His headshake was barely perceptible as he got out. The rain muffled the thunk of the tailgate and then he moved my two suitcases and my guitar case to the bed of the pickup. He had a bed cover. My items would be protected.
“Why’d he call you Miss Kerrigan?” Hannah asked.
A smile tugged at my lips. Little rebels. No parental injunction would stop them. “It’s my name. The Baileys adopted me and my sisters a long time ago, but we kept our birth name to remember our other parents by.” I winked at them. “I also like being able to come home and just be Junie Kerrigan.”
They smiled, but nothing more came from the back seat. If they didn’t ask more questions, then I’d stare at their dad’s powerful body as he rescued my luggage, and Rhys had made it clear I was not welcome to him or his body.
So I would be the one pestering them with questions. The one I really wanted to ask wasDid your dad really not mention me?“So... how old are you two?”
“I’m almost ten,” Bethany said.
“And I’m almost nine,” Hannah said in a singsong voice. “We were just at our play tonight.”
I perked up. “Oh yeah? Who’s your teacher?”
“Mrs. Ellison.”
“Oh, I know her. She’s so nice.”
Rhys climbed back into the truck. He was soaked again. I lifted the corner of the blanket to dab at his face.
He pulled back, his expression aghast. “What are you doing?”
Trying to touch him. I dropped my hand to my lap. The move had been instinctive, but embarrassment chased some of the chill away. “You’re soaked.”
His gaze dipped to my chest and shot back to meet mine. “You need to cover up more. You’re the one who’s drenched.”
I straightened in my seat and glanced down. My gauzy cream shirt was plastered to my boobs and the outline and color of my yellow bra was plainly visible. So were my hard nipples, and there were kids in the car. Abashed, I tugged the blanket up.
Yesterday, I had wanted to get away. To figure my life out. Why did my car have to die? Why did it have to be so close to the turnoff to where Rhys now lived?
Why did he have to be the one to find me?
Because I hadn’t called my brothers. They lived for coming to their sisters’ aid. Instead, I’d gotten Rhys. The ex who wanted nothing to do with me and hadn’t even told his daughters he used to date the country singer they seemed to be fans of.
I’d done what he’d told me to. I hadn’t waited for him. I’d made a name for myself. Once I found some peace and finished the album my record label was waiting on, I’d be gone again.
His jaw was tight as he kicked the pickup in gear and took off toward the cabin.
CHAPTER THREE
Rhys
Why wasn’t she calling her family? Why was her brand-new car a lemon? Why was she in Bourbon Canyon anyway?
My windshield wipers were going fast and furious. How could a rain-soaked June Kerrigan smell so damn good? Like fresh blooming peonies during the month she was named after. The month that was my favorite time of the year.
I’d have some explaining to do with my girls when we got home. The town was protective of their singing Kerrigan. People spoke among themselves about her but otherwise kept her privacy right where it needed to be. My history with her was not forgotten but had been brushed off as insignificant. If someone tried to bring up me and June, I changed the subject real damn fast. Most of the teachers in the girls’ school were transplants who didn’t know how hot and heavy it’d been between usback in the day. Though June’s sister Autumn and her sister-in-law, Scarlett, were also teachers in town, they seemed to know I didn’t want the gossip spreading to the girls.
I’d skated through it all for years until tonight.
I navigated the narrow road to the goddamn cabin. Of all places, why did we have to return there?
The girls and I had lived at the old Dunn ranch for a few years, and of course I’d known the cabin was only six miles away, but it seemed like a hundred miles when June wasn’t within state lines.
I’d spent plenty of time at that place with June. More than her parents probably knew or wanted to know. Those memories had been shoved back into the recesses of my brain since I last walked out the door.
The road wound through the foothills and just where the trees started growing thicker, there was a flat landing and an outline of a dark building.
