More Than A Woman

By Alex Abella

Can you ever relive the past?
Can a woman go back in time and rekindle a passion that was once cruelly extinguished? Can a man, no matter how wealthy and powerful, recreate the world he knew when he was young?
Miranda Ferri is the inheritor of a famous name in California’s Santa Margarita valley—but that name is all she has left, for the family fortune from vineyards and wine has evaporated. She has accepted an ordinary life, far from the grandeur and luxe that was once her birthright. Then her first lover, Roger, a farm worker’s son, returns after twenty years, wealthy beyond belief, determined to win her back and replace all that she lost and more.
Will Roger succeed in restoring the love and the life that once was? Or will shadows out of his mysterious past and fortune poison the paradise he seeks to rebuild? Can love survive time and tragedy and overcome the yawning gaps of race, class, and wealth? Two lost souls will soon learn the price of eternal love...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Abella
• Release date: Sep 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9780615855646

Alex Abella

A New York Times Notable Book author, Emmy-nominated TV reporter and screenwriter, Alex Abella is the author of Soldiers of Reason: The Rand Corporation and the American Empire, a study of the world's most influential think tank, published by Harcourt. Alex was the first journalist to have full access to RAND's files in Santa Monica, California.Abella's non-fiction work includes Shadow Enemies, a non-fiction account of a plot by Adolf Hitler to start a wave of terror and destruction in the United States.Born in Cuba, Alex migrated with his family to the United States at age 10. Alex grew up in New York City, winning a Pulitzer Scholarship to Columbia University. Moving to California, Alex joined The San Francisco Chronicle as a general assignment reporter. Later Alex switched to electronic media and was hired at KTVU-TV, Channel 2 News, where he became producer, writer and reporter and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Breaking News Story.Alex moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s to pursue a writing career. While in Los Angeles he worked as assistant to a private investigator and as a Los Angeles Superior Court interpreter. His experiences inspired him to write a legal thriller, The Killing of the Saints, featuring a Cuban-American hero, Charlie Morell, who's a lawyer and private investigator. The novel, published by Crown in 1991, was a New York Times Notable Book. Paramount Pictures optioned The Killing of the Saints and commissioned Alex to write the screenplay.Alex's second novel, The Great American, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1997. The Great American recounts the true adventures of William Morgan, a U.S. Marine who fought in the mountains of Cuba with Fidel Castro. The sequels to The Killing of the Saints, Dead of Night and Final Acts, were published in quick succession. The trilogy has won praise from critics and prominent writers such as Michael Connelly, T. Jefferson Parker and Robert Ferrigno.Alex is married and lives with his wife and children in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Book preview

MORE THAN A WOMAN

A Novel

by

Alex Abella

More Than A Woman

by Alex Abella

Copyright © 2013 Alex Abella

ISBN: 978-0-615-85564-6

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To Annie.

Amor con amor se paga.

Can you ever relive the past?

Can a woman go back in time and rekindle a passion that was once cruelly extinguished? Can a man, no matter how wealthy and powerful, recreate the world he knew when he was young?

Miranda Ferri is the inheritor of a famous name in California’s Santa Margarita valley—but that name is all she has left, for the family fortune from vineyards and wine has evaporated. She has accepted an ordinary life, far from the grandeur and luxe that was once her birthright. Then her first lover, Roger, a farm worker’s son, returns after twenty years, wealthy beyond belief, determined to win her back and replace all that she lost and more.

Will Roger succeed in restoring the love and the life that once was? Or will shadows out of his mysterious past and fortune poison the paradise he seeks to rebuild? Can love survive time and tragedy and overcome the yawning gaps of race, class, and wealth? Two lost souls will soon learn the price of eternal love…

Table of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Coming Soon…

Excerpt from Tainted Love

Also by Alex Abella

About the Author

CHAPTER I

Early afternoon, mid-August 1999 in Santa Margarita, California. Sticky breezes, the dull buzzing of insects. Down the sightline from the hotel grounds, above the Macayamas Range, a handful of inky clouds gather as though deciding to pay a visit.

From the corner of the bar I can see your mother in her short mauve dress, bridal bouquet in hand, still flush with the thrill of her second beginning-—Miranda Benoit, née Ferri, direct descendant of the founding patriarch of Santa Margarita, is now the wife of John Burnham, winemaker to some of the best vineyards in the valley. Miranda beams and hugs her friends, while John stands stiffly a few feet away in his one and only suit, embarrassed by her show of affection. You, Annie, run around the terrace in your flower girl dress, chasing somebody’s tow-haired little boy.

Jack Irving, the realtor, sidles over to me, chewing on a crab cake, his short beard stained with pinkish remoulade.

Hey, Sandy. He waves at the bartender for another glass of the house Viognier. Wonderful wedding, isn’t it?

I nod, keeping my feelings to myself. As always, Jack is casing the room, in case there is a chance he can talk to somebody else more important or, better yet, someone with a property he can list. Buyers are plenty, land is dear.

How’s the old rag? he asks.

OK, I reply, sipping my San Pellegrino. Lots of city people over for the summer.

Anybody need my services?

Is there a referral fee?

Sorry, no can do. Against company policy.

What policy? You own the damn place.

Rules, Sandy. We all have to follow rules. Like Bob Dylan says, to live outside the law you must be honest.

Cupidity exhausted, he moves to the other constant of a realtor’s life in Santa Margarita. You think it’s going to rain? Office pool says it’s going to be just as bad this summer.

I peer at the roiling sky. A year ago, the harvest was cut down by a series of warm downpours in late August which caused the grapes to ripen prematurely and burst with watery juice. The best wine in the world produced by state of the art scientific methods wasted by clouds that didn’t know their rightful place and time.

What’s the kitty? I ask.

Five hundred bucks. Some guy on the radio was saying it’s all because of global warming, the Earth is taking her revenge from the pollution and whatnot we’ve done to her.

I never knew you were an Earth First! kind of guy.

You got the wrong farmer, buddy, says Jack, downing his wine in one gulp. I belong to the Jack First! group. But those guys over there are plenty worried.

He jerks his chin at about a dozen guests, the working growers and winery owners, already hoisting their cell phones as they scan the sky, wondering whether to call in a crew to pick as much as possible or wait and hope the storm will head elsewhere.

When they get jumpy, I get the jitters, says Jack. It’s their land I’m selling, babe, and they know better than anyone what makes all this worthwhile. Those guys are our backbone.

Your compassion moves me to tears.

It’s all business. Money talks, blah, blah. By the way, I just opened escrow on the old Ferri estate.

My ears perk up. This could be a news item, if the buyer is a big enough name, a media mogul or Internet wonder boy, ready to rusticate among the trellises.

Miranda’s old place? La Sombrosa? The place has been shut down for years. Who’s buying the old hulk?

Some corporate guy out of the Far East. Wincorp was asking an outrageous amount but this guy didn’t bat an eyelash.

How much?

Eight million. And that’s for the front ten acres on Highway 61. The back twenty is an extra forty.

That’s some commission.

Don’t forget my ex-wives. I’ll be lucky if I clear a mill this year. Gotta go, there’s old man Reinhardt, I want to talk to him about his place up in Alexander Valley.

Jack puts his glass down, raring to round up his latest cash bull. I grab him by the arm.

What’s the name of the mystery Midas?

The name is Robertson. Roger Robertson. His outfit is called Pasado Enterprises. Cute, huh? Gotta go. You owe me.

You know where to find me.

He wades into the crowd, accosting the short, cherubic looking owner of Whitbread Publishing who bought a forty square mile valley as his private preserve two years ago. I finish my water, wave goodbye at your mom and hustle down to the Register. This item will definitely make the top of my next column.

• • • • •

My editor, Dick Bronson, is less than enthused on reading the lede.

Who cares about La Sombrosa?

History is important to our readers, Dick. They still remember when you could go to Sloan’s and refill your prescription, instead of your decaffeinated nonfat chai latte with a twist.

Dick glares at me. He came over from San Francisco to refashion the Santa Margarita Register into a classier kind of paper along the lines of the New York Observer—taut, wise and ever so hip. Every day I wonder how much longer he’ll tolerate my penchant for looking back. I was only seven when my father moved the family to The City—as every Northern Californian calls San Francisco—but I still remember the cow town that was Santa Margarita.

Dick tosses my smudged pages back; I am the only writer in the paper who still writes on a Royal typewriter, everyone else has succumbed to the lure of word processors with their little lines of type that magically appear and disappear like chugging trains in fields of ether.

Find another lede, he says, returning to his pesto, mozzarella, heirloom tomato and arugula foccacia sandwich.

There’s nothing wrong with ‘Old Mammoth Bought by Mammon.’

Sandy, nobody knows who Mammon was.

Well, you know, it’s in the Bible. You cannot serve both…

I know what it means and you know what it means but it don’t mean diddly to our readers. Wake up and smell the Franklins, baby. The pursuit of the mighty dollar is and has always been this valley’s only goal. People didn’t come up here to plant grapes because they were proto-hippies. They planted grapes to make money and there’s nothing wrong with that. Stop being holier than thou and fix it.

There is something called quality of life.

You are so elitist. I’m giving you an assignment. Interview the guy who just bought the old Ferri pile and ask him how he feels about money. How did he get it and why did he buy the place.

The guy’s not even in town yet.

You ever hear of a phone? Call him. And change that lede.

My hands tremble with barely contained rage. It would be so easy to wrap my fingers around his pudgy little neck and…

If you say so, boss.

Now you’re talking.

• • • • •

A few days after your mother’s wedding the man who calls himself Roger Robertson flies his private jet in from the Caribbean, picks up his Ferrari Testarossa at Napa Airport and races up the darkened, winding road to Santa Margarita in the middle of the night, the dim reflection of the past his only beacon. He drives up to La Sombrosa and parks under the towering oak tree planted by Benedetto Ferri at the turn of the last century.

Holding in his hands the key that Jack Irving Fed Exed him, Roger Robertson swiftly unlocks the mansion’s massive oak door, which creaks open on its rusty hinges. His steps resound like bullets in the vestibule. He stops, turns on a light that shines on empty halls and corridors. Excited, he heads back outside and stands on the desolate porch, surveying acres of withering vines under a yellow summer moon. All his, at last.

He stands a while in the darkness, breathing in the smell of oaks and loam, the hint of tar from the nearby highway, the wisp of a sea breeze sliding in through the Pineville grade. He steps off the porch, crosses the gravel driveway, then runs down the rows of vines, his hands held out to the sides, touching the raisin clusters on the crippled trellises, a madman in the moonlit night.

Returning to the house, Robertson picks up a smooth white rock from the driveway, holds it in his hand, feeling its heft, its warmth, its untold stories, then hustles back inside. He marches into the long empty ballroom. An ornate gilt mirror still hangs over the fireplace and in the fraction of a second that it takes him to register his reflection, his features distorted by the accumulation of so many years of unresolved feelings, of longing and of rage, he hurls the rock at the mirror, smashing it into long shiny shards which fall with an awful clatter on the dark wood floor.

CHAPTER II

Do you remember how this place was twenty years ago?

Bruce Damien, the head horticulturalist for Sienna Orchards, is arranging a centerpiece of cattleya orchids, viridium leaves, mustard flowers and other exotic blooms on the banquet table. The dining room of Cellini Vineyards is being prepared for the birthday feast of the company patriarch, Domenico Fitzgerald Cellini. Already the fourth Mrs. Cellini is ordering the staff about, fussing over the silverware and glasses, having the life-sized portrait of her cragged husband raised a few more feet on the dais, in general carrying on with the punctiliousness known to those who have clawed their way to empyrean heights.

From the kitchen I can hear your mother Miranda fixing the spread. Pots are filled, grills are fired, sauces whisked, meats turned, the whole panoply of prep work needed for a dinner that will be the highlight of my column and all the Northern California newspapers and TV newscasts. After all, it isn’t everyday that Mr. Santa Margarita Valley gets to celebrate his 85th birthday in bright lights and rousing fashion.

I pick up a bud for a boutonniere. For a moment I remember my father, the high-flying San Francisco attorney, always sporting a white carnation on the lapel of his bespoke suit until drink and debt swallowed up his practice and his life. I place the bud back in its vase.

Let’s see. Twenty years ago. Where was I? Hmm, I was down in Salinas, covering the farm workers for the Examiner. So, no, I don’t remember. What was so special about it?

Bruce runs his hands quickly through the wispy floral arrangement, as though caressing a client’s hair in a salon. He shakes his head in dramatic dismay.

These things never stand still, they are so picky, I swear. Well, it’s just that I was remembering the last time I did a party for Mr. Cellini it was his wedding. Twenty years ago.

To Ingrid? I ask, looking askance at the petite platinum blonde in the kitchen barking orders at the staff.

Oh, goodness, no! he sniffs in disdain. She was a Reno quickie. I mean his previous wife, Carmela. Now that was a class act. She used to work in the office, just like Ingrid. He raises his neatly trimmed eyebrows almost to his gleaming, shaven pate.

You know he has a thing with those girls in there. Always has.

Even now?

Most definitely. These old timers, they’re like old bulls, they never quit. Bruce drops his sing-song chatter to a silken hiss. Why do you think she’s always keeping an eye on everyone? She remembers how she got the part. Anyhow, as I was saying…what was I saying?

Twenty years ago.

"Oh, yes. Back then things were so different! I think there were only two or three nice stores, everything else was for farmers. That’s why I moved to Maui. Why, I remember one New Year’s Eve I had to stay in the valley, I couldn’t make it to The City for some reason. To celebrate New Year’s we had to go to The Grapevine, you remember the old steakhouse?"

Before I can catch my breath and stick a word in, he’s placing flowers at another table, weaving close the strands of memory.

That was the only restaurant open and only until eleven. Imagine that! On New Year’s! And it was raining! Travis, rest in peace, and I and our friends, we had nowhere to go. This place was dead then. Now there are so many places to go it’s as big as, as… he hesitated then the right words fall on his tongue, and he spits them out with glee: As Vegas!

You’re probably right, I say, shaking my head and moving to the kitchen.

To your mother.

To Miranda.

I don’t know how you will remember her, if in your mind’s eye you will always have the child’s perspective of the parent—a powerful giant who can upturn your world with a mere gesture. In reality she is a slip of a woman, an inch or two above five feet, fine-boned but well shaped, with the pleasing curves and light olive complexion of her Mediterranean forebears. Striking blue eyes, the shade of a bright winter morning, are offset by a luxurious mane of auburn hair the color of autumn leaves. In manner direct but friendly, she wears no jewelry except for her wedding ring and a star-shaped pendant I gave her which dangles from a gold chain around her neck.

When I enter the kitchen, she is patiently explaining in half Italian and half Spanish how to slice a strawberry into a pleasing fan shape for the salad presentation. Wearing a white apron, black dress and pumps, her hair is gathered at the back in a bun, a few stray tendrils framing her face. She lays down the paring knife, smiles at the apprentice cook.

Così se hace, she finishes. The apprentice replies with a long string of grateful mutterings before moving on to the prep table. Miranda smiles at me, deep dimples springing up on either side of her slender mouth.

There you are, I’ve been waiting for you, she says, hugging me, smelling of garlic and Je Reviens. We exchange pleasantries, I say something totally inconsequential which she takes to be hugely funny and she graces me with her famous laugh, hands on her hips, neck stretched out, head rolled back, face upturned, making you the beneficiary of all her glee, making you feel you are the best and the brightest and the funniest, at least for that moment.

Hey, aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?

Still smiling, Miranda returns to her table, looking here and there for a plastic container.

Well, John’s trying to save up to buy that acreage in Anderson Valley, so we’ve decided to wait a while. Maybe next year we’ll go to Hawaii, you know, one of those three-day, $50-dollar-a-room Waikiki deals? I’m afraid that’s all we’ll be able to afford for a while. Anyhow, it’s not like we haven’t been seeing enough of each other already.

Do you need any money in the meantime?

No, thanks. We’re doing alright.

"Annie’s alright with