The Crush (Oregon Wine Country #1)(4)

“Apology accepted, on one condition. I asked you how long you were going to be wreaking havoc in our neck of the woods.”

“Six months, max.”

She smiled ruefully. “Looks like I’d better stock up on glassware.”

She was a good sport, after all. “Shortest lease I could find,” he said.

“That’ll be September. The crush. All the festivities start on the ninth this year.”

“That’s the plan,” said Sam. “We need to have the new consortium up and running by then for the onslaught of tourists. Manny took a place on Main Street above the Radish Rose.”

“Clarkston’s best restaurant.” She lifted an approving brow.

Finally, he’d done something right. Truth was, Manolo never went anywhere without first scouting out the area’s best places for food and wine. “Speaking of which, what are you doing for dinner?”

Junie’s hand snapped back to her side, and the bubble popped. “Working.”

He waited for her to explain.

“I wait tables at dinnertime during the week so I can be here afternoons and weekends for customers.”

Customers? In the nick of time, he bit back a laugh. They hadn’t seen another soul since Sam’s van had left the main wine trail.

Sam stepped up to the bar. “Junie’s got a lot on her plate, now that—”

“I can speak for myself, Sam.” She picked up her bar rag with a flounce and vigorously wiped the counter. “Budbreak is a busy time of year. I have to finish weeding and mowing and paying the bills—” Her mouth snapped shut again at the mention of bills.

Well played, Santos. You’ve just been shot down—in front of four other men.

Manolo waved away his dinged pride. “Don’t worry about it. Good meeting you, Junie.” He reached for his wallet. “Before I go, here, take this for the wineglasses. And I’ll take six bottles of that pinot. Once word gets out, it’s not going to last long.”

*

Sam and Manolo lagged behind the others on their way back to the van.

“Don’t take it personal, man.” Sam always could read him like a book. But then, he’d been highly trained to spot people’s vulnerabilities or, as they said in military jargon, “handle assets.” “Junie keeps to herself. Ever since she got back from UC Davis, she’s been working her ass off.”

“The big winemaking school?”

Sam nodded. “Right after she graduated, her dad died. That left just Junie and her mom to run the place”—he glanced backward out of an abundance of caution—“by which I mean, just Junie.”

“Shame.”

Manolo’s practiced eyes skimmed over the faded brown landscape, across a winding silver ribbon of water to the misty distant hills. Evaluating ground for its development potential came as second nature to him. “Hard to believe grapes’ll grow here. Day’s more than half gone and those hills are still shrouded in fog.”

“That was the old way of thinking,” said Sam. “Brendan Hart was one of the first to see climate change coming.”

From where Manolo was standing, the Willamette Valley felt different from anywhere else he’d been—and he’d been to a lot of places in his thirty-four years. While the East Coast seemed suddenly tired . . . sedate, rural Oregon still epitomized the frontier spirit, fresh and thrumming with possibility, its people brassy and vibrant.

“Pinot noir’s the polar bear of grapes. The wine gets flabby if it’s too hot. People assume it’s cold here because of the latitude, but the Willamette today is like Napa was ten years ago. Now Cali’s fried, and we’re more temperate, like the Med. These hills are ideal for pinot.”

“So, what happened?”

Sam made a face. “Do I look like a climatologist?”

“Junie’s dad, numb nuts.”

They struck out again across the uneven landscape. “The Harts aren’t originally from around here. Junie was in middle school when Brendan retired as an MP. He was still young, so he started a second career as a state trooper. First month on the job, he neutralized some wing nut with an AR-15 holding a farm family hostage. Overnight, Brendan Hart was a hero.

“But being a cop was never Hart’s main ambition. He might have gotten an instant reputation as a badass, but in person he was kind of quiet, mild-mannered. He found this old farm where filberts used to grow, and somehow convinced his wife that this was where they were going to settle down, plant their family.”

“Family?”

“Junie and her brother, name of Storm. Soup sandwich, you ask me. You know the type. Always looking for a fast buck without paying his dues. Back when we were in school, you could always find him and Junie out here working alongside their dad. Once he graduated, though, it only took one crush for him to realize what the next fifty were going to look like. Got out while he still had a strong back.”

Manolo winced. He knew what it felt like to be saddled with someone else’s dream. Like you were slowly suffocating.

“Last I heard, Storm was making money hand over fist running one of those cannabis outfits in Colorado.”

Asking would only dredge up pain. But a deep-seated guilt made him need to know. “How’d the old man take it, his only son taking off like that, reneging on his family duty?”