All's Fair in Love and Wine
Autor
Michele Dunaway
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22
HarlequinChapter One
Cake flour. Brown sugar. Softened butter. Chocolate chips. A top-secret family recipe known to a rare few trustworthy souls. Funny how, even after years of flying fighter jets, the step-by-step directions remained as routine as a preflight checklist. Taking comfort in the task’s familiarity, Sierra James opened the commercial refrigerator and removed a metal sheet covered with a dozen chocolate chip cookies, all formed with slightly hollowed out centers. Into each depression she dropped a #40 scoop full of chilled batter, until all twelve cookies mimicked the shape of tiny sombreros created from delicious dough.
She put the current batch into oven three. After she set the timer for ten minutes, the oven to her left chimed. When she pulled on the handle, oven two blasted out 375-degree heat and sent an aroma of melted chocolate wafting to her nose. She removed the cookie sheet. Once she set that on a rack to cool, she started the entire process over, using the same steps her grandmother had taught her daughter, Sierra’s mom—who’d showed them to Sierra and her younger sister, Zoe. It had been Zoe’s dream to follow in her mom’s footsteps and be next generation to own the store, and Sierra was glad of it. She’d help out, like she was doing today, but that was enough for her. She’d followed her dad and gone into the Navy.
Tradition meant quality, even if baking this way was slow and cumbersome. Six wall ovens ran simultaneously, baking the two-inch-high chocolate chip cookies that had made Auntie Jayne’s Cookies world famous. Some in town would say the store had helped to put Beaumont’s historic Main Street on the map. Sierra agreed cookies were a tastier draw than the riverside town that had hosted Lewis and Clark’s expedition, or the Woman in White, the town’s resident ghost and current star of this month’s Halloween ghost tours. She’d been sighted for hundreds of years wandering along several blocks of Main Street, including this one. However, Sierra had never seen the famous spirit, nor had her sister, Zoe.
Sierra didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, even if she had seen some strange things while flying. But it was cookies that commanded her attention today, not unexplainable atmospheric disturbances. Since she’d had a free Saturday afternoon—when lately did she not?—she scooped more dough, satisfied she’d prepared it correctly.
Like life, baking could be unpredictable and temperamental. The dough might not rise correctly for any number of reasons, including Missouri’s fluctuating humidity or a slight temperature differential inside the oven. One or two degrees this way or that could ruin an entire batch. But Sierra enjoyed the challenge of beating the odds. Besides, there was something about creating the cookies the old-fashioned way, or crafting them with love as her mom said. It soothed a weary soul, and Sierra’s could use all the help it could get.
Sierra stirred M&M candies into sugar cookie dough, moving the lever of the commercial stand mixer to speed four. The dough spun, thumped into submission and decadent deliciousness. No wonder her mom called baking therapy. The routine kept Sierra calm and stopped her from climbing the walls as she figured out her next steps. And there was the benefit of a tangible and tasty result.
At age thirty, she hadn’t thought her career choices included baking cookies in her childhood hometown or working at her family’s winery, but here she was. After the crash that ended her career, she’d had nowhere else to go, proverbial tail between her legs.
As a child, she’d loved living here and listening to her dad’s tales of flying fighter jets over the ocean. Beaumont, though, was located in the center of the Midwest, hundreds of miles from the closest ocean shore. The Gulf of Mexico was twelve hours south down Interstate 55 or ninety minutes flight time. Sierra’s zodiac sign—and her soul—demanded she be by water, and the older she grew, the more the Missouri River, rolling along two short blocks to the east of the store, failed to feed Sierra’s soul. For her, the Emerald Coast had been paradise.
On a clear day, she’d fly her jet toward where water met sky, the greens and blues merging along the horizon, at that point where the only way to know which way was right side up was via instrumentation. Flying meant freedom and infinity. That moment, where one element started and the other began, that was when a navy pilot was master of her instruments and destiny. That life had been glorious.
Using more force than necessary, Sierra shoved the mixer lever into the off position. Those heady, deliberate days were done. They’d crashed and burned in a brilliant, blazing fireball that had lit up the Alabama night sky and brought bright orange daylight to a farmer’s blackened field.
She lifted the bowl containing the cookie dough and held it tightly to her apron-covered chest, the pressure stopping her body’s desire to sit down. Inhaling deeply, Sierra concentrated on the task in front of her: grab a fresh scoop. Dip it into the bowl, then drop the cookie dough onto parchment paper. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Calmer, Sierra put the M&M’s candy cookies into an oven, set the timer and began laying out another sheet of parchment paper. Like a phoenix, she’d rise from the literal ashes. Returning to her childhood hometown had seemed a logical choice. Thankfully the well-meaning townsfolk, who knew her dream had died in the wreckage, had stopped giving her sympathetic smiles.
“Hey, Sierra!” Zoe hollered from the front room where she served customers. “We need more sprinkles and chips.”
“Be right out.” Sierra glanced at the digital display ticking down—she had plenty of time to refill the display cases before the cookies needed removing. She swapped out her plastic food-service gloves for a fresh pair. She opened the airtight storage container and removed a previously prepped display tray. Sugar cookies with sprinkles were a perennial favorite of younger kids, like Sierra’s seven-year-old niece, Megan, and Megan’s best friend, Anna Thornburg. In high school, Sierra had been a year behind Anna’s dad, Luke. Luke had married his former high school sweetheart, Shelby, a few weeks ago. Shelby and Sierra had taken flying lessons together before the global adventure photographer had moved to Seattle for college. Now she was back permanently, and the town was delighted the two lovebirds had finally reunited after twelve years apart.
The only thing Sierra wanted to be reunited with was her plane.
But instead of doing loops in her navy-issued T-6B, she shuttled between her mom’s cookie store and her dad’s vineyard. The words honorable discharge tormented her—the papers finalized three months ago, a full year after the accident that clipped her wings. Navy Lieutenant Sierra James was no longer a flight instructor, but rather a civilian with PTSD that often kept her awake at night. When Luke and Shelby climbed into a hot-air balloon during Beaumont’s annual balloon race the last weekend in September, Sierra had suffered a panic attack and needed to leave. The incident, only a few weeks old, remained another ugly reminder of Sierra’s failings.
“Sierra!” Zoe yelled, her urging more insistent.
“Coming!” Irritated by how much her reflexes had dulled since arriving home, Sierra double-fisted two trays through the swinging door and into the front room. About eight people queued in a loose line, waiting for their turn to reach the counter. Two groups, Sierra assessed. Three minutes wait for each, at most. Her sister moved aside and Sierra traded the empty tray of chocolate chip cookies for a fresh, full one. She was in the process of swapping out the sprinkle cookies located on the bottom shelf of the glass display case when she heard a deep, masculine voice calling her name.
“Sierra? Is that you?”
Sierra lifted her hairnet-covered head and peered over the upper shelf. Only years of military training kept her eyes from widening in shock.
Jerk Clayton was standing in her store.
Like, the very same jerk who’d pulled her pigtails when she’d been in kindergarten and he’d been in second grade; and the very one who’d not given her the time of day in middle school unless he needed help with algebra, a class she’d taken two years early; and the very one who, her freshman year, had asked her to the homecoming dance—but only because of a bet from his asshole friends.
Luckily, her friend Emily had discovered Jack’s real motives and told Sierra before she’d become the laughingstock of Beaumont High. Thankfully, he’d moved to Oregon two months later. One nemesis far removed.
Until here he was, like a bad penny turned up. Sierra closed the case’s sliding glass door and straightened, wishing she were in her intimidating navy uniform instead of an apron and hairnet.
“Hey, Sierra.” He had the same movie star smile. Same devil-may-care stance. Same cheeky grin that could smooth out even the most ruffled of feathers. His voice, though, was deeper and smoother, like fine bourbon aged extra, and that sexy tone rolled her name into three distinctive syllables: Cee-Err-Uh.
In person he was far more handsome than the picture in last week’s Beaumont Gazette. She’d doodled devil horns onto his head while eating a breakfast of brown sugar cinnamon oatmeal. Then she’d recycled the newspaper and wondered what her therapist might say about the torch she both carried for him and wanted to burn him with, depending on the day.
“Jack,” she acknowledged, making sure she used his given name and not the second-nature “jerk.” She lifted the empty trays and stepped out of the way so Zoe could fill a customer’s order box. Sierra edged toward the kitchen door, eager to escape.
“How are you?” he called, his pleasant tone holding just the right hint of masculine huskiness to spike her adrenaline in a way that proved sixteen years apart hadn’t been enough.
“Fine,” she replied, trying to play it cool. Especially if by fine, one meant freaked out, insecure, nervous and emotional, or the same way she’d always felt around him, back when her insides turned into marshmallow goo whenever he spoke her name. But this wasn’t high school. She was a trained fighter who could shoot down an enemy without batting an eye. Running into Jerk Clayton should not make her pulse quicken, even if time had been exceptionally kind. Hell, the years he’d used growing into his skin had clearly been positively decadent.
She couldn’t help but drink him in. Shiny dark leather Italian loafers stood in direct contrast to the checkerboard linoleum. The rolled sleeves of a burgundy shirt exposed all but a few inches of forearm under his elbow, revealing skin dusted with fine hair lightened by the sun. The crown on the gold watch circling his left wrist indicated the timepiece cost more than her car. The paper indicated he was an executive of some sort in his parents’ company. Basically, the Claytons had more money than God, or at least far more than most of the residents of Beaumont.
“It’s good to see you.” He directed another friendly, easy smile her way and a tiny tremble filled her tummy, as if the first pangs of hunger surfaced.
Sierra fought against preening. She’d seen him work his charms on teachers and classmates alike. Need an extension on homework? Done. At one point that charm worked its magic on her, at least before she’d wised up. No reason for her heart to be fluttering as if the heater had kicked on. Her reaction must be the adrenaline of seeing a childhood nemesis, although, if she was honest, this adrenaline was different from the kind she experienced when flying near the speed of sound.
He stepped closer to the display case, careful not to get in the way of the kids choosing cookies. A dimple deepened. “You look great.”
No man had a right to look as good as he did. Life on the West Coast agreed with him. Lighter highlights traveled through brown hair worn wavy and brushed away from his forehead, sort of like a younger Matthew McConaughey. Or a less coiffed Harry Styles, who was closer to Sierra’s age of thirty. Jack’s build, though, was all Chris Evans’s Captain America. Her toes tingled as his greenish-blue gaze caught hers.
Sierra lifted an eyebrow she’d thankfully plucked that morning. “Still the flatterer, I see.”
She gestured to the hairnet containing her pixie cut. Flour covered her black apron, and colorful sprinkle residue stuck to the long sleeves of her white shirt. “Then again, this fancy uniform is the height of Beaumont fashion.”
Thick eyebrows knitting together told her she’d thrown him, but he recovered instantly. “Definitely trendsetting. Anything you wore always looked great on you. Still does.”
“Still a player as well,” Sierra quipped, refusing to squirm. She’d faced officers who’d made her quake in her boots; she could face a sexy, all-grown-up Jerk Clayton. Back in high school, had he meant what he’d said, she would have given him anything. Today she wouldn’t give him an inch. Not after what he’d done. He was also proof that life truly wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t he be balding? Fat? Hunched over? Something?
She allowed a small, disarming smile. When facing the enemy, show no weakness. Give no parlay. Kill them with kindness, especially in front of tourists who would report seeing any drama or her caustic answers in their online reviews. “Are you back for a visit?”
Please say no.
The bells above the blue front door jangled as the first group of customers left. The second group moved forward, and Jack stepped farther in her direction. The counter forming a natural barrier, he lifted one of the slick Beaumont Main Street brochures from the clear acrylic holder. He flipped it open and gave it a quick once-over. “I arrived yesterday for a closing. I bought Sunny Days.”
Sunny Days was one of the region’s larger family-owned wineries. Sierra’s family’s vineyard considered Sunny Days its equal, not that Jamestown Vineyards worried much about competition. Her family’s vineyard simply did everything better and produced a better product than anything in Beaumont County. “I didn’t know that place was for sale.”
Maybe she should have read that newspaper article instead of blackening his teeth.
Broad shoulders lifted in a subtle shrug as he shifted his weight. “Everything’s for sale if the price is right. I, well, my company, also bought Elephant Rock Vineyards and Primrose Hill. Got those places for a bargain.”
“A Midwest bargain?” she clarified. Something she’d learned by moving first to the East Coast for the Academy and then to Florida was only Midwesterners revealed the price they paid. For instance, when one complimented a Midwesterner on their outfit, they’d promptly say where they got it, how much they paid and how much of a great deal it was. Same for their house, their car or their boat. Sierra had learned that everyone else found such revelations tacky. She tilted her head. “Must be nice to be back in the Midwest where things are bargain dollar.”
“All sides were happy with the deal.” He folded his arms across a broad chest, stretching the fabric.
Sierra averted her gaze and wondered if her parents knew this. Then again, they’d had a lot on their minds lately, even more after her arrival home. “You must really like wine.”
“Something like that.” With an evasive flicker of long eyelashes, he watched as her sister handed over a credit card receipt and a box of cookies. The minute the group left, he pivoted toward her. “Hey, Zoe. You’re looking as great as these cookies. One dozen chocolate chip.”
Sierra swore her sister actually blushed. Refusing to leave Zoe alone with the guy who’d always had a secret agenda, Sierra stayed put. She tried not to give in to temptation and bang the empty display trays together, as scaring off wild animals. Instead she watched as Zoe worked efficiently, her sole focus packaging cookies. Like Sierra, she was in uniform, but she wore a ruffled white apron that covered a prairie-style gingham dress. A grandmotherly white cap sat on her head.
“So, Sierra.” Jack turned his attention back to her and spoke her name, this time as if tasting it. “Be for real this time. How’s life been the past decade and a half?”
“Not as interesting as yours.” She certainly didn’t go around buying wineries on a daily basis.
He winked. “It’s good for things to be interesting, wouldn’t you say?”
Was he actually flirting with her? With Jack, she never knew. How many times had she misread him?
“Life would be boring if they weren’t,” Sierra volleyed easily, despite the lowered timber of his voice having turned her stomach into a dumb cliché of butterflies taking flight. She should be hitting him with all the zingers in her arsenal, tossing out grenades to incinerate the idea he could forget the past like yesterday’s news.
Jack studied Sierra more intensely than a navy superior scrutinizing her military uniform. “So you work here.”
“Sometimes. When the moon’s full and if it’s safe out.”
He ignored her smirk. “I didn’t know you lived here, that you came back.”
“She’s been in Florida,” Zoe answered, indicating she’d been listening. Zoe moved the last of the cookies from the display tray to a square white box.
The jangling bell announced more customers, proof that Main Street remained a heavily trafficked tourist destination. While Zoe taped the lid, Jack tapped his credit card against the payment device, and his shirtsleeve inched up to reveal even more skin.
“So, Zoe. How’s Ted?”
“We’re divorced. Two years now.”
For a brief moment mortification tinged Jack’s lips, but then he laughed and made light. “I stuck my foot right into that one, didn’t I? Sorry if I dredged up bad memories. He always was a fool, and still must be to have ever let you go.”
This time Zoe did blush. Sierra bristled. A heartthrob never changed his wicked ways, and Jack the jerk had left devastated women behind him for miles. Including her. No way would she let that happen to Zoe.
“Since you closed your deal, I assume you’ll be headed back to Portland?” Sierra asked, redirecting his attention before he asked about her two older brothers and dragged out this misfit reunion.
His left eyebrow lifted before the killer smile she swore he must practice in front of a mirror spread across his face. “Actually, no. Like you, I’m moving back. Could be for six months. Until the work’s done.”
Curiosity defeated her desire to shorten the conversation and shoo him along. “What work? Like renovations? Elephant Rock is a little worn down. But the vines are good and people visit.”
The smile didn’t slip, but it did soften. “My viticulturist and my vintner both agree on your assessment of the vines. It’s far more than renovations. I have big plans.”
“Beaumont never really changes.”
That fact was one of the things that comforted her most. Outside, cars traveled over the centuries-old cobblestones unearthed by the town’s council twenty-three years ago. Sierra loved the bricks, which showed that some things, like the historic buildings surrounding the quaint street, survived the test of time. Weathering only added character.
He lifted the box. “Everything changes. That’s half the fun, wouldn’t you say?”
Like a rough landing, his words jolted. In Sierra’s case, change had been anything but fun. But bells jangled as more Saturday shoppers entered, this time a group of excited kids followed by their harried mothers. Time to usher Jack out the door. But before Sierra could speak, a striking platinum blonde with a skeptical expression creasing her brow stepped inside the doorway. She wore a stylish sundress and carried a designer purse that Sierra immediately envied. The woman lowered oversize square sunglasses and peered over the top. “Jack, are you about done? I didn’t know buying cookies took so long. It’s not like the place is that big.”
Sierra let loose a pfft of breath. Of course she was with him. He was so true to type.
Facing the woman, Jack held up the square box. “Yeah, I’m done. Got a box of the best cookies anywhere. You’ll find out when you try one.”
“If you say so.” The blonde’s red-stained lip curled dubiously downward, making Sierra doubt the woman ate sweets. Too many carbs and calories. Sierra disliked her on sight and refused to let the blonde’s derision stand.
“The proof’s on the wall.” Sierra pointed one of the trays toward the line of framed awards hanging on the far wall. She received a small sniff in response. Sierra puckered her lips to indicate her displeasure. Jack deserved her. Minus her outfit she had no taste, especially if she was with him.
The corners of Jack’s lips rose. He’d seen Sierra roll her eyes after the woman’s sniff. “What?” Sierra snapped, her tolerance for Jack’s presence exceeded.
“Nothing.” Jack’s gaze lingered, assessing Sierra. She refused to squirm. “It was good to see you,” Jack said, that deep warm honey tone with a slight husk adding, “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”
“Sure.” A safe, throwaway word, meant to end the awkward conversation. Her running into Jack, even if he was back in town, was as probable as pigs flying. Or Sierra flying. Her gaze lingered as he exited the shop, his fingers pressing lightly on the blonde’s waist as he guided her out the door. Then Sierra cursed as a faint rancid smell hit her nose. “Shit.”
“Sierra! Not in front of the customers!” Zoe’s admonishment landed on Sierra’s backside, as she raced into the kitchen where the digital timer blinked the dreaded word: End. Sierra dropped the empty display trays into a deep stainless steel sink and the clatter joined the timer’s frantic beeping. “Shit, shit, shit.” Sierra grabbed the pot holders and withdrew the cookie sheets. While not charcoal—yet—inedible cookies did not meet the store’s standard. Once again she’d let Jerk Clayton distract her, and because of him, she’d ruined the batch. Damn the man.
Damn her for still experiencing butterflies the moment he came into a room.
Sierra fought tears as everything from the past fifteen months slammed into her like a bullet in the back. The navy therapist had told Sierra her emotions might overwhelm at random times but Sierra refused to let that be an excuse. In an effort to check the flow of tears, Sierra sunk her top teeth into her lip, creating sharp pain. She was stronger than this. Better than this. By God, she would not devolve into out-of-control sobs.
With the baking sheets held low over the waste can, parchment paper and overbaked cookies slid off. They rustled and clunked into the trash can. She stared at the inglorious heap of crispy edges and acrid odor. She inhaled a steadying breath. They were only cookies. Not jet planes. Not her navy career.
The story of her life might be one of crash and burn, but all she could do was try again. Her parents had other, bigger things to worry about than Sierra’s mental health. She was thirty, and she would get through this identity crisis. In order to have stability and familiarity, she’d already moved in with Mom and Dad—she would not burden them further by failing again.
Swapping out pot holders for a new pair of sanitary gloves, she reminded herself to take things one step at a time. Jack was a momentary distraction. A blip in her recovery and master plan. She would not let him sidetrack her. There were strides to make and cookies to bake.
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