by Joanne Rock
Stephanie slipped into the multimillion-dollar home overlooking the Atlantic, pretending a need to use the bathroom. The sun had started to set, and she could see the ocean twinkling in the muted light through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. One of the living rooms. She’d overheard someone say the Murphys’ home was ten thousand square feet.
It was her mother’s kind of wealthy world. The sort of place that her mom had always hoped to live in or—at the very least—that Stephanie would live in some day. That’s why Whitney had been so excited to hear about Stephanie’s whereabouts after a series of panicked phone calls to her empty house in D.C. Stephanie had told her the truth, hoping it would buy her a few days’ peace from the all too frequent mother-knows-best routine. Instead, her mom’s thrilled reaction to Stephanie being with Danny just reminded her that she didn’t want this kind of life. After being overseas and witnessing the abject poverty in some places, glitz and glamour made her feel like a big fat fraud.
“Are you okay?” A feminine voice surprised her.
Stepping deeper into the living area, Stephanie spied a pretty redhead in a wingback chair in one corner, her feet tucked under a huge bear of a dog. The animal cradled its massive head on its paws and gave Stephanie a mournful look. Obviously, there would be no privacy for a phone call here.
“Is that a mastiff?” Stephanie asked, forgetting whatever it was that the other woman had said.
“A Tibetan mastiff. This is Bobby Orr, named after one of the best hockey players of all time according to Axel.” The redhead smiled and tucked aside an iPad she’d been working on. “I’m Jennifer Hunter, by the way.”
“The filmmaker. I remember Danny mentioning you. I’m Stephanie.” She kept her eye on the dog. “Is he friendly? May I pet him?”
She missed the pets she photographed back home, missed the warmth and affection animals gave so easily.
“Of course.” Jennifer slid her feet out from under the animal, her yellow-and-blue party dress a little rumpled. “He’s sweet as can be. Axel found him rooting through a trash can one day when he was out running. We contacted the local vets and the pound to see if anyone had been looking for him, but after two months, we figured he was a stray and we kept him. Bobby seems grateful just to have enough food every day. And he loves running with Ax.”
“He’s gorgeous.” Stephanie kneeled on the carpet by the animal and held her hand out for Bobby to sniff. When he seemed unconcerned, she stroked his big head, full of dark fur, and tried to forget she sat in a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion.
The childhood home of a man who’d faced down some Middle Eastern sheikh when she’d been taken hostage. God, she couldn’t deny that her feelings for him were growing every moment they spent together.
“How are you doing?” Jennifer smoothed out the full skirt of her dress and slipped her feet back into her turquoise-colored shoes. “I hear this is your first time meeting the clan.”
“They’re great.” Stephanie couldn’t deny that she’d been treated with complete hospitality. “I’m just having a hard time figuring out where a pet photographer fits in with the glittering world of the heirs to Murphy Resorts.”
She didn’t know what made her confide in Jennifer, a woman who was as successful as any of them with a burgeoning film career and growing critical acclaim. Over dinner, Stephanie had received a brief tutorial from Danny on the women who’d claimed the hearts of the Murphy males. There was Ryan’s wife, Keira, the traveling teacher who worked at a variety of underprivileged schools around the world during the year, then made recommendations to the Murphy Resorts charitable foundation about which groups would make the best candidates as beneficiaries. Jack’s fiancée, Alicia, owned a bed-and-breakfast in Bar Harbor, Maine. Keith’s fiancée, Josie, was an interior decorator with a design show on Boston television that had been picked up for syndication. Kyle’s girlfriend, Marissa, was a celebrated Philadelphia matchmaker and the daughter of a famous pop star.
Then there was her—pet photographer and author of one colossally unsuccessful book that still generated heated reader responses.
“You fit in perfectly. I see the common denominator being that all the brothers chose highly interesting women, right?” Jennifer grinned as she passed over her iPad. “Are your photos online? I’d love to see some of your work.”
“Really?” Stephanie took the device. “That’s flattering. Thank you.” She clicked through a few screens to the master website page where she stored proofs and samples to show her clients and prospective customers. “It’s not...you know...world-class photography or anything. But I try to capture the personality of each subject.”
She knew that some of her old friends in the film-and-video world looked down on her new career as a fluff job. But after her experience in Baghdad, she’d lost some of her sense of adventure. She kept hoping one day she’d be “recovered” enough to return to her old line of work. But as the years slipped by, she still didn’t feel drawn to the gritty field that used to fascinate her.
She turned the tablet around so Jennifer could see her online album of sample photographs.
“Oh!” Jennifer squealed in delight at the album cover, her cinnamon-colored curls falling forward as she bent over the photo. “How adorable.”
Stephanie moved closer to peek over her shoulder.
“That’s Tennessee.” She had a blast photographing the black-and-white cat with the easygoing disposition. “His owner named him for the cartoon penguin, Tennessee Tuxedo, so I figured I would run with that.”
She’d taken a series of pictures of the cat on location at a local menswear store—thanks to the highly accommodating boutique owners who happened to be animal lovers. Tennessee sat on one of the mahogany shelves for the shirt displays, a full-length mirror in the background. The cat wore a mini red-and-white bow tie, looking like a dapper gentleman amid the finery.
“I love it.” Jennifer ran a finger over the cat’s face on the screen, which turned the digital page. “Whoops. Oh! Look at this one.”
Stephanie warmed with the knowledge that she’d found a compassionate audience. From Jennifer’s reaction, she didn’t think she’d receive a judgmental response to her occupation, no matter that Jennifer was an acclaimed filmmaker.
“That’s Cody, a red Australian shepherd,” Stephanie explained as they looked at the photo of the Aussie in midjump for a Frisbee. “He was so agile and energetic. Seeing his abilities made me want to close my photography business and start raising sheep, just so I could see an Aussie shepherd in action with the work they were bred for. Honestly, what great dogs.”
“The light is beautiful for this shot,” Jennifer observed, pointing toward the soft golden haze around the top of Cody’s head. “Is this dawn or sunset?”
“Sunset. We took Cody to a local dog park so I could photograph him having fun in the outdoors, where he’s happiest.”
“It shows.” Jennifer tucked some of her curls behind one ear as she turned to look at her. “You have a real knack for this.”
In the foyer, male voices rumbled. Stephanie thought she detected Danny’s along with a couple of others. Music filtered in behind them, the door to the house left open so that the sounds of the party came in.
“Thank you.” She felt better for easy acceptance from an unexpected source. “I have some people in my life who aren’t terribly supportive of my work, so that’s...really nice to hear.”
Her mother, for instance, hadn’t looked at her photos once even though Stephanie had been working in the business for three years. Her father, never a strong personality, simply followed suit. His main concern was always for his wife.
“Are you hiding from me again?” Danny’s hulking brother Axel strode into the living room and flipped on a lamp, his blue eyes locked on Jennifer as they seemed to share a private joke.
“Not this time,” she answered with a wink. “I was just looking at Stephanie’s photographs and thinking we should ask her to do a picture of us w
ith Bobby Orr.” She handed the tablet to Axel to share the photo of Cody.
“Sweet,” Axel declared, just as Danny entered the room.
“What’s sweet?” Danny held a hand out to Stephanie to help her to her feet.
She hadn’t seen him since one of his aunts had claimed a dance from him, but he’d been a truly attentive date considering this shindig was for him. While that was thoughtful of him, it also made it tougher for her to stick to her plan of keeping this light between them.
“Stephanie’s work,” Jennifer explained while Axel flashed the tablet screen toward his brother. “She’s incredibly talented.”
Beside her, she felt Danny tense and wasn’t sure why.
“She’s an incredible woman,” he agreed. “Steph, can I see you for a minute?”
“Sure.” She gave Bobby a quick pat on the head before she turned her attention to Jennifer. “We could shoot some pictures out on the ice once it gets colder. I’d love to work with you.”
Following Danny out of the room, she was surprised when they didn’t go back to the party. Instead, he led her up a staircase to an empty office decorated with tapestries, romantic paintings and notable quotes spelled out in calligraphy and scrawling all around the walls. It had to be his mother’s office, the feminine touches obvious.
She was about to comment on how beautiful it was. Then she glimpsed the serious expression on Danny’s face and remembered the way he’d tensed back in the living room.
He pulled her toward a window seat tucked into one corner. “How come I’ve never seen your photography?”
* * *
DANNY KNEW HE WAS doing a crap job of keeping things light, and that had been his one freaking goal for the day.
But seeing Stephanie share something personal about herself, something she’d never shown him in all the hours they’d spent together, told him a little about his standing with her.
“I don’t know.” She sat on the edge of the window seat, her dress settling around her with a flounce. “I guess we’ve never talked about our jobs that much, have we?”
“That first night at my house, while we stood in the surf, I asked you about it. Told you I’d like to see your work sometime.” He didn’t take the seat beside her, trying like hell to give her the space she seemed to crave. Instead, he leaned a shoulder into the window casing nearby. “Actually, never mind. I don’t mean to make a big deal about it. Do you want to go back outside or would you rather hang out up here for a while?”
Proud of himself for dropping it, he still found it tough not to get any answers. He drew the curtains across the bank of windows looking out over the back lawn where white lights were hung in all the trees and strung around the party canopies.
“It’s not that I’m not proud of my work.” She surprised him by answering his question. She picked up a desktop stone labyrinth his mother kept on a shelf above the window seat and traced the ridges with a pink-painted fingernail. “It’s just that a lot of people find it tough to reconcile my current job with my roots in journalism. At least the book I wrote—while a critical flop—was ‘serious.’ Pet photography, on the other hand...”
“Would you think for a minute that I’d find fault with any job you enjoyed? Steph, if I was ever going to chime in about your work, I damn well should have opened my mouth five years ago and begged you not to go to Iraq.” In those days, he’d been a whole hell of a lot better at keeping things light. Laid-back.
And look how that had worked out.
“Well, my parents think my business is a joke.” She reached the end of the twisting stone maze and then worked backward from the center. “So do a lot of my old colleagues. But it’s been really therapeutic for me. And I’ve helped a few animals in the process, too.”
“In what way?” He liked seeing this new side to her. For years, he’d been remembering her the way she’d been, never knowing the woman she’d become after her ordeal.
She set the miniature labyrinth on her lap, her blue eyes meeting his. With her hair off her face, there was a natural youthfulness about her. Maybe that’s why he had a hard time recognizing the ways she’d changed since they’d first met. On the outside, she was just the same.
“I have a lot of wealthy clients who love extravagant photo shoots for their pets.” She pulled out her phone and, tapping into a wireless connection, opened a screen full of thumbprint images and handed the device to him. “They like huge, stately portraits for their libraries and more fun, action shots to post on their Facebook pages. That’s good work, but it also helps fund the pro bono stuff I do for animal shelters and adoption agencies.”
Danny slid through the pictures showing a dog in a green bandana leaping into a backyard pool, a feline curled on computer keys and a pony nuzzling the jacket pocket of a giggling little girl. There were dozens in color and a few in black and white. One showed a parrot perched on an elderly lady’s shoulder and another with a lizard draped across the back of a heavily tattooed dude.
“No wonder Jennifer was impressed.” He studied photo after photo and, amazingly, no two were even close to the same. “So what do you do for the shelters? Photograph animals to adopt?”
He ignored the band playing outside and the sound of a couple of his brothers’ voices downstairs, probably on a mission to find him. Right now, he just wanted to get a handle on this woman who’d been so elusive. No way would he walk away from this chance to get to know her better.
“Yes.” She stood to peer over his shoulder and pointed to a fluffy cat wearing a small baseball cap tilted to the side like an eighties rapper. “See that one? That’s Missy. She’s so fun-loving and good with kids. Getting that across in the picture helps a prospective owner connect with a pet and brings them in to adopt. I snap photos of the animals for the shelters’ websites.”
“It must take a lot of time. You’d have to build some rapport with each animal before you could photograph it.” Danny could see her irreverence in the photos and her warmth, too.
“Definitely.” She turned the phone so she could see the screen better, then she tapped down to a picture of a cute but scrawny mutt with tufted ears and a nose that must have been pressed right up to her camera lens. “See this guy? That’s Buster, and it took me forever to get him to trust me because he’s super skittish. I went through a lot of dog treats and time to coax him that close, but it was so rewarding to snap a good series. I think he went through some rough times with his previous owner, but the photos helped him find a really good home with a sweet older couple.”
Danny tried to focus on Buster and what she was saying, but by now she brushed up against him, her skirt skimming his leg and the side of her breast grazing his arm.
“I’m glad to know that about you.” He could see how she would gravitate toward that work, helping animals escape the captivity of a shelter after she’d experienced the fear of being held against her will. “I don’t know how your mother could fail to see how happy the work makes you.”
Shrugging, she took her phone back and clicked off the screen before slipping it into her purse.
“I’m not sure my happiness is a high priority for her, but yes, I like what I’m doing.”
“I promised myself I was going to keep things light and fun for you tonight,” he confided, folding her hand into his and savoring this moment alone a little longer. “I didn’t mean to turn all serious about your work, but I just... It bothered me that I couldn’t even tell Ax’s girlfriend that I liked your photos since I’d never seen them.”
“I understand.” Her lips quirked in a half smile. “When I’m around you, I have a habit of getting distracted.”
He recognized the way she navigated the conversation out of deeper waters and back to safer terrain, but he wasn’t going to complain. They were together and that meant he still had time to build on the attraction.
For now, that had to be enough.
“What do you say we head outside to dance under the stars, and we’ll see how much I can dis
tract you there?” He bent to nip her bare shoulder, then drag a kiss toward her neck.
She shivered against him, her head falling back while he sought out the sensitive place in the hollow of her throat.
“Sounds like a daring move in front of three hundred party guests,” she murmured.
Lifting his head, he tugged her toward the door.
“That’s why I know you’ll love it.”
11
AS STEPHANIE FOLLOWED Danny across the lawn and down to the dock that held a temporary dance floor, she felt her phone vibrate in her handbag.
She should have turned it off when she’d seen all the messages from her mother—no doubt an endless barrage of questions about the Murphy family. Stephanie nodded and smiled at Danny’s brother Keith and his fiancée, Josie, who were already locked in a slow dance. But it was hard to focus on the present—despite the twinkling white lights strung around the dock and the crescent moon and stars overhead—when the vibrating phone reminded her of her mother. Why did Mom have such a compulsive need to steer her toward more prominent social circles? Or a more academic line of work? Most days, it was both. She had a hard time finding a sense of balance between having effective boundaries with her mom and still maintaining their relationship.
Before she could reach into her purse to turn the phone off, Danny spun her into his arms, reminding her of his promise to distract her.
“May I have this dance?” He waited for her reply, the tiny white paper lanterns reflected in his eyes.
Her mouth went dry at the invitation, knowing what it felt like to be the center of this man’s undivided attention. Sure, on an emotional level, it could be intimidating. On a sensual level, there was nothing better.
“Yes. You may have that and more.” She clutched a handful of her skirt in one hand to dip into an old-fashioned curtsy and his hot gaze followed the neckline of her strapless dress.
A heat wave curled through her, starting in the pit of her belly and fanning out to her limbs.
“Then follow me.” He slid one hand around her waist to palm the small of her back. With the other, he clasped her fingers and took the first step of the dance. He didn’t just turn her around in a circle, shuffling the aimless steps of most modern couples on the floor. Danny led with authority, guiding her body to the music.
