First Love - [Bridesmaid's Chronicles 04] Page 3

  Syd just stared at her, clearly shell-shocked.

  "Syd?"

  "Your dress. Your wedding dress ?"

  Julia nodded, miserable. "God," she finally said. "It is so very Monday."

  "They can't do that. We'll call Viv. There's got to be some loophole, some catch. You paid for it!"

  "He said I'm a creditor now. And I only put down a deposit. I was supposed to pay the balance tomorrow." She closed her eyes and counted to ten, determined not to fall apart. Gossip traveled fast in a small town, and she wasn't going to have rumors flying about why Roman's fiancee burst into tears in the middle of Main Street.

  Beside her, Syd still looked ready for a fight.

  Julia put a hand out to still her sister, then took a deep breath. "It's okay."

  "Okay?" Syd repeated. "Jules, I may not be the fashionista you are, but even I know that losing your wedding dress five days before the wedding is not okay ."

  "Don't rub it in. I was trying to be optimistic. I mean, at the very least I know that nothing else can go wrong."

  The sharp ah-OOO-ga of a horn blasted through the thick, humid air, followed by a tinny rendition of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." As one, Julia and Syd turned and looked down Main Street, facing roughly east toward Austin. There, barreling toward them, was a pink stretch limo with the broad horns of a longhorn mounted in place of a hood ornament.

  Julia's stomach roiled, and she gripped Syd's hand. "It can't be," she said.

  "No," Syd agreed, her voice just as low, just as desperate. "They aren't supposed to get here until tomorrow."

  But even though Julia couldn't see through the tinted glass windows, she knew with absolute certainty who was in that limo. Marv . No one else could possibly have commissioned such a tacky, tacky ride.

  "I was wrong," she said, fervently wishing that the Texas sun would just melt her into the pavement. "Things just got a whole heck of a lot worse."

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Remember that your family members are more than just guests; they're vital participants in the wedding process. Even more, they can be your biggest asset! So get your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and other relatives involved. Make memories that will last a lifetime . from How to Throw an Intimate Wedding for Over Two Hundred Guests

  "Please tell me that I've died and gone to hell," Julia said. She wanted to look away from the approaching limoactually, she wanted to run awaybut she couldn't seem to stop staring. It was like watching a car wreck. Only worse, since she was the one about to go down in flames.

  "You must have," Syd said, shaking her head. "It's hot enough. And even Marv isn't so tacky that he'd come all the way to Fredericksburg in a pink long-horn limo. That's got to be Satan in there. It's just got to."

  The limo pulled to a stop in front of them, and as the rear window started to roll smoothly down, Julia saw Thelma Lynn Grafton and Delores Rosenbaum across the street, staring and pointing. Great . The High Priestess of Gossip and her lady-in-waiting were witnessing the entire scene. How perfect was that?

  After a rocky start as That Jersey Girl, Julia had moved on to the equally unattractive title of Roman's Little Fling. It had taken her weeks of mingling, socializing and generally being friendly, but she'd won over the locals. And now that she was known as simply "Julia" or "Roman's lovely fiancee," she really, really, really didn't want to be demoted to "that obnoxious Jersey businessman's daughter."

  "Well-ah, lookey what I found takin' a little stroll through the heart of Texas." Marv's fleshy face and Doughboy shoulders pretty much filled the window. Even so, Julia could see her mother, Myrna, curled up in a corner, her hand in front of her as she inspected her nails. No help front Mom , she thought. Nothing new there .

  "Come on, youse two." He swung the door open, revealing a puke green polyester suit. "Get in."

  Without thinking, Julia took a step backward. "Urn, hi, Daddy."

  Beside her, Syd's eyebrows rose. Julia shrugged. All the local girlseven grown womenreferred to their fathers as "daddy." Apparently it was a Southern thing. And though it rolled awkwardly off her tongue, the moniker was kind of sweet. And Julia wasn't above blatantly borrowing the term if it would win her any points with her own father.

  "Don't 'hi' me, young lady. We gots things to talk about. Serious things. Now get your tush in the car, and your sister, too."

  A quick burst of a horn sounded from behind them, and Julia turned to see Alex Kimball pull his dusty Suburban to a stop on the opposite side of the road. Beside her, Syd practically quivered with delight. And though Julia was certain Syd was thrilled to see Alex, she had a feeling that the depth of her sister's happiness stemmed primarily from the possibility of ducking Marv. "Coward," she hissed, but Syd just smiled at Julia and waved at Alex.

  "I've got a conference call set with the owner of a California spa," he called from his truck. "Can you spare Syd for a few hours? I'd really like her in on this."

  For a moment, Julia considered saying no. But she knew how important Alex's current business venturemarketing a variety of products derived from bizarre, gangly birds called emuswas to him and his uncle Ted. More, she knew that Syd had been helping him with packaging and other aspects of the business. Her sister had even had the nerve to ask Julia if she'd serve emu at the wedding, but while Julia might be a little amenable to stretching the bounds of tradition, she wasn't that generous. The wedding was going to be held sans ugly-ass birds.

  Still, as much as Julia found the idea of emu meat completely unappetizing, she found the body lotion to be an absolute dream. And if Alex had a meeting with a California spa, that must mean he'd had some serious interest in Emulsion. Julia hoped the product found a niche in the market. She dreaded the day that Ted quit selling the stuff. Her hands and elbows were so much softer when she used it.

  For something as important as negotiations with a spa, Syd should definitely be involvedeven if that meant Julia had to face Marv alone.

  She swallowed, then nodded. "Go," she said. "But you owe me. Big-time."

  Syd's eyes lit and she signaled to Alex that she was coming. Then she turned to the limo. "Sorry, Pop. I'm totally booked. But I'll catch you at the motel later." She blew him a kiss, then started across the street before Marv had time to argue.

  "Syd!" Julia yelled, then slid into a whisper when her sister turned around. "Warn Roman that I've been captured by the infidels from Jersey. Tell him that if he loves me, he'll rescue me. But that if he wants to run away and hide, I'll understand."

  Syd smirked. "Roman's not the running away type. Of course, he's also not Pop's type"

  And on that happy note she dashed across the street, leaving Julia to deal with Marv and Myrna all by herself.

  "Yo! Hey, Princess? Am I your pop or a street lamp? Get your keister into the car."

  "Coming, Pop," she said, dropping the Daddy pretense. Marv just wasn't a "Daddy." Too rough around the edges. Too Jersey .

  She trotted to the side of the limo and climbed in, certain that within the hour, Thelma would report to everyone at the local beauty parlor that Julia Spinelli had climbed into a hideous beast of a limousine. Maybe if she was lucky, the gossips would opine that she was having a wild affair with a cowboy. That would be preferable to having everyone in town be-lieve that someone who shared Julia's genes would actually, on purpose, rent a beast like this.

  "Going native, Pop?" she asked, taking the seat across from her motherwhich also happened to be the seat farthest away from her father.

  His browstwo bushy caterpillarscrawled into a "V." Julia didn't bother to explain herself. Maybe she didn't really want an answer. After all, the day that he'd shipped her off to Fredericksburg, Marv had made perfectly clear that it was a punishment and that he reviled all things Texan. So if the man was now riding around in a limo with longhorns and, she noted in horror, wearing cowboy boots, then maybe there was a chink in his armor.

  A chink would be good. Because at the end of the day, Julia was marrying Roman So
nntag. And the less of a battle it was to get to the altar, the better.

  Across from her, Myrna beamed. "Doll-baby, you are just positively glowing. Now let me see that rock."

  Julia extended a hand, a smile coming automatically to her lips. "It belonged to Roman's great-grandmother. There's a story there, but I'll tell you later."

  "Not too shabby," her mother said, with just the right amount of awe. If she could tell that the three-carat stone was glass, she didn't let on.

  "I'm totally harried with details," Julia said, tucking her hand back in her lap, "but I'm also completely over the moon."

  "Out of your head, you mean," Marv cut in, shoot-ing daggers at Myrna. She pursed her lips and settled back in her seat. Julia stifled a sigh. She loved her momheck, she even loved her dadbut she couldn't count on Myrna to help drag Marv into Julia's court. In their family, no one ever won a battle with Marv except, maybe, Syd. And Syd, unfortunately, had decided to sit this round out.

  Julia could only hope that, for once, she'd find the guts to stand up to her dad. She closed her eyes, pictured Roman, and knew that, one way or another, she had to.

  Roman hung up the phone, satisfied that he'd negotiated a good price for old man Hubert's fifteen acres. The land was adjacent to the Sonntag vineyard, and the family needed room to plant more vines. Since Hubert wasn't up to working the land anymore, it had been natural for Roman to approach him about selling to the Sonntags. After three days of on-and-off negotiations, they'd just agreed to terms which brought the total Sonntag acreage up to forty-two on-site and another three hundred fifty acres they were leasing across the Lone Star State. Not too shabby for a winery that used to be barely a blip on the radar. And it would be even better when the winery could afford to buy those additional acres, rather than siphoning rent monies off every quarter.

  Still, Roman couldn't help but grin, feeling oddly satisfied. Odd, because the price he'd offered Hubert was undeniably fair. Five years agohell, even two years agohe would have started negotiations with an obscenely low price, fighting Hubert for every dime added to the bottom line until the elderly gent finally settled on a price at least twenty percent below market.

  Funny the way things changed. Ironic, too, considering that five years ago, Roman could have afforded the higher price that he would have fought so desperately against. Now that he was strapped for cash, though, he was willingly incurring more debt than was comfortable. And all in the name of community pride and fairness.

  Not that he'd lost his edge, he reminded himself. He still fully intended to do whatever it took to get the Sonntag label recognized as one of Texas's finest wines. Hell, one of the world's finest. But he'd do it without stepping on the toes of the citizens of Fredericksburg. The little Texas town had been his family's home for generations, and he respected that even more than he respected a finely tuned entrepreneurial spirit. Considering he'd given up a six-figure salary to come back and help his father expand the little winery, he figured he was definitely practicing what he preached. And, he knew, the townsfolk respected him for that.

  This was, in fact, a town that respected both history and wine. The Sonntags had come to the Hill Country in the 1840s, along with many other German immigrants. Texas had been a republic back then, still a few years away from statehood. The German settlers, like the state, were proud and independent, and very resourceful. When Ercel Sonntag had dis covered mustang grapes in the area, he'd experimented with old-world winemaking techniques until he'd developed a wonderfully drinkable wine. In fact, the Sonntag label still produced the wine, albeit in much smaller quantities.

  The winery had always been small, originally making drink only for the family, and then for travelers through the Hill Country. When Prohibition came along, wine production ostensibly shut down, but everyone in the family knew better. And after repeal, production started up again. By that time, Roman's great-grandfather was involved, and he was determined to make a great winemaybe not get rich off it, but at least produce it.

  He'd started cultivating the vines, bringing in a limited number of varietals to complement the hardier and more traditional grapes like the Cabernet Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc, and Merlot. The Chardonnay was popular, of course, but so difficult to grow in Texas that the Sonntags had never troubled with it.

  Roman had grown up among the vines, but he'd never actually expected to work them. That he'd come back, though, had never been a disappointment to him. He'd gotten tired of the pounding drive of a purely business life. Here, he was involved in every aspect of the wine, from the growing of the grape to the final bottling of the finished elixir.

  Winemaking was only about a quarter science, and the rest was art or love or whatever you wanted to call it. All Roman knew was that wine was in his blood, and he was going to do whatever was neces sary to make the vineyard a success. So far, his efforts were paying off. Since he'd come home, production and sales had increased, and currently, the winery was producing approximately fifteen varieties of wines. Not a bad showing, but Roman intended to double that figure within the next three years.

  Idly, he flipped through the stack of bills that littered his office desktop. Unfortunately, good intentions didn't pay the bills, and his creditors weren't local. Instead, they were from Dallas, Austin, California, even France. It cost money to make money, and expansion had necessitated taking on some serious debt. Not an easy thing to deal with, considering that the entire reason he'd come back to Texas in the first place was to help his father out of his financial bind.

  Eventually, though, Roman knew that the investment in time and money would pay off. In the meantime, he'd pay the winery's creditors slowly, holding off until the last minute so as to earn every possible bit of interest on the meager funds left in the winery's accounts.

  Paying the creditors earlier was an option, of course, but one that would require bringing cash from investors into the mix, and that was something Roman didn't want to do. This was a family business, and he intended to keep it in the family. No outside money, especially outside money that came with restrictions and conditions and firm opinions on how the winery should be run. Cash flow might be tight right now"tight" being a huge understatement but Roman knew what he was doing, and he was confident that the winery would soon be in the black. Until then, the winery could survive on a shoestring budget.

  At least, he hoped it could. Because if things got much tighter, Roman knew his father was going to be lobbying for the family to sell out to one of the California wineries that had been sniffing around, looking to get a foot in the door in the still nascent Texas wine country. Robert Sonntag had spent his entire life with money in his pocket, able to pay cash for anything he wanted, from cars to houses to acreage. Even though the family was hardly destitute, they were no longer flying high, Texas royalty with oil money flowing from their veins.

  The lack of cash made the family patriarch uncomfortable, and Roman understood that. But if they sold out, they'd lose everything that had been built up over generations. And Roman was doing his damnedest to ensure that the winery was never in such dire straits that he couldn't keep his father's fears at bay. From Roman's perspective, selling out simply wasn't an option.

  He was doing everything in his power to keep the winery going, even traveling to France in a few weeks to interview possible enologs, wine experts skilled in their ability to mix a variety of grapes grown at a particular vineyard into a bottle of stunning quality. Though the Sonntag label was already well-respected, he hoped that engaging the services of a French enolog would give the winery an extra edge, perhaps pushing the label up into the realm of spectacular.

  And, of course, he was looking forward to the trip itself, particularly since it wasn't just a working trip. It was also part honeymoon, and he couldn't wait to show Julia Bordeaux and the Luberon. And, of course, Paris.

  She'd never been to France, and Roman was thrilled to be the one to show her around. He'd seen the sights several times, but this trip, he was mostly looking forwa
rd to seeing her face when she saw the mountains, the oceans, the landmarks and, of course, the shopping.

  Julia Spinelli was absurdly beautiful. Flawless skin, eyes the color of Caribbean seas, a mane of blond hair that put whatever starlet was in fashion to shame, and an adorable dent in the end of her chin that Roman had claimed as his own personal kissing spot. She was also the youngest daughter of a man who'd probably make the Forbes list in the not-too-distant future. As a result, Roman had expected her to be icy and distant. To his surprise, she was anything but. Julia Spinelli was earnest and clever and had a genuine interest in the people around her. Best of all, she was his, something that still astounded Roman and made him wake up every morning thanking God for bringing him this amazing woman who'd fallen just as hard and fast for him.

  He checked his watch, saw that it was almost noon, and wondered if Julia and Syd were still working through Julia's list of pre-wedding errands. Almost without thinking, he picked up the phone. He'd see her at dinner tonight, but that didn't mean he couldn't hear her voice now, did it? Get an update on her day?

  He was just about to dial when the intercom buzzed. "Roman? Your father's on line three."

  "Thanks, Amy." He punched the line, then listened to his father's worried spiel.

  "They're in breach, Roman," his dad said, wrapping up his diatribe. "But what can we do? We can't force them to take the cases. And if we sue them they'll just file bankruptcy."

  "Don't worry, Dad. I'll handle it." He hoped his voice sounded calmer than he felt. Gristali Markets had been their biggest account of the year, with stores in twenty-seven states. If they were now reneging on their commitment to purchase, that would seriously affect the Sonntag Winery's bottom line.

  "How? How are you handling it?"

  "I've got to go, Dad," Roman said. "But I've got it under control. We'll talk about it later." He hung up the phone before his father could protest further, then ran his hands through his hair before settling back in his desk chair and exhaling.