The Naked Truth (The Honeybrook Hamdens Book 1) (6 page)

* * *

H
e wouldn't
.

Not in a million years would he give up her secret and humiliate her...again.

But he had to try something, and based on Julie's reaction, his instinct had been right. The event was too big, too important to be planned from so far away, and he knew her better than to think she'd leave anything like that to chance. So that could only mean one thing.

Julie Hamden was in a bind.

And he might be just the guy to help her out. For a price.

He got to his knees and tried to open the cabinet he remembered from so many years ago. The one he and Julie used to use to hide their booze in when the rest of the family wasn't around. Mrs. Hamden was right, all right. The damn thing was stuck, and good.

"You're awfully quiet over there," he said, and he could feel Julie's eyes on him as he appraised each and every cabinet and drawer.

"You wouldn't tell," she said again, though this time her voice shook a little. "You don't know anything."

"I know enough to start asking questions."

"Chase--"

The whirr of the chainsaw outside died, and a moment later the door clicked open and Luke stalked into the room. "What's the damage?"

"It's bad all right." Chase silently cursed his friend's timing, but sent Julie a meaningful look all the same. "I'll need some WD40 and some time."

"You got it." Luke headed in the opposite direction again and when the coast was clear, Chase turned to face a red-faced and clearly flustered Julie.

“You’re right, I’ll keep your secret—at a price.”

“I shudder to think of the cost.” She glared.

“Give me one night.”

“Are you asking me to—?“

“No. I want a date. The one we never got to have.”

She considered him for a long moment, then said, “You’re seriously going to blackmail me to get me to go out with you?”

“You’ve left me no other choice.”

“Fine, then. We’ll go out. On one condition.”

“I thought I was the one with the leverage.”

“And you will be as long as you listen. Just…” She glanced around her again, the grabbed her bicep and bit her bottom lip. “Nobody can know it’s a date, okay?”

“You ashamed of me?” He raised his eyebrows.

“No, it’s just…My mom and Amy and Luke all think I have this great boyfriend back in the city. I don’t want to clue them in to the fact that things may not be, you know, as perfect as I said they were.”

“Got you.” Chase nodded. “I have to say, I’m trying not to laugh at the way the tables have turned here.”

“Yeah, it’s positively hilarious.” Julie rolled her eyes.

“So…seven o’clock tomorrow?” he asked.

“I guess it’s a date.” Julie nodded, then started from the room, but when she reached the archway she turned around and said, “Hey, do you think you can sand out…you know. That thing that’s in there?”

Chase frowned. “Yeah, I can probably do that.”

“Cool.” Then she was gone and he was left there, sitting on the floor and imagining again their initials carved deep inside the little hutch’s cupboard with a big heart encircling them.

There was no way in hell he was getting rid of that, though.

Not yet.

J
ulie sat
outside the house for a long time before she walked in. The little gathering after the funeral was sparse, filled with people that didn’t seem to know each other. Phil, she noticed, hadn’t bothered to come. Just like the funeral. Just like the wake.

Still, enough cars speckled the sidewalk in front of her house that she knew it was wrong to dawdle and leave her mother playing hostess, so she swung herself out of her beat-up Cavalier and made her way up the little stone pathway toward the house.

Instead of walking toward the living room, though, she first climbed the stairs to her bedroom, ready to take off the heavy black sweater her mother had forced her to wear.

When she opened the door, she found Chase in her rocking chair, waiting for her.

“Hey,” she stammered.

“Hey,” he said. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For keeping my secret.”

“It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t.” He said it so matter-of-factly  that she didn’t bother arguing with him.

“I helped pick out the quilt for your bed,” she offered, then sat on her own and looked at him.

“It’s great.”

“It’s terrible.” She smiled. “Gran never got the hang of quilting. But it’s warm enough. And you’ll be here now. With your family.” Her heart broke for him just saying the words, but he smiled up at her.

“Just for the summer.”

“Right,” she said. “Just for the summer.”

And what a summer it was going to be.

She felt like a sixteen-year-old girl again.

Which, of course, was to say she felt like an idiot.

She'd tried on all the clothes she'd brought with her from the city, and still nothing seemed to fit the way she wanted it to or do the things to her body she hoped they might.

Not that it mattered. She should have just worn a potato sack and gotten the whole evening over with. She didn't care, after all, what Chase thought of her or if he found her attractive. Although, considering the way he'd looked at her the other night in the bar, and even yesterday in the dining room, he clearly had something on his mind other than friendship...

But no. Even if he insisted on calling this a "date" she didn't have to treat it like one. She'd just wear an old flannel shirt, some well-worn jeans, pull her hair in a ponytail, and pray that the night would end quickly and quietly.

It had been nearly ten years since they'd been alone together. There was no guarantee that things were just going to fall into place like old times. It was entirely possible that she wouldn't be able to make him laugh the way she used to. That he would have developed some annoying habit she couldn't stand.

That he'd suddenly gotten hideous overnight?

No, even she couldn't hope for that much of a change. If there was one thing about Chase Westmore that had stayed the same for as long as she’d known him, it was that he was drop dead, cross your heart and hope to die gorgeous. Except now he was a man, too. He had the broad, chiseled shoulders of a man who knew how to work with his hands. The lean, trim waist.

It was enough to make her swoon just thinking about it.

So the only solution was to not think about it. Tying a jacket around her hips, she made her way down the creaky old steps and sat on the edge of the landing. Yup, staring at the door and waiting for him was exactly what an adult in her situation would do. Or, say, a particularly well-trained dog.

She got up and hustled to the kitchen, then poured herself a glass of water.

The house was in one of its rare states of emptiness with Amy having mysteriously gone somewhere and her mother having left for her weekly Mahjong tournament.

Yep, it was just her, Julie. Waiting for Chase.

Just like the old days.

The doorbell clanged and she smoothed her hands over her shirt before walking--not rushing, but walking--toward the door.

When she opened it, she cleared her throat and said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

Then she looked up to find her brother staring back at her. Her heart plunked into her stomach, and for a moment she felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu again, panicked and trying to scramble for excuses of exactly what she was doing and who she'd been expecting. Luke didn't seem to mind, though. Hell, he didn't even seem to notice how clearly flustered she'd become.

He just barreled into the foyer and glanced past the teetering rows of garbage until he found his sister's face again. "Where's Mom?"

"Mahjong Monday."

"Right. Right. And Amy?"

"Out...somewhere. She didn't say."

"Okay." He pursed his lips and Julie frowned.

"You okay?"

"Fine, fine. Just had a couple of questions."

"Ones for Mom and Amy, but not me?" She raised her eyebrows

"No, it's just...look, you don't exactly keep track of family stuff. I'll just come back later."

"What kind of--" she started, but he was already halfway out the door, rushing back to his truck. She stood in the doorframe, watching him go, just as she made out Chase's Dodge coming round the bend.

"Shit." She murmured under her breath, and she glanced toward Luke again. Apparently, he was too distracted to notice, and by the time his car started up the street Chase was pulling into the drive.

They'd missed each other by mere moments.

"Couldn't wait to see me, huh?" Chase called as he got out of his car and pulled a bouquet of wildflowers from the passenger seat.

"Something like that." Julie rolled her eyes. "You just missed Luke."

"That so?" He tried to look nonplussed, but Julie thought she could sense the same faint edge of panic that she felt. Old habits, she supposed.

"Those for me?" She nodded toward the flowers and Chase shrugged.

"You have another date after this or something?" she asked.

"Depends how well this one goes, I guess."

Julie rolled her eyes and took the flowers from him, pausing for a moment to smell the pink and yellow blooms before heading back toward the kitchen to put them in water.

"So, this is our big date night," she said as he followed her down the hall.

"That it is."

"What does a night on the town in Honeybrook look like? We going to your bar?"

"You wish." He laughed.

"Really? That bad?"

"I guess you'll just have to wait to find out."

"A secret date?"

"Maybe."

"It's so secret you can't even tell me if it's a secret?" She snipped the ends from the flowers and set them in a mason jar her mother had resting on the counter. Normally, she would have walked the flowers up to her bedroom and sat them on her bedside table, but there was something about having Chase follow her to her bedroom that just felt too...something. Risky? Intimate?...Familiar?

"You got me. It's just that secret," he said, and she pulled herself back to the present.

"Right, well, I guess there's no rest for the wicked. Let's get this over with.” She started off to the car, not pausing to look him in the eye as she rushed out the door and toward the passenger side, but when she got there, she found something already in her seat.

"You want me to move this or…?” She turned and found him striding easily down the walkway from the house.

"Nope. We're not going anywhere."

"We're..."

"I'm going to take you on the date I always wanted to take you on."

"A trip to the movie theater? In public?"

Chase rolled his eyes. "Come on, Julie Hamden. Let me romance you." He held his hand out for her and she stared at it a moment before taking it in her own. Silently, he plucked the basket from the seat and led her through the overgrown yard until they reached the broken fence.

"This time we don't have to jump it, at least," she said, pushing aside a post so that she was just outside the line of the property, on the edge of the forest beyond.

"It's the little things, I guess." Chase smiled at her and her heart betrayed her by doing a little flip.

No, there would be no heart flipping, twirling, or skipping. There should be nothing to do with her heart at all.

This was an afternoon of endurance. She'd do whatever it was he had planned, remain completely indifferent, and then at the end of it she'd be in the clear. Chase would keep her secret, she'd set up the fashion show, and when she got back to the city...

No, no thinking about the city either. Just...

She scanned the line of white picket fences they were leaving behind.

"What are you waiting for?" Chase called to her from the tree line and she looked back at him, then out to the cliff on the ocean side.

"I just haven't been back here since..." She couldn't think of the last time they'd all come out to the woods. When they'd been younger, it had been one of their favorite summertime activities. Their grandmother used to lead them out to the best spots or she'd set up a scavenger hunt for them and they'd play pirates. Then, when they were older, she and Chase would sneak out with a bottle of liquor or some beer that they'd knicked.

She took a deep breath, ignoring the thing her heart did which was, most definitely,
not
flipping, twirling, or skipping.

"It's been a while, yeah," He nodded. "Now come on."

She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it and followed his lead.

It’ll be over quicker if I just play along. I just have to focus. Play it cool.

In the years since she’d last been in these woods, they’d gotten just as wild and overgrown as her grandmother’s backyard, though the brush and flowers snaking along their usual path was, admittedly, prettier and less death defying than the old house’s yard.

“So, I guess this was your plan all along? To get us lost in the woods and then—“

“What? Play Tarzan and Jane?” He grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother to retort. She had to admit, there wasn’t much to complain about. As they went, Chase held branches for her or warned her about every little divet in the ground. When a branch brushed her face, he turned to make sure she was okay, and he’d only go on once she’d reassured him.

“How much farther do we have to go?” she asked, but then she knew they’d come to the spot. Knew without him having to tell her.

They’d happened upon a small creek that split the ground in two, its bed of rock perfectly visible beneath the water. She remembered this place.

“Did there used to be…?” she started and Chase nodded.

“An old fallen log. I fixed that.”

She took another step and surveyed the sturdy bridge that now stretched across the water. It looked so fresh and new compared to all the overgrowth and moss around them. Like it had been planted here on accident. Except it hadn’t been.

It had been very much on purpose. She knew as much without asking a single question.

“You built this?” she asked.

Chase nodded again, then ran his free hand over the back of his neck. “It wasn’t much of a big deal. We had some spare wood left over from finishing the bar and I remembered this old log was here, so…”

She blinked, then took another step forward until her hand was on the carefully crafted wooden railing. Every summer she’d spent in her grandmother’s house, they’d used that old fallen log to cross the creek. One summer, she’d even fallen from the tree and fallen so hard in the water that she’d lost her breath and nearly drowned.

Chase had scooped her out of the water, though, and had carried her back home where she’d spent the rest of the day on the couch, watching a movie with Chase and Luke while Amy rolled her eyes and complained about how they shouldn’t have been out there to begin with.

“Did you use the log, too?” she asked.

“It was gone when I came out here. Dunno what happened.”

She nodded, then looked up to find him crouched down on the center of the bridge, spreading out a huge, blue checkered picnic blanket.

“You did a good job on this,” she said, but only because it was the truth. “I’m sure a lot of kids will be happy to have this here.”

Chase finished smoothing the blanket, then sat down and motioned for her to join him. For a moment, she hesitated. With every passing second, this was feeling more and more like a terrible idea. It wasn’t too late to walk back to the house and come clean. Not too late to leave Chase behind.

But then she thought of Amy. And her mother. Luke.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, then walked over to the little place he’d made for her on the ground and settled in.

For a moment, she did nothing but survey the trees, the way the canopy stretched higher than she remembered, the way the algae clung to the edges of the creek.

“It’s beautiful out here,” she said.

“Not the city, though,” he answered.

“No, not the city.” She thought of the buses that used to pass by her old apartment, the blaring sirens that sounded at all hours of the night. “Definitely not.”

She swallowed hard, and when she met his gaze again, it was all she could do to keep heat from spreading to her cheeks. “So,” she coughed. “You bring something for us to eat, or what?”

“I did.” He opened the basket, and then pulled out a white paper bag.

“Is that—?”

It was. From the bag, he fished out two round, aluminum-wrapped objects and two tiny boats of french fries.

“You got us fast food.” She blinked.

“Only the best for our date night.” He unwrapped one sandwich, checked under the bun, and then handed it to her. “Double Cheeseburger, no mustard.”

She bit back a smile. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“A gentleman never forgets.” He tipped his head toward her, and then took a bite of his burger. For a while, they sat there, eating and staring out at the woodlands, both lost in their own thoughts.

Okay, I just have to finish eating. That counts as the date. I’ll just finish this burger and I can go home and forget about this. About him.

“Do you like the city?” he asked, catching her off guard.