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They all made her feel welcome, and comfortable. Except Ry. Who still made her nervous despite the prevailing ease in the room.

After that she was mostly silent, watching the family dynamic with more than a little bit of wonder. The talk went around the table, the give and take, everyone’s words given attention and acknowledgment. She knew families like this existed, intellectually, but she’d never seen it firsthand before, let alone been a part of it.

But the Rafferty clan seemed determined that she be just that, a part of it. Over the luscious roast and vegetables, Maggie asked, “How did you get started in photography, Kaitlyn?”

Startled to be included, Kaitlyn stammered a little at first. “I…it was…high school. The teacher who ran the photo club. Nick Vega.”

“He spotted your talent, huh?” Cody said.

Kaitlyn grimaced. “I think it was more he was trying to keep me out of trouble. Give me something else to do, besides—”

She broke off, realizing with a little shock she’d almost told them about the trouble she’d already been in, hanging with the wrong crowd and messing with the edges of a really bad lifestyle.

“Good teachers, ones who truly care, are rare and irreplaceable,” Maggie said.

“Yes,” Kaitlyn said, calmer now. “And he’s one of them. He loaned me one of his old cameras and showed me how to use it.”And told me not to end up like my mother. The first time I ever knew that…everybody knew.

“And you found your passion,” Sydney said with understanding in her voice.

Kaitlyn looked across the table at the woman with the beautiful golden eyes. She’d only spoken to her briefly before, in passing, but even she had heard of The World in a Gift, the global enterprise the woman had built from the ground up. “Yes, I did. Thanks to Nick. His wife and son died very young, so we’ve become…each other’s family. I owe him everything.”

“Cody showed me some of your work. It’s brilliant,” Sydney said.

“And she,” Keller put in with a loving look at the woman beside him, “would know.”

“Yes, she would,” Kaitlyn said, meaning it. “So that means a lot. Thank you.”

“So,” Sydney said, that golden gaze fastened on Kaitlyn almost disconcertingly, “tell me about those shots you took for the male-bashing article.”

Kaitlyn blinked. “I…”

She didn’t know what to say. She’d hated that job, because every minute she put into it felt like a betrayal of her father, and in fact every loving figure she’d had in her life, who all happened to have been male. But she hadn’t known the writer’s prejudice going in. And she’d needed the money badly at that point, and what she’d made on that job had given her three months of breathing room.

And she’d hated herself every one of those months.

“You meant those photographs to prove exactly the opposite of what that article said, didn’t you,” Maggie said softly, and it was not in the tone of a question but of certainty. Kaitlyn shifted her gaze. Maggie’s expression matched the tone, and Kaitlyn knew that, for her at least, the message she’d intended in those pictures had come through loud and clear. And that was the only thing that eased her self-disgust at having participated in the hit piece.

“Yes,” she said. “It was all I could do. I didn’t know what the slant was going to be until after I’d agreed, and then…I couldn’t afford to back out.”

“Sometimes we all have to do things we’d rather not.” Maggie’s voice was brisk now, as if signaling that it was time to move on. “Are you still in touch with your teacher?”

“Yes. He’s…having some problems physically at the moment, but his mind is as sharp as ever, and I see him regularly at the assisted living place he’s in.” She smiled. “It’s a good place. We threw a big birthday party for him there last month, when he turned seventy.”

“Places like that are hard to find,” Ry said.

It was the first time he’d spoken since the topic of her work had been broached. He was looking at her intently as he said it. A little too intently. But then, Kaitlyn wasn’t sure any steady look from him wouldn’t be too much, for her anyway. And that speculative glint in his eyes made her edgy.

Or it was simply that he made her edgy.

“It took a while,” she agreed, “to find the perfect fit.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ry said, nearly as softly as his mother had spoken a moment ago. But there was a different note in his voice.

It was the sound of someone who’d had a suspicion confirmed.

Chapter Fifteen

Ry didn’t thinkhe was wrong that Kaitlyn had jumped to help clean up after dinner not only to be helpful, but also because she needed to move, to do something. And as he gathered up as many dishes as he could carry without risking breakage that would have his mother giving him that “You should have known” look she had down so well, he walked beside Kaitlyn into the kitchen.