Page 9 of Corkscrew You
“Cam.”
She grins, and quickly elaborates before I can brain her.
“Cam Hollander. Ex-army. He’s our cooper, too. Makes incredible oak barrels for us, and for other wineries round here. You won’t meet him today, though. Cam doesn’t really do people contact.”
“Does he work under the cover of night?”
“He’s fine as long as you don’t try to make small talk with him,” she says. “Or set him up on a date.”
“You know this from experience?”
“Mom tried to set him up with an artist friend. Luckily, Cam adores Mom, so he’s still speaking to her. In his own non-speaking way.”
This place is full of lunatics. Simple as that.
“And Toothless Doug does the mowing and weed control, and Iris from the Cracker Café helps out with food for the crews. For the pigs, too – they make great garbage disposals. I get off-cuts for the dogs and cats from Ron, the butcher, and Toothless Doug also looks after the vegetable garden, plus he gives me produce from his own garden, which must rival California State as an agricultural economy.”
She pauses. “He gives me alotof corn.”
“Because he has trouble with it, owing to the whole toothless thing?”
“Oh, no, Doug has a full set of teeth.”
She stands up and says, brightly, “More coffee?”
“Please.”
I feel instead like I’m asking for mercy.
“Hello-o?”
A voice in the kitchen doorway. Followed by a body. A truly sensational one, dressed in what looks like the kind of costume a man with a secretary fetish would ask his dominatrix to wear. As she nears, I see there’s a little logo embroidered on the skin-tight suit jacket’s lapel.Bartons. Ihaveto meet this guy, Ted.
“Hi—”
She’s coming straight at me, holding out her hand. I stand up, because I’m a gentleman, and besides, she’s about six feet nine in those stiletto pumps.
“I’m Chiara.”
She pronounces it the Italian way: Key-AH-ra. Rude to comment on someone’s cultural makeup, but I’d guess that’s not the only ethnicity in there. She’s got a kind of Rihanna look with her hazel eyes, but her hair’s a halo of blond-brown curls, which is cute as fuck.
I’m swearing. This does not bode well. Time to double down on the poker face.
I shake her hand. “Nathan.”
“Hi, Kiki.”
Shelby’s leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded. Her expression’s unusually hard to read, wryly amused with a hint of … something?
“Oh, hey, Shel, didn’t see you there.”
Chiara is all breeze and no innocence. But Shelby’s smile widens. She’s genuinely glad to see her friend.
“I’m making coffee,” she says. “Want some?”
“The Black Death? Hell yes.”
Chiara takes a seat with more ease than I’d expect from anyone wearing a skirt like that.
