Storm of Visions Read Free Page B

them.
    He joined the group with an easy swagger. He stood a little apart to listen as Jacqueline recommended Cole’s Chop House for steaks. The wine she dispensed so freely was working on the guests now, and the food discussion turned serious. She found out that two of the Fun Four, the gray-haired man and his blond, laughing wife, owned a cattle ranch in Texas. They knew their leather. “Those are fine gloves.” The wife took Jacqueline’s hand and examined the material and stitching. “Are they in style, or do they protect your hands when you open the bottles?”
    When the woman ran her fingertips over the palm, Jacqueline flinched and curled her hand into a fist. “A little of both.”
    “So you’re a slave to style?” Mr. Aggressive’s voice was as cool as his manner.
    The wife didn’t like his implied criticism, but nothing in her friendly, accented voice or vivacious manner changed. “Bless your heart, sir, but we silly women do love to follow trends and set the fashion.”
    Jacqueline glanced at him to see if he realized he’d been mocked and put down, and by an expert.
    He smiled crookedly, that half smile that made Michelle pant with desire. That smile clearly indicated he could withstand censure. That smile royally pissed Jacqueline off.
    The blond wife turned back to Jacqueline. “Now, where should we have dinner tonight?”
    Naturally, they knew their beef, too. Jacqueline was able to assure them that Cole’s was consistently one of the highest-rated steak houses in the country with a wine list that won accolades from the top wine magazines. She casually mentioned that at Cole’s, the Blue Oak eighty-dollar bottle of cabernet sold for one hundred and seventy-five. At that moment, she sold a bottle of cab to the Fun Four, a mixed case to her wine experts, and consoled the lady from Wisconsin about the high prices.
    Then she briskly returned the group to the tasting room, where a disgruntled Michelle had lost her marines, lost her schoolteachers, and gained three new guests to tend.
    Jacqueline noted with some satisfaction that none of them was likely to buy.
    Normally, she would have stepped up to the counter to help. But the afternoon was waning. The Fun Four bought their bottle and moved on to the next winery. The wine experts fought about whether they should purchase another case. The lady from Wisconsin started talking to a new guy, the sunburned man from New Jersey; she’d obviously read the study financed by the wineries that declared tasting rooms were great places to meet men.
    And Mr. Aggressive stood silently sipping his wine . . . and waiting.
    To hell with him. He could wait forever.
    Jacqueline slipped into the back room and picked up the house phone. When the vintner’s wife answered, she said, “Mrs. Marino, the tasting room is slow, it’s an hour until closing, and I’m feeling ill. Would it be possible for me to leave early?”
    “Of course, dear.” Mrs. Marino sounded surprised and kind—Jacqueline was never sick. “I’ll come over in case we get a late rush. Will you be all right driving yourself home?”
    “Yes. It’s the heat that’s bothering me.”
    “And you work too much. I suppose you’ll be wait ressing tonight?”
    “I don’t know. I may take the night off.” Although she needed the money. It wasn’t cheap to live in Napa Valley. Her tiny apartment near downtown San Michael, on the second floor of the early-twentieth-century Victorian, cost almost as much as her apartment in New York City, and that was saying something. She could have gone elsewhere—nothing held her in Napa Valley—but she loved the dry warmth, the long rows of grapes, the mountains that cupped the valley, the wineries, their rivalries and alliances, the food, the wine. . . .
    She didn’t love the weirdos who popped up occasionally. Guys like Mr. Aggressive, who acted as if he had rights she hadn’t granted him. Rights she would never grant him.
    Let Michelle have him. Jacqueline