Once Upon a Wine

by Beth Kendrick

  “Cammie, dear, this is Tasha and Reyna and Geoffrey and Max. Everyone, this is my niece, Cammie.”

  Everyone stopped laughing and chatting just long enough to politely acknowledge her, then went right back to partying.

  “She’s the entrepreneur,” Ginger confided to the man next to her, who was wearing a purple velvet jacket and a black bowler hat. “Very business savvy. She went to graduate school. Moved to Los Angeles all by herself and opened up her own restaurant. Fearless, I tell you!”

  Geoffrey put down his wineglass and looked at Cammie with renewed interest. “Very impressive.”

  “It’s not, really.” Cammie decided it was definitely time to start drinking. “She’s exaggerating.”

  “What part am I exaggerating?” Ginger turned to her male companion with a sassy little wink. “I’m very honest.”

  “I have no doubt.” He winked back.

  Cammie didn’t know what was up with all the winking, but she didn’t like it.

  “My restaurant didn’t work out the way I planned,” she found herself confessing to the stranger in the purple jacket. “We didn’t even last a year.”

  He waved this away. “Neither did my first restaurant. And my second, third, and fourth restaurants were all disasters, too. You won’t really hit your stride until number six or so.”

  “You had six restaurants?” Ginger asked.

  “I had three successful restaurants and five dismal failures.” He seemed almost proud of this.

  Cammie stared at him. “How did you keep going? After five failures?”

  He laughed. “I had no other options. I’m not qualified to do anything else.”

  “Where are your restaurants?” Ginger asked. “Are they nearby?”

  “Two in D.C.; one in Virginia. Sold them all last year,” Geoffrey replied. “I’m supposed to be retiring, but really I’m just shifting gears. That’s why I’m here tonight—I’m getting into wine.”

  After spending a few years in LA, Cammie recognized a line of BS when she heard it. “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ve made wine as a hobby for years. Studied with masters in France, Italy, and Spain.”

  Ginger batted her eyelashes. “Really?”

  Cammie leveled her gaze at him. “Really?”

  “I didn’t settle down and get serious about it until after my divorce.” He looked meaningfully at Ginger.

  “So, you’re single?” Ginger pressed.

  “At the moment.” More meaningful glances.

  “And you know a lot about wine?”

  “I’m not a professional, but I know a few things.”

  “Here.” Ginger heaved her massive gold lamé bag onto the table. “Try this.”

  “Aunt Ginger!” Cammie swatted at the bag, but Ginger would not be deterred. “What are you doing?”

  “I want him to taste our wine.” Ginger pulled a bottle of strawberry wine out of the bag. “Made with my late sister’s recipe. Everyone says it’s delicious.”

  “I’d love to try it.” Geoffrey gallantly dumped the rest of his wine into a metal spit bucket, then produced a Swiss Army–style corkscrew from his jacket pocket. “May I?”

  While Geoffrey poured the wine and charmed her aunt, Cammie went in search of Kat, who was drowning her sorrows in the corner.

  “We have a problem,” Cammie announced without preamble. “It’s your mom. She’s met a guy.”

  “Oh good! I’ve been telling her do to that for the last twenty years.”

  “No, not good.” Cammie lowered her voice. “He’s shady.”

  Kat glanced over toward her mother. “Go on.”

  “He claims he owned a bunch of restaurants, but he just sold them. He’s conveniently divorced. He claims he studied wine making all over Europe. It’s a little too good to be true.”

  Kat narrowed her eyes. “You think he’s a lying liar?”

  “I kind of do.”

  Kat craned her neck to get a better look at her mother’s companion. “What’s up with the outfit? He’s like a cane and two green socks away from being the Riddler.”

  “Exactly. Just look at him!”

  “I don’t want to look at him.” Kat straightened her shoulders and started toward her mother. “I want to talk to him.”

  “Okay, but no fistfights. This is a black-tie event.”

  “Fistfights?” Kat looked aghast. “What kind of hooligan do you take me for?”

  “The kind I’ve seen brawl in a bar fight on two separate occasions.”

  “Then you should know I never throw the first punch.” She grinned again. “I always throw the last.”

  As the two cousins started across the room, Ginger motioned for them to hurry up.

  “Kat!” Ginger looked absolutely delighted (and totally buzzed). “I’d like to you meet Geoffrey.”

  “What?” Geoffrey turned to Ginger with a big display of shock and awe. “Surely this isn’t your daughter? Why, the two of you must be sisters!”

  “Yep,” Kat muttered under her breath. “Total grifter.”

  “I told you,” Cammie muttered back.

  “What are you girls whispering about?” Ginger demanded.

  “Nothing,” Cammie said. “We were just—”

  “Hoping for a glass of that incredible strawberry wine, I’m sure.” Geoffrey poured out two more servings of the wine and handed the glasses to Kat and Cammie. “Playful, subtle, not too sweet. Meant to be savored.”

  Kat clicked her tongue. “Hey, Mom, can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Drink your wine first,” Ginger commanded.

  Kat obligingly chugged half the pink liquid in her glass.

  “Not like that! For heaven’s sake, Katherine. Don’t waste it; this is meant to be savored. Didn’t you hear the man?”

  “Oh, I heard him.”

  “He’s an expert, I’ll have you know. Studied with the finest vintners in France and Italy. You should listen to him.” Ginger glanced at him with admiration.

  Cammie took another swig of the strawberry wine, which, she had to admit, tasted even better this time around. “Ooh. This is really good.” She held up her glass, examining the blush-colored liquid.

  “You don’t have to sound so shocked.” Ginger appealed to Geoffrey. “You see what I have to put up with?”

  Kat took another sip. “What’d you do to it?”

  “Nothing you couldn’t do, if you’d bother to follow directions.”

  “I don’t bother, so why don’t you just tell me?”

  Cammie glanced at Geoffrey, expecting the suave older man to retreat in the face of mother-daughter squabbling. But he didn’t seem uncomfortable in the least. In fact, he seemed intrigued by the family conflict.

  “You two are close,” he said.

  Kat and Ginger stopped bickering for a moment.

  “Absolutely,” Ginger assured him. “We hardly ever fight.”

  “What are you talking about? We fight all the time.” Kat turned to Cammie. “Can I get a witness?”

  Cammie raised her wineglass to her lips, which rendered her unable to reply.

  “All families fight,” Geoffrey said. “You’re lucky you have a great family to fight with.”

  “Exactly.” Ginger was practically radiating happiness. “That’s just what I always tell her.”

  Kat finished off her strawberry wine and pulled out her cell phone.

  “I’m calling Josh.” She sounded almost threatening.

  “What about?” Cammie asked.

  “I don’t know.” Kat started to dial. “But I feel like I should call him. I think it’s that strawberry wine.”

  “Ooh, it’s like a love potion.” Cammie regarded the pink liquid with renewed interest.

  “More like a potion that makes me pathetic. Whatever. I�
��m dialing. He can’t ignore me forever. And you know, that twenty-two-year-old bride had some good points.” Kat’s eyes looked dazed and detached, almost as though she were hypnotized. “He’s a great guy. We have a great life together. I would be stupid to let that slip away.”

  Cammie cleared her throat. “You know what I don’t hear? An impassioned declaration of how much you love him.”

  “Love is a decision you make every day,” Kat replied.

  “Spoken like a twenty-two-year-old bride.”

  Kat hummed a little tune as she dialed her phone and held it to her ear.

  As her cousin stepped outside, Cammie had the urge to dial her phone, too. She decided to also blame the strawberry wine. Why not?

  She pulled up Ian’s name in her contacts list. As soon as she heard him say hello, she felt tingly all over. “Hey, it’s me. No, I’m not calling about grapes. We’re done talking about grapes and we’re done talking about strawberries. Want to come pick me up?”

  chapter 19

  “I never know what’s coming next with you.” Ian looked wryly amused when he got out of the truck and opened the passenger-side door for her.

  “Keeps life exciting.” Cammie practically bounced into the truck cab. “What’s up with you?”

  “I was hanging out at home, watching the ballgame.”

  Cammie scooched toward him as he settled into the driver’s seat. “And?”

  “And halfway through the third inning, my phone rings.”

  “And you picked up.” She moved all the way to the middle of the bench seat.

  “Well, yeah.”

  Cammie could smell the traces of shampoo in his freshly washed hair. “And you’re wondering what kind of farming help I need from you?”

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  Cammie nestled closer, her body heat commingling with his. She lowered her voice to a throaty whisper. “I don’t want to do anything related to farming with you. I want to do everything else.” She reached up and brushed her fingertips against his cheek.

  He rested his hands on the steering wheel, the truck still in Park. His jaw twitched under her touch. “Why now? What’s changed?”

  She considered this for a moment, trying to piece together an explanation that would make sense to him—or to herself. But all she knew was that she didn’t want to spend the next decade regretting letting him go. Wondering what might have been.

  She smiled up at him. “Everything.”

  He bowed his head, brushed his lips against hers once, twice.

  “You taste like strawberries,” he told her.

  “I taste like the wine we made with your strawberries. And we’re not talking about either of those things, remember?” She slid her hand to the back of his neck, urged him to kiss her again. When they finally pulled apart, he put the truck in gear.

  “Where are we going?”

  “First, to the grocery store.”

  “What’s at the grocery store?”

  “The opposite of wine and strawberries.”

  Cammie rested her head on his shoulder, feeling safe yet buzzed with anticipation. She was able to appreciate this in a way she hadn’t when she was younger. Right now, in this moment, she felt like her chances were infinite, like her luck would never run out.

  They ended up at the beach after stopping to buy tequila, lemons, and fixings for s’mores. Ian parked by the north end of the boardwalk, where the public-beach crowds ended and the deserted private beaches began.

  He unbuckled his seat belt and grabbed the grocery bags. “Let’s go.”

  Cammie stared at him. “Go where?”

  “Looking for ghost crabs.”

  “What’s a ghost crab?” It sounded decidedly unromantic.

  He strode around the front of the truck, opened her door, and pulled a flashlight out of the glove compartment. “They’re little white crabs that only come out at midnight.” He held out his palm, offering to help her alight.

  She blinked at him. “But I . . .”

  “You said you wanted the opposite of walking the fields in the hot sun. Baby, this is it.”

  She took his hand and climbed down to the crumbling asphalt in her spindly high heels.

  “Take your shoes off,” he said, and she complied, leaving the peep-toe pumps on the truck’s floor mat. He took his shoes off, as well, then helped her over the low metal guardrail and onto the sand.

  The afternoon had been unrelentingly hot and humid, but the air had cooled as night fell. The sand felt refreshing against her bare feet.

  Strands of hair whipped across her face as the breeze picked up. She pulled out the jeweled combs, letting her hair tumble loose around her shoulders. Ian watched her. When she was through, she folded her arms over the bodice of her cocktail dress and said, “Really? Ghost crabs? Really?”

  He nodded, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Really.”

  “This sounds like a hoax. Is this like a snipe-shooting expedition?”

  “No. If I wanted to take you on a wild goose chase, I’d ask you to come look for the ghost dog.”

  She frowned. “Wait. There’s a ghost dog?”

  “Not really. That’s why it’s a wild goose chase.”

  “Wait, what?”

  He laughed and turned on his flashlight. “Come on. Stop stalling.”

  “What are we looking for?” Cammie asked as they started across the dunes toward the water’s edge.

  “Little white crabs. They usually hang out right at the edge of the waves.”

  Cammie could see the flicker of a bonfire farther down the shoreline. Teenagers, no doubt, flouting the strict policy against open flames on the beach. She turned to Ian to ask if they’d be roasting s’mores out here later, when she registered a blur of movement at the edge of the flashlight beam.

  “Is that one?” She pointed. “Right there.”

  He swept the flashlight beam across the sand. “Yep. Good eye.”

  She hopped back as she got a good look at the creature scuttling along the wet sand. “That’s not little, that’s huge! Look at those claws!”

  “They don’t pinch.”

  She grabbed his shoulders, putting him between her and the crab. “Are you sure?”

  He wrapped one arm around her and spun her back toward the shoreline. “I’m positive. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

  Right on cue, the white crab scurried back into the water.

  “Come on.” The flashlight beam bounced off the water as Ian started walking again.

  She relaxed, curled her toes into the cool, wet sand . . . and shrieked as a tiny pincer speared her heel.

  “Aigh!”

  Ian was at her side immediately. “What?”

  “It pinched me!” In an attempt to shake off the little hitchhiker, Cammie raced into the waves, shivering and sputtering as the crab dropped into the frigid, foamy water. For a moment, she lost her breath, overwhelmed by the adrenaline surging through her veins and the tang of saltwater in her mouth. Her eyes burned, her lungs burned, the freshly pierced skin on her heel burned.

  And she felt completely, gloriously alive.

  She emerged from the sea, laughing and shaking her fist at Ian, whose expression went back and forth between amusement and chagrin.

  “I’ve never seen anyone get attacked by a ghost crab. Ever.”

  She held out her dripping, shivering arms. “Well, take a good look.”

  He did, letting his gaze slowly sweep from her head to her toes. Her hair was tangled and dripping, her expensive dress was ruined and clinging to her skin.

  She stared back at him, and she knew she would think of him every time she saw the moon shine down on the ocean, every time she felt a sea breeze on her cheek. This was the opposite of fear. The opposite of failure.

>   “Come here.” He opened his arms to her. “You’re freezing.”

  She flung herself into his warm embrace, savoring the feel of her body against his. She knew she couldn’t stay with him forever, but she could stay with him tonight.

  He tightened his arms around her as she shivered in the cool evening air. “You okay?”

  She nodded, her teeth chattering almost too much to talk. “Mm-hmm.”

  As they started back toward the truck, he kept her close to him, warming her with his body heat and fending off any crabs. He settled her into the passenger’s seat, pulled a small first-aid kit from under the driver’s seat, and dabbed disinfectant on her heel.

  She sucked in her breath at the sting. “Ouch. I think I’m ready for a shot of tequila.”

  He applied a Band-Aid, lifted her foot, and bestowed a light kiss on the arch.

  And just like that, she wasn’t cold anymore. All of her senses thrilled at the feel of his lips on her bare skin. His hands, deliciously rough and callused, slid up past her ankle to cradle her calf. His lips progressed, too, trailing light kisses up her shin.

  He paused, glanced up at her face, and kissed her knee. Then he stopped.

  Cammie held her breath.

  He trailed his fingers back down to her ankle. She shivered with anticipation.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  She shook her head. All she could hear was the steady crash of the surf and the pounding of her own heart in her ears. The rush that swept through her was faster and stronger than any wine-induced buzz.

  Finally, she whispered, “What are you waiting for?”

  His fingers slid back up toward her knee. “We’re taking our time.”

  She wrapped her hands around his shirt collar, urging him closer. “I’m in a hurry.”

  His face was so close to hers, she could feel him smiling against her cheek. She turned her head and kissed him. He kissed her back and settled his hands on the curve of her hips.

  They stayed there, making out by the light of the huge golden moon, for what felt like hours.

  Finally, Ian pulled back, his eyes hooded.

  “What’s wrong?” she murmured.

  “Nothing.” He rested his palm on the back of her head. “It’s late. I should take you home.”