Too Close to the Sun

by Dempsey, Diana

  "Now there's the pot calling the kettle black." She busied herself with arranging the hose in a neatish circular pile. Is it my imagination or are we awkward with each other? Maybe that wasn't so odd. So much had happened; they'd each been so angry and so hurt. There was bound to be tension.

  Especially now at our moment of reckoning. For that was what this was, and they both knew it.

  Gabby ran out of things to do with the hose and so was forced to look at him again. She noticed he was holding a wine bottle and cocked her chin at it. "What's that?"

  He glanced at the label. "Suncrest's 1987 Cabernet Sauvignon. Ava gave it to me. She told me it was Porter's favorite vintage."

  "That was nice of her." Gabby knew there weren't many of those bottles left.

  Will held it out in Gabby's direction. "I'd like you to have it."

  Her arm failed to reach out. She didn't want to take it. Somehow it seemed too much like a parting gift. But there he was holding the bottle toward her, and what else could she do? She moved forward and relieved him of it and then stepped back again, looking at everything but his face. But she couldn't make her ears stop hearing what he next had to say.

  "We should talk, Gabby."

  There it was again, the unmistakable, hollow ring of finality. "We should," she heard herself agree, though deep in her soul she wished she could turn this scenario on its head and make it unfold in the way she had hoped for. She had dreamily imagined something quite different from this odd scene with its disconcerting last-time quality.

  "Is there a place here at the winery you particularly like?" he asked.

  That surprised her, too. "You don't want to talk here?"

  He hesitated, then, "Not really."

  Too many bad memories maybe, of misunderstandings and bruised feelings. They'd had a lot of those. Maybe too many. She tried to think. "There's the barrel-aging room. That's always been a favorite of mine."

  "Is that where dinner was served the night of the homecoming party?"

  She nodded. The night we met. She read the same recollection in his eyes and had the fleeting idea that they were moving in a circle.

  He took her hand, and they walked there in silence, claiming two moth-eaten director's chairs. In the semi-darkness, surrounded by the two-hundred-year-old sandstone walls and dozens of French oak barrels, they sat and stilled, held in that pregnant quiet that only very old buildings can produce, as if some essence of all those who had passed through before lingered in the air.

  He cleared his throat. "I want to apologize to you, Gabby. I've been really unfair. I accused you of betraying me, but the fact is that I wasn't always straight with you. I knew I was going after Suncrest, but I let you believe I wasn't. I didn't out-and-out lie, but I might as well have. I was just so intent on getting Suncrest. Then I went a long time refusing to take you at your word. I know now that you were telling me the truth about why you went to Vittorio." He shook his head. "Maybe back then I couldn't recognize the truth."

  "Oh, Will." She touched his arm, but he didn't look at her. "I feel like I did betray you when I went to Vittorio. I don't blame you for being angry with me. But it seemed there was nothing else I could do."

  Their eyes met. She gazed into the ocean-blue depths of his and found not a shred of the bastard in them.

  "I understand now that you were only doing what you had to do," he told her. "I wish I'd understood it earlier, your love for this place. And what it's always meant to your family."

  She forgave him everything. She cared not one whit about the mistakes they'd made, his and hers both, the real and supposed betrayals. She knew that at heart he was a good man, and she loved him, and now she cared only for what they might do right if they had the chance.

  Yet something was off. This was the time for him to take her in his arms, for all to be made right again. But instead he looked away, rose abruptly.

  She frowned, staring at this back. "What's wrong?"

  Time swelled, lengthened into an eternity while she spun nightmarish scenarios in her mind. Still he faced away from her. Still he said nothing.

  Then, "There's something I need to tell you," and he began to relate a story that transported her back to a slice of her history she would rather forget, her history with another man, in another country, and another life. I can't marry you, Gabriella, that other man had said. I have to do what's right for my family. I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry ...

  Now words she could never have imagined she would hear again came spewing out of Will's mouth, stories of his family's company and what they wanted him to do and how for years he had worried he'd shirked his responsibilities to them. How his sister had flown out from Denver to talk to him about it. How the timing was so uncanny, because he'd been thinking lately about doing something on his own. Gabby knew it was Napa Valley outside the old sandstone walls but it might as well have been Tuscany. One land exchanged for the other but still the same sad tale.

  She couldn't look at him anymore. She felt sick. She had to get away. He was still speaking to her, but she couldn't bear to hear anymore. She rose and made for the door.

  "Gabby."

  She was nearly out of the barrel-aging room when he grabbed on to her arm, held her back. "You don't understand."

  "I understand only too well."

  "I don't think so." He turned her around, grasped her by both shoulders. "I'm not going to do what Vittorio did."

  "You don't even know what Vittorio did."

  "I can guess." His eyes bored into hers. "I'm not going to Denver, Gabby. Ill find somebody else to run the company." He gave a little laugh. "After all these years with GPG, that's something I'm good at."

  She was confused. "But what about your family? What did I just hear you say?"

  "You heard me say I feel an obligation to them. And I'll fulfill it, in my own way. But I won't put that obligation over you, Gabby. And I don't feel it's right to ask you to move to Denver, to give up your whole life here. I won't do it."

  She shook her head. "But you talked about doing something on your own."

  "Not quite on my own." He led her back to the ratty director's chairs, made her sit again. "With you. Let's start a winery."

  She couldn't speak. That was so far from her craziest imaginings, she hadn't a thing to say to him.

  "Why not?" He laughed again. "I know you don't want to stay at Suncrest. I'm sure your father doesn't. One thing I have from GPG is my own capital to invest. Yes, we'd need to start small, smaller than Suncrest was at the beginning. But we could do it."

  Her father's words stampeded into her brain. It was always a pipe dream of mine. A label for the DeLucas. A fantasy, you'd have to call it. She looked into Will's eyes, as true and blue as Napa's sky. "You'd give up GPG for this? A little fledgling winery?"

  "Well, I'm hoping it wouldn't be fledgling forever." He laughed. "And as far as GPG goes, I'd miss some of the excitement, sure. But I've thought a lot lately about where I'd like my life to go, and I know I don't want to work for somebody else forever. Porter Winsted made me think about that." His eyes grew more serious. "You, too."

  "But how could we be business partners? There's so much we disagree about."

  "There's a lot we agree on, too. We'd have to figure out in the beginning just what kind of winery we were shooting for, but I think if we both moved a bit from where we are now, we'd find common ground."

  She thought about that. "I'd like my father to be in, too, though he probably wouldn't want to be full-time." This might be perfect for him, she realized. He would enjoy part ownership and yet have the flexibility no other winery would give him.

  She took a deep breath. What a responsibility this would be, as well as a joy. To be not just an employee but an employer as well, with all the burdens that entailed. To take full ownership of the wine she made, the good vintages and the less good.

  "I hope your father will join us. I'd want his expertise." Will crossed his arms over his chest. "You have to know, Gabby, that if we di
d this, it would be serious business. Neither one of us would be satisfied with a two-bit operation. I'd want to grow it, make it something important. You make the wine, with your dad if you want to, and I handle the business end. I think we could make it work."

  Maybe they could bring in Felix, too. If they bought land, they'd need a manager for the vineyards. Her mind was reeling. "It's so much to think about . . ." She stood up. "I have to let it sink in. I have to think it through."

  He rose as well, and bundled her into his arms. He whispered into her hair. "I missed you, Gabby. I don't want to be apart from you again. That was the worst mistake I made." His lips slashed against her cheek and found her mouth, and the kiss he gave her was gentle and urgent both. Then he pulled away, and on the uneven dirt floor stained with centuries of wine, he got down on one knee.

  Gabby's hands flew to her face, her heart leaping in a dance she'd never once practiced. Now the picture truly changed. She'd never before seen these frames of film. It was a sad movie no longer, but still it brought tears to her eyes.

  "I love you, Gabby. Marry me.''

  He pulled a little black velvet box out of his jeans pocket. She could have hit him for hiding it from her so cunningly, but so he had. Maybe he was a magician, her Will, appearing at just the right moment to make dreams come true.

  The diamond inside the little box sparkled bright, like the sun in Napa mornings and the light in a baby's eyes.

  "Say yes."

  There was a new light in Will's eyes, too, born of truth and promise and so many of the good things she'd once stopped hoping for. Love wasn't free. She had paid for this moment with the pain of the past. She had paid with Vittorio. She had paid with Suncrest. Yet she would do it all again.

  Her answer came without volition, from an unscarred place in her heart that had always been waiting for just this man and just this moment. "I would love to marry you, Will Henley."

  He laughed and rose again to his full height and wrapped her in his arms. They clung together in an age-old room that had seen lovers before, had heard their stories, all in their own way blessed and cursed, all with their own zigzag road to travel. And this was the way it was meant to be, when love came down from the heavens and shone its light into the shadows and took its lucky lovers on a blessed flight.

  The ring slipped on her finger, like the circle she had traveled. Vittorio had wished her a man who loved her with all his heart, who could do better than he had. And now, in Will, she had found him.

  Crazy, crazy love. It hits pell-mell, and those struck are helpless against the blows. What a sweet fight.

  It was a gentle autumn night under Napa's stars, and kind enough to take a long time to become morning.

  Diana loves to hear from readers! E-mail her at www.dianadempsey.com and while you’re there sign up to her mailing list to hear first about her new releases. She would also love for you to join her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

  Continue reading past the brief acknowledgments for an excerpt from Diana’s novel Chasing Venus, the story that readers call a perfect blend of romance and suspense …

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Napa Valley is a gorgeous spot, and it's easy labor to research a novel there. Between the stunning vistas and the fabulous food and wine, it was hard not to spend all my time researching.

  Several people very generously shared their time and expertise, and I could not have written this novel without them: Cathy Corison of Corison Wines, Dawnine Dyer of Dyer Vineyard, Sarah Gott of Quintessa and Joel Gott Wines, and Michael Honig of Honig Vineyard and Winery. Great thanks as well to Kim Getto of the Napa Valley Vintners Association, Jon Lovie of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, Lance Miceli of the Napa Wine Company, Healdsburg resident Joyce Chang, Napa resident Richard Chen, and San Francisco residents Ginny Hoover and Andrea Rockers.

  Dr. Paul Robiolio came through yet again! And a big thank you to title-meister Bill Meehan, whose name would be on this book's jacket if it had one.

  My critique partners were brilliant: winery-namer Tracie Donnell, Bill Fuller, Sarah Manyika, and Ciji Ware. Many special thanks to Jen Jahner and Audrey LaFehr.

  Rhonda Freshwater of Freshwater Design created a cover I loved from the first moment I saw it. Thank you, Rhonda!

  And as ever, my deepest gratitude, and my heart, belong to Jed.

  CHASING VENUS

  Known for page-turning romantic novels that keep you reading late into the night, Diana Dempsey delivers a suspenseful tale about a man and a woman who must shed the past to embrace the future …

  Annette Rowell’s latest novel is leapfrogging up the bestseller lists, and with every surge in sales she’s becoming more of a household name. The literary success she’s struggled so hard for would be a dream come true were it not for the killer preying on bestselling authors.

  Reid Gardner hosts a syndicated crime show dedicated to capturing dangerous fugitives. The former LAPD cop knows only too well how violence can shatter lives. No victim arouses his ardor more than the pretty author who’s become the target of a psychopath. Yet falling in love with her could cost him not only the reputation he’s spent years building, but the one killer who’s eluded him for years …

  PROLOGUE

  Death was not on the guest list, but it appeared all the same.

  Maggie Boswell, reigning queen of mystery fiction, sat at the signing table as if she were royalty on a throne. Around her, in teetering piles, was her latest bestseller. Grabbing at the books were members of the literary elite—authors, editors, agents. It was a huge irony that Maggie had invited them into her home for this book party. Most of them she disliked. Now all of them she distrusted.

  For any one of them might try to kill her.

  Someone handed her a book. She scribbled the inscription, struggling to rise above her fear. In the shifting terror of her worst imaginings, even her beloved home unnerved her. Its enormity was no longer a joy, but a threat. It had too many corners, too many shadows. And outside its stucco walls the night was moonless, and the silver-gray Pacific beyond the terraced garden unnaturally still.

  A breeze from the open French doors behind her wafted over the back of her neck, chilling her skin like a spectral caress. She shivered, turned to look. Yet there was nothing there, nothing but the unrelieved blackness of her garden.

  “Ms. Boswell?”

  She spun at the woman’s voice, and pursed her lips. A pretender to her throne, in the form of a brunette wisp with—in Maggie’s opinion—dubious talent.

  The woman held a book toward her and smiled. "I’m Annette Rowell. I’m a huge admirer of your work."

  Maggie took the book but didn’t care to smile back. “Are you?”

  "I’ve really been looking forward to this one."

  Read it and weep. “Shall I sign the book to you?”

  “Please.”

  Maggie scrawled To Annette and then her signature in expansive script. She slapped the hardcover shut and held out the volume.

  "You may remember that I have a mystery series of my own," the woman said.

  Maggie was well aware of it. "Is that so?"

  Again the woman smiled. “Thank you so much for including me tonight."

  Maggie wondered how this upstart had made it onto the guest list. She averted her head in silent dismissal and the woman moved along.

  The books kept coming, endlessly. Greet, open, sign, hand back, smile, over and over again. At one point, Maggie jolted upright. She’d felt something, sudden and swift, in the nape of her neck. A piercing, like a bee sting, or a needle making an entry into flesh. Deeply and with purpose. Then, just as quickly, gone.

  She frowned, twisted to look behind her out the French doors. Again, nothing. Just the yards of flagstone terrace and the lawn sweeping to the sea. With some trepidation she touched the back of her neck, then stared aghast at the unmistakable crimson smear on her finger.

  My God. A thought came, a terrifying idea she immediately bani
shed. It can't be.

  Someone held another book toward her. Mechanically she signed it, her mind whirling. As she returned the volume to its owner, she grimaced again.

  An unnatural tingling sensation had begun in her body. Maggie stilled, gave it her full attention. Yet the feeling didn’t disappear, but grew, strengthened.

  She shivered. Coldness writhed within her. The hideous thought returned, taunted her. Just like in my second book.

  No. She wouldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be so easy, that what she feared most would simply come to pass. Just like that. All the while the iciness intensified, knifing through her body. A harbinger of doom.

  This cannot be happening.

  Yet, she knew, it could.

  The people around her seemed to grow distant, as if a veil had dropped between her and the living world. She saw their faces, she heard their voices, but she was alone among them in a way she never had been before. She tried to move her mouth to speak but her lips failed to respond.

  So fast. It really is so fast.

  She was almost admiring of the poison's power. Just as she had written about it, so it was.

  "Darling?" Her husband bent over her. Voices echoed, concerned faces loomed. Someone held up something thin and shiny and silver. Maggie didn’t need to see it clearly to know what it was. A dart, tipped with poison.

  Terror gripped her then, spun in her mind like a grotesque dervish. Her imagination, always vivid, conjured an image of her last breath. Not so far off now, she knew. And, oh, how she would gasp, strain, seek air she could never more find ...

  Panic ballooned in the gorgeous living room, an acid cloud only she could see. People were jostling now, bumping into one another, seeking escape. A lone scream rent the air. She tried to turn her head to see who had made the shrill sound but wasn’t able. Already that was beyond her rapidly dwindling capabilities.