June in August

Title Page

June in August

By

Samantha Sommersby

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JUNE IN AUGUST

Copyright © 2005 SAMANTHA SOMMERSBY

All Romance eBooks, LLC

Clearwater, Florida 33761

www.allromanceebooks.com

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental.

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First All Romance eBooks publication: April 2013

Previously published by Linden Bay Romance: January 2007

I’ll never forget the day Wylie Patton first told me that he loved me. It was the kind of day that my Daddy always called a scorcher. The entire week had been unbearably hot, in fact. For the fourth day in a row the temperature had reached over a hundred. It was terribly muggy and the air felt thick and heavy. It was downright oppressive. But I wasn’t minding the weather at all. Not one bit. I was on a mission. I was going to prove to Wylie Patton that I was all grown up. A woman. I was going to get him to notice me.

I climbed out of my Daddy’s old truck and walked up to the door of the Patton garage. It was almost one o’clock and the door was still locked. “
Back soon
,” the sign hanging in the window said. I smoothed down the skirt of the crisp, white, linen dress that I was wearing and frowned at the wrinkles that had appeared during the short ride over. A wisp of hair escaped what had been a neat French twist and I immediately regretted not using more hairspray. Momma was always going on about the importance of using hairspray. Not for the first time it occurred to me that perhaps I should have listened to Momma.

If I were to be perfectly honest, I’d have to admit that I’d always found listening to my parents difficult. I tried my best to understand them, honestly I did. But then I kind of started to give up. Last night may have cinched it for me. My parents, I think, might be a lost cause.

My brother Sam’s number was called in the lottery yesterday morning. Momma, Daddy and I had just returned from two weeks at the shore. Sam hadn’t been able to go with us this year. He waited until dinner to tell us the news. When he announced that he was planning to leave for Canada the following morning Momma became hysterical. She actually fainted. Daddy put his fist through the dining room wall and told Sam that he was ashamed of him. He called Sam a coward.

That night I was woken from a sound sleep by a loud crash. At first I thought I’d been dreaming. But then I heard it, over the hum of the fan in my bedroom, sobs coming from the bathroom next door. Sam told me to go away when I called out to him, but somehow I knew he didn’t mean it. He had left the door unlocked so I half-closed my eyes and peeked in. He had a rope around his neck and he’d broken the shower-curtain rod. He begged me not to tell Daddy. We cried for an hour together on the bathroom floor. Then I called Doc Lyons. I woke Doc up at 2:00 a.m., I did. Don’t know where I found the courage. I explained the situation, laid it out plain as day. He promised to arrange for an evaluation in Houston with a man he trusted, someone he’d gone to school with. He told me that everything would be all right and I believed him. Doc was a good man.

At eight o’clock, in the middle of breakfast, the telephone rang. My parents were asked to bring Sam to Houston for a complete physical evaluation. The appointment was set for the following day. Predictably, they telephoned my Aunt Laura to let her know they’d be coming. She’s younger than Momma and lives in Houston with her lawyer husband and no children. Momma, apparently, thinks that’s a crime. Within a couple hours the three of them, Momma, Daddy, and Sam, were packed and on their way. Daddy left me with some money and instructions to bring the truck to the garage for an oil change. He waited until they were driving away to spring the news on me. While we were away at the shore, Wylie had come home.

So, there I was, waiting outside the garage for Wylie Patton. I hadn’t seen him in three long years and my stomach was all a flutter. I kept on having to remind myself to breathe. After all, the last time I’d seen him I’d been fifteen. It was the night of his big send off. Wylie had enlisted. It was one week after his eighteenth birthday.

“Junebug! Is that you? What are you doing out here all by yourself in the dark?”

“I could ask you the same question, Wylie Patton. It’s your party after all. Shouldn’t you be inside?”

Wylie lifted his hand to his head and raked it over his short-cropped hair, then sat down next to me on the top step. He smiled. “Well, I guess if I were to be honest I’d say I was hiding. What would you say?”

I laughed. “The same, I guess.”

“What are you hiding from?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Everyone’s acting so happy. Like this is a good thing.” I swallowed, hard. “But it’s serious. You might not come back and…” I couldn’t quite finish. I looked away and all that I could think about was the sick feeling in my stomach and the huge gaping hole in my heart.

Wiley cupped my chin in his hand and turned my face back towards his. He looked steadily into my eyes. “I’m gonna come back, Junebug, you can count on that.”

“But—”

Wiley placed a finger over my lips, silencing me.

“You don’t want to jinx things now, do you?”

I shook my head, closed my eyes, and tried not to cry.

“I’m gonna come back,” he repeated with conviction.

“Not all the boys come back, Wylie,” I whispered as the tears escaped and began to roll down my cheeks. “Ray Johnson, his family hasn’t heard from him—”

“I’m gonna come back,” he said again, wiping away my tears. “Daddy, Grand-daddy, they were both Marines. They fought for freedom. Now it’s my turn. It’s my turn to give something back. If you don’t stop crying I might just get the impression that you’re going to miss me.”

I reached up, stilled his hands, and looked into his eyes.

“I am going to miss you Wylie. I’m going to miss you something awful. I know that you see me as that pesky little girl next door. But I’m growing up. I have thoughts and feelings and…”

“You have thoughts, Junebug?”

I couldn’t help myself. I started to laugh.

Wylie leaned back, his long legs stretching out in front of him. He appeared to be studying me carefully, with a seriousness that I didn’t remember seeing in him before.

“I’d like to know your thoughts, June,” he said quietly. “Will you write to me?”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“Every day.”

And I had. Every day for the three years that he was away. But I never got one letter back. Not one.

The sound of an approaching motorcycle startled me from my thoughts. I walked back towards the gas pumps, shielded my eyes from the sun, and gazed down the road. It was a motorcycle all right. The rider was wearing big black boots, a black leather jacket, faded jeans, and dark glasses. His sandy hair was long, down to his shoulders, and it flew out behind him. I wasn’t surprised when he pulled into the station. I quickly moved back towards the building and sat down in one of the chairs outside the garage door. I was careful not to look at the stranger and instead busied myself with pulling my compact out of my purse and adding a light dusting of powder to my face.

“Junebug? Is that you?”

I dropped the compact, shattering the mirror. We both reached for it at the exact same time. His hand covered mine. He looked up at me and suddenly I was flooded with embarrassment and panic. Embarrassed about every word that I had ever written to him. Every thought I had shared. Every secret I divulged. Every feeling I…. Oh, God!

“It’ll be all right,” he said, smiling reassuringly and handing the compact back to me.

He unzipped his jacket and took it off. Wiley was wearing a white t-shirt underneath. It was drenched in sweat and clung to his chest. He was lean and hard, thinner than I remembered and his eyes were a bit duller. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, shook one out, lit it up, and inhaled deeply.

“Hoped I would see you today,” he said, blowing out a stream of smoke. “When I came in this morning I saw that your Daddy had scheduled an oil change. Thought you might come with him.”

“Momma and Daddy are in Houston with Sam. His number came up yesterday. He’s getting his physical today.”

Wylie tossed his cigarette onto the ground. “Damn,” he murmured. “Sorry to hear that, Junebug.” Wylie fished the keys to the garage out of his front pocket and unlocked the door.

“No one calls me Junebug anymore,” I told him, stepping over the threshold.

He opened up the cooler that contained the Coca Colas, pulled out two, popped the caps off using the side of the countertop and handed me one. “What do they call you?”

“Just June.”

“Well, ‘Just June’, suit up. You can help me with the oil change,” he said, tossing a pair of greasy overalls at me.

I dodged them.

“Wiley! I’m wearing white linen for heaven’s sake!”

“Wouldn’t be my choice for changing oil,” he said, shaking his head. “But then, you’ve always been peculiar.”

“I am not peculiar and I’m certainly not changing the oil!”

“Forgot how?”

“No!” I said feeling exasperated. “Are you blind? Look at me. I’m—”

“All grown up, with thoughts…and feelings. I remember,” he said, taking a step towards me.

I felt myself start to blush.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you. Your letters were wonderful, June. They were all that kept me going sometimes. The war, it…it wasn’t what I thought it would be. ”

I was certain that I was going to faint. My heart was pounding so fast and so loud I half expected it to break my chest.

“You never wrote back,” I managed to say, my voice barely a whisper.

He glanced down at his boots then looked up at me and smiled. His long sandy blonde hair half hiding his eyes. “I wrote. I wrote all the time. I just didn’t mail any of them.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not the boy you knew anymore June. I’m not the boy you wrote those letters to. I haven’t been for a long time. I’ve seen things. I’ve done things. Everyone expects me to be the same ol’ Wiley…”

“But you’re not. We all change, Wiley.”

“You lightened your hair and your tits got bigger. I killed people. Lots of people.”

“Wiley!” I gasped, my arms folding, protectively over my chest. “They’re called breasts and you shouldn’t be commenting on them!”

He brushed the hair out of his eyes. “Sorry, my manners are a bit rusty.”

“Do you still have the letters?”

“Some.”

“I’d like to read them.”

“No. They’re…dark.”

“I want to read them.”

“I’ll think about it.” He held his hand out.

I looked up at him.

“Keys,” he said. “So I can pull the truck into the garage?”

“Of course.” I dropped the keys into the palm of his outstretched hand and yawned.

“Am I boring you?” he yelled over his shoulder as he stepped outside and sauntered towards the truck. He had the same smooth, confident stride that he’d always had. Graceful yet determined.

“No. I was up late last night with Sam. He tried to hang himself.”

Wylie had been climbing into the cab of the truck, but he stopped. He stood there, stock-still for a minute. Then he turned back to face me. His hand, the one that held my keys was shaking.

“Doc Lyons said he’d fix it. Sam’s not gonna have to go fight. It’ll be all right. Doc promised. Momma and Daddy don’t know. They wouldn’t understand.”

Wylie nodded, then stepped into the truck, started the engine, and drove it into the garage.

“Who’s Doc Lyons?” he asked as he stepped out the truck.