The Crush (Oregon Wine Country #1)(55)

He helped the delivery man unload the boxes.

Junie led the way. “Over here, on the patio.”

Before the driver even got back in his truck, Junie asked Manolo if he had a box cutter in his tool box.

“Nope. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. I’ll go get mine.”

“Uh, hold on.”

She stopped and sniffed. Just minutes ago, she’d been close to tears. “Why? I can’t wait to see them!”

The thought of disappointing her was killing him.

“I was just about to wrap up here.” He put his arm around her and turned her in the opposite direction. “Why don’t you go in and take a warm shower? You’ll feel better after you’ve cleaned up.”

She frowned, looking over her shoulder. “Don’t you want to see what we got? At least make sure the order’s right?”

“That can wait. I brought something.” He jerked his chin toward the house. “How’d you like to do a wine and pizza pairing tonight, to figure out what we should serve for the crush? I brought some green and red and yellow peppers, some fresh pineapple, ham, pepperoni. . . . How’s that sound?”

“But . . .”

“Go on now. I’ll be in as soon as I get this cleared up.”

He went to the barn and got a tarp to throw over the appliances in case it rained.

Then he sped through his clean-up ritual. He wanted to be ready with a confidence-boosting smile and an appetizer when Junie came downstairs, post-shower.

*

Later that night, Manolo and Junie sat around her kitchen table, laughing at all the variations on pizza and wine they’d tried. Barely an inch of table wasn’t covered with crumbs or bits of toppings or half-empty wine bottles.

“Okay,” Junie said, waving her pencil around in a tipsy circle. “I’ve got your Margherita for my rosé, the Hawaiian with the Riesling, and white pizza with the pinot. Is that what we decided on?”

“That’s it.”

That bistro just had to be legal. Junie would be a basket case if it turned out not to be, after all this. Not only that, he would have sacrificed her trust.

Junie dropped her pencil, drew one bare knee up under her chin, and craned her neck toward the window. “When did it get dark outside?”

Manolo glanced outside out of deference, then returned his gaze to her, sitting there in her cut-offs and T-shirt.

Junie played with the fringe on her napkin. Shyly, her soulful eyes met his, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he took her hand and led her upstairs, she would go willingly.

Ever since the day he moved her mom out, Manolo had carried the memory of a blue patterned comforter lying in a tangled heap on Junie’s bed. In his imagination, it still held the warmth of her body.

Junie’s damp hair was twisted into a simple topknot. Her face was squeaky clean from her shower, without a trace of makeup. He pictured loosing that hair, getting lost with her in those warm, blue covers, sampling her from head to toe.

The tension in the room was palpable.

Run, he told himself. Run while you still can.

He rose and scraped back his chair. With shaking hands, he started gathering up the dirty dishes. “I’ll get this,” he said.





Chapter Thirty-two


Saturday and Sunday nights after maneuvers, Manolo usually hit the hot spots surrounding Fort Belvoir. But this weekend he begged off.

His buddies didn’t take it well. They coaxed and cajoled. “Your flight doesn’t depart till Monday morning. You just going to hit the rack?”

But the thought of yet another night of carousing left him cold. He found himself sitting at a sedate bar, having a quiet beer with a couple of married officers.

One of them pulled out his phone and showed Manolo a picture of a rosy-cheeked woman in a ski jacket. “This is my wife, Grace,” he said fondly.

“I call her Amazing Grace,” chuckled the guy on the bar stool opposite him. “’Cause before her, he was a wretch.”

A wretch like me . . . His phone vibrated, interrupting the old song lyric playing in his head.

“I’m calling from the hospital. I thought you might be out on drill, but I knew you’d want to know,” said Izzy across the line.

Fear shot through Manolo. He got up from the bar and strode to a secluded corner where he could talk in private. “What is it?”

“Mom fell. She broke a rib, and it pierced her lung.”

*

Manolo sat at Reagan National Airport in his camos all night, waiting to nab a stand-by seat into Newark.

Late Monday morning—Labor Day—he rushed into Hoboken University Medical Center. Far down the hall on his mom’s floor, he glimpsed the back of an old man meandering, as if lost. The man’s gait looked eerily familiar. Manolo hadn’t seen his dad for two years. But that couldn’t be him. Dad’s walk was directed, purposeful.

In his quest to find Mom’s room, Manolo ignored the stranger. But when the man reached the end of the hall, he turned and walked back, toward Manolo. As his features came into focus, a cautious hope sprouted in Manolo. Might Mom’s fall have a silver lining?

“Dad?”

His father looked up, and Manolo’s hopes were dashed when, instead of joy at seeing his son, his father’s eyes held only bitterness.