Wild Orchids

by Jude Deveraux

  It was absurd of me and I knew I was acting like a kid, but it was the first time Ford and I had been apart since we’d arrived. Would Dessie cook something divine for him? Would she wear black toreador pants and a red blouse? Would she show a cleavage four and a half feet long?

  I gave a great sigh of disgust at myself. For someone who wasn’t jealous, I was certainly acting like I was.

  Maybe I was just bored. I called Nate’s house. Maybe he and his grandmother would like to come over for lunch, or invite me to their house. She was a nice woman and I’d enjoyed telling Ford that the grandmother was his age. Ford had replied that he wasn’t going to marry her and that Nate wasn’t going to be forced to bunk with me so I might as well stop trying. As always, we’d laughed together.

  There was no answer at Nate’s house.

  “Where is everyone?” I said aloud. Was there another tea party and I hadn’t been invited? Maybe that’s where Ford was now, I thought. Maybe he and Dessie were going to the party without me.

  I told myself that I needed to get a grip. And I needed to find something to do with myself that didn’t involve other people. Which, of course, meant taking pictures.

  For a moment I hesitated and had to work to stamp down a feeling of panic. What if I went into the woods and had another vision? Who would be there to help me if I blacked out again? And even more important, who would help me undo the horror of what I saw?

  Sitting there for a second, I lectured myself on codependency. I’d had twenty-six years before I met Ford Newcombe, so I could certainly spend an afternoon without him.

  I got up from the chair and went upstairs to my bedroom. Empty, the house seemed too big, too old, and too creaky. And it seemed that I heard sounds from every corner. The exterminators had rid the house of the bees, but now I wondered if there were wasps in the attic. Or birds.

  I checked my big camera backpack for film and batteries, picked it up and went downstairs. I didn’t know where I was going, but I certainly needed to get out of that vacant house.

  As it turned out, I only walked about a mile down a narrow road when I came to a little sign that said “trail.” It was one of those signs that looked hand carved—and maybe was for all I knew—and made a person feel as though she was about to embark on an adventure.

  The trail was wide and worn down, the bare earth hard packed, the tree roots exposed and worn smooth by many feet. Why don’t I remember this trail? I thought, then laughed at myself. I felt eerie when I did remember things and confused when I didn’t remember them.

  It didn’t take me but minutes to find flowers worth preserving forever. I mounted my F100 on the tripod, used Fuji Velvia ISO 50, and shot some Downy Rattlesnake Plantain standing in a tiny spot of sunlight. I clicked the cable release and held my breath that no wind would move a leaf and blur the picture. But it was dead still at the moment so I had hopes that the photo would come out sharpedged.

  I really loved to photograph flowers. Their colors were so gaudy that I could satisfy the child in me who still loved the brightest crayons in the box. I could look at pictures of brilliant reds and pinks and greens and still feel I was doing something “natural.”

  When I photographed people, I liked just the opposite. The expressions on people’s faces and the emotions they showed were, to me, the pyrotechnic “color” of the picture. But I’d found that color film too often drew attention to skin that was too red, or blotched with age spots, and so hid the emotion I wanted to show. And with a child, how could you look at a face when it was competing with a shirt that had four orange rhinos dancing across it?

  Over the years I’d learned to satisfy my color lust with photos of brilliant flowers taken with film of the finest grain. I could blow up a stamen to 9 x 12 and still have it crystal clear. And I indulged my love of seeing the insides of people by using black-and-white film—true black-and-white, the kind that had to be developed by hand instead of churned out by some giant machine.

  I shot four rolls of Velvia and two of Ektachrome, then packed up and headed back toward the house. It was nearly four o’clock and I was hungry and thirsty, but I’d brought nothing to eat with me. I guess that in the last weeks I’d grown used to being with Ford because wherever he went food and drink followed close behind.

  I allowed myself a great, self-pitying sigh as I shouldered my pack and headed back down the trail. But the truth was, I was feeling better. I wasn’t feeling lonely anymore, and I was no longer angry at Ford. I’d had a nice afternoon and I felt sure I’d taken some good photos. Maybe I could start a line of greeting cards and sell them to tourists passing through the Appalachians, I thought. Maybe I could—

  Suddenly, I halted and looked around me because I didn’t recognize where I was. There was a narrow stream in front of me, but I knew I hadn’t crossed a stream on my way in. Turning back, I looked for the trail I’d come in on—all the while imagining how very sorry Ford Newcombe was going to be when the National Guard had to be called out to look for me. “I shouldn’t have left her alone,” he’d say.

  I walked for about twenty minutes, but still saw nothing I remembered. I was beginning to be concerned when I looked to my left and saw the sunlight flash off something that was moving.

  Curious, but also a little frightened because I didn’t know where I was, I stepped off the path and into the forest. I tried to move as quietly as possible on the soft earth and succeeded in making little noise. The forest was quite dark; there was a great deal of underbrush, but I could see the sunlight ahead. I saw the flash again and my heart leaped into my throat. What was I going to see? Thoughts of Jack the Ripper and a flashing knife went through my mind.

  When I got to the edge and could see through the trees, I nearly laughed out loud. I was looking at someone’s backyard. On the far side was an old fence nearly broken by the weight of the pink roses that covered it. When a slight breeze came up, rose petals fluttered softly to the ground.

  The grass had been recently mowed and I closed my eyes for a moment at the heavenly smell. The forest I was in was on one side, the fence on two sides. The fourth side, to my right, had shade trees so dense that I couldn’t see the house that I assumed was farther up the hill.

  But the truth was that the White House could have been up there and I wouldn’t have seen it, because I was distracted.

  Under a huge shade tree was a wooden park bench and sitting on it was a man. A very, very handsome man. He was tall and slim, his neck resting on the back of the bench, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was wearing blue jeans, gray hiking boots, and a dark blue denim shirt, the kind with snaps down the front. His thick hair was as black as a crow’s wing and it didn’t look as though it had been dyed. The silver flash I’d seen was a cup. He was drinking something hot and steamy out of the top of a tall aluminum Thermos that stood on the ground by his feet.

  Also on the ground was a blue canvas bag with a loaf of long, skinny French bread sticking out of it. Beside the bag was—I drew in my breath and my eyes widened until they hurt—a Billingham camera bag. Billingham bags were made in England and they looked like something the duke of somewhere would carry, something handed down from his ancestors. Prince Charles once said he didn’t think anyone actually bought tweeds, that tweeds were just something people had. That’s the way Billingham bags looked: as though they’d always been there. They were made of canvas and leather, with brass buckles. Prince Charles aside, the truth was that Billingham bags could be bought, but, like tweeds, they cost dearly.

  I was standing there, skulking in the trees like a voyeur, lusting after his big camera bag, when I felt the man looking at me. Sure enough, when I looked up, he was staring directly at me, a faint smile on his lips, his dark eyes warm.

  I turned at least four shades of red and wanted to flee into the forest. Like a unicorn, I thought. But then, unicorns probably knew how to find their way out of the forest.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to pretend I was an adult as I walked toward
him. “I didn’t mean to spy on you,” I said. “I just—”

  “Wanted to make sure I wasn’t the local mass murderer?”

  Full face, he was even better looking, and he had a beautiful voice: rich and creamy. Oh, no, I thought. I’m in trouble.

  Moving to one side of the bench, he motioned for me to sit down beside him. He was so beautiful in such a sophisticated, elegant way, that as I removed my pack, I made myself keep my eyes on the roses. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning to look at them. “I knew they’d be blooming now so I made a point of coming today.”

  I put my vinyl and canvas camera bag on the ground beside the Billingham and they seemed to make a New World versus Olde Worlde statement.

  As I sat down on the far end of the bench, I kept looking at the roses, but the man was between them and my eyes, so my vision strayed.

  He turned toward me, eyes twinkling, the sweetest smile on his face. As I’d come to know Ford, I’d grown used to his looks, but this man made me feel like a nerdy teenager alone with the captain of the football team.

  “You must be Jackie Maxwell,” he said.

  I groaned. “Small town.”

  “Oh, yes. Very small. I’m Russell Dunne,” he said, holding out his hand to shake mine.

  I gave his hand a little shake then released it. That’s my self-discipline for the year, I thought. Releasing that big, warm hand had not been easy to do.

  “Is that your house up there?” I asked, looking back through the trees, but all I could see was more trees.

  “No,” he said. “At least not anymore.”

  I wanted to ask what he meant but didn’t. I was so attracted to the man that I seemed to have electricity running through me.

  “You aren’t possibly hungry, are you? I brought too much food and either it gets eaten or I have to haul it back.” He looked at me through long, spiky lashes. “It’s heavy so you’d be helping me out if you shared it with me.”

  What could I do? Refuse to help him? Ha ha.

  “Sure,” I said, and the next minute he was standing before me and stretching. Oh, yeah, sure, I knew he was showing off his drop-dead gorgeous, hunky body, but well…

  I made myself stop looking as he picked up the canvas bag and pulled out a red and white checked tablecloth. I knew that pattern was a little hokey but, still, it looked perfect spread on the dark green grass.

  “Help me?” he asked as he sat on one side of the cloth.

  In an embarrassingly short time I was sitting on the tablecloth, both of us facing the splendid view of the roses, and I was arranging the items he pulled out of the bag.

  I must say that he’d been able to pack a great deal in that bag. There was a bottle of cold white wine and two crystal glasses—the kind that ping when you tap them—and plates from Villeroy and Boch. The food was wonderful: cheeses, pâtés, olives, meats in little cold packs, three kinds of salad.

  “This is like the loaves and fishes,” I said.

  He stopped unloading and looked at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  He hadn’t spent a lot of time in church, I thought. I told him of Jesus feeding the multitudes with a few fish sandwiches.

  The story seemed to amuse him and he smiled. “Nothing Biblical, just an experienced packer.”

  Had it been anyone else, I would have thought my joke had fallen flat, but his smile was so warm that I returned it. He poured us glasses of wine, broke bread from the loaf, and handed me a plate of cheese and olives. It was my absolute favorite kind of meal.

  After we’d eaten some, I leaned back on one arm, sipped my delicious wine, and looked at the roses. “So tell me everything about yourself,” I said.

  When he laughed, the sound was as rich and creamy as the Brie. “I’d much rather that you tell me what all of Cole Creek is dying to know. What’s going on between you and Ford Newcombe?”

  Startled, I turned to look at him. “Why would anyone care to know that?”

  “Same reason you want to know all about me.”

  “Touché,” I said, smiling and beginning to relax. My physical attraction to him was so strong that I didn’t trust myself to behave, but I was beginning to calm down enough to think and talk. “So who goes first?”

  “How about scissors, paper, rock?” he said, and I laughed again. That had been the way my father and I often settled who was going to have to do the more onerous chores.

  I won. “Who are you? Why weren’t you at the Annual Cole Creek Tea and what happened to your house up there?” I squinted into the deep shade of the forest at the last question.

  “Okay,” he said, chewing, swallowing, dusting his hands off. Then he got up, bowed to me, and put his right index finger to his temple. I knew he was imitating Jack Haley, the tin man in The Wizard of Oz—one of my favorite movies.

  “Russell Dunne,” he said. “Thirty-four years old. Associate professor of art history at the University of North Carolina in Raleigh. I lived in Cole Creek until I was nine, and after we moved, we sometimes returned to visit relatives. My mother grew up in the house that used to be there, but it burned down about ten years ago. I was married but I’m a widower now, no children, no real attachments, actually. I wasn’t at the party because I don’t live here and am not considered part of the town.” He looked at me, eyes laughing. “What else?”

  “What’s in the Billingham?”

  His laughter turned to mock seriousness. “So now we get down to your real interest in me. And here I thought it was my charisma. Or at least the cheese.”

  “Nope,” I said, glad to pretend that I wasn’t already thinking about my bridesmaids. “What equipment is in there?”

  Stepping over to the bench, he picked up the big bag, set it on the edge of the tablecloth and withdrew a camera I’d only seen in catalogs: a Nikon D1-X.

  “Digital?” I asked and I could hear the sneer in my voice. I like automatic focus on my cameras but that’s as modern as I got. I hated zoom lenses as I didn’t feel they gave me as clear a photo as a fixed lens. As for digital, that was for Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner. Even though I knew that his camera body, no lens, cost thousands wholesale, still, in my view, it wasn’t a “real” camera.

  Turning the camera toward the sunlit roses, Russell fired off a couple of shots, then opened a door and removed a plastic card from the side. As I drank wine, he looked inside his bag and withdrew a little machine—two of them could have fit in a shoe box. At first I thought it was a portable DVD player and wondered what movie he was planning to show me. I hoped it wasn’t too sexy or I’d never be able to keep my hands off of him.

  When he stuck the card in the machine, I paused, glass frozen to my lips, and I don’t think I breathed until I saw a photograph come out. When he handed the photo to me, I set my glass down and marveled at a 4 x 6 photo of perfect color and clarity. I could see the thorns on the rose stems.

  “Oh,” was all I could say. “Oh.”

  “Of course you can put the photos on a computer and manipulate them, and there are much better printers than this gadget, but you get the idea.”

  Oh, yeah, I thought. I could see uses for this. A sort of New Age Polaroid.

  “But I also use this,” he said as he pulled a big Nikon F5 out of his bag. Take my camera, add some features and a couple of pounds, and you have an F5.

  I love a heavy camera. I really do. I said that to Jennifer once and she said, “Yeah, like a heavy man.”

  Maybe it was as sexual as she was implying, but there was something so fundamentally solid about a camera that weighed a lot that I could never get interested in the little ones.

  I was impressed by what he’d shown me, but I didn’t want to gush. “So what else do you have in there?”

  Lifting the top flap, he peered inside. “A scanner, a 6 x 6. Couple of lights. A backdrop or two. A motorcycle to get home on.” When he looked back at me, we laughed together.

  Maybe he’d been joking about the motorcycle, but as he
sat down, he pulled out a palm size Nikon digital that I knew was new on the market and touted as tops.

  “Last one, I promise,” he said. “Go on, shoot.”

  But as I lifted the camera and pointed it toward him, he put his hands over his face. “Anything but me.”

  I aimed the camera at the roses. Had I been sitting there with Ford I would have clicked off a dozen photos of him, hands or not, but I didn’t feel secure enough with this man to go against his wishes. Or maybe I was in that girl mode where I didn’t want to displease him.

  “Your turn to tell all,” he said as I played with the camera, pushing its many buttons to see what would happen.

  “Absolutely nothing between Ford Newcombe and me,” I said emphatically. “In fact, today he’s out on a date with Cole Creek’s most illustrious citizen.”

  “Ah,” Russell said, and his tone made me look at him. He had a striking profile, his features sharp and clear, as though they were carved from stone. I bet Dessie would like to sculpt him, I thought, then it hit me what that tone in his voice was.

  “Do you know Dessie?” I asked quietly.

  “Oh, yes. But, then, don’t all men know the Dessies of the world?”

  Yeow! I thought. There was a condemnation if I ever heard one. I vowed then and there not to make a pass at beautiful Russell Dunne. I didn’t ever want him, or any man, to refer to me like that. “She’s…?” I wasn’t sure how to phrase my question. How much danger was my innocent, naive boss in?

  When Russell turned to me, all humor was gone from his face. His dark eyes were intense—and I thought I might wilt under his gaze. “Look, do me a favor, will you?”

  “Anything,” I said, and, unfortunately, I meant it.

  “Don’t mention meeting me to anyone in Cole Creek, especially not to Newcombe. He might tell Dessie and she’d tell others and it could get, well, unpleasant. I’m not welcome in Cole Creek.”

  “Why ever not?” I asked, aghast. A man with his manners and elegance not welcome? This man made James Bond seem like a redneck.