Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  They liked spunk, and grit, and a little fire in the belly. Those things, Ellen had times ten.

  “It’s not a huge commitment,” Penny said, feeling the need to downplay it, for fear he wouldn’t allow her to participate. Ellen would be heartbroken if she was denied the chance. She’d already spent hours with Bree, picking out the perfect flower garland for her hair.

  “Bree’s already bought Ellen’s dress. Bree used to be an event planner, so you can’t get her to delegate anything. We can even get someone to give Ellen a ride, if you don’t feel that you can make it, though of course we’re hoping you will. Did you get the invitation Bree sent home with Ellen?”

  He shook his head, still smiling ruefully. “I guess that must have slipped her mind, too.”

  “Oh, dear.” Penny sighed. “She’s probably afraid you might not approve. She does seem to think Alec has a reputation as the demon child.”

  “No! Really?” His eyes twinkled, though.

  “Really. And with good reason, I might add. Anyhow, the wedding isn’t a big extravaganza. Maybe fifty people, right here on the property, a week from Saturday. I hope you’ll say yes.”

  He hesitated just a fraction of a second. Then he smiled. “Sure. It’ll be our pleasure.”

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. They hadn’t been alone together since the balloon ride, and their friendship seemed to have moved to a more personal level that day. Clearly, neither one was quite sure where they went from here.

  She fiddled a little more with the photos.

  “What are those?”

  Either he, too, was looking for a neutral conversational topic, or he truly had just noticed the pictures for the first time. He leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. “Not family pictures, surely. These are all different brides and grooms, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.” Gratefully, she held up a couple for him to look at. “In college, I used to freelance a little, shooting weddings. I brought some of the prints over today, so that Bree could see them. I’ll be doing her wedding pictures, and I wanted to see what kinds of shots she liked.”

  He edged forward on his chair, considering them more closely. “And these are the ones she chose?” He picked up one or two. “They’re all so different. I’m not sure I see a theme.”

  Penny touched one thoughtfully. “You’re right. I was just trying to see if I could spot a pattern. I think I might have figured it out. She’s not responding to the poses or the composition, or anything to do with the photography itself. Not primarily.”

  He frowned. He picked up a photo of an older couple, mid-fifties, maybe, standing at the edge of a lake. Betty and Wally Mosen. Penny had shot them from the back, their heads tilted together, the sunset shining between them with a heart-shaped glow.

  He glanced over at Penny. “Not the photography? So what is she responding to, then?”

  “Well, I haven’t checked every one, but I think she’s picked out the happy couples.”

  He laughed. “Aren’t they all happy couples? At least for that one day?”

  “Of course not.” Once, she might have thought so, too. Even with her family history, she had started out thinking that marriages must slowly sour over the years, not start out that way. But the truth was far sadder than that.

  She rifled through the reject pile and fished out one particularly obvious example. A whole contact sheet from the Evans wedding.

  “See? Mindy and Joe. I knew while I was taking these pictures they wouldn’t make it. And boy was I right that time. They were divorced within the month.”

  She smiled ruefully, holding it out for him to see. “I never even got paid for the pictures.”

  He took it from her, seeming curious, though his expression was still skeptical. “And you think their doomed marriage is obvious from a photo?”

  “It almost always shows,” she said. “In this one, for instance...see how they never look at each other? There are thirty-five images on that sheet. Not once did they make eye contact.”

  He scanned the sheet, nodding subtly, almost as if he didn’t realize he was doing it. “No, they don’t, do they?” He glanced up, a new light in his eyes that felt like a dawning respect for her analysis. “And it’s as simple as that? Make eye contact, happy marriage. Don’t make eye contact, divorce?”

  “Of course not.” She pulled out some more pictures. “There are tons of red flags. Fake smiles, the ones that don’t extend to the eyes. In-laws who look as if they’re headed for an execution. Or a couple who stand farther apart than they need to. Even a few inches is telling on a day like this.”

  She fanned the pictures out on the table, looking for the other cues. Many of the signs she registered only subconsciously, and it was a challenge to put those intuitions into words.

  “Let’s see.” She held up the formal Murray wedding shot. “Too much tooth in that smile—can’t you tell it’s forced? And here, see how the veins are visible in his neck? Oh, and this is a dead giveaway—when they hug, their torsos come together, but their pelvises are tilted back, avoiding contact from the waist down.”

  He was looking at her with a strange expression, and she wondered whether she sounded a little neurotic. Did it seem as if she reduced something as ethereal as love to a set of physical mechanics?

  She didn’t. She was, at heart, a hopeless romantic. Having been born of a loveless marriage, and having seen the tragedy that could come of it, she, more than anyone, had elevated love to a near-mystical status. Other children, the ones with loving parents, had always seemed magical to her, as if they lived inside a snow globe that rained fairy dust and rainbows.

  That was probably why she had trained herself to spot these “tells.” She hated to think that the Real Thing could ever die, no matter what happened. That would leave everyone—including Rowena, Bree and Penny herself—vulnerable to heartbreak and tragedy.

  It was far easier to believe that the marriages that didn’t work had never been built on true love in the first place.

  But she couldn’t explain all that. He probably didn’t really care. And even if he did, he’d think she was too naive to live.

  So she didn’t mention the rest of her list. But it was a long one. Was any nonrelative female in the crowd looking directly at the groom, instead of at the bride? Was either the groom or the bride always shifting weight onto the outside foot, as if poised to run away? Was the bride particularly infantile, with heavy Cinderella vibes to her wedding dress, and a cake like a Barbie doll?

  He took the Murray photo from her and stared at it, his expression oddly fixed. “Surely, though, some of these things could just be the result of an awkward shot.”

  Max was smiling, but something about this subject clearly made him uncomfortable. Maybe he was feeling self-conscious, remembering some detail of his own wedding photos. How thoughtless she’d been to spout her theories, when it might hurt him to hear them.

  Ugh. Had she really believed this was a neutral topic? Weddings. Love. Divorce. Disillusionment...

  He seemed snagged on the picture he held in his hand. He kept looking at the desperately smiling Joe Murray. “One picture. It’s not really enough, surely. The camera can catch a saint looking drunk, if it snaps at the worst possible moment.”

  “Of course,” she agreed, suddenly wanting to reassure him. She tried to remember exactly what he’d said the other night. He’d said he had a lot to make up for...that he hadn’t been a good father...that he’d traveled a lot.

  Reading between the lines, did that mean he hadn’t been a very good husband, either?

  “If I see only one of the signs, I ignore it,” she said, keeping her tone light. “If I see two, my antennae quiver a bit. Any three...well, if I see three, then I still could be wrong. But I make sure I get my check before I leave.”

  Finally, his spell se
emed to break. He laughed, dropping the photo back on the table. “Does Bree know she’s having her wedding pictures taken by a psychic?”

  “Bree doesn’t have much to worry about,” Penny said. “At this wedding, I’m the nervous one. Those two are so in love the heat coming off them will probably melt my camera right out of my hands.”

  It had been the same at Ro’s wedding. It had felt like standing next to a bonfire—a bonfire made of the sweetest smelling incense. A bonfire that never dwindled, but seemed somehow to renew itself even as it flamed.

  After a few toasts that day, Penny and Bree had been just loosened up enough to admit how much they envied their feisty older sister. With their history, finding this kind of love required nothing short of a miracle.

  And now the same miracle had come to Bree.

  Penny was happy, deeply happy, for both her sisters. But a little voice couldn’t help asking: what were the odds of a third miracle finding its way to the same family? Wasn’t it far more likely that one of them would have to live out the script everyone had expected them all to follow?

  The poor damaged Wright girl, the poor orphan whose father killed her mother, and consequently could never trust a man enough to fall in love...

  Or, even worse, the poor damaged Wright girl, whose weak mother, afraid to be alone, had repeatedly tied herself to the wrong men. The poor Wright girl who repeated that pattern, who always clung to whatever man came close enough and never learned to stand on her own two feet.

  Bree stuck her head through the doorway. “Pea, Ro’s got Ellen out front.” She widened her eyes. “Max! Hi! I didn’t realize you were here. If I’d known, I would have brought in the picture of the dress we got for Ellen. Pretty cool she’s going to be a flower girl, huh?”

  Penny tightened, but Max just smiled easily. “Very cool.”

  “Well, anyhow, I guess you’re the one who needs to know—Ellen’s out front.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Bree looked once at Penny, then back at Max. Then, with a laugh and a wave, she disappeared.

  Max stood. “I guess I should let Ellen know I’m here.”

  “Of course.” Penny stood, too, shaking off her earlier thoughts. She was just borrowing trouble. She wasn’t going to repeat her mother’s mistakes. She was more than tough enough to stand alone.

  And someday...maybe...she’d even be tough enough to let herself fall in love. With the right man.

  “I’ll take you around,” she said with a smile. “Ellen will be so excited to see you.”

  Without thinking, she turned toward the kitchen. He caught her elbow lightly and tilted his head toward the living room. “Wouldn’t it be closer to go this way?”

  Oh. She’d forgotten. He didn’t know.

  “If you’d like, you certainly can. But I don’t go into that part of the house.”

  He frowned. “Why not? Is it reserved for guests? Surely, as the owner—”

  “It’s not that.” After her mental pep talk about how tough she was, she felt particularly foolish saying this. But she wasn’t going to lie about it, either. It was simply a fact of her life, and whatever he thought about it didn’t change anything.

  “I don’t go in that part of the house because it’s where my mother died. It’s a sort of phobia, I suppose. But it’s easy enough to take the other way around.”

  He didn’t say anything for several seconds. She lifted her chin, trying to warn him not to pity her, or to try to jolly her out of it. She met his gaze steadily, mutely asserting the right to her own truth.

  Finally, he smiled. “Absolutely,” he said. “Easy enough to take the other way around.”

  * * *

  ELLEN TALKED ALL the way home. She didn’t mean to, but she’d been so jazzed to see Dad come out of the house with Penny that it was like drinking a bunch of fizzy water, and she couldn’t settle down.

  In fact, she almost told him about the flower girl thing. She’d been carrying the invitation around for days now, waiting for the perfect moment. If he said no, she’d die a thousand deaths.

  But she still couldn’t quite bring herself to talk about it. It was crazy, how important it was to her. He might think she only cared because she’d get to dress up and wear a flower crown and be the center of attention. One time, when he was very angry, he’d told her that she was vain, and that she needed to unlearn some of the lessons her mother had taught her.

  She hadn’t spoken to him for a week after that.

  Instead, today, she told him all about the photography class, which had been awesome. When they got to the duplex and went inside, she could hardly wait to bring out her laptop and put in the flash drive to show him the pictures she’d taken.

  “I took this one of Alec, but he’s a terrible subject. He always has to make some dumb face so that everyone will know he doesn’t care whether he looks good or not.” She had put the laptop on her dad’s lap, and she sat on the arm of the chair so that she could scroll through the pictures and narrate.

  She let the one of Alec linger on the screen an extra few minutes. She didn’t want to be the one to say so, but she thought the picture was pretty good, in spite of Alec’s dumb expression.

  “He shouldn’t worry about his looks, though,” she said. “He always looks good. He’s just one of those people.”

  Dad smiled. “He’s definitely photogenic. But I think you caught a great shot there. And you can almost see the devil peeking out of those mischievous blue eyes.”

  She flushed with pleasure. That was what she thought, exactly, though she wouldn’t have known how to put it.

  “And here’s Penny,” she said, finally moving on. “She’s easier to do, because she’s not nervous. She just acts natural. And she’s photogenic, too.”

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, to see if he’d noticed that she used the word he just taught her. He probably did, because he was smiling at the picture.

  “She is definitely that,” he said. “That’s a lovely picture. Great job.”

  She wondered whether Alec was at home right now, showing his pictures to his family. He’d taken a whole lot of Ellen. She wondered if any of them were pretty. Maybe. Since they’d moved to Colorado, and she’d been doing all this out-of-doors stuff, like hiking and horseback riding, and even the archery at Mrs. Starling’s camp, she might have lost a few pounds.

  She wondered if anyone at Alec’s house looked at her picture and said, “She’s photogenic.”

  When her dad had looked at every single picture, she asked if she could go out back and take some more shots before it got too dark. She still had a ton of room on her flash drive, and she had an idea that Penny’s gazing balls would look great, if she could capture the light just right.

  He didn’t seem to mind. He had some work to do anyhow, he said.

  Didn’t he always?

  She stayed out a long time, hoping that maybe Penny would come out, too, and they could talk. She took about a hundred pictures of the gazing balls, but they never looked right. The balls always looked flat and lifeless, not at all the way they did in real life. She was hoping maybe Penny knew the trick for making the life show up in the photograph.

  After a while, though, she got tired. She was hungry, too. She wondered whether Dad was going to make red rice and tuna for dinner—or whether maybe he’d order a pizza.

  She let herself in through the kitchen, and she was glad that it was quiet and dark, which meant he wasn’t planning to make red rice. Ellen was sick of that, and she’d be glad to have pizza for a change.

  Maybe, she thought, it was time for her to learn how to cook something. The dude ranch was offering a cooking class during camp next week, and she thought she might take it. She wouldn’t tell Dad, though. She’d surprise him, and—

  She lost her train of though
t as she entered the living room. Her father was sitting at the dining table, but he didn’t have his computer open. He didn’t have any work on the table in front of him. He didn’t have the TV on, either, although he almost always watched the news at this time of day.

  Instead, he seemed to be looking at a photo album. She squinted and recognized it instantly. It was the photo album full of wedding pictures, from back when he and her mom got married. He must have gone into Ellen’s room to get it, because she always kept it by her bed.

  She started to say something snarky about that, about how there was such a thing as privacy.

  But something about the way he was sitting...

  Something about the way he was staring down at the photos, his hands on the table, on either side of the album but strangely loose, as if he’d forgotten he had hands...

  Something in the tight set of his jaw, the small, jumping pulse at the edge of his throat...

  It reminded her that these were, in the end, his pictures. Not hers. Maybe this wasn’t a great time to start whining about privacy.

  Quietly, she got close enough to see over his shoulder. She expected him to be studying one of the mushier pictures, like the one in which they were kissing, or the one where they were feeding each other pieces of cake.

  But it wasn’t. He was staring down at a page of photos she’d never liked very much. In these pictures, her mom and dad weren’t even looking at each other. They stood side by side, but they leaned in different directions, which looked weird.

  Dad’s grandfather was in some of them, and he didn’t look happy about the whole thing. In fact, he looked almost mad, showing that he hadn’t liked his son’s bride very much. Which, Ellen had always heard from her mom, was actually the case. One time, her mom had said, “If your great-grandfather had had his way, you wouldn’t ever have been born.”