“A model. A friend.”
“A lover.”
“No.”
“Hmm.” Pierre watched him for an uncomfortably long moment, then nodded smartly and closed the album. “These pictures have more humanity, more warmth and passion than any I’ve seen from you. You are no longer holding back. They are a real style breakthrough. I want to see more.”
“Okay.” Jack’s heart gave a jump. He was meeting Melissa in half an hour to drive out to Seward Park. He’d planned to get some shots, but wanted mostly to talk to her, try to figure out how and why she’d turned the tables on him during the shoot, what she’d been thinking, how she’d gotten this new style out of him. How she’d seduced the snake...and him.
Pierre handed back the portfolio. “I have a show in two months which just cancelled. The artist is ill and can’t finish. You interested?”
Holy... Two months. He stared at Pierre, calculating. If Melissa could give him a lot of time over the next few weeks, he might be able to do it. If he managed to shuffle some of his other appointments.
If...
“Sure.” He nodded firmly, as if he had all the confidence in the world. “I could do that.”
“Très bien. We’ll be in touch.”
“Absolutely.” Jack tucked the book of photographs under his arm and left the gallery, the picture of cool until he was around the corner on the sidewalk opposite his car. What the hell had he just promised? For a second he was tempted to go back in and tell Pierre he’d been insane, that there was no way he could deliver an entire exhibit in that short a time. Especially because this new artistic self he was developing was still strange to him. No telling whether he’d be able to recapture the magic he’d found three days earlier with Melissa.
And yet the challenge was irresistible. If he could clear his schedule, if Melissa could give him enough time...
If.
He got into his car, sat gripping the steering wheel. Two months. At UW Seattle he’d put together an exhibit in a crazy short amount of time, skipping most of his classes and for a week immersing himself in nothing but the project. He’d emerged exhausted, undernourished and half-nuts, but having produced some of his best work. Being able to clear away life’s extraneous crap and concentrate on his art—it had been torture and a privilege at the same time.
Of course, that was college. As an adult it wasn’t nearly as easy to push the rest of life away.
The beep of a car horn next to him brought back reality. He acknowledged the woman hoping for his parking place, started his engine and pulled out into traffic, headed to Sixth Avenue and the Au Bon Repas corporate headquarters where Melissa had said she’d be waiting.
She was. She’d changed out of the suit into a pair of blue slim-fitting pants with blue tennis shoes and a white top that had blue and black robotic figures scrawled on it. She leaned against the building, gazing at nothing, phone to her ear. Jack itched to photograph her right there: the perfect combination of sex and innocence.
That wasn’t all he itched to do, but he wasn’t going there again.
“Melissa.”
She started, then her face broke into a huge grin, which made the same thing happen to his, and she hurried to the car as if she couldn’t wait to see him, which gave him the absurd idea of getting out and meeting her in a swing-around bear hug as if they were starring in some sappy chick flick.
He stayed where he was.
“Hi, Jack.” She climbed in, bringing her fresh scent into his beloved Volvo.
“Hey.” He made himself look away because if he didn’t, he was going to sit there like an idiot, staring. Somehow when Melissa wasn’t around, it had been easy to convince himself his attraction was all about art. Faced with her in person, remembering the way she’d taken over in the studio, he wasn’t so sure anymore.
Come on. He had to be overreacting, complicating the simple fact of a perfectly ordinary attraction. Silly to act as if Melissa had some kind of superpower. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad. Long day.” Melissa pulled her seatbelt across her slender body. She was different today, energized. “How did Pierre like the prints?”
“He liked them.” He tried to keep the excitement out of his voice as he pulled out from the curb and merged with traffic. “A lot. In fact, he wants more.”
“Hey, good for you. Congratulations!” She turned to him, face alight. He had to force himself to look back at the road.
“Thanks. There is a catch. I’m not sure you’ll like it.”
“He wants you to use a different model?”
“God, no.” His vehemence surprised them both. “You totally make the pictures, Melissa. Pierre loved you.”
“Ah.” She turned casually toward the window, but he saw her grinning and felt pleased. “Then what’s the catch?”
“One of his artists cancelled out of a show.” He pulled up to a red light. “He needs the series soon.”
“How soon?”
“It doesn’t sound soon, two months, but in terms of putting together an exhibit, it’s an eyeblink.”
Melissa rubbed her hand across her chin. “What would that mean?”
“For the next week or so, if you’re willing...” Jack hesitated, not sure why the next words were difficult to say. “We’d, uh, spend a lot of time together.”
She glanced at him sharply. “How much time?”
“As much as possible. Evenings, weekends, late nights if you can manage it, all night if necessary.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully, feeling dead serious inside. “Whatever we have to do to get it done.”
“Hmm.”
He waited, but that was apparently the extent of her comments.
For the second time that day, Jack was fidgeting.
He took the ramp onto I-5 heading south. “What, you’re not panting at the chance to spend the night with me?” He pushed, deliberately, loving the way she’d exit her placid state and bristle at him when he flirted.
“Oh, please.” She didn’t disappoint. “I’m sure you have a lo-o-ong line of women to call on for that.”
“You are, huh?” He was uncomfortably aware that he wasn’t taking his usual pride in his reputation. “What makes you think so?”
“Bonnie and Angela implied as much. And the way you act...”
“How do I act?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “‘What, you’re not panting at the chance to spend the night with me’?”
“Oh, that.” He made a dismissive sound. “That’s flirtation.”
“Reflexive and meaningless flirtation.”
“You think so?” He sent her a look. “I wouldn’t be so sure, Melissa.”
She snorted, which made him laugh, which made him nearly miss the exit onto I-90.
“So you have me pegged, huh?” He kept his voice light, but his chest was oddly tight. “A player who scores as often and as randomly as possible?”
“Let’s put it this way.” She matched his tone, but her eyes were serious. “Yes.”
He had to work to keep his smile going. For the first time in his life, Jack felt compelled to explain himself. “I’m not a player the way you think, Melissa. I’m not into one-night stands unless that’s all she wants. I’ve genuinely liked and respected every woman I’ve been with. I don’t keep score and I don’t use people.”
“And you don’t bring them home to meet your mother, either.”
“Are you kidding? And give her a heart attack from the shock?” He had to yank the wheel back to stay on course. Bad idea to stare at a laughing, beautiful woman while driving. “How many guys have you brought home to meet Dad?”
“Let’s see.” She brought up her hand to count on her fingers. “One. Two. Three...none.”
He sent her a grin, pleased she’d lightened up. Maybe she’d really understood. “No one worth it?”
“Nope.” She settled back into the seat, broadcasting Subject Closed. Jack turned onto Rainier Avenue, heading southeast. “So, besides being considerat
e of her nerves, are you close to your mother?”
Jack tightened his lips, wanting to share at least part of the story of his life, not sure what the consequences would be. “Not during childhood, though I am now. Not her fault. Dad took off when I was about the age you lost your mom. I didn’t react well.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry.” She spoke with sympathy that warmed him. “Though I don’t know what constitutes reacting well to the loss of a parent.”
“Good point. I ran pretty wild. It was hard on her.”
“I did the opposite.” She laughed disparagingly. “Stayed home every night, mothered my sister, took care of Dad and basically became Little Miss Responsible.”
“Hard at a young age.”
“So is spinning out of control.”
He gripped the steering wheel. He didn’t regret telling Melissa about his father’s desertion, but he knew what the consequences were now. Her understanding and empathy disconcerted him, made him want to withdraw into a nice heavy suit of man-armor she couldn’t penetrate.
It was a relief to enter the park and pull into a lot near the beginning of his favorite trail, one that wound through an old-growth forest of fir, cedar, maple and orange-trunked madrone trees, a color he’d love to photograph Melissa against.
They got out into the cool air. The piney smell of the park combined with the picturesque lake to make it one of the most evocative places around. The light was perfect, softening into evening; the sun would soon cast a faintly pinkish glow that would only intensify as the evening wore on and would bathe Melissa’s skin with gorgeous tones.
Jack inhaled deeply, then grabbed his camera bag out of the trunk. “Ready to walk? I’ll see if any of the vistas inspire me.”
“Sure.” Melissa was looking around blissfully. “It’s beautiful here.”
“We’ll get you posing and it will be even more beautiful.”
“In my tree-branch outfit?” She was teasing him, but all he took in was the way she carried herself, large eyes bright with mischief and intelligence, breeze lifting hair away from her cheeks, tinted pink in the soft sunlight. He pulled up his camera, aimed and got her, which made her go stiff with self-conscious laughter. “Shouldn’t I have snakes?”
“Done that.” He took another picture. “Something about your face begs to be photographed.”
“Ha! Photograph this.” She crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, pulled up the tip of her nose.
“Ooh, so hot.” Click. He aimed again, chuckling, feeling free in the great outdoors, giddy with the fresh air. “I’m hanging this one in the men’s room at Safeco Field. ‘For a good time, call Mel-lis-sa at—’”
“Uh, no. That one gets deleted ASAP.”
“But it has such good blackmail potential.”
“You’ve got plenty on me already.” She plunked her hands on her hips. “Snakes and apples and God knows what else you’ll do to me today.”
“True.” He grinned, she was grinning. The breeze died. The stillness around them was broken only by the nearby gentle lapping of waves. Melissa looked away, out over the water, down at her feet, then over to the trees, as if she had no idea where her gaze should go. He had an almost violent urge to kiss her, to feel those warm lips softening against his.
A car full of yelling kids pulled into the parking lot. Jack turned away. “Let’s walk.”
She matched his stride as they trudged along the nearly empty trail, Jack scanning the woods for likely settings. Half his mind was on today’s shoot—he envisioned Melissa among trees veiled in black and white, both widow and bride—and half on the woman beside him.
“How go the plans for your sister’s wedding?”
“Oh. They’re going.” She sounded dispirited, first time tonight. “I had a strange conversation with her right before you picked me up.”
“Yeah?” Their shoulders bumped; he wanted to grab her hand. It occurred to him their conversation tonight felt more friend to friend than photographer to model. He liked that; it felt easy and right.
“I got Angela, Bonnie and your services, all paid for by me, so she could have a really beautiful wedding. The kind my mom always talked about us having. Gretchen acted as if she was being forced to accept them.”
“Hmm.” He bumped into her again and deliberately used his next few steps to put more space between them. “Maybe she doesn’t want them.”
“How could she not?”
“Don’t ask me. But maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she and her fiancé want nothing to do with a traditional wedding. Not everyone does.”
“But that’s crazy.” Her voice was rising, but she looked thoughtful, as if she were considering his words.
“Hadn’t they made plans already?”
“Well...sort of. More like whatever they could throw together.”
“Maybe that’s how they wanted it. Not too planned, not too formal. Is that what they’re like?” He took a few more steps toward a clearing he could barely see deep in the woods, then noticed Melissa had stopped. She was standing frozen in the road, looking stricken. He walked back to her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I bet you’re right, Jack.” She could barely make sound. “I bet you’re right. I wanted Gretchen’s wedding to be the way I wanted it, not the way she did. I couldn’t even see that.”
He laughed without amusement. “Yeah, um, none of us are really experts at seeing our own flaws.”
“Flaws?” She glared at him in outrage. “You think I have flaws?”
He stared for a second, then cracked up a split second before her glare collapsed into laughter. Except hers had a few tears along with it.
“She tried to tell me. It’s obvious now. But she’s so sweet, she didn’t want to hurt me. God, Jack.” She shook her head, sniffling. “She was willing to have the wrong wedding to make me happy.”
“It’s not too late. You haven’t made anything go wrong.”
“No.” She wiped at her eyes. “No, you’re right. I haven’t. I’ll call her when I get home.”
“Good plan.”
“Jack.” Melissa stepped forward and laid her hand on his forearm, looking up at him with a sad brave smile that nearly gutted him. “You’ve done something really wonderful for me tonight.”
He had no idea what, but he felt a weird combination of proud pleasure and strangulation. “Aw, c’mon. It wasn’t really—”
“No, it was really important.” Her fingers tightened. “Tonight you’ve given me a gift by showing me that I’m an intolerant self-centered bulldozer of a person, and I don’t know how to thank—”
She was in his arms before he had time to realize he’d grabbed her to him, grinning like a fool, feeling her giggle helplessly against him.
Somehow he managed not to press his lips to her hair, her temple, her cheek. Melissa made him feel strangely powerful. Not like he felt when he’d seduced a woman. That was vanity, at best a very primitive power. This was different. He didn’t have words for it, but it was sweet. And also terrifying.
“Let’s find our photo spot, Ms. Bulldozer.” He let go of her reluctantly, keeping his voice nonchalant, and pointed to the clearing he’d been eyeing. “We should check that out. It’s calling my name.”
“Okay.” She wiped her eyes carefully again. “Oof. I should have brought more makeup.”
“You’re gorgeous.” He touched her cheek, golden and smooth pink in the softening light, as he’d anticipated. “Come on.”
He led the way to the clearing, bright enough for natural-light shots at a low speed. At the edge stood a madrone tree, its deep orangey-red bark covering a smooth, muscular trunk. Next to it, the weathered gray of an enormous red cedar made a perfect contrast. “Stand between those trees.”
Melissa stood obediently, dwarfed by the old-growth cedar, set off beautifully by the smaller madrone. Jack unpacked the veils from his bag and gave them to her to experiment with while he set up his equipment.
“Am I bride or widow first?”
&nbs
p; “Whichever you want.”
“Widow, then.”
“Kill off the guy, huh?” He set up his tripod, checking the distance, making sure the ground was firm under his equipment. Then he took a few shots, testing the light. Her features were still visible under the loose-weave netting, just the way he’d hoped.
“Put your hands out to the side, pushing against both trees. Yes, like that. Like Samson. Pretend that you’re trying to change the world. Your world.”
She pushed. “Like this?”
He looked through the lens, pressed the shutter release once, then again.
No. Not like that.
“Try...both arms on one tree.” He checked again, took more shots. Tried a few more of the poses he’d envisioned. Then tried them spontaneously without the veils. She was lovely, the light hit her perfectly, the composition was outstanding; his instinct hadn’t failed him. But the pictures lacked...something.
Really? Or did they only seem that way in comparison to their last session on Sunday? He didn’t know, felt cut adrift again from his art. But this time he wouldn’t panic. This time he’d trust that they’d be able to find their way together to a solution.
Half an hour later he called a break, took a deep breath, worrying about the light, which would move and fade all too soon. The shoot was still not going well. The pictures were exquisite, but cold. They felt too familiar, too easy, and were missing whatever Pierre had seen in the ones Jack had shown him. This exhibit was supposed to be taking a new direction. It was possible Jack was too pressured by the deadline, feeling he had to come up with something brilliant immediately. Or pressured by Pierre’s compliments for the Eve pictures. Or too distracted by Melissa to get what he really wanted.
When he most needed his muse to work for him, she’d deserted him. Why always with Melissa? Last time it was because he hadn’t let her take the lead and spark his creativity, show him where his art wanted to go. Maybe he needed to let go again.
“Forget the veils. Try something else.”
“Me?” She pointed to herself incredulously.
“Yeah. What do the woods say to you? To your body? What do they suggest?”
“That only I can prevent forest fires?”
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