by Nora Roberts
“Maybe we should take another three months traveling back and do autumn.”
“It’s tempting.” She stretched back again. “Very tempting. A study on all seasons.”
“Your clients might get testy.”
“Unfortunately true. Still…” She let her fingers dip into the water. “We miss the seasons in L.A. I’d like to see spring in Virginia and winter in Montana.” Tossing her braid back, she sat up. “Have you ever thought of chucking it, Shade? Just packing up and moving to, oh, say, Nebraska, and setting up a little studio. Wedding and graduation pictures, you know.”
He gave her a long steady look. “No.”
With a laugh, she flopped back. “Me either.”
“You wouldn’t find many megastars in Nebraska.”
She narrowed her eyes but spoke mildly. “Is that another subtle shot at my work?”
“Your work,” he began a she gently turned the boat back, “is uniformly excellent. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be working together.”
“Thank you very much. I think.”
“And because of the quality of your work,” he continued, “I wonder why you limit yourself to the pretty people.”
“It’s my specialty.” She saw a clump of wildflowers on the mossy, muddy edge of the river. Carefully she adjusted her camera again. “And a great many of my subjects are far from pretty—physically or emotionally. They interest me,” she said before he could comment. “I like to find out what’s under the image and give a glimpse of it.”
And she was well skilled at it, he decided. In truth, he’d discovered he admired her for it—not only for her skill, but for her perception. He simply couldn’t rationalize her following the glitz trail. “Culture art?”
If he’d meant it as an insult, however mild, it missed its mark. “Yes. And if you asked, I’d say Shakespeare wrote culture art. Are you hungry?”
“No.” Fascinating woman, he thought, as reluctant as ever to be fascinated. He craved her, it was true. Her body, her company. But he couldn’t resolve the constant fascination she held for him, mind to mind. “You had a bowl of shrimp and rice big enough to feed a family of four before we started out.”
“That was hours ago.”
“Two, to be exact.”
“Picky,” she mumbled, and stared up at the sky. So peaceful, she mused. So simple. Moments like this were meant to be savored. Lowering her gaze, she smiled at him. “Ever made love in a pirogue?”
He had to grin. She made it impossible to do otherwise. “No, but I don’t think we should ever refuse a new experience.”
Bryan touched her tongue to her top lip. “Come here.”
* * *
They left the lazy, insect-humming air of the bayou behind and landed in bustling, raucous New Orleans. Sweating trumpet players on Bourbon Street, merchants fanning themselves in the Farmers Market, artists and tourists around Jackson Square—it was a taste of the South, they both agreed, that was as far apart from the South as San Antonio had been apart from Texas.
From there, they traveled north to Mississippi for a touch of July in the Deep South. Heat and humidity. Tall, cool drinks and precious shade. Life was different here. In the cities, men sweated in white shirts and loosened ties. In the rural districts, farmers worked under the sweltering sun. But they moved more slowly than their counterparts to the north and west. Perhaps temperatures soaring to a hundred and more caused it, or perhaps it was just a way of life.
Children exercised the privilege of youth and wore next to nothing. Their bodies were browned and damp and dusty. In a city park, Bryan took a close-up of a grinning boy with mahogany skin cooling himself in a fountain.
The camera didn’t intimidate him. As she homed in, he laughed at her, squealing as the water cascaded over him, white and cool, until he looked encased in glass.
In a small town just northwest of Jackson, they stumbled across a Little League game. It wasn’t much of a field, and the bleachers looked as if they’d object to more than fifty people at a time, but they pulled off and parked between a pickup and a rusted-out sedan.
“This is great.” Bryan grabbed her camera bag.
“You just smell hot dogs.”
“That too,” she agreed easily. “But this is summer. We might get to a Yankee game in New York, but we’ll get better pictures here today.” She hooked her arm through his before he could get too far away. “I’ll reserve judgment on the hot dogs.”
Shade took a long, sweeping view. The crowd was spread out, on the grass, in folding chairs, on the bleachers. They cheered, complained, gossiped and gulped iced drinks. He was all but certain everyone there knew one another by name or by sight. He watched an old man in a baseball cap casually spit out a plug of tobacco before he berated the umpire.
“I’m going to wander around a bit,” he decided, considering a seat on the bleachers too limiting for the moment.
“Okay.” Bryan had taken her own scan and considered the bleachers the focal point for what she wanted.
They separated, Shade moving toward the old man who’d already captured his attention. Bryan walked to the bleachers, where she and the on lookers would have a solid view of the game.
The players wore white pants, already grass-stained and dusty, with bright red or blue shirts emblazoned with team names. A good many of them were too small for the uniforms, and the mitts looked enormous on the ends of gangling arms. Some wore spikes, some wore sneakers. A few had batting gloves hung professionally from their back pocket.
It was the hats, she decided, that told of the individual’s personality. One might wear it snug or tipped back, another tilted rakishly over the eyes. She wanted an action shot, something that would bring the color and the personalities together with the sport itself. Until something formed for her, Bryan contented herself with taking a shot of the second baseman, who passed the time until the batter stepped into the box by kicking his spikes against the bag and blowing bubbles with his wad of gum.
Scooting up another step, she tried her long lens. Better, she decided, and was pleased to see that her second baseman had a face full of freckles. Above her, someone snapped gum and whistled when the umpire called a strike.
Bryan lowered her camera and allowed herself to become involved in the game. If she wanted to portray the atmosphere, she had to let herself feel it. It was more than the game, she thought, it was the feeling of community. As the batters came up, people in the crowd called them by name, tossing out casual remarks that indicated a personal knowledge. But the sides were definitely drawn.
Parents had come to the game from work, grandparents had pushed away from an early dinner, and neighbors had chosen the game against an evening by the TV. They had their favorites, and they weren’t shy about rooting for them.
The next batter interested Bryan mainly because she was a strikingly pretty girl of about twelve. At a glance, Bryan would’ve set her more easily at a ballet bar than home plate. But when she watched the way the girl gripped the bat and bent into her stance, Bryan lifted her camera. This was one to watch.
Bryan caught her in the first swing on a strike. Though the crowd moaned, Bryan was thrilled with the flow of movement. She might be shooting a Little League game in a half-forgotten town in Mississippi, but she thought of her studio work with the prima ballerina. The batter poised for the pitch, and Bryan poised for the next shot. She had to wait, growing impatient, through two balls.
“Low and outside,” she heard someone mumble beside her. All she could think was, if the girl walked, she’d lose the picture she wanted.
Then it came over, too fast for Bryan to judge the placement of the ball, but the girl connected with a solid swing. The batter took off, and using the motor drive, Bryan followed her around the bases. When she rounded second, Bryan homed in on her face. Yes, Maria would understand that look, Bryan thought. Strain, determination and just plain guts. Bryan had her as she slid into third with a storm of dust and a swing of body.
“Wonderful!”
She lowered the camera, so thrilled that she didn’t even realize she’d spoken out loud. “Just wonderful!”
“That’s our girl.”
Distracted, Bryan glanced over to the couple beside her. The woman was her own age, perhaps a year or two older. She was beaming. The man beside her was grinning over a wad of gum.
Perhaps she hadn’t heard properly. They were so young. “She’s your daughter?”
“Our oldest.” The woman slipped a hand into her husband’s. Bryan saw the plain twin wedding bands. “We’ve got three others running around here, but they’re more interested in the concession stand than the game.”
“Not our Carey.” The father looked out to where his daughter took a short lead on third. “She’s all business.”
“I hope you don’t mind my taking her picture.”
“No.” The woman smiled again. “Do you live in town?”
It was a polite way to find out who she was. Bryan hadn’t a doubt the woman knew everyone within ten miles. “No, I’m traveling.” She paused as the next batter blooped to right field and brought Carey home. “Actually, I’m a freelance photographer on assignment for Life-style. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”
“Sure.” The man jerked a head at his wife as he kept his eyes on the game. “She picks it up every month.”
Pulling a release form out of her bag, she explained her interest in using Carey’s picture. Though she kept it short and her voice low, word spread throughout the bleachers. Bryan found herself answering questions and dealing with curiosity. In order to handle it all in the simplest fashion, she climbed down from the bleachers, changed to a wide-angle lens and took a group shot. Not a bad study, she decided, but she didn’t want to spend the next hour having people pose for her. To give the baseball fans time to shift their attention back to the game, she wandered to the concession stand.
“Any luck?”
She swiveled her head around to see Shade fall into step beside her. “Yeah. You?”
He nodded, then leaned on the counter of the stand. There was no relief from the heat, though the sun was lowering. It promised to be as sweltering a night as it had a day. He ordered two large drinks and two hot dogs.
“Know what I’d love?” she asked as she began to bury her hot dog under relish.
“A shovel?”
Ignoring him, she piled on mustard. “A long, cool dip in an enormous pool, followed closely by an iced margarita.”
“For now you’ll have to settle for the driver’s seat of the van. It’s your turn.”
She shrugged. A job was a job. “Did you see the girl who hit the triple?” They walked over the uneven grass toward the van.
“Kid that ran like a bullet?”
“Yes. I sat next to her parents in the stands. They have four kids.”
“So?”
“Four kids,” she repeated. “And I’d swear she wasn’t more than thirty. How do people do it?”
“Ask me later and I’ll show you.”
With a laugh, she jabbed him with her elbow. “That’s not what I meant—though I like the idea. What I mean is, here’s this couple—young, attractive. You could tell they even liked each other.”
“Amazing.”
“Don’t be cynical,” she ordered as she pulled open the door to the van. “A great many couples don’t, especially when they’ve got four kids, a mortgage and ten or twelve years of marriage under their belts.”
“Now who’s being cynical?”
She started to speak and frowned instead. “I guess I am,” she mused as she turned on the engine. “Maybe I’ve picked a world that’s tilted my outlook, but when I see a happily married couple with a track record, I’m impressed.”
“It is impressive.” Carefully, he stored his camera bag under the dash before he sat back. “When it really works.”
“Yeah.”
She fell silent, remembering the jolt of envy and longing she’d felt when she’d framed the Browns in her viewfinder. Now, weeks and miles later, it was another jolt for Bryan to realize she hadn’t brushed off that peculiar feeling. She had managed to put it aside, somewhere to the back of her mind, but it popped out again now as she thought of the couple in the bleachers of a small-town park.
Family, cohesion. Bonding. Did some people just keep promises better than others? she wondered. Or were some people simply unable to blend their lives with someone else’s, make those adjustments, the compromises?
When she looked back, she believed both she and Rob had tried, but in their own ways. There’d been no meeting of the minds, but two separate thought patterns making decisions that never melded with each other. Did that mean that a successful marriage depended on the mating of two people who thought along the same lines?
With a sigh, she turned onto the highway that would lead them into Tennessee. If it was true, she decided, she was much better off single. Though she’d met a great many people she liked and could have fun with, she’d never met anyone who thought the way she did. Especially the man seated next to her with his nose already buried in the newspaper. There alone they were radically different.
He’d read that paper and every paper in every town they stopped in from cover to cover, devouring the words. She’d skim the headlines, glance over the style or society pages and go straight for the comics. If she wanted news, she’d rather have it in spurts on the radio or blurbs on televisions. Reading was for relaxation, and relaxation was not an analysis of détente.
Relationships. She thought back on the discussion she’d had with Lee just weeks before. No, she simply wasn’t cut out for relationships on a long-term basis. Shade himself had pointed out that some people just weren’t capable of permanency. She’d agreed, hadn’t she? Why should the truth suddenly depress her?
Whatever her feelings were for Shade, and she’d yet to define them satisfactorily, she wasn’t going to start smelling orange blossoms. Maybe she had a few twinges when she saw couples together who seemed to complete each other rather than compete, but that was only natural. After all, she didn’t want to start making adjustments in her life-style to accommodate someone else at this stage. She was perfectly content the way things were.
If she was in love… Bryan felt the twinge again and ignored it. If she was, it would complicate things. The fact was, she was very happy with a successful career, her freedom and an attractive, interesting lover. She’d be crazy if she wasn’t happy. She’d be insane to change one single thing.
“And it doesn’t have anything to do with being afraid,” she said aloud. “What?”
She turned to Shade and, to his astonishment and hers, blushed. “Nothing,” she muttered. “Thinking out loud.”
He gave her a long, quiet look. Her expression came very close to a baffled sort of pout. Giving in to the urge, he leaned over and touched a hand to her cheek. “You’re not eating your hot dog.”
She could have wept. For some absurd reason, she wanted to stop the van, drop her head on the steering wheel and drown herself in hot, violent tears. “Not hungry,” she managed.
“Bryan.” He watched her snatch her sunglasses from the dash and push them on, though the sun was riding low. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She took a deep breath and kept her eyes straight ahead. “I’m fine.”
No, she wasn’t. Though strain in her voice was rare, he recognized it. Only a few weeks before, he’d have shrugged and turned back to his reading. Deliberately, he dropped the paper on the floor at his feet. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” She cursed herself and turned up the radio. Shade simply switched it off.
“Pull over.”
“What for?”
“Just pull over.”
With more violence than necessary, Bryan swung the van toward the shoulder, slowed and stopped. “We won’t make very good time if we stop ten minutes after we start.”
“We won’t be making any time at all until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong!�
�� Then she gritted her teeth and sat back. It wasn’t any use saying nothing was wrong if you snarled at the same time. “I don’t know,” she evaded. “I’m edgy, that’s all.”
“You?”
She turned on him with a vengeance. “I’ve a right to foul moods, Colby. You don’t have a patent on them.”
“You certainly have,” he said mildly. “Since it’s the first one I’ve witnessed, I’m interested.”
“Don’t be so damn patronizing.”
“Wanna fight?”
She stared through the windshield. “Maybe.”
“Okay.” Willing to oblige, he made himself comfortable. “About anything in particular?”
She swung her head around, ready to pounce on anything. “Do you have to bury your face in a paper every time I get behind the wheel?”
He smiled maddeningly. “Yes, dear.”
A low sound came from her throat as she stared through the windshield again. “Never mind.”
“I could point out that you have a habit of falling asleep when you sit in this seat.”
“I said never mind.” She reached for the key. “Just never mind. You make me sound like a fool.”
He put his hand over hers before she could turn the key. “You sound foolish skirting around whatever’s bothering you.” He wanted to reach her. Without being aware when, he’d passed the point where he could tell himself not to get involved and follow the advice. Whether he wanted it or not, whether she accepted it or not, he was involved. Slowly, he lifted her hand to his lips. “Bryan, I care.”
She sat there stunned that a simple statement could spin through her with such force. I care. He’d used the same word when he’d spoken about the woman who’d caused his nightmare. Along with the pleasure his words brought her came an inescapable sense of responsibility. He wouldn’t allow himself to care indiscriminately. Glancing up, she met his eyes, patient, puzzled, as they studied her face.
“I care too,” she said quietly. She twined her fingers with his, only briefly, but it unsettled them both.
Shade took the next step carefully, not certain of her, or himself. “Is that what’s bothering you?”