The Crush (Oregon Wine Country #1)(26)

There it was again, that warning flag.





Chapter Fourteen


Warning flag or not, Wednesday night after work, Junie was torn between which to do first: devour Manolo’s steak Florentine or call him up just to hear his soft, deep voice.

She called him while she ate.

After he greeted her, he said, “Sam was tied up with growers all day. We had some contracts to go over after I left your place. I’m just now headed home.”

“How long have you and Sam known each other?”

“He was a year ahead of me in Officer’s Candidate School. Our advanced training took us in different directions, but we stayed in touch.”

“What did Sam do in the service, exactly?”

“Well, ah . . . not sure if you heard me say that we ran into each other a couple times overseas.”

“Rory says Sam was a spy.”

“You’ll have to ask Sam about that.”

“I did. He said he wasn’t.”

“Then, there’s your answer.”

“He would say that whether he was or not.”

“So you were trying to get it out of me? You can’t manipulate me. Don’t forget, I was raised surrounded by women. I know all their tricks.”

“You’re so lucky to have three sisters.”

“I’m willing to rent them out for a nominal fee.”

She chuckled. “Seriously, sometimes I feel like my family’s disintegrating. I never saw much of my aunts and uncles and cousins, then Storm left and Dad died and now Mom. All I have left is my legacy. And I’m hanging on to that for all it’s worth.”

For the first time since she’d met him, Manolo didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I hope that works out for you.” There was a distinct tone of resignation in his voice.

That night, Junie took advantage of the early spell of warm weather to sleep with her window open. Long past midnight, she was still gazing out at the stars, listening to the lonely howl of a coyote in the distant hills. Maybe she was overtired, maybe she’d been hypnotized by the movement of the gauzy curtains in the night air, but she couldn’t stop reliving every moment since Manolo Santos had shown up in Oregon, starting with the day he’d exasperated her while charming all her friends in her tasting room. From his economy of motion when he’d cleaned up the spilled wine and broken glass, to the warm insistence of his hands on hers behind the bar, ending with his voice over the phone, the profound impact of their respective families on them.

Whenever she was near him, she couldn’t think straight. He was irritating and impossible and cocky and egotistical. But underneath all that swagger, she sensed he was protecting something fragile. Something wholesome and good. As much as he joked about his sisters, it was clear that he adored them, and vice versa. And his life’s work was doing things for people, things as simple as cooking risotto and as risky as building a hospital in a war zone.

*

When Manolo hung up with Junie, he was already calculating the time on the East Coast. The last customers in his father’s restaurant would be shuffling out the door. The back of the house would be deafening with the clang of metal against metal as the staff scurried to sanitize every surface so they could punch out, yelling to each other over the mechanized whoosh of the dishwashers. He saw them all as if it were yesterday, wiping down the range, mopping the floors, emptying the trash. Out front, Isabel would be counting the till. He punched in Izzy’s number before he thought better of it.

“Hello?”

“Izzy.”

“Who’s this?”

“Don’t play games. You know who.”

“My brother? I thought that was your voice, but it’s been so long, I wasn’t sure.”

“Ha. Phone works both ways.”

“Where are you?”

He thought for a moment. “Crunchy granola country. Land of the human Birkenstocks.”

“Translation?”

“Oregon’s Willamette Valley. How’s Mom?”

“Mom’s fine. The what valley?”

“How’s her knee?”

“Still limping. Still fighting getting it replaced.”

“If she’d listen to the doctor and get off it . . .”

“Like that’s going to happen.”

“How’s everyone else?” he asked, turning the key to his modest apartment, stepping inside the quiet rooms, closing out the world behind him.

“Michael’s good, kids are good, everybody’s fine. We’d be better if we heard from you more than once in a blue moon. How come you don’t call Polly and Maria sometimes?”

“I call Mom every Sunday.” That, plus sixteen years of Mom lighting candles for him at Our Lady of Grace, would be the only thing to keep him out of eternal hellfire.

“That’s not what I asked.”

This was where Manolo would normally make a stab at humor. But tonight he had no patience for funny stuff. “’Cause you don’t judge.” That was why he and Izzy were tighter than the rest. “Do me a favor. Dad around?”

There was a tense silence on the other end of the phone. “He’s here. Outside, talking to Donnie.” The family’s restaurant had once been a thriving business. All the movers and shakers had their favorite tables. But more and more, Manolo got the sense its patrons were aging along with his father. Donnie Minelli was one of Dad’s oldest cronies and still, apparently, a smoker. Some things never changed.