by Nora Roberts
“Are you ready to order?” he repeated. “Or would you like more time?”
“The lady’ll have the chocolate mousse,” Shade said smoothly.
“Yes, sir.” Unflappable, the waiter marked it down. “Will that be all?”
“Not by a long shot,” Shade told him, and picked up his wine again.
With a laugh, Bryan worked her way through the menu.
* * *
“Stuffed,” Bryan decided over an hour later, as they drove through a hard, driving rain. “Absolutely stuffed.”
Shade cruised through an amber light. “Watching you eat is an amazing way to pass the time.”
“We’re here to entertain,” she said lightly. Snuggled back in her seat with champagne swimming in her head and thunder grumbling in a bad-tempered sky, she was content to ride along wherever he chose to go. “It was sweet of you to let me have a bite of your cheesecake.”
“Half,” Shade corrected her. Deliberately he turned away from the campground they’d decided on that afternoon. The wipers made quick swishing sounds against the windshield. “But you’re welcome.”
“It was lovely.” She let out a sigh, quiet and sleepy. “I like being pampered. Tonight should get me through another month of fast-food chains and diners with stale doughnuts.” Content, she glanced around at the dark, wet streets, the puddles at the curbs. She liked the rain, especially at night, when it made everything glisten. Watching it, she fell to dreaming, rousing herself only when he turned into the lot of a small motel.
“No campground tonight,” he said before she could question. “Wait here while I get a room.”
She didn’t have time to comment before he was out of the van and dashing through the rain. No campground, she thought, looking over her shoulder at the narrow twin bunks on either side of the van. No skinny, makeshift beds and trickling showers.
With a grin, she jumped up and began to gather his equipment and hers. She never gave the suitcases a thought.
“Champagne, linen napkins and now a bed.” She laughed as he climbed back into the van, soaking wet. “I’m going to get spoiled.”
He wanted to spoil her. There was no logic to it, only fact. Tonight, if only for tonight, he wanted to spoil her. “Room’s around the back.” When Bryan dragged the equipment forward, he drove slowly around, checking numbers on the lines of doors. “Here.” He strapped camera bags over his shoulder. “Wait a minute.” She’d grabbed another bag and her purse by the time he’d pulled open her door from the outside. To her astonishment, she found herself lifted into his arms.
“Shade!” But the rain slapped into her face, making her gasp as he dashed across the lot to an outside door.
“Least I could do after you sprang for dinner,” he told her as he maneuvered the oversize key into the lock. Bryan was laughing as he struggled to open the door holding her, the camera bags and tripods.
Kicking the door closed with his foot, he fastened his mouth on hers. Still laughing, Bryan clung to him.
“Now we’re both wet,” she murmured, running a hand through his hair.
“We’ll dry off in bed.” Before she knew his intention, Bryan was falling through the air and landing with two bounces full length onto the mattress.
“So romantic,” she said dryly, but her body stayed limp. She lay there, smiling, because he’d made a rare frivolous gesture and she intended to enjoy it.
Her dress clung to her, her hair fanned out. He’d seen her change for dinner and knew she wore a thin teddy cut high at the thigh, low over her breasts, and sheer, sheer stockings. He could love her now, love her for hours. It wouldn’t be enough. He knew how relaxed, how pliant, her body could be. How full of fire, strength, vibrancy. He could want all of it, have all of it. It wouldn’t be enough.
He was an expert at capturing the moment, the emotions, the message. Letting his own feelings hum, he reached for his camera bag.
“What’re you doing?”
When she started to sit up, Shade turned back. “Stay there a minute.”
Intrigued and wary, she watched him set his camera. “I don’t—”
“Just lie back like you were,” he interrupted. “Relaxed and rather pleased with yourself.”
His intention was obvious enough now. Bryan lifted a brow. An obsession, she thought, amused. The camera was an obsession for both of them. “Shade, I’m a photographer, not a model.”
“Humor me.” Gently, he pushed her back on the bed.
“I’ve too much champagne in my system to argue with you.” She smiled up at him as he held the camera over his face. “You can play if you like, or take serious pictures if you must. As long as I don’t have to do anything.”
She did nothing but smile, and he began to throb. So often he’d used the camera as a barrier between himself and his subject, other times as a conductor for his emotion, emotion he refused to let loose any other way. Now, it was neither. The emotion was already in him, and barriers weren’t possible.
He framed her quickly and shot, but was unsatisfied.
“That’s not what I want.” He was so businesslike that Bryan didn’t see it as a defense, only as his manner. But when he came over, pulled her into a sitting position and unzipped her dress, her mouth fell open.
“Shade!”
“It’s that lazy sex,” he murmured as he slipped the dress down over one shoulder. “Those incredible waves of sensuality that take no effort at all, but just are. It’s the way your eyes look.” But when his came back to hers, she forgot the joke she’d been about to make. “The way they look when I touch you—like this.” Slowly, he ran a hand over her naked shoulder. “The way they look just after I kiss you—like this.” He kissed her, lingering over it while her mind emptied of thought and her body filled with sensation.
“Like this,” he whispered, more determined than ever to capture that moment, make it tangible so that he could hold it in his hands and see it. “Just like this,” he said again, backing off one step, then two. “The way you look just before we make love. The way you look just after.”
Helplessly aroused, Bryan stared into the lens of the camera as he lifted it. He caught her there, like a quarry in the crosshairs of a scope, empty of thoughts, jumbled with feeling. At the same time, he caught himself.
For an instant her heart was in her eyes. The shutter opened, closed and captured it. When he printed the photograph, he thought as he carefully set down his camera, would he see what she felt? Would he be certain of his own feelings?
Now she sat on the bed, her dress disarrayed, her hair tumbled, her eyes clouded. Secrets, Shade thought again. They both had them. Was it possible he’d locked a share of each of their secrets on film inside his camera?
When he looked at her now, he saw a woman aroused, a woman who aroused. He could see passion and pliancy and acceptance. He could see a woman whom he’d come to know better than anyone else. Yet he saw a woman he’d yet to reach—one he’d avoided reaching.
He went to her in silence. Her skin was damp but warm, as he’d known it would be. Raindrops clung to her hair. He touched one, then it was gone. Her arms lifted.
While the storm raged outside, he took her and himself where there was no need for answers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
If they had more time…
As August began to slip by, that was the thought that continued to run through Bryan’s mind. With more time, they could have stayed longer at each stop. With more time, they might have passed through more states, more towns, more communities. There was so much to see, so much to record, but time was running out.
In less than a month, the school she’d photographed empty and waiting in the afternoon light would be filled again. Leaves that were full and green would take on those vibrant colors before they fell. She would be back in L.A., back in her studio, back to the routine she’d established. For the first time in years, the word alone had a hollow ring.
How had it happened? Shade Colby had become her partner, he
r lover, her friend. He’d become, though it was frightening to admit, the most important person in her life. Somehow she’d become dependent on him, for his opinion, his company, for the nights they spent involved only with each other.
She could imagine how it would be when they returned to L.A. and went their separate ways. Separate parts of the city, she thought, separate lives, separate outlooks.
The closeness that had so slowly, almost painfully, developed between them would dissolve. Wasn’t that what they’d both intended from the start? They’d made a bargain with each other, just as they’d made the bargain to work together. If her feelings had changed, she was responsible for them, for dealing with them. As the odometer turned over on the next mile, as the next state was left behind, she wondered how to begin.
Shade had his own thoughts to deal with. When they’d crossed into Maryland, they’d crossed into the East. The Atlantic was close, as close as the end of summer. It was the end that disturbed him. The word no longer seemed to mean finished, but over. He began to realize he was far from ready to draw that last line. There were ways to rationalize it. He tried them all.
They’d missed too much. If they took their time driving back, rather than sticking to their plan of going straight across the country, they could detour into so many places they’d eliminated on the way out. It made sense. They could stay in New England a week, two weeks after Labor Day. After long days in the van and the intense work they’d both put in, they deserved some time off. It was reasonable.
They should work their way back, rather than rush. If they weren’t preoccupied with making time, making miles, how many pictures would come out of it? If one of them was special, it would be worth it. That was professional.
When they returned to L.A., perhaps Bryan could move in with him, share his apartment as they’d shared the van. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
She didn’t want to complicate their relationship. Hadn’t she said so? He didn’t want the responsibility of committing himself to one person. Hadn’t he made himself clear? Perhaps he’d come to need her companionship on some level. And it was true he’d learned to appreciate the way she could look at anything and see the fun and the beauty of it. That didn’t equal promises, commitments or complications.
With a little time, a little distance, the need was bound to fade. The only thing he was sure of was that he wanted to put off that point for as long as possible.
Bryan spotted a convertible—red, flashy. Its driver had one arm thrown over the white leather seat while her short blond hair flew in the wind. Grabbing her camera, Bryan leaned out the open window. Half kneeling, half crouching, on the seat, she adjusted for depth.
She wanted to catch it from the rear, elongating the car into a blur of color. But she didn’t want to lose the arrogant angle of the driver’s arm, or the negligent way her hair streamed back. Already she knew she would dodge the plain gray highway and the other cars in the darkroom. Just the red convertible, she thought as she set her camera.
“Try to keep just this distance,” she called to Shade. She took one shot and, dissatisfied, leaned out farther for the next. Though Shade swore at her, Bryan got her shot before she laughed and flopped back on her seat.
He was guilty of the same thing, he knew. Once the camera was in place, you tended to think of it as a shield. Nothing could happen to you—you simply weren’t part of what was happening. Though he’d known better, it had happened to him often enough, even after his first stint overseas. Perhaps it was the understanding that made his voice mild, though he was annoyed.
“Don’t you have more sense than to climb out the window of a moving car?”
“Couldn’t resist. There’s nothing like a convertible on an open highway in August. I’m always toying with the idea of getting one myself.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Buying a new car is hard work.” She looked at the green-and-white road signs as she’d looked at so many others that summer. There were cities, roads and routes she’d never heard of. “I can hardly believe we’re in Maryland. We’ve come so far and yet, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like two months.”
“Two years?”
She laughed. “Sometimes. Other times it seems like days. Not enough time,” she said, half to herself. “Never enough.”
Shade didn’t give himself the chance to think before he took the opening. “We’ve had to leave out a lot.”
“I know.”
“We went through Kansas, but not Nebraska, Mississippi, and not the Carolinas. We didn’t go to Michigan or Wisconsin.”
“Or Florida, Washington State, the Dakotas.” She shrugged, trying not to think of what was left behind. Just today, Bryan told herself. Just take today.
“I’ve been thinking about tying them in on the way back.”
“On the way back?” Bryan turned to him as he reached for a cigarette.
“We’d be on our own time.” The van’s lighter glowed red against the tip. “But I think we could both take a month or so and finish the job.”
More time. Bryan felt the quick surge of hope, then ruthlessly toned it down. He wanted to finish the job his way. It was his way, she reminded herself, to do things thoroughly. But did the reason really matter? They’d have more time. Yes, she realized as she stared out the side window. The reason mattered a great deal too much.
“The job’s finished in New England,” she said lightly. “Summer’s over, and it’s back to business. My work at the studio will be backed up for a month. Still…” She felt herself weakening, though he said nothing, did nothing, to persuade her. “I wouldn’t mind a few detours on the trip back.”
Shade kept his hands easy on the wheel, his voice casual. “We’ll think about it,” he said, and let the subject they both wanted to pursue drop.
Weary of the highway, they took to the back roads. Bryan took her pictures of kids squirting each other with garden hoses, of laundry drying in the breeze, of an elderly couple sitting on a porch glider. Shade took his of sweating construction workers spreading tar on roofs, of laborers harvesting peaches and, surprisingly, of two ten-year-old businessmen hawking lemonade in their front yard.
Touched, Bryan accepted the paper cup Shade handed her. “That was sweet.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet,” he commented, and climbed into the passenger’s seat. “To keep down the overhead, they used a light hand on the sugar.”
“I meant you.” On impulse, she leaned over and kissed him, lightly, comfortably. “You can be a very sweet man.”
As always, she moved him, and he couldn’t stop it. “I can give you a list of people who’d disagree.”
“What do they know?” With a smile, she touched her lips to his again. She drove down the neat, shady street appreciating the trim lawns, flower gardens and dogs barking in the yards. “I like the suburbs,” she said idly. “To look at, anyway. I’ve never lived in one. They’re so orderly.” With a sigh, she turned right at the corner. “If I had a house here, I’d probably forget to fertilize the lawn and end up with crab grass and dandelions. My neighbors would take up a petition. I’d end up selling my house and moving into a condo.”
“So ends Bryan Mitchell’s career as a suburbanite.”
She made a face at him. “Some people aren’t cut out for picket fences.”
“True enough.”
She waited, but he said nothing that made her feel inadequate—nothing that made her feel as though she should be. She laughed delightedly, then grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You’re good for me, Shade. You really are.”
He didn’t want to let her hand go, and released it reluctantly. Good for her. She said it so easily, laughing. Because she did, he knew she had no idea just what it meant to him to hear it. Maybe it was time he told her. “Bryan—”
“What’s that?” she said abruptly, and swung toward the curb. Excited, she inched the car forward until she could read the colorful cardboard poster tacked to a telephone pole. “Nightingale�
��s Traveling Carnival.” Pulling on the brake, she nearly climbed over Shade to see it more clearly. “Voltara, the Electric Woman.” With a half whoop, she nudged closer to Shade. “Terrific, just terrific. Sampson, the Dancing Elephant. Madame Zoltar, Mystic. Shade, look, it’s their last night in town. We can’t miss it. What’s summer without a carny? Thrilling rides, games of skill and chance.”
“And Dr. Wren, the Fire Eater.”
It was easy to ignore the dry tone. “Fate.” She scrambled back to her own seat. “It has to be fate that we turned down this road. Otherwise, we might’ve missed it.”
Shade glanced back at the sign as Bryan pulled away from the curb. “Think of it,” he murmured. “We might’ve gotten all the way to the coast without seeing a dancing elephant.”
A half hour later, Shade leaned back in his seat, calmly smoking, his feet on the dash. Frazzled, Bryan swung the van around the next turn.
“I’m not lost.”
Shade blew out a lazy stream of smoke. “I didn’t say a word.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“That’s Madame Zoltar’s line.”
“And you can stop looking so smug.”
“Was I?”
“You always look smug when I get lost.”
“You said you weren’t.”
Bryan gritted her teeth and sent him a killing look. “Why don’t you just pick up that map and tell me where we are?”
“I started to pick it up ten minutes ago and you snarled at me.”
Bryan let out a long breath. “It was the way you picked it up. You were smirking, and I could hear you thinking—”
“You’re stepping into Madame Zoltar’s territory again.”
“Damnit, Shade.” But she had to choke back a laugh as she drove down the long, unlit country road. “I don’t mind making a fool of myself, but I hate it when someone lifts an eyebrow over it.”
“Did I?”
“You know you did. Now, if you’d just—”
Then she caught the first glimmer of red, blue, green lights flickering. A Ferris wheel, she thought. It had to be. The sound of tinny music came faintly through the summer dusk. A calliope. This time it was Bryan who looked smug. “I knew I’d find it.”