The Bride Wore Blue Jeans Read online

  And now, he was out of time.

  So, his mouth sealed to hers, Kevin moved himself into position, then drew his head back one last time to look at her. To seal this one precious memory in his brain for all time.

  The outline of her lips was blurred from the force of his. He had no idea why that hopelessly excited him, but it did. So much so that he knew he had to have her.

  Now.

  She seemed to read his mind, or perhaps the needs slamming into her were the same ones hammering away at him.

  She opened beneath him, and then, as he moved to enter, she placed her fingers over him, guiding him inside her. He felt his blood surging, felt himself growing harder.

  Her eyes never left his.

  She moaned as he began to enter.

  The realization telegraphed itself to him a single instant before it was too late for him to do anything about it.

  June was a virgin.

  Chapter Eleven

  Instincts told him to back away, as hard as that would have been.

  But intense needs elbowed out instincts, fueled by the way June was urgently moving against him, urging him on. Making him want her with every fiber of his being. Making him believe down to the core of his very soul that she wanted him.

  He didn’t back away.

  She cried out when he penetrated her, a soft whimper echoing against his mouth. A whimper that would indelibly remain with him.

  Conscience reared up.

  But contrition was pushed aside by the way she clung to him. As if only he could repair whatever damage had been done. The irony of that wasn’t lost on Kevin, even in the frenzied heat of the moment.

  He made love to her as gently as he was able.

  It hurt, but then, she’d known it would. Everything of meaning in life hurt. And he’d already given her so much pleasure, so much more than she’d expected.

  June wrapped herself around him as he brought her to that special place where lovers went, that place she’d only imagined was real. The place where she now was.

  The wild wave took hold of her, throwing her from the highest of heights, making her feel as if she could fly on a breeze. Holding Kevin to her as tightly as she could because she knew that once he released her, there would only be the ground to face.

  A bittersweetness filled Kevin as he raised his head to look at her.

  He was angry. Not at her, but for her. Because he’d taken something precious from her when he had no right to. He’d robbed her of her first time.

  Rolling off, he stared at the ceiling for a moment. It needed work. So did the situation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The accusation made her wince inwardly, even as defiance took hold of her entire body. “Tell you what?”

  He could hear the hurt beneath the retort. He was responsible for that. “You know what, that you were a virgin.”

  Her eyes slanted toward him. “Would you have made love with me if I had?”

  “No.”

  June took a deep breath before she answered, pulling up a sheet that had been crumpled at her feet, and carefully covering herself with it. “Then that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  He sighed, not knowing where to begin, knowing that he couldn’t undo the damage. Wishing he’d never come here and at the same time knowing if he hadn’t, he would have missed something wonderful. But that was selfish of him.

  “June, your first time…it’s supposed to be special.”

  Was this about him? Or her? She felt herself softening as she looked at the man. He wasn’t complaining that he’d wasted time with an inexperienced virgin, he was concerned that it hadn’t been worthy of her. Was this man real, or just something she’d dreamed up? “What makes you think it wasn’t?”

  “Because—” He hunted for the right words. When they didn’t come, he used what he had. “Because it wasn’t with someone your own age.” Someone who could give her a future, he added silently. Someone with whom she could have a future.

  She searched his face. He didn’t understand, did he? Didn’t understand just how very special he was. “That wouldn’t have made it special. That would have made it the norm.” She slid back down against the bed, the fire of confrontation having gone out of her. “If I’d wanted the norm, I would have given in to Haggerty, or Haley, or any one of a number of guys who raised and lowered their brows and said they could take me on a fast trip to paradise.”

  He couldn’t help the laugh that came to his lips. “They really said that?”

  Her bare shoulder moved against the mattress in a half shrug. “More or less. Most men aren’t exactly romantics up here.” She raised herself up on one elbow. “The point is, I knew that I’d know when that person I wanted to be ‘the first’ came along.” She looked at him significantly. “And I did.”

  She gave him far too much credit. He was certain that the fact that she’d had no father when she’d been growing up had a great deal to do with this image she had of him.

  “June—”

  She placed a finger to his lips to silence any protest. Protests only ruined things. She was quick to throw a blanket over them.

  “Don’t worry, Kevin, there aren’t any strings. I don’t expect or want any. I know you’re going back to Seattle after the wedding. And I’m going back to my life—” she grinned broadly “—a little more educated than before you came.”

  She’d opened up a whole new world to him. He wasn’t a monk, but he knew a miracle when he’d experienced it. “I’m probably the one who’s gotten the education.”

  Her eyes shone as she looked up at him. She knew he was being kind, but she loved the thought that she’d rocked his world a little just the same.

  “Really?”

  The tempest was gone, the calm returned. And temptation rose on the winds again. Kevin tucked her close against him. “Really. But you still should have told me.”

  June looked very solemn as she nodded her head. “Kevin?”

  He kissed the top of her head, wondering whether she knew just how much she’d affected him. “Yes?”

  “I’m a virgin.” And then she grinned. “Or was.”

  It still wasn’t a joke to him. He knew that there were men who reveled in being someone’s first, but he didn’t. At least, not for the sake of merely being the first. Still, it meant a great deal to him. “June—”

  “Well, now that you’ve done the damage—” her eyes teased him as she turned her body toward his in a blatant invitation “—don’t you want to do it again?”

  Heaven help him, but he did.

  He let his hand trail along the soft curve of her frame. “Yes.”

  She tilted her head up to his. “Well, then? What are you waiting for?”

  Certainly not an excuse to get in the way.

  With a possessiveness that was completely foreign to him, Kevin brought his mouth down to hers.

  “Not a thing.”

  Behind schedule, Ursula Hatcher moved about the small enclosure that represented both the first floor of her home and the official U.S. post office for the region encompassing Hades and a hundred-mile radius. This had been the only post office for the area ever since the mail had found its way to Hades more than a hundred years ago.

  Her grandfather had been the first postmaster. He’d passed the mantle to his son, her father. Since all three of his sons had left the area before their eighteenth birthday, he allowed his youngest to assume the duties of postmaster, transferring the position to his only daughter. She’d served well these past fifty years. And hoped to make it through another twenty, if not more.

  When she passed on, she assumed, hoped really, that the job would be taken over by one of her own, even though they now had different occupations to keep them busy.

  She frowned over a letter as she tried to decipher the addressee. She liked to think that, eventually, April or Max or June would hear the calling in their blood and do their duty.

  But that day was far away. Just as was her demise.


  Making up her mind as to who the letter should go to, Ursula pitched it in its pigeonhole and smiled. She intended, quite frankly, to live forever. Or as close to forever as God saw fit. Finished with the smaller of the two bags, she dragged the other over closer to the bench to continue sorting.

  The mail had arrived later than usual. Sydney Kerrigan hadn’t been able to get to Anchorage for it until just a little while ago. Her youngest daughter was ill and she’d had to wait until one of her other children was home from school to watch her before she could make the mail run.

  The task would be a lot simpler if deliveries came every day instead of every other day or every third as they did in the dead of winter, Ursula thought. She bent down and picked up a handful of letters, beginning the long task of sorting through the new arrivals.

  What they needed was a regular transport service. And more planes. They were a growing town now and growing towns had needs beyond restaurants and movie theaters and hotels, all of which had gone up or were going up lately.

  They needed a reliable mode of travel and since the roads were impassable for months at a time, that meant airplanes. Something like an air taxi service.

  It was something she planned to take up with Kevin Quintano. He’d just sold his old business and had money to burn, according to Jimmy.

  She thought of Kevin and smiled. Now there was a man in search of a reason to exist if she ever saw one. A transport service and her granddaughter should be more than reason enough.

  Ursula laughed to herself, the sound approximating the cackle of a hen just after she’d laid an egg.

  The cackle faded when the front door opened and then closed quietly.

  “If you’re here for the mail, I haven’t finished sorting it yet so you might as well go on home and come back later. These things can’t be rushed,” she announced without turning around.

  “I’m not here for the mail.”

  Her hands froze mid-shuffle. The male voice had every muscle in her body stiffening.

  There was nothing wrong with her memory. Even if there’d been more than a handful of years since she’d heard that voice.

  Setting down some envelopes on the counter, Ursula turned slowly around. And looked into the face of her son-in-law.

  The years hadn’t been kind to him, she noted. Good. His once-handsome features were dulled and etched with the lines of hardship. There was no joy about him, nor excitement or lust for the open road. She hadn’t recognized him.

  There’d been a thousand different things she’d planned to say to him if she ever saw him again. But all she could do was sigh. It spoke volumes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He met her gaze head-on, though he looked as if he wanted to look away. “I’ve come to apologize.” He took a step forward, then stopped. “I know I can’t make amends, but I want to try.”

  Painful memories assaulted her in waves. She did her best to ignore them, to beat them back. Ursula laced her hands together in front of her. “Rose is dead.”

  The words seemed to cut into him. He closed his eyes. “I know. I was at her grave today.” When he opened them again, tears shimmered there. “Was it painful?”

  Crocodile tears, Ursula told herself. “Broken hearts usually are.”

  It vaguely occurred to her that men who were irretrievably lost at sea probably wore the same desperate look. “Ursula, I—”

  She didn’t want to hear words that would do no good. The past couldn’t be fixed. She was only concerned with the present and whatever future there was before them. She always had been.

  She thought of gesturing him toward a chair, then decided that he needed to stand.

  “You know, when she first died, I thought about finding you and killing you myself with my bare hands. Tearing your body from limb to limb and scattering the remains from here to Nome.” She’d gone over that scenario at great length in her head as she lay awake at night. In the beginning, it was what kept her sane.

  Ursula looked up into the face of the man who’d cast such a irreversible spell over her only daughter. The hatred, she discovered, had long since left her heart. A heart given to hate withers and dies and she’d had grandchildren to care for.

  “But the truth is, you weren’t responsible for Rose’s death. She was. I lost three men. All good.” She looked at him pointedly. “Better than you, no doubt.” She didn’t wait for his grunted response. “The trick to life is that you just keep on living it.” She picked up the mail again and continued sorting. “Keep on looking for the good in it. Rose had good in her life.” Stopping, she peered over her shoulder at her grandchildren’s father. “She had three kids who loved and needed her. But she chose to look only at the negative. So, in the end, it wasn’t you who did her in—it was her.”

  She picked up another batch and began to slowly sort through them by route. Since none of her grandchildren had called to tell her that Wayne Yearling was in the area, she assumed that she was his first stop. “This making amends thing, does it include your kids?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She nodded, approving. “You should try to connect with them. They’re still young. They can come around in time, although I wouldn’t be holding my breath about any parties being held in your honor real soon.” This was, she knew, going to take a great deal of time.

  The pause behind her was so long she thought he’d left the building. “I’m dying, Ursula. The doctor gave me maybe six months. Maybe a little more.”

  Her hands were stilled for a moment as she took in this latest curve ball that life was throwing her way. And then she went on sorting briskly.

  “We’re all dying, Wayne. You just happen to know more or less when. My way of thinking, you’ve got a jump on the rest of us.” She shoved a letter into a space that was already crammed. Gilhooly hadn’t come by for his mail in a long time. She wondered if she should be forwarding it somewhere. Tabling the thought for now, she turned around to look at the man who’d managed to drop two bombshells in as many minutes. “To make those amends you mentioned before you have to stand in front of the postmaster general in the sky.”

  For the first time since he’d entered, there was a trace of a smile on his lips. “Ursula, I don’t know what to say to you to—”

  “Then don’t try,” she cut him off. She didn’t need or want his apologies. She wanted her son-in-law to move on to the next level. “I’ve made my peace with all this, Wayne. With you, so to speak. Spend your energy on the others.”

  The mention of others had his smile fading. “I saw June at the cemetery.”

  Her mouth curved slightly. June. The fierce one. “I’m surprised you’re still standing. She took your leaving and her mother’s death just as hard as the others, even though she was just a bit of a thing.” Maybe even more so, because she’d been in need of all the nurturing that had to come from different quarters. From her and April and Max.

  He seemed to read her thoughts. Despair had Wayne sinking into a chair, his tanned, long fingers knotting before him, like a schoolboy at a loss how to make things right again. “How do I make them understand that I’m sorry?”

  That, she knew, wouldn’t be easy. “By staying. By not giving up when they turn their backs on you.” And they will, at first, she thought. He couldn’t expect anything less. His expression was so disheartened, she was compelled to say something encouraging to him. “But you’re their father. They’re so angry because they loved you. Anger’s easier to break down than indifference.”

  Talking wasn’t going to change anything right now. Not even his mood. He needed something to keep him busy. She looked down at the mail sack on the floor. “How are you at the alphabet?”

  There was a note of hope in his voice, as if her making the suggestion meant that she wanted him to remain. “I know it.”

  “Good.” She pushed the sack in his direction with her foot. The bag toppled. Mail spilled out. “Then come here and make yourself useful.”

  Eager to m
ake amends, he was quick to comply.

  He’d been lying here in bed for the past twenty minutes, holding her to him and feeling her heart beat. He didn’t want to let the moment end. But it had to. They couldn’t remain like this indefinitely.

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. They’d made love again and he was absolutely drained. “Still want me to talk to your father for you?”

  She wriggled out of bed, reaching for her clothes. “No, I can fight my own battles.”

  He sat up and scanned the room, looking for his own clothes. “This isn’t a battle.” He quickly got into his underwear and jeans. He meant to give her privacy as she got dressed, but it was hard averting his eyes. Hard not wanting her again. “From what you’ve told me, he wants a reconciliation.”

  She jammed her arms into her shirt as if she were firing a weapon at an unseen target. “What he wants doesn’t concern me.”

  Pushing her hands away, he buttoned her shirt for her, his eyes intent on hers. “June, he’s your father.”

  It was a term that meant nothing in this case. “He’s a man who just happened to be there at the moment of conception, that’s all. To be a father is something else altogether. It means someone who’s there, someone who cares.”

  He hated to see that kind of hurt in her eyes. Hated knowing what it had to be doing to her inside. “Just because a man’s a father doesn’t mean he’s automatically strong.”

  She dragged her fingers through her hair, untangling it. “What does strength have to do with it?” she challenged.

  Strength had everything to do with it. When she got older, she’d understand. “It takes a great deal of strength to stay, to make a life for not just yourself but your family.”

  It wasn’t as if her father had accidentally made her mother pregnant and moved on. He’d married her, had three children with her. He knew what he was up against, what he was doing. And she hated him for it. For not loving any of them enough to stay.

  “Well, if you can’t do it,” she snapped, “you shouldn’t have a family.”

  She was about to storm out of the room. He placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her around to face him. “Hindsight, June.”