“Because there’s nothing going on.”
“But obviously you want there to be.”
Anne grimaced. Oh, yeah, she did.
“Is this the same guy? The photographer?” Skye asked, feigning ignorance.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Have you made any progress?”
“None. I guess he’s just not that interested.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Skye said.
“Well, he’s definitely attracted. Damn, we have the most amazing chemistry, but he refuses to do anything about it.”
“Because?” Arielle asked.
“He’s doing a photo essay on dance, featuring me. And he wants to keep it professional.”
Skye had to take a sip of her tea to keep herself from laughing.
“But damn, he is so fricken’ hot. And it’s obvious he wants me. I mean, he can’t exactly deny that fact when he gets so turned on, but—God, I don’t know where he gets his willpower.”
Skye took another long sip of tea and reached for the teapot to pour herself more.
“What’s he like?” Arielle asked.
“He’s amazing. You should see the pictures he takes. They’re incredible. He doesn’t just take pictures. He’s an artist, the way he captures the movement at the exact right moment and the way he uses the light . . . And it doesn’t hurt that he’s incredibly gorgeous with light brown hair and dark brown eyes and he has an amazing body. All muscle. Whoa, what we could do together.” She cringed and looked from Arielle to Skye. “Oops, did I say that out loud?”
“’Fraid so,” Arielle confirmed.
Anne shrugged. “Well, what can I say, it’s the truth. I just wish I could get him to let go of this ridiculous notion that we can’t do anything until this photo shoot is over. I mean, is that the most absurd thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Maybe he’s afraid of jeopardizing his art? Maybe once you have a relationship it will change the way he sees you—as a lover instead of a dancer,” Arielle offered.
Anne’s brow furrowed. She hadn’t thought of that. “Uh, maybe, but considering the way he looks at me now, I doubt it would change anything.”
“How does he look at you?” Skye asked. As if she hadn’t seen it firsthand.
“Like he wants to devour me.”
“You have to give the guy credit for maintaining a professionalism,” Arielle pointed out.
“I would if I could get past his rejecting me,” Anne said.
Arielle returned Skye’s wink. She couldn’t wait to meet Christopher Newell. He sounded amazing. And perfect for Anne.
“I just have to figure out a way to break through his reserve. And get him to go to bed with me.”
“Why so anxious?” Arielle asked casually. As if she didn’t know.
“Because the guy is hot! I mean, it is so fricken’ hard even being in the same room with him. It’s been pure torture having him help with my production. Even when he’s across the room, it’s hard not to drool.”
Arielle and Skye laughed at the image.
“Sorry, gross, but it’s true.”
“I’ve never seen you quite so—” Skye stopped herself from using the word, “smitten” just in time. “So attracted to a guy.”
“Well, you haven’t seen him. God, it’s so frustrating. I mean after that last kiss, I thought for sure—”
“You’ve kissed?” Arielle asked.
“Oh, yeah, but he won’t let me do anything else.”
“But you’ll be finished with the photo shoot soon, right?” Skye asked.
“Not soon enough.”
Arielle leaned closer and looked Anne in the eye. “What’s really got you in such a hurry?” she asked in that therapist manner she had.
Anne sighed. “I really want to be with him.” She would have stopped there except for Arielle’s raised eyebrow waiting for an honest answer. “Even more than wanting him, I want to get over wanting him.”
Arielle smiled and relaxed her shoulders, reaching for a second scone. At least Anne had admitted the truth. They were making progress. “So you’re still afraid of commitment,” she said softly.
“What’s commitment got to do with this?”
Arielle frowned. Maybe not as much progress as she’d thought. “You want to get on with your fling because you think that will cure you of your attraction to him. The sooner you get involved, the sooner you’ll be able to leave him behind.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Anne protested. “He won’t be waiting around for me anyway.”
“You don’t know that. And it’s called commitmentitis,” Arielle reminded her, a word she and Sophie had come up with to describe the two cousins’ fear of commitment. Fortunately Skye had gotten over hers.
“It’s not that at all.” Anne scowled at the cookie she’d snatched from the tray but took a bite anyway. “I’m just attracted to the guy. It’s nothing serious. I just want to have a torrid affair with him. And then move on.”
Skye raised her eyebrows as she caught Arielle rolling her eyes.
“Do you ever worry about breaking a guy’s heart?” Arielle asked.
Anne considered that for a moment. “There’s never any danger of that. They all leave when I go off on tour.”
“They leave?”
“Or don’t wait for me to come back.”
“Because you give them the message that you don’t want them to,” Skye interjected.
“I do not!”
“Yeah, right.” Skye’s eyes narrowed as she challenged her cousin to the truth.
“What if one did wait?” Arielle asked calmly.
The horrified expression on Anne’s face answered the question. Definitely a serious case of commitmentitis.
“Well, maybe it’s time to give it some thought,” Arielle said, “because one of these days a guy is going to stick around and wait for you.”
Anne shook her head in protest. “I seriously doubt that. No guy is going to put up with my going off to dance every few months.” No man would ever tolerate her lifestyle and let her be who she was.
Arielle leaned forward again, to be certain she had the dancer’s attention. “Well, it’s something to consider. Because it really is possible to have a relationship and pursue your dream. And there is a guy out there who will love you for who you are and want you to be yourself and to be happy. Maybe not this guy, but some day . . . ”
She looked up at Skye and raised an eyebrow. Skye took the cue and jumped in. “I can see that with most couples, but Anne’s lifestyle makes a serious relationship pretty much impossible.”
Anne nodded her agreement. “She’s right. No guy will tolerate my going off on dance tours three or four times a year.”
“You don’t know that,” Arielle said.
“Yeah, she does. A guy might act like he’s okay with it, but in the end he’ll steal your soul. Isn’t that what all men do?”
Anne winced at Skye’s words. “Well, not Nick.”
“No, he’s the exception,” Skye defended.
“Or my brothers. Or yours. Or any of our male cousins, for that matter.”
“Yeah, okay, there are a few exceptions. But this guy isn’t one of them.”
“You really think that?”
“Damned right.”
“You don’t even know him,” Anne defended.
“Well, neither do you. I mean, really, what do you know about him?”
“Not a lot,” she admitted. Just that he was incredible to look at and to touch. And he was wonderful with his niece and an amazing photographer. And he looked at her as if she were the most amazing dancer in the world. So far she’d found only one flaw. His damned willpower.
“See. He’s probably just reeling you in so he can scoop you up in his net and take you home and keep you barefoot and in the kitchen.”
“Probably.” Only she didn’t believe that. Not for a minute.
As Anne stared into her tea, Arielle and Skye exchanged a conspiratorial
smile. Mission accomplished. If nothing else, they’d given Anne a lot to think about.
Chapter 13
Anne stared at the computer screen. Skye was right about one thing. She knew very little about Christopher Newell. Just that he was an incredible photographer, gorgeous, hot, and could melt you into a puddle with those deep brown eyes. Hardly enough to get into any kind of relationship with him.
She wasn’t particularly proficient at computer searches, but she did know enough to insert Christopher Newell, photographer, in the subject line and to hit the return key.
Whoa! There he was. Big time. Several choices. She chose the one with his pictures. “Oh my God!” How on earth had she not known who he was? She scanned the page. Several awards for photographs he’d shot, photographic articles he’d published. Born and raised in Marin County. Living in San Francisco. One of the city’s most eligible bachelors. She supposed that was a relief. At least he was a bachelor, a minor detail she’d forgotten to ask him.
She followed several links, discovering exactly who he was and where he had come from. She never would have guessed, but there he was, plastered across the society page, one of Marin County’s wealthiest families. High society, she thought. Lavish dinners at the yacht club, award ceremonies at fancy hotels, charitable events sponsored by his family. All with sophisticated, elegantly dressed women on his arm. No wonder he had no interest in her. Well, he did, but that was purely a physical attraction, one he was clearly resisting because he thought he was too good for her.
Damn him. She’d finally found his flaw. The man was a snob.
“What was my dad like, Uncle Chris?”
He glanced over at his niece who was wearing a sweat suit over her dance clothes today. “He was a good man, sweetheart, and he loved your mother like nothing else. And he would have loved you like that too.”
“That’s the same answer Mom always gives me. Well, not the ‘like nothing else’ part, but she says he was a good man and loved her and that he would have loved me a lot.”
“Because it’s true.”
“I know, but I’d like to know more about him.”
“He was a hero. He fought and died for his country.”
“Mom always says that part too.”
Chris reached across the console to pat her knee. “He really was.”
He could feel her nodding, but he knew she wanted more. She wanted something she hadn’t heard, something personal, something she could grab and hold onto. “He was very respectful. Did you know he actually asked me if he could take your mom out on a date?”
Sara giggled. “Why did he do that?”
Chris chuckled. “I was a year older than he was, two years older than your mom, and I guess he figured if he wanted to stay safe, he’d better be on my good side.”
“You mean you’d beat him up if he hurt Mom or something?”
“Naw, but he didn’t know that.” Chris thought about it for a minute. “Well, maybe I would have. If he’d broken her heart. But he wouldn’t have. That first time he came up to me in the high school courtyard and asked to talk to me, I could tell. He was already crazy for your mom. He was so nervous but his eyes were sparkling.”
“What did he say?”
“He said something like, ‘Hey, man, can I talk to you.’”
Sara laughed. “That’s all?”
“I probably shrugged and said something highly intelligent like, ‘Yeah, sure, man.’ And then he kind of stumbled over his words for a while, but the gist of it was, ‘I’d really like to ask Shelly out on a date, but I thought I’d check with you first.’ I’m sure I looked surprised, so he said, ‘You know, to be sure she’s not already seeing someone.’ When I shook my head and said she wasn’t, he said, ‘So do you think it would be okay?’ And then I knew he was really asking my permission. So I acted all grown up like a dad would act and said, ‘Yeah, it would be okay, but if you break her heart, I’ll break you.’”
Sara giggled more now. “You didn’t really.”
Chris shrugged. “Yeah, I probably did really. I was, after all, a high school senior. And when you’re a high school senior, you’re damn— darned impressed with yourself.”
“Sure sounds like it. Tell me more.”
“Well, then he had to meet the parents. Poor guy. But I was impressed. Most guys avoided our parents. My friends never wanted to hang out at the house, and other guys who had taken Shelly out, had her meet them somewhere so they didn’t have to come to the house. But not your dad. He was raised well and thought he should do the polite thing and come pick her up at the door. And he did. For every single date they ever went on.”
“Until they eloped.”
“Yep, until they eloped. She spent the night at a friend’s—or told our parents that anyway—and he picked her up there.”
“It’s kind of romantic.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And you were there.”
“Yeah, I was. They drove down here and got married on the beach in Winslow. Your dad wanted to make it special for your mom. His parents weren’t there—They’d moved back to the Midwest the year before, right after he had graduated high school. He didn’t want to leave your mom so he stayed in the Bay Area waiting for her to graduate. He worked until he joined the military. I was going to school at Cal Berkeley so I drove down for the wedding.”
“Who else was there?”
Chris smiled. She’d seen the pictures a hundred times, pictures he himself had taken, but still she liked to hear. “A couple of your mom’s friends and your dad’s best friend. It was small but really special.”
“And this is where their honeymoon was.”
“That’s right.”
“And then they moved here and got jobs.”
“Well, your dad had joined the service by then, but he was stationed near here for a while so it worked out. Your mom got a job—”
“Do you think that’s why Mom stays here? ‘Cause it’s kinda like their special place?”
He hadn’t thought about that, but now that she’d said it, he realized she was right. It was not a cheap place to live, and she had to work two jobs, but it had been her and Max’s special place . . . their last place together. “I think you may be right about that.”
It was quiet for a while as they made the drive along the highway toward Canden Valley. He knew Sara’s thoughts hadn’t drifted far from the subject when a few minutes later she said, “I wish I’d gotten to meet him.”
“I know, honey, me too.”
“And I wish his parents hadn’t moved so far away.”
“Yeah, but maybe some time you can go visit them.”
“Yeah, maybe. They try to come out a couple times a year but it’s not the same as having a big family.”
And there it was. Shelly’s reason for insisting on going to their parents’ for the holidays. He got it. Finally. For Sara who only had her mom and her uncle who gave her as much attention as he could. But it wasn’t the same. Nothing could make up for not having a father. Or a big family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. He wished he had caught on sooner. But what would he have done differently? Not much, except maybe not given Shelly so much flack about going to spend the holidays with the family. But he’d sure like to provide her with an alternative. If he had his way, he’d be marrying into the kind of family his niece was craving, and he’d do everything in his power to make her feel a part of it.
He glanced down at his ringing cell as he pulled up to the dance studio. “Don’t answer it!” he said to stop Sara.
“It’s Grandpa.”
“I know.”
Sara sighed. “I really wish you guys got along.”
“Yeah, me too, squirt, me too.”
“But I kind of understand why you don’t. I mean, you’ve tried, right?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve tried.”
“And you’ve told him how you feel, right?”
Chris laughed. “What is this, a therapy session?”
&nbs
p; Sara giggled. “It’s just that you and Mom are always saying, ‘honesty is the best policy.’”
“We do say that.”
“Yeah, you do. A lot!”
“Sorry, but it usually is.”
“Usually? When you say it to me, you say it’s always the best policy.”
“Smart aleck. Okay, yes, I’ve told Grandpa that I don’t want to go into the family business, that I like being a photographer, that I don’t care about his money. I think he finally gets it.”
“Good, so it worked.”
“I suppose it did.” At least for a while, Chris thought, knowing his father way too well. The man hadn’t gotten where he was by giving up. “Aren’t you going in for your rehearsal?”
“Of course I am, but I was just thinking.”
This couldn’t be good. Still he asked, “What were you just thinking?”
“That if it worked with Grandpa, it would work with Anne.”
“What would?”
Sara grinned as she pushed open the car door. “Honesty!”
Anne forced a smile on her face as she greeted her students. She wasn’t in the mood to rehearse. She wasn’t in the mood to dance. And she certainly wasn’t in the mood to smile.
Then she saw him. He was sitting in the car, watching as his niece shoved open the door and leaped out, obviously anxious to dance. Anne could see him smiling as he watched her run into the dance studio. Okay, so he was good with his niece, good to his niece. That didn’t mean anything. He was still a snob.
Yet, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Was he looking at her or Sara? She couldn’t tell anymore, especially since Sara was now standing beside her, hugging her around the waist.
“Is your uncle coming in?” she asked without thinking. “I, uh, mean, I assumed he’d be helping backstage again? He needs to get those cues down really well before we move over to rehearsing in the theater next week.”
Sara giggled. Anne was talking like she was all nervous. And she couldn’t stop looking at her Uncle Chris. “You like him, don’t you,” she said.
“What? Your uncle? Of course. He’s an excellent photographer.”
December Dance Page 11