Sooner or Later by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

wooden house hadn’t seen a coat of paint in a decade and had faded to a dead gray. A sagging porch ran round it and every window was cracked. He stood for a minute, taking in the rusting remains of the tractor dumped in front, and the pile of debris, swirling in a sudden gust of wind that shook the tall pepper tree, showering him with leaves. When the wind stopped, there was just silence. No birds sang, nothing moved. He thought it was a long way from the streets of Manhattan.
    The porch steps creaked ominously as he walked across and unlocked the door, wincing when the hinges screamed in rusting agony. Years of dust covered the few bits of broken furniture and ominous trails of droppings led to holes in the baseboards. Standing at the bottom of the rickety staircase, gazing into the eerie shuttered dimness, he could just make out the broken banisters of theupper hall. He canceled the Addams Family. This was more like something from Stephen King.
    Pete Piatowsky’s words echoed in his head. “You’re buying a pig in a poke, man,” he’d warned. “You don’t know what you’re really getting until you get there.” Was he ever right.
    Dan kicked the bottom step, dispiritedly. Wondering which he would have to tackle first, the vines or the house, he went out to look at the winery.
    The big red barn housed tall steel fermenting vats, the crushing machinery, and stacks of moldy-looking oak barrels. The bottling plant in the adjoining shed looked like a Disney cartoon, and like the house, everything was covered in a thick coat of dust.
    Gloomily, he walked through the graceful arched gates into the stable courtyard. There was an old tiled fountain in the center, and scarlet petunias and purple bougainvillaea tumbled picturesquely from clay pots. A long, shady patio fronted the stalls, with a couple of old wooden benches meant for lazing away the hot afternoons. It looked exactly the way it had in the photograph when he’d lost his heart to it—a perfect rustic idyll. Betting gloomily that the fountain wouldn’t work and the roof would leak and the whole place was about to fall down, Dan took a closer look.
    To his surprise, it wasn’t too bad. Sure, the paint was blistered and peeling, but the roof looked fine, and the six stalls were in good condition. Cheering up, he decided first thing, he would buy a couple of horses. He hadn’t ridden since he was a kid, but they would make the place feel more like home.
    He checked the irrigation system. It looked in good shape and he thanked God for that. Water was in short supply in California, and vines needed a lot of water. Without it, he might as well quit now.
    There was a satisfied smile on his face as he circled the reedy pond in back of the house, planning on installing carp and mallards and maybe a couple of geese.
    He strolled round the porch, saw exactly where to place his chair for that sundown drink and the view, and began to think maybe it wasn’t such a pig in a poke after all. All of a sudden, he couldn’t wait to tackle it.
    He thought regretfully of the attractive young woman at the cafe. There would no space in his schedule for romantic dalliance in the near future. Not with all this work to be done.
    Arms folded, he surveyed his new home and his neglected acres, assessing the amount of money, water, time and hard labor they would need. He shook his head as Ellie’s face and that big smile flashed before his eyes again. There would be no room for romance in his life for a long, long time.

         9
    T HE MORNING AFTER THE KILLING , B UCK WENT INTO THE Madison Avenue branch of the Bank of America. He smiled, satisfied, as he caught sight of himself in the plate glass window. He might just have emerged from the portals of the Harvard Club, in his conservative tweedy jacket, his button-down blue shirt and glossy brown loafers. They always said a man’s background showed, and his mother had surely brought him up to be a gentleman. He laughed out