by Ruth Wind
He nodded, his eyes on the view. "I remember your landscape work. Have you worked with this view?" he asked without thinking, then backtracked. "Sorry. Didn't mean to get personal."
"That's a logical question to ask a photographer," she said. Her voice was still as cool, as matter-of-fact as if he were a complete stranger. She clipped the last camera closed and brushed a wisp of hair from her face. "I haven't worked from this window. The grade is too deep for the camera, and the glass would cause reflections, but I have done some shots from the gate, just outside. It has the same view."
"Do you do any art photos now, or only commercial work?"
The pale gray eyes fixed on the distant landscape. "I haven't wanted to," she said, almost bemused, "until I came home. The light here … it's a cliché to say that people come to Taos for the light, but it really is different. It changes every minute, and the colors, the quality – it's just not like anywhere else." She brought her attention back to the room. To Eli. "Have you traveled much?"
It might have been an opening to friendship, but somehow her tone made clear it was the sort of small talk she made on a set with any bystander. He folded his hands. "I have to travel on business now, but I never stay away for long." He paused. "I have never wished to leave. This is my home."
"Mine, too," she said, and smiled wistfully, as if she would not be able to claim it.
Teresa came back, sparing him a reply. Eli swore without thinking, and his niece giggled. "What is that?" he asked.
"It's mine," Sarah said.
Hers. Eli stared, trying not to imagine how that bare little dress would look on her. It was a black leather minidress with laces up the front, and left Teresa's shoulders and arms bare. The neatly curled hair had been teased into disarray. "You like it?" she said, tossing her head. Big gold hoops shone at her ears.
"Absolutely perfect." Sarah took the purple bag and gestured for Teresa to sit down. "We're going to do some hard glamour shots. Major makeup time."
"Cool!" Her eyes widened as she saw the contents of the bag. "Oh, wow. Look at all of this. Is all of it yours?"
"Heavens, no. I rarely wear much makeup, but I have spent a small fortune figuring out how to get special looks, and a stylist doesn't always have what I need, so I keep this with me. Everywhere."
"Yvonne will die when I tell her."
"Be still and let me do this."
Curious, Eli watched Sarah transform his young, fresh-faced niece into a steamy siren. In the black leather mini, with her hair teased all around her face and the makeup lending a good six or seven years, Teresa looked nothing like herself. "Your mother will kill me when she sees these pictures," he said.
"Part of the game," Sarah said with a wave of her hand. "Her book should have a little of everything." She put a stool in the middle of the room, and bid Teresa sit down. "I have to shoot with the light over my shoulder for this, so I'm going to need you to work a little more formally this time. We're going to do some different moods – maybe some haughty poses, and then some really sexy ones. The trick is to make yourself into that haughty person, think about things that make you feel arrogant. Maybe pretend I'm that person you feel superior to. Then—" she glanced over Teresa's shoulder to Eli "—we're going to do really sexy. Should I make Eli leave, or can you do it with him behind you?"
Teresa shot a glance over her shoulder. "I can do it even if he's watching."
"Scamp," he said, and settled back in the chair.
* * *
Chapter 5
«^»
In the long, light-drenched studio, Sarah worked with a sense of growing excitement she kept carefully hidden under a professional demeanor. She'd been delighted to see that the girl had excellent bone structure, with high cheekbones, smooth brow and a straight, delicate nose. The camera loved the way the light caught on those planes. Teresa also had the right eyes, very large and dark and expressive, and best of all, she had The Mouth. Models paid a lot of money to plastic surgeons for lips like this, a kind of mouth that was natural in Teresa's face.
Millions of girls were pretty and had the right features, but went utterly dead in front of the camera. Teresa loved it, played to it, drew up a dazzling array of emotions, from coquettish to sultry to little girl; from pensive to mischievous to gleeful and giggling. Sarah would wait to say anything until after she saw the contacts, just to be sure, but long experience told her Teresa had what it took. Sarah even had some ideas of the best way to develop a "look" that would make her stand out in the crowd of model wannabes that crowded New York every season.
She carefully hid her feelings, however, sending Teresa out to change once again, this time into a Western-style jean jacket with silver studs. Sarah draped her with turquoise and strands of liquid silver. "Perfect," she murmured to herself. "Let's do this outside, with the adobe and the vigas and flowers."
She shot several more rolls outside, wishing the light had already gone golden, but that would not happen for several more hours. Still, it was a good background, the freshness of the cosmos reflecting the freshness of the girl. Teresa, exuberant, did a laughing little dance in front of the flowers, and Sarah captured it all. Behind, in the overhang of the porch, stood Eli, and he was an excellent, blurry addition, suggesting a fantasy of the mysterious Western man.
Impulsively, she zoomed in on him. He leaned negligently against a carved post, staring off into the distance, one foot crossed over the other. With the camera's eye, she narrowed in on his carved face. Click. On his neck, brown and long at the opening of his simple dark blue jean shirt. Click. On his right hand, one thumb tucked into a belt loop of his jeans. Click. On his long, lean legs. Click.
She realized he was looking at her through the lens, and wondered if he knew she was shooting him. Between them, Teresa jumped and danced and played, and Sarah pretended that was what she was shooting. He wouldn't be able to tell that she was focusing on his face, on his sober eyes and beautiful mouth. She pressed her finger down hard. Click, click, click, click. Something swooped through her belly, and with a tight sense of warning she lowered the camera. He didn't look away.
Sarah did. "I think that's enough for today," she said, and glanced at her watch. "I have to be somewhere for dinner."
"With your father?" Eli said, his mouth twisting the faintest bit.
She lifted her brows. "Yes."
He shook his head with faint disgust. "Go get your things together, Teresa."
"Okay. What do you think, Ms. Greenwood?" she asked. "Any hope for me?"
"I'll let you know when I've developed the film." She wanted to be cool, but couldn't resist pushing a hank of Teresa's heavy dark hair over her shoulder. "I will say it was an excellent session. Even if you don't have what it takes to make it in New York or Hollywood, there is no reason in the world you can't do some catalog work, especially if you wanted to play up an ethnic look. It's very big right now." She grinned. "You're a natural, after all."
"Really?" It pleased her more than Sarah expected. "Oh, thank you!"
Touched, Sarah added, "I'll get the proofs done tonight, and no matter what we decide about a whole portfolio, you should have some good shots to put in your book. I'll help you pick out the best ones."
Teresa went to change, and Sarah took the last of the film out of the camera, suddenly nervous to be with Eli alone in the courtyard. He came closer, stopping just short of joining her. "A good day's work," she said, rolling the small cold spools in her hands.
"Thank you, Sarah, for doing it. I expected you all morning to call and cancel."
She jerked her head up. "Why?"
But even before she met the depth of his gaze, she remembered standing in the circle of his embrace, feeling his chest move, when they danced last night. The memory, safely shut off until this moment when his nearness brought it back, rushed through her, lighting little fires against her inner wrists and under her breastbone. "Oh," she said softly.
"Oh?" he repeated. "Just 'oh'? You forgot until now?" There was
something lost about him, standing there with his hands at his sides – something that looked vulnerable and perplexed. Sarah was filled with an unaccountable sense of protectiveness. "Eli," she said quietly. And could think of nothing to say after.
"How did you learn to do that?" he asked.
She didn't know what he meant and shook her head, frowning, wishing she could answer, because the question was earnest.
"You run, but you really escape. You turn it off. Everything." His voice held a raw note. "I have this dream, sometimes, when I'm—" He shook his head. Closed his mouth hard. "Never mind."
She stepped down from the porch. One step, but it brought her so close she could whisper to him, so close she could again smell his skin, unsullied now by cologne. Only the scent of Eli, a smell of desert winds. It gave her such a deep sense of pleasure, pleasure blurred into a thousand images, imagined and remembered that she thought nothing for a moment, but simply grasped the feeling and breathed it inside her.
Then, because she knew he needed an answer, she said, "I stop looking at everything and look at just one thing." She had a camera in her hand and held it out to him. "One square of the world."
He hesitated, looking at the heavy black camera for a minute, then took it from her in a rush, as if he were afraid he might lose courage. A fleeting impression of his long hand snagged in her brain, a single snapshot of him that she could manage.
Lifting the camera, he looked through the lens. "Just focus on something," Sarah said. "Turn that wheel right there." She illustrated by putting her hand on his, then stepped back as he seemed to focus on the pink and white cosmos, then maybe the rolling blue mountains visible over the gate.
He turned to face her. She could see only his mouth, carved like one she'd seen on a Renaissance statue in Italy, a mouth sensually full and richly shaped, but disciplined, too. Firm. She wondered what he saw through the camera.
"One gray eye," he said, as if he'd heard the question. "With very long eyelashes. There is a charcoal color on the edge of the iris, which looks like a crystal." A faint frown traced his brow and he lowered the camera, as if to affirm what he saw, then lifted it again. "I never saw that before, that charcoal."
She gazed at the impersonal blueish lens, staying still. He said nothing, but the lens moved once, then again. She couldn't tell what he examined. It didn't matter. It seemed a small enough gift to give him, after … after everything.
"You have little lines around your eyes now," he said quietly.
She laughed. "Thank you for pointing that out."
He didn't return the smile, only moved the camera again, stepping back as if to see her whole body. "And you have breasts now."
"A gentleman wouldn't admit to looking at a woman's breasts."
"A gentleman wouldn't admit it, but he would still be doing it." He lowered the camera for a moment. A ghost of a smile hovered around his mouth.
A thread of connection rose between them in that moment, an almost visible link that had somehow survived the violence that had separated them. Sarah felt it, a many-fingered root in her heart, wounded but still intact. And she saw by the dawning recognition on Eli's face that he felt it, too.
Teresa came outside, her face scrubbed clean, her hair tied in a loose knot at her neck. "I'm ready!"
Eli gave Sarah the camera back. "Thank you. I'll remember your trick."
Sarah nodded.
"Thank you, Ms. Greenwood," Teresa said. Her arms were full of clothes. Eli took some of her burden and Teresa stuck out her hand. "I'm very grateful."
"My pleasure."
"Thank you, Sarah," Eli said, though he didn't try to shake her hand. As he passed through the gate, he turned just a little. "Give my regards to Garth, eh?" His lips turned up in a bitter, knowing smile.
Sarah did not let him goad her. "I will, Elias."
* * *
Her father was not well when Sarah arrived. The day had been very hot, and now a wind had begun to blow, kicking up dust and pollen, leaving the smell of ragweed in the air. Garth sat in his recliner, wheezing, his cheeks flushed an unhealthy mottled red, and kept his inhaler at the ready.
"Damned wind," he muttered. "Need a good thunderstorm." Irritably, he flipped through the channels with his remote, so fast she couldn't even tell what he was looking at before he flipped again. It drove her crazy.
"Why don't you look in the listings, Dad? Find something that might take your mind off things."
"I don't want to."
She suppressed a smile. "How about if I look for you?"
"Go ahead."
Calmly she leafed through the newspaper guide. "Let's see. There's a lot here – a good western on TNT. Reruns of 'Bewitched'. You always liked Samantha."
"What channel?"
Sarah told him and he punched the numbers. It was a very old episode, in black and white, but finding it seemed to please him. He put the remote down. "You know why I liked her?" he said. "Because she reminds me of your mother when she was young."
"I can see that." Sarah smiled. "That's a pretty sweet confession for a grouchy old cop."
"She's pretty, your mom. You look a lot like her now."
"Thanks. People actually tell me I look like you, though."
"Is that right?" He pulled his mouth down, studying her face. "I reckon you do, a little."
Sarah looked back at his hard chin, the straight, bold nose she'd inherited and hated as an adolescent. As she'd grown older, she'd grown to like the way it changed her ordinary, all-American face into something just a little different, a little surprising. She patted his arm. "A lot, according to Jerry Wall. I saw him on my way up here this afternoon." Jerry was one of her father's pals from the department. "He said they're ready for you anytime you want to get back to it."
"Desk job," he said disdainfully. "Don't want it."
"You aren't well yet. Maybe a desk job will look better when you've had some time to heal."
His face closed. "Maybe."
"I'm going to help Mom get supper on the table. You need anything?"
A wind gusted against the house, with a brief, hard whoof and a scattering of tiny pebbles against the window. Garth started wheezing and fumbled with his inhaler. "No, thanks," he said, breathlessly. "I'll wait for supper."
In the kitchen, Sarah asked Mabel, "What's with Mr. Cheerful tonight?"
"Ah, they gave him those darned steroids again. They make him grouchy." She lifted a pan of steaming spaghetti noodles from the stove and carried it to the sink where a colander waited. "And the wind's not helping. Surely you remember how grouchy he gets when it's windy."
Sarah took cloth napkins, washed to a flannel softness, from the drawer. "I had forgotten." From the next drawer she counted out forks and knives. "Isn't there any other way to treat him besides the drugs?"
"For your father?" Mabel rolled her eyes and shook the noodles, then turned on the water in the sink to rinse them. "I keep telling him he ought to try some alternative therapies, but he won't have it." She roughed her voice. "'Nobody's gonna mumbo-jumbo over me.'"
"Stubborn should be his middle name." Sarah chuckled.
"Look who's talking!"
Genuinely surprised, Sarah halted with plates and silver in her hands. "Me? I'm not stubborn."
Her mother hooted. Carrying the pot of noodles to the table, she said, "Who would not wear anything but six inches of dangling earrings when the school made them against dress code?"
Sarah put the plates on the table, smiling in spite of herself. "That was a matter of principle."
"Ah. Who painted her room three inches at a time until it was the checkerboard she wasn't allowed to have?"
Her smile widened. "Again, personal freedom."
"And who dated a boy behind our backs for three years no matter what?"
Sarah halted. "Low blow, Mom."
Mabel scowled. "Don't you start, too. It's been more than a decade, Sarah. Don't you think it's time a person could actually say his name in your presence?"
She thought of Elias standing by the gate this afternoon, his mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. "No."
"And you aren't stubborn at all, are you?"
Startled, Sarah let go of a small, surprised shout of laughter. "Okay. Maybe a little." She stuck her head around the door. "Come on, Dad, time to eat." She looked at her mother. "I still don't want to talk about it."
"Like father, like daughter," Mabel said, but let the subject go.
Unfortunately, Garth's irritable mood led right back it. Over the last of his spaghetti, he said, out of the blue, "Sarah, do you think you're ever going to forgive me?"
Sarah put her fork down carefully. Of course it wasn't out of the blue – he'd likely overheard the conversation between her and her mother. She said again, "I don't know how many times I have to say this. I don't want to talk about the past. Not any of it. Why is it so hard to respect that?"
He pursed his lips, a sure sign he was digging in his heels. "It seems important, Sarah. We need to get it out in the open."
"Why? What possible good will it do?" She found herself pushing away from the table – ready to flee if necessary – and took a deep breath. "I'm here. Isn't that enough?"
"It haunts me," he said. "Some nights I lie there for hours, going over and over and over it, wishing I'd done—"
"Done what?" she asked sharply. "Let me marry Eli? Let us have our baby?" He looked appalled, and she smiled bitterly. "Not even in your regrets does it ever go that far, does it, Dad?"
"Sarah, that's enough," Mabel said.
But there was such a river of clean hot anger running down in her now that Sarah couldn't stop. "You've been trying to knock my walls down since I got here. I keep telling you to stop, telling you that you won't like what's behind them. If you want to heal this relationship, you have to leave the past alone." She stood up, vaguely aware she was breathing hard. "You want me to forgive you, but the bottom line is, I can't. I haven't forgiven myself." She threw down her napkin, slapping her palms down on the table to lean over him. "You want to talk about sleepless nights? I have a few to tell you about. You want to hear about those?"
