Just a Kiss: The Single Girls Wine Club (A Wine Country Romance #1) (10 page)

The hell with the cookies, the booth, the festival, and Jamie Santino.
Maneuvering around the table, she stormed out of the tent, marching directly toward the dance floor. She knew the odds were good that at least one of her roomies was boogie oogie oogeying.

Danica strutted and wiggled in the middle of the dance floor, Sarah threw her hands up over her head and crisscrossed her arms to get her attention. Mid mambo, Danica waved back, laughing and trying to keep her balance while shimmying lower and lower.

“Over here! C’mon Sarah!” Danica shouted and waved. Sarah surveyed the mass of sweaty dancers and spotted Juliet nearby, formally dancing with Lulu in what appeared to be a waltz.

Everyone at the gala seemed to be dancing. Sarah did another once-over and zeroed in on Manny dancing close, or rubbing more like it, against someone in a dark corner. She sighed.
So much for any more help tonight.

Danica waved and motioned Sarah to join her. Sarah shook her head back and forth, mouthing the word
no
and tried moving her off the dance floor using more sign language. The loud bass jangled her bones. She mouthed, “You-Come-Here,” flapped her arms and waited, but Danica didn’t budge. Sarah resorted to a begging pose, touching her hands together in prayer and mouthing, “Please?”

Danica stopped her mambo move and gave Sarah her full attention.
Houston, we have contact.
Drunk, solo mambo, dancing contact, but contact nonetheless.

Sarah continued the prayer pose. “Please? Pretty, please?” she hollered until Danica threw her hands up and walked off the floor.

Danica, completely drenched with sweat, put her hands on her hips. “What? What is it, Miss party pooper?” she yelled over the thump, da thump of the bass.

Sarah motioned Danica to follow her. “Let’s get away from the speakers,” she shouted leading the way back to the booth area. Her ears were ringing, and everything sounded muffled. “Jamie’s making out with Nikki and I’m out of here. I need someone to watch the booth,” she explained, a lot louder than she meant to and adjusted her volume. “Please help me. I need to leave.”

“What the hell are you saying, Sarah? Are you making this up?” Danica asked. “I danced with Michael and he says Jamie has it bad for you.”

When they approached the Vine Café booth, the Santino booth came into view.

“Shit.” Danica winced.

Jamie and Nikki had their backs to them, and their arms interlocked while they addressed fans and the press. From her angle, Sarah analyzed just how close they were standing. Jamie and Nikki were plastered together like double stick tape. Their body language read
couple
in any dialect.

Danica looked like the wind got knocked out of her. All the dance floor fun from seconds ago had vanished. “Whatever you need.” She followed Sarah to the booth.

Sarah blindly felt around the cool, dark grass for the purse she’d ditched. She found it and shook it, listening for the rattle of her keys.

“Thanks, Danica.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “If you could just pass out the rest of these cookies, and ask Manny to break down, we’re golden. Should I find Lulu? Think she’s ready to leave?”

“If she wants to stay or you can’t find her, just go. I’ll take her home,” Danica said.

“Thank you.” Sarah wrapped her arms around her.

Danica held her and kissed her cheek. “I got your back, baby. I’ll see you at home later.”

Sarah headed to the same location she’d found Danica to look for Lulu if she wanted to go home. Next to the dance floor and the head throbbing bass, she monitored the crowd for a striking brunette in a sequined scarf and petite older women in a sweater dress, waltzing. They couldn’t be too hard to find.

A few of her loyal customers waved from the dance floor, and Sarah gave her best shot at mimicking the lighthearted, happy vibe of the night, waving back. But she couldn’t hold the smile she’d plastered on much longer. She breathed deeply, knowing the awful night would be over if she could just find Lulu.

Giving up on ever finding her in the crowd, Sarah scanned for an exit to hightail it out. She felt two familiar arms reach around her from behind and was pulled into a tight, sexy smelling body.

Jamie rumbled in her ear, “Now where do you think you’re going?” He nestled his lips into the back of her neck for a suck while swaying her hips with his hands to the beat of the music.

Sarah shrugged from his grip and spun around. “It’s just been a long night,” she yelled over the music. “Have you seen Lulu or Juliet?”

“You’re not leaving?” He tugged her away from the music. “I thought you were going to come by and meet my family? What happened?”

“It just got very busy…we were swamped and then, uh, I got tired. All that baking last night I guess,” Sarah said.

“So you were going to leave without saying goodbye?”

Sarah checked out his scrunched forehead and looked down. “Well, it seemed like you were pretty busy.”

“Not too busy for you, Sarah,” Jamie said. “I’d never be too busy for you.”

She felt his gaze burning her forehead and knew if she lifted her lashes, she’d never leave. “I have to find Lulu. I’m drained.”

“What’s going on Sarah?” he asked. “Something’s up. I can feel it.”

“Jamie, can’t I just be tired? I’ve had a long day and just want to get out of here. That’s all,” she said. “Can’t a girl just go home and have a bath?”

“Okay, now I know something’s up. Is it Nikki?” He didn’t get an answer. “It’s Nikki, right?” He stepped closer. “You’re not jea— oh my god. You’re not jealous of Nikki?”

“No,” Sarah said. “Not jealous, exactly.” She fixated on a clump of grass. “It’s just that I…that you…seemed very busy…with work.”

“You.
Are
. Jealous. Come on, Sarah, admit it.”

“You. Are. Wrong,” she said.

Jamie laughed. “Oh, I’m lovin’ this…”

Sarah looked at the grass clump again. “Stop it, Jamie.”

“This is great!”

“What kind of a sick guy are you?” she asked. “If I were jealous, which I’m not, why would you be happy? Is this some twisted Hollywood game to you?”

Jamie’s smile fell. “Sarah, if you were jealous, it would mean that you care about me, and that's why I’d be happy. There’s absolutely nothing happening between me and Nikki Lean.”

Jamie turned to a tall man in a suit running toward them, and his demeanor changed instantly.

“Sorry to interrupt. May I speak to you for a moment?” the man asked all business.

Jamie put his hand on the small of her back. “Sarah, this is Simon Francis, our director.”

“Well, Ms. Dupont.” Simon extended his hand. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you. It’s so very generous of you to lend your expertise to our film. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Sarah said.

“If you’d excuse us for a moment?” Simon asked motioning Jamie to follow him a few feet away.

Sarah couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but it seemed important. Jamie’s face tightened, and he nodded his head in agreement with whatever Simon Francis told him. They were wrapping it up when another group of three well-dressed, stern looking men approached. They were tugging and grappling with something in between them. Sarah couldn’t see clearly because plaza trees and party guests blocked her view.

Jamie moved toward Sarah. At the same time, the “something” broke away from the three men, half stumbling to catch up to Jamie, although he had his back to the commotion behind him.

“Jamie I think Nikki needs you.” Sarah pointed.

He sighed, frowning up at the sky when he saw Nikki. Turning to Sarah, he said, “I’m so sorry. Nikki has had too much to drink. The press is here, and Simon doesn’t want her to stay. She can’t drive, so I need to take her home.”

Nikki tripped and grabbed hold of Jamie. She leaned hard against him and then clung on like Saran Wrap.

“Yuu don mine if he derwives duo yuuuu?” Nikki batted her eyelashes at her. Nikki’s mascara had smeared since the last time she had seen her, and her dress had dropped a good two inches on her protruding chest.

Sarah shifted her weight. “No, not a problem.”

Jamie reached around Nikki and struggled to hold her upright.

Sarah clutched the shoulder strap of her purse and headed toward the dance floor for one more look before she left. Cucumber would be the bubble bath scent of the night.

The sun tried to break through a typical October gray haze. Sarah stared out the kitchen doors mesmerized by the swaths of rust, orange and burnt green colors of the vineyards winding their way up and around the hills surrounding the villa.

The front page of the Sonoma Register lay open. Its plastic bag, still wet from morning dew, puddled on the table next to the untouched bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

Sarah sipped her coffee, never taking her eyes off the beautiful fall portrait in front of her. The muffled sounds of Danica’s blow-dryer came down the hall and Juliet plodded into the kitchen. Sarah didn’t have to move, she knew the sound Juliet’s slippers made when she didn’t lift her feet. Sarah listened to the rustle of the cabinet door, the clinks of the coffee cups, and the lift and pour of the coffee pot. She waited for the shuffle, shuffle, shuffle sound against the hardwood floor coming closer to the table.

“Mornin’,” Juliet said barely audibly.

“Morning.” Sarah kept her stare focused out the window. She heard the rustling of the newspaper and waited for Juliet to say something. A full two minutes passed without another word.

Juliet drew a deep sigh. “You wanna talk about it?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“You might feel better if you talk about it.”

Sarah got up from the table and put her coffee cup in the sink. “No thanks, I won’t.” She turned from the sink and Juliet picked up the paper and grimaced.

Juliet’s eyes got big as they focused on the enormous picture of Jamie and Nikki smiling nose to nose at last night’s Harvest Festival. Sarah knew the picture’s headline and caption by heart because she had read it thirty-five times before Juliet came into the kitchen.

Under the headline
Happy to Be Happily in Love
was the caption
Jamie Santino and Nikki Lean Take Time Off Together in Sonoma
.

Juliet scrolled down the page and must’ve found the tiny picture of her and Jamie at the Vine, with the caption
Jamie Santino Gets A Hand From A Local Merchant,
because she grimaced again.

The waft of clean shower and vanilla spice scent preceded Danica’s entrance into the kitchen by a fraction of a second. Her boots clicked briskly across the room to the coffee pot.

“Morning Chickens,” she said. “Fun last night, huh?” She came to the table and stopped midway by a chair when she spotted the paper.

Leaning close to Juliet, she glared. “Just what in the hell is this?” She grabbed the newspaper.

Sarah left the room.

Jamie Santino looked at his cell phone for about the fiftieth time that morning, hoping to hear from Sarah. He waited for the espresso machine to sputter java into a cup and wanted to stay behind the counter and avoid all the ruckus going on in the café but couldn’t. His fans kept badgering him for pictures and autographs, the very last thing he felt like doing.

The temperature of the Vine Café had spiked at least ten degrees in the last two hours from the body heat of the large crowd. Customers filled every seat in the house and the lines for takeout streamed from the cash register out the front door.

He moved in front of the counter. “Sure, sure thing. I’ve got time,” Jamie said to the group of women waving a camera in front of him. He flashed a signature friendly smile, the one he used when he didn’t feel like engaging with fans and stepped closer to the women. His eyelids felt heavy because of how late Nikki Lean had kept him up last night.

“Oh, and do you mind taking your beanie off?” An attractive blonde asked, “And the apron, could you take that off too?” She winked at her friends.

“Sure, no problem.” Jamie removed his hat, shook his head and ran his hands through his hair.

All three girls simultaneously sighed.

Manny walked by holding a tray of dirty dishes and stopped. He put the tray down on the table and raised an eyebrow. “Just another day at the office, huh bro?”

Jamie smirked at him.

“Stand in the middle, Jamie,” the brunette commanded. “Not there, in between Kimberly and Christine.” As if Jamie knew which girl was Kimberly, or Christine for that matter.

“Yeah. That’s good.” The brunette scurried into place while another customer took the photo.

“One more? Do you mind, Jamie?” the customer taking the shot asked.

Jamie shrugged and gave a half-hearted smile. “Sure. Where do you want me?”

The customer grinned and handed her camera to the brunette. “Just stay right where you are.”

When the mini fan fest ended, Jamie put his beanie and apron on and got back behind the counter. Manny had been covering his espresso orders.

“Thanks, I got this now,” Jamie said.

"Living the dream, man,” Manny said from the side of his mouth.

“What?”

“I mean, you’ve had at least twenty babes beg to have their pictures taken with you in the last hour,” Manny said.

“They do that with zoo animals too,” Jamie said and then called out, “dry cap, extra shot!”

“Whatever, dude. Cover the front, would ya? I’m gonna check on the staff.” Manny headed to the kitchen.

Jamie cranked the steam nozzle and frothed another cup. He’d gotten pretty good at pumping the orders fast and adding personal touches. Every one of his cappuccinos had an artistic flourish that he’d doodled in the foam. That morning, he'd perfected hearts and every woman in the place wanted one.

Despite what Manny said about living the dream, Jamie didn’t see it that way. The Vine Café was the dream world. Here, ‘real life’ beauty wasn't created by lighting and makeup and by regurgitating a screen writer’s words. Here, the real, ‘real life’ came into focus every minute and smiles were exchanged in ‘real’ time over coffee or lunch, just the way Sarah had created it. There were no retakes. There was only one take to make it count.