Sooner or Later Read Online Free PDF Page B

Californian; a champion swimmer in high school, on the rowing squad at UCSB, and an avid surfer and fisherman.He was a lean, hard-bodied thirty-nine-year-old, attractive and with an ex-wife in L.A.
    They’d married young, when Dan was still in college. The breakup came a couple of years later and he’d wanted to put as much distance between himself and the past as possible. He’d needed a new direction, so he’d gone to New York and become a cop. He’d never regretted it. His colleagues knew him to be a tough, intuitive detective. A man who cared about his job, and cared about the victims. “Dan’s only failing is that he can’t set the whole world to rights all by himself,” the Chief had complained, but he was smiling when he said it.
    Two years ago, Dan had been badly wounded, shot in the chest while arresting a murder suspect. Only quick action by his partner and friend, Detective Pete Piatowsky, had saved him.
    Being that close to death had given him pause for thought. He’d been lucky this time, but what about the next? The answer was moot, because the injury left him with a stiffness in the right arm and shoulder that hampered his speed drawing a weapon. It didn’t seem like much of a disability to him, but the Police Medical Board had disagreed and assigned him to permanent administrative duties.
    Life as an NYPD detective was one thing, out on the edgy streets, doing his bit to clean up the city. Life behind a desk did not have the same appeal. And that’s why, tomorrow, he was on a flight back to California and a new life as the owner of a small winery he’d bought, not far from the town where he grew up.
    He told himself he’d had enough of murder and mayhem to last him several lifetimes. He wanted to get back to the simpler life the countryside offered. Horses, dogs, chickens; small-town living. If it meant he had to become Farmer Dan to do it, then that’s what he intended to be.
    His father had died recently, and he’d bought the vineyard on a wave of memories and nostalgia with the idea of getting back to his roots. On bad days, he told himself he must be crazy and that Running Horse Ranch was doomed to failure. And on the good days he told himself he was a quick learner and willing to give it all he’d got. His time, his energy, his money—what he had left of it. And one day it would all pay off and be a big success.
    He’d never actually visited the property, though when he first saw the ad, he’d remembered the area from when he was a kid. And he wasn’t a complete greenhorn. The year before he left for college, he’d earned tuition money working at a vineyard in Napa. He’d done everything from toiling in the fields to harvesting grapes; to working the crush and in the bottling plant. Interested, he’d hung out with the winemaker, observing the various processes. He’d experienced all the problems: the sudden frost that could wipe out a crop overnight if you didn’t get out there fast—usually at three in the morning—and mist down the vines. He’d seen grapes shriveled to hard worthless little raisins by disease. He’d fought flood and worked with the burning sun on his back. And most of all, he’d learned exactly how dependent a winemaker was on the weather. Good vines plus good weather equaled a good crop. It was a simple equation. He only hoped he could make it work.
    The sunshiny photos of the property had shown a rolling landscape scattered with scrub oak, shady eucalyptus and bare-looking rows of vines. There was a little wooden house complete with a wraparound porch, a red barn that housed the winery, and Spanish adobe-style stables set around a picturesque courtyard. It looked so good he had fallen instantly in love with it. Besides, it was cheap, a bargain they’d told him. With what he’dinherited from his father, his savings, and his disability pension, he could just about swing it. And now he was hoping, uneasily, that it was really as great as it looked in the