Softly and Tenderly (25 page)

Heading back downstairs, June peered out the second-floor window, seeing only the edge of Beryl’s lawn kissing the fresh harrows of Tank Victor’s field. Back in the yellow-and-red checkered kitchen, June retrieved a mixing bowl from the bottom cupboard.

Though Carla and crew had left plenty of food in the refrigerator and a couple of pies in the pantry, June had a taste for cake tonight.

She raised her head, listening, when a
thump
resounded from the porch. June shoved aside the curtain at the back door. No one was there. She shivered.

Back to the business of baking, June opened the fridge for the eggs. She had in mind her granny’s from-scratch pound cake. And if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d spotted an ice-cream maker in the barn the other day. Homemade ice cream and pound cake. Her mouth tingled.

This time the sound was definite. A knock. From the front door. June set the eggs on the counter. Must be Carla or one of Beryl’s friends.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

June froze midstep.
No, please, no
.

The knock hammered the front door, intent on getting someone, anyone’s, attention. June gathered her courage, crossed the room, and flipped on the porch light. On the other side of the screen stood—

“Mercy sakes, Rebel, what are you doing here?”

His tie hung at half-mast. His tan overcoat sat askew across his shoulders, and his normally politician-stiff hair was a windblown mess.

“I came up in the jet to talk some sense into you,” Rebel called. “Took a cab from the airport.”

“You should’ve called. Would’ve saved you the price of jet fuel.” June walked back toward the kitchen. “I’m busy.”

“Don’t walk away from me.” The screen door hinges moaned and balked. “I want to talk to you.”

June whirled around. “I’ll walk away from you if I want, Rebel. You can’t fly up here, knock on my door, and tell me what to do.”

Footsteps echoed on the stairs. “June? Is someone—” Jade bounded into the room. “Rebel, hey.” She stopped cold as she hit the invisible line of tension.

“Jade.” Rebel shook his coat as if he’d been standing in the rain. He ran his fingers through his hair. “You might want to know the McClures are suing Max for custody of Asa. He’s in for the fight of his life over that boy. He needs you by his side.”

Jade crossed her arms, then released their hold and rested her hand on the curved end of the banister. “Did he tell you to say that to me?”

“He doesn’t even know I’m here.” Rebel squared his shoulders, propped his hands on his belt, collecting himself, getting into character. June had observed this routine a hundred times. “I counted you as a reasonable woman, Jade. Didn’t figure you for a quitter, leaving Max for an indiscretion he had before you were married.”

“You figured right, Rebel.” Jade fired off a couple of visual daggers. “I am a reasonable woman. A
smart
woman.” She glared at June. “I’ll be upstairs.”

“She’s foolish to leave him.” Rebel’s exasperated expression punctuated his comment. “Does she think men like Max hang out on street corners waiting for women like her?”

June stepped toward him. Once. “Do you think women like Jade stand around waiting for men like Max? Men like you? He’s blessed to have Jade. Unless he’s blown it. Now, why don’t you go on home. Leave me be. What, is Claire busy tonight?”

“The governor appointed me to the court.” As Rebel drew up, squaring his shoulders, extending his back, his persona increased.

“Well, Rebel.” June propped her hands on her waist, slipping her fingers through the jeans’ belt loops. “The pinnacle. What you’ve always wanted.”

“We, Junie. What we’ve always wanted.” An excited light beamed from his hazel eyes. “The state supreme court.”

“What
I’ve
always wanted? No, you Rebel. What does the court do for me except enlarge your shadow over me?”

He took off his coat and draped it over the wingback chair.
Don’t, Reb.
You can’t stay
. “So, that’s it? I’ve overshadowed you? Poor June, never had a life of her own? Just all she ever wanted. The wife of a successful man. Nice house, friends, status, cars, European vacations, political and social connections, clothes from Paris.”

“You forgot ‘faithful and devoted husband.’” June stepped toward him, catching a whiff of his cologne. The fragrance, along with his projecting persona, nearly choked her resolve. “Rebel, I’m not sure I want this anymore.” She gestured her hand in the space between them.

“Or course you do.” Rebel tucked his hands in his slacks pockets, his posture for closing arguments. “Forty-one years can’t end because of a woman like Claire. We belong together, June. It’s only been you for me. Now, see here, the governor’s wife has invited you to a tea next Wednesday. I’ll be sworn in on Friday.” He locked his eyes on hers. “You must be there.”

“Beryl is dying. I won’t leave Jade alone here.”

“Jade? She’s a big girl, June. She doesn’t need you mothering her. Besides, where are her brother and sister?” He stepped toward her, covering her doubts with his shadow. “What do you want from me? To say I’m sorry? It’ll never happen again?”

“Yes, Rebel, for all that’s decent, yes.” Adrenaline flowed like lava through June’s veins. “I’m sick of this routine, this game. I’m sick of your infidelity, sick of being held hostage by status and, well, lack of a better idea of what to do with my life. Sick of paying over and over for my one mistake.” June swore, hard bitter words. “I’ve had enough guilt for two people’s lifetimes and I’m done, Rebel, done.”

“One mistake? One?” Rebel held up his index finger.

“Yes, one.” June narrowed her gaze at him, crossed her arms, and willed her thudding heart to rest. “Then you took revenge, Reb. Revenge. You’ve stabbed my heart over and over, and some nights I would hurt so bad I prayed you’d just leave me. Tell me, Reb, did you stay so you could punish me? Endlessly?”

“No.” The word came from his throat, his lips drawn, his jaw tense. “I stayed because I loved you.” His eyes searched hers.

“Loved me? Rebel, you’ve had dozens of affairs. Is that your idea of love? What would you have done if you wanted to punish me?”

He shifted his gaze to the ceiling, tightening his jaw so the muscle bulged. “It just got easy, that’s all.”

“Easy?” June collapsed onto the coffee table. “Easy . . . Do you know how many nights I cried myself to sleep when you traveled out of town, wondering if you were finding pleasure in another woman’s arms? How helpless I felt to stop you? I mentally packed my bags so many times, I actually believed I’d leave you. Just like I’d planned that night with Bill, but I couldn’t do it. Not to you, not to me, not to Max. I chose you over Bill because I loved you. So I was determined to find happiness, dreaming one day you’d stop cheating. But you never let up, Rebel. What was I supposed to think? If you love me, why?”

“I told you. It just got easy.” He turned his back to her. In his tailored slacks and shirt, hand-tooled leather shoes on his feet, Rebel was out of place in the boxy farmhouse living room with its brown walls and yesterday’s furniture.

“Does revenge taste that sweet, Reb?” Her emotions controlled her tongue, her words. “Should I try it for myself? See if Tom Carnahan would like a date? He’s always flirting with me, and—”

Rebel whipped around. “You stole my son, June!” His eyes blazed with the intense heat of his confession. “You
stole
my son. I had one chance”—he jabbed his finger in her face—“one, and you robbed me of it.”

“Oh, Rebel.” She pressed her hand to her chest, bile scorching her throat.

He grabbed his coat and burst out the door. June ran after him. The evening was crisp and still, and the moon was not yet in its orbit.

“No, Reb, no. What are you talking about? I ended it with Bill six months before I was pregnant with Max.”

“Stop, June, I’ve known.” He draped his coat over the rail and stepped into the yard, disappearing into the shadows. “You’re not the only one who knows what it feels like to be made a fool of, to have your love and trust trampled.”

“Rebel.” June remained with her toes lined up to the porch’s edge, clinching her jaw to steady her words. “This is crazy talk.”

“For thirty-eight years, I’ve shoved aside the nagging doubts. But with every growth spurt, I’d wonder if this would be the year he’d turn into Bill Novak. He looked so much like you, I found moments of rest, but when he took architecture in high school and sailed through with straight As . . .”

June’s breath escaped her—through her nose and mouth, out every pore of her body. Blood drained from her head until she saw spots. She gripped the porch post.

“How did you know?”

“Queenie Spencer called the night you left to meet him.” Rebel spoke from the outer reach of the porch lights.

June sank slowly to the steps, chilled to the bone, pressing her hand to her forehead. Queenie. One of her best college friends and an attendant at their wedding. “Reb, why didn’t you say something?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“She was supposed to cover for me.”

“She tried. But when I told her you were halfway to her house, she splashed her oar into the river and paddled in a panic, coming up with some lame story about getting the date of your girls’ weekend messed up.”

June covered her face with her hands, hot shame colliding with the chill in her soul. He’d known? For thirty-eight years?

“So you kept it from me and used it against me all these years.”

“It didn’t start out that way, June.” Rebel came up the walkway, slowly, scraping his heels over the pavement. “I fumed the entire weekend, ready to unload both barrels when you walked in the door. I’d planned to leave
you
. But when you came home, sad, guilty, broken, I knew it was over with Bill. So I stayed.” Rebel sat next to her, and the porch boards creaked. “It’s hell lying in bed next to your wife, knowing she’s hurting, but also knowing you can’t do a thing to help her.”

“I hurt because of what I’d done to you. Not because I loved Bill.” June clicked her thumbnails together. There were no tears for the situation. She’d cried them all. “If you’d confronted me, you would’ve known I broke it off with him. For good.”

“I had you home with me. That was enough. I guessed it was over with Bill and you were fine with it. We were moving on. Then you told me you were pregnant, and all the anger and bitterness came flooding back. It took over.”

“Do you want to know the truth?” June stared at her new shoes. “Or do you want to stay angry, cheating on me? But you should know, I’m not living like this the rest of my life.”

“You tell me. Is the story worth telling?”

June clasped her hands together in her lap. Peace whispered past. “After you found me with Bill, ready to leave you, I’d made up my mind to forget about him. You were my husband, and I loved you. I knew the affair was a mistake, childish, looking for attention in all the wrong places. A few months later he started calling. He asked me to meet him. You were so wrapped up in exams and studying for the bar, and I was so lost about what to do with myself, who I was to be. A lonely wife? A part-time interior designer?”

“You never said you wanted a career.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted. But when a handsome, successful architect called with passion in his voice, I convinced myself being loved and wanted was better than being loved and ignored.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you. I had exams!”

June stifled him with a flash of her palm. “He asked me to meet him, and so I did. Queenie never was good with dates.” She hated hearing the story. Foolish girl.

“I hired a detective agency to keep track of him for a year after that weekend.” Rebel’s confession didn’t surprise her.

“We met at a hotel in Asheville. What seemed like a happy, romantic, sexy tryst turned out to be horrible. We fought. And what I remembered as sweet, passionate lovemaking was rushed and selfish. When I woke up the next morning, full of regret, panic, fear, I ran. Packed my bags and ran. All I wanted was to see you, Reb. Bill manipulated me the entire affair.”

Rebel cleared his throat. “And Max?”

“Is your son, Rebel. My goodness, how can you even wonder? He may look like me, but the rest is all you, all Benson. Arrogant, competitive, yet sensitive and romantic. Smart. In fact, I’m fairly certain I was already pregnant when I went to see Bill.”

“Fairly?”

“I was late . . .”

“I see.” Rebel’s feelings rumbled in his chest. “Thirty-eight years . . . glad we cleared that one up.”

June’s laugh spewed, but another looming reality sobered her soul. “Look at the path you took because of one misunderstanding. How are we going to undo a lifetime of affairs, Reb?”

He propped his arms on his knees and patted his palms. “We can’t if you won’t come home, June.”

With an exhale, she shoved up from the porch. “Maybe, in time. You can live in the life you carved for us, Rebel, but I think there’s a new road out there with my name on it. For now, I’m going inside to build a fire and make my granny’s pound cake.” She held open the screen. “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

June opened the door wider. When the hinge squeaked, Rebel pushed up from the porch and followed her inside.

Twenty-one

Max bolted up from a dead sleep, the glass in his hand crashing to the floor. A shrill cry floated through the house. Jade’s kittens. For crying out loud, he’d just filled their food bowls.

Foggy and disoriented, he angled forward with his hand against the coffee table.

The cry resounded again. Shrill. Loud. Like a baby.

Max fired off the couch, knocking his knee against the coffee table. Tomorrow, the table was out of here. He never wanted the thing in the first place, but Jade insisted. Some precious antique.

Asa’s thin, high-pitched scream sliced the air. Max’s heart beat at the base of his throat.

“C-coming . . . Asa. C-coming.” Oh, his head. With each step, the room swam, his mind sinking into a dense fog.

The scream bounced against the fog so the noise consumed his whole being.

“H-hang on.” His voice was gravelly and weak; his legs fought to gain control of his motion.