some of the Angelinis were surprised when you showed up at their crush last night.” Mike eyed him curiously.
“How do you know?”
“That’s the scuttlebutt.”
“There’s gossip already? I only arrived two days ago.”
“I see Devon Vost every morning when I drop my daughter off at day care. She’s Gina’s cousin.”
Josh vaguely remembered Devon, a cheerful young woman with a kind face whom he’d met at crush. He wondered why she would be telling this Mike person what the Angelinis thought about his showing up.
Mike answered his unasked question. “You see, Devon is married to my sister’s brother-in-law. Practically everyone you’ll meet around here is related to the Angelinis in some way.”
Josh sipped his coffee; it was good. He thought about asking Mom for a doughnut but discarded the idea, amusing though it was to watch one flying through the air.
“They seemed friendly,” he said to Mike. “The Angelinis, I mean.”
“There are no nicer people in the world. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of them, though. About Gina—everyone thinks she’s pretty special, and folks in Rio Robles didn’t like it that she wasn’t picked to win the million dollars.”
“I gathered that,” Josh said on a note of regret.
Mike eyed Josh speculatively. “You’re not figuring to make a play for her, are you?”
Josh didn’t want to tip his cards to someone he’d just met. “You never know,” he said.
“You do that and you hurt Gina again, the Angelinis won’t let you get away with it.”
Great. A threat. That was all he needed.
“What kind of business did you say you have here?” asked Mike.
He hadn’t. “I’m writing an article about the valley.”
“For some big newspaper or something?”
“No, it’s for a company newsletter. The company has an interest in winemaking.” A recent interest, and the article would appear in the newsletter after the beverage conglomerate in which his family had a controlling interest bought out a winery or two in the valley. This was all hush-hush so far, and it was going to stay that way, at least as long as Josh had anything to say about it.
“You might like to read The Juice,” Mike said, pushing it toward Josh. “Being that you write for a newsletter and all.”
Josh accepted the folded paper and stood up. “I’d better be going. Thanks for the paper and the warning,” he said as he tossed a bill on the counter.
“Sure. Nice meeting you. I’m here every morning about this time, and I hope we’ll run into each other again.”
When Josh left, Mike was asking Mom for a doughnut. This time Mom ran with it to the kitchen, feinted and tossed it overhand.
“Best play I’ve seen since the last Super Bowl,” hollered one of the customers.
“One of their scouts tried to recruit me last week,” Mom said.
This provoked a round of good-natured jeers. But Josh didn’t stick around to hear any more. He had business here, all right. He was going to put his phone calls on the back burner and try to talk Gina into having lunch with him. He’d struck out with his invitations to drinks and dinner, but lunch? It was a nonthreatening suggestion, time limited and requiring no special dress.
He was willing to bet that Gina would say yes when he asked her. She’d had that glint in her eye that was the giveaway of an interested female, and come to think of it, he seldom met any other kind.
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