Page 22

chapter

eleven

No Rain – Blind Melon

CAMPBELL

Campbell found cigarettes in the third drawer he tried.

To hell with sucking any more goddamn mint toothpicks. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he sniffed the crumpled pack and shrugged. Stale Virginia Slims. Couldn’t complain—he’d smoke a piece of cow dung right now. The only way to get rid of the quiver in his stomach, he figured.

A third round of sex, as fucking phenomenal as the first two, hadn’t helped him there.

At least they had made it to the bed for the last one.

A dark-wooded monstrosity, scattered with a mound of colorful pillows that he’d sunk right into—just as he’d sunk into her. After making love until they were both close to dropping, the rain plinking off the windowpanes and her drowsy sighs had lulled him to sleep.

He’d woken after dreaming of his mother.

A paint-spattered smock covering her slight frame, her hair caught in an ugly kerchief, the smell of turpentine heavy in the air. Painting had alleviated her manic episodes, and his memories of her here, in this cottage, almost felt normal.

Almost .

With a groan, he crossed Fontana’s living room, newborn sunlight spilling over brightly patterned rugs and polished hardwood, fumbling in his pocket for the matches he always kept. Not a good sign for someone trying to break a ten-year habit.

He grabbed his camera from the hat rack by the door, bounced the screen door wide with the palm of his hand, and had the cigarette lit before it slapped shut behind him.

Sucking deeply, the sooty pinch calmed his racing pulse, the acrid aroma overriding the tantalizing one clinging to his skin.

Fontana’s home smelled like a vibrant welcome: fresh-baked bread, cinnamon, flowers.

On the way out, he’d spotted five overflowing vases and at least that many plants of all shapes and sizes.

No wonder it felt like she had sprung from the earth, she brought nature inside with her.

Turning his face skyward, he released a rough exhalation. He was burning up—on fire—and restraining himself from crawling back into her cozy bed and taking her every way he could think of.

And he could think of many.

He had to remind himself that she needed rest after the night they’d had. He, on the other hand, had slept for three uninterrupted, blissful hours. It had been years since he’d done that. And never, ever while staying the night with a woman, which he usually avoided.

Funny, he hadn’t been able to leave Fontana. Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to.

She’d been wrapped around him, surrounded by a mound of harem pillows, her silken hold unyielding—like she couldn’t bear, even in repose, to let him go. An hour had passed as he held her, watching dawn peek around the curtains, a golden slide down her cheek and the sleek arch of her neck.

The intense urge for nicotine hit the moment the whispery light struck her breasts.

In his mind, he’d taken her photo then, dozens of them, recording every luscious inch of her. He’d even considered grabbing his camera, imagined her through the viewfinder.

That thought sent him racing from the room in search of relief.

It stunned him to even entertain such a foolish idea. He read emotions poorly, but he read photographs well—and they weren’t forgiving. He didn’t want to see broken pasts and fearful futures in anyone’s eyes, sentiments unlocked by an astute lens.

Hadn’t the disaster with his mother taught him anything?

Stalking across the yard, he threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed the butt beneath his heel. But after a few steps, he tracked back and grabbed it, because he knew she’d frown upon litter in her grass.

“Trouble,” he reminded himself. Fontana Quinn was trouble. He had known she would be, the kind of warning you got deep in your gut without one tangible reason to back it up.

Boy, had he nailed it. Nailed her , he thought with a smile, unable to shutter the juvenile response. Immaturity felt protective at the moment.

Halting at the edge of her garden, he raised his camera and popped off two inattentive shots. The sex hadn’t been offhand or breezy—nothing like what he had promised himself it would be. Not the kind of scratching-itch fornication he’d forget the next day.

This had been 15 on a scale of 10. Soul-searching, mind-numbing.

They’d crawled inside each other and barely made it back out .

Staring through the eyepiece, he saw Fontana’s face soften during her last climax, eyes the exact color of the cool waters off the Maldives fixed on him, begging him to come with her. A request he had been unable—if his life depended on it, unable —to refuse.

Quite purposely, but with the gentlest purpose he could imagine, she’d consumed him.

Then she’d laughed about it, and he’d laughed back. Like he was free of concern.

Like making love in his mother’s cherished studio to a woman who gave him the jitters simply because he couldn’t stop thinking about her was an okay thing. When there was something solid yet unseen—as potent as the scent of chemicals clinging to a newly-developed photograph—linking them.

His hand jerked, and he released the shutter, capturing a photo that would definitely not be in focus.

Campbell knew what he needed to do.

He needed to walk away before Fontana Quinn tangled him in knots, muddled his plans, and misconstrued his intentions. He didn’t know what being tangled in knots felt like, exactly, but he suspected she’d be the one to do it.

Go inside, retrieve your shirt from beneath her lovely body, thank her for giving you the best sex of your life, and be on your merry way .

It was a standard approach, and with the exception of the best sex part, one he’d utilized before.

Why he was tempted to sit on the steps of her gazebo and take photographs until the sun rose high in the sky—until she’d had enough sleep to warrant being woken by a man who had made love to her three times since midnight and wanted to again before breakfast—he couldn’t say.

Just past six, he decided, throwing a calculated glance at the sky. Didn’t have to get back quite yet.

Tucking another cigarette between his lips, he struck the match, then sighed and let the wind extinguish it. For comfort, he kept it there, deciding he’d earned the small, albeit unhealthy, indulgence.

The smell of tobacco drifting into his nostrils was enough.

He could leave at seven and still make it home to cook pancakes like he’d promised; John Nelson and Kit were late sleepers.

Was Fontana?

He would probably never find out.

The morning light was nearly perfect, no mist to cloud his lenses or diminish the scene. A hint of crimson mixed with gold, maybe even a back-edge of blue, streaked the horizon. No filter required, he determined, and raised his camera, the click of the shutter calming him.

At least once a week, he shot at dawn, wherever in the world he happened to be, when the variance between highlight and shadow was minimal.

Pure radiance, supple edges. Fontana’s gazebo added great perspective, surrounded by benches, thick bursts of azalea, and beds of ivy.

Twining vines of clematis. Enchanting, this slice of his family’s property, every bit the fairy tale it had seemed the first time he’d seen it.

A little selective masking, manipulating the exposure, and these shots would be amazing.

Perfect for the greeting card company that had a standing request for new images.

He started shooting with nothing but his art—and the desire to touch his Hellcat again—running through his mind.

FONTANA

He was too engrossed to notice her approach.

Fontana leaned against a towering oak at least a hundred years old as Campbell worked his magic.

Her feelings about waking in a panic to an empty bed, until she realized a man’s shirt was wrapped around her ankle, weren’t something she wanted to analyze.

Observing him, morning light a hazy, bright burst around him, was enough for now.

Kneeling on the ground to get a shot of an abandoned bird’s nest, his focus steady, the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he adjusted his camera, disheveled hair she’d tangled her fingers in hanging low over his brow, he was simply… beautiful .

Quite artlessly and without argument, beautiful.

Somehow, he suited the fanciful facade she’d created, the only place he fit in her life. Men like Campbell dated models and actresses, married lawyers and doctors. Not landscapers with dirt beneath their nails, two-year degrees from a junior college, and a rather dark, baggage-filled past.

He stretched, pulling the frayed seat of his jeans tight over his gorgeous ass.

If he’d had his T-shirt—the one she’d thrown on the second her feet hit the floor—he would’ve left before she had the chance to touch him again.

Lifting her shoulder to her nose, Fontana breathed him in, telling herself it had to end.

“They’re on the gazebo steps,” she said after watching him search unsuccessfully for Jaime’s cigarettes, the muscles in his stomach doing a dance with each twist and bend.

He stumbled, his camera falling. The strap wrapped around his wrist yanked taut before it hit the ground.

His gaze traveled the length of her, thoroughly, as it always did. Once there and back.

He gestured weakly, his eyes going hot. “My shirt.”

“It was the first thing I grabbed, and I didn’t realize…” Ra tionale shot, she hunched her shoulders, wishing she’d put on a bra. The cold had her nipples standing at attention.

Or perhaps it was him.

Grumbling under his breath, he snatched the pack off the steps and turned his back to her.

A match struck, then smoke wafted over his head, startlingly white against his disheveled chestnut hair.

A charming cowlick protruded below his left ear, a stray curl standing high on top.

The sunlight made it shine like polished leather, needing only a tuck here and a smooth there to govern it.