Heard It Through The Grapevine

“Number one should be obvious,” she said, tossing a sprig of rosemary into her basket. “You dumped me in front of millions of people.”

“I thought I expl—”

“Number two, there’s no future in it. We’re from different worlds, you and me. I’m from a simple farming family. You live in Boston and went to prep school. You graduated from an Ivy League college, while I only managed one year at UC-Sacramento before I had to drop out and work at the winery. Number three…” She stopped talking and regarded him coolly. “I’m still trying to think of reason number three,” she said lamely.

“Does there have to be a future in every relationship?” he asked heatedly. “Isn’t it enough to renew old acquaintance and see what develops?”

“Maybe for you,” Gina said, half rising and settling herself down in a new place.

“As for your simple farming family, between bocce games I met your cousin Greg who has a Ph.D. in chemistry and teaches at a private college in San Francisco. There was nothing simple about Greg.”

“It’s true, Gregory is very intelligent.” Unperturbed, she tossed several more sprigs into the basket.

Josh continued. “Your cousin Carla seems to have a brilliant grasp of how to build a public relations career. When I was on my return trip to the buffet table, your mother treated me to a fascinating discourse on baking bread and rolls for your aunt Dede’s catering service. Don’t run down your family, Gina. I told you I think they’re wonderful.”

“Yes, you did, and yes, they are.”

It annoyed him that she wouldn’t give him something to refute, anything that would help him prove the point that she ought to stop pushing him away.

“We could at least go out to dinner.”

She nailed him with an unfathomable look. “Last night all you wanted was drinks. Now it’s dinner. I haven’t even given you an inch, and you’re already trying to take a mile.”

“Come on, Gina, I hardly know anyone in town. Be a good sport and keep me company for a couple of hours.”

“You’re tearing at my heartstrings.” His wheedling seemed to have made no difference at all, and here he was slugging away, trying his hardest.

He forced an expression of optimism. “Good. Does that mean you’ll go?”

She leaned back, shaded her eyes against the rising sun with her hand and squinted up at him. “Tell you what, Josh. You go back to Boston and I’ll let you know if I change my mind. In other words, don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

He let out a long low whistle of appreciation. “You’re one tough cookie, Gina Angelini.” He couldn’t help grinning down at her.

For a moment, he thought she might be wavering, but no. She did grin back at him, though, and there was a flicker of something—communion? camaraderie?—behind her eyes.

“And you’re one persistent fellow,” she said, almost without missing a beat.

Whatever else he had in mind to say was lost in the shuffle when two pint-size whirlwinds burst through the gate.

“Gina, Gina! Guess what!” Frankie was first, with Mia hot on his heels. Both of them carried backpacks.

“Frankie’s dog is gonna have puppies! And Mom said we could have one!”

Gina rose gracefully and smiled at Mia, whose excitement at this good news was written all over her face. “That’s wonderful,” she said warmly.

Mia noticed Josh for the first time. “It’s gonna be a girl and I’m gonna dress it up in doll clothes,” she declared.

Frankie grimaced. “Fat chance. You do that and I’m taking the puppy back.”

“We always used to dress our dog, Charlie, in doll clothes, and he liked it,” Mia said.

“No way,” Frankie said. He turned to Josh. “Say, Josh, would you like a puppy? Last time Beauty had puppies there were seven.”

“No, Frankie. Thank you, but I don’t have enough room in my apartment in Boston for a dog.”

Frankie gave Josh a look of incredulity. “You don’t? That’s awful. You’d better move right away.”

Josh laughed, liking the look of Gina as she smoothed Mia’s unruly hair and adjusted Frankie’s collar. He’d never thought of Gina as maternal, yet he could imagine how she’d be someday with her own children, by turns solicitous and gently admonitory. They’d be cute kids, too, if they inherited her piquant features.

Gina smiled indulgently at both children. “You’d better get out to the road. It’s almost time for the school bus.”

“’Bye, Aunt Gina. See you later. ‘Bye, Josh.”

“Let me know if you want a puppy,” Frankie said before he raced after Mia.

“Mia said she lives next door, but I didn’t realize that Frankie and Rocco lived so close,” Josh said into the silence they left behind.

“They’re right down the road. One of the reasons I bought this place was that my sister and Rocco were nearby.” She knelt and began to pluck weeds from the soil, turning her back toward him.

Josh sat down on a low stone bench nearby. “You mean the cottage wasn’t always in the family?”

Gina took note of his occupation of the bench, seemed about to say something, then perhaps thought better of it. She shook her head. “This was a country store that was put out of business by the convenience stores that started springing up around here a few years back. The owner moved away and I bought it for my herb business a year and a half ago. I was lucky that I could live above the shop. I hated to move out of Mother’s house, but she was ready to scale down to an apartment by then, she said. She’s getting along fine, and so am I.”

“Most of the people I know could hardly wait to move out of their parents’ homes,” he observed carefully. Gina was how old now—twenty-nine? No, thirty-one. That was a long time to live at home.

She must have noticed his perplexity because she appeared to feel the need for explanation. “Mother needed me after my father died,” she said quietly. “They were inseparable, and his final illness exhausted her. Barb had already married, and it was up to me to take care of our mother. She’d always been a stay-at-home mom and was faced with getting a job, which I thought would be a difficult adjustment. Fortunately, she’s launched a new career with Aunt Dede’s catering service and loves it.”

Josh would bet that Maren Angelini was every bit as independent as her daughter. “I like your mother,” he said.

“Most people do.” Gina stood up. He did, too, following her as she headed back toward the cottage. She stopped at the back door to wipe the mud off her feet. “Now,” she said with the utmost patience, “I’d better go in and get ready for the rest of my workday.”

“What time does the store open?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“I’ll be back to buy something.”

“Josh, stop it. You’re a pest. Go. Now.” She wasn’t as put out with him as she sounded, if he judged her correctly. Her mouth quirked up at the corners, and she couldn’t hide the warm amused light in her eyes.

“Okay, okay, I’m out of here. But remember, Gina, the Big Bad Wolf only pretended to leave. Once he was out of sight, he circled around the woods until he could surprise Little Red at another juncture in the road.”

He thought she might burst into laughter at that, but she only lifted her eyebrows. “Well, Josh, you’ve described your MO very well so far. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when you show up at Grandmother’s house wearing her nightcap and sleeping in her bed.”

She’d given him an opening and he delighted in using it. “It’s not your grandmother’s bed I want to sleep in. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

Again he thought she might laugh. But she only said, “Ooh, Grandma, what big teeth you have.” Then she tripped on into the house and shut the door in his face.

Josh laughed to himself and went off to find a place where he could buy a decent cup of coffee. Then he’d make a few phone calls. If all went well he might be able to arrive back here by ten o’clock or so.

He wasn’t about to give up on Gina so easily.

JOSH DIDN’T WASTE TIME on any of the trendy tourist hangouts around town. He discovered a real old-fashioned diner called Mom’s on the outskirts of Rio Robles, its squatty silver shape boldly contrasting with the hazy mountain peaks in the distance. After quickly sizing up the vehicles in the parking lot, he decided that the large number of pickups boded well for finding a lot of grape growers inside. He’d dressed in jeans and a plain gray sweatshirt so he’d fit in with the locals, and when he sauntered in, hardly a head turned in his direction.

The tantalizing odor of bacon and fried onions assailed his nostrils. The regulars spared glances in his direction before returning to their conversations or newspapers. “Coffee, please,” he said to the guy behind the counter as he hoisted himself up on a red-vinyl-and-chrome stool. The guy stood almost seven feet tall and had to stoop to walk into the low-ceilinged area where the coffee was made, and when he returned with Josh’s cup, Josh saw that the name written on his uniform was Mom.

“Hey, Mom, I’ll have another one of those doughnuts,” called a man sitting at the end of the counter. Mom reached into a covered container, withdrew a powdered doughnut and tossed it under his arm to its intended recipient. Whereupon everyone chuckled, including Josh.

“Good old Mom, he keeps it lively in here,” said the man next to him. He set a folded copy of The Juice: A Journal for Growers down beside Josh and took a long pull from his cup.

“That’s his real name?”

“Yeah, ’fraid so. It’s Momford or Mumford or some unfortunate name like that. I can sympathize, since my parents named me Maurice. I go by Mike.”

Josh extended his hand. “Josh Corbett,” he said.

“Oh, you’re that Mr. Moneybags guy who came all the way from Boston to get reacquainted with Gina.”

Josh was slightly taken aback at the familiarity. “Not exactly. I have business here, and it made sense to look her up.”

“I heard that some of the Angelinis were surprised when you showed up at their crush last night.” Mike eyed him curiously.

“How do you know?”

“That’s the scuttlebutt.”

“There’s gossip already? I only arrived two days ago.”

“I see Devon Vost every morning when I drop my daughter off at day care. She’s Gina’s cousin.”

Josh vaguely remembered Devon, a cheerful young woman with a kind face whom he’d met at crush. He wondered why she would be telling this Mike person what the Angelinis thought about his showing up.

Mike answered his unasked question. “You see, Devon is married to my sister’s brother-in-law. Practically everyone you’ll meet around here is related to the Angelinis in some way.”

Josh sipped his coffee; it was good. He thought about asking Mom for a doughnut but discarded the idea, amusing though it was to watch one flying through the air.

“They seemed friendly,” he said to Mike. “The Angelinis, I mean.”

“There are no nicer people in the world. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of them, though. About Gina—everyone thinks she’s pretty special, and folks in Rio Robles didn’t like it that she wasn’t picked to win the million dollars.”

“I gathered that,” Josh said on a note of regret.

Mike eyed Josh speculatively. “You’re not figuring to make a play for her, are you?”

Josh didn’t want to tip his cards to someone he’d just met. “You never know,” he said.

“You do that and you hurt Gina again, the Angelinis won’t let you get away with it.”

Great. A threat. That was all he needed.

“What kind of business did you say you have here?” asked Mike.

He hadn’t. “I’m writing an article about the valley.”

“For some big newspaper or something?”

“No, it’s for a company newsletter. The company has an interest in winemaking.” A recent interest, and the article would appear in the newsletter after the beverage conglomerate in which his family had a controlling interest bought out a winery or two in the valley. This was all hush-hush so far, and it was going to stay that way, at least as long as Josh had anything to say about it.

“You might like to read The Juice,” Mike said, pushing it toward Josh. “Being that you write for a newsletter and all.”

Josh accepted the folded paper and stood up. “I’d better be going. Thanks for the paper and the warning,” he said as he tossed a bill on the counter.

“Sure. Nice meeting you. I’m here every morning about this time, and I hope we’ll run into each other again.”

When Josh left, Mike was asking Mom for a doughnut. This time Mom ran with it to the kitchen, feinted and tossed it overhand.

“Best play I’ve seen since the last Super Bowl,” hollered one of the customers.

“One of their scouts tried to recruit me last week,” Mom said.

This provoked a round of good-natured jeers. But Josh didn’t stick around to hear any more. He had business here, all right. He was going to put his phone calls on the back burner and try to talk Gina into having lunch with him. He’d struck out with his invitations to drinks and dinner, but lunch? It was a nonthreatening suggestion, time limited and requiring no special dress.

He was willing to bet that Gina would say yes when he asked her. She’d had that glint in her eye that was the giveaway of an interested female, and come to think of it, he seldom met any other kind.

Chapter Four

“No,” Gina said firmly. She was standing on a ladder, tacking up bunches of dried flowers over the cash register. Josh sneezed.

“You really should take an allergy pill whenever you decide you’re going to stop by and be a nuisance,” she said as she climbed down from the ladder. She had discarded this morning’s smock and put on a short, sleeveless ribbed top. It fit so snugly that he could see her nipples through her bra.

“You’re right,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away. When he did, they aimed themselves downward and focused on the strip of skin between the top and her jeans. Her belly button showed, a sweet little dimple that put him in mind of intimacies that the two of them had never shared.

She folded the ladder and shoved it behind a tall screen covered in burlap. Sprigs of various dried herbs were pinned to the screen, all tied up in bright scraps of ribbon. Gina had an artistic bent; he could tell from the way she’d decorated her store. She had draped lace fabric across shelves and scrunched it up to make display places for packages of herbs, and here and there he saw several other original touches.

A customer walked up to the counter and set several small paper and plastic bags of herbs that she’d selected from bins set into old wine casks arrayed along the side wall. “Hello, Gina. I’m on my monthly run over from St. Helena to stock up on my favorites.”

“Did your mother try brewing the chamomile tea you took home last month?” Gina asked.

“Yes, and she’s sleeping much better, thanks.”

“Wow, Tori, that’s great. Tell her I said hello.”

“I will.”

Gina rang the transaction up on the cash register and put all the bags into a larger one with a handle for carrying. During the few minutes it took, Tori looked him over with more than a little curiosity. Josh was sure she recognized him from the TV show—who didn’t? He tried to downplay his presence by wandering off to study a row of cookbooks.

“I’ll see you next month, Tori,” Gina said as she handed her customer the bag.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss my visit to Good Thymes for the world,” Tori said. With a last lingering look at Josh’s back, she left.

“People don’t want to let the Mr. Moneybags show die,” Josh observed to Gina as her customer’s big SUV jolted out of the parking lot.

“I certainly do,” Gina said as she began to tick numbers off on a list.

“Was the experience so bad?” he asked. A shaft of sunlight penetrated the filmy curtain on the nearby window, sparking silvery highlights in Gina’s hair. She wore it combed to one side, and she had braided a small strand and tucked the braid up with the help of a small daisy. The effect was enchanting.

“I don’t see any need to rehash what happened.” Her head remained bowed over her list.

“That’s fine. We should pick up where we left off and forget about the past.”

“Mmm,” Gina said, clearly not paying attention.

That Gina could ignore his heartfelt friendship and his wish to let bygones be bygones irked him. At the same time he realized that this could be the opportunity he’d been waiting for. “And I’ve heard that polar bears have eaten all the reindeer, so Santa won’t be here for the little boys and girls this Christmas.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Gina replied.

“And as far as stocks are concerned, they’ve gone through the roof, so how about if we have lunch together today.” He was talking nonsense, of course, but it might have the desired effect. He held his breath.

“Mmm…what?” Gina tossed aside the pad of paper and frowned.

“Lunch. You almost agreed to it.”

She stood up. “That’s it, Josh Corbett! You’re not going to trick me into something I don’t want to do. Out!”

She pointed a finger at the door, through which two elderly customers happened to be walking.

“Us?” quavered the one in front, a violet-haired woman using a cane.

“Sister and me?” asked the other, wrinkling her powdery brow.

Gina rushed forward to greet them. “Oh, no, of course not, Miss Tess and Miss Dora. Please come in. What can I get for you today? More goldenseal, or perhaps a bit of catnip for dear little Felix?” Over their heads, she glared at Josh.

“We don’t need goldenseal, do we, Dora? Catnip would be good. Felix is feeling his age, and it perks him right up.” The one with the cane started down the aisle toward the catnip.

“I’d like one of those nice cookbooks, you know, the one that benefits the teen center. We’re going to send it to our cousin in Seattle.”

“Right over here, Miss Tess.” Gina guided her toward the rustic cabinet where the cookbooks were displayed and helped her to pull one down from the shelf.

Josh realized that he was standing beside a wicker basket piled high with lavender sachets. In addition to buying some for his landlady, he supposed he could send packets to his mother and sister. Their scent made his nose itch, though. Lavender always did.

Gina rang up the ladies’ order, which took a while because they’d bought a number of items. When she had finished, she turned to Josh. “You’ll help Miss Tess and Miss Dora carry these things out to their car, won’t you, Josh?”

He stacked the lavender sachets on the counter beside the cash register. “I’d be glad to,” he said easily, scooping up their bag.

Neither one of the ladies moved particularly fast, so he was treated to a long and drawn-out account of Felix’s last hairball episode, whereupon the two of them became involved in an argument about the best remedies for feline hair-balls. By the time he had installed the women in their elderly compact sedan, Josh was eager to get back inside. Then the sedan backed up, heading straight for him. He jumped out of the way barely before being hit.

Miss Tess leaned out the window. “Young man, you look a lot like that Mr. Moneybags fellow. Are you?”

Josh nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“You listen to me, sir. Our Gina is a nice girl. Don’t you dare hurt her again!”

“I—” Josh began. He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, since Miss Dora, who was driving, scratched off and left him standing in a cloud of dust.

Did everyone in town dislike him for what he had done to Gina on the show? Didn’t they understand it was all a bit of make-believe, conjured up by a couple of producers who were interested in the show’s entertainment value and not much else? They hadn’t expected him to fall in love with the woman he chose. The most they had hinted should happen was that he and Tahoma might want to keep in touch and give themselves a chance for real romance to develop. He wished there were some way he could let everyone know that he realized he’d chosen the wrong woman. What was he supposed to do—emblazon a sign across his forehead? He pondered the wording of such a sign. I Should Have Picked Gina. No, that made her sound like a bunch of grapes. I Was Stupid. Now, that was more like it. It seemed to fit in with the locals’ opinions of him.

Josh walked slowly back into the cottage. Gina was arranging fresh flowers in a vase on one of the front window-sills, and he marched up to her.

“Gina, tell me one thing. Do you hate me for the way the show turned out?”

She was so startled that she dropped a handful of cut ferns, which scattered around her feet. Josh bent to help her pick them up.

“Well,” Josh demanded, “do you?”

At that moment several other customers came in, and Gina, after one last annoyed glance in his direction, went to see to their needs.

She hadn’t answered. So perhaps she did hate him. If so, was any of this pursuing doing any good? Was she so totally dead set against renewing their friendship that all his efforts were a waste of time? Would it help if he told her how much he’d matured since the Mr. Moneybags experience, now that he’d reflected on what had happened? If he mentioned that, ultimately, choosing the wrong woman had made him a wiser, better man?

He hoped that the customers wouldn’t linger over their choices, but two of them seemed inclined to study every bin and the card next to it in order to learn more about treating various symptoms with herbs, and another, who was apparently a friend of Gina’s, embarked on a long explanation of a complicated family situation that required patient listening on Gina’s part.

As if that weren’t enough, Josh stood too near some dried goldenrod, began to sneeze and couldn’t stop. He fled outside and sat down on a garden bench beneath an oak tree while he waited for the customers to leave.

The trouble was, they stayed longer than Josh expected, and fast on their heels came three more carloads of people. He peered in the window and saw Gina talking animatedly with one group while the others browsed, and she soon had a line at the cash register.

As soon as everyone left, Josh ambled back inside. Gina, who wore a pencil behind one ear and was adding up receipts, glanced up with a smile of greeting as he entered. It quickly faded when she saw him.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said pointedly.

“I was only biding my time. Could you ring up those sachets for me, please?”

“Glad to,” she said through tight lips.

“About lunch, Gina.”

She tucked his lavender and his cash register receipt into a bag and handed it to him.

“What about it?”

“Let’s run downtown and grab a sandwich.”

She let out a long sigh. “I can’t leave. My relief salesperson won’t be in today, so I’m going to make do with peanut butter and crackers.”

Disappointment washed over him. “Who’s your relief?” The thought occurred to him that he could find whoever it was and beg him or her to show up.

“My sister fills in for me when I need a break. She lives so close that it usually works out well. Today she’s at the winery, cleaning up after last night’s party. Oh, hello, Shelley. How are things at the Bootery?”

Josh grew glum as he listened to the two women talking about Shelley’s business, a shoe store downtown, and soon more customers arrived, some on a tour bus on a day trip to the valley from San Francisco, which was only an hour and a half’s drive away. Getting time alone with Gina was almost impossible.

When twelve o’clock came and went, he decided that he might as well leave, but not for good. He’d be back soon, this time with food.

GINA BREATHED AN AUDIBLE sigh of relief as she saw Josh’s car exit the parking lot. She and Shelley had business to discuss: the bachelor auction, which was Gina’s latest project. Gina had shepherded the auction project through the city council’s permit process, had assembled a crackerjack committee and was going to emcee the event. The project would benefit the teen center that was so important to Gina and her family as well as the entire community.