Page 212 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

Denise’s eyes fill properly now. “June, no. I wouldn’t do that. I know what they did to you was wrong. I always knew it was wrong.”

Wayne’s jaw works once beside me. Rex’s expression goes flat. Mine probably isn’t much better.

June looks tired all of a sudden. “I haven’t been left alone, Denise. Whoever got me fired is still coming after me, trying to ruin my new job as well, and I don’t know how they found out where I am…”

Denise gasps. “What do you mean?”

June explains about the warnings, the messages, the anonymous crap sent to Wayne about her being dangerous, promiscuous, inappropriate. The way it kept escalating. She doesn’t sound embarrassed saying it now, just done with pretending it’s too ugly to speak aloud.

Denise looks horrified. “No, absolutely not. June, I would never give anyone that information. I wouldn’t.”

I believe that too.

She means it.

Which doesn’t fix anything.

It just means whoever’s behind it is still out there.

June must be thinking the same thing, because I see the disappointment move through her before she smooths it over. “Okay.”

Denise shakes her head, frantic now. “But there were people talking. Afterwards, I mean. Not just administrators. Staff too. And some parents got ugly about it online, I think. I tried not to look. I should have looked. I know I should have.”

“Who?” Wayne asks, low enough to make the woman jump.

She looks at him for the first time, really looks, and seems to register what kind of man is standing there. Protective. Controlled. Not inclined to repeat himself.

“I don’t know names,” she says quickly. “Not for online things. But inside? It was mostly rumor after that. Everyone saying they’d ‘heard things.’ No one ever had anything solid though.” She looks back at June, misery plain in every line of her face. “That’s what made it so awful. It was all smoke and no fire, and people acted like smoke was enough.”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I rest my hand lightly against the back of June’s arm.

She doesn’t look at me, but she leans in my direction half an inch.

Behind the reception desk, a door opens.

A woman steps out into the lobby in low heels and a fitted blazer that looks expensive enough to make a point. Mid-forties. Sharp bob. Sharper face. She carries herself as if she’s never once doubted whether a room belongs to her.

Problem, then.

Her eyes land on June first, widen, then narrow with professional surprise.

“Well,” she says. “This is unexpected.”

Denise stiffens. “Mrs. Kline…”

June goes still in a different way than before in the truck. But it isn’t nerves, it’s memory. It’s having the right woman walk back out of the past and smile as if she didn’t help shove you aside.

Mrs. Kline looks from June to the rest of us and visibly recalculates in real time.

“June,” she says smoothly, “if we’d known you intended to visit, we could have arranged a proper meeting.”

June doesn’t answer right away. Good. Let the woman feel the silence for once.

“I didn’t come to arrange anything,” June says.

Mrs. Kline folds her hands in front of her. “Then why are you here?”