The Cottages on Silver Beach

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Still, nerves crackled through her stomach. Why did he have to come home and stir everything up again?

  “Sure. I’ll just shoot the two of them being mad, bad and dangerous to know.”

  “Exactly.” Charlene smiled. “Thank you, my dear.” With a vague air-kiss, his mother fluttered away to speak with McKenzie Kilpatrick.

  Megan squared her shoulders and picked up her camera bag. She had worked hard to avoid Elliot throughout the wedding celebration but apparently that state of affairs couldn’t continue.

  Sunlight glinted in the brothers’ dark hair as she walked across the impeccably manicured lawn of Bowie Callahan’s home on Serenity Harbor.

  The two Bailey boys really were good-looking. Seeing them together, she couldn’t help thinking about the brother who was missing. Wyatt should have been here.

  In the past year, three of the four surviving Bailey children had married. First Wyn, then Marshall, now Katrina. At each ceremony, Megan knew she wasn’t the only one who keenly felt Wyatt’s absence.

  She shifted her camera bag higher on her shoulder, annoyed with herself for letting those sad feelings intrude on what was an otherwise lovely day.

  Wyatt was gone. She couldn’t change that. She had grieved for him and the dreams they had only been in the beginning stages of building together and it was way past time she moved forward with her life.

  She pushed away the little pang in her heart as she approached Wyatt’s brothers.

  Marsh was the larger of the two—broad shoulders, square jaw, solid strength. That didn’t make Elliot appear any less predatory next to him. He was leaner, yes, but every bit as dangerous—the contrast between a shotgun blast or a precisely timed knife thrust.

  Was it her imagination or did Elliot tense when she approached? She could read nothing in his gaze but she could swear his shoulders tightened and his head came up as if sniffing for trouble.

  “Hello,” she said, trying for a casual tone.

  “Hey, Meg.” Marshall smiled and she thought how much more mellow and friendly he seemed since he had married her friend Andie Montgomery. He had never been precisely unfriendly, simply too focused on work to pay much mind to her.

  Elliot, she noticed, said nothing. He only watched her out of those dark blue eyes that reflected none of his thoughts.

  “How’s it going?” Marsh asked. “Are you finding the photos you need?”

  “Good. It’s a beautiful day and Katrina and Bowie seem so happy together. Milo and Gabi just make their happiness sweeter. Chloe and Will are taking good care of them.”

  “They’re great kids,” he said, smiling fondly at his stepchildren.

  “Agreed. You hit the jackpot there.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  They lapsed into a rather awkward silence and she picked up her camera and aimed it at the two of them. “Your mom sent me over here with orders to shoot a few pictures of you guys together.”

  “Do you have to?” These were the first words Elliot had spoken to her that day.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to be the one to tell your mother why I was unable to fulfill her simple request?”

  Marshall chuckled. “Sure, Elliot. That can be your job.”

  “It will only take a moment, I promise,” she said.

  “Says every photographer, always.”

  She had to smile. Elliot had a point. She wasn’t necessarily a perfectionist, but her photo shoots always took longer than she expected.

  “You don’t even need to do anything. Just keep talking. She wanted me to photograph candid shots of the two of you together. The Bailey brothers in all their glory.”

  Marshall rolled his eyes while Elliot gave her a look she couldn’t interpret.

  He was frustrating that way. Spending so much time behind the camera lens reading and recording people’s facial expressions usually gave her some insight into their thoughts. Not Elliot’s. That whole stone-faced FBI agent thing again.

  “What do you want us to talk about?” Marshall asked, clearly uncomfortable at having her lens trained on him.

  “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you were talking about before I came over.”

  The two men exchanged glances and the currents zinging between them made her even more suspicious about the topic of their previous conversation.

  “Anything. Baseball. The weather. You can talk about the lovely dress that Samantha Fremont created for Katrina.”

  The idea of these two masculine law-enforcement officers discussing their sister’s wedding dress almost made her smile.

  Marshall played along. “There you go. Hey, Elliot, did you notice what Kat was wearing?”

  “I think it was a dress or something. It was white or maybe yellow. Did it have lace?”

  She sniffed at their teasing, though she still clicked away at her shutter. Charlene would probably love this tongue-in-cheek side of them.

  “For your information,” she answered, “the gown is gorgeous, an original creation by up-and-coming local designer Samantha Fremont. It was tailor-made for Kat, specifically designed to highlight her shoulders and make her neck look longer and more graceful. Your sister is simply stunning in it.”

  Both men gave her matching looks of incomprehension and she snapped away. “Sorry,” Elliot said, “but to us, Kat will always be the little pigtailed tattletale who hated being left out of anything.”

  “Good thing she grew out of that,” Bowie Callahan drawled as he approached their group. “Though she still doesn’t like to be left out of things, particularly her brothers sharing such charming opinions of her. Hey, Megan.” He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. Since he had moved to Haven Point, Bowie had become one of her favorite people. Not only was he gorgeous, rich, successful and talented, Bowie was always so kind to her and all the rest of the Haven Point Helping Hands.

  “How’s the photo gig going?” he asked.

  She shrugged, though she didn’t stop aiming her camera, knowing Charlene would love pictures of the groom interacting with the bride’s older brothers. “It’s fine, I suppose,” she teased. “If you’re into this kind of thing. Beautiful people, spectacular location, divine food. Too bad there’s nothing exciting around here to shoot.”

  “I could always throw one of these jokers into the lake. That might liven things up.” Cade Emmett, married to their sister Wynona, joined the group. Megan had a strong feeling the police chief of Haven Point was one of the few men in town who just might be able to pull that trick off.

  “Do I get to pick which one?” Megan asked.

  The others laughed—except Elliot, who continued to gaze at her with that unreadable expression that suddenly sent nerves flopping through her like trout jumping out of the water to catch flies on a lazy summer afternoon.

  “No problem,” Marshall said, “just as long as you pick Elliot.”

  “Why me? What did I do?”

  “Hold all your cards too close to your vest, for one thing.” Cade sipped at his drink. “I for one would like to know the truth about what happened to that shoulder.”

  “I told you. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Marshall snorted. “Oh. That explains everything. Thanks for offering one more example of the FBI’s fine attention to detail.”

  “Not to mention their continual willingness to share information with us lowly local law-enforcement types,” Cade said.

  As Megan continued photographing the men, for the first time she saw Elliot’s features reveal an expression. Discomfort. He didn’t want to talk about his injury, especially not with his brother and brothers-in-law.

  Interesting. What had happened? Why was he so quick to evade talking about his injury?

  She didn’t miss the way he quickly and skillfully turned the subject by asking Bowie about his plans to buy a boat.
Before long, all of them were debating the merits of various boat models.

  While they talked, she continued shooting, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Though Elliot participated in the conversation, smiling at all the right moments, she couldn’t seem to escape the odd sensation that he was separate from them, somehow. There was an air of loneliness about him she couldn’t have explained.

  When she caught her camera lens straying almost exclusively to him, she decided she needed to go find another subject.

  “Thanks, guys.” She waved to the group as a whole, careful not to let her gaze catch Elliot’s, then headed off in search of new prey.

  * * *

  THE PHOTOS FROM this celebration would be truly spectacular, if she did say so herself, she thought two hours later. The late-May evening light had been perfect, with the dying sun reflecting off the lake in shades of violets and coral and casting a perfect pearly light on everyone gathered here for the festivities.

  Now it was past dark and the sky above was a glitter of stars. Here and there, globe lights had been spaced across the lawn and several propane patio heaters sent out their artificial warmth against the cool evening.

  Megan sank into an empty bench while she scanned through the images on her camera. What she saw filled her with pride. She would still have to spend hours at her computer, touching up the photographs in her post-process routine, but even with the raw images, she knew she had several stunners in the bunch.

  She loved the one of Eppie and Hazel laughing so hard, they shook with it.

  She had caught Charlene and Mike, married a year and still acting like newlyweds, in a heated embrace that would likely embarrass Charlene’s children when they saw it.

  She particularly loved several cute ones of Milo and Gabi awkwardly dancing with the bride and groom.

  As she scanned through the frames, she discovered she hadn’t shot any direct images of the wedding cake, only featuring it in the periphery of other shots. That was an oversight she had to quickly correct. She made her way through the crowd, greeting friends and neighbors as she went.

  When she reached the luscious froth of a cake, topped with live flowers she knew had been flown in from Colombia, she found Chloe Montgomery, daughter of her friend Andie Montgomery Bailey, had pulled one of the folding chairs over and sat in front of the cake, vigilantly eyeing the crowd.

  “You look like you’re keeping watch,” Megan said.

  “Some of the little kids were playing around over here. I was afraid somebody might knock it over,” she said.

  “Good for you,” Megan said, surreptitiously taking a few pictures of the girl and the cake. Kat would get a kick out of knowing her cake had such a champion. “Would you mind pulling your chair back a few feet, only for a moment? I need to take some pictures of it. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

  Chloe appeared to think this over and finally nodded and stood up. “I guess it’s okay.”

  “You can come right back when I’m done,” Megan promised.

  She shot the cake from various angles. One moment, her viewfinder was filled with flowers and cake and fondant. Then she lifted the lens slightly and somehow there was Elliot Bailey filling the frame again, his features hard and remote as he looked out at the play of lights sparkling on the water.

  She lowered her camera, unable to look away.

  She was struck by that distant expression. He had so many secrets. They surrounded him, layer after layer. She should not find them so intriguing.

  “Are you done taking pictures?” Chloe asked her.

  She forced herself to turn her attention away from Elliot. “For now,” she answered. “Here. Let me help you move your chair back.”

  “I got it.” Chloe wrestled the folding chair back into place in front of the table.

  Megan couldn’t help but smile. “Kat will be really happy to know you protected the cake for her.”

  “It’s so pretty. I don’t want it ruined.”

  “You stand strong, then, my dear.”

  Chloe grinned at her and Megan left her to the job. With this unspoken tension curling around her and Elliot, she was in no hurry to put herself in close proximity to him, yet somehow her path through the crowd inevitably seemed to tug her toward the spot where he sat on a bench overlooking Bowie’s wooden boat dock. She couldn’t seem to help it, any more than she could stop the water lapping at the pilings.

  “What are you doing over here by yourself?” she asked as she sat beside him on the bench. “You’re missing all the fun.”

  “Am I?” He sipped at his drink. “You may not be aware of this, but my family can be a little overwhelming sometimes.”

  “Good to know,” she said dryly. “Thanks for the information. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  In reality, she suspected she had actually spent more time with this family over the past decade than Elliot had, considering he lived a day’s drive away.

  “I love them. Don’t get me wrong,” he went on, “but a guy sometimes needs to give his ears a rest.”

  “They’re wonderful. All of them. Take a look at this.”

  She scrolled through the pictures on her camera until she found the one she wanted, one that showed Charlene and Mike surrounded by all the grandchildren they had recently acquired through marriage—Chloe and her brother Will, Milo and Gabi, even his brother Marshall’s teenage son, Christopher. In the frame, everyone was laughing at something Mike had said and the sun caught their faces perfectly, with the ideal catchlight in their eyes.

  His hard features seemed to soften as he looked at the image. “Nice. Mom will treasure that. Mind if I take a look at a few others?”

  She was a little territorial about her work but couldn’t figure out a way to refuse. She handed the camera to him. “Keep in mind, they’re all raw photos that I haven’t had the chance to work on yet.”

  She held her breath as he scrolled through the frames on the camera, his harsh features softening with every picture. “These are great, Megan. You’ve got a really unique perspective. I love the way you take something that might seem mundane on the surface and highlight it until the viewer is forced to realize how important it is. Like here, where you’ve shot Katrina’s bouquet but managed to have the light specifically hit the cameos of Dad and Wyatt that are tucked in there.”

  She couldn’t help the little glow his praise evoked, shocked that he had noticed the effort that went into creating exactly that angle. “Thank you.”

  He handed the camera back to her. “Wyn was telling me you have a gallery showing coming up in a few weeks.”

  Her stomach clenched, as it did whenever the subject came up. This was bound to be the biggest flop in the history of flops. “Yes. In your neck of the woods, actually. Hope’s Crossing, Colorado. A friend of Eliza and Aidan Caine saw one of my photos of Maddie hanging at Snow Angel Cove and it just so happens she owns a gallery there.”

  Though it had been three months since that shocking call from Mary Ella Lange, Megan still couldn’t quite believe it was real. She probably wouldn’t until she saw her prints hanging in the gallery.

  She had dreamed of this kind of opportunity since the moment she picked up her first camera. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. She had never imagined a gallery exhibit in her future then. Instead, she had seen the camera as her ticket out of Haven Point. She had wanted to travel the world, visiting all the places she dreamed of going when she was sitting beside her mother’s sickbed, reading old National Geographic magazines.

  “That’s terrific. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you for bringing it up again. I haven’t had a panic attack about it in two hours. Guess it was past time for another one.”

  His mouth lifted in amusement and she found herself fascinated by that little half smile, probably because it was so rare.

  “Why be nervous? Judging by thes
e few photos I’ve seen, you’ve got this.”

  She gripped the camera body, the composite material suddenly cold under her fingers.

  “I appreciate you saying that. It’s impossible not to be nervous. I mean, who am I? I run a hotel in a tiny town in Idaho. My world is small and so are my photographs. Who would ever want to look at them?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE THREADY NOTE of panic in her voice took him by surprise. Megan always seemed so together, as if she wouldn’t be fazed even in the middle of a major earthquake. She ran an inn and probably had the capability to handle crises he couldn’t begin to imagine.

  Here she was, though, suddenly a shade or two paler, her lip trembling at simply the mention of her upcoming show.

  He was no expert on gallery showings or the intricacies of the art world, yet he felt compelled to soothe her stress.

  “There’s nothing wrong with focusing on the small things sometimes. It worked out okay for Norman Rockwell, didn’t it? And what about Mary Cassatt? She painted the domestic, everyday events in people’s lives and did it brilliantly.”

  He was ridiculously grateful for the art history class he’d been required to take in college and the random yet salient bits of information he still retained.

  Megan gave a small laugh. “I am no Norman Rockwell and certainly no Mary Cassatt.”

  “No. You’re Megan Hamilton, of Haven Point, Idaho. You must have something remarkable to offer, or the gallery owner never would have invited you to do a show there.”

  She blinked at him, her delicious-looking lips parted in surprise. “I...I suppose you’re right.”

  He didn’t know if he was or not. It didn’t matter, since whatever he said seemed to have temporarily blown away the shadows from her eyes.

  “I’ve only seen a little of your work, and to be perfectly honest, my only photographic experience involves crime-scene analysis, but even I can tell you’ve got talent. This gallery owner in Hope’s Crossing obviously agrees with me.”

  She gazed at him for a long moment, head cocked as if she were studying a particularly vexing problem. “Thank you,” she finally said. “That helps. I suppose I needed a pep talk. I didn’t realize how much until right now.”