by Ellen Crosby
“What I know about you,” I said, my own anger flashing, “is that you can’t go back to France because of something that happened there. So that’s part of the reason you’ve come to Virginia. I don’t know what you’re running away from, or who, but I do know you’ve gotten yourself into some serious trouble, something that’s still following you, if even half the stories I’ve heard are true.”
He slid off the wall and I instantly regretted letting him bait me. He leaned forward until his face was inches from mine. It was as if I had poked a sleeping rattlesnake.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, what happened in France. So you’d better keep quiet about what you think you know or you’ll regret it. My family is powerful, Lucie, especially in the wine business. The de Merignacs could destroy your vineyard and your reputation if we chose to. We could destroy your family’s vineyard in France as well and tie it to you. It was a mistake to tell you any of this. I’m sorry I confided in you.”
The threat sounded potent and menacing. We will destroy you. How far would his father go to protect his son? I probably didn’t want to find out.
I swallowed hard and lifted my chin, still defiant. “I’m sorry you did, too.”
He started to turn away. “One more thing,” he said, swinging around again. “Get some help with this vineyard. Someone who knows what they’re doing. Your winemaker isn’t up to the job and with that…” He pointed to my cane. “Neither are you.”
He had no right … “Go to hell, Jean-Claude.”
He slammed the gate, as I knew he would. The clanging noise reverberated through the old brick so the wall seemed to shudder. I watched him leave, my anger boiling over again.
He really could just go to hell. Frankly I didn’t blame anyone at La Vigne who wanted to get rid of him.
Right now I could have killed him myself and felt like I’d done everyone a favor.
* * *
BY THE TIME I drove the ATV back to the parking lot, Jean-Claude was long gone. My anger, however, was not, still stoked white-hot. I needed to calm down before I faced Quinn or anyone else and had to explain myself. Why had I let Jean-Claude get to me? Why had he confided in me? To make sure he had a witness to corroborate his stories? Was somebody at La Vigne really trying to kill him? Miguel? Someone in Atoka?
Our little village was everyone’s quintessential image of small-town America, as wholesome as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and as all-American as Happy Days. Out here time rewinds; we’re still old-fashioned in our ways when it comes to small courtesies, simple pleasures, and long-standing traditions. Which is why on weekends Atoka and the nearby village of Middleburg bustle with tourists and folks from Washington, D.C., who drive out here in hopes of rekindling their sepia-tinted memories of a time and place when life was sweeter and more innocent. They find it, too, on our quiet country lanes lined by Civil War–era stacked-stone walls, rolling hills of pastures and farmland, and streets in town named for the signers of the Declaration of Independence who were all friends of the man who founded Middleburg in 1767.
My phone rang while I was still in the parking lot. I had been halfway through composing a text asking Antonio if he’d ask Miguel about working for us on Saturday. The telephone display read Merchant, Francesca and I hit the green button.
“Frankie, what’s up?”
“Lucie.” She sounded distracted. “Can you drop by when you get a chance? I need to talk to you about something that’s come up. It has to do with the wedding.”
Antonio and Valeria’s wedding had started out as a simple affair, but somehow it had ballooned into something that wasn’t quite on the planning scale of a royal marriage, but there were days when it certainly seemed like it.
“Sure,” I said. “Be right there.”
There were no guests in the tasting room when I showed up a moment later, only Frankie and Nikki Young sitting together on one of the leather sofas next to the enormous stone fireplace we used when the weather got cold. They were hunched over a laptop that sat on the heavy oak coffee table, frowning at the display. When I closed the front door the two of them looked up, apparently startled to see me.
“That was fast,” Frankie said.
“I told you I’d be right there. I was in the parking lot when you called.”
She looked puzzled. “I thought you were somewhere else. I saw a truck from La Vigne speeding down Sycamore Lane as I was pulling into our entrance about fifteen minutes ago. Jean-Claude de Merignac was driving like he was behind the wheel of one of his family’s Formula One racecars. He must have been doing fifty. Blew right past the fifteen-miles-per-hour sign, too.”
My cheeks turned pink. So much for our private meeting.
“He offered to take a look at the millerandage in the Cab Franc block,” I said in my blandest voice. “And he needed to get right back to La Vigne.”
Nikki stared at me and I knew she realized I’d just lied. Our eyes met and mine skidded away, but not before I saw the confused, hurt look on her face. Had she heard the rumors about Robyn and Jean-Claude? And now maybe she thought that he and I were—?
Good God.
“… got a final price from the florist,” Frankie was saying. “We’re not decorating the White House. It’s just a simple wedding.”
“Pardon?”
“The florist. I’m talking about the wedding florist and the proposal she just sent. Come take a look at this,” Frankie said. “See for yourself.”
I went over and sat down across from them. Frankie spun the laptop around so I could see what they had been looking at. Nikki, still silent, watched me, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
The revised florist’s bill was nearly double the original estimate. I closed my eyes, trying to do mental math to figure out just how much this wedding was going to cost. So far.
“The guest list has already crept up to a hundred and twenty-five people,” I said, “so the catering bill has gone up. Dominique is going to cut me a break so she makes no profit, but it’s still going to be pricey. At least we’re providing the wine.”
Nikki spoke up. “I’d be happy to do the flowers. I wouldn’t charge y’all anything, except the cost of buying what I need. It could be my wedding gift to Antonio and Valeria and, besides, I’d love the experience. There’s a flower farm out in Culpeper where you can cut everything you need and it’s really inexpensive. A lot of late-summer flowers are still in bloom and the autumn flowers should be starting soon as well.” She rattled off a few varieties in her honeyed drawl, ticking them off on her fingers, and it was clear she knew what she was talking about. “I’m sure I can come up with arrangements in Valeria’s colors that won’t be too expensive.”
Valeria’s colors were vibrant: red, orange, and yellow. No white anywhere. Even her wedding dress was flame-colored and reminded me of a flamenco dancer’s costume.
Frankie gave her a thoughtful look. “You’ve done some gorgeous arrangements for the villa,” she said. “Are you sure you could handle a whole wedding, though? On your own?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just give me a couple of days off work so I have enough time, but I’d love to do it.”
“What do you think, Lucie?” Frankie asked me.
“I think it’s a very generous offer. Thanks, Nikki. I’m sure the flowers will be beautiful.”
She gave me a small smile, but her eyes were still clouded. “My momma owns a flower shop back home. I used to help her out a lot.”
“Well, that problem is solved.” Frankie snapped the laptop shut with a brisk click. “Now the only thing left to do is tell the florist we’ve reconsidered. I’ll take care of that.”
Nikki stood. “If you don’t mind I’ll call the cutting farm right now since they’re probably closing soon and get a list of what they’ve got at this time of year. Then I can start putting together some ideas for arrangements.”
“Of course,” I said. “Take all the time you need.”
“Thanks, Lucie. If y’all will e
xcuse me?”
After she left the room Frankie said, “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have put my foot in my mouth about Jean-Claude being here, even if it was just to talk about the grapes. I’m fairly sure he and Nikki split up recently and she’s taking it hard. Not that she’s letting on that they’re no longer seeing each other, of course. I suspect she’s hoping whatever happened will blow over.”
“I didn’t know they split up. She didn’t confide in you, tell you anything about it?” I asked.
Frankie had hired Nikki, who was the daughter of a good friend. She had moved to D.C. straight out of college with the intention of finding a job working for a nonprofit and doing her part to save the world. Six months later she was out of money and took the position Frankie offered her as our event planner. She still wanted to save the world, but it would have to wait.
Frankie ran the tasting room and supervised all the events at the winery with the efficiency and strategic planning of a complex military campaign. Delegating didn’t come naturally to Superwoman, so I had been pleasantly surprised to see the way she let Nikki handle our event schedule without micromanaging every decision she made. But Frankie also fussed over Nikki as if she were her own daughter. They even looked as if they were related: the same strawberry-blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes. The same open, easygoing manner and warm smile that made the clients feel at ease. Someone to whom you could unload your problems and get compassion and understanding in return. Frankie often joked that she heard more confessions than the priests at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church when she was working behind the bar.
“Nikki didn’t even tell me Jean-Claude was her new boyfriend when they first started going out,” Frankie said. “I think she was worried I’d say something about their age difference. Of course I guessed right away, the way she’d light up every time he dropped by or if someone mentioned his name. You’d have to be blind not to notice. But, honestly, he’s old enough to be her father.”
“That’s what Quinn said. Do you know why they split up? Or who broke it off?”
“He did. Definitely. She’s been moping around for the past week like she lost her last friend on earth. And I suspect it was because he is too old for her. He certainly doesn’t seem like the type to settle down. I wonder if he’s ever been married.”
“He hasn’t.”
“You’ve known him for years, haven’t you?” she asked.
“Our families go way back in France.”
I wasn’t about to tell Frankie about my own unrequited crush on Jean-Claude. Or the rumors about him and Robyn. It didn’t seem as if she knew and there was no point spreading gossip. Plus my latest encounter with Jean-Claude had ended badly, not even an hour ago. Go to hell. There were a lot of secrets to keep.
“Well, her heart will mend soon. She’s young. And pretty. She’ll meet someone else in no time.” Frankie sounded confident that Nikki would bounce right back. She glanced over at the window. “Looks like you have a visitor, Lucie. Kit Noland is coming up the walk.”
Kit Eastman Noland was Bobby’s wife and my best friend since childhood. I’d known her longer than I’d known Bobby. Five years ago she moved home from Washington, D.C., to care for her mother who’d had a mild stroke. She’d left behind a good position as assistant foreign affairs editor in the newsroom of the Washington Tribune, managing to get a transfer to the Trib’s Loudoun County bureau, which she now ran. The move to Loudoun meant Kit had effectively given up any chance of being noticed for a promotion to an overseas correspondent’s job or a senior editor’s position. We weren’t exactly a backwater out here, but the county was light-years away—in career-killing terms—from Washington. Kit never said a word about lost opportunities or having regrets. Now Faith Eastman, who had been like a second mother to me after my own mother died, was in an assisted-living home about ten minutes from the vineyard. Kit had probably gone to visit Faith and was dropping by on her way home, as she often did.
The door flew open and Kit blew in, her usual tornado-style of whirling into a room. Her Marilyn Monroe–blond hair was piled into a bun on top of her head and she wore an electric-pink sleeveless minidress with chocolate-brown hand-worked cowboy boots. Her wardrobe was filled with what she called “statement outfits,” clothes that made sure no one ever missed her when she raised her hand at a press conference. “I always get called on,” she’d said. “I make sure of it.”
She gave Frankie and me a breezy wave and said, “‘Evening, all. It’s five o’clock somewhere.” She paused midstep. “Sorry, am I interrupting a meeting? I was on my way back from seeing Mom at Foxhall Manor and thought I’d stop by … but if you’re in the middle of something…”
“Not at all,” Frankie said. “We were just finishing a pre-wedding triage session to fix something that came up. Come on in.”
“Is this about Antonio and Valeria’s wedding?” Kit asked. “I remember how you fussed over every detail of Bobby’s and mine. It was perfect.”
Frankie beamed. “Yes and thank you. We try.”
“How’s your mom doing?” I said. “I was planning to drop by to see her in the next few days and bring her a basket of apples from our orchard. Better yet, maybe I’ll ask Persia to make her an apple pie.”
“That would be great, Luce. You know how Mom loves Persia’s pies.”
Kit hadn’t answered my question. “She’s okay, right?”
“Oh, sure. She’s fine. Just … fine.”
The two of us could finish each other’s sentences, practically read each other’s thoughts. Faith Eastman wasn’t fine.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Kit gave me a worried look. “Maybe I’m imagining it, but lately she seems a little less … sharp than usual. A bit forgetful.”
“Aren’t we all?” Frankie said. “Everyone’s doing too much, multitasking all the time. It’s hard to keep all the plates spinning, you know? I forget the silliest things, like where my glasses are when they’re on top of my head.”
Kit’s smile was tinged with sadness. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I’ll visit her,” I said. “I promise. Soon.”
“That would be great. Let me know what you think about her, okay?”
“How about a glass of wine? What can I get you gals?” Frankie changed the subject in her best hearty cheer-you-up voice as she walked over to the bar. My artistic mother had designed it and it ran nearly the length of the room, an undulating, graceful S-shape with a stone countertop the color of earthy red-brown jasper and hammered copper trim. Embedded in the façade was a mosaic my mother had tiled herself: twining vines laden with bunches of red and green grapes, lush and full of leaves as if it were just before harvest. She had used brilliantly colored clear glass tiles in shades of red, green, yellow, and gold, and made sure the bar was located in such a way that when the sun streamed through the double French doors as it was doing right now, the light would catch the tiles so they would glow like lit gems.
“A glass of your Sauvignon Blanc for me, please,” Kit said, joining Frankie.
“I’ll have the same.” I pulled out a bar stool and climbed up on it.
Frankie got a bottle of Montgomery Estate Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc out of the wine refrigerator and expertly opened it, pouring two chilled glasses. “Enjoy.”
“Lucie? Frankie?” Nikki stood in the doorway between the tasting room and the corridor that led to the offices. “Oh, hi, Kit. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Hey, Nikki. I was in the neighborhood,” Kit said, “so I dropped by.”
“What’s up?” I asked Nikki.
“I’d like to drive out to Culpeper to the cutting farm tomorrow morning if that’s all right and see for myself what they’ve got. Okay by you?”
Kit looked puzzled so I said, “Nikki offered to do the flowers for Antonio and Valeria’s wedding after we got an estimate from a florist in Leesburg that meant we’d practically have to put the vineyard in hoc to pay it off.” To Nikki, I added, “Sure, go rig
ht ahead.”
“Thanks.” She disappeared.
Frankie put the bottle of wine back in the fridge. Then she went over and scooped up the laptop from the coffee table. “I’ll leave you two to your happy-hour drink. I have to finish up a couple of things in my office.”
For years Quinn and I had our offices here in the villa—I took over what had been my mother’s office and he occupied the one next door that belonged to his predecessor—but when Eli, who is an architect, drew up plans for expanding the winery and renovating the tasting room a few years ago, Quinn and I moved to a newly designed suite above the barrel room. Frankie inherited my office and the rest of the space was redesigned to add a larger kitchen and room for four new full-time employees, including Nikki, a bookkeeper, and two motherly women who handled all of our social media, publicity, and off-site sales.
“We’ll be out on the terrace,” I said.
“Then I’ll see you in the morning. I’m taking off after I’m done,” Frankie said.
“I’ll lock up.”
She left and Kit said, “I don’t suppose you have anything to munch on, like peanuts or trail mix? I’m famished.”
“I think that could be arranged.”
“I’m doing the Paleo Diet and it’s just not working.”
The two of us used to run cross-country in high school. We were good—really good—and we had both been thin as proverbial rails who could eat anything and never gain an ounce. Kit quit running in college, throwing herself into working at the campus newspaper and all-nighter deadlines, and the weight had started to pile on. As for me, after the accident it had been a struggle just to learn to walk again. But I could still eat whatever I wanted with impunity. Eli, who also wrestled with his weight, accused me of having the metabolism of a hummingbird.
Kit and I pushed two deck chairs over to the patio railing and turned them so they faced the vineyard and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. I shoved a small table between them for the bowl of trail mix and our wineglasses and we sat down. Kit propped her feet on the railing, crossing one leg over the other.