Falling in Line: A Second Chance

Romance (Arcadia Creek Book 2) Kasey

Stockton
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 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Kasey Stockton

Cover design by Melody Jeffries Design

First print edition: January 2024

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023924318

ISBN 978-1-952429-43-9
Golden Owl Press
Fort Worth, TX

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations for
the purpose of a book review.
 CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Next in Arcadia Creek
Want to stay in the know?
Acknowledgments
Also by Kasey Stockton
About the Author
For Dad & Scott and all the other men and women who keep our lights on. I’m so grateful for you.
 CHAPTER ONE
JUNE

I WAS ONLY forty-six percent positive I was making a huge mistake.

Which didn’t sound promising, but it meant I was less than half full of nervous energy. Positivity was still the majority,
optimistically chirping in my ears, whispering potential.
Maybe the entire town of Arcadia Creek and their deep-seated roots had grown and changed in the five years since I left.
Maybe they’d progressed. For all I knew, they’d done away with the annual sock hop and finally let Nancy Jo retire from her
job as church pianist. The woman was nearing ninety. She deserved to sit on a cushion while she worshiped. She’d done her
time.
I rumbled down Main Street in the backseat of an Uber, my resolve slipping further with the familiarity of each passing
storefront. Each sign looked exactly as it had five years ago, down to the chipped paint on Gigi’s Diner and faded red lettering
on the window of Flora’s salon.
Who was I kidding? This town hadn’t changed.
Nancy Jo was definitely still playing the piano every Sunday.
No one had forgiven me.
I needed to prepare for war.
The residents of Arcadia Creek had a way of creating problems where there were none, rallying around their own in
defense, and they loved having someone to hate. The problem was, I wasn’t one of them, not anymore. I was the villain here. To
make things worse, I’d earned every bit of anger, bitterness, and judgment they were harboring for me.
So I couldn’t even be mad about it.
Maybe I should’ve brushed up on battle strategies during my flight to Texas. My current plan involved an ambush, and I had
the niggling feeling Dad wouldn’t approve.
That was the best-case scenario. You don’t want to hear the worst.
Dad and I had FaceTimed regularly since I’d moved to Riverside, California during college five years ago, but I hadn’t
seen him in person since our summer trip to Colorado last year. It had been like pulling teeth to get him to Denver in the first
place. If there was one thing Billy Baker didn’t like, it was change. The second was accepting help.
I was cashing in on both of those grievances by being here. But he needed my help, even if he didn’t want to admit it. He
was about to have knee replacement surgery, and when he was laid up in recovery and wishing someone could hand him a cold
Coke, then he’d thank me.
Probably. Maybe? Actually, getting a thank you was highly unlikely.
But he’d be glad I was there, even if he wouldn’t show it.
Which was why I was five minutes away from dropping in unannounced, hoping the surprise of my presence would eclipse
any frustration he might have when he found me on his doorstep. It was also the reason I’d paid for an Uber all the way to
Arcadia Creek from the airport in Dallas instead of asking Dad to pick me up. If he knew I was coming to take care of him
while he recovered from surgery, he would have told me to stay home.
I know this because I told him I was coming when he first informed me of his surgery. His reply was: that’s thoughtful, but
stay home.
This was one of those do-it-first-and-ask-for-forgiveness-later situations.
Except the closer the black Uber got to my old house, the more I wondered what I’d been thinking. Forget forty-six percent.
I was sitting closer to fifty-five now. This was a mistake.
My fingernails drummed on the smooth screen of my phone while I debated calling my dad to make sure he was home. It
was edging into evening now, so the chances of him being at his bookstore were slim. The store closed before dinner. He was
always off work when I FaceTimed him around now, and I hadn’t seen his truck parked on Main Street when we passed. He
was probably home.
Wide fields of honey-colored grain blew in the hot breeze outside my car window, signaling that we’d left town and were
almost home. The little white house I had grown up in came into view, set back from the road and surrounded by fields and
hills and trees. My heart started beating faster. Dusky, open sky stretched in both directions as far as I could see, and the
vastness of this property made me feel like a kid again. My stomach clenched, fighting my nerves with the overwhelming
feeling of home.
Dad’s ancient Ford truck was parked out front, sending relief through me. Not that he’d ever admit to owning a Ford. He’d
painted the entire thing baby blue and hand-lettered Chevrolet on the tailgate in white because he was nothing if not loyal. The
Bakers were a Chevy family through and through.
If that didn’t illustrate the lengths some people would go to in this town for the sake of pride and loyalty, I didn’t know
what would. I believed my dad’s actual words when he finished painting ‘Chevrolet’ on the back were, “Now we have one
less Ford in Arcadia Creek, Junie Bird.”
“This it?” my driver asked.
“Yes, sir.”
He pulled to a stop and got out to remove my bags from the trunk. I pushed open the car door and was hit with a wall of
thick, warm, moisture-filled heat. I could feel my blonde corkscrews growing bigger by the second. Naturally curly hair—
read: frizzy hair—hated Texas air just as much as I did. Especially in August.
I squared away my payment and watched the Uber drive off down the long, open road that headed back toward town, then
further on to more civilization. Goodbye, last chance at escape. I was fully committed now. My eye caught the old Miller house
down the road, half-painted blue with dingy yellow still visible on the other side. Looked like someone was sprucing it up. Or
half-spruced before the sun drove them inside for the rest of the day.
Squaring my shoulders, I faced my dad’s house. He would be happy to see me. He would. He might’ve refused regularly to
give me any real updates on the people in town, but I was fairly sure that was only because he didn’t want to tell me what was
going on in one person’s life: my ex-boyfriend, Tucker. If he was dating or—gulp—married now, I had no idea. My dad was
Fort Knox when it came to Tucker Fletcher.
Which was for the better. After I walked out on both of them five years ago, I was just glad my dad had found it somewhere
in his heart to forgive me and let me walk back in.
Tucker never would, though. I planned on avoiding the man at all costs, along with every member of his family, who
happened to be half the residents of Arcadia Creek. It was an achievable goal.
Probably.
Arcadia Creek was small, but Tucker’s ranch was on the other side of town. I wouldn’t be going anywhere but the hospital
and this house while Dad recovered from surgery.
Amazon delivered out here. If I ordered groceries now, we’d have them within a few weeks, max. I didn’t need to deal
with whatever anger or resentment this town was still harboring. You haven’t seen loyalty until you’ve been in Arcadia Creek
while the Aggies play the Longhorns. Gigi’s Diner actually refused to serve anyone who came in wearing orange for an entire
weekend.
Oh, gosh. Why did I come?
My dad. I was here to support him during his surgery. Big breath in.
I stopped at the foot of the porch steps and balanced my suitcase, leaving my bag on top of it. That thing was heavy, so I
was going to let Dad heave it up the steps. Drawing in some bravery, I climbed the stairs and knocked three times, because five
years of being away dissolved any claim I had on this house being my home anymore.
Heavy bootsteps crossed the room inside, bringing Dad to the door and heightening my heart rate. He loved me. I knew he
did. Even if he pretended he didn’t want help, he would be happy to see⁠—
The door swung open, and it wasn’t my dad standing there.
Instead, the open space was filled with broad shoulders, a whole lotta height, dark hair, and perfectly rounded sky blue
eyes. The former love of my life. The man I was supposed to marry but then left behind in a cloud of regret. Tucker Fletcher.
He was not happy to see me.
So I did what any self-respecting abandoner would do when suddenly facing the man she left behind: I screamed in
surprise. Had I knocked on the wrong door? No. This was definitely my dad’s house. Had I conjured him because of how much
I’d been thinking of him the last week while I was planning this surprise trip?
It didn’t really matter. My reaction caused Tucker to snap out of his shocked trance and shutter all the windows to his
emotions. His face became bland, jaw set, eyes slightly narrowed. “Can I help you?”
Oh, heaven save me, that voice. Deep, rich, and smooth as a fresh crock of honey butter. I forgot how soothing it was.
“Is my dad here?”
He stared at me, incredulous.
I couldn’t help but stare back. Wow, the last five years had done him good. We were both twenty when I’d left, totally
adults, but somehow he had grown into a man. The very last man I expected to be standing on the other side of this door. I
cleared my throat.
“He’s inside.” Tucker turned around and walked through the living room into the kitchen, leaving me on the front porch.
“Junie Bird?” a voice called from inside. “That you?”
Dad. I closed the door behind me. I could get my bags later. “Yes, sir,” I said, waiting for him to come out. I didn’t think it
was wise to follow Tucker into the kitchen.
My body was still reeling from the shock of seeing him. It needed time to come back to earth. It would’ve helped if he’d
grown an extra head or lost his velvet voice. Anything to shake me from the overwhelm of attraction that clung to him like that
cloud of Old Spice body spray he used in high school.
“In here,” Dad said, drawing my attention to his bedroom door, open and situated on the other wall. “Afraid it’ll take me
too long to come to you.”
I didn’t need another invitation. I crossed the room, avoiding looking into the kitchen as I passed it, and halted in Dad’s
bedroom doorway. He lay in bed, a thin blanket pulled up to his waist, his face pale and drawn.
“Junie,” he said again, his face softening, adding lines to the wrinkles around his eyes.
I went to him at once, taking his hand and perching on the edge of the side table, facing him. “What happened? Are you
sick?”
“Knee replacement surgery,” he said, his voice dry. “I told you last month.”
“That’s not for another week.” At least. I thought I had given myself a ten-day buffer to help him get things in order before
he became immobile.
“Doc had an opening and moved me up.”
“Dad,” I admonished, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did. I texted you.”
My brain searched the last week for evidence of this. “You told me the dog wanted you to move forward.”
“Oh, that was a typo.”
“I said good luck Harley, and you didn’t correct me. You just sent me an emoji of a guy in sunglasses!”
“Because I thought your joke was odd, but I didn’t want to be rude.” He paused. “The sunglasses mean cool.”
Okay, get a grip, June. It hardly mattered now anyway. “I was coming to help.”
He tilted his head a little to the side, his brown hair littered with gray and in need of a cut. The lenses of his glasses were
smudged with fingerprints, as always, and I itched to reach for them and give them a good Windexing. A quick sweep of the
room proved that more than just his glasses could use a nice deep cleaning, actually.
The sound of the microwave closing and the tinkling of silverware rustling in a drawer pulled my attention back to the
kitchen and the man in there, but I cut it quickly and forced it back on my dad. “So, what’s the plan, then? How long are you in
bed?”
“I’m only in bed because I just did my exercises and they wiped me out. I can walk, Junie Bird.”
I pointed to the walker at the foot of his bed. “With that thing?”
He nodded. “It’s been four days, so I’m still slow, but I can get myself to the bathroom and the kitchen just fine. Don’t need
more than that.”
“Then why aren’t you alone right now?” I asked.
Dad looked over my shoulder before resting his gaze back on me. “No reason.”
“You know pretending he isn’t here won’t actually make him disappear, right?” I asked. We both knew exactly who I was
talking about.
“No need for either of those things,” Tucker’s deep voice said behind me, making the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
“I’m heading out, Billy.”
Dad gave a nod, his eyes lingering on my ex-boyfriend. I was jealous. I wanted to indulge in the same thing.
Tucker stepped into the room, giving me a wide berth while he circled the bed to hand Dad a plate of casserole and a dark
green Stanley cup—full of iced Coke, if I had my guess. Dad settled the plate on a lap table and took a sip, dark liquid shooting
up through the straw. Yep, it was Coke. The man couldn’t drink water unless it was carbonated and mixed with high fructose
corn syrup.
“Your phone’s charging here,” Tucker said, gesturing to where it sat on the other table. He avoided my gaze. “You know
you can call me at any time if you need something.”
A little fissure of irritation lit my chest. “He won’t need to. I’ll be here.”
I’d hoped to sound reassuring. I only sounded petulant.
Tucker’s gaze flicked to me quickly before looking away again.
“I have your number,” Dad said, probably in an effort to bridge the gap.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything that would bridge our gap a little, too. Tucker wasn’t going to be my friend,
obviously, but it had been five years since I’d seen him, and given our history, he deserved something.
He clearly didn’t feel the same. He nodded once to my dad and walked out, not bothering to spare me another glance.
Blessed heavens, I was at ninety percent now. Coming here had definitely been a mistake.
 CHAPTER TWO
TUCKER

I WANTED TO SMASH SOMETHING. Bury an ax deep in a block of wood. Throw a bag of feed across the yard. Climb a
pole to the top and stay there a while.
Anything to use up the fizzling, simmering energy that ran over my skin and through my veins, making me antsy. Anything to
make it disappear. Because the alternative was marching back down the road to Billy Baker’s house and physically removing
June from Arcadia Creek with my bare hands. Or maybe hogtie her with a rope.
I was good with a rope.
I only just refrained from kicking one of the cans of blue paint lining the gravel walkway that led up to my house. That
would have been a waste. Instead, I marched inside. The front door slammed when I kicked it closed, forcing my brother to
look up from where he was working on his computer at the table. It was the first time since he’d moved in a few months ago
that I actually wished he wasn’t here. Usually I liked having him around.
“Woah, Tuck.” Jack eyed me warily. “Gracie Mae tried to set you up with her friend again?”
“What? No.” I paced to the kitchen, then back to the front door. Sadie, my Australian Shepherd, hopped up from her spot on
the sofa and followed me.
Jack slowly lowered the screen of his laptop, tracking my movements. “What happened?”
What did happen? Seeing June on that front porch, the sun directly behind her making her blonde hair glow, filled me with
the most pathetic joy. It immediately bled into complete self-loathing, but my initial gut reaction was the opposite of how I felt
now. It was just my body remembering the attraction that had been ingrained in me since I first started dating June when we
were fifteen. After the shock wore off and I remembered exactly who she was, what she’d done, and how long she’d left her
dad to fend for himself, I was so angry with myself for that spark of happiness. I deserved a swift kick to the shin. All this just
from seeing a woman.
Well, in my defense, she wasn’t just any woman. She was supposed to be my wife.
But that was a long time ago.
Now I needed to scrub her from my brain again. It turned out five years hadn’t lessened the sting or the pain of her leaving
me. My skin was no thicker than it was when I’d found the note she’d left on my counter back in college.
When I opened that door today and saw her standing on the porch at her dad’s house? That had been a blow I hadn’t
expected. It infuriated me, but I couldn’t put a finger on why.
Well, maybe I could.
I wasn’t the only person she ditched when she upped and moved to California.
My pacing resumed. “June,” I spat out.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted. “What about her?” he asked carefully.
I dropped into the easy chair, rubbing my forehead. “She’s here.”
He let out a long, slow whistle. “You saw her at Billy’s.”
“Yep.” Sadie jumped onto my lap, thinking she was much smaller than she really was, and laid down. I ran a hand through
her long fur.
“And now you want to run outside and chop the shed to pieces.”
I lifted my gaze. “Yep.”
“Don’t do anything destructive. You’ll only regret it later.” His eyes brightened. “Actually, if you want, we could go tackle
the rest of that porch now.”
My lips formed something of a smirk on their own. “You just want free manual labor.”
“Obviously. I’m doing you a favor by providing an outlet for your bubbling rage.”
“Rage?” I scoffed. “Don’t exaggerate.”
 Jack said nothing. He just got up to put his computer away. He was in the middle of renovating an old farmhouse just off
Main Street to turn into a bed and breakfast with his fiancée, and despite my grumbling, I really didn’t mind helping him out.
Especially right now.
I nudged Sadie from my lap and got up to find my other boots. “I’ll meet you at the truck.”
Five years had—unfairly—done nothing but make June more beautiful. No matter how much I didn’t like her, I couldn’t
argue that. Her hair was the same long, curly, blonde mass it had been in high school and college, her eyes just as striking, their
jade green color rimmed in emerald. I’d clocked the freckles dotting her nose and the easy way she moved, evidence of the
years of dance lessons that had taught her poise and elegance. She’d walked like a fairy then, and she moved like an elf now.
No, not an elf. Like a goblin. An orc. One of those tree shepherds in Lord of the Rings.
I couldn’t start comparing her favorably to anything. The cement-reinforced wall I’d steadily built up around my heart was
imperative.
We drove to the bed and breakfast, Sadie in the back with the wind blowing over her face, my mind barely focusing on the
road while my thoughts jumped around. Jack and Lauren had named the place Renovation Inn because of Jack’s side business
restoring and renewing furniture. He planned to use his pieces in the bed and breakfast, making them available for sale to
guests who fell in love with one of his unique projects. It was brilliant, combining what he and Lauren both loved—renovation
and restoration with running a hotel and managing events.
“She’s really thrown you, hasn’t she?” Jack asked when I turned onto the small lane that went up to his house.
“It wasn’t her,” I said, pulling past the building and parking near the unattached garage. I left the A/C running, rubbing my
eyes. “It was my reaction to her.”
“Was she happy to see you?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”
“How long is she here for?”
“Don’t know.”
“Is she⁠—”
“Listen, Jack. I don’t know. I just want to pretend it didn’t happen, break apart your deck, and move on.”
Jack was quiet for a minute before nodding, his dark hair flopping over his forehead. “Then move on.” There was a
challenge in his voice.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
“Not date women. Not go out and meet anyone. Not agree to see Gracie Mae’s friend she swears is perfect for you.”
He had me there. My cousin Gracie Mae knew me pretty well, so when she said she wanted to set me up on a blind date, I
could have trusted her taste. I just didn’t want to. It wasn’t that I hadn’t dated in the last five years. I’d tried. But it stopped
being a priority for me somewhere in the last eighteen months. Maybe because I was working so much—that was my excuse—
or because every date seemed like a dud. I stopped wanting to make an effort. When you grew up in a small town and had dated
all the eligible ladies, there wasn’t a lot of room for meeting new people.
My phone rang, stopping me from needing to respond right away. It was a number I didn’t know, so I answered it. As one of
the few linemen for Arcadia Energy’s small crew, you never did know when you’d get called in for a downed power line or to
fix a blown fuse. “You’ve reached Tucker.”
“Good evening, Mr. Fletcher, this is Diana Perez down at the Arcadia Creek Library. Can I have a minute of your time?”
I should have let it go to voicemail. Jack gestured outside while he slipped from the truck, leaving me alone with the
librarian. Sadie jumped from the truck and followed too closely at Jack’s heels, making him jump. It brought a small smile to
my face. I didn’t know why my dog hated Jack, but I found it hilarious.
Him, not so much.
“Mr. Fletcher?”
“Yes ma’am, I’m here.”
“Great.” She cleared her throat gently. “We have a fundraiser coming up next week to raise money for the firehouse, and
we’re looking for a few more men to volunteer their time. Mr. Hayes mentioned you might be willing to lend us your aid?”
Freaking Dusty. That’s what you got when your best friend was a firefighter with zero reservations. “Yes, ma’am. I’d be
happy to help out.”
She let out a relieved breath. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this, Mr. Fletcher. We thought the whole concept
was brilliant, but turns out there aren’t as many single eligible firefighters in Arcadia Creek as one might think.”
Hold up. Single? Eligible? What had I just agreed to? “Sorry, ma’am, I think I’ve misunderstood. What kind of fundraiser
is this?”
“A raffle! Can I have your email address? I’ll send all the details shortly.”
I rattled it off to her, accepted her immense gratitude, and hung up, a little stunned. I got out of the truck and went to the tool
shed while Jack set up the flood lights so the setting sun wouldn’t disrupt our demo.
Single. Eligible. The words rattled around my brain while I selected two pairs of safety glasses and looped them on my
wrist. All I really heard there was: wow, it’s been five years and this guy still hasn’t moved on.
Or, sheesh, hung up on me still?
Obviously, it was June’s voice in my head.
But this self-made representation of June was wrong. I wasn’t still hung up on her. I had been attracted to her when I
opened Billy’s door and found her there, yeah, but then I’d spent every minute since that moment beating myself up about it.
My phone buzzed with a text.
Dusty: Just heard you joined us for the fundraiser.
Tucker: You owe me for this one.
Dusty: No idea what you’re talking about. I wasn’t the one who invited you.
We both knew that wasn’t true. It was just the way he was.
Dusty: Can’t wait to see who you get.
Tucker: Wait, what? Who am I getting for what?
Dusty: Diana didn’t explain?
Dusty:
Dusty: Sorry, I’m just over here dying. You’re in for a treat.
Tucker: DUSTY.
I walked to the front of the house, holding the sledgehammer by the handle and resting it against my shoulder. Sadie was
lying on the grass beneath a tree, grinning, her tongue lolling. Lazy dog got tuckered out fast.
Jack had the lights on, though we still didn’t need them quite yet. Cicadas buzzed in the distance, the hot evening air already
making my skin sticky. We were up on a slight hill looking out over Arcadia Creek, the town on one side and the tree-lined
waterway on the other. Pink clouds dotted the blue horizon, so we were in for a cotton candy sunset tonight.
“Is Lauren coming?” I asked, surveying the porch.
Jack shook his head. “Not tonight.”
He didn’t say as much, but I’d bet he told his fiancée I needed a little space. He was right, as much as I hated to admit it.
People in my family—which made up far more of town than was probably healthy—tended to walk on eggshells around the
topic of me and June. Now that she’d stepped foot back in town, it was probably going to send them into a panic. This was
uncharted territory for the Fletcher clan.
I couldn’t be bothered to worry about that yet. For all we knew, June would be gone by the end of the week.
Given her track record, that was most likely.
My phone buzzed.
Dusty: It wasn’t my idea.
Tucker: The librarian told me you’d offered my name. I’m guessing that means you also gave her my number.
Dusty: It’s a good cause.
Tucker: New blankets? A fresh Costco run? Extra donuts for the kitchen?
Dusty: How the firehouse chooses to spend the funds is their own business.
I could see him now on the other end of this phone, laughing long and hard. He needed to get a life. He was probably at the
firehouse now, lifting while he waited for the next call out.
Tucker: If this money is going to a new weight bench, I’m out.
Dusty: It’s only one date, man. Do it for me. Do it for my struggling deltoids.
His delts were fine. My brain snagged on two other words he’d said. One date. They were raffling off dates? What was
this, 1951? We weren’t even going to the highest bidder? Just a random lucky ticket? I groaned, slipping my phone into my
pocket. I’d already committed, so I wasn’t backing out, but it wouldn’t kill Dusty to let him sweat.
I glanced up to find Jack watching me, worried. “You’re scowling,” he said. “Like an actual scowl. You look like Old Man
Floyd right now.”
That was okay with me. Maybe this was the start of my new career being grumpy, trimming my lawn with tiny scissors, and
grunting at the neighborhood kids in my suspenders. If the long stretch of road I shared with Billy Baker ever had neighborhood
kids.
“You know, we can do anything right now. We don’t have to work. I’m here for whatever you need,” Jack said.
See? Eggshells.
But this was what I needed: to vent my frustration, get my brain off the woman who had completely obliterated my heart,
and make myself so tired I wouldn’t lie in bed tonight thinking.
“What I need,” I said, tossing him a pair of safety glasses and slipping my own on, “is to smash something.”
I raised the sledgehammer and brought it down hard with a satisfying crunch.
 CHAPTER THREE
JUNE

MY CHILDHOOD BEDROOM was soft yellow with bright sunflowers painted on one wall. A row of long, green stalks
topped with wide flowers taller than me poked out from behind my dresser and reached above my old desk. It was sunny and
I’d always loved it, but lying in my bed now, staring at the mural, all I could think about was when Mom and I painted that wall
the summer before I started middle school. She’d thought my pink room needed a middle school makeover, and looking back on
it, I could see her efforts to help me transition into the important years. That was when she was still my best friend.
She’d been a good mom. But she hadn’t been a good wife. I still couldn’t forgive her for tearing my family apart or all the
ways it had ruined me.
I was her mini-me—both in the good and the bad. She’d passed on her kinky, curly blonde hair, green eyes, and slender,
upturned nose. She taught me to sample cookie dough fearlessly and love bright, popping sunflowers and to see bursts of color
as joy. I had inherited her spunk, which had served both of us well as head cheerleaders in the same high school, twenty-three
years apart. And I’d inherited her habit of ditching town, leaving Dad, and running out on the people I loved.
Like I said, I inherited the good and the bad.
A tunnel of light from the high half-moon window fell on my suitcase, open and spread out on the floor. After catching up
for a while last night, I’d taken Dad’s plate into the kitchen and found my suitcase waiting just inside the front door, my bag
resting on top.
Only one person could have carried it inside for me.
Tucker.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking he meant anything by it. Those were just his country boy manners. But it
settled on my chest in a buzzy, uncertain way and hadn’t left, like a fluorescent light humming in the background.
Now, hours later, I still hummed, even after Dad had told me to change my flight and go back to my life. I’d expected it
from him, but I hadn’t expected it to feel so jarring, like I wasn’t welcome here. I knew the town would be loyal and distant,
but not my own dad. I thought he’d be glad for my help once he saw how useful I could be. I didn’t count on the fact that he
might not need me here pouring his Coke.
Not when Tucker was already doing it for him.
I rolled out of bed, frowning while I got ready for the day. If I proved my presence here was helpful, maybe he’d stop
asking me to leave. First up, breakfast. After that, I was deep cleaning this entire house.
And not just so I’d have something to do to keep my mind from wandering into town and to a certain set of shoulders I had
no business thinking about. It was just . . . I knew how heavy my suitcase was. He didn’t have to help me. I couldn’t help
running the whole thing on a loop in my brain: Tucker leaving the house. Tucker seeing my suitcase on the sidewalk in front of
the porch. Tucker stopping and making the choice to carry it up the steps for me. Tucker lifting my bag.
Yeah, I was overthinking this. Tell me something I don’t already know.
Dad wasn’t awake yet, so I went to the kitchen and got to work, frying up a few slices of bacon and cooking a pair of eggs
to put over toast. I arranged everything on the plate and poured a glass of water—a girl could try—before I went to knock on
Dad’s door.
“I’m up,” he said, his voice low and sleepy.
I opened the door to find him sitting up in bed, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
“Room service,” I sang, bringing in his breakfast.
He eyed the water with misgiving but took the plate. “Thanks, Junie Bird. You know I’m not an invalid, right? I can walk.”
“You’ll need to, because we’re not messing with diapers in this house.”
Dad shot me a look, then reached for the lap table I’d seen him use last night and set his plate on it. “Top me off?” he asked,
holding out the Stanley cup.
 “Only if you drink that water while I do.”
He grunted.
I was pretty sure it was a sound of acquiescence. When I returned with his Coke and the water glass was half empty, I was
satisfied. Progress.
Pulling out my phone and opening it to the notes app, I sat cross-legged on the chair in the corner of his room. “Okay, hit me
with the details.”
Dad swallowed his bite and wiped his mouth. “What details?”
“Recovery. Appointments. I’m guessing you’re on a physical therapy schedule?”
“June.”
“I can’t help unless I know the plan.”
He set down his fork, carefully resting it on the plate before raising his eyes to me. “Your life isn’t here anymore, Junie.”
That stung, even though it had no right to.
He must have sensed it. “I don’t want you to leave, but you don’t need to stay. I have everything well in hand.”
“Who’s running the bookstore while you recover?”
“Nellie took over. I told her she could hire someone temporarily to help in the café. But I won’t be gone long. Doc thinks
I’ll be walking on my own in six weeks. I can do plenty before that, even with that contraption.” He sent a quick glare to the
walker.
“In the meantime, I’ll be here.” I gave him a sunny smile. “I already have two months of leave approved, Dad. I’m not
going anywhere.”
He paused, looking up from his breakfast. His graying eyebrows pulled together. “Two months off?”
I nodded. “Kind of. My boss gave me permission to work remotely so I could be here to help. It’s not a permanent thing. I
need to be back in the office in October. I hoped it would be long enough to get you back on your feet.”
Nate. He’d given me leave, and his brown eyes had been so understanding. I pushed him from my mind.
Dad watched me, not saying anything. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and the longer the silence stretched, the more
uncomfortable I felt.
The doorbell rang, breaking us from the weird staring contest. I stood. “I’ll get it. You eat.”
I moved the walker closer to the side of the bed in case he wanted to get up, then shut the bedroom door behind me. The
bell rang again, this time with knocking, and it sent relief sluicing through me.
At least it wasn’t Tucker. He would never be that insistent. I drew in my courage and opened the door.
“As I live and breathe,” Mrs. Miller muttered, clasping a casserole dish to her chest as one would typically clutch their
pearls. Her blonde hair had faded closer to gray now, but still cropped short and rolled into a semi-perm. The woman who did
the perming, Flora, was standing just behind her, owl-wide eyes sweeping over me.
“Good morning, ladies,” I said, smiling broadly. If they were here for gossip, they’d be leaving disappointed. “What can I
do for you?”
Mrs. Miller lifted the white dish with blue flowers painted around the outside. “Brought your dad some dinner, honey. I’m
on the rotation for today.”
Dinner. Before ten in the morning.
I accepted the casserole. Whatever it was, it was covered by a heaping mound of breadcrumbs. “Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
I’ll be sure to tell him who it came from.”
“Oh, he has the schedule, doll. Just be sure to tell him to heat at three-fifty for a half-hour.”
“Unless you’ll be doing the heating yourself,” Flora said, tilting her head to the side. Probably to prop her ear up so she
didn’t miss a thing.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re staying then?” Mrs. Miller asked.
I could swear both women leaned a little closer.
“I’ll be staying tonight,” I told them. “Thank you for dinner. Give Mr. Miller my love.”
I started to close the door when Mrs. Miller reached forward to stop it. I wouldn’t be responsible for hurting an older
woman, so I paused.
“We have a social this weekend at the church, if you’d like to come,” she said. “If you’ll be around that long.”
The little fishers weren’t getting much out of me. “How nice of you to mention it. I’ll make sure it gets on Dad’s calendar.”
“And the quilting bee is working on a project. We can always use another set of hands and I know your mama taught you to
sew. Thursday morning.”
My smile was starting to hurt my cheeks. “I’ll add that too.”
“And the library is partnering with the firehouse to put together a great fundraiser next weekend. If you’re single, you
should absolutely add that to your dad’s calendar,” Flora said, eyes bright and putting ‘your dad’s’ in air quotes.
Since when was being single a prerequisite for attending fundraisers? “They won’t let married women attend?”
 “Oh, anyone can come, dear,” Mrs. Miller said. “But you can’t buy tickets for dates with the firefighters unless you’re
single. Firehouse rules.”
“Not just dates with firemen,” Flora cut in. She was practically bouncing on her toes. “I heard this morning that Tucker
Fletcher volunteered to raffle a date as well.”
My blood turned to ice, my fingers tightening on the edge of the door. My smile was definitely forced now. If Tucker was
raffling a date and you had to be single to try and win one, did that mean he had to be single to participate, too?
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t relevant to me. But my curiosity was bubbling over the pot and hissing on the fire right and
left. Flora knew it, too. This was the entire reason they were still on my front porch right now.
Not my porch. My old front porch.
“June!” Dad barked from his bedroom, which was absolutely close enough for him to have heard our entire conversation.
“Bring me a Coke, honey?”
Bless my sweet father for giving me an out.
“Duty calls,” I said, smiling wider as I moved to shut the door. “Y’all have a blessed day.”
Flora opened her mouth to continue, but I didn’t give her time to finish. I stood behind the closed door until I could hear
their footsteps retreat down the gravel walkway.
Dad was sitting on the edge of his bed, fully dressed and doing some sort of stretch with his knee when I walked in after
putting the casserole in the fridge. I leaned against the door jamb, folding my arms over my chest. “You could’ve gotten me out
of there much sooner, you know.”
“I was having a bit of a laugh.”
Until it stopped being funny. “You forget how nosy people can be,” I muttered.
“They aren’t like this in California?”
“Riverside has too many people for word to get around about anything that quickly.” I hadn’t even been in Arcadia Creek
for twenty-four hours and women were already on my porch fishing for information about me and Tucker.
He paused, looking down at the floor before he raised his eyes to me again. “You can stay if you want, June, but Arcadia
hasn’t changed. It’s the same old town with the same old people. That’s just part of the deal.”
“I know that,” I said, a little defensively. “It was good to see them, even if they only came by for information.”
“Not only information. They brought me dinner.”
True. “Can we discuss your schedule now?”
“Nothing to discuss. Appointments are on the calendar. Food is taken care of for the next eight or so days.” He studied me.
“I have things well in hand, Junie. You’ll be bored if you stick around.”
In other words, he didn’t need me. Well, I’d prove him wrong. “What about the bookstore? You said Nellie planned to hire
someone to help. Has she found anyone?”
It had been a sore situation for a while, our family-owned and operated bookstore and café—if something could be called a
café when it only served the most basic drinks and sometimes muffins. The whole thing was Mom’s pet project, her joy, but
she’d abandoned it when she left us my senior year of high school. I was surprised Dad hadn’t let the business go, but it was
still running strong.
“Don’t you have to work?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Not much. I can take my computer to the store and work there.” Nate had promised to keep my load light, but
he would still send me projects. If I wanted to keep getting a paycheck, some work was necessary.
Dad sighed. “Last I heard, she hadn’t hired anyone. You can go down and speak to her if you’d like. Or I can get her phone
number for you. But Junie . . . the shop is on Main Street.”
I blinked at him. “I know. I haven’t been away that long.”
His eyes responded in a way his voice never could. Maybe I hadn’t, but I had been away for a long time, and that mattered
to these people. Besides, the foot traffic alone on Main Street meant I would get lots of visitors if I helped out in the store.
He jerked his head toward the front of the house. “If you thought that was an annoying way to start your day, just wait until
everyone’s coming to the shop for coffee just to ask what you’ve been up to the last five years.”
“Let them,” I said defiantly. “They’ll ask one way or another. Might as well get some sales out of it.”
Dad laughed, shaking his head. “That’s my little business girl.”
“I’m a graphic designer.”
“But you’ve always been a hustler.” He straightened his leg out, then lowered it again. “Don’t know any other kid who
could sweep the neighbors for lemonade money like you could.”
“The neighbors loved me.”
“They still do,” he said.
That was yet to be determined.
“In fact,” he said, rubbing his chin, “let’s make a deal.”
“I’m listening.”
 “I’ll stop telling you to go home if you promise you’ll only stay until I’m walking without assistance.”
He needed me, and he knew it. I kept my grin down, nodding slowly. How was this even a deal? I was getting everything I
wanted. “So you’ll accept that I’m around to help?”
“Just until I’m walking without a walker or a cane.”
“That’s fair.”
“While you’re here, you play nice with the locals.”
“I would anyway, Dad.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I heard you avoiding their questions.”
The edge of the doorframe dug into my back, but I couldn’t move. “So, by play nice, you mean I have to feed their gossip
and join a quilting bee?”
“No. I mean if you stay, you’re a Baker. And Bakers aren’t ashamed of Arcadia Creek or the people here.”
That pricked at me. It felt like he wasn’t already including me in that group, but I wasn’t ashamed. Did he think that was
why I’d left?
“Your mama didn’t give Baker women a good reputation around here,” he continued. What he didn’t say was I hadn’t
helped that reputation, either. But he was right, and I could respect the request. I might be able to leave once these two months
were over, but this was Dad’s town and his people, and he had to be around them even after I escaped.
“Okay. Deal.”
“Yeah?” he asked, surprised.
I didn’t like that he thought I wouldn’t agree to his terms. “Yeah. Okay. I agree. I need to get to work.”
“What are you designing today?”
“Oh, nothing.” I said, turning around and walking into the kitchen where the cleaning supplies were. “I’ve got a date with
your kitchen, Lysol, and a mop.”
 CHAPTER FOUR
TUCKER

JUNE HAD BEEN in Arcadia Creek for four days, but I wasn’t keeping track. Okay, maybe I was, but not intentionally. It was
hard not to notice her when her house was only two hundred feet down the road, and there weren’t any other neighbors for at
least half a mile in either direction. Just fields. Wide, open fields that made our houses feel extremely secluded in a way that
had never bothered me before.
But June hadn’t been here before, either, not since I’d bought the Millers’ farm. I still leased the land back to their son so he
could keep his cows on the property. I didn’t need much for my one horse. Maybe someday I would expand into livestock, but
for now, I just wanted the country house and land like what I’d grown up on, and we’d come to a good arrangement. With Mr.
Miller’s arthritis and Mrs. Miller’s bad knees, they’d wanted to downsize. Everyone won.
Except me, apparently, since all I had to do was look out my kitchen window, and I had a perfectly clear view of the Baker
house, where I would see June.
Multiple times a day.
Long, curly hair and all.
I watched her answer the door when people dropped dinner off for Billy. Or when she puttered around outside, doing who-
knows-what with Billy’s old yellow lab trailing her around. Or when she hung sheets on the line in the backyard, which I
happened to know Billy never did anymore.
It made me wonder if his dryer was causing him grief again, but I refrained from texting him to ask if he wanted me to take
a look at it. Until June left Arcadia Creek, I wasn’t going to insert myself into Billy’s affairs. Each day that I looked out my
kitchen window and saw evidence she was still around, the vise around my chest tightened a little more.
Maybe I was worried . . . no, maybe I knew it was only a matter of time until I stopped seeing her out there. But, mostly, I
just liked seeing her, and I simultaneously hated that about myself.
Which was why I forced myself not to look at her house when I drove to work this morning.
I had maintenance on the schedule for today. Alburn Road had a few perilous tree branches that needed checking out and a
handful of squirrel guard replacements. I couldn’t start my day without stopping at the bookstore café, and—thankfully, for me
—June hadn’t gone near the store since she’d gotten here four days ago.
Not that I was surprised. She’d boycotted the place after her mom ran out on her and her dad our senior year of high school.
I might’ve done the same thing in her shoes. I wouldn’t know. My parents were still together.
Air conditioning blasted through my truck vents while I drove into town. I shoved the sleeves up my forearms of my long-
sleeved black t-shirt, Arcadia Energy printed on the pocket in gold lettering. We serviced the town boundaries, which were
pretty spread out despite the small nature of our town. I was glad I didn’t have to leave the radius often, though, except when
we were called down to Houston or Louisiana for storm clean up.
There was a parking spot open right in front of the shop. Baker Books was printed on the window in curly letters and
engraved on the wooden sign hanging over the door, the chipped blue paint faded from years in the sun.
After I’d quit college and moved home, I’d wanted to check on Billy, so I made Baker Books a staple of my morning
routine. Maybe I started coming here as something of a snoop, but I kept coming for the drinks.
Let me tell you, it was worth it. Could I really be called a snoop when I just wanted to make sure my ex-girlfriend’s father
was doing okay after being abandoned by both of the women in his life?
Heat emanated from the pavement when I got out of my truck and crossed the sidewalk into the store. My cousin Gracie
Mae stood at the counter, leaning forward and laughing. It was next to impossible to go anywhere in this town without running
into someone I was related to. Not that I minded it. I had a huge family, and I liked almost all of them.
Gracie Mae shifted, taking the to-go cup from the counter. I nearly missed a step when my eyes landed on June just behind
her, wrapped in an apron, her curly hair framing her face and shoulders like a lion’s mane.
 Where was Nellie? Why did June look like she worked here? She hated this place. She’d never understood why her dad
held onto it after his wife left him. To be honest, I didn’t either. It couldn’t have been easy to run the store that had been his
wife’s baby after she’d ditched him out of the blue for a man she met at their bookstore.
After June had left me, I got rid of everything that reminded me of her—well, everything except the ring. It took me a few
months to accept that she wasn’t coming back, but when I did, those little things around the apartment that she’d given me or
that we’d chosen together only hurt to look at. And we hadn’t even been married yet. Billy Baker was a stronger man than me.
Evidently, June had changed in the last five years. She was here now, in a place I thought would be safe, wearing a navy
apron and grinning while Gracie Mae talked loudly with her hands about her dad’s new llama for the farm.
Did I have time to sneak back outside before I was seen?
Gracie Mae shifted and June’s eyes leveled on me. They went round, her face freezing mid-word.
No escaping now. I got into line like it wasn’t weird at all to buy my morning drink from a woman I almost married once,
then hadn’t seen in five years.
Gracie Mae glanced over her shoulder, her blonde eyebrows lifting when they settled on me. “Mornin’, Tuck.”
It was so silent you could hear the people talking in the antique store next door.
Gracie Mae took pity on me. “You coming to dinner tonight?”
“I think so,” I said, avoiding June’s face. “Your dad’s fixing ribs, right?”
“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Do me a favor and tell him they’re mediocre so he’ll stop trying to prove to the entire town
that they’re the best thing we’ve ever eaten.”
“Won’t that only make him need to prove how they are the best? We’ll end up having another family barbeque next
weekend.”
“True.” Gracie Mae lifted her takeout cup and pointed at me. “New plan. We need to feed his ego instead so he can move
on to the next thing.”
“I’d be okay if his next obsession was smoked pork,” I said, trying to ignore how June had moved to the other side of the
small café area so she wasn’t standing there listening to our conversation.
“Don’t worry, it’ll come. It’s only a matter of time.” Gracie Mae took a sip of her drink and tucked her blonde hair behind
her ear. She gave me a searching look before her eyes flicked back to June. Was she asking if I wanted her to stay or leave? I
was an adult. I could buy a drink from a woman without inciting World War III.
Gracie Mae must have sensed my bravery. “See y’all tonight,” she sang, moving toward the door.
Hold up. Y’all? Not just you? I looked sharply at June, who was lifting her hand in a wave.
That was cheap of Gracie Mae to get my confirmation before making it clear that my ex-girlfriend was invited too. Why
was she invited to a family party?
Dumb question. Family was a fluid term in Arcadia Creek. Everyone was welcome.
Gracie Mae skipped outside, and I immediately regretted pretending I was strong enough to face June alone.
“Good morning.” June dragged my attention away from the door my treacherous cousin had just abandoned me through. She
shot me a bright, somewhat tremulous smile.
The shop was ridiculously quiet again. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears and the sounds of a car passing on the
road outside.
“So,” she said, reaching for a marker and a to-go cup. “Same as always? Hot chocolate with extra whip?”
She remembered my favorite drink? The fact that, even as a grown man, I had a sweet tooth to rival a kid on Halloween?
There was a quick, bright flash in my chest before I tamped it down, shoveled dirt over it, and told it to stay clear.
It was hot chocolate. It wasn’t hard to remember. Especially when most nineteen-year-olds weren’t stopping for hot
chocolate on their way to English 1A, it was unique enough to be memorable. But something about the way she was already
writing on my cup like she knew me so well was more irksome and frustrating than anything else. How could she just walk
back into our town and our lives like the last five years hadn’t happened? This whole behind-the-counter making drinks thing
definitely looked like more than a flying visit, and it sent me into equal parts concern and suspicion.
There was no way this would last forever. I only had to deal with seeing her around temporarily. In the meantime, I wasn’t
about to let her think I’d stayed the exact same while she’d been out gallivanting in the world and not caring about the people
she left behind. I’d grown, too. I had five years of history, too.
I liked other things than hot chocolate, too.
“No.”
“Sorry?” she said, looking up again and pinning me in place.
It was so much harder to concentrate when her attention was on me. Those eyes were just as jade green and beautiful as I
remembered. I cleared my throat. What was I doing? Oh, yeah. “No. I don’t drink it anymore. I’ll take a coffee.”
“Coffee?” she asked, her eyebrows rising.
“Yes.” It was the furthest thing I could think of from my typical order. “Black.”
“A black coffee,” she repeated, as if she’d had trouble hearing me.
 I was a grown man. I could order a coffee if I wanted one. Well, I could order a coffee even if I didn’t want one. “Yes,” I
said, this time with more confidence.
“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced. Or maybe the uncertainty was just her questioning how much I’d changed. There you
go, Junie Bird. Chew on that for a while.
I paid for the drink and stood back while she poured it. Quick, easy, out the door in two minutes. Or it should have been.
She was taking an inordinate amount of time doing something that should have been quick and easy.
When she set the cup on the counter, she didn’t let go of it. “Listen, Tuck. I just⁠—”
“Let’s not,” I said. Something about the familiar way she shortened my name sent a bolt of frustration through me. It had
been easy for her to slip back into town and my thoughts the last four days like nothing had happened. She was there, present,
always. But things had happened, a lot of time had passed, and I didn’t know if I could face her like that wasn’t the case.
I wanted to know things. Where she’d been, what she’d been doing, who she’d been with, if she was happy. Why was she
here now and how long was she planning to stay? What was she doing in the shop when Nellie had been doing a perfectly good
job holding down the fort during Billy’s recovery? I was only human, so blame me or not, my curiosity about her life stood.
Then there was the other half of me that just wanted her to leave before she could ruin my hard-earned peace.
“You have a right to be angry,” she said, ignoring me. “I’m not saying you don’t. I just wanted to see if it was possible to
clear the air⁠—”
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, though I didn’t know why. I’d paid for it, so it wasn’t like she did me a special favor. I took
the cup, forced my mouth to do something other than frown—it was a slight improvement over a grimace—and turned to walk
out of the shop.
My heart slammed against my ribcage, my breaths coming fast and short. It felt like mere seconds before I was in my truck,
on the road, driving toward the Arcadia Energy yard. My apprentice, Grady, was waiting for me and the morning meeting was
over already, but it was fine. I knew what we needed to get done today. I gestured for Grady to hop in and handed him the cup.
His eyes lit up and he took it, adjusting his hat over his curly black hair.
“It’s black,” I warned. “No sugar or cream or nothing.”
“That’s fine.” Grady took a sip. “I don’t say no to free things.”
I figured that would be the case. He was the most eager-to-please apprentice I’d met, and that was saying something. I
could have handed him a cup of cold tomato soup mixed with sriracha, called it my spin on a safe-for-work Bloody Mary, and
he would have downed the concoction and pretended to love it.
Hey, at least my money hadn’t gone to waste.
My nerves, on the other hand, were fried.
I had about ten hours before that barbeque at my aunt and uncle’s house, which meant ten hours to come up with an excuse
to not be there. Not that I needed any excuse. Normally I wouldn’t care; I just wouldn’t show up if I didn’t want to go. But this
was different. I couldn’t have my entire family worried about my mental health or concerned that June had gotten under my
skin.
Which meant, if I was really being honest, that the best plan would be to go to dinner, eat a few ribs, and duck out fast.
Enough of a presence to prove I wasn’t bothered. An opportunity to show June she had no effect on me.
And maybe, just maybe, a chance to prove to myself I was over her, too.
 CHAPTER FIVE
JUNE

“HAVE you been doing your physical therapy?” I asked, tossing my purse on a chair and looking Dad straight in the eye. I
smelled like coffee after brewing it on repeat today, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Spending my day at the bookstore had been
better than I’d expected—and also worse in some ways, too. We’d had a slow flow of foot traffic. More people I didn’t
recognize than I expected, which was a nice surprise. But not nearly enough people to support a business.
I had a feeling the bookstore wasn’t pulling in quite what it needed to stay afloat.
More people came to Baker Books for the café than for the books, but after looking at Dad’s poor organizational system, I
could see why. It needed to change.
Dad reclined on his plush overstuffed chair, legs up, Coke on the table next to him, TV tuned into The Vampire Diaries. “I
did my exercises this morning,” he said, his voice defensive.
“It’ll take a lot longer to heal if you don’t do them multiple times a day.”
He reached for his drink, more air than Coke slurping through the straw. “Then it’s a good thing I plan to do them again
before bed.”
Wasn’t sure I believed him, but that was his choice. I dropped onto the sofa and Harley trotted over to me, resting his jaw
on my knee until I scratched behind his pale, graying ears. “How long have you been watching this?”
“I’m on season two now. Nellie told me I’d like it. Don’t tell her she was right.”
I smiled. Nellie and my dad had been friends most of their lives. She was my mom’s best friend all through high school, but
she and her husband had never had kids, so I got to step in and absorb the motherly love she wanted to give. My relationship
with her was one of the things I missed the most when I moved to California. It was also part of the reason I could go. I knew
she’d watch over Dad for me.
“Gracie Mae invited us to a barbeque at her parents’ house tonight,” I said. “Are you feeling up for it?”
Dad side-eyed me. “Not the walking, no. But I could maybe make it work for some of those ribs.”
I looked at him sharply. “How’d you know they were smoking ribs?”
“It’s all Henry talks about these days. Claims to have the best recipe.” Dad rolled his eyes. “I’ll believe it when I taste it.”
“You want to go, then?” Why was my heart holding its breath? Probably because I wanted to go, too. Tucker would be
there, and after his refusal to let me so much as apologize this morning in the shop, I’d spent the entire day stewing over what I
should’ve said then and what I wanted to say now.
Maybe a family dinner wasn’t the best place to get out the apology that was a thousand years overdue, but it was a start. I
could say what I needed to, and he wouldn’t want to be rude in front of others, so he’d have to listen. At least, I thought he’d be
a gentleman and listen.
The Tucker I knew hated coffee and never in a million years would have sacrificed his morning shot of sugar for what he’d
once dubbed Morning Breath Death.
Clearly I didn’t know this guy as well as I once did.
That was both an interesting thought and extremely depressing.
“I shouldn’t,” Dad said, pulling my attention from the TV. “Don’t think I’m up for that quite yet. But you go. Bring me back
some ribs. I’ll let Henry know what I think.”
“I can’t go alone.”
“Sure you can.”
He hadn’t been in the shop today when Mrs. Simon came in with her nose glued to the ceiling. She gave me the stink eye
like you wouldn’t believe, and Cheryl Appleby wasn’t much better with her snide little remark about how much older I looked
since she’d seen me last. I didn’t want to go to a party full of people I actually cared about and face that kind of rejection.
What if they were all mad at me? Of all the people in Arcadia Creek, it was Tucker’s family who had the most reason to
feel defensive or hold on to those old wounds.
Not that I blamed them.
“Better not,” I said. “I’ve been gone all day already.”
Dad paused the show and turned to face me a little in his seat. “Nellie called to ask me to thank you for stepping in today,
by the way. She thinks she’ll be feeling better in the morning.”
“It’s no problem. The machines took a minute to figure out, but most of it came right back to me.” I’d had to call her three
times to get step-by-step instructions on how something worked, but she’d walked me through it easily, stuffy nose and all.
“How is the store doing, by the way? I noticed a lot of old stock.”
His eyes shifted, but never landed on me. “It’s getting on.”
Which was DadSpeak for: not great. “Is there anything I can do to help?” My graphic design experience lent itself a little
to marketing, but I wasn’t going to pretend to be an expert or anything.
“Don’t worry about it, Junie Bird. It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He finally looked at me. “Trust me.”
Funny, that only made me worry more. But this was clearly something he didn’t want to discuss right now. Maybe a little
more time in the shop would give me a chance to get a pulse on the real numbers and how I could improve them. “I can handle
the store tomorrow too. Nellie sounded terrible on the phone today.”
“She did,” he agreed. “That would be nice of you. But you should really go tonight. Get out of the house. See your old
friends.”
My old friends, Gracie Mae and Annie—both Tucker’s cousins, both on my cheer squad since peewee football.
That wasn’t a comfort, as enticing as it was. It would still be me facing the wolves alone. “Tucker will be there.”
Dad’s expression went stiff. He faced the TV, but it was still paused. It was the first time in years I’d mentioned Tucker
directly to my dad. Tucker and I had been in the same room just a few days ago, and Dad sat there pretending it wasn’t
happening. He never wanted to tiptoe close to the topic. Not that I blamed him. It was uncomfortable all around.
“Maybe it’s best you don’t go, then,” Dad said.
Ouch. “You think I should avoid him while I’m here?”
“Not sure that’s possible. Just don’t want anyone to cause a scene.”
‘Anyone’ was me. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad. “I’m fairly sure neither Tucker or I would do that.”
“You’re probably right.” He let out a long sigh. “Maybe it’s better to rip off the Band-Aid, then.”
I got the impression that, between the two of us, Tucker was the one Dad was thinking of protecting in this scenario. “Why
was he here the other day?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Tucker. When I got here, he was here, at the house. Why?”
“Because he was helping me out. Stopped by to bring a casserole from his mom and heat it for me. Those first few days
were tough getting around.”
It was tough now for Dad to get around, so that must have been his manly way of saying he was in a lot of pain then. “I
understand that you needed help. It’s why I took a leave from work and came here. I’m just wondering why Tucker was the one
doing the helping.”
“He’s a good man, June.”
“I know that.” It still didn’t explain anything.
Dad was nodding to himself, as if he thought something and was confirming it in his own little conversation. “Yeah, I think
it would be best if you went tonight. Get it out that you’re back—or, not back, but here for a few weeks.”
“Two months is a little longer than a few weeks.”
“I’ll be walking without any help much sooner than that,” he said with determination.
Only if he was doing his physical therapy as often as the doctor said he needed to. But there was no point in milking that
particular bull anymore tonight.
“Fine. I’ll go.” I picked up his Stanley cup to take into the kitchen for a refill and got a cup of water to go with it. “You
want dinner before I leave?”
The TV came back on. “Nah, just bring me back a plate from the Gables’. Henry will want you to, anyway.”
I fought a smile. I had friends in California—mostly people from work—and didn’t live far from my grandmother, so I had
family there too. But the familiarity between the people in Arcadia was aged and worn from generations of closeness. It wasn’t
something you could have after a few years of acquaintanceship, but was borne of years and years of friendship. The history of
these families was woven together through generations, their roots deep.
It was something I missed about being in Arcadia, and I liked watching it surround my dad.
I handed him the water and waited.
He gave the Stanley cup a pointed look.
“You can have this,” I said, giving the Stanley a little wiggle. “I just want evidence you won’t be feeding the plants with
that first.”
 “I’d have to have plants in order to do that,” he said.
That was true.
Dad obliged me anyway, taking a few swallows before putting the water down. I handed him the Coke and went to get
ready. If I was seeing Tucker tonight, I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

IT TURNED out choosing the perfect look-good-in-front-of-your-ex-but-not-like-you-were-trying-at-all outfit didn’t exist.

There was nothing in my overstuffed luggage that screamed easygoing and also made me look really good. It was either one or
the other. Chill yoga pants with a hoodie—hello potato blob on a stick—or bodysuit and trousers that accentuated everything
the right way, but made me look Instagram farmgirl chic, not actual farmhouse barbeque attire. There was no way I was
walking into that house tonight looking like a poser, not when I had grown up here.
I settled on a pink shirt covered in daisies and tucked into wide-legged jeans. Cute but not try-hard, right? I hoped so.
Gracie Mae had been one of my best friends growing up, so the drive to her house was comfortable and familiar. It had
been nice to see her when she’d come into the shop this morning, but I hadn’t expected the invitation to dinner. She didn’t talk
to me for a few years after I left Tucker. But then we’d developed a chill relationship on socials, a very surface-level
friendship, and it was a start.
It gave me hope to know that some people in this town could be forgiving. Time had hopefully done something to soothe
people’s hurt.
I pulled my dad’s truck onto the wide gravel drive and parked it behind a black Chevy. The house was close to town, the
elementary school practically in their backyard, but still their yard was six times as big as what we had back in Riverside.
There was just so much more space here. You couldn’t lean out your bedroom window and watch the neighbors make dinner.
It was easy to forget the good things about Arcadia when I was so busy reminding myself of all the reasons I’d left. Now
that I remembered what I loved about this place, leaving again would be that much harder.
People were already gathered inside. I could hear them from the street. I knocked on the front door and waited, twisting my
fingers together.
Mrs. Gable answered the door holding a platter of watermelon wedges, and her eyes lit up when they landed on me. “My
word, June. It’s been far too long. Come in, come in.”
She ushered me inside, and the warmth exuding from her was just about enough to snuff the flames of hesitation that had
been building within me. Someone who harbored resentment for my past actions wouldn’t welcome me like that. Hope burned
like a tea light candle inside me.
I followed her into the dining room, where she set the platter amongst trays and dishes of sides and condiments. “It’s too
hot outside,” she said, arranging the potato bar, “so most everyone’s in the living room. Gracie Mae should be out there. I saw
her talking to her Aunt Jan a minute ago.”
I swallowed. Jan was Tucker’s mom, and the last time I’d seen her, we were talking about wedding colors. Not in an
official capacity since Tucker hadn’t actually popped the question, but just checking out the Pinterest board I’d been adding to
and debating which scheme would look better in their backyard. Unofficially, we’d talked about having the wedding on the
Fletcher homestead. Unofficially, I had never actually said goodbye.
Okay, officially, I never said goodbye either. I was about to eat a huge helping of humble pie.
“Straight through there and hang a left,” Mrs. Gable said, as if I didn’t remember how to get to the living room and not like
I was hesitating out of fear. Good thing my anxiety wasn’t actually palpable.
That tea light candle flame was flickering.
“Thanks for having me,” I said, receiving a kind smile in return.
I slipped into the kitchen and stopped short. Tucker stood at the sink, filling a glass of water. He tipped it back, drinking it
all at once, and I had never been more thirsty in my entire life. His cheeks were red, so he must have been out in the sun. He’d
changed since this morning, out of one Arcadia Energy shirt and into another. This one had the lightning bolt logo across the
back, nestled between two shoulder blades that were weirdly attractive, even when covered in heathered gray cotton.
Was it his deltoids? Traps? Whatever those muscles were, they were older now, larger, just like the rest of him. I don’t
remember being this attracted to shoulder blades before, but these ones were practically calling my name.
Maybe because I remembered what it felt like to touch them.
He set the glass down and washed his hands.
Tucker must have sensed my frank ogling, because he looked over his shoulder, pulling the dish towel with him to dry his
hands.
Finding him alone was fortunate. I could give my apology now, sans audience, and we could move forward.
I shrank back a little when his eyes landed on mine.
 Or maybe not.
But I might as well try. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
He held my gaze, turning slowly to face me. His blue eyes were stormy, his mouth pressed in a firm line. I used to kiss that
mouth. I used to wrap my arms around his waist and bury my head in the divot beneath his collar bone and let him hold me. I
used to⁠—
“There you are!” Gracie Mae said, poking her head through the doorway that led to the living room.
Tucker watched me a moment longer before slapping the dishrag down on the counter and walking straight out. Not into the
living room, but outside to the back patio, where it was five hundred degrees.
The man would rather boil alive than be in the same room as me.
It was crickets-quiet in the kitchen for a minute before Gracie Mae gave an awkward laugh. “Come on, June. Let’s
introduce you around.”
I tried to swallow the humiliation and rejection Tucker repeatedly delivered. “I know your family, Gracie Mae.”
“Not everyone! Jack’s fiancée moved in with his parents a few months ago from Dallas. Trust me, you’re gonna love her.”
She stepped in and took my hand, pulling me from the kitchen. We stopped when we reached the doorway and she turned back,
giving me a sad smile. “Just give him time. He’ll come around.”
That was the thing. Come around to what? I didn’t even know what I wanted or expected from Tucker. I didn’t have a right
to expect anything, really, since I was the one who screwed up in the first place. If he hadn’t come around in the last five years,
why would he come around now? I swallowed my frustration, ignored his head bobbing around by the BBQ through the
window, and let Gracie Mae lead me away.
 CHAPTER SIX
JUNE

THERE WERE two camps in this town so far: those who had forgiven me for leaving and were just glad to see me again, and
those who felt they owed it to Tucker or my dad—maybe both—to clutch sourness to their chest like a shield.
Tucker’s entire extended family seemed fairly split down the middle. His dad had given me a crinkly-eyed smile and pulled
me in for a sweet hug that had been a balm I didn’t know I’d needed. His brothers were friendly, greeting me like an old
acquaintance—I viewed them much as if they were trying to be Switzerland here. His mom, it seemed, was caught between the
camps.
Jan had been nice, don’t get me wrong. But there was a stiffness about her smile that I knew wasn’t like her, and her hug felt
forced. The woman clearly hadn’t forgiven me, but gosh darn it she was trying her hardest to look like she had.
If anything, that hurt more than his Aunt Ruth, who flat out pretended I wasn’t there. She was Jan’s identical twin sister, and
that didn’t stop her from letting her true opinions shine.
We devoured the ribs—delicious, as expected—with watermelon and roasted corn on the cob. I cracked into a cold Dr.
Pepper after dinner and followed Gracie Mae and Jack’s new fiancée onto the front porch. Well, new to me. Apparently they’d
been together for months, got engaged at the end of July—earlier than planned—and it was obviously serious enough for
Lauren to move out to Arcadia Creek to live with his parents.
Gracie Mae sat on the porch swing, and I took the seat beside her while Lauren took the rocking chair. There was no
stationary sitting on Texas porches.
“Someone tried to get Jack to volunteer for the firehouse fundraiser.” Lauren rolled her eyes, leaning back in the rocker.
“Some people just won’t accept that he’s taken.” She lifted her left hand, admiring the simple solitaire on her ring finger. “Even
with this.”
“They got Wyatt to agree to it,” Gracie Mae said, grinning. Her brother was the quiet type. The fact that he agreed to this
meant we were in for an amusing night.
Or, they were, I meant.
I sipped my drink. “Maybe I should go so I can put tickets in his bowl. We don’t want him to get stuck with someone like
Misty Holloway. Can you imagine if they fell in love and she was at all your Christmas dinners?”
“Misty moved to Ohio,” Gracie Mae said. “Thank the heavens. Her dad got a job at some school out there and the whole
family went.”
“Bummer,” I said, not sad at all. Misty had never been one of my favorite people in high school—the kind of girl who only
pretended to be your friend when it suited her. A fair-weather friend, my mama always called her.
Ironic, since a lot of people would call my mom that now.
“But Hannah is still here,” Gracie Mae said, lowering her voice.
Lauren leaned in, her rich brown hair falling forward until she tucked it behind her ear. “Who’s Hannah?”
“You know,” Gracie Mae said, “Levi’s dental assistant.”
Lauren made a face. “She was not gentle on my gums.”
“Makes sense,” I said, pulling my knees up on the bench while Gracie Mae rocked the swing. “She was obsessed with Jack
in high school.”
Lauren rolled her eyes, resuming her rocking. “Raffling off men to date, though? Sometimes I think your town is stuck in the
past.”
“It’s your town now, too,” Gracie Mae said.
Lauren nodded in long-suffering. “I love it. But I stand by my words.”
Gracie Mae lifted one blonde eyebrow. “You want them raffling off dates with women to any man who can buy a ticket?”
Lauren wrinkled her nose. “Maybe not.”
 “You know who else they got to join?” I asked, peeking through the window to see who was nearby. It was too bright
outside to see anything. “Tucker.”
They both grew quiet. It was a little silly, but I felt uncomfortable too. Why wouldn’t he just hear me out? He could be mad,
but let me apologize, for Pete’s sake. He didn’t have to accept it.
“Not that he’ll talk to me.” I tried to laugh. “I heard it from Mrs. Miller.”
“He came into the bookshop this morning,” Gracie Mae said, her pink nails tapping on the edge of the bench. “Which is a
place he could reasonably expect to run into you. That’s a good sign.”
She wouldn’t be saying that if she remembered how I’d boycotted the shop in the past. Tucker probably didn’t expect to see
me there this morning. “He wouldn’t talk.”
“Yeah, but that’s normal.” She shrugged. “He’s always been quiet.”
“He wouldn’t let me talk, either.”
“That’s less normal. He used to think you hung the moon.”
Fiery shame tore through me. Used to think. He definitely didn’t anymore.
Gracie Mae sat up, making the bench go still. “Why don’t you try to win Tucker’s date?”
My stomach twisted. Why did that idea sound both incredible and equally awkward? I shifted uneasily. “That’s a little
forward. I’m not really planning on sticking around.”
“No . . . I know that. But you want to bury the hatchet, right? Heal? Move on?”
Move on? I’d done that, too. I wouldn’t be talking to Nate so much if I was hung up on Tucker.
I mean, I hadn’t really texted Nate at all since arriving in Arcadia Creek, but that had nothing to do with Tucker.
What did I want? To clear the air. To not affect his life. To be a friend? Yeah, that all sounded good. I wanted to be able to
call him my friend. Or, if nothing else, to be able to come home and see my dad without hyperventilating about possibly running
into Tucker.
Was that selfish of me? If Tucker would just hear me out, we could both move on. He didn’t have to like me, but maybe it
would offer some healing?
“Yeah,” I finally said. “I want to bury the hatchet. If we can be in the same room without him throwing fiery darts at me, that
would be great.”
“Can you call it fiery darts when he really just ignores you?” Gracie Mae asked.
“It feels that way,” I grumbled.
Gracie Mae slid a hand around my shoulders and pulled me in for a hug. “It’s good to have you back. Now I want to hear
every little detail of your life I’ve missed. Lauren needs a rundown, too.”
“I do,” Lauren confirmed, nodding.
“Every detail?” Nate’s face popped in my head, but I promptly shoved him out again. He wasn’t here, and I couldn’t really
claim him anyway, so bringing him up now would be weird.
“Every. Single. One.”

Tucker

COLT SIDLED UP BESIDE ME, bumping his shoulder into mine. There should be a rule about little brothers outgrowing
older brothers. I didn’t like having to look up to talk to him, even if it wasn’t by much. The kid—who wasn’t really a kid
anymore, if I was being honest—had that knowing look on his smug little face that made me want to wrestle him to the ground
and remind him of my seniority.
He might be tall, but I was still the stronger brother. I shot a quick look to where Jack stood, talking to Uncle Henry. No,
make that the strongest.
“She’s out on the porch with Gracie Mae and Lauren,” Colt said, smirking.
I pretended not to know exactly who he was talking about. “Who?”
“Your ex-girlfriend, who you’ve obviously been looking for. I’m saving you the trouble of wondering where she went.”
I punched him lightly in the arm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you’ve been peeking over your shoulder every few minutes like you’re checking to see if she’s in the room or not.”
Seriously? I was being that obvious? It wasn’t like I wanted to talk to June, and actually seeing her physically hurt my
stomach, but I couldn’t stop myself from keeping tabs on where she was.
Until about fifteen minutes ago, when she disappeared. Her dad’s blue truck was still parked outside, so I knew she hadn’t
left.
Okay, yeah, I was obvious.
 Either way, I didn’t need my baby brother playing matchmaker. My mom, my aunts, and my cousins had that covered.
“And that’s my exit,” I muttered.
“What?” Colt’s face fell. “Come on, man. You haven’t been here that long. Want me to bring her back inside? I will.”
“No.”
His mouth pulled down on the ends. Colt was only three years younger than me, but he was the baby of our family. While
he’d never really been spoiled, he did have that puppy dog expression mastered. Mostly because he never stopped trying to get
what he wanted.
It was super annoying because it worked. He looked up to me so much, you know? It was hard to let him down.
But not impossible.
I pushed off from the wall and went toward the kitchen. My limbs were itchy, my fingers searching for something to drum
against and settling on my jeans.
June wasn’t just back in Arcadia, she was also five years older and still took my breath away. Not because she was
beautiful—that was a given; she’d only gotten prettier in the last few years—but because it shocked my system every time I
laid eyes on her. I’d gotten used to not having her around, to keeping her out of my head, but it was hard to stop thinking about
her when she seemed to be everywhere these days.
It wasn’t that I hated the woman. I didn’t think my body was capable of feeling anything remotely like that toward her. It
was that she’d hurt me so deeply I was protecting myself.
Inside, I was the same fifteen-year-old who’d asked her to be my date to homecoming and did a happy dance in the hallway
at school when she’d said yes.
Dancing wasn’t really something I did, then or now.
I watched for her, I clocked her movements, I could tell where she was just by the mass of blonde curls hovering in my
periphery. I wasn’t obsessed in a weird way. I’d been drawn to her.
That hadn’t just gone away.
I’d tried nearly everything to get her out of my system, but nothing had worked. Dating other women hadn’t worked.
Throwing myself into my job or fixing up my house hadn’t worked. Transferring my affection to a dog hadn’t worked.
But I hadn’t done those things with her here. Maybe all I needed was to actively move on while she was still around. Then
my body and my heart would both see I was choosing someone else over June, that I’d survive.
Colt followed me into the kitchen. “I’ll come with you. We could go shooting?”
“Not today.”
He was worse than my apprentice with his overwhelming hope. “Call of Duty? Super Smash?”
I turned to keep walking out when I nearly ran into a halo of blonde curls. I pulled up, stepping back like I didn’t want to
get burned.
June looked up at me, clutching a phone to her chest. The case was bright yellow. If you’d asked me ten minutes ago to
guess the color of her phone case and the entire contents of my bank account were resting on my answer, I’d still confidently
have guessed yellow.
There was a reason I was painting my house blue.
“Sorry!” she said, looking up at me with the sweetest expression.
I schooled my heart, forcing it to not respond. “No worries.”
June looked over my shoulder. “I bet you can take this guy down, huh, Colt? You’re like ten feet tall now.”
Colt grinned. “You know it.”
“You don’t know it,” I countered, not liking that my manhood was being called into question. If she was trying to rile a
response out of me, it was working. “He’s scrawny.”
“What do you call these?” Colt asked, flexing his almost nonexistent biceps.
Okay, to be fair, he wasn’t weak. But height did not equal prowess. Obviously.
“The entire gun show,” June said, her eyes bright. “You’re missing a few pistols, though.” She flexed one arm. Again, a
nonexistent bicep under the curve of her pink sleeve.
Man, those arms still had a lot of power over me, though.
Colt reached forward to test her muscle and a surge of jealousy roared through me. I grabbed her hand and pulled her from
the kitchen, out the back door to the sweltering patio. Fire shot through my arm, the electricity between our hands popping and
fizzling. The door slammed shut behind us and I dropped her hand once we were in the clear.
Colt didn’t follow us out.
We were alone, everyone else in the house or on the front porch. June faced me, her green eyes wide, her lips parted. I’d
kissed those lips a hundred—no, a thousand times. That had to be the only reason they were calling to me now.
“What do you want from me, June?” I asked, my voice soft and low, so we wouldn’t be overheard by one of the thousand
nosy people in this town.
She stayed silent, watching me, a small line forming on her brow. “Nothing.”
 I stared, letting my eyes challenge her.
She relented. “Okay, not nothing. I don’t know, Tuck. I just want a chance to talk to you and clear the air.”
“This isn’t the kind of air a conversation can fix.”
“I know that,” she said, and to her credit, she sounded sincere. “But it hurts to see you so angry, and I just want to
apologize.”
“I’m not mad at you.” I meant it, too. I wasn’t. I was mad at myself for still being so happy to see someone who had ripped
out my heart and torn it to shreds. “I just don’t want to be around you.”
June shut her eyes.
Regret instantly pooled in my stomach. I searched for the words to better explain what I meant, how it hurt to be around
her.
When she raised her gaze to me, it was steady. “Sorry, Tucker.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. What was she sorry for? Loving me and leaving me? Planning our wedding and then transferring
to a different college on the other side of the country without telling me? Choosing a different life over the one we shared and
not giving me the chance to fight for us?
Or was it the five years of radio silence from her? Or the way her dad had been reeling from his wife leaving him and then
his daughter up and disappeared too? To be closer to the woman who had ruined her and her dad’s life?
Or maybe June was only sorry for making me uncomfortable at my aunt and uncle’s house.
I brushed away the thoughts, turned, and walked away.
She didn’t follow me. My whole body shook when I got in my truck and shut the door. I pulled out my phone and texted my
cousin, Gracie Mae, before I could talk myself out of it.
Tucker: Is your friend still single?
Gracie Mae: Which one?
Tucker: The girl you tried to set me up with.
The little dots came and went on Gracie Mae’s end of the conversation for a minute. Was she going to say something about
June? They’d been friends, but I didn’t want to hear it right now.
Gracie Mae: Yeah, she’s single.
Tucker: Can I get her number?
Gracie Mae forwarded the contact. Maddie Fuller. I hadn’t met her before, but I was typing out a text introducing myself
and asking if she’d like to grab dinner with me before I’d even pulled out of my uncle’s road.
Her response was almost immediate.
Maddie: I’d love to go to dinner! I can’t do Saturday, but I’m free Friday.
Tucker: I’m supposed to serve pie at Arcadia’s church social that night. Any chance you’re a fan of pie?
Maddie: I could go for pie.
Tucker: We can get dinner after. I’ll pick you up at six?
Maddie: I’m a dessert first kind of girl, so that sounds great. See you then. Xoxo
I stared at the kisses and hugs she left at the end of her message. June never would have done that. But it didn’t matter what
June would have done, since I was now shoving her into my rearview mirror.
It was time to move on.
 CHAPTER SEVEN
TUCKER

JACK STOOD behind me in the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest, scowling. “You can’t avoid her forever, man.”
“I’m not.”
“You are literally leaning over your kitchen sink and looking out the window to make sure Billy Baker’s truck isn’t home.”
My brothers really needed to stop watching me so much. First Colt at the family dinner, now Jack at home. It was weird.
Mom had been tracking me like a bloodhound after June had arrived at the barbeque last night, but that made sense. She
was my mom.
No one needed three moms.
I straightened, closing the blinds again. This heat wave was no joke and energy conservation was real. Yes, my house was
like a dark cave during the day, but it stayed cool that way.
My shoulder brushed Jack’s when I went toward the back patio, Sadie hot on my heels. “If I checked for the truck out on
our front porch, she’d see me looking.”
“And that’s so much worse than creeping on her house through the blinds?”
“I’m not creeping on her.” I let the back door swing shut behind my dog and me, but Jack caught it, following. “Making sure
she isn’t home is literally the opposite of that.”
I also felt bad for how things had ended at Uncle Henry’s house last night. She only wanted to clear the air. She hadn’t
asked to be let back into my life or anything. I probably should have just absolved her so she could move on. Heaven knew I
was struggling on my own.
“Whatever, man.” Jack followed me clear to the shed where I kept my riding lawn mower. “She talked to Lauren last night
at the barbeque, and apparently she’s sticking around for a while.”
June was sticking around? I hated how my heart raced when I heard those words. My stomach clenched, my chest fluttered.
It gave me a shot of joy.
Stupid freaking body. Too bad there wasn’t a way to turn off physical, uncontrollable reactions like that. I had to keep
reminding myself I’d thought she was around to stay last time, too, but that hadn’t lasted.
“How long?” I asked, taking the cover off my mower.
“A few months, at least.”
So, not forever. Gotta say, I wasn’t surprised, but it still kinda stung. “Cool.”
“Tuck.”
I ignored him, settling on the black leather seat and putting the key in the ignition. Sadie ran to the edge of the fence to sniff
at something, but she was pretty good at staying off the road.
“Tuck,” he repeated.
My hand stilled, and I looked up at him. There was so much concern on his face I wanted to smack it off, but I knew he was
just worried because he cared about me. June had wrecked me when she left, and Jack had been there to see the damage. It
wasn’t a surprise that he’d become something of a mama hen since June had shown up again.
“I’m fine,” I told him, trying to sound like I meant it. He didn’t need to suffer with worry just because I was hurting. There
would be no falling into the dark abyss this time around. I was protecting myself from that by staying away from her.
“You’re really not. Why don’t you just admit it? You can’t move on if you’re still in denial.”
My teeth ground together. “I don’t need to move on. I’ve already done that.”
He put his arms out to the sides. “Are we in the same universe right now? The one where June showed up three days ago
and now you’re a mess?”
Five. It was five days ago. But who was counting? Definitely not Jack.
He shifted on his feet. “Have you thought about talking to her?”
 “Why?” Our conversation last night popped into my head. I became such an idiot around her. I was fighting my attraction,
trying to remember why I was fighting it, and she messed with my head. Distance was better. It was smarter.
“To clear the air. If you’re really over her, that shouldn’t be too hard.” There was a challenge in his voice and I didn’t want
to back down.
“Being over her doesn’t mean I need to be her friend,” I said.
“Forgive but don’t forget?” Jack asked.
“No. Just respecting the boundaries I’ve set for myself.”
He studied me. “If you’re not BS-ing me right now, then that’s actually really healthy of you.”
“I thought so,” I muttered, running a hand over my face. This conversation was old and tired. “I’m taking Gracie Mae’s
friend to the social tonight.”
Jack took a step back, appraising me. “Trying to make June jealous?”
Crap. I hadn’t even thought of that. I hoped no one else interpreted it that way. “No. Trying to be an adult and move on.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. I support that.”
“So glad I have your approval,” I deadpanned. “Now I need to get on this before she gets home and thinks I’m there to
talk.”
Jack stepped back, moving toward the house. “Just trying to be supportive.”
“Thanks,” I called. I sounded sarcastic, but I really did mean it. Having brothers who cared about me was a pain
sometimes, but I did love them. Even when they acted like meddling grandmas.
If I could skip this chore today, I would, but I’d been doing it once a week for more than six months, and I wasn’t going to
let a little thing like June Baker stop me now.
Which was in no way related to the fact that I waited until Billy’s truck was missing from his driveway before I pulled out
the lawnmower. There wasn’t much lawn surrounding the house that needed a mow, anyway, so I’d be done by the time they
returned from wherever they had gone. At least I didn’t have to bother mowing all the fields surrounding mine and the Bakers’
house. The animals took care of those.
A super small part of me wished I’d see June walk outside, see her yank down those sheets blowing in the faint breeze,
catch her smile in the flesh. Not that I’d smile back. I was keeping her at a safe distance.
My brain was jumbled. As much as I didn’t want to face her, I’d never spent so much time at my kitchen window as I had in
the last five days. I had issues.
The sun beat down on my neck as I drove the mower onto the two-lane road and toward Billy’s house, Sadie trotting along
behind me. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my forehead, readjusting my baseball cap. Work had been brutal
today, and there was about an hour before I needed a tall glass of water and a shower so I could go pick up my date.
Date. The word flooded me with nerves. I hadn’t asked a woman out in months, and I’d never had a serious relationship
since June left.
Had she been in any serious relationships?
Nope, not going there.
I focused on the strip of lawn surrounding Billy’s house on three and a half sides. I only had to do about a third of an acre—
the rest was pasture land.
My ancient riding mower puttered down the gravel drive and smoothed out when I pulled onto Billy’s lawn. I got to work,
cutting the grass in long, even lines. Someone drove down the long highway that ran in front of the house and I lifted my hand in
a wave while my focus stayed on my task.
Halfway done.
Another truck approached when I rounded the corner of the house and I lifted my hand to wave, but it stuck like that when
my eyes landed on the baby blue paint job.
June.
She shut off the ignition and got out of the truck, walking across the gravel toward me.
I could have turned the mower and kept going, but I was stuck in place—with enough cognitive ability to lower my hand, at
least. Looking at June was like staring at the sun. Brilliant, bright, and extremely painful. I knew I shouldn’t look, but I couldn’t
help myself either.
“Good afternoon,” she called, her voice shiny and bright despite the nerves in her eyes.
I hated being the man who had put those nerves there. Though it could be argued she did it to herself.
My head dipped in a nod, and I pulled out my handkerchief again to wipe my forehead, lifting my baseball hat and putting it
back on again. Where did Sadie go? A quick sweep didn’t reveal her. She must have been in the back, teasing the cows.
“So, you’re at my house.”
Yep, and she thought it was for her. “I’ve been mowing Billy’s lawn for a while now.”
June looked at the house, then back at her truck. “Did you drive that thing all the way here?”
“Yep.”
 June scoffed. “Seriously? You know my dad has an old push mower in the shed, right? You could use that.”
“Why would I use that dinosaur when I have this?” Also a dinosaur, but easier to handle.
“To save yourself an hour on the road. How fast does that thing go? Eight miles an hour?”
“Try half that.”
“Tucker, seriously?” She took a step forward.
“Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck. She was making a really big deal about this. “It’s old, but it works well.”
She eyed me, her green eyes sparkling in the sun. “You know, sometimes it’s okay to let go of old things. Or at least get a
ramp so you can bring it over in your truck.”
I looked from her to my house. It was a couple hundred feet down the road, but that was an easy distance. “What are you
talking about, June?”
“I realize it’s weird coming from me, but⁠—”
“Hold up.” I shook my head and turned off the mower. It grew super quiet. “Did no one tell you I bought the Miller house?”
She froze, then looked over her shoulder where my little farmhouse sat down the road, half-painted blue. “That one?”
“Yeah, that one.” How many Miller houses were there? “The Millers moved into town.”
“What about Hank?”
Their son. “He didn’t want the house. He leases use of the land from me, but that’s it.”
Her eyes were calculating, looking from me to her dad’s house and back again. “Which is why you come help out.”
“Part of it, yeah. I’m Billy’s closest neighbor.”
“For how long?”
“About a year now.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and looking up at her. “He didn’t tell you?”
“He won’t talk to me about you,” she said. It was the first time she’d spoken to me in her normal voice since returning to
Arcadia Creek. No nerves, no fake enthusiasm, no spunk. Just June.
Ugh. It made my body hum.
“He won’t talk about you, either,” I told her.
“Switzerland,” she said, chuckling. “Same as Jack and Colt. They’re all just Switzerland. I thought they’d be furious at me,
but they’re hiding it well.”
That was a surprise. It was oddly comforting to hear her acknowledge that they had a right to be mad. “You did ditch us.”
“I did,” she agreed, looking at the house and blowing a puff of air from her cheeks. “I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry, Tucker. I
should have handled it better. I had my reasons for leaving the way I did, but I quickly saw how stupid I was being.”
“What reasons?” I straightened on the mower seat, squinting at her. We had been in college together, we were planning our
lives, I had a ring. Then one day I came home from class to find a note saying she’d decided to go live with her grandma in
California, that she had transferred to UC Riverside and needed some space.
I’d given her space. I mean, I called first. She’d texted back that it was better this way, but not why she’d done it.
“They felt important at the time,” she said quietly.
“The thing is, June,” I said, rising slowly and taking a step toward her, forcing her to bend her neck to look up at me. “You
don’t just transfer colleges on a whim. That takes time and a whole application process. You didn’t just leave us. You thought
out the entire thing for, what, months ahead of time? And I never heard a word about it.”
Her reasons probably seemed pitiful right now. “I didn’t say I made the right choice. I know I didn’t. It was wrong, and I’m
sorry. I was just . . . you know how my dad was after my mom left. He was drowning, and he was pulling me with him. I had to
get away.”
“To the woman who left him and made him so depressed in the first place?”
“No.” June stepped closer, her jade eyes spitting fire. “I did not chase my mom there. I moved to be near my grandma. My
mom didn’t move to Riverside until like two months after I did. She followed me, not the other way around.”
I didn’t know that. Not that it changed anything, really.
“Can we just find a way to come to a truce? We don’t have to be friends, Tucker. You don’t have to like me. But I’m here
for the next two months, and we’re neighbors, and given the size of this town, I’m sure we’ll run into each other a lot. Can we
find a way to ceasefire? It sounds much less exhausting than all this angst and awkwardness.”
A truce? Could I do that? She’d apologized, she admitted to screwing up and making the wrong choice and treating us
terribly. At this point, if I held on to my anger, I was just being childish. I could be mature, right? I was busy pretending to be
okay around her already, so what was a little more pretending?
“What would this truce mean?” I asked.
She bounced up on her toes, but crossed her arms over her chest like she was trying to seem tough, still. “We pretend to be
friends.”
“Pretend?”
“I don’t think you want it to be real, so yeah, we pretend. Then maybe half the town will think you’ve forgiven me and they
can forgive me, too.”
 I shifted onto my other foot, not liking what I was hearing. “People aren’t treating you well?”
She lifted one shoulder, but I saw through that brave shrug. “It’s fine. But I think if people saw us talking and thought we got
along now, maybe they’d get over our past. I’m so tired of this whole town being in my business.”
“You’ve been back for like five days, June. You can’t be that tired of it yet.”
Her eyes flicked up to me quickly. “It’s exhausting when you aren’t used to it.”
“It’s exhausting when you are,” I countered.
She gave a little smile. “Do we have a deal?”
“What do I get out of this?”
“The chance to be a good person? An opportunity to truly forgive me? Inner peace?”
I hated to admit it, but June was right. Maybe I could fake it ’til I made it with this whole forgiveness thing. Maybe actually
reaching inner peace was what I needed to move on with my life. I didn’t want to be hung up on her forever. I wanted to be
able to date other women and find someone to make me happy, to marry and fill my house with tiny Tuckers and Jun—no. Not
tiny Junes. Tiny versions of whatever woman loved me enough to stick around.
Jack was right, as much as I hated to admit it. If I could move on, then I could move on.
“Okay, June. We’ve got a deal.”
“Really?” She lit up, making my chest respond. “Are you going to the church social tonight? We can chat for a minute, look
totally chill with each other, prove to everyone that we’re fine?”
I stepped away, getting back on my mower to finish the lawn. “Yep.”
“Great. You want to ride over together?”
“Can’t,” I said, starting the mower and moving down the lawn away from her. “I have to pick up my date on the way.”
“Date?” June asked, and I wasn’t proud or anything, but I loved the way she stuttered on that word.
I nodded back at her like it wasn’t weird.
“Okay,” she called, stepping backwards. “See you later, then.”
She disappeared, and I wondered what the heck I’d just agreed to.
 CHAPTER EIGHT
JUNE

FRIENDS. We were going to pretend to be friends, whatever that meant. Probably a bunch of faking it on both sides of the
equation, because Tucker and I weren’t made for friendship. We’d tried that. It had only lasted about two weeks during
sophomore year before he’d asked me to homecoming. We never looked back.
We were fire and lighter fluid around each other. Or a match and TNT. Or an aerosol can and a lighter. So, basically, any
two things that combined to make fire and even bigger fire. When two people had that kind of chemistry, nothing less than a
relationship even made sense. It was part of the reason I’d had to cold-turkey leave back in college, because I knew I wouldn’t
be able to go if I had to face him first.
If I’d never left, I would have spent the rest of my life wondering if we were just going to end up like my mom and dad—
high school sweethearts who never dated anyone except each other and fizzled out before they even hit twenty years married.
My mom spent half of her marriage wondering if she’d only stayed with Dad because she’d only ever been with Dad, and then
a handsome guy swung through town, knocking her off her feet, and she never looked back.
My dad didn’t fight for her to stay.
If I didn’t live my own life outside of my relationship with Tucker for at least a little while, how could I know we would
last? That we’d be different from my parents? How would I know if he’d fight for me, for us, if he’d never been faced with that
choice?
And guess what? When I left for UC Riverside, Tucker didn’t fight for me. So, as hard as it was to do what I did, and as
stupid as I felt afterward for the way I’d handled things, it had been important. It saved us from investing years into a marriage
that was destined to fail from the beginning.
He clearly didn’t see it like that, but I’d done him a favor.
Which was why we were now at the Arcadia Creek church social, spread out on the lawn in the shade of the white
clapboard church, Tucker standing at the table serving up pie and me wishing I was anywhere else but here.
Annie, one of Tucker’s cousins and my friend from high school, sidled up to me with her arms in the air. “I heard you’re
back!”
“Hey,” I said, pulling her in for a hug. “I’ve been here for almost a week. Where have you been?”
“Morning sickness,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s a beast.”
“Congratulations,” I sang. “How are you old enough to be a mom?”
“It’s about time.” She gave a laugh. “Hasn’t been the easiest thing, but it’ll all be worth it.” She pressed a hand to her
stomach, where her flowy shirt hid her bump.
“Where’s Levi?”
She gave the crowd a sweep, looking for her husband. “No idea. Around here somewhere.” She faced me again, tucking her
blonde waves behind her ears. I’d always been so jealous of those waves. They were effortless. Beachy. In no way did they
resemble an abundance of dryer lint or a cartoon post-electrocution, like mine did.
Annie’s eyes were on me like ants on a sandwich. “So, are you back for good?”
If I had a balloon for every time someone had asked me this question in the last week, I’d have enough to fly.
Her brows bunched. “Okay, judging by your face, I’m guessing not.”
What was my face doing? I tried to smooth it out. “Just for two months. I’m here to help out while my dad heals from
surgery.”
“I’m surprised Mr. Baker allowed that.”
“He didn’t. I came without his blessing.”
“Makes sense.” She nodded slowly, her gaze swinging to the table of pie-bearing men. “I heard things have been tense.”
She meant between me and Tucker, probably, given the direction of her attention. “Tucker has agreed to be on friendly
terms. We’ve called a truce.” I picked at the edge of my phone case. “I’m not sure it’ll work. He’s been pretty angry the last
few days.”
Annie’s eyes lit up. “Let’s test him then.”
“How?”
“By getting pie.”
He stood behind the pie table in the shade of the church, server in hand, laughing at something Dusty said beside him. Mrs.
Miller let him serve her a slice and stood there saying something that held his attention. He looked . . . happy. I didn’t want to
ruin that.
And somewhere, milling in this crowd, was a date of his. If he hadn’t just been saying that to get under my skin.
Oh my gosh. What if he’d been lying? What if there was no date, but he’d only said that to make me steer clear? No one had
gone up to the table or hung around him yet like they had any claim on him. He’d totally been BS-ing me, hadn’t he?
But still, I didn’t really want to face him. Especially with his trusty bloodhound, Dusty, right next to him. I had a feeling
Dusty hadn’t forgiven me yet. Mostly because of the way he hadn’t smiled when I passed him earlier.
Couldn’t blame the man for being loyal, though.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Annie.”
“Nonsense.”
“Really. I don’t even like pie.”
She laughed like I was being ridiculous. “I do know you, June. No one just stops liking pie.” She took my hand, shaking her
head like the very idea was ludicrous, and pulled me toward the pie table. “You’re having whatever he’s serving tonight.”
I let her drag me over because I did want pie. Who wouldn’t? I could just ignore Dusty right back. Probably.
There wasn’t really a line at the table since most people had already been served. Dad sat on a camp chair on the other
side of the grass, digging into a plate—the third, maybe—someone had brought to him. Annie pulled me right up to the table
until I was standing directly opposite Tucker. His eyes had tracked me on my last ten steps, like they held the end of a lasso and
were reeling me in.
It wasn’t really that I felt he wanted me there, but that the connection, the pull, was completely out of both of our hands.
“Good evening, ladies,” Dusty said, his deep cowboy voice like John Wayne during his prime. “What can we serve you?”
His eyes swept over me, dismissive, before landing warmly on Annie.
“I’ll have that apple, Dusty,” she said. “I’ve been craving cherry, but it looks like you’re out.”
“It went fast,” he said, cringing.
“And you?” Tucker asked me.
I glanced down at the options below him on the table swirling together in my vision. I was so uncomfortable; I couldn’t
even focus on pie. “Surprise me.”
Tucker’s gaze locked on mine for a second before dropping. He pulled a pie toward him before changing tack and sliding
another one instead. I watched his hands grip the cutter and section out a slice for me like I was a total creep. It was hard for
my brain not to jump back in time to when we’d attended this exact back-to-school church social together six years ago. He’d
been serving then as well, and I had leaned over the table to kiss him and tasted the pie he’d been nibbling on.
Tart and warm and exactly the same flavor of the pie he was sliding toward me now.
“Razzleberry.” My eyes locked on the plate and the sticky red syrup oozing out the sides of the slice.
“Still your favorite?” he asked.
“Still my favorite,” I confirmed. I lifted my gaze to find him watching me. Was he thinking about the last time we were both
at this pie party too? Or was I the only one torturing myself?
Gracie Mae sidled up between me and Annie and threw her arms around both of us. “It’s so fun seeing everyone together
again!” She grinned. “It’s like nothing’s changed.”
“Except a lot of things have changed, haven’t they?” Dusty said. He was still avoiding my face.
“Right. Like we’re all way older now,” Annie conceded. “Some of us are even growing babies.”
Tucker shot her a smile.
“You’re telling me you don’t have a hankering for a bonfire or a night swim when we’re all together like this?” Gracie Mae
asked. She was definitely challenging Dusty. Flirting? Was she into him?
By the look of his snapping eyes, he was taking the bait. “I would still outswim you, if that’s what you mean.”
Gracie Mae rolled her eyes. “It’s been like three years since we’ve done that, so I don’t think you could actually know.”
“I’m not swimming in that nasty river water.” Annie pulled a face. “I have to watch out for this little fetus.”
Dusty folded his arms over his chest and eyed Annie, the twinkle of teasing on his face. “You and your baby can cheer from
the sidelines. You were never much competition anyway.”
She reached over the table to smack his arm. “If Levi was here, he’d defend my honor. I’d do it myself, but I’m too tired.
Honestly, I don’t think I could even raise pom-poms right now.”
“We don’t need a cheerleader. You can be our judge,” Dusty said.
 “Hold up.” Tucker shook his head. “We’re not actually doing this.”
Dusty faced him. “Why not? You scared?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay.” Gracie Mae rubbed her hands together. “This is happening then. Sundown. Y’all know the spot. Winner gets . . .”
“Same thing they’ve always gotten,” Dusty said. “Pride.”
I shook my head. “Y’all are crazy.”
Gracie Mae swung toward me. “You’re coming, too. Don’t you want to cool down? It’s so hot right now.”
Yes, I did, but I wasn’t sure this was what Tucker had in mind when he agreed to my little truce. I looked at him, but he was
avoiding my eyes.
He shrugged like he didn’t really care. “Can’t go. I’m taking Maddie to dinner after this.”
“Bring her.” Dusty looked at me when he said that.
Apparently the date was real.
Also, Dusty hated me.
Either way, if Tucker was bringing a girl, I didn’t want to be there. “I have to get my dad home tonight.”
“Then grab your swimsuit and meet us at the river,” Gracie Mae said, giving me a wide smile. “It’ll be fun.”
That was debatable. Re-creating our high school experiences while on such unsteady footing with Tucker had so far been
the opposite of fun. Painful. Awkward. Humbling. Every inch of my body was pulsing with the need to be away from this
conversation, from Tucker’s attention, from Dusty’s condemnation.
“Maybe,” I sang. I picked up the plate of razzleberry pie and grabbed a fork from the mason jar, spinning away from the
table so I could escape before they dragged me back into the conversation. I scanned the crowd for a familiar face. Anyone
who just happened to be on my side of things, who would let me eat my dessert in peace.
There were very few to choose from. Dad was flanked by Mr. Miller and Henry Gable, enjoying his own pie and
conversations, so I wasn’t about to drag him out of there.
Nellie caught my eye from where she sat in one of the folding chairs on the outer circle, and I bee-lined it in her direction,
my heart squeezing at the sight of her. We’d chatted on the phone, but I hadn’t seen her in person yet. She looked just as sweet
and motherly as always.
Her hair was cut in a short bob with bangs across her forehead, sporting the same familiar round tortoiseshell glasses. She
cut a bite of apple pie and slipped it into her mouth while I approached.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked.
She shook her head, and I sat down. I strung an arm around her back and gave her a side hug. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” She didn’t sound congested anymore, which was great. “Thanks for taking over the store. It was just a cold, but
my energy was gone.”
“Anytime. I’m happy to help as long as I’m here.” I took a bite of the tart sweet razzleberry pie. The memories that came
with it assaulted me until I shoved them away. It wasn’t the time to remember kissing Tucker so freely across the table.
“Seriously, Nellie, anytime you need help, I’m game. I’m pretty sure my dad likes me getting out of the house anyway.”
“Don’t take it personally. He’s used to his quiet time now.”
That was true. “Where’s Ralph?”
Her eyes flicked to me, then back to her pie. “Your dad didn’t tell you?”
That didn’t sound good. “Tell me what?”
“Guess not.” She let out a long, quiet sigh, like she was gearing up for something. “We got divorced, Junie.”
“What?” I sat up straighter, lowering my pie to my lap. “When?”
“About a year ago. It’s been . . . it’s not easy.” She gave me a brave smile. “But that’s life. You take the kicks, deal with
them, and move on.”
“Oh my gosh, Nellie. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I guess I thought your dad would.”
“He tells me nothing. I don’t know if he’s trying to protect me or the town, but we don’t talk about anything related to
Arcadia Creek ever.”
“I’m not just anyone,” she said.
“Which is why it’s weird.” Nellie had been in my life since before I was even born. She was my pseudo-mother. The first
to forgive me and email me after I’d left everyone. She was Nellie. I laughed awkwardly and took a bite of my pie. Every
single bite was painful, but I couldn’t stop eating it.
Kind of like how it stung watching Tucker laugh freely with all the friends I’d just walked away from, but I still couldn’t
take my eyes off him.
I used to be the center of his world. I used to be the one who made him laugh, the one he drew under his arm, the one he
always needed to be touching. Tucker was a quiet guy. He was reserved. The words he gave were so meaningful, and the
attention he gave was thoughtful and deep.
 When we were together, it felt like winning the lottery. He made me feel like a princess, like the president, like I could
accomplish anything. He kept me going during those two years of Dad’s intense depression when I would go home every
weekend from college and come back to school a zombie, like the energy and life had been sucked out of me during my visit.
Tucker was the one who had held me together, who made me feel like I could keep going.
Until I couldn’t keep going anymore.
“I’m sorry I’ve been absent,” I said quietly.
Nellie squeezed my forearm and gave me a sweet smile. “You know I don’t blame you for not being able to handle your
dad anymore. Those years were rough on him. I don’t know if he ever told you this, but I think he needed you to leave so he
could figure out how to pull himself together again on his own.”
She was absolutely the only woman in the world who had that opinion, but hearing it still took my empty emotional tank and
filled it with a little bit of reserve.
“If you kept coming home every weekend and taking care of him,” she said softly, her brown eyes intent, “maybe he never
would’ve pulled himself up and stood on his own two feet again.”
“Says the woman who’s been taking care of him in my absence.”
She clucked her tongue. “I am only his employee, honey. I love that store, and I’m not very good at it, but between your dad
and I, we keep it running.”
“Between the two of you it’s a miracle anyone can find what they’re looking for.”
Nellie laughed. “You know I have no skills with organization. That was Ralph’s forte.”
“When’s the last time either of you did inventory?”
She shoved a bite in her mouth. “Can’t answer. Mouth is full.”
I laughed, scooping up a piece of pie crust and popping it on my tongue. I wondered if I’d just figured out why the store
wasn’t doing as well. How could it thrive when neither Dad or Nellie had any ambition or experience? The store had been
thrust on them, not the other way around. They were just doing their best. “Maybe if you don’t need me running the café this
week, I could get to work on that inventory. Figure out what y’all need, maybe organize the books a little.”
“You shouldn’t be working while you’re here, Junie Bird. You should be spending this time with your dad.”
“And you.” I leaned over and bumped her shoulder with mine. “You said yourself he likes his quiet time. We have, like,
five years to catch up on, because clearly you’ve been leaving stuff out of your Christmas cards.”
A faint blush rose to her cheeks. “I almost sent out a picture of myself surrounded by little cats to try to spread the news
with a little joke about Ralph leaving, but I didn’t know where to get all the cats.”
I laughed. Turning her into a cat lady would have been funny, especially because Nellie hated cats. “That’s what Photoshop
is for. You should’ve called me. I could have done it for you so easily.”
“True.” She grinned. “Maybe I’ll do that this year.”
“We can make it extra festive. Put Santa hats and elf ears on the cats.”
“Jingle bell collars,” she added.
“You can dress like Mrs. Claus.”
Nellie laughed. “Oh honey, I’ve missed you.”
I’d missed her too. “I’ll see you Monday at the shop?”
She smiled so warmly I could feel how happy she was. “I can’t wait.”
 CHAPTER NINE
TUCKER

“FRIENDS” my butt. My little truce with June was crap, and it only took five minutes of talking with her at the pie table earlier
to understand that. Dusty was angry she’d even shown her face. When I told him we’d agreed to pretend to be friends, he was
livid.
According to Dusty, June didn’t deserve my help in getting the town back on her side. It didn’t matter that I tried to remind
him how there shouldn’t be any sides. He was just coming to my defense. What surprised me was how much more annoyed I
felt at him than I expected to. Yeah, it was nice when he thought I’d gotten the rough end of the deal with June all those years
ago, but I didn’t like watching anyone treat her badly. It didn’t sit well in my stomach.
Maddie had been a patient date, hanging out with Lauren and Gracie Mae while I served pie. She was tall and thin, her
brown hair in a high ponytail and a ready smile always on her lips. Basically, there was nothing wrong with this girl.
But I still couldn’t keep my eyes from trailing June. I just hoped Maddie thought I was distracted by the pie and not totally
aware of my terrible date etiquette.
We stood by my truck in the parking lot talking with Jack and Lauren, while the social was winding down.
“I guess we’re meeting at the rope swing tonight?” Jack asked. “Are we positive there won’t be a group of seventeen-year-
olds there already?”
“It was empty last time we went, a few years ago. Remember? Oh—” I stopped myself. “You weren’t there.”
He punched my arm softly. “Just rubbing my face in all the things I missed out on when I lived in Dallas, huh?”
I smiled. “Either way, it was clear last time. Maybe teenagers have found a better way to spend their summer nights.”
“Yeah, some way that involves screens and air conditioning, probably,” Jack mumbled.
Lauren’s hands went around his arm, hanging to him like a lifeline. I wouldn’t call her possessive. I just didn’t think they
knew how to not touch each other when they were within arm’s reach. “Is it safe to go at night?”
“Yeah,” I said. There was a reason I’d been dubbed Safety Watch a few years ago by my friends. My job had drilled it into
me, and I didn’t mess around with anything potentially dangerous anymore. It was a career necessity when your job was
literally dealing with electricity. One wrong move and your life was over. “Don’t worry, Lauren. The water’s deep.”
Jack turned his head and pressed a kiss to her temple. “There’s a rope swing. We usually race and it turns into water
fights.”
“It’s been hot enough.” Lauren chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind cooling off.”
“I’m taking Maddie to dinner,” I said apologetically.
“I wouldn’t mind going to the river,” she said, “but I don’t have a suit.”
“You can borrow one of mine,” Lauren offered.
Maddie waited. They all waited. Everyone watched me, and I couldn’t back out now without making my position on our
relationship clear. “Sure. If you want to go, we’ll just grab burgers and head out to my mom’s then.”
It wasn’t my choice to take a girl home on the first date, but this wasn’t really a meet the parents thing. It was a borrow my
brother’s fiancée’s swimsuit and she just happened to live with my parents thing.
Lauren squeezed closer to Jack, if that was even possible. “Perfect. We’ll meet you there.”
Did I want to stretch this date out when I didn’t feel any particular chemistry with the girl? Not exactly. Did I think maybe I
owed it to Maddie to try a little harder? Yeah, definitely. Did I like that bringing her to the river would prove to June I was
moving on just like she had? One hundred percent.
We went to Gigi’s for burgers. Maddie came from Beeler, the next town over, and she spent most of the meal telling me
about her work at the Humane Society out there. She literally saved cats and dogs for a living. Was there anything more
wholesome than that?
When I told her about my job as a lineman, it felt less altruistic.
 “So you set up power lines and stuff?” she asked.
“Kind of, yeah. We put up new poles when the old ones are rotting or broken. We maintain the lines and get the power back
up and running when a tree limb knocks them out or a squirrel blows a fuse. Storm clean-up. Basic stuff like that.”
“Doesn’t sound very basic.”
I chuckled. “I guess it’s not easy, but it’s a good job.”
She smiled, leaning forward to sip her Coke. “You must not be afraid of heights at all.”
“Heights have never bothered me.”
She took a bite of her burger and chewed. “Is that why you got into this job? To climb things?”
She wasn’t going to hear the real answer: that I went to line school and chose this job because I didn’t want to finish
college after my girlfriend abandoned me. That I had only been going to a university for her anyway, to find a career that would
support the life I wanted to have with June. After she left, it stopped mattering what I did. I wanted to live in Arcadia Creek,
and I was good with my hands. Line school made sense.
“I never really had a career in mind growing up, unless you count the rodeo.” I picked at the fries on my nearly empty plate,
then lifted a smile to her. “But that never panned out.”
“There’s still time,” she said kindly.
“Trust me, I’m trying.” I slurped at my empty cup again, then set it on the table.
She was a slow eater, but she seemed to only be picking at her food now.
“Are you ready to leave?” she asked.
Crap. Was I that obvious? “Take your time.”
“I’ve been done for a while.” She laughed, sliding out of the seat.
I left enough cash on the table to cover our dinner and tip, then followed her.
“Y’all have a good night,” Gigi called from the other side of the counter.
I lifted my arm in a wave and led Maddie out to my truck, opening the door for her. It was pretty clear this date wasn’t
different from any of the others I’d attempted in the last few years. There wasn’t anything wrong with her. There never was. We
were just missing that thing that made me want to pursue a relationship with her. The spark, maybe?
There was zero spark, just like the sad, soggy bucket of used sparklers at the end of the 4th of July.
That wasn’t just because I was comparing how I felt with Maddie to how I felt in the five-minute conversation with June
across the pie table today. Fireworks. Tension. Heat.
It was all due to the memory of the last time we were both at the back-to-school church social and the way she’d kissed me
across the table then when I’d handed her the pie.
Yes, I was a glutton for punishment. I should have just given her the apple tonight. She was bound to think I meant
something by handing her the slice of razzleberry. That was a stupid move.
Mom and Dad were still at the social when we got to the Fletcher homestead, thank the heavens. Lauren lent Maddie a
swimsuit and we took towels from Mom’s closet, then piled into our vehicles and drove to the river. It was fully dark now, the
moon only half-showing, but bright against the jet black sky.
The group had grown since the topic was first broached at the pie table. When we got to the rope swing, there was a small
crowd, half in the water, half lounging in camp chairs around a fire on the narrow beach. It was a good thing I’d grabbed chairs
from my parents’ garage. I set them up now, adding us to the circle.
“You aren’t getting in the water?” Gracie Mae asked from down in the river, wiping water from her eyes. It was so dark I
could barely make out who she was with the fire glowing between us.
Dusty was up at the swing on the ledge that rose up above the water, getting ready to jump in.
“We will,” I said.
I hadn’t seen June yet. Not that I was looking. If she was any further out in the water, she’d be impossible to spot.
Okay, fine. I was looking everywhere. But I was trying to be discreet.
“Let’s swim,” Maddie said, getting up from her seat and pulling her T-shirt off.
A car door shut on the road and my head whipped toward it. Not intentionally, obviously. Out of curiosity.
It was June.
It was too dark to see clearly, but the pale blue truck stood out in the moonlight, and I would know her walk anywhere.
Elegant and smooth like she was really a fairy, but super confident. One thing she’d never lacked was the comfort of being
happy in her own skin and it showed.
“June Baker!” Gunnar called, throwing his arms in the air like he’d just made a touchdown. Not that he had much
experience with that. I was the running back in high school; he was a linebacker. “You’re home!”
June’s musical laughter fluttered toward us and traced down my spine.
“For a while, yeah,” she said.
“Oh, come on.” Gunnar made a face. “What’s keeping you in California? You know nothing beats Texas.”
June walked forward until she was standing in the circle of chairs surrounding the fire, a camp chair in a bag slung over her
shoulder. Orange light glowed from the center of the circle, dancing across her face, and her smile was wide and easy. No
shame, no uneasiness. She could obviously tell that Gunnar was teasing her, that he wasn’t resentful like Dusty or my mom.
Or, I guess, like I’d been since she came back.
She chuckled and put her hand on Gunnar’s arm, making my shoulders bunch.
“Real beaches, for one thing.”
“Burn. You went to Riverside right? I don’t remember the beaches there.”
“Touché.” She laughed, her eyes scanning everyone in the circle. They skittered to a stop on me, then flicked to Maddie.
Her smile grew stiff.
Well, that was interesting. I’d only wanted June to see I was moving on. I didn’t realize she wouldn’t like seeing me with
someone else.
June tore her gaze away, smiling at Annie and Levi. “Who’s getting in the water?” she asked brightly.
A splash took her attention, and I watched her clock who was already down in the river. And after Dusty’s cold reception
earlier, I doubted she wanted to be anywhere near him.
“We were just getting in,” Maddie said. “Want to come with us?”
Yikes. Would she have invited June to join us if she knew our history? Probably not.
Dusty hollered like Tarzan and swung from the rope into the water. He made a huge splash that Gracie Mae pretended to
hate. A handful of other people down there just ignored him.
June looked up at the rope swinging back and forth. A grin spread over her mouth that settled somewhere low in my
stomach. Man, I’d missed that smile.
“I think that’s what I want to do,” she said, swinging her gaze back to us.
Lauren came up beside her and set out a camp chair, and I heard Jack’s footsteps headed our way from the cars. “You’re
brave.”
June gestured to the swing. “That doesn’t look fun to you? Trust me, it’s fun.”
Lauren eyed the rope suspiciously.
Jack put his chair down beside hers. “I’ll do it first. Show you how it’s done.” He shrugged. “It’s totally safe. You just need
enough upper arm strength to hold on past the beach so you land in the water.”
“Which is where I will fail,” Lauren said, dropping in her chair and stretching her toes toward the fire. Everyone else was
seated pretty far back. The fire was just for light. No one wanted that extra heat right now. It might have been dark, but it was
still August in Texas.
Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head, sitting beside her. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes, but then we’re going on that
swing.”
Maddie sat in her chair again. “I’ll do it with y’all.” She looked at me with her eyebrows raised. “You up for it?”
“Tucker’s up for anything,” Jack said. “He doesn’t know how to turn down a dare as long as it’s safe, so last resort, just use
that against him.”
I would have been mad at him for giving away my secrets, except everyone in this circle already knew that. It wasn’t just
me. My brothers were the same way. It was a Fletcher trait, and it was the reason we each had broken bones and gotten stitches
all before turning twelve.
The safety clause didn’t appear until I’d gone through line school.
I’d say I wouldn’t recommend having brother relationships like that, but none of us were worse off for it.
June set up her camp chair next to Lauren and sat down. “I don’t know about that. He’s turned down a few for me over the
years.”
I scoffed. “When?”
Her green eyes glowed orange from the flames and set directly on me. “Shrimp cocktails, anyone?”
Oh, that. She had me thinking she was going to tell this entire circle—including my date—how we’d had our first kiss. I
wasn’t sure if Gunnar even knew the story, and he was the one who’d dared me. I was glad of it, though. His daring me not to
kiss June that day so long ago was exactly what led to me kissing her.
I couldn’t think about that now. “That’s different. Shrimp is gross.”
“That’s the point of the dare.” She put her hands out like duh.
“Nah, that doesn’t count. What else?” My pulse ticked up. I held her eyes. Was she thinking about the time we decorated the
HoCo float, too? I knew trying to get her to say it out loud was stupid, but I couldn’t stop. After that first kiss, we were
boyfriend and girlfriend for years. All thanks to Gunnar for daring me not to kiss her and me breaking the dare.
“The Australian accent,” she said.
Okay, that was more disappointing than it should have been. I brushed it off. “Unfair dare. I can’t do one.”
“Says the man whose favorite movie is Crocodile Dundee.”
“He can do the accent. I can’t.”
“You still didn’t take the bet, so I rest my case.”
 “Maybe not, but all the bets I do take, I win.”
June must have noticed how we had the attention of every single person in the circle now.
“We aren’t going there.” She shifted in her seat and gave her attention to Lauren, probably trying to make it seem less
weird. “Tell me how you met Jack,” she said brightly.
But I wasn’t ready to let it rest. “I don’t think you can throw down that kind of statement without backing yourself up, Junie
Bird.”
June’s eyes snapped to mine. I hadn’t actually meant to use her nickname, but it just came out. It tasted sweeter on my
tongue than fresh razzleberry pie.
“Fine. Let’s make a bet.” June didn’t look at anyone but me, and her full attention felt just as heady as always. “Farthest one
out on the swing wins.”
“What does the loser have to do?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Talk in an Australian accent for the rest of the night.”
Of course she’d try to present me with something I wouldn’t accept. Well, hot chocolate wasn’t the only thing about me I
wasn’t going to let her think she could predict. Honestly, I should probably just be happy she didn’t bring shrimp into the
equation. “Deal.”
 CHAPTER TEN
JUNE

ANNIE HAD BEEN TOSSING me uncertain looks ever since my dare conversation with Tucker over the fire. She lounged
on her zero-gravity camp chair, her feet up, her tall husband sitting beside her and holding her hand.
She very obviously didn’t approve of me making bets with her cousin.
No one else seemed to mind, but Annie’s little scowl pecked at me. The lines forming between her eyebrows were
practically holding a mic and shouting that I knew better than to banter with Tucker. I sunk another inch in my seat because
Annie and her scowl were right. The only thing to do now was make it clear that I wasn’t trying to flirt with him.
I got up and slid my shorts off. “Maddie, right?” I said, calling toward Tucker’s date. “Are you in on this dare, too?”
She blinked up at me. Why did he have to date someone who looked like they’d stepped off the Miss Parker County stage
and into a bathing suit? Her glossy hair was long and sleek, the exact opposite of mine in literally every way. And she wasn’t
just gorgeous—she was a hoot. From what I could tell, she’d made Tucker laugh at least three times since I arrived. Not to be a
creep, but I was totally paying attention.
But he didn’t really touch her. That meant they weren’t serious, right? Or that they were so serious they felt no need to stake
a claim on each other. Obviously, I hadn’t expected Tucker to stay single and pine for me over the last five years, but seeing
him with another woman, guiding her to his truck, opening the door for her, giving her his attention—it hurt. Like a mass of fire
ants to the feet type of hurt. Those blisters were going to scar.
“Totally.” Maddie stood and kicked off her sandals. She put her hand on Tucker’s bicep, making my insides squirm.
“Should we do this?”
He looked up at her, his lips curving into a small smile.
My squirm leveled up. Now my insides were writhing.
“Anyone else?” I asked brightly. Please, someone else join us and be a buffer between me, my ex, and his new boo thang.
“We’ll come up soon,” Lauren said. “I want to watch you do it first.”
“I don’t want any part in this Australian bet,” Jack said, grinning.
“Fair enough.” I pulled my T-shirt off, suddenly extremely aware of how small my bathing suit was. The one-piece halter
was the only thing I’d had in my closet, left over from high school. The last time I wore this suit was probably at this exact
river, the summer before we went to college. Something like seven years ago?
Chevron stripes had been popular then, okay? The yellow and white zigzags crossing over my body were cute at the time.
Now I wondered what High School June had been thinking with these colors and my skin tone.
At least my skin was tan now, which was a vast improvement on pasty High School June. I’d found a hairdresser down the
road from my grandma’s house who could manage my curly hair, too, so the whole look got an upgrade. Though, honestly, it
was probably just as big and floofy now as it was then. Just had a better shape.
Tucker and Maddie stripped down to their swimsuits and I followed them up the path, letting them go first so they wouldn’t
see how small this suit was on my butt. The downside to this arrangement was that it put Tucker’s bare back right in my line of
sight. I knew the man was strong. He had to be in his line of work. (See what I did there?) But sheesh, those back muscles
weren’t playing around. He’d lost every inch of the softness he’d had in college. It was all gone now, replaced by lean,
probably firm muscle.
I was totally right to admire his delts and traps with the shirt on yesterday. They were attractive then. Now they were
downright dangerous.
Tucker didn’t do social media, and no one from town would talk to me about him, so my updates on his life were fairly
nonexistent. Except for one time, about a year after I’d left, I’d gotten Dad to confess that Tucker had finished line school and
got a job apprenticing for Arcadia Energy. Naturally, I’d spent the next few hours poring over Google’s search results for what
a lineman was and how dangerous the job could be and how great of a career it was for someone like Tucker. It was the last
time I’d gotten Dad to tell me anything about Tucker, because every time I casually asked for an update after that, he’d shot me
down.
Eventually, I stopped asking.
Tucker pulled up the rope and gestured toward me. “Ladies first.”
It was all I could do to keep my eyes on his face. Thank heavens it was fairly dark. Even if I wanted to peek at his chest, I
wouldn’t see much.
Or so I told myself.
“That’s you,” Maddie said, putting up both hands. “I need to see someone else do this first.”
“You haven’t been watching Dusty show off since we got here?” Tucker asked with a small smile.
Maddie smirked. “Why would I need to look at him?” Her tone and her eyes screamed that Tucker was enough for her. That
was some high-level flirting. Okay, so this was definitely not a mature relationship. I’d be surprised if they’d gone on more
than one or two dates.
And I definitely didn’t want to have a front row seat to it any longer.
I walked past Tucker and snatched the rope from his hand. “Who’s judging?”
“We are,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “Just swim upriver after you land to keep the route clear. Furthest one back is
the winner.”
“Closest one to the beach has to do the accent,” I reminded him.
He looked down at me for a bit longer than necessary. “That won’t be me.”
I had to get out of there. I could practically feel fire coming from his eyes and blazing over my skin. Which was wrong
when his date was standing right behind him. This was some sort of awful triangle of discomfort. Not a love triangle
obviously. We were over that.
I gripped the rope with both hands and looked down at the water. Gracie Mae laughed at something another girl was saying
while Dusty swam circles around them. Two people I didn’t recognize were making out on the other side of the river. Aside
from that, pretty much everyone else was at the fire. All clear.
Fun? This wasn’t fun. Why did I think this would be fun? I drew in a breath. It had been a long time since I’d done this.
Somehow, I let the talk of dares and the need to prove myself get me up on this ledge with a rope swing and a swimsuit that
was definitely too small for me—not to mention five years out of style, minimum. But this wasn’t me. I hated heights. We
weren’t even that high up and my stomach was in knots. That hadn’t even crossed my mind until now, because I cared more
about what Tucker would think of me than anything else.
When it came to small-town life, I was absolutely winning for Most Ridiculous Try-Hard right now.
“You okay?” Maddie asked behind me. She sounded worried, which only reinforced how she was clearly a nice person.
Why did that make me dislike her more?
The rough, frayed rope dug into my palms. I glanced over my shoulder, but I only really could see Tucker from this angle.
“I’m good. It’s just been a few years.”
“If you don’t think you can do it . . .” Tucker said, challenging me.
That was all I needed. I gripped the rope tighter and jumped off, holding on for dear life until the swing felt like it was
about to go back toward the ledge. I let go and dropped into the river, the icy cold water shocking my lungs immediately.
Kicking up, I popped out of the river and pushed water from my eyes, gasping for air.
The water sluiced over my skin in a weird mix of refreshing and painful, like tiny needles of ice.
“How’s the water?” Tucker asked, his deep voice giving me immediate goosebumps.
“Tropical,” I shouted back.
I swam upriver a few yards and treaded water. The current was lazy and smooth, the water not pulling me along. This
swimming hole was in a bit of a bend that fought the current, making it easier to swim in.
Tucker spoke to Maddie for a minute before reaching for the lead rope and pulling it back up the hill to swing from. He
held on and arced through the air before dropping into the river with a heavy splash. When he straightened in the water and
turned to face me, hair dark and wet, droplets running down his face, I got a pang in my chest so hard and tight I lost a breath.
But I quickly found it again, dropping my eyes to the water and focusing on staying alive.
He swam closer to me, his mouth closed, his eyes talking. I couldn’t speak their language anymore. I used to be fluent in
Silent Tucker, but now he was a stranger again, and I didn’t know if the focus of his gaze was because he was in competitive
mode or because he was remembering how fun and playful we used to act in this river. Keeping my hands—and eyes—to
myself wasn’t something I’d had to do before with him.
Now it was taking all the restraint I had to remember I didn’t have a right to jump on his back or chicken fight with the girls
or try to pull him under just so he could fight me off.
If the prickles on the back of my neck were a good gauge, then half the audience up on the beach were watching to make
sure I didn’t cross any boundaries, either.
Annie and her scowl had made a permanent place in my brain, which was a good thing, since nothing else was really
motivating me not to engage Tucker in some type of water fight.
He swam closer until he was within arm’s reach. My heart wouldn’t be able to take it if he got any closer, so it was a good
thing he stopped.
“What is this, a tie?” he asked.
“There are no ties in war.”
Tucker looked back up to the swing. “We’ll let Maddie be the judge of that.”
Right. Maddie. His date.
Blergh.
Maddie grabbed the rope but stared down at Tucker. “I don’t think I can do this!” She did a giggle-squeal thing that
belonged to pre-teens at a Harry Styles concert.
“It’s safe,” he called back.
She bounced on her toes in a way that made her long legs look even longer.
And here I was kicking to stay afloat in the river while Tucker stood next to me. I hadn’t felt short in a long while.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
Oh, good grief. Either jump or don’t. I tried for patience. “You can do it, Maddie!”
“Okay.” She drew in a breath, lifted on her toes, and then . . . flattened them again. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Tucker said, and he meant it. Obviously, he meant it. It wasn’t like jumping into a river in the dark was the
pinnacle of success. But it wasn’t that tall. I was afraid of heights and I’d done it. Just saying.
Okay, fine. It didn’t matter.
“I’m coming in!” Maddie called. “Just the long way around.”
She started picking her way down the little hill and past the bonfire. The girl was going to swim over.
Great.
“I guess that means neither of us lost,” Tucker said, drawing my attention back to him. His eyes glinted, reflecting the
bonfire at the river. They were glowing so orange, I could see the moment they dropped to my lips. My chest stuttered, my heart
choosing that precise moment to take a break.
But he was with another girl, and despite whatever attraction had clearly not dissipated between us, we weren’t even
friends. For both of our sakes, a little distance was a good idea. I swam backward, grinning. “Oh, Maddie,” I sang out, moving
into a backstroke to put myself as far from Tucker as possible. “Let’s hear that Aussie accent, baby.”
Maddie swore. “I forgot about that.”
“You lost,” Tucker said, his voice sounding hoarse.
More distance, please. I kept backstroking away from him while Maddie swam closer.
“Alright, gov,” she said in a terrible Cockney. She sounded more Eliza Doolittle than Finding Nemo. “Throw another
shrimp on the barbie.”
“Well done!” Gracie Mae called.
“We’ll see if I can keep it up,” Maddie said, but she laughed. The girl was a good sport, I’d give her that.
“Now that you’re here,” Dusty said, following Gracie Mae toward me. “Who’s up for a game of chicken?”
Great. Exactly what we didn’t need. Tucker looked at me before dragging his gaze away.
“Sure!” Maddie said, making her way toward Tucker.
This, I could not watch. “That fire is calling my name,” I said, swimming toward the beach.
“No,” Gracie Mae whined. “You should stay.”
“I have to be up early tomorrow, so I can’t be here much longer anyway. I should really start drying off.”
I’d only been in the water for minutes, but that didn’t matter. I really couldn’t watch this.
“June!” Annie yelled from the fire. “Your phone is blowing up. Want me to answer? He’s called like four times.”
He? That had to be⁠—
“Someone called Nate?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s just my boss,” I shouted, so everyone would hear me. Everyone. “I’m getting out.”
“Your boss calls you on the weekends?” she asked.
Not helping, Annie. I pretended to be too busy swimming to respond.
I made it to the beach and found my towel, drying off quickly. The conversation picked up around me while I gathered my
things and stuffed the camp chair into the bag.
“We hanging out next week?” Annie asked.
“Only if you think inventory is fun,” I sassed.
“Inventory?” Lauren sat up, dropping Jack’s hand. “For what?”
“My dad’s bookstore.” I shoved the chair the rest of the way into the bag and pulled the tie shut.
“I can help, if you need it.”
Was she for real? “I don’t think I can pay you⁠—”
 “Oh, you don’t need to. I don’t mind helping out.” She shot Jack a smile. “It gets me out of demo work.”
This woman was serious. “If inventory sounds fun to you, then I would love your help.”
“She’s not kidding,” Jack said affectionately. “She lives for this stuff.”
“Awesome.” My phone buzzed in my hand, showing another incoming call from Nate. “Come to Baker Books Monday on
Main Street when you have a free minute. I’ll be there all day.”
“See you then.”
I smiled, sliding to answer my phone and raising my other hand in a farewell while I pivoted away. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Nate said. His voice fed into my ear and made my stomach twist. “How are you, June? I miss you.”
My gaze jumped back to the water, too dark to see the swimmers clearly, yet just illuminated enough to make out the girls
climbing on the guys’ shoulders to play chicken. I tore my eyes away. “Sorry. I’ve been so busy.”
“How’s your dad?”
He’d called to check on me, he’d asked about my dad, he was considerate and kind. I’d wanted to get paid for overtime
from Donaldson Designs, and he was going to bat for me fighting for that, too. Nate was a catch. Aside from being my boss—I
wasn’t lying about that, just accentuating it—there was nothing wrong with him.
So why did I feel like he wasn’t the guy I wanted on the other side of the phone?
 CHAPTER ELEVEN
TUCKER

DUSTY ROLLED HIS SHOULDER, dropping the end of the rope into the dirt pasture behind my house. “Don’t know if we’ll
be ready in time, man.”
“We’ve been ready since high school,” I countered, directing my horse around him and toward the calf who’d gotten away,
running to the wooden fence that closed us in. Well, calf was relative. I didn’t rope young ones, and this guy wasn’t a baby
anymore.
We usually practiced on the mechanical calf, but we were only a few weeks away from the rodeo now, so we’d moved on
to live animals again.
Dusty ran a hand over his face. “Go again?”
For what? The four hundredth time? I was gonna be saddle sore if we didn’t figure this out soon. “Sure. I’ll get a new calf.”
Or maybe we needed to get back to the metal one. Just for the night.
He nodded, fiddling with his rope. We’d been a roping team since high school, competing in local rodeos mainly for fun,
but we’d never had so much trouble working together as we did today. I could usually read Dusty on a horse as well as I could
read the Bible, but his signals were off and my timing was crap. There was no point even showing up for the Beeler rodeo in a
few weeks unless we got a handle on things.
It only took a minute to rope the cow and take him back to his herd. I dug a few apple slices from my pouch and fed them to
him before removing the rope so he could run off. Pink clouds streaked across the sky, cushioned by orange light. The sun was
closer to the other side of the world than it was to us now.
How’d it get so late?
There was no more time for roping tonight. Which, if I was being real, was a relief. My head just wasn’t in it. Maybe
because the blue Chevy (yeah, I knew it was really a Ford, but we all pretended for the sake of Billy’s pride) was missing from
the Bakers’ house. Or maybe because I knew Maddie was waiting for a response to her text this afternoon and I had no idea
what to say.
She’d had a great time. Awesome.
Had I had a great time? No. Not even a little bit. Was Maddie to blame for that? Also no.
If I lied about it and told her I’d enjoyed myself, would it come back to bite me later? There was potential for that. I didn’t
want to lift her hopes if there was no future for us.
On the flip side, if I didn’t push through the discomfort of dating around my ex, would I ever get over June?
That was the ultimate question.
I rode Buttons back to the corral Dusty waited in. “I think we need to call it a night.”
“I’m good with that. You want dinner?” Dusty asked, steering his brown horse around to the entrance so he could follow me
out. “I could order pizza.”
“My mom sent enchiladas over with Jack earlier. I just need to stick them in the oven.”
“You fixing me dinner, Tuck?” Dusty asked, a grin spreading over his lips. “Guess you linemen are good for something after
all.”
I turned my horse toward the house. “You mean other than cutting the power so you can safely point your hose at structure
fires?”
Dusty’s laugh rang out behind me. “Whatever, man. You just have to find a way to feel important since kids don’t dress up
as you for Halloween.”
We reached the barn and got down from our horses. “Right. Firemen only call to make us feel better about ourselves and
not because you can’t do your job without our help.”
Dusty looked up in thought. “What are you putting on your bucket trucks for the HoCo parade? Oh wait,” he scratched his
jaw, “you weren’t invited to be in it.”
I chuckled, ignoring him. Bucket trucks full of Arcadia Energy linemen just didn’t have the same appeal as a fire truck with
lights. We removed the saddles, tack, and saddle blankets, then got out two brushes.
“Again tomorrow?” he asked, brushing down his horse.
“Sure. I have a family dinner at the homestead, but I can do it before that.”
“Works for me.” Dusty filled the trough with hay and closed his horse away in the stall. It made more sense to leave him
here than go home and bring him back tomorrow. When we practiced consistently like this, Blaze lived at my house.
We finished up and went back to my house. Tires on gravel perked up my ears once I reached my kitchen. I stalled with the
fridge open and waited to hear if the vehicle was just using my driveway as a turnaround. Whoever was driving put the car in
park and turned it off.
“You expecting anyone?” Dusty lifted his eyebrows, filling a cup of water at the sink. “The woman from last night?”
“It’s probably just Jack.” My stomach twisted thinking about Maddie and the text that still sat unanswered on my phone.
A knock sounded on my front door, so I closed the fridge. “Coming,” I hollered.
“Guess it’s not Jack,” Dusty said, squatting down to pet Sadie.
I didn’t expect to see June when I opened the door, but there she was, curly hair thrown up in a huge bun on top of her head,
wearing overalls that had no business looking the way they did. It was always a shock to my system, seeing her in person after
so many years of trying not to think about her. She was looking down at the blue paint cans stacked on the side of my door, but
she lifted her gaze to me and I did my darndest to appear unaffected.
“Hey,” she said, a little breathless. “I’m in a bit of a fix.”
“What’s up?”
June cringed. “I wondered if you . . .” Her voice trailed off, her gaze snagging on something over my shoulder.
I looked to see Dusty just behind me, his arms crossed and his eyes hard. What was he trying to do, bodyguard my feelings?
“Down, Dusty.”
He looked at me but didn’t back off.
Whatever. “What kind of fix, June?”
She stepped back. “You know, it’s not really that big of a deal. I’ll just⁠—”
“What kind of fix?” I repeated.
Her shoulders lowered. “I don’t know where the main water valve is. I just got home to a broken sprinkler or something in
the backyard that’s created a lake and my dad is at Western night and not answering his phone. I just hoped you might know
where the main water shut off is?”
I looked over my shoulder. “Enchiladas are in the fridge. Leave the foil on. 350 for thirty minutes.”
“You’ll be gone that long?” Dusty didn’t even bother to hide the judgmental edge to his voice.
“No. Just set the timer so we know when to take them out.”
“You got it,” he said, but he didn’t sound happy.
I shut the door behind me and followed June down the pathway. She got in her truck, and I walked past it.
“You want a ride? We should hurry.”
“No.” I moved into a jog. We didn’t live that far from each other, and I knew she had driven because of her sense of
urgency, but I could run to the Baker house fast enough.
Her headlights came on behind me, flooding the road with light, and I picked up my speed. It wasn’t easy running in heavy
boots, but it beat sitting in a cab with her right now. Her tires crunched on the gravel when we reached her driveway. She
slammed the truck door and ran to catch up with me as I rounded the house. I found the shutoff valve a few feet from the water
meter and twisted it. The sound of splashing water drew to a steady close.
June let out a sigh. “Thanks, Tucker. I was twisting all sorts of things on that water meter, but nothing was working.”
“You shouldn’t mess with those.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know what else to do.”
I straightened, wiping my hands down the front of my jeans. “When will your dad get home?”
“Couple hours. He’s watching cowboy movies with his buddies.”
I nodded. “Can you show me where the sprinkler controls are?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know? Aren’t you the lawn guy?”
She said it in such a flippant way, like she was pulling and teasing at me, trying to get some reaction. “I’m just a neighbor
helping out. The sprinklers?”
She put her hands up. “Yes, fine. They’re in the garage.”
I rubbed my eyes and followed her through a side door to the garage and the back wall where the sprinkler system control
board was.
It was already set to off.
“I tried to turn it off before I came for you, but it didn’t stop the water.”
Another random document with
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Title: Interference
A novel, Vol. 3 (of 3)

Author: B. M. Croker

Release date: November 23, 2023 [eBook #72210]

Language: English

Original publication: London: F. V. White & Co, 1891

Credits: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet
Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

INTERFERENCE ***
 INTERFERENCE.
A Novel.

BY
B. M. CROKER,
AUTHOR OF
“PROPER PRIDE,” “PRETTY MISS NEVILLE,”
“A BIRD OF PASSAGE,” “DIANA BARRINGTON,”
“TWO MASTERS,” &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.

London:
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1891.
 PRINTED BY
KELLY & CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES;
AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, W.C.
 CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.—“Miserrime” 1
II.—“The Honeymoon” 27
III.—A new Life 51
IV.—Mrs. Holryod desires to look into the Past 74
V.—Mrs. Redmond’s Confession 95
VI.—A grand Surprise for George 119
VII.—A Story in her Eyes 138
VIII.—Mr. Redmond’s Ambassador 155
IX.—Something to Read 183
X.—In which Belle’s wish is fulfilled 210
INTERFERENCE.
 CHAPTER I.
“MISERRIME.”

On the strength of his increase of income, Mr. Holroyd purchased

two ponies, and a cart (and this cart, it was noted, had a ladies’
step). He had long admired a certain empty bungalow with a large
garden, and rose-screened verandah. More than once he had
inspected the interior, and at last he boldly gave orders to the
landlord to have the garden put in order, the hedges clipped, and the
rooms matted. When it became noised abroad that George Holroyd
had been seen looking over a large double house, that he had
ordered a dinner-service, and a piano, the truth could be no longer
concealed, he was going to be married! This was a fine piece of
news for Mangobad. The men congratulated him somewhat sadly
but the ladies made up for them in fervour, and were all on the qui
vive to know what the bride would be like. Captain La Touche, being
searchingly cross-questioned, was able to gratify them with a few
particulars respecting her. She was young—only nineteen—Irish,
and pretty, and, as far as he could make out, she would be an
agreeable addition to their circle. Mr. Holroyd was not the least
bashful in accepting their good wishes, and seemed anxious to
bespeak their friendship for his future wife. She was so young and
inexperienced, he declared—quite a child in many ways, and only
hitherto accustomed to a very quiet country life. He was exceedingly
grateful for any suggestions offered by notable housekeepers and a
great deal of advice was placed ungrudgingly at his service. The
Judge’s wife engaged a cook, khansamah, and ayah; the Chaplain’s
sister superintended the purchase of lamps and kitchen utensils, the
Colonel’s two daughters chose furniture for the drawing-room, and
went over the rooms and discussed arrangements and
ornamentation with zeal.
 All at once the community were electrified to hear that Mr. Holroyd
had suddenly changed his mind about what was called the “garden”
bungalow, and was going into the two-storeyed one, which had so
long stood empty—the bungalow in which the last tenant, Major
Bagshawe, had cut his throat. What was the reason of such an
extraordinary freak? Why exchange a modern, well-built house, with
a cheerful aspect, for a gloomy tumble-down mansion—certainly
more imposing, and standing in quite a park-like enclosure, but
which had been abandoned to rats and ghosts for years. No one
knew the motive for this strange proceeding—not even Captain La
Touche.
A few days before “this mysterious caprice of George Holroyd’s,”
the long desired mail had been received—the mail which was to
bring him Betty’s answer in her own handwriting, instead of that of
the telegraph Baboo. The night before it was delivered in Mangobad,
he could scarcely close his eyes. He was astir by daybreak, and
watching for the post peon long before that worthy began his rounds.
Here he came in sight at last, and with a good plump packet of
letters in his hand. George almost tore them from him, and then
hurried into his room to read them in solitude, where no bearer with
tea, or sweeper with broom, dared disturb him. There was one from
his mother, one from his lawyer, one from Mrs. Redmond, one from
Belle, but where was Betty’s? He turned them over very carefully,
and then ran out after the dakwalla. “Hullo! Stop! Hold on!” he
shouted (in Hindustani of course), “you have another letter for me.”
The man halted and showed his wallet; there was nothing else
addressed to Mr. Holroyd, no, not even a trade circular. “There must
be some mistake,” he muttered to himself, as he slowly retraced his
steps. Could she have missed the mail? He must only content
himself with Mrs. Redmond’s epistle for the present, and, happy
thought, that thrifty old lady’s effusion might contain Betty’s letter
after all! Alas, no, there was only one sheet of paper within the
envelope, and this is what it said:
“Dear Mr. Holroyd,—Your letter and enclosure reached
me by the last mail, and I am rather concerned as to how to
reply to it, for I have taken a step that will surprise you and
 which you may never forgive—I have given your offer of
marriage to my daughter Belle.”
A rush of blood came suddenly to George Holroyd’s ears, the
paper seemed to swim before him; he threw it down on the table,
and placing both hands to his head, exclaimed aloud:
“I must be going mad! Either that, or she is writing from a lunatic
asylum!”
After a moment’s pause, he once more snatched up the letter, and
read on:
“There was nothing in your note that did not equally apply
to her, and Belle is so fond of you, and you paid her such
marked attention, that if you were to marry Betty she would
lose her reason—or break her heart.
“India has always been her dream, and, with you and India
combined, her happiness is assured, and I may tell you
frankly, that this is all that I now care for. You will think me a
very wicked, unprincipled old woman, but I have your
interests at heart, as well as Belle’s, and, though I shall not
live to know it, you will approve of my conduct yet. I am dying
by inches. I may not see another summer, and I obey the
most natural of all instincts in providing (when I can) for my
own child. Even if you execrate me, I can endure your hatred,
for I shall be supported by the conviction, that I have done
well.
“Belle, beautiful, animated, and accustomed to the best
military society, is the beau ideal of an officer’s wife, and will
be in a congenial sphere—your credit and your comfort. Betty
—a simple, little, awkward girl, with no ideas beyond horses
and dogs and flowers—is cut out for the position she is about
to fill; as the wife of a wealthy country gentleman, she can
make herself happy in her own land, she is in her element
among poor people, or in the hunting-field, and would be quite
miserable in India. She is going to marry Augustus Moore;
 they are devotedly attached to one another, and he has
known her from her childhood.”
“Mentitor fortiter,” was Mrs. Redmond’s motto, and to do her
justice, she lived up to it; in a crisis like the present what was a lie
more or less? This notable falsehood gave a neat and suitable finish
to the whole scheme. Moreover, like all lies of the most dangerous
class, it contained a grain of the truth—Augustus Moore had known
Betty from childhood, and a less keen-sighted woman than the
mistress of Noone, could see that he was her slave; the match was
merely a question of time.
“In withholding your offer from Betty,” the letter went on to say, “I
am sparing you the mortification of a refusal. I have put the round
people in the round holes in spite of you, you see, and by the time
you are reading this, Belle (who knows nothing, poor darling) will be
half way to India with the Calverts. Betty has been helping her most
zealously in her preparations, and keeping up all our spirits with her
merry ways, and gay little jokes and songs.
“I do not know what we should have done without her; she has not
the faintest suspicion that you care for her, for all her thoughts are
fixed in another direction. Be good to Belle—she is quite a child, a
spoiled child in many ways; she is not much of a manager or
housekeeper, for I have wished her to make the most of her youth,
and only asked her to be happy and to look pretty. She is devoted to
you, and has been so from the very first, though with true maidenly
dignity she has concealed her feelings—even from me, but I know
that the prospect of being your wife, has filled her with unspeakable
happiness. Perhaps, after all, you may repudiate her love, you may
refuse to receive her, and leave her a friendless, nervous, sensitive
girl, unwelcomed in a strange land—only to return home broken-
hearted, dis-illusioned, and disgraced; but I scarcely believe you will
be capable of this, knowing that she loves you, confides in you, and
has no friends in India. Do not answer this letter. I may as well tell
you, candidly, that if you do I shall not read it, but will put it into the
fire, for in my failing health, my medical man advises me strictly
against any kind of unnecessary agitation. Pray, believe me yours
most faithfully,
 “Emma Redmond.”
By the time George Holroyd had come to the end of this precious
epistle, it would be impossible to describe his feelings; they were a
mixture of incredulity, horror, agonising disappointment, and
uncontrollable fury.
“Mrs. Redmond was mad!” this he swore with a great oath; “or he
was mad, and everyone was mad.”
He seized his mother’s letter, much as a drowning man clutches at
a straw; it proved to be a somewhat querulous effusion, wondering
that he had never given her a hint of his intentions, amazed to hear
of his engagement to Belle, and pathetically imploring him to “think it
over,” but wishing him every happiness—whatever his fate.
Delighted at the news of his uncle’s generosity, and hinting (nay,
more than hinting) that he might share some of his good fortune with
Denis—openly stating that his poor dear brother wrote the most
pitiful accounts of his circumstances, and that she was sure he
would be annoyed to hear that he had actually applied to Mrs.
Maccabe for pecuniary assistance, instead of to his own flesh and
blood, and that a line to Denis Malone, care of the barman at the
Kangaroo Arms, Albany, South Australia, would always find him.
George put this epistle aside, and tore open Belle’s envelope with
a shaking hand.
When his eyes fell on the page beginning “My own, own darling,”
he crumbled the letter up into a ball, and dashed it from him with
anything but a lover-like gesture.
Then he rose and began to walk about the room like a man
possessed. He might have guessed how it would be! Betty was not
bound to him in any way, and whilst he had been toiling for her in
silence, at the other side of the world—Ghosty Moore was within
speech—within a ride!
Ghosty Moore was rich, young, and popular. He could give her
everything her heart desired. She would marry him, and be beloved,
admired and happy. A county lady with half a dozen hunters, and as
many dogs as she pleased. As for him, his life was wrecked, it did
not matter what became of him; he threw himself into a chair, leant
his arms on the table, buried his head in them, and wished himself
dead.
That Betty was lost to him was beyond doubt, and that Belle was
on her way out to marry him, was also beyond doubt; but no, he said
to himself fiercely, he would never make her his wife, and thus fulfil
the schemes, and be the easy tool, of her iniquitous old mother;
never!
To have the dearest hopes of his life dispersed by one shattering
blow was surely sufficiently hard for a man to bear, but to have
another fate imperatively thrust on him within the same hour—a fate
from which his highest and best feelings instinctively recoiled—a fate
that his heart most passionately repudiated—this was to drink the
cup of bitterness to the dregs, twice!
And if he refused to accept Belle as his bride, what was his
alternative? he asked himself, with fierce perplexity.
He felt dazed and stunned; the more he endeavoured to muster
his thoughts, to pursue ideas, to reach some definite plan, the more
unmanageable those thoughts and ideas became.
It was desperately hard to realise that one short ten minutes had
changed the whole current of his life.

Even to one’s old familiar friend, I doubt if it is wise to give the

entrée to your private room at all hours. He may chance to find a
soul in earthly torment, a mind en deshabille, with the mask of
conventionality, and the cloak of reserve, torn off, and thrown to the
winds.
Captain La Touche was whistling cheerily as he crossed the
verandah, and entered his comrade’s apartment. He looked cool,
handsome, and debonnair in his creaseless white suit and spotless
linen (he was such a dandy that he actually sent his shirts twice a
month to England to be washed; and oh! feat beyond the
dhoby!glazed). He had evidently had a good mail, for his face was
radiant, and he carried a packet of letters, and a French comic paper
in his hand. All at once his whistling ceased, as his eyes fell on his
comrade’s prone head—and the torn and discarded letters scattered
broadcast about the floor.
“Hullo, George, my dear old chap!” he exclaimed, “you have not
any bad news I hope. No one dead, eh?”
George raised a rigid white face to his, and gazed at him blankly
and shook his head.
“Your money gone again, eh?”
“No!”
“Oh, come then, it can’t be so very bad, pull yourself together, my
son, and have a whisky and soda; you look as if you had been
knocked into the middle of next week. What is it all about?”
“I’ve—I’ve a splitting headache.”
“Oh, and is that all?” rather dubiously.
“And some rather worrying letters,” he continued, making a great
effort to carry out the second part of his visitor’s prescription. “I shall
be all right by and by, don’t mind me.”
At first a wild idea had flashed through his brain. He would consult
his friend, and put the whole story before him, like a hard case in
Vanity Fair, and say, “supposing a man proposes for one girl, and
another comes out instead, believing that she is the right one—what
would you do? Marry her?” But as he gazed at Captain La Touche,
that sleek, prosperous, cynical bachelor, Lord President of the Mess
(sometimes a heritage of woe) and bitter enemy of matrimony, his
heart failed him. “Joe,” as he was called, would explode into one of
his loud bursts of laughter, and declare that it was the best joke he
had ever heard in the whole course of his life! Instead of being
sober-minded and sympathetic, he would chaffingly examine the
capabilities of the subjects for burlesque treatment; he would be
jocose and unbearable. But in this belief George did his friend
injustice!
 In one vivid mental flash, he saw the ordeal he would now have to
face at mess, an ordeal he dared not confront. The good-humoured
jokes, congratulations, and presents of his brother officers, were
acceptable enough yesterday, but to-day they would be torture, as it
were, searing a gaping wound with red-hot iron. How was he to
assume a part—he being no actor at the best of times—the part of
the happy and expectant bridegroom! His thoughts flew to a certain
lonely dâk bungalow, about twenty miles out, rarely frequented, and
sufficiently far from the haunts of men. He would go in at once for ten
days’ leave for snipe shooting, put a few things together, and gallop
out there as soon as orderly-room was over. He must be alone, like
some wounded animal, that plunges into the thicket, when it has
received a mortal hurt—that it may die apart from its fellows, and
endure its agony unseen.
Once there, he would have time to advise with himself, to review
the whole burning question, and to meditate on falsified hopes,
abandoned aims, and a lost love.
The maturing of this sudden project did not occupy sixty seconds,
and Captain La Touche was still standing interrogatively in the
doorway.
“I’m not feeling very fit, Joe, the cramming is beginning to tell as
you predicted. I think I shall go out for ten days’ snipe shooting, to
blow the cobwebs out of my brains.”
“It’s too early for snipe,” objected his visitor, “make it the end of
next week, and I’ll go with you, old man!”
“I saw several wisps coming in last evening and——”
“And of course I forgot,” interrupted the other jocosely, “your time
is short, poor fellow, and who knows if it may not be your last shoot.
Such things have happened! Where are you going?”
“I was thinking of Sungoo,” he returned rather nervously.
“Sungoo! A nasty feverish hole! I would not go there if I were you.”
“There are several first class jheels about, and I’d like to make a
good bag,” returned the other, now lying as freely as Mrs. Redmond
herself.
“Well, well, have your own way, you always do,” returned his chum
with a French shrug of his broad shoulders. “’Pon my word, you gave
me a jolly good fright, just now, I thought there was bad news,
something up at home. By-bye,” and he opened his big white
umbrella, and strode off to breakfast.
Sungoo dâk bungalow was retired enough for St. Anthony himself;
it stood aloof from the high road, behind a clump of bamboos, and a
hedge of somewhat dusty cactus.
George Holroyd’s active bearer made daily raids on the nearest
village for fowl and eggs and goat’s milk, whilst his master paced the
verandah, or tramped over the country, and fought with his thoughts,
and endeavoured to shape out his future life. Willingly would he
change his lot for that of one of the cheerful brown tillers of the soil,
by whom he was surrounded, and whom he came across in his long
and aimless wanderings. How absorbed and interested was that
young fellow, as he sat at the edge of a tank, dividing his time
between his bamboo rod, and bobbing line, and the inevitable huka
that stood beside him.
He did not seem to have a care in the world!—and it was never
likely to be his fate to marry a woman against his will! All the same,
did his envious observer but know the truth, it was more than
probable that the same young man had been married from his
cradle.
Sungoo dâk bungalow was not only famed for seclusion and sport
—it was notoriously unhealthy; the rank vegetation and the vapours
from the neighbouring reedy snipe jheels made it an undesirable
residence. Hideous spiders with wormy legs, and semi-tame toads
abounded in the three small rooms. Mushrooms grew out of the
walls, a family of noisy civet cats lodged in the roof, hundreds of
frogs held oratorios in a neighbouring pond, rendering sleep
impossible—and altogether it was as damp and dreary a dwelling as
anyone could wish to see; and a man who had taken a dislike to
existence could not have chosen a more congenial abode.
 One day George’s bearer went considerably further than the
nearest mud-walled village; he galloped post haste into Mangobad,
and informed Captain La Touche and his brother officers that his
master was very ill, in a raging fever, and “talking very strangely.”
“That’s it,” vociferated his chum, “I was afraid there was something
up. You notice he never sent in a single brace of snipe, and he
knows what a boon they are.”
He and the station doctor set off at once, and brought the patient
in the next morning in a dhooly. He was still in a high fever, but
perfectly conscious and alive to his surroundings.
For days he had been racked with an uncontrollable longing to see
Betty only once, and to speak to her face to face—as vain a longing
as that of the wretched captive in a deep, dark dungeon, who
languishes to see the sun!
As Captain La Touche sat by him, and gazed at him anxiously, he
opened his eyes, and said in a low voice: “Joe, I would give half my
life to see her but for five minutes—and to speak to her face to face.”
Captain La Touche was exceedingly concerned, and subsequently
told his brother officers that it looked like a bad business, for Holroyd
was still delirious and wandering in his mind.
Ten days’ excellent nursing brought him round, and the doctor was
most assiduous in what he called “patching him up” in order that he
might be in time to meet the steamer. Nevertheless all George’s
friends were shocked at the change that such a short illness had
made in his appearance. He looked as if he had aged ten years in
ten days; his eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow, and he was so
weak and emaciated that, according to one of his comrades, “he
appeared to be walking about, to save the expenses of his funeral,”
and in this cheerful condition he went down to Bombay, to accept the
inevitable, and to receive his bride.
 CHAPTER II.
“THE HONEYMOON.”

“Face joys a costly mask to wear,

’Tis bought with pangs long nourishèd
And rounded to despair.”

“On the 5th instant, at the Cathedral, Bombay, by the Rev.

Erasmus Jones, George Holroyd, Lieutenant, Her Majesty’s Royal
Musketeers, only son of the late George Holroyd, and grandson of
Sir Mowbray Holroyd, of Rivals Place, county Durham, to Isabelle
Felicité, daughter of the late Fergus Redmond, grand-niece of Lord
Bogberry, and great-grand-niece of the Marquis of Round Tower. By
Telegram.”
Mrs. Redmond herself had composed this high-sounding
announcement, and had handed it to Colonel Calvert, with
instructions to insert the date, and not to trust it to Holroyd, but to
see to it himself—perhaps in her secret heart she feared that George
might modify her magnificent composition.
The wedding was strictly private, and if the bridegroom looked
haggard and pre-occupied, the bride was both blooming and
beaming. The Calverts and Miss Gay were the only guests, and after
the ceremony, the happy pair went direct to the railway station, and
departed on a tour up country. They visited Jeypore, Ajmir, Delhi,
Agra, and Lucknow. Belle liked the bustle, the constant change, the
novelty of her surroundings, the admiring eyes of other passengers,
and the luxury of having every wish most carefully studied. But she
did not much appreciate Indian sights and Indian scenery. She gave
them but a very cursory notice, her attention being chiefly centred on
her fellow travellers. It was the flood-tide of the globe-trotting season
—English, Americans, French, and Australians, were scattered over
the land in hundreds, “doing India,” from a certain point of view, and
believing that when they had seen the Taj at Agra, the burning ghaut
at Benares, the snows at Darjeeling, a snake charmer, and a fakeer,
they were henceforth qualified authorities on the Eastern question!
The hotels were crammed, the proprietors reaping a golden harvest,
and often at their wits’ end to find quarters for their guests. Belle
enjoyed the numerous and varied society she met at the table
d’hôte, her roving, challenging dark eyes daily wandered among
what were, to her, entirely new types. There was the purse-proud,
tubby little man, who scorned the letter H and expected to be served
as promptly and as obsequiously as if he were in his own house;
who roared and stormed in English at amazed Mahomedan
khitmatgars, who did not understand either him or his wants. There
were the people who entered into conversation right and left, and
cheerfully discussed plans and places, the people who never opened
their mouths but to receive their forks—or knives; the people who ate
everything, the people who barely tasted a morsel—and the delicate
couple from Calcutta who had brought their own cook! The American
party, mostly wearing pince-nez, bright, brisk, agreeable, seeing the
world at rail-road speed and pleased with all they saw, sleeping in
trains, eating in “ticca” gharries, en route to some sight, and writing
up their diaries at every spare moment. The English family—
comprised of a father collecting facts, a mother collecting pottery,
two pretty daughters, a valet and a maid—to whom time and money
were no object, and who were a perfect fortune to the hawkers who
haunted the hotel verandahs. There was the gentleman from New
Zealand, who was surprised at nothing but the gigantic size of the
cockroaches, and the ruddy-cheeked youth from Belfast, who was
surprised at everything, and who half expected to see tigers sporting
on the Apollo Bunder or chasing the Bombay trams; also the two
cautious ladies, who brought their hand-bags to the table, and read
guide books between the courses. Moreover, there was the
handsome rich young man who had come out to shoot big game,
and discoursed eloquently of the delights of the Terai, and the merits
of explosive bullets, and shikar elephants, and was not unlikely to be
“brought down” himself by the bright eyes of an Australian girl, who
played off Japan against the jungles. Last, but not least, the