Sultry with a Twist (5 page)

What? He wasn’t seeing someone last night when he’d asked her out for drinks. There was no way she’d misinterpreted his signals—all those flirty looks and the way he’d practically tripped over himself to act like a gentleman. She must’ve done something since then to change his opinion. Did she have tar on her face? Food between her teeth?

“Oh, sure.” She reached in to scoop another handful of leaves. “No problem.”

A heavy, awkward silence hung between them like a force field. Trey leaned down to dislodge an old mud dauber nest inside the gutter, and then a loud metallic noise clanked from below and shook the ladder. Stomach dropping, June gasped and grabbed on to the gutter near Trey’s hand. It separated from the siding with a dry crack.

Trey toppled forward, panic flashing in his eyes as he lurched sideways, trying to steady himself. She reached out to grab his arm, but the sweaty flesh slipped from her fingers, and he went down, feet first. People always said tragedies seemed to happen in slow motion, but that wasn’t true. June didn’t even have time to blink before Trey was on the dusty ground, curled up and groaning in pain.

June didn’t know how she got down the ladder so fast, and she didn’t remember tearing inside the Jenkins house to call an ambulance. But she recalled running outside and identifying the only person she knew besides Karl.

“Pauly!” she shouted. “Call Luke!” Then she knelt down and ran her fingers through Trey’s short blond hair, trying to soothe the terror so thick in his voice. “Don’t move,” she told him. “Help’s on the way. You’re gonna be fine.” He squinted his eyes shut and kept clenching his jaw so tightly, she worried he might break a tooth.

When the ambulance finally arrived, the paramedics let her ride in the back with Trey, and she held his hand the whole ride, apologizing over and over.

Nearly an hour later, Luke came barreling into the hospital lobby, leather tool belt still fastened around his waist like he’d jumped in his truck as soon as Pauly’d made the call. She waved from her seat in the waiting area to get his attention.

“What happened?” he asked. The front of his shirt was slick with sweat, the hollow of his throat pulsing visibly beneath tanned skin.

June handed him her Coke. While he took a long gulp, she told him, “Trey fell off the roof.”

“Well, no shit, Junebug. But what happened? Pauly said he didn’t see.”

June wanted to tell him it was all her fault, that she’d pulled the gutter off the wall and made Trey lose his balance, but the response died on her tongue. She chewed the inside of her cheek and stared at the immaculate black and white floor tiles, because she couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes.

“Miss?” the emergency room cleric said from her desk. “They said you can go back now. Room one-eleven.”

Luke charged ahead, his strides so long June had to jog to catch up. He pushed open the door to room one-eleven and stopped short for a moment before walking inside. June soon understood why.

“Hey,” Trey said weakly, his eyes trying to smile from below a stark white bandage taped across his brow. His bare chest was mummified in tight binding, and one plaster-casted leg hung from a line secured to the ceiling. He looked like death warmed over, cooled back down, and then steamrollered. “Not as bad as it looks. Just a couple cracked ribs and a broken femur.”

“Just cracked ribs,” Luke muttered to himself. “What the hell happened?”

“That idiot, Karl, accidentally knocked June’s ladder with a five-foot lead pipe. We were both holding on to the gutter when it broke, and I lost my balance.”

June closed her eyes and felt that sick, sinking feeling in her tummy that always told her she was in big trouble.

“Ladder?” Luke said through gritted teeth.

She opened one eye, then wished she hadn’t. She’d seen Luke angry before. When they were sixteen, he’d used his wages from three summers of picking crops to buy a used red Camaro. She’d borrowed it without permission and dented the bumper on a fence post when she’d swerved to avoid a deer. But Luke’s reaction then was nothing compared to the hot menace in his expression now.

“Damn it, I told you to stay on the ground for a reason!” As he moved closer, she shrank away from his booming voice. “You both could’ve been killed! You always
were
a magnet for troub—” Then he froze mid-yell, like he’d just realized something, and his face turned white as a dove’s wing. “Oh, Jesus.” Luke turned back to Trey. “You know what this means? You’ll be laid up for weeks, and I’ll have to take over the Jenkins project. How am I supposed to get my house on the market in time?”

“Shit,” Trey whispered. His semi-cheerful expression wilted. “We’ll figure something out. I can still supervise the crew from a chair.”

“A chair?” Luke said, shaking his head. “You won’t be supervising anyone but your own busted ass for at least two weeks.” He sank down onto a padded seat and held his head in his hands. “Shit. I’m not gonna miss my chance again. I’ll just have to work nights at the house.”

“Buddy, you’re already working nights.”

“Then I’ll work later nights.”

“I’m real sorry,” June whispered softly. She didn’t dare speak out loud after what she’d done. “I can help you at—”

“I need your help,” Luke spat, “like I need a hole in my head.” He stood so fast, he knocked his chair over. “I gotta finish Jenkins’s roof before it rains. Come on. I’ll drive you back to your car.”

June started to say she’d take a taxi, but caught herself just in time. Like Luke had said earlier, this wasn’t Austin. Suddenly, she ached for home so badly she almost doubled over, but not wanting to upset Luke any further, she nodded and followed him to his truck.

She didn’t peer around the cab for clues to Luke’s life, didn’t hear the music vibrating her seat. Instead, June rested her forehead against the window and stared outside, seeing nothing but a green and brown blur of landscape.

When they reached the Jenkins house, Luke waited to be sure her car started. He didn’t look at her when he said, “Call here and let the phone ring once when you get home. I’ve got enough on my mind without worrying about you breaking down.”

“Luke, I’m awful sorry.”

“And don’t come back tomorrow.” He shot one icy glare in her direction—so full of venom it made her breath catch. Then he stalked away into the backyard. A minute later, she saw him on the roof hammering shingles.

June bit her lip and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Somehow, she’d gone from a responsible business owner to a complete screw-up, sending two men to the hospital and alienating her oldest friend. Hot tears pressed against her eyelids, but she forced them back.

One day down, twenty-nine to go.

Luke awoke with a start, the way he always did when he spent the night in his old bedroom at Pru’s. From the soft light streaming through the blinds and the occasional call of a whippoorwill, he guessed it was about six-thirty. He heard the toilet flush in the hallway bathroom and figured June was up too.

He’d been dreaming about her, specifically about the time she took an ass-whooping for something he’d done. It was just a few months after his mama’d left, and he’d smashed one of Pru’s figurines in a fit of rage. June had swept up the glass and told her grandma she’d broken it. When Pru had taken the wooden spoon to June’s backside, June hadn’t cried. Her chin had wobbled, eyes all red and glassy, but she’d pressed her lips together and held those tears inside. He’d felt so terrible he’d let her play with his favorite action figure the rest of the day.

The reason behind the dream was obvious. She’d looked up at him with that same quivering chin yesterday when he’d told her not to come back. A heavy fog had settled inside his chest ever since. He’d finished the roof around midnight, and then—too tired to drive an hour back to his air mattress at the Hallover house—had come here to shower and sleep. Though he still didn’t want June’s “help,” he needed to smooth things over.

He pulled on his jeans and followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen. Pru was already working on breakfast, dressed in one of those flowery grandma ensembles. She pressed a steaming mug into his hand.

“Thanks.” He sucked down a scalding sip, letting the bitter coffee scorch his throat. “Where’s June?”

“Pickin’ peppers for the eggs.” She added a pat of shortening to her bowl and began cutting biscuit dough. “She looked upset when she came home last night. Eyes all puffy. Didn’t say two words at supper. Y’know anything ’bout that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Lucas.” Pru stopped and gave him a look he’d never seen before. Hard, but soft at the same time. Maybe even sad. “You know I love you like my own kin, but that’s my baby girl out there. She’s always been so tender-hearted, ’specially with you. I can’t have you hurtin’ her again. Y’understand me?”

He nodded, setting his mug on the counter. If it was possible to feel any lower, he didn’t see how.

In his bare feet, Luke strolled through the cool, damp grass to the garden on the side of the house. Clouds drifted across the sun, and the crisp morning air puckered the skin on his chest into gooseflesh.

Then he saw her, and all the oxygen in his lungs vanished. In her long, white nightgown, June looked mystical, like one of those faeries his mama had told him about. Her curly, brown hair glowed amber as she moved among the tangled vines and leaves with fluid grace—her fair fingers skimming each pepper before twisting it gently from the stem. A breeze swirled the flowing, gauzy gown around her ankles, and she gathered the material in front to hold the vegetables she’d picked. When he approached and cleared his throat, she sucked in a startled breath and dropped everything.

“Sorry,” Luke whispered, moving forward slowly, as if entranced.

She frowned at the scattered peppers. “It’s okay.”

“Not for that.” He reached down and took her left hand. “For yesterday.”

“You’re apologizing?” Her pink lips curved into a cautious smile. “The same Luke Gallagher who—”

“Yeah, yeah. Who stole the county’s prize watermelon and terrorized the chickens and never said he was sorry for anything. That same Luke is sorry.”

“Me too.”

The low morning sun broke free of the clouds, illuminating June’s thin, white nightgown and rendering it completely transparent. Suddenly, a pair of creamy, pink-tipped breasts came into view, rising and falling in a steady rhythm with each of her deep, slow breaths. He knew he should look away, but hell, he was only a man, and she was even more spectacular than he remembered. His fingertips twitched—actually twitched—aching to skim across her nipples, to see if they’d still tighten beneath his touch, like they’d done years before. He gazed lower, drinking in the curve of June’s tiny waist and the smooth flare leading down to her thighs. Sweet Jesus. She still had those indents at the front of her hips—visible now as shadows beneath her gown. Those small divots were the
exact
size of his thumbs, as if she were custom-made for his hands. He’d once pressed his thumbs there and curled his fingers around her hips before slipping so gently inside her for the very first time. “Ho-o-ly shit,” he murmured, gazing even lower to her bare—

“Hey,” she said, tipping his chin with her fingers. “I’m up here.”

Luke told his left hand to release hers and his feet to return to the house, but his mind and body weren’t on speaking terms. He grabbed the front of June’s nightgown and pulled her hard against him. She gasped, digging her fingernails into the skin on his shoulders. Christ, she smelled delicious, like oranges and cloves, and he could feel her heartbeat through her gown. The soft curves of her breasts, her hot breath panting against his chest, her silky hair tickling his jaw, all the dizzying sensations scrambled his brain into oatmeal.

He lowered his lips to her ear and tried to form a coherent sentence. “You shouldn’t wear this thing outside the bedroom, Junebug.”

“I didn’t mean to give you a show.”

“Oh, I got one, all right.” After breathing in her sweet scent one last time, Luke pulled back and gazed into her wide, brown eyes. “You sleep without skivvies.”

When June’s mouth dropped into a pretty, pink oval, it took every fraction of his self-control not to kiss her silly and lay her down on the soft soil next to Pru’s squash plants. He cleared his throat and gently pushed her away. God help him, he was hard enough to crack granite. He sure as hell couldn’t go back in the house like this. “I’m gonna get started on your car.”

***

June hung up the phone and slouched against the wall, letting her body sink slowly to the floor. Esteban had hired the entire staff in one hasty round of interviews—bartenders, cocktail waitresses, even a cleaning crew. He didn’t seem too discriminating, but how could she criticize his methods when she sat here without contributing a thing? Darn it, she’d wanted to hand-select the most competent applicants, not grab whoever was easy. After nearly a decade of sacrificing and saving to open this bar, she couldn’t even help choose the stemware. Esteban had done that too.

She slipped on a pair of flip-flops and shuffled outside to bring Luke a glass of water and a ham biscuit. He’d been tinkering with her car for the last hour and hadn’t even come inside for breakfast, which wasn’t like him. Nothing got between Luke Gallagher and a hearty meal.

Two jean-clad legs, one bent at the knee and the other extended straight, peeked out from beneath her car. Luke lifted his hips and scooted forward, and June felt a rush of heat pool between her thighs, remembering how those hips had pressed against her in the garden. He’d wanted her—there was no mistaking the very large, very rigid evidence that had strained against her belly. She’d repeated her
off
limits
mantra over and over inside her head, but it was useless. Clinging to those powerful shoulders, she’d have let him lift her gown in an instant. Maybe working at church away from him was a good idea after all.

Luke appeared, holding something black and greasy. “This thing’s a death trap.”

“Hey, you took it apart? How am I supposed to get around?” She handed him the water and kept the biscuit, since his hands were so filthy.

He drained the whole glass and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm. “You’re working for the Baptists today, right?”

“Yeah, cutting the lawn. I’ll do my best to stay out of the sanctuary, so I don’t burst into flames.”

“Catch a ride with Pru. She’s over there all the time. I need to get a few parts before you can drive that heap again.” Luke wiped his hands against his thighs, leaving his jeans streaked with black goop. He reached for the biscuit and his fingertips brushed the inside of her wrist, sending a thrill up the length of her arm. “I’ll put it back together tomorrow night.”

“Thanks.” June sat on the lowest front porch step. “Since when do you know so much about engines?”

In three mammoth bites, he crammed the whole thing in his mouth and spoke with one cheek stuffed with food. “Since the army trained me. But I wound up working on helicopters when they sent me overseas.” He refilled his glass with the hose and drained it again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

“That house you’re flipping? What’s the rush to get it done?” She leaned back on her elbows and tried to read his eyes. It was easy: panic with a dash of stress.

“All my money’s tied up in that place. Everything.”

June laughed without humor. “Believe me, I know the feeling.”

“And I need that money in four weeks.”

“Loan shark?” She smiled, trying to lighten his mood. It didn’t work.

“Auction.” He took a deep breath and released it, puffing out his lips. “Silent, cash auction.”

“What is it you want so badly?”

“My land.” He nodded toward the back of Grammy’s property. “It’s in foreclosure again. This might be my last chance to get it back.”

“Sure you want it?” There must’ve been so many painful memories there. June didn’t remember much about Luke’s mother, but according to rumors, she’d had an addiction to OxyContin and abusive men, and that was before she’d skipped town and broken Luke’s heart.

Luke nodded and joined her on the porch step, sitting so close his white T-shirt sleeve brushed her arm. If she tipped her head a teeny bit, she could rest against his shoulder. Then she could link their arms together and stare into the front yard the way she’d done on a few cool summer nights once upon a time. Instead, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“I never told you about my granddaddy,” Luke said. He fidgeted with his own hands, pressing a thumb inside the opposite palm. “He took me fishing at our pond every Sunday since I was three. And each time he’d tell me that pond would be mine someday, and I’d take my own grandbabies fishing there. When I was eleven, and everyone knew my mama wasn’t…well…right in the head, my granddaddy said he was having the land subdivided and leaving ten acres around the pond to me. But he died before the paperwork went through, and everything passed to Mama.”

He reached over and took June’s hand. His skin was warm and rough—the large, powerful hands of a working man—and she fought the urge to lace their fingers together and hold on tight.

“She didn’t pay the taxes when she left town,” Luke continued, “so the county foreclosed. It’s been bought and sold twice since then, and the last owner lost it to back taxes.”

“But the house?”

“I’ll bulldoze it and build new. Something closer to the pond, so I can sit on the front porch with my coffee and look at the water.”

June hated to say it, but she knew from personal experience how long real estate could sit on the market. It had taken nine months and three price reductions before her condo sold. “Even if you finish the investment house in time, it might not sell.”

“Oh, it’ll sell. And fast.” He smoothed his thumb over each of her pink nails. “It’s right down the street from a brand-spanking-new elementary school, and I’ve already got four families interested—one of them even tried to buy the place before it’s repaired, but the bank wouldn’t go for it. So anyway, all I gotta do is finish it up, list it, and let the bidding begin.”

“I still want to help.”

He laughed in a long, rolling chortle that basically said
forget
about
it
. “Duly noted. Now, can I ask
you
something?”

“Sure,” she parroted. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

“How come you never came back after college?” He bumped her shoulder, smiling despite the heavy subject he’d dumped at her feet. “All those years, and nothing but a few Christmas cards? I know things were rough between you and your grandma, but I didn’t think they were
that
bad.”

“They weren’t,” she admitted. “Not at first.” He probably remembered that Gram had tried strong-arming her into living at home and attending the Bible College in the next county. Gram had gone so far as to cut her off financially when she’d applied to Texas State, but that hadn’t strained their relationship to the breaking point. June had never felt entitled to a free education. “But when I left and she couldn’t use money to control me anymore, she found other ways.” Like relentless, nagging phone calls, guilt-laden letters sprinkled with scary Bible verses, and worst of all, arranging for some Hellfire Baptists in June’s town to “check on” her periodically, which had felt a heck of a lot like stalking. “When I started bartending, she completely lost her shit—oops, I mean sugar—and gave me an ultimatum.”

“Which backfired.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I was tired of being controlled.”

But her feeling of vindication hadn’t lasted beyond a few weeks. Several times, she’d picked up the phone to extend the olive branch, but fear had stopped her. Not fear of Grammy, but of the disappointment and loathing in her voice. She couldn’t bear to hear it again.

“Did you miss her?” Luke pressed their palms together, comparing the lengths of their fingers.

“Yes.” There was no reason to deny it. “But she made me feel shunned. And each year that went by, it got harder to call. I kept imagining she’d hang up on me, or worse…”
Tell
me
I’m “trash” like she said in our last fight
. “Anyway, I’m here now.”

“Well, Junebug, I’m glad you’re back.” He released her hand, then patted her knee and rose to his feet.

“Me too.” Because it wasn’t only Grammy she’d missed. “And I want to help while I’m in town,” she reminded him.

Luke didn’t answer, just sniggered as he skipped down the steps. He grabbed his wallet off the car’s roof and slipped it into the worn back pocket of his jeans, drawing her attention to his magnificent backside.
Off
limits!
She glanced away and swallowed hard.

“Tell Pru good-bye for me.” Then he hopped in his truck and drove off to supervise the Helping Hands crew.