Page 10 of The B!tch is Bad

“Let’s buy Harleys later this week!” Oliver cried.

I lifted a weary hand and kept walking. “I prefer BMW. Don’t forget to bring Ghost Riders to Wine on Main.” This wine storage bunker was on Mescal Mesa, a former army airfield out of Pure and Easy. The Bare Bones also had a construction business there in an old hangar, the Citadel. I’d only been once to the bunker and it was impressive.

The last thing I heard Oliver tell the tasters was, “Yeah, Wildstar owns the winery next door to us, Screaming Eagle. He sure makes some excellent candles.”

What the fuck?And that wasn’t nearly the strangest thing Oliver had said all day.

And then it happened.

Striding across the wide swath of lawn that separated my house from the tasting room, I came to an abrupt halt. Patience stood on the sidewalk that framed my house, near neat rows of barrel and saguaro cacti. With folded hands, she gazed at the ground as though guilty of something. This submissive stance spurred my lust, the skin on my chest and butt tingling with some primal urge to pounce. I had to tamp it down, use all my executive authority to act normal, suave.

I raised the hand that held the wine, at twelve-thirty in the afternoon. “Patience! So good to see you.” An understatement.

But she looked so forlorn, I had to wonder if she was running from some mishap. “You told me to come, and here I am.”

I stopped two feet in front of her. I lifted my hand up as though to take her shoulder, but thought better. “Are you okay?”

She snapped out of it, that pert yet sultry smile illuminating her face. “Just fine. This is my first day off since I met you. I’ve been meaning to come by and check out your winery.”

“Let’s go in here. Oliver’s got a crowd of truffle hunters in the tasting room.”

Reasonable enough. Patience, hands still folded, followed me like a ballerina in her flat shoes and flowing tulle skirt. At the open glass door, I paused to gesture her to go before me. In her sleeveless blouse her juicy breasts bounced. Yet the second I thought they were dying to be caressed, I knew they were telling me hands off. Her obvious intelligence was almost intimidating. And this coming from a guy who had never been rejected. Not once. Maybe back in Modesto.

Her slippers padded on the porcelain tiled floor. “And what is that you’re drinking?”

I’d almost forgotten the stupid glass, so I set it onto the alabaster bar. The house had been drenched in neutral shades of various textures—the recessed lighting of the hemlock ceiling above us saturated the granite, canvas-backed barstools, Venetian plaster of the fireplace. Patience alone stood out like a ruby in a white man’s ear. Her glowing Renaissance face seemed a texture of marble, her blossoming currant lips glossy. Her eyes were full of sorrow, yet some kind of devilment.

I smiled. “That’s right, you’re an oenophile.”

She was relaxed enough around me to take a bar stool. “Not really. I just learned a lot about wine by going tasting.”

I didn’t ask her with who. Behind the bar I pressed a button that would play mood music from various hidden speakers. Just my luck. Clair de Lune. Who didn’t get all worked up when that piano played? But I didn’t fast forward past it. “’07 Tiny Dancer. Wine Spectator labeled it the number two wine in the world.” I so happened to have an opened bottle down below, so I yanked it out. I displayed the label to her while fingering a tasting glass from a rack. “These come from original vines brought over from Bordeaux.”

She brightened up. “Mm.”

“Tell me what you think.”

She was right on it, swirling to look for legs. Lifting the glass to her nose, she breathed the aroma. “Vanilla. Notes of black pepper.”

I nodded with delight. “Uh-huh. Go on.”

Now she sipped. I probably would’ve encouraged her if she’d said “Peanut butter and jelly” or “ass,” but I was pleased when she spoke her truth.

She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let the ruby liquid swish down her throat. “Ah. Plum sauce. Anise. And . . . “ Her eyes popped open and she stared at the glass door that opened to the patio. “Pencil lead.”

I had to slap the granite. “You nailed it! You nailed it completely. Yes, people often tasted pencil lead in the original Bordeaux vines.” I couldn’t have been more delighted. To celebrate her win, I also poured myself some of the expensive wine. “You are good. I must drink to you.”

She looked at the center of my button-down shirt. “Oh, it’s nothing, like I said. Just tons of wine tasting.”

“In St. Louis?” I prompted.

She seemed to pop back to reality. “Um, yes. St. Louis. The Compton Heights historic district.”

I hedged my bets. “Is that where you lived with your husband? He taught you about wine?”

Her answer was swift. “No, with my mother. I bought the house with money from my modeling career.”

“So that was you in that painting at Smoky Mountain.” My fucking phone kept buzzing with calls and texts, so I slipped it to a shelf under the bar.