The Crush (Oregon Wine Country #1)(58)

“As soon as her lungs are strong enough, she’s going to have that knee replacement she’s been putting off.”

Holly appeared from a back room. “I’ve got news,” she said, eyes twinkling. “Brendan Hart Vineyards is starting to pick.”

Sam pulled up short on his way to his desk. “That is news. Junie tell you?”

“No. I heard it from Rory. He got it from Heath, who heard it from Poppy down at the café. Poppy’s friends with Sage, who, rumor has it, has been seeing Junie’s crew chief.”

Manolo’s head spun. “Are there any secrets in this town?”

“Stick around,” Holly said. “You’ll be surprised.”

“Well,” said Sam, “it’s official. Looks like the circus has begun. After months of relative calm, now comes the fifty-yard dash that will determine every winemaker’s reputation for the next couple of years.”

“There’s more. Junie called Haggarty’s, too.”

“Who’s that?” asked Manolo.

“Chris Haggarty and his wife run a mobile bottling operation.”

Manolo felt his heart skip a beat. “Junie’s picking and bottling at the same time? That was always her worst-case scenario.”

Sam huffed a dry laugh. “The wine wants what the wine wants. Trust me, it’s going to be unabridged chaos. She’ll be racking twenty-four-seven until the bottler gets there. Then there’s the big festival on Saturday. Thanks to Keval’s promotional know-how, Clarkston’s expecting record crowds this year. Even hired extra cops to manage the flow of traffic in and out of town.”

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.