The Secret Ingredient (Love Around the Corner)

by Lynn Rae

  Nate held Maddie and hoped her diaper would last the duration of the appointment, while Becky balanced Morgan on her lap as she tapped at her phone, intermittently making apologies for being distracted. She’d received an e-mail from Dave earlier, asking about the appointment, and she had promised to keep him updated on the health of his children. He’d been confused by the time difference, and now his sister was fretting that he’d be worried she hadn’t responded yet.

  With a sigh, Becky tapped on her phone and dropped it in the monster-sized diaper bag.

  “Who knows when he’ll get it? I told him everything is fine, but he worries. You’d think with everything to deal with over there, he’d lose track of something as simple as their checkups.”

  “He’d rather think about Maddie and Morgan than all the smelly guys in his unit.” Nate wanted to reassure her, not voicing his thoughts that Dave was focused on the mundane event of a pediatrician’s appointment so he wouldn’t have to think as much about where he was and the dangers he faced.

  “There are days when these girls would give any unwashed infantryman a run for his money,” Becky shot back with a crooked smile, even as she pulled her daughter in for a loud kiss on her fat cheek.

  Nate shook his head and glanced at Kayla to find she was still engrossed in coloring a sheet featuring strange-looking monsters with lots of eyes. She looked nothing like her half sisters, instead taking after her father, a smooth-talking, car-stereo salesman from Lima, who’d disappeared from Becky’s life before she’d even started to look pregnant. Nate would forever be grateful to the Wray family, and Dave in particular, for never making Kayla feel like a lesser part of her new family. All his sister’s in-laws had closed ranks around Becky and Kayla as soon as Dave had made it clear they were going to be his family. Despite this support, neither grandparent had been able to assist today. Becky had called him for emergency backup just about an hour before. He’d immediately agreed, but he kept glancing at his own phone to check the time. He’d told June he’d pick her up, and the longer it took in this waiting room, the tighter his schedule was going to be. Normally he wouldn’t even notice if he was a few minutes late for anything, but punctuality mattered to June. So, it mattered to him, because he wanted to get his mouth back on hers, and if she was frowning at him, it would be slow going.

  Maddie torqued her body around and stared at him like she could read his not-so kid-friendly thoughts. He wriggled his eyebrows at her, and she snorted out a blissful gurgle and stuffed some fat fingers in her mouth to gnaw on.

  “Are these girls getting hungry?”

  “Shouldn’t be. I fed them just before I loaded them into the car, even though I knew I was tempting fate. Cleaning up some vomit seemed like a better option than having to hold two hungry kids through well-baby exams.” Becky, ever practical, leaned over and lifted up a container of oat cereal for him to distribute to the girls.

  “How’s your audition coming along?”

  Nate shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything of it yet. June is keeping it a secret for some reason.”

  Becky gave him a questioning look. “How are you getting along with her? I wonder because she’s not your usual type.”

  “My usual type of videographer? Yeah, I have so many people following me around with cameras.” Nate deflected her question as best he could, unwilling to discuss June and have his new interest discovered.

  “You will be once you get to Hollywood—”

  “Or Burbank.”

  “Or Burbank, for that show.” Becky recovered immediately as she always did. “When are you going to get to see it?”

  “She said it’ll be ready tomorrow. She wants to send it in twenty-four hours before it’s due.” June’s diligence amused him almost as much as her scent turned him on.

  “You should have a premiere party. In fact, have it at my place. Dave has that huge television set up in the basement we hardly ever use. I’ll make some snacks, and you can invite everyone over for it. We can watch some old episodes of Julia Child.” Becky’s eyes lit up at the thought, and Nate nodded reluctantly. He couldn’t rain on her party-planning parade, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted his rowdy friends to be there catcalling when he saw himself on the fifty-inch HD screen for the first time.

  “Why don’t you let me make the snacks? You have enough to do.”

  “I was hoping you’d offer,” Becky said with a relieved grin. “Think Mom’ll come?”

  Nate shrugged. He’d long since, given up on hoping his mother would show an interest in whatever he did. She’d paid vague attention when he’d played football, but attending games had interfered with bar business, so she’d rarely made it to the stands. Since he’d graduated, she’d seemed to have forgotten he might have more to his life than work.

  “But June would come.” Becky frowned at him. “I know she’s not in your usual group, but she’s helped you make this thing. You have to invite her.”

  “I don’t know; she’s not really…” Nate trailed off and hoped one of the babies might make a grab for something and stuff in their mouths and distract his sister. Sadly, they all behaved themselves.

  “She’s not what?” Becky straightened Maddie’s T-shirt over her fat belly, and then automatically did the same for Morgan. “She’s perfectly nice, Nate. Just because you haven’t known her since you were five doesn’t mean she should be left out.”

  “That’s not it. I like new people.” He instantly regretted the defensive tone in his voice. Becky was going to interrogate him now.

  “Come on, what is it?” His sister dangled a set of plastic car keys in front of the twins, and they squealed and squirmed to get at them. He tried to play silent, but Becky just peered at him and made an “ah” sound deep in her throat. Great.

  “You like her.”

  “Jeez, Becky, way to sound like a kindergartner.” Nate couldn’t bring himself to say he didn’t like June. His sister had a finely tuned radar when it came to bull, at least when it came to him.

  “Can you blame me, when I’m surrounded by toddlers all day? Come on, you can tell me. I don’t get to hear gossip anymore.” She’d always been able to guilt him into anything.

  “There’s no gossip. She’s nice. Wound kinda tight, but she can be funny.”

  “I already know all that. What do you like about her?” Morgan made a squeal of dissatisfaction, and Becky quickly switched her with her sister, never letting up on the eye contact with him. “I think she’s very pretty.”

  Nate bobbled his head back and forth and stared at the artwork behind Becky. It was a cartoon maze filled with Waldo-like cartoon kids, scrambling around in the shrubbery, and it perfectly captured his confused state of mind. “She is. Kind of small though.”

  Becky laughed, and Maddie and Morgan grinned in unison. “She’s a girl, Nate. We’re built for different things. I wouldn’t think you’d ask her out on a date to play football or chop down a tree.”

  That was part of the problem. He wasn’t quite getting the whole dating thing across to June. It was probably because he didn’t have much practice at it. Most of his relationships had started with friendship and hanging out, and then one night one thing would lead to another and he’d wake up with a new girlfriend. The only way he’d been able to make plans with June was to write himself into her planner, which was a pretty lame way to ask someone out.

  “Yeah, I don’t think contact sports are the way to go. Turns out, I broke her brother’s arm at one of my football games.”

  Becky’s eyes widened. “I had no idea! Why didn’t I put that together? I sort of remember that. His name was, ah, Steve? Scott?”

  “Simon Sinclair. I had to throw him out of the bar last night right in front of her.” When he’d found out how badly the guy treated June, he’d wished he’d done more to him than toss him on his keister.

  His sister blinked theatrically and waved her free hand in the air. “You’re kidding! Is that where that bruise came from? I figured you just ran into a door
. Tell me what happened!”

  Nate recounted parts of the previous evening as he monitored the kids intake of cereal. He didn’t mention the episode in the bathroom, but skipping over it just made him think about it more. He’d never gotten so turned on so fast in his life. The only thing that had kept him from making a move had been his mom’s untimely interruption, and once they’d left the little room, he’d been too distracted to figure out how to keep June around any longer. It was only by sheer luck he’d managed to remember those extra hours she’d allotted him today.

  “This is like Romeo and Juliet, two families at war—”

  “Our families aren’t at war.” Nate was quick to head her off. “I mean, her brother’s an as—asinine guy but that’s not her fault. Mom seemed sort of cold on her though.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about Mom’s opinion. She’s not going to like anyone you bring home unless it’s Heather.”

  Nate was flabbergasted. “Heather? She’s like my sister, and that’s gross.”

  “Thanks a lot for calling me gross, ‘asinine guy.’ Come on, the two of them always get along, and Heather’s been waiting to be your girlfriend since she was six years old.”

  Nate shook his head to divert Becky, and Maddie clapped her sticky hands with delight, so he did it again just for her. Even though the topic of getting together with Heather was repulsive, it had gotten them away from how he was fumbling with June, so he was relieved.

  Becky rolled her eyes at his antics. As she reached back into the diaper bag for something, the office door opened, and every adult consigned to the waiting room turned with desperate anticipation to the nurse holding a clipboard. She called out for the Wray family, and Becky lumbered to her feet, Morgan lolling in her arms and making gabbling sounds. Nate stood up and hitched Maddie to his shoulder as he reached for Kayla with his free hand. The little girl showed him her coloring sheet, and he discovered the many-eyed monsters were actually pollen grains flying into a cartoonish nasal cavity to cause an allergic reaction. Kayla had colored everything black, mint green, and lavender in a horrific swirl of mucus. He didn’t remember coloring books being so nightmarish when he’d been a kid.

  Nate glanced at the clock on the check-in counter and told himself not to worry. He had an hour and forty-one minutes before he went to June.

  Chapter 8

  June had always liked the hardware store. She liked the uneven wood floor, the endless shelves of mysterious parts, and the flats of cheerful pansies that appeared early in the spring. Once Simon had started work there, she’d lost a measure of her old pleasure whenever she’d entered the building. Today, her dread at seeing her brother was magnified even more than usual. The combination of guilt over the altercation at the bar and her subsequent desertion of her brother in favor of staying with Nate gnawed at her.

  “Hey there, June. How are you?” Kurt, Simon’s nonroommate, greeted her from his place behind the paint counter. Before she could speak to him, he switched on the paint mixer, and its loud thumps filled the air. She could take the hint. Kurt pointed toward the entrance to the annex.

  She made her way into the section of the store holding bulkier items like fence posts, rolls of wire, and tires. She heard Simon before she saw him in the power equipment aisle. He was making more noise than the paint mixer as he shoved cans of lawnmower oil onto a metal shelf. Hopefully, he wouldn’t fling one at her.

  “Simon.” She struggled to sound calm and sure of herself as she waited a few feet away from him. He hesitated but then continued emptying the box. Once the last can was askew on the shelf, he turned to her and frowned.

  His cold gaze made her break out in goose bumps.

  “What do you want?”

  “To check on you. See how you’re doing.”

  “Why?”

  June let out a breath of pent-up tension. Why did she keep trying? “I wondered what you’d arranged for a place to stay.”

  “Like you care all of a sudden? It’s not like you’re here to offer me your stuffy sofa to crash on, is it?”

  June shook her head. There was no way he was ever staying with her, and he knew it. “Are you okay?”

  “What? Now you’re worried your boyfriend hurt me? Again? As you can see, he didn’t manage to break my other arm last night.” Simon illustrated his point by waving his hands around, and June flinched back automatically.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Her brother rolled his eyes and kicked at the empty box, the hollow sound of impact echoing in the aisle. “God, June, you’re so lame.”

  Fine. He wanted to be angry. “Grandma’s turning the keys over the realtor. You need to be out before she shows it.”

  “Or what?” Her brother narrowed his eyes and took a step her way. “The two of you are tossing me out on the street, and I’m supposed to just go along with it? What kind of wuss do you think I am?”

  Straightening her back, she faced him, suddenly sure she wasn’t going to retreat and let him tell himself he’d won. “I’ve known you all your life. I know exactly what kind of person you are.”

  He swelled up his chest and clenched his hands on his hips. “Just like I know you. Acting like you’re doing everything right, everything according to schedule, when we both know what a fraud you are.”

  Even though she’d told herself not to let his words hurt, she still felt the sting of his criticism. She was glad the store seemed to be deserted and no one would overhear this. The idea that a school parent would be in the next aisle made her shiver with shame.

  “How am I a fraud?” As soon as she asked the question, she regretted it. There was no reason to care what notion his twisted brain had created.

  “You’re a loser, June, just like me. Look at us. We’re in dead-end jobs in a worthless town. Alone.”

  June shook her head automatically. Maybe being a school secretary hadn’t been a career she’d fantasized about, but she liked what she did, liked how she helped people every day. She didn’t feel alone, and the only reason Simon might was because he pushed people away.

  “Deny it all you want, but we don’t matter to anyone, anywhere.”

  “But Grand—”

  “Is throwing me out of my house, so excuse me if I don’t feel the love anymore.” Simon twisted his mouth up, and June knew he wanted to say something about their parents. He was also likely thinking she didn’t love him, because she wasn’t packing up his stuff and moving it to her house while he was at work today.

  “Simon, you know she needs to sell so she can afford to move to the Acres—”

  “I offered to rent it, and she said no!”

  Sucking in a calming breath, June tried to step away from the argument. He wasn’t going to listen to her or change his mind about anything. “I just came here to check on you, to make sure you’re okay after last night.”

  Simon shook his head and tried to kick the box again but missed. Her heart hammered.

  “Yeah, right. Like you care. I didn’t notice you holding that asshole back. You were probably all excited to watch him beat me up. Your bitchiness amazes me, coming here like you care when you were laughing with him about it last night.”

  The depth of his delusion struck June silent for a beat too long.

  “I can’t believe you’re even bothering with a guy like that. You must be desperate. He ruined my senior year, ruined my life. Where’s your loyalty? He’s just going to use you and move on, sis. Just don’t get pregnant and expect me to help out.”

  Shattered by the cruel words, she simply shrugged and blinked back the few frustrated tears forming. She’d always known her brother disliked her for the most part; the casual cruelties of childhood had morphed into disdain as they’d grown up, but she’d never seen his disgust directed so firmly her way. Glancing up at the humming fluorescent light overhead, she wanted to let it all go.

  “Simon, I’m not your enemy and neither is Nate. He’s a good man. There’s no reason to hold on to so much resentment over an accid
ent that happened so long ago.”

  As she said the words and watched Simon’s face darken from an angry flush to enraged red, she decided to take her own advice. Something in her lightened and lifted. Simon was going to have to manage his life, and if she had to call the police to evict him from Grandma’s house, she’d do it. She’d done her duty. Without saying another word, she turned and walked away from her brother. She heard him curse and hit the empty box again and was proud of herself when she didn’t flinch.

  * * * *

  June’s mouth tingled, and it was all Nate’s fault. They were at the enormous Simple Market in Columbus, and it was nothing like its name. Cavernous and packed with every grocery item under the sun, it was crowded with carts, people, and sampling stations everywhere she turned, hence her overactive taste buds. Nate had urged her to try a sriracha chili drizzled on a cracker, and although she’d thought she was pretty resilient, the spicy fire still sizzled along her lips and tongue.

  Nate had blithely continued shopping as she surreptitiously swallowed and looked for a water fountain or a table giving away any sort of liquid. He had a cart half filled with ingredients and was heading toward the meat counter, which seemed to stretch across the back of the entire store.

  Watching him stroll along in his perfectly fitting worn jeans and white oxford shirt, she couldn’t help but remember his state when he’d arrived at her apartment about an hour before. She’d heard his truck arrive with relief since she’d been wondering if he was going to stand her up. Watching out the window as he’d pulled to an abrupt halt in front of her place, June had been shocked when he pulled off his T-shirt and threw it behind the seat and grabbed a different shirt from a hanger and put it on. He exited the truck and buttoned it up as he walked up to her door. Luckily he hadn’t looked up and seen her staring at him. Just that glimpse of his bare chest had made her heart hammer. She’d reminded herself he was changing to look nice in the video, not to impress her.

  “Come check this out.” Nate’s enthused voice cut past her recollections. He had turned back to her with a smile, reached for her hand, and pulled her to the meat counter. She wanted to stumble right into him and have him kiss her again, but instead, he was yet again showing her chunks of raw meat on ice.