Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

“He stopped by this morning,” I said. “He thinks there might be a trial. Did you know he’s planning to leave Atoka once it’s over?”

Mick picked up his wineglass and slowly swirled the contents around, watching the long viscous legs slide down the side of the glass. “I’m not surprised. Easier to forget an unhappy chapter of his life. Beginning with his marriage to Georgia.”

“What do you mean? He adored her.”

“She was miles out of his league. Not financially, of course. He had the dosh she needed to be Madame la Marquise. But she was rather a tart, wasn’t she? All those affairs, left, right, and center. Ross put the old blinders on because he loved her so much as you said, but it hurt.” He stood up and came around, pulling me to my feet. “And now enough about Ross and Georgia. Right now I want to concentrate on you.”

He kissed me again, a long, deep kiss, then murmured, “I assume we’ve got the place to ourselves? It’s nice here under the stars. You’re very beautiful by torchlight, you know?” He untied the straps to my dress and moved his hands down my body.

I thought of Quinn’s telescope in the summerhouse. He’d removed it this afternoon. I hadn’t checked, but I’d figured that’s where he’d gone after our argument.

“Mick,” I protested, “I’m not sure…”

But he wasn’t listening. Before I knew it, he’d slipped my dress off and it fell around my feet. He unbuttoned his shirt, then picked me up in his arms and carried me over to the hammock. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I met you,” he said.

“I thought we were going to wait and take it slow,” I whispered into his neck.

“We did wait,” he mumbled, laying me down as he finished undressing. He knelt over me and bent to kiss me again. “We finished dinner.”

We drank the champagne tangled in each other’s arms, then made love again. I got the wedding-ring quilt off my bed and brought it outside. We finally fell asleep and when I opened my eyes as the first streaks of daylight appeared in the sky, he was watching me.

“Morning,” I said. “Have you been awake long?”

He reached down and picked up his wristwatch off the wood floor. “Morning, love. No, not long. Since it started getting light.”

“How did you sleep?”

“I think I’m going to feel like a contortionist when I stand up, but no regrets. You were wonderful.” He kissed me. “I hate to say this, but I’ve got to go. I have a meeting in Washington in a few hours, so I’d better head back to the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes.”

“Want breakfast?” I sat up and held the quilt over my breasts.

He moved to the edge of the hammock and carefully stood up so I didn’t go sailing off the other side. “I wish I could.”

“How about dessert?”

He turned and looked at me. “That,” he said, “is another matter altogether.”

Afterward, I walked him to the front door, still wrapped in the quilt like it was a sari. “I’ll give you a ring,” he said, running a finger down my bare arm.

I shivered, then he kissed me again and left.

I showered, changed, and cleaned up from last night’s dinner. Though it was early, I drove to the winery. I’d been at my desk for about half an hour when I heard Quinn arrive. Normally whoever got here first stopped by the other’s office. Maybe he didn’t think I was in.

I picked up my coffee mug and went next door. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Whatever he was searching for on his desk, it apparently required all of his attention, because he didn’t look up.

“Everything okay?”

“Yep.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said. “Truce?”

He looked up and said coldly, “No apology needed. I picked up my telescope last night. I won’t be bothering you when you’re out on the veranda again.”

Last night. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what time he’d been there, but I couldn’t. My mouth went completely dry and my throat got a lump in it.

Finally I stammered, “I-it wasn’t about the telescope…”

“I said I won’t be invading your privacy again.” He was curt.

He’d been there when Mick and I were out on the veranda. He knew. I nodded. “I understand.”

“By the way,” he added, “I ran into your sister last night. She’d been drinking again.”

“Where? When?”

“At the No-Name. That bar on the Snickersville Turnpike. Obviously they weren’t checking for ID. ’Course, those guys wouldn’t.”

“The shack on the way to Philomont? The biker bar? What was she doing there?”

“Drinking and playing pool.”

“Oh, God. What time did you see her?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed and he stared hard at me. “Late,” he said. “I walked in around one a.m. and it was last call. She was there with the Lang girl and a couple of guys who were trying too hard to make sure everyone knew they were stinkin’ rich but they could go slummin’ for a night with the white trash, if you know what I mean.”

I leaned against the doorjamb and closed my eyes. “I get the picture,” I said. “Thank you for telling me.”

“That kid is heading down the road to perdition,” he said. “She’s going to do herself some real harm. And maybe take somebody down with her.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I don’t know how to stop her.”

“Well, you better figure out something,” he said. “Because if you don’t, there’s going to be hell to pay. It’s only a matter of time.”

When he left a short while later to join the crew in the fields, the tension between us was still as taut as an overwound clock. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I told one of the girls who’d just arrived for work that she could reach me on my mobile if something came up.

I had an errand in Leesburg.

Eli’s office was down the street from the old courthouse on West Market Street. I found a parking space around the corner on Church and walked past the pretty white-columned brick building as the bell in the tower serenely chimed ten o’clock. Out front, a statue of a Confederate soldier, dedicated to the thousands of Rebel soldiers who died fighting for a cause they believed in, stood guard. Elsewhere on the grounds the old stocks and whipping posts memorialized past methods of law enforcement. The way I felt about my sister just now, maybe they knew a thing or two about discipline in those days.

Eli’s dark-haired young receptionist was on the telephone as I walked in. She nodded at me and pointed to the stairs, giving me thumbs up to indicate that my brother was in.

He had his back to me, sitting on a high stool hunched over a set of drawings spread across his drafting table. The room was neat as a pin, except for the empty soda cans on top of the filing cabinet—although not surprisingly they were aligned in a perfectly straight row. A scale model of a shopping center occupied another table. Photographs of Brandi and Hope were crowded on top of a credenza, above which hung a corkboard covered with drawings and photos of buildings in various stages of completion. His Filofax, which he practically chained to his wrist, sat on his desk open to today’s date. Judging by the amount of writing on the page, he had a full schedule.

“Hey,” I said finally. “Sorry to bother you.”

He jumped and swung around. “Luce! I didn’t know you were there. What are you doing? What’s wrong?” “Why does something have to be wrong for me to drop by?” I asked.

“Nice try,” he said. “When your face goes all red like that and you don’t blink for a long time, I know it’s bad. What’s up?”

“Mia,” I said. “Quinn saw her at the No-Name last night. That biker bar on the Snickersville Turnpike.”