Exposed (6 page)

Ivan’s hand went tight around the head of a rose, and the petals wilted in his hand. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing her way again. 

And worse—so much worse—Ivan saw June was wearing the little yellow flower through the lapel of her navy jacket. That just made everything a hundred times worse. But a tiny part of Ivan, the part that couldn’t forget the way June’s touch had ignited the very center of him, that tiny part of Ivan soared. Ivan ground down on his teeth and forcefully shoved that tiny part down deep.

He opened his mouth to say something—something to make her leave and forget the reckless gesture from last night—but a little old man stomped up and spoke over him.

“Excuse me,” the man said. He barely came up to Ivan’s shoulder, but he was shaking with anger. 

Ivan just frowned in response and leaned back against one of the tables.

“How dare you treat my wife so poorly.”

Ivan stared around behind the man, but didn’t see any wife. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I have no idea what you mean,” he drawled. Near the old man, June crossed her own arms, her mouth going tight and her eyes narrowed.

“The other one who works this booth always helps her with her flowers, but you were awful rude to her.”

Ah. Now Ivan remembered. He stood tall.

“Perhaps next time your wife should know what she wants before she wastes everyone’s time.”

Both June’s and the old man’s mouths dropped open. The old man stomped away in a huff, but June stalked closer. She shoved the folded jacket in Ivan’s general direction, and he had to fumble to catch it. She had nearly turned on her heel, but paused. In profile, he watched her lips screw up to one side and her eyebrows crease.

“Why are you so mean?”

Ivan’s eyes went wide. Did she
really
not know why he’d have anger toward these people? He refused to believe she’d never heard the rumors, the gossip and lies about his family. 

“I treat people exactly like they treat me.”

June rolled her eyes. “Have you ever tried being kind? Even a little bit? You treat everyone you meet like they’re something stuck to the bottom of your boot.”

Ivan took a step closer, so June had to crane her neck to glare up into his eyes. “Then what? What will happen then, June?”

“Maybe you’ll be surprised. Not everyone is your enemy, Ivan Sokolov.”

Ivan glowered at June and busied his hands refolding the jacket. Some scent wafted away from the jacket when he did, something wild and sweet with spicy pepper underneath. It made his body tighten at the smell, just for a hint of an instant. Damn this woman and what she was doing to him with just a touch, just a smell.

“Is there anything else I need to change?” Ivan demanded. He wanted to make her run from him and crush himself against her in a kiss at the same time.

June’s jaw went tight. “You know, I was coming to ask you for help with a garden I’d like to plant. You gave me this beautiful flower last night,” she touched the very edge of the bloom, and her eyes fuzzed over for a second. But she shook her head, and when she stared back up at Ivan, her brown eyes were hard as rocks. “I thought … I thought I saw more in you. Something joyful and generous and
kind
behind that hard mask. But I was wrong. You’re just what everyone says.”

“A Soviet? A spy?”

“No,” June snapped. “A jerk.”

And June turned hard on her heel and shouldered her way through the crowd. People stared at her, stared at Ivan. His chest heaved and his face burned, and worst of all his cock stirred. Ivan jerked his body around to cover his growing erection. 

Like the night before, she surprised him. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her be so forthright and brazen. It made him angry and aroused at the same time. Something was going to have to be done to scour June from his thoughts.

“Are you okay? June?” Ivan heard someone call through the shoppers.

Ivan couldn’t stand it anymore and peered around his shoulder. Frank Greg and Lucy Roberts were nearby, and they stopped June. She turned slowly and placed a hand on Frank’s arm. The man’s shiny, round face flared red.

June looked past her friends and stared directly at Ivan. “Why, of course! I’m lovely!” She was lying, Ivan could tell. But then she walked away with Frank and Lucy on either side and disappeared into the crowd.

Ivan grabbed a handful of yellow onions and tossed them into a wooden crate of peppers, green onions, and untouched squash. He dumped the remaining rosebuds in with the peonies and the last two sprigs of lilacs. But still he couldn’t rid his mind of June.

It bothered Ivan that she felt the need to pretend she was fine, that she went so far out of her way to please others. Where did the bold woman he’d experienced twice now retreat to in her eagerness to make others happy?

And if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that what she’d said hurt. He wasn’t a jerk. He was …. Ivan shook his head. He wasn’t a jerk. He was honest—and people hated honesty. 

A red-haired woman dragging a bored-looking teen sister hurried up to his stall as he was just finishing packing up.

“Oh,” she said. “Am I too late? I so wanted some of the peonies and lilacs!”

Ivan thought of June and tried smiling. The woman—Betty Carroll, Ivan remembered from school—smiled back. 

It was probably an automatic reaction, he told himself. He helped her pick out a few flowers and tied them together with twine, then threw in a second bouquet of rosebuds. They’d just join the heap behind the greenhouses anyway, might as well brighten someone’s house. 

“Thank you,” Betty said, burying her nose in the lilacs. “These are just so lovely.” The red-haired sister beside her gave a hearty eye-roll, but Betty met Ivan’s eyes and smiled wide. “I’ll tell my friends where I got these,” she said before leaving.

Maybe June was right. Maybe he was too quick to judge others. Maybe if he just tried to be kind, it’d be reflected back to him. Ivan kept that smile in place as he hauled the wooden crates of unsold produce back to the truck. But the smile wasn’t enough to ignore the stare from the day’s last shoppers.

“Where’s he going so early?” One of the men asked, not trying to lower his voice at all. “Does he know we’re not on Moscow time?”

The smile slid from his face and his hands went rigid where they clenched the wooden crates. Ivan lengthened his strides to reach his truck and get the hell out of town. 

June didn’t know what she was talking about at all.

Ivan ran a hand through his dark hair, a nervous habit, and stalked down the street. 

Who was June to lecture him? She was no one. Her opinion mattered little to him. The way his body was drawn to hers was clouding his judgment. Ivan scrubbed a hand through his hair again. No. Her opinion didn’t matter at all.
What did she know.

Ivan stomped up to the bakery just opened by Cora Murphy—no, about to be a Briggs. He’d heard almost as much gossip about their engagement as he did whispers about his family.

Ivan yanked the door open. A bell tinkled overhead, and a voice called out from the back.

“Just a minute!”

The bakery was warm, the air thick with yeasty bread and pastries. It made his mouth water. He’d promised his father a blackberry tart from Cora’s bakery, and he only had money for one no matter how his stomach rumbled. The absence of customers at the market had seen to that.

Ivan peered around the shop. It was empty, though the case running along the length of the store was half-empty too. That snagged at something in Ivan. The Murphys were nearly as maligned in town as the Sokolovs, and if Cora could become accepted ….

Ivan huffed a breath through his nose and slumped back against the counter next to a vase of wild sunflowers. The Murphys were hated, but there was no doubt where they’d come from. No one, no matter how they loathed Butch and Huck Murphy, was accusing
them
of attacking the entire town. 

Besides, he didn’t want to be accepted by these people, it was just his annoyance at June making him think so. He idly played with a leaf sticking out from the bouquet and disappeared into his thoughts.

The shop was empty, and Ivan’s power unfurled within him and stretched its roots. He felt rather than saw a tendril of green circle up his arm from where he touched the flowers. It was warm and alive. Ivan’s ever-present scowl softened and his shoulders relaxed.

“That’s something,” said a voice at his shoulder.

Ivan spun around, and dragged half the bouquet with him. He stared down at his hand and then wildly back up to Clayton, who’d appeared from the kitchen door behind the counter.

His heart ricocheted against his ribs and his chest tightened. No.

The look in Clayton’s eyes. He knew.
He knew.
 

Ivan desperately yanked the plant away from where it’d started growing up his arm like ivy, but his hands shook and his feet itched to bolt out the door, dragging the flowers with him if need be.

“How long have you had that ability?” Clayton asked. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ivan said automatically. Uselessly, he knew. A plant had crawled
up
his arm, possibly as Clayton watched. Ivan nearly groaned.

Behind Clayton, Cora backed through the door with a fresh tray of croissants balanced in her arms.

Clayton glanced at her before turning back to Ivan. He held his hands up like Ivan was a spooked horse. “You’re not the only one affected. You’re like me,” Clayton glanced again at Cora. “Like her. And there are others.”

Cora set the tray down and dusted her hands against her apron. She and Clayton shared a knowing look. They couldn’t be telling the truth, could they? Ivan had thought he was the only one, but now that seemed such a naïve assumption.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Ivan tried. “I just want to be left alone. If anyone else knew ….”

Cora frowned and shared a look with Clayton. “We wouldn’t get you in trouble. We’re trying to protect those who … who are like us.”

“We just want to learn more about these powers,” Clayton said.

Ivan looked between the two of them. He had never exchanged two words with Clayton. He wasn’t the sort who had anything to do with someone like Ivan. But he seemed different with Cora at his side. More open. He wasn’t the self-confident rich boy looking down his nose at Ivan. Clayton looked genuinely interested in him.

But that wasn’t about to make Ivan trust Clayton or Cora with the truth of his newfound power.

Yet more than that … Clayton had said “powers.” Were there really others like him? Others with abilities like he’d developed? He wouldn’t be alone. Not that he minded being alone. He was better that way.

But ….

“Look,” Clayton said, drawing Ivan from his thoughts. “Maybe I didn’t see anything, but if I did, we’re going to meet in the old silver mine four days from now.”

Ivan just stared. He managed to nod and stumbled out the door, not really seeing where he was going. He jumped when Cora touched his arm. She pressed a paper bag of still-warm croissants into his hand.

“We’re in this together. These powers or whatever they are, you don’t have to figure it out alone.”

“The mine, you said?”

Cora nodded. “You’ll come?”

Ivan furrowed his forehead, but he didn’t say no. “Thank you,” he said. “For the croissants.” Then he strode away, his mind a jumble.

CHAPTER FIVE

June

June stared at her closet. Stared at years of accumulated blouses, sweaters, and pants. Heaps of skirts, dozens of dresses. All of it a waste of her father’s money. That realization prickled at June, made her uncomfortable in her own skin.

How long had the new clothes, the new accessories been draining her father? She’d never been frivolous, but June couldn’t deny her love for fashion. It was the one thing she did to please only herself. It was a joy to put together outfits and try new trends.

But now. Now, June knew the truth. And the truth weighed her down like guilt was wet wool on her shoulders. June rummaged through the hangers where her wardrobe was carefully separated by season, occasion, and color. 

She had hoped—foolishly hoped—that with Ivan’s help she’d create a garden to sate her mother and save some precious money from being wasted on this party. But that man’s horrible attitude had dashed that hope. How one person could spend all of life sneering at the world ….

No. June wouldn’t think of Ivan. He only made her angry, and that only made her say mean things she regretted afterward. What was it about him that made her snap? She could find a way to be nice to everyone, but both times she’d spoken to that man she’d walked away seething and hot all over and embarrassed at losing control of herself. 

She’d thought for one mistaken moment that she’d peeked behind the mask and recognized kindness. She’d seen something that set her on fire. But she’d been wrong about Ivan. She focused on the task at hand.

Out came the cuffed dungarees that had frayed at the knees. Out came the day dresses in patterns she no longer fancied and the blouses with the outdated necklines. Soon, her narrow twin bed was hidden under a pile of discarded pants, sweaters, and dresses.

Finally, she stared at her closet again. It was half-empty, but now only held the clothing she wore almost weekly. None of the rest of it was needed. There were two frivolous pieces still hanging there: A lovely gown in celery green satin she hoped to wear to the upcoming Mountain Pearl Dance and a full-skirted party dress in gold brocade she’d worn to her senior year formal.

Maybe … maybe she could keep both?

But no. Her father hadn’t been able to keep both cars. 

That’s when she’d started guessing. Her father wouldn’t admit the extent of their money problems—just like he wouldn’t admit it was Annette’s spending that had put them in this predicament. But June had overheard them fighting about it the night she’d returned from the infirmary after that awful sickness. They didn’t know how they were going to pay for her treatment. The next day, the second car was gone.