The Crush

by Heather Heyford

  Manolo headed toward the door.

  “Where’re you going? Thought we were going to look at some alternatives to that dogwood the landscapers can’t find.”

  “I’ll get back to you. Right now, Junie needs me more than you do.”

  “I know about plants,” Holly said. “I’ll help Sam.”

  “You sure?”

  She brushed him off with a wave. “Go. We’ll figure it out.”

  Watching Manolo sprint down the steps to his truck, Holly sighed. “Junie Hart’s a lucky girl.”

  “The Lieutenant’s one outstanding individual,” said Sam. “But don’t tell him I said so. His head can barely fit through the door as it is.”

  Holly just smiled.

  * * *

  On his way out of town, Manolo took a detour through the Clarkston Market and sprinted through the aisles, tossing peanut butter and sandwich fixings into his basket.

  When he got to Junie’s house, he refrigerated the perishables and left the rest sitting on the counter while he made a beeline for the tasting room, but she wasn’t there.

  He went over to the patio and held a hand over his eyes to shade them from the afternoon sun as he scanned the vineyard. But there was no sign of her bright orange tractor.

  In the tasting room, mechanical sounds rumbled under his feet. He skipped down the cellar steps.

  Yards and yards of hoses lay coiled over the rows of wooden barrels, some feeding off a portable pump that was the source of all the noise, others hooked to a piece of equipment that he recognized from his engineering background as an ozone machine.

  Junie was lifting a huge barrel by herself.

  “Hold it! Let me do that.”

  “Don’t worry,” she called over the noise of the pump. “It’s empty. You got here just in time for the fun.” She gave him a droll smile. “The wine’s ready. I’m getting ready for the bottler. These hoses take the wine out of the barrel into the pump, then into the filtration tank. It’ll go through a light filtration, then into another tank.”

  Now she attached a metal wand to the next barrel in line. There was a sense of urgency in her movements.

  “What can I do to help?”

  Without stopping, Junie replied, “As soon as each barrel is racked, the empty has to be flipped over and washed out with hot water, then filled with ozone to sterilize it.” She turned to him hopefully. “Want to be my barrel washer?”

  It took only seconds for him to size up the situation. He stepped into position, relieving her of the barrel.

  “Try to keep up. I have to get all this racked by the time the bottlers get here on Thursday morning. On top of that, the grapes are ready, too. The pickers are coming at three—”

  He frowned. “It’s already past three.”

  “Not three this afternoon. Three tomorrow morning!”

  They worked side by side through the night, with only a short break to eat the sandwiches Manolo hurriedly threw together. At two-forty-five, they went upstairs to wait for the pickers to arrive.

  Manolo sat on the edge of the patio next to Junie to catch his breath. The air felt humid and warm after the cool of the cellar. “Can I ask you a stupid question?”

  “Sure,” Junie said, panting.

  He reached over and brushed a lock of hair from her eyes.

  “Why the hell would anyone want to pick grapes in the middle of the night?”

  She wiped her brow with her arm. “It’s cooler for the workers than working under the hot sun. They can work longer and more efficiently. Plus, it’s better for the grapes. The sugar’s more stable and they’re cooler at the time of picking, which means I don’t have to cool them artificially before I crush them.

  “Look.” She pointed across the dark valley, where a sprinkling of lights bobbed and dipped like fireflies. “We’re not the only ones picking tonight.”

  They watched for a moment; then their eyes shared a moment of satisfaction at the hard work they’d accomplished together. Junie rested her hands behind her on the bench that he had built, leaned back her head, and closed her eyes.

  Manolo studied her starlit profile, amazed at what fate had thrown together on this sultry late summer night, at this intimate hour: a city boy and a country woman, as opposite as the coasts they were born on. He thought of what his mother had said to him only hours ago: You look like you’ve found whatever it is you’ve been looking for.

  All summer, he’d been stuffing his emotions, keeping things on a friends-only basis, believing it was best for Junie in the long run. He’d had a lot of catching up to do.

  But if there was ever a moment made for romance, it was this one.

  He leaned over and kissed her.

  She responded cautiously, first leaving her hands behind her, flat on the bench.

  Misgivings overtook him. He’d known this was a bad move!

  But the dam had broken behind the force of his pent-up feelings.

  Like a flower unfolding, she came to him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  He moved his hands along her sides, sliding his thumbs across her lowermost ribs. He marveled at how she could be so fragile, and yet so resilient.

  Her hands tangled in his hair as their breathing came faster and stronger.

  Then—dammit—the sound of approaching vehicles broke the silence of the country night. Manolo tore his mouth away from Junie’s to see headlights streaming toward them.

  The pickers swarmed out of their vans wearing fluorescent safety vests and headlamps strapped over their red and blue bandanas. Each grabbed a plastic bin and headed right out to the middle of a row. By the time the pans were loaded, the tractor hauling a flatbed was waiting. When it was stacked high with grapes, the tractor hauled them to the crush pad in back of the tasting room, and the process began again.

  Now Manolo realized why Junie had been so meticulous about keeping the canes trained up, the ground between the vines so clean. It was so that her pickers didn’t trip over canes or roots in the dark.

  He swelled with admiration for her. All those brightly painted ladies in his past paled in comparison with Junie’s many talents, her thoughtfulness.

  He followed a single picker down a row to watch him work, marveling at the speed with which the man used his sickle-shaped knife.

  When the man rose and carried his pan of grapes to the flatbed, Manolo gazed up at the pre-dawn sky. The full moon had set hours ago. Now blues, pinks, and violets swirled above the ripening earth. One by one, the stars blinked out.

  And that’s when he knew: He could plant roots here.

  The thought was fleeting. Easy to say, now—when he was contractually bound to start his new job in Belize in exactly five days.

  “What happens to the grapes?” Manolo yelled to Junie over the noise of the generator powering the portable lights.

  “They get crushed, stemmed, and sent into a vat for a month of skin contact.”

  “Skin contact?”

  “The skins are what gives red wine its color. The first load is on its way to the crush pad. Let’s go.”

  Junie showed him how to pour the plastic bins full of grapes into the crusher/destemmer and where the berries—pulp, skins, and all—went into the open-top, stainless-steel vat to soak. These were the same hard, green berries he’d seen on the vines last April. He was fascinated to see the process by which the now fat, purple berries were turned into wine.

  The pickers kept up their efficient pace until the sun was overhead. Then, they seemed to vanish as quickly as they’d come. Shortly after the last bins of grapes had been crushed, all was once again quiet.

  Junie sagged onto a bench.

  “That it?” Manolo asked.

  “I should go back down and rack some more.”

  “Forget that. You’ve been going nonstop for, what? Twenty-eight hours?”

  “So have you.”

  “And believe me, I feel it. Come on.” He reached for her hand. “Time for a break.”

  Reluctantl
y, she let herself be pulled up. Manolo wrapped an arm around her, propped her up against him, and dragged their tired, aching bodies into the house.

  Junie could barely keep her eyes open, but he sat a plate of apple slices hastily smeared with peanut butter under her nose.

  She didn’t have the strength to protest when he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom.

  “Thanks for everything,” she mumbled.

  “Goes both ways. I’m getting private lessons in winemaking.”

  She was limp as a rag doll when he deposited her on her bed in the fetal position and arranged the covers over her. “I’ll be back,” he said softly, though she was already fast asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “Come and get it!”

  Junie woke up ravenous to the smell of home cooking and the sound of Manolo’s deep voice. She checked the time. Five o’clock! She’d been sleeping for four hours.

  She stumbled into the kitchen to see a plate already on the table. “What’s all this?” She drifted over to where Manolo stood at the stove, spooning red sauce onto a second plate. “Chicken cacciatore.”

  She grinned up at him. “Where have you been?” she asked, still groggy. “Did you get any rest?”

  “I had to check on something for Sam. Then I showered and took a power nap.”

  “You didn’t have to do this,” she said, tasting the sauce with a fingertip.

  He held his spoon poised, waiting for her reaction.

  “Mmm. Amazing.”

  “Got to keep up your strength. Damn, girl. I thought my family worked hard.”

  After supper, they went back down into the cellar and racked some more, until neither could drag one foot in front of the other.

  One day rolled seamlessly into the next. Following a few hours of sleep, Manolo returned to the farmhouse at dawn, fried some eggs, and worked next to Junie until all the wine had been filtered from the wooden barrels into the steel tank, just in time for the bottlers’ arrival the next morning.

  Junie staggered from the tank to where Manolo was still washing and sterilizing barrels and picked up the hot water hose.

  “I got that,” said Manolo.

  “I’ll help you finish—” Her words trailed off. She staggered.

  “Go on in and go to bed.”

  * * *

  Junie felt like she had only just closed her eyes when her alarm went off at dawn. She stumbled downstairs in the oversized T-shirt she used as a nightie to make coffee, smiling when she saw that the task was already done. She poured herself a cup and took it out to the front porch, where Manolo was admiring the sunrise, as alert as if he’d been up for hours.

  “There she is,” he said, eyeing her appreciatively. “Morning, Buttercup.”

  “It’s nice getting up to coffee already made,” she said, suddenly shy. “I’m starting to get spoiled.”

  “You deserve someone to spoil you.” He walked over, took her mug from her hand and set it on the windowsill. Then he picked her up and set her down on the porch railing, facing him.

  “What are you doing?” She giggled.

  His response was to move in between her legs, making her nightshirt ride up to her panty line. Then he reached under her naked thighs, pulling her in until his hips pressed flush against her.

  Instinctively, she clamped her legs around his waist and threw her arms around his neck, returning his surprising, delicious kisses until they were both breathless.

  Junie felt the warmth of his hands through the thin cotton as they traveled over her body. She arched toward him, and he placed his right hand over her breast, tentatively at first, as if it were a sacred object. She moaned, and his touch became urgent, molding her small breast to his large hand, centering his palm over her erect nipple. He dragged his mouth down her neck and cupped her rear end with both hands, kneading and pulling her in closer and closer until she felt his unmistakable arousal between her legs.

  When his mouth left hers abruptly, she felt bereft.

  His attention was fixed over her shoulder.

  She turned to see the Haggartys’ shiny, mobile bottling plant rolling toward them.

  She hopped off the railing and made a dash for the door. “I need to go get dressed,” she breathed.

  “You go ahead,” said Manolo, his eyes on the road. “Where do they work?”

  “The trailer’s self-contained. Everything happens inside it. I just need to get it as close as possible to my tanks.”

  “I’ll guide them back to the crush pad.”

  Junie and the Haggartys confirmed the day’s plan and the process quickly got underway.

  * * *

  Haggarty and Manolo took an instant liking to each other. Maybe it was because they both kept their facts plainspoken and their emotions bottled up.

  Manolo stroked the silver exterior of Haggarty’s custom semi. “Quite a rig you got there.”

  Haggarty lit up. “Want a tour?”

  Manolo stepped up into the trailer.

  “We run a crew of eight,” Haggarty yelled above the continual rattling of glassware. “The bottles travel through a series of machines on their way from one end of the trailer to the other. This here high-tech machine sucks all the air out of the bottle so no oxygen gets into the wine. See?”

  Manolo nodded in the din.

  “After the bottles get filled, they pass along this conveyor to the labeler, then to the pack-off table.”

  Junie met him when he exited the trailer. “Pretty impressive, huh? Way more cost efficient than installing my own bottling line.”

  “Amazing. Looks like there’s nothing for me to do here. I’d like to go get that pizza oven installed now, if you’ll let me.”

  “Let you? I’ve been waiting all month!”

  He grinned. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you trust me?”

  “You’re infuriating, you know that? If you weren’t so handy, I’d . . .”

  “You’d what? Now, don’t get all excited, because I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to be pleasuring women today.”

  “Excited?” she huffed. She took a swing at his arm and missed when he arced his body out of the way. “Who’s excited? I’m not excited!”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go show these fixtures who’s boss.”

  Beaming inside and out, Manolo headed off to put the finishing touches on Junie’s bistro. When he glanced behind him a moment later, he caught her looking after him with an exasperated expression.

  He loved knowing he flustered her.

  As when he worked on any humanitarian project, it occurred to him how it made no sense—a selfish bastard like he was, getting such a kick out of fulfilling someone else’s dream. That was what he did, though, wasn’t it? Helped out strangers to make up for letting down his own family. But he’d have time enough to dwell on that, soon enough. He might be a coward when it came to relationships, but right now he was on a high. Just for today, he didn’t want to acknowledge that storm cloud gathering in his peripheral vision.

  He worked quickly, hoping to finish while Junie was still preoccupied with the bottling. When the oven and grills and fridge were installed, he jumped into his truck and drove to town, where he’d been keeping the surprise extra touches he’d ordered at the same time he’d bought the consortium fixtures.

  Later that afternoon, Chris Haggarty came over to say good-bye and admire Manolo’s handiwork. “Good luck with the crush. I’ll be sure and pass the word about the pizza oven here at Hart’s. I get around some in my business.”

  As the semi drove away and Manolo was erecting the last colorful umbrella, Junie appeared. He stood up straight, planted his hands on his hips, and waited for her reaction.

  She stopped at the edge of the patio. Her eyes met his briefly before flickering over his handiwork.

  Then, in sharp contrast to the rush of the past few days, she floated as if on air beneath the pergola, trailing her hand across the stone, steel, and wood surface
s. She peered into the oven, the spotless fridge. When she finally looked at him again, her eyes were shining.

  “You like it?”

  Her mouth worked, but no words came out. She swallowed. “How can I ever repay you?”

  “That look on your face just did.”

  She went back to examining and fingering everything in sight. “This is—wait until everyone sees it!”

  “I need to do a food run tonight. The crush is in two days. Don’t want to be buying groceries tomorrow, when who knows what fires I’ll have to put out. That’s the final walk-through of the consortium.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You have a few volunteer baristas, don’t you? You worry about the wine and inside your tasting room. I’ll tend to everything that happens out here on the patio . . . the food, the music, the money. What time’s the market close today?”

  She looked at the time. “Less than an hour.”

  He picked up his tool box, strode over to Junie, and pulled her roughly toward him. Her breath came out with a rush. She pressed her hands into his chest and looked up at him with soft eyes, her lips open in invitation.

  He looked down at her face, desire engulfing him like flames. If he caved to his ball ache now, it would be game over. He wouldn’t let her out of bed for days. Those groceries would never get bought. And then there’d be no food for the crush—hell, no crush at all at Hart Vineyards—negating the whole point of this passion project.

  He released her with a teeth-rattling suddenness and took off at a clip toward his truck.

  This story wasn’t over. He wanted to savor it, not jump ahead prematurely to the end.

  When he was safely beyond arm’s reach, he turned to see Junie watching him.

  He charged on toward his truck, heart thudding with anticipation of what was yet to come.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  As usual, Manolo hadn’t seen fit to inform Junie when he was coming back. Who knew when he’d show up? Tonight? Tomorrow? Not until Saturday?

  I hate him, Junie thought as she took one last inventory, transferring cases from storage to the tasting room.