The Naked Truth (The Honeybrook Hamdens)

"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.