There was a lot of food. After nibbling between customers at the diner, more food was the last thing on her mind, but she couldn’t resist popping some of Manolo’s spaghetti into the microwave. Her mouth watered at the aroma released by heating. One bite, standing up, was all it took. She fell into a chair and dedicated the next five minutes to savoring the food’s nourishing goodness. Before she knew it, she had eaten the entire dish. She set down her fork for the last time and sat back, feeling whole and restored. Then she trudged upstairs, one hand on her satisfied stomach.
Saturday’s jeans were lying on the top of the pile in the clothes hamper. Junie fished through the pockets until she found Manolo’s card. Then she switched off the light and fell back onto her comforter.
“You made that on a hot plate?” she asked when Manolo answered her call.
“I’ve made Dad’s spaghetti with goat meat over a campfire started with a bow and drill.”
“I am so full I can hardly move.”
“Good. I like knowing I satisfied you.”
She flushed with illicit pleasure. But encouraging him would be insane. By his own admission, he was a drifter. Later, when he’d gone on his merry way, she’d be the one to get hurt. Safer to stick to the topic of food. “Seriously, where’d you learn to cook like that?”
“It’s an old family concoction, passed down through the male line.”
“Well, it’s amazing. Thanks.”
“Wait’ll you taste what I make Tuesdays.”
She chuckled. “You have a specialty for every day of the week?”
“When I don’t eat out. And since you won’t go out with me . . .”
“I told you, I waitress.”
“Looks like I’ll just have to keep cooking, then.”
Lying across her bed in the dark, Junie’s heart tightened. Was Manolo Santos a silver-tongued player, up to no good? Or a lamb in wolf’s clothing? He had already more than made up for the ruckus he’d caused the day he came to town. Maybe he deserved a break.
“Tell you what. Feel free to use the kitchen here when you’re working on the porch if you want.”
He hesitated. “That’s quite an offer. You sure?”
“The key’s under the mat.”
“No bad guy would ever find it there.”
“Shut up,” she teased.
“Ouch. And just when I was making headway.”
“Good night.” In the dark, empty house down the deserted dirt road, Junie indulged in a grin. She lay the phone aside, folded both hands across her stomach, and looked up at the shadows dancing across the ceiling. Manolo didn’t just take on a task; he wrestled it into submission. She envisioned his long, powerful legs tracking and backtracking across her kitchen floor as he cooked, his expert hands chopping and stirring. A girl could get used to that. But as anyone who had memorized all the episodes of Worst-Case Scenario knew, the odds of a man like Manolo sticking around for any length of time were close to zero.
Chapter Thirteen
On Tuesday between customers, Junie wondered what she would find waiting when she got home. The moment she stepped inside her house, she knew that Manolo had been there by the fragrance of home cooking that enveloped her. On the table was a note in his now-familiar, precise lettering.
RISOTTO & SAUSAGE.
She opened the fridge and pulled out a covered dish, still warm to the touch. She grabbed a fork, bumping the drawer shut with her hip, and dug in before she even sat down.
Junie had never been one of those Portland foodies. Eating was just something that took time away from more important things. Besides, whenever she did cook, the salad was soggy by the time the meat was done and the vegetables were still crispy—not in a good way.
But Manolo’s cooking was different. It seduced her into slowing down, to savor each bite with all her senses. She concentrated on identifying the separate components of the sausage and rice dish, the same way she evaluated wine. First, there was the delicate scent of sage filling her nostrils. Then the silky rich broth caressing her tongue. The rice, moist yet firm to the tooth. This wasn’t mere sustenance. Manolo’s gift filled some vague emptiness that she hadn’t even known was there. Eating the product of his hands somehow made her feel connected to him. Between bites, she set down her plate and pulled out her phone. If she couldn’t be with him, at least she could talk to him.
Wait, warned the part of her that was conditioned to expect the worst. Her index finger hovered above his name. Calling him a second night in a row was just asking for trouble. But she’d have to thank him eventually. Before her over-cautious side won out, she punched in his number. Her pulse thrummed and her ears roared like the sound of a seashell held to her ear as she waited for him to pick up.
“Santos.”
“Your sausage is amazing.” Gaaa! Her head went back and her eyes squeezed shut with embarrassment.
“No complaints so far,” he shot back lightly.
Her face was on fire. Why did she even try? When it came to flirting, Manolo was a pro and she was bush league.
“Oh, you mean my risotto? For a second there, I thought you were talking about something else.”
“You know what I mean,” she replied miserably.
He laughed good-naturedly.
“Next time you’re talking to your father, tell him his risotto changed my life.”
At that, there was only silence on the other end.
“Manolo?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I’m picturing you there in the kitchen,” he said silkily, changing the subject. “Am I right? Is that where you are?”
She nodded though he couldn’t see her. “Yeah.” Brilliant.
“Someday I’m—” He cut himself off.
“Someday, what?”
Now he was the one who hesitated.
“Tell me.” Her pulse thrilled simply to be on the phone with him.
“I was going to say someday I’m going to have a kitchen like yours. But that’s not important.”
“Then why would you go there in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Forget it.”
“What’s wrong with admitting you want a nice kitchen? It’s no secret you like to cook.”
“Yeah, well, it’s also no secret I don’t plan on settling down any time soon. Any time at all, for that matter.”
Her thudding heart sank. “You made that pretty clear the first day we met.”
“I don’t make any bones about it. I’m up-front like that. Got too many other things to do.”
“You mean like building things?”
“That. And seeing the world. I started out with the goal to visit every continent and there’re only two left, Australia and Antarctica. I stay in one place too long, I start getting antsy. That’s why I joined the service in the first place. But now that my tour is up, I still like being a vagabond.”
“I’m just the opposite. I never lived in one place more than three years when I was growing up.”
“Sounds like heaven to me.”
“Maybe for you, but it made me feel like I didn’t know where I belonged.”
“Who needs roots?”
“I do, I guess. I was always envious of my Missouri cousins who’d grown up in the same town and had friends they’d known all their lives.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t have friends. A girl like you?”
“Oh, I had friends. But never what you’d call old friends, not back then. Everyone I knew was just like me—a military brat from somewhere else. It wasn’t until I was thirteen that I realized my cousins were the rule and I was the exception, that not everyone in the world moved every three years.”
“Staying in one place your whole life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. People expect things out of you. They know everything there is to know about you, your parents, everyone. They’ve been witness to every little misstep you ever made.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Hmph. You know what they say. Grass is always greener.”
“But where’s all your stuff? You must have a home base somewhere.”
“I have a couple of storage sheds back east, near my folks’ place. Does that count?”
“A storage shed is hardly the same thing as a home. How does that work? I’m still not sure I understand exactly what it is you do to make a living.”
“I look for contract jobs in project management. There’s plenty to choose from, long as you’re not picky about location—which I’m not. And when there’s nothing that lights me up, I squeeze in some volunteer work.”
“Is that what you’re doing for Sam? Volunteering?”
“No. Supervising Sam’s project is a real, paying job. The nonprofit I consult for is called Engineers With Compassion.”
“What do they do?”
“Whatever they can to help meet basic human needs. On my first assignment, floods washed out the only road leading to this remote village in El Salvador. We went in with heavy equipment and hauled boulders as big as cars out of a ravine so the kids could get back to school and their mothers could get to town to buy food. The mission after that, we installed a solar power plant in a children’s home in India. Then, last year, I was project manager on a school reconstruction right here in the States, in a poor part of Arizona.”
“I’m impressed.”
“People need help everywhere you look. The little I do barely scratches the surface. Why shouldn’t I lend a hand? I got nothing tying me down. And I like it that way.”
There it was again, that warning flag.
Chapter Fourteen
Warning flag or not, Wednesday night after work, Junie was torn between which to do first: devour Manolo’s steak Florentine or call him up just to hear his soft, deep voice.
She called him while she ate.
After he greeted her, he said, “Sam was tied up with growers all day. We had some contracts to go over after I left your place. I’m just now headed home.”
“How long have you and Sam known each other?”
“He was a year ahead of me in Officer’s Candidate School. Our advanced training took us in different directions, but we stayed in touch.”
“What did Sam do in the service, exactly?”
“Well, ah . . . not sure if you heard me say that we ran into each other a couple times overseas.”
“Rory says Sam was a spy.”
“You’ll have to ask Sam about that.”
“I did. He said he wasn’t.”
“Then, there’s your answer.”
“He would say that whether he was or not.”
“So you were trying to get it out of me? You can’t manipulate me. Don’t forget, I was raised surrounded by women. I know all their tricks.”
“You’re so lucky to have three sisters.”
“I’m willing to rent them out for a nominal fee.”
She chuckled. “Seriously, sometimes I feel like my family’s disintegrating. I never saw much of my aunts and uncles and cousins, then Storm left and Dad died and now Mom. All I have left is my legacy. And I’m hanging on to that for all it’s worth.”
For the first time since she’d met him, Manolo didn’t seem to know what to say.
“Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I hope that works out for you.” There was a distinct tone of resignation in his voice.
That night, Junie took advantage of the early spell of warm weather to sleep with her window open. Long past midnight, she was still gazing out at the stars, listening to the lonely howl of a coyote in the distant hills. Maybe she was overtired, maybe she’d been hypnotized by the movement of the gauzy curtains in the night air, but she couldn’t stop reliving every moment since Manolo Santos had shown up in Oregon, starting with the day he’d exasperated her while charming all her friends in her tasting room. From his economy of motion when he’d cleaned up the spilled wine and broken glass, to the warm insistence of his hands on hers behind the bar, ending with his voice over the phone, the profound impact of their respective families on them.
Whenever she was near him, she couldn’t think straight. He was irritating and impossible and cocky and egotistical. But underneath all that swagger, she sensed he was protecting something fragile. Something wholesome and good. As much as he joked about his sisters, it was clear that he adored them, and vice versa. And his life’s work was doing things for people, things as simple as cooking risotto and as risky as building a hospital in a war zone.
* * *
When Manolo hung up with Junie, he was already calculating the time on the East Coast. The last customers in his father’s restaurant would be shuffling out the door. The back of the house would be deafening with the clang of metal against metal as the staff scurried to sanitize every surface so they could punch out, yelling to each other over the mechanized whoosh of the dishwashers. He saw them all as if it were yesterday, wiping down the range, mopping the floors, emptying the trash. Out front, Isabel would be counting the till. He punched in Izzy’s number before he thought better of it.
“Hello?”
“Izzy.”
“Who’s this?”
“Don’t play games. You know who.”
“My brother? I thought that was your voice, but it’s been so long, I wasn’t sure.”
“Ha. Phone works both ways.”
“Where are you?”
He thought for a moment. “Crunchy granola country. Land of the human Birkenstocks.”
“Translation?”
“Oregon’s Willamette Valley. How’s Mom?”
“Mom’s fine. The what valley?”
“How’s her knee?”
“Still limping. Still fighting getting it replaced.”
“If she’d listen to the doctor and get off it . . .”
“Like that’s going to happen.”
“How’s everyone else?” he asked, turning the key to his modest apartment, stepping inside the quiet rooms, closing out the world behind him.
“Michael’s good, kids are good, everybody’s fine. We’d be better if we heard from you more than once in a blue moon. How come you don’t call Polly and Maria sometimes?”
“I call Mom every Sunday.” That, plus sixteen years of Mom lighting candles for him at Our Lady of Grace, would be the only thing to keep him out of eternal hellfire.
“That’s not what I asked.”
This was where Manolo would normally make a stab at humor. But tonight he had no patience for funny stuff. “’Cause you don’t judge.” That was why he and Izzy were tighter than the rest. “Do me a favor. Dad around?”
There was a tense silence on the other end of the phone. “He’s here. Outside, talking to Donnie.” The family’s restaurant had once been a thriving business. All the movers and shakers had their favorite tables. But more and more, Manolo got the sense its patrons were aging along with his father. Donnie Minelli was one of Dad’s oldest cronies and still, apparently, a smoker. Some things never changed.
“Go tell him I want to talk to him.”
Isabel drew in a long breath. “How long’s it been, Manny?” she asked in a voice tinged with sadness.
“Just go get him.”
Manolo paced the floor of the apartment while he waited, picturing Dad out on the sidewalk with his hands thrust into his coat pockets against the damp New Jersey night, rocking on his heels and talking while Donnie finished one last cigarette.
A minute dragged by like an hour before Izzy spoke again.
“He won’t take the phone.”
“Ask him again.”
She sighed. “He won’t—”
“Is he still there?” Manolo interrupted. Without waiting for her to answer, he said, “Put him on.”
“No.”
“What’d he say?”
She hesitated again. “Manny, why do you do this to me? Torture yourself and put me in the middl
e of it like this?”
Why? Because he was cast adrift by his own hand and he was lonely. He missed having family in his life. He may be a grown man, but deep down inside there was still a boy who missed his father. His anchor. But a guy didn’t confess things like that to his sister.
“Tell me.”
“I told him Manny was on the phone.”
“And then?”
“And then Donnie said, ‘Manny, your son?’”
“Yeah? Then what?”
“Don’t make me tell you, Manny,” she choked thickly.
“Tell me, dammit!”
“He said, ‘I don’t got no son.’”
Manolo imagined Dad’s angry mouth spitting out those words.
“Manny?” asked Izzy with sisterly concern.
His stomach roiled, his nostrils stung with tears. He uttered some inane closing, then tossed his phone onto the counter, this latest barb piling onto the heap he carried inside him.
He opened the fridge and started pulling out salad fixings by rote. Lettuce. Garlic. Lemons.
Then began the comforting, mindless ritual of chopping, pressing, and whisking. He dipped a fingertip into the vinaigrette, tasting and refining until its acidity was perfectly balanced.
When the salad was dressed, he warmed up his father’s steak Florentine, which he’d prepared that afternoon in Junie’s kitchen. Then he set a place for one, carefully aligning the cheap flatware that came with the furnished apartment. He flipped a bottle of wine high into the air, end over end, caught it one-handed behind his back with a flourish, swaddled it in white linen and presented it, label facing outward, to his empty chair.
“Here you are, sir. Excellent choice. A supple, harmonious pinot from Brendan Hart Vineyards.”
He altered his voice, pretending to be his own customer. “Just so, my good man.”
Expertly, Manolo withdrew the cork, the soft pop echoing through the quiet apartment. The kitchenette was dimly lit, but he could have poured the standard five-ounce serving in the dark. Finally he scooted in his chair, arranged his napkin in his lap and toasted to the tiny room. “Buon appetito.”
He tried to focus on the classic Mediterranean blend of bell peppers and onions, parsley and basil. But every bite conjured smiling faces and boisterous voices of meals past, before he had put his selfish desires before family and struck out to see if the world held something more exciting for a brash, reckless young man than Hoboken, New Jersey. Missed birthdays, anniversaries, and other key rites of passage too numerous to count numbed his palate, and loneliness gnawed at his gut. After only a few forkfuls, Manolo shoved his plate away. His head fell into his hands.
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