A Vintage To Die For (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

duster’ was more than a little unfair. Dimitri’s actual title was Senior Wine Steward for Star Crossed Wine Cellars & Auctions, where he was responsible for maintaining thousands of bottles of premiere wines worth more than a hundred million dollars, and also for vetting the bottles sold at their auctions.
    “He will have none of my wine! Not one drop!” Samson said, chewing furiously on the cigar, his jugulars throbbing. “I will pour the wine in the dirt first!”
    I was immediately sorry for picking at Samson, not because he was angry, but because his temper could potentially ruin my party. My first in ten years. And Samson wasn’t the only one I had to worry about. There were probably a dozen other people coming to the party who hated Dimitri just as much.
    When the scathing interview he had given to the Examiner was published - just two days after I had invited him to the party - I had actually considered uninviting Dimitri, knowing that many of the people he had ridiculed would be in attendance, but I decided against it. I’m no slave to decorum - my Italian ancestry has given me a fiery temper that, mixed with my Irish mother’s quick tongue, has often gotten me into hot water - but rude I am not. I had just crossed my fingers and hoped that Dimitri would have sense enough not to show up.
    I tried another tack with Samson. A little reverse psychology. Infantile, I know, but men usually stop maturing at around five years old so it seemed appropriate.
    “I thought you weren't coming to the party?” I asked. “And I was counting on you to give the guests a tour of the cellar.” That tour was a highlight for the buyers who visited Violet on Saturdays and Sundays. The wine cave extending deep into the mountainside behind my house, overcrowded with wooden casks and twenty-gallon glass carboys, harkened back to the ancient roots of winemaking. It was always cool and dry, dark and somehow medieval. And, for all Samson’s grousing, he enjoyed giving those tours as much as the buyers enjoyed taking them. An afternoon of explaining wine making while dispensing sample after sample into the buyers’ (and his own) glasses was the highlight of Samson’s work week. While this party would be made up of industry insiders, I still thought a tour of an old-world style cellar would be a treat.
    Samson snorted, shook his head and turned his back on me. He headed across the lawn for the wine cellar door in his shambling gate, all elbows and knees. “This is a winery, not a carnival, de Montagne,” he yelled over his shoulder, “You will have me juggling next! Your guests will remain upstairs or outside at all times!” He disappeared through the splintery old cellar door set in the stone foundation of my home and banged it closed behind me.
    “If he’s doing the juggling I guess I get to do the face painting?” Victor called over. He only had two of the steel posts set up and he already looked done in. His skinny forearms were beaded with sweat and his long hair was sticking to his face. “Should I get out my red nose and fright wig?”
    “I'll be happy if you just take a shower,” I hollered back. “That would be novelty enough.”

Chapter 4
     
     
    The first person to arrive at the party was Hunter Drake, the recently elected Sheriff of Napa County.
    Hunt is my…well…I really don't know what Hunt is to me. We had started a romantic relationship more than a year ago, during one of the most tumultuous chapters of my life, when my next door neighbor, Kevin Harlan, had been murdered in my vineyard. Before that episode was over, my daughter had been arrested, an old murder had been uncovered, and three more people had been killed. Unfairly or not, I blamed Hunt for some of what had happened. Since then, he had made several tentative overtures at reconciliation, which I had not pursued. I was still wrestling with the past.
    But I couldn't deny the attraction I felt for him. Hunt was tall and lean with dark hair