Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts

by D. F. Jones

  Dalton read the magazine.

  Was he hoping to impress her when he and Nana came to New York?

  He pointed toward the five-mile trail. “We better get going if we want to make it back before dark.”

  She shut the passenger door and joined him.

  Leaving the campground behind, they walked through a pass in the eons-old siltstone. The trail descending to the ancient riverbed quickly turned narrow and steep. She let Dalton take the lead so she could pause and snap photos of the sloping, eroded cliffs.

  Halfway to the bottom, he veered off the trail. “There’s an interesting spot over here.”

  She pressed her camera protectively against her chest and picked her way between two massive, tilted rocks. When she caught up to him, he lay beside a silver sagebrush bush in a sunny dead end. Her backpack and gear sat nearby.

  “I thought it might be cool to take a picture of the sky through the branches.” He scrambled to his feet and motioned for her to take his place.

  His enthusiasm was contagious. She untied her shirttails, stretched out on the ground, and peered through her viewfinder. The shot he suggested wasn’t a contest winner, but she snapped several pictures anyway. She’d frame the best one for him as a thank-you for his assistance.

  As soon as she reattached the lens cap, he extended his hand, fingers bent at the knuckles.

  She recognized the grip immediately. They’d invented it in the eighth grade as a special way to help each other stand when the announcer called their track and field events. She hooked her fingers over his, stiffened her arm, and let him pull her up.

  When she was steady on her feet, she met his smile with her own. They’d had some good times in the past. Remembering one or two might help her broken heart to mend. She desperately wanted to fall in love again. She was tired of being alone.

  “Ready?” Dalton still held her hand.

  “Let’s go.” She pulled free and fussed with her camera strap until she was sure her expression revealed none of her secret yearnings.

  They returned to the trail, hiked down to the riverbed, and stepped into an otherworldly landscape. Fantastical, toadstool-shaped hoodoos lined the canyon walls, etched by millions of years of water and wind. It wasn’t hard to imagine an ancient community of hobbits dwelling in the huge rock formations.

  The tips of her fingers prickled. This was the spot. Wild. Uncommon. Magical.

  Now to identify the best shot.

  “Stay here. I need to concentrate.” She didn’t bother to remind him this was why she’d wanted to come alone.

  Camera raised, she walked along the meandering riverbed and snapped test pictures. When the canyon finally widened again, and the hoodoos ended, she stopped and scanned the images she’d taken.

  In bright daylight, the fantastical cliffs were the color of bleached bones. She needed more contrasts. The setting sun would create shadows in the panorama, but would that be enough to get a prize-winning shot?

  There was only one way to find out—and it wasn’t good news.

  Chapter 5

  Dalton rechecked his watch. Trish had been gone over an hour, and the sun would soon slip behind the west-side cliff.

  She’d ordered him to stay back while she took her experimental shots, but if she had twisted an ankle or bumped her head, her cries for help might not snake around the hoodoo-lined cliffs.

  He grabbed his thermos and sprinted in her direction. The thuds of his hiking boots echoed in his ears as he rounded several bends and didn’t see her. He should have insisted on accompanying her or followed at a stealthy distance.

  If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.

  After racing around another blind curve, he spotted her leaning against a boulder, her camera aimed at a spectacular section of hoodoos. Relieved, he slowed his pace and held out his thermos as if she’d sent him for water, and he was simply following orders.

  “Thirsty?” he asked.

  “Thanks.” She traded her camera for the thermos and took a long drink.

  He took care not to smudge the uncapped lens and tilted his head toward the cliff. “Is that your shot?”

  “I hope so. I won’t know for half an hour, maybe longer. It depends on the shadows.”

  Thanks to an article in last month’s photography magazine, he didn’t have to ask her to explain. To overcome the lack of a primary focus, such as a person or a prominent structure, create a sense of movement.

  Shadows could do that, provided one snapped an image every twenty or thirty seconds. However, waiting for the longest, most dramatic shadows this far from the trail meant they’d probably have to spend the night in the canyon and hike up at daybreak.

  Too proud to admit he hadn’t anticipated this possibility, he pulled from his pocket one of the protein bars he’d found in a side pocket of her pack. “Hungry?”

  She shook her head. “You eat it. I have half a nacho grande in your truck.”

  “That might be our breakfast.”

  “Yes.” Trish shot him a quick, sideways glance. “It might.”

  A flush crept up the back of his neck. She’d tried to warn him he wasn’t prepared to come along.

  Still, this turn of events was actually quite good. The weather was mild. If her shadow images didn’t pan out, she could focus on the starry sky, and they could talk—just like they’d done after graduation.

  Back then, they’d driven miles out of town so she could practice taking galaxy shots. As they waited for the sky to fill with starlight, they’d sat in the bed of his old pickup and talked about their goals for the future. His was to be a fourth-generation banker, nurturing his community so it wouldn’t die a slow death like other rural Nebraska towns. Hers was to have an exciting career and someday a family.

  They’d talked less in July. Even less in August.

  His chest tightened with hindsight. He’d quit listening first.

  Vowing to do better now, he held out her camera. “I’ll be right back with your gear.” He turned and jogged away.

  “Be careful,” she called. “Hiking boots aren’t made for running.”

  When Dalton disappeared around the first bend, Trisha heaved a sigh of relief. She’d expected him to get upset when he learned they’d have to spend the night in the canyon.

  She had two perfectly reasonable excuses. He’d insisted on coming along, and a photograph of the midnight sky between the cliffs might turn out to be her best one.

  Now that they were deep in the canyon, she was glad he had accompanied her. Three questions had plagued her since he dumped her unexpectedly seven years ago.

  What made him think she wasn’t serious about becoming a professional photographer? Why didn’t he tell her he wanted to break up before she left for college? And, how could he have let her be blindsided by Vanessa and humiliated in front of everyone in the bank?

  She’d get her answers even if it took all night. She would feel empty when he finally admitted he’d never truly loved her, but empty was better than shattered. An empty heart could refill.

  Eager to get on with her life, she checked her camera’s memory card. At three shots a minute, the card had plenty of room to test how the shadows lengthened. Then she’d switch to a backup card and take progressive exposures of the night-time sky. If one wasn’t a standout, she might be able to edit them into a star trail image.

  The tips of her fingers tingled with anticipation as she programmed the shutter timer. Her camera battery was at twenty percent. As soon as Dalton returned, she’d switch batteries, level her tripod, and fine-tune the focus settings.

  Minutes ticked by.

  She swung an impatient gaze along the riverbed.

  What was taking him so long? She needed her light meter. If he hadn’t insisted on carrying her gear, she’d have it right now.

  She shoved her shirttails into her jeans.

  He burst into view and hurried up, his hands holding her camera cases so they wouldn’t bounce against his chest.
He lifted the straps over his head, set down her bags, and shrugged free of her backpack. “I’ll set up your tripod. Shoulder height?”

  “Right.” The tripod was the no-frills one she’d used in college. She’d let him extend the legs, then attach the camera and level it herself.

  He slid the aluminum stand out of its black case as she unzipped her camera bag and found her light meter. He worked quickly, spreading and locking the legs. Then he removed the quick release plate, locked it onto the base of her camera, and attached her camera to the tripod head.

  She finished switching batteries and picked up her light meter. “I’m impressed. Can you level it, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Online tutorials are a man’s best friend.” He gestured toward her hand. “Haven’t mastered that gadget.”

  “It took me a while.” She glanced up at the sky. “Sun’s about to set behind us. Let’s hurry.”

  Trusting he knew what to do, she handed him her camera, walked to the center of the riverbed, and aimed her light meter at the tiers of mushroom-shaped hoodoos lining the canyon wall. When she returned, the ball of air in each level bubble was centered. “Good job.”

  She adjusted her focus, plugged in the remote shutter control, and set it to snap a picture every five seconds. “Here goes.”

  Shadows sprouted from the stems of the hoodoos. As they grew, she stood beside the tripod and searched for a fantastical shape to be the focal point of a winning photograph.

  Before she located one, the ambient light dimmed. The shadows lost their promising individuality and melted into dark puddles.

  Her stomach clenched. They’d gone to all this trouble for nothing. If they hurried to pack up, they could climb out of the canyon before it was pitch dark and pick their way to Dalton’s truck by cell phone light.

  “Trish.”

  She lifted her camera off the tripod and snapped on the lens cap. She’d find another landscape contest to enter. Upstate New York possessed some great scenery.

  “Trish.”

  She didn’t need an admission from Dalton. No matter how heartfelt, his apology wouldn’t mend her broken heart. She needed to fit the pieces back together herself.

  “Trish!”

  “What?” Her shout cracked like a whip.

  He seized her shoulders and spun her around.

  Red and green streaks lit the hoodoos lining the east-facing cliff.

  “How?” she sputtered.

  “Volcanic ash in the sandstone,” he said quickly. “It absorbs light during the day and reflects it at dusk.”

  Her pulse pounded with an excitement she hadn’t felt since her school days. The tiers of mushroom-shaped rock seemed alive, embedded with flickering neon lights. Her fears about love and loss slipped off her shoulders as she peered through her viewfinder and corrected the focus.

  Time slowed until she was conscious of the pressure of her toes against the smooth rock riverbed and the whoosh of each breath in and out of her lungs. Then those sensations slipped away, and all she cared about was capturing the beauty before her.

  She snapped a picture of the glow, aimed higher, and snapped another.

  And another.

  When the colors faded, Dalton eased the lens-heavy camera from Trish’s grip. “Did you get a winning shot?”

  “No.” She grinned like a kid on Christmas morning. “But I’ll be able to take the winning shot tomorrow. Do you know Mr. Bergstrom’s email address?”

  He scrunched his face like he always did when she confused him. “I imagine it’s @tbergstrom at the school. Why?”

  Her hand brushed against his as she unplugged the shutter remote cord. “I need Photoshop to stack the images. The light is too faint in one single image, but if I blend multiple images, the colors will intensify.”

  He’d seen articles about optimizing images in the photography magazine, but they were laced with technical terms and techniques he didn’t understand. The before and after pictures told him what he needed to know—the ability to edit the light in an image separated the amateurs from the pros.

  “I’m sure Mr. Bergstrom will let me use one of the school’s computers.” She knelt and started to pack up her equipment. “We’ll need headlamps to climb out of here tomorrow night. If you can’t find any in Stevensville, you’ll have to drive to Scottsbluff. The deadline to enter the contest is noon the day after tomorrow. The timetable’s tight, but I think we can do it.”

  She stood and handed him the tripod case. “Carry the backpack, too.”

  He blinked. In the past, he’d bristled whenever she barked orders at him. He’d felt threatened, as if giving in made him inferior.

  What a fool he’d been. Doing her bidding on a location shoot meant she trusted him. They were a team. Partners. Maybe for more than getting a winning picture for her contest.

  He slung her pack onto his back. “I found a good spot to spend the night.”

  “Near the trail, I hope.” Holding her camera case protectively, she set off at a determined clip and looked back over her shoulder. “We have to start up at daybreak.”

  Thanks to his long legs, he caught up to her easily. “It’s close.”

  He glanced up. They couldn’t have picked a nicer night to camp out. The air was calm. The first star twinkled in the sky. A blanket to cozy up under would be nice, but they had jackets and body heat. He’d kept her warm before, and he could do it again.

  They entered a narrow section of the canyon. Straining to see in the scant light, he stepped in front of her, prepared to suffer the bump if a phantom proved to be solid rock. Something winged whooshed past his head, the sound trailing the shadowy silhouette like thunder after lightning.

  Behind him, Trish cried out in fright. She was irrationally afraid of bats.

  “It’s an owl,” he said reassuringly. “Coming to see if we were a parade of mice.”

  “We’re not,” she shouted. “No need to take a second look.”

  He sensed, more than saw, the next bend in the riverbed. He also knew that talking would take Trish’s mind off the not-bats. “Remember when you cleared five feet in the high jump?”

  “Yeah. Scottsbluff Junior High figured they could beat every small town at the meet.”

  “You took first place.”

  “So did you,” she said. “In the sixteen hundred and thirty-two hundred.”

  “We didn’t win the meet.”

  “Second place was darn good. We beat Morrill, Mitchell, and Lyman.” She paused. “Nana said you still run.”

  “Keeps me in shape.” He thumped his chest. “I sit behind a desk all day. Best way I know to get flabby.”

  “People in New York walk a lot.”

  “I thought they ran to catch the subway and to avoid speeding taxis.”

  “You and your old movies.” She laughed. “You should come and see the reality for yourself.”

  “Is that an invitation?” His heart skipped a beat. He already had a ticket.

  “Maybe. Where’s this shelter you said you found?”

  The canyon widened. He counted his steps, just like he’d done before he returned with her camera gear. “It should be right about here.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and shined a light on a chest-high slab of stone that tented a huge upright rock and an indentation in the canyon wall. “Out of the wind and protected from unidentified flying objects.” He swung her pack and tripod case off his back, sat down, and scooched butt-first into the canyon cubby.

  She opened her pack, tossed him his two jackets, and donned hers. When he finished zipping, she backed in beside him and pulled in her gear.

  He spread his second jacket over their legs, turned off his phone’s flashlight, and waited for his eyes to adapt to the gloom again. “This is nice. Almost like we’re at a drive-in movie theater. I wonder what time the show starts.”

  As if in response, a pinprick light streaked across the sky.

  She giggled. “There’s the first coming attraction. Got enough b
utter on your popcorn?”

  He pretended to toss an exploded kernel of popcorn into the air and catch it with his mouth. “Yep. Tastes good.” He propped his back against the smooth rock and crossed his ankles. “Do you want to look at the images you took?”

  “Okay.” Without needing a light, she opened her case, lifted her camera, and turned it on. Back straight, she sat cross-legged and angled the screen so they both could see it.

  She studied each image, uttering small hums of approval or soft groans of disapproval. Several images were blurry—it was impossible to hold a camera perfectly still during an entire series. She deleted those, then started from the beginning again, this time going through the pictures faster, like a flipbook.

  He noted the changes in the colors of light. “So, you’re going to layer images on top of each other?”

  “Blending the images will intensify the glow.” Her shoulder rubbed against his as she ran repeatedly through the series, making comments and debating technical adjustments.

  She spoke more to herself than to him, but his recent efforts to learn about photography paid off. He understood some of what she said and enjoyed hearing what sailed over his head.

  He waited until she shut off her camera and returned it to its case. Night settled around them, still and very dark. Ideal for confessions.

  “I’m sorry, Trish.”

  “For what?” Her voice sounded hesitant—as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he was about to say.

  “For taking so long to appreciate why you pour your heart and soul into composing each picture.”

  She stiffened. The heels of her boots scraped the riverbed as she scooted as far away from him as their confined space allowed.

  He wanted to pull her back but couldn’t claim the right.

  “What did you think I was doing?” she huffed.

  His cheeks heated. “I thought you should be less interested in photography and more interested in being my girlfriend.”