explanation? And when she finally found it, not so deeply buried in his office, what a shock it was.

  Not only was he Gabrielle’s son; he was a criminal, hiding in France. It didn’t take long to discover another name in Bérnard’s files…a man who wanted Luc Tremont out of France as badly as she did. Another criminal. And now, in so deep, she was taking orders from that very man.

  “You know what to do,” he said, pulling her back to the moment.

  Yes, she did. She would take this information to the basement and sentence a man and an innocent woman to death. It was the woman who really made her heart ache. She was young and beautiful. Why should she die, also, because of Lisette’s horrible sins?

  “And the woman?” the man asked suddenly, as though he could read her thoughts.

  “She is here.”

  “You will receive more directions regarding her. Follow them.”

  Oh, so many deaths on her conscience. “Oui.” Even if she didn’t follow his directions, even if she’d lied to him, that wouldn’t be enough to save Luc’s life. Or her own. For surely now that this man had what he wanted, she would not live to see the next harvest.

  Janine ate the brioche while she watched Luc examine the rows of bottles, milky white with dust. In the center of the low-ceilinged room, a long wooden table and two chairs sat on a dirt floor. Along the back wall was a simple rack of glassware.

  He pulled a bottle from one of the racks, blew on it, studied the label, then replaced it. He took another and brushed some dust off. “Voilà. La Romanée. Bérnard’s favorite.”

  “You’re really going to drink wine at this hour?”

  He glanced up from the bottle with a smile. “Yes, I am.” Grabbing a rag that hung next to the glasses, he cleaned the bottle, then placed it on the table and uncorked it. When it was open, he inhaled deeply. “It’s so rare, the layers of fragrances this wine offers.” He set the open wine bottle to the side while he polished a glass. “It needs to breathe.”

  “Of course.” She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, still watching him. “You are so James Bond.”

  He chuckled. “You are so Californian.”

  “
Not really,” she said, brushing the crumbs from her fingertips. “A real Californian would drink with you.”

  “You will,” he promised, with a grin that shot right through her. He picked up the bottle and looked at the label again. “There were only a few thousand bottles of this ever produced. It is the pinnacle of all the grand crus.”

  As he poured he added, “This particular bottle is quite valuable.”

  “So, naturally, you stole it.”

  The corners of his lips lifted. “Bérnard would want me to have it.” He walked toward her, taking the remaining space on the step where she sat.

  She folded the blanket around her legs and gave his glass a curious look. “So, how valuable?”

  He held it to the lamplight, swirling it with the sure hand of a wine connoisseur. “About twenty.”

  “Oh, come on. That’s not expensive. My students drink—” She saw the amusement in his eyes as he inched the glass closer to her.

  “Taste it.”

  The exotic, fruity aroma danced right up her nostrils. She shook her head and leaned away. “Twenty…thousand?”

  “Santé,” he whispered just before he sipped. Mesmerized, she watched the bloodred liquid touch his lips. A low moan of ecstasy rumbled from his throat.

  “Bérnard was a genius at picking wines the year they were bottled. He invested brilliantly.” He looked into the glass as though studying a picture in its depths. “I’ll miss him.”

  He drank again, closing his eyes. With the wine in his mouth, he parted his lips and took in air, then swallowed. “It tastes like the earth of Burgundy. Spicy and rich.”

  She stared at his slightly open mouth. His lips were so perfectly formed, so inviting, so kissable. He opened his eyes and caught her staring, and that gorgeous mouth slid into a sexy smile. He held the glass to her lips. “You’re welcome to taste.”

  The fragrance of fruit and something almost like licorice floated into her nose, so powerful that she literally felt her tongue react to the scent. Opening her mouth a fraction, she put her hand over his and guided the rim of the glass to her lips, her eyes locked on his.

  It was startling at first, almost bitter, tugging at her taste buds. Then the flavors melted around her mouth and she swallowed, the essence lingering after the liquid was gone.

  “Wow.” She just drank twenty-thousand-dollar wine.

  He laughed softly. “Spoken like a true Californian.”

  She tasted the last of the essence in her mouth. “That’s good.”

  “It’s exquisite.” Still staring into her eyes, he took another sip, opening his mouth slightly to inhale again before he swallowed. “A bit of smoke. Cinnamon. The blackest of bittersweet chocolate.” He raised the glass toward her nose again. “Another?”

  “Maybe just, oh, a couple hundred dollars worth.”

  He smiled and put the wineglass to her lips. Her pulse thumped, and she closed her eyes, giving in to the sensuality of it. As the wine flowed through her mouth, she tried to pick out the flavors he described. “I taste…” She ran her tongue over the inside of her bottom lip where some rich residue remained. “Fruit.”

  “Absolutely.” He touched her cheek with the wineglass, rolling it ever so slightly. Her whole body melted with a warm rush. “You taste blackberry and currant and ripe—”

  “Plums.” They said it at the same second, then caught each other’s surprised look and laughed.

  Her heart tripped at the sight of his mouth open in a heartfelt laugh. The sound was low and provocative, his eyes bright with their shared joke. As their joint laughter filled the room, his gaze slid down her face and came to a stop at her mouth.

  Heat swirled through her at the instant he kissed her.

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  J anine tasted exactly like the wine, hot and peppery at first, shocking his lips, then easing into a sweet, smooth, buttery flavor. She opened her mouth, and Luc took it like the thief he was. He swirled his tongue against hers, the heat of her breath and the tannin of the wine fueling the kiss, sending instant electrical sparks through him.

  He slid his free hand into the nape of her neck, tunneling into her hair and pulling her closer. He heard the moan escape her lips. Then she started to pull away, which only made him want to deepen the kiss, not stop it.

  But he did stop, whispering against her mouth, “I’ve never seen anything quite like you tasting your first Romanée.”

  He heard her breath catch.

  She backed away, her black pupils nearly obliterating the blue iris, fully dilated from the dim light. No; that wasn’t nature’s response to darkness. That was her response to him. Pure and powerful and real.

  She held up a shaky finger and touched his chin, easing him further away. “Hide-and-seek in the dark is enough excitement in one morning for me.” Her voice was low, breathless, and dead serious. “Let’s hold off on spin the bottle.”

  Reluctantly, he extracted his hand from her glorious hair.

  “I’m not playing games,” he said. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for the last six hours.”

  She arched one dubious eyebrow.

  “Okay.” His gaze dropped to her mouth again. “Since I met you.”

  “Yeah. Well.” The cool West Coast indifference didn’t hide the reaction that he saw in her eyes. “Don’t do it again.”

  “Yeah. Well.” He smiled as he matched her tone. “I just might have to.”

  For now, he stood and leaned against one of the stone walls.

  She tipped her head toward the glass he held. “Where’d you learn so much about wine?”

  An image of his mother flashed in his mind, describing the harvest in Burgundy with the same animation and charm another woman might use in the telling of a fairy-tale bedtime story. “Bérnard, of course. He produced some of the best Pinot Noir of the region.” He waved a hand toward the alcoves. “And he amassed one of the best wine cellars in the country. There are probably larger collections in the world, but few with the quality you’d find here. He was obsessed with perfection.”

  Janine bit her lower lip, and sadness darkened her eyes. “The way he died—exactly, exactly the way Albert did. It’s bizarre, and it can’t be a coincidence, Luc.”

  He stared into his glass and tried to imagine Bérnard wading into the Armançon River to fire a bullet into his head. “I can’t be sure about your friend, but mine was murdered.”

  She shivered. “Why? Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know.” At her skeptical look, he shook his head. “That’s not evasion. I don’t know.” But he certainly had some ideas.

  “What was he like?”

  “Bérnard?” He glanced at the bottles, the table, the dusty rack of wineglasses, as though the very room should describe its owner. “He was full of spirit; he loved to laugh and eat and drink. He listened to classical music all the time, through a headset he wore day and night. He loved wine and food and art and life.” He suddenly remembered a conversation he and Bérnard had about a year ago, and he grinned at her. “He hated California.”

  “Professional jealousy?”

  “Utter intimidation.” He tasted his wine again. The Romanée was mellowed by the air now, and even more satisfying. He wanted her to taste it again. He wanted to taste her again. “California grape growers finally figured out how to match or exceed some French wines, and he took it as a personal affront.”

  She pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs, studying him. “You said he was a family friend. Is your family nearby?”

  His fictional background was that he’d been born in Paris of wealthy French parents, educated throughout Europe, all family members deceased. But with determination and a little luck, this false life would shortly transform into a new one.

  “My mother was born about a mile from here. Her father worked this vineyard his whole life.” Speaking the truth to her felt as good as sharing the wine. “This winery has been in Bérnard’s family for nearly two hundred years.”


  She tucked her chin deeper into her blanketed legs and blew into her cupped hands. “That’s really not so long in Euro terms.”

  “True.” He could easily sit next to her, draw her closer, warm her with his own body heat.

  “Tell me about your mother and Bérnard.”

  He grinned. “I like spin the bottle better than twenty questions.”

  She gave him a warning look. “Answer.”

  “Yes, Professor.” What a sight she must be in a lecture hall full of nineteen-year-old college kids: rapid-firing questions, demanding complete, correct answers, using those amazing legs to distract the boys. The lucky bastards. “I bet you’re a force to be reckoned with on campus.”

  She laughed softly. “Sometimes. But seriously, tell me about your mother and Bérnard.”

  “My mother practically grew up at this winery. She and Bérnard played children’s games in the vineyard and picked and harvested the Pinot Noir every year. Bérnard always planned to marry her, at least that’s what he told me. But he had to travel, to expand his education about running the winery, and my mother went to school in Paris, where—”

  Good God. He almost said that she’d met an American pilot, and she’d made a stupid mistake. Clenching his teeth, he pushed himself off the wall, setting his glass on the table.

  “Yes?” Janine urged. “What happened?”

  She got pregnant and, ashamed of what she’d done to Bérnard, she ran off to America with a cheating, lying, manipulative jerk. “She met my father and left poor Bérnard with a broken heart.”

  “Too bad for Bérnard, but good for you, I suppose.”

  “You have no idea.” He forced a casual laugh. “But don’t worry. Lisette was waiting in the wings.” And Bérnard never saw or spoke to Gabrielle again, to his lifelong regret. Then, five years ago, Luc had showed up with his strange tale of a secret identity and undercover FBI work. Bérnard had embraced him, literally and figuratively.

  “Do Bérnard and Lisette have children?”

  “No. Sadly, they don’t.”

  Her eyes widened. “What will happen to the winery?”