Fast Lane
Autor
Margot Radcliffe
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14
HarlequinCHAPTER ONE
“BLAIR!” NATE CALLED. Blair Sandoval froze as her brother strode through the wrought-iron screen door of their family’s winery tasting room clearly on a mission.
She quickly shoved the plate of artisanal cheese and imported crackers she’d liberated from the stash reserved for wine pairings (in an admittedly weak attempt to hide the fact that she’d been about to sneak off with it) behind her back so he wouldn’t see it. Yes, the lunch she’d forgotten was sitting in her fridge at home, which was only a five-minute drive down the vineyard road, but Blair had priorities. One of which was to eat free cheese. That said, she’d perhaps taken a bit more cheese than was appropriate or wise, but honestly, was there such a thing as too much cheese?
Unfortunately, the overexcited smile on her brother’s face coupled with the notable addition of the tall, dark-haired man beside him did not bode well for her previous plan of a lunch hour watching leaky faucet how-to videos (hers had kept her up until three in the morning) and eating roughly four times the amount of the daily recommendation of dairy. No, her brother had clearly brought her work that would obviously include that dreaded faction of humanity known as “other people.” Yes, he was about to make her give the harrowing vineyard tour, which was very far down on her list of job duties as the vineyard’s part owner and viticulturist.
Giving the tour was usually reserved for one of their highly decorated wine educators who excelled at public speaking, but when it was a VVIP (Vineyard Very Important Person, Nate’s words) he always made her do it since she knew everything about the vineyard and was the celebrated name people associated with Sandoval Wines. Her brother, who ran the marketing side of the business (hence Blair’s current torture), wasn’t much for the finer scientific details of what was essentially fancy farming. People romanticized wine and the Sonoma and Napa Valleys, and with good reason since there wasn’t a day she didn’t love waking up and seeing her vineyard and watching people dressed in their best taste and love her wine, but when one got right down to it grape growing was just as much of an earthy and dirty business as any farm.
“Is that more cheese?” Nate barked with an annoying brotherly eye roll. “Mom would bring lunch down here for you if you asked, you know. I don’t know why you always insist on eating our pairing stock.”
Blair shrugged. “You know why I don’t want Mom coming down here. We’re on a break at the moment.” Then she glared at Nate in warning to convey that he should be quiet. A couple of months ago, Blair’s world had been torn up in little itty bitty shameful pieces when she’d learned the man she’d been dating, the man she’d all but envisioned a future with, was married. The guilt and pit of awfulness that surrounded her now that she’d hurt another woman and her marriage was devastating. That she, Blair, who always followed the rules had been made to be the other woman. It reactivated the perpetual nausea she’d been nursing since the moment she’d found out, such that she almost reconsidered the coveted cheese. But that had been just one of the many debilitating side effects of a breakup that still had her questioning everything she’d ever done and every man she met.
So for right now while her mom was still unreachably deep in her own feelings about Blair’s ex (as if Blair wasn’t), Blair was just going to not talk about it with her anymore. The woman could not look at Blair without being reminded of her ex and what he had done to her daughter. In essence, that just made Blair feel worse, and some days lately she barely made it out of bed, let alone look herself in the mirror without feeling like a person scraped off the bottom of someone’s shoe. She didn’t need her mom making it worse.
She hadn’t even found out from the man either. It had been her ex’s wife who’d come to see Blair at a wine-making talk she was giving in Napa Valley, pleading with her to end the affair she hadn’t known she was having. Her apologies hadn’t been enough, obviously, but the least Blair could do was stop communicating with her husband, which she had immediately. However, she was still too sick with guilt to feel the same rage the situation inspired in her mother, so Blair was taking a step back from the family for a minute. Which wasn’t exactly easy since her entire family lived on the vineyard’s land, which was essentially a Sandoval compound with their respective houses only a mile or so apart from each other, but she’d been trying her best. She needed the space to heal on her own and put back the pieces of herself that had been completely obliterated by the hurt she’d caused someone else and her ex’s perfidious betrayal.
Her brother turned to the man beside him who had a wide mouth, bracketed by smile lines. He looked like someone who’d had an easy, charmed life in the sun. He reminded Blair of a professional golfer, clean-cut, lean and sports chic.
“This is my sister, Blair,” Nate said, introducing her. “She’s complicated and a thief, but we love her anyway.” A corner of the man’s mouth quirked as he followed Nate’s gaze to her. It gave her permission to look at him more, not that she cared what he looked like because relationships were no longer in her future. She was closer to joining a nunnery than dating again at the moment. But dressed in a mint-green golf polo and khaki shorts, a pair of black reflective sunglasses tucked into the V at his neck, she had to admit that he was attractive in that kind of bro-sports way. In his thirties, though probably a little older than her, he was tanned dark bronze that spoke of extended time spent outdoors, and the defined muscles of his thick arms were dusted with dark hair.
“Good afternoon, Blair. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man said, a thick Southern accent flowing out of his mouth like warm maple syrup. “And don’t worry, I’m what you’d call labyrinthine myself, so by comparison a little complicated is practically a breath of fresh air.”
Blair met his green eyes then, made even more vibrant by his matching shirt color, and smiled at him against her will because he was charming. It was a bad idea because she’d fallen for charming before and look how that had ended. But how could she not when he’d gone out of his way to defend her against her bossy older brother? He couldn’t know it, but they were basically friends for life now.
So with an inner sigh of defeat, Blair set her cheese plate down on the counter of the bar that spanned nearly the length of the vineyard’s currently empty tasting room. The sound of the ceramic dish hitting the solid granite was amplified in the room with its cathedral ceiling and wood floors.
“This is Cole Taggart, he was hoping for a tour,” Nate informed. “He’s been over at the track calling the race and I told him we’d love to give him a tasting and a look at our vines and warehouse.” Nate said the words meaningfully, giving her a look as if she was supposed to have some idea of who this man was, but she had literally no clue. She knew some big racing names just by virtue of being as close to the famous Sonoma Valley Raceway as they were, but she wasn’t much for driving fast, competing at things or watching people drive repeatedly around in a circle, so racing wasn’t a big slice on her pie chart of subjects she was knowledgeable about.
“I’d be happy to do both of those things,” she chirped, giving her brother her biggest fake smile. “As it happens, I already have the cheese ready so we won’t even have to wait to get started on the tasting and pairing.”
Cole himself laughed then, eyes crinkling. “Now, I don’t want to put y’all out. Nate told me you were closed today but I didn’t know that until after I’d already made my way out here so I’m happy to go ahead and schedule a tour during regular business hours.”
Nate was already reassuring him that it was fine, but it was Blair who needed to fix this. She trusted Nate to know who she needed to entertain even if she herself didn’t know. Though not a people person, keeping up the vineyard’s reputation was her number one concern. She loved this land, the grapes, the people and would do anything to ensure her family’s legacy. Occasional cheese pilfering aside, the vineyard was her life and she’d been the one to bring it into the future. She loved her father and grandfather, but they’d been happy owning a local vineyard. It wasn’t until she came of age that the vineyard had gone to the next level to receive international acclaim.
“Mr. Taggart.” Blair grinned, pulling out a bottle of their pricier wines, absolutely loving it when Nate started shaking his head. “I have in my hand a bottle so rare and special that Nate there is about to cry it’s so good. I’ve been saving it for just the right occasion and based on your previous vocabulary, you seem like the kind of man who would appreciate indulgence. Do I have that right about you?”
A corner of his mouth kicked up, his eyes twinkling, and she was thankful he had a sense of humor. It was shocking how many people came in who didn’t, as if wine made people think they had to act snooty. Maybe this afternoon wouldn’t be a total wash after all. At the very least, she’d already pissed Nate off by giving Cole wine with a price tag over six thousand dollars a bottle. Definitely a day well spent.
“You have that exactly right about me, Ms. Sandoval,” he drawled, then glanced down to her left hand. “Or is it missus? We in the South like to be correct in our honorifics, you know.”
“I’m not married,” she told him and felt Nate’s eyes on her, burning into her skin with warning.
“Well,” Nate finally said, backing up, “I’ll leave you both to it.”
“Thank you very much, Nate, and I’ll catch you tomorrow on the golf course?”
Nate gave Cole a salute. “Looking forward to it.” Then once he was at the door and Cole’s attention was on the bottle of wine she’d opened, Nate waved a hand between her and Cole before drawing a finger across his throat indicating for her not to screw things up by getting involved with him. Blair just rolled her eyes. As if randomly hooking up with a customer was a thing she did ever. Couldn’t a girl annoy her brother by giving away an obscenely expensive bottle of wine to a customer without arousing suspicion anymore?
She smiled up at Cole before setting the bottle aside. “We’ll save that one for last,” she told him in a hushed conspiratorial tone. “Full disclosure, most people opt to do the tour first. The tasting tends to get people a little too tipsy to traipse around the hilly vineyard afterward.”
Cole grinned. “That sounds perfect,” he said, leaning onto the bar. “But what I’d really like is for you to continue eating your lunch, Ms. Sandoval, like you were before I barged in here with your brother and interrupted you.”
Blair was known to push the bounds of professionalism sometimes but there was no way she was going to eat lunch in front of a guest. “How about we take the tour first and I’ll eat with you during the tasting?”
“Well, I don’t love it because I know personally my hanger is epic, but I’m not gonna force a lady to do what she doesn’t want to, so lead on to the vineyard Ms. Sandoval,” he said with a tip of his head and a quirk of his lips.
“I appreciate your concern for my hanger, but I’m more of a stewing in anger type anyway, so I promise not to take anything out on you if I reach a critical hunger level.”
“I won’t hold you to that promise,” he told her. “And I like a mouthy woman anyhow, so I suppose the hungrier you get the happier I’ll be.”
His words stopped her as they made their way to the front door to lead him outside to the vines. “A mouthy woman?” she repeated with a hard question mark attached. “With all due respect, Mr. Taggart, that sounds a little like pandering.”
Cole laughed then, a deep, rich sound that resulted in a pang of something unwanted in her stomach. Something suspiciously like butterflies instead of the petrified chrysalises that had been there previously and that she preferred.
“I’ll admit that I find it a little easier to get by in life when the woman I’m with is agreeable, but I’m not a liar either, Ms. Sandoval.” Then he paused for a moment, as if considering whether or not saying his next words would be wise. “But if I may say, a different, nonmouthy, kind of woman wouldn’t have pointed out the pandering at all.”
Blair struggled not to smile, having clearly been outed as an outspoken person herself, and made her way to the door. He beat her there, however, holding it open for her with a knowing grin on his face. Stepping out into the bright afternoon sun, Blair waited for him to join her before locking the door behind her. “You’re much cleverer than you look—you know that, right?” Blair told him with her own cheeky grin. Then immediately quit it because she was not flirting with men anymore. That was dangerous territory into which she was no longer venturing.
Cole laughed again. “Well, now, you’re not the first to say so.”
Giving him a small smile that was not at all flirtatious, she hopped into a golf cart with the intention of taking him to the farthest part of the vineyard first and then making their way back to the tasting room, which was the public-facing part of the operation.
Instead of taking one of the back seats like most people on the tours, Cole sat right beside her in the front seat, his massively wide and tall body taking up nearly the entire seat so she had to scoot right to the edge where the metal bar dug into her side.
“So you’re a sports announcer?” she asked, initiating the obligatory small talk as she rode north of the tasting room. She had a practiced script she’d use once they reached the actual vines, but for now she could get to know Mr. Takes Up Entire Seat a little better.
“Yep, racing mostly,” he said. “I announce for an American station, but I do the Formula One racing circuit all over the world. This is my first time back to the States in a couple of months.”
“That sounds exciting,” Blair said, even though she wasn’t much of a traveler. When she’d been learning about wine she’d traveled extensively, but since she was more of a homebody it wasn’t her comfort zone.
Cole just shrugged. “It can be,” he said, but didn’t sound as excited about it as she might suspect someone to be with such a noteworthy job.
Blair glanced over at him, but his expression didn’t give much away and seemed focused on their surroundings, which she couldn’t blame him for. The vineyard was beautiful if she did say so herself; the mountains peppered with towering pine trees, the trodden dirt paths that ran parallel to the bright green vine rows, the cement walkway they were on now that wound around it all like a meandering river and the bright sun gilding it all in gold—it all felt like someone’s dream of a vineyard come to life. In the evenings, her favorite thing to do was sit on her porch, which overlooked the entire farm, and drink her family’s wine. It was simple, perfect and never got boring for her.
“But you’re not from here, obviously.”
“Louisiana, born and bred,” he grinned proudly. “Not the bayou, mind, but Baton Rouge.”
“I’ve only ever been to New Orleans, but to be honest I don’t remember much of it.”
Cole chuckled again. “That’s a pretty common state of affairs in that town. Baton Rouge isn’t as exciting, but it’s certainly home. I take it you’ve grown up a California girl?”
“That’s me.” Blair nodded, glancing at him quickly before turning off the main trail onto another, smaller one that led to their white grape varietals. “So if you’re an announcer, that means this isn’t your first time to Sonoma County?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I’ve been here dozens of times. I come out to announce the Sonoma Speed Festival at least once a year and it’s turned into one of my favorite places on my tour.”
“And you’re interested in starting your own winery?” she asked, steering them to why he’d come to Sandoval Vineyard.
“I bought a house back in Baton Rouge, so I want to invest in one around there and need to make sure I know what the hell I’m putting my money into. Y’all have quite a reputation wherever I go, so I thought it would be a good place to start. Plus, I promised my sister I’d bring back her favorite wine. She’s obsessed with your chardonnay.”
Blair nodded, pleased. “I’m happy to hear that. I’ll give you some bottles of what I think of as our best year when we get back to the tasting room.”
Cole shifted in his seat to face her and his knee bumped the side of her thigh and stayed there, burning a hole in her jeans. She hated that she didn’t hate it, that she, a person who didn’t deserve to derive any pleasure from another man ever, was, in fact receiving it.
“Now, see there, that’s what I want to know, what makes one year better than another and all that. I know what I like, I know what people tell me is good, but I want to know that my vineyard can produce a product that’s reliable year after year.”
“You’re certainly in the right place,” Blair said, her fingers tingling with the prospect of talking about the process. This was her wheelhouse and she could talk a person’s ear off about what it took to keep grapes healthy, soil science, weather management, the works. “And I’m happy to answer anything you’d like. But while there are a lot of factors in the differences in wine from year to year, the largest one is simply weather. If it’s cooler with low sun, grapes are slower to grow, which is good for some grapes but not as good for others like cabernet, which needs more heat to ripen fully. That’s why our cabernet sauvignon grapes are planted where there is full sunlight as opposed to sauvignon blanc, which you want to ripen slowly to retain a more refreshing taste.”
A lot of people would be bored by just that small amount of grape information, but she saw that Cole was making notes on his phone. “This is great. Do you know what kind of grapes grow best in Louisiana?”
Blair looked at him. “I’d say the climate in Louisiana is too hot and humid for a profitable winery based on wine grapes and that anyone who told you otherwise is either a liar or a not very well-researched person.”
Cole looked at her doubtfully. “Well, now, I’ve been to wineries there before so I know they have to be growing something.”
Blair shrugged. “My guess would be they were fruit wines or made from grapes like muscadines or something. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but the varietals that could work there aren’t popular or especially hardy, which just makes grape growing, something that’s already challenging, even more so. And honestly, you probably wouldn’t be getting a return on your investment. Another practice is that wineries are making wine with grapes they’ve had shipped in from somewhere else. If we have a surplus harvest, for instance, we sell our grapes to other wineries.”
Cole stared at her. “Well, now, I’m again going to go back to my earlier statement about mouthy women. A nicer lady would have tried to break all that news to me gently like before trashing my hopes and dreams, but you just let it loose.”
“I’m just trying to be factual with you. Muscadines are the only variety of grapes that grow well in southern climates and there’s not a large market for that wine. There are some vineyards that live by it, but it’s a type of wine that hasn’t really caught on to the rest of the country, so if you’re wanting to invest in a vineyard, it wouldn’t be my first pick. I can give you the names of a lot of operations I think your money would be better spent on, but that’s entirely up to you.”
“Wouldn’t there be more competition if I went with a place that used traditional grapes? At least there aren’t a lot of muscadine producers in the first place.”
Blair shrugged. “That’s a better question for Nate. I just know most people don’t have a palate for muscadine wine.” She glanced over at him with a grin. “But then again, I’m a snob with a vested interest in people not drinking wines we don’t sell so you’ll have to take that into consideration.”
Cole snorted and leaned back into his seat. “I like you, Blair Sandoval, but you’ve clearly never had a sweet muscadine wine on a hot day while relaxing on a riverboat. I’ve traveled around the world and I’m here to tell you that there’s not much better in life.”
“Sounds like you miss home more than the wine.”
A deep “hmm” came from Cole this time. “You may be right about that.” His gaze wandered out to his right, down the hill into the valley of the vineyard, and he seemed to get lost in thought for a moment. “But you know what they say, you can’t go home again.”
Blair finally stopped the golf cart next to the field of sauvignon blanc vines. She got out and looked over the grapes she’d had a hand in growing and tried to imagine not being a part of this vineyard but simply couldn’t. From the moment her grandfather could feed her a grape, she’d been in love with the vineyard. “This has always been home for me,” she told Cole, plucking off a grape. The grapes were still a little over a month away from harvest, but they were coming along well enough. “We Sandovals bleed wine.”
“I hope it’s the red kind,” Cole quipped, meeting her at the row of grapevines.
Blair gave him a bland look. “Maybe.” Then she handed over a grape for him to try. “They’re small but mighty.”
He took the grape from her and popped it into his mouth, his face immediately puckering.
“Now that’s what someone might call a textbook illustration of someone eating sour grapes,” Blair laughed. “They’re not ripe yet,” she explained. “But they’re getting there.”
“You’re an ornery woman,” Cole said, moving closer to her as he inspected the grapevine. For what she didn’t know, but he was very large and his scent was in her nose again, piney and fresh and masculine. She wanted to bury her nose in the soft cotton of his shirt, but also the idea made her want to vomit. As had been her habit since her unfortunate ex, she looked down at Cole’s empty ring finger trying to spot a tan line, but she couldn’t discern one. Though that didn’t exactly make him single.
Not that she was looking.
Instead she imagined her future room at the nunnery and put to rest any lascivious thoughts she might be having about Cole.
Until, that is, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, his warm breath like a feather’s kiss on the shell of her ear.
“I might as well mention that I like that in a woman too.”
Blair’s eyes slowly closed and she mentally said about a thousand Hail Mary prayers even though she’d never been much of a church person, because just being near Cole Taggart made that nunnery seem about as far away as the moon.
