Picture Perfect Wedding (10 page)

“You should be here. I want a picture of you with Daddy.”

She breathed out. “Okay. What about one on the day we got married or the day you were born?” If he was insisting on a photo of her and Bradley together, then it would be one when they’d been happy together. When they’d fit like two pieces in a puzzle and had shared the same vision of their life together.

Max’s forehead creased in thought and then he announced, “The day I was born.”

She smiled at the memory of that wonderful and momentous day. “Good idea. Go choose one from your baby album and I’ll print you another copy.”

As Max ran off to his room, Nicole returned to the seating plan and tried to find a way of seating two acrimonious ex-lovers as far away from each other as possible without destroying twelve other perfectly matched tables. Every attempt to move someone was like dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples radiate outward to impact and upset the next table. She tried a few different permutations and combinations but her mind wasn’t up to the task. Tony, with his inky eyes and Italian good looks, kept intruding into her thoughts by seating himself at every table instead of the woman she was trying to move.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her forehead as if that would help remove him from her head. She’d thought if she only ever called him by his title or thought about him as the chief, she’d be able to get over this thing she couldn’t quite define. She certainly didn’t want to call it a fascination, and an obsession was not only way too far from the mark but way too creepy, so she was sticking with
thing.
Only, somewhere along the line she’d started to think of him as Tony.

And that was bad.

What on earth had possessed her to intervene on his behalf at the meeting? He was a grown man and more than capable of fending for himself—he had to be if he was going to survive the well-intentioned but nosey Whitetail community. Intervening and protecting him from Ella’s questioning was one thing and could be passed over as easing him into dealing with the town’s citizens. The flirting, not so much. Why had she done that? It wasn’t as if she was an expert or that flirting even came naturally to her. It didn’t. Far from it, in fact, and if truth be told she hadn’t flirted with a man since...

As she thought back, she realized that she hadn’t flirted with any man since her senior year of high school. Even then, it had been Bradley flirting with her and her return attempts had been inept at best. She dropped her hands back to the desk with a groan. Nothing had changed. She was still clumsy and inexpert and the image of her hand resting on Tony’s deeply tanned, olive-skinned arm—ivory on ebony—was burned on her retinas. Permanently there to remind her of her folly.

Only, it wasn’t just the image. Her palm kept tingling with the memory of the tickle of his black hair, the solid feel of the tautness of his arm muscles, and the heat of his skin. She rubbed her palm with her fingers as if it was still resting on his arm and her cheeks burned hot.

Not only was she embarrassed that she’d touched him in an intimate way as if she knew him very well, her ensuing panic at what she’d done ended up making her rude, brusque and officious. Tony had merely been making polite conversation, inquiring about Max and issuing an invitation which would thrill him to the core. An invitation that meant she had a valid excuse to see him again and that would thrill her.

And that was the problem on so many levels it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Mommy, what about this one?” Max slammed his baby album onto the table, his finger pressed hard against a photo. It showed Bradley gazing down at a newborn Max with love in his eyes and Nicole gazing up at Bradley with love shinning in hers.

Her heart dropped to her feet and nausea pummeled her. Even then he hadn’t loved her. How had she not been able to see it until just now?

“Mommy?”

She stiffened her spine and snapped to attention, just as she always did when she felt herself tumbling backward into the dark and dangerous black hole of grief—a grief everyone who knew her assumed they knew the cause of and yet utterly misunderstood. “It’s perfect, buddy. Let’s print it now.”

Chapter Eight

Luke pulled the tractor to a halt as he saw the unanticipated sight of Keri waving a picnic basket at him. He and Brett were chopping grass for silage while his father and Wade took over the milking. He glanced at the sun. Scratch that. They’d have finished milking by now. He on the other hand would be working well into the night and returning to the house for a sit-down supper wasn’t an option.

He jumped to the ground, leaving the tractor idling, and met his sister at the fence line. She’d spread a rug and arranged a meal of cold chicken and salad subs, fresh apple juice and a cheesecake.

He raised his brows at the unexpected feast and wondered if it came with an agenda. Erin and her meal immediately sprang to mind, although after spending mind-numbing hours driving up and down a field, pretty much every association to anything made that happen. “That’s quite a spread you’ve got there, sis.”

Keri handed him some hand wash. “Mom’s in her element feeding us.”

He bit into the sub, letting the combined flavors of grainy mustard, chives, egg mayonnaise and chicken roll around his mouth. He loved this recipe of his mother’s and realized with surprise how much he’d missed it. “I thought you were leaving first thing this morning and heading back to Phil and the kids.”

She watched him eat, fiddling with a loose thread on her light sweater. “I’m leaving in the morning but I wanted to talk to you first.”

He kept chewing, knowing she’d say what she wanted to say without any encouragement from him.

“Did you get Axel to price the entire farm or just the beach acres?”

And there it was
.

He took a long slug of juice, welcoming the coldness against his throat. “I didn’t even ask Axel to price the beach acres. He took that upon himself.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you weren’t interested in selling, you wouldn’t have told us at all.”

He shrugged against the complex knot that was his feelings for the farm—a tight and tangled mess he couldn’t seem to untie. “The price surprised me.”

They both turned at the sound of a four-wheeler. A moment later, Wade jumped off and shot both of them a killing look. “Plotting against me, are we?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Wade,” Keri said, her voice tight.

“I think you just answered my question, sister dear.”

Wade stood with his hands on his hips, looking like a solid, concrete wall.

Luke offered him a sub, wanting to build bridges with his brother. “Sit down and eat with us.”

“Oh, you mean like supper last night, Judas.”

Luke lowered the plate. “I thought you might want to hash this out rationally rather than resorting to amateur dramatics.”

Wade folded his arms across his chest. “Listen, Luke. You’re the one causing the drama. You can’t just change your mind about running the farm, because, guess what? You’re not the only person affected.”

Luke shot to his feet, mad at being told what he couldn’t do, twice in one day. “So I have to live my life to suit yours? This is rich coming from the man who played the ‘if you’re not homophobic, Dad, you’ll prove it by giving me Grandpa’s house and some land to run my business from’ card.

Wade’s ears burned red and his arm shot out in a fist that came very close to striking Luke on the shoulder. It fell back to his side. “You got the whole fucking farm!”

Keri scrambled in between them. “I’m the girl in the family and I got sweet fuck all.”

Luke stared at them both as their waves of antagonism bashed against him and part of him regretted ever mentioning the land value while another part of him knew that he had to. Even so, he wasn’t going to stand for being painted as the bad guy. “Newsflash. Neither of you wanted the farm, and to put things in perspective, it’s not like you get nothing. If I stay farming, there are the dividends from the family trust.”

“Only in the good years,” Keri said. “It’s not reliable income.”

Luke wanted to yell at her, telling her that inheritance was a privilege, not a right, and that the family trust dividends were income off of
his
hard work. But, after last night’s reaction from everyone, he was learning. Swallowing the comment meant Keri couldn’t jump on it and tell him to sell the farm, take his share and go. Right now, he didn’t know if he really wanted to walk away from the farm or not. All he knew was that as things stood, he wasn’t happy.

Sticking to cold, hard facts and avoiding the minefield that was anything to do with emotions, he said, “Due to the size of the herd, the last decade has had more good years than bad. Why do you think Mom and Dad could retire to Arizona?”

Keri ignored him. “The sale of the beach acres would go a long way toward paying Grace and Ethan’s college tuition.”

“They’re eight and ten!” Wade yelled. “You and Phil have the means to earn that money between now and then or, here’s an idea, they take out student loans like the rest of us.”

Keri’s mouth hardened. “That’s my point. It would mean they start their life without a debt load.”

Wade leaned in like a boxer ready to throw the first punch. “I think you failed to factor in the reality that the money has to be split four ways. Selling the beach acres won’t even cover their tuition.”

Keri matched his stance. “It will if the farm is sold.” She spun around to face Luke. “That’s what you want, right, little brother?”

Luke was sucked back in time to when his older siblings fought and then each one tried to get him to side with them against the other. He was all grown up now and he wasn’t falling for that old chestnut. “Right now, I want to get back to loading the freshly cut grass into the silage bags.”

“See, Keri,” Wade said with victory in his voice, “he wants to keep farming. Your money-grabbing power play isn’t going to work.”

Keri’s mouth flattened into a line of sheer determination. “Really, Luke? I can’t believe that’s what you truly want.”

He wasn’t prepared to say either yes or no. He wasn’t prepared to admit anything to either of them, especially not the fact that he felt lost. God, he hated the feeling. It swamped him, accompanying him everywhere and tainting everything he did. How had it happened that the life he’d always envisaged with great excitement had suddenly become a chore? Where was the joy he’d always found here as a kid helping out? Where was the enthusiasm that had propelled him through CALS? Where was the drive that had him working outside of the farm to gather a wealth of information so he could bring it back here and implement it? He’d started and then he’d stalled.

He ran his hand through his hair. “I want the farm in tip-top shape no matter what my decision. I’m going back to work.”

He swiped the cheesecake off the plate and trudged back to the tractor.

Wade’s voice carried over the evening air. “Keri, you haven’t brought the kids to the farm since before Mom and Dad retired and I know they want to see you all. I’ve got a vacancy in a two-bedroom cottage next weekend. Bring Phil and the kids up to visit.”

Where the hell had that invitation come from? Sometimes he really didn’t understand his siblings at all, but then again, they’d run hot and cold with each other all their lives so why would he expect today to be any different?

* * *

The moon was high as Erin pulled into Lakeview Farm Road on her return journey from Minnesota. With bookings coming in, she’d needed more cameras, her big computer and clothes, so she’d made the long trek there and back in a day. She’d also taken the opportunity to print out Lindsay and Keith’s photos.

Many photographers gave their client a DVD, but she believed people responded best to handling the physical photos rather than staring at a screen. She always went one step further by inserting the proofs into a standard white album and mounting her favorite shot of the couple. This gave her clients a real feel for the potential of their final album—an artistic collection representing love, hopes and dreams. A potential heirloom piece that could be handed down to future generations.

She slowed as she rounded the final bend and just before she passed through the open gateway into the grounds of the cottages, she braked. Work lights beamed from the middle of the adjacent field and her eyes scanned the lit area. Even with the distance, she easily spotted Luke. Despite his shoulders being equally as broad as Wade’s, his height made him stand above most men and his distinctive shock of hair gleamed golden under the lights.

Her stomach flipped in a good way.

She glanced at the dashboard clock. 11:37 p.m.

Why was he working at this late hour?

Does it matter?
You often work late into the night.

She couldn’t argue that.

She hadn’t seen him since she’d flicked a throw rug over him last night. Now he stood on a machine which was attached to the back of the tractor, and trailing behind that was the biggest and longest white, plastic “slug” she’d ever seen. The combination of moonlight and artificial light bathed the field in complex shadows but all the energy was centered on Luke. She wanted to capture the moment.

Maggie-May barked and pawed the window, her ears sticking up like eager triangles and then she whimpered her
I
need to get out of this car right this minute
whine.

The silky, smooth voice of “Soul Barry” sounded from the GPS.
You have reached your destination
,
bay-bee.

She shivered as a thrill of anticipation shot through her, making her tingle all over. If Barry was telling her in his oh-so-seductive tones that she’d reached her destination at the exact moment she’d been staring at Luke, then who was she to argue? She’d take the photo and then go talk to him. Last night he’d definitely wanted to talk to her.

No
,
he’d wanted to have sex with you.

She sloughed off the semantics. He’d been a permanent guest in her head all day and she wanted to see him. She wanted to have that “getting to know you” conversation they’d totally bypassed when they’d leaped straight into a
take my clothes off me now
kiss. The conversation he’d fallen asleep before they could have last night.

Throwing the gearshift into Drive, she drove the short distance into the parking lot for the cottages, switched off the ignition and then, having learned her lesson on the very first day on the farm, she tugged on her hot-pink-and-black rubber boots. Who knew rubber boots could be such fabulously fun footwear, or that they came in so many fantastic designs. The choice had been tricky because she’d been torn between buying three pairs—the ones she’d purchased, a pair covered in pictures of handmade chocolates, and a black pair with bright red tartan tops.

She leashed a now-frantic Maggie-May and got out of the car with her camera, tripod and flashlight. Maggie-May darted under Wade’s rustic post and rail fence, while Erin hefted her gear over and then she followed, gingerly throwing her leg over the rail. Arcing her flashlight back and forth, she hoped there were no badger holes to trip her up and was immediately struck by the thought. How did she even know about badger holes? Obviously, watching local television was more informative than she’d thought. Next she’d be quoting the specifications of farm machinery.

Once she’d found the perfect place to shoot the photo, it didn’t take long to attach the camera to the tripod and then quickly set the f-stop for a long exposure. As she lined everything up and pressed the shutter release, she heard a second dog panting by her side. She tousled Mac’s soft ears. “Hey, boy, how are you?”

The border collie rubbed his black-and-white head against her thigh and Maggie-May barked indignantly as if to say
forget her
,
I’m here.
The two dogs sniffed each other in that friendly greeting routine common to all dogs—nose to nose and nose to nether regions. Sometimes Erin wondered if that told them a lot more about each other than humans ever learned from a handshake.

Luke smells like sunshine.

“Mac! Here, boy.” Luke’s command drifted across the field.

The farm dog hesitated, as if he knew he should respond instantly to his master, but at the same time being tempted to stay with Erin and Maggie-May.

“Come on, Mac. Let’s not give him an excuse to be grumpy with either of us.”

Slinging her camera bag and tripod over her shoulder, she continued to walk carefully toward the tractors and lights. As she entered the spill of light, she saw there were two other men working alongside Luke.

Luke had his back to her and she heard him say, “You guys call it a night. I’ll finish up.”

“Are you sure?” asked the man Erin now recognized as Brett.

“You bet. See you at seven to start over.”

“Hey, Erin.” Brett nodded toward her camera. “Great moon.”

“It sure is.” She gave him a wave as he departed with the other worker in the truck.

“Erin.” Luke faced her and his greeting neither welcomed or rejected her.

His flirting tone, which had been present yesterday, was now absent and she struggled against her disappointment.

She reminded herself there was no need to be disappointed. In fact, it was probably a good thing because she was here to talk, to get to know him and not to get sidetracked just yet by thoughts of his amazing mouth, which could stroke hers as softly as a feather and be as hard and demanding as granite.

Oh
,
yeah
,
that’s the perfect way not to be sidetracked.

As she tried to shake off the unhelpful voice in her head, she lowered her tripod to the ground. “You’re working late.”

Go
,
Erin.
What a fascinating conversation starter.
Try leading with the weather next.

Luke shrugged as he stepped down and off the machine. “Just normal summer farming hours when we’re cutting hay.”

She frowned. “I thought hay went into stackable bales or those big round things I’ve seen in the fields all around Whitetail.”

He stared at her for a moment, his intelligent blue eyes flicking over her face with traces of puzzlement. It was as if she’d just spoken in a language that should be familiar to him but was sounding very foreign.