by Casey Hagen
“That’s horseshit.”
“That’s the industry.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
The doorbell rang and she smiled. “Tonight, I’m going to eat my half of this pizza and get stinking drunk. I’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”
He called over the back of the couch to her as she headed for the front door. “Want company?”
“Hell yeah, I do.” She burped, and laughed.
“Mom didn’t do a very good job at teaching you how to be a lady.”
She stopped with her hand on the knob. “I’m supposed to be a lady in a world where men don’t treat women like ladies? Sorry, but no.”
“We aren’t all assholes,” he said, but then he thought about what Devin said about taking away Bellamy’s choices, and had to wonder who he was trying to convince.
Devin?
Or himself?
Chapter 5
Shane had been acting weird around her all morning. She thought they had found some sort of common ground or, at the very least, a truce so they could be comfortable around each other. After all, they were supposed to go out tonight, but with the way he avoided her she had no clue if it was still on.
She popped an English muffin into the toaster and glanced through the sliver of sliding glass door in her view. She caught him walking by every so often with a piece of drywall in his hands. Moments later, the buzz of his electric screwdriver made her jump.
She grabbed the peanut butter and slathered the hot bread. This had to serve as lunch, since she had a ten o’clock appointment for a newborn shoot that would likely last until one or two.
She’d warmed up her studio to eighty degrees so the babies stayed nice and comfy through their naked shots. She’d then made sure the supplies were stocked. She had a diaper-changing station filled with diapers of all sizes, wipes, and diaper rash cream.
Her mommies, and sometimes daddies, tended to be anxious enough without panicking that they forgot something, and so were screwed. The only thing Bellamy didn’t provide was formula. She had snacks for the older kids, but newborn nutrition she left strictly to the parents. There were too many ways that could go wrong, and most of the mothers she’d worked with over the years breast-fed unless a complication made it impossible for them to do so.
Just as she took her last bite of food, she spotted Mark and Lisa pulling into the driveway. She met them at the door, holding it for them as they came up the front walk.
“Hi, guys! You look absolutely wonderful.” She bent down to the car seat Mark held. “And you, Baby Stella, are gorgeous.” She smiled as the tiny ten-day-old bundle blew spit bubbles, and for just a split-second cracked open one eye.
“Come on in. We’re set up just down the hall.” She led them into the cream-colored master bedroom. She used gauze curtains to filter the natural light, and had several soft lights with diffusers.
“Wow, it’s so warm,” Lisa said. “I feel like I could lie down and take a nap right here.”
Bellamy laughed. “That’s the heat…and the nights you’ve been spending pacing with a newborn.”
“You’re probably right,” Lisa said. “She’s really a wonderful baby. I can’t complain. It’s just…I didn’t realize how long everything takes. The feeding, changing, burping. By the time I get her to sleep, I’m lucky if I have an hour before she’s up again.” Lisa’s body chose just that moment to demonstrate her exhaustion with a yawn. “Oh, excuse me. That snuck up on me.”
Bellamy brought her camera over to her chair. “Please, don’t worry about it. Yawning is the least of what’s going to happen today that you’ll feel the need to apologize for.”
“About that,” Mark started. “Maybe we should leave Stella in a diaper. I mean, she fills ten or so diapers a day. And when I say fill—”
Bellamy raised a hand and laughed. “Say no more. I know just what you’re talking about. Just understand, before you leave today something will come out of your child that will require a washer and a sense of humor. I’ve got both. Please, don’t worry about it. This is the price to pay for stunning pictures. These newborn shots only happen once, and the window is narrow. Let’s do this.”
She led them to the wall of choices. She had baskets, buckets, and bowls with hundreds of choices for lining folded neatly on shelves lining the biggest wall. She had a headband tree with various types of delicate pieces to adorn their baby’s head.
In the corner she had placed two albums with samples of her work to give the parents, ideas of colors and combinations of props against the wide array of backgrounds she had mounted to the ceiling.
Their daughter’s dark hair, courtesy of Lisa’s Asian heritage, and her delicate features, were far prettier than most babies Bellamy had seen. She imagined simple lace headbands, maybe one with tiny ivory flowers.
Marsha and the local St. Helena knitting club that met at the library twice a month had kept Bellamy in throws and scarves knit from the finest silken textures of camel, silk, and bamboo. As a thank-you, she kept their children and grandchildren in family photos.
Mark and Lisa scanned the shelves, but had yet to pull anything down. “Please, feel free to take anything down that speaks to you. Even if we don’t use it.”
Bellamy joined them and pulled out a buttercream quilt and what was meant to be a teak- wood salad bowl. “What do you think about this?” She handed it to Lisa, and watched the serene smile spread over her face as she rubbed the fabric between her fingers.
“And we can pair it with this headband, if you like it.” She handed her a simple, narrow ivory band with a daisy the size of a nickel made from muslin, hand-painted with fabric dye to look like a real-life flower.
“Oh!” Lisa said with breathless wonder. “How beautiful. Where do you get all the headbands? After seeing them, I think Stella should wear one every day.”
“Well, this one I made. It was a craft class experiment that turned out surprisingly well. Most crafts I touch don’t. I’m better off sticking with my camera and photo software.”
“I love the combination. Let’s do it,” Lisa said. Her shoulders had dropped and she’d lost that stressed, pinched look to her face that came with worrying about what would happen.
Mark and Lisa were ready, and Bellamy planned to get to it while the getting was good.
With the white noise machine going, Bellamy waited for Lisa to undress Stella and hand her over.
The minute that warm little body sank into the crook of Bellamy’s arm, her heart sighed. Oh, there was just nothing better than a tiny bundle of new-baby smell. Stella, weighing no more than seven pounds, with her perfect skin, was a potent package that hijacked Bellamy’s dormant ovaries; she made Bellamy wish for things that were so far out of reach, she didn’t dare dream for them.
She’d thought she would have this with Shane. She hated that her mind was going there. Here she was, with him in her house, and she’d tried to be so careful to not think about the feelings that still swirled inside her. She had buried them, but seeing him standing there, leaning against his truck, so tall and handsome, had pulled the dormant longing from the depths of her soul and thrust them front and center.
She knew darn well that he wasn’t immune. Just the look on his face when he saw her getting ready for ‘40s night at the St. Helena Senior Center told her that, although he’d walked away twelve years ago, the attraction between them simmered just below the surface, just waiting for a chance to flare to life.
Her life was St. Helena. His wasn’t.
He had a past that would prevent him from sharing the same dreams with her.
Their proximity had disaster written all over it. Even so, she didn’t think she had the willpower to put the brakes on what may come.
Hopefully, for her heart’s sake, he did.
***
Shane hustled to start for the day to keep himself from asking Bellamy about her date last night. He heard her humming and wanted to demand all the details.
Of
course, he had no damn claim to her and no right to ask her anything.
But whatever she had done last night, whoever she had done it with, the evening had been a success if her chipper mood was any indication.
In the meantime, he nursed a slight hangover with strong coffee, and exasperated it with every push of the button on his drill.
Devin was sleeping it off in her old bedroom. He should have hauled her ass out of bed and made her help. They’d both worked with their father. Drywall was second-nature to her.
But no, whatever put the shadows in his sister’s eyes had him worried enough that he’d let her be. Plus she could do them both a favor and spend some time with their dad in the hospital today, since he was busy keeping his father’s business up and running. He’d been moved out of the ICU and into a regular room, but the doctors were talking about putting in a stent, whatever that meant.
The lights went out, the drill with the screw halfway in. He’d tripped the breaker box. Weird, since he had been using the same outlets and tools all morning. He’d add it to the list in case there was an issue.
Since losing Laura and Jason, he never messed around with electrical issues.
He went in search of the breaker box and noticed an SUV in the driveway that hadn’t been there before.
He found the breaker box in the hall just next to the bathroom Bellamy had been doing herself up in the previous night.
He found the flipped switch right away and marked it with the Sharpie he took out of his tool belt. The sound of laughter reached him from the master bedroom—er, studio—and he followed the sound.
The minute he reached the doorway, he wished he had minded his own business. Bellamy stood before a man and woman locked in a loose embrace, and worked on positioning their naked baby just right between their intertwined arms.
The baby’s head lay tilted and propped on tiny arms folded on her father’s outstretched forearm. They smiled down at their little bundle clad only in a lace headband with hopeful, bright looks in their eyes, as if their futures were adorned with rainbows and butterflies.
They didn’t have a clue about all the dangers lurking out there for the three of them.
Or worse, two out of three of them, leaving one behind to agonize over what he could have done differently; leaving an empty shell of what he once was.
Bellamy reached for her camera and caught his eye. She glanced at the three of them posed and ready, then back at him. There was no mistaking the pity in her eyes.
Screw that. He didn’t want it.
He turned to go and heard a sound that every parent knows all too well. Despite the sorrow and anger coursing through him he smiled, but didn’t look back amid the squeals of surprise from the parents.
“Shane? Could you give me a hand?” Bellamy called.
Shit.
Literally.
He flinched before turning and joining Bellamy, where she stood wiping up the mess that shot out of the still-sleeping infant.
“Oh, no! Really, it’s okay. Mark, can hold her while I—” Lisa exclaimed.
“No. Don’t move,” Bellamy said, grabbing more cloth diapers from the basket next to the platform they stood on. “We can still get this shot.”
“But—”
The mother’s cheeks pinked with embarrassment, making Shane feel sorry for her. He remembered what it was like when Jason first came home; the need to apologize for every burp, fart, and loaded diaper. “But nothing,” Shane assured her. “I don’t mind. Bellamy and I go way back and I have—had a son of my own once.”
The pain gripped him and he let it come, too tired to fight it anymore. Too tired to deny it. He’d had a son. A beautiful son. And no matter how it ended, he would rather have had the nineteen months with him than to not have had him at all.
Looking at the baby today, Shane realized he couldn’t picture his son’s face quite the same way. The crisp lines of his jaw, his dimples, they all faded with time, leaving faded images with soft edges behind.
And still he couldn’t bring himself to look at his son’s picture. Or his wife’s.
One step at a time.
“Can you grab more of those cloth diapers on that stand? The wipes, too, please?” Bellamy said while holding the last clean cloth diaper to the baby’s bottom.
“Sure.” He brought over the supplies and held them while Bellamy wiped and wiped, getting the baby as clean as possible, to get the shot.
Shane grabbed a plastic pail sitting by the door and gathered up the dirty linens Bellamy had tossed into a pile on the floor.
“Okay, three shots. One smiling at the camera. The next smiling down at Stella. And the last one gazing down at Stella with a natural expression,” Bellamy instructed.
She snapped several shots of each pose, the incident seemingly out of her mind. When she finished taking shots she reached for the mess on the floor, to find it gone.
“Oh, wow. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that,” Bellamy said, flinching.
Shane leaned in and cupped her chin. “I’m angling for dessert tonight,” he said with a wink. “I think we’re both going to need showers before dinner. I’ll come back at six to pick you up.” He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and walked away, leaving her with her mouth hanging open.
Chapter 6
Bellamy glanced at the clock and swallowed hard.
Shane would be there in five minutes.
Her stomach danced to some secret beat in a way it never had before.
All because he’d kissed her.
Unfortunately, the reason for the kiss wasn’t clear. A kiss on the cheek was really nothing. And done in front of others, pshhh, no big deal…right?
Then why did it feel like Shane had toppled them right over the edge of a cliff and they were freefalling into who knows what?
The blare of the doorbell ripped through the worried silence, and she jumped. Wearing a fresh turtleneck and pair of jeans, and her hair smoothed, she headed for the door.
He stood there in a charcoal sweater and black leather jacket. He’d swapped his work jeans for another pair of faded Levi’s. The material from head to toe spoke of a man who enjoyed enough of a social life to know to combine casual and classy.
For the first time she wondered about his life in L.A. now that he was single again. Or maybe he didn’t consider himself single.
She glanced at his left hand that hung at his side.
No ring.
He caught her gaze when she raised her head. “I don’t wear it anymore.”
She broke eye contact and fumbled with her purse strap. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have—”
“Hey,” he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips where he placed a gently devastating kiss on her knuckles. “If the situation were reversed I’d wonder, too.”
Another kiss. Another questionable kiss. Walter had kissed her hand the same way just the night before at the senior center. Could be romantic. Could be platonic. Could be that she was sex-starved and elevating innocent kisses to foreplay status.
The tips of her ears burned, making her grateful that she had kept her hair down. “So, uh, are we ready?”
He backed up a step. “Sure. I’ll drive.”
She pulled the door shut behind her and glanced over her shoulder at him. “You don’t know where we’re going.”
He gave her a wide grin. “I’m pretty sure you can give me directions.”
He had no right to be that good-looking. With that full beard he should look like he walked right off the set of Duck Dynasty, but no. Instead, he rocked the look Eric Bana had in The Other Boleyn Girl. How many times had she watched that movie and drooled over Henry VIII? Hundreds? Thousands? “Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry.”
She spent the fifteen-minute drive seeing the town through Shane’s eyes as he pointed out new houses, businesses, and remodels in the area. Funny how she never really thought that anything changed in St. Helena, but his dozen or so questions about unfamilia
r businesses in the area highlighted just how much the landscape had grown over time.
They pulled into The Chatter Shack amid a parking lot full of cars. There was never a good time to go, so they’d have to bite the bullet and endure the crowd.
Fortunately, Ty Harrison had the place designed with two breakaway dining rooms not entirely closed off from the central bar. So, if you were looking for a quiet area, at least quieter than the bar, they could usually accommodate.
Shane held the door for her, the music from inside drifting out to greet them.
Bellamy glanced around while waiting at the counter for the hostess and spotted several familiar faces, many from high school. She wondered how long it would be before someone had something to say about the two of them having dinner together.
It took almost two years after Shane left for L.A. for people to stop referring to her as a unit with Shane. Shane and Bellamy, Bellamy and Shane. It was like they had never been separate entities.
A few curious glances came their way from a couple of guys at the bar she recognized from high school, who looked like they might have graduated before her and Shane. She couldn’t quite place them, but then she didn’t spend a whole lot of time at bars. They looked like they might spend all their time at bars when not at work, judging by their ruddy, weathered skin.
“Good evening. How many?” the hostess asked.
“Two,” Shane answered, dropping his hand to her lower back and guiding her ahead of him.
She seated them at a leather booth along the windows facing the road. The bar noise drifted to them, but didn’t prevent conversation.
So, apparently, she should speak.
Only with the kisses, the glances of the locals, and thinking about how Shane left her, all she could think about was to drudge up the past. “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want to stay in St. Helena?”
She slapped a hand over her mouth when the mental diarrhea flowed out.
He dropped back against the back of the bench seat, his smile slipping from his face. He glanced out the window and she followed his gaze.