"Daddy..." she began.
"I'm a photographer," Jason interrupted. "The art's in the subject, not in me. I have no intention of using your daughter for the enrichment of my work. Although I have to admit that the camera loves her."
Hugh considered that answer and seemed unable to decide whether or not he believed it. Then he nodded. "Just wanted you to know that I gave my children life, and I figure that gives me the right to bring death to anyone who hurts them."
Diane was surprised when Jason smiled. "I got that message. You have no reason to worry." He extended his hand. "That's a promise."
Hugh took it. "I'll hold you to that," he said.
Diane held both arms out in exasperation.
"Will you listen to yourselves?" she demanded under her voice. "You sound like a knight and a dragon bargaining for the life of a lady."
Hugh gave Jason one last, long look. Then he gently pinched Diane's chin. "I'd say that's about right." And he walked away.
Diane turned to Jason and poked him in the chest with her index finger. "See what you've done? My life was just getting to the point where my family wasn't hovering over me, and you had to go and remind my father that I'm the baby of the family, and that there are big bad wolves around!"
He frowned. "I think I liked the dragon analogy better."
"Well, neither one is necessary," she said, "because you're going to leave me alone. I know we're going to keep running into each other at family functions until the wedding, but you are not to photograph me or speak to me, is that clear?"
He arched an eyebrow. "Whoa. I'm not one of your students, so please don't bark orders at me. And if you don't want me to pursue you, you're going to have to give me a reason other than you're not a sexual being, because I think we just disproved that one."
She angled her chin, trying to hold on to her dignity. He had shredded that claim. And the really shocking thing was that she'd thought it valid at the time.
"Maybe I just don't want anything to do with you."
He shook his head with pretended regret. "You melted in my arms."
She didn't want to hear that. "Look," she said reasonably. "I have the care of a pregnant teenager, which is going to keep me far too busy for a relationship."
He nodded. "And I'm going to Noumea for six months after the first of the year. I'm not proposing marriage, I just think you're very beautiful, and as a man whose job it is to find the most interesting subject around him and shine a light on it, I'd like to get to know you."
She heard everything he said, but focused on the one thing that made her feel a surprising sense of - She wasn't even sure what it was. Disappointment? "Noumea?"
"Yes." He reached to the table for his champagne glass. "I have a contract with Manhattan Publishing to do a coffee table book about the island. It's near New - "
"I know where it is," she interrupted, a little sharply she thought when she heard the tone of her own voice. She softened it deliberately. "It's off New Caledonia. It has plants dating back to the dinosaur age."
He inclined his head with respect for her knowledge. "You do know your stuff. That's precisely what I'm being sent to photograph."
"I've always wanted to go there," she said, wondering what had happened to her indignation over his kiss. He was going away. She felt both relief and regret.
He downed the last of his champagne and replaced the glass on the table. "You're welcome to come with me," he said casually. "I'm sure it'd be good for you, too. Every social studies teacher should have an up-close-and-personal knowledge of the plants of the dinosaur age."
She wasn't sure if he was teasing or not, only that this surprising and annoying attraction was going to have to die right here.
"Or you could meet me there," he added before she could answer, "considering your responsibilities to Whitney, and your contract with the school. There's spring break, summer vacation..."
"Nothing," she said firmly, "can come of this." She knew she was trying to convince herself as well as him.
"You'll never," he said, copying her tone, "convince me of that."
"I don't have to," she said with a dispirited sigh. "I just have to say goodbye."
That dramatic line delivered, she turned to head for Anna's back bedroom and its pile of coats, when she found herself face-to-face with her hostess.
"Here you are!" Anna said, wrapping an arm around Diane's shoulders. "And Jason, too. You're just the pair I wanted to see."
Diane was almost afraid to ask. "Why?"
"Because I'd like Jason to photograph you baking the cookies for the reception favors." She drew Jason into her other arm. He came to her while glancing smugly at Diane.
"I can do that," he said amenably.
"And I'd like you to get pictures of her and my sisters decorating the banquet room for the reception." Anna turned to Diane. "Austin says you can put up all the maps you want."
Anna's husband, Austin Cahill, owned the Austin Palace, one of the Southwest's finest hotels, and had volunteered use of one of its banquet rooms. With Megan and Hugh embarking on a world cruise for their honeymoon, the theme was established, and maps seemed the ideal decoration. Diane had put out the call to everyone in the family for maps of any kind so that she could create a border all the way around the room.
Anna had volunteered her services as wedding planner, but Megan's children, and Diane and her siblings, had been so delighted with the match and their parents' happiness, that they'd wanted to make their contributions to the wedding by doing many of the preparations themselves. So Diane, with her social studies experience, had been put in charge of decorations and the international cookies that would be part of the favors for the wedding guests.
Diane groaned inwardly at the prospect of being forced into contact with Jason Morris at least twice more.
"Is that all right with you, Diane?" Anna asked. "You won't mind having Jason follow you around?"
Diane smiled bravely. "Of course not, Anna," she said. "Whatever you want."
CHAPTER THREE
Whitney looked troubled as she cleared away their breakfast dishes the following morning. Diane gathered ingredients for the cookies she'd be making today, a little troubled herself at the prospect of Jason coming by. Ellie Cassidy and Abby McDermott, who'd planned to help, called early this morning to tell her they were stuck at the clinic. Ellie was Maitland Maternity Clinic's administrator, and Abby was an ob-gyn and Whitney’s doctor while Doug McKay was away at a conference.
Diane tried to forget her own problems and concentrate on Whitney. "Something wrong?" she asked, coming to the table to hand her her vitamins and a glass of water. She tended to forget them if Diane didn't remind her. "Feeling okay?"
Whitney swallowed the pills, then handed back the glass and nodded, rubbing her stomach. "Yes. I feel a little pressure, but otherwise I'm fine."
"Is something other than the babies bothering you?"
Whitney sank into a chair at the table. Her hair was caught back in a fat, fashionably mussy twist today, and she looked fresh and healthy in an oversize blue shirt and black knit pants.
"Just life in general, I guess," she said with a philosophical sigh. "I - I'm wishing I'd been more careful, that I'd listened to all the cautions, that Brandon had been more adult and more...in love with me."
Diane sat near Whitney and reached for her hand. "There's an unfortunate tendency in most of us to think people don't know what they're talking about when they warn us away from the perils and pitfalls of life. Until we experience it ourselves and realize we should have listened. Then we have to learn by our mistakes - and regrets don't help. You just have to make the best of what is and keep going."
Whitney stared at their hands, eyes unfocused, then sighed and squeezed Diane's fingers. "I know. And I'm so lucky that you're helping me." She seemed to put aside her concerns abruptly, then looked at the clock. "Tom and Claire will be here in five minutes. I'd better get moving."
Whitney had agreed just last
week that Diane's brother Tom and his fiancee, Claire Goodman, would adopt her twins. They were going to Tom's partner's office that morning to set up the agreement and a fund for Whitney's education.
Diane held on to Whitney's hand as she would have moved away otherwise. "Tom and Claire will make great parents," she reassured her.
She nodded. "Yes, I know." Then she drew away and went to get her jacket. Jason arrived with Tom and Claire.
"Look who we found on the elevator," Tom said, pointing to Jason.
They all went into the kitchen, Tom sniffing the air expectantly. "No cookies yet?" Tom asked in disappointment.
"Jason wouldn't be able to photograph the process," Diane said patiently, "if I'd made the cookies already, would he?"
Tom frowned at the lineup of bowls, measuring cups, spoons and ingredients.
You're making six different kinds. You could have started one. You'll be here all night."
'Til be here for several days," she corrected.
Claire, rolled her eyes at his behavior. "You'd never guess he just had a Denver omelette and three pieces of toast. Maybe if you promise he can sample cookies when we get back, I can get him out of here."
Tom peered into an empty bowl. "No chocolate chips or nuts or anything that should be tasted before they go into a recipe?"
"I'm ready." Whitney appeared, a plaid poncho draped over her making her look like a decorative little hill. She smiled at Tom. "The twins are going to have the Cookie Monster for a father?"
Diane knew Whitney liked Claire and Tom. Claire and Whitney had talked about the time when Claire had struggled with the emotional trauma of finding the child she'd been forced to put up for adoption years ago. Whitney had sympathized with Tom's infertility and Claire's desire for a baby. That was when Whitney suggested that Tom and Claire would be the perfect adoptive parents for her twins.
Claire caught Tom's hand and patted it. "I assure you, Whitney, that he's much more mature than he appears when it comes to cookies. Come on, Tom. We don't want to be late."
"Right." He ushered Claire and Whitney through the living room toward the front door. When Diane followed, he turned to stop her with a raised hand. "We'll see ourselves out. Get busy with those cookies. Bye, Jason. Watch yourself with Diane. I don't want to have to kill you."
Jason looked up from his camera with a smiling wave to acknowledge the threat. He grinned at Diane when the door closed behind Tom. "What is this predilection your family has to violence?"
"We have a pirate ancestor," she replied, feeling all the calm in the room evaporating with the closing door. She tried to keep her manner light. "Red Robbie Blake. Robbed and pillaged and charmed the ladies. He was hung at thirty-two. I've always sworn that's where my father gets his skill in banking."
She began to measure ingredients. She felt him step up behind her, so close that she could feel his breath stir her hair.
Did he really find her as fascinating as he claimed? she wondered breathlessly.
She heard the click of a camera shutter over her shoulder, then the whirr of its inner workings. He wasn't fascinated with her at all, she realized with a sudden sense of annoyance and embarrassment. He was just doing his job!
He came around to her right side and leaned far back into the corner of the counter as she broke egg whites into a bowl.
"I can't believe Megan and my father will find photos of egg whites interesting." She fit the bowl under the beaters of her tabletop mixer.
"Maybe someday," he said, closing in several feet, "you'll want to do a cookbook on cookies from around the world and we'll have a head start with these photographs."
She made a face that disparaged the idea, then turned on the beaters. The next five minutes or so were too noisy for conversation. She beat the egg whites, then, after soft peaks formed, she raised the speed and gradually added the sugar until the soft peaks stood straight. She turned off the beaters.
"That look must have meant that you have no plans for a cookbook," he said, as though their conversation had not been interrupted. He came closer to shoot right into the bowl.
She began to fold in half the flour.
"No, I haven't." She concentrated on her work, treating the mixture gently. She wanted these French tuiles to be perfect. "It's just teaching and travel in my future - and the travel has to wait until Whitney's settled in with her aunt. That's supposed to be right after Christmas, but I'm not depending on it. When I make plans, fate has a way of changing them."
Diane stirred in the butter mixture, then folded in the remaining flour while Jason photographed her kitchen.
"Where's your favorite place?" He shot a wooden spoon she'd balanced over the mouth of a bowl, connected measuring spoons dangling from it.
"I want to see Scotland so desperately."
"Mmm. You'll love it. It has atmosphere, weather, mountains, bogs, castles, you name it." He rearranged a copper pot next to a rumpled tea towel and a rolling pin, then took several photos. "Where have you been that you've enjoyed the most?"
"Boston," she replied, trying to make it sound like Addis Ababa. "Back Bay, the Athenaeum, the public library, the view of Harvard across the Charles River."
"Yeah. I like Boston. But I meant your favorite place out of the country."
She finally admitted with a sigh, "I haven't been out of the country."
He lowered the camera to look at her in surprise. "You haven't?"
She smiled sheepishly. "I've never been off the continent." She drew a parchment-covered cookie sheet toward her and began dropping level teaspoonfuls of the batter onto it.
He set the camera on the table, then came back to the counter to lean against it and watch her work. "Why is that?" he asked. "You teach social studies, and you're obviously a lady of means. You talk about exploring the world as though you have to do it or die."
With the back of a spoon, she smoothed each drop of batter into a small circle.
"That's how I feel. But something always comes up." She told him about her thwarted trips. "I couldn't just leave Whitney to fend or herself."
"That was generous of you," he said. "I can't believe the law allows a parent to just turn out a pregnant girl. It's kind of eighteenth century."
"That's what I thought. But there was no place else for her to go." She explained about her aunt's impending move. "And her caseworker tried hard, but there was no social program with room for her."
"Whitney does seem to appreciate you." "She's fun to have around. I wake up to Britney Spears or 'N Sync blaring from the CD player, and my telephone line is always tied up, but she has a lively personality and it prevents me from getting too serious."
She carried a filled cookie tray to the oven. He opened the door for her, then closed it as she set the timer.
"It wasn't that long ago that you listened to music and talked on the phone for hours, was it?" he asked.
She drew another pan toward her and kept working. "I loved music, but I was part of the orchestra in school and my taste in music is more classical. And I never talked on the phone. I was always serious about my homework. In my spare time I used to plan trips." She turned to smile at him, feeling herself relax a little and longing to know more about him.
"Tell me about your travels," she pleaded softly. "Where have you been?''
With her soft brown eyes glancing his way, clearly hungry for details, he began to talk about his favorite places. He searched his memories for the little things that would make his travels come alive for her.
While she worked he talked about Europe, still his favorite continent despite many trips to more distant and exotic locales. "There's no place like Paris in the morning, London during the business day, or Florence at sunset from the battlements in the hills."
When the cookies came out of the oven, she removed them from the cookie sheet while they were still soft and shaped them on a rolling pin to get the curve of the famous French roof tiles for which they were named.
"That would be my favori
te thing to see," she said, touching the cookies as though they were precious jewelry. "The capitals of the world from a hilltop or a church steeple. I love pictures of rooftops. I'd like to see cities the way birds and angels see them."
"Speaking of angels - " he indicated the elegant angel dressed in gold mesh atop the Christmas tree in her living room " - you wouldn't believe Switzerland at Christmas. It's a winter paradise with all the atmosphere you'd ever want."
She smiled. "Okay, that'll be another goal. Switzerland at Christmas."
By lunchtime, she'd made several hundred tuiles and was mixing the dough for kourabiedes, a Greek cookie that seemed to require brandy as she asked him to reach into an overhead cupboard for a fat, dark bottle.
"How many cookies do you have to make?" he asked, studying the army of cooling tuiles.
"I figured a couple of hundred of six different kinds."
"You're kidding!"
"We're expecting one hundred and thirty guests, and our combined families is a huge number, so for everyone to have at least one of each cookie, it's going to take that many."
"But, you don't know that everyone will eat one cookie of each kind."
"No, these aren't for the table, they're favors for the guests." She reached to the corner of the counter to hook a floury index finger in a small, simple, two-handled brown bag. A sprig of holly had been tied to the front with a loop of gold ribbon. "I'm going to put them in these. I think two hundred should do it."
He took the bag from her. "Simple chic. I like it." It brought back a memory he hadn't thought about in years and it had nothing to do with travel, except that it had been part of the reason he'd become a gypsy.
"My mother had a big shopping bag like this that went everywhere with us when I was little." He replaced the pretty little bag, remembering his mother's larger, battered one. "We didn't have a car, so we walked everywhere or sometimes took the bus, and she carried groceries, bills to be paid, everything in this bag. Every couple of months the paper would finally give out and we'd buy another one for thirty-five cents from a department store dispenser."
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