Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts

by D. F. Jones

  She rose up on her toes and searched for an escape.

  Dalton recognized the desperation in Trish’s blue eyes. He’d seen it seven years ago, when she came home from art school for Christmas. He’d glanced up from his teller’s perch in the bank and spotted her selecting a cookie from the holiday hospitality tray on the customer service counter.

  Vanessa left her desk, walked over to Trish, and showed off her engagement ring. Though he couldn’t hear Vanessa’s words, the pain flooding Trish’s face still haunted him. He’d selfishly thought her determination to become a famous photographer meant she wouldn’t have time to love him.

  He learned the hard way that Vanessa was an itch with a capital B. When she realized he’d never move away from Stevensville, she filed for divorce, cleaned out their joint savings account, and took up with a Denver real estate broker who kept a bungalow on a Venice Beach canal.

  Dalton knew he’d hurt Trish back then, but he could make amends now. Show her how much he still cared.

  He wedged his shoulder between the Taylor sisters, cupped Trish’s elbow, and announced, “I’ve found us a place to sit.” He steered her away from the press of townspeople and led her to an unoccupied swing set.

  She sank onto a blue swing seat and balanced her plate on her lap. “Thanks. I wasn’t expecting everyone to be so insistent. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

  “Really? You live in a city of eight million people.”

  “They don’t tell you what you should do, all at the same time.”

  “That’s true.” His heart beat fast. They were alone. This might be his only opportunity to ask for a second chance.

  He’d rehearsed what to say a thousand times since her grandmother’s passing. “I think the New York City subway system is overwhelming. The map looked like a mess of spaghetti when I pulled it up online last month.”

  Trish’s cup of lemonade stopped halfway to her lips. “Why were you looking up the subway system last month?”

  “Nana wanted to walk up to your booth at the flea market and surprise you. We bought plane tickets. Scottsbluff to Denver to LaGuardia.” He rubbed his palms expectantly on his trousers and waited for Trish to ask why he’d said ‘we.’

  The color drained from her face. Her plate slid off her lap and tumbled to the sand under her swing.

  His gut clenched. Nana had insisted a surprise visit was the best way to get Trish to forgive him, and he’d agreed, not knowing about Nana’s cancer. “Trish, I—”

  She stood and raised her hand like a stone-faced traffic cop. “Don’t say another word.”

  He watched helplessly as she marched out of the park, got into a compact rental car, and sped away.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, Trisha made a bitter cup of coffee and sat at her grandmother’s kitchen table.

  She’d tossed and turned most of the night, unable to digest what Dalton had told her in the park. Nana had bought a plane ticket to New York.

  Three months ago, she’d begged her grandmother—again—to visit her. Nana had claimed—again—to be too busy. This time, John Allen needed someone to do his shopping while he recovered from hip replacement surgery.

  In her very last email, Nana signed off with a cryptic quote. Soon someone will hug you so tight, the pieces of your broken heart will fit back together.

  Trisha slammed her fist on the table. Why didn’t Nana tell her about the diagnosis of stage four cancer? She gossiped about everybody else. Why not confide in her only relative? Allow Trisha to sit beside her while she slipped away.

  The grandfather clock in the living room chimed seven times.

  “That’s not much of an answer,” she yelled. “Guess you mean time marches on.”

  Knowing the clock wouldn’t answer, she set her cup in the sink and surveyed the sunny, lonely room. Her gaze settled again on a sticky note Nana had left on top of her laptop.

  The Wild American Landscapes contest. Enter this!

  Trisha studied the attached printout. Contest open to individuals over the age of eighteen who reside in the United States. Work must be original. Photos submitted in JPG format, not to exceed four MB. Entries must be uploaded using the online form. First-place winner awarded ten thousand dollars and representation by the Skardeth Gallery of New York, Dallas, and San Francisco.

  She tossed the flyer into the trash. The contest closed in two days, and she had more pressing things to do than scour the countryside for a money shot. This was northwestern Nebraska, not an endangered glacier or a breathtaking rain forest.

  Four hours later, she squeezed the last box of seasonal decorations into the back seat of her rental car and checked that the key to her grandmother’s lockbox still rested snugly in her hip pocket. She’d drop off the decorations at the Gently Used store, close out Nana’s security box at the bank, and return home to decide what to do with the antique cups and saucers in the china cabinet.

  Trisha stepped into the bank. First-of-the-month customers filled the lobby. Hoping Dalton was busy giving someone a loan, she sidled to the vault check-in counter and stared at a print board itemizing interest rates on Certificates of Deposit while she waited for a teller.

  Suddenly, the scent of sandalwood teased her nose, triggering unwanted memories of slow dances and moonlight kisses. Dalton stepped behind the counter.

  “Hello, Trish. You here to close out Nana’s security box?”

  Avoiding his eyes, she nodded.

  He withdrew a signature card from a drawer and handed her a pen. After she signed, he led her into the vault and inserted the bank’s key into one of the locks. “I’ll need her key.”

  She held it out, hoping he wouldn’t touch her fingers, trying hard not to remember how she’d ached for him after he and Vanessa married.

  His hand closed around hers and seemed to linger. He unlocked the little door, slid out a long metal box with a half-flap lid, and set it on a stand. “Take as much time as you need.”

  She waited until he stepped out of the vault and then withdrew items from the box. Her parents’ death certificates. Nana’s engagement ring, given to her by a soldier killed just before the Vietnam War ended. The deed to her house with a sticky note attached. See Dalton.

  Trisha cursed under her breath. She didn’t want to see Dalton. Nana should have summoned her home. They could have settled her affairs together, before she died.

  She threw the key into the now-empty box, marched across the bank lobby, and barged into his office brandishing the bright yellow paper square.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Large, framed photographs decorated his walls. Landscapes of Scottsbluff National Monument, the sandhill crane flyway, the muddy, meandering North Platte River. She’d snapped the images during her senior year in art school and framed each one for sale.

  She sank into the chair in front of his desk, her shock exploding into anger.

  “Where did you get my pictures?”

  The condemnation in Trish’s voice confirmed what Dalton had long suspected. Her grandmother never told her he’d secretly attended her art school graduation.

  He braced for an interrogation. “Nana asked me to drive her and her bridge club.”

  “She told me she had hired a driver.”

  “I rented the van. She paid for the gas.”

  “Where did you sit during the ceremony?”

  “In the very back row.”

  “And during the senior show?”

  “I walked around the other graduates’ installations. When you, Nana, and her bridge club friends went to dinner, I bought your pictures.”

  Trish’s eyes widened. “You were the anonymous buyer?”

  He nodded. At the time, he’d justified his purchase—to Vanessa and anyone else who asked—as hometown support for a promising talent.

  “If I’d known, I would have thanked you.” Trish tucked her shoulder-length chestnut hair behind one ear. “Despite what happened between us.”

  He didn’t want her thank
s. He wanted her to love him again.

  She slapped the sticky note onto his desk calendar and scowled. “Why do I have to see you?”

  “Because Nana wanted you to see these.” He gestured toward his office walls.

  Shaking her head, Trish rose from her seat and turned slowly, her gaze lingering on each photograph as if she recalled when and how she’d composed each shot. When she finished, she stepped up to his favorite print, a sunset—shimmering bands of orange and gold silhouetted cornstalks near harvest time. Above the tassels, pink clouds billowed under a sky crown of azurite blue.

  “Why did you choose this one?” she asked.

  He folded his hands on his desk and debated what to say. The picture reminded him of her—and the relationship he’d squandered. But it also encouraged him to believe she’d find her way back to him. When she did, he’d feel as glorious as the sky above the cornstalks in her photograph.

  Certain she wasn’t ready to talk about getting back together, he said the next best thing. “It gives me hope.”

  Her jaw dropped, but no words came out. She glanced again at the sunset photograph and dashed out of his office.

  Chapter 3

  Trisha pressed her hands over her heart as she stood in the center of her grandmother’s living room and compared the landscapes in Dalton’s office to the photographs mounted on the walls.

  In one, Nana placed small American flags beside veterans’ headstones in the cemetery for Memorial Day. In another, ten-year-old Jerry Naylor trudged home pushing his bicycle with the broken bike chain draped over the handlebars. A third caught the sun as it rose like a big, yellow lollipop over the stick-like auger of a combine.

  Each picture evoked an emotion. Patriotism. Sympathy. Awe. Precisely what her photos of urban skyscrapers and ethnic neighborhoods lacked.

  She inched back, still studying her photographs, and sat on the sofa.

  How could she have missed something so obvious? Time after time, gallery owners rejected her well-intentioned close-ups of subway stairwells. Browsers at the Brooklyn Flea ignored her cityscape postcards and purchased prints of abandoned farmsteads and windswept grasslands.

  Their message was clear, now that Dalton had unwittingly helped her to understand it. Her talent was landscapes. She possessed the intuitive ability to capture the splendor of isolated places.

  A second revelation zapped her like a bolt of lightning. Since moving to New York, she’d only entered urban contests.

  Shivering with excitement, she ran to the kitchen, opened Nana’s laptop, and accessed the Wild American Landscapes website. A link on the contest page took her to a display of previous years’ winning photos. In accompanying paragraphs, the first-place photographers described how they’d taken their shot. A judge explained why each image stood out.

  The number one reason? Uncommon location. No recognizable geysers or sequoias.

  The tips of her fingers tingled. She’d brought her camera home. A little-known wasteland lay in the middle of the Oglala National Grassland, less than an hour away. It had poured two days ago, so her compact rental car wouldn’t be able to navigate the preserve’s sticky clay terrain.

  She reached for her phone and dialed a number she’d vowed never to call again.

  Dalton looked at his caller ID and panicked. Trish wouldn’t call unless she was in trouble.

  He jumped to his feet and punched the Talk icon. His office chair crashed into the wall behind his desk. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, her words rushed. “Well, almost fine. I need a truck.”

  He scratched his cheek. “Are you asking for a loan?”

  “No! I need to go to Toadstool today and tomorrow.”

  He pumped his fist in the air. In eleventh grade, they’d taken a field trip to the geological park. Going there now with Trish allowed him the opportunity to turn back the clock to when they’d started to fall in love.

  He tugged off his tie. “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

  Twenty-nine minutes later, he turned onto her street with a tank full of gas and two fleece jackets behind the driver’s seat. Toadstool’s wind-blasted canyons turned chilly after sunset.

  She stood at the curb with an orange backpack, two gray camera cases, and a tan tripod carrier resting next to her boot-clad feet. Dark sunglasses and a brimmed I heart NYC cap shaded her eyes. She’d knotted the tails of her long-sleeved yellow shirt above her waist. Faded jeans hugged the curves of her hips.

  As soon as he shifted into park, she opened the passenger door and set her gear on the seat. Then, she dug into her hip pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and a key attached to a fat rental car fob. “Thanks for coming so quickly. The cash is for gas. You’ll have your truck back by Thursday at the latest.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  She stiffened. “No, you’re not. You have to work.”

  “I took time off.”

  “You’ll be bored. I never know what to shoot until I find it.”

  “I’ll carry your gear.” He jerked his chin toward her bags on the passenger seat. “You can concentrate on finding the right shot.”

  Her gaze darted around the interior of his truck and landed on his T-shirt. “You’re not dressed right. It can get cold when the sun sets.”

  He reached behind the driver’s seat and lifted two fleece jackets, hoping she’d be pleased he remembered the times she’d forgotten a jacket and borrowed his. “One for you and one for me.”

  She didn’t smile. “What about drinking water? I only brought enough for me.”

  He raised a large stainless-steel thermos. “If you think this isn’t enough, I’ll buy more when we stop for take-out.”

  One by one, he picked up her bags and set them gently behind her seat. He knew the utility bags were padded, but he wanted to demonstrate how careful he could be with her expensive camera and lenses.

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “I guess you have everything figured out.”

  He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Just this much. You can explain the rest on the way.”

  Chapter 4

  Trisha shut the lid on her half-eaten nacho grande and set the take-out container carefully on the truck’s floor mat.

  Dalton’s brow furrowed. “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s delicious.” She glanced at his empty container, still open on his lap. “It’s a huge portion. I can’t believe you ate all of yours.”

  “It’s my job. I loaned Luis and Emelda the money to open their restaurant. The more I eat, the faster they’ll repay the loan.” His eyes twinkled. “I haven’t decided what cuisine to invest in next. I’m leaning toward Thai.”

  She resisted the impulse to tell him she adored spring rolls and potstickers.

  “I’m a green curry man.”

  “Since when?” She cocked her head. “Used to be the most exotic thing you’d eat was grated parmesan cheese on a sausage pizza.”

  “Things change, Trish.” He slid his take-out container under his seat. “I’ve changed.”

  She turned her head and pretended to be more interested in a hawk soaring over a wheat field. Not everything had changed. His scent still made her ache with desire. Her skin still tingled whenever and wherever they touched.

  For the past seven years, Nana had insisted he’d backed away when Trisha left for art school because Trisha wanted to travel the world, and he wanted to bring the world to Stevensville.

  Trisha had scoffed at her grandmother’s explanation. If two people were truly in love, they found a way to be together.

  “This contest.” He intruded on her thoughts. “Where should we set up your camera?”

  “I don’t know, Dalton. I haven’t been to Toadstool in years.”

  He scrubbed his hand on his knee. “You must have some idea.”

  She didn’t want to admit she needed to wait until the tips of her fingers prickled. “I’ll know the right spot when I find it.”

>   “I have some suggestions, if you’ll let me.” He shot her an uneasy glance.

  He’s as nervous as I am.

  Knowing that made it a little easier to trust him. “That would be great. Thank you. And thank you for driving me.”

  They passed the Welcome to Ogala National Grassland sign. Thousands of acres of unspoiled prairie lay before them. A breeze rippled the shin-high native grasses, still green from recent rains. Puffball clouds drifted in the bright blue afternoon sky, a stark contrast to the desolate badland looming in the distance.

  Trisha attached her new telephoto zoom lens to her camera, rolled down her window, and leaned out to snap her first test shot. She’d study the images after they were downloaded to Nana’s laptop and decide where to focus her attention tomorrow.

  Twenty minutes later, Dalton pulled into the Toadstool campground and parked. She hopped out of the truck and scanned the barren, bleached-brown cliffs through her viewfinder. During high school, their science class had hiked the one-mile trail that looped along the desiccated riverbed and hunted for fossilized bones of prehistoric pigs and saber-tooth cats. She needed something more spectacular to win the contest.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  She turned to pick up her gear.

  Her pack already rested on his back. The straps of her camera case and tripod carrier crisscrossed his chest like bandoliers on a battle-ready mercenary. “I can carry something,” she protested.

  “You are,” he replied. “A six-thousand-dollar camera.”

  She wet her lips. “How did you know?

  “Focus magazine. A person can learn a lot by studying the ads.”

  “You bought a subscription to a photography magazine?”

  “The bank did.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Your grandmother thumbed through it every time she came in.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes misted as she imagined Nana sitting in an overstuffed bank chair enjoying an article about shutter speed adjustments. Then she remembered the likelihood of that was slim to none. Nana had too many other interests.