by Nora Roberts
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 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.” Deliberately 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 SIX
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 didn’t include 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 discovered as her stomach heaved, a city girl at heart.
But they got their pictures. Cowboys with bandannas over their faces and spurs on their boots. Some of them laughed, some of them swore. All of them worked.
She learned the true meaning of workhorse as she watched the men push their mounts through their paces. The sweat of a horse was a heavy, rich smell. It hung thickly in the air with the sweat of men.
Bryan considered her best shot a near-classic study of a man taking hold of his leisure time with both hands. The young cowboy was rangy and ruddy, which made him perfect for what she was after. His chambray shirt was dark with patches of sweat down the front, down the back and spreading fr
om under the arms. More sweat mixed with dust ran down his face. His work boots were creased and caked with grime. The back pocket of his jeans was worn from the constant rub against a round can of chewing tobacco. With his hat tilted back and his bandanna tied loosely around his throat, he straddled the fence and lifted an icy can of beer to his lips.
Bryan thought when the picture was printed you’d almost be able to see his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. And every woman who looked at it, she was certain, would be half in love. He was the mystic, the swashbuckler, the last of the knights. Having that picture in her camera nearly made up for almost losing her lunch over the branding.
She’d seen Shade home right in on it and known his pictures would be gritty, hard and detailed. Yet she’d also seen him focusing in on a young boy of eleven or twelve as he’d ridden in his first roundup with all the joy and innocence peculiar to a boy of that age. His choice had surprised her, because he rarely went for the lighter touch. It was also, unfortunately for her state of mind, something else she could like him for. There were others.
He hadn’t made any comment when she’d turned green and distanced herself for a time from what was going on in the small enclosed corral where calves bawled for their mothers and let out long, surprised wails when knife and iron were applied. He hadn’t said a word when she’d sat down in the shade until she was certain her stomach would stay calm. Nor had he said a word when he’d handed her a cold drink. Neither had she.
That night they camped on Bar T land. Shade had given her space since they’d left Arizona, because she suddenly seemed to need it. Oddly, he found he didn’t. In the beginning, it had always been Bryan who’d all but forced him into conversations when he’d have been content to drive in silence for hours. Now he wanted to talk to her, to hear her laugh, to watch the way her hands moved when she became enthusiastic about a certain point. Or to watch the way she stretched, easily, degree by inching degree, as her voice slowed.
Something undefinable had shifted in both of them during their time in Oak Creek. Bryan had become remote, when she’d always been almost too open for his comfort. He found he wanted her company, when he’d always been solitary. He wanted, though he didn’t fully comprehend why, her friendship. It was a shift he wasn’t certain he cared for, or even understood. In any case, because the opposing shifts had happened in both of them simultaneously, it brought them no closer.
Shade had chosen the open space near a fast-running creek for a campsite for no reason other than that it appealed to him. Bryan immediately saw other possibilities.
“Look, I’m going down to wash off.” She was as dusty as the cowboys she’d focused on all afternoon. It occurred to her, not altogether pleasantly, that she might smell a bit too much like the horses she’d watched. “It’s probably freezing, so I’ll make it fast and you can have a turn.”
Shade pried the top off a beer. Perhaps they hadn’t rounded up cattle, but they’d been on their feet and in the sun for almost eight hours. “Take your time.”
Bryan grabbed a towel and a cake of soap and dashed off. The sun was steadily dropping behind the mountains to the west. She knew enough of camping by now to know how quickly the air would cool once the sun went down. She didn’t want to be wet and naked when it did.
She didn’t bother to glance around before she stripped off her shirt. They were far enough away from the ranch house that none of the men would wander out that way at sunset. Shade and she had already established the sanctity of privacy without exchanging a word on the subject.
Right now, she thought as she wiggled out of her jeans, the cowboys they’d come to shoot were probably sitting down to an enormous meal—red meat and potatoes, she mused. Hot biscuits with plenty of butter. Lord knows they deserved it, after the day they’d put in. And me, too, she decided, though she and Shade were making do with cold sandwiches and a bag of chips.
Slim, tall and naked, Bryan took a deep breath of the pine-scented air. Even a city girl, she thought as she paused a moment to watch the sunset, could appreciate all this.
Gingerly she stepped into the cold knee-high water and began to rinse off the dust. Strange, she didn’t mind the chill as much as she once had. The drive across America was bound to leave its mark. She was glad of it.
No one really wanted to stay exactly the same throughout life. If her outlook changed and shifted as they traveled, she was fortunate. The assignment was giving her more than the chance for professional exposure and creative expression. It was giving her experiences. Why else had she become a photographer, but to see things and understand them?
Yet she didn’t understand Shade any better now than when they’d started out. Had she tried? In some ways, she thought, as she glided the soap over her arms. Until what she saw and understood began to affect her too deeply and too personally. Then she’d backed off fast.
She didn’t like to admit it. Bryan shivered and began to wash more swiftly. The sun was nearly set. Self-preservation, she reminded herself. Perhaps her image was one of take what comes and make the best of it, but she had her phobias as well. And she was entitled to them.
It had been a long time since she’d been hurt, and that was because of her own deceptively simple maneuvering. If she stood at a crossroads and had two routes, one smooth, the other rocky, with a few pits, she’d take the smooth one. Maybe it was less admirable, but she’d always felt you ended up in the same place with less energy expended. Shade Colby was a rocky road.
In any case, it wasn’t just a matter of her choice. They could have an affair—a physically satisfying, emotionally shallow affair. It worked well for a great many people. But…
He didn’t want to be involved with her any more than she did with him. He was attracted, just as she was, but he wasn’t offering her any more than that. If he ever did… She dropped that line of thought like a stone. Speculation wasn’t always healthy.
The important thing was that she felt more like herself again. She was pleased with the work she’d done since they’d left Arizona, and was looking forward to crossing over into Kansas the next day. The assignment, as they’d both agreed from the outset, was the first priority.
Wheat fields and tornadoes, she thought with a grin. Follow the yellow brick road. That was what Kansas brought to her mind. She knew better now, and looked forward to finding the reality. Bryan was beginning to enjoy having her preconceptions both confirmed and blown to bits.
That was for tomorrow. Right now it was dusk and she was freezing.
Agile, she scrambled up the small bank and reached for the towel. Shade could wash up while she stuffed herself with whatever was handy in the cupboards. She pulled on a long-sleeved oversize shirt and reached up to button it. That’s when she saw the eyes.
For a moment she only stared with her hands poised at the top button. Then she saw there was more to it than a pair of narrow yellow eyes peering out of the lowering light. There was a sleek, muscled body and a set of sharp, white teeth only a narrow creek bed away.
Bryan took two steps back, tripped over her own tangled jeans and let out a scream that might’ve been heard in the next county.
Shade was stretched out in a folding chair beside the small campfire he’d built on impulse. He’d enjoyed himself that day—the rough-and-ready atmosphere, the baking sun and cold beer. He’d always admired the camaraderie that went hand in hand with people who work outdoors.
He needed the city—it was in his blood. For the most part, he preferred the impersonal aspects of people rushing to their own places, in their own time. But it helped to touch base with other aspects of life from time to time.
He could see now, even after only a few weeks on the road, that he’d been getting stale. He hadn’t had the challenge of his early years. That get-the-shot-and-stay-alive sort of challenge. He didn’t want it. But he’d let himself become too complacent with what he’d been doing.
This assignment had given him the chance to explore himself as well as his country. He tho
ught of his partner with varying degrees of puzzlement and interest. She wasn’t nearly as simple or laid-back as he’d originally believed. Still, she was nearly 180 degrees removed from him. He was beginning to understand her. Slowly, but he was beginning to.
She was sensitive, emotional and inherently kind. He was rarely kind, because he was careful not to be. She was comfortable with herself, easily amused and candid. He’d learned long ago that candor can jump back on you with teeth.
But he wanted her—because she was different or in spite of it, he wanted her. Forcing himself to keep his hands off her in all the days and nights that had passed since that light, interrupted kiss in Hunter Brown’s driveway was beginning to wear on him. He had his control to thank for the fact that he’d been able to, the control that he honed so well that it was nearly a prison.
Shade tossed his cigarette into the fire and leaned back. He wouldn’t lose that control, or break out of that prison, but that didn’t mean that sooner or later he and Bryan wouldn’t be lovers. He meant it to happen. He would simply bide his time until it happened his way. As long as he was holding the reins, he wouldn’t steer himself into the mire.
When he heard her scream, a dozen agonizing images rushed into his head, images that he’d seen and lived through, images that only someone who had could conjure up. He was out of the chair and running before he’d fully realized they were only memories.
When he got to her, Bryan was scrambling up from the tumble she’d taken. The last thing she expected was to be hauled up and crushed against Shade. The last thing she expected was exactly what she needed. Gasping for air, she clung to him.
“What happened?” Her own panic muffled her ears to the thread of panic in his voice. “Bryan, are you hurt?”