Exposed

EXPOSED

Lily Cahill

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, are entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Nameless Shameless Women, LLC.

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1517407168

ISBN-13: 978-1517407162

CHAPTER ONE

June

June Powell reached under the table and tugged at the hem of her skirt. It’d always been a favorite, but now it seemed scratchy and ill-fitting.

Darkness pressed against the windows of Independence Falls’ soda fountain, but the interior was bright as noon. Yellow fluorescent lights bathed the Formica tables, metal soda machines, and ceramic dessert plates in harsh light. It washed over the wan pallor of June’s skin, still pale from three days in the makeshift hospital. She had spent those terrible days shifting in and out of a darkness she didn’t think would ever lift.

What she wouldn’t give for a bit of darkness now.

“June, I just don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about this.” Annette Powell forked a bite of blackberry pie, her utensil scraping against the plate. It set June’s teeth on edge.

Her mother patted at the corners of her mouth with a napkin and pushed the plate away. She settled her gaze on June. “It’s a party! Who doesn’t love a party!”

June leaned against the table, tried her damnedest to keep her face placid. “Because, Mother, it’s completely unnecessary,” she said, every syllable careful. It seemed half the town was eating dinner in booths nearby. She couldn’t risk them hearing. “And it’s
not
just a party. You’re turning it into something else entirely.”

She really was. Annette had waxed poetic about a backyard transformed into an All-American fantasy, complete with patriotic statues and fountains. Of a table laden with a hundred types of gelatin salad and punch bowls floating with sherbet. Never mind that their backyard held only a shed and a patch of grass. Once Annette set her mind to something, there was no deterring her. And this scheme was a doozy—a thinly veiled attempt to copy Florence Briggs and show June off to a passel of potential mothers-in-law.

Annette smiled, her big front teeth a bit purple from the pie. “Well,” she said, quite pleased with herself. “If you impress some future in-laws, I won’t complain. You’re getting too old to not have any interest in making a match. It worked for Florence Briggs, didn’t it?”

June leaned back against the vinyl seat in defeat. “That’s not the same.”

And it wasn’t. Clayton Briggs had ended up with the complete opposite person his parents had so hoped for. But it’d be useless trying to make that point to Annette Powell. Cora Murphy was marrying up, just what Annette plainly hoped for her daughter. The idea made June want to scream.

It was the sickness. The sickness that had taken everything June thought she knew and turned it inside out, flipped it upside-down. It’d taken the tidy life June had made for herself and exposed it, made it flimsy.

The door to the soda fountain blew open, and it brought with it a buffeting wind and a tang of coming rain. All around, people huddled into their tables: dates, groups of girls, moviegoers headed to the late show. One girl squealed as the wind whipped her ponytail across her eyes. But the cool wind was welcome against June’s hot cheeks, and it made her legs twitch. She needed to leave before she said something she’d regret. 

She pushed against her hands to leave, the vinyl creaking underneath her and an excuse already forming on her lips. But before she could move, Frank Greg scurried from behind the counter and clicked the door shut. And her resolve died with the wind. She couldn’t just storm off—what was she thinking? 

Frank paused at their table on the way back, his eyes lit with hope for gossip. “Everything all right here?”

“We’re fine, Frank. Thank you,” June lied with an easy smile. 

But she wasn’t fine. How much more was her mom going to damage? She was already bleeding her father dry with her out-of-control spending. And now June was expected to contribute all of her paycheck to her purchases too. All for what? For her mother’s attempts to catch the attention of the society ladies.

Anger at the prospect of her mother using June to place herself in better society curdled within June. It set her careful smile into a thin line.

“Don’t clench your jaw so, June. It makes you look stern.”

“Mother,” June managed, her voice clipped and louder than she’d intended. Behind her mother’s shoulder, a table of high school girls tipped their chins to listen. June took a breath and started over. “Mom, I’m twenty. I’m an adult. I don’t need you to show me off to potential in-laws.”

Annette laughed, a tinkling sound that was too loud and falsely bright. She swiped a finger through the smear of blackberry clinging to her plate and popped it into her mouth. At the counter, Frank watched them closely. For someone who was supposedly a friend, Frank seemed awfully hungry for fresh gossip.

“Oh, June,” Annette laughed. “You don’t know what you want.”

Around them, more heads tilted their way, hands went still. June opened her mouth, then closed it again with a snap of her teeth. She
did
know what she wanted. She wanted a life of her own choosing. She wanted freedom. She wanted to see the world outside her secluded mountain valley. Hell, she’d just shared a toast with friends last night to Violet Miller, a girl who’d done just that when she plucked up the courage to leave for Hollywood. And yet June was stuck. Stuck not wanting to disappoint her parents, Clayton at her bank job, her friends. She made pains not to disappoint anyone and only ended up making herself miserable.

At the counter, Meg Fields and Lucy Roberts caught June’s eyes. Lucy’s eyebrows curved up, just the tiniest bit. June read the concern in her friends’ faces. It was the same question Frank had: Was everything all right? June knew they’d talk later—Meg and Lucy weren’t new to hearing June’s complaints about her mother. Practically the whole town talked of Annette Powell’s grasping desire to reach high society. 

The humiliation at her mother’s naked ambition swirled into anger, until June felt full of it—her stomach churned and her limbs sparked with it. She had to get out. She had to leave before they made a scene.

She was standing over the table before she even realized. “I have an early shift at the bank, Mother.” 

“You’re just abandoning me to walk home alone?”

But June ignored her.

She was nearly to the door when Annette called out to her. “You forgot the bill, darling!”

June’s heels ground to a halt and heat crawled up into her neck. Color bloomed on her cheeks as she turned back to her mother. Nearly every full booth watched her. 

June pulled her chin high and settled a smile on her face. But her fingers shook as she settled the bill with Frank.

“Mother always forgets her pocketbook,” she said to Frank, pulling the last few coins from her own change purse.

She forced her steps calm and tidy, though her body demanded her to flee, to run, to keep going until her lungs burned and her mother was gone from memory. But she didn’t do any of those things.

What would people say if she did?

Darkness—wonderful darkness—overtook June. The soles of her saddle shoes clicked against the pavement. She dashed across the street to the solitude of the hedge-lined garden at the north end of the town square.

Here, beyond the manufactured suns of neon and fluorescent, moonlight gilded the world in soft silver. Behind her, the hedge hid a garden, the flowers curled up in sleep for the night. The air blew floral and sweet beneath the promise of rain. June dragged in a deep breath, blew out the stuffiness of the soda fountain. She wiped her hands down the delicate green and blue stripes of her full circle skirt and wrapped her hands around her slim, belted waist. 

There had to be a way to reel her mother in, to keep this party from becoming a farce. From being a pawn in her mother’s game of society. She just had to think.

A new wind—colder than the first—prickled against June’s bare calves. June peered up, looking to the twin peaks of Desolation and Jubilation looming over the town. But if the windswept mountains knew how to solve her problem, they weren’t telling.

Clouds piled over the mountains to the west, and thunder clapped overhead. It echoed all around the valley and made June shiver.

Maybe it’d been a mistake to run. She made to turn, but her legs didn’t obey. She stayed hidden in the darkness just at the edge of the hedgerow and waited. For what, she didn’t know. For her head to clear, for her anger to wash away.

But anger was a hard knot deep in her stomach, unmoving. Why did she let her mother have this hold over her? Why was she, a woman, still sleeping in her childhood bed? But to act …. How could she possibly make herself happy without hurting others?

Another boom of thunder split the sky, lightning forking through the towering clouds. The first, fat drops of rain fell from the sky and splattered against June’s bare arms. Goosebumps erupted down her arms and shivered down her back.

And then the sky opened.

June jumped from the shock of the sudden, cold rain. It pelted her face, her neck, her arms. June ducked her chin to her chest and ran.

Her shoes slapped against the gravel garden paths, and she skid across the green lawn toward the towering pines at the other end of the square. Lightning flashed, the world going shockingly bright for a single instant that left behind black spots ghosting in June’s vision.

She stumbled through a puddle, icy water soaking one shoe and sock, and mud splattering up her shin. June tumbled into the protection of the trees, the world suddenly dark, dry, and hushed.

And hard.

June smacked into something solid and careened backward before being caught. Caught in arms—steady arms. She blinked in the gray twilight and had to squint.

A man stood over her, wet hair falling over his eyes and his square jaw set in a hard line. As hard as the arms wrapped firmly around her waist. The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and for one long moment June’s body was pressed fully to his. Then he pulled June upright and abruptly let go.

He stepped back, and June finally placed him. Ivan Sokolov. She barely recognized him, didn’t think she’d seen him since they were in school. Ivan cleared his throat and took another step back. His mouth was a grim line, his eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing here?” It came out harsher than June intended, but she had assumed Ivan had left Independence Falls like those others she so envied: Samantha and Clayton off to college, Violet to Hollywood.

Ivan’s mouth, if possible, became harder. The corners of his lips curled down and his blue eyes sparked. “Am I not allowed to be here?”

June sighed. He always had been difficult. “No,” she said. She pushed sopping blond hair off her forehead. “No, I mean ….”

Ivan glared.

June gave up trying to explain. She was absolutely soaked, and increasingly cold. Her blouse had gone nearly translucent with rain and clung to her, exposing every inch of her shoulders, waist, and breasts. June crossed her arms for a bit of protection. 

Independence Falls may have been considered liberal by the other towns outside their secluded mountain valley, but they weren’t that liberal to not gossip about a woman discovered with a strange man under the trees. Especially a man like Ivan Sokolov, someone whose family name drew suspicion, who many in town held responsible for that awful sickness. They were Soviets, after all. And Soviets weren’t to be trusted. 

Ivan held his chin high and glared down at June over his strong, straight nose. His face was all angles—hard and unforgiving. He seemed a person who would find the ugliness in a sunny day.

“I could ask you the same,” he said, his voice clipped and low. “What are you doing out?”

“I just … I had to get away.” June didn’t know why she told the truth. Because she didn’t care what Ivan thought? Besides, who would he have to tell? He’d apparently lived in the valley for years since graduating school, and she hadn’t had a clue. She hadn’t even ever seen him at the weekly market where his family sold their flowers and produce.

“Is everything all ri—” Ivan pulled the concern back before he could even finish it. He set his mouth into a scowl. It appeared most comfortable there.

June waved away his false concern. “Of course, I’m fine. Everything’s perfect.”

Ivan barked a harsh laugh. “Of course,” he mocked her. “How could June Powell ever be anything other than perfect?”