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chose to only speak freely with people he trusted, thus

avoiding it.

“Yeah,” she whispered, letting Jim think that he was right.

Maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong. Minus the nesting, the

home, and the kids bit. There was something missing.

Something that photography could never give her. Or maybe it

wasn’t missing at all. Maybe it was the parts of her that she

knew weren’t missing that were the problem. The parts she’d

always secretly longed to give but had never been able to.

She was annoyed that she saw a flash of white-blonde hair,

a sultry mouth, high cheekbones, and that youthful, naïve

sadness again in the recess of her mind, where she couldn’t

scrape it out.

“I should get going,” Jim said, pushing up from the hard

brown plastic chair. He never could sit still for very long. “I

have another unhelpful workshop to give, then a talk

tomorrow and I’m out of here.”

“Back to photographing lions?”

“No.” He grinned. “Polar bears this time. I decided to

change things up. Got tired of the nice warm weather and

thought I might like to try freezing my balls off.”

“Good luck with that. The bears and the balls.”

When she was alone, Adalynn thought about polar bears for

a few minutes, then her thoughts strayed back to the interview

she’d given the night before. Where that reporter had said

there was a rumor about her preferring the company of

women. She hadn’t been as discreet as she thought she was

when she’d allowed herself, six months ago, to spend the night

at a colleague’s apartment in Germany. How the hell had

anyone found out about that and how would anyone have