The Crush

by Heather Heyford

  “We all can’t look like a Nordic goddess,” Junie snapped.

  “Poppy didn’t mean that, did you?” Red gave Poppy a pointed look.

  “What? What’d I say?”

  “Never mind,” said Red. “Listen to me, Junie. Your mom called. She asked us to come check on you.”

  “She’s freaking out! Wondering why you won’t—”

  Red cut off Poppy’s hysterics with a quelling hand.

  Junie said, “I was planning on calling her—” When? She shook her head, trying to recall the myriad items on her to-do list, when the drink in Poppy’s hand caught her eye. Her stomach growled. She was thirsty—and ravenous. “What’s that?”

  Poppy thrust the bottle toward her. “One of those good-for-you drinks. I know how you sometimes forget to eat. By the looks of you, you’ve been forgetting a lot. What are you doing, Junie? I’ve been trying to get through to you, too. You don’t answer your phone. You won’t respond to anyone’s texts.”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?!” Junie screeched, holding out her arms in their protective suiting. “I’m working! You have no idea of the work that needs done around here! Speaking of which, if you don’t mind—” She whirled around to go back to her spraying.

  Red caught her before she reached the first step. “Calm down. We’re just worried you might be pushing yourself a little too hard. It’s not healthy to shut out the people who care for you.”

  Poppy narrowed her eyes. “You’re pale as death.”

  “Did you happen to see that fat orange ball in the sky lately?” Junie screamed, pointing skyward. “Me neither! Maybe if the frickin’ sun would come out, the grapes would start maturing and—”

  “Shhhh,” cooed Red consolingly. “I know you’re dedicated to making the winery a success, Junie. It’ll happen, in time. But you have to balance work with rest and seeing your family and friends and—”

  “Stop telling me what to do! I’m fine! If I don’t do all this work, who will? Don’t you get it? I need to get last year’s vintage bottled before the crush and the barrels rinsed, and my quarterly taxes are due and—”

  Poppy and Red went wavy all of a sudden, as if she were seeing them through antique glass. She felt weak . . . so weak. She was faintly aware of the unopened drink slipping from her grasp, falling onto the porch as her knees collapsed beneath her.

  * * *

  When Manolo saw Red and Poppy bent over a body on Junie’s front porch, he broke into a run, reaching her within seconds.

  He knelt beside her. “Junie.”

  Her eyes were closed, her lips white. Frantically, he searched Red’s and Poppy’s faces.

  “What happened?”

  “She passed out. I would have called 911, but I only have two bars on my phone and I’m saving them for—”

  “She just overdid it,” Red interrupted. “She’s exhausted. Or it could be her blood sugar. Who knows when she ate last. Poppy, see if you can get her to drink some of that juice.”

  While Poppy unscrewed the bottle’s lid, Manolo lifted Junie’s head and shoulders onto his thighs. She was as limp as a rag doll. He held her head steady while Poppy said, “Here, drink this.”

  Junie’s forehead furrowed and she coughed as Poppy poured a bit of the liquid down her throat.

  “That’s better,” Red soothed.

  “Now, what actually happened?” Manolo repeated.

  “She was on her tractor. She didn’t seem too thrilled to see us,” said Poppy.

  He studied her face more carefully. Her pallor made his heart clutch. New hollows carved out her cheeks. She needed a good meal in her. And then another one. And another, until her strength was built up again.

  Poppy prodded her to drink again.

  Manolo lowered his face to within inches of hers. “Junie. Can you hear me?”

  At the sound of his voice, her lips curled upward in a faint, yet unmistakable, smile.

  Manolo exhaled for what felt like the first time since he arrived.

  “It looks like the drink is helping,” Poppy said.

  “For now. But if she keeps up this lifestyle, she’s going to have a real collapse,” said Red.

  “Let’s get her inside.” He gathered Junie up into his arms. “Someone get the door.”

  Manolo deposited Junie in a kitchen chair.

  After they’d assured themselves that she was steady enough to sit by herself, Poppy promised she’d call Junie’s mom, and Red said she would update Sam and Keval. Then they left Junie in Manolo’s care.

  Manolo rooted around in her cabinets.

  “Where’s the peanut butter? You always have peanut butter.”

  “I’m out of peanut butter.”

  “What else do you have that might have protein in it?”

  Behind the fridge door, Manolo grinned, releasing the strain of weeks of self-denial. A soldier sacrificed feelings to duty. He’d been sacrificing his desire to avoid hurting her. But it had taken its toll. Seeing her again, even under these dire circumstances, buoyed his whole being.

  Of course, admitting that to her was out of the question.

  He slammed the fridge door, planted his hands on his hips, and strode over to where she sat. “Why don’t you get out of that OSHA suit and we’ll go get something to eat? Something that’ll stick to your ribs.”

  It must have been the mention of dining out. This time she leapt to her feet.

  “What time is it? I have to be at Casey’s!”

  “You won’t be much good to them today. Can’t you take a day off for once?”

  She sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, just this once. I’ll go upstairs and call while I’m changing.”

  The moment she was out of his sight, he couldn’t wait till she was back. He hoped she didn’t take her time getting ready. “No sundress required,” he called after her.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Junie marveled at the pleasant sensation of a full stomach. She’d come to disassociate that gnawing feeling from its meaning, that she needed to stop her infernal striving and eat. At some point in the past few years, she had come to accept that empty feeling as normal.

  Instead of cramming the second slab of buttered bread Manolo handed her into her mouth like she had the first, she took a breath, savoring the sweetness of the butter, the fragrant, fresh-baked goodness.

  “You’re staring.”

  “I like watching you eat.”

  Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “You’re just a tease.”

  “Not always.” He seemed intent on one thing and one thing only—filling her up.

  “I was thinking of the day I made you eggs.”

  “And I didn’t have any bread.”

  “It took awhile. But I always knew there’d be a next time. Want what’s left of my pasta carbonara?” His hand was already poised to slide it across the table.

  “Thanks.” She squelched a burp. “I’m good. Now, will you take me back to my place? Now that I don’t have to go in to Casey’s, I’d like to finish spraying.”

  “Not yet.”

  Whenever she was around Manolo, the air throbbed with his energy. She wasn’t the only one who felt it. He could work a room better than anyone she’d ever met. But there was something else. Something personal that only she felt. During the day, she could stuff it into some hidden recess of her mind. But that only forced it to seep out later, when she let her guard down. More than once since she’d met him, she’d sat up gasping for air, blushing in the dark from the explicit dream she’d been having about him.

  Still. His ego was already big enough.

  Besides, having a crush on someone and taking orders from him were two distinct things. “I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I don’t need to be babysat.”

  “I’m not into babies. I prefer big girls who can take care of themselves.”

  She rejected the notion that he could be interested in her as anything other than another conquest.

  No. She’
d be safer keeping her feelings locked up inside where he couldn’t use them against her. Take advantage. And then disappear, like all the others.

  “Dessert?” asked the server, offering two menus.

  Junie gently pushed the menu away. “No, thanks.”

  Manolo cracked his menu open to point to the picture of a decadent chocolate cake.

  “We’ll have the No Really, Though cake and two forks.”

  Junie raised her index finger. “One fork.”

  When the server was gone, he looked at her approvingly. “Strong. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  Oh, he was good. He knew just what she wanted to hear.

  “How about a compromise? I’ll finish the spraying. You kick back the rest of the day.”

  “And what about tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that? I could hand over all my chores to you. That still wouldn’t accomplish what needs done. Bottom line, it’s not working. Don’t get me wrong, the tasting room’s beyond gorgeous. The few tastings I’ve taken you to don’t begin to compare with what you’ve done for me. But I still don’t have enough customers.” She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. When they met with resistance, she tore out the elastic band that held her top knot and stretched it taut between her fingers. “I’ve got to think of something else by the crush. I don’t intend to lose a single vine to Tom Alexander.”

  Manolo let his usual careless mask fall and softened his voice a notch. “I wish to hell you had told me you were going to that guy. I’m not made of money, but I’d have found it somehow.” He leaned in, resting his forearms on the table until their hands were almost touching. He looked down at where she fiddled with her elastic band and caught one edge of it with the first knuckle of his middle finger.

  She tried not to notice their micro version of tug of war. But her traitorous finger parried with him against her will. “Aren’t you the one who told me my idea would never fly?”

  “That was before I got to know you. Before I saw your grit. Found out how loyal your friends are. If you knew how many people in this town have your back . . .”

  The band stretched more. “If I’d borrowed from you, I’d be in the same position, handing my property over to you if I default.”

  “I never would have taken your vineyard as collateral. There are other ways to go about it. I could have invested in it as a silent partner. That way, you would still make all the important decisions.”

  Junie’s eyes dipped down to the band, stretched to its limit between their fingers. “Well, it’s too late now.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  Damn him, tempting her to hope.

  “Have you noticed that out of all the wineries you’ve taken me to, the most crowded were the ones that had food?”

  All at once, she made a face and folded her arms in open defiance. The elastic band sprang across the table.

  The waiter set down a slab of the richest looking chocolate cake Junie had ever seen. “Here you are. One No, Really Though, one fork.”

  Manolo took a giant bite. He swallowed and asked, “You want to be a point of destination for people? Feed ’em.” He dug in and held up another bite to illustrate his point, and then happily devoured it.

  “If you recall from our tastings, it’s a rare winery that offers food. Maybe a little cheese and crackers, but that’s it.”

  Manolo sat back on his chair. “I noticed that. And I don’t get it.”

  “If people want food, they can bring their own.”

  He nudged the cake plate aside and locked eyes with her. “Now, see, that rubs me wrong in so many ways. For example, how is someone who’s never been to a winery supposed to know that it’s acceptable—even expected—that they bring their own food?”

  “The wineries usually mention it somewhere on their websites.”

  He threw up his hands. “Who has time to read the fine print? Maybe it’s my restaurant background talking, but in my humble opinion, there’s something strange about toting food into a watering hole. When you go to a bar, do you take your own peanuts?”

  “I guess if you come from a place that doesn’t have wineries, you might find it a bit unusual.”

  “I noticed it the first day Sam brought us into your place. We’d been drinking all morning. We were already lit. No news there.”

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  “I know what you’re going to say. ‘It’s okay to spit when you’re tasting wine.’ Encouraged, even. But to the average Joe, that sounds like industry speak. In case you didn’t know it, wine tasting can be pretty intimidating. All my life I’m told, spitting’s rude, spitting’s bad—unless, of course, you happen to grow up and play for the Yankees. Now all of a sudden I come out here and you’re telling me spitting’s good? How many of your customers actually use that spit bucket you keep at the bar?”

  Not wanting to admit he had a point, she made a wry face. “Not many.”

  “Exactly. Know why? Because men have been given the subconscious message that if you can’t hold your liquor, you’re not a real man, and women are conditioned that spitting’s not ladylike.”

  Junie couldn’t help chuckling. He’d hit a bull’s eye with his observation.

  “That day we showed up at your place half tanked, we needed food. But there wasn’t so much as a bowl of popcorn. I thought it was because you were operating on a shoestring.”

  “Why are you telling me this now? You can’t expect me to open a restaurant. I’m already in hock up to my neck.”

  “Remember the outdoor kitchen I was talking about at the lake?”

  She’d been trying to erase that picture of tasting room porn in her head ever since. “Noooo . . .” She shook her head adamantly. “I don’t want to serve food.”

  “Hear me out.”

  “I’ve been schlepping food since college.”

  “You don’t have to be open year-round, you know. You can be seasonal. And I’m not talking about a full menu. You just need something tasty and simple that can be tweaked to pair with your different wines, and you will have people talking, coming back for more. How about this? I’ll be your pizza man for this year’s crush.”

  “Haven’t you done enough? I know that tasting room set you back more than you’re willing to admit, even without charging me for the labor.”

  “That project rocked! I loved that there was no blueprint. Nobody telling me what I could and couldn’t do.”

  Hard as she resisted, the idea was tempting. “Is there even time to do something as complicated as an outdoor kitchen before the crush gets here?”

  “It’d take, let’s see . . . build the frame, set the mortar, shape the stones, veneer, install fixtures . . . twenty-one man hours.”

  “Twenty-one?” She couldn’t help laughing. “Not twenty, or twenty-two?”

  “What will take the longest is getting the permits and waiting for the appliances to arrive. We need to get them ordered right away.”

  By the way he talked, it was already a done deal.

  “You’ll have zero budget,” she warned him.

  “Limitations free up creativity. In redoing your tasting room, the challenge was to utilize as much as possible of what was already there, scrounge for bargains, and throw in one really unique piece like that wood slab. Usually I’m trying to please someone else with my work. Here, the only ones I had to please were you and me.”

  “That all sounds great. But you’re missing the whole point. It’s about the wine.”

  “No.” He scooped up more cake with his fork and jabbed it toward her. “You’re missing the point. This is not about furthering your dad’s legacy or setting your mom free to find a new life. It’s not even about the wine.”

  She frowned, watching the cake disappear into his mouth.

  He swallowed the last bite and dropped the fork to the empty plate with a clatter. “This is about you holding on to the only home you ever had.”

  Junie felt her face blaze with anger. How
could a rambling man understand her need for permanence? His values were the exact opposite of hers!

  “I can make that property of yours the talk of the Willamette. Then those wines you work so hard on will finally get the attention they deserve, and you’ll start turning a profit and finally have some financial security. If you want to make it all official, I’ll have something drawn up in writing, the same way that maggot Alexander did.”

  Junie struggled with her competing desires.

  Finally, she said, “You must really love building things.”

  He shrugged. “It’s fun coming up with something in my head then watching it take shape. Might be a hospital today, a big plate of lasagna tomorrow. Even better when it makes someone’s life better.”

  “Enough to do it for free?”

  “You’ve heard that saying, ‘Do what you love, and the money will follow’?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Ask my mom—I tell her that all the time.” Then the light went out. “She doesn’t get it.”

  “The saying isn’t ‘Do what you love, and everyone will understand. ’ I’m living proof of that. Following your heart means taking chances, trusting that things will work out.” He reached across the table and laid his hand atop hers. “Don’t worry. It’s gonna be great.”

  Chapter Thirty

  By the end of the first week in August, the oven and grills as well as a half-size fridge were on order. Junie watched the glowering sky as Manolo poured the concrete for the patio.

  “What if it rains before the concrete sets?”

  “It might even look better with the aggregate exposed. But to be safe, I’m going to use a prophylactic.” He winked.

  “’Scuse me?”

  “Cover it with plastic.”

  While Manolo drove off to town to oversee the interior work on the consortium, Junie went down to the cellar to taste last year’s vintage. It had to be bottled soon if she wanted to prevent the worst-case scenario—bottling last year’s wine at the same time she was crushing this year’s harvest. There wasn’t enough room at her boutique winery for pickers and bottlers to be there at the same time. It would mean mass confusion, just when she was getting ready for the year’s biggest festival. But you couldn’t rush the wine. It was like a baby inside the womb, a living, growing thing. It told you when it was ready for the next step in the process; you didn’t tell it.