Too Close to the Sun (7 page)

*

"I am truly sorry for missing the party," Max
told his mother, turning her Mercedes sedan into the parking lot
that fronted St. Helena Hospital. "I know it meant a lot to you and
I really dropped the ball by showing up so late. Believe me, I'll
make it up to you. I promise."

Massive silence yawned from the passenger
seat. His mother was mad at him, so mad she was barely speaking,
but he didn't doubt he could get her past it. A little mea culpa, a
little charm, a little attention, and she would forgive him. He had
a way with women, always had, and his mother was no exception.

He nosed the Mercedes into a parking space
and killed the engine. "I'm glad you let me drive you to the
hospital," he told her. "I am seriously jet-lagged but I appreciate
that you let me do this for you."

"Maximilian Winsted, do not say another word
to me," and all of a sudden his mother's hand gripped his thigh
with a force that made him wince. "I am neither as stupid nor as
gullible as you seem to think."

He pried her fingers off his thigh. Geez, had
she been lifting weights or what? "Mom, you're the smartest woman I
know. I have the utmost respect for you."

"I cannot take any more of your bullshit,"
she declared, then climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and
headed for the hospital entrance without him.

Max sat still, shocked. His mother never
swore. The worst that ever came out of her was
Damn!
or some
mild variation thereof. For a second he considered just waiting for
her in the car, then thought better of it.

No, he had to get back on her good side. The
last thing he wanted was to be living with and working alongside a
moody female, though that pretty much defined the breed. Life would
be a great deal more pleasant if she wasn't down his throat
constantly.

He sighed, then heaved himself out of the car
and went after her. How she could make a federal case out of his
failure to appear at her party was beyond him. Then again, she'd
always been obsessed with trivialities: clothes, decor, the finer
points of etiquette. He could never make her understand that the
party hadn't really been for him, anyway. It had been for
her
—her opportunity to show off, to play the lady of the
manor.
He
was just the excuse. But he'd never known her to
exhibit that degree of self-awareness.

Max forced himself through the sliding glass
doors and into the reception area. He hated hospitals. They stank,
they were depressing, and they reminded him of when his dad was
sick after the stroke. When that was going on, Max felt like he
lived in the hospital. This very one, actually. And once he didn't
have to go to the hospital anymore—well, that wasn't good,
either.

He found the intensive care unit. A tall
blond guy in a tux whom Max didn't recognize was standing outside
the door looking through its narrow rectangular window.

"Hello," Max said, guessing from the black
tie that this was someone from the party. The guy spun around and
Max held out his hand. "Max Winsted. Are you here for Cosimo
DeLuca, too?"

"Yes, I am." They shook. "Will Henley. Good
to meet you."

Max didn't know the name. He started to reach
for the door handle but Henley stopped him.

"You can't go in there right now. They're
letting in only two at a time and your mother's in with Gabby
DeLuca."

"Right." The winemaker's daughter. Always had
been kind of a babe. Max stepped back from the door. "What have you
been told about Mr. DeLuca's prognosis?"

Henley stared at him for a moment, as if he
was trying to decide how much to divulge. "Well," he said
eventually, "the doctors gave him a clot-dissolving drug and the
early indications are that it's working. But he's not out of the
woods yet. The first twenty-four hours will be critical."

Max nodded. Truth be told, he wasn't all that
interested in the medical details. Then another thought struck him.
"Are you the person who called my mother a while back to say it was
a heart attack?"

"Yes, I am."

Who was this Will Henley?
Max
wondered.
Was he new to the valley?
Something about him made
Max think he had his shit in gear. Max was about to ask a few
probing questions when his mother emerged from the ICU, pulling a
doctor mask down from her face. Right behind her came Gabby DeLuca,
doing the same thing.

Max didn't know what it was—Gabby's slinky
purple party dress or her hair piled up on her head or
something—but it immediately struck him that here was a woman who
was actually looking better with age. She'd stayed thin, she had a
good tan, and he'd forgotten how killer her hazel eyes were. Hadn't
his mother told him about a year ago that she'd become assistant
winemaker, helping her dad? The thought marched across Max's brain
that Gabby DeLuca just might become one of his favorite
employees.

But she didn't even seem to notice him.
Instead she looked right at Henley. "Dr. Hearst says he's
stabilizing. The drug really seems to be working."

"That is great news, Gabby." Henley smiled
and rubbed her arm. She looked like she might burst into tears at
any moment. "He'll get through this, you'll see."

"I'm sure he will," Max said, and then Gabby
turned toward him.

"You finally got here," she said, which
immediately ticked him off. Here he was—just off a transoceanic
flight, going out of his way to check on her father's condition—and
the first words out of her mouth were accusatory.

He was about to deliver a pithy retort when
his mother cut him off by stepping in front of him and grabbing
both of Gabby's hands. "As I said before, Gabriella, please let me
know if there's anything at all I can do. I would be more than
willing to bring in a specialist from out of town, for
example."

"Thank you, Mrs. Winsted. I really appreciate
that."

"Your father is very dear to all of us at
Suncrest."

Gabby nodded. Again she looked like she might
start crying. "I have to say that at this point I am pretty
satisfied with the quality of care here."

Good
, Max thought. In his opinion, his
mother had been too quick with that offer. He knew only too well
who would end up paying for any out-of-town cardiologists.

"Please keep it in mind," his mother
insisted. Then she turned to Henley and took his hands. "You've
been extremely helpful, Will. I truly appreciate what you've done
tonight."

He just nodded and looked heroic.
Then
again
, Max thought,
who didn't in a tuxedo?
He looked
down at his own T-shirt and wrinkled cargo pants, which he'd been
wearing for twenty-four hours plus, and shook his head, more eager
to leave by the second.

"I'll call you in the morning to see how he's
doing," his mother told Gabby, "and don't you spend a minute
worrying about anything else." Then she nodded at Henley and that
was finally it. She turned and walked away, leaving Max to make his
own good-byes and trail after her like a pet dog.

When they arrived at the elevators, he jabbed
the DOWN button. "So Mr. DeLuca will make it?"

"It appears he will. Thank God." Her voice
was clipped.

I hope they don't sue us
, he thought.
The valley was full of hotshot lawyers who'd love nothing better
than to go after the Winsted family. An elevator opened up and he
and his mother got in. He decided to continue his PR campaign. "It
was really clever of you to offer to bring in a specialist."

But his mother shook her head as if she were
disgusted. "I didn't do it to be clever. I did it because Cosimo
DeLuca has been a valuable employee for as long as you've been
alive."

Man
. She made it sound like she cared
more about DeLuca than she did about her own son. Max shook his
head. She could be
cold
.

The elevator stopped and more people got in.
Max didn't speak again until he and his mother walked out on the
first floor. Then, "I suppose this means he could be out of
commission for a while."

"I would imagine at least through midsummer.
I intend to ask Gabby to take over as lead winemaker while he
convalesces," his mother informed him, which stopped Max dead in
his tracks on the hospital's shiny green linoleum floor. Nearby at
reception, a woman giggled at a security guard leaning toward her
over the counter.

"Don't you think that's
my
decision to
make? After all, I'm running Suncrest now."

He found his mother right in front of his
nose almost before he saw her turn around. "What makes you think
that?" Her voice was low and cold and unlike anything Max had ever
heard out of her before. "You will run Suncrest when
I
say
you will run Suncrest. Your behavior tonight has been beyond
abominable. I have half a mind to go right back upstairs and tell
Will Henley I've decided to sell."

She stopped then, and Max had to say he was
glad she did, because he couldn't believe what he had just heard.
''
Sell
? Who the hell is this Will Henley, anyway?"

"He's an investor from San Francisco. With a
firm called GPG. And I have to tell you that I am a lot higher on
him right now than I am on you."

Then she turned her back on him and walked
out. Max watched the big sliding doors part and her sweep through,
a group of orderlies splitting in two to get out of her way. It was
like watching Moses part the Red Sea.

What did she mean, sell? Didn't she
understand that it was his
right
to run Suncrest? To inherit
it and to run it? He was the only heir, for Christ's sake!

Max imagined a world in which his mother sold
Suncrest. It made him feel as marooned as if the 747 that had flown
him home from Paris had crash-landed on a desert island and left
him as the only survivor. His heart began to pound and for a moment
he felt like he was the one suffering cardiac arrest. He was hot,
and scared, and wanted only to sit down and catch his breath.

But that was the last thing he could do.
Because if he wanted any chance of bringing his mother back around,
he'd better not leave her standing outside in the cold.

Saturday, midmorning. Gabby stood in
Suncrest's Rosemede vineyard, holding a walkie-talkie in one hand
and a cell phone in the other, its caller on hold. Fog lingered
here on the valley floor, enveloping her in a chill gauzy mist. She
lifted the walkie-talkie to her mouth and pressed TALK.

"Felix, I'm halfway down row sixteen in
Rosemede and I don't see anything." No mildew on the vines, no rot,
no parasites. One of the field workers thought he'd seen evidence
of a pest, but apparently he hadn't. "Anything in Calhoun?"

A beat later Felix's voice blared back, rough
with static. "I think we're gonna have to spray here. We got some
sort of mite. Not too bad, though."

She shook her head. The vines were so at the
mercy of Mother Nature, which meant Gabby was, as well. A winemaker
lived and died by the quality of her fruit. But the threats were
many and varied. If it wasn't insects or cutworms, it was gophers
or rabbits or deer. A virus or a fungal disease. A killing frost in
spring, or a heat spike in summer, or a too heavy rain. Or, God
forbid, flooding.

This time of year, the grapes were the size
of peppercorns and as hard as bullets. Soon they would begin to
swell and soften and color. Their sugar level would rise, and birds
would become the next threat.

Gabby's scientist's soul loved the year
in-year out tending of the grapevines. The routine, the order, the
predictability. Yet every year was slightly different from the year
before: no two were exactly alike. They were the same enough that
she knew what she was getting, different enough that it stayed
interesting.

"You want me to come help?" she asked
Felix.

"I got Pepe with me. You go have your talk
with Mrs. Winsted."

I'd rather spray the fields
. But
"10-4," she said, then switched the walkie-talkie for the cell and
pushed HOLD. "You still there, Cam?"

She waited. Nothing. Her sister had hung up.
And there was no way to reach her, as she'd been forced to use a
pay phone at the hospital. Gabby stowed her cell and headed for the
Jeep she'd abandoned at the vineyard's edge.

What a difference 36 hours made. How light
her heart now felt. After those first horrible hours, the news
about her father had all been good.
He's responding to
commands
, Dr. Hearst said.
He's breathing fine so we can
take out the tube
. Most likely her father would be moved out of
ICU that very night, to something called the telemetry unit. She
wasn't sure what that was, but she knew the relocation was a good
sign.

With Cam at the hospital with Lucia and their
mom, Gabby was free to spend some time at Suncrest. Where she was
doing two jobs—her own and her father's.

She hopped into her little ragtop
Jeep—impossibly dirty as always, as it spent most of its time on
mud-packed roads—and started the half-mile return trek to the
winery. She wished she could put off going to see Mrs. W. What
could she want? To bring in a new winemaker to replace her father?
Or was it something about Max?

Gabby bumped the Jeep slowly along, worried
what Ava Winsted might have up her cashmere sleeve. But those
ruminations didn't prevent her mind from soon spinning in a
different direction.

Would Will Henley call again? The other night
after Mrs. W and Max had left the hospital, Will had also said his
good nights. But he'd taken her cell number and actually called it
later that very day. He'd asked after her father and wanted to hear
all the medical details. Then . . . that was it.

What? What did she expect? For him to call
every day?