The Crush

by Heather Heyford

  “A girl after my own heart. Can’t go wrong sticking with the classics. You shouldn’t keep your olive oil above the stove. It gets rancid when it’s exposed to heat. Got any cheese? Any kind will do. It’s the wrong time of the year for tomatoes, unless you got canned. Back east, I only buy fresh ones in season. They’re only good in August and September. Ah, here’s the salt. Same deal with your spices. You ought to move them away from the stove.”

  Junie watched, mesmerized. He had the moves of a professional chef. Both arms were in constant motion, one tipping the pan to swirl the oil, one rummaging around for ingredients. Standing on her tiptoes, she peered over his shoulder. His thick, muscular shoulder. With every movement came the ripple of biceps and his rugged yet sophisticated scent. She stood so close that if he weren’t so into his task he’d probably have felt her breath on him. So close, she jumped when he whipped around unexpectedly.

  “Cheese?” he repeated, like she didn’t understand English.

  She blinked. “I’ll look, but don’t get your hopes up. Mom doesn’t do dairy, and I practically live on peanut butter and granola.”

  A moment later, she slapped a long-forgotten bar of cheddar into his outstretched left hand. His right was occupied with working the pan, tipping, swirling, letting it clatter onto the burner with a loud bang. “Use this at your own risk. I don’t know how long it’s been in there.”

  He ripped back the plastic and sniffed. “It’ll do. Grater?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” He pulled out a drawer and rummaged around impatiently, pulling out a knife, using his thumb to test its edge. “Cutting board?”

  Junie remembered one in the tall, skinny cabinet next to the sink.

  “Why just peanut butter?” he asked with his back to her, slicing the cheese into uniform slivers.

  She shrugged. “It’s a cheap source of quick energy.”

  “You need to get out and get a decent meal from time to time, if only for a mental break. Helps you come back to your work refreshed.”

  Yet another reference to a date? What was that—three? Not that she was counting.

  “Just one more thing. Be right back.” He flipped off the gas. “Get out a bowl for me?” Then he dashed out the front door.

  From the kitchen window, Junie watched him jog out and grab a beat-up duffel bag off the front seat of a late-model black pickup.

  Back inside, he pulled a jar and a plastic squeeze bottle from his bag.

  “You carry your own condiments?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I’ve learned to be prepared.”

  “There’s prepared, and then there’s obsessed.”

  He flashed her that chandelier grin. “It’s in my blood. Italians love to eat. You don’t know that?”

  She picked up the jar and examined it. “I know other Italian people, and they don’t carry around their own homemade seasonings.”

  He turned back to the range. “Ah. Maybe they’ve never been stranded in the desert where they had to survive on dried grass for a week. Maybe they don’t know food like I do.” With a flick of his wrist, the blue flame rekindled. Then, one-handed, he broke the remaining eggs into the Pyrex cup she’d found and began whisking them.

  Junie sidled over to watch. “That’s a nice pickup you’ve got out there.”

  “Sam offered me the use of his while I’m here. Said there was no use in renting one since he usually drives the van anyway, but I’d feel better having my own. Something about a man’s truck. So I went over to the dealership and a guy hooked me up with this loaner for the summer.”

  By the time she got some cutlery and a couple of plates, the perfectly turned omelets, oozing cheese and topped with his spices and special sauce, were done.

  Manolo scraped in his chair and arranged his napkin on his lap while Junie poured him some coffee.

  “Mmmm,” Junie mumbled the moment the rich fluffiness touched her tongue.

  He grinned, digging in with his fork. “Yeah? You like that?”

  The warm, delicious food served by a warm, delicious man thawed her usual reserve. “Okay.” She swallowed, laughing in spite of herself. “No one just shows up at my house for the second day in a row, helps my mom lift heavy furniture, and cooks me a gourmet breakfast. Who are you, for real? Besides Sam’s Army buddy?”

  “Lieutenant Manolo Santos from Hoboken, New Jersey, ma’am.” He pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to her. “At your service.”

  “Where’d you get the culinary skills?”

  He took a slug of his coffee. “I grew up in my family’s pizzeria. While all my friends were outside learning to ride bikes, I was learning the restaurant business. How to sling dough and make marinara.”

  “Your parents had their own restaurant?”

  “My parents, their parents, and so on, all the way back to Naples. And I’m not talking Florida.” His plate empty, he wiped his mouth and laid his napkin next to his plate. “All that was missing was some good bread. Maybe next time.”

  Next time?

  He rose to clear the dishes, but not before she finished eating. That small, considerate gesture didn’t go unnoticed by a seasoned waitress like Junie. It must have been one high-class pizza shop where Manolo learned the ropes. The dives she’d worked in rushed service to turn over tables as quickly as possible. But she forgot about that when she saw how he looked behind the big apron sink—as if all the pieces of a puzzle had suddenly fallen into place.

  Back when the house was under construction, Mom had scolded Dad for going overboard on a kitchen designed for whipping up elaborate feasts and hosting large gatherings instead of something more suited to a small family in which the mother was at work more than she was at home. Admitting Mom was right felt disloyal to Dad’s memory, but Junie had to admit, the microwave got used more than the stove.

  “You didn’t want to continue the tradition?”

  He shook his head. “No way. Not for me, all work day in and day out, with no time for a life. And it wasn’t just my father and me. My mother and my three sisters worked, too. Seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Including Christmas.”

  “The restaurant is still there, then?”

  “Still there,” he said, retrieving the dishwashing liquid from under the sink. “Forty years. Opened the year my parents got married. My sisters have mostly taken over, but my parents still go in every day.”

  “You think you’ll go back someday?”

  He shrugged. “Plenty of time to think about that later.”

  “I used to be part of a family business. Now I’m a one-man band: vineyard manager, cellar rat, and winemaker. Not that I’m complaining. I’m the luckiest girl in the world to be doing what I’ve always wanted to do.”

  Hand cupped under the running water to gauge the temperature, he cocked his head and smiled. “To each his own. Better you than me, sweetheart.”

  Junie hopped up. “You cooked. I’ll clean.”

  “I got it. Hand me that pan, will you?”

  She tidied up around him while stealthily scrutinizing his body some more from behind.

  He whirled around just as she was returning the dishcloth to the sink. “’Bout time I get back to town. Sam had a meeting, but it’s probably over by now. We’re getting together at the site of the new consortium this afternoon.”

  Feeling oddly disappointed, Junie thrust her hands into her pajama bottom pockets. “I have work to do, too.”

  “Got time to walk me out to the truck?”

  “Let me slip on my boots.”

  Chapter Seven

  Outside, Manolo pointed to the scaffolding surrounding the side of the house. “What’s the story with that?”

  “My dad designed a new side porch, but he died before he could finish it. I’ve been trying to finish it myself along with taking care of the vineyard and everything else, but things keep happening.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I’ve hired two different guys to do it,
but they both disappeared after a couple of weeks. Then something else comes up that I need to throw money at. The winery’s not turning a profit yet. The porch won’t make me any money, but the vineyard will, so that takes priority.”

  He stood pondering the framed-out structure. “Have you bought the rest of the lumber and the other materials yet?”

  She pointed with her chin to a metal roofed building. “They’re over there, in the barn.”

  He walked over and tried an exposed floorboard. “Decks feel secure. It’s just a matter of cutting the railings, attaching them to the posts, and adding the top caps.” He tipped his head back to scrutinize the house as a whole. “Good, solid construction. Shame your family didn’t get to live in it longer.”

  “I know. We moved from base to base my entire childhood. When people asked me where I was from, I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes at Christmas we’d visit my dad’s family in Missouri. I envied my cousins, growing up in the same place their whole life, having what I called ‘old friends.’ Granted, I had friends from all over, probably even more than they did, but no one who’d known me all my life. Then, when I was thirteen, my dad retired from the military and bought this land so he could grow grapes on it and make wine. I was so happy to finally have a home of our own.”

  Manolo sniffed at the irony. “You couldn’t wait to find a home, and I couldn’t wait to leave mine.”

  Lost in separate thoughts, they ambled out to Sam’s truck, drawing out the short trip.

  “Your dad was the one who got you interested in wine?”

  “At first, it was a hobby passed down to him from my grandfather. Granddad was a tenant farmer. Growing up, his family didn’t have much money, but they had fresh-grown vegetables . . . homemade wine . . . fish pulled from the Ozark Mountain streams, and venison Granddad hunted in the woods. Dad said it was the best life a kid could have. Then the landowner sold the ground to a developer. Dad and his family moved to an apartment in Springfield, and at the age of forty-one, Granddad got a job in shipping and receiving for one of those big-box stores.”

  She looked up. “Can you imagine the prospect of spending the rest of your life endlessly rotating stock inside a dark warehouse?”

  Manolo didn’t respond.

  “The day Dad graduated from high school, Granddad drove him down to the nearest recruiter’s office without telling him or my grandma where they were going until the papers were signed, rather than doom him to the same fate.”

  “Your mom like to cook? ’Cause that kitchen was made for someone who does.”

  “Honestly, she’s too busy with her practice. But Dad didn’t take shortcuts. He wanted to build us something solid and lasting.”

  “He did a commendable job. Beautiful brick chimney. I saw the fireplace in your bedroom when I was helping your mom.”

  Junie blushed. First her bills, now her dirty underwear. Could it get any more embarrassing?

  “At least your dad left you with a comfortable foundation. You can even walk to work.”

  The late morning sun felt warm on her back, her stomach was pleasantly full, and a cute, smart builder was joking with her. A smile tugged at the corners of Junie’s mouth.

  “Speaking of work, how’s the wine business?”

  “I think my pinot could really go somewhere—if I could find a way to get more people back here to taste it, get the word out.”

  “Do you have a distributor?”

  A burst of laughter escaped from her throat. “You’re kidding, right? I’m still hand watering the vines myself from the world’s longest hose that I pieced together. No. Sam’s been using his connections to help me look, but he hasn’t found anyone yet. It’s tricky. Distributors are looking for businesses that are already established, but how are you supposed to get established without a distributor? I manage my own website and hire Keval to help out with occasional promo. During the crush time, I take on part-timers to do the picking and pressing.”

  “Tell you what,” Manolo said as he opened the truck door and slung his condiment-filled duffel over onto the passenger seat. “I’ll get a handle on Sam’s project, then come back in a couple days and you can show me what you got in the barn. It won’t take long to slap that porch together. Hell, I’d pay you to let me do it, do it just for the fun of it. Nice change of pace from supervising others. Then you can put that behind you and focus on your grapes. . . .”

  Junie’s work-weary heart swelled as she watched him climb into his truck. The door slammed shut, the engine roared, and the window slid down. Manolo draped his elbow out the window, looking as at home in his rented truck as a cowboy in a well-worn saddle.

  “Not that I think you have a snowball’s chance in hell of being successful at this.”

  Before she knew what she was doing, she hauled off and gave his truck a mighty kick.

  “Hey!”

  “You self-righteous . . . misogynistic . . . moron!” She should have known better than to let down her guard.

  “You’re lucky this is a rental!”

  “For your information, I don’t need your help, Mr. High and Mighty. I’ve got this. I’ve got another guy coming at noon.”

  With that, she turned and flounced away. There were no breaks in this life. Everything always came back to cold, hard reality: The only person she could depend on was herself.

  Manolo yelled to her back, “Where’d you find this one?”

  “None of your business!” she hollered without bothering to turn around. This next guy had better work out. The crush could start as soon as August, and if the porch was still unfinished during the high point of the tourist season, it wouldn’t look good. Not good at all.

  He called out over the engine. “Check his references, and this time don’t pay anything up front. You change your mind, you got my cell.”

  Change her mind? She whipped around, hair flying, and jammed her fists on her hips. “That’ll be the day! I wouldn’t take your help if you were the last builder on earth. You hear me? No way are you laying so much as a finger on my porch!”

  “Suit yourself.” He grinned, lifting a paw-like hand in a wave.

  The truck’s suspension bounced audibly over the uneven ground before fading into the distance. Junie didn’t look back again until she reached the front door, just in time to see taillights disappearing over the rise.

  Her anger wilted almost as fast as it had sprung up. Now she was really, truly alone.

  Still, being alone was better than putting your trust in someone only to be let down yet again.

  Her toe started to throb.

  Chapter Eight

  All the next day, until twilight chased her indoors to the hush of the empty farmhouse, Junie kept an ear peeled for an approaching vehicle while she ran her gloved hand down every trunk of every vine to remove unwanted suckers.

  But the porch guy never showed.

  Saturday night, since her favorite couch was gone, she plodded upstairs to watch Worst-Case Scenario in bed.

  She woke at dawn on Sunday morning with a swollen toe and a half-empty jar of peanut butter for company.

  She limped through the clanging door of Poppy’s Café as she did every Sunday morning, to find Poppy and Red already cradling mugs of coffee. The smell of Stumptown’s Holler Mountain mingled with relief.

  Once she was tucked into their favorite corner booth, Poppy and Red gave her their advice.

  “No.” Resolutely, Junie folded her arms. “I’m not going to do it.”

  Poppy reached across the Formica and squeezed Junie’s hand. “Listen to Red. She wasn’t voted Clarkston’s best family therapist for nothing. Everyone knows she gives the best professional advice money can buy, and she gives it to you for free.”

  Junie studied the ceiling. “I know. I know you’re right, but I can’t take Manolo Santos up on his offer.”

  “Why not?” Poppy pleaded.

  “So many reasons!” She massaged her temples.

  “Let’s take them apart, one b
y one,” Red counseled.

  “Why do always you have to be so logical?”

  Red smiled evenly. “I call it being objective, and I can do it because I’m not emotionally attached to your issues. Not to say I’m not concerned about you. I consider you a dear friend, not a client.” Red folded her hands and waited patiently for Junie to begin.

  “Okay. Well, for starters, he’s so freaking cocky! Strolling in like he owned the place, strutting around my tasting room like a rooster . . . you should have seen them. Manolo was all like, ‘To the Beaver State!’ And Sam and Heath and Rory are all like”—she lowered her voice several octaves—“‘Yeah!’ I’m telling you, in a single afternoon, Manolo Santos erased a million years of progress for the men around here. One minute they’re sensitive, twenty-first-century human beings, the next they’re bumping chests like Neanderthals.”

  Poppy giggled. “I would have loved to have seen that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have,” replied Junie. “It wasn’t pretty. Even Keval was caught in his spell!”

  “Sounds like men being men to me,” said Red. “Add a little alcohol, stir, and you’ve got a pissing contest. I wouldn’t make too much of it.”

  “You’re forgetting . . . I was stuck there in the middle of them.”

  “Things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes people act overconfident—show off—to compensate, when deep down inside, they’re insecure.”

  “Insecure? Manolo Santos? Wait till you meet him. Then tell me he’s insecure. He had the nerve to tell me that even if I did let him work on the porch—for fun, mind you—there was no way I could ever make my winery successful!”

  “He came in here yesterday with Sam and the rest of them,” Poppy told Red. “He reminds me of someone. I’ve been racking my brain, but I can’t think of who it is.”

  Poppy even scowled prettily.

  “Daryl Decaprio,” Junie breathed, methodically shredding her napkin into confetti. “Manolo and Daryl look like twins. They even smile the same way, with that little curl of their upper lip.”

  “That’s it!” Poppy pointed at Junie.

  Practically every woman in Clarkston had had a thing for Daryl at one time or another.