do you? I mean, there’s been no femme fatale to snare you since I left, right? Lily would have said something—” He thought of his older sister as a little bit of a control freak, trying to run everyone’s life while neglecting to put her own in order—until Max had come along.
Kevin laughed softly to himself at his brother’s choice of words. “No, there’s no femme fatale, but it’s not that easy.”
Jimmy believed in seizing opportunities when they came. Falling for April had taught him that. “It’s only as complicated as you make it.”
There was a delayed echo in his head. “Funny, June said the same thing.”
“Did she now?” His voice sounded a wee bit too innocent to be convincing, Jimmy thought, annoyed with himself. He tried hard to keep a straight face, but it wasn’t easy. Ursula had already told the family about what she’d seen last night. Jimmy pretended to be taken with the contents of his mug. “Pretty girl, that June.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” Kevin said.
Frowning, Jimmy set down his cup. Taking his wrist, his brother placed his fingers over his pulse. Kevin pulled his hand away and looked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Checking to see just when you died,” Jimmy responded frankly.
Kevin sighed. “All right, I noticed. I noticed she was very pretty,” he amended. “I also noticed that she’s barely out of her teens.”
“Three years is hardly ‘barely,’ Kev. Mom was nineteen when she married Dad.”
“And Dad was twenty-two. I’m not.” A tiny bit of exasperation entered Kevin’s voice. “So what’s your point?”
Jimmy drained his cup, now fully fortified to do battle with the best of them. “My point is that you’ve spent the last umpteen years of your life working your tail off for us and you never got to be twenty-two—or nineteen for that matter. My way of thinking, since June grew up faster than the average girl, that puts you at about the same age.”
Kevin laughed shortly. “Only if you flunked math.” And then he replayed the last thing Jimmy said. “What do you mean, she grew up faster?”
Jimmy reviewed the highlights. “Abandoned by her father, watching her mother sink into an irreversible depression.” He rose and crossed to the coffeemaker. Maybe one more cup wouldn’t hurt. “Leaves one hell of an impression on a kid.” The smile that played on his lips was enigmatic. “Makes you look at things differently than the average person.” Knowing how resistant Kevin was to the suggestion of romance, he tried a different approach. “Kev, while you’re here, relax, enjoy yourself. Open up your mind to things.”
“I’ve never been closed minded.”
Only when it came to his own life, Jimmy thought. He searched for a tactful way to say that. “No, you’ve actually been too busy all this time to think about things other than providing for us and meeting the bills. Extraneous thoughts weren’t welcomed.” Crossing back to the table, he put his mug down and looked at Kevin. “Welcome them now.”
“Since when have you hung up a psychiatrist’s shingle? I thought your specialty was the heart.” Kevin didn’t like attention being focused on him. Liked other people, even people he loved, trying to “fix” his life when it wasn’t broken even less.
Jimmy’s eyes met his and he grinned. “It is my specialty.”
“Good morning.”
Both men turned toward the doorway at the sound of the sleepy female voice. April stumbled over to the counter.
“Is that coffee I smell?”
“Help yourself,” Kevin invited, then looked at Jimmy and lowered his voice. “Not another word,” he cautioned, then added weight to the warning. “I can still probably take you.”
Jimmy laughed. Working had not made his brother flabby. Kevin looked as likely to bench-press a cab as to drive one. “Probably.”
Kevin brought the Jeep to a stop before the farmhouse and got out. For a moment, he stood in front of the building, studying it. Dark and dreary, some of the wood desperately needed replacing. And it cried out for a fresh coat of paint. The last had probably been applied more than two decades ago.
The place, he thought, needed a hell of a lot of work. It looked every moment of its age, having suffered the hard winters here, and come out looking the worse for it.
What made June want to stay here when, according to Jimmy, she had a small place in town?
He’d come here by himself, using Jimmy’s Jeep after dropping his brother off at the clinic. It was Jimmy’s turn to open early. April had offered to drive him over here later, but he’d turned her down. Kevin liked exploring on his own.
Armed with a map, there wasn’t any place he couldn’t find. Finding the farm that June’s parents had once shared with their children had been relatively easy.
It looked like a place where dreams had been born and died, he thought, studying the exterior. He wondered if she planned on at least painting it before another winter came to assault the old building.
Stepping onto the front porch, he heard it creak in protest as he crossed to the front door. He knocked once, but there was no answer. Knocking again a bit more forcefully, he found that the door wobbled in its jamb and that, when he turned the knob, it opened.
The fact that the door, and thus the house, was unlocked offended his sense of security. He didn’t believe in leaving doors unlocked or in taking needless chances.
Someone had to talk to the woman to make her see that she was leaving herself open to any psychopath, not to mention the occasional wandering grizzly. Lily had been vividly descriptive about being treed by a bear her first week in Hades. Max had been there to save her. There might not be anyone to save June in a similar situation.
He didn’t want to just walk in and surprise June. There was no telling what she might be doing. But she wasn’t answering his knock and he had come out to see her for a reason.
Making a decision, he cautiously opened the door and stepped just inside.
“June?” There was no answer. He raised his voice. “June, it’s Kevin. Jimmy’s brother,” he added as an addendum, telling himself that it sounded lame even as he said it. He might as well have referred to himself as the guy who played tonsil hockey with her last night.
She didn’t seem to be inside the house. At least, not where she could hear him. He went from room to room within the small house. The woman, he quickly realized, was never going to get a job as a housekeeper. There was clothing scattered throughout the house, mixed in with newspapers, books on farming, and various foodstuffs that obviously had never made it to the cupboards.
He wondered what kind of a kitchen she kept. Probably the kind to make Lily shriek.
“June?” he called again.
Music came from the rear of the house. He made his way to what he discovered was the kitchen. She’d left a radio on, but there was no sign of June.
Curious and more than a little concerned,
