Page 28 of I’m Not Yours

Later that night, wrapped up on my bed in my blue crocheted feather-filled comforter, eating only a small piece of apple pie with whipped cream, okay, two pieces, the waves pounding on the surf, I re-entertained myself with the rest of my conversation with Reece .

. . He tucked the wet cows into the wad of clothes.

I took a deep breath. “It’s a long walk; you don’t have to come back with me. I can return your jacket.”

“No way. I’m not letting you walk back alone. I’ll see you home to get something dry on, then we’re going to the hospital.”

“The hospital? Not a chance. I don’t enter hospitals. They make me nervous.”

“Me, too, but you’re going. You swallowed a lot of water, and I want them to check your lungs and make sure you didn’t take a knock to the head.”

“I can take myself to the hospital.”

“I’ll take you.” He smiled with nice white teeth and stuck out his hand. “Reece O’Brien.”

“Nice to meet you, Reece.” I shook his hand. My hand trembled. “I’m June MacKenzie.”

“June? Were you born in June?”

The light rain suddenly turned into a deluge as we headed to the stairway. I was a double-drowned rat. “No.”

“Oh.”

He seemed pleasantly baffled.

“It’s a family name, then?”

I didn’t want to explain. It was a wee bit embarrassing to talk about sex in front of him. “June is the month when my parents conceived me.”

“Ah. I see.”

I stared straight ahead at the pounding surf.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked.

“Yes, three of them.”

“What are your sisters’ and brothers’ names?”

I could see the hazel flecks in those green eyes, a crooked scar by his right eye, another on top of his left cheekbone. I want to kiss the scars . . . . Whoa, June! Had I just thought that? I want to kiss the scars . Where the heck had that come from? I was off men, completely! Done with men!

“Did you forget your brothers’ and sisters’ names?” He smiled at me.

I smiled back. He had such nice . . . lips! “What? No. No. I know their names.”

Yes, I did. I knew my brother’s and sisters’ names, but my, how would it feel to hug a man that size? Oh, shoot! What was I thinking? “I know their names,” I said again, with a bit of defiance, but I heard my voice come out as a whisper. “I do.”

“Good.” His eyes dropped to my lips. It was a flicker, but I saw the drop. My mouth suddenly felt like it was on fire. What? I couldn’t be on fire for him, or any man. That was . . . that was . . . bad!

“Their names are . . .” Who was I talking about again? Whose names?

“Your brothers and sisters,” he prompted, still smiling.

I accidentally made a funny sound in my throat. “Yes! I have a brother and sisters and they have names.” I looked at the ocean for answers.

“That’s fortunate. If they didn’t, what would they be called?” His voice was low and husky.

“I don’t know what they would be called without names.” What was going on ? I was freezing, I was in shock. Ha! That was it! I had almost been pulled out to sea. He’d saved me. Now I was transferring my emotions to him.

“So. My brother’s name is . . .” Quick, June.

Your name is June . . . “His name is March. March. And I have a sister named . . .” Reece was a cross between Poseidon and Zeus .

. . he needed only a chariot to complete the image.

“August. She’s an August.” I shook my head to clear it.

“Her name is August. She’s getting married soon.

Her fiancé’s family is proper. Scary proper.

Blue-blood proper. I have another sister .

. .” Chariot. Horses. A sword. Did Greek gods have swords?

What would Reece’s sword be like? June, come on!

“The other sister has a name. She is a September.” I bit my wet lip.

“I mean, her name is September. She is not a September. It’s just September. One word.”

“Just September. One word.”

As an ex-trial attorney I have been in court hundreds of times. I was never thrown, never intimidated, never embarrassed, even when the judge was threatening to charge me with contempt of court, even with obstinate juries or screaming opposing counsel.

No, never, but this man .

“Do you have brothers and sisters named for the months of the year?” What an inane question. No! No, he didn’t . You and your odd MacKenzie clan are the only ones who are all named after months!

He chuckled, deep and masculine. “I have two brothers and two sisters. Their names are Shane, Jessica, Rick, and Sandy. Dull compared to yours. Your parents must have enjoyed the months of June, August, September, and March.”

I stumbled a bit on a rock, and he caught my arm. This time, I avoided locking eyes with him so as not to be possessed by his handsome magic. “I’m sure they did enjoy those months. Every month is a happy month for my parents.”

“That’s a rare thing to hear. Tell me about them.”

Okay! I could do that! A normal conversation! “They met when they were sixteen and ran off and got married after they graduated from high school. My oldest sister arrived a year later, then my next sister, me, and my brother. We’re all eighteen months apart, give or take a few months.”

“Young parents.”

“Oh yes, and they’re way cooler than any of their kids. They’re ex-hippies.”

“Outstanding.”

“Yes, we had an outstanding childhood. Different. Wild. Nomadic.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You want to know about my childhood?” I pushed a strand of wet hair off my face.

“Yes, I do.” Those eyes were sincere. I was being pulled into a green pool, only the pool was warm and sexy and had big shoulders. Look away, June. Look away! Remember, you do not believe in lust at first sight.

I shook my head to clear my burgeoning passion.

“My sister August was born on a commune in California. My next sister, September, was born in the back of our VW van. I was born in a hippie colony here in Oregon. There’s some difference, not much, from a commune.

My brother was born about fifteen feet over the U.S. border.”

“Fifteen feet?”

“About that. We had been in Mexico, living on a farm with other Americans, but my nine-months-along mom decided at the last minute that she wanted March born on American soil, like the rest of us, so they drove through the night. My brother was born on the other side of the customs building.”

“That must have been quite a ride.”

“It was. I remember it. We packed up the van on the fly. We were all wearing tie-dye shirts and sandals. We also had three mutts, two cats, and a bird who flew loose in the van. We had a box of apples and a box of bananas. I slept on the floor of the van between my sisters with our dog, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, asleep over my legs. Our other dog, Flower Child, snored away on a seat, and the third dog, Fleas, because he had fleas when we found him, my sister was using as a pillow.”

“You are making my childhood sound as boring as heck. I can barely stand it.”

“We were traveling gypsies in a VW bus.” I drew my arms tight around my freezing, shaking body, the rain relentless.

“So, your brother made it to the U.S. border?”

“Yes, he did. My poor mom. No drugs at all during childbirth. She wanted it natural. All of us were natural. My father grabbed two tartans out of the back of the van for her to lie on.”

“Tartans?”

“From Scotland. Our ancestors are from Scotland, and our family takes our love of Scotland seriously. Afterward, my father’s face was whiter than my mom’s.

I remember my sisters and I had to stay in the van and there were a bunch of men in uniform helping my mom, and all of a sudden one of those men was holding our brother, March, who was screaming his head off, but, I’m sure, delighted to have been born in America. ” He laughed again.

My, what a seductive and deep and gravelly laugh. My!

“And after he was born?”

“A doctor had been passing through customs and one of the guards ran him over to our mom, so he was able to do some sewing up, so to speak. A couple of hours later, after the border guards fed us, we were back in the van, March squawking in my mom’s arms where she lay on the floor.

Within two hours we were in a fancy hotel.

It was strange. Our childhoods were so nomadic, we worked on farms and communes, and the basics, electricity and plumbing, often weren’t there, but once or twice a year we’d go stay in a hotel with pools, hot tubs, and free breakfasts where we stuffed ourselves silly with pancakes and waffles.

After March was born we had seven nights of complete luxury. ”

“Then back on the road? You didn’t go to school?”

“Not traditional school. We weren’t homeschooled, we were bus-schooled.”

“What does ‘bus-schooled’ mean?”

He smiled. I melted further. For a moment I faltered again, couldn’t speak, lost my train of thought.

I coughed. “We learned all about geography, geology, and the history of the earth from our travels. We’re all fluent in Spanish.

Our father loved math, so in fourth grade we were doing basic algebra.

He thought it was fun, so there we’d be, up at two in the morning, doing algebraic equations after learning about the constellations.

My mom had us write in journals every night and we read the classics. ”

“A family of readers, then?”

“We ate books. It was required. We would visit other MacKenzie relatives often, and read their books, too. Books are your friends, my mom told us.”

“How did your parents make a living?”

“My father is a talented painter so he would set up a stand at open markets, or in small towns we were passing through, and people would hire him to paint pictures of themselves, their homes, their pets. Once word got out, there were long lines. Sometimes he would paint murals at schools, churches, even civic buildings. He’d go in with a design, they’d love it, and all of a sudden they had a mural in their hallway and we had a check. ”