Page 62 of Dumbstruck
But I have my first free weekend in weeks, and I don’t want to waste a minute of it.
When Laketown comes into view seven minutes later, I’m a giant ball of nerves. June doesn’t know I caught an earlier flight, so she won’t be expecting me for another three hours. Video chats and phone calls have been great, but I’m still worried she won’t react to my surprise appearance the way I want her to. What if she has just been humoring me? No matter how many times she says she misses me, she seems pretty content most days. Business has picked up at her store since the day a tabloid story went out after someone figured out June and I are dating. She’s been spending a lot of time with Hank and helping him get ready to move to Los Angeles to be with Bonnie. And now that Samson has decided he likes June, she has a cuddle buddy most nights, so she doesn’t even need me.
Richie parks in one of the few open spots on Main Street, just down the street from June’s store. I don’t move an inch, and that seems to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and forces him to the end of his patience with me. “Don’t you dare,” he growls, reaching over and unlatching my seatbelt. “I did not spend the last two months listening to you moan and mope just to have you sit here and pretend you’re not dying to see June.” He grumbles something about how much complaining I’ve done in the last two hours alone during the drive from the airport in Sun City. “And now you’re just going to sit here?”
I grimace. “Of course I want to see June. But what if she doesn’t want to see me?”
Richie undoes his own seatbelt and climbs out of the car, stalking around to my door and wrenching it open. “Go,” he snaps. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
“You’re being irrational,” I mutter to myself as I slip from the car and straighten my t-shirt. I’m already sweaty, as much from nerves as from the summer heat, and the longer I take to find the courage to go inside the hardware store, the worse it will be. I’m more nervous now than I was for our first date; there’s so much more at stake now.
When I met June, I was fueled by curiosity. Now I’m fueled by a bone-deep need to be in her life.
By the time I finally step through the door of June’s store, knocking the bell overhead and making it jingle, I feel like I should take a quick detour to the bed and breakfast and shower before making this reunion happen. June would never know I got here early, and maybe I wouldn’t be so…
All of my anxiety melts away the moment I see June talking to her teenage employee, Scott—the mayor’s son. He started working for her as part of his community service hours while the other kids helped on set, but when things picked up after the tabloid article, she decided to hire him. Not only does it mean she has help during the busy weekends, but she’s also been able to take more afternoons off, using the time to chat with me or update parts of her house she’s been wanting to remodel since she bought the place.
She’s more beautiful than she ever has been, and I can’t seem to move from my spot in the doorway.
When the door closes behind me, ringing the bell again, June looks over. Goes still. Her expression is blank, leaving me to wonder if coming here at all was a good idea.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Hey.”
Dropping the box of nails she was holding, June rushes forward and throws her arms around my shoulders. I wrap her up, relishing the feel of her in my arms. I feel like I’ve had a hole in my chest since the day I had to head back to California, and she is the only thing that can fill it.
“You’re really here,” she breathes, burying her face in my neck.
“I’m here,” I reply. And I don’t know how I’m going to convince myself to leave again now that I am. I tighten my hold as tears well up in my eyes. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, June Harper.”
“Not more than I’ve missed you.”
I reluctantly loosen my grip as she pulls away, and I take her in. She’s wearing the same apron she wore on the day I met her, and in the strangest way it almost makes it feel like it hasn’t been months since I last held her in my arms. Since I last kissed her.
She must have been reading my thoughts because she leans up on her toes and presses her lips to mine. The kiss is simple and sweet, but I can feel the promise of more. “Let me just make sure Scott is good to close up, okay?”
I agree to let her leave my arms only because it means she and I can go somewhere more private.
Two months and eighteen days is too long to go without time alone with June Harper.
June
Two months later
“I feel underdressed.” I brush a hand over my ruffled tank top, wishing I had chosen to wear a skirt or something instead of distressed jean shorts. When Jonah picked me up from the Boise airport this morning, I thought we would stop at the hotel instead of driving directly to his parents’ farm. But now we’re standing outside the cutest farmhouse I’ve ever seen, complete with a wraparound porch, painted yellow shutters, and flower boxes teeming with multi-hued blooms. Richie already went inside, so we won’t be able to make an escape and pretend we couldn’t make it. “Jonah, I can’t show up to your dad’s seventy-fifth birthday party looking like this! What will your mother think?”
Slipping his hand into mine, he leans down and kisses my temple. “She’ll wonder how I managed to snag someone so entirely out of my league. We can sneak upstairs so you can change if you want, but I guarantee at least three people will see you as you are. Besides, you look amazing.” He kisses me again, lingering this time. “Mm. How do you always smell this good?”
If anyone smells good, it’s him. It’s been long enough since he was last in Laketown that I almost forgot how much I love burrowing into his chest and breathing him in. Whatever cologne he uses, it mixes with his natural scent and leaves him mouthwatering.
Leaning into him, I rise on my toes and tease a kiss against his lips. “I like the sound of sneaking upstairs.”
He groans and captures my mouth with a kiss almost as good as the one he gave me when we first found each other at the airport. “You’re going to get me in trouble,” he murmurs against my mouth as his thumb brushes a spot of bare skin at my waist, leaving a trail of heat in its wake.
“Good,” I say and tug him back into the kiss.
A throat clearing pulls us apart.
Two men stand on the porch with matching smirks, their arms folded and mischief in their eyes. Though I’ve seen pictures, I can’t tell which brother is which because the whole family looks so alike. “Hey, Hollywood,” the one on the right says. “Are you going to come inside, or is making out on the front lawn your only goal for this weekend?”
