by Ella James
As I drive, I picture June Bug, smirking at her name. At least I won’t be thrown off by her looks. That picture Molly dug up showed a girl with a tight ponytail, braces, and glasses, plus big chipmunk cheeks. It was black and white—maybe a yearbook photo—so I couldn’t tell. Her eyes were probably bug-like, but the glasses would obscure that.
Molly’s research didn’t show what kind of dwelling hers is, and the Google satellite photo wasn’t clear because the house is shielded from the sun by a bunch of tall trees, but I wonder if it’s a trailer. I picture June Bug wearing overalls, barefoot in a patch of red dirt outside the front door, one arm around each kid. Maybe the kids are eating fried chicken.
Hell of a time to break down and go for the bumpkin fare, but my stomach’s growling, and I need to have my game face on when I get to her place. My GPS—if it’s right—thinks I’m six minutes away. So far, it matches the napkin, so it’s probably right.
I cup my hand around the bread and pull off a chunk. It’s so soft it crumples in my lap.
“Fuck.”
I brush the yellow crumbs into the floorboard. Who cares if I have a grease stain? I’m sure she won’t notice. I cram the cornbread into my mouth, trying not to spill more. Whoa. It’s so good, I’m going in for seconds, clothes be damned. This is some delicious shit. Warm and buttery, and a little sweet. Guess I know why people go to Southern food joints. I was never really one for barbeque or beans or any of that, but this bread…I could eat it all day.
In fact, I eat the whole box full. By the time my GPS tells me to turn right onto a dirt road, I have to hit the brakes hard. My fingers have left grease stains on the wheel.
“Fuck.” I pull to the roadside, sweep the crumbs off my lap, and stash the box in the trunk for good measure. Don’t want the kids to think I didn’t save them any. I guzzle some of the tea—okay, almost all of it. Then I pour it in the dirt—red dirt, I notice with satisfaction—and stash the cup. No reason for anyone to know I made a pit stop at the local honky-tonk.
I run my hand over my shadow—I can grow a beard in like six hours, so it’s scruffy already—and check my teeth in the mirror. Wonder what her teeth are like. I’m guessing that’s a stereotype. I make a mental note to dial back the assumptions.
I’m driving along, checking out some empty fields and the thick trees that tower over them, when I realize I’ve been bumping over this road for a while. I check the napkin.
Shit—I went too far.
I turn back around, the car’s tires kicking up a cloud of reddish dust as I press the pedal and head back in the direction I came from. I notice little things in the amber light of almost-sunset: a sliver of busted tire in the little ditch that runs along the left side of the dirt road…a little outhouse-looking wood shack with a tin roof off to the right, just behind a rickety metal gate. There’s barbed wire fence on each side of the road, framing barren fields and, in one case, a grove of trees. Not sure what kind. They’re tall, with regular leaves, so I can tell they aren’t pines.
There’s a barn out on the left. Looks like it’s a hundred years old. Dark wood, two stories. Kind of pretty if it wasn’t caving in. I think that’s a grain silo beside it. Tall, cylindrical, metal sort of thing with vines around the base of it. Same vines growing up the barn, too. Kudzu. Is that what it’s called?
I hit the brakes. There’s a driveway on the left, a little ribbon of dirt. My gaze darts down it, then snaps onto a house. It’s got to be hers. It’s a small, rundown farmhouse. White, two stories, with what looks like a screened porch on the front, a few trees around the front walk. It reminds me of Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz.
Margot and Oliver are in there. My throat tightens thinking about them. It’s such bullshit, what happened. The last thing a kid needs after losing their parents is to have everything else they hold dear snatched away from them. I wonder how they’re holding up.
I get a deep breath and start down the driveway at a crawl. It’s got a ton of bumps. Someone needs to smooth it out. Tractors can do that, I bet. She’s selling a tractor. She should fire it up and fix this pitted driveway. My rented wheels bounce over it. Once, the underside of the car scrapes as I bounce over a dirt hill.
June Bug, sweetheart, payday’s coming…
I park under one of the trees and slide my wallet into my back pocket. Then I walk to the screen porch door, open it slowly, and step inside. The porch is surprisingly cozy, with a white porch swing, a colorful rug, and a small bookshelf beside the front door. I look down at the welcome mat. It’s a smiling pineapple. Strange.
I take another deep breath and knock twice, and hope to hell the kids are happy to see me. I hear footsteps. Oliver, maybe, because they’re heavy. Instead, the door opens and— Who the hell is this babe?
My first thought is that June left Oliver and Margot with a babysitter. I give the girl a quick glance, my gaze moving from her high, blonde-brown ponytail to her delicate face. I don’t know who she is, but this girl is big-screen beautiful.
Her eyes are gold-brown and her skin is creamy. She’s got soft, pink lips that part as I stare at them. Her eyes widen—she could be posing for a contact lens commercial—and my gaze darts down her body. Small. Soft. Nineteen at most. She’s got on a long, gray shirt that clings to her breasts, a strange owl necklace, and black leggings. Definitely the babysitter.
“Hi.” I flash her a charming smile. “I’m here to see my niece and nephew—Oliver and Margot.”
Her eyes widen wider. “I’m sorry, who are you?” Her voice is softer than her curves. Melodious.
I hold my hand out. “I’m their paternal uncle.” I look her over again, trying not to let her see how fucking hot I think she is. “Your name?”
“Who do you think?” She twists her lips—part smile, part scoff.
“Should I know?”
“I don’t know, should you? You made it to my house, after all.”
My eyes dart around, taking in the swatch of living room I see behind her. “Your house? Are—You can’t be…”
Her face hardens.
“Are you June?”
She blinks twice. It’s condemning. “I am June. Are you Burke?”
“Yeah.” I take a small step back, then try to peek into the house behind her. “Where are Oliver and Margot?”
“I’m sorry,” she drawls. “I had them dressed in Sunday best for you, but…” She turns around to look behind her, and her tone is so deadpan that I think she’s serious and wonder if the tea and cornbread lady called her. Then she swivels to face me. Her eyes narrow. “I’m not super sure that’s really your business. You…were out of town for a while? Traveling for work, is that right?”
Anger and shame make my face hot. “Yes. I have a job. It takes me out of the country at times, sometimes for a few weeks.”
“Okay.” Her eyes fall to her feet before returning to mine. Jesus Christ, she’s gorgeous. Her sister and my brother had a spur-of-the-moment, destination wedding, so I never got to meet her, but still—how did I not know this?
“Let me cut to the chase, June.” I fumble for a second—probably because she’s looking into my eyes now like she can see my fucking secrets. “June, I—” Fuck, she’s gorgeous. It’s unnatural. “I came here because I want to bring the kids back home,” I manage.
Her eyebrows pinch; they’re dark and delicate…and angry.
“Home to San Francisco,” I add. “You know, they grew up there. It’s their home. My brother’s house hasn’t been sold yet. I could move them back into it. Re-enroll them in their school, where they’ve been going for…a lot of years.”
“How many years, would you say?” She leans her shoulder on the door frame, folds her slender arms under her breasts. Whoa, they’re nice and…ample.
I blink. She’s giving me a death stare. “Sorry. I—what does it matter? How many years? I didn’t do the math on that,” I say, sounding a bit defensive. “They went to that school since they were little. Like, one year old.”
<
br /> “Try three and a half.” She winks. “Before that, my sister was at home with them. After that, in fact, she was at home with them. Neither child went to ‘that school’—which, by the way, is named Bay Area Friends—for the entire day until age five.”
Okay. Clearly I’ve underestimated her. I straighten my shoulders, try to regroup. So she’s attractive and passably articulate. So the fuck what?
“I don’t know what your point is. My point is I can take them back to the place they know. To their house, where all their stuff is.”
“Actually it’s in crates, being shipped here. Where they live now.” She arches an eyebrow.
“They don’t have to live here. That’s my point, June. You don’t have to take them in. I want to do that. And listen, if you’ve factored in the insurance money…” I pull out my wallet. Give her my yessir-I’ll-do-right-by-you look—the one I use on big investors. “I can give you that, too.”
She throws her head back…laughing? Fuck, she is. She’s fucking laughing at me.
She squeezes her eyes shut, gives a little shake of her head. Then she looks at me like she’s trying to murder me with pupil lasers.
“Listen, buster. I don’t know who you are or where you come from. I mean, I know, but I don’t really know. And I don’t want to.” She twists her lips, like she just tasted something sour. “Sutton told me about Asher’s family.” She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and shuts her eyes for just a second, clearly trying to muster up some resolve. Then she heaves a breath out, looks me level in the eye again with a gaze that’s just a fraction warmer this time.
“I don’t know you, okay, Burke? So I’m going to just assume that you have great intentions. Get them back into ‘that school,’ let them keep on living in that giant, empty house my sister had to have a fulltime housekeeper to take care of. Cooks in the kitchen. You can do that. And you want to. Because they’re your niece and nephew. Okay. Capiche. That’s great. But let me tell you something. I was in their will, listed as their guardian. I was. I, who work from home, at something stable. Sutton knew what they would need, and she knew I could give it to them here. Where she herself grew up. It’s quiet, it’s—” She shakes her head with a look of disgust. “I don’t have to sell you on this. You don’t have to understand. I get it, it’s not San Francisco. Thank God.”
She laughs, like she knows some kind of private joke, like the Bay is going to be leveled by an asteroid in an hour.
“You can visit them,” she offers. “If you stay in your lane and out of mine. They’ll be back later. They’re at a…thing. You can visit any time you like if you can be polite and respect me. But otherwise?” She shakes her head, her slender jaw hard. “Get back in that fancy car of yours and go back where you’re from. And take your judging with you.”
I’m not letting this end here. “What am I judging, with an offer of helping you out?” I ask, being completely disingenuous.
“See!” She throws her arms up. “That’s it. ‘Helping me out.’ I don’t need your help. Why do you think I would?”
“Oh, I don’t know?” I arch a brow. “Your recent acquisition of two young children?”
“Acquisition!” She laughs, but it’s derisive. “Of course to you that’s what it is.”
“It’s a word,” I say sharply. “I used it correctly.”
“Yeah, well, I’m great with kids. I’m a kid person. In fact, I always wanted children.”
“Are you married?”
She pops her eyes like she’s surprised I asked, then quickly says, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”
I can see surprise cross her face. “Not a girlfriend, no. A boyfriend—” She shakes her head, one brow lifting as, again, she gives me a censuring look. “That’s not any of your business.”
“So you do.” I smirk. “Is he good with children? It takes patience.”
She laughs like she thinks I’m crazy. “I never said I have a boyfriend, first off. But if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I’m their guardian, so they come first.”
“And the farm?” I say it softly—playing a card.
“What about it?” She knows I know. I can tell she does, because her face takes on a look of bareness, that sweet, soft mouth of hers going softer.
“What if you don’t make it?”
“Make what?” But she understands. Again, it’s all there on her face, which has gone hard and cold.
“What if the bank gets the farm?”
Fury twists her pretty features. “Just who do you think you are? You don’t know anything about my life. My family’s farm. You don’t know anything about us! You should leave now.” She walks forward, which forces me to take a few steps back.
“It’s a reasonable question,” I say, now standing in the screen porch doorway. “Will you have to move them? Uproot them again?”
“That is not going to happen!” She folds her arms, her chest heaving. “This farm is just fine, thank you very much. It’s a better life here than that cesspool you call home, with all the drugs and the garbage in the streets and the nobody giving a horse’s rear end about what happens to any of it, least of all you! You didn’t even come to their funeral! Who are you to come down here and tell me what for!”
“Tell you what for?” It’s so damn funny, I’m near laughing.
She gives me a death glare. “Don’t make fun of me because you’re unimaginative and like to use foul language.”
“Who said I like to use foul language?”
She shoots me a yeah-right kind of look. “I know your type the second that I seem them.”
“Second that you see ’em, eh?”
She nods. “Condescending, rude, presumptive.”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is presumptuous.”
“I believe the word I used is just fine.”
“Say that again. Say ‘fine.’” I drag the word out the way she does, with her twangy accent.
Her eyes glitter, and I think I see her swallow. “You’re a bully.”
“I want what’s going to be best for my niece and nephew. Nothing more and nothing less.”
Her jaw hardens. “I’m good with them—and for them. I’m like their mother. Their mother was my sister. I’m familiar, and I’ve got a good home for them here.”
My pulse kicks up a notch. Now she’s second-guessing herself, softening. Now’s the time to go for the jugular.
“I see an untenable situation. Where’s the crops here? Where’s the cattle? What about school?”
“They’re enrolled at school.”
“What school?”
“The one their mama went to,” she says in a hard tone.
I feign shock. “You don’t mean the local school?”
“The local school, yes. It’s a wonderful establishment.”
“It’s got subpar ratings. Something like a C- on those school rating sites. I looked.”
“No it—”
“Yes. It does. They’ll never get into college from there.”
“They—”
“And who will study with them?” I ask.
“I will.”
Her cheeks are red now, so I know she’s good and pissed off.
“Did you go to college, June?”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Any of my business? No, I’m sure you don’t, because you didn’t. What about high school?” Her face pales. “How can you educate them if you yourself aren’t educated? That’s a valid question.”
“Oh, you know what is a valid question?” She steps closer, her face mannequin still. “I’ll tell you a valid question.”
She slaps me so hard and fast, I never see it coming. I’m holding my throbbing cheek right after, gaping at her through my fingers.
“The question is, who’s gonna believe I slapped you? Eh?” She jabs my chest with one finger, and I step backward down the screened porch steps. June whirls on her heel and stalks into the hou
se’s door.
I laugh, a harsh, low sound. Then I turn toward my car. “I’m gonna make you pay for that, sweetheart.”
Chapter 4
June
He’s an awful man. Just terrible.
He must have more money than God, because it’s only two and a half hours later that the first of his retaliations shows up on my porch. Someone he paid. I know it must be, because the devil drove up in a fancy sports car, but the person who drops it off is in a truck.
By the time I reach one of the front windows, I see an F-250’s taillights glowing in a dust cloud that’s tinged orange like the sun-streaked sky. Whoever it was left a cardboard box. I hear it whining as I step outside.
“Oh no he didn’t…”
But he did. That mothertrucker left a trucking puppy at my house—or, rather, he paid someone to. There’s a note taped to the box.
Oliver and Margot, I came for a visit. You weren’t here, but that’s okay. I’ll come see you tomorrow. I’ll bring a surprise. This is my surprise for tonight. They are AKC registered German Shepherd puppies. What are you going to name them? One girl, one boy—just like you.
Love, Uncle Burke
What the mothertrucking truckness is this?
I open the box with my jaw on the floor, and there they are. I pick one up, and then the other.
“Oh my gosh, you’re butterballs, aren’t you? Barely old enough to leave your mama. Who is mama? Who around here has a litter of pups?”
Oh, they’re so sweet. I lift one up to my face and sniff the puppy scent.
“You have two big doggo siblings. And a human brother and sister. Who will be so excited…if I keep you. Should I keep you, though?”
I set the pups back in the box and drag it over by the door that leads into the living room. Then I go in, shut my big dogs in the laundry room with treats, and bring the pups into my living room.
“I’m gonna kill him. Yes I am,” I puppy talk them. “It’ll be murder.”