June, Reimagined (50)
“I’m sorry for yelling, Peanut,” Lennox said softly. “It’s just . . .”
June felt his hesitation, knew the feeling intimately. “It’s OK. You can tell me.”
“After my parents died . . .” Lennox looked down at his empty hands. “A friend recommended that I volunteer at the animal shelter. She thought it might be helpful for me to walk dogs and play with the bloody cats. I told her I hate cats. Still do.” He glanced at June with a half-hearted smile. She wanted to touch him, hold his brokenhearted face between her hands and wipe clean the pain from his body. “I was terrified my first day.”
“You, terrified?”
Lennox began to regain his stature, the heaviness lessening as he talked. “I could barely get through a day back then without wanting to rip someone’s head off. I was so angry and miserable. I thought for sure I wouldn’t make it an hour before they fired me. But that’s the thing about dogs. They don’t care about your past. They don’t judge you when you’ve had a bad day or month or bloody year. They still love you even when you’re a complete shitbag.”
“You’re not a shitbag.”
“I promise you. I was.” Lennox ran a hand through his damp hair. The rain had stopped. He walked over to the stone wall and leaned against it. June followed hesitantly, carefully, desperate for more but not wanting to press him. “I still remember the day Max showed up at the shelter. He was thin, his ear and neck were badly cut, and he didn’t want anyone to touch him. He just crouched in the corner, shaking, ready to pounce on anyone who got too close. And I thought . . . I know how this dog feels. I went to the shelter every damn day after that. I just had to see him. I had to make sure he was OK. Slowly he got used to seeing me. And then one day, I walked through the door and he ran right up to me. Practically jumped into my arms. I swear that damn animal smiled for the first time in his life, and I almost cried.”
“You almost cried?”
“I thought I could never be trusted to care for anything or anyone again, Peanut.” Lennox took a breath. “There was no way I was letting anyone else have him. I needed to make sure he was protected. That no one would ever hurt him again. So I adopted him.” Lennox bowed his head, curls falling over his forehead. “He’s the reason I joined Fire and Rescue. He made me believe I was a better person than I actually am. That I could be different if I tried hard enough. I never want to let him down. Damn it, I can’t lose him now.”
“Look at me.” June risked touching his face, lifting his chin with her fingers, feeling the stubble there. “We are not losing him. We’ll find him. I promise.”
Lennox took June’s hand and placed it on his thigh, palm up. He ran his fingers gently down hers, like a feather dusting the surface. “He lets me play with his paws. He’ll just lie there, so calm, so different from the dog I first met. It’s amazing what love does to us.” Lennox’s touch was hypnotic. Stroke after stroke June felt herself more lost in him, in the mossy, damp smell around them, the thick air between their bodies that seemed to hold them encased in a protective, intoxicating bubble.
Lennox brushed his fingertip along the inside of June’s wrist until he found her pulse. The past twenty-four hours dissolved. All June’s anger, all her frustration, all her embarrassment at being tossed aside disappeared, and it was just Lennox and June, sitting in the misty Scottish countryside at dusk, inches apart. She wanted to close the gap, surrender herself to him, forget the past and make love right there, unguarded, like they’d never hurt again.
Lennox’s eyes floated up from June’s hand, slowly, as if he were taking her in inch by inch. She knew they would kiss. It would be physically impossible not to. Static crackled between them as she waited, impatiently, achingly. She wanted to feel Lennox’s wet tongue on hers. She wanted his breath on her lips, his hands on her breasts. She wanted Lennox to take her by the hips and pull her close, relieve her of the tension she couldn’t shake.
But his eyes stopped. Hot static turned to angry friction.
June’s coat had fallen open, revealing the sweatshirt Matt had given her: SOMEBODY IN CINCINNATI LOVES ME.
She closed the coat, but it was too late. Lennox stood, paced. He pulled the leash from his pocket and wound it tight around his hands. Just as June was about to explain the stupid sweatshirt, they heard the distant sound of paws on pavement.
“Max?” Lennox looked around frantically. “Where in bloody hell are you?”
And then Max came bounding down the path, tongue dangling from the side of his mouth, as if he’d had the best day of his life. The dog was as happy as June had ever seen him; he ran right up to Lennox and sat at his feet. Lennox knelt, frantically petting and nuzzling Max while chastising him for running away. Max licked Lennox on the cheek repeatedly, and Lennox’s anger melted away.
Then Max lumbered over to June, expecting more love. June obliged. “You’re not supposed to go running without me, buddy.” She scratched behind his ears. “You know that.”
“Come on, Peanut. I’ll take you home.” Lennox hooked the leash onto Max. “I’m parked just down the road.”
June then realized how odd it was that she and Lennox had run into each other. Of all the places in Knockmoral, why did he come to that path? She asked him.
Without a glance at June, Lennox said, “I thought he might be looking for you.”