Taste (Cloverleigh Farms, #7)(17)

The girl beamed. “That’s how old I am!”

“So you’ve known each other a while,” Fiona remarked, looking back and forth between us.

“All our lives,” I confirmed.

“Wait. Were you, like, a couple?” Hadley narrowed her eyes at Ellie.

“No,” she said emphatically.

“We grew up together,” I explained. “Our mothers are best friends, but I’ll admit I was pretty terrible to Ellie when we were kids.”

“Is that why she threw the pies in your face?” Hadley asked.

Ellie and I exchanged a look. “You’d have to ask her that,” I said.

“I’ll ask her,” said one of the other women at the table with a laugh. “Why did you throw so many pies in his face?”

Ellie cleared her throat. “I threw the pies in his face because I was mad at him for dunking me so many times.”

“Dunking you?” The guy with the bow tie looked intrigued. “Okay, now we have to hear the rest.”

Ellie reluctantly told the story about the dunk tank and the pie-throwing at the Cherry Festival, and it was the longest anyone let her speak all night. They were roaring by the end, and at first I was glad I’d brought up the incident—then I looked at her face, and I knew she was furious with me.

“Oh, that’s priceless.” The woman who’d encouraged Ellie to tell the story wiped tears. “I can just picture you in that sash and crown, soaking wet and steaming mad.”

“Good thing you got him back.” The guy wearing glasses smiled at Ellie and lifted his glass in a toast. “This Riesling is divine, by the way, but I think my favorite wine tonight was the pét-nat.”

A little of her sparkle reappeared. “Thank you. That’s one of my favorites too. I’m really interested in natural wines, and I convinced my dad and our head winemaker to try a pét-nat last year.”

“Now what’s the difference between a pét-nat and other kinds of sparkling wine?” his partner asked. Then he smiled guiltily. “Sorry for the ignorant question.”

Ellie stood even taller, her smile genuine. “It’s not an ignorant question at all. Pét-nat is short for pétillant naturel, which is the original method of making sparkling wine. The process involves bottling and capping wine that’s not finished, allowing it to ferment in the bottle. It’s a little unpredictable, but it’s a really fun, refreshing, uncomplicated wine. We made ours from a hybrid grape called Melody, which was biodynamically farmed, grown without pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals—”

Hadley blew a raspberry. “No more about wine. Mom, I think you should put Gianni on the cover of Tastemaker. Don’t you all think she should?”

Everyone at the table spoke up enthusiastically, and Ellie deflated like a week-old balloon.

“I mean, seriously, you’re always complaining that people don’t read magazines as much as they used to,” Hadley went on. “Why not put someone on the cover who will actually sell copies?”

“That’s enough, Hadley.” Fiona gave her daughter a stern look. “Why don’t you go turn on the coffee pot?”

“I can do that,” I offered, grateful for a chance to leave the room. Maybe if I wasn’t in there, Ellie would get one more chance to talk about her work at Abelard.

But it wasn’t even a full sixty seconds later that Ellie came into the kitchen carrying a few empty wineglasses, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “They want you back in there. I was asked to bring out the coffee and dessert.”

My heart sank. “Fuck. Really?”

“Of course, Gianni. Who really wants to listen to me talk about wine when they have a celebrity chef here to entertain them?” She placed the dirty wineglasses into the storage box. “Just go. I want to finish up and get out of here.”

“I’m sorry, Ellie.” I touched her shoulder. “I wouldn’t have come if I’d known it would be like this.”

She glanced at my hand and shrugged. “I’m not surprised. Go do your encore so we can leave. This dinner already went later than I planned, and the storm is getting worse. I don’t want to end up stranded here.”

“Me neither.” I grinned at her. “I don’t trust that teenager one bit.”

Ellie didn’t even crack a smile.





While the guests drank coffee and ate dessert, Ellie and I bundled up and loaded the car. The snow was knee-deep and still falling. The wind howled out of the north. The temperature made our noses turn red with cold.

I started the car to warm it up, but I wasn’t looking forward to the drive—visibility would be shit and the roads were going to be a mess. It was ten-thirty already, and I guessed we wouldn’t get home until after two in the morning. I wondered how Ellie would feel about staying at my place in Traverse City, since the drive up Old Mission Peninsula would probably be horrific. I could give her my bed and sleep on the couch.

Trying to remember if my spare sheets were clean, I closed the hatch of my SUV and went back inside, stomping the snow from my boots.

“I’ll wait in the car,” Ellie said, slipping past me with her bag over her shoulder. “Can you get the check from her? She just went to write it.”

“Sure. You okay?”