Chapter 23 June
JUNE
When June woke, she had the thick, disoriented feeling of someone who had meant to close her eyes for an hour and had vanished for nearly five.
She stared at the clock on the bedside table.
Just after two.
Her stomach growled so loudly in the quiet room that she laughed at herself despite everything.
“Well,” she muttered, throwing back the covers, “that answers that.”
The shower helped.
It woke her properly and washed the heaviness of the night and morning off her skin, but it didn't quiet her mind. Mina’s words kept circling back around. The nudging. The old tea shop in Miami. The certainty that everyone else had apparently had about Holt and June needing another chance.
And underneath all of that lay the other thing.
The thing she had shoved back down the moment it rose.
Secrets.
Unsaid things.
The conversation she and Holt were supposed to have had all those years ago, and never did.
June turned the water off and stood for a second with her hands braced on the tile wall, her eyes closed.
Maybe tonight would be the night.
Maybe tonight, with the case set aside for just a few hours, they would finally speak about the thing that had stood between them for nearly thirty-eight years.
The thought sent guilt straight through her.
Then almost as quickly, guilt gave way to hurt.
And then anger.
It moved through her so abruptly and so sharply that it felt as though none of those years had actually passed at all.
The memory of that old wound could still rise hot as if it were happening in the present.
June opened her eyes and wrapped a towel around herself.
“Get a grip,” she told her reflection. “That was years ago.”
Another voice in her mind answered at once.
Yes, and he was still the one who betrayed you.
She closed the door on that, too.
By the time she had dressed and gone downstairs, June had forced her thoughts back into order.
Then there was a knock on the door.
She crossed the room and opened it.
Her heart gave a sudden, unmistakable lurch.
Holt stood there with boxes of food in one hand, a cardboard tray of coffee in the other, and the smell of both hit her hard enough to make her mouth water and her stomach clench with gratitude.
“I brought food, snacks, and coffee,” he said with that goofy grin she remembered so well.
“You are a lifesaver,” June told him.
She stepped back to let him in and had to physically stop herself from doing something ridiculous like throwing her arms around him in thanks.
“Go through to the deck,” June instructed him. “I’ll get plates and silverware.”
As she moved through the kitchen pulling out what they needed, the old, dangerous excitement she had been holding at bay all day stirred again at the thought of their date that night. Then Mina’s words slid back into her mind, and that excitement faltered.
Secrets are what get people hurt.
June froze with the forks in her hand.
Her conscience, annoyingly energetic now that she was no longer exhausted, reminded her that tonight might also be the night to finally speak the truth she and Holt had both avoided the night he walked out of their marriage.
Guilt rose again.
“Stop it, June, we’ve already had this conversation, remember?
” she hissed beneath her breath, took a deep breath, brushed the thought away, and concentrated on the food outside.
As she walked toward the deck, June inhaled once more and ensured she’d forced her rogue thoughts and old feelings back behind the same mental door she had used for years, and carried the plates and cutlery out to the deck.
Holt had already set everything out. His phone, notepad, tablet, and pen sat neatly beside him on the table, evidence that even now, even in this odd suspended little pocket of the day, he had not entirely let the case go.
The food boxes were stacked in the center.
His coffee sat near his hand. The second cup, placed carefully before the chair beside him, made something in her chest soften before she could stop it.
Cozy, she thought. Then almost laughed at herself for the word.
“Here are plates, napkins, and cutlery,” June said, setting them down. “I wasn’t sure what was in the boxes.”
“We’ll need the spoons for dessert,” Holt told her with a grin.
“Dessert as well?” June’s brows rose. “Aren’t we going out to dinner later?”
“We are.” His smile brightened, and to her very great relief, he looked just as pleased by that prospect as she felt. “That doesn’t mean we can’t eat now.”
Keep calm, June, she told herself.
She sat beside him rather than opposite, picked up the coffee, and took a sip. And immediately recognized the heavenly taste of one of the best cups of coffee in town. “Oh, that’s good.” June turned and looked at him as she appreciated the flavor of the beverage.
“Can you believe that coffee vendor is still trading on the beachfront?” Holt asked.
“Yes,” June said. “I go there often when I’m in town.” Then she quickly added with a grin, “Don’t tell Margo.”
They both laughed.
“I stop there more often than I probably should when I’m in town, too,” Holt admitted.
That made June feel absurdly happy for some reason, or maybe because it was almost like a shared memory they were both enjoying.
They fell into a companionable silence while they dished up and started to eat. She had barely managed a few bites when she noticed it.
At first, it was only the sky.
A dimming at the edges.
Then the air.
It was heavier and thicker than usual and way, way too calm.
June lifted her head and looked out past the deck toward the water.
The horizon had changed while they were eating. The light had gone strange, not dark exactly but flatter, grayer, as if the color had been drained from the afternoon. The breeze that usually moved through the sea grass and rattled the leaves on the nearby trees had almost completely stopped.
And there was something else.
An absence of the usual sounds of the world that usually flowed around them.
She frowned.
“Is it just me,” June asked, looking at Holt, “or does the sky and air around us feel a little ominous?”
Holt set down his fork and glanced around more carefully.
“I didn't notice that until you pointed it out.” His brow furrowed. “But you’re right, it does.”
“There are no birds,” June said quietly. “And I can’t hear any insects.”
“Neither can I.” Holt tilted his head slightly as if listening.
“Do you think we’re in for a storm?” June’s eyes widened a little.
“I didn’t get a weather warning.” Holt pulled out his phone.
“Neither did I.” June checked her own.
There was nothing on the phone, and that should have reassured her, but it didn't.
Because the children were gone on that camping trip. Their children and grandchildren and their friends, not to mention all the other kids who had been sent off with leaders everyone trusted.
“I’m worried about the campout,” June admitted.
“I know.” He didn't try to dismiss it, and somehow that made her even more uneasy. “That was the first thought that crossed my mind.”
“Where exactly are they all?” June asked, trying to make herself think rather than just worry. “I know they were splitting them into groups, but I didn’t get the exact details. Did you?”
Holt nodded.
“Willa and Ace took the fourteen to seventeen-year-olds. They got permission to camp on Sandy Shore Island.”
“That nature reserve?” June’s stomach tightened. “The one on that island in the sea?”
“Yes.” Holt nodded again and glanced at his phone.
“It’s beautiful,” June said, trying to quell the rising unease growing in her stomach. “But it isn’t a very large island. And if a storm hits suddenly out there, it can get brutal fast.”
“I know,” Holt said again, and she was starting to get annoyed with that answer.
“Where are the others?” June asked, noting that he, too, was thinking exactly the same thing that she was.
“Margo and Rad took the larger group,” Holt said.
“Those are all the kids under thirteen. Carmen and Zane couldn’t get away because someone needed to stay back while Willa was gone.
” His eyes lifted to hers. “I believe that Willa managed to get a senior camp counselor to go with them to help with the large group.”
“So Grace, Katey, Andy, and Tyler are with Willa and Ace on the island.” June tried to order it in her mind.
“Yes.” Holt gave her a tight smile. “And Margo and Rad have Becky, Zoe, and the younger children.”
“Okay, and do you know where they are?” June watched Holt, and she couldn’t stop the bad feeling that moved through her then.
Not dramatic. Not the kind that shouted. Just a quiet, cold line of worry that settled right in her stomach and refused to move.
If there had been any warning, she told herself, the camp would have pulled back already.
That had to mean this was just heavy weather moving through.
Nothing more.
Still, when she looked at Holt and saw him scanning the horizon again, frowning now, she knew he wasn’t comfortable either.
They didn't say any more about it.
Instead, they finished eating, packed up the leftovers, and carried everything inside.
The mood had shifted. Not ruined, but sharpened.
June opened the fridge to put something away just as Holt turned from the counter behind her.
They collided.
His hand came out instinctively to steady her.
And then, suddenly, she was pressed against him, caught against the firm warmth of his chest, his hand at her waist, his other braced lightly against the counter to keep them both from falling into a worse tangle.
Her breath caught.
Their eyes met.
“June…”
His voice was rougher than it had been a second before, and the look in his eyes made her pulse leap hard enough to hurt.
She knew she should move.
She didn't.
“I feel like a teenager again,” Holt said quietly. “Trying to figure out how to ask you on a date and then wondering all day if I’ve made a complete fool of myself.”
A helpless little smile touched her mouth before she could stop it.
“I know,” she murmured. “I’ve felt the same way all day.”