Ring of Truth

by Ciji Ware

“Sara, just stop it!” ordered Ren.

  “I won’t stop it!” Sara’s voice had gone up an octave and she seemed on the edge of hysteria. She shook a finger at Ren, her eyes narrowing. “I know what you’ve got planned, installing her in your grandmother’s cottage that Sandra always wanted for her workout studio! You’re just waiting for Concetta to kick off and until she does, you’ll keep this Hannigan woman around until her stock options reach ‘bingo’ in a couple of years. That should tide you over and solve your current cash-flow problems, won’t it?”

  “How do you know about my stock options?” Kerry demanded, glaring at both Sara and Ren.

  Sara continued, unfazed by Kerry’s outburst.

  “You’ll be sitting pretty, won’t you, Ren? She’s got a better payout potential than the Lang family, you think? Traded us in for that little bitch, have you, you bastard!”

  Ren ignored Sara, urgently saying to Kerry, “I have never discussed your financial situation with anyone!”

  It was Sara’s turn to bang her fist on the counter. “You think it’s beneath my dignity to listen at office doors when our future is at stake, Renato Montisi?”

  “Our future? For God’s sake, Sara, we don’t have a future!” Ren exploded. “We’ve never had one—before, during, or after I met your sister. And as sorry as I am that Sandra died at such a young age—and in such a terrible way—neither of you, nor your parents, ever seemed to grasp what was important to anyone but yourselves!”

  Sara was shaking with fury. “Well, I can see, now, that the only thing really important to you is this ranch... and that you’ll do virtually anything to keep it afloat! Even latch on to Ms. Moneybags Hannigan, here, whom you’ve known about ten minutes! And you think I’m crazy? You’re crazy—like a fox!”

  Kerry’s gaze swept the kitchen. Ren and Sara looked as if they were about to come to blows. Jeremy had collapsed on the couch and was massaging his stomach. José’s face had a pinched expression, no doubt straining to better understand the heated English being shouted by his co-workers.

  Oh, Lord, thought Kerry, was Ren Machiavellian enough to be waiting for his grandmother to die, meanwhile latching onto some potential ‘venture capital’ to keep the business going? Was all the heat generated last night manufactured because of a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stock options?

  Her brain felt as if it were about to explode. Then a voice in her head brought her up short.

  Kerry! Don’t be daft. Get the facts!

  Kerry shook her head as if refusing to listen to the thoughts flying through her mind and made a beeline for the door, slamming it shut with tremendous force and sprinting up the hill to the safety of her little cottage. All the way along the path she blotted out the Claddagh’s cautioning voice, wondering—even if Sara was a “borderline personality” and her accusations about Ren were false—how she, Kerry, could ever achieve any sort of serenity in her life with Ren’s past with the Lang family permeating everything?

  What was this? Fatal Attraction—Part 2?

  Exhausted by her warring thoughts, Kerry shut the Dutch door with a bang and turned the lock, her eyes filling with tears. Had she been so vulnerable last week that she had blindly walked into a situation that was either Charlie Miller all over again—or something worse?

  She lowered her gaze to her right hand. The ring’s clear emerald stone stared back at her coldly. Maybe she should have just toughed it out in her cubicle at LifestyleXer. At least, in two years she’d have half a million bucks coming her way and not have to deal with lunatics like Sara Lang.

  So, you’re going to believe the one person on this ranch who wishes you ill?

  “Oh, shut up, will you?” Kerry exclaimed, shocked to see that the ring was glowing as if it were a white rose in full bloom.

  Renato Montisi loves this land and its bounty in the same way you do!

  Kerry clapped her hands over her ears. If she couldn’t stomach Life With Sara, or the cubicle on Howard Street, or the techie creeps in all of Silicon Land—she could just chuck it all! She could simply hand over her blog’s rights to Harry Chapman, go back to New York, and work at her parents’ restaurant until she figured out the rest of her life.

  But even if you did slink back to Manhattan, you’d never know how it might have turned out with you and Renato Montisi!

  The Claddagh ring had suddenly begun to pulse like a mixed-up stoplight, alternating between an emerald gemstone and an opal. Obviously, her thoughts and the ring’s were clashing and it was slowly driving her crazy.

  “Will you please stop!” she begged aloud. “Leave me alone!”

  Unbidden, a memory of Ren flashed in her head, outrageously handsome in his well-worn jeans and work shirt, leaning forward in the kitchen as she slid a lettuce leaf, dripping in the mustard dressing she’d made with the ranch’s olive oil, between his lips and the intimate look of pure pleasure that had passed between them.

  Remember those moments... remember what makes you happy...

  “It’s going to make me happy if my blogs keep driving traffic to LifestyleXer dot com and I earn half a million bucks!” she yelled into an empty cottage.

  Oh, really?

  Steeling herself, she sat down at her tiny kitchen table, the early afternoon sun flooding through the front windows. She knew what to do! She’d write about as many subjects as she could think of in order to bank pieces if she should decide, in fact, to throw in the towel at the ranch and move back to San Francisco to live in some hideous apartment that doubled as a dog house.

  She might as well face it, she though morosely. She and the ring on her finger had painted themselves right into a corner.

  ***

  Hunched over her laptop for the next hour, Kerry’s back was aching. Before she shut down her computer, she made a quick check of the online metrics in the last twenty-four hours to confirm that her blog posts were still were gaining page views as they had been since the very beginning of CookChic. Then, as was her habit, she scanned the comments posted below her last several blogs, and reared back in her chair, staring in disbelief. A series of nasty remarks from visitors whose names were unfamiliar and did not include any of her usual fans formed a column of negativity the likes of which she’d never seen from the first day she began posting. Even while she was looking at the screen, four or five more popped in between a few of her stalwart supporters that had begun to reply in her defense.

  “What the—?”

  Every time she refreshed the page, a few more ugly comments winged in, all of them slamming either her writing or her opinions.

  There could only be one answer to what was going on: Sara Lang.

  That woman is a devil!

  Kerry felt the ring grow warm on her finger.

  That woman has a big hole in her heart that you didn’t cause and you can’t cure. Just do your job!

  Her job? She was doing her job! She was writing the best material of her life and look what was happening!

  Then she suddenly remembered: tonight’s dinner for the visiting olive oil experts! She’d abandoned ship and it was just after four. Out her window, Tony’s battered Jetta had just wheeled into the gravel parking lot and screeched to a halt.

  Two hours to Show Time!

  Whatever was going on in her personal life had to be put on hold. She couldn’t let poor Jeremy down.

  ***

  By some miracle, Jeremy, José, Tony, Ren, and Kerry produced an excellent dinner of roasted Petaluma organic chicken, marinated in this year’s Montisi olive oil, garlic, fig-laced balsamic vinegar, and crushed, fresh rosemary. The poultry was plated on a bed of perfectly steamed root vegetables, fresh from the garden, along with Tony’s carpaccio salad as a starter. Dessert consisted of tarts made with fruit from a neighboring orchard. Kerry had folded puff pastry over halved pears, along with caramelized sugar, in several of chef’s large frying pans and baked them—pan, fruit, and all—in the oven.

  “Wow!” said Tony admiringly as he watched Ke
rry invert the contents of the pans onto large, round platters, fruit-side-up and surrounded by a golden, flakey crust. “That’s amazing!”

  “It’s a great thing to do when you’re really pushed,” she replied, “and fortunately, Jeremy keeps a well-stocked pantry for just such emergencies. The puff pastry is from a box, but of course, it’s the best brand.”

  Kerry and Ren had exchanged barely ten words during the frenzy that preceded the dinner, and Kerry helped with the cleanup in the kitchen while he entertained his guests following the meal.

  Sara was nowhere to be seen. When Tony and José went out to the pavilion to bring in the last of the dishes, Kerry asked Jeremy what had transpired after she escaped to the cottage earlier that afternoon.

  “She just stormed out of the kitchen as soon as you left. Ren followed her, trying to talk some sense into the woman. No doubt our very own drama diva’s still sulking in her room,” Jeremy said wearily, sinking onto the couch. “And Kerry... I just wanted to say... I hope you didn’t take anything she said about Ren seriously.”

  “Hey...” she replied, trying to keep a light tone, “this whole deal with me here on the ranch is just a shakedown cruise,” wondering how many more revolting comments had been posted to her blog by now?

  “Not as far as I’m concerned,” Jeremy replied. “I’ve decided to have my gall bladder taken out next week. I hope we can count on you to keep this boat on course.”

  Kerry hesitated, and then said, “Of course. I’ll stay here at least until you’re back on your feet. After that, frankly... it’s anybody’s guess.”

  Within the half hour, the kitchen was restored to its usual, pristine condition and Kerry walked Tony out to his car, relating to him the cascade of negative comments that had suddenly appeared in relation to her latest blog posts. She briefly described recent events at the ranch and outlined her suspicions that Sara Lang might be the cause.

  “Well, let’s find out if it is her,” Tony said.

  “Can you do that?”

  “We can try. I’ve got a few geek buddies at work who can run a check on the names and Internet addresses of the people posting that crap.” He grinned. “The NSA’s got nothing on these guys. I’ll text you later.”

  “Tonight?” Kerry asked, startled to think that she might quickly get to the bottom of what was going on.

  “Tonight, or first thing tomorrow. These are the weird nerds at LifeStyleXer who sleep under their desks.” He gave her a buss on the cheek. “And thanks for asking me to work tonight.” He waved an envelope containing the cash she’d given him. “This ranch is da bomb!”

  ***

  That night, Kerry slept fitfully, hoping to hear a ping on her cellphone that Tony had sent her a text message identifying who was piling in with so many damaging comments that could bring her page views down and—if the negative spiral continued—cause her to miss the goals the CEO had set in order for her stock ultimately to vest.

  By six-thirty, dawn was just filtering through the olive groves outside her window, and still there was no word from Tony—or any text from Ren, for that matter. She decided to dress, bundling up in a turtleneck sweater and a puffy down vest and knee-length coat to ward off the early morning chill. To pass time until Tony contacted her with news, she ventured out of the cottage and along the lavender hedges that would be blooming in June, Ren had told her.

  You don’t want to miss that, do you?

  She glanced down at her ring, glowing eerily white in the gloom and uttered her favorite French curse. “Merde!”

  She snapped off a lavender stock and sniffed it, detecting the faintest essence of the familiar scent, even without a bloom. She had always adored this particular aroma, especially in those bars of lovely French soap or in body lotion...

  Staring at the sage green plant held between her fingers, a jumble of thoughts began to crowd her brain.

  I love this place... I love this life! I want to learn to be a steward of land like this... to grow and make wonderful food! To find new uses for what’s currently discarded. No grasping, manipulative, crazy—okay, wounded—woman is going to drive me off without a fight! Ren and I are exactly the same: this sort of life... this path... is the path we choose to walk.

  By this time, not only was her hand vibrating wildly, but her entire body was shaking, whether due to the morning chill or something Kerry found quite frightening to contemplate: she was either as off her gourd as Sara Lang, or the Claddagh ring knew her far better than she knew herself...

  Then, she actually heard her stomach rumble.

  She needed a cup of good, strong tea, and she needed it now!

  ***

  Kerry once again found the kitchen deserted at this early hour and immediately flipped on the electric kettle. Then she set up the coffeemaker for the others she knew would soon be streaming in, and cracked a dozen eggs into a bowl, certain that “if she scrambled them, they will come.”

  Sure enough, Jeremy was the first to pad through the back door in jeans and a ranch T-shirt. He gratefully accepted a cup of proffered coffee while she sipped her tea.

  “How’s your midsection feeling this morning?” she asked.

  “Holding its own... for the moment.” He nodded at the pan of beaten eggs she was slowly stirring. “Nice simple food for this boy until I have the operation.”

  Next, Ralph Larimore, the head gardener, walked in, followed by José, each dishing up the eggs she’d concocted, laced with fresh thyme, along with toast and jam Jeremy had made from ranch strawberries grown the previous season.

  Kerry had almost finished her breakfast when Ren strode through the screen door and served himself the last scoop of scrambled eggs.

  Still standing, plate in hand, he asked Kerry to follow him to his office before reminding Jeremy that some cosmetic moguls were scheduled to arrive for heavy hors d’oeuvres and wine pairings from four to six, later that day.

  “They’re going on to have dinner up in Healdsburg and spend the night there,” he explained. “We should have them here for drinks and the hors d’oeuvres only about two or three hours.”

  “No problem, boss,” said Jeremy as Kerry followed Ren out the kitchen door.

  “Cosmetic moguls?” Kerry repeated. “You must be kidding! They want to visit an olive ranch instead of a winery?”

  “They’re doing both,” he replied, his features continuing to reflect tension from the drama with Sara the previous night. “They’re part of some trade group from New York and LA—here mostly for a tour of the Sonoma vineyards—but our agent booked them for a drop-by here, too. Ka-ching, ka-ching... though not very much.”

  By this time they’d entered Ren’s office, his desk littered with spreadsheets.

  “Looks like you’ve been working all night,” she commented.

  “Nearly. I wanted you to know exactly where we stand financially, and to try to convince you that everything Sara claimed was false about my waiting to pounce on your incipient millions.”

  “Oh, Ren...” she began.

  “The trouble is,” he cut her off, “as I told you before, we are on shaky ground, but that is not why I felt like hauling you off to a cave somewhere yesterday.”

  Kerry offered a bleak, apologetic smile before she replied. “I gave what happened in the kitchen yesterday some serious thought and concluded that Sara was just projecting what she would do if she thought she could get her hands on someone else’s money. She reminds me a lot of Charlie Miller.”

  “I told her last night to clear out. Today. Even if you weren’t in the picture, her last little number—using rancid olive oil in a meal for the very people who are trying to expose the crooks in our business—crosses a line that can never be erased. She’s toxic and there’s nothing I can do to fix her. I honestly hope she’ll be okay wherever she ultimately lands, but I’m counting the minutes until she leaves.”

  Kerry could see that Ren was upset in a way he couldn’t disguise and her heart went out to him. With everything he was d
ealing with, and had dealt with since his wife’s death, Sara’s betrayal had obviously struck deep. She was tempted to tell him of her suspicions regarding the vicious comments on her blog, but decided not to add to his woes until she had confirmation from Tony and his cyber-sleuths.

  Instead, she said, “Well, I’ve got something that may cheer you up.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to believe this, but I have an idea you could suggest to your guests tonight—or at some point in the future.”

  “You do? What?” he repeated.

  “What if we started a line of natural products like soap and body lotion made from the second press of the olives, plus our own lavender essence harvested from all those lavender plants around here? And if we can’t produce enough, we can contract with other olive ranches and lavender farms in California, but brand it as our own special formula.”

  Ren gazed across his desk with a look of amazement.

  “Now, why couldn’t I have thought of private label cosmetics? I’ve been staring at those rows of lavender since I was a toddler!”

  Kerry laughed and settled back in the chair opposite.

  “Yeah... but I’m female and I love all that lavender-scented stuff like body lotion, bath oil, and bubble bath!” She smiled encouragingly. “Promise we can have bubble bath as one of our products?”

  Ren leered at her across the desk. “What an arresting thought. You. Naked in a bathtub filled with Montisi’s lavender bath gel.”

  “Not so fast, big guy! There are a few other things we need to discuss.”

  Ren regarded her for a moment, a distant, guarded look invading his eyes.

  “Just tell me, Kerry. Are you going to stay... or go?”

  She hesitated less than an instant before she answered.

  “Stay.”

  “Even after what happened yesterday?”

  “Just let me know when Sara Lang has left the building, will you?”

  Ren’s expression revealed he didn’t know if she was kidding or not.

  “What if I offer you a fifty-fifty deal on this cosmetic idea—if we can make it work?”