Читать книгу One Fine Day - Janice Sims - Страница 9

On Saturday afternoon at five, the bookstore’s closing time, Sara was ringing up the purchases of a last-minute customer when Rosaura Ledoux came through the door. Sara had met Rosaura a year ago during harvest. Rosaura had patiently shown her how to snip the grapes from the vine without damaging the parent vine. Since then, Rosaura had joined the Wednesday Night Book Club there at the bookstore, and on occasion Sara babysat Rosaura and Claude’s children, Claude, Jr. and Katrina.

Rosaura went to check out the new arrivals on the shelves while Sara finished. But as soon as the customer left she approached Sara. “Claude doesn’t want me to interfere but I think you ought to know that they found root rot in the vines and Mr. Bryant is terribly worried. I wouldn’t mention it but you know I sometimes help with the housework at the Hacienda and I overheard Mr. Bryant talking to his sister and he said he had not said a word to you about it. And he wasn’t planning to.”

Sara was stunned to hear that Jason hadn’t wanted to confide in her.

Rosaura, a petite woman in her late thirties with smooth chocolate skin, gray eyes, and beautiful long jet-black hair, wavy hair that she wore down her back, smiled at Sara encouragingly. “Men can be so stubborn,” she said.

“And bullheaded,” Sara added.

She felt like crying. If Jason didn’t want her to know something as vital as this then maybe he was emotionally distancing himself from her. Formerly, he’d confided in her about things as mundane as choosing a new label for a variety of wine. Now, when the entire vineyard could be in jeopardy, he was leaving her out of the loop!

But she couldn’t rush over there accusing him of wanting to hurt her by keeping her in the dark. That wouldn’t be very mature.

Besides, she had her pride.

“What are they doing about it?” she calmly asked Rosaura.

“He has an appointment to see a plant pathologist at U.C. Davis in two weeks.”

“Two weeks!” Sara cried, disgusted. “The damn rot could spread to the rest of the vines in two weeks’ time.”

“That’s the earliest they can see him.”

Sara knew Jason must be climbing the walls by now. He had reluctantly come back to run the winery and he wasn’t yet confident in his ability to make it work. He was probably riddled with a whole new set of doubts.

She had to see him. But she couldn’t let him know she knew what was going on.

“Rosaura, let’s pretend you didn’t tell me a thing, shall we?”

“That’s fine with me,” said Rosaura, smiling. “Claude would not be happy if he found out I’d done the exact opposite of what he told me to do.”

“He won’t hear it from me,” Sara assured her. “And, thank you!”

“We girls have to stick together,” Rosaura said with a smile before leaving.

The store was empty now except for Sara. She had let Frannie and Elizabeth go home early. Frannie to start fretting over what she could possibly wear to Melissa’s party that could qualify as sexy but would not make Erik Sutherland’s tongue hang out of his mouth. And Elizabeth had plans to go to a movie with one of the other bookstore employees, Linda Ramirez. Sara was both surprised and delighted when Elizabeth had told her she was going out. It was proof that she was coming out of herself more every day and was making a real effort to be happy.

Sara wanted to rush over to the Hacienda and offer comfort to Jason.

However, she made herself go through all of the steps of closing the bookstore for the day in order to give herself time to think about her actions before she did something she would regret.

An hour later, she left the bookstore, locking the door behind her, and hurried to the bank down the street to deposit the day’s receipts. From the bank, she went home, showered, put on her robe, then sat down at the computer on the desk in her bedroom.

She went to the organization’s Web site and went through the profiles of her sisters, looking for a plant pathologist. Whatever that was! One of the advantages of being a member of Aminatu’s Daughters was the rich sources of life experiences the other sisters had to offer. Whenever a sister was in need of help, all she had to do was ask and she received.

This was the first time she’d had to ask any of her sisters for a favor, but if there was indeed a plant pathologist in the sisterhood, she was going to request her help.

It took a few minutes, but she finally came up with a name: Dr. Willow Quigley.

Unfortunately she worked at a university in the Pacific Northwest. She wasn’t right there in California. Sara sent her a message explaining her predicament, anyway.

At that precise moment, at the Hacienda, Jason was standing under the spray in the shower, letting it rain down on his head. In the last twenty-four hours he’d castigated himself over and over for not being more thorough. When his parents had handed him the reins, they had specifically told him he needed to read the winery’s log books. His parents kept a record of every important occurrence on the farm. There was a book for every year the winery had been in operation, dating back to the sixties. Last night, he hadn’t been able to sleep, and he’d found an entry about his parents finding root rot in the southern field. His father had made a note in his careful handwriting: “We believe we got it all, but you can never be sure with root rot. Be sure to keep an eye on the southern vineyard. If it comes back, we’ll have to be more aggressive.”

But his father hadn’t said what kind of root rot they’d discovered in 1978. Maybe there had been no plant pathologists to name the culprit back then.

Jason shampooed, and rinsed. His hair was cut short and close to his head. Black and naturally wavy, he usually just washed it, dried it with a towel, put a little moisturizer on it, and he was set. Tonight, he didn’t even bother with the moisturizer.

Who cared if he had soft hair?

For one selfish moment, he thought about Sara. She used to sit him down and oil his scalp, massaging the oil in with her long, talented fingers. He trembled slightly. Was the act of oiling his scalp as sensual as he remembered? Or did he just miss her so much every memory had become a tactile experience bordering on the erotic?

Yeah, he missed her that much.

He should call her and tell her about the root rot.

After he’d dried off, he grabbed his robe, wrapped it around him, tied the belt, and sat on the bed. He picked up the phone to call Sara. He put it down again. The clock on the nightstand read 7:32. What did Sara do without him on a Saturday night?

Go out to dinner with friends? Go to a movie with friends? Soak in the tub? Read a good book? She was a voracious reader. She had almost as many books on her shelves at home as she did in her bookstore, the nutty woman.

God, he missed her.

But if he called her she would consider it a coup in their war of wills. Yes, she would count this battle as her victory.

He didn’t care.

He dialed her home number. The answering machine clicked into operation after the fourth ring. Sara’s voice said, “This is Sara. I’m unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

Frannie’s voice then chimed in with, “Hey, it’s Frannie. You know the drill. Leave the digits or don’t leave the digits. No skin off my nose!”

Jason didn’t leave a message for Sara. She would see that he’d phoned because his number would be on her caller ID.

He hung up the phone, and dialed her cell’s number.

Sara was standing at the front door of the Hacienda when her cell phone rang.

She rang the doorbell, then fished in her shoulder bag for the phone.

Jason walked to the front door with the cordless phone to his ear.

She said hello into the mouthpiece just as he swung the door open.

Sara wasn’t wearing anything special, just her favorite kicking-around clothes, a full, flowing long-sleeve cotton shirt in purple and her favorite button-fly jeans which she’d worn so much, they were the shape of her hourglass figure.

The jeans hung low on her hips, so her bellybutton was visible due to the fact that she’d left the last three buttons of the shirt unfastened.

Smiling at Jason, she closed her cell phone and put it in her shoulder bag.

Grinning back at her, Jason clicked off the cordless phone.

She stepped inside. Jason closed the door and turned to face her. He set the cordless phone on the foyer table. Sara dropped her bag into the chair beside the table.

The air was electric around them. They circled each other warily.

Jason spoke first. “I wanted to tell you that I missed you.”

“Okay, tell me.”

“I need you.”

“I thought you said you missed me, not needed me.” Her eyes danced with happiness.

“In my mind they’re one and the same.”

“I need you, too. Should we establish this night as neutral ground? Whatever we do tonight will not be used as ammunition in case of further fighting.”

Jason’s heart was pounding excitedly. His voice cracked when he said, “I agree to your terms.”

Sara smiled wider and said with a mischievous note to her voice, “Okay, what do you want to do tonight, play pinochle?”

Jason laughed, quickly closed the space between them and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Girl,” he said between kisses. “You drive me crazy!”

Kissing him back, Sara said, “Let’s not get into a debate about who drives whom crazier right now. I want you naked in two seconds flat.”

Jason opened his robe, untied the belt, and let it fall to the floor. “Done!”

His thick-lashed eyes swept over her body, daring her to match his boldness.

Sara sucked in air, released it and stood looking at him with her mouth open. She wasn’t about to get naked with all the living room blinds wide open.

She bent and picked up the robe. Handing it to him, she said, “I’d rather not give the Ledouxs an eyefull in case they’re looking up the hill tonight.” She turned and hurried to his bedroom where the curtains could be drawn and no one would be the wiser to anything that went on behind its walls.

Jason put the robe back on and followed.

Sara removed her shoes and began peeling off her clothes immediately upon entering his bedroom. She unbuttoned the shirt and Jason took over, pushing it off her smooth shoulders and pausing to kiss the side of her fragrant neck. She was wearing a scent that left her skin smelling faintly of a flower with a light head to it. Jason wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t quite place it, and he was thinking that he should be able to. He had a talent for wine and could discern the many underlying fragrances and tastes in a certain variety of wine. But this he couldn’t identify, possibly because it was combined with her own unique fragrance. It was confounding him.

“What’s that scent you’re wearing?” he asked. “It’s very sexy.”

“It’s something I bought at a fragrance shop in Santa Rosa. They’ll mix anything you want. It’s mainly gardenias with a few spices that I won’t name.”

Jason smiled as he licked her earlobe. “I’ll have to taste you, then, to find out what they are.”

The shirt was then hastily dispensed with and he turned his attention to the buttons on her jeans. The robe stood open all the while he was undressing her, and Sara enjoyed the view. A runner, Jason had a lean, muscular body, powerful leg and thigh muscles and wonderfully delineated calves. At six-one, he was four inches taller than Sara which was a near-perfect fit as far as she was concerned. She didn’t have to tiptoe too much to reach all the good parts and he was tall enough and powerful enough to make her feel protected, which she occasionally liked to feel. As a tall woman there weren’t that many men capable of making her feel that way.

Jason pulled the jeans down past her hips, gravity did the rest, and Sara stepped out of them. She stood before him now in just her panties and bra.

She pushed the robe off his shoulders and it fell to the floor.

Jason pulled her into his arms. He left her bra and panties on just to test how long he would be able to resist ripping them off her.

Sara’s hands were splayed on his back. Her body seemed to relax with the satisfaction of finally being this close to him. He also smelled delicious. It was just the soap he’d used in the shower, a spicy masculine scent that was probably used by millions of men, but she wasn’t in love with those men and no one could convince her that love didn’t do something to your olfactory senses. At the very least the sense of smell worked in conjunction with every other sense that lent itself to sexual arousal. Jason’s scent alone could awaken her sensory perception.

She sighed and threw her head back, offering him her neck. Jason rained kisses along the curve of her throat, then lower to her cleavage. All the while, his penis was thickening and lengthening until it pressed urgently against her crotch.

He moaned deep in his throat as pure pleasure began to course through him. Sara straightened and reached down, grasped his engorged penis and placed it between her thighs where she could feel it throbbing against her clitoris.

Jason reveled in the feel of her warm, moist sex. Their eyes met and held as he bent to kiss her mouth. As the kiss deepened, he thrust between her thighs. His penis grew harder and Sara’s movements became more urgent as the climax building inside of her gained momentum.

She didn’t want to climax in her panties, though, so she pushed him backward onto the bed. Jason smiled lazily as he lay on his back, his penis pointing straight in the air. He watched as Sara did a little striptease and a minute later her bra and panties lay on the floor next to the rest of her clothes.

“I take it you still keep the condoms in the top drawer?”

“Of course. Right next to that tape I made of us.”

“Don’t be funny. You’re never going to get me on tape, buddy, so quit hoping.”

She got a condom, opened it and straddled him. “So, you’d just as well be happy with the memories.” She rolled the condom onto his penis, and positioned it at the opening of her vagina. Jason pushed slightly, but she was tight, which he loved, and they both took their time as they gazed into each other’s eyes.

He reached up and simultaneously rolled her nipples between the forefinger and thumb of each of his hands. He loved the deep golden brown richness of her skin. In summer it took on an even darker golden tone underneath the medium brown hue. With her black glistening braids she looked like an African goddess born of the sun.

He yelled. While he’d been waxing poetic, his goddess had accepted him fully inside of her body and was riding him with abandon. Her nipples were distended, her eyes were closed in ecstasy and her thrusts were strong, rhythmic and relentless.

It took a minute for it to register in his fevered brain that he was no longer in control here. As if he’d ever been. Her vaginal muscles squeezed him and released him, bestowing on him such a riot of sensual gratification that all he could do was smile and roll with it.

Between intermittent kisses to his mouth, his chest, his chin, she took her fill of him and didn’t seem to be anywhere near being done with him. It was as if she was making up for the three weeks they had been apart.

Surprisingly, though, her movements were not frantic, as if release were her only goal. No, she moved slowly and luxuriously, as if she were relishing every thrust of his body inside of hers, as if nothing had ever been more fulfilling.