Summer Pleasures

by Nora Roberts

  Hunter studied the man across the room. Tense, he thought. Intense. Not the sort of man he’d have picked for the free-rolling, slow-moving Bryan, but it wasn’t his place to judge. It was his place, and his talent, to observe. What was between them was obvious to see. Their reluctance to accept it was just as obvious. Calmly, he picked up his tea and drank.

  “The invitation applies to both of you.”

  Shade glanced over with an automatic polite refusal on the tip of his tongue. His eyes met Hunter’s. They were both intense, internalized men. Perhaps that’s why they understood each other so quickly.

  I’ve been there before, Hunter seemed to say to him with a hint of a smile. You can run fast but only so far.

  Shade sensed something of the understanding, and something of the challenge. He glanced down to see Bryan giving him a long, cool look.

  “I’d love to stay,” he heard himself say. Shade crossed to the table and sat.

  Lee looked over the prints in her precise, deliberate way. Bryan paced up and down the terrace, ready to explode.

  “Well?” she demanded. “What do you think?”

  “I haven’t finished looking through them yet.” Bryan opened her mouth, then shut it again. It wasn’t like her to be nervous over her work. She knew the prints were good. Hadn’t she put her sweat and her heart into each of them?

  More than good, she told herself as she yanked a chocolate bar out of her pocket. These prints ranked with her best work. It might’ve been the competition with Shade that had pushed her to produce them. It might’ve been the need to feel a bit smug after some of the comments he’d made on her particular style of work. Bryan didn’t like to think she was base enough to resort to petty rivalry, but she had to admit that now she was. And she wanted to win.

  She and Shade had lived in the same house, worked in the same darkroom for days, but had managed to see almost nothing of each other. A neat trick, Bryan thought ruefully. Perhaps it had worked so well because they’d both played the same game. Hide and don’t seek. Tomorrow they’d be back on the road.

  Bryan found that she was anxious to go even while she dreaded it. And she wasn’t a contrary person, Bryan reminded herself almost fiercely. She was basically straightforward and… well, yes, she was amiable. It was simply her nature to be. So why wasn’t she with Shade?

  “Well.”

  Bryan whirled around as Lee spoke. “Well?” she echoed, waiting.

  “I’ve always admired your work, Bryan. You know that.” In her tidy way, Lee folded her hands on the wrought-iron table.

  “But?” Bryan prompted.

  “But these are the best.” Lee smiled. “The very best you’ve ever done.”

  Bryan let out the breath she’d been holding and crossed to the table. Nerves? Yes, she had them. She didn’t care for them. “Why?”

  “I’m sure there’re a lot of technical reasons—the light and the shading, the cropping.”

  Impatiently, Bryan shook her head. “Why?”

  Understanding, Lee chose a print. “This one of the old woman and the little girl on the beach. Maybe it’s my condition,” she said slowly as she studied it again, “but it makes me think of the child I’ll have. It also makes me remember I’ll grow old, but not too old to dream. This picture’s powerful because it’s so basically simple, so straightforward and so incredibly full of emotion. And this one…”

  She shuffled the prints until she came to the one of the road worker. “Sweat, determination, honesty. You know when you look at this face that the man believes in hard work and paying his bills on time. And here, these teenagers. I see youth just before those inevitable changes of adulthood. And this dog.” Lee laughed as she looked at it. “The first time I looked, it just struck me as cute and funny, but he looks so proud, so, well, human. You could almost believe the boat was his.”

  While Bryan remained silent, Lee tidied the prints again. “I could go over each one of them with you, but the point is, each one of them tells a story. It’s only one scene, one instant of time, yet the story’s there. The feelings are there. Isn’t that the purpose?”

  “Yes.” Bryan smiled as her shoulders relaxed. “That’s the purpose.”

  “If Shade’s pictures are half as good, you’ll have a wonderful essay.”

  “They will be,” Bryan murmured. “I saw some of his negatives in the darkroom. They’re incredible.”

  Lee lifted a brow and watched Bryan devour chocolate. “Does that bother you?”

  “What? Oh, no, no, of course not. His work is his work—and in this case it’ll be part of mine. I’d never have agreed to work with him if I hadn’t admired him.”

  “But?” This time Lee prompted with a raised brow and half smile.

  “I don’t know, Lee, he’s just so—so perfect.”

  “Really?”

  “He never fumbles,” Bryan complained. “He always knows exactly what he wants. When he wakes up in the morning, he’s perfectly coherent, he never misses a turn on the road. He even makes decent coffee.”

  “Anyone would detest him for that,” Lee said dryly.

  “It’s frustrating, that’s all.”

  “Love often is. You are in love with him, aren’t you?”

  “No.” Genuinely surprised, Bryan stared over at Lee. “Good God, I hope I’ve more sense than that. I have to work hard at even liking him.”

  “Bryan, you’re my friend. Otherwise what I’m calling concern would be called prying.”

  “Which means you’re going to pry,” Bryan put in.

  “Exactly. I’ve seen the way the two of you tiptoe around each other as if you’re terrified that if you happened to brush up against each other there’d be spontaneous combustion.”

  “Something like that.”

  Lee reached out and touched her hand. “Bryan, tell me.”

  Evasions weren’t possible. Bryan looked down at the joined hands and sighed. “I’m attracted,” she admitted slowly. “He’s different from anyone I’ve known, mostly because he’s just not the type of man I’d normally socialize with. He’s very remote, very serious. I like to have fun. Just fun.”

  “Relationships have to be made up of more than just fun.”

  “I’m not looking for a relationship.” On this point she was perfectly clear. “I date so I can go dancing, go to a party, listen to music or see a movie. That’s it. The last thing I want is all the tension and work that goes into a relationship.”

  “If someone didn’t know you, they’d say that was a pretty shallow sentiment.”

  “Maybe it is,” Bryan tossed back. “Maybe I am.”

  Lee said nothing, just tapped a finger on the prints.

  “That’s my work,” Bryan began, then gave up. A lot of people might believe what she said on face value, not Lee. “I don’t want a relationship,” she repeated, but in a quieter tone. “Lee, I’ve been there before and I’m lousy at it.”

  “Relationship equals two,” Lee pointed out. “Are you still taking the blame?”

  “Most of the blame was mine. I was no good at being a wife.”

  “At being a certain kind of wife,” Lee corrected.

  “I imagine there’s only a handful of definitions in the dictionary.”

  Lee only raised a brow. “Sarah has a friend whose mother is wonderful. She keeps not just a clean house, but an interesting one. She makes jelly, takes the minutes at the P.T.A. and runs a Girl Scout troop. The woman can take a colored paper and some glue and create a work of art. She’s lovely and helps herself stay that way with exercise classes three times a week. I admire her a great deal, but if Hunter had wanted those things from me, I wouldn’t have his ring on my finger.”

  “Hunter’s special,” Bryan murmured.

  “I can’t argue with that. And you know why I nearly ruined it with him—because I was afraid I’d fail at building and maintaining a relationship.”

  “It’s not a matter of being afraid.” Bryan shrugged her shoulders. “It’s more a matter
of not having the energy for it.”

  “Remember who you’re talking to,” Lee said mildly.

  With a half laugh, Bryan shook her head. “All right, maybe it’s a matter of being cautious. Relationship’s a very weighty word. Affair’s lighter,” she said consideringly. “But an affair with a man like Shade’s bound to have tremendous repercussions.”

  That sounded so cool, Bryan mused. When had she started to think in such logical terms? “He’s not an easy man, Lee. He has his own demons and his own way of dealing with them. I don’t know whether he’d share them with me or if I’d want him to.”

  “He works at being cold,” Lee commented. “But I’ve seen him with Sarah. I admit the basic kindness in him surprised me, but it’s there.”

  “It’s there,” Bryan agreed. “It’s just hard to get to.”

  “Dinner’s ready!” Sarah yanked open the screen door and let it hit the wall with a bang. “Shade and I made spaghetti and it’s terrific.”

  It was. During the meal, Bryan watched Shade. Like Lee, she’d noticed his easy relationship with Sarah. It was more than tolerance, she decided as she watched him laugh with the girl. It was affection. It hadn’t occurred to her that Shade could give his affection so quickly or with so few restrictions.

  Maybe I should be a twelve-year-old with braces, she decided, then shook her head at her own thought pattern. She didn’t want Shade’s affection. His respect, yes.

  It wasn’t until after dinner that she realized she was wrong. She wanted a great deal more.

  It was the last leisurely evening before the group separated. On the front porch they watched the first stars come out and listened to the first night sounds begin. By that time the next evening, Shade and Bryan would be in Colorado.

  Lee and Hunter sat on the porch swing with Sarah nestled between them. Shade stretched out in a chair just to the side, relaxed, a little tired, and mentally satisfied after his long hours in the darkroom. Still, as he sat talking easily to the Browns, he realized that he’d needed this visit as much as, perhaps more than Bryan.

  He’d had a simple childhood. Until these past days, he’d nearly forgotten just how simple, and just how solid. The things that had happened to him as an adult had blocked a great deal of it out. Now, without consciously realizing it, Shade was drawing some of it back.

  Bryan sat on the first step, leaning back against a post. She joined in the conversation or distanced herself from it as she chose. There was nothing important being said, and the easiness of the conversation made the scene that much more appealing. A moth battered itself against the porch light, crickets called and the breeze rippled through the full leaves of the surrounding trees. The sounds made a soothing conversation of their own.

  She liked the way Hunter had his arm across the back of the swing. Though he spoke to Shade, his fingers ran lightly over his wife’s hair. His daughter’s head rested against his chest, but once in a while, she’d reach a hand over to Lee’s stomach as if to test for movement. Though she hadn’t been consciously setting the scene, it grew in front of her eyes. Unable to resist, Bryan slipped inside.

  When she returned a few moments later, she had her camera, tripod and light stand.

  “Oh boy.” Sarah took one look and straightened primly. “Bryan’s going to take our picture.”

  “No posing,” Bryan told her with a grin. “Just keep talking,” she continued before anyone could protest. “Pretend I’m not even here. It’s so perfect,” she began to mutter to herself as she set up. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

  “Let me give you a hand.”

  Bryan glanced up at Shade in surprise and had nearly refused before she stopped the words. It was the first time he’d made any attempt to work with her. Whether it was a gesture to her or to the affection he’d come to feel for her friends, she wouldn’t toss it back at him. Instead she smiled and handed him her light meter.

  “Give me a reading, will you?”

  They worked together as though they’d been doing so for years. Another surprise, for both of them. She adjusted her light, already calculating her exposure as Shade gave her the readings. Satisfied, Bryan checked the angle and framing through the viewfinder, then stepped back and let Shade take her place.

  “Perfect.” If she was looking for a lazy summer evening and a family content with it and one another, she could’ve done no better. Stepping back, Shade leaned against the wall of the house. Without thinking about it, he continued to help by distracting the trio on the swing.

  “What do you want, Sarah?” he began as Bryan moved behind the camera again. “A baby brother or a sister?”

  As she considered, Sarah forgot her enchantment with being photographed. “Well…” Her hand moved to Lee’s stomach again. Lee’s hand closed over it spontaneously. Bryan clicked the shutter. “Maybe a brother,” she decided. “My cousin says a little sister can be a real pain.”

  As Sarah spoke Lee leaned her head back, just slightly, until it rested on Hunter’s arm. His fingers brushed her hair again. Bryan felt the emotion well up in her and blur her vision. She took the next shot blindly.

  Had she always wanted that? she wondered as she continued to shoot. The closeness, the contentment that came with commitment and intimacy? Why had it waited to slam into her now, when her feelings toward Shade were already tangled and much too complicated? She blinked her eyes clear and opened the shutter just as Lee turned her head to laugh at something Hunter said.

  Relationship, she thought as the longing rose up in her. Not the easy, careless friendships she’d permitted herself, but a solid, demanding, sharing relationship. That was what she saw through the viewfinder. That was what she discovered she needed for herself. When she straightened from the camera, Shade was beside her.

  “Something wrong?”

  She shook her head and reached over to switch off the light. “Perfect,” she announced with a casualness that cost her. She gave the family on the swing a smile. “I’ll send you a print as soon as we stop and develop again.”

  She was trembling. Shade was close enough to see it. He turned and dealt with the camera and tripod himself. “I’ll take this up for you.”

  She turned to tell him no, but he was already carrying it inside. “I’d better pack my gear,” she said to Hunter and Lee. “Shade likes to leave at uncivilized hours.”

  When she went inside, Lee leaned her head against Hunter’s arm again. “They’ll be fine,” he told her. “She’ll be fine.”

  Lee glanced toward the doorway. “Maybe.”

  Shade carried Bryan’s equipment up to the bedroom she’d been using and waited. The moment she came in with the light, he turned to her. “What’s wrong?”

  Bryan opened the case and packed her stand and light. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You were trembling.” Impatient, Shade took her arm and turned her around. “You’re still trembling.”

  “I’m tired.” In its way, it was true. She was tired of having her emotions sneak up on her.

  “Don’t play games with me, Bryan. I’m better at it than you.”

  God, could he have any idea just how much she wanted to be held at that moment? Would he have any way of understanding how much she’d give if only he’d hold her now? “Don’t push it, Shade.”

  She should’ve known he wouldn’t listen. With one hand he cupped her chin and held her face steady. The eyes that saw a great deal more than he was entitled to looked into hers. “Tell me.”

  “No.” She said it quietly. If she’d been angry, insulted, cold, he’d have dug until he’d had it all. He couldn’t fight her this way.

  “All right.” He backed off, dipping his hands into his pockets. He’d felt something out on the porch, something that had pulled at him, offered itself to him. If she’d made one move, the slightest move, he might have given her more at that moment than either of them could imagine. “Maybe you should get some sleep. We’ll leave at seven.”

  “Okay.” Deliberatel
y she turned away to pack up the rest of her gear. “I’ll be ready.”

  He was at the door before he felt compelled to turn around again. “Bryan, I saw your prints. They’re exceptional.”

  She felt the first tears stream down her face and was appalled. Since when did she cry because someone acknowledged her talent? Since when did she tremble because a picture she was taking spoke to her personally?

  She pressed her lips together for a moment and continued to pack without turning around. “Thanks.”

  Shade didn’t linger any longer. He closed the door soundlessly on his way out.

  Chapter 6

  By the time they’d passed through New Mexico and into Colorado, Bryan felt more in tune with herself. In part, she thought that the break in Oak Creek Canyon had given her too much time for introspection. Though she often relied heavily on just that in her work, there were times when it could be self-defeating.

  At least that’s what she’d been able to convince herself of after she and Shade had picked up the routine of drive and shoot and drive some more.

  They weren’t looking for cities and major events on this leg. They sought out small, unrecognizable towns and struggling ranches. Families that worked with the land and one another to make ends meet. For them, summer was a time of hard, endless work to prepare for the rigors of winter. It wasn’t all fun, all games, all sun and sand. It was migrant workers waiting to pick August peaches, and gardens being weeded and tended to offset the expense of winter vegetables.

  They didn’t consider Denver, but chose instead places like Antonito. They didn’t go after the big, sprawling cattle spreads, but the smaller, more personal operations.

  Bryan had her first contact with a cattle branding on a dusty little ranch called the Bar T. Her preconception of sweaty, loose-limbed cowboys rounding ‘em up and heading ‘em out wasn’t completely wrong. It just hadn’t included the more basic aspects of branding—such as the smell of burned flesh and the splash of blood as potential bulls were turned into little steers.

  She was, she’d discovered as her stomach heaved, a city girl at heart.