The Crush

by Heather Heyford

  When they got to the door, he made her close her eyes until he steered her exactly where he wanted her.

  “Open them.”

  Junie gasped and stepped into the room. Just as he’d known they would, her eyes gravitated toward its showpiece—the floor-to-ceiling picture window.

  Behind her, Manolo glowed with pride as he watched her absorb the seamless view of the vineyards spreading out to the greater valley, bordered by the distant hills.

  “What do you think?” He approached her hesitantly, milking the magic of the moment. Compared with the buzzing of the gardens, the tasting room was so quiet he could hear his own heart beating.

  “Oh . . .” she managed to get out. When she looked over her shoulder at him, her awestruck expression was something he knew he would cherish. “This is better than anything I ever dreamed of. . . .”

  He wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Junie pirouetted on her toes like a ballerina to face him. Her face crumpled, her wrists floated upward to encircle his neck, and she buried her head in his chest.

  For Manolo—soldier, problem-solver, professional horndog—profound fulfillment conflicted with terror. He took her slim body into his arms as gingerly as if someone had just handed him a priceless object of art.

  When he felt her melt into him, he relaxed a little, too. He held her in stillness, allowing the moment to soak in, to become part of him.

  Junie’s hands skimmed up his neck, cupping the base of his skull. Her fingers combed through his hair. She tipped her head up until the bridge of her nose found the sculpted hollow beneath his chin.

  Manolo’s fingers teased lightly across her T-shirt. Her warmth radiated through the featherweight fabric. Lust overcame caution, and his hands slipped beneath her shirt, straying no higher than her waist.

  After all the exotic locales he’d explored in the last fifteen years, all the women he had known, his world contracted to the center of that one room he had built for this one woman. Her skin was like a warm beach in winter, the expanse of her back a fertile plain. The contours of her shoulders were ridges, cloaked in velvet. He closed his eyes and sniffed her hair. Her hippie dippy blend of patchouli and wildflowers swept him away to mysterious opium dens and sun-dappled meadows.

  Wrapped in her embrace, the sun and the planets and the stars seemed to revolve around them.

  His heart swelled. Tenderly, he pulled back, intending to take her in a kiss. Junie gazed up at him with soft eyes.

  If she hadn’t suddenly blinked—flinched—Manolo wouldn’t even have noticed the bleating car horn.

  Not now. Anytime but now.

  Her fathomless blue eyes peered into his. “Thank you so much for this,” she breathed. “I’ll pay you back someday, I promise.”

  He was confused. Her thank you sounded ominously final.

  Then the self-imposed blinders that had limited him to tunnel vision for so long fell away, and he saw what he hadn’t allowed himself to see until this moment: a full range of thrilling possibilities.

  The end of this project didn’t have to be the end of everything.

  This could be the start of something brand new. Something he’d never dreamed possible.

  But before he could find the right words to tell Junie, she stepped out of his embrace and held up a halting hand.

  “I have guests.” Reluctantly she slipped away, leaving him with empty arms and an aching need.

  Walking backward, she gestured at the room around her and said, in a wistful voice, “After all, that’s the point of this, isn’t it?”

  As he watched her walk away, his phone rang. In a daze, he pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. AMANDA, ENGINEERS WITH COMPASSION.

  “Pack your Speedo. You’re going to Belize.”

  In his enthusiasm to finish the tasting room, he’d almost forgotten about Belize.

  “Manolo?”

  “Here.” Through the window, the swaying of Junie’s rear end as she went out to meet her visitors wouldn’t let him think.

  “This isn’t the reaction I expected. Did you hear what I said? You got the consultancy! I’ll be emailing you the contract for your signature as soon as we hang up.”

  For a moment he’d been seduced by the potent blend of an arcane solstice ceremony, the buzz of honeybees, the essences of green herbs, and the arms of a captivating homesteader.

  But Manolo knew better than to believe in magic. If he let himself fall under the spell of this place he would be trapped, just like generations of Santos men before him.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The final week of June brought more clouds than sun. Junie was trying not to panic about the weather. But just to be on the safe side, she’d spent extra time in the vineyard the past three days, thinning leaves to let in more light on her grape clusters.

  Every morning, when she went outside, she looked for little signs that Manolo had been there while she was at work. The leftovers were a thing of the past. He hadn’t cooked in her kitchen for weeks. The signs Junie looked for were more subtle. Fresh splinters of yellow wood on the ground, boot prints in the soft earth.

  She’d become attached to his presence. Even when she didn’t actually see him there, evidence of him made her feel less alone. But now that the tasting room was finished, there were no more signs. He was probably devoting all his time to the consortium, as he should. No doubt he felt relieved to get back to doing just one job instead of two.

  She’d been blown away when he showed her the tasting room. She’d never planned to throw herself into his arms. Planned or not, it’d been a mistake. He’d handled her like she was made of spun glass . . . almost as if he was afraid of her. She couldn’t figure him out. How could someone as confident and self-assured as Manolo be afraid of her?

  Manolo Santos was an enigma.

  There was his infuriating habit of keeping her guessing about his plans, such as when he was returning from Reserves. Usually he came back on a Monday, but this year Independence Day fell today, a Tuesday. Maybe he’d stayed on the East Coast to celebrate with his fellow officers, or even gone home to see his family? Maybe, at this very minute, he was with one of those other women Sam had joked about when he didn’t know Junie could hear.

  She’d asked him if he was going to the Splash, but he hadn’t said anything definitive. Even with something as minor as a party, he refused to be pinned down.

  As for the more important things, such as where he was going when he left Oregon . . . what kind of work he’d be doing, he hadn’t dropped so much as a hint.

  Clearly, he was keeping her at arm’s length.

  There’d been a trickle of customers over the holiday. More than last year, for sure. But nothing like the flood she’d hoped for when word of the new tasting room got out.

  She chastised herself to be patient.

  But that loan from Tom Alexander was a heavy weight around her neck.

  She looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle. Her heart leapt when she saw the outline of a truck coming over the rise. But when she saw that the truck was blue, not black, she dropped her pruning shears, lifted her chin, and headed down the row to greet her visitors.

  She should count her blessings. At least she had some customers, a brand-new tasting room, and a boss understanding enough to let her work around her own business.

  Then she saw the approaching man’s rangy gait, perfectly groomed hair, and shining brown eyes.

  “Daryl! What are you doing here?” she asked, confused. “Do you want to try some pinot?”

  “Pinot?” He frowned, dismissing the very idea with a wave of his hand. “No. I want to ask you to come to the Clarkston Splash with me.”

  She would have been less taken aback if he’d asked her to go skydiving. “You do?”

  “Why do you look so surprised?”

  “Um, maybe because you’ve been promising to ask me out on a real date since we were seventeen?”

  “My mistake.” He grinned fetchingly, his di
mples still affecting her, though not nearly as much as they had before. “I’m getting wiser in my old age.”

  How many times had she fantasized about this very moment?

  “What do you say? Pick you up at seven?”

  Now it was happening, and something made her hesitate. “You could have just called instead of coming out here.” That would have given her time to mull it over.

  He shrugged. “I knew I’d have a better chance if I came in person. So I’ll take that as a yes?”

  “Well, it’s just that . . . I mean . . .” Was she going to keep turning down dates for the rest of her life if they didn’t meet her perfect conditions? If there was the slimmest chance of getting hurt?

  It wasn’t like Manolo was going to ask her to the Splash party. She’d all but asked him, in so many words, and all he’d said was he’d think about it.

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Great.” His business done, he turned and walked back toward his truck. “See you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Manolo expertly fondled a tomato at the Clarkston market. It had been one week and three days since he’d last set foot in Brendan Hart Vineyards. It had taken a lot of willpower to stay away since he’d arrived back in Clarkston yesterday. But he told himself he’d run into Junie later today, at the pool party.

  He rejected the tomato and squeezed a different one. Only the best would do to top the burgers he was going to grill at the party. The summer vegetable crop was starting to come in. He could afford to be choosy.

  He bagged the rest of his produce and went up to the check out. While he cooled his heels in the long line of holiday food shoppers, he tried to sort out the troubling past few days in Virginia.

  Heidi had sought him out, knowing it was his Reserves weekend. Heidi was a babe, she had a kick-ass job in the nation’s capital, and she was willing to take him on his terms—translation: whenever it suited him.

  The tasting room job was done, and so was his tenure at Brendan Hart Vineyards. In two months, he’d be in Belize. Junie would be nothing but a memory.

  That was as it should be. There was no place in a footloose man’s heart for a grounded woman like Juniper Hart.

  He would cherish this summer’s detour in wine country. But soon it would be time to gather speed again, ramp onto the fast lane and all that went with that. If the past was any indication, he’d be back on the prowl, or at least open to whatever fruit fell into his lap.

  Manolo had always loved the thrill of moving on.

  So why did he suddenly feel indifferent?

  His ardor for Heidi had evaporated. He bought a round of drinks, sat down next to her in a quiet corner of the bar, and told her gently but firmly that they were over and he wished her all the best.

  The person in line behind him cleared her throat.

  How long had he been standing there like a statue?

  “Sorry,” he said, and started unloading his basket onto the belt.

  “Got big plans for tonight?” The attractive cashier, who didn’t happen to be wearing a ring, gave him a saucy smile.

  “Nope,” he said, helping to bag his supplies. “Going to a pool party tomorrow. Tonight I’m staying home by myself.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said with a hint of disappointment in her voice. “Tomorrow looks like rain.”

  * * *

  July fifth dawned cloudy but thankfully dry.

  After checking out the plumbers’ progress on the consortium, Manolo returned to his apartment to slice lettuce, tomatoes, and onions and pat ground chuck into burgers. When everything was organized, he sat down on his rented couch and looked at his hands, mulling over an idea he’d been thinking about ever since he heard that Junie needed a wine distributor. It was a notion that had started as a glimmer and grown until, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it out of his head. He glanced again at his watch. Back in Hoboken, the restaurant would be slowing down. This was as good a time as ever to catch his father when he wasn’t too busy. Swallowing his trepidation, he punched in the number.

  Izzy answered.

  “How’s it going?” He strained to hear the familiar clatter and chatter in the background. It all came back to him with a rush, each time he called home. The smiles on the faces of guests as they enjoyed their pastas, the tall pizza stands crowding the center of the tables. His mother, a permanent fixture at the entrance, greeting every customer, then later ensuring that everyone left happy. But lately, when he called, the visual memories were becoming less clear. Manolo was unsure whether forgetting was a blessing or a curse.

  Izzy sighed. “Not bad.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I said not bad. Not good, but not bad, either.”

  Manolo didn’t miss the subtle distinction in Izzy’s standard reply. Without fail, she always said that things were fine.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Something’s wrong. Tell me what it is.”

  “Business is a little off, that’s all.”

  A wave of foreboding restored his memory. In a flash, he was there, in the restaurant that was more the family home than the brownstone they slept in. Its murals and wood paneling had gone out of style in the eighties, but that hadn’t stopped the steady stream of faithful who flocked to Santos’s for his dad’s famous sauce and steak and risotto.

  “What’s ‘a little off’? Ten percent from last year?”

  Izzy didn’t answer.

  “Fifteen percent?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  Manolo rose from the couch and stared blindly out the window. This was all his fault. If he’d stayed, like a good son, he would have seen trouble coming. He would have known what to do. Revitalized it. Changed the decor, changed the menu . . . something. Anything.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Please, Manny. Not again.”

  Frustration and guilt seeped into his voice. “I need to talk to him. Maybe I can help.”

  “You want to help?” asked Izzy angrily. Izzy, the calm one. “Why don’t you come back here and do it then, instead of calling me?”

  Manolo caught himself. “Never mind.”

  He thought he’d found common ground with his dad—trying to hook Junie up with Santos and Son’s liquor distributor. He’d been planning to ask his dad to put in a good word for Junie. If it’d worked out like he’d planned, Dad would have been flattered. After all, Manolo had gotten his big ego from someone.

  “Sorry I yelled,” Izzy said.

  “Forget about it. Give my love to Mom.”

  He hung up and stood there, processing what had just happened. It had never occurred to him—that Santos’s wouldn’t always be there to fall back on if he got tired of pushing back against the earth’s spin.

  Manolo thought he had carved out the perfect life, free of responsibility to anyone or anything. For sixteen years it had suited him fine.

  Then he’d met Junie Hart. And for the first time in his adult life, he was plagued with uncertainty.

  The Belize contract was still on his laptop. Why hadn’t he printed it out and signed it? The prospect of yet another new job in a new location used to energize him. But this time it almost seemed like a chore.

  He blinked into focus the horizon beyond the Clarkston Savings Bank that sat across the street from his apartment. Something about the Willamette defied the quiet, pastoral quality of an ordinary agricultural zone. He felt it wherever he walked, an energy humming just beneath the surface.

  At first, he’d dismissed it as the shock of the new. Every unexplored place gave Manolo a rush. But then weeks had passed. He’d learned his way around the valley, started recognizing landmarks. Maybe he was getting sentimental, at the ripe old age of thirty-four, but this time the sensation didn’t go away.

  Analyzing topography was his specialty. He noticed things other people didn’t. For instance, the ridgelines and valleys back east were pa
cked together tighter than prom night. Here, the landscape rolled out gently, past Douglas fir, feathering softly out from a point like Christmas trees in a children’s book, to the horizon of snow-capped peaks.

  So he did some research. The Appalachians are old—four hundred eighty million years old. The Coastal Range is much younger—only forty million. Twelve times younger. Was that what gave the Willamette Valley its youthful feeling . . . a sense of untapped potential, as if anything could happen, and the best was yet to come?

  Then there were the unique layers of Willamette soil, basalt on top of lava on top of ancient ocean floor. Junie said that and the maritime climate were the secrets to her wine. It went against logic, but he couldn’t shake the sense that anything rooted in that soil could produce miracles.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  An hour into the Clarkston Splash, a casual observer would have thought Manolo Santos was having the time of his life . . . quaffing beers with the guys, competing to see whose cannonballs could make the women scream the loudest, run the farthest. No one would have guessed he was paying more attention to the area outside the chain-link fence than inside it.

  Dusk was falling. Manolo estimated the crowd at fifty, give or take. Keval and Poppy, Junie’s closest friends, were there. Sophia, the therapist who was nicknamed Red and whom Sam had a thing for, was poised poolside holding her plastic wineglass. Whew, Manolo whistled admiringly under his breath. Legs for days, just like Sam said.

  So where was Junie? Asking would only start tongues wagging. He’d just have to wait.

  Manolo’s volleyball team was up by two when his ears detected an approaching vehicle. It was his turn to serve. He spiked it, then glanced toward the sight of the flame-blue pickup roaring toward the pool area.

  When it reached the entrance, its driver stomped on the brakes. The rear end fishtailed around as the truck came to a screeching halt across two spaces.

  Conversation stopped. The volleyball rolled out of bounds, unnoticed, while the truck bounced on its struts and the dust settled. Over on the board above the churning water, a swimmer poised to swan dive changed her mind at the last second, teetering precariously on one foot.