- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
“Napa Valley is the perfect place to set a romantic love story. “—RT Book Reviews
Join author Heather Heyford as she uncorks a sparkling new series following the St. Pierre sisters, heiresses to a Napa wine fortune who are toasting the good life and are thirsty for love . . .
A TASTE OF CHARDONNAY
The Challenge, an elite charity competition held in Napa, seems like the perfect opportunity for Chardonnay St. Pierre to cement her image as a philanthropist. But all eyes—including Char’s—are on the Hollywood heartthrob who’s also entered the race . . .
A TASTE OF MERLOT
Merlot St. Pierre is struggling to break free from her family name. With the help of a handsome jewelry buyer, she just may taste her first sip of success—as long as she can hide who she really is . . .
A TASTE OF SAUVIGNON
Sauvignon “Savvy” St. Pierre’s life is as tidy and straightforward as her sizable collection of little black dresses—but every now and then, she can’t help but long for her first sip of love. . .
A TASTE OF SAKE
Chardonnay and Merlot are thrilled about Sauvignon’s wedding day, and it’s slated to be the soirée of the decade. Especially with the splashy arrival of a sister they never knew they had. . .
Release date: August 2, 2016
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Print pages: 819
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Author updates
Close
The Napa Wine Heiresses Boxed Set
Heather Heyford
Friday, June 13
“Are you my Realtor?”
Chardonnay St. Pierre tried to hide her wariness as she approached the man who’d just stepped out of his retro pickup truck. This wasn’t the best section of Napa city.
Their vehicles sat skewed at odd angles in the lot of the concrete building with the AVAILABLE banner sagging along one side. Around the back, gorse and thistles grew waist-high through the cracks in the pavement.
A startlingly white grin spread below the man’s aviators.
“Realtor? You waiting for one?”
For the past half hour. “He’s late.” Char went up on her tiptoes, craning her neck to peer down the street for the tenth time, but the avenue was still empty. She tsked under her breath. She should’ve taken time after her run to change out of her skimpy running shorts, she thought, reaching discreetly around to give the hems a yank down over her butt. And her Mercedes looked more than a little conspicuous in this neighborhood.
Where was he? She pulled her cell out of her bag to call the Realtor back. But something about the imposing stranger was distracting her, demanding another look. “Have we met?” She squinted, lowering her own shades an inch.
He turned sideways without answering and examined the nondescript building, and when he did, his profile gave him dead away.
Oh my god. Char’s breath caught, but he didn’t notice. His whole focus was on the real estate. She’d just seen that face smiling out from the People magazine at the market over on Solano when she’d picked up some last-minute items for tonight’s party.
“What have you got planned for the place?” he asked, totally unselfconsciously.
Then she recovered. To the rest of the world, he was Hollywood’s latest It Man. But to Char, he was just another actor. Who happened to have a really great dentist.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I asked first.”
Though she wasn’t at all fond of actors, her shoulders relaxed a little. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get raped out here in broad daylight by the star of First Responder. It was still in theaters, for heaven’s sake. He couldn’t afford the press.
Still. This building was perfect. And it’d been sitting here empty for the past three years. Just her luck that another party would be interested, right when Char was finally in a position to inquire about it.
To Char’s relief, a compact car with a real estate logo plastered from headlights to tailpipe pulled up and a guy in his early thirties bounded out with an abundance of nervous energy.
“This business is insane,” he said by way of introduction. “Dude calls me from a drive-by and wants me to show it to him, like, now, right? So I drop everything, even though I’m swamped with this new development all the way over on Industrial Drive. And then he doesn’t show up till quarter of—”
He caught himself, pasted on a proper smile, and extended his hand toward It Man.
“Bill Diamond. And you’re Mister . . . ?”
“McBride.” The actor shook his hand, then turned and sauntered back to the building with his hands on his hips and his eyes scrutinizing its roofline.
“Ryder McBride?” asked Diamond. “The Ryder McBride? Oh!” A smile overspread his face. “Cool! Very cool. Nice to meet you, man.” He nodded once for emphasis.
Char stepped up, removing her sunglasses and slipping them over the deep V of her racer-back tee.
“Hi.” She thrust out her arm. “I’m—”
The Realtor’s eyes grew even wider, as his hand reached for hers.
“I know who you are . . . Chardonnay St. Pierre, right?”
He was still holding on when Char’s phone vibrated in her other palm. One glance at the screen and she sighed.
“Excuse me.”
But Diamond didn’t let go.
“I’ve got to take this,” she repeated, pronouncing each syllable slow and clear. She gave a little tug, and he came to, his fingers relaxing. “It’s my little sister.”
She ducked her chin and pressed answer.
“Where are you?” Meri’s voice sounded tense.
“Downtown.”
“You’ve got to come meet Savvy and me. Papa’s in jail.”
Bill Diamond was still gaping when Char dropped her phone into her shoulder bag.
“I’m so sorry. Something important’s come up and I have to run.”
Like a guy who’d come to expect disappointment at every turn, his face fell. “Oh.”
Char felt a stab of empathy.
“Did you want to reschedule?” His brows shot up hopefully.
It was a given. But right now concern for her family eclipsed everything else. “I’ll have to call you.”
As she turned to go, Ryder spoke up.
“I’m staying. Mind showing me around?”
Char stopped in her tracks halfway to her car and glared back at him. She thought he’d barely noticed her. But she’d swear his broad grin was designed purely to tease.
“Excuse me? This is my Realtor.”
“Ah, actually . . .” Bill cleared his throat, looked at the ground, and then back up at her. “I work for the seller.”
“But I’m the one who called you to meet me here,” she insisted.
He looked from Char to Ryder and back as he juggled his options, then shrugged. “But you’re leaving.”
Char’s thoughts raced. She hated to leave those two here together, to cook up some deal to steal the building out from under her, but she had no choice. “Fine. Bill, I’ll be in touch,” she called, climbing into her car, then pulling out of the lot a little too fast.
She loved Papa. Truly, she did. But at times like these, she’d give anything for an ordinary, run-of-the-mill dad, in place of the notorious Xavier St. Pierre.
The St. Pierre sisters tumbled into the Napa County jail, stopping short at the transparent barrier in front of the reception desk. Char vaguely recalled the floor plan from her last visit. From a holding cell in the rear, they could hear Papa bellowing in his unmistakable Franglais.
“I am American citizen! I have gun license! Wait until my daughter gets here. She is lawyer! I will sue your—”
Papa had always had a flair for the dramatic.
Following an interminable wait during which the incessant click of her older sister’s pacing echoed off the tile walls, they were let into a processing area and a young officer holding a clipboard came out to meet them.
“Which one of you is”—he raised the clipboard to eye level and squinted—“Sauvignon?” he said with the audible equivalent of an eye roll.
This guy must be new to the force. The St. Pierres weren’t accustomed to going many places in the valley without being recognized.
Savvy stepped forward. “I am.”
Thank heavens Savvy was an attorney. Well, almost. She’d recently graduated law school but had yet to take the bar.
“And these are my sisters, Chardonnay and Merlot.”
The cop stared.
Was it their fault Papa had named his daughters for grape varietals?
He started to smile, furrowed his brow, and then hitched up his pants with his free hand.
With a half chuckle, he said, “Cheese-oh-man. You can’t make this stuff up. Wait till I tell the folks back in Ohio.”
“What are the charges, officer?” demanded Savvy—as usual, the designated spokesman. The three women were equally anxious to get past this latest ordeal.
“Well now, let’s see here.” The cop ticked off the items on his list with maddening slowness. “Discharging a firearm within one hundred yards of a residence. Resisting arrest. Threatening an endangered species was dropped. He’s lucky. That would’ve meant federal charges.”
He let the clipboard drop to his side and rocked back on his heels, analyzing the women one by one. His holier-than-thou gaze held a touch of salaciousness. Despite her impatience, Char couldn’t help but imagine how they appeared from his perspective.
There was Savvy, whose earlobes sparkled with the full carat diamond studs the girls had received for their sixteenth birthdays. As usual, she wore her auburn hair scraped back into a low, loose knot to show them off. She was dressed tastefully in black from head to toe, as if she’d had a premonition when she got up this morning that she’d be downtown at the police station later that afternoon.
Meri’s rich mahogany locks had some new lavender streaks that matched both her T-shirt and sky-high suede wedges. The sound of gunfire must have torn her away from her studio in a state of panic. She hadn’t changed out of her paint-flecked shirt.
Last, the cop’s gaze scraped over Char’s racer back and short shorts, coming to rest on her bare legs. Why did she suddenly feel naked? Dirty?
“Sarge says this isn’t the first time your old man’s been caught shooting at poachers in his koi pond.”
Savvy ignored that comment in the interest of expediency.
The policeman disappeared, and after another delay, returned, leading their father. Papa was looking disheveled but still chic in his Italian loafers.
“You can go now, Mr. St. Pierre, until your court date. Meantime, no more shooting at bald eagles. They’ve recently been taken off the endangered list in California, but you’ll find some people around here are fond of them.”
Amid a fresh tirade of muttered curses, Char took Papa’s elbow, Meri guarded his other flank, and Savvy went ahead.
Char scanned the parking lot.
“Clear,” she said, and the four stepped out into the bright sunshine, making a beeline for Char’s Mercedes.
But they’d only gone a dozen steps when a guy wielding a long-lensed camera appeared from out of nowhere.
“Xavier! Over here!” he yelled.
“Dégage! Get out of here!” Papa lashed out.
“Char! Meri!” the stranger cried out. “What’d he do this time?”
The women averted their eyes and picked up the pace.
“Papa and I will ride with Char,” called Savvy to Meri, just before they ducked into the car, taking refuge behind tinted windows.
“Damn police scanners,” said Savvy as Char pulled out of the lot. “God’s gift to the paparazzi.”
Fifteen minutes later, Char pulled into the long white gravel drive of Domaine St. Pierre, just in time for everyone to dress for Papa’s big party. It was the first fete of the summer, and Char had been waiting for this particular summer for five long years. Now it was here. Tonight was the night she would give her hometown a taste of a brand-new Chardonnay.
“Do I seriously have to go to this thing?” Ryder had better things to do than spend his Friday night with a bunch of ritzy people he didn’t even know and would probably never meet again. He’d just got off the plane from LAX yesterday to find his mom’s gutters needed cleaning and the lawn mowing, and he was anxious to get started on it. And then there was the favor he’d been asked to do by the Firefighters’ Relief Fund. But going to the right parties was part of promoting his acting career and arranging the invitations was Amy’s job. And he had to admit, one she was damn good at.
“Are you kidding me?” Amy asked, incredulous. “Look, Ryder, I busted my butt finagling this invite. An actor—even a lucky one like you—has to network. You might be a rising star, but a ticket to one of the St. Pierre winery parties is envied up and down the whole north coast. You might meet anyone there, producers to politicians. Of course, they always blend a few mere mortals into the mix. But you have to be on your toes. Tomorrow you could read that the stranger you chatted up during cocktails was a Pulitzer Prize winner, a federal judge, or some rapper on the brink of gold. So hell yes, you have to go. No amount of my hard work will have an effect unless you do your part.”
With a sigh, Ryder let himself out of the limo while his driver held the door for Amy, his publicist.
Grimacing as he ran a finger along the inside of his stiff collar, he tipped his head back to take in the sprawling Palladian mansion, surrounded by the manicured gardens of Domaine St. Pierre. A tower of water tumbled down onto itself from a fountain surrounded by an island of flowers that formed a traffic circle in the middle of the driveway.
The uniformed driver got back in the car, and impulsively Ryder turned back and rapped on the tinted glass. When the window slid noiselessly down, he propped a forearm on its edge in a careless stance.
“Thanks for the lift. Stay close in case I decide to bail early.”
“Bail early? Hell, if I had the chance to step foot inside St. Pierre’s palace, they’d have to pry me out. They say it’s all of twenty thousand square feet. Besides that, ol’ Xavier knows how to grow ’em. And I don’t mean grapes.”
“Yeah? I don’t know. Any girls who live like this must be pretty stuck on themselves.” He lowered his voice even more so his publicist wouldn’t hear him over the gurgling fountain and smiled wryly. “The most I’m hoping to get out of this extravaganza is a decent meal.” He patted his flat abs. “Amy claims they put out quite a spread.”
“Snag me some dessert if you get the chance. I’m partial to cheesecake.” The driver grinned, the window slid up again, and Ryder smacked the side of the car as it glided away, forming a slow-moving shadow across the gravel in the glow of the Napa Valley sunset.
Amy waited impatiently, wobbling on sky-high heels. Taking her arm as they navigated the path to the mansion, he tried to recall the briefing she’d given him earlier.
A rising star.
Since that evening when Amy had slipped him her business card as he’d knelt praying in little Saint Joan of Arc, Ryder’s life had changed completely. A picture of the interior of the little adobe church flashed through his mind. He could still smell the thick, acrid odor of incense.
It was right after the third annual memorial mass for his dad. Had that been only three years ago? Six in all, since the fire that took his dad’s life? It felt like another lifetime.
Mom and the twins had already lit their votives, uttered their closing prayers, and gone, but Ryder couldn’t drag himself away. Back then, he had too many problems.
He’d recited the rosary, passing the wooden beads rubbed smooth by his dad’s fingers through his own. He’d said the Lord’s Prayer. And still he bowed his head, eyes screwed shut, hands now clenched around the beads. Silently pouring out his heart, first to his deceased earthly father and then to his heavenly one. Ryder tried not to think about those days. Why torture himself? But sometimes the memory was too strong....
His head swam with the burden of responsibility. For his mother, trying to make her secretary’s salary stretch across mortgage payment, groceries, and utility bills. His brothers, with their bottomless twin appetites for cereal and hamburgers and chips and milk by the gallon. And little Bridget. There were probably lots of things she needed. Girly things, like dresses and shoes and other things that he couldn’t even fathom.
He had to do something. But what? He already put in thirty hours a week tending bar. Though that usually made him late to his morning classes, it covered the rent on his dive apartment, and he ate for free.
He could quit college, move home, and tend bar full time. Finishing school would improve his income in the long run, but he was only a junior. His family needed help now.
Then, in the hushed stillness came the sound of high heels on stone. The slow, methodical clicking grew louder, reverberating around the stark adobe walls until, head still downcast, he opened one eye and his sight landed on a well-heeled, feminine foot.
A low voice broke the silence.
“I’ve been waiting for you in the vestibule, but I can’t stay any longer. I have a flight to catch.
“Take your time here. But when you’re finished . . . tonight, tomorrow, one day soon . . . I want to talk to you.”
Only then did his eyes travel up to her face, but too late—the stranger had already turned away, the click of her shoes receding until the heavy wooden door whooshed closed and he was left truly alone with the smell of frankincense and the weight of his worries.
He looked down at her card. “Amy Smart. Gould Entertainment. Los Angeles, California.”
Amy. But not the savvy Hollywood-agent Amy he’d come to know. This was off-duty Amy. The wine-country-tourist-who-had-a-thing-for-old-churches Amy.
Ryder had barely begun flexing his acting chops when a big studio looking for fresh blood had signed him over all the Daniels, Roberts, and Zacs for the lead in a film about firefighters.
It was surreal seeing his picture in the celebrity magazines with the crazy captions: “Ryder McBride Among Hollywood’s Hottest,” “Ryder Sizzles in First Responder,” and so on. Some of the stories had a grain of truth to them, but most were pure crap, made up by agents and journalists to promote careers and sell magazines.
He’d never picked up a gossip rag in his life until his mom and sister had spotted his photo staring back at them in the grocery store checkout only a couple of months earlier. They’d called him up in fits of unintelligible squealing. Ever since, he’d begun to feel as though he couldn’t make a move without somebody taking his picture.
Ryder had always had goals and dreams, but being a movie star had never been one of them. Neither had partying at a renowned Napa Valley winery. But his sidestepping hadn’t worked with Amy. After all, he was her pet project. Her very lucrative pet project.
“Okay, let’s do this,” sighed Ryder, as he and Amy crunched along.
“Now, don’t forget,” she said under her breath. She counted on her fingers as she rattled off the St. Pierre sisters’ names.
“Meri is the youngest. She’s the artsy one. Savvy lives up to her nickname—brainy. And Chardonnay,” Amy said with an eye roll and a dramatic hand flourish, “is your tall, cool blonde. The middle child, the do-gooder. Always has her hand in one charity or another. Though, who knows if it’s just a put-on. Personally, I’ve always thought it was all orchestrated to compensate for her family’s scandals. But then, that’s how my mind works.”
“Slow down. What scandals?” asked Ryder, finding it hard to keep up with her pace, even given those stilettos, and her prattle. His knowledge of the who’s who of Napa Valley society was a little thin.
“It’s irrelevant.” Amy brushed the question off with another impatient flick of her hand. They were climbing the wide marble stairs up to the entrance now.
“Back to the daughters. Take your pick. All three are single, fresh out of college, and it’d be great for you to get hooked up with any one of them in the media.”
Her eyes grew large, and she placed a hand on his arm. “Better yet, more than one!”
“Oh, that’s just what I want my mom and little sister to read about,” Ryder responded drily. He spread his hands, pretending to read a tabloid. “ ‘Ryder McBride dating not one, but two, of the St. Pierre sisters.’ ”
“Better yet—all three!” Amy winked.
Ryder winced.
“Try to cooperate. My insider will be watching for any chance to shoot you next to the girls. One good photo sold to People is worth a year’s pay to a waiter.”
As they approached the open double doors where a white-gloved butler waited, Amy gave him one last annoying piece of advice.
“Smile,” she said through the clenched teeth of her own wide grin.
Sighing, he dutifully followed suit, in preparation to appear in public. In spite of himself, he was beginning to learn the ropes.
If he was ever going to pay his mom’s house off and go back to finish his degree, he had no choice.
Chardonnay floated through the glittering crowd, stopping every few feet to blow air-kisses and utter warm welcomes.
For as long as she could remember, Papa had been entertaining on June Friday nights to launch the growing season—his contemporary homage to a fertility ritual. As down-to-earth as she was, Char couldn’t deny that an invitation to the weekly dinner parties where celebrities, intellectuals, and politicians were entertained was highly coveted. Within minutes of every party ending, the social media sites were hopping with who was there, what they wore, and with whom they left.
Traditionally, the parties began the weekend the girls returned from their respective boarding schools. Over the years, Char and her sisters had met hundreds of accomplished and influential people around the family’s long mahogany dining table. But for every worthy guest, there was a shallow, opportunistic social climber. And it wasn’t always obvious who was who. Papa, it seemed, had a particularly hard time telling one from the other.
The dinners were both a blessing and a curse. Yet attendance at his parties was virtually the only demand Papa made on his daughters. Ever. Besides, they were allowed—encouraged—to invite their own guests, too, which made their annual obligation a little more palatable.
Years of practice had left her perfectly at ease in this setting. Sifting through the bulk of the guests, she soon spotted a regal-looking black woman wearing an understated burgundy suit.
“Dr. Simon!” Char clapped her hands together. “I’m so glad you could come.”
“The pleasure is all mine. I believe the last time I saw you was right here at one of your father’s dinner parties. You were still in school then. My, how you’ve grown. You look just like—”
Dr. Simon appeared to bite her tongue. In an obvious attempt to buy time, she took the last sip from her wineglass, the large stones in her rings sparkling.
“Like my mother,” Char finished for her, to relieve the older woman of her discomfort.
Maman, the legendary Lily d’Amboise.
Char guided the woman to an overstuffed couch and took a seat at a right angle to her guest. A waiter immediately placed two fresh glasses of wine on a side table.
“It was the year of the McDaniel Foundation’s last Napa Charity Challenge—five years ago. I was eighteen. That event made a big impression on me. Ever since, I’ve been waiting for the chance to be a part of it.”
“I’m so pleased that you want to contribute to our work.”
“I love the idea of charities competing to win money for their cause,” said Char. “Something about it appeals to the competitiveness in me. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a half-marathon involved, either, since I’m a runner from way back.”
“We feel we’ve developed an original concept. Five years between challenges may seem rather lengthy to some, but the board has discovered that bestowing one extravagant grant every five years, rather than smaller annual grants, has proven to be a greater motivation for the competitors. It’s also less of an imposition on donors because they’re not being canvassed every year. Even the organizations that don’t ultimately win the grant raise a good deal of money for their respective causes.”
“I think I read that whoever wins the half-marathon gets a bonus. How does that work? Aren’t there usually separate categories for men and women runners?”
“We use a formula that accounts for differences in male/female times to come up with a single winner. Rather like the way golf handicaps work. The foundation grants the one winner of the race a fifty-thousand-dollar donation toward his or her charity’s total earnings,” said Dr. Simon.
“I think I’ve already memorized every detail of the contest, but can we talk specifically about the gala?” So far, this night was unfolding exactly as Char had hoped. It was all about face time with Dr. Simon. Relationship building.
“Before the half-marathon, the participants are given two weeks to solicit suitable items for the auctions. The race is held on the morning of the final day, followed by the black tie gala, which consists of dinner, dancing, and both silent and live bidding. The whole thing is a tremendous amount of work for those in charge of the competing charities.”
“I presume that’s another benefit of having it only once every five years,” said Char.
Dr. Simon nodded. “That’s right. Tell me, is there any particular cause you’re interested in working with for your very first challenge? The food bank? Perhaps the women’s shelter? Any of our partner organizations would be thrilled to have you. I’d be more than happy to make some calls, set up an introduction.”
Char scooted forward. Time for her speech. She hoped she didn’t look as nervous as she felt.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been involved with a bunch of causes during the summer months, getting my feet wet. I’ve served at the soup kitchen, done some fund-raising, and I still help sort donations at church.”
Dr. Simon nodded politely.
“In every place that I volunteered, I watched and listened. And I noticed that a large percentage of underprivileged people were the children of pickers—er, excuse me, that’s what Papa calls them. You know what I mean. Migrant farmworkers. Immigrants.”
“Go on,” said Dr. Simon.
“I got to know some families when I was serving at the soup kitchen. Then I started working at Saint Joan of Arc. There, I learned that more people would’ve come to the mission, but they didn’t have transportation. That’s when I started driving donations over to their neighborhoods. I found out firsthand: It’s all about outreach.
“When I went back to college in the fall, I couldn’t forget those kids. There were two especially whose faces kept me up at night, wondering and worrying. I couldn’t wait to graduate and make public service my career. So I did some research and found that Napa already had well-established organizations for the hungry, the homeless, the addicted, and various medical conditions. But I wanted to do something specifically for migrant children. These are the children of the vineyards. And wine is the basis of the valley’s economy.”
She took a sip of her wine, hoping she wasn’t running on. She had to say this right. Competing in the challenge meant everything to her.
“As you know, I’m one of the lucky ones. A third-generation landowner. My family’s business has always been intertwined with migrant workers. I feel compelled to do something for their kids.”
Dr. Simon’s expression was interested but guarded.
“So I’ve started my own foundation.”
There—she’d said it. Despite Dr. Simon’s cool poise, her eyebrows rose sharply. Char rushed on before she could be shot down.
“I even found a building that would be perfect to work out of, right in the center of an immigrant neighborhood. And I’ve recruited a group to run in the half-marathon with me: the local women’s field hockey team I play on every summer. I think it’ll be easier to persuade people to contribute to my cause if I’m an actual participant, instead of just an organizer, don’t you? We started training separately months ago, while I was still in school. Now we can finally start running together, as a real team. . . .”
A hint of a shadow swept across the professor’s face then, as if she’d suddenly remembered exactly whose couch she sat on, and Char’s heart sank. She’d seen that look on plenty of faces before.
All of her life, people had made assumptions about Char, simply because she was one of the three granddaughters of Yves St. Pierre, the Burgundian winemaker who’d brought French cultivars to California and planted them here one hundred years ago.
It was Papa’s favorite story, one his daughters and all his workers, from head winemaker to lowly picker, knew by heart. Yves had survived the dry times by selling inferior communion wine for a premium and stockpiling the good stuff. He knew Prohibition would eventually be repealed, and the minute it was, he had a cellar full of mature cabernet ready to meet demand. Now, a century later, the award-winning Domaine St. Pierre label was celebrated from Napa to Paris.
But there was a downside to being a St. Pierre. Char’s individuality went largely unrecognized. Her mind, her values, and her feelings were all obscured by the family’s success—and their equally tragic mistakes—over the decades.
As she’d matured, even Char’s physical appearance had become a handicap, to her way of thinking. Some might think being a skinny blue-eyed blonde was an asset, but Char worried that it only added to people’s impression of her as an empty-headed heiress. She would have competed in sports even if she hadn’t had long muscles and a high metabolism, but sports fed her need for legitimacy apart from her looks. She’d played field hockey all her life and was honored when the local women agreed to run with her for the challenge.
“Dr. Simon, I can’t blame you for what you’re thinking—that Papa could easily underwrite my entire campaign. But I’ve made a decision. I want to raise all of my contributions myself, solely from the fund-raising events. Independent of the St. Pierre name.”
Dr. Simon looked doubtful.
Char couldn’t use her trust fund, either. That wasn’t technically hers until she was thirty. She felt her chin harden, and a vision of Papa’s own set jaw flashed through her memory. She winced. Stubbornness was the least pretty trait she’d inherited, but you couldn’t choose your genes.
“There’s no need to rush to that decision—” Dr. Simon advised, but Char interrupted.
“I’ve made up my mind. I’m only going to use the proceeds from the official events, like all the other contenders. Every penny I get for my cause will be earned.”
“You realize that you’ll be up against some stiff competition. The challenge always attracts the most established charities in the county.
“Are you my Realtor?”
Chardonnay St. Pierre tried to hide her wariness as she approached the man who’d just stepped out of his retro pickup truck. This wasn’t the best section of Napa city.
Their vehicles sat skewed at odd angles in the lot of the concrete building with the AVAILABLE banner sagging along one side. Around the back, gorse and thistles grew waist-high through the cracks in the pavement.
A startlingly white grin spread below the man’s aviators.
“Realtor? You waiting for one?”
For the past half hour. “He’s late.” Char went up on her tiptoes, craning her neck to peer down the street for the tenth time, but the avenue was still empty. She tsked under her breath. She should’ve taken time after her run to change out of her skimpy running shorts, she thought, reaching discreetly around to give the hems a yank down over her butt. And her Mercedes looked more than a little conspicuous in this neighborhood.
Where was he? She pulled her cell out of her bag to call the Realtor back. But something about the imposing stranger was distracting her, demanding another look. “Have we met?” She squinted, lowering her own shades an inch.
He turned sideways without answering and examined the nondescript building, and when he did, his profile gave him dead away.
Oh my god. Char’s breath caught, but he didn’t notice. His whole focus was on the real estate. She’d just seen that face smiling out from the People magazine at the market over on Solano when she’d picked up some last-minute items for tonight’s party.
“What have you got planned for the place?” he asked, totally unselfconsciously.
Then she recovered. To the rest of the world, he was Hollywood’s latest It Man. But to Char, he was just another actor. Who happened to have a really great dentist.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I asked first.”
Though she wasn’t at all fond of actors, her shoulders relaxed a little. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get raped out here in broad daylight by the star of First Responder. It was still in theaters, for heaven’s sake. He couldn’t afford the press.
Still. This building was perfect. And it’d been sitting here empty for the past three years. Just her luck that another party would be interested, right when Char was finally in a position to inquire about it.
To Char’s relief, a compact car with a real estate logo plastered from headlights to tailpipe pulled up and a guy in his early thirties bounded out with an abundance of nervous energy.
“This business is insane,” he said by way of introduction. “Dude calls me from a drive-by and wants me to show it to him, like, now, right? So I drop everything, even though I’m swamped with this new development all the way over on Industrial Drive. And then he doesn’t show up till quarter of—”
He caught himself, pasted on a proper smile, and extended his hand toward It Man.
“Bill Diamond. And you’re Mister . . . ?”
“McBride.” The actor shook his hand, then turned and sauntered back to the building with his hands on his hips and his eyes scrutinizing its roofline.
“Ryder McBride?” asked Diamond. “The Ryder McBride? Oh!” A smile overspread his face. “Cool! Very cool. Nice to meet you, man.” He nodded once for emphasis.
Char stepped up, removing her sunglasses and slipping them over the deep V of her racer-back tee.
“Hi.” She thrust out her arm. “I’m—”
The Realtor’s eyes grew even wider, as his hand reached for hers.
“I know who you are . . . Chardonnay St. Pierre, right?”
He was still holding on when Char’s phone vibrated in her other palm. One glance at the screen and she sighed.
“Excuse me.”
But Diamond didn’t let go.
“I’ve got to take this,” she repeated, pronouncing each syllable slow and clear. She gave a little tug, and he came to, his fingers relaxing. “It’s my little sister.”
She ducked her chin and pressed answer.
“Where are you?” Meri’s voice sounded tense.
“Downtown.”
“You’ve got to come meet Savvy and me. Papa’s in jail.”
Bill Diamond was still gaping when Char dropped her phone into her shoulder bag.
“I’m so sorry. Something important’s come up and I have to run.”
Like a guy who’d come to expect disappointment at every turn, his face fell. “Oh.”
Char felt a stab of empathy.
“Did you want to reschedule?” His brows shot up hopefully.
It was a given. But right now concern for her family eclipsed everything else. “I’ll have to call you.”
As she turned to go, Ryder spoke up.
“I’m staying. Mind showing me around?”
Char stopped in her tracks halfway to her car and glared back at him. She thought he’d barely noticed her. But she’d swear his broad grin was designed purely to tease.
“Excuse me? This is my Realtor.”
“Ah, actually . . .” Bill cleared his throat, looked at the ground, and then back up at her. “I work for the seller.”
“But I’m the one who called you to meet me here,” she insisted.
He looked from Char to Ryder and back as he juggled his options, then shrugged. “But you’re leaving.”
Char’s thoughts raced. She hated to leave those two here together, to cook up some deal to steal the building out from under her, but she had no choice. “Fine. Bill, I’ll be in touch,” she called, climbing into her car, then pulling out of the lot a little too fast.
She loved Papa. Truly, she did. But at times like these, she’d give anything for an ordinary, run-of-the-mill dad, in place of the notorious Xavier St. Pierre.
The St. Pierre sisters tumbled into the Napa County jail, stopping short at the transparent barrier in front of the reception desk. Char vaguely recalled the floor plan from her last visit. From a holding cell in the rear, they could hear Papa bellowing in his unmistakable Franglais.
“I am American citizen! I have gun license! Wait until my daughter gets here. She is lawyer! I will sue your—”
Papa had always had a flair for the dramatic.
Following an interminable wait during which the incessant click of her older sister’s pacing echoed off the tile walls, they were let into a processing area and a young officer holding a clipboard came out to meet them.
“Which one of you is”—he raised the clipboard to eye level and squinted—“Sauvignon?” he said with the audible equivalent of an eye roll.
This guy must be new to the force. The St. Pierres weren’t accustomed to going many places in the valley without being recognized.
Savvy stepped forward. “I am.”
Thank heavens Savvy was an attorney. Well, almost. She’d recently graduated law school but had yet to take the bar.
“And these are my sisters, Chardonnay and Merlot.”
The cop stared.
Was it their fault Papa had named his daughters for grape varietals?
He started to smile, furrowed his brow, and then hitched up his pants with his free hand.
With a half chuckle, he said, “Cheese-oh-man. You can’t make this stuff up. Wait till I tell the folks back in Ohio.”
“What are the charges, officer?” demanded Savvy—as usual, the designated spokesman. The three women were equally anxious to get past this latest ordeal.
“Well now, let’s see here.” The cop ticked off the items on his list with maddening slowness. “Discharging a firearm within one hundred yards of a residence. Resisting arrest. Threatening an endangered species was dropped. He’s lucky. That would’ve meant federal charges.”
He let the clipboard drop to his side and rocked back on his heels, analyzing the women one by one. His holier-than-thou gaze held a touch of salaciousness. Despite her impatience, Char couldn’t help but imagine how they appeared from his perspective.
There was Savvy, whose earlobes sparkled with the full carat diamond studs the girls had received for their sixteenth birthdays. As usual, she wore her auburn hair scraped back into a low, loose knot to show them off. She was dressed tastefully in black from head to toe, as if she’d had a premonition when she got up this morning that she’d be downtown at the police station later that afternoon.
Meri’s rich mahogany locks had some new lavender streaks that matched both her T-shirt and sky-high suede wedges. The sound of gunfire must have torn her away from her studio in a state of panic. She hadn’t changed out of her paint-flecked shirt.
Last, the cop’s gaze scraped over Char’s racer back and short shorts, coming to rest on her bare legs. Why did she suddenly feel naked? Dirty?
“Sarge says this isn’t the first time your old man’s been caught shooting at poachers in his koi pond.”
Savvy ignored that comment in the interest of expediency.
The policeman disappeared, and after another delay, returned, leading their father. Papa was looking disheveled but still chic in his Italian loafers.
“You can go now, Mr. St. Pierre, until your court date. Meantime, no more shooting at bald eagles. They’ve recently been taken off the endangered list in California, but you’ll find some people around here are fond of them.”
Amid a fresh tirade of muttered curses, Char took Papa’s elbow, Meri guarded his other flank, and Savvy went ahead.
Char scanned the parking lot.
“Clear,” she said, and the four stepped out into the bright sunshine, making a beeline for Char’s Mercedes.
But they’d only gone a dozen steps when a guy wielding a long-lensed camera appeared from out of nowhere.
“Xavier! Over here!” he yelled.
“Dégage! Get out of here!” Papa lashed out.
“Char! Meri!” the stranger cried out. “What’d he do this time?”
The women averted their eyes and picked up the pace.
“Papa and I will ride with Char,” called Savvy to Meri, just before they ducked into the car, taking refuge behind tinted windows.
“Damn police scanners,” said Savvy as Char pulled out of the lot. “God’s gift to the paparazzi.”
Fifteen minutes later, Char pulled into the long white gravel drive of Domaine St. Pierre, just in time for everyone to dress for Papa’s big party. It was the first fete of the summer, and Char had been waiting for this particular summer for five long years. Now it was here. Tonight was the night she would give her hometown a taste of a brand-new Chardonnay.
“Do I seriously have to go to this thing?” Ryder had better things to do than spend his Friday night with a bunch of ritzy people he didn’t even know and would probably never meet again. He’d just got off the plane from LAX yesterday to find his mom’s gutters needed cleaning and the lawn mowing, and he was anxious to get started on it. And then there was the favor he’d been asked to do by the Firefighters’ Relief Fund. But going to the right parties was part of promoting his acting career and arranging the invitations was Amy’s job. And he had to admit, one she was damn good at.
“Are you kidding me?” Amy asked, incredulous. “Look, Ryder, I busted my butt finagling this invite. An actor—even a lucky one like you—has to network. You might be a rising star, but a ticket to one of the St. Pierre winery parties is envied up and down the whole north coast. You might meet anyone there, producers to politicians. Of course, they always blend a few mere mortals into the mix. But you have to be on your toes. Tomorrow you could read that the stranger you chatted up during cocktails was a Pulitzer Prize winner, a federal judge, or some rapper on the brink of gold. So hell yes, you have to go. No amount of my hard work will have an effect unless you do your part.”
With a sigh, Ryder let himself out of the limo while his driver held the door for Amy, his publicist.
Grimacing as he ran a finger along the inside of his stiff collar, he tipped his head back to take in the sprawling Palladian mansion, surrounded by the manicured gardens of Domaine St. Pierre. A tower of water tumbled down onto itself from a fountain surrounded by an island of flowers that formed a traffic circle in the middle of the driveway.
The uniformed driver got back in the car, and impulsively Ryder turned back and rapped on the tinted glass. When the window slid noiselessly down, he propped a forearm on its edge in a careless stance.
“Thanks for the lift. Stay close in case I decide to bail early.”
“Bail early? Hell, if I had the chance to step foot inside St. Pierre’s palace, they’d have to pry me out. They say it’s all of twenty thousand square feet. Besides that, ol’ Xavier knows how to grow ’em. And I don’t mean grapes.”
“Yeah? I don’t know. Any girls who live like this must be pretty stuck on themselves.” He lowered his voice even more so his publicist wouldn’t hear him over the gurgling fountain and smiled wryly. “The most I’m hoping to get out of this extravaganza is a decent meal.” He patted his flat abs. “Amy claims they put out quite a spread.”
“Snag me some dessert if you get the chance. I’m partial to cheesecake.” The driver grinned, the window slid up again, and Ryder smacked the side of the car as it glided away, forming a slow-moving shadow across the gravel in the glow of the Napa Valley sunset.
Amy waited impatiently, wobbling on sky-high heels. Taking her arm as they navigated the path to the mansion, he tried to recall the briefing she’d given him earlier.
A rising star.
Since that evening when Amy had slipped him her business card as he’d knelt praying in little Saint Joan of Arc, Ryder’s life had changed completely. A picture of the interior of the little adobe church flashed through his mind. He could still smell the thick, acrid odor of incense.
It was right after the third annual memorial mass for his dad. Had that been only three years ago? Six in all, since the fire that took his dad’s life? It felt like another lifetime.
Mom and the twins had already lit their votives, uttered their closing prayers, and gone, but Ryder couldn’t drag himself away. Back then, he had too many problems.
He’d recited the rosary, passing the wooden beads rubbed smooth by his dad’s fingers through his own. He’d said the Lord’s Prayer. And still he bowed his head, eyes screwed shut, hands now clenched around the beads. Silently pouring out his heart, first to his deceased earthly father and then to his heavenly one. Ryder tried not to think about those days. Why torture himself? But sometimes the memory was too strong....
His head swam with the burden of responsibility. For his mother, trying to make her secretary’s salary stretch across mortgage payment, groceries, and utility bills. His brothers, with their bottomless twin appetites for cereal and hamburgers and chips and milk by the gallon. And little Bridget. There were probably lots of things she needed. Girly things, like dresses and shoes and other things that he couldn’t even fathom.
He had to do something. But what? He already put in thirty hours a week tending bar. Though that usually made him late to his morning classes, it covered the rent on his dive apartment, and he ate for free.
He could quit college, move home, and tend bar full time. Finishing school would improve his income in the long run, but he was only a junior. His family needed help now.
Then, in the hushed stillness came the sound of high heels on stone. The slow, methodical clicking grew louder, reverberating around the stark adobe walls until, head still downcast, he opened one eye and his sight landed on a well-heeled, feminine foot.
A low voice broke the silence.
“I’ve been waiting for you in the vestibule, but I can’t stay any longer. I have a flight to catch.
“Take your time here. But when you’re finished . . . tonight, tomorrow, one day soon . . . I want to talk to you.”
Only then did his eyes travel up to her face, but too late—the stranger had already turned away, the click of her shoes receding until the heavy wooden door whooshed closed and he was left truly alone with the smell of frankincense and the weight of his worries.
He looked down at her card. “Amy Smart. Gould Entertainment. Los Angeles, California.”
Amy. But not the savvy Hollywood-agent Amy he’d come to know. This was off-duty Amy. The wine-country-tourist-who-had-a-thing-for-old-churches Amy.
Ryder had barely begun flexing his acting chops when a big studio looking for fresh blood had signed him over all the Daniels, Roberts, and Zacs for the lead in a film about firefighters.
It was surreal seeing his picture in the celebrity magazines with the crazy captions: “Ryder McBride Among Hollywood’s Hottest,” “Ryder Sizzles in First Responder,” and so on. Some of the stories had a grain of truth to them, but most were pure crap, made up by agents and journalists to promote careers and sell magazines.
He’d never picked up a gossip rag in his life until his mom and sister had spotted his photo staring back at them in the grocery store checkout only a couple of months earlier. They’d called him up in fits of unintelligible squealing. Ever since, he’d begun to feel as though he couldn’t make a move without somebody taking his picture.
Ryder had always had goals and dreams, but being a movie star had never been one of them. Neither had partying at a renowned Napa Valley winery. But his sidestepping hadn’t worked with Amy. After all, he was her pet project. Her very lucrative pet project.
“Okay, let’s do this,” sighed Ryder, as he and Amy crunched along.
“Now, don’t forget,” she said under her breath. She counted on her fingers as she rattled off the St. Pierre sisters’ names.
“Meri is the youngest. She’s the artsy one. Savvy lives up to her nickname—brainy. And Chardonnay,” Amy said with an eye roll and a dramatic hand flourish, “is your tall, cool blonde. The middle child, the do-gooder. Always has her hand in one charity or another. Though, who knows if it’s just a put-on. Personally, I’ve always thought it was all orchestrated to compensate for her family’s scandals. But then, that’s how my mind works.”
“Slow down. What scandals?” asked Ryder, finding it hard to keep up with her pace, even given those stilettos, and her prattle. His knowledge of the who’s who of Napa Valley society was a little thin.
“It’s irrelevant.” Amy brushed the question off with another impatient flick of her hand. They were climbing the wide marble stairs up to the entrance now.
“Back to the daughters. Take your pick. All three are single, fresh out of college, and it’d be great for you to get hooked up with any one of them in the media.”
Her eyes grew large, and she placed a hand on his arm. “Better yet, more than one!”
“Oh, that’s just what I want my mom and little sister to read about,” Ryder responded drily. He spread his hands, pretending to read a tabloid. “ ‘Ryder McBride dating not one, but two, of the St. Pierre sisters.’ ”
“Better yet—all three!” Amy winked.
Ryder winced.
“Try to cooperate. My insider will be watching for any chance to shoot you next to the girls. One good photo sold to People is worth a year’s pay to a waiter.”
As they approached the open double doors where a white-gloved butler waited, Amy gave him one last annoying piece of advice.
“Smile,” she said through the clenched teeth of her own wide grin.
Sighing, he dutifully followed suit, in preparation to appear in public. In spite of himself, he was beginning to learn the ropes.
If he was ever going to pay his mom’s house off and go back to finish his degree, he had no choice.
Chardonnay floated through the glittering crowd, stopping every few feet to blow air-kisses and utter warm welcomes.
For as long as she could remember, Papa had been entertaining on June Friday nights to launch the growing season—his contemporary homage to a fertility ritual. As down-to-earth as she was, Char couldn’t deny that an invitation to the weekly dinner parties where celebrities, intellectuals, and politicians were entertained was highly coveted. Within minutes of every party ending, the social media sites were hopping with who was there, what they wore, and with whom they left.
Traditionally, the parties began the weekend the girls returned from their respective boarding schools. Over the years, Char and her sisters had met hundreds of accomplished and influential people around the family’s long mahogany dining table. But for every worthy guest, there was a shallow, opportunistic social climber. And it wasn’t always obvious who was who. Papa, it seemed, had a particularly hard time telling one from the other.
The dinners were both a blessing and a curse. Yet attendance at his parties was virtually the only demand Papa made on his daughters. Ever. Besides, they were allowed—encouraged—to invite their own guests, too, which made their annual obligation a little more palatable.
Years of practice had left her perfectly at ease in this setting. Sifting through the bulk of the guests, she soon spotted a regal-looking black woman wearing an understated burgundy suit.
“Dr. Simon!” Char clapped her hands together. “I’m so glad you could come.”
“The pleasure is all mine. I believe the last time I saw you was right here at one of your father’s dinner parties. You were still in school then. My, how you’ve grown. You look just like—”
Dr. Simon appeared to bite her tongue. In an obvious attempt to buy time, she took the last sip from her wineglass, the large stones in her rings sparkling.
“Like my mother,” Char finished for her, to relieve the older woman of her discomfort.
Maman, the legendary Lily d’Amboise.
Char guided the woman to an overstuffed couch and took a seat at a right angle to her guest. A waiter immediately placed two fresh glasses of wine on a side table.
“It was the year of the McDaniel Foundation’s last Napa Charity Challenge—five years ago. I was eighteen. That event made a big impression on me. Ever since, I’ve been waiting for the chance to be a part of it.”
“I’m so pleased that you want to contribute to our work.”
“I love the idea of charities competing to win money for their cause,” said Char. “Something about it appeals to the competitiveness in me. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a half-marathon involved, either, since I’m a runner from way back.”
“We feel we’ve developed an original concept. Five years between challenges may seem rather lengthy to some, but the board has discovered that bestowing one extravagant grant every five years, rather than smaller annual grants, has proven to be a greater motivation for the competitors. It’s also less of an imposition on donors because they’re not being canvassed every year. Even the organizations that don’t ultimately win the grant raise a good deal of money for their respective causes.”
“I think I read that whoever wins the half-marathon gets a bonus. How does that work? Aren’t there usually separate categories for men and women runners?”
“We use a formula that accounts for differences in male/female times to come up with a single winner. Rather like the way golf handicaps work. The foundation grants the one winner of the race a fifty-thousand-dollar donation toward his or her charity’s total earnings,” said Dr. Simon.
“I think I’ve already memorized every detail of the contest, but can we talk specifically about the gala?” So far, this night was unfolding exactly as Char had hoped. It was all about face time with Dr. Simon. Relationship building.
“Before the half-marathon, the participants are given two weeks to solicit suitable items for the auctions. The race is held on the morning of the final day, followed by the black tie gala, which consists of dinner, dancing, and both silent and live bidding. The whole thing is a tremendous amount of work for those in charge of the competing charities.”
“I presume that’s another benefit of having it only once every five years,” said Char.
Dr. Simon nodded. “That’s right. Tell me, is there any particular cause you’re interested in working with for your very first challenge? The food bank? Perhaps the women’s shelter? Any of our partner organizations would be thrilled to have you. I’d be more than happy to make some calls, set up an introduction.”
Char scooted forward. Time for her speech. She hoped she didn’t look as nervous as she felt.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been involved with a bunch of causes during the summer months, getting my feet wet. I’ve served at the soup kitchen, done some fund-raising, and I still help sort donations at church.”
Dr. Simon nodded politely.
“In every place that I volunteered, I watched and listened. And I noticed that a large percentage of underprivileged people were the children of pickers—er, excuse me, that’s what Papa calls them. You know what I mean. Migrant farmworkers. Immigrants.”
“Go on,” said Dr. Simon.
“I got to know some families when I was serving at the soup kitchen. Then I started working at Saint Joan of Arc. There, I learned that more people would’ve come to the mission, but they didn’t have transportation. That’s when I started driving donations over to their neighborhoods. I found out firsthand: It’s all about outreach.
“When I went back to college in the fall, I couldn’t forget those kids. There were two especially whose faces kept me up at night, wondering and worrying. I couldn’t wait to graduate and make public service my career. So I did some research and found that Napa already had well-established organizations for the hungry, the homeless, the addicted, and various medical conditions. But I wanted to do something specifically for migrant children. These are the children of the vineyards. And wine is the basis of the valley’s economy.”
She took a sip of her wine, hoping she wasn’t running on. She had to say this right. Competing in the challenge meant everything to her.
“As you know, I’m one of the lucky ones. A third-generation landowner. My family’s business has always been intertwined with migrant workers. I feel compelled to do something for their kids.”
Dr. Simon’s expression was interested but guarded.
“So I’ve started my own foundation.”
There—she’d said it. Despite Dr. Simon’s cool poise, her eyebrows rose sharply. Char rushed on before she could be shot down.
“I even found a building that would be perfect to work out of, right in the center of an immigrant neighborhood. And I’ve recruited a group to run in the half-marathon with me: the local women’s field hockey team I play on every summer. I think it’ll be easier to persuade people to contribute to my cause if I’m an actual participant, instead of just an organizer, don’t you? We started training separately months ago, while I was still in school. Now we can finally start running together, as a real team. . . .”
A hint of a shadow swept across the professor’s face then, as if she’d suddenly remembered exactly whose couch she sat on, and Char’s heart sank. She’d seen that look on plenty of faces before.
All of her life, people had made assumptions about Char, simply because she was one of the three granddaughters of Yves St. Pierre, the Burgundian winemaker who’d brought French cultivars to California and planted them here one hundred years ago.
It was Papa’s favorite story, one his daughters and all his workers, from head winemaker to lowly picker, knew by heart. Yves had survived the dry times by selling inferior communion wine for a premium and stockpiling the good stuff. He knew Prohibition would eventually be repealed, and the minute it was, he had a cellar full of mature cabernet ready to meet demand. Now, a century later, the award-winning Domaine St. Pierre label was celebrated from Napa to Paris.
But there was a downside to being a St. Pierre. Char’s individuality went largely unrecognized. Her mind, her values, and her feelings were all obscured by the family’s success—and their equally tragic mistakes—over the decades.
As she’d matured, even Char’s physical appearance had become a handicap, to her way of thinking. Some might think being a skinny blue-eyed blonde was an asset, but Char worried that it only added to people’s impression of her as an empty-headed heiress. She would have competed in sports even if she hadn’t had long muscles and a high metabolism, but sports fed her need for legitimacy apart from her looks. She’d played field hockey all her life and was honored when the local women agreed to run with her for the challenge.
“Dr. Simon, I can’t blame you for what you’re thinking—that Papa could easily underwrite my entire campaign. But I’ve made a decision. I want to raise all of my contributions myself, solely from the fund-raising events. Independent of the St. Pierre name.”
Dr. Simon looked doubtful.
Char couldn’t use her trust fund, either. That wasn’t technically hers until she was thirty. She felt her chin harden, and a vision of Papa’s own set jaw flashed through her memory. She winced. Stubbornness was the least pretty trait she’d inherited, but you couldn’t choose your genes.
“There’s no need to rush to that decision—” Dr. Simon advised, but Char interrupted.
“I’ve made up my mind. I’m only going to use the proceeds from the official events, like all the other contenders. Every penny I get for my cause will be earned.”
“You realize that you’ll be up against some stiff competition. The challenge always attracts the most established charities in the county.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
The Napa Wine Heiresses Boxed Set
Heather Heyford
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
