Exposed (25 page)

“It’s rare, but the scent keeps people from wanting it cultivated. You can only find it wild around here.”

June held the flower between her fingers and rolled the stem back and forth. “Have you considered what I brought up before? About selling your flowers and produce at my father’s store.”

Ivan looked away, hooking one hand behind his neck. 

That was all the answer June needed. “Please, Ivan. Give them a chance again. Let this town see who you really are.”

“June,” Ivan said, his voice a warning. “I’m not going to beg. We might be getting desperate, but I’m not going to humiliate myself.”

“I’m not asking that, but I think if you’d just …,” she trailed off. 

Ivan’s smile had melted into a scowl, and his blue eyes sparked. He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode off down the trail.

June hurried to catch up. “Well, anyway. This flower is lovely. Thank you for picking it.”

They walked in silence, but the strain between them became a memory among the trees. The trail led away from the pines and out onto an open rock face. Ivan stepped from the shadow of the trees, and the sun bathed him in light. 

“This is what I wanted to show you,” he said, tilting his head to look at June still in the shadows of the trees.

June followed Ivan away from the trees and barely stifled a gasp. The rock face was actually a narrow ledge suspended high over the valley. June made the mistake of looking down. It was a long way to the valley floor below. Her head spun and she shoved her back against the rock wall. 

She wanted to be there for Ivan today, but this was mad! One wrong step, and she wouldn’t need to fear her power taking her life. The fall would take care of that.

“C’mon, June!” Ivan prodded her again.

June looked back the way they’d come. It was just a couple steps. She could close her eyes and take one big jump and be back in the trees, in safety. She clenched her jaw and looked the other way—toward Ivan. He met her eyes, his own open and warm. He believed in her, and that made June’s stomach clench with resolve. She set her mouth into a determined line and stood up straight from the wall. The sun beat down, and June shakily pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes.

Step over step, June crossed the ledge. Ivan waited in the middle.

“You made it,” he said.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Yet June could only stare at Ivan. She was too afraid to look out over the ledge.

“Now look,” he said, quieter.

June took a breath, steadied herself, and looked.

Her heart stopped. The valley was jewel green below them, the Breakneck River a satin ribbon. It looked so tiny, so insignificant compared to the towering peaks surrounding them. But more than that—so much more. 

June could see over the pass, over the mountains of their valley. Craggy, purple peaks studded her view in every direction, falling away with the curve of the earth. June had never been up so high, seen so far. 

Up here, she could see beyond everything she knew. A whole world June didn’t know was right outside her front door. Just imagine how much was beyond the pass, beyond the ocean. June shivered with anticipation—it could happen. It
would
happen.

“I’ll see it,” she whispered.

“It?”

“Everything.”

“I thought you’d like this.”

June slipped her hand down Ivan’s arm to his open, waiting fingers. “Ivan, I love it.”

With a final look, they inched across the ledge to the other side. June stumbled away from the ledge, her breath whooshing out of her with relief and excitement and so many other emotions. She tumbled away from the rock face and reached for the closest trees. 

The pines grew close together, the heavy, green boughs casting the forest in shades of green and blue. June trembled from head to foot, and she was so preoccupied when she tried to grab for the first pine tree that she accidentally fell through it. One moment the pine bark was solid and rough under her palm, and the next it had melted away.

June gasped with sudden fear—a deep, core-shaking terror that made the narrow ledge pale in comparison. 

Ivan’s arms were suddenly around her and caught her before she hit the ground. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I ….” 

Ivan’s forehead scrunched into a frown, and too late June swiped away the tears welling in her eyes.

“What’s wrong? Was it the ledge?” Ivan crushed her close in a hug, his chin rested on top of her head.

June buried her head into his neck and tried to calm her racing heart. The earthy richness that always clung to Ivan’s skin helped her breath deep, but her stomach was a nest of snakes. 

What if …. What if the next time she used her power, it consumed her? What if the pain was a warning?

Fresh tears rolled out of June and she clung to Ivan.

“God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Ivan said into her hair. “I should have never made you do that.”

June shook her head against his neck. “It wasn’t ….”

Ivan eased them down onto the sandy, needle-scattered forest floor. June wiped her eyes and pulled her knees to her chest in a fierce hug. 

Ivan stared into his hands. “It was Betty,” he said, knowing her fear.

June nodded. “What if I’m next?” Admitting it out loud made her feel weak, but it also made her shoulders relax to share her private fear.

Ivan leaned forward on his knees and cupped June’s face in his hands. “That won’t happen,” he said fiercely.

“But what if it does? You know my power hurts me sometimes.”

Ivan pressed a kiss against June’s forehead, the sort of kiss that seemed to say everything he couldn’t.

“We don’t know how long we have, any of us. What’s happened to us, what’s happening
…. But June.”

She looked up into his eyes and lost herself in their deep blue.

“June, I want to be with you. As long as we have, I want to spend it with you.”

He was right. They didn’t know what would happen to them tomorrow, next week, next year. But June couldn’t spend her life waiting. It was time to act. And she knew two things with a certainty she felt all the way to her core: She needed Ivan in her life, and she was done making herself unhappy because of fear.

If she could carry this power inside of her, she could tell her parents they’d no longer have her paychecks. It was time to start the life she wanted.

“Are you okay?” Ivan’s voice was tentative.

June met his gaze and held it. Then she grabbed hold of his shirt collar and dragged his mouth to hers. He made a small gasp of surprise, but she covered it with her lips.

“What was that for?” He mumbled against her mouth sometime later when they finally pulled apart.

June smiled. “For everything.”

Ivan sat back on his heels and gathered June’s hands in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Ivan said.

June frowned.

“For earlier when I stomped away like a child. Sometimes it’s like I’m constantly looking to be angry. It gets exhausting.”

June worked her mouth back and forth. He wouldn’t want her to ask, wouldn’t want her to push. But June was starting to think that what others wanted and what they needed were two entirely different things.

“Why are you like that?”

Ivan looked away from her, somewhere off in the distance that June suspected only he could see. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind, his eyes a million miles away.

“Did you know my father worked on top secret projects for the Soviets?”

The revelation made June blink. Her mouth dropped open. If anyone else in town knew about that ….

Ivan continued, though he couldn’t quite meet her gaze. “He was a professor in Moscow, but part of the government as well. My father … he’s quite a bit older than my mother. He clearly remembers the revolution, losing most of his family. He spent three years in a camp ….”

Ivan shook his head, sighed. “What I’m trying to tell you is, he defected and took a lot of secrets with him. I was actually born in Washington.”

“I didn’t know,” June said.

Ivan waved away her concern. “Most people assume, and I don’t bother correcting them. Because, the thing is, I saw my father do everything he could to protect himself, us, from deportation. He begged his handler to let us stay in Washington, to continue his work but for the Americans.”

“But you’re here.”

“Yes,” Ivan whispered. “We’re here. No one would hire a former Soviet to teach good American students. No one would take a chance with us like my family took coming here. And so, we’re here. And my father has lost all of himself.”

He looked up then, fire in his eyes. “I won’t let that happen to me. I won’t beg for my place. I won’t beg people like Bo and Butch to accept my family.”

June pressed her palms against Ivan’s thighs and stood on her knees to be able to look him straight in the eyes. “Ivan, there’s a big difference between begging and trying.”

“June, I …,” he had to stop and close his eyes for a moment. “I’ve been like this for so long, I don’t know if I can be any different.”

“But you are, with me,” June said. She looked up into his eyes and saw sadness. “You’re not perfect. None of us are. But you make me,” June paused, searching for the right word. “You make me bold. Unafraid to do something for myself even if it’ll make others upset.”

Ivan cocked his head. He regarded June, his eyes steady on hers. Then a smile quirked the very corner of his mouth, and June’s heart soared. Maybe he realized, finally realized, what it was she saw in him. 

“I have a challenge for you.”

June narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious. “A challenge?”

Ivan nodded. “I challenge you to wear something awful in public. Stripes with polka dots. Orange with pink. See what it’s like to have people really talk about you.”

June extended her hand and shook Ivan’s. “Deal,” she said with a grin. “If you’ll try again at the general store.”

Ivan’s grin slid off his face for a quick moment, but then he hitched it back in place. “It’s a deal then, June Powell.”

And hand in hand, they continued hiking deep into the mountains.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

June

June dipped her hand into the clear river and gasped. Her skin puckered and smarted with cold. She gasped and shook her hand. But then she took a breath and plunged it back into the burbling river.

She cupped her hand and dipped her mouth low for a quick drink. It was so cold it hurt her teeth, but the water was wonderfully refreshing after so much hiking.

The stream bubbled through the forest, tumbling down a staircase of short waterfalls on its journey down the mountain and through Independence Falls. In town, it rushed and roared, sending a perpetual spray of icy water that dashed against rocks. But here, it meandered, a river without urgency. 

Wildflowers sprang up along either bank of the river, and Ivan picked another to add to the Mountain Pearl still tucked into June’s scarf. 

“What’s this one?”

“Columbine. One of my favorites,” Ivan tucked the Columbine in next to the Mountain Pearl and extended his hand to help June back up the bank. “Just a little farther,” he said, motioning down the trail. “I can’t wait to show you this.”

His smile shown wide and lovely, setting his eyes dancing. June would have followed him into a fire to keep looking at that smile.

But it wasn’t a fire. June could hear it well before she saw it. The crash of water, a hiss that grew and grew until it was a perpetual pounding of a waterfall. The trail wriggled through gray boulders and pockets of pine then opened onto a scene out of fairy tales. 

June’s mouth dropped open, and her feet stopped, frozen by the sheer beauty of the place.

Sunlight flooded a small, round clearing in the pines. At the back of the clearing, a waterfall tumbled over the edge of a cliff. It must have been a hundred feet or more. It fell in a thin sheet over the rocky edge and hit a pool at the bottom of the cliff. The water churned white at the bottom of the waterfall. But ripples like the rings of a tree bloomed, growing outward until the pond grew still as glass at the edges. 

“All my life,” June breathed. “I’ve lived here all my life with this just above me.” She turned to Ivan and pulled his hands into hers. “Thank you,” she said. “This is … it’s magical.”

Ivan just smiled, no need for words. He led her by the hand closer to the pool and pulled her onto the sun-warmed rocks along the edge. June sank to the rock and stretched her legs out, leaning back on her hands and turning her face to the sun like a flower.

“June,” Ivan whispered, his voice languid and low. “Go to the dance with me.”

June’s eyes popped open. People would talk. Edith would talk. But Will had assured June her job was safe. The rest, June could deal with. She realized in that moment that Ivan meant more to her than others’ opinion. 

This was her chance to prove what Ivan meant to her, to show the town of Independence Falls who this wonderful man really was. She wasn’t just doing this for him, it was for her as well. This would make her happy, and it was well past time she started living for her own happiness.

Ivan grinned, and there was a spark of the devious in his smile. “Unless, of course, you’re already going with Frankie Flashlight.”

June laughed. “Don’t be mean, he’s a sweet guy.”

“I can be sweet,” Ivan countered.

“I don’t want sweet.” June met his eyes and smiled. “I’ll expect you to dance,” she teased.

Ivan held a hand to his chest. “I’ll expect you not to laugh at me when I do.”

June sighed past her smile and pushed to her feet. “Of course I’ll go with you, Ivan.”

She stepped out of her shoes and hopped over to the next rock, a big flat thing that was just begging to be lounged on. Ivan called out for her to be careful, but she just laughed.

Egged on by his concern, she jumped to the rock next to it—a bit smaller with a dangerously sloped edge. She threw her arms out for effect then laughed harder when Ivan made to lunge for her.

“Dare me?” June’s smile was coy as she looked from Ivan to the next rock. This one sat farther out into the water, and it had a wicked point on one side.