Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [66]
“On behalf of my mother and the rest of my family, I thank you for your kind words. Her health being quite fragile, she is unable to speak, but she wanted me to relay to all of you how privileged she’s felt to be a part of this county for so many years, how grateful she is for your generosity, and to encourage you to dig deep in your pockets today and support the Rose Jewel Brown Children’s Wing. As Mother has always said, without the children we have no future. Thank you.”
After the applause, the winner of the bottle contest was brought up to receive his plaque. An artist who’d painted a 16th-century-style Madonna and child scene in exquisite detail won over bottles painted like rocket ships, Marilyn Monroe, Chumash Indian petroglyphs, peacocks, and the Mission Santa Celine. Starting to get bored, I decided to go back to the wine-tasting tent to see if I could find Emory and convince him to leave early. The lines were five and six deep at each booth as people twirled their glasses, sipped, and pursed their lips, searching for that perfect wine. I looked over the crowd and didn’t see my cousin’s blond head anywhere. To kill time more than anything else, I sidled close to people and eavesdropped on their comments about wine, which amused me to no end with their pretentiousness. I wished I had a tape recorder so I could replay some of them for Gabe later tonight.
“Stylistically,” said a man wearing a baby blue golf shirt and white tennis shorts as he twirled a glass of straw-colored wine, “this would appeal more to the American palate than to the European, don’t you think?”
The woman with him, wearing flat gold sandals and a bright pink spaghetti-strap dress nodded and added, “Its aroma is full and pretty, but not quite as multidimensional as I normally prefer.”
He took another sip and said, “Yes, it has a ripe flavor. A bit earthy and tart, which is refreshing, but the finish is a little rough.”
“There are so many wines like that,” she agreed. “More up front than on the finish.”
“Many men, too,” a deep, familiar voice whispered in my ear. A gentle, bearlike hand slipped under my hair and gripped the back of my neck.
I squealed and swung around.
“Isaac!” I said, giving him a fierce hug. His massive arms lifted me up and swung me around.
“Isn’t that Isaac Lyons, the photographer?” the lady in the pink dress exclaimed to her companion. They gazed up at his six-feet-four-inch frame topped with hair as white as a snow owl’s, their mouths slack with awe. A diamond earring in his ear caught an overhead light and twinkled. As did his dark raisin eyes when he winked at me.
Isaac set me down and smiled at the woman, his arm still around my shoulders. “Isaac Lyons?” he boomed. “Why, I heard he’s bought the farm, that randy old goat. Rumor has it he was caught with another man’s wife and took three shots to the belly, but he went down kicking. Hemingway would have been proud.” His face grew serious. “Then again, that could have been Gregory Peck. They’re often mistaken for each other.” Before the woman could speak, he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the murmuring crowd.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as he led me out of the tent.
He pointed to a picnic bench out near the lagoon that flowed into Eola Bay. “Let’s talk away from the madding crowd.”
We sat down underneath the cool shade of an ash tree. He leaned back on his elbows and I straddled the bench, just looking at him, unable to believe he was really here. Isaac had come into my life and, more important, into Dove’s last November, a little less than a year ago when we’d all become involved in a murder that took place on the ranch. Having no family of his own, he’d adopted ours, and we’d welcomed him with open hearts and arms. Well, I eventually did after a rather rough beginning. As famous as Ansel Adams, Isaac Lyons had traveled all over the world, been married five times, taken photographs of kings, popes, cowboys, ranch women, carnival workers, cotton farmers, bar maids and truck drivers. Not to mention five different presidents of the United States. But