One fine Day
Janice Sims

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the Amazons out there who keep holding

it down for their loved ones and for the rest

of the world! You’re magnificent women,

and you inspire me every day.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

Jason Bryant whipped the Ford Explorer into the parking lot of Aminatu’s Daughters and parked right behind Sara Minton’s cherry-red Mustang convertible, thereby blocking her exit. If there was one thing he knew about Sara, it was that she was a hard woman to pin down. This way, she wasn’t going anywhere until he’d issued his invitation.

He climbed out of the SUV’s cab, his long muscular legs flexing beneath a pair of Wrangler jeans. The heels of brown leather cowboy boots announced his arrival as he walked across the hardwood floor of the bookstore.

He noticed right away that there was another strange woman behind the counter in the coffeehouse section of the bookstore. Strange, in that she was new to him.

The rate of employee turnover at Aminatu’s Daughters astounded him. He’d counted more than ten new employees within the past year. All of them had been women and all of them had been brown-skinned. They worked a few weeks, and then moved on.

He made a point of speaking to each and every one of them in order to prove his theory that none of them could claim English as their native tongue. The woman today was in her early twenties, had dusky brown skin, dark brown eyes and a very short afro.

Jason walked up to the counter. “Hi, how are you? I’m looking for Sara. She’s here, isn’t she?”

“We have wonderful mocha lattes,” the woman said cheerfully. She turned to gesture to the coffee machine behind her.

“Thank you, no,” said Jason. He smiled gently. He couldn’t be sure, but he would wager that she was South African. She had the same lilting cadence to her voice as Nelson Mandela: a musical tone that was beautiful to the ear.

Upon hearing that he did not want a mocha latte, her expression became so sad that he changed his mind. “Oh, okay, I’ll take a small one.”

She smiled broadly. “Miss Sara is working in her office,” she said once the sale was under her belt.

Jason laughed softly. It was obvious she intended to earn her keep around there.

“Thank you. I’ll be back for my coffee.” He turned and walked across the bookstore section and into the hallway. The first door he came to was the storage room. The second was the employee lounge. Next, he came to Sara’s office. The door was closed.

He knocked and waited.

“Come in!” he heard Sara’s distinctive husky voice call.

When he walked in Sara was sitting behind her desk, and Gary Pruitt was sitting on the corner of it looking right at home. He was wearing an expensive suit, as usual. Jason didn’t think he’d ever seen the man in anything except a suit. But then Gary was the most successful attorney in town. He had to look professional. Jason, who used to work as an attorney himself, could recall how looking professional was a part of the job.

These days, as a gentleman farmer, his chosen title for his job as a vintner, he wore jeans or khakis and sturdy denim shirts. The last time he’d worn a suit it had been to his brother Franklyn’s wedding, which had taken place over a year ago.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Jason asked lightly as he entered the room.

“No, no,” Sara said quickly. She rose and Jason leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. Her smooth brown skin had a light flowery scent and, as always, Jason’s heartbeat accelerated as a result of being near her.

Jason straightened and Sara gestured to the chair in front of her desk before she sat back down. “Have a seat. Gary was just telling me that he and Kat are having a dinner party next Saturday night and wanted to know if you and I could come.”

Jason brightened. He knew he had no reason to be jealous of Gary. All indications were that he was happily married. He was a newlywed, in fact. But why did he have to spend so much time with Sara?

“If you can, I can,” he told Sara. Oftentimes, her schedule was packed tighter than his. Unless there was some kind of an emergency at the winery like a wine press breaking down, he worked only from sunup to sunset. On the other hand it wasn’t unusual for Sara to be called away at a moment’s notice.

He never knew the life of a bookstore owner was so exciting. He had noticed, too, that practically every time she went out of town, either a new employee arrived or an old one departed. There had to be some connection there.

“Barring emergencies, I’m free,” Sara said.

“See you at eight,” Gary said, rising. “There’ll be six of us and we’re having seafood.”

“I’ll bring a few bottles of our best Chardonnay,” Jason offered.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Gary said with sincerity. The Bryant Chardonnay was among the most delicious in the wine world.

He and Jason shook hands, and Gary left.

Sara got up to go sit on Jason’s lap. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she bent her head and kissed him on the cheek. Then lower, at the corner of his full, sensual mouth.

Jason regarded her suspiciously through slits. “Are you ever going to get down to business? Because I could be doing something fascinating like watching grapes grow.”

“When I’m good and ready,” Sara said, smiling. She enjoyed taking her time, kissing his face and neck before getting to his mouth. Anticipation was titillating to her.

She could feel Jason’s state of arousal on her bottom. Patience wasn’t his strong suit. But she’d known that about him before she’d taken him into her bed. She had known that sometime soon after they’d become intimate he would want a commitment from her.

Jason had made changes in the past year and a half. And those changes had not come easily for him. Formerly a sought-after divorce attorney in Bakersfield, he’d moved back home to the quaint town of Glen Ellen to take over his family’s winery. He’d made sacrifices to do it. Among them, a freewheeling life of revolving-door relationships in which the only thing that interested him about a woman was how attractive she was and how good she was in bed.

Surprisingly, he didn’t miss the women. Perhaps if he’d made an effort to develop a genuine relationship with any of them, he would. But he’d avoided anything serious. You couldn’t miss what you’d never had.

Now, though, he knew what he wanted. He wanted a good woman in his life. He wanted children with her and he wanted to leave behind a legacy, like his parents had done. Something lasting.

Sara knew all of that about him because he’d told her. Oh, the late-night talks they would have after making love! They would talk about anything and everything.

First loves. The first time they’d ever made love.

Their favorite books, movies, foods. The people who had helped shape them into the people they were today. They even talked about those painful high-school episodes in which Sara had been ridiculed and Jason had stood by and said nothing to prevent it.

She didn’t blame him. However, he blamed himself.

She knew how hard it had been for him to fit in at Santa Rosa High. And the bus ride between Santa Rosa High and Glen Ellen, during which she and he had been the only black students, had sometimes been pure hell.

He sat up front with the rest of the football players, laughing and cracking jokes.

She sat in the back, hunkered down, her nose in a textbook, hoping all the while that no one would say anything to her. Please, God, just make me invisible!

It didn’t help that she was overweight, wore glasses, and had skipped a grade. The kids regarded her as a freak of nature. But she had hoped, the entire two years that she rode the bus with Jason Bryant, that he would say something nice to her. He never did. He simply looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. She hated him for that. He could deride her like the rest of them, but she didn’t want his pity. She was glad when he’d graduated. The next two years, she was the only black student on the bus between Santa Rosa High and Glen Ellen, and that suited her fine. She grew tough. They made her grow a thick skin. They made her turn inward and realize what a strong, competent person she could become if she wanted to. It was trial by fire, and she had passed.

Now, as she embraced the man who had once been the boy she’d hated, she found that she only wanted to love him. Her present life, however, made that impossible.

She needed to make some changes of her own.

Finally, she kissed him full on the mouth.

His response was immediate and passionate. He pulled her closer and she lost herself in the feel of his mouth as he patiently and thoroughly made love to her with his tongue. She moaned softly. Desire engulfed her, and he feasted on her mouth as though it was the most pleasurable act in the world. Now, at this moment, nothing else mattered to him except her complete and utter enjoyment of his mouth on hers, her breath mingling with his and her body ripening under his sensual assault.

He had a one-track mind when it came to giving her pleasure, and she thought that a good characteristic for a lover to have.

They came up for air, and gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes. His were the color of brandy, hers were a more mellow shade of brown, almost like caramel.

His hands caressed the back of her head, her braids between his fingers. Hers pressed against his chest. “Will you go riding with me tonight?” he asked softly.

Her full lips turned up in a smile. “Love to. There’s a full moon.”

“Good, we can watch it come out. Can you be there by seven?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Afterward, I’ll cook for you.”

“Mmm,” she moaned. “Too many sensual pleasures, and I just might give in to you and become the mistress of the Hacienda, after all.”

She immediately knew she’d made a miscalculation. She’d joked about his asking her to marry him much too soon after the fact. It was still a sore point between them. One that wasn’t going to go away without some serious negotiations.

His eyes grew distant in an instant. He attempted a smile in order to cover up the hurt she had unconsciously inflicted but it wasn’t much of a smile. Instead of responding to her comment, he said, “Look, you’re busy. I should go.”

She reluctantly stood up. After which he also rose.

She could have stood aside and let him go, but it wasn’t her way to let things slide. Smoothing her skirt, she said, “Jason, I didn’t mean to sound flip. I realize how much it took for you to ask me to marry you. And I’m truly honored that you want to.”

His gaze relentlessly held hers. “But not enough to accept.”

“One day I’m going to make you understand why I had to turn you down for now.”

“One fine day,” he said quietly. He smiled ruefully. “Remember that song? It was about unrequited love, too.”

“That’s not what’s going on between us,” she denied.

“You say you love me but you won’t marry me.” It was a statement, not an accusation. He was past the blaming stage or feeling as if something was wrong with him because she had turned him down. He sensed that she loved him. Sometimes he could feel the love she had for him so powerfully, it left him breathless.

That’s why he had been completely stupefied when she’d said no to his proposal.

“I adore you, Jason, you know that.”

“I know that you desire me,” he allowed. “I know that sometimes what you feel for me is so overpowering that it scares you. What I don’t know is, Why does it scare you? Why aren’t you free to let yourself go?”

Once again, her answer was, “Soon, soon. I’m working on it.”

He bent and kissed her forehead. “All right. You work on it. In the meantime, I’ll accept whatever you have to offer. I’m easy.”

He smiled gently.

Tears sat in her eyes.

“Don’t cry, mystery girl,” he said. “I’m a lawyer, I know all about confidentiality. You’ll tell all when you’re able to. I’ll be waiting with bated breath.”

He kissed her cheek, tasting her tears.

She watched him go, and wiped her tearstained cheeks with the pad of her thumb.

Some people made their lives needlessly complicated. She wasn’t one of those people. What she did in secret was for a good cause, and her being careful to keep it secret was of the utmost importance. Innocent lives depended on her discretion.

She had to make a choice. Her secret life, or Jason.

The way her heart felt torn at this moment, she knew that she wanted the latter.

She had never known anyone to leave the organization. There were only two reasons the organization allowed anyone to leave it. One was death.

She sat down in front of the computer and entered her password. Earlier, she’d logged on to the organization’s Web site. There were two messages waiting for her. One was from their leader, the highest-ranking woman in the United States government.

Congratulations on your last assignment. Your present charge is very important to the people of South Africa. We are certain that those who seek her would never think that she’s been spirited away to a tiny hamlet in Sonoma Valley, but we encourage you to be extremely careful. We’re working very hard to expedite her safe passage to her final destination. With respect…

Then the leader had signed her personal signature.

Sara smiled as she exited the message. If anyone ever suspected that the woman closer to the president than his own wife was head of a secret organization of women who aided foreign nationals, her career would be over. Yet another reason for her to be discreet.

She quickly read the other message. It was from another sister in the organization, a physicist who lived in Tucson, Arizona. She’d met her a few months ago at their annual convention in New York City where they’d become fast friends.

Hi, Sara, the message read.

If you haven’t already heard, Dr. M’boto insisted on returning to her homeland and was killed as she stepped off the plane. I’m heartsick about it. She believed that the only way to prevent nuclear proliferation in her country was to sacrifice herself, the one scientist in the grip of the government who could make it happen for them. When they killed her, their hopes died as well.

Sara, of course, had heard about Dr. Victoria M’boto’s assassination. And she knew Dr. Katharine Matthews-Grant had done everything in her power to convince Dr. M’boto to remain in Tucson and under the protection of the organization. Sara dreaded the day when she lost one of her charges. She wrote a very sympathetic note to Kate, telling her how sorry she was that Dr. M’boto had seen no other way out of her dilemma.

After she’d replied to Kate’s message she sat at the desk, thinking about her recruitment and initiation into the organization nearly six years ago.

But then her mind went to Billy, her husband of only two years, who had been killed in a car crash while returning from a business trip to Philadelphia. He specialized in entertainment law and represented some of the country’s highest-paid athletes.

At the time Sara was assistant creative director at a large advertising agency. She rarely left work before 7:00 p.m. and that evening when she got home she went straight into the tub for a relaxing soak. It was a Thursday, and she wasn’t expecting Billy back until Friday evening. She planned to cook dinner for him as a welcome-home surprise.

She was the one who got a surprise when, after she came out of the bath and slipped into a plush robe, someone rang the doorbell.

Cautious by nature, she peered through the peephole before calling, “Yes? Who is it?”

“Mrs. Minton?” came a deep male voice.

“Yeah!”

“Mrs. Sara Minton, wife of William Minton?”

Nobody called Billy William. He used to say that that was his father’s name.

Still cautious, she answered, with the emphasis on the junior, “William, Jr.”

“Yes, William, Jr., Mrs. Minton. I’m Detective Aaron Green of NYPD. We’ve been informed by the Pennsylvania Highway Patrol that your husband was involved in a serious car accident.”

Sara quickly opened the door and swung it wide. “What?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

The two police officers stood there, not moving an inch, perhaps waiting until she invited them in. But she had no intention of inviting them in. To invite them in would be acknowledging that they were there on deadly serious business.

“Was he hurt? Is he in the hospital in Philadelphia? He went there on a business trip.” The questions were spilling out of her, fast and furious. She didn’t wait for them to reply. “What hospital? Do you have the name of the doctor I need to speak with?”

“Mrs. Minton,” Detective Green ventured softly. He was a slim man with dark hair and soulful brown eyes that were fairly dripping with sympathy. She didn’t like the look in his eyes.

She looked at his partner instead. She was a brown-eyed blonde who was about the same height as her partner: five-ten. She looked straight into Sara’s eyes with a kind, intense expression that seemed to be pleading with Sara not to lose it. Be strong, sister, it said.

That was when Sara knew they weren’t there to tell her Billy had been injured. They were there to tell her that he was dead. There was no hope in either of their expressions.

She stepped back from the door. Still barefoot, she looked down at her feet and somehow they seemed to be very far away. Afterward, she would realize that she was having a mental episode in which her mind was seeing things in a distorted way.

Panic had seized her brain.

She stumbled backward, her hands clutching the wall for support. Detective Green caught her before she fell. The woman police officer, whose name Sara would later learn was Carla Farrell, acted in concert with her partner. She shut the door, and together they helped Sara to the couch, where they made her sit down. Carla then went into the kitchen, grabbed some paper towels, folded them over several times, and held them under the tap. By the time she returned to the living room, Detective Green had convinced Sara to lie down with her feet raised above her heart. Carla Farrell placed the cool towels on Sara’s forehead, and sat on the floor next to her.

“Just lie there for a few minutes until you come to yourself again, honey,” she said.

Sara concentrated on breathing. For a moment, she had felt as if she was going to lose consciousness. The wooziness had passed but she still felt weak and nauseous.

“Is he dead?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“I’m sorry,” Detective Green said. With downcast eyes, he continued, his tone filled with compassion. “They told us that the driver of the car that hit him fell asleep at the wheel. Witnesses said that by the time they got to your husband, he was already gone.”

“And the driver of the car that hit him?”

“He died from his injuries a few minutes after they got him to the hospital.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say.

They would not leave her side until her friend Frannie Anise rushed over to stay the night. Frannie, a free spirit from Northern California, the thing they found out they had in common within two minutes of meeting each other upon Sara’s arrival in New York City, worked at the United Nations as a tour guide.

Frannie was with her round-the-clock until her parents arrived from Glen Ellen.

Sara seemed to float through the day of the funeral. Her head felt light as if she was on something even though she had declined the tranquilizers her doctor had offered to prescribe for her.

Her parents stayed for two weeks, doting on her. When they prepared to leave, they begged her to go home with them for a while. Sara, however, felt that if she didn’t soon get back into her regular routine, she would lose her mind.

That was a mistake.

Without Billy, her life had lost its flavor.

Sara thought that she had permanently built up her self-esteem when she had been a bullied teenager. She had become a diehard optimist who didn’t allow anyone to bring her down. Life’s challenges didn’t faze her in the least.

But two months after Billy’s death, she was sitting at the breakfast table on Sunday morning, the day she and Billy always spent together, and for the first time in her life she had suicidal thoughts. She looked at the knife in her hand, a bread knife, and wondered just how deeply she would have to cut her wrist in order to bleed out swiftly enough so that no one would be able to save her. She’d read somewhere that people who attempted suicide by slitting their wrists rarely cut deeply enough to reach that vital artery deep down past all the insignificant veins. Slitting your wrist was often messy, but it wasn’t a good way to off yourself.

She found herself wishing she’d allowed her doctor to prescribe those tranquilizers. Pills were probably much more efficient. As she sat there turning the knife over and over, the blade flashing, she caught her reflection in it and saw how desperate she looked, dark circles under her eyes, dry, cracked lips. Utterly hopeless.

She placed the point of the knife against her wrist, deciding that she was simply going to test herself, see if she had the guts to do it. Pressing down a little harder, she felt a little pain but she hadn’t even broken the skin. She pressed harder and this time the tip broke her skin and blood immediately began to pour slowly from the tiny hole.

She actually smiled happily.

She pressed down a bit harder, a hopeful expression on her face.

Then, someone loudly knocked on her door.

She ignored it and went back to the task at hand.

They knocked even harder, then Frannie’s voice yelled, “Sara! I know you’re in there. Open the door! Open this damn door or I’ll break it down!”

Sara laughed at her threat. Frannie Anise was five-three and must have weighed a hundred and five pounds, tops!

She got up and went to the door. “Go away, Frannie, I’m busy!”

“Busy moping around that apartment. Open up. I’m getting you out for some fresh air.”

“It’s August. There is no fresh air in the city in August. Just heat, and a lot of cranky New Yorkers complaining about it.”

“It’s hot as hell in this hallway. The least you can do, after I’ve come all this way, is to invite me in for a cold drink.”

“I’m not dressed for company.”

“Who cares? If you really want to be alone, I’ll drink and run.”

Sara was silent for several minutes.

“I’m really hurt that you won’t even open the door,” Frannie said. “I thought I was your best friend.”

“You are my best friend, but I need to be alone. A best friend would understand that.”

“I haven’t seen you in nearly a month. You won’t answer my phone calls or my e-mails. What am I supposed to think? Unless I can look into your face, I’m not going to leave here. You know me. You know I mean it.”

“Yeah, you’re as pigheaded as they come.”

“I’ll get you for that pig remark. And I’m Jewish. We’re not known for giving up.”

“You’re only half Jewish!”

“Yeah, but the other half is African-American. You know we don’t give up!”

Sara peered down at her bleeding wrist.

She opened the door and fell into Frannie’s arms.

Chapter 2

Frannie made Sara shower and dress, after which they got in a cab and went across town to an apartment building on Amsterdam Avenue. On the cab ride, Frannie didn’t say a word about the thick bandage covering Sara’s wrist, for which Sara was grateful.

She’d told Frannie that she’d cut herself while trying to split a breakfast bagel.

The building was quite old but well maintained. It had a redbrick facade and a dark green awning over the entrance. Sara guessed that Frannie must have been a frequent visitor because the elderly gentleman at the desk in the lobby waved them past without first inquiring after their reason for being there.

As they waited for the elevator, Frannie said, “I’ve been wanting to introduce you to this group of women for a long time but, the fact is, you haven’t needed them until now.”

“What do you mean?” Sara asked.

“You’ll see,” said Frannie with a mysterious smile. “One more thing, try not to stare at them. Some of them are very well known. I’m counting on your discretion.”

“Ooh,” intoned Sara. “What is this, a secret society or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s simply a group of women who want to change the world by helping other women. We’re hoping that you’ll consider joining us.”

“What if I don’t want to join?”

“After you hear what we’re about, you will,” Frannie said with confidence.

“I’m not big on joining clubs,” Sara said as a warning. “I was wooed by four sororities when I was in college and managed to avoid signing up with any of them.”

“This is nothing like a sorority,” Frannie told her.

“It’s a charitable organization?”

“Of a sort,” Frannie said.

A couple of minutes later, Frannie was knocking on the door of the penthouse.

“Wow,” said Sara. “Are you sure all the funds you collect go to unfortunate women? Or does the person who lives here get kickbacks?”

Frannie laughed. “All of your questions will be answered soon.”

“You’re not a secret organization of call girls, are you?”

“If I weren’t so glad to hear you cracking jokes, I’d bop you upside the head for that,” Frannie said, laughing.

Sara was about to respond to Frannie’s threat of violence when the door was opened by the Honorable Secretary of State, Eunice Strathmore. Sara had to mentally command herself to close her mouth because it was suddenly hanging open in surprise.

“Francesca!” the secretary of state cried, obviously delighted to see Frannie.

The two women warmly embraced.

A gentleman in full butler regalia closed the door and stood aside as if awaiting further instructions.

“Ladies, we’re lunching in the next room. The food is buffet style, but Avery is mixing the drinks. What will you have?” said the secretary of state.

“A mimosa,” Frannie said at once.

“Iced tea, please,” Sara said, trying to keep her tone relaxed.

“My pleasure,” said Avery, a tall African-American in his late sixties. His silver hair was thick and wavy, neatly trimmed, and combed back from a handsome coppery-brown face.

The secretary of state watched him go. She was in her midfifties, though she looked not a day over forty-five. Trim, attractive, she wore her short dark brown hair in a tapered cut that always looked freshly styled. A minimum of makeup graced the face that was known the world over.

Around five-five, she was rumored to jog every day and work out with weights three times a week, all to relieve stress. Sara guessed it was working for her, because her face was free of worry lines, and the twinkle in her eye appeared genuine.

Turning to Sara, she grasped her by both hands and peered up at her. “Welcome, Sara. Frannie has told me all about you. May I express my sympathy on the loss of your husband, Billy? My heart goes out to you. I, too, was a young widow.”

Sara remembered that the secretary’s husband had been in the military and had been killed in action more than twenty years ago. They had two children, a girl and a boy, both adults now, of course. She had chosen not to marry again.

“Thank you, Madam Secretary,” said Sara.

“Call me Eunice, dear. We’re all just women here.”

Eunice warmly placed Sara’s hand through her arm and led her into the next room where perhaps twenty women were sitting on couches and chairs enjoying luncheon on china plates and drinking from crystal champagne glasses. Conversation and laughter was heard throughout the room.

All conversation ceased, however, when Eunice reentered the room with Frannie and Sara in tow. Frannie was greeted with more warm hugs, after which she introduced Sara to everybody.

Sara knew she would not recall all of the names of the women who formed a multicultural group. They were of African, Asian, Hispanic and Caucasian extractions. Their membership was obviously not limited to African-Americans.

She recognized several famous faces. A couple of actresses; a CEO of a major company; a multimedia magnate who could have bought and sold all of New York City, she was so fabulously wealthy. Sara was slightly in awe of them but recalled Frannie’s admonition not to stare and tried her best to keep her eyes in her head.

She and Frannie were encouraged to partake of the buffet. Sara was glad for the opportunity to speak with Frannie in private. So, as they filled their plates at the buffet table, she whispered to her friend, “Oh, my God, that was Eunice Strathmore. I read she was in New York! But she’s supposed to be attending a summit.”

“She can’t be in meetings every minute. Whenever she’s in town, we get together to discuss business. Occasionally, one of us brings someone to be considered for membership. Today, that’s you.”

“But, why didn’t you ever tell me you knew the secretary of state and,” she looked around them, “Phylicia Edwards, my favorite actress, for God’s sake?”

Frannie bit into a large shrimp and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Like I said earlier, all of your questions will soon be answered.”

As they turned away from the buffet tables, Phylicia Edwards called out, “Sara, Frannie, join me, there’s room on my couch.”

Holding their plates and placing their glasses atop coasters on the coffee table in front of them, they got comfortable.

Sara observed that Phylicia was every bit as beautiful as she looked in the movies. In her late thirties, she was petite and had delicate bone structure. Her golden-brown skin was unmarred by age or injury and her dark, liquid brown eyes seemed as guileless as a young child’s.

Sara knew her estimation in that instance was faulty. Phylicia was not innocent by any means. She had fought her way to the top in Hollywood. She was not one to mince words about directors and producers whom she’d left whimpering like babes in her wake. Nobody messed with Phylicia Edwards and got away with it.

She was a warrior.

“How old are you, darlin’?” Phylicia asked Sara.

She was eating fast, obviously enjoying her food. But she didn’t talk with food in her mouth. She swallowed first, then spoke.

“I’m twenty-four,” Sara told her.

Phylicia’s eyes stretched. “I would have guessed twenty-one. You look fresh out of college.”

“I graduated from college at twenty. I saw no reason to stay any longer than three years if I could get my bachelor’s degree in three years’ time. I went to graduate school at NYU once I came here. That’s where I met my husband.”

“I never went to college,” Phylicia told her. She speared a piece of melon, chewed it thoroughly, swallowed, and said, “By the time I was twelve I was an expert at avoiding the hands of my lecherous stepfather. Two years later, I left home because he became more aggressive. I went to L.A. to live with my older sister who knew all about the bastard. She hadn’t been as lucky. But she refused to allow that episode in her life to define her. She went to school and became a teacher. I got to go to high school in L.A. and when I was sixteen I went to test for a role on a sitcom, got it…”

“Hocus Pocus,” Sara said excitedly. “I used to love it when I was a kid.”

“Be careful, you’re dating me,” Phylicia joked.

Hocus Pocus had been a sitcom about a family of African-American witches. Kind of like Bewitched, but with more flavor.

“It didn’t last very long,” Phylicia went on. “But at least I got my foot in the door and the rest, as they say, is history, or herstory. Now, tell me, Sara, do you want to be in advertising for the rest of your life?”

“What did you all do, read my file?” Sara joked.

“Something like that,” Phylicia confirmed. “We all got the memo on Sara Minton.”

“I don’t really know,” Sara said wistfully. She had yet to put a morsel of food in her mouth and didn’t know how in the world Phylicia managed a conversation while consuming everything on her plate.

Phylicia saw Sara’s eyes on her plate and laughed. “After loads of Hollywood lunches I’ve learned to eat fast and talk out of the corner of my mouth. Especially in the lean years when somebody else was paying. You also learn how to pack your purse with food without being found out. Girl, I could eat for days on what I pilfered at a party. Sorry, you were telling me what you want to do with your life.”

“I don’t really know,” Sara said again. “Before Billy died I thought I was reasonably happy working at the ad agency. But now, I’m not so sure. When I was a kid, I dreamed of owning a bookstore probably because I loved books so much, but I haven’t entertained that notion in a long time.”

“You know,” Phylicia said. “Our childhood dreams often tell us things about our personalities that we sometimes forget when we become adults. I’m not saying a grown man should go be a cowboy because he wanted to be one when he was a kid. But I do believe everybody should do something adventurous every now and then.”

Emboldened, Sara asked, “What have you done that was adventurous?”

“Last month, when I was filming in Ethiopia, I helped the wife of a government official escape out of his clutches. We went into his compound dressed like visiting nuns and when we left she and her two children were likewise attired. They were safely in Sudan before he realized they were missing.” Her tone was conspiratorial the whole while.

She’s talking about a movie role, Sara thought skeptically. However Phylicia, as she would soon learn, was telling the absolute truth.

A few minutes after everyone had finished eating, Eunice got up and went to stand in front of the huge fireplace. All of the ladies gave her their undivided attention.

“I’m so happy to see you, my sisters,” Eunice began, a warm smile on her face. “This year we celebrate over one hundred and forty-one years of existence, ever since an ex-slave woman who was a member of the Underground Railroad started a secret organization of women, black and white, who would aid women and children by helping them escape dangerous situations. Her name was Celestine and in 1860 when she started her secret society she referred to the members as Aminatu’s Daughters after the Nigerian princess, Aminatu, who gained wealth and fame by being a fierce warrior and who built walls around the city of Zaria in order to protect her people from invaders. We are still fierce warriors and we are still protecting the people!”

There was uproarious applause. The ladies got to their feet and gave their leader a standing ovation.

Eunice smiled benevolently and gestured for them to sit down. “Francesca has brought her best friend, Sara, to meet us. Sara is recently widowed, and some of us know what an emotional time that is, how we’re suddenly unsure of our direction in life.” She looked directly into Sara’s eyes, her own hypnotic. “The one thing that saved me, Sara, when I lost Zachary, was getting out of myself. I volunteered in the neighborhood, at my children’s school. It was at that time that I got involved with politics and I also went back to school and got my doctorate. I became an expert in foreign affairs. With my first assignment overseas I got to witness firsthand the subjugation of women in the country I visited. I won’t name the country. There are so many like it, where women are considered second-class citizens or, worse, as chattel. Women in the United States don’t know how good they have it compared to a lot of other women all over the world. So, after some research, I discovered Celestine and her story. And I realized that with the help of good friends, I could finish what Celestine had started. So, we pooled our resources, both financial and intellectual, and we started to do something about our sisters in countries where they had no rights. And since 1999, we have aided over five thousand women and children by educating them, where needed, and relocating them. Not always to the States, either. We have branches in over twenty countries.”

Her curiosity up, Sara asked, “But how do they contact you? How do you know who needs your help?”

“I’m the secretary of state,” Eunice said without bragging. “Special reports come across my desk all the time. Plus, we have people in governments all over the world who report cases of abuse. For example, I suppose you read about the Ethiopian woman who was going to be stoned to death for adultery while the man she had sex with, and whose child she gave birth to, got off scot-free?”

Sara nodded in the affirmative. The case had been in the news for weeks. Many countries expressed their outrage at the severity of the punishment, but apparently none of them had the authority to step in and remove the poor woman. Three days before her sentence was to be carried out, she disappeared from her prison cell. No one knew how she had escaped. Officials claimed the prison guards were guilty of taking a bribe to let her go. Prison guards swore they were innocent of such dirty dealings.

At any rate, she was not apprehended. The Ethiopian government had no proof of a conspiracy, so they let it go. They had bigger problems to worry about. They did, however, promise to keep an eye out for the young mother and if they ever caught her, she would then be put to death for her crime.

“She’s living in France now,” Eunice said. “She’s getting training to become a nurse and she and her child, whose father is still in Ethiopia and enjoying his freedom, are happy and healthy.”

For the first time since Billy’s death, Sara began to feel as if her life might still have a purpose. That day, sitting among so many accomplished women, she felt as if her spirit had gotten a much-needed boost.

She started asking questions, and the ladies were delighted to answer them.

“Do you have to be a Republican to get involved?” was her first question. She knew the secretary of state’s political affiliation, and she assumed that many of the women who were undoubtedly well-to-do shared their leader’s political views.

“I’ll answer that one,” Phylicia said. “Honey, we don’t care how you vote. Or if you vote at all. Politics don’t enter into it. I can’t stand Eunice’s boss.”

Some of the ladies laughed.

“Well, it’s true,” Phylicia said. “And Eunice knows it. I’ve told her often enough. My point is, we only care that you’re passionate about what we’re doing, and that is saving innocent women and children.”

“Where do I sign up?” Sara asked.

The ladies laughed good-naturedly

“You don’t sign up,” Eunice told her. “You’re branded.” And she went to Sara, turned around, lifted the right corner of her blouse and showed her the tiny, black crossed spears that had been tattooed just above her right buttock. “The spears of Aminatu.”

Sara’s tattoo was on her chest, on the top of her left breast.

Jason thought it had been done on a dare when she was in college.

Sara didn’t join Aminatu’s Daughters the day the secretary of state flashed her. She was advised to wait at least thirty days before deciding. It wasn’t a decision to be made lightly.

She didn’t change her mind, though, and a month and a half from the day Frannie introduced her to the organization she was tattooed in a ceremony in the same penthouse apartment on Amsterdam Avenue. Shortly afterward she was given an assignment.

Today, six years later, she had assisted in the liberation of more than a hundred women and children. And even though her actions could be considered outside of the law, she had no regrets.

“Hey, Jake, how’s it going, my man?”

Jason was in the produce aisle at the supermarket when he heard Erik Sutherland’s voice behind him. His eyes narrowed slightly as he considered the yellow squash in his hand. Jake was what he’d been called by his football pals. Erik had been leader of the pack back then.

In a sense, he still was. He was the richest man in town, and he was running for mayor.

“Hello, Erik,” Jason said as he turned to regard the hefty six-foot-four redhead.

“You cook?” Erik asked. “You don’t have a woman to do that for you?”

“No,” Jason said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his tone. “Unlike some men who are barely beyond the knuckle-dragging caveman stage, I know how to cook.”

Erik was thirty-six and had the beginnings of jowls and a beer gut. Jason supposed he didn’t get much exercise these days. He was too busy ridding the streets of Glen Ellen of illegal aliens. Not that Glen Ellen had a huge illegal alien problem. It had none, as far as Jason could see. But Erik was from the alarmist school of politics. There were only so many jobs for permanent residents to begin with. Imagine the panic among citizens if they thought illegal aliens were after their source of livelihood?

Erik picked up a peach and bit into it. “I heard you were dating Sara Johnson. She sure turned into a beauty, didn’t she? Talk about your late bloomer. Remember how awkward she used to be?” He still called Sara by her maiden name.

“No, I can’t say that I do,” Jason said. “If she seemed awkward to you it was probably because she was trying so hard to get out of your path. You never passed up the opportunity to make pig noises at her or call her out of her name.”

Erik licked peach juice from his lips. “Yeah, I was a real prick. I admit it. Now, God is getting me back because my own daughter is a little chubby and she’s getting picked on at school.” He finished off the peach and had the nerve to place the pit among the other peaches in the display. “To make it worse, she’s a bookworm and spends more time at that bookstore of Sara’s than she does at home. I can’t blame her. Since her mom divorced me and gave me custody I haven’t been much of a father.”

Jason found himself feeling sorry for him. He supposed even for blockheads like Erik life had a way of forcing them to readjust their way of thinking.

Okay, he gave Erik the benefit of the doubt where his daughter was concerned. But what was up with ridding Glen Ellen of illegal aliens?

“I have to ask,” he said. “Where exactly are all the illegal aliens you’re hoping to run out of town on a rail?”

Erik laughed softly. “Now, there, my friend, is a conundrum. But the fact is I don’t have to produce the illegal aliens. Simply the threat of them will make folks vote for me.”

“So you’re trying to get elected on a platform of fear,” Jason deduced.

“Hey, just because we don’t have the problem now doesn’t mean we won’t have it in the near future. The government’s plan to crack down on illegal aliens hasn’t exactly been foolproof. Once Southern California is full of ’em, they’ll be coming north.”

“You really are an idiot,” Jason said, shaking his head.

Erik laughed louder. “You need to borrow a sense of humor, my friend.”

“And you need to grow a conscience,” Jason countered.

“Oh, that’s right,” Erik said, remembering a salient point about the Bryant family. “You have Haitians working for you. Tell me, are they American citizens?”

“You know damn well they are!”

“Calm down, I only asked a question.” His blue eyes narrowed. “When did you get to be such a tight-ass? You used to be one of the guys.”

“This isn’t high school, and this town is not one of your cliques. You can’t rule everyone simply because you’re the biggest guy or the richest guy around anymore. Grow up, Erik.”

Jason had been filling his handheld basket while he’d been talking to Erik. Finished shopping now, he turned to leave. “Have a nice day.”

Erik picked up another peach and bit into it. “Yeah, you too, old buddy. And be sure to tell that pretty Sara Johnson I said hello.”

Chapter 3

If Sara had had any shame at all where Jason was concerned she might have second-guessed herself to the extent that she would have stayed home that night. But she wasn’t going to pass up the chance to see him again, even if it meant a continuation of the strained conversation they’d had earlier that day.

After work, she went home and showered, changed into a pair of loose-fit jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, put on her boots, brushed her braids, grabbed her jacket and sped over to the Hacienda in the Mustang.

The Mexican-inspired architecture of the Hacienda gave the 3000-square-foot house romantic appeal. Every time Sara drove up to it, she expected Zorro to come riding up on Tornado, his black steed, and sweep her up behind him.

No wonder she melted whenever Jason pulled her up behind him on his equally handsome black steed, Indigo. Jason had named the three-year-old Indigo because the stallion was so black it had a purple-blue sheen to its coat.

Sara knocked on the door with not a little temerity. Reckless confidence might be the death of her, but a fainthearted maiden wasn’t liable to win her true love, was she?

Jason pulled the huge door open and looked down his nose at her. He was wearing jeans and nothing else but he still managed to look haughty, as if she were the one who had to pass muster to enter his sanctum.

Sara smiled at him. “Am I welcome?” She took a step backward. “Because I can leave if you don’t want me here.”

His hand shot out and firmly grasped her by the arm.

Sara turned and went into his arms. They made a half turn as they embraced, and he shut the door. He bent his head, she raised up on her toes, and they kissed passionately.

“I told you I was easy,” he murmured when they parted. He smiled enigmatically.

Sara couldn’t detect any leftover hurt feelings in that confident gaze of his. Sometimes his mercurial nature confused her. He definitely kept her on her toes.

She wondered, for example, how much longer he would put up with her lack of communication? She asked only that his patience lasted long enough for her to get Elizabeth, her new charge, placed in a suitable situation. After that, she was going to resign from the organization.

Hopefully that shouldn’t take more than a few weeks. Eunice had assured her they were working hard to get Elizabeth placed.

She smiled brightly up at him. Their lower halves were pressed firmly together and she, being highly susceptible to his nearness, was becoming more and more aroused.

“Are we going for that ride you promised me?” she reminded him.

“Yes!” His teeth flashed in a gorgeous smile. He loved their rides together in the moonlight. “I’ll get dressed.”

He gave her a quick buss on the lips and was gone.

Sara went to the kitchen to see what that divine smell was that had been enticing her since she’d stepped foot in the house.

The house was made of very thick stone and was cool in summer and drafty in the winter months. There was Mexican tile, a different shade in each room, throughout the house. Handmade rugs offered some relief from its stark beauty. The furnishings were good solid wood and leather pieces, the colors in earth tones with splashes of bold color here and there. Simone Bryant had truly designed a beautiful family home over the years. Sara could imagine living there and putting her own stamp on it.

The kitchen, Simone’s pride and joy, obviously, was equipped with everything a chef could want—durable and reliable cookware, lots of counter space, a double oven, and a restaurant-size Sub-Zero refrigerator.

Sara walked over to the stove and lifted the lid on the Dutch oven. The aroma of stewed chicken made her mouth water. There was something very appealing about a man who could cook. She supposed some of his mother’s culinary talent had rubbed off on him. Come to think of it, his brother was a chef, too.

She went and got a fork from the cutlery drawer and dipped into the stewed chicken, spearing a nice chunk. She closed the lid and blew on the steaming treat.

Jason came into the kitchen just as she was putting it in her mouth.

“Caught you!” he said, laughing. “A little hungry, are you?” He had put on a long-sleeve shirt, a denim jacket and his brown leather boots.

Chewing, Sara said, “It smelled so good, I couldn’t resist.”

Being the gentleman he was, Jason offered to forgo the ride and feed her instead.

“No, no,” she cried. “I’m looking forward to our ride.”

A few minutes later, Sara was sitting astride Indigo behind Jason with her arms wrapped around him. They were riding through the vineyards, which were bathed in moonlight.

Indigo’s gait was slow enough so that they could talk comfortably.

“These grapes are going to become what kind of wine, again?” she asked. She was woefully ignorant about the wine business but was willing to learn.

“Zinfandel,” Jason told her.

“That’s a red wine, right?”

“Right, red or rosé, which is a light red.”

“How old were you when you had your first glass of wine?”

“Five or six,” Jason told her. “Every Christmas we were permitted one glass, up until we were eighteen, at which time we were considered old enough to determine how many glasses we wanted and when we wanted to drink them. Of course, when we were kids the Christmas glass of wine was perhaps only large enough to hold half an ounce. And the moderation with which our parents treated wine made all of us into near teetotalers. None of us will have more than a glass of wine with dinner to this day.”

The side of Sara’s face was pressed to his back and his voice vibrated in her ear. She liked the sound of it. “Are you glad you came back home?”

She’d never asked him that question. She was afraid he would say he wasn’t happy here. She closed her eyes and hoped for a positive reply.

“I’m happier than I ever thought I could be,” he said without hesitation. “I told you how I mentally fought against going into the family business?”

“Yes, you said you didn’t want to be like your father, so you excelled in school and became a lawyer, a profession so removed from being a gentleman farmer, as you like to think of your father, that no one in the family would ever presume to ask you to take over.”

She laughed when she was finished.

“What’s so funny?” Jason wanted to know.

“Then, your sister came along and talked you into it.”

Jason didn’t want to tell Sara that she had also been a determining factor in his decision to come back home. He was already smitten with her at the time and wanted to get to know her better.

“I was unhappy being a divorce lawyer, too. I was tired of seeing so many marriages go up in smoke.”

“You don’t miss being a lawyer at all?” Sara asked, incredulous.

“Nah, I had my fill. Now that I look back I realize I was just running from the inevitable. I belong here. This place is in my blood, no matter how hard I try to deny it.”

Sara hugged him tighter and with a broad smile on her face, sighed happily.

“Does that make you happy?” Jason asked.

“Yes, it does. I’m glad you love it here. So do I. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”

“After living in New York City?”

“I love New York. I always will. But Glen Ellen is home. After Mom died and Dad moved to Florida to live with Uncle Ed, I didn’t even think of selling the family home and moving away.”

“I’m grateful you didn’t.”

“There are not that many black folks left.”

“There weren’t that many to begin with,” Jason said. “According to the African-American historian on this area, my mom, the Bryants were the first blacks to live here. And it was lots of years before anyone else black moved here.”

“My mom and dad came in the late seventies when Mom inherited a lot of money and bought property here. She was the one who loved farming, not Dad. When she died he couldn’t go on without her. Yeah, this is definitely a lonely place for black folks,” said Sara. “I bet there aren’t twenty African-Americans living in this area. The high school kids have to go to Santa Rosa to attend school, and last I heard Claude and Rosaura’s two kids were the only black students at the elementary school.”

“But Santa Rosa’s not that far away, and it has a sizable African-American community. We’re not that isolated from our culture,” Jason said reasonably.

“Hasn’t that always been the place to go when you wanted soul food, or had to get your hair cut, or your hair styled? Or actually wanted to date a sister or a brother? I didn’t date anybody from here when I was in high school.”

“I know. The first guy who kissed you came from Santa Rosa. I remember Kyle Bailey, that little pipsqueak, he was two grades behind me.”

“That little pipsqueak shot up several inches over the summer of his junior year and led the basketball team to the state finals his senior year. For a hot minute I was the most popular girl in school because he was my boyfriend. Then, he dropped me for Susie Kent, and my moment of fame fizzled so quickly it made my head spin.”

She laughed at the memory now, but back then, like most sixteen-year-old girls would have been, she was devastated. She’d wound up going to the senior prom with her father. Her mom had insisted that she would regret it if she did not go. She’d been right.

Her father, a big, handsome brown-skinned man made the girls swoon with envy. Some of them had even asked him to dance with them, but he told them his dance card was filled. He and Sara danced every dance together.

That still was her favorite memory of her father.

“Where is he now?” Jason asked of Kyle Bailey. “I’ll go kick his butt right now.”

Laughing, Sara said. “Forget it. Last I heard, he was happily married with a houseful of kids. More power to him.”

“Did he marry Susie Kent?”

“No, she married a pro basketball player, got divorced two years later, married another jock, divorced him and decided to give marriage a rest for a while. I saw her at our tenth-year class reunion. She said she owned a boutique in San Francisco. Her divorce settlements had left her pretty wealthy, so she didn’t need to work but liked to stay busy.”

Jason chuckled. “You believed that?”

“The point is, she did,” Sara told him. “I had no way of knowing if she was telling the truth or not, but I hoped that she was happy. She had this kind of desperate look in her eyes that made me wish for something good to happen to her. That was two years after Billy died, so I wasn’t in the best mental health myself.”

In the beginning of their relationship, Jason had tensed up whenever she mentioned Billy Minton, but now, after learning how good he had been to Sara he no longer felt uneasy listening to her talk about him. He was sure that if he had met Billy he would have liked him. He was glad that Sara had had a good marriage.

He’d known too many women who felt that they had been damaged by their marriages. He had represented some of them.

Thinking about Billy sometimes put Sara in a melancholy mood, though. In fact, he felt her slump against him now, a sure sign that a blue mood was building. He quickly changed the subject. “Guess who sends you his regards?”

She sat up straighter, her curiosity engaged. “Idris Elba?”

Now, that irked him. Elba was Sara’s favorite actor of the moment. No, not just her favorite actor. He was convinced that the British actor lived in her sexual fantasies.

He chuckled. “No, and if he called I wouldn’t give you the message. So quit hoping. No, your secret admirer is your former tormentor, Erik Sutherland. I saw him in the supermarket this afternoon.”

“What do you mean by secret admirer? I haven’t even seen him since I moved back.”

“He said you’d really blossomed. He called you pretty.”

“That makes my skin crawl. Where could he have seen me and I wasn’t aware of being seen by him?”

“That’s another mystery,” Jason said. “Anyway, he seems to regret his past behavior towards you and said that God was punishing him for it by allowing his own daughter, who happens to be a little overweight, to be picked on by kids at school.”

“I know Melissa,” Sara said sympathetically. “She’s a sweet girl. She’s grown attached to Frannie who thinks she’s a work of art in progress.”

“There’s another mystery,” Jason said. “Your friend, Frannie Anise. Doesn’t it strike you as unusual that when you left New York she quit her job and followed you to California? That’s not something most girlfriends would do, not even best friends.”

“Northern California is home for her, too. I told you, she grew up in San Francisco. Her parents still live there. It wasn’t such a stretch for her to move back here.”

“Are you sure she’s not in love with you?” Jason asked seriously.

“Frannie’s not gay.”

“I’ve never seen her with a guy.”

“You’ve got a suspicious mind.”

“It’s one of my many faults,” Jason admitted. “I wonder about those trips you take. I wonder about those women who work in the bookstore for short periods of time and then disappear as if they never existed. I’m wondering when the new woman, who I think is from South Africa, will disappear. I have questions that need answers, and you have all the answers and won’t give them to me. Excuse me if I’m suspicious.”

“I understand how you feel.”

“But you have no answers.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That’s what I thought.” He made a noise with his tongue, a signal for Indigo to break into a canter. The big stallion seemed to have been waiting to stretch his strong legs and for the next twenty minutes he got a good workout while his riders clung to each other in silence.

Later, as they slowly rode into the yard, Jason said, “I’ll take care of Indigo. You can go on inside, I know you must be tired.”

“No, I’m not tired at all. I’d like to help.”

In the barn, after Jason had removed Indigo’s bit, stirrups and saddle, Sara gently wiped the sweat off him with a soft cloth used specifically for that purpose. Afterward, they took turns brushing him down.

Finished, Sara patted his strong neck. “Good night, handsome.”

They left him in his clean stall where he had fresh oats and water.

Silently, they walked to the house from the barn. The full moon illuminated their path. Even if there had been no moon tonight, there were security lights at the top corners of the back of the barn and at strategic points around the house.

Jason was in a pensive mood. Everything about Sara, lately, was a mystery. She seemed to delight in helping him rub down Indigo moments ago. Last year, she’d gone into the vineyards and helped with the harvest, working as hard as anyone else.

It was obvious that she knew what becoming a vintner’s wife would entail. It also appeared as if she would welcome that kind of life. Therefore it continued to puzzle him as to why she’d turned down his proposal. He was irritated with himself to still be dwelling on it, but he couldn’t help himself.

He would have to change his way of thinking. He was basically a future-focused person. The present concerned him only for its momentary pleasures. He looked at life as in constant flux, and unless you planned for the future, you would be caught unawares.

He didn’t like surprises. He knew that it was impossible to predict the future. But those who prepared for it were better equipped to cope with unpleasant surprises. In his future-focused mind he saw himself and Sara together. He had been seeing himself and Sara together ever since that night he had kissed her in the wine cellar during Erica and Joshua’s wedding reception here at the winery.

Once in the house, they went to separate bathrooms and freshened up before dinner.

They dined in the kitchen, talking and laughing about their day.

It was mid-October, the start of the rainy season, and Sara told him that several of the ladies who had come into the store that day had mentioned someone had told them that El Niño would cause severe climate upheavals this year. “We could have floods and maybe even a tsunami, they said.”

“You’re not listening to the rumor mill, are you?” Jason asked with a skeptical laugh. “Every year, somebody predicts the end of the world, and all we get here is a little rain from November to December. The same thing will happen this year. Nothing’s changed in this area in a long time. We’re blessed with a wonderful weather system.”

“Yeah, but what if they’re right this year? What would flooding do to the vines?”

“There would be destruction of Biblical proportions,” Jason joked.

“Okay, drop it,” Sara said, laughing softly. “I can see you think my patrons are a bunch of lunatics.”

“Just tell me this, was one of the doomsayers Mrs. McClarin?”

Sara nodded in the affirmative as she forked more of the delicious stewed chicken into her mouth. She narrowed her eyes at him. What could he have against dear sweet Mrs. McClarin? Mrs. Mac, as the kids had referred to her, had been her fourth-grade English teacher. She had retired twenty years ago but her mind was as sharp as ever.

“It was Mrs. McClarin who said she saw Big Foot eating out of the garbage can in her backyard last year. Pete Baumgartner told me about it.”

Pete was the local sheriff’s deputy.

“Yeah, well, Pete Baumgartner got a D in her fourth-grade English class and he’s had it in for her ever since. Maybe she did see Big Foot eating out of her trash can.”

Jason threw his head back in laughter.

Sara loved seeing him like this, with his guard down and supremely relaxed.

Those whiskey-colored eyes of his were so enticing at these moments. But it was his mouth that had been her undoing from the beginning of their relationship. She couldn’t look at it with its sensual lines without wanting to know how it would feel to be kissed by him. Once her lips had touched his she couldn’t resist wanting to kiss him again and again. Just the thought of kissing him aroused her.

His laughter under control, he met her eyes across the table. Placing his knife and fork in his plate, he wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin, dropped it onto the plate, and got to his feet. “Are you finished?” he asked softly.

Sara tipped her head back slightly in order not to break eye contact. “Yes.”

The pulse in her neck thumped excitedly. She’d already put her utensils and napkin in her plate. Now, she sat there almost primly, looking up at him.

They had not made love in more than two weeks. Ever since the night he’d proposed. Unfortunately, all of their present problems stemmed from that night. If he wanted her again maybe he had decided to forgive her for turning him down.

Jason went to her and held out his hand to her. Sara placed it in his and he slowly drew her to her feet and pulled her into his arms. She tipped her head back, anticipating his kiss.

She closed her eyes as his face descended toward hers but quickly opened them again when she felt his lips on her forehead instead of on her mouth.

Jason smiled warmly at her as he straightened up. “It’s getting late, and we both have to get up early. I’ll walk you to your car.”

Sara schooled her features. She would not let him see how much his rejection had wounded her. If emotional detachment were his objective she would show him how it was done.

“You’re so right,” she said, her tone eminently reasonable. “I’ll just get my jacket.” She hadn’t bothered to bring her shoulder bag inside. It was locked in the car. Her car keys were in the pocket of her jacket.

He was still holding her by the arms. She turned her back to him, breaking his hold. Walking to the coat tree near the back door, she grabbed her jacket and put it on.

They walked side by side through the house to the front door where Jason opened the door for her and followed her outside. Sara peered up at the sky once they had descended the steps that led to the stone circular driveway.

“Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said when they were standing in front of the Mustang. The tension between them was palpable. Sara fought the urge to throw herself into his arms and beg him to forgive her.

Jason didn’t dare touch her again because he was on fire with the desire to make love to her. He was only a man. But he had his pride. He wouldn’t make love to a woman who didn’t love him enough to marry him. He’d said he was easy, but he wasn’t stupid. This was a war of wills and he was going to be the victor. No. He didn’t want her to come crawling back to him, begging him to forgive her. But even if he had to take cold showers every night and run ten miles each day, he would not take her to bed until this matter was settled between them.

And the only way that was going to happen was if she said yes to his proposal.

That was his final decision.

However, as he gazed into her upturned face, her almond-shaped eyes golden in the bright moonlight, and her mouth looking especially inviting, he knew he was going to suffer mightily for his convictions.

Sara had been watching him while he wrestled with his thoughts. She could guess what was going on behind those hooded eyes of his, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that she would emerge victorious in this test of wills.

But just so he knew what he was fighting for, she tiptoed, grabbed him and kissed him soundly. Jason, caught off guard, thought of breaking it off but her mouth felt so good on his he immediately capitulated.

He held her firmly against him. Her arms went around his neck. His hands molded her shapely body to his, moving downward until they rested on her firm buttocks. Their bodies pressed closer together as they hungrily sought the temporary satisfaction a kiss afforded. As soon as Sara felt his manhood growing hard against her belly, she withdrew her tongue from his mouth and disengaged herself from his embrace. “I’d better go. Don’t want to keep you from your bed.”

She jerked her arm out of his grasp, and reached for the door’s handle.

Jason calmly stepped aside and let her get behind the wheel of the Mustang.

“I know that it seems like I’m sending mixed signals, Sara,” he said, “but I’m having a hard time knowing exactly how to handle this situation. Do we go on as if nothing has happened between us and continue making love? Or would it be better to call a moratorium on sex until we know where we’re going? I don’t know the best course so I’m winging it.”

“Let’s just agree on the last choice, all right?” Sara said as she started the car. “It might do us both good to be celibate for a while. But don’t play with me, Jason. I didn’t turn down your proposal because I wanted to hurt you. I had a very good reason for doing it. I can’t tell you that reason right now. No amount of psychological blackmail on your part is going to get your answers any quicker. Believe it or not I’m trying to do the honorable thing here.”

Jason was shaking his head in the negative. “You’re killing me with all this secretive crap. If you trusted me, you would be able to tell me anything. If you don’t trust me, then you don’t love me. It’s as simple as that.”

“Nothing’s as simple as that!” Sara cried. “The fact is, Jason Bryant, you’re a spoiled brat who doesn’t really know how the world works. You think you’re sophisticated because you were a hotshot attorney and therefore you’ve seen it all. But, believe me, you need years of maturing before you’ll be truly enlightened. Good night!”

With that, she put the car in Drive, hit the accelerator, and sped out of his driveway.

Chapter 4

“Sara, darn it, slow down. What is the matter with you this morning? You know I don’t have the legs of a gazelle, like you do. Mine are more like a Dachshund’s!” Frannie protested as they set off on their jog the next morning.

Sara ran in place a few seconds while Frannie caught up with her. She smiled at the comical sight Frannie made with her abundance of black frizzy hair done up on top of her head. She resembled one of those toy trolls people liked to keep on their desks.

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” she said. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“You’re running as if the hounds of hell are after you,” Frannie told her. Beside Sara now, she peered up into her face. “And you have that ‘don’t mess with me’ glint in your eye. You’re mad at somebody. How many guesses do I get? Oh, wait a minute, I don’t need to guess. It’s Jason, isn’t it?”

Sara picked up her pace again.

Frannie ran harder to keep up. “Okay, okay, I get the message. You don’t want to talk about it. Even though it would help to talk about it. My mother says a friendly ear is worth more than a year on a psychiatrist’s couch.”

“Your mother’s a psychiatrist!”

“Yeah, but she’s an ethical psychiatrist. If she thinks a patient is better served by simply talking to a good friend, she’ll tell them to save their money.”

“That’s ethical, all right,” Sara agreed, laughing. She slowed down. “Okay. Yesterday he came into my office all sweetness and light, talking about how he’s easy and he’s willing to wait for me. He invited me to dinner, with the promise of more afterward.”

“More of what?” Frannie asked, her delicate brows arched in curiosity.

“Do you want to hear this, or not?”

“Just wondered what made you think he was suggesting sex later on? After all, you two haven’t been together in that way since he proposed, right?”

“I really do tell you too much about my personal life.”

“You know I live vicariously through you. So don’t stop the supply now that I’m hopelessly hooked.”

Sara laughed. “I could tell there was the promise of more because of his body language. We were affectionate at the office, very affectionate, almost to the point of having sex on the desk.”

“It has been awhile, huh?”

“Exactly. We hadn’t kissed like that since before the proposal. Of course I would think that he’d decided to give me the benefit of the doubt and resume our physical relationship!”

“I see your point.”

“Thank you!” Sara took a deep breath and continued. “But later that night, after dinner, he got up and made a move on me so similar to his old self just before he used to jump my bones, that I got all hot and bothered. He went to kiss me. I closed my eyes, and what do you suppose happened then? He kissed me on the forehead as if I was his baby daughter whom he was kissing good-night! Then, he said it was getting late and he would walk me to my car.”

“After making like Valentino?”

“Yeah, girl, had me about to pant like a dog.”

“The scum!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Oh, he’s definitely still mad at you,” was Frannie’s considered opinion.

“I know.”

“You’re doing all you can,” Frannie said sympathetically. “You wouldn’t have accepted your last assignment if you had known he was going to propose. But Elizabeth was already under our protection before he popped the question.”

“Bad timing.”

Frannie nodded her agreement, her frizzy hair bobbing up and down. “You’re making a huge sacrifice for that schlimazel.”

“What does that mean in English again?” Frannie was always tossing out a Yiddish word or two that Sara had to have translated.

“It means someone who’s prone to mistakes or plagued with bad luck.”

“It was all just bad luck when he proposed. I was so ready to say yes, I could taste it. But I couldn’t because Elizabeth needs us.”

“Oh, girl, I do feel for you,” said Frannie. “But, now, lend me your ear because I actually have a problem that I could use your help with.”

“Fire away.”

“Melissa is hinting around about setting me up with her father. The poor kid wants a mother so badly, she’s considering me for the job!”

A pickup truck that they recognized as belonging to Joe Rizzo, a local olive grower, slowed down next to them. “You ladies in those jogging shorts does an old man’s heart good!” Joe yelled.

“Get on to work, you pervert!” Frannie yelled back at him, grinning. Joe meant no harm. He often bought her a beer at the tavern on a Saturday night. Fifty-nine, and a widower the past five years, he was so busy fending off most of the single women of a certain age that he didn’t have the energy for serious flirting. At least that’s what he’d told Frannie.

Joe laughed heartily. “Enjoy your day, ladies.”

“You too!” Sara called.

“Anyway,” Frannie said, continuing the conversation Joe had interrupted. “Yesterday when she dropped by the store after school she asked me if I’d come to her sixteenth birthday party tomorrow night. Fool that I am, I immediately accepted. I like her, and I was flattered that she’d asked me. Then, I remembered that her father is the same creep who used to make your life miserable when you were her age and now I regret that I accepted so fast.”

“I’m all for sisterly solidarity,” Sara told her. “But you don’t have to feel offended by him on my behalf. Jason told me that Erik said he regretted being an ass back then. If you want to go to Melissa’s party, then go. But what makes you think she’s going to try to fix you up with him?”

“She told me to wear something sexy, as if she would know anything about sexy. She wears clothes so big they’re practically falling off her body.”

“That’s the style these days. Plus, since she’s a little heavy she thinks it camouflages her body.”

“I’d love to give her a makeover,” Frannie said. “Do you think she’d be offended if I took her shopping for her birthday?”

“Make it a girls’ day out and I don’t see why. Invite me and Elizabeth along and she won’t feel as if you’re targeting her.”

“Good idea. We can hop over to Santa Rosa before the mall closes tonight. Are you sure you’re free tonight? I’m pretty sure Melissa is. But I wonder if her dad would object?”

“Yeah, I don’t have a love life anymore, remember?” Sara said with a laugh. “And why should Erik object?”

“His daughter going shopping with three black women?”

“I wish he would object,” Sara said. “I have a few choice words for him that have had nearly twenty years to simmer at the back of my mind!”

Frannie laughed. “Now, watch yourself. You may be talking about my future boyfriend if his daughter has anything to do with it.”

“I’ll pray for you, girl.”

“Don’t pray too hard. I’ve seen him around. He’s got a nice tush. You know I go for big guys.”

“He’s six-four, Frannie, more than a foot taller than you. Isn’t that too big?”

“Oh, please, I once dated a guy who was six-seven. He could almost put me in his pocket. But it was nice while it lasted.”

“What was nice about it?”

“Do I have to tell you about the main advantage of dating a tall guy?”

Sara actually blushed. “No, don’t say it.”

Of course, Frannie had to say it now. “It sort of leaned to the left and, girl, I had to go around the corner to get on it.”

“You ought to quit!” Sara cried, laughing. Knowing Frannie’s history with men she was happy that Frannie could still joke about sex.

“Well, lately, all I’ve got is a few good memories,” Frannie said wistfully.

Later, back at the house, the three housemates, Sara, Frannie and Elizabeth, had breakfast together. Elizabeth had slept in while Sara and Frannie had their morning jog. When they returned, they heard her in her bedroom’s shower. Sara and Frannie went to their rooms and showered and dressed, too. By the time Elizabeth came downstairs Sara had prepared their breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham and toast.

Frannie was pouring coffee in mugs at their place settings when Elizabeth came into the kitchen and gave them a timid, “Good morning.”

Elizabeth was twenty-two, had light brown skin and dark brown eyes. She wore her natural black hair in a short afro. Although Elizabeth was a genuinely shy and modest young lady, she was under the organization’s protection because she had led a walkout of nearly five hundred gold miners in Johannesburg. Since apartheid had been abolished working conditions had improved for blacks; however, there were still some throwbacks to a colonial system that in many aspects resembled slavery.

The government passed laws to protect workers, but the gold-mining companies failed to comply. A group of miners, led by Elizabeth’s father, Edward, wrote down and presented to their bosses their grievances which included the need for better pay, health insurance, an on-site infirmary and more frequent water breaks.

Two days later, Edward Mbeki was gunned down while walking home from work.

The police never found his killer. A week after that, Elizabeth, who was in medical school in Johannesburg at the time, led a march through the city in protest of her father’s death and called for an investigation of the company that he had worked for.

She and several others were arrested.

A group of American human rights lawyers got her released the next day. A few days later, Elizabeth convinced the gold miners at her father’s company to walk out of work and stay away for twenty-four hours. The company owners went ballistic and hired toughs to beat up several of the workers.

An enterprising reporter for a Soweto newspaper actually caught one of the company’s thugs beating up a worker on video. It was shown on every television station in South Africa. Shortly after that, the company came under investigation, and was forced to comply with everything that Edward Mbeki had asked for before his assassination.

However, it wasn’t over for Elizabeth. Her family’s house mysteriously caught fire and her mother and younger sister perished in the flames. She began receiving death threats. Her college friends tried to help by concealing her in their homes. They tried to raise her spirits, but she became despondent, and contemplated suicide. That was when a black woman with a tattoo of crossed spears on her upper arm came to her and told her she was taking her to America where she would be among friends and she could continue her education.

Elizabeth told the woman she wanted to die. She had no family anymore, only distant relatives whom she didn’t know well. “I promise you,” said the woman. “Where you’re going you will form a new family, and when you continue your work, you will find a new purpose. Your family will not have died in vain. You will live on and grow strong, Elizabeth. The name Mbeki will live on because of you.”

She had been living in Sara’s home now, for four weeks. She was still kind of shy around Sara and Frannie, but she had come to trust them.

Sara gauged her success by the number of smiles on Elizabeth’s face each day. She knew that from personal experience, the only thing that could vanquish suicidal thoughts was a reason to live, a purpose. That’s why she’d recently written Eunice and told her that the organization needed to find Elizabeth a job at a local hospital, preferably a job in which she would be working with children. Elizabeth was going to become a pediatrician before her life had been turned upside down.

That morning, when Sara checked her mail on the organization’s site, she had found a message from Eunice saying that everything had been arranged: Elizabeth’s new identity papers were ready, and she would begin work as a nurse’s aide the following Monday. Eunice also added that it was taking longer than she had anticipated, but she had it on good authority that in a couple of months, Elizabeth would be admitted to the University of California College of Medicine on full scholarship.

Sara had the pleasure of relating all of that to Elizabeth over breakfast this morning. The expression of pure joy on Elizabeth’s face made Sara tear up. Elizabeth immediately leaned forward and grasped Sara’s hands in her small ones. “Don’t cry, Miss Sara, you and Frannie have brought me back to life these past few weeks. Last night, I didn’t dream about the fire. It was the first time I didn’t dream about it. Instead, I dreamed my family and I were having dinner together on a Sunday, and we were all happy to be together like it was when I would return home from being at school for a long period of time. We all held hands and Father said the prayer. Then Mother served us all, herself last, as she always used to. Finally, Father looked us all in our faces and said, ‘This is heaven to me.’ Then, I woke up with such a warm feeling inside. I know, now, that they want me to go on. They want me to live well so that one day, hopefully when I’m old and worn out, I’ll join them in Heaven.”

Frannie got up to get paper towels for herself and Sara. Handing Sara hers, then sitting back down, she said, “How would you like to go shopping with us after work? Melissa Sutherland’s turning sixteen, and we’re going to help her celebrate.”

“I would love it,” said Elizabeth, her eyes shining with pleasure.

Jason got a rude awakening that day. He and Claude were in the southern vineyard pruning the vines when Claude, working several feet ahead of him due to the slowness with which Jason worked, uttered an expletive.

Jason looked in Claude’s direction. He didn’t think in all the years he’d known Claude Ledoux, that he’d ever heard him swear. Squinting against the bright sunshine, in spite of wearing shades, Jason said, “What’s the matter?”

Sweat rolled down the sides of his face. It was seventy degrees today. Nice for October, but he was sweating like a horse ridden hard and put up wet.

Claude was speaking rapid French now, and holding out his hand with withered grapes in his palm. Jason didn’t know what he wanted him to do with a handful of dried-up grapes, but he walked over to his foreman and took the grapes from him.

Claude began walking around the vines in the area where he had been working pointing out the raisining of several other grapes on the vine. After a while, Jason started seeing what Claude was seeing: the vines in this area were characterized by stunted shoots, dwarfed leaves, wilting and shriveled grapes hanging listlessly from them. They were sick.

Jason’s heart skipped a beat.

Root rot. He’d heard of it, but as far as he could remember, his parents had never had a major case of it. Dead or severely damaged grapevines would have to be dug up and replanted after the soil had been completely cleared of the infected roots.

The problem was, it was extremely hard to get all of the root, and if any survived at all it could thrive and reinfect the healthy vines.

He was trying not to panic here, but all he could think about was the fact that his parents had run the winery without losing it for many, many years and he’d been in control for under two years and could possibly lose everything.

He looked at Claude, who was still muttering in French. “What do we have to do?” he asked plaintively.

“Root collar excavation,” Claude said with a dire expression on his dark brown face.

“Do I need to rent equipment for that?”

“No, you’ve got a mini backhoe in the storage shed.”

Jason had done an inventory when he’d taken over, but he didn’t know what half of the equipment was called that he’d encountered in his look around the place. “Then, let’s get started.”

Claude shook his head in the negative. “No, first we need to dig up a test root and have a plant pathologist diagnose which kind of root rot we have. Then we’ll know how best to eradicate it.”

“A root pathologist?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like CSI for plants. They can tell you what killed it.”

“Oh, my God,” said Jason. He had a lot to learn. “You mean I’m going to have to take the infected root up to U.C. Davis?”

“That would be your best bet, yes,” said Claude.

“Okay, I’ll go get a shovel.”

Melissa took a photo of Sara, Frannie and Elizabeth as the three of them were sitting at a tiny round table in the food court. She quickly sent the photo via her phone to her nosy father. He was on the line now. She was standing around the corner near the restrooms where she’d told her friends she was going when she’d gotten up five minutes ago.

“Satisfied?” she asked sarcastically.

“The other two work at Sara’s bookstore?”

“Yes! Now, I’ve got to go.”

“Melissa, don’t you have any white friends?”

“If you must know, no I don’t. And those kids you’ve invited to my party tomorrow night will only come because you’re filthy rich, not because they’re my friends. The only person coming tomorrow night who is my friend will be Frannie.”

“It’s not healthy for you to hang out with black people all the time, Melissa. Do you have something against your own race?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Melissa asked, exasperated. “Unlike you, I don’t care what color my friends are, just that they’re my friends. I’m ashamed of you.”

Erik sighed on his end. He really stank as a parent. Now his daughter thought he was a bigot. “Melissa, don’t you think you’re going to be ostracized by the white kids in town if you’re always hanging out at that black bookstore?”

“I really don’t care, and Sara sells all kinds of books at Aminatu’s Daughters, not just books written by black authors. Maybe if you’d come in sometime you’d see for yourself, but all you want to do is complain. I’m going now. Bye!”

She hung up quickly and stuck the phone in her jacket pocket.

Rejoining her friends, she asked, “What did I miss?”

Before she had gone to the bathroom, they had been boy-gazing. The mall was packed with teenagers. They were theoretically picking a boyfriend for Melissa.

Two tanned boys who looked like they might be high school seniors were sitting on a bench near the waterfall a few feet to the left of them. “The boy in the blue football jersey is very cute,” Sara said. “Do you know him, Melissa?”

During their selection process, Melissa had known several of the boys by name. They went to her high school. They totally ignored her as a matter of course, but she knew them from class or by reputation.

The boy that Sara had pointed out was in her advanced Algebra class. He sat in front of her, and he’d never once turned around to say hello to her. She could have been a piece of furniture for all he cared.

“The boy in the football jersey is Danny Keener, the other guy is Tyler Gaines.”

“Is Danny smart?” Sara wanted to know. He had the kind of dark good looks that reminded her of the actor who portrayed Clark Kent on Smallville.

“He makes A’s in Advanced Algebra, so he must be,” said Melissa.

“Do you think he’s handsome?” Elizabeth asked. She had never played this game of observing males simply for their beauty. When she thought of dating a fellow student she wanted to know if he was a good student, if he was a good son, and if he was a spendthrift or not. Dating, to her, was a means to an end. The end was marriage.

This notion of dating for fun was intriguing, though.

Melissa’s face turned red when Elizabeth asked her if she liked Danny’s looks. She had secretly been in love with Danny Keener for two years now. She held out absolutely no hope that he would ever notice her. He dated girls like Sherry Newcastle who was beautiful and a cheerleader. Plus, she had thighs that didn’t touch. Thighs that were trim and toned. Melissa knew she’d never have thighs like that. Therefore, she would never be noticed by Danny Keener.

She didn’t lie to her friends, though. “I think he’s adorable,” she said. “But he’s never even looked my way.”

“Well,” said Sara. “He’s looking your way now.”

Tyler Gaines, a tall, gangly boy with too-long blond hair that fell in his eyes and Tarzan’s style of communicating was pointing at Melissa, then back at his chest.

Sara, Frannie, and Elizabeth had no idea how to translate his sign language, but Melissa immediately knew that, “He wants to come over and talk to us.”

“Tell him to come on,” said Frannie. “And to bring the cute one with him.”

Melissa smiled shyly at Tyler and motioned for him to come on over.

Tyler got up and loped over with Danny beside him. “Hey, Melissa.”

“Hey, Tyler.”

“This is Danny Keener.”

“And this is Sara Minton, Frannie Anise, and Mary Makebo,” Melissa said. Like everyone else besides Sara and Frannie, Melissa knew Elizabeth by an alias.

“Ladies,” said Tyler with a respectful nod. His eyes lingered on Elizabeth. Then he looked at Melissa. “I think it’s cool that your dad’s giving you a sweet-sixteen.”

“I nearly gagged when he suggested it, but it’s growing on me,” said Melissa.

“Cool!” said Tyler. That word was apparently his favorite in the English language.

“I was wondering if I could bring Danny. The invitation said I could bring a guest. It doesn’t have to be a person of the opposite sex, does it?”

Melissa was momentarily struck dumb. What could he possibly mean by that? He and Danny weren’t gay, were they? “No, Tyler. You can bring whomever you want to. Danny’s welcome.”

“Cool, ’cuz, see Danny just broke up with his girlfriend and he’s kinda down right now and I figure you’re gonna have lots of ladies coming to your party tomorrow night. Maybe he’ll meet someone.”

Danny looked as if he wished the floor would swallow him whole. But his parents had obviously instilled good manners in him because he smiled at Melissa and said, “Thanks for having me, Melissa. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Sure, anytime,” said Melissa, smiling nervously.

“Well,” Tyler said, yanking on the sleeve of Danny’s football jersey. “See you tomorrow night, Melissa. Ladies, it was nice to meet you.”

Danny smiled at Melissa before turning to leave.

When they’d gone, Melissa heaved a sigh of relief and said, “I almost peed my pants.”

To which her friends burst out laughing.

Chapter 5

On Saturday afternoon at five, the bookstore’s closing time, Sara was ringing up the purchases of a last-minute customer when Rosaura Ledoux came through the door. Sara had met Rosaura a year ago during harvest. Rosaura had patiently shown her how to snip the grapes from the vine without damaging the parent vine. Since then, Rosaura had joined the Wednesday Night Book Club there at the bookstore, and on occasion Sara babysat Rosaura and Claude’s children, Claude, Jr. and Katrina.

Rosaura went to check out the new arrivals on the shelves while Sara finished. But as soon as the customer left she approached Sara. “Claude doesn’t want me to interfere but I think you ought to know that they found root rot in the vines and Mr. Bryant is terribly worried. I wouldn’t mention it but you know I sometimes help with the housework at the Hacienda and I overheard Mr. Bryant talking to his sister and he said he had not said a word to you about it. And he wasn’t planning to.”

Sara was stunned to hear that Jason hadn’t wanted to confide in her.

Rosaura, a petite woman in her late thirties with smooth chocolate skin, gray eyes, and beautiful long jet-black hair, wavy hair that she wore down her back, smiled at Sara encouragingly. “Men can be so stubborn,” she said.

“And bullheaded,” Sara added.

She felt like crying. If Jason didn’t want her to know something as vital as this then maybe he was emotionally distancing himself from her. Formerly, he’d confided in her about things as mundane as choosing a new label for a variety of wine. Now, when the entire vineyard could be in jeopardy, he was leaving her out of the loop!

But she couldn’t rush over there accusing him of wanting to hurt her by keeping her in the dark. That wouldn’t be very mature.

Besides, she had her pride.

“What are they doing about it?” she calmly asked Rosaura.

“He has an appointment to see a plant pathologist at U.C. Davis in two weeks.”

“Two weeks!” Sara cried, disgusted. “The damn rot could spread to the rest of the vines in two weeks’ time.”

“That’s the earliest they can see him.”

Sara knew Jason must be climbing the walls by now. He had reluctantly come back to run the winery and he wasn’t yet confident in his ability to make it work. He was probably riddled with a whole new set of doubts.

She had to see him. But she couldn’t let him know she knew what was going on.

“Rosaura, let’s pretend you didn’t tell me a thing, shall we?”

“That’s fine with me,” said Rosaura, smiling. “Claude would not be happy if he found out I’d done the exact opposite of what he told me to do.”

“He won’t hear it from me,” Sara assured her. “And, thank you!”

“We girls have to stick together,” Rosaura said with a smile before leaving.

The store was empty now except for Sara. She had let Frannie and Elizabeth go home early. Frannie to start fretting over what she could possibly wear to Melissa’s party that could qualify as sexy but would not make Erik Sutherland’s tongue hang out of his mouth. And Elizabeth had plans to go to a movie with one of the other bookstore employees, Linda Ramirez. Sara was both surprised and delighted when Elizabeth had told her she was going out. It was proof that she was coming out of herself more every day and was making a real effort to be happy.

Sara wanted to rush over to the Hacienda and offer comfort to Jason.

However, she made herself go through all of the steps of closing the bookstore for the day in order to give herself time to think about her actions before she did something she would regret.

An hour later, she left the bookstore, locking the door behind her, and hurried to the bank down the street to deposit the day’s receipts. From the bank, she went home, showered, put on her robe, then sat down at the computer on the desk in her bedroom.

She went to the organization’s Web site and went through the profiles of her sisters, looking for a plant pathologist. Whatever that was! One of the advantages of being a member of Aminatu’s Daughters was the rich sources of life experiences the other sisters had to offer. Whenever a sister was in need of help, all she had to do was ask and she received.

This was the first time she’d had to ask any of her sisters for a favor, but if there was indeed a plant pathologist in the sisterhood, she was going to request her help.

It took a few minutes, but she finally came up with a name: Dr. Willow Quigley.

Unfortunately she worked at a university in the Pacific Northwest. She wasn’t right there in California. Sara sent her a message explaining her predicament, anyway.

At that precise moment, at the Hacienda, Jason was standing under the spray in the shower, letting it rain down on his head. In the last twenty-four hours he’d castigated himself over and over for not being more thorough. When his parents had handed him the reins, they had specifically told him he needed to read the winery’s log books. His parents kept a record of every important occurrence on the farm. There was a book for every year the winery had been in operation, dating back to the sixties. Last night, he hadn’t been able to sleep, and he’d found an entry about his parents finding root rot in the southern field. His father had made a note in his careful handwriting: “We believe we got it all, but you can never be sure with root rot. Be sure to keep an eye on the southern vineyard. If it comes back, we’ll have to be more aggressive.”

But his father hadn’t said what kind of root rot they’d discovered in 1978. Maybe there had been no plant pathologists to name the culprit back then.

Jason shampooed, and rinsed. His hair was cut short and close to his head. Black and naturally wavy, he usually just washed it, dried it with a towel, put a little moisturizer on it, and he was set. Tonight, he didn’t even bother with the moisturizer.

Who cared if he had soft hair?

For one selfish moment, he thought about Sara. She used to sit him down and oil his scalp, massaging the oil in with her long, talented fingers. He trembled slightly. Was the act of oiling his scalp as sensual as he remembered? Or did he just miss her so much every memory had become a tactile experience bordering on the erotic?

Yeah, he missed her that much.

He should call her and tell her about the root rot.

After he’d dried off, he grabbed his robe, wrapped it around him, tied the belt, and sat on the bed. He picked up the phone to call Sara. He put it down again. The clock on the nightstand read 7:32. What did Sara do without him on a Saturday night?

Go out to dinner with friends? Go to a movie with friends? Soak in the tub? Read a good book? She was a voracious reader. She had almost as many books on her shelves at home as she did in her bookstore, the nutty woman.

God, he missed her.

But if he called her she would consider it a coup in their war of wills. Yes, she would count this battle as her victory.

He didn’t care.

He dialed her home number. The answering machine clicked into operation after the fourth ring. Sara’s voice said, “This is Sara. I’m unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

Frannie’s voice then chimed in with, “Hey, it’s Frannie. You know the drill. Leave the digits or don’t leave the digits. No skin off my nose!”

Jason didn’t leave a message for Sara. She would see that he’d phoned because his number would be on her caller ID.

He hung up the phone, and dialed her cell’s number.

Sara was standing at the front door of the Hacienda when her cell phone rang.

She rang the doorbell, then fished in her shoulder bag for the phone.

Jason walked to the front door with the cordless phone to his ear.

She said hello into the mouthpiece just as he swung the door open.

Sara wasn’t wearing anything special, just her favorite kicking-around clothes, a full, flowing long-sleeve cotton shirt in purple and her favorite button-fly jeans which she’d worn so much, they were the shape of her hourglass figure.

The jeans hung low on her hips, so her bellybutton was visible due to the fact that she’d left the last three buttons of the shirt unfastened.

Smiling at Jason, she closed her cell phone and put it in her shoulder bag.

Grinning back at her, Jason clicked off the cordless phone.

She stepped inside. Jason closed the door and turned to face her. He set the cordless phone on the foyer table. Sara dropped her bag into the chair beside the table.

The air was electric around them. They circled each other warily.

Jason spoke first. “I wanted to tell you that I missed you.”

“Okay, tell me.”

“I need you.”

“I thought you said you missed me, not needed me.” Her eyes danced with happiness.

“In my mind they’re one and the same.”

“I need you, too. Should we establish this night as neutral ground? Whatever we do tonight will not be used as ammunition in case of further fighting.”

Jason’s heart was pounding excitedly. His voice cracked when he said, “I agree to your terms.”

Sara smiled wider and said with a mischievous note to her voice, “Okay, what do you want to do tonight, play pinochle?”

Jason laughed, quickly closed the space between them and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Girl,” he said between kisses. “You drive me crazy!”

Kissing him back, Sara said, “Let’s not get into a debate about who drives whom crazier right now. I want you naked in two seconds flat.”

Jason opened his robe, untied the belt, and let it fall to the floor. “Done!”

His thick-lashed eyes swept over her body, daring her to match his boldness.

Sara sucked in air, released it and stood looking at him with her mouth open. She wasn’t about to get naked with all the living room blinds wide open.

She bent and picked up the robe. Handing it to him, she said, “I’d rather not give the Ledouxs an eyefull in case they’re looking up the hill tonight.” She turned and hurried to his bedroom where the curtains could be drawn and no one would be the wiser to anything that went on behind its walls.

Jason put the robe back on and followed.

Sara removed her shoes and began peeling off her clothes immediately upon entering his bedroom. She unbuttoned the shirt and Jason took over, pushing it off her smooth shoulders and pausing to kiss the side of her fragrant neck. She was wearing a scent that left her skin smelling faintly of a flower with a light head to it. Jason wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t quite place it, and he was thinking that he should be able to. He had a talent for wine and could discern the many underlying fragrances and tastes in a certain variety of wine. But this he couldn’t identify, possibly because it was combined with her own unique fragrance. It was confounding him.

“What’s that scent you’re wearing?” he asked. “It’s very sexy.”

“It’s something I bought at a fragrance shop in Santa Rosa. They’ll mix anything you want. It’s mainly gardenias with a few spices that I won’t name.”

Jason smiled as he licked her earlobe. “I’ll have to taste you, then, to find out what they are.”

The shirt was then hastily dispensed with and he turned his attention to the buttons on her jeans. The robe stood open all the while he was undressing her, and Sara enjoyed the view. A runner, Jason had a lean, muscular body, powerful leg and thigh muscles and wonderfully delineated calves. At six-one, he was four inches taller than Sara which was a near-perfect fit as far as she was concerned. She didn’t have to tiptoe too much to reach all the good parts and he was tall enough and powerful enough to make her feel protected, which she occasionally liked to feel. As a tall woman there weren’t that many men capable of making her feel that way.

Jason pulled the jeans down past her hips, gravity did the rest, and Sara stepped out of them. She stood before him now in just her panties and bra.

She pushed the robe off his shoulders and it fell to the floor.

Jason pulled her into his arms. He left her bra and panties on just to test how long he would be able to resist ripping them off her.

Sara’s hands were splayed on his back. Her body seemed to relax with the satisfaction of finally being this close to him. He also smelled delicious. It was just the soap he’d used in the shower, a spicy masculine scent that was probably used by millions of men, but she wasn’t in love with those men and no one could convince her that love didn’t do something to your olfactory senses. At the very least the sense of smell worked in conjunction with every other sense that lent itself to sexual arousal. Jason’s scent alone could awaken her sensory perception.

She sighed and threw her head back, offering him her neck. Jason rained kisses along the curve of her throat, then lower to her cleavage. All the while, his penis was thickening and lengthening until it pressed urgently against her crotch.

He moaned deep in his throat as pure pleasure began to course through him. Sara straightened and reached down, grasped his engorged penis and placed it between her thighs where she could feel it throbbing against her clitoris.

Jason reveled in the feel of her warm, moist sex. Their eyes met and held as he bent to kiss her mouth. As the kiss deepened, he thrust between her thighs. His penis grew harder and Sara’s movements became more urgent as the climax building inside of her gained momentum.

She didn’t want to climax in her panties, though, so she pushed him backward onto the bed. Jason smiled lazily as he lay on his back, his penis pointing straight in the air. He watched as Sara did a little striptease and a minute later her bra and panties lay on the floor next to the rest of her clothes.

“I take it you still keep the condoms in the top drawer?”

“Of course. Right next to that tape I made of us.”

“Don’t be funny. You’re never going to get me on tape, buddy, so quit hoping.”

She got a condom, opened it and straddled him. “So, you’d just as well be happy with the memories.” She rolled the condom onto his penis, and positioned it at the opening of her vagina. Jason pushed slightly, but she was tight, which he loved, and they both took their time as they gazed into each other’s eyes.

He reached up and simultaneously rolled her nipples between the forefinger and thumb of each of his hands. He loved the deep golden brown richness of her skin. In summer it took on an even darker golden tone underneath the medium brown hue. With her black glistening braids she looked like an African goddess born of the sun.

He yelled. While he’d been waxing poetic, his goddess had accepted him fully inside of her body and was riding him with abandon. Her nipples were distended, her eyes were closed in ecstasy and her thrusts were strong, rhythmic and relentless.

It took a minute for it to register in his fevered brain that he was no longer in control here. As if he’d ever been. Her vaginal muscles squeezed him and released him, bestowing on him such a riot of sensual gratification that all he could do was smile and roll with it.

Between intermittent kisses to his mouth, his chest, his chin, she took her fill of him and didn’t seem to be anywhere near being done with him. It was as if she was making up for the three weeks they had been apart.

Surprisingly, though, her movements were not frantic, as if release were her only goal. No, she moved slowly and luxuriously, as if she were relishing every thrust of his body inside of hers, as if nothing had ever been more fulfilling.

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