The Ugly Truth

by Cheryel Hutton

So there I wandered among picnic tables and trees and people I didn’t know. I was uncomfortable at first, but then the warm breeze reached out to touch my hair as it moved to caress leaves and pine needles. At the gentle touch, my shoulders began to release from their frozen position near my ears.

  Memories played in my head. Good ones. Picnics and birthday parties at the state park near Crooked Hollow. Trips to the lake. A vacation spent in a cabin in the mountains. Our last night there, my brother Brandon and I sat on the porch and watched the lightning and felt the roar of thunder. We shuddered and laughed and felt totally alive until the rain changed direction and the hard driving drops soaked us before we could reach the cabin door.

  I smiled. It had been worth the hour-long screaming reprimand from our stepfather. Brandon and I had laughed about that day for years afterward.

  “How did your first day go?”

  Maddie’s voice jerked me back to the present, and I reluctantly pulled away from the past to answer her. “It went okay.”

  She nodded, her eyes unreadable behind her large, dark sunglasses. This was her Audrey Hepburn look, and she carried it off with style. She wore black capris, a cute, sky blue, sleeveless shirt, and an adorable pair of strappy sandals. Her long, blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail which cascaded down her back and glistened in the dappled sunlight.

  I glanced down at the vintage sundress I’d chosen to wear. I wasn’t going for a look, I was simply being me. I sighed internally.

  “So you like working there, huh?”

  She was fishing, and I didn’t want to be the poor trout on her hook. “I enjoyed taking pictures of beautiful antiques.”

  There was a pause. “So, how is Jake?”

  And there was the bait. “I didn’t know he’d lost his mother.”

  Her head jerked slightly, and I could feel the heat of her curiosity through the dark lenses. “He told you about that?”

  “No. Actually, Aunt Octavia came by. She had a message from his mother.” The memory of the pain in his eyes as he walked away tore at me. “What she said upset him.” I swallowed. “Your mom explained that she’d died when he was twelve.”

  “Oh man, it always upsets him when Aunt Octavia does that.” The dark glasses had come off, and Maddie was carefully touching a tissue to the corners of her eyes.

  Well, that told me quite a bit. “Has Aunt Octavia ever given you a message from your dad?”

  “No. And I hope she never does.”

  “I’d love to hear from my father.” I said it before I thought and looked away to keep Maddie from seeing the tears I felt filling my eyes. Stupid tears. Why should I be crying over a man who obviously hadn’t cared about me?

  Maddie’s hand touched my arm. “Maybe if we talked to her she could help you somehow.”

  I blinked back the newly threatening tears. “Maybe tell me why he hated us so much?”

  “Maybe tell you if he’s still alive.”

  I felt long repressed rage boil slowly over the top. “What if he is? What if he’s alive and well and being a great dad to a new family? How would that help anything?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing back the hot steam of my anger. “It’s okay. It’s over, you know? Over and done with. He left me. And Brandon. And Mom. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  She put a hand on my arm. “If you want to talk, I’m here.”

  I had to swallow back the emotion before I could say, “Thanks, Maddie.”

  I gave her a quick hug, and she headed over to join the cheerleaders. I wandered around for a while, watching birds, squirrels, and people. It was a family event, so there were a lot of spouses and children.

  I got a kick out of the kids running around. I love kids, maybe because I relate to them better than to most adults. Kids are honest; they tell it like it is. They aren’t real impressed by the trappings of wealth and power either. They see people the way they really are. I like that.

  I managed to get myself involved in a toddler game of Nerf football, and later was able to hold a really sweet little nine-month old. He was teething and drooled all over the place, but it was worth it when he grinned at me.

  Shadows grew longer as the sun dipped behind the mountain and the steamy air began to cool. I wandered around the area, trying to find a place where I felt even vaguely comfortable when I caught a glimpse of Jake toward the edge of the festivities. He sat alone at a table, facing the party, but not taking part. He looked lonely. And tired. And sexy as hell.

  Bad Stephie.

  I glanced guiltily toward where Maddie laughed and squealed with her cheerleader buddies.

  I didn’t actually make a decision, somehow I just found myself walking toward the far end of the area. “Hey, Jake.”

  He smiled warmly. “Thanks for helping with the pictures.”

  “My pleasure. You have beautiful things to take pictures of.”

  I tossed a glance back toward Maddie. Hurting my closest friend was not in my game plan for this trip. I was not my mother; I would not put a man ahead of the people I loved.

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  I nodded and together we headed toward the thick copse of trees closest to the picnic area. We’d only gone a little way when I felt Jake’s warm hand against my lower back. The touch sent all manner of tingles up and down my spine and to more interesting places too. He edged me into a deep shadow next to an ancient oak, then moved in to face me. He looked deep into my eyes. The fingers of one hand gently, reverently touched my cheek.

  “I don’t want to make things more complicated for you,” he said. “But you’re like whipped cream on a sundae, and I want to take a big bite.”

  I swallowed hard and tried to convince my hormone-charged body that being loyal to a friend was much more important than any sparks flying between me and this man. Sadly those sparks had shorted a couple of my circuits and instead of heading back where I should be, I put my hand over his and pressed his fingers more firmly against my face.

  “Oh, Stephie.” The words were followed by a groan. He pulled me close as I stretched up to him.

  His mouth moved over mine and our lips fused with desire. His hands slid down my back leaving scorched skin behind.

  I pulled him closer, my fingers sliding under his polo shirt to explore his back as if he had the secrets of the universe written in Braille on his skin.

  One of his hands moved to the front and managed to find its way into the neckline of my dress. His fingers moved over the top of my breast, and I felt like I’d been turned into a rocket and aimed for the moon. I heard a long moan I only vaguely realized had come from me.

  He kissed his way from my mouth across my cheek to my ear. “I don’t even know your real name,” he whispered.

  “Buffy,” I heard myself saying. “Buffy Stephanova.”

  “Doesn’t suit you.”

  “I agree.”

  And then his lips took possession of mine again, and I was floating in space looking down at a fiery volcano. And I wanted it. Bad.

  He pulled away, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  “I’m sure as hell not going to do this on the ground fifty feet from my entire class and their families.” He took my hand in his. “Even if you do make me crazy.”

  I trembled and my body was on fire, but even in the state I was in I realized he was right. “You’re a gentleman,” I managed.

  He chuckled. “Gentleman, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  He brushed a stray strand of hair off my face. “I’ll see you at the store tomorrow.” And he was gone.

  I stood there for a few minutes getting my breathing under control and my focus back to the same zip code as me. Still, my heart was racing and my face was hot when I started toward the rest of the group. I hung back to give myself time to calm down and hopefully Maddie wouldn’t realize immediately I’d thrown her over for a big bad bag of sexy.

  “Hello, Buff
y,” Butch said, as he stepped out from behind one of the huge oaks. “So you and Blackwood have a thing. Figures. Big man quarterback has to have everything in a skirt that walks past him. What would he think if he knew who you really are?”

  This was getting old. Fast. “Look, I don’t know what you think you know about me, but you need to find a new hobby.”

  A slow, nasty grin split his face. “I read you went to a big college. What I wonder is how you managed to pay for that fancy education. Maybe you’d like to demonstrate.” He reached for his zipper.

  My hand popped his face, leaving a bright red handprint behind. “Son of a monkey’s ass.”

  I turned and hurried away before I decided to tear out his ugly heart. Men. All they were good for was messing up a girl’s life. Damn ‘em all to hell. I sure didn’t need one. I was just fine by myself, thank you very much.

  I walked aimlessly for a while, staying close to the populated area, but far enough away I had a bit of privacy. As I worked at getting my anger back under control, I tried hard not to remember how my mother and stepfather had held the strings on every single penny I used to go to Columbia. I’d wanted to get a job, but I also wanted to take a heavy course load so I could get through and be free to live my own life. So I put up with it all, including the yelling and hitting from a stepfather I loathed. A man I’d left my little brother to face alone.

  I found the rectangular green building that held the public bathroom, and splashed water on my face. There were no paper towels, so I air-dried.

  I started back toward the picnic area determined I was going to find Madison and stay beside her for the rest of this reunion-festival thing. She was my friend, and I loved her. I would not allow a man to make me lose sight of that goal. I was not my mother!

  I was walking back when I heard Butch’s voice. “I don’t like being blamed for something I didn’t do.”

  “We all know you did it, dude. Why don’t you be a man and admit it.”

  “It was him,” Butch’s voice said. “Quit blaming me.”

  I edged closer, careful to keep a tree between me and Butch’s line of sight.

  “I also do not like being blamed for what I did not do.”

  The voice was coarse and sounded very much as if the person speaking was not a native English speaker. German maybe? I edged a bit closer to try to get a glimpse without being spotted.

  “Why don’t you just own up, Johnson and leave the big guy alone?”

  The father of one of the junior pageant contestants stomped out from behind the copse of trees, and I ducked backward to keep him from seeing me.

  “I was always careful,” Butch was saying. “I always put the butt out. I know it wasn’t me, and I saw you that night.”

  I edged closer to eavesdrop…I mean investigate the situation.

  “I was there,” the gravelly voice said. “But I was not smoking.”

  “You had a cigarette in your hand.”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “Damn it! I know it was you. I don’t care who you are, you don’t get to use me as your scapegoat.”

  Butch turned and stomped off. I watched him go, until a sound had me looking back toward where the confrontation had taken place. There was movement, and then I saw him. Huge, furry. It was just a glimpse, but I was sure.

  “They do exist,” I whispered.

  And then the significance of what I’d just heard hit me. There was more to this little town than I’d ever imagined, and my curiosity was screaming at me to find out more.

  I was beginning to be truly fascinated by odd, little Ugly Creek, Tennessee.

  Chapter 10

  I figured the drive to work the next morning was the perfect opportunity to get a few answers. We’d barely gotten out of the driveway when I decided to put my theory to the test. “Margaret, what caused the fire?”

  She didn’t answer for a time, but I saw how her shoulders had tensed, how her knuckles had gone white where she gripped the steering wheel.

  “The best the investigators could figure was it started behind the boys’ locker room. The theory is that somebody was smoking back there.”

  “Do they know who?”

  I saw her swallow. “There wasn’t really enough left to figure it out.”

  I touched her arm. “I’m sorry; I know it has to be hard to talk about.”

  She flashed me a weak smile. “It’s gotten easier over the years.”

  “Does it make you angry, that nobody was ever charged?”

  “Oh heavens, no. It was an accident. Some kid was smoking. Somehow he dropped a lit cigarette, probably didn’t even realize he’d done it. Until later.”

  She cleared her throat and shifted until she sat straighter. “Besides, whoever it was has to live with the guilt. I believe that would be the worst possible punishment.”

  “You’re right. That would be awful.”

  I looked out the window. I knew something about that living with guilt thing. I unzipped my purse and pulled the picture out of my wallet. The photo of a ten-year-old boy. A shot I’d taken years ago with my brand new Minolta thirty-five millimeter single lens reflex. I bought the camera with my fifteenth-birthday money, and was chewed out royally for not spending the money on something “practical.” I still couldn’t figure out what was more practical than a camera.

  “Did you take that picture?”

  I jumped before I could stop myself.

  Margaret patted my arm. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “I was lost in thought.”

  “He’s a nice looking young man.”

  “That’s my brother Brandon. He’s five years younger than me, and was just admitted to graduate school. Wait a minute, how did you know I took that shot?”

  She chuckled. “It’s your style. Candid, but artistic. Catching the essence of your subject.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Maddie’s been showing you my work, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes, but I also read Capitol Spy every month.”

  I leaned back in my seat, running a finger over the photo in my hand. “My work for the Spy isn’t all that artistic.”

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit. What you do for them may not be the sort of thing you think of as artistic, but your talent is infused into every photograph you take. Trust me, Stephie. You have a wonderful style.”

  She pulled into the parking lot behind Blackwood Antiques, and I grabbed my camera bag and laptop.

  Dingo met us and I dropped to my heels to give the dog his belly scratch. I knew when Jake stooped beside me because the air started sparking between us.

  “You’re spoiling my dog,” Jake’s deep voice vibrated through me, strumming my nerves like a violin.

  “He deserves to be spoiled,” I told him.

  “Oh, you think so, do you?”

  I smiled at the huge ball of soft fur sprawled in the floor in front of me. “Look at him, he’s gorgeous and sweet and friendly. What more could you want in a dog?”

  Jake’s hand suddenly closed over mine. The touch of his rough, warm hand had me gasping for breath, and trying hard not to let him know how much he affected me. “You had a dog once, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you were a kid growing up in Alabama?”

  Everything stopped. Everything. The world, my heart, my brain, my hands, my life, my lungs. Little black dots began to pop onto the edges of my vision.

  “Stephie?”

  I gasped in a fresh breath of oxygen, clearing my vision and starting my heart again. My brain, though, was still muddled. “How long have you known?”

  He shrugged. “I’d suspected for a while.”

  “Really?”

  He chuckled. “Sweetheart, your accent pops out now and again.”

  “My what? Do you know how hard I’ve worked to get rid of my accent? Most people don’t hear it. How can you?”

  He rolled off his heels into a sitting position and lea
ned back on his hands. “There’s nothing wrong with having a Southern accent, you know.”

  “I don’t want one.”

  “Why not?”

  I played with Dingo’s fur while I got my panic a little more under control. “I hate where I grew up.”

  He was watching me; I could see him out of the corner of my eye. “What did Crooked Tree Hollow do to you?”

  “How did you find out?”

  “My best friend’s a computer geek. You think I can’t use the Internet?”

  My breath caught as I stiffened, prompting Dingo to scramble to his feet. “I just didn’t like it there. Okay?”

  “Your family has lived there for years, right?”

  “Generations.”

  Dingo decided being scratched was worth the risk of being startled again and flopped back down.

  “I saw one article that said your father was the mayor for eight years?”

  “Stepfather,” I spoke with my teeth clenched together to prevent the vile words I seriously wanted to say. I tried to get up, but Jake had his hand firmly around my wrist.

  “Not a nice man, I take it.”

  “Just because he goes to church every Sunday and he was the fricking mayor, doesn’t make him a saint.” I stopped, closed my eyes and wondered what in the world had possessed me to say something so transparent.

  Jake tugged me against the warm, solid wall of his chest. “What did he do to you?”

  Seriously unwelcome tears flooded my eyes and I fought hard to hold them back. “He just isn’t a nice man.”

  “He hurt you.”

  “Not only me.” He’d hurt Brandon too, and I’d left my little brother there to take the heat.

  “He hit you?”

  I pulled away. “I don’t want to talk about my stepfather, okay? He wasn’t exactly nice to me, but it’s over I’m getting on with my life. So, I’d appreciate it if you’d just forget the whole thing.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  “I’m here if you change your mind.”

  I met his gaze then, trying to convey the almost overwhelming gratefulness that welled up inside me. Odd. Here in this small town I kept running into supportive, caring people. How very different than the place I’d grown up.