The Bride Wore Blue Jeans

by Marie Ferrarella

  Why did she feel so wonderful and sad at the same time? Why did she feel like laughing and crying, and staying and fleeing?

  What the hell was that?

  Kevin took a step back away from her, wanting only to step forward.

  Wanting to kiss her again. And again.

  He was just lonely, he insisted silently. And she was a beautiful woman, even if she did nothing to bring that out.

  He realized that he was supposed to say something here. His mind scrambled for words.

  “Right.” He pointed behind him needlessly. “I’ll just go back inside and find him.” Provided I can still walk.

  June nodded, then got into her Jeep, suddenly collapsing in her seat as if all the air had just been let out of her. She took a deep breath before starting the vehicle, hoping he wasn’t watching. Hoping no one had been watching. If they had, this was going to wreak havoc with her image. Hard to pretend that she could care less about men and romance when she’d just been hermetically sealed to one.

  And wishing she still was.

  As if to deny the existence of the thought, June stomped down on the accelerator and roared off into the night.

  Kevin sat at the sturdy wooden table, nursing a mug of coffee.

  Suddenly, his brother Jimmy stumbled into the kitchen. “What are you doing up?”

  “Can’t sleep,” Kevin muttered, and glanced in his direction.

  Which was true. He couldn’t. He’d tried to tell himself that it was jet lag, but travel time from Seattle to Anchorage hadn’t been that long and besides, he’d remained in the same time zone, so that wasn’t the culprit for his inability to fall asleep. And neither was the strange habits of the sun, which seemed to barely disappear in the sky before it put in another appearance.

  He knew why he couldn’t sleep, but he wasn’t about to put it into words. Formless and unidentified, it might stand a chance of going away.

  Kevin nodded toward the coffeemaker sitting on the granite counter. “I made some coffee. Hope you don’t mind.”

  Already at the counter, Jimmy laughed as he poured himself a cup. He brought himself over to the table and sank down on the chair opposite his brother. Felt like old times, he thought, taking a long sip of the thick, black liquid. A distant smile curved his mouth. “I remember your coffee. Thick enough to grease the axles of that first taxi you had.”

  Kevin thought of the old car. Squat, wide and yellow, there’d been almost a hundred thousand miles on it when he’d inherited it after buying the business from his old boss.

  “Damn thing kept breaking down. Almost spent more time trying to fix it than driving it.” He laughed fondly. His feelings hadn’t been quite so fond at the time. Kevin shook his head as he took another sip. “Seems like a million years ago.”

  Jimmy wrapped his hands around his mug. He looked up at his brother, studying Kevin’s face. “Why did you sell the business?”

  Kevin frowned, shrugging as he looked away. “Seemed like—”

  “Don’t give me the same garbage you gave Lily.” Jimmy wanted to know the real reason, not the one his brother was handing out. “You loved that business.”

  “No,” Kevin corrected adamantly. “I loved all of you. The taxi service just helped me keep us together, that’s all. Now that we’re all apart…” His voice drifted off. There didn’t seem to be anything to say as he shrugged his shoulders.

  Jimmy didn’t have to fill in the blanks. He knew how Kevin felt about them. His older brother had sacrificed having a life of his own so that all of them could pursue their dreams. He’d always felt guilty about that.

  Impulse had him leaning in to his brother. “Then move up here,” Jimmy urged. “I mean, it’s not like you’ve exactly got a life back in Seattle.” He stopped suddenly, realizing that maybe he was assuming too much. Maybe Kevin had moved on with his life now that the rest of them were all here. “You don’t, 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 pl
ace, 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.”

  Though he’d kept a regular mechanic at the cab company, he was a fair mechanic on his own. “Mind if I take a look at it?”

  Her temper, she found, was rather short today. “It doesn’t need to be looked at, it needs to be fixed.”

  “Can’t do that if I don’t look at it first.”

  “I’ve looked at it. I’ve been looking at it for the last day and a half.” In disgust, she threw down the torque wrench and stepped away, knowing that if she kept at it any longer in her present state of mind, she might just use the wrench to take apart the rest of it and chuck it all. “Be my guest.”

  “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” Kevin rolled up his sleeves.

  For the first time since he’d arrived in Hades, he felt useful. And at home.

  Chapter Six

  “Try it.”

  Just coming out of the house with a glass of iced coffee for Kevin—all that she could manage to scrounge up on short notice in the way of a sociable beverage—June stopped dead in her tracks.

  Not because of his short instruction, given as he waved at the tractor, but because in the time that it had taken her to go inside and try to locate something other than the two bottles of beer in her refrigerator to offer him, Kevin had finally surrendered to the heat and stripped off his damp shirt.

  She’d already noticed, albeit somewhat unwillingly, how the material had clung to his body. But the difference between her speculation and reality was the difference between a Monet and a six-year-old’s crayon rendition of a lake. The man’s torso looked as if Michelangelo had studied it before creating his statue of David.
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  Kevin’s chest was sculpted, tanned and gleaming. She pressed her lips together to make sure her mouth wasn’t hanging open.

  How did a man who, until very recently, ran a cab company and spent most of his time in enclosures of one sort or another come off looking like a model in search of a product to push? In Kevin’s present state, he could have sold argyle socks to Australian Aborigine tribesmen in the wild.

  Kevin looked in her direction, a quizzical expression on his face and she realized that she’d all but solidified in place. Allowing the sizzling effect of his appearance to penetrate further, she thawed out immediately.

  Clearing her throat as she rejoined the animated world, June looked at the tractor skeptically, trying very hard to focus her thoughts on the piece of machinery and not the man holding the wrench.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Tractor, think tractor. She stared at the antiquated machine that had been housed in the barn for the better part of a decade and a half. Overhauling it, she’d gotten it to work several times, but never for long and on this last effort, it had completely given up the ghost no matter what she tried.

  June chewed on her lower lip. He’d been working on the tractor for the better part of three hours. Granted, he seemed to have gotten all the pieces back to where they belonged or, at least, off the ground, but that was no proof that he’d done any better a job than she had in all of her previous recent attempts to get the engine to run again.

  She took a few steps forward. “What did you do?” she wanted to know.

  Since she was holding the glass out, Kevin assumed the iced coffee was intended for him. He took the glass from her.

  “Just try it,” he urged again, then took a long, long sip, grateful for the cold liquid. He rubbed the glass along his brow. Sweat poured off him. “If it works, then I’ll explain what I did. Otherwise, there’s no point.”

  Move, think, talk, she instructed herself sternly when she realized she’d suddenly become glued into place again. Do anything but stare at him. He’s just a man. Lots of H2O, skin, hair, fat cells, that’s all.