Page 15

Wrenching the window open, Campbell shoved his head out, hoping the sharp autumn air might slap some sense into him. When that didn’t work, he replayed images from his last photo shoot, a sedate commercial project for a travel company, willing his body to calm down.

“I guess I don’t understand how the seduction process works. I don’t see the difference between you asking and me accepting, or me asking and you accepting.”

Campbell jerked when her leg brushed the back of his knee, banging his head against the window frame. “No, Quinn, you don’t.” She didn’t understand what she asked for, that was the problem.

While he sure knew what he wanted.

Those desires couldn’t, they couldn’t , match up.

She touched his arm, lightly, but the caress carried the power of a sledgehammer. “Explain it to me then. I want to learn.”

Campbell’s insides tightened in an excited spasm. She wanted to learn .

With a rough inhalation, there was the scent of honeysuckle again.

Running a finger beneath his T-shirt’s collar, he threw a quick glance to the side, calculating the distance to the door. “I can’t teach you. You need a boyfriend for that. Or better yet, a husband.”

She tilted her head back, eyes on the ceiling as if searching for patience. “I don’t need a boyfriend, and I sure as heck don’t want a husband. What I want is a good?—”

Campbell slipped his hand over her mouth, determined to ignore the provoking butterfly-brush against his palm. “Have mercy on a lonely traveler, Quinn.”

Her long lashes lowered as her lips pursed beneath his hand. Fighting the fierce urge to pin her to the wall and kiss the ever-loving hell out of her, he slowly dropped his arm. “ Please ,” he said, practically begging.

She tapped her chin thoughtfully, her lids lifting to reveal a dangerously calculated gleam that unnerved him a little. Or a lot. Fontana Quinn was nothing if not pragmatic.

“Look,” she began, her voice steady, “I may not have much experience in this area, but if propriety is your concern, we can manage the perception. You teach a photography class at the center—we need that. I help with Kit—you need that. This way, we share common goals, and the rest doesn’t have to feel so… contrived. Or dishonest.”

Scrubbing his hands over his face, Campbell couldn’t shake the image of her warm and willing beneath him.

He envisioned the lighting, the way shadows would chase over her trim body sprawled across snowy white sheets.

The angles he would position her in to capture the best shot.

A tilt of the hip there, a shift of the shoulder here.

Moonlight streaming into the room, casting a violent wash of silver.

He’d never wanted to photograph a woman more.

And that scared the living shit out of him.

“Quinn, I...” He dragged a hand through his hair, a mystified sigh slipping past his lips. “I admit it—I’m thrown by your sudden turnabout. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’d be all wrong. You’re not the kind of woman I usually get involved with. I usually...try to avoid?—”

He stumbled to a halt, his breath catching.

She stood in a circle of hazy, near-perfect sunlight, watching him with those exquisite eyes. Bold. Brave. And if he looked closely enough, just a little bit lost. It stirred something in him, a host of emotions he’d long since buried .

Emotions he’d rather leave forgotten, thank you very much.

Yet, the thing that made him hasten for the door like fire lit his loafers was the itch . The compulsion to capture her image on film.

He didn’t take photographs of people. Not since his mother.

Not ever again.

“No, no way this is happening,” he said, as much to himself as to her. He grabbed his camera, slinging the strap over his shoulder, the familiar weight his lone comfort.

Undeterred, Fontana followed him down the hallway and out the door, the scent of honeysuckle trailing after them.

Damn. Once the woman got an idea in her head, it set like cement.

He avoided looking at her as he yelled for Kit, instead fixing his stare on the storm-streaked horizon, the wind gusting his hair into his face. A sky always photographed best when it looked bruised.

“Why not?” she demanded, grabbing his arm as he reached the bottom step. “You’d sleep with every woman in this town without thinking twice. Have scruples ever stopped you before?”

Turning on her, he whispered roughly, “It’s too complicated. You’re too”—he gestured to the leg she favored without realizing what he was doing—“complicated.”

Color drained from her cheeks. She swayed, and instinct had him reaching to steady her. “Hold on now, Hellcat. Calm down.”

Her breath hitched, a flicker of something raw crossing her face before she stiffened, shoulders squared. Back to the stubborn woman he was coming to like too much.

“Don’t you dare, Campbell True. Save your pity. Whatever you think, it’s not that.” Her chin lifted as she pressed a hand to her chest. “I was just, for the first time in my life, trying to grasp something for myself.”

A drop of rain slapped his cheek; another traced the curve of her jaw. He fought the urge to wipe it away, to draw her close and promise…everything. The forbidden desire: to explore her through his viewfinder.

To capture something for himself .

She’d be surprised to know he was looking for that, too.

Shame stopped him cold—the shame of wanting a woman he was taking so much from.

She deserved more than an indifferent encounter with a man like him—a man who had loved and left so many times, he couldn’t begin to puzzle out how to stay. A man who would be taking her home soon.

This woman was a keeper.

She deserved someone who knew how to keep.

“Kit!” he shouted over a distant rumble of thunder. “Get over here now!” Shivering, he strode toward his car, wishing for the jacket he’d left inside.

A crack of lightning sent Kit sprinting from behind the building in a mad dash across the unkempt lawn. “Bye, Tana!” he called, waving, his sleeve riding up, a good two inches too short.

“Got time to shop for new clothes tomorrow?” Campbell asked, his mind only half on his words. He’d left his bag and six rolls of undeveloped film inside the rec center.

As they slid into the car’s cozy confines, he set his camera on the console, his hand trembling. Just the chill in the air, nothing more. “Growing boys need things, don’t they?”

Kit stalled for a half-second, then yelped like an excited pup and pumped his fist. “Yeah! Man, oh man, I need jeans and shoes for gym, and I saw this awesome hat in this store with a purple MTV logo. We could maybe get pizza, too and… ”

As Kit rattled off a week’s worth of plans, Campbell braked at the end of the drive and peered through the rainy gray shroud.

Fontana stood in the same spot, arm looped around a column, her face—not the most perfect but undeniably the most photogenic he’d ever seen—drawn in stark shades of dejection and embarrassment.

She didn’t understand. She’d done nothing wrong, asked nothing a hundred women hadn’t asked before. And he had not, no matter what anyone thought, accepted every offer. It wasn’t like he never turned anyone down. Or that he was never turned down, for God’s sake.

Only this time, something was different. Vastly, unarguably.

He felt…well…

He simply felt .

Forcing his attention to the shimmering asphalt, he shifted into first. The car shot forward, fishtailing.

“Cool,” Kit said, grinning.

Campbell grimaced and reached to check Kit’s seat belt, giving the strap a firm tug.

His gaze flicked away for a split second.

“Never,” he warned, eyes back on the road, the devotion in his brother’s bringing a salty prick to his own, “ ever drive like that. It was stupid and reckless. I’m sorry I let my mood get the better of me. ”

“Mood? Like you’re angry at me?”

Campbell took one hand off the wheel, wondering, even as he reached, if Kit would let him touch.

He ruffled the tuft of matted hair, then let his hand settle at the back of his brother’s neck—warm, damp, baby-smooth skin.

“No, not at you, kiddo. I’m not angry at anyone.

I’m…” He stopped short, uncertain how to explain.

“You’re still mad at him .” Kit rolled the window down and back up. “That’s why you want to leave, want us to move. Why you stayed away. ”

Campbell shook his head, a dart of apprehension lighting his belly. “ Who ?”

Kit slid down in the seat, his feet rising to the dashboard just like Fontana’s had. “Dad.”

The word dropped between them like a pebble dropped in a murky pond.

Plunk, then silence.

“Ah,” he said, and swallowed roughly. He was probably always going to be mad at the old bastard, which spoke to his need for therapy.

“He was a different father to me, I hope, than he was to you. Younger, more stressed with work when I came along, I don’t know.

” He squeezed the wheel and wondered how to describe a horrible relationship with kind words, for someone who never needed to know the truth.

“I think he tried his best or wanted to. And I know he loved you.”

Although I’m pretty sure he didn’t love me.

Kit shuffled his feet on the dashboard. “You’re not going away again, or I mean, not without me, right? Even if I’m not sure I want to move? You won’t get angry?”

Campbell met his brother’s gaze. “I’m not. I won’t . You can talk to me. We can make some of these decisions together.” He glanced back at the road, its edges dissolving into a sunset horizon of blue and gold. “You going to trust me about that?”

Kit rolled his head to gaze out the window, his feet stilling their dance. “I want to,” he whispered.

“I’ve heard pizza helps mend relationships.” From the corner of his eye, he watched Kit’s smile grow and let the rare feeling of contentment settle in. “Let’s go get John Nelson. I seem to remember he likes anchovies.”

“Anchovies? Nasty.”

“Agreed. We’ll let him order his own.”

“Hey!” Kit shifted, leather squeaking beneath his skinny bottom, a streak of mud smearing the tan upholstery.

“Let’s go back and ask Tana to come. I’m sure she hates anchovies, but she likes thick crust. And extra sausage.

The manager at Pizza King always gives us double without charging ’cause he wants to make a date with her. ”

“How about just the True men this time,” Campbell said, forcing a smile he hoped looked genuine. He could imagine the score of men wanting to make a date with the exasperating, enchanting Fontana Quinn. “A guy’s night sort of thing.”

While Kit babbled and squirmed beside him, Campbell focused on not turning the car around. Extra sausage, indeed. Why was he tempted to get pizza with a woman who had just offered him sex? But he was. Flat-out.

Especially when he knew in his gut it would be fantastic. That she’d probably knock the experience off the charts.

Shit. He had let scruples stop him.

When had Campbell True turned into a principled idiot?