Tasting Notes Read Online Free Page A

that settled into his bones. He couldn’t seem to get warm, the shadow of his shirked duty to his grandfather keeping him in perpetual darkness. California was warm, it was far from home, and Eureka sounded like the type of place his grandfather would have liked to visit. It sounded quirky and happy, like he had been. When West’s gaze fell on that tiny dot on the map, he knew it was the perfect place to lay his grandfather to rest.
    “Of course. I’ll text you with the details as soon as I’ve made the arrangements.”
    “Thanks, Scarlet.”
    “Of course, Mr. Weston.” Silence fell then, and just as West was about to say good-bye, she spoke up once more. “Is everything okay?”
    Her concern for him was sweet. “Yes, everything is fine. I just need to take care of a few things, so I need a few days off to get to California and back.”
    “Okay. Call me if you need anything.”
    “I will.”
    “Anything, Mr. Weston,” she said with extra emphasis. West smiled. He knew she cared about him. She was probably fifteen years older than his thirty-five, and she always had a maternal quality about her that West found endearing. It was one of the reasons he hired her in the first place. Her motherly nature, paired with her quick wit and sass, made her an enjoyable person to have around the office, and her qualifications made her perfect for the position. West didn’t know if he could do his job without her.
    He said good-bye and hung up, then fiddled with the dial until he found the station he was looking for on his satellite radio. There were hundreds of stations, but West usually switched between two—the financial news and national news. Today he skipped through until he found a station that played music he liked. A road trip needed music.
    He didn’t make it much farther than the outskirts of the city when his phone beeped, alerting him to the text Scarlet sent. She made reservations at four different hotels along his route, the first one in Des Moines, Iowa. He’d be there around supper time. He was grateful for her foresight. He’d gotten a late start, and driving all night wasn’t something he wanted to do. He’d get a good night’s sleep and hit the road early the next morning.
    He punched the waypoint into his navigation, and he was on his way. His fingers tingled around the soft leather of the steering wheel. He felt like he was a little kid again, when he and his grandfather used to play knights and dragons in the backyard. His grandfather always let him be the knight, going on a quest to slay the dragon. The same excitement lit his soul now, the exhilaration of the unknown—the great adventure.
     
     
    HE DROVE almost two thousand miles over three days, and the exhilaration of the unknown wore off somewhere around Omaha. He was tired, sore, and if he had to take a piss in one more gas station bathroom, he was going to lose his ever-loving mind. One state morphed into another, until if it weren’t for his navigation system, he’d have no idea where he was. He couldn’t tell the difference between Illinois and Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming, or Utah and Nevada, but as he neared California, he began to feel that spark of excitement again. He was almost there.
    He crossed the state line and drove through the mountains, in awe of how beautiful the landscape became. The lion’s share of his drive had consisted of open road along flat, barren land. The only change of scenery was the cities dotted along the way. There were some low hills in the distance as he drove through Nevada, but nothing like this. His mood rose steadily with the elevation of the highway as he wound his way back and forth along the mountain road.
    He reached what appeared to be the summit, the sides of the highway decorated with thick forests of evergreens, some draped in snow. It was beautiful, and as much as West wanted to go to California to escape the cold, here it seemed less icy and more ethereal. Unlike the city, where minutes