“You need to relax, you know that?” he replied, allowing her to steer him in the opposite direction.
“I’m here to teach you about wine.”
“Someone needs to teach you how to have fun.” But there were worse things than being led by the nose by a West Coast girl with eyes the color of blue spruce and muscles toned by honest, outdoor labor, not bought in some smelly city gym.
Inside, modern art hung on burgundy-colored walls between custom cabinetry designed to showcase bottles. The lighting was low, the atmosphere hushed, the bar stools upholstered in gray velvet.
“Whoever built this Shangri-la spared no expense,” Manolo muttered, looking around at the top-notch construction.
A barista in braids who looked flexible enough to wrap her legs around her neck greeted Junie by name. Then she examined Manolo with open curiosity. Earthy, Pacific Northwest girls were miles apart from glossy New York women, but a come-on look was a come-on look, no matter where in the world you were.
“Who’s your friend?” the barista asked Junie, her eyes glued to him.
Junie slid nonchalantly onto a bar stool. “This is Manolo. Manolo, Cerise.”
“You look like you’re not from around here,” purred Cerise.
Whatever vibes Cerise was putting out, Junie either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Which only made her more intriguing to Manolo. Like a devil on his shoulder, Sam’s hands-off warning came back to him.
Junie asked Cerise, “Can I try your Riesling? And Manolo will do a vertical of whatever pinot vintages you have available.”
Cerise poured Junie’s white and set down Manolo’s two glasses of the same wine from sequential years, for him to compare.
“Cheers.” Junie lifted her glass. “See?” she added playfully. “I’m relaxed. I’m drinking something purely for pleasure, not to compare it to the kind of wine that I make.”
“You’re not fooling me.” He laughed. “You already know what these taste like.” Dutifully, he tried what she’d selected for him. He waited until more patrons entered and parked themselves down the bar, diverting Cerise’s attention, before telling Junie his opinion.
“This one smells like a scorched cherry pie. The other tastes like a day-old teabag.”
Junie gave him a catlike smile and an almost imperceptible nod of approval.
Leaving their drinks unfinished, they went back out on the highway, passing a line of bicyclists in colors bright as jockeys’ silks and a nineties-era Subaru with a bumper sticker that read, I CAN SEE YOUR TETONS.
“Where to next?” he asked.
“Annie’s is one of the more impressive estates. Now I’m going to take you somewhere a little less fancy.”
She drove him to a modest A-frame with no sign out front. Just like before, Junie did the ordering. “You see how transparent this red is?”
Manolo took a sip and licked his lips. “Is that fig? No, raisin, with a hint of wet leaves. Whatever, it’s way better than the stuff at the last place we stopped.”
“Fig. And congratulations. You’ve just learned your first lesson: You can’t judge a wine by its tasting room.”
“Point taken. But I keep thinking about the food back at Annie’s. You saw how full the patio was, even though the wine wasn’t that great. Offering food’s a marketing thing, Junie. It’s a no-brainer: The more people drink, the more they want to eat.”
“No-brainer, huh? Where’s the research?”
“I grew up in the restaurant business. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I thought you wanted to get serious about wine? Or was that just another one of your lines?”
“Lines?”
“I have a mirror. I know I’m no beauty.”
Manolo studied Junie frankly, taking her apart with his eyes. Her hair was plain brown, her brows dark and thick like his sisters’, not like the plucked and polished women he was typically drawn to. Her nails were short and bare, and she could use some flesh on her angular frame.
“Fair enough. You want my unvarnished take on beauty? I was brought up by four mothers—my mom and three older sisters—Paloma, Maria, and Isabel. I was the baby, and they spoiled me rotten. For eighteen years, not a day went by that someone didn’t tell me how pretty I was. I survived being suffocated—barely—but my respect for ‘pretty’ didn’t. Beautiful is boring, you ask me. All luck and no merit.”
Junie snorted. “I guess I asked for that,” she said, looking down at where she drew a tight circle on the bar with the foot of her glass.
He set the tips of his fingers on its base, stilling it to make his point. “There’s way more to you than a pretty face. There’s something substantial about you. Call it . . . integrity.”
“How can you say that? You barely know me.”
“I know it by the passion in your voice when you talk about your wines. Your devotion to living your dream.” Not to mention, her earnestness, which threatened to break his heart. “Besides”—he took another sip of the good wine—“I’ve been getting an earful. You have a broad fan base.”
“Not according to Tom Alexander.”
“The exception that proves the rule.”
“Too bad he’s so obsessed with my grapes.”
Manolo laughed. “I’m glad it’s just your grapes he’s interested in.”
She smiled self-consciously, endearing herself to him even more.
“What about you? You already know something about wine. I can tell by the words you use to describe it.”
He shrugged. “Who, me? Not so much.”
“Figs? Wet leaves? Liar.”
“I told you, I grew up in the restaurant business.”
“You said it was a pizzeria.”
“Pizza, spaghetti, ravioli . . .”
“I’ve been around, too, don’t forget, and I know every state’s laws are different, but I haven’t seen many pizza shops that have a liquor license.”
He shrugged. “One complements the other. With my parents, it started with the food. We got the liquor license to increase business. I don’t know why it shouldn’t go both ways.”
“So, what do you like to drink?”
He considered. “Can’t go wrong with a 2010 red Burgundy.”
Junie lifted a brow. “You do know something about wine. Would you be surprised if I told you pinot noir grapes are what goes into most Burgundian wine?”
“See? I didn’t know that.”
“It’d take a lifetime to learn all there is to know. That’s what’s so fascinating about it.”
Manolo’s eyes swept the room restlessly. “All this drinking is making me hungry.”
“Again with the food. Are you ready to go back to Sam’s?”
“What about the porch? You were going to show me your dad’s old specs and the materials left in the barn.”
“I still haven’t gotten to the market. There’s nothing in the house to eat.”
“We could grab some stuff for sandwiches. I need to pick up a couple things for the apartment, anyway.”
“Does your place have a nice kitchen?”
“If you consider a hot plate and a mini fridge nice.”
She pulled a sympathetic face. “That’s too bad. You said you like to cook. . . .”
“It’s still better than field rations. It’ll have to do for the next few months.”
Chapter Eleven
Standing at the market deli counter waiting for his order, Manolo was checking out Junie’s narrow hips sashaying down the refrigerated aisle in search of milk when some hotshot in aviators and a leather bomber broken in at all the right places appeared from the canned-goods row and gathered her into his arms. Manolo immediately went on red alert as he watched him whisper something in her ear, then hold her at arm’s length to observe her startled reaction.
“Daryl!” Junie reddened, to the guy’s satisfied grin.
“How’ve you been?”
When he whipped off his shades, Manolo recognized him with a start. The guy who’d
leased him his truck.
“You look fantastic. The winemaking agrees with you. I think about calling you all the time, and then something happens. You know how it is.”
Flustered, Junie sputtered something unintelligible.
“Heard about your mom moving out.”
Word sure gets around in a small town. Dr. Hart has barely been gone twenty-four hours.
“You gonna be all right over there all by yourself?”
HE KNOWS WHERE SHE LIVES.
“I’ll be fine, thanks for asking.”
“There’s a new place over in Newberg I been wanting to try. Something Trattoria. You heard of it?”
“Yeah, no—”
“It just opened a couple weeks ago. Getting rave reviews. We oughta go.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
The flood of testosterone pumping through Manolo’s veins had his chest thudding.
“I mean it, Junie. We ought to.”
Touching, this little reunion. Shame it has to end now. Casually, Manolo strode over and reached for Daryl’s hand.
“I remember you.” He applied more pressure to the salesman’s hand than was necessary. They locked eyes, sizing each other up like two bull moose.
“Manolo, right?” said Daryl finally. “How’s the twenty-five hundred running for you?”
“It’ll do.”
“Yo, buddy. Your prosciutto,” called a tired voice from behind the deli counter. “Anything else?”
Manolo only half heard the summons. He and Daryl continued to glare at each other with their chests puffed out.
“Welllll . . .” came Junie’s voice, her gaze darting like a bluebird’s between Daryl and Manolo.
Eyes still glued to Manolo’s face, Daryl answered Junie from the side of his mouth. “You have to go. So do I.”
It wasn’t Daryl’s square jaw and resolute eyes that were so disconcerting. It was what Manolo sensed behind those eyes—a reflection of himself. Even more disturbing, he knew without a doubt that Daryl had seen right through him, too—straight into his soul.
Daryl blinked first. He leaned over and bussed Junie’s cheek, a tad too close to her mouth for Manolo’s comfort.
“Buddy! I don’t got all day.” The deli man slapped Manolo’s prosciutto and provolone against the top of the meat case and walked off, leaving it there.
“I’ll call you,” Daryl told Junie, holding an imaginary phone to his ear while walking backward through the condiments aisle, past the checkout line and toward the exit. The bag in his other hand signaled he’d already paid.
Where was one of those West Coast earthquakes when you needed it? Manolo relished a vision of Daryl Decaprio buried beneath a mountain of pickle jars. He followed Junie up to the register, steaming like a freight train. “How do you know that guy?”
“Who?” she replied absentmindedly, checking her text messages.
Manolo jutted his chin toward his evil twin’s back as it finally disappeared out the store’s automatic door.
“Him?” she asked, glancing up. “Daryl?”
Who else? “What’s he to you?” A friend? A lover?
“Just a sec. My mom’s texting me.”
Patience wasn’t Manolo’s strong suit. Jaw clenched, he paid the cashier for his food.
On their way out to the car, Junie finally stopped texting and slipped her phone back into her bag. “Now, you were asking me . . . ?”
“Daryl,” Manolo growled, the name bitter on his tongue.
“We’re old friends.”
“I guaran-damn-tee you, he thinks you’re more than just friends.”
“How do you know?” She frowned, peering into the rearview as she backed out of the parking lot.
“I know exactly what guys like that are thinking. What they want—”
Manolo’s arm shot to the dash when Junie slammed on the brakes. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“Sorry. That old lady was backing up without looking.”
“Look, screw the sandwiches. I’m starved. Let me buy you a real meal.”
“Can’t. I still have cuttings to burn before dark. I’ve goofed off long enough today.”
“What about Daryl? You gonna find time to go out with him when he calls?”
Junie dismissed his concern. “Daryl says that every time he sees me. He never follows through.”
“What if this time he does?”
“What if he does? You sound almost . . . jealous.”
Jealous? “I could no more be jealous of that”—he scrambled for a metaphor suitable for female civilian ears—“that peacock with his phony military jacket than . . .” He abandoned his attempt, scrubbing a hand through his hair in frustration.
Manolo had always had the most sophisticated women at his beck and call, without having to promise them anything. So why had he offered his construction skills, gratis, to a skinny girl in overalls with dirt caked under her fingernails? He was a total puss nut, that’s why.
Once he gave his word, he was good for it. But when all was said and done, he had a built-in exit ramp.
“Forget Daryl,” said Junie.
“So you won’t go out with me, but you’ll let me make you sandwiches.”
“I thought you liked to cook.” Her eyes taunted him; her teeth gleamed straight and white.
“Someone has to do it. Seems like the only time you eat is when someone feeds you.” With the jumble of conflicting feelings she brought out in him—lust, protectiveness, and respect—Manolo didn’t know whether to grin or grit his teeth.
He knew one thing, though. He didn’t want to say good-bye to her yet.
* * *
Junie and Manolo watched the dull orange glow of the smoldering brush pile over at the vineyard’s edge. Every now and then, she caught a whiff of wood smoke.
“That sandwich hit the spot,” she said, wincing at her cliché. Yet somehow, tonight, every thought that came to mind sounded lame the moment she gave it voice. It made no sense. All any passerby would notice was the ordinary sight of two people perched on a porch step. They couldn’t smell Manolo’s provocative male scent, or feel how his mere presence caused the air to vibrate with expectation, despite her instinctive reservations.
“Everything’s good when you’re hungry,” he said.
An awkward silence fell between them, as if he might be nervous, too. Then they both started talking at once.
“Go ahead,” said Junie.
“Tell me about you and Daryl.”
Her defenses immediately sprang up. Was her moth-eaten obsession with Daryl, which was so ancient it had lost all but a trace of its former power, that transparent? “Like I said, he’s hardly worth talking about.”
“How did you two meet?”
She treaded carefully. “In high school.”
Manolo waited patiently, examining the curls in the vine fragment he fingered.
“Okay. You want to know? I had a massive crush on him for years. But then so did every other girl at Clarkston High. I mean, you’ve seen him. . . .” She halted. She was making a mess of this. Manolo looked just like Daryl. She might as well be telling him how hot he was.
“Go on.”
“He always used his looks to his advantage, flirting with everyone every chance he got. He had so many women on the burner, it was insane.” Sam’s words leaped to Junie’s mind: Last I knew, Lieutenant, you had women in, let’s see—Fort Bliss, Fort Belvoir, New York City.... She was digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole.
But if Manolo noticed, he didn’t let on. “He never culled the pack, settled down?”
She shook her head. “I was never privy to his private life—I don’t know anyone who was, especially after I left for college. But to this day, I never knew of him being with any one person for any length of time.” It wasn’t the first time it had occurred to her. She had to admit that was a little strange. But back in the old days, she had been invested in keeping Daryl atop his pedestal, and now it hardly mattered. Her fixa
tion had lost its potency.
Or at least, most of it.
Chapter Twelve
On May Day, Junie awoke at dawn to the sweet sound of birdsong. She dressed and carried her coffee mug out to the vineyard.
The ground was awakening, subtly but surely. People could be unpredictable, but there was comfort in knowing that even the fiercest winter eventually gave way to the warmth of spring.
The land was her refuge. Out here, it was just the solid, reassuring earth supporting her weight, the soft air caressing her cheeks. Beneath her soil-caked rubber boots was a small miracle: her crop of wildflowers coming into bud. The flowers did double duty. They attracted the birds that ate the bad bugs, eliminating the need for pesticides. Then, later this summer when the flowers went to seed, the hatchlings would feed on the seed heads. She straightened from where she examined a Johnny jump-up to watch a pair of bluebirds carrying nesting materials into one of the little wooden houses she had erected around her property. Of all the places she’d lived, none was as beautiful as this. She was determined to fight for this vineyard with everything she had.
In the afternoon, she showered and put on her waitress uniform in preparation for work. While the restaurants along Clarkston’s Main Street went after tourist dollars, Casey’s catered mostly to senior citizens on a budget and families with rambunctious kids.
It was dark when she got home again. The sharp, resinous tang of freshly sawn wood filled her nostrils the moment she exited the car.
Manolo. He had said he might come over after his work at the consortium was finished. The very thought of him out in the barn, bent over Dad’s old table saw, made her wish she’d been here to watch his strong back, his coordinated movements while he worked.
Last night, he’d been in a pensive mood after she’d told him about her history with Daryl. He’d left shortly after. She wondered where things stood between them now.
She picked up the paper bag left on the stoop and read the label printed in a careful hand: MONDAY’S SPECIAL. SPAGHETTI WITH RED SAUCE. The bag sagged with the weight of its contents. She felt a tingle of anticipation imagining the sight of Manolo stirring a pot on a hot plate in his tiny kitchenette, rolled up shirtsleeves baring thick forearms.
The Crush Page 7
