Page 7 of The Very Virile Viking

As sure as dragon piss, it was a good sign.

Chapter Two

Sonoma Valley, June 2003

Whining in Wine Country…

The sign read, Blue Dragon Vineyard .

Angela Abruzzi made a smooth slide of her hand on the leather steering wheel of her BMW, turning it up the drive to the rambling Victorian house she had once called home. With a deep sigh, she slowed the Beamer to a crawl and tried to enjoy the familiar scenery, despite the knot in her stomach, which had been tightening since she'd left her apartment in L.A. this morning. The tension was not due to trepidation at coming home; that was always a joy. It was due to the formidable task she had to accomplish today.

The stately, unique species of oak trees that lined the drive always brought a smile to her face. The trees, with their rare speckled bark, had been a whim of the original builder a hundred years ago… and too expensive and showy not to be kept up by all the owners since then. The low stone walls on either side of the road were dotted every ten feet or so with enormous, dragon-design terra-cotta planters spilling over with lush red geraniums that were painstakingly cared for by her seventy-five-year-old grandmother.

Wildflowers in a myriad of pastel colors dotted the lawns leading up to the house and beyond, on either side of the stream that fed into a large pond. The pond acted as a reservoir for the much-needed irrigation system. Ancient willow trees surrounded the pond like Southern belles with wide lacy crinolines; they'd been her make-believe playhouses as a child. Behind the house as far as the eye could see, for two hundred acres or more, were row upon row of grapevines, bright green now in the June sun but soon to be filled with clusters of purple globes—the lifeblood of Blue Dragon. A large vegetable garden was also located in the back—far too big for the single inhabitant of the house.

As she pulled up to the wide circle in front of the house with its wraparound porch, her grandmother, Rose Abruzzi, was already coming down the steps to greet her, a welcoming smile on her face. In many ways they resembled each other, especially the thick masses of curly hair spilling down over their shoulders, although Angela's was coal black and Grandma's was now pure white. And they both had coal-black eyes and a tiny black mole just above the upper lip on the right, something Grandma preferred to call a beauty mark.

People were always surprised when they met her grandmother for the first time. To say she was not the usual senior citizen would be a vast understatement. Today she wore a white tank top and denim coveralls over her still-trim figure. A Virginia Slims cigarette dangled from the fingertips of her right hand.

Grandma had been a chain smoker for more than fifty years and was not about to stop now, despite all the health warnings. Her feet, still a petite size six that she prided herself on, were covered with muddy, formerly white sneakers.

"Angela, darling," her grandmother crooned, opening her arms wide for a one-armed embrace, meanwhile holding her cigarette expertly in the air to avoid catching her granddaughter's hair on fire. Even as she hugged, she shook off the long ash. Before she'd discovered Virginia Slims, Grandma had used a cigarette holder, and what a pretentious sight that had been! Dungarees and an eighteen-karat-gold Tiffany cigarette holder! Her grandfather had matched her conspicuous consumption with Cuban cigars.

But those had been the days of prosperity… before the year of the drought, before the year they'd had the fire in the warehouse just after harvest, before the year they'd had so many strange machinery breakdowns, before the year they'd lost their prize vintner to a French winery, before the year they'd been hit with phylloxera. Now they just eked by, growing grapes for other wine makers, hoping for a miracle that would allow them to bottle wine again.

Thank God for her job in the city, which allowed her to make huge commissions selling Beverly Hills homes to the rich and famous. Without her annual input of $100,000 to $200,000 into Blue Dragon, they would be looking at one dead mythical serpent… so to speak.

"Grandma!" she squealed affectionately, and hugged back, giving an extra squeeze. It had been only a month since she'd visited last, but she missed the old lady and was desperately worried about her and the

vineyards these days… with good reason. "How have you been? Is Miguel taking his heart pills? Did you fix the aerator? Where's Jow?" Miguel was the foreman, just as old as Grandma and still working as hard as ever, despite his doctor's precautions. And Jow was "Just One Week," the German shepherd she'd bought for her grandmother and grandfather so they wouldn't be lonely eight years ago after she married the man they had all come to refer to as the Creep. They'd vowed to keep the dog for "just one week"

because having a rambunctious animal amidst delicate grapevines could be a problem. Besides, even as a puppy, they'd been able to tell by his huge pointy ears and enormous feet that he was going to grow into the horse of a dog he was now. Well, they'd kept Jow, her marriage had ended after only one year (too bad she hadn't made the one-week vow about the Creep), and grandpa had died three years ago of a sudden and massive stroke, brought on in part by the series of unexplained mishaps in his precious vineyard.

Grandma shrugged and began to lead her up the front steps. "Everything's fine. Jow is out with Miguel inspecting the new roots in the west field. You know, that damn dog has the greatest nose for aphids.

And he saved a dozen of the rootstock last week by scarfing up slugs. Eats like a horse, and not just slugs. He ruined three of my prize rosebushes this spring because he insists on peeing there, close to the house. But at least the damn dog is of some use." She sniffed with disdain as she spoke, as if to hide the fact that she adored "the damned dog." She took a long drag on her cigarette, blew out the smoke in a circular cloud, then ground out the stub in a special sand-filled tub near the front door, placed there especially for that purpose by a disapproving Juanita, the Mexican housekeeper who had been a fixture at Blue Dragon forever. She was Miguel's wife.

"When are you going to quit smoking, Grandma?"

"When are you going to find yourself a good man and come back home to Blue Dragon?"

Never, apparently. "I heard you have a buyer interested in Blue Dragon. Gunther again?"

"As always," her grandmother said in a voice of pure disgust. If it wouldn't have been unladylike, she probably would have spit, too.

Gunther Morgan was a neighboring vintner who had been wanting to buy the Blue Dragon for years, since even before her grandfather had died. They suspected, but had never been able to prove, that he was responsible for some shady tactics to coerce them and other property owners in the region to sell. A more despicable fellow was not to be found in all of the Sonoma Valley.

"At least he's upped his offer this time," Angela remarked.

"Who told you that?"

"Carmen."

"Pfff! My great niece has a big mouth. She ought to use it to mind her own business. In fact, she ought to use it to find herself a husband and a father for that girl of hers."

"Grandma!"

"Well, it's true. If Carmen would spend more time teaching her daughter some traditional values, instead of preaching all that man-hating nonsense to college girls, she'd be a lot better off."