Tangled Vines (22 page)

With a shift of his head, he caught her glance and held it. “To see a woman. To know that she's your kind of woman, dreaming the same dreams, laughing at the same things, feeling the same desires. To lie awake at night.... .”

“Clay,” she whispered in protest, but her eyes were full of him and her lips were parted.

“Tell me you don't feel the same and I swear I will never mention it again.”

“I cannot,” she admitted and smiled at him, her dark eyes full of longing. Then, with the calm of a woman who had reached her decision, she looked down the slope at the hillside olive grove. “I like to take walks in the evening. Doesn't it look peaceful among the olive trees, the little stream flowing?”

“I have admired the setting many times myself. It would be beautiful in the moonlight.” That simply, the rendezvous was arranged. Nothing more needed to be said by the time Emile joined them.

The sun sank behind the western range of mountains, leaving streaks of scarlet and magenta in the sky and bathing the land in coppery hues. Natalie stood at the deep-set window of the sitting room and watched the sinking light, achingly conscious of the dead silence in the room.

Emile sat in the bright yellow chair, his feet propped on a matching ottoman, his reading glasses perched precariously near the end of his nose, his hands holding open a book. The riffle of a page had been the only sound from him she'd heard since dinner. As usual, he wasn't even aware she was in the room.

Beyond the room's private terrace, the tops of the olive trees angled down the hill slope. Natalie kept her vigil, waiting until the shadows under them had deepened and the evening star glittered in the twilight sky.

Moving away from the window, she crossed the tiled floor and turned on the lamp next to her husband's chair. He glanced up without really seeing her and grunted his thanks. Once again, he was engrossed in his book, some philosophical treatise that she knew she would find quite boring.

“I am going for a walk, Emile,” she told him.

Distracted, he looked up and frowned. “It is dark.”

“It will be cool. It was much too hot to explore the grounds when we arrived this afternoon,” she explained as she walked to the door. “I have the key. There is no need for you to wait up for me if you become tired.” She glanced back and saw he was already absorbed in his reading.

She stepped out of the suite into the gentle warmth of the night air and quietly closed the door behind her. She saw no one in the parking area outside the row of maisons, and took the narrow dirt path that wound around the terra-cotta building and across the parched grass to the olive grove.

The lights from the resort above winked at her through the branches, branches that shielded her from sight. She wandered among the trees, not hurrying as she slowly made her way toward the quietly trickling stream.

A boulder, dark and gray, jutted from the tall grass next to the streambed. Automatically Natalie brushed the dust from the top of it and sat down. Over her shoulder, she could see the rising moon, a silver disk joining the dusting of stars in the sky.

Somewhere off to her left, she heard the sound of a car door closing. On the other side of the stream, the ground ran up a sheltering hill covered with more trees. She listened and heard nothing for the longest time. But she knew it was Clay. She knew he had come, just as she knew he was there now struggling with his own sense of honor, his own sense of what was right.

For herself, she had no such questions, only a strong feeling of destiny that it had been meant for her to meet him, that it had all been marked out to happen long ago despite her marriage. She felt no guilt at being here, no sense of shame or regret, only a great contentment that brought a kind of thrill.

A rock tumbled down the slope, its passage followed by the sound of rustling grass. Vaguely she could make out the tall shape of him moving through the trees. Then he was there, stepping across the rivulet of gleaming water to join her as she rose to her feet.

“Natalie.” He stopped, his face in shadows. “I almost didn't come tonight.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because you asked me.”

“You could have stayed away.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You know I couldn't stay away.”

“No more than I could.”

When he took the last step, eliminating the distance between them, she went into his arms and his mouth came down, taking hers in a kiss that was rough and needing. She gave it back eagerly. This was the fire and the glory that had been missing in her life for so long. So very, very long.

He ripped his lips away and dragged them across her cheek and into her hair. With her arms around him, holding him close, she felt the molding pressure of his hands, curving her to fit against him.

“Being with you tonight won't be enough.” His breath, his lips teased her ear. “Emile and my father, they have to come to an agreement. I have to be able to see you again.” He rubbed his mouth over the sensitive cord in her neck, sending delicious chills dancing over her skin. “If Emile chooses to work with Katherine instead -“ He broke off the thought and shuddered, his arms tightening around her.

“I think he will not,” she murmured in assurance, running her fingers through the crisp silk of his hair in a loving stroke. “He does not share the madam's passion for wine. To him, it is a business. That is why, I think, he favors your father.”

He pulled back, framing her face in his hands while his gaze bored into her. “It has to be that way, Natalie.” The things he felt were hot enough, real enough at this moment, to show in his face. “It has to be for us to see each other – to be together.”

“I know.” With her fingertips, she traced the angle of his jaw and the outline of his lips. “Love me, Clay. I need you to love me.” She arched up to meet his mouth, letting his kiss spin her away.

The next morning, across the breakfast table, Clay discreetly studied her, paying scant attention to the conversation between his father and the baron. She was radiant, her eyes glowing each time she shyly met his glance. There was no doubt in his mind – she had the look of a woman in love. He marveled that her husband hadn't noticed the change in her. The man was obviously a fool when it came to women, but most men were.

Watching her butter a croissant, he considered again how easy it had been. Much easier than he'd expected. She was now their strongest ally. He started planning when he would meet her again, what he would say, what he would do.

The Ford Taurus sped along Highway 29, its headlight beams slicing through the gathering darkness. Their light flashed off the giant eucalyptus trees that flanked the road, standing like ghostly sentinels in the night. The twin range of coastal mountains that ran the valley's thirty-odd miles of length to form its narrow corridor were little more than looming black shapes against a star-sprinkled sky.

DeeDee Sullivan sat behind the wheel of the rental car, a pair of sunglasses relegated to a perch atop her short-cropped hair. Kelly was beside her, her glance continually straying to the darkened landscape beyond the passenger window. She found it ironic that it had been nighttime when she'd left the valley twelve years ago and it was nighttime when she was returning, breaking the vow she had made never to come back.

“Considering the way our luck's been running, I'm not surprised your flight was delayed more than an hour.” DeeDee flipped to low beams when she saw the oncoming car. “I hoped it would change when you got here. But if that's any indication, it isn't.”

“I take it you've had some problems.”

A scattering of yard lights gave Kelly glimpses of vineyards sleeping in the moonlight. Here, on the flat floor of the valley's southern end, the land was planted predominantly to chardonnay, Riesling, the white varieties of wine grapes that benefited from the cool of the sea fogs that rolled off San Pablo Bay in the summer and spread thick, white mist up the valley, leaving the occasional hillock isolated in sunshine.

“Problems.” DeeDee pushed out a short laugh. “So far, it's been nothing but. We've been here two whole days, three counting today, and we don't have one usable tape. One whole day's work – great shots of the grapes being picked, Mexican laborers with faces that told a story all their own, workers running to empty their baskets of grapes in the truck at the end of the row, the foreman keeping a running tally on the number for each worker, the trucks rumbling down the highway mounded with grapes, the men at the wineries with grape-juice stains running halfway up their arms, the grapes tumbling through the stemming machines, the juice seething and foaming in vats, the workers at the end of the day against the most spectacular sunset you have ever seen – all of it.” Both hands left the wheel as she dramatically flung them in the air. “All of it ruined!”

“How?” Kelly asked, trying to ignore the images that flashed through her mind, memories of harvests she had seen, triggered by DeeDee's word pictures. “What happened?”

“There was something wrong with the camera.” She sighed in disgust. “There were light streaks through every tape. What makes me so furious is that Steve wanted to review the tapes from the winery on the monitor in the van, but I didn't want to take the time. I wanted to get out to the vineyards and get the scenes with the grape pickers while we still had some morning light that would give us some shadow effects. What would it have taken? Ten, twenty minutes to look at the tapes? We could have found the problem then. As it was, we didn't discover it until that night. Steve drove into San Francisco yesterday to get the camera fixed. Some lens part had gone bad, and he had to wait for a new one to be flown in. He got back today just before I left to pick you up at the airport.”

“But it's working now.” Just ahead, Kelly spied a familiar old building that had once housed a roadside general store. Almost twenty years ago it had become the Oakville Grocery and a highway landmark. She had gone in it many times just to look at the strange items they had – truffles, quail eggs, tins of caviar, and French pates.

She remembered the aroma of French bread, freshly baked, workers hot and sweaty from the vineyards shouldering their way to the deli counter for a sandwich and cold beer, tourists in shorts with cameras around their necks standing in line with women in heels and silk dresses, Mercedes and dusty winery trucks parked side by side in front.

“It's working,” DeeDee confirmed, the tone of her voice grim. “It's a damned good thing we have two extra days here. We're going to need them.”

“It sounds like it.” Off to the left, landscape lights illuminated the entrance to the Mondavi winery. Kelly found it difficult to concentrate on what DeeDee was saying as she recognized more places, remembered more things. Yet she needed to keep the conversation going; she needed the distraction of it. “Have you been out to Rutledge Estate yet?”

DeeDee nodded. “Yesterday. I stopped to let Mrs. Rutledge know we were here.” Mrs. Rutledge – the name sounded wrong to Kelly. She was Madam or Katherine Rutledge, names that echoed the force of her personality. “She showed me around her garden. A great setting for part of the interview, by the way.” She paused and shot Kelly a smile, one eyebrow arching. “I'll have you know she informed me that it would be convenient for us to come tomorrow afternoon at one-thirty. Thank God, she agreed to let us come early the following morning, otherwise who knows how long it would have taken to get the various sequences with her at the house, the winery, the vineyards, and the gardens all shot.”

“A day and a half will be plenty for the interview segment,” Kelly said. “As it is, this is going to be a difficult story to edit down. Katherine talks in quotable material.”

“Judging from the brief time I spent with her, you're probably right. I'd love to do a full-length documentary on her. I wonder if I could talk Hugh into letting me edit two versions,” she mused. “A short one for the show, and a longer one -“ She broke off the sentence and shrugged. “Oh, well, it's nice to dream.”

“Isn't it?” Kelly murmured as they passed the hamlet of Rutherford, which was little more than a collection of buildings at a crossroads.

“You'll be glad to know you can sleep in tomorrow morning. The rest of us are getting up before dawn. I found a vineyard where they'll be picking grapes tomorrow. I want to get some footage of the workers among the vines at first light. We'll be back around noon to have lunch and pick you up. You'll love this place where we're staying. It's a great little bed-and-breakfast. Margerie, the gal that owns it, is a real gem. She fixes cold lunches for us and everything. Wait until you taste her French toast,” DeeDee declared. “She uses Grand Marnier in the batter.”

When they reached the outskirts of St. Helena, DeeDee slowed the car to turn off onto one of the side streets. “I meant to tell you, we've been invited to a big bash at Rutledge Estate to honor Baron Fougere. We have permission to tape part of the festivities on the condition that once everyone sits down to dinner, the camera is put away.” She glanced at Kelly. “You've met the baron. What do you think about doing a short interview with him, getting his reactions to Napa Valley, Rutledge Estate, etceteras?”

“We could,” she agreed without enthusiasm. “But he's a bit pedantic. In a way, I'd hate to interview him and find out it was too dull to include in the story.”

“Good point.” Minutes later DeeDee pulled into the driveway of a Victorian-style house, shaded by towering oaks and elms. “Here we are,” she announced, shifting the car into park. “We kept the best room for you.”

The bed was a marvelous old four-poster with a feather mattress and antique quilt, soft and pale from numerous washings. The chair facing the mahogany secretariat was Chippendale. A brightly patterned chintz fabric covered the sofa in front of the fireplace. The adjoining private bath had an old swan-shaped tub with claw feet. A ruffled shower curtain hung from the oval ring suspended above it.

Kelly set her luggage on the floor and walked over to the doors that opened onto a private veranda. The long brass handles felt cool and smooth beneath her fingers. She pulled the doors apart and stepped into the night.

Roses climbed the trellis that walled off one side of the veranda, their fragrance scenting the warm air. The branches of the oak trees arched high, framing the view of the moon-silvered vineyard beyond the house lawn. To the east, the not-so-high mountains of the Vacas range cut a black and jagged silhouette against the night sky. She stared at the small pinpoints of light scattered along its slopes.

This particular view was not familiar to her, but the scene was. She gazed at the section of mountains she had once known so well, unconsciously scanning the darkly shadowed slopes for her favorite lookout place beneath a twisted oak, thinking of the hours she'd spent there, sometimes with a book, sometimes just dreaming, sometimes crying for herself, nursing her hurts, sometimes staring at the western Mayacamas Mountains lushly forested with great stands of redwoods, so different from the drier Vacas range studded with oak, pine, and madrona trees, and sometimes just observing the change of seasons in the valley below.

Winter with the dormant vines strung out like grotesquely twisted dark skeletons, sometimes white with hoarfrost or blurred by chilly winter rains. Rains that turned the hills green and the vineyards bright yellow with masses of wild mustard.

The fresh breezes of spring, the riot of flowers, the greening of the vines with, every day, more and more color showing until they reached the full leaf of summer and the heat came, parching the hillsides a tawny shade of yellow, and the vineyards were plowed, stripped of all weeds, while the grapes ripened.

The initial frenzy of autumn when migrant workers made their way down row after row, stripping the vines of their sweet grapes, and the air smelled of fermenting juices. The leaves changing color, painting the valley with vibrant scarlet and gold's, then dropping and the pruners moving in, trimming the vines to the shape of the winter skeletons. The haze of wood smoke in the air from burning fires.

Season after season, the land had changed, but the misery in her own life hadn't.

She was back. And every instinct told her to run now while she still had the chance.

The soft-footed Han Li, the resident chef at Rutledge Estate and a fifth-generation Chinese-American, brought a pot of dark and rich, European-style coffee to the terrace and set the tray on the glass-topped table within Katherine's reach. “Would the madam care for anything else? A fresh pastry with her coffee, perhaps?” he suggested.

She glanced at the baron. He refused with a small shake of his head. “I think not, Han Li. Thank you,” she told him as she lifted the two-demitasse cups from the tray.

Giving her a slight bow, he withdrew as silently as he had come. She filled both cups with the steaming coffee, passed one to Emile, then returned the pot to its tray.

“I am glad you were able to come this morning, Emile.” She spoke in French, aware he was more comfortable conversing in his own language. “I know Gil has kept you very busy these last few days.”

“He has had much to show me.” His air of reserve had increased from their last meeting in New York, proof of Gil's success in undermining her position. “He has a most interesting marketing strategy and sales campaign for his winery. Your son is a very innovative businessman.”

“He is. His success in this business speaks to that.” She took considerable pride in Gil's accomplishments, a fact that would surprise many in the valley – and her son most of all. “Just as important to me is that the quality of his better wines has improved with each vintage, with minor exceptions. Of course, the entire region has made great strides in the last decade. It is perceived as quality. Ask any distributor and he will tell you that any bottle of wine bearing a label that lists Napa Valley as its origin sells.” Katherine took a small sip of her coffee. “That is remarkable when one considers that of all the wines made in California, Napa Valley contributes less than five percent to that total. Within a few years, even that percentage will decrease.”

“For what reason?” Emile frowned.

“The new type of phylloxera.” She lowered her cup to its saucer. “It has been estimated that as much as seventy-five percent of the vineyards here in the valley will have to be torn up and replanted. Unfortunately, as recently as two years ago, a few winegrowers were still grafting their cuttings to the AXR one rootstock, which is not resistant to this new strain.” It was a-hybrid rootstock, a cross between a vinifera vine called amaron and the American rupestris.

“But this is foolish,” Emile protested. “In France, we have long known this was not a good rootstock. It is true it is easy to grow, but it is too vigorous.”

“I recall your grandfather was just as adamantly opposed to it over sixty years ago. Thankfully, I took his advice. Not a single vine on Rutledge Estate has to be replaced.” She made a slight moue of regret. “Poor Gil is not so fortunate. He is faced with replanting all his vineyards, but I am sure he has told you that.”

Emile made a valiant attempt to mask his ignorance with a shrug. “But of course.”

She caught the sound of approaching footsteps and glanced at the French doors opening onto the terrace as Sam walked through them. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

“Ah, here is Sam,” Katherine announced, automatically switching to English. “I have arranged for him to give you a brief tour of our vineyards and winery. It will give the two of you an opportunity to become better acquainted.”

“Assuming you have the time, Baron.” Sam inserted the qualification, and walked around the table to shake hands when the baron stood. Inwardly he chafed at this role of tour guide that had been forced on him, fully aware that Katherine wanted him to impress the baron with his knowledge of the wine business.

“I will make the time,” the baron stated.

After the baron had finished his coffee, he left with Sam in the Jeep. Sam drove first to the hillside vineyard they called Sol's Vineyard. He showed him the drip irrigation that had been installed during the second year of the drought to sustain the vines, and the runty grapes that were responsible for as much as seventy percent of the wine they bottled as Reserve, their best. The baron asked a few questions about the rootstocks and the phylloxera problem in California vineyards, but showed little interest in the vineyard itself.