by Macy Beckett
The mental image made him twitch. “I’ll pick you up tonight at Pru’s.”
“Excellent,” she chirped, all traces of seduction gone. June sprang away and grabbed her sandals and handbag, calling over her shoulder, “You won’t regret this.” Then she practically skipped out of the kitchen.
Damn, that just wasn’t right.
Chapter 9
June never understood why so many people hated hospitals. She adored the gleaming black and white floor tiles that squeaked beneath her sneakers. And the biting, yet oddly pleasant scent of lemon ammonia and disinfectant. She pulled in a long breath through her nose and savored it. Once in a while, a woman’s soft voice would punctuate the silence to page Dr. Benton. The distant voice was strangely comforting, and June caught herself imagining the details of that woman’s life while she navigated the maze of hallways to Trey’s room.
More than anything, though, June equated hospitals with tender, loving care. Someplace you could arrive broken and return home whole. Of course, she knew that wasn’t always the case, but in her limited experience, this wasn’t a place to fear. When June was nine and Luke had accidentally knocked her out of the tall pecan tree, Grammy had rushed her to this very emergency room. Though June’s memory was spotty, she recalled gentle touches, heated blankets, and a bitter tasting liquid that made her feel all warm and floaty inside. When the nurse had announced June’s wrist wasn’t broken, she’d wrapped it in a stretchy tan bandage and given her a bubblegum-flavored lollipop and two Care Bear stickers. What’s not to love about that?
When she reached Trey’s new room on the fourth floor, she rapped her knuckles firmly against the door and waited before peeking inside. “You decent?” she asked, not wanting to barge in mid-sponge bath or toilet break.
“Only on Sundays, but come on in.” He clicked off the television and used the control panel beside his bed to rise into a semi-sitting position. They must’ve served lunch right before she arrived, because the smoky scent of hamburger still hung in the air.
June returned Trey’s infectious smile and noted how much he’d changed since her last visit several days earlier. A sturdy white brace had replaced all the bandages that bound his chest, and the swelling above his left eye had smoothed out and turned the color of a ripe eggplant. Trey’s blue eyes were bright and clear again, smiling right along with his dimpled cheeks.
“Going crazy yet?” she asked, placing a foil-wrapped paper plate on his bedside table. Guys like Trey and Luke couldn’t stand sitting still too long. “Gram sent snickerdoodles. She said they’re your favorite.”
“Oh, snap.” He tore off the foil and dug right in, littering his starched, white linen sheet with cinnamon and sugar crumbs. “I’m bored outta my mind,” he muttered with a mouth full of cookie. “You have any idea how bad daytime TV is?”
June giggled and moved around the room to admire the scattering of potted plants and flowers on the ledge below a thick, beveled window. “Oh, Gerbera daisies!” She lifted one day-glow pink flower to her face, but it didn’t smell very good, and she wrinkled her nose. Still, the bright pinks, yellows, and oranges brightened Trey’s room and brought a grin to her lips. “Who sent these?”
“My family.”
“In Chicago?”
“Mmm-hmm.” It sounded like he’d stuffed another cookie in his mouth.
“How’d you wind up here, in Sultry Springs?” June pulled a chair beside Trey’s bed and sat down. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Luke offered me a job.” He set the empty paper plate on the table, then balled up the foil and tossed it across the room, where it plunked right into the trash can. “I had a hard time finding work after we got—” Trey paused and wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. “Did Luke tell you what happened?”
June bit her bottom lip. She’d never felt so tempted to lie. If she said yes, Trey might let enough information slip to help her piece together the puzzle of why Luke came home five years ago to “get back on his feet,” as Gram had said.
“No,” she finally admitted. “But sometimes at supper—especially when he’s really tired—he gets this look. Kind of defeated, I don’t know. I used to think he missed his ex-wife—”
Trey snorted a dry laugh. “Trust me, he doesn’t. She was a total psycho.”
“Then why?”
“It’s my fault. Partly, anyway.” All traces of good humor faded from Trey’s eyes. He glared at his lap and brushed cookie crumbs onto the floor. “Because of me, he can’t ever enlist again.”
“Why would he want to?” Luke had said he hated taking orders, which made perfect sense, considering what a control freak he’d always been as a kid.
“He loved it. I swear to God, June, being a soldier was like a calling to him or something.”
“What happened?”
Trey’s glance flicked up and then back down just as quickly. He shook his head. “He doesn’t like people knowing, and I don’t blame him. Hey, don’t tell him I said he can’t reenlist. I shouldn’t have told you that.”
June nodded, more confused than ever. She didn’t know much about the military, but it must’ve taken a pretty serious offense to bar Luke from ever serving again. And how was Trey involved? Only one thing made sense: June now understood the occasional hardness in Luke’s eyes, as if his old, mischievous spark had been snuffed out. That look made June’s stomach sink, like she’d swallowed a pound of lead. June was more determined than ever to help Luke finish his investment property. For whatever reason, he’d already lost his dream career. She wouldn’t let him lose the Gallagher land too.
***
“Oh, Luke. It’s beautiful.” June gazed up at the charming, two-story Tudor home set against a backdrop of ancient oaks and maples. Vacant window boxes contrasted against the clean, white stucco and begged to be filled with colorful pansies. The exposed dark wood beams gave the structure an historic European feel. Gently rolling green hills filled the landscape as far as she could see. Surely, it would be developed someday, but in the meantime, it made Luke’s house seem more like a sprawling estate than a typical suburban plot. She thought she heard the babble of a creek nearby. No wonder he already had several families interested. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”
“Don’t get too excited. You haven’t seen the inside yet. The last owner had five dogs, seven cats, and somehow, a rodent problem. Damn cats must’ve been lazier than Karl.”
“Had a rodent problem? Like, past tense?”
“Why?” Luke wriggled his fingers up the back of her leg, making her squeal.
“Very funny. Seriously?”
“I sleep here, Junebug. Of course I got rid of the vermin.” He tipped back his ball cap and smiled down at her—a real, no-holds-barred Luke smile that knocked the breath from her lungs. “Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”
The interior still needed work, but most of it seemed cosmetic. Instead of wayward animals, the home smelled like fresh pine dust and plaster. Luke had removed a few walls to open the floor plan, and he was halfway through renovating the kitchen. In the upcoming weeks, they would need to refinish the wood floors, lay new carpet, paint the bedrooms, tile the bathrooms, and landscape the yard. A tall order, but doable, if they worked hard.
Finally, they stopped in the master bedroom, the cleanest space in the house. A king-sized air mattress covered in rumpled, blue cotton sheets lay against the back wall. June pictured Luke snoring there, sleeping on his stomach with his mouth partly open and one arm reaching out to the side like the bronze man atop the Heisman trophy. He’d always slept that way, but in his smaller bed at Grammy’s, his arm had flopped over the edge of the mattress.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asked, pulling her hair into a sloppy ponytail.
“You take the upstairs bedrooms, and I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” Luke reached out and cupped her cheek, then bent down to give her a pointed look. “And be careful.”
For the next two hours, June pu
lled up the ugliest, Pepto-Bismol-pink shag carpeting she’d ever seen. Then she rolled it up, dragged it down the stairs, and heaved it halfway into the Dumpster, before tackling the mint-julep-green carpet in the next bedroom. Afterward, she vacuumed and mopped the wood floors underneath, and wiped down the walls to prep them for painting.
When she met Luke in the kitchen, her face felt flushed and swollen, and a plump bead of sweat tickled its way down her back. She wiped her face against the shoulder of her T-shirt and opened the refrigerator to linger in the frosty air awhile. The abrupt chill swept the sides of her neck and gave her goose bumps.
Luke’s firm body pressed into her from behind, and he reached beyond her to grab a cold Mountain Dew. His other hand lingered at her waist a moment while he enjoyed the cool air, and June wondered what he would do if she leaned her head back against his chest. Just as she began to cover his hand with her own, he moved away.
“Grab that bag on the counter,” Luke said, unfolding a tattered patchwork quilt and spreading it on the dining room floor. “Pru packed dessert.”
He returned to the kitchen and turned on the sink. Then, tugging off his cap, he dipped his head under the faucet and sighed loudly, using one hand to splash water onto the back of his neck. When he finished, Luke shook his head like a wet dog and rejoined her.
June set out paper plates and handed the bag to Luke, and they both sat cross-legged on the blanket. Tendrils of red-brown hair dripped down the sides of his throat and soaked the collar of his thin, white T-shirt, and she half wished he’d take it off. No, strike that. It was a whole wish, not half. His shoulder didn’t seem to bother him anymore, not that she’d mind massaging those strong muscles again. The way he’d rested his head on her stomach had felt so intimate, and God help her when he’d used that low gritty voice to call her name—
“Mmm,” he said, slipping two fingers into his mouth and sucking them off with a smack. “That’s so good.”
Heat rushed into June’s face, and she used an extra paper plate to fan herself. The last time she’d seen Luke do that, he’d just dipped those same fingers inside her—
“Pie?” he offered. “It’s peach.” He used a plastic fork to push one slice onto her paper plate.
Sweet mercy, she needed to get her mind out of the gutter. June glanced down at her plate and something caught her eye. The quilt. It looked familiar, mismatched swatches of multi-colored fabric connected in uneven hand-stitching. After a few minutes, it finally sank in. This was the quilt—the one she’d spread in the cool, shaded grass at Gallagher pond nearly a decade earlier. The same quilt where Luke had laid her down and made love to her so sweetly, right before he’d crushed her heart in his fist, the way a cruel child crushed insects between his fingers.
But after all these years, she couldn’t be angry with him for his reaction that day. Luke hadn’t swindled her out of her virginity. He hadn’t made any false promises or seduced her—quite the opposite. He still didn’t know it, but she’d planned everything that day, from making sure Gram was occupied all afternoon to tucking a condom inside the quilt just in case Luke hadn’t had one in his wallet, which he had, of course. No, she’d shed her bikini bottoms of her own free will and suffered the consequences for it.
“Hey.” Luke had finished his pie and started eyeing hers. “You gonna eat that?”
June pushed her plate across the blanket and tried to think of something else—anything else. “I went to visit Trey today.”
Luke lowered his brows and asked in a clipped tone, “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Never mind. How’d he look? I haven’t seen him in a couple days. He says he’s doing okay, but I can’t tell if he’s lying on the phone.”
“A lot better. He’s going home soon.” June took her hair down and put it back into a fresh ponytail. “We talked about you.”
Luke’s mouth was full of pie, so he just flashed his and…? face.
“Trey wouldn’t say much, but he thinks all your problems are his fault.”
For several minutes, the only sounds in the empty dining room were the distant hum of the refrigerator and Luke’s chewing. June started to worry she’d said too much, that maybe he’d be angry with Trey for revealing anything at all.
“That’s bullshit,” Luke said. “And I’ve told him so a hundred times. I make my own choices, and if I have problems, they’re my fault. Nobody else’s.” Then he licked his fork and clumsily turned the subject away from himself. “How’d you wind up in the bar business? I thought you wanted to study psychology.”
“I did. But I found something I liked better.”
After hightailing it out of Sultry County with her heart in pieces, June had distracted herself from the pain by enjoying all the freedoms Grammy hadn’t allowed back home: dancing, listening to the devil’s music, wearing makeup, and drinking. A lot. But she’d grown tired of chugging cheap beer through funnels and swilling trash can punch with the masses. That’s when she’d truly learned to appreciate alcohol—not drinking it, but experimenting with new recipes and combinations. She’d dropped out to study bartending more seriously, learning the difference between single malt and blended scotch, between a pilsner and a lager, and serving drinks as a cocktail waitress until she was old enough to tend bar. Grammy’d had a fit, and it had been the final nail in their relationship’s coffin.
June sighed, thinking of her bar and hoping Esteban was monitoring the pH levels inside the tanks. Twenty majestic, orange-striped lion fish would arrive tomorrow to fill the side wall aquarium, and she didn’t want them going belly-up.
“You should come out for opening night,” she said. “Luquos is one of a kind. Peaceful, romantic, dim. The kind of place where you can sit and have a conversation without shouting over the band, know what I mean?”
Luke swallowed his last bite of pie and smirked. “Sounds kinda boring.”
Before June knew what she was doing, she bunched up one knuckle and slugged him in the bicep.
Luke gasped in shock, then a purely wicked grin curled his lips. He rubbed his upper arm. “Did you just frog me, Junebug?”
“No! No, no, no!” Oh, sugar. She hadn’t meant to do it. Luke had never hit back, but he’d always done something much, much worse in retaliation: tickled her until she’d nearly wet herself, and then administered a nasty wet-willy. Extra wet. “We’re even! You called my bar boring!” She started crawling backward, tensing her body to spring away, if he attacked.
“Oh, we’re not even.” His green eyes practically glowed with mischief as he inched forward and licked his index finger, preparing to stick it in her ear. God, that was so gross, and he knew how much she’d always hated it. “Yet.” And then he launched forward to grab her ankle.
But June was faster. She scrambled on her hands and feet, slipping momentarily on the quilt, until she righted herself and barreled into the kitchen. The rubber soles of her sneakers squeaked against the wood floor as she ran. When she didn’t hear Luke’s heavy boots clomping behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. He wasn’t there. Instantly, she halted. He’d probably circled through the other doorway in the dining room to ambush her.
She backed behind the kitchen island, using it as a barrier, but making sure not to corner herself. The house was too quiet, and her frantic breaths would give her away. She held the air inside her lungs and tiptoed silently back into the dining room. He’d never expect her to return there.
The backs of her thighs tingled the way they always did when she was nervous, and June peeked around the room, seeing nothing except the disheveled blanket and scattered paper plates on the wood floor. There was nowhere to hide, and she could only avoid Luke for so long. She needed a plan. If she made it to the front door, she could bolt outside and lock herself inside his truck until he promised amnesty. June crept forward into the dark living room more carefully than a soldier navigating a minefield. Her shuddering breaths seemed amplified, but she couldn’t hold them inside any longer
.
The front door was within sight, and a burst of adrenaline propelled her into a sprint for freedom. But then two strong arms flashed from the shadows, snagging her around the waist and pulling her backward. June released a primal scream, and then before she knew it, Luke had her pressed against the foyer wall. She writhed against his enormous body in a futile attempt to escape, but it was like trying to move a boulder. Finally, she resigned herself to defeat, and he used one hand to pin both her wrists above her head.
“If I remember correctly,” he said against her temple, sliding one hand down the length of her rib cage. “There’s a little spot right here…” He yanked her T-shirt up and brushed his fingertips across her belly.
Darn it, he had a really good memory. “No,” she pleaded. Then his fingers started wiggling against that one weak spot right behind her waist, and she burst out in hysterical laughter. “Please,” she managed with a gasp. But he was relentless. The sounds of her uproarious torture reverberated through the vacant foyer.
“You know what to say,” he taunted.
“Uncle! Uncle!”
“Unh-uh. Not that.”
“Okay!” June tried to stop giggling long enough to get a sentence out. “Luke Gallagher is…”—she laughed, more from remembering the old words than the tickling—“the only Master of the Universe.”
“Stronger than?” he prompted, playing her ribs like a piano.
“Stronger than He-Man and twice as good-looking!” she shouted in a rush.
Mercifully, his fingers paused, and he curled his large, warm hand around her waist. “That’s a good girl.” Then he eliminated the sliver of air between them and pressed harder against the length of her body. Soon his lips were at her ear. “You know what comes next.”