The Crush

by Heather Heyford

  Junie pulled up her spreadsheet. She slipped her wine thief into a barrel, withdrew a sample, and deposited it into a glass. The routine was always the same. First, note the color: light cherry red. Then the nose: mild and restrained, with hints of red fruit. Next came tasting. She was looking for balance across the tongue. She entered, Flavors of mild red fruits; sweet cherries. Last, a strong peppery finish.

  She tasted again, still not satisfied.

  There was nothing to do but try again later.

  * * *

  Sam and Manolo clapped on their yellow hard hats and entered the consortium.

  “Aaah.” Manolo sniffed audibly. “I love the smell of sawdust in the morning.”

  “How’s Junie?” asked Sam, inspecting the trim on a doorframe.

  “Still pretty wired. That woman’s a machine. She’s trying to do the work of six men.”

  “Vintage Junie,” Sam replied, as they continued down the hallway. “Her pinot’s unmatched. Unfortunately, there’s more to it. A potential distributor wants to know how a brand is going to improve their portfolio. They’re looking for professional producers that already have a solid customer base.”

  “It’s more than the lack of visitors that’s got her in a tizzy. It’s the lack of sunshine. Thought you told me Oregon has dry summers?”

  “We usually do. Haven’t you noticed? Weather’s crazy all over this year. Junie’s not the only one who’s worried. I’m hearing it from all the members. The grapes need sun to ripen. If this keeps up, every AVA in the valley could be facing a bad vintage.”

  “None of the wine will turn out good? That can’t happen,” he pronounced, shaking his head, as if he could control the climate.

  “Do you think you could bring a couple distributors out to Junie’s place to see the changes we’ve made?”

  “Hart Vineyards is on my crush itinerary. Be nice if the place wasn’t empty when they showed up.”

  “I got an idea.”

  “You always do.”

  “We’re going to lure our prey in with food.”

  They had circled back to the new consortium’s public tasting room. Sam stood with hands on hips, admiring his clean, new venue. “I have to hand it to you, Lieutenant. This is going to be amazing.”

  “All that’s left to do are the floors, painting, and landscaping.”

  The crush was a mere two and a half weeks away. A hundred things could still go wrong. Manolo crossed his fingers behind his back that nothing would.

  Sam turned to him. “Now what’s this about food?”

  “I convinced Junie to let me put in an outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven. There aren’t many wineries that serve food, and those that do only have measly snacks. She’ll be the only game in town.”

  “Hold on,” Sam said. “How far have you gotten with this harebrained scheme?”

  “Applied for the building permit, ordered the appliances, and poured the patio. What’s the matter? Are you scared that building a bistro for Junie will take me away from your project? ’Cause you should know by now—”

  “It’s not that.”

  “You’re not going to slap my wrist again for being too involved with Juniper. Because if that’s where you’re going—”

  “Man, did you ask yourself why none of the other wineries around here offer food?”

  He paused. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “It’s because it’s against the law!”

  “It can’t be. Junie already has Keval advertising it all over the valley and on the internet: Come one, come all! Brendan Hart Vineyards will have pizza for the crush! Once that’s out there, it can’t be undone.”

  Manolo had promised this to Junie. He couldn’t renege.

  “You of all people should know that food service is regulated—”

  “—and every state has different rules, no matter how archaic,” Manolo finished for Sam. He snatched at the first solution that came to mind. “You’ve got connections. Is there anything you can do? Anyone you can talk to?”

  “I’ve just built up my collective of wine growers and vintners. I’m their voice. Everything I do, every move I make, represents them. They’re counting on me to be a straight arrow. You don’t expect me to jeopardize that with so much as a whiff of controversy.”

  Manolo scraped his hand through his hair. “Of course I don’t. Forget it. I wasn’t thinking. Like when I made this gallant gesture to Junie without researching it.”

  “Man.” Sam shook his head. “You’re in deep.”

  Manolo ducked his chin, though he knew trying to hide his twisted grin from Sam was futile.

  “Red saw it, too.”

  “Red? I don’t recall sharing anything with her more profound than our opinions on the best burger toppings.”

  “Hypothetically, Red might have mentioned you looked a little green when Junie waltzed into the pool party on Daryl Decaprio’s arm.”

  “Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?”

  “I said hypothetically. But it doesn’t take a therapist. You’d have had to be blind not to see it.”

  “Junie’s a nice girl.”

  “Who’s caught you, hook, line, and sinker.”

  He threw out his arms in surrender. “I like her. What’s not to like?”

  “She’s not going to appreciate being embarrassed in front of the whole world.”

  That was an understatement. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me a damn thing.”

  “Yeah. I do. She came to me and asked me to vouch for you, and I didn’t step up to the plate.”

  “She did? Junie?”

  “The day of the hike. She wanted to know if you could be trusted.”

  Manolo’s heart started thudding. There were a million things Sam could have said in response to that question, only a few of which were positive. “What’d you tell her?”

  “I told her to listen to her gut.”

  “That’s it?” He exhaled. “You went easy on me.”

  “I could have done better by you. I should’ve told her about the time you risked your own skin to step in the middle of that kerfuffle involving the AK, over in the sandbox.”

  “Aw, cut it out.”

  “How, when I was trapped between a rock and a hard place, you got me out.”

  “Standard procedure,” said Manolo, flicking a wall switch, pretending to check the power. “You’d have done the same thing.”

  “If Red had come sniffing around for intel, you’d have had my back.”

  Manolo huffed. “All I’d have done was tell the truth. My record isn’t exactly spotless where women are concerned.”

  “About that law. Let me see what I can do. I know a certain soft-bellied, cake-eating politician who owes me a favor.”

  “I’m not asking you to pull any strings. I just want to know where we stand before those appliances get here and I need to tell Junie we have to turn around and ship them back.”

  “Mind telling me one thing first? What’s going to happen after all this is over?”

  “You already know the answer to that. I’m out of here.”

  “The Belize job?”

  He’d stared at that contract for an hour, deciding whether to sign it. He tried to fool himself, telling himself his main interest in Brendan Hart Vineyards was in the property, not its owner, despite the fact that Junie’s mere presence sent every nerve in his body on edge. That his growing obsession with pleasing Junie was nothing more than the satisfaction he got from helping any person who needed a hand.

  But the truth was, he was scared.

  Did he want to bed Junie Hart? More than he cared to admit, even to himself. But that wasn’t what scared him. What got to him was knowing in his gut that, unlike with all the others, once he turned that corner with Junie . . . once he held her slender body in his arms . . . devoured every, captivating inch of he
r, no one else would ever compare. From that moment onward, he would spend more and more time with her in that sweet farmhouse her dad built for her on that fertile hillside overlooking the valley, until the day came when he’d wake up feeling like he had his leg caught in a trap.

  No. That wasn’t even what got to him. What scared him, finally, was imagining the pain it would cause both himself and Junie when he had to chew off that leg in order to free himself.

  Unless, of course, he had an obligation to fulfill, somewhere far, far away.

  That employment contract was his exit strategy. His insurance policy.

  “I’m committed. The contract’s signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  Hell yeah, he wanted Junie, though he was going to keep trying his damnedness not to cave to temptation. But just in case he did, now he had an excuse not to stick around.

  Sam tsked. “Things are about to get interesting.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  On a warm, overcast afternoon in mid-August, Junie was potting roses in planters while Manolo was hard at work on the bistro.

  Whenever he was there, Junie had fallen into the habit of looking for random chores to do near the tasting room.

  When she heard a rapid-fire pop-pop-pop, she looked up to see him discarding his snap-front denim shirt, slinging it across a tree branch.

  She spent the next couple of hours sneaking glimpses of his upper body in its full range of motion as he applied mortar to the stones and set them onto the frame around the patio.

  When the sun was low in the sky, he brushed his hands together for the last time and began collecting his tools.

  Junie pulled off her gardening gloves with a casualness that belied her thrumming pulse. “I’m going down in the cellar to do a trial tasting to see if last year’s vintage is ready to bottle. Want to come along?”

  Manolo snapped the lid on his toolbox shut and turned to face her. “If last year’s wine still hasn’t been bottled, then what is it we’ve been drinking?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  With every step into the cellar, the air grew chillier on her skin. When they reached the bottom, they were surrounded by the yeasty smell of fermenting grapes.

  Manolo sniffed. “Smells like my nona’s fruit cellar. She used to can fruits and vegetables for the winter. When climbing stairs got too hard for her, she’d send me down to get what she needed. I could never forget that sweet, earthy smell.”

  First, Junie took him into the bottle case room. “This is the wine we’re currently selling. It’s two years old. This is also what I’ll be promoting at this fall’s crush.”

  “That’s a lot of wine to keep track of.”

  She waved a tablet. “It’s all here, on spreadsheets going back to when I was a teenager.”

  Then they went into the larger barrel room. “This is the wine from last fall’s harvest. It’s been down here fermenting all year. The wine is the baby, the cask is the mother. It cradles the wine until it’s ready to be born.

  “These past few weeks, I’ve been running trials, tasting it almost every night. Timing’s everything. It’s like ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’ If I bottle too soon, the wine will lack spice and earthiness. Wait too long, and it’ll lose its fruitiness. The moment it reaches perfection, it needs to be racked—filtered from these barrels into a big, stainless steel tank—and then bottled.”

  “What happens if this wine’s not ready before the crush?”

  “A nightmare, that’s what. Because I need these barrels,” she said, giving a curved wooden side a fond slap, “to be cleaned and sterilized by then. I’d rather not be doing everything at once.”

  Junie collected two glasses and a long plastic tube from a corner table. Handing him the tube, she opened a port on an oak barrel. “Now. I want you to gently insert the thief into the opening.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “When it’s full, withdraw it and press the tip against the side of the glasses until the fluid flows out.”

  When he’d done that, they clinked glasses. “To the crush,” said Manolo.

  It took all Junie’s concentration to look away from his black eyes. But she’d promised to teach him about wine and so far, she had barely scratched the surface.

  “I’m going to ask you to make five decisions. Tell me, is this wine ruby, garnet, or purple?”

  “What’s the difference between ruby and garnet?”

  “Garnet is more orange.”

  He studied his glass. “I’d say it’s more garnet.”

  “Now, I want you to savor a sip. Let the wine wash over every taste bud on your tongue. Which berry flavor do you taste? Red, black, or blueberry, or raisin?”

  “Red.”

  He slid his foot forward a few inches, enveloping her in his warm aura.

  “You’re not paying attention,” she scolded weakly, inching backward till she was brought up short by the table.

  “Sorry, teacher.”

  With a growing uneasiness, she followed his hand as he reached around to set his glass on the wood with a soft tick that echoed through the cavernous room.

  “Ahem. Question number three. Is the fruit tart, ripe, jammy, or dried?”

  “I love it when a woman’s smarter than I am.” Now he relieved her of her glass as well.

  Her pulse pounded, and she didn’t know what to do with her empty hands. “We’re not finished.”

  “You got that right.”

  Now her chest was visibly rising and falling. Knowing he saw the effect he had on her only made her breath come harder.

  He planted a foot on either side of hers. She looked up to see his eyes finishing a circuit of her body just before colliding with hers.

  “You know it’s going to happen.” Manolo peered down at her from his superior height. His posture was erect, his shoulders squared, his elbows poised like a gunfighter, ready to draw. He had a feline alertness about him, as if he might pounce at any second. His hands clenched and unclenched, worrying Junie with their indecision.

  Junie’s moist palms gripped the table edge behind her, her breath fast and shallow. Words failed her. The silence expanded until it filled the room with anticipation.

  Then Manolo’s jaw twitched and his mouth tightened into a line. He turned away. “What was the question?”

  Junie let out her held breath. “Um . . .” And she thought she knew this routine by heart.

  “Fruit. Tart, ripe, or jammy.”

  To her relief and disappointment, he retrieved their glasses. “I need to refresh my memory.”

  The test ended with Junie pronouncing the wine still not ready. “Not quite spicy enough.”

  “It will be, soon,” said Manolo with a meaningful look. “You know it as well as I do.”

  * * *

  A week later, Manolo met with the painters at the consortium in the morning, then drove out to Junie’s. He had to remind himself to back off the gas when his speedometer edged too far over the limit. He had a premonition that in the years to come, whenever he thought back to this summer, he’d cherish the days he’d spent at the vineyard most.

  From some five hundred yards away, Junie raised her pruning shears in a wave.

  Knowing she might appear at any moment, combined with the panoramic views of the valley and the mountains, made his job anything but a chore.

  But, apparently, Junie’s work ethic surpassed her need to see him. Hours passed and she was still out there, babying those vines. The anticipation was getting to him by the time he finally glimpsed her little orange tractor putt-putting toward the barn.

  He rose from where he was trimming away the protruding parts of a large stone and watched her dismount.

  But his happiness faded when he saw the agitation in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She handed him a small tool. “Look.”

  He turned it over in his hands. “Looks like my nona’s potato peeler.”

  “You put a drop of juice in and th
e reading tells you the Brix—how much sugar’s in the grapes.”

  Manolo squinted into the end. “It’s like reading a thermometer. Says fifteen.”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “By the look on your face, it’s not good.”

  “The grapes aren’t ripening fast enough. The Brix should be climbing into the twenties by now. Twenty-five before I can pick.”

  “What’s that mean in the big scheme of things?”

  “This could be a bad vintage.”

  The worst-case scenario that Sam described to Manolo might be coming true.

  She opened her gloved palm. “See all these hens and chicks?”

  “I see a bunch of grapes.”

  “Notice how they’re all different sizes and shades of green and purple? To get a good yield, every grape in the cluster needs to be the same size and color. These aren’t maturing at the same rate.”

  “Don’t worry. Maybe the weather will break before the harvest. No sense in panicking—”

  Vertical lines etched the space between her brows. “I’m not panicking!” She yanked her hand back. “Just because last year’s vintage isn’t bottle-ready yet and this year’s harvest isn’t ripe, and if they wind up both being ready at the same time the pickers are going to be falling over the bottlers and I’m going to go nuts keeping an eye on everything at once, doesn’t mean I’m panicking!

  “Junie—”

  “And what will I do if the ovens don’t get here in time? What if they do get here and, still nobody comes to my grand opening you worked so hard on? What if none of this works?”

  Manolo’s hands encircled her toned, slender arms. His breath caught at her vulnerability. He was a soldier. Soldiers hid their feelings. But this was no time to pretend he didn’t care. “Junie! Stop doing this to yourself. Stop getting yourself so worked up.”

  What if she found out his bistro idea might not even be legal, on top of all her other concerns?

  She tore free from his grip. “It’s not your winery!” she exclaimed. “You don’t get it. You’re not the one with everything to lose!”