Weddings Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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      Neither had looked the way she felt. Angry, indignant. And it bothered the hell out of her.

      Kevin entered the kitchen behind her. He’d let her have her lead all the way back to the farmhouse after they’d seen Max. June had chosen to sink into an almost deafening silence.

      It was time for words. Silence, he’d learned years ago, never solved anything but only served to isolate you.

      “You wanted them to react the way you did, didn’t you?”

      Her legs straight out before her, she contemplated the tips of her boots. “Yes,” she finally said grudgingly. Was that so unreasonable, to want her brother and sister to feel the way she did? “He left all of us. He broke my mother’s heart.”

      He noted that she’d said “my” not “our.” Was it the bond between them that she felt she was now vindicating? Was this a battle for two rather than just one? He decided to take her lead.

      For a moment, he dropped down in the chair opposite her, straddling it. “What would your mother have done if she was alive right now?”

      The expression on June’s face was disparaging. She knew exactly the way her mother would have reacted. “Welcomed him back with open arms, probably.”

      “Why?” he prodded.

      Anger flickered in her eyes as she raised them to his face. “Because she loved him. And because she had no self-pride.”

      “What if he came back to stay?”

      “He didn’t,” she cut in quickly. Her father never stayed put anywhere. At first, there’d been postcards. There’d been no return addresses on any of them, but the canceled stamps had testified to a wide journey. They’d stopped coming after a year. That eventually had led them to speculate that he had died.

      “What if he did?” Kevin pressed. “What if he came back for good? Wouldn’t cutting him off like that be cruel to everyone considered? To your mother as well as to him?”

      What did he want from her? He was just spinning theories anyway. “I suppose.”

      “So, why wouldn’t that apply here?” he asked gently. June looked up at him, confusion in her eyes. “If your father’s come back to Hades to make amends, wouldn’t turning your back on him now be just as cruel to him? To you?”

      Restless, she got up, nearly knocking her chair over. Kevin caught it, righting the chair as she shoved her hands irritably into her pockets. “Don’t you understand? I can’t just forgive him.”

      “No,” he confessed, “I don’t understand. Why can’t you forgive him? What good does it do to punish him?” And herself, he added silently, sensing how much she was hurting. “It doesn’t change anything that’s happened. Doesn’t bring your mother back. And it only robs you of the present, of the future.”

      He was talking to her back. Hands on her shoulders, Kevin turned her gently around. When she resisted, he applied just enough pressure to make her look at him. There was a world of hurt, of confusion in her eyes.

      “He’s here now, June, make the most of it. None of us know how much time we have on this earth. We shouldn’t waste it. Enough’s been wasted as it is.”

      She looked away, shaking her head, blinking back tears she refused to shed for her father. “I can’t.”

      “Yes, you can,” he told her softly. “You’re not a vengeful person.”

      Her head jerked up. What gave him the right to make these judgments, to act as if he knew the workings of her mind when she didn’t know them herself? “How would you know? How would you know anything about me? Two weeks isn’t enough time.”

      He curbed the urge to take her into his arms, to just hold her until her hurt ebbed away. He knew she’d never allow it, not now. “Sometimes two weeks can be a lifetime.”

      “Only if you’re a mosquito.” She sighed, shutting her eyes. “I need time, Kevin. I feel my whole life has been based around his leaving us.”

      “You’re working the farm.”

      She opened her eyes to look at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

      “Aren’t you back here, where you lived as a child, to try to change things, to turn things around? To see what it might have been like if you’d all stayed here, trying to make a go of working the land? Of living here instead of with your grandmother above the post office?”

      Her denial died on her lips. She supposed he was making sense. Kind of. “Jimmy never told me you were a philosopher.”

      “He should have.” He laughed, remembering. “God knows I spent enough time trying to talk sense into him when he was a teenager.”

      June leaned back against the ancient counter that ran along the wall. “I’m not a teenager, Kevin,” she pointed out.

      “Nobody outgrows their need for common sense.” He peered out through the kitchen window. Daylight was streaming in full force. But he could feel his stomach tightening. He’d left the watch Luc had lent him on the bureau in his room. He still couldn’t find his own.

      “Damn it.” He turned to look at June. “I can never tell by looking. What time is it?”

      She felt she’d packed a great deal of living into this one day. June glanced at her watch. “Almost five, why?”

      “I was just thinking that dinnertime will be coming up soon.”

      The only schedule she adhered to had to do with working. In her personal life, she was far more lax. She ate when she was hungry, slept when she was tired. She pressed her hand to her stomach, remembering that she’d had very little to eat today. “I really don’t feel like cooking.”

      “That wasn’t going to be the offer,” he told her. “I can either make something for us, or we can go over to Lily’s.” Never one for pretenses, she was staying with Max at his home. She’d reasoned that since she was going to be living there after the wedding, she might as well get a jump on redecorating it now. Max had seen no reason to argue with her. “She’s always game to whip up a meal or twelve.”

      Even though he’d seemed to take the news well enough, Max was going to need Lily tonight, June thought. And while there was a need within her to band together with her siblings, there was also a desire to be alone. To lick wounds that had been freshly ripped open.

      She shook her head at the latter suggestion. “I don’t feel like going out again.”

      It was just as well, he thought. She needed a little time to rebound from this. And, selfishly, he wanted to be with her. “Okay, then I’ll cook.”

      She sighed. “I’m being waspish, short-tempered and surly. Why are you being so nice to me?”

      He lifted her chin and looked down into her eyes. His own smiled softly. He thought of the way she’d been earlier, so pliant, so willing in his arms. He might have been her first, but the way he saw it, she СКАЧАТЬ