Linda, the author of the article, was also aware of the problems with the locale, and together they decided to follow Dawna’s suggestion and focus on Raymond and his crew members, with the angle being a new landscaper who would take on the toughest projects. If the weather held up, she might be able to pull this off. She exhaled and some of the stress drained from her body. She hadn’t even realized how tense she was. After the unpleasant encounter with Dawna, she didn’t even have the time to call Gerald.
She collected her photography gear from the passenger seat of the car, then crossed the parking lot toward two pickups. She scanned the grounds but didn’t see Raymond or his crew and figured that they must be on the other side of the only building on the property. She walked in that direction, wading through the knee-high grass in her high-top sneakers; the place seemed more like a jungle with each step.
She stopped when she heard a noise behind her and turned to see Raymond pushing a wheelbarrow across the lawn toward her. “So you finally made it,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. There was something in his tone, as if he thought she made a habit of showing up late to her photo assignments. She was tempted to tell him that running behind was the exception for her, not the rule. But she needed to be on this guy’s good side if she wanted to get quality photographs of him and his crew.
She managed a half smile. “Yes, I wanted to be sure…” She paused when she realized that he wasn’t going to stop and chat. Instead, he strode past her toward a muddy, barren hillside in the distance. That was when Lenora noticed that Raymond was wearing heavy work boots, and the look of the rough hillside made her regret that she had worn her sneakers instead of her Timberlands, despite the warm spring weather. She slung her Nikon across her shoulder and hurried to catch up to him.
“Um, I know we got off to a shaky start, Raymond,” she said, trudging awkwardly through the mud. “I hope we can put that past us.”
He shrugged. “We’re already past it as far as I’m concerned. And please, everybody calls me Ray.”
At that moment she found herself imagining him saying the exact same thing to Dawna when he met her, and she felt a tinge of jealousy. It took only one visit for him to invite Dawna to call him Ray, yet two visits for her. “Ray it is then,” she said. “I hope to get some good shots of you and your team, and it always helps if the mood and atmosphere are pleasant.”
He let go of the wheelbarrow handles when they reached the hillside and turned to face her. “I hear you, and all the talk about moods and atmosphere and stuff is fine. But you should know that we’re very short on time. The only reason Steve and I allowed you to come back here is because Dawna was pretty persuasive. She convinced us that you could maneuver around here without messing up our workflow. So I told her she could send you back today as long as you stay out of our way. I didn’t promise that we would have a lot of time for posing and smiling or any crap like that.”
Lenora nodded even though she was tempted to let him have it. The barbs about her comments on mood and atmosphere were not at all necessary. But this was work, and she would tolerate just about anything to get the shots for the magazine. “I get that. And I won’t need a lot of posing and crap like that.”
Ray chuckled good-naturedly at her obvious sarcasm and lifted the handles to the wheelbarrow.
“Maybe a few formal head shots later today, but for the most part I prefer candid shots,” she said. “It’s actually better if you all go ahead with your work and act like I’m not even here.”
“Cool,” he said, seeming genuinely relieved as he walked off.
She spent the next hour and a half photographing Ray and his crew as they worked. Her biggest regret was the sneakers she had worn. They were normally adequate in the spring but not on this assignment. The shoes were already damp and muddy, and she was doing a lot of slipping and sliding. God forbid she should fall and damage her equipment or hurt herself. But she had resolved to forget about all of that and focus on the job in front of her. She would pull out her foot massager tonight when she got back to the condo.
She took extra care to remain steady on her feet and not get in the way. At first the crew was uneasy about being photographed while they worked, but they were soon so wrapped up in their jobs that they seemed to forget she was there. That was exactly what Lenora wanted. She had worked hard over the years to perfect her ability to take photographs unobtrusively even under the most difficult circumstances. It started with the way she dressed for photo shoots—rubber-soled, ankle-high tennis shoes or boots and simple, baggy clothing in neutral colors. And she had learned early on that it helped to look as plain as possible when photographing men—little or no makeup, hair tied back in a ponytail. The less distracting she was, the easier it was to move around unnoticed.
As she looked through the lens throughout the day, she couldn’t help but notice how photogenic Ray was, with his youthful good looks. The camera absolutely loved him. She had seen him only in his work jeans and T-shirts, but it was easy to imagine him wearing a suit or tuxedo. He was the complete opposite of Gerald in many ways. Gerald was far more cerebral and considerably older. Lenora didn’t know Raymond’s age, but she suspected he was just in his late twenties.
As good as Ray looked on camera, she needed to get a few close-ups. She had realized that it was a bad idea to interrupt him when he focused on a particular operation, such as uprooting a dead tree. She’d have a much better chance of catching him in an upbeat mood if she waited for the right moment, when he was between tasks. Waiting was a big part of photography. Waiting for the right light, the right mood, the right expression.
She finally saw Ray pause late that afternoon and quietly watch a couple of his workers. She thought it might be a good time to ask for those close-ups. As she approached him, he smiled. That was a good sign.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked.
“I think so. I got some really nice, tight shots of you on the hillside with your crew.”
“Sounds good.”
“Now I’d just like to get a few of you alone, if that’s okay with you?”
He glanced at his watch and that was when she noticed his hands—strong yet smooth, with scars that were likely characteristic of his chosen field of work. They were the hands of a man who used them often and well. He wore no rings whatsoever. No class ring, no wedding band. She wanted close-ups to capture the rugged beauty of those hands.
“You sure it’ll be just a few?” he asked.
She nodded.
“So where do you need me?”
For a fleeting moment, Lenora had a vision of him posing naked. She shook her head for a second. Where the hell did that come from?
She cleared her throat and pointed toward a mound of dirt. The hands, she reminded herself, photograph the hands. “Can I have you pick up a shovel and pretend you’re digging a hole?” While he went to retrieve a shovel, she changed to a macro lens. Then she got several close-ups of Ray’s hands as he used the shovel in various poses. She looked around for another halfway decent background and found one near a huge weeping willow. The area was starting to look fairly nice, since some of the crew had worked there all morning.
“Next I want to get you standing near that tree where you all just put mulch at the base,” she said.
He moved toward the tree and stood awkwardly, with his arms folded tightly across his chest. She smiled to herself as she changed to a telephoto lens. He might look good enough to be a model, but he obviously did not know how to pose like one. She took a couple of photos, hoping that would get him to relax. But he grew more tense with each shot, and she wasn’t sure if he was always like that when his portrait was taken or if he was simply anxious to get back to work.
“Um, why don’t you try to ease your shoulders back a bit?” she suggested.
“Didn’t realize they were so tight.”
“Try flexing your muscles like this,” she said and rotated her own shoulders.
He laughed.
“Am I that bad?”
“It happens,” she said as he followed her instructions. “Your mind’s in work gear and sometimes it’s hard to shift.” She looked around for something he could hold. That often helped put people at ease. “Let’s get the wheelbarrow in the shot with you.”
He brought the wheelbarrow back to the tree. She took his hands and showed him where to place them. Then she backed away and lifted the camera to her face. Through the lens, she could see that he had relaxed a lot. Now what she had to do was make sure she got all of that banging upper body in the frame.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked playfully when they were done. She had gathered all of her equipment, and he offered to walk her back toward her car.
He grunted. “Maybe not as painful as I thought it was gonna be.”
“You loosened up a lot toward the end,” she said. “That always helps.”
He shrugged. “If you say so. Guess I just want to get my work done and get paid. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a landscaper. I love taking something that’s raw and rugged like this and making it look polished using nothing but my hands and a few tools. I’m just not all that comfortable doing it in front of a camera.”
She glanced at his hands again, his ring-free hands. Did that mean he was single and unattached? she wondered. She shoved the thought from her head. What the hell difference did it make? None whatsoever, because she was attached. And even if she had been completely free, a good-looking twentysomething like Ray would never be interested in a chubby, plain thirty-seven-year-old like herself. She nodded. “I understand. I’m sometimes awkward or shy until you put a camera in my hands. Then my confidence surges.”
He nodded. “I can tell. You’re fearless with that thing.”
She smiled.
“And I expect people to want to take pictures of my work,” he added. “It’s the nature of the business and I’m flattered that they like what I do. I just don’t understand why they want to take pictures of me.”
“You’re getting popular in this area,” she said. “That’s what happens when you become as big a story as the work that you do. You need to start getting used to having your picture taken. There will be more attention in the future. Lots of people would kill to have that happen with their businesses.” She thought of Gerald.
“You’re right, and I hope you don’t think I’m ungrateful or don’t appreciate the recognition of my work. ’Cause I do.”
They paused in front of her car, and she extended her hand. “It was nice to work with you.” They shook and the touch was electrifying. Her breath quickened.
“Hope I wasn’t too much of a pain earlier,” he said.
“What?” She had barely heard him, she was so focused on wondering why his touch had affected her so. She had to work consciously to slow her breathing. “No problem,” she said, laughing lightly at her momentary lapse. “Any issues we had earlier were my fault. I was really late to the first site.”
“Still, I could have been a little nicer about it. I get that way sometimes when my work is interrupted.”
“I understand.”
He opened the car door and shut it for her after she was inside with all of her equipment. She rolled the window down, and he placed his hands on the edge of the door frame. In that moment of silence, as she looked up at him, she could hear her heart thumping. Was he going to lean in and kiss her? Or maybe ask her out?
“Would you like to get together for coffee or lunch over the weekend?” he asked.
The fantasy lasted only a few seconds. Lenora realized that Ray had not actually said those words. He hadn’t actually asked her out. Nor would he. Look at her. Thirty pounds overweight, a decade older, no makeup, baggy pants, sneakers, and burdened by a bunch of photography gear. Why would a man like Ray, who had everything going for him, want to go out with her? Dawna, she was not.
“Let me know when the piece comes out,” he said and stepped back from the car.
She nodded. “The editor will be in touch with you. Thanks for agreeing to do this.” She put the car into reverse and backed out. As she pulled out of the lot, she looked into her rearview mirror to get one last glimpse of Raymond Shearer as he walked back toward the site. In a way, she was glad that she would likely never see him again. The way her thoughts twisted into a knot when he got just a little bit close rattled her.
Chapter 8
Lenora hooked her Nikon up to the computer in her office and opened the photographs she had just taken at the Moss Building. She wouldn’t actually do any editing or touching up herself. The magazine had a department for that. But she was always anxious to take a peek to see how the photographs turned out before e-mailing them to the editor. She also liked to organize them a bit and remove any really bad shots.
She frowned in study as the images appeared one by one in a slide show. Not bad, she thought, especially the close-ups of Ray’s hands and the ones taken near the weeping willow. It helped that Ray was so photogenic. Hell, he probably couldn’t take a bad photograph even if he tried.
She decided to make one print to take home with her. No harm in a digital image, right? She zoomed in on Ray’s face in her favorite image and blew it up to 200 percent. Then she stuck a five-by-seven-inch sheet of premium glossy paper into her printer. When the photograph was printed, she stared at Ray’s face.
He was so good-looking, she thought. A little hot-tempered, but even that was appealing to her. Although she sometimes came across really attractive men in her work, she had never met a man who held her spellbound after seeing him only once or twice. There wasn’t anything wrong with finding other men attractive, as long as one didn’t go overboard. But this was overboard. Ray was playing all sorts of tricks on her mind. Her head filled with thoughts of Ray and his beautiful, rugged hands. It seemed as if his fingers were in the room with her, and Lenora imagined them slipping under her T-shirt to fondle her bare breasts. Her tummy quivered with anticipation as she closed her eyes and let the silky fingers slip slowly down to her waist and around the curve of her hip. She held her breath as they unzipped her khakis and inched beneath her underwear to the crevice…
The sound of a door shutting down the hall broke the spell, and Lenora’s eyes popped open. She blinked. What the hell was wrong with her? She needed to get ahold of herself. And quickly. She took a deep breath and tucked the photo of Ray into the bottom of a side desk drawer. Then she sent the remaining photos off by e-mail to Linda and deleted all copies from her own computer. That was risky in that there was a small chance the photos would get lost in transmission. But she had to get this man out of her computer and her mind. She had done more than enough drooling over a man who was not her boyfriend.
She picked up the wood-framed photograph of Gerald on her desk and thought back to when she took it. He had wanted a formal portrait for his business, so he was wearing a suit and tie in the photo. Gerald wasn’t as sexy as Ray. He didn’t have the chiseled abs or the fine facial features and smooth chocolate complexion that got her to swooning. But Gerald was steady, well educated, ambitious, and dependable when he wanted to be. He was the kind of man a woman took home to Mama.
They had been through many ups and downs together over the past three years, the worst time being when he cheated on her. And Gerald was now going through a fairly rough period with his public relations firm. It had survived the dot-com bubble burst as well as a former shady business partner who dipped into the till to the tune of nearly fifty thousand dollars. Now they were facing the weakest economy since the Great Depression. This was definitely taking a toll on the business and on Gerald, but Lenora was convinced that they would get through this just as they had everything else. She had to be patient and have faith in that.
She sighed and put Gerald’s photo back down on her desk. That was more than enough daydreaming for one day. She needed to call Dawna to let her know that the photo shoot had gone well and that the images had been e-mailed to the editor. Even giving Dawna good news was
something Lenora dreaded. Dawna would likely lecture her about not letting her work get behind again. After talking to Dawna, she would try to reach Gerald.
Lenora reached toward the receiver just as the phone rang. She picked it up to hear Gerald’s voice.
“Hey, love,” he said.
So he had finally decided to call her. “What happened?” she asked. “I thought you were going to call me last night.”
“I got in real late, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You could have called me this morning before you left for work.”
“I was at my office before you even woke up,” he said. “I honestly didn’t want to disturb you. And at least I’m calling now.”
“I don’t mean to get testy,” she said. “I was just expecting you to call last night. I waited and waited. You’ve been doing this a lot lately.”
“I’ll try to do better. Honestly.”
She sighed. She was tired of this happening, but what could she do? Break up with him for not calling a few times a week? “How are things going with the client?”
“Well enough,” he said. “I think things are looking up, but we’re going to need to work on him more, a lot more.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, sensing what might be coming. “You better not be calling to cancel dinner tomorrow night, Gerald Thomas. We have reservations at the Iron Bridge.”
“Umm.” He paused and exhaled with regret.
“Dammit.” She was so looking forward to a nice dinner together. She waited in aggravated silence for him to explain himself.
“I’m really, really sorry,” he said. “But it honestly cannot be helped. We’re renegotiating the terms of the deal because the client insists on it. He’s losing money like everyone else in this economy.”
She stifled a cry of frustration. “Is this the same client you’ve been meeting with all week?” She was trying hard not to get suspicious, but it was getting more and more difficult with him canceling their plans all the damn time. This was the second time in less than a week.
Money Can't Buy Love Page 5
