The Wedding Bargain. Lee Mckenzie

ended up littering the sidewalk and the speed-dating thing had been an unmitigated disaster. The place needed a serious facelift and she could swing that only if her application for a bank loan was approved. The guy at the bank had done some serious eyebrows hikes when he’d assessed her financial situation, then said he’d get back to her in a few weeks. All she could do now was wait and see.

      Bill pushed the door open and slid a ball cap onto his head. “’Night, Jess.”

      Larry waved. “You take care, girl.”

      “For sure. Good night, guys. I guess I’ll see you Friday.” She usually dropped in on Thursday even though it was her night off, but Paige was moving into a new apartment and Jess had promised to help her pack.

      After they left she picked up the coaster that had Michael’s number on it, and it dawned on her that she didn’t even know his last name. She put the coaster under the tray in the cash drawer and reached for his sunglasses. The next thing she knew, she had them on. She looked at herself in the mirror behind the rows of bottles.

      “What the hell are you doing?” She whipped them off again. “Mooning around over some guy who’ll probably turn out to be a total jerk.”

      When it came to men, she had lousy luck, and she blamed that on her mother. Roxanne Bennett was a slut, no two ways about it. She had a habit of hooking up with losers who didn’t give a damn about her or her daughter, and Jess’s father had been one of them. There’d been countless nights when Jess heard her mother stumble in after the bars closed, laughing and shushing some loudmouthed guy, telling him not to wake up her kid. And the morning after, how many times had a strange man caught her off guard in the kitchen and scared the crap out of her while she was making peanut butter sandwiches—one for breakfast and another for lunch—and hoping to sneak out to school before her mother and the creep du jour woke up?

      “Stop it,” she said to her reflection. The past was the past. With her granddad’s help she’d put it behind her a long time ago, and the best way to keep it in the past was to not let herself think about it.

      Michael was nothing like the men her mother had dragged into their lives, but he was very sure of himself, cocky even, and clearly successful. He was the kind of man who liked getting what he wanted, and she had a feeling he wanted her bar.

      Still, she was going out for dinner with one of the sexiest men she had ever met. One of? He could be a contender for the sexiest man alive. A man who was going to pick her up next week in that flashy car of his and take her out to dinner to discuss business, and she had absolutely nothing to wear. For the first time in her life she wished she had a clue about what kind of clothes a woman wore to a business dinner with a man who drove a Porsche and wore designer shades.

      Rory had enough fashion sense for both of them, but she was on her honeymoon, and Nicola’s expensive tastes would put her in the poorhouse. Jess reached for the phone and punched in Paige’s number. She was up to her eyeballs in packing boxes but this was a fashion nine-one-one call, after all, and there was a first time for everything. Paige would understand.

      TO BEAT THE MORNING rush hour, Michael got up at dawn and drove through the still-slumbering city and north across the Golden Gate. That morning the bridge and the bay were frosted with a thick layer of fog, but a quick glance over his shoulder showed the lights of the city still sparkled against the lightening sky. He’d made this hour-and-a-half commute more times than he could count, but he never tired of the scenery, especially at sunrise. Now with the city behind him, he looked forward to going home.

      For the past few years, business had drawn him into the city more and more frequently and he had finally rented an apartment in Nob Hill so he had a home base. Or at least a place to stay and a place to entertain business colleagues as often as required. The plan had been to buy a condo or a town house, but he hadn’t found the time or the need to get that settled. Living in the city had taken some getting used to, but now he appreciated the noise and chaotic confusion as much as he cherished the order and symmetry of the countryside and vineyards that had been his backyard since childhood.

      In a couple of hours the roads would be busy with the tour buses that were the bread and butter for many of the smaller wineries and still a welcome addition to the bigger enterprises like Morgan Estate. As his car made quick work of the miles, he took in the sprawling, linear vineyards and tried to run through a mental inventory of everything he needed to cover at his meetings that morning, but his mind kept drifting to dinner with Jess next week.

      Where should he take her? Most of the women he’d dated preferred someplace elegant and expensive, but he could tell that wasn’t her style. They could drive up here to the valley—he knew of several out-of-the-way places—but it was too soon for that, he decided. Besides, this was a business dinner, not a date.

      He could take her to his wine bar at Fisherman’s Wharf, or they could stay in SoMa. Come to think of it…maybe they should do both. He smiled and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He had an idea that just might work, in more ways than one.

      The sun was well up by the time he arrived at the house and he looked forward to joining his family for breakfast. Instead of driving into his space in the garage, he pulled up on the cobblestone roundabout by the front entrance and popped the trunk. He slung the leather strap of his briefcase over his shoulder, took out the big, bright, professionally wrapped package and slammed the trunk shut.

      Right on cue, the front door flew open.

      “Mikey! Mikey!” His brother had given him the childish nickname years ago and continued to use it because he’d never been able to wrap his tongue around the L in Michael.

      “Hey, Ben. What are you up to this morning?” This adult-sized child’s soft, round features and ear-to-ear grin never failed to bring out Michael’s protective instincts.

      “Fix my car today?” Ben asked.

      “We’re not going to work on the car today, sport,” he said, more than happy to let his brother take ownership of a car he would someday be able to ride in but would never be able to drive. “It’s your birthday, remember?”

      Ben reached for the gift, the pudgy fingers of both hands splayed. “My present?”

      “It sure is, but you have to wait till your party to open it.”

      “Open it now!”

      Too late, Michael realized he should have left the gift in the trunk until Ben was otherwise occupied. “Where’s Poppy?” he asked.

      The diversion tactic worked. Ben spun around and ran into the house as fast as his stocky legs would carry him, yelling, “Pop! Pop! Poppy!”

      “Honey, why are you shouting?” Their mother’s calm, melodic voice drifted through the house.

      “Mikey’s home! Where’s Poppy?”

      “Michael? Are you here already?”

      “Yes, I am,” he called to her. “I’ll be right there.” He nudged open the door to his father’s den off the foyer, stashed Ben’s gift in a cabinet and set his briefcase on the floor next to the desk. He didn’t think of this room as his office, although it’s where he worked when he was here. He could still picture his father sitting in one of the big, coffee-colored leather armchairs by the gas fireplace, reading, and he could even detect the faint smell of pipe tobacco. It had been the only room in the house where his father smoked. After eight years, Michael wasn’t sure if the scent still lingered in the room or just in his memory.

      He left the den and followed his nose to the kitchen.

      “You’re earlier than usual.” His mother reached up and gave him a hug, then presented one lightly powdered cheek for a kiss. She was one of those rare women who appeared in the kitchen first thing in the morning fully dressed, hair done and makeup applied, long before anyone else in the family was awake.

      “I’m meeting with Ginny this morning, then I have a working lunch with Drew Attwell at the winery. That should wrap up by two at the latest, and then I’ll come back and