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Alex nods, tears spilling down her cheeks. Rage floods me so fast I have to take a breath to control the reaction. “Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”
“No, Dad,” she says. “Nothing like that. I’m fine. A nice lady helped me.”
Helped her? Helped her how? “Oh.” I let out a breath. “Oh. Well, Ganny’s here to take you home, all right?”
“Come on, darling,” Ganny says, putting out a hand. “How about we make something nice to eat. Cookies? Would you like that?”
Alex blinks tears away and gives Ganny a watery smile. “Yeah.”
“Great, come on, let’s leave your dad to it. He’s got to get back to work.”
Alex gives me another hug, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable leaving to go back and help my father at the bar. “You want me to call the rest of the workday off?” I ask. “Want to go home instead?”
“No, Dad. No, I’m fine.” Alex puts on a brave smile. “Sorry I made you worry. And Ganny too.”
I give her one last hug. What a damn day this has been. First Mrs. Crouchbottom in the hospital and now this.
Alex heads for the exit with Ganny but pauses in the doorway. “Bye, June!” Alex grins. “Thanks for the ice cream!”
June?
There’s only one June in my world.
I follow my daughter’s gaze toward the booth near the front window. And the woman standing beside it.
June.
It’s June.
It’s like every dream, every fantasy I’ve ever had has materialized.
Seeing June Jackson for the first time in fifteen fucking years is like being struck by lightning. Every cell in my body is alive. I can breathe again.
June is more beautiful than she was when she left.
She’s standing there, her hands tucked behind her back, her head dipped a little so that she peers up at me with those green eyes, her blonde hair threaded through with yellow ribbons. She looks sweet. And it threatens to turn me inside out. Her pink lips are parted in shock.
And her body.
Oh, my fucking God.
A yellow dress presses against her tan skin, modestly cut in the front, but with one fuck of a slit up the side that shows enough skin to torture me. She’s slim, toned, her breasts perky, and I know if I stare for too long, I’m going to embarrass myself.
Is it really her? Fuck. How can it be?
She left.
She left and she stopped writing me six months after.
“Cash,” she says, her voice like molten sunshine.
The spell breaks.
I close the space between us in three steps.
“June,” I say, and then I draw her into my arms and hug her to my chest.
She feels impossibly good, treacherously so, but June was never for me. We were always just friends. It’s difficult to remember it at this moment. If I felt like I was being struck by lightning before, now, I’m on fucking fire.
