by Nora Roberts
By the time they crossed the border into Arizona, at the end of the first week, she was already finding it an uncomfortable way to work.
It was hot. The sun was merciless. The van’s air-conditioning helped, but just looking out at the endless desert and faded sage made the mouth dry. Bryan had an enormous paper cup filled with soda and ice. Shade drank bottled iced tea as he drove.
She estimated that they hadn’t exchanged a word for fifty-seven miles. Nor had they spoken much that morning when they’d set up to shoot, each in separate territory, at Glen Canyon in Utah. Bryan might be pleased with the study she’d done of the cars lined up at the park’s entrance, but she was growing weary of their unspoken agreement of segregation.
The magazine had hired them as a team, she reminded herself. Each of them would take individual pictures, naturally, but there had to be some communication if the photo essay were to have any cohesion. There had to be some blending if the final result was the success both of them wanted. Compromise, she remembered with a sigh. They’d forgotten the operative word.
Bryan thought she knew Shade well enough at this point to be certain he’d never make the first move. He was perfectly capable of driving thousands of miles around the country without saying her name more than once a day. As in, Pass the salt, Bryan.
She could be stubborn. Bryan thought about it as she brooded out the window at the wide stretches of Arizona. She could be just as aloof as he. And, she admitted with a grimace, she could bore herself to death within another twenty-four hours.
Contact, she decided. She simply couldn’t survive without some kind of contact. Even if it was with a hard-edged, casually rude cynic. Her only choice was to swallow her pride and make the first move herself. She gritted her teeth, gnawed on ice and thought about it for another ten minutes.
“Ever been to Arizona?”
Shade tossed his empty bottle into the plastic can they used for trash. “No.”
Bryan pried off one sneaker with the toe of the other. If at first you don’t succeed, she told herself. “They filmed Outcast in Sedona. Now that was a tough, thinking-man’s Western,” she mused, and received no response. “I spent three days there covering the filming for Celebrity.” After adjusting her sun visor, she sat back again. “I was lucky enough to miss my plane and get another day. I spent it in Oak Creek Canyon. I’ve never forgotten it—the colors, the rock formations.”
It was the longest speech she’d made in days. Shade negotiated the van around a curve and waited for the rest.
Okay, she thought, she’d get more than one word out of him if she had to use a crowbar. “A friend of mine settled there. Lee used to work for Celebrity. Now she’s a novelist with her first book due out in the fall. She married Hunter Brown last year.”
“The writer?”
Two words, she thought, smug. “Yes, have you read his stuff?”
This time Shade merely nodded and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. Bryan began to sympathize with dentists who had to coax a patient to open wide.
“I’ve read everything he’s written, then I hate myself for letting his books give me nightmares.”
“Good horror fiction’s supposed to make you wake up at 3:00 A.M. and wonder if you’ve locked your doors.”
This time she grinned. “That sounds like something Hunter would say. You’ll like him.”
Shade merely moved his shoulders. He’d agreed to the stop in Sedona already, but he wasn’t interested in taking flattering, commercial pictures of the occult king and his family. It would, however, give Shade the break he needed. If he could dump Bryan off for a day or two with her friends, he could take the time to get his system back to normal.
He hadn’t had an easy moment since the day they’d started out of L.A. Every day that went by only tightened his nerves and played havoc with his libido. He’d tried, but it wasn’t possible to forget she was there within arm’s reach at night, separated from him only by the width of the van and the dark.
Yes, he could use a day away from her, and that natural, easy sexuality she didn’t even seem aware of.
“You haven’t seen them for a while?” he asked her.
“Not in months.” Bryan relaxed, more at ease now that they’d actually begun a two-way conversation. “Lee’s a good friend. I’ve missed her. She’ll have a baby about the same time her book comes out.”
The change in her voice had him glancing over. There was something softer about her now. Almost wistful.
“A year ago, we were both still with Celebrity, and now…” She turned to him, but the shaded glasses hid her eyes. “It’s odd thinking of Lee settled down with a family. She was always more ambitious than me. It used to drive her crazy that I took everything with such a lack of intensity.”
“Do you?”
“Just about everything,” she murmured. Not you, she thought to herself. I don’t seem to be able to take you easily. “It’s simpler to relax and live,” she went on, “than to worry about how you’ll be living next month.”
“Some people have to worry if they’ll be living next month.”
“Do you think the fact they worry about it changes things?” Bryan forgot her plan to make contact, forgot the fact that she’d been groping for some sort of compromise from him. He’d seen more than she’d seen of the world, of life. She had to admit that he’d seen more than she wanted to see. But how did he feel about it?
“Being aware can change things. Looking out for yourself’s a priority some of us haven’t a choice about.”
Some of us. She noted the phrase but decided not to pounce on it. If he had scars, he was entitled to keep them covered until they’d faded a bit more.
“Everyone worries from time to time,” she decided. “I’m just not very good at it. I suppose it comes from my parents. They’re…” She trailed off and laughed. It occurred to him he hadn’t heard her laugh in days, and that he’d missed it. “I guess they’re what’s termed bohemians. We lived in this little house in Carmel that was always in varying states of disrepair. My father would get a notion to take out a wall or put in a window, then in the middle of the project, he’d get an inspiration, go back to his canvases and leave the mess where it lay.”
She settled back, no longer aware that she was doing all the talking and Shade all the listening. “My mother liked to cook. Trouble was, you’d never know what mood she’d be in. You might have grilled rattlesnake one day, cheeseburgers the next. Then, when you least expected it, there’d be gooseneck stew.”
“Gooseneck stew?”
“I ate at the neighbors’ a lot.” The memory brought on her appetite. Taking out two candy bars, she offered one to Shade. “How about your parents?”
He unwrapped the candy absently while he paced his speed to the state police car in the next lane. “They retired to Florida. My father fishes and my mother runs a craft shop. Not as colorful as yours, I’m afraid.”
“Colorful.” She thought about it, and approved. “I never knew they were unusual until I’d gone away to college and realized that most kids’ parents were grown-up and sensible. I guess I never realized how much I’d been influenced by them until Rob pointed out things like most people preferring to eat dinner at six, rather than scrounging for popcorn or peanut butter at ten o’clock at night.”
“Rob?”
She glanced over quickly, then straight ahead. Shade listened too well, she decided. It made it too easy to say more than you intended. “My ex-husband.” She knew she shouldn’t still see the “ex” as a stigma; these days it was nearly a status symbol. For Bryan, it was the symbol that proved she hadn’t done what was necessary to keep a promise.
“Still sore?” He’d asked before he could stop himself. She made him want to offer comfort, when he’d schooled himself not to become involved in anyone’s life, anyone’s problem.
“No, it was years ago.” After a quick shrug, she nibbled on her candy bar. Sore? she thought again. No, not sore, but perhaps she’d always be
just a little tender. “Just sorry it didn’t work out, I suppose.”
“Regrets are more a waste of time than worrying.”
“Maybe. You were married once, too.”
“That’s right.” His tone couldn’t have been more dismissive. Bryan gave him a long, steady look.
“Sacred territory?”
“I don’t believe in rehashing the past.”
This wound was covered with scar tissue, she mused. She wondered if it troubled him much, or if he’d truly filed it away. In either case, it wasn’t her business, nor was it the way to keep the ball rolling between them.
“When did you decide to become a photographer?” That was a safe topic, she reflected. There shouldn’t be any tender points.
“When I was five and got my hands on my father’s new thirty-five-millimeter. When he had the film developed, he discovered three close-ups of the family dog. I’m told he didn’t know whether to congratulate me or give me solitary confinement when they turned out to be better than any of his shots.”
Bryan grinned. “What’d he do?”
“He bought me a camera of my own.”
“You were way ahead of me,” she commented. “I didn’t have any interest in cameras until high school. Just sort of fell into it. Up until then, I’d wanted to be a star.”
“An actress?”
“No.” She grinned again. “A star. Any kind of a star, as long as I had a Rolls, a gold lamé dress and a big tacky diamond.”
He had to grin. She seemed to have the talent for forcing it out of him. “An unassuming child.”
“No, materialistic.” She offered him her drink, but he shook his head. “That stage coincided with my parents’ return-to-the-earth period. I guess it was my way of rebelling against people who were almost impossible to rebel against.”
He glanced down at her ringless hands and her faded jeans. “Guess you got over it.”
“I wasn’t made to be a star. Anyway, they needed someone to take pictures of the football team.” Bryan finished off the candy bar and wondered how soon they could stop for lunch. “I volunteered because I had a crush on one of the players.” Draining her soda, she dumped the cup in with Shade’s bottle. “After the first day, I fell in love with the camera and forgot all about the defensive lineman.”
“His loss.”
Bryan glanced over, surprised by the offhand compliment. “That was a nice thing to say, Colby. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
He didn’t quite defeat the smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Heaven forbid.” But she was a great deal more pleased than his casual words warranted. “Anyway, my parents were thrilled when I became an obsessive photographer. They’d lived with this deadly fear that I had no creative drives and would end up being a smashing business success instead of an artist.”
“So now you’re both.”
She thought about it a moment. Odd how easy it was to forget about one aspect of her work when she concentrated so hard on the other. “I suppose you’re right. Just don’t mention it to Mom and Dad.”
“They won’t hear it from me.”
They both saw the construction sign at the same time. Whether either of them realized it, their minds followed the same path. Bryan was already reaching for her camera when Shade slowed and eased off the road. Ahead of them, a road crew patched, graded and sweated under the high Arizona sun.
Shade walked off to consider the angle that would show the team and machinery battling against the erosion of the road. A battle that would be waged on roads across the country each summer as long as roads existed. Bryan homed in on one man.
He was bald and had a yellow bandanna tied around his head to protect the vulnerable dome of his scalp. His face and neck were reddened and damp, his belly sagging over the belt of his work pants. He wore a plain white T-shirt, pristine compared to the colorful ones slashed with sayings and pictures the workmen around him had chosen.
To get in close she had to talk to him and deal with the comments and grins from the rest of the crew. She did so with an aplomb and charm that would’ve caused a public relations expert to rub his hands together. Bryan was a firm believer that the relationship between the photographer and the subject showed through in the final print. So first, in her own way, she had to develop one.
Shade kept his distance. He saw the men as a team—the sunburned, faceless team that worked roads across the country and had done so for decades. He wanted no relationship with any of them, nothing that would color the way he saw them as they stood, bent and dug.
He took a telling shot of the grime, dust and sweat. Bryan learned that the foreman’s name was Al and he’d worked for the road commission for twenty-two years.
It took her a while to ease her way around his self-consciousness, but once she got him talking about what the miserable winter had done to his road, everything clicked. Sweat dribbled down his temple. When he reached up with one beefy arm to swipe at it, Bryan had her picture.
The impulsive detour took them thirty minutes. By the time they piled back in the van, they were sweating as freely as the laborers.
“Are you always so personal with strangers?” Shade asked her as he switched on the engine and the air-conditioning.
“When I want their picture, sure.” Bryan opened the cooler and pulled out one of the cold cans she’d stocked, and another bottle of iced tea for Shade. “You get what you wanted?”
“Yeah.”
He’d watched her at work. Normally they separated, but this time he’d been close enough to see just how she went about her job. She’d treated the road man with more respect and good humor than many photographers showed their hundred-dollar-an-hour models. And she hadn’t done it just for the picture, though Shade wasn’t sure she realized it. She’d been interested in the man—who he was, what he was and why.
Once, a long time before, Shade had had that kind of curiosity. Now he strapped it down. Knowing involved you. But it wasn’t easy, he was discovering, to strap down his curiosity about Bryan. Already she’d told him more than he’d have asked. Not more than he wanted to know, but more than he’d have asked. It still wasn’t enough.
For nearly a week he’d backed off from her—just as far as it was possible under the circumstances. He hadn’t stopped wanting her. He might not like to rehash the past, but it wasn’t possible to forget that last molten encounter on the roadside.
He’d closed himself off, but now she was opening him up again. He wondered if it was foolish to try to fight it, and the attraction they had for each other. It might be better, simpler, more logical, to just let things progress to the only possible conclusion.
They’d sleep together, burn the passion out and get back to the assignment.
Cold? Calculated? Perhaps, but he’d do nothing except follow the already routed course. He knew it was important to keep the emotions cool and the mind sharp.
He’d let his emotions fuddle his logic and his perception before. In Cambodia, a sweet face and a generous smile had blinded him to treachery. Shade’s fingers tightened on the wheel without his realizing it. He’d learned a lesson about trust then—it was only the flip side of betrayal.
“Where’ve you gone?” Bryan asked quietly. A look had come into his eyes that she didn’t understand, and wasn’t certain she wanted to understand.
He turned his head. For an instant she was caught in the turmoil, in the dark place he remembered too well and she knew nothing about. Then it was over. His eyes were remote and calm. His fingers eased on the wheel.
“We’ll stop in Page,” he said briefly. “Get some shots of the boats and tourists on Lake Powell before we go down to the canyon.”
“All right.”
He hadn’t been thinking of her. Bryan could comfort herself with that. She hoped the look that had come into his eyes would never be applied to her. Even so, she was determined that sooner or later she’d discover the reason for it.
* * *
Sh
e could’ve gotten some good technical shots of the dam. But as they passed through the tiny town of Page, heading for the lake, Bryan saw the high golden arches shimmering behind waves of heat. It made her grin. Cheeseburgers and fries weren’t just summer pastimes. They’d become a way of life. Food for all seasons. But she couldn’t resist the sight of the familiar building settled low below the town, almost isolated, like a mirage in the middle of the desert.
She rolled down her window and waited for the right angle. “Gotta eat,” she said as she framed the building. “Just gotta.” She clicked the shutter.
Resigned, Shade pulled into the lot. “Get it to go,” he ordered as Bryan started to hop out. “I want to get to the marina.”
Swinging her purse over her shoulder, she disappeared inside. Shade didn’t have the chance to become impatient before she bounded back out again with two white bags. “Cheap, fast and wonderful,” she told him as she slid back into her seat. “I don’t know how I’d make it through life if I couldn’t get a cheeseburger on demand.”
She pulled out a wrapped burger and handed it to him.
“I got extra salt,” she said over her first taste of fries. “Mmm, I’m starving.”
“You wouldn’t be if you’d eat something besides a candy bar for breakfast.”
“I’d rather be awake when I eat,” she mumbled, involved in unwrapping her burger.
Shade unwrapped his own. He hadn’t asked her to bring him anything. He’d already learned it was typical of her to be carelessly considerate. Perhaps the better word was naturally. But it wasn’t typical of him to be moved by the simple offer of a piece of meat in a bun. He reached in a bag and brought out a paper napkin. “You’re going to need this.”
Bryan grinned, took it, folded her legs under her and dug in. Amused, Shade drove leisurely to the marina.
