Chapter 18 #2
I blink at her slowly. “Danny Cutter, June.”
“Oh.” She turns back to the window and taps the glass at Hemingway one more time, as though she hasn’t been stringing me along for the last thirty seconds. “I don’t know, honestly. I can ask around.”
She glances at the sign again, then at me with the particular attentiveness she deploys when she’s decided not to ask a question directly. “Were you looking for something specific?”
“Background. For the article.” The lie comes out smoothly and tastes exactly like what it is, but I can’t implode this family’s world until I know. “He’s been in town a long time. I thought he might have some historical context.”
June looks at me for a beat longer than necessary. “Mm.”
She says it the way Wyatt does, which is either a family trait or something that comes from living in close quarters with him for too long. Either way it means I-don’t-entirely-believe-you-but-I’m-choosing-not-to-push.
“Come on.” She hooks her arm through mine. “Two scoops at Rosie’s. My treat.”
Rosie’s is exactly as I remember it. Red vinyl stools, the jukebox playing old country songs, the smell of coffee and sugar, and the same sense of welcome I remember.
“Two scoops,” June tells the pretty server who approaches us with a smile. “Strawberry cheesecake for both of us.”
Not even a minute later, she returns and sets two generous scoops in front of us. June picks up her spoon.
“Best part of your day. Go!” She smiles.
I look at the ice cream. Then at June. “Right now.”
Her smile brightens, and she nods as I pick up my spoon.
“He used to save the cherry for last.” I relish my first spoon. “Every single time. Said it was the only logical way to eat ice cream.”
“Was he right?”
I look at the cherry sitting on top of what’s left of my first scoop.
“Probably.” I eat it immediately. “But I never did inherit that particular patience.”
June shakes her head like she’s filed that away as entirely on brand.
“He used to wink at Rosie, like they were conspiring. And she’d pretend not to notice.”
“She noticed.” June grins. “Told me once Tom Monroe made her feel like a co-conspirator in something delightful.”
I press my lips together, then furrow my brow.
“I keep finding him. Parts of him I didn’t know existed. Parts I did.”
June turns her spoon slowly. “He was proud of you. Every single day.”
“Marcus said he printed my articles.”
“He did. Made people read them at Sunday dinner. Colt complained every time and still read every word.”
I laugh softly.
“West asked questions,” she adds. “Good ones.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a minute, the diner warm around us.
“June,” I start softly. “Thank you. For all of it. The dress. The boots. The tea.” I pause. “Wyatt’s office.”
She looks at me sideways. “Don’t make a thing of it.”
“I’m trying to say thank you.”
“Well, stop. You’re family.” She says it the same way West did, like it’s a fact that doesn’t require defending. “You always were. We were just waiting for you to come back and remember it.”
I look at my ice cream. “I’m leaving next week.”
She nods. “I know.”
Neither of us says anything else. We finish our two scoops, and the jukebox plays on, and outside through the window, Main Street goes about its Friday afternoon entirely indifferent to the fact that I came here for answers and I’m almost out of time to find them.
June leaves a tip that’s too generous and we head back out into the afternoon.
“June.” I stop on the sidewalk. “What was your errand?”
She’s already walking toward the truck, keys in hand. “I ran it.”
“You didn’t buy anything.”
“No.” She unlocks the door and looks at me across the hood with a smile that is entirely too pleased with itself. “I didn’t.”
I stand there for a second, running back through the last hour. The bookshop. Rosie’s. Two scoops of strawberry cheesecake and a conversation about my father that I didn’t know I needed.
“June Hartley.”
“Get in the truck, honey.” I can hear the self-satisfied smile in her voice as I do what I’ve been told.
Her truck is warm from sitting in the sun.
We drive back mostly in silence, which is the comfortable kind that doesn’t need filling.
The valley opens up ahead as we turn off the highway, and Glacier Ridge sits on its rise the way it always does.
The cedar-shake siding is silver-gray in the afternoon light as the wraparound porch catches the sun.
There’s an extra truck in the yard. I clock it before June does, and my stomach somersaults.
“Oh good.” June pulls up alongside it. “They’re back.”
She says it with the simple satisfaction of a woman whose family is complete again, then gets out of the truck while I sit there for half a second longer than I should before following her.
The kitchen is full.
Colt is at the table. Maggie is on the counter with Beau at her feet.
Rhett is leaning against the far wall with a coffee mug, quiet in the way he always is.
And Wyatt is standing at the sink with his back to the door, hat off, sleeves rolled, and the particular stillness of a man who has just walked back into a room he owns.
He turns when the door opens.
June looks at him for one long second from across the kitchen. Then she crosses the room and wraps both arms around his middle, and he puts one arm around her and holds on for a second in that way he has, brief and complete. Over her head, his eyes move through the kitchen.
They find me, and I don’t look away.
I stand in the doorway with nowhere useful to put my hands, and for one unguarded second we just look at each other across the kitchen.
Then he looks away, picks up whatever sentence we interrupted, and the kitchen reassembles itself around him. Colt cuts in. Maggie says something from the counter. Rhett nods once from the wall.
“I need to grab my things from the office.” My words are a mumble for no one in particular, and I quietly slip out before anyone can comment.
I do a quick sweep of the office, straighten the shelves and line up the chair properly. Then I close my laptop, stack my files, and set the rest of the office back to rights.
I’m about to leave when I hear footsteps in the hall, too heavy to be June’s.
Wyatt fills the doorway and stops when he sees me. “Sorry.” His voice is rough. “Didn’t realize anyone was in here.”
Of course June didn’t ask permission.
“June set me up in here while you were gone.” I keep my tone even. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“You’re not in my way.” The words are soft but his voice gives me nothing.
He crosses to the corkboard, slides a key off its hook, and is gone again before I can think of anything to say. I stand there a moment longer, then shoulder my bag and make my way toward the front door.
I’m almost there when I hear Wyatt’s voice drifting out of the kitchen.
“Why was Daisy in my office, June?”
The answer comes in a saccharine sweet voice. “Because she’s family, Wyatt. And family doesn’t sit in a cabin with a folding table when there’s a perfectly good desk goin’ unused.” The sweetness sharpens. “You’d know that if you’d been here.”
I pick up my pace.
My hand is on the door handle when June’s voice stops me.
“Daisy.”
June is in the hallway, arms folded, smiling at me like she hasn’t just eviscerated her brother in the kitchen on my behalf.
“The auction dinner. Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock at the Blackstone Inn.”
She says it gently, reading my face the way she reads every room she walks into.
“June—”
“The Bozeman Gazette is covering it. And the Helena Independent.” She tilts her head. “For the Hendersons. For all of them.”
The Millers. The Coopers. The Holburns.
For Larkspur River…
“Seven o’clock.” I nod once.
“Wear something nice.” She squeezes my arm once and disappears back into the kitchen.
I pull the front door closed behind me and stand on the porch in the late afternoon sun and take a long, slow breath.
Tomorrow night. Dinner at the Blackstone Inn. With media coverage.
And Wyatt Hartley will be there.
That should go swimmingly.