Читать книгу Back In Fortune's Bed - BRONWYN JAMESON, Bronwyn Jameson - Страница 8

Over the past two weeks Diana had done upset, disappointed, annoyed, indignant and a dozen other emotions too confusing and complex and maddening to label. Right now, walking through the breezeway in Skylar Fortune’s barn, she would have chosen any one of them over her current state of jittery, heart-jumping nerves.

Fitting, she supposed, since Sky’s stables were filled with similarly high-strung thoroughbreds.

Not that she could blame her current state on either the location or her semi-fear of horses. Nor could she blame the purpose of her early morning visit to the Fortune estate, which was to shoot her first professional we-pay-you photos. Ever. That caused her nerves to hum with barely suppressed excitement not to wail with trepidation.

The wailing and the jittering were all down to one thing.

Here, in the stables that were his domain, she risked running into Max Fortune again.

She hated that his snub at Case’s party had tied her in knots for the two weeks since. Had he not recognized her? Did he not remember her? Or had he left so abruptly after their short exchange because he didn’t want to acknowledge their history?

Eventually she’d admonished herself for wasting too much emotional energy on an old love affair. After three years of widowhood she’d finally found her feet. Since moving to Sioux Falls she’d lucked upon an occupation she loved and had recently taken up a position at her mentor’s studio/gallery.

The last thing she needed was a force of nature like Max Fortune messing with her newly discovered contentment.

For the duration of the twenty-mile drive from Sioux Falls to the Fortune estate, she’d reprised that lecture. Today was crucial to her aspirations. She needed to remain focused and professional.

But all the self-talk in the world didn’t stop her heart from leaping into her throat when she heard the crunch of hooves on aged brick cobblestones. Pivoting on her heels, she looked back over her shoulder at the approaching horse being led by…Skylar.

Thank you, God.

She released a long breath and smiled as the youngest of Nash Fortune’s five children came to an abrupt halt, her brows knit in a frown. “Diana. You’re here. Already.”

“I know I’m a little early.” On her first job she’d thought that infinitely better than tardiness. “I can wait until you’re ready. There’s no rush.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m pretty sure Max has your model all gussied up and ready for the camera.”

The impatient horse at Sky’s side stamped its feet in unison with the lurch of Diana’s heart. She took a half-step back from its large feet, just to be on the safe side. “Max?”

“Max Fortune. Our Aussie cousin. Didn’t you meet him at Case’s party?” Without waiting for an answer, Sky hurried on. “Not to worry, you’ll meet him now. Max and his friend Zack Manning are starting up a stud farm back home and they’re over here inspecting the setups and buying stock. Your subject is one of Max’s first acquisitions and she’s a real beauty. He bought her in Kentucky last week.”

“Do you mean that this job is shooting Max Fortune’s horse?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Diana wished them back. Not the question itself—that was perfectly valid since Sky had made the booking without one mention of a third party—but her horror-struck tone.

Sky’s frown deepened. “I didn’t realize that would be a problem.”

“Oh, no, it’s not a problem,” Diana lied.

“Really? Because you said poor Max’s name as if you’d just as soon shoot him. And I don’t mean with your camera!”

Oh, joy. That’s exactly what she’d feared. The perfect nonprofessional start when Sky had paid her a huge compliment by booking her instead of an equine specialist.

“Would you prefer if I got someone else?”

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” Diana said quickly. She’d come here as a photographer, not as a woman bruised by a past breakup or a recent snub. She could do this. She could be polite, businesslike, friendly even. “I’m here to shoot whatever you point me at…and only with my camera.”

“Sure?”

Diana smiled with what she hoped passed for cheerful assurance while her chest tightened with uncheerful apprehension. “Absolutely. Now, where will I find your Aussie cousin?”

Following Sky’s directions, Diana turned from the wide central breezeway into one of two wings added to the original barn when Sky expanded her horse breeding enterprise. Barn hardly described the giant U-shaped dwelling now. The place was five star accommodation, meticulously clean and toasty warm despite the frigid winter’s morning outside.

Diana dispensed with her gloves and loosened the scarf she’d wrapped around her neck. So she’d be ready to start work. And because her fluttery fingers needed something further to do, she hitched her camera bag more securely on her shoulder and increased her pace to a confident stride.

One thing she’d learned from her stage-star mother was how to exude presence, even when her insides were trembling up a storm.

At the second to last stable, she stopped and gathered her well-learned poise. Over the high Dutch door all she could see was the tail end of a large horse. The Kentucky beauty, she presumed, although not from her best angle.

Trepidation caused her heart to drum harder as she approached the door. For a second she thought the animal was unattended but then she heard his voice. Too low to make out the words, but she recognized the deep crooning tone.

Unfortunately her hormones recognized it, too, not from the days spent at his outback stables but from the nights spent in his bed. They stretched and yawned and shimmied to life before she could do a dashed thing to control their recollections.

This was not the response she needed right now, not when the rustling of straw announced him moving around beyond the horse’s substantial frame.

She took a rapid step backward and drew a deep breath just as he came into view, looking exactly like the Max she’d tried so hard, for so long, to forget.

His suede western jacket and wide-brimmed hat were pure cowboy, although that label had amused the heck out of him whenever she’d used it. Cattleman was the term they used in Australia. And although Max worked his family’s outback cattle ranches, he spent equal time running the business side of the operation from behind an office desk.

Or he had.

Past tense, Diana reminded herself. Max Fortune might still wear his tan Akubra low to shade his deep green eyes. He might still wear his hair long enough to curl beneath the broad brim of that trademark hat, but a lot can change in ten years.

A lot had changed, but not her body’s elemental response to the man.

Everything tightened and warmed and raced as she watched one large hand smooth a path over the horse’s gleaming rump. “You’ll do just fine, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice as languid as that slow-moving hand.

Diana felt a shivery pang in the pit of her stomach, a reaction and an anticipation as he started to turn toward the stable door. She caught the edge of his easy grin and her stomach went into free-fall.

This wasn’t the grim stranger from the party but the lover she remembered, quick to smile, to tease, to laugh.

Then he caught sight of her and the smile faded from his mouth and his eyes, leaving his expression as cold as a Dakota February dawn.

Diana resisted the urge to rub at her arms or rewrap her scarf. She searched for the right opening line but all she could find was the same simple greeting as two weeks earlier at the party. “Hello, Max.”

“Diana.”

No hello, just her name spoken in a tone as flat and dry as the outback plains of his home.

That short greeting did, however, answer her earlier unspoken question. He recognized her all right, which meant she hadn’t imagined his snub at the party. She couldn’t pretend that the knowledge didn’t hurt, but today he was her client. She had to forget their past encounters, both recent and distant, and focus on the job.

“Is this the mare you want photographed?” she asked.

“You’re the horse photographer?”

She bit back the instant response—is that so hard to believe?—because the answer was written all over his face. Way back when he’d teased her about her degree in arts and the classics, about her society-girl lifestyle and lack of a work résumé of any description. This was her opportunity to show that she could do something practical, and that she could do it well.

“That is what I’m here for,” she said crisply, reaching for the clip on her camera bag.

“Is it?”

Alerted by the skepticism in his tone, she looked up and found him eyeing her, head to toe and back again.

“Why else would I be here?” she asked.

“Beats me. From what I remember, horses scare the living daylights out of you.”

“That was a long time ago, Max. I’m not that girl any more.”

Something shifted in his expression, and Diana stiffened in expectation of what he might say about the past and the hours he’d spent coaxing the horse-shy New Yorker into the saddle on one of his Australian stock horses.

But perhaps all she’d seen was a wall going up, because he said nothing about the past, returning instead to their present situation.

“You don’t look like you’ve come here to work with horses,” he pointed out. “You’re wearing a skirt.”

A frown pinched her brows together as she glanced down at her clothes. Had she broken an unwritten dress code for equine photographers? Yes, she wore a skirt but it was a conservative A-line, teamed with a cable-knit sweater and practical low-heeled boots. The outfit would take her from this job to a charity committee meeting Eliza had roped her into, without needing to go home to change.

“I understood Sky booked me,” she said, cool, polite, restrained, “to take a simple portrait of a horse. She didn’t mention it was your horse. Believe me, I am as surprised as you about that! But I am here to do that job and if that requires me to get down and dirty for artistic angles or special effects, just say the word. I’m sure Sky will loan me some jeans.”

Although his jaw flexed, he remained blessedly silent. Diana decided to take that as a positive sign, but only because this job meant too much to blithely toss it away. Establishing herself as a photographer was the first goal she’d been passionate about in a long, long while. There was a certain cruel irony in the fact that her start involved working with the last object of her total passion. But she wouldn’t allow that joke-of-fate to drive her away. She might have set out this morning with the aim of proving herself to herself, but in the last few minutes it had become equally important to prove herself to Max.

With a brisk and businesslike nod of her head, she indicated the horse now prowling the stable at his back. “So, this is the job?”

“Yes.”

Diana met his eyes and there, behind the flat, guarded admission, she read acceptance—albeit reluctant—of her role. Silently she breathed a sigh of relief. “Then let’s talk about the photos you require.”

“What do you suggest?” he asked after a measured pause. “You’re the expert.”

It was a test, she knew, since Max Fortune always knew exactly what he wanted. He’d told her as much the night they met. The night he decided he wanted her in his bed.

He’d been the expert then, but today it was her turn.

Nerves flapped vulture-sized wings in her stomach as she considered the challenge he’d set. She had photographed horses once—Sky’s horses, as it happened. That had been a class assignment back before Christmas and she’d spent long hours alternatively perched on a railing fence and prone in the frozen meadow capturing the vibrant spirit, the athleticism, and the individual personalities of a group of colts in a field beyond Sky’s barn.

The results had impressed her teacher so much that he’d included them in a winter exhibition in his gallery and then offered her a job there. They’d impressed Sky so much that she’d offered her this job.

Which left one person still to impress….

He was leaning on the half-door, watching her watch his horse. That silent observation fed more adrenaline into her system and she had to fight a momentary attack of who-am-I-fooling panic. Throwing up her breakfast would not look expert, capable or professional.

Forcing her focus to the horse as it paced the roomy stable, she framed a series of shots through an imaginary viewfinder. What she saw settled and excited her nerves in equal measures. Could she capture that ripple of muscles beneath the horse’s burnished copper coat? Could she depict all that latent power in a single flat dimension?

“I’ll have to take her moving,” she decided, “in order to do her justice.”

“Not a portrait?”

“That would be too static, don’t you think?” He looked dubious, but the longer Diana watched the animal’s graceful stride, the more confident she became in her first instinctive call. She tried another angle. “I gather she’s a racehorse?”

“A retired one.”

“Was she a fast one?”

“Fast and strong,” he supplied, and the softened note of respect in his voice drew Diana’s gaze back to his profile. Still the same square jaw that framed his face in steely strength.

Or, when he wanted his own way, in stubborn determination.

But the years had sculpted change in the hollowed planes beneath his cheekbones, in the fretted lines radiating from the corners of his narrowed gaze, in the straight set of his unsmiling mouth.

Diana longed to ask what had turned him so stern and disapproving, and why he was directing that acrimony toward her. But in talking about his horse she sensed the first easing in the tension between them and she wanted to prolong that mood. It wasn’t exactly harmonious but it was a start.

“I would like to depict her as that fast, strong athlete you described. In motion. With the sun on her coat.” She paused, watching his face, trying to gauge his reaction. “That’s what I see when I look at her, but you’re the client.”

“And the client is always right?”

“No, but the client pays the bill so he always has the final say.”

As if she wanted the final word, the horse extended her neck over the door and whinnied softly. Aware of Max’s watchfulness, of being under his judgment, she forced herself to hold her ground. The horse seemed friendly enough. It was sniffing at her hair. No teeth were visible, which had to be a good thing. Diana took a steadying breath.

“Hello,” she said softly, and was pleased that her voice didn’t betray her horse-getting-far-too-close jeebies. “What is your name, beautiful?”

Max might have cleared his throat. Or it could have been a throaty horse noise from a neighboring stable. Diana lifted a hand—it hardly shook at all—and stroked the horse’s face. A brass plate attached to the leather halter she wore was engraved with a single word.

“Bootylicious,” she read. Brows lifted in surprise and amusement, she turned to Max. “Is that her name?”

“Don’t blame me.” He held up both hands defensively. “The name came with her.”

And it was so not a name he would have chosen. Diana couldn’t help smiling. “I think it is a very fitting name. Unique and distinctive,” she said, pleased that the tension had eased enough that she could joke and smile without it feeling like her face might split with the effort. “Perfect for a foundation mare for your new stud farm,” she continued, tongue-in-cheek. “You could name all her offspring Booty-something.”

He shot her a disgusted look. “Luckily she’s not part of the new operation.”

“She’s not? From what Sky said, I thought you and Zack were over here buying breeding stock.”

“We are.” He shifted his position, allowing the bootylicious one room to move off, before he leaned back against the door. Almost relaxed, Diana noted, with rich satisfaction. And finally he’d stopped glowering. “This mare was a champion miler but she’s got too much sprinter’s blood in her pedigree.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not for some studs, but we’re looking to breed champion stayers…for long distance races,” he clarified, when she looked askance. “This one’s bloodlines don’t fit the bill.”

“But you bought her anyway?”

“A gift for my parents. I’m leaving her here with Sky until she’s safely in foal. That’s why I want the photos, to send them in lieu of the real thing.”

“Easier to gift wrap.”

“Much,” he agreed, and a hint of the lopsided grin she loved lurked around the corners of his mouth.

Loved? Diana gave herself a quick mental shake. What they’d shared was not love, no matter what she’d thought during those blissful months. Mention of his parents whom she had never met acted as the perfect reminder.

“How is your family?” she asked out of politeness.

“They’re all well.”

“And you, Max?” Not out of politeness, but because she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. “How have you been?”

“Fine.”

On the surface it sounded liked a stock answer, the kind you pay no heed to. But all traces of that near-smile had vanished from his face and, as he pushed off the door and started toward the horse, Diana detected a stiffening in his posture.

Alarm fluttered in her chest. “Are you?” she asked, before she could think better of it.

“Why would you assume otherwise?”

“Because you seem so different, so—” she let her hands rise and fall as she struggled to describe the vibes he’d been giving off “—uptight.”

“You said you’re not the same person. Same goes.”

Okay, but now he sounded downright hostile and Diana couldn’t let it go. Not now that she’d started. “We’ve both changed, as people tend to do, but at Case’s party you were unfriendly to the point of rudeness. I thought you might have been too travel-lagged to recognize me, or that you simply may not have remembered. But that’s not the problem, is it?”

He clipped a lead rope onto the horse’s halter before he turned. The hat shaded his eyes but the line of his mouth definitely fit her description. Uptight and unfriendly. “You were introduced as Diana Young. Do I know you?”

“After my husband died it was easier to keep his name. Plus there are advantages to not carrying the Fielding name around…not that it matters. I’m still me.”

“Well, there’s the thing,” he said in his deep, down-under drawl. “I don’t know that I ever knew you.”

That shocked a short, astonished laugh from Diana. Never in her thirty-one years had she been as honest, as open, as herself, as in the time she’d spent as Max’s lover. “How can you say that? I shared everything with you!”

“Yeah, you shared. That’s what I don’t appreciate, Mrs. Young. That’s why I’m not feeling as friendly toward you as I used to.”

“What do you mean?” Diana shook her head slowly. “What on earth do you think I shared?”

“Your body, mostly. How did Mr. Young like that?”

“Are you implying that I was already married?” she asked with rising incredulity.

“Not married, but you must have been engaged.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You expect me to believe you met and married this Young character less than three weeks after leaving me? I guess it must have been love at first sight, then.”

Diana reared back, stung by the bitter irony of his accusation. Love at first sight had been Max. Her marriage to David Young, a big, inescapable, back-firing disaster. She’d always guarded the details closely because she knew what the gossip media would make of it. And because she didn’t enjoy admitting to the naivety and weakness that had opened her up to emotional blackmail, to the power she’d allowed her father and David Young to exert over her.

At one time she would have shared those details with Max—she’d called him, Lord knows, she’d tried. But not now. Not after those coldly delivered accusations.

Instead she fastened on the other untruth in his argument. “I didn’t leave you, Max. I went home because I had to…and only after we agreed that we saw our relationship somewhat differently. You wanted sex, I wanted more.”

He stared at her a moment, no sign of giving in the hard set of his face. It was the same uncompromising expression as the night they’d quarreled, when she’d realized how woefully she’d misconstrued their relationship. “You wanted to get married that bad?” he asked now. “That you said yes to the first batter up after I walked away from the plate?”

“It wasn’t like that,” she fired back. “David was my father’s business partner. I didn’t agree to marry him for the sake of a wedding band, okay?”

His lips compressed into a straight line of condemnation, and Diana realized that her angry outburst added weight to his belief she’d been involved with David all along. She thought about rephrasing but what did it matter? Driving here today she’d cautioned herself about getting involved again. She did not need this old heartache.

“My relationship with you was over when I returned to New York and you didn’t bother to acknowledge my calls,” she said, mustering some dignity and wrapping it around her like a protective cloak. “It’s been ten years. Why are we rehashing old quarrels?”

“You brought it up.”

“And, frankly, I’m sorry I did.”

“Seems we agree on one thing.”

For a long moment Diana couldn’t find any comeback, and to her horror she felt the ache of tears building at the back of her throat. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t pretend emotional detachment any more than she’d been able to ten years before.

“It seems that I’ve come to agree with you on another point.” She swallowed against the painful lump that was making it so dashed difficult to maintain her dignity. “I don’t believe I’m the right photographer for this job after all.”

“Suit yourself.” He gave a curt shrug. “You’re not indispensable, Diana. I can find a replacement.”

Glutton for punishment, she had to ask. “Is that what you did after I left Australia? Is that why you never returned my calls?”

He paused in opening the stable door, close enough now that she could see the wintry chill of his eyes and beneath the green patina a hint of some deeper emotion. Pain? Regret? Frustration? He shut the door behind him with a thud of finality and whatever she’d thought she’d seen was gone.

“Something like that,” he said in answer to her question. Then he touched his hat in a cowboy’s salute of farewell and walked away.