Exposed (15 page)

Ivan’s head snapped up. She’d asked for his help planting a garden, and he’d denied her. Why? What possible reason was stopping him from showing June even a fraction of the kindness she showed others?

He had to find her. He had to apologize. Maybe he’d even be able to help her with that garden.

The sun burned hot and orange overhead. He turned Nikolai around without finishing the tilling and nearly ran back to the barn. 

His shoulders ached from the work, and sweat prickled down the center of his back and beaded his forehead. But he led Nikolai back into his stall and took off across the fields toward his cabin. 

He blasted cold water from the shower head and let it wash away the sweat and grime from the day’s hard work. Sheets of water cascaded over his shoulders, down his arms, funneling down the ridge between his chest muscles and washing down his stomach. It felt good, this water.

Ivan scrubbed himself dry with a towel and rubbed it over his head. His thick, dark hair stood up in peaks and whorls. He threw on a shirt and pulled on trousers, hopping over to his boots while he did. Now that he’d made up his mind to go find her, it was all he could do not to sprint, not to hurry like every minute was a matter of life or death.

Dark hair stubbled his jawline and above his lip. Ivan rubbed his hand over the coarseness. He hoped June wouldn’t mind. 

That realization shouted loud in his head—he never cared what others thought. But June ….

Hurrying now, Ivan loaded up the truck bed with potting soil, some trowels, and a few plats of seedlings along with pots of more mature flowers. He cocked his head and pulled down another plat of annuals just in case. He didn’t exactly know what June needed in this garden of hers. 

Hell, he didn’t even know if June would still need his help. She’d asked him days ago. But now that the idea had taken root, Ivan couldn’t weed it out. Ivan had to see her, give her a chance. He felt that certainty deep into the pit of his stomach. 

Ivan hopped into the truck. In the rearview mirror, he noticed a smudge of dirt on his nose. He rubbed at it, but it didn’t budge. Ivan huffed and ignored it. The truck started with a protest, and Ivan pushed his foot down. 

He slowed as he turned off into the subdivision where he knew June lived. Just last summer, he and Kostya had done a garden project for her neighbor. At the time, he’d thought she looked ridiculous in her bright headscarf and white sunglasses, coming over to the shared fence and offering Kostya lemonade. He’d ignored her, and he doubted she’d even noticed him. Now, he wished he’d taken the cold drink and asked her out to a movie. 

The truck crawled by groomed lawns and men standing outside watering the grass. More than one person watched him drive by, but Ivan ignored the familiar flare of indignation and concentrated on what he was here to do.

Ivan eased to a stop outside June’s house and stared. Was he really about to do this? Show up unannounced? His heart hammered and his palms were slick. But Ivan slammed the truck door shut behind him and rang the doorbell with his shoulders back.

A woman answered the door, a cigarette in one hand and suspicion in her eyes. Her hair was platinum, her lips too pink. Those lips curled in something not quite a smile and she glanced behind Ivan.

“We already have lawn service, thank you,” she said.

Ivan frowned but recovered just as she was closing the door. “Wait, June wanted me.”

The woman just stared. The certainty Ivan had felt earlier had fled somewhere on the drive over, but it was too late now. He attempted the type of smile he’d witnessed on June.

“June asked me to help her in the garden.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

June

June blew a puff of air out of her nose. A lock of sticky hair fluttered away from her forehead, and June shoved it back under her yellow headscarf.

Ruth had been right. She was a failure at gardening, an absolute failure. June sat back on her knees and surveyed the damage.

She’d spent two afternoons on this disaster, from the time she left work to the time she lost the light. And this was all she had to show for it? A thick patch of dirt had been overturned along the south edge of the wooden fence. That alone had taken an entire evening. June swiped the back of her hand over her forehead and pressed her hands against her dirt-stained pants. Packets of seeds and tiny green seedlings surrounded her. Half of them were missing names, so she had no idea what she was planting where. 

Apparently some of these things needed more sun than others. When she was younger, June had fantasized about finding a secret garden and a kindly young man to help her return it to glory. June coughed on a harsh laugh—what a ridiculous dream. 

June grunted in frustration and bent back over her work. She’d just dumped a green plant with a purple flower into a hole when her mother’s trilling voice wafted out the kitchen window. June had to admit, she was thankful for the excuse to get up.

What was the use of all this? She’d had visions of lush flowers in full bloom, of maybe a trellis over the back gate. But this …. This would probably end up costing more money by the time her mother was done “fixing” it.

June stumped into the house, more than a little annoyed, and pulled up short.

Ivan.

Ivan was right there. Standing at Annette Powell’s shoulder and looking supremely uncomfortable. Ivan, who thought her pathetic. June couldn’t help the gasp hiccuping up her throat. How right he was.

June smoothed her hands down the front of her pants. What was he doing here? After the bridge, what he’d said to her, she was positive she’d never see him again. Not close up, at least. And certainly not in her home. 

June peeked up at him. He had a brown leather satchel slung over one shoulder, and June stared at the way his fingers wrapped around the strap, his fist clenching and relaxing over and over. Those hands, they had touched—

“June!”

June swung her head around and blinked hard into the face of her mother.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes? I mean …. What I mean to say is—” June fell over the words, trying to scrub the memories from her brain. But her body couldn’t quite forget the way she’d responded to Ivan. June smoothed her hands over her clothes again, spreading more dirt. 

“I said, this man said he’s helping you start your little project.” Annette waved her hands toward the backyard where the “little project” currently sat in ruins.

“If you still need it,” Ivan added. His voice was rich as the earth and rumbled through June. Why did he have to be so handsome? And here she was, covered in sweat and dirt.

“You already traipsed mud over my clean floors, you might as well help,” Annette said. 

Behind her, Ivan’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth turned grim. June’s cheeks burned crimson. She tried to catch Ivan’s eyes, to somehow apologize for her mother, but Ivan wouldn’t look at her. 

Annette leaned back against the gold-flecked Formica counter tops and kept talking, oblivious to her slight. “I’ve been meaning to hire real gardeners to see to the back, but I’ve just been so busy. And now with the mess June’s made ….”

June ducked her head to hide how her face burned—with shame, embarrassment. But a dark thought wormed through her. For a second, she saw Ivan the way her mother saw him, as hired help. As someone not to be trusted. Maybe it was because he was a Sokolov. People whispered about the Sokolovs worse than they whispered about her mother. That they were Communists, godless, spies. June didn’t even want to admit it to herself, but she didn’t want others looking sidelong at her, gossiping behind their hands but smiling to her face. Or worse, shunning her altogether like they had the Sokolovs since the sickness.

But June pushed the thought down and found anger to replace it. Her mother was being so dismissive to Ivan. June had pressed him to be kind, to give others a chance, and this was how her own mother behaved? 

For the first time, June understood why Ivan was so sharp. And she envied him of the ability to put someone in their place. 

“We’re throwing an intimate soiree for the town ladies,” Annette continued. She looked Ivan up and down. “Mrs. Greg, Mrs. Dickinson and the like. Probably no one you know.” 

June flicked her eyes up to Ivan and found his face dark and brimming with storms. He hated her, hated all of them. How could she blame him?

Annette stared at Ivan, and June was certain for one terrible moment that he was going to snap back. But then Ivan shifted the satchel on his shoulder and worked his jaw. “Could I see the space?”

Annette nodded curtly and started to lead the way, but then glanced back at him. “Mind the dishwasher,” she said, gesturing at the avocado green appliance built under the counter three feet away from Ivan. 

June nearly groaned.

Outside, golden sunlight bathed the back yard. The fence separated their property from the neighbors on each side and backed up to the wooded strip of land between the ranch homes and the river. Between the fences, the back yard was bare. 

Bare, except for the scar of June’s gardening attempt. Ivan’s eyes snapped to hers, and June pressed her lips together. Embarrassment winnowed through her body and sent her stomach tumbling. 

“As you can see, there’s a lot of potential,” Annette prattled on. She pointed here and there, mentioning different things she expected out of her landscaping. “A rose garden, of course, and maybe some sort of evergreen hedge to hide the fence. I don’t think it’d be too much to ask for perhaps a seating area in one corner under a trellis and some walking paths. The Briggs have a lovely walking path through their rose garden.”

“Mom,” June started, desperate to stop her mother. “I don’t think—”

“And a fountain, of course. That should be the centerpiece of any nice garden. Mrs. Briggs has a smaller fountain than Mrs. Sharpe, but it has this lovely little statue atop it of a cherub spouting water.”

Ivan laughed, actually laughed. June whipped her head toward him to see his mouth cracked wide. He shook his head in disbelief at Annette. “So a peeing cherub,” Ivan said.

“I did
not
say anything like that,” Annette said, one hand to her chest.

“Lady, you’re not getting a fountain. That’s ridiculous.”

“I didn’t hire you to hear—”

Ivan stood tall, his broad shoulders pulled back. He glared down his straight nose at Annette. “You didn’t hire me at all. I’m here because June asked for my help.” Ivan clutched at his satchel again, his eyes finding the back door. “I think it was a mistake to come,” he said, quieter, directed at June.

June’s tumbling stomach constricted painfully. She couldn’t let him leave now, not like this. She had to show him he was wrong about her.

“Please, Ivan,” June said. Nearby, Annette narrowed her eyes at June’s pleading, but she didn’t care. She gestured wildly at the disaster of a garden. “I could really use your help.”

Ivan blinked slowly. “Obviously.”

He hesitated, then shook his head at something unsaid. He ducked out from under the bag to drop it to the ground. He wouldn’t quite look at June, but at least he was speaking to her. “Show me what you’ve done so far.”

“I’m so sorry,” June said quickly the second Annette disappeared back into the house. Ivan still wouldn’t look at her. 

That morning two days ago, he’d looked at her. Stared at her fiercely and unreservedly. She’d not realized how very blue his eyes were until then, fringed in black lashes and very keen under thick eyebrows. Her face crumpled. “Ivan,” she whispered. “I’m really so, so sorry.”

His eyes grazed her and fell just as quickly. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“My mother, she’s insisting on this ridiculous party. I need this garden to keep her in check. The last time she threw a party, she did a buffet of nothing but savory gelatins and Evie Sharpe wouldn’t let me hear the end of it for weeks.”

“I don’t care what it’s for,” Ivan said to the dirt. He was poking at the seedlings lined up in their containers with disinterest.

“I just … I just want something simple and pretty. That’s all.”

Ivan looked up at her then, and the expression in those blue eyes shivered through June and set her on fire at the same time. “That, I can do.” 

Ivan directed June to keep digging holes along the fence and trotted out to his truck to collect his supplies—it took three trips to get everything. June sat back onto her heels and glanced over the things now arrayed around her.

“Nothing you bought is really right for this level of sunlight, so I’m going to have to pull a lot first.”

June’s knees ached just at the thought of all that wasted work. A bead of perspiration trickled from under her headscarf and traced the side of her face. She flicked it away with one dirt-smudged finger. “Can’t you just”—she wriggled her fingers at the ground—“make the garden grow?” 

“No, I can’t …,” Ivan wriggled his own fingers. “Is that the only reason you asked me to help?”

June rubbed at her shoulders. What happened that morning at the bridge? What had made Ivan treat her so warmly only to turn it around so quickly? He’d come here for a reason, but was it just to mock her? Confusion roiled through June.

“I was trying to make you smile, Ivan. I didn’t mean—”

“We need to get working if we don’t want to lose the light,” Ivan cut her off and nearly turned away. Then he stopped. “Please,” he said, like it was a word he wasn’t used to saying.

Following Ivan’s instructions, she added delicate pansies and bold African violets to the first row of the garden. According to Ivan, these would make a nice border for the rangier snapdragon and hyacinth buds that would take up the second row. Those waited in another two plats, the yellow snapdragons shot through with pink veins and two shades of purple hyacinth. Small, pink rose bushes would line the fence. 

Near her, Ivan was wrestling with chicken wire and two terracotta pots. They worked close to each other, but in silence. The kind of silence that shouts loudly, stares uncomfortably.