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, Kevin opened the back screen door and walked outside. The large yard eventually led to the barn. The barn doors were open and, as he drew closer, the odor of livestock assaulted him full force.
Coughing, he entered and waited until his eyes adjusted to the dimness. The stalls, he noted, were empty. Whatever animals were housed here, he reasoned, were probably out in the field, feeding.
But where was she?
A loud curse, turning the air blue, answered his silent question. It came from behind the barn.
Rounding the building, he found June sitting on the ground, nursing her thumb, which she’d popped into her mouth. A myriad of tools were haphazardly spread out around her. It looked as if a hardware store had exploded. A tractor that had known better times was behind her.
He crouched down beside her, ready to examine the injury. “Are you all right?”
Self-conscious, she drew her hand out of reach. “I will be when I get the use of my thumb back.” Rising to her feet, she examined the mashed digit, then raised her eyes to his face. “Come for an encore?”
Amusement played on her lips. For her part, she’d decided to view what had happened last night lightly. Because to do anything else was far too scary for her to contemplate.
“Come to apologize, actually.”
“Why?” She looked at him more closely. Had he come by to say that he was sorry he had kissed her? The thought stung and she had no idea why. June turned away from him and pretended to focus her attention back to the errant tractor. She purposely kept her voice nonchalant. “I thought it was rather nice, as far as kisses went.”
“It was. Very nice.” No, nice wasn’t a word he would have used here. It was far too bland to describe what he’d felt. “Better than nice—”
June looked at him. “Then why are you apologizing?”
“Because you’re you and I’m me.”
If there was something that made less sense, she wasn’t aware of it. She cocked her head, as if trying to delve into his head. “Did those X-ray machines at the airports do something to your brain? That didn’t make any sense.”
He supposed she was right. He wasn’t even sure what he was really doing here. “I’m not making too much sense this morning.” When she looked at him quizzically, he gave her the first excuse he could think of. “I didn’t sleep a lot last night.”
She picked up a torque wrench and turned back to the tractor again. “Most tourists have trouble adjusting to the fact that the sun sets about ten and rises about three in August.”
“That wasn’t the problem.” He stood looking over her shoulder, trying not to notice how slender it was. “I’ve never had any trouble sleeping before.”
Annoyed with the machine she was trying to resurrect, she looked at him over her shoulder. “So what’s giving you trouble now?”
He decided to be candid, and honest. “My conscience.”
Her smile was wry. “Should have left that at the airport, too.”
“June, I—”
She stopped what she figured was another apology in its tracks. Why did men always think they were the ones who made things happen, who took the initiative?
June swung around, her hands on her hips, the torque wrench dangling from her fingertips. “Nothing happens to me that I don’t want to happen. Let’s just leave it at that, okay? Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a tractor to bring back from the dead.”
He gravitated to the neutral terrain. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I just told you, it’s dead.” She waved the wrench at it. “No matter what I do to it, the engine just won’t turn over.”