A Taste of Sake Read online

  Books by Heather Heyford

  A Taste of Sake

  A Taste of Sauvignon

  A Taste of Merlot

  A Taste of Chardonnay

  A TASTE OF SAKE

  The Napa Wine Heiresses

  Heather Heyford

  LYRICAL SHINE

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Heather Heyford

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Rapid Fire Q&A with Heather Heyford

  Recipe for Crème Brulee

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  My father would have been pleased to know that

  his relentless insistence on proper grammar at the

  supper table paid off. Dad, I dedicate this book to

  your memory.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My gratitude goes first and foremost to my editor, Esi Sogah, who has the talent of immediately zoning in on the flaws in my manuscripts and tactfully advising me what to do about them. I’m fortunate to have all the professionals at Kensington Publishing behind me. And to Sarah E. Younger, shaking her pom-poms on the sidelines. I recommend that everyone get a literary agent—even if you have no intention of ever writing anything!

  To Art, thanks for putting up with an absent-minded artist and for being my biggest supporter.

  Thanks to Chef Elizabeth Robison at Harrisburg Area Community College for welcoming me into her pastry-making class . . . especially, for sharing the delicious results. To Susie and Lizzie at Ciao! Bakery—where the breads for Bricco, Harrisburg’s only DiRoNA, Wine Spectator, and Santé magazine award-winning restaurant, are baked, too—for the baguettes lesson. Pastry Chef Cassandra Callahan, I appreciate you giving your permission.

  I promised my devoted reader and friend, Kim McLain, I’d put her dog in a book. Kim, give Taylor a pat from me.

  Last, to my readers, my sincere thanks for your continuing support. Every book you buy, every positive review, is appreciated more than you could possibly know. Stay in touch at HeatherHeyford.com.

  Dear Reader:

  If you’re already familiar with Chardonnay, Merlot, and Sauvignon St. Pierre, you may think you know The Napa Wine Heiresses. But those stories belonged to Char, Meri, and Savvy. The book you’re now reading is Sake’s tale to tell. Be prepared to be surprised!

  I grew up in a series of U.S. military installations both in the States and abroad, which was kind of like living in a revolving door. Picture a jumble of American kids—already diverse, by definition—being taught the rules of American English by Department of Defense teachers during the day, then butchering French verbs after school in an effort to communicate with the locals. The universal desire of kids to simply have a friend to play with took precedence over our differences.

  That was the start of my fascination with other cultures.

  Researching A Taste of Sake, I stuck a toe into the waters of traditional Asian civilization. I learned about kanji, the adopted Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese writing system, for Sake’s tattoos . . . and fell in love with the gentle mode of expression of Eastern philosophy—for example, “not seeing is a flower.” (For the meaning of that enchanting phrase, read on.) I also learned which birthdays are considered especially lucky.

  Just as fun, I got to attend a college pastry-making class and visit behind the scenes of a real bakery to watch how baguettes are made, so that I could write accurately about Sake’s love of baking!

  Just as you embraced her more privileged sisters, I hope that you will accept Sake in all her awesomeness, the way she begged to be written.

  All my best,

  Heather Heyford

  Prologue

  “The farm boy and the heiress.” That was the phrase whispered among the out-of-towners during the long wait for the wedding ceremony to begin. And that’s exactly what it looked like on the surface as Esteban Morales, deltoids threatening to bust out of his shoulder seams, led Sauvignon St. Pierre, the epitome of elegance with her auburn hair pulled back to accent her oval face, down the grassy aisle toward a pergola dripping with wisteria, where they were to pledge their vows.

  The reality was a little more complicated. True, the bride had been born into one of California’s wealthiest wine families. But when it came to substance . . . character . . . call it what you will—the immigrant Morales truck farmers had it all over the St. Pierre dynasty. Every Napan here knew it, but not one dared utter it out loud.

  When Bill Diamond got the phone call inviting him to the Domaine St. Pierre estate on this late June afternoon, he had no idea what this affair was all about. Figured it was one of Xavier St. Pierre’s summer galas . . . a high point of the summer social calendar. As sometime real estate agent to Chardonnay and Merlot St. Pierre, Bill was pleasantly surprised to find he’d made the cut.

  Then to find out that this was a wedding—of St. Pierre’s oldest daughter, no less? Even cooler. Bill didn’t even mind the hour-long delay in the start of the ceremony. How could anyone complain, when St. Pierre kept the wine flowing freely? Bill passed the time making new acquaintances. No such thing as a shy successful Realtor.

  St. Pierre knew how to throw a party, that’s for sure. Star-studded crowd—was that a Mondavi over there?—and live music and flowers everywhere you looked. Butlered hors d’oeuvres passed from the moment the first guest arrived. Beneath the pergola, a wine barrel served as a makeshift altar. Then again, what else would you expect but a blatant tribute to Dionysus? The god of wine had been good to Xavier St. Pierre. Very good.

  Bill was seated in the second row on the bride’s side of the aisle. The lady with the big pink hat in a place of honor in the front row must be a close family friend. St. Pierre’s wife was long gone, killed years ago in a car accident. Every time Bill heard the barely disguised envy in the valley folks’ muttering that the St. Pierre heiresses had it all, it stirred up a rogue urge to rush to their defense. Those people seemed to conveniently forget the SPs had been raised without a mother’s loving hand. Given his own, hands-on mom, Bill Diamond couldn’t imagine growing up motherless.

  The wedding party now in position, the music stopped. Three members of the string quartet tucked their instruments under their arms and the cellist slid his left hand down the neck of his cello, his bow hand coming to rest on his knee.

  The priest waited pointedly for the guests to quiet, then put on a practiced smile and said to the couple, “Please hold hands.”

  Game time. So why wasn’t Savvy mooning back at Esteban during this pivotal moment? Why was she peering out into the distance, her smooth brow pinched with concern?

  And where was Xavier St. Pierre—father of the bride?

  A faint chug-chug-chug entered into Bill’s conscio
usness. Damn leaf blowers. He realized he’d filtered the engine sound out until that moment, to focus on the spectacle in front of him. Some of the ritzier neighborhoods were enacting bans on lawn machines on weekends. Bill was all for that.

  But that was no leaf blower. This sound was coming from overhead. That’s when he saw the chopper, the size of an acorn, coming up from the south.

  No big deal. Any second now, its course would take it veering away.

  But as the seconds rat-a-tat-tatted by, the helo, instead of veering away, seemed to be making a beeline for the winery. When even the groom glanced around to look, a polite tittering rippled through the crowd.

  The racket grew, eclipsing the sermon so that Bill only caught every other word: “. . . love . . . trust . . . marriage a sacred oath . . .”

  The priest projected his voice for all it was worth. “Esteban Morales, do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold—”

  “I do,” Esteban broke in, loud and clear. Following another backward glance, Esteban’s right foot turned almost imperceptibly in the direction of the sheltering mansion.

  Bill Diamond kept a discreet eye on the sky, while, around him, the murmuring swelled into nervous laughter. A head turned here, a chin pointed there. Something about the chopper’s trajectory didn’t seem right. It wasn’t flying in a straight line, or at a consistent altitude. It swung from side to side, rising and falling at random.

  “Sauvignon, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded hus—”

  “I do.” From where he sat, Bill read her lips.

  The helicopter drew closer and closer, larger and larger, a big-eyed bug. The tension grew. Christ, why was it rocking like that—as if the pilot were drunk at the controls? A chill went up Bill’s spine. Was he actually going to bring it down here? Right here, in the middle of the wedding?

  The tall cypress trees surrounding the estate began to sway and pitch. Bill’s muscles bunched in anticipation. Glancing skyward, the priest raised his voice as loud as he could without letting panic seep in: “ThenbythepowervestedinmebytheChurchofAlmightyGodandthe StateofCaliforniaIherebypronouceyoumanandwife. Run!”

  The groom grabbed his bride’s arm and tugged her toward the protection of the house, but Savvy’s feet were rooted to the ground, her mouth hanging open in horror. Not wasting a second, Esteban swept her up—piece of cake for a man of his size—and took off at a tear.

  “Go!” shouted Bill, hand on the back of the man standing next to him. Women screamed and men yelled under the now-deafening machine-gun drone of the chopper.

  “He’s coming down!”

  “Get out of the way!”

  Chairs toppled like bowling pins. The heavy woman seated next to Bill was knocked to the ground. He stopped and yanked her up by the arm.

  “He’s not going to make it!” somebody cried.

  “Get up!” yelled Bill to the woman. “Come on!”

  The woman panted, wincing in pain. “I can’t! My ankle!”

  He hauled her to her feet. “Put your arm around my waist!” Burdening himself with her was going to be the death of him, but he couldn’t just run away and leave her to burn up in the imminent fireball.

  “It’s going to crash!” said the lady in a wobbly voice, some perverted fascination making her look back, slowing them up even more.

  Bill jerked her onward toward an outbuilding. “Keep going! Don’t look back!”

  This was happening.

  Are planes always this loud? This was Sake St. Pierre’s very first flight. A half hour—the time it took to fly from San Francisco to Napa—was hardly enough time to get acclimated to the intense whop-whop-whop of the helicopter engine, even with her earbuds in and her music cranked up.

  And if it was loud to her ears, imagine how it felt to poor Taylor, her little wire-haired terrier on her lap, panting like a mad dog.

  Sake bent to coo into Taylor’s ear. “It’s okay, baby cakes.”

  Taylor licked Sake on the cheek, then resumed panting, looking around nervously while Sake did her best to continue to console her, stroking her under her chin.

  She glanced over at the pilot in his bulky headgear, starched white shirt worn open at the neck, and sport coat. Back when she was little, she hadn’t noticed Papa’s refined style. Now, as a woman, she saw that her father was one of the most sophisticated men she’d ever seen, even for an old guy. But the fact that she was the blood of Xavier St. Pierre wasn’t uppermost in her mind right now. There were too many other firsts she was dealing with this weekend. Getting sprung from a jail cell only to fly off the very same day to a fancy wine country wedding. Meeting her glam sisters face-to-face. Her pulse thrummed with a queasy mixture of anticipation and foreboding. Once they landed, her plan was to hover in the background and observe. Shouldn’t be hard. All the attention would be on the bride and groom.

  Her father’s right hand left the control stick to point out ahead. “Can you see the house?” he yelled over the engine. “She is the white one with the pool.”

  Now that they were getting close, the imminent wedding of her sister was having a calming effect on Papa, thank God. Or at least distracting him from his earlier disgust with the way he’d found Sake, his youngest daughter, after all these years.

  She craned her neck. The whole front of the chopper, even under her feet, was glass. Everywhere she looked, the undulating valley was combed with rows of vines, leading out to the low mountain ranges on either side. “Looks like corrugated cardboard.”

  Papa smiled smugly, the master of his domain.

  Sake tugged at the hem of her black mini, admiring its shiny sequins yet again. Papa hadn’t even blinked at the price. But at a hundred eighty-nine dollars, it was far and away the most expensive thing she had ever owned. Yet another first.

  Suddenly the chopper bucked and swayed, leaving her stomach back there somewhere. “Whoa!” Her hands left prints on the glass.

  “Hang on,” said Papa coolly, as if this flying snow globe were no more dangerous than the roller coaster at Six Flags.

  But this—this was no amusement park ride.

  Bill Diamond managed to get the heaving wedding guest around the back of the shed—not much in the way of shelter, but better than nothing—where she melted onto the grass. Ignoring his own advice, he peered around the corner. Directly above the altar, the helicopter’s engine sputtered, died, revived, and sputtered again. It shuddered and swung in midair for a surreal moment, like a yoyo that had lost its momentum.

  Tucking back, Bill crouched and covered his head with his arms, steeling himself for the impact.

  There was a dull thud, a sharp crack. The earth shuddered beneath his feet. Next to him, the woman whimpered. And then there was only the sound of the cypress branches, swooshing softly back into place.

  Bill peeked around the shed. The lawn was in a shambles. Chairs upended, a portion of the pergola sagging all the way to the ground, floral arrangements broken apart and scattered. In the middle of it all sat the helicopter, leaning sharply to the right.

  The rotors were still. There was no smoke, no fire. No twisted metal.

  From somewhere in the distance came a faint sob. From somewhere else, a masculine voice intoned, “Call 911!”

  Gradually, the surroundings came back to life. Guests crept tentatively out of the far corners of the winery grounds and buildings, brushing themselves off, retrieving lost hats and heels. Esteban Morales sprinted from the mansion to the crash site, followed by his new wife, who ignored his shouted pleas to stay back.

  Merlot dashed out of the building housing the blending lab, into the arms of her relieved boyfriend.

  “You okay?” Bill asked the trembling woman next to him. At her nod, he jogged toward the wreckage to see if he could be of assistance.

  The chopper’s right landing skid lay some distance away, snapped off in the impact, which explained why the cabin was leaning so hard. But wait—there was movement behind the reflective windscreen.
The pilot’s door cracked open. Out on Dry Creek Road, a siren wailed. And then, out of the chopper climbed Xavier St. Pierre. He ducked beneath the blades and zipped around the front of the chopper.

  “Bon après-midi!” he called, waving to Bill and the stunned semicircle of people fast accumulating, as if wrecking a small aircraft in the midst of his daughter’s wedding were no big deal.

  While Bill watched, St. Pierre gave his passenger’s door a yank. The bottom edge of it scraped into the turf, building up a dam of dirt. He yanked again, using both hands this time, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “C’mon.” Bill gestured toward the onlookers. “Give him a hand.” He and a couple of the other, younger men managed to push the chopper upright, holding it there until Xavier got the door open.

  A female passenger fell face first onto the lawn and landed spread eagle, followed by a graffiti-covered backpack.

  “She’s clear,” called Bill. Carefully, the men set the chopper back down.

  The bride and her sisters ventured closer to the victim. Everyone knew St. Pierre was a player. Was this his latest fling? The girl just lay there, unmoving.

  Bill knelt next to her, then turned to the rubberneckers. “Is there a doctor here? A nurse?” Now would be a good time for one to step up. But all he saw was a wall of St. Pierre’s cronies—vintners, politicians, entertainers—staring back at him. None of them were any better equipped than a Realtor when it came to caring for a helicopter crash victim.

  His gaze swung back to the person on the ground.

  “Don’t touch her,” yelled a woman on the fringe, cell phone glued to her ear. “There’s an ambulance on its way.”