Sultry with a Twist by Macy Beckett Read Free Book Online Page B

handful of leaves. “No problem.”
    A heavy, awkward silence hung between them like a force field. Trey leaned down to dislodge an old mud dauber nest inside the gutter, and then a loud metallic noise clanked from below and shook the ladder. Stomach dropping, June gasped and grabbed on to the gutter near Trey’s hand. It separated from the siding with a dry crack.
    Trey toppled forward, panic flashing in his eyes as he lurched sideways, trying to steady himself. She reached out to grab his arm, but the sweaty flesh slipped from her fingers, and he went down, feet first. People always said tragedies seemed to happen in slow motion, but that wasn’t true. June didn’t even have time to blink before Trey was on the dusty ground, curled up and groaning in pain.
    June didn’t know how she got down the ladder so fast, and she didn’t remember tearing inside the Jenkins house to call an ambulance. But she recalled running outside and identifying the only person she knew besides Karl.
    “Pauly!” she shouted. “Call Luke!” Then she knelt down and ran her fingers through Trey’s short blond hair, trying to soothe the terror so thick in his voice. “Don’t move,” she told him. “Help’s on the way. You’re gonna be fine.” He squinted his eyes shut and kept clenching his jaw so tightly, she worried he might break a tooth.
    When the ambulance finally arrived, the paramedics let her ride in the back with Trey, and she held his hand the whole ride, apologizing over and over.
    Nearly an hour later, Luke came barreling into the hospital lobby, leather tool belt still fastened around his waist like he’d jumped in his truck as soon as Pauly’d made the call. She waved from her seat in the waiting area to get his attention.
    “What happened?” he asked. The front of his shirt was slick with sweat, the hollow of his throat pulsing visibly beneath tanned skin.
    June handed him her Coke. While he took a long gulp, she told him, “Trey fell off the roof.”
    “Well, no shit, Junebug. But what happened? Pauly said he didn’t see.”
    June wanted to tell him it was all her fault, that she’d pulled the gutter off the wall and made Trey lose his balance, but the response died on her tongue. She chewed the inside of her cheek and stared at the immaculate black and white floor tiles, because she couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes.
    “Miss?” the emergency room cleric said from her desk. “They said you can go back now. Room one-eleven.”
    Luke charged ahead, his strides so long June had to jog to catch up. He pushed open the door to room one-eleven and stopped short for a moment before walking inside. June soon understood why.
    “Hey,” Trey said weakly, his eyes trying to smile from below a stark white bandage taped across his brow. His bare chest was mummified in tight binding, and one plaster-casted leg hung from a line secured to the ceiling. He looked like death warmed over, cooled back down, and then steamrollered. “Not as bad as it looks. Just a couple cracked ribs and a broken femur.”
    “Just cracked ribs,” Luke muttered to himself. “What the hell happened?”
    “That idiot, Karl, accidentally knocked June’s ladder with a five-foot lead pipe. We were both holding on to the gutter when it broke, and I lost my balance.”
    June closed her eyes and felt that sick, sinking feeling in her tummy that always told her she was in big trouble.
    “Ladder?” Luke said through gritted teeth.
    She opened one eye, then wished she hadn’t. She’d seen Luke angry before. When they were sixteen, he’d used his wages from three summers of picking crops to buy a used red Camaro. She’d borrowed it without permission and dented the bumper on a fence post when she’d swerved to avoid a deer. But Luke’s reaction then was nothing compared to the hot menace in his expression now.
    “Damn it, I told you to stay on the ground for a reason!” As he moved closer, she shrank away from his booming voice. “You