Chapter 3
“Do I seriously have to go to this thing?” Ryder had better things to do than spend his Friday night with a bunch of ritzy people he didn’t even know and would probably never meet again. He’d just got off the plane from LAX yesterday to find his mom’s gutters needed cleaning and the lawn mowing, and he was anxious to get started on it. And then there was the favor he’d been asked to do by the Firefighters’ Relief Fund. But going to the right parties was part of promoting his acting career and arranging the invitations was Amy’s job. And he had to admit, one she was damn good at.
“Are you kidding me?” Amy asked, incredulous. “Look, Ryder, I busted my butt finagling this invite. An actor—even a lucky one like you—has to network. You might be a rising star, but a ticket to one of the St. Pierre winery parties is envied up and down the whole north coast. You might meet anyone there, producers to politicians. Of course, they always blend a few mere mortals into the mix. But you have to be on your toes. Tomorrow you could read that the stranger you chatted up during cocktails was a Pulitzer Prize winner, a federal judge, or some rapper on the brink of gold. So hell yes, you have to go. No amount of my hard work will have an effect unless you do your part.”
With a sigh, Ryder let himself out of the limo while his driver held the door for Amy, his publicist.
Grimacing as he ran a finger along the inside of his stiff collar, he tipped his head back to take in the sprawling Palladian mansion, surrounded by the manicured gardens of Domaine St. Pierre. A tower of water tumbled down onto itself from a fountain surrounded by an island of flowers that formed a traffic circle in the middle of the driveway.
The uniformed driver got back in the car, and impulsively Ryder turned back and rapped on the tinted glass. When the window slid noiselessly down, he propped a forearm on its edge in a careless stance.
“Thanks for the lift. Stay close in case I decide to bail early.”
“Bail early? Hell, if I had the chance to step foot inside St. Pierre’s palace, they’d have to pry me out. They say it’s all of twenty thousand square feet. Besides that, ol’ Xavier knows how to grow ’em. And I don’t mean grapes.”
“Yeah? I don’t know. Any girls who live like this must be pretty stuck on themselves.” He lowered his voice even more so his publicist wouldn’t hear him over the gurgling fountain and smiled wryly. “The most I’m hoping to get out of this extravaganza is a decent meal.” He patted his flat abs. “Amy claims they put out quite a spread.”
“Snag me some dessert if you get the chance. I’m partial to cheesecake.” The driver grinned, the window slid up again, and Ryder smacked the side of the car as it glided away, forming a slow-moving shadow across the gravel in the glow of the Napa Valley sunset.
Amy waited impatiently, wobbling on sky-high heels. Taking her arm as they navigated the path to the mansion, he tried to recall the briefing she’d given him earlier.
A rising star.
Since that evening when Amy had slipped him her business card as he’d knelt praying in little Saint Joan of Arc, Ryder’s life had changed completely. A picture of the interior of the little adobe church flashed through his mind. He could still smell the thick, acrid odor of incense.
It was right after the third annual memorial mass for his dad. Had that been only three years ago? Six in all, since the fire that took his dad’s life? It felt like another lifetime.
Mom and the twins had already lit their votives, uttered their closing prayers, and gone, but Ryder couldn’t drag himself away. Back then, he had too many problems.
He’d recited the rosary, passing the wooden beads rubbed smooth by his dad’s fingers through his own. He’d said the Lord’s Prayer. And still he bowed his head, eyes screwed shut, hands now clenched around the beads. Silently pouring out his heart, first to his deceased earthly father and then to his heavenly one. Ryder tried not to think about those days. Why torture himself? But sometimes the memory was too strong....
His head swam with the burden of responsibility. For his mother, trying to make her secretary’s salary stretch across mortgage payment, groceries, and utility bills. His brothers, with their bottomless twin appetites for cereal and hamburgers and chips and milk by the gallon. And little Bridget. There were probably lots of things she needed. Girly things, like dresses and shoes and other things that he couldn’t even fathom.
He had to do something. But what? He already put in thirty hours a week tending bar. Though that usually made him late to his morning classes, it covered the rent on his dive apartment, and he ate for free.
He could quit college, move home, and tend bar full time. Finishing school would improve his income in the long run, but he was only a junior. His family needed help now.
Then, in the hushed stillness came the sound of high heels on stone. The slow, methodical clicking grew louder, reverberating around the stark adobe walls until, head still downcast, he opened one eye and his sight landed on a well-heeled, feminine foot.
A low voice broke the silence.
“I’ve been waiting for you in the vestibule, but I can’t stay any longer. I have a flight to catch.
“Take your time here. But when you’re finished . . . tonight, tomorrow, one day soon . . . I want to talk to you.”
Only then did his eyes travel up to her face, but too late—the stranger had already turned away, the click of her shoes receding until the heavy wooden door whooshed closed and he was left truly alone with the smell of frankincense and the weight of his worries.
He looked down at her card. “Amy Smart. Gould Entertainment. Los Angeles, California.”
Amy. But not the savvy Hollywood-agent Amy he’d come to know. This was off-duty Amy. The wine-country-tourist-who-had-a-thing-for-old-churches Amy.
Ryder had barely begun flexing his acting chops when a big studio looking for fresh blood had signed him over all the Daniels, Roberts, and Zacs for the lead in a film about firefighters.
It was surreal seeing his picture in the celebrity magazines with the crazy captions: “Ryder McBride Among Hollywood’s Hottest,” “Ryder Sizzles in First Responder,” and so on. Some of the stories had a grain of truth to them, but most were pure crap, made up by agents and journalists to promote careers and sell magazines.
He’d never picked up a gossip rag in his life until his mom and sister had spotted his photo staring back at them in the grocery store checkout only a couple of months earlier. They’d called him up in fits of unintelligible squealing. Ever since, he’d begun to feel as though he couldn’t make a move without somebody taking his picture.
Ryder had always had goals and dreams, but being a movie star had never been one of them. Neither had partying at a renowned Napa Valley winery. But his sidestepping hadn’t worked with Amy. After all, he was her pet project. Her very lucrative pet project.
“Okay, let’s do this,” sighed Ryder, as he and Amy crunched along.
“Now, don’t forget,” she said under her breath. She counted on her fingers as she rattled off the St. Pierre sisters’ names.
“Meri is the youngest. She’s the artsy one. Savvy lives up to her nickname—brainy. And Chardonnay,” Amy said with an eye roll and a dramatic hand flourish, “is your tall, cool blonde. The middle child, the do-gooder. Always has her hand in one charity or another. Though, who knows if it’s just a put-on. Personally, I’ve always thought it was all orchestrated to compensate for her family’s scandals. But then, that’s how my mind works.”
“Slow down. What scandals?” asked Ryder, finding it hard to keep up with her pace, even given those stilettos, and her prattle. His knowledge of the who’s who of Napa Valley society was a little thin.
“It’s irrelevant.” Amy brushed the question off with another impatient flick of her hand. They were climbing the wide marble stairs up to the entrance now.
“Back to the daughters. Take your pick. All three are single, fresh out of college, and it’d be great for you to get hooked up with any one of them in the media.”
Her eyes grew large, and she placed a hand on his arm. “Better yet, more than one!”
“Oh, that’s just what I want my mom and little sister to read about,” Ryder responded drily. He spread his hands, pretending to read a tabloid. “ ‘Ryder McBride dating not one, but two, of the St. Pierre sisters.’ ”
“Better yet—all three!” Amy winked.
Ryder winced.
“Try to cooperate. My insider will be watching for any chance to shoot you next to the girls. One good photo sold to People is worth a year’s pay to a waiter.”
As they approached the open double doors where a white-gloved butler waited, Amy gave him one last annoying piece of advice.
“Smile,” she said through the clenched teeth of her own wide grin.
Sighing, he dutifully followed suit, in preparation to appear in public. In spite of himself, he was beginning to learn the ropes.
If he was ever going to pay his mom’s house off and go back to finish his degree, he had no choice.