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Then Forrest looked right at me, and I could see his lips forming the words. “Sure. You owe me.”

Oh, God.

CHAPTEREIGHT

KIERA

The next day, I woke early from the noises outside my cabin or somewhere in the campground. I wasn’t sure, but it could also have been a dream. The anxiety of photographing Forrest later today and the concern for my mother’s health had me on my last nerve already.

I needed to clear my head so I could do my job properly. A walk around the campground to get a feel of the landscape would help me narrow down the location and gauge the best angle for light and contrast.

Before we headed home last night, Bruno had stopped by the local market for me to pick up some food for the refrigerator. After making a pot of coffee, I grabbed the box of Special K Red Berries cereal and poured milk into it. It had been my go-to breakfast since college.

College had been where I met Audri. She had taken a few jewelry classes during the summer at the Rhode Island School of Design, where I’d studied photography. Audri had been enrolled at Boston University, but took jewelry classes when she had time off. I modeled her jewelry shows, and she became my muse for my assignments. We became best friends from that moment on. Though Audri came from a wealthy family, she never made me feel less. Based on how hard she had worked, I didn’t even know she came from money.

Would I have been a different person if I had grown up with money? Money had been scarce for my family of two, but we lived a comfortable life. My mom was a single parent working as a nurse. She gave me everything I needed, and I hoped to give her what she needed now.

As I ate, I browsed the FitFlex website and reviewed their current activewear collection. All the male models the company had used paled in comparison to Forrest. Though he wasn’t a professional model, he had everything required to be one. The stunning look, the magnetism, and the charm were qualities the camera couldn’t refuse. The first time I saw him wearing a luxurious suit, my heart dropped. His hair had been shorter back then, rendering him an intelligent, sophisticated, and powerful man. Not that I minded the shaggy hairstyle. It was sexy in its own way.

Everything about the man was heavenly, like a picture-perfect landscape where all the colors, hues, shadows, and light aligned to leave you breathless.

Fashion photography paid my bills, but I also delved into landscape photography when I needed a change of pace. One reason I loved landscape photography was that I could escape into the peaceful sceneries. They represented the various forces of nature—the gentle, the mysterious, and the powerful.

Forrest was a force of nature. At least to my body. One thought about him sparked something in me. The muscles in my sex quivered as I remembered all the things he’d done to me, and how his length had filled me.

My mouth went dry at the shock of my body’s reaction to him. He’d moved on. So why hadn’t I?

I gasped when I felt my panties go damp.Ridiculous.Maybe this was just a sign that I needed a good lay.

Irritation bloomed in me as I changed into a new pair of underwear. I already had too many issues to deal with. I didn’t need him to trouble me even more.

You don’t need a man to make you happy.

My mom’s words rang in my ears.

You don’t need a man to survive, and you don’t need a man to be successful. Happiness isn’t measured by a penis.

I admired my mother’s diligence. She raised me all by herself and held high standards for the men she’d dated after my father. She had a long-time boyfriend who passed away three years ago from prostate cancer.

With my mom’s words bouncing in my head, I grabbed my backpack, tucked the water bottle into it, and grabbed my camera.

Using the wide dirt path, I walked around the lake and came to a beach area with massive rocks. Some had incredible texture that would be a wonderful background for photographs. Several rocks poked out from the shallow water, adding mystery and dimension to the atmosphere.

I snapped photos of the area, capturing the peaceful reflection on the lake. On my way back, I took a smaller trail and came to a patch of mushrooms growing on the bark of a fallen tree. Covered in moss, it looked like a little world. Unable to resist the adorable image, I snapped some pictures, knowing they’d make great postcards and even greeting cards.

I loved fashion photography because I was good at depicting a mood with people in clothes and accessories. But there was something about capturing nature’s beauty that spoke to my heart. Despite that, I couldn’t live on selling pictures of trees, mushrooms, and moss. People knew me as a fashion photographer, and that was where the bread and butter was.

We often had to do things that paid the bills so that we could escape to our hobbies when time permitted. That was life, wasn’t it?

Crouching,I ran a hand over the soft moss, admiring its texture and interesting color. This moss was a meadow green, different from the bright green embracing the nearby limb. The moss on the ground was a shade darker. So many aspects of the same organism.

Sort of like a collection of shoes in multiple colors. I loved my Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blaniks, and Christian Louboutins, thank you very much. As a fashion photographer, I’d gotten amazing discounts from high-end designers. But in this quiet area, I didn’t need any of those accessories to make me feel whole or pretty.

I took a picture of the moss and a cute whitemushroom, standing away from the patch.

“Why are you here all by yourself, little one?” I tapped its white cap.

“It’s not g-going to talk b-back.”