The Crush (Oregon Wine Country #1)(50)

“If you recall from our tastings, it’s a rare winery that offers food. Maybe a little cheese and crackers, but that’s it.”

Manolo sat back on his chair. “I noticed that. And I don’t get it.”

“If people want food, they can bring their own.”

He nudged the cake plate aside and locked eyes with her. “Now, see, that rubs me wrong in so many ways. For example, how is someone who’s never been to a winery supposed to know that it’s acceptable—even expected—that they bring their own food?”

“The wineries usually mention it somewhere on their websites.”

He threw up his hands. “Who has time to read the fine print? Maybe it’s my restaurant background talking, but in my humble opinion, there’s something strange about toting food into a watering hole. When you go to a bar, do you take your own peanuts?”

“I guess if you come from a place that doesn’t have wineries, you might find it a bit unusual.”

“I noticed it the first day Sam brought us into your place. We’d been drinking all morning. We were already lit. No news there.”

She opened her mouth to speak.

“I know what you’re going to say. ‘It’s okay to spit when you’re tasting wine.’ Encouraged, even. But to the average Joe, that sounds like industry speak. In case you didn’t know it, wine tasting can be pretty intimidating. All my life I’m told, spitting’s rude, spitting’s bad—unless, of course, you happen to grow up and play for the Yankees. Now all of a sudden I come out here and you’re telling me spitting’s good? How many of your customers actually use that spit bucket you keep at the bar?”

Not wanting to admit he had a point, she made a wry face. “Not many.”

“Exactly. Know why? Because men have been given the subconscious message that if you can’t hold your liquor, you’re not a real man, and women are conditioned that spitting’s not ladylike.”

Junie couldn’t help chuckling. He’d hit a bull’s eye with his observation.

“That day we showed up at your place half tanked, we needed food. But there wasn’t so much as a bowl of popcorn. I thought it was because you were operating on a shoestring.”

“Why are you telling me this now? You can’t expect me to open a restaurant. I’m already in hock up to my neck.”

“Remember the outdoor kitchen I was talking about at the lake?”

She’d been trying to erase that picture of tasting room porn in her head ever since. “Noooo . . .” She shook her head adamantly. “I don’t want to serve food.”

“Hear me out.”

“I’ve been schlepping food since college.”

“You don’t have to be open year-round, you know. You can be seasonal. And I’m not talking about a full menu. You just need something tasty and simple that can be tweaked to pair with your different wines, and you will have people talking, coming back for more. How about this? I’ll be your pizza man for this year’s crush.”

“Haven’t you done enough? I know that tasting room set you back more than you’re willing to admit, even without charging me for the labor.”

“That project rocked! I loved that there was no blueprint. Nobody telling me what I could and couldn’t do.”

Hard as she resisted, the idea was tempting. “Is there even time to do something as complicated as an outdoor kitchen before the crush gets here?”

“It’d take, let’s see . . . build the frame, set the mortar, shape the stones, veneer, install fixtures . . . twenty-one man hours.”

“Twenty-one?” She couldn’t help laughing. “Not twenty, or twenty-two?”

“What will take the longest is getting the permits and waiting for the appliances to arrive. We need to get them ordered right away.”

By the way he talked, it was already a done deal.

“You’ll have zero budget,” she warned him.

“Limitations free up creativity. In redoing your tasting room, the challenge was to utilize as much as possible of what was already there, scrounge for bargains, and throw in one really unique piece like that wood slab. Usually I’m trying to please someone else with my work. Here, the only ones I had to please were you and me.”

“That all sounds great. But you’re missing the whole point. It’s about the wine.”

“No.” He scooped up more cake with his fork and jabbed it toward her. “You’re missing the point. This is not about furthering your dad’s legacy or setting your mom free to find a new life. It’s not even about the wine.”

She frowned, watching the cake disappear into his mouth.

He swallowed the last bite and dropped the fork to the empty plate with a clatter. “This is about you holding on to the only home you ever had.”

Junie felt her face blaze with anger. How could a rambling man understand her need for permanence? His values were the exact opposite of hers!

“I can make that property of yours the talk of the Willamette. Then those wines you work so hard on will finally get the attention they deserve, and you’ll start turning a profit and finally have some financial security. If you want to make it all official, I’ll have something drawn up in writing, the same way that maggot Alexander did.”