Tessa Stark: Desert Heat

Chapter Twenty

Staring down at the gold lettering...at the name emblazoned across the bottle...Angela's Wish...Tessa found herself stunned. You, a blanket, a bottle of wine...that's my fondest wish.

"Is there anything special about this wine?" she heard herself ask as she looked back to the women...wondering if perhaps she might have just found Angela.

Though, if she had just discovered Hallie's starry sky, it did beg the question of whether or not Angela was actually a woman. It stood to reason that a man who's wife or lover spoke French, would likely speak the language, too, at least to some degree. And that lovely young lover or wife might not be too happy that her man was cavorting with Hallie Whitmore.

"Not really," Leva replied. "It was just Hallie's favorite. She never drank anything else when we went out."

"She's been drinking it for a while," Chloe put in, her words laced with heaviness. "Ever since we had a wine tasting out at the vineyard for my birthday..."

"There's a vineyard nearby?" she questioned, getting back to making notes.

"Yes. StoneHouse Vineyard," Danni said. "Its out past The Flats--"

"Special Detective Stark? Is that you?" a deep voice interrupted and Tessa glanced around to see several bodies filing into the seating area, with Nathan Rutherford in the lead.

Catching sight of the young man—who was dressed in tight black jeans and a tight black tee shirt, with a black tie hanging loosely done around his neck—sent a wave of ick rolling over her, but she got to her feet nonetheless, forcing an amiable expression onto her face.

"Hello, Nathan. Fancy meeting you here," she greeted as the young man came to a stop before her.

"Fancy meeting you here, Tessa. And looking absolutely beautiful, no less," he complimented in a sultry tone as he laid his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to press his mouth against first one cheek and then the other, lingering a touch longer than necessary in both instances.

"I thought you weren't venturing any farther than your swimming pool," she said as he stepped back...but not quite far enough.

He lifted a shoulder, his chiseled face taking on a sly expression. "I've been in exile for a month. So, I thought I'd dip my toe back in, just to see if I'm still considered public enemy number one."

"I actually had to drag him out of his house," a feminine voice stated as a shape appeared at Nathan's elbow.

That shape turned out to be a young woman who was...unlike the other young women she'd been introduced to so far, and whose visage was also a familiar one, thanks to the grainy photos on her cell phone. She was small in stature and rail thin, wearing a slinky black dress that clung to her petite, natural curves and carrying a well branded black handbag. Her hair was dark and cut into a choppy, asymmetrical bob, her eyes were a smoky gray, her features were sharp and elvish and adorned with diamond brow, nose, and lip piercings, which matched the large diamond studs in her ears, as well as the strand of diamonds around her neck and the several strands twinkling on her wrist. And adorning her healthily tanned flesh was an array of colorful tattoos depicting flowers, butterflies, and birds.

"Introduce me, Nate," the woman urged after a few seconds of silence. "Where are your manners?"

Nathan stepped around Tessa, positioning himself at her side. "This is Special Detective Tessa Stark. Tessa, this is a friend of mine, Etty Montrose. And those are some of my other friends," he introduced, motioning toward the small group of finely dressed men and women heading toward the seating area and the bottles of wine waiting there.