She checked her appearance in the rearview: makeup still intact, ponytail smooth, white button-down shirt tucked into a burgundy pencil skirt. She let out a nervous yelp when her phone rang on the seat next to her. Surprised that she still had reception in the middle of nowhere, she placed a hand over her racing heart and lifted the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
“You made it?” She pictured Senior Global Real Estate Advisor Gustavo Escarra swiveling around in his giant leather desk chair overlooking Central Park.
“Hey, boss. Yeah, I’m at the winery now. Elliot Dechamps is meeting me here in a few minutes.”
Nicole filled Gus in on her dinner the night before. “They seem eager to get rid of the place.” Silence. “Hello? Gus?” She sighed, wondering if the call had dropped.
“Nicole?”
“I’m here. You cut out for a second.”
“I said, how does the place look?” Gus asked.
“I haven’t gone in yet, but it’s already an overgrown mess. We may have to persuade the client to spend some money landscaping. I’m talking bulldozers, the works.”
“Well, this might be worth it. We’re going to have to get appraisals on everything from the irrigation pipes to the number of dead vines. And quickly. We have a lot of interested buyers who want to see this place immediately.”
“I’m on it.”
“And I don’t have to tell you that your promotion will be waiting here when you close this deal.”
“Consider it done,” Nicole said nonchalantly. But she began to feel that rush of a potential sale, and her new life with a big office and a kid in her lap dangled in front of her. “Oh, and say hi to Don for me. What’s he working on, by the way?”
Gustavo chuckled, always finding the rivalry between Nicole and Don amusing. Don was a smooth-talking Chi-town native who liked to pitch himself against Nicole’s New York street swag. “Don is taking care of a celebrity home sale. I’ll tell him you said hello.”
Nicole’s eyes lit up. Celebrities were the worst clients! “Just so you know, I am going to rub this in his face.”
“Have at it,” Gustavo said. She could hear him smile, and her skin pricked with more than just excitement. She’d learned much from Gustavo and she admired him, probably a little more than she should.
Okay, she had a crush on her boss.
He was about ten years older and stood over six feet tall with a nice body. And he looked great in a suit. Well groomed, handsome, and of course, wealthy—with a few homes around the globe.
He was perfect. Everything she wanted in a man.
And married to some former Miss Universe pageant winner who was also the mother of his three beautiful children.
Whatever. My Gustavo is out there. Somewhere. Right?
The question brought up images of Destin. She couldn’t tell if he was a player or a perfect gentleman. Was he a chauvinist or a boyish joker? One thing was certain: he was damaged goods. And as much as he tried to mask it, those moments when his eyes had darkened during their discussion about the land spoke volumes.
Again she told herself that her interest in him was derived from pity. She’d lost family too. Except she’d gone back to her hotel room after dinner and found herself thinking of Destin’s intense blue gaze and his mischievous smile. She liked his size and saw herself in the crook of his arm. What would his beard feel like against her cheek when he kissed her?
Get a grip! No. She refused to be attracted to him. Broken men couldn’t be fixed. She’d tried and failed too many times. She was thankful he wasn’t interested in the sale of the land. She doubted she’d see him again.
But still, she wondered if he’d made love to Thereza that night, and felt the smallest twinge of jealousy at the thought.
Grabbing her keys and the old black-and-white picture of the Dechamps winery, Nicole jumped out of the SUV to search for an entrance. The formidable vegetation gave no hint of a door. For all she knew, she was at the wall of Jurassic Park. Her small heels sank into the dirt and she worked to pull them out, her skirt hindering her movements, only to have them sink back in.
Exasperated, she opened the back of the car and rummaged through her tote bag for her flip-flops, but found only her blazer and wallet. She’d really misjudged this little adventure. Shoving her keys and phone in her bag, she slung it over her shoulder, stepped carefully around the other side of the car and squeezed herself through an opening between two large palm trees.
Nicole definitely wasn’t in New York anymore. Dead leaves rustled, something chirped overhead and the trees seemed to bend toward her. She freaked, moving forward as fast as she could, following a natural path, dodging twigs coming at her head and swatting at leaves that scraped her arms. She stumbled forward into a clearing, caught herself and then squinted up at her surroundings. She recognized the skeletal remnants of the winery instantly.
She held up the black-and-white picture, locating the main house, and studied the photo before dropping her arm. The fire had taken half of the front building. Rooms were roofless and exposed. She noticed the other vine-covered buildings that were spread out farther back—burned, crumbling and neglected. Behind them in the far distance were rows upon rows of gnarled and broken grapevines. The massive trees in the picture, now decayed chunks in the ground, must have been how the flames traveled from one building to the next.
During her summer in France, she’d enjoyed waking early to help with the harvest, walking between the vines, breaking for a four-course lunch feast with her host family. Love and laughter were served with the pinot noir. This place hadn’t seen that in a long time. It was desolate, scarily so.
She snapped some pictures on her phone, noticing in one the dark sky in the corner. Tipping her head back, she saw clouds race by—some dark and thick, others white as cotton balls—but the sun seemed to scare them away. The surrounding trees swayed hard, then stopped. The air smelled like fall leaves. It was a bluebird day, hot as hell, though. She swore the humidity was getting thicker.
She took in the seclusion of the plantation—a great selling point. Again, the trees rustled and a loud thud startled her, as if something heavy had fallen, and it occurred to her that she was in a foreign country, in the wilderness, alone. She listened carefully for people or, God forbid, animals. Being a city kid, she was tough, but wild things were not her forte.
She turned to go back to the car, suddenly aware of a large shadow rising overhead. Thunder cracked, and the darkened sky flashed with lightning. A droplet, followed by a few more, fell on Nicole’s head and shoulders. She lunged forward to find her path back to the car, catching her heel in the already-soft ground. The sky became darker still, and the clouds unleashed. Her ears filled with the rush of the water within the surrounding trees, and rain pelted her eyes. She again tried to move forward, but her exit path had disappeared in the downpour.
A dog barked from not too far away. Through the rain, she could see its black-and-caramel form standing alert inside the open doorway of a small shack. A shack with a roof!
She wanted to run there, but what if the dog wasn’t friendly? Or had rabies? The dog barked again and took off into the rain. She rushed forward toward the open door, her heels sliding all over the place, but she pushed on. Breathless and soaked, she felt the cool air on her skin as she made it inside the shadowed doorway. She swiped at her eyes, blinking rapidly, and ran straight into a body.
The scream