14. June #2
Holt took a slow breath. “June. I never had an affair with Lillian,” he told her quietly.
“We didn’t get engaged until almost two years after our divorce was final.
She was there, yes. She was there as a friend.
My life had fallen apart. My marriage had ended.
Her family was helping me through a transition.
That’s what it was, June. That’s all it was. ”
“It’s not my business anymore, Holt,” June told him. Her voice was tired now. “I just wanted you to know I did try. More than once. I should have tried harder. But the truth is, I was hurt, and I let that hurt decide for me. And that was not good enough. I know it wasn’t good enough.”
“After everything that’s happened tonight,” Holt began carefully, “you and I have a great deal to talk about. Just the two of us.” He glanced at Willa and Rad.
“Don’t mind us,” Rad said. “We’re all family here.”
“I’m with my brother,” Willa said, sliding a small smile to Rad. “I think it’s good all these secrets are coming out.”
“Yes, we are family, and getting the secrets out is good,” Carmen agreed, giving Rad and Willa a small, sharp look.
“But some conversations are between June and Holt alone.” Her eyes moved pointedly to Holt.
“But before we all leave, there is still one thing, though, that Holt needs to tell June and Willa. Don’t you think, Holt, that now is exactly the right time for that? ”
“What does Carmen mean?” June asked, her frown deepening as she turned to Holt.
Holt raised both hands slightly.
“First,” Holt began carefully, “I want you to hear this properly. I did not have an affair with Lillian during our marriage. When we fell apart, she was there as a friend. That is the truth.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“But there is something I need to tell both of you,” Holt continued, his voice dropping.
He closed his eyes for a moment. His jaw set.
Then he looked at June again. “Eighteen years ago, an attorney from Miami was coming to deliver evidence to me that I’d been waiting a long time for.
Evidence I needed to bring down a violent cartel leader. The man who’d killed my father.”
June’s brows drew together.
“All right.” She shook her head slowly. “What does that have to do with Willa and me?”
“The original attorney who was supposed to come was shot by the cartel leader’s son,” Holt told her. “He was in critical condition. A colleague from his firm took over on very short notice. He got on a plane from Miami carrying the documents.”
June’s stomach dropped before her mind had caught up with it.
“I...” June shook her head. “What are you saying?”
“I have to tell you, June, that I never knew who the attorney bringing those documents was,” Holt continued carefully. “I didn’t know until after. Until the call went out to his family.”
“What are you saying, Holt?” June asked again, her voice thin.
“The documents were lost in a plane crash.” Holt’s jaw worked. “The attorney who was on his way to bring them to me didn’t survive the crash either.”
The truth hit her just as Willa gasped.
The sound of her daughter understanding what Holt was about to say was the only thing that pierced the roaring in June’s ears.
“June.” Holt’s eyes briefly met Willa’s. “Willa. The attorney on his way to meet me that night was Trevor.”
“No,” Willa breathed. She turned her head. Her eyes met June’s across the kitchen. “Mom, did you know?”
“No.” June’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “No. I never knew why Trevor was on that plane. I was told it was a conference. I was told it was a last-minute trip for work.” The floor felt as though it was moving slightly beneath her. “I was never told where he was going or why.”
“June.” Holt stepped forward, his hands reaching gently toward hers. “I’m so sorry. I have tried to tell you so many times. I didn’t know he was your husband until after. I didn’t know he was Willa’s father. I didn’t know any of it until it was too late.”
June pulled her hands away.
She stepped back.
“I...” Confusion and grief and a dozen different emotions tangled in her chest and choked off whatever she was about to say. “I...”
She started turning.
“I have to go,” June managed.
“Mom—” Willa said.
“June—” Holt called.
June didn’t stop.
She walked out of the kitchen with her hand pressed against her mouth, moved down the hallway at something just short of a run, and pushed her bedroom door open with her shoulder.
She closed it behind her. She turned the lock.
Then she leaned her back against the door and slid slowly down it until she was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest.
The tears came like a dam breaking.
June tried to keep them silent and couldn’t.
The bathroom door across the bedroom opened.
Victoria stepped out in her robe, her wet hair loose around her shoulders, the steam from her shower still curling faintly behind her.
Victoria took one look at June on the floor and was across the room in three strides.
“June.” Victoria dropped to the carpet in front of her, the robe pooling around her knees. “June, what’s happened? What is it?”
June couldn’t answer.
The sounds coming out of her throat weren’t words.
They were the broken sounds of a woman who had been holding something for thirty-eight years and had just been handed one more impossible piece on top of it.
Trevor. Her Trevor. The man who’d loved her and Willa and raised Willa as his own and been the steadiest good thing in her life had been on that plane because of Holt.
And Holt hadn’t known.
And Holt had been carrying it for eighteen years.
“Everything is such a mess, Victoria,” June managed through the tears. “Everything is such a terrible, terrible mess.”
Victoria, of all people, wrapped her arms around June on the bedroom floor and pulled her in.
“I know, my friend.” Victoria held her carefully, the way a mother might hold a broken child. “I know. Let it out. It’s all right. Let it out.”
June let it out.
She cried for Trevor. She cried for the young woman she’d been who’d sat in a Virginia Airbnb holding her one-month-old baby and made a decision she’d never been able to undo.
She cried for Shaun. She cried for Willa.
She cried for Holt, standing in the kitchen with that terrible, old grief finally said out loud between them.
She cried for the house across the road that was nothing but blackened timber now.
Victoria didn’t say anything else. She simply held her.
After a while, June didn’t know how long, Victoria began, very softly, to talk.
“You know something, June?” Victoria said quietly, her hand moving slowly up and down June’s back.
“I spent most of my life believing that I was the most difficult woman in Sandpiper Shores. I took pride in it, actually. I thought it kept me safe. I thought if I was sharp enough and cold enough and kept everyone at a proper distance, nobody could hurt me the way my family had hurt me.” She paused.
“I was wrong. What it did was keep me alone. And now I’m sitting on a floor in Miami at three in the morning holding a woman I would not have called a friend yesterday, and I have not felt this needed in probably thirty years. ”
A small, wet laugh surprised its way out of June’s throat. “You’re a good woman, Victoria.”
“I am trying to be,” Victoria replied softly. “For the first time in my life. And I’m doing it badly. But I am trying.”
June pressed her face into Victoria’s shoulder and let the last of the tears come.
A soft knock came at the bedroom door.
“June?” Carmen’s voice was muffled through the wood. “Junie? It’s me. Can I come in?”
June looked at Victoria.
Victoria raised one eyebrow.
“Your sister has done quite enough talking tonight,” Victoria murmured. “Up to you.”
June drew in a long, shuddering breath.
“Give me a few minutes, Carmen,” June called out, her voice rough. “I’ll be all right. I just need a few minutes.”
“All right,” Carmen replied softly from the other side. “I love you, June. I’m so sorry. I didn’t... I just couldn’t let him sit there, letting you carry the weight of all of it when he was carrying some of it himself. I’m so sorry.”
“I know, Carmen.” June closed her eyes. “I know. I love you too.”
Carmen’s footsteps moved quietly away down the hall.
June leaned her head back against the door and looked up at the ceiling.
“Victoria,” June said finally.
“Yes?”
“Trevor was a good man,” June whispered. “A truly good man. He knew everything about my history with Holt. He knew about the baby. He didn’t just agree to marry me. He chose me, and he chose Willa. He loved her like she was his own.”
“I know he did,” Victoria said softly.
“He died doing the right thing,” June continued. “He died because someone else needed him. That was Trevor. That was who he was.”
“Yes,” Victoria agreed quietly.
June was silent for a long moment.
“Eighteen years,” June whispered. “Holt has been carrying this for eighteen years.”
Victoria didn’t say anything to that. She just tightened her arm slightly around June’s shoulders and waited.
“I don’t know what to do with that, Victoria,” June admitted. “I don’t know how to sit with it. I don’t know what it means for Holt and me. I don’t know what it means for Willa. I don’t know what it means for anything.”
“You don’t have to know tonight, June,” Victoria told her softly.
“Nothing on this earth has to be worked out tonight. Now, why don’t we get some of those decidedly decadent chocolate bars from the bar fridge in this luxurious room, climb into that enormous bed.
And trust me it’s the most comfortable bed in this house.
” She smiled warmly at June. “We’ll put on an old movie, eat our chocolates, and let the day be done.
” She sighed. “And maybe we’ll both finally get some rest.” She looked at June.
“We’ll get to everything else when the sun comes up. ”
June gave a small, watery smile. “That sounds like a great plan.”
“Good.” Victoria stood and held her hands down to June. “Come on. Up.”
June let Victoria pull her to her feet.
She stood in the middle of the bedroom and looked at the woman in the fluffy robe with the damp hair, and felt an enormous, unexpected gratitude settle quietly over her.
“Victoria.” June sighed.
“Hmm?” Victoria smiled at her.
“Thank you,” June said in a soft voice.
“Oh, June, no,” Victoria’s eyes softened in a way that was entirely new.
“Thank you. It has been a very long time since anyone needed me to be kind. I’ve missed it more than I realized.
And what you did for Alfred and me today.
Putting your neck out for us and going up against the FBI…
That is something only a handful of people have ever done for me. ”
June slipped into the bathroom and washed her face. She brushed her teeth, then climbed into the enormous king-sized bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.
Victoria climbed in on the other side, after dumping what looked like an armload of candy bars on the bed between them. “I wasn’t sure what you liked.”
June laughed and chose one. They turned off the bedside lamps as Victoria switched on the television, then settled back against the pillows to choose a movie.
June lay on her back in the dark and stared at the screen.
Her heart was bruised in every possible direction.
Her house was gone. Her daughter was probably awake in the next room, trying to work out how to feel about her.
Her first love was in a room down the hall, sitting with the weight of having been the reason Trevor was on that plane.
And beside her, a woman June had nearly helped send to prison two days ago was eating candy bars and watching an old black-and-white movie with her.
How strange, June thought, how quickly the shape of everything could change.
Strange, how you could lose everything you thought you had, and somehow discover that the things you still had were closer and more real than you’d ever understood.
Before the movie was halfway through, June closed her eyes as sleep pulled her under, comforted by the fact that someone she never thought she’d trust in a million years watched over her.