She quickly bent and scooped up a handful of dirt, fertile but thick and claylike, remembering as she did what her grandfather had taught her about terroir and the impact the soil had on the grapes that were grown in it.
It was one of the lessons that had since allowed her to build a career as one of the most renowned up-and-coming winemakers in California’s Napa Valley.
“Goodbye, Mack,” she whispered. Her breath misted in the icy air, floating eerily over the open grave before the wind carried it away. And then the coffin disappeared from sight.
The minister completed his final words and walked over to Zoe to shake her hand and squeeze her shoulder. There was a murmuring then, people began talking and even laughing—telling stories of the old days, she was sure. A shiver of dread ran down her spine. The last thing she wanted to share with this town was memories.
Patricia materialized at her side, cupping her elbow and steering her back toward the cemetery gate. She treated Zoe as if she were fragile, as if she were grief-stricken. Zoe definitely did feel zoned out, but she put that down to tiredness and lingering jetlag. And when had she last eaten? She couldn’t remember.
Overwhelmingly, she was just thankful this task was behind her. Boneless with relief, actually. It probably looked similar to grief, she figured; grief was no stranger to her, and neither was that numb and empty feeling that accompanied it. When she was seventeen and had lost everything, she’d understood what true grief was. This wasn’t even close.
“I’ll make sure she gets there.”
A male voice broke into her thoughts, but Zoe was still finding it difficult to focus on the world around her. Basic senses were returning slowly; she was aware that the wind had become almost a gale, she could smell eucalyptus as people walked over the leaves on the ground and crushed the oil out of them. People were chatting loudly now, getting into their cars with raucous farewells and banging of doors.
“Are you sure?” Patricia asked. “I can go with her in the undertaker’s car. Bert can drive my car over.”
“No, it’s fine, she can come with me.”
Zoe was barely conscious of the fact that Patricia’s soft touch on her arm was replaced with a strong masculine hand and she was being steered assertively toward a European sports car.
“See you there.”
Zoe blinked and found herself sinking into buttery-soft leather seats as the powerful engine purred to life. And next to her sat Hugh Lawson, a grim look on his face. How could she have been that out of it? They were in his car and pulling out of the cemetery car park before she pulled herself together enough to protest.
“See us where? Where are we going?”
“Lawson Estate.”
“What? Why?” The last place on earth she wanted to go.
“Because Mack Waters deserves a decent send-off.”
CHAPTER TWO
“EXCUSEME?” ZOEPROTESTED, just as Hugh expected her to. She reached for the door handle, but he reversed and drove off quickly before she could get out.
He flicked a glance at her as he steered the car away from the cemetery and back toward the road to Lawson Estate. She sat rigid, staring straight ahead. Her head was slightly bowed, and waves of dark hair fell forward hiding her expression, hiding eyes that Hugh knew were velvet brown. Brown eyes that could flash with fire when she was angry, darken with passionate intent late at night.
“Put your seat belt on,” he said.
She cooperated without a word. Well, he hadn’t expected her to be grateful, had he? He’d been an utter pain in the ass at their unexpected meeting yesterday, and he knew it. It had unsettled him just how unsettled he’d been by it. Looked as though today wasn’t going to be any different.
At least now he could direct that emotion at its rightful target instead of his poor staff. They’d tiptoed around him the day before.
“Are you really so bitter about Tangawarra, Zoe? You didn’t think that the people of this town would want to attend Mack Waters’s funeral? That they wouldn’t want a wake for its most famous winemaker? For a man from the family who more or less put the valley on the map?”
“I…I…” Zoe stumbled for words, and Hugh was surprised. But then the old Zoe returned and her eyes flashed at him as she twisted in the seat. There was that spark he remembered too well.
“You think I made that decision? I’d have invited the whole town—it’d be better to get their rubbernecking over and done with in one go. But I was following Mack’s instructions. He wanted it private, low-key.”
Hugh deliberately didn’t turn away from the road, but he rolled his eyes and knew she’d see. “Anyone with an ounce of sense would know that what Mack wanted and what Mack needed were two different things. Besides, funerals aren’t for the dead—they’re for the living.”
“I had to do what—”
Hugh didn’t let her finish. “I’m hosting a wake at Lawson Estate. The word’s gone out, so I figure we’ll have half the town there within an hour or so.”
Her protest died on her lips. She shut her mouth with a snap and sank back into the leather seat. From the corner of his eye, Hugh watched her hands clasp over her stomach, pressing tight enough against her belly to crease her sweater and turn her fingernails white.
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. Hugh wasn’t sure how, but he could sense the struggle inside her. Then he dismissed the idea. Ridiculous. He knew next to nothing about the woman sitting beside him. They’d been lovers a decade ago when they were practically children. Parted under the most miserable of circumstances. But high school was a long, long time ago. He was a different person now—she surely was, too. A person he had to get to know if his plan to take over Waterford had any chance of success.
“I…we…you can’t. Mack wouldn’t have wanted it. He would hate it. And I’m not prepared for it.”
There was a quiver about her mouth and he noticed that her legs were trembling, too. He fiddled with the controls on the dash and sent a rush of warm air through the car.
He adopted his best authoritative tone. The one he used at Lawson Estate all-hands meetings and at the Tangawarra chamber of commerce breakfasts. The one that convinced other people to listen. “Zoe, this has nothing to do with what Mack would have wanted. It’s about Tangawarra celebrating the life of one of its most famous citizens. It’s the right thing to do.”
“The right thing to do? What would you know about that?” Zoe suddenly blurted, biting her bottom lip with her front teeth as if she’d like to swallow the words.
Oh, that was too much. He’d thought the wake would be a good way to thaw the ice between them—show that the whole Lawson-Waters feud thing was ancient history and had no bearing on the present. In fact, he’d hoped it would become the opening round in his negotiations for Waterford. Not that he’d be so crass as to push Zoe for a deal on the day of Mack’s funeral. But he’d thought she’d at least be grateful. Perhaps even conciliatory. He hadn’t expected Zoe to be so violently opposed—had actually thought she might enjoy going against her grandfather’s wishes. But he wasn’t going to put up with bullshit like that. “Going to give me a lecture on right and wrong, are you, Zoe?” he asked.
“Need a lecture, do you?” she bantered back. Her tone was all careworn insolence, bringing a sudden, long-forgotten memory to the surface despite his determination to focus on the present. Hugh could picture her, clear as day, fronting up to a teacher at school, all fierce bravado and defiance, before being sent to the principal’s office for insubordination. Hugh had
admired