Or she could just forget Ben. He obviously wasn’t interested in her and she wasn’t the type to go chasing after boys. Or she hadn’t been until she’d become interested in the younger Powell brother.
Grabbing her purse, she headed for work. Upon her mother’s urging, she snatched an apple from the fruit basket on the table, and walked outside. The morning air was already hot, the dew melted away. She left the windows of her car rolled down and turned the radio up as she drove the few miles to Coleville and her summer job. What she’d do come September, she hadn’t really considered.
She didn’t have enough money to go away to school, and she’d applied at a local junior college, but she wasn’t convinced that academics was in her future.
Neither is Ben Powell, she told herself firmly as her mind strayed to him. Why had she met him this summer, when she was already confused about the rest of her life? She didn’t need to be so distracted by a boy who hardly knew she existed.
Disgusted that she couldn’t put him out of her mind, she spent the next five hours in the photography studio concentrating on her work. She developed negatives, helped frame some of Rory’s, her boss’s, most recent shots and generally tidied up the studio. Rory didn’t seem to believe in the connection between cleanliness and God.
“I have to be creative,” he’d told her when she mentioned the general mess. “I can’t be bothered with trivial things.” He was joking, of course, but Carlie had taken it upon herself to pick up the clutter around the studio, clean the kitchen and bathroom, and vacuum the carpets. She couldn’t bear to work in a pigsty.
Rory didn’t seem to notice. However, he was adamant that she model for him when he was doing an advertising shoot for local merchants or creating his own portfolio.
Rory had told her time and time again that she was wasting her time on the wrong end of a camera.
“Thousands of girls would die for what you’ve got,” he said as he set up the studio for a shoot. Mrs. Murdock was coming in with her two-year-old son and her border collie. “The camera loves you. Look at these—” He waved pictures he’d taken of Carlie, showing off her high cheekbones and blue-green eyes. “The face of an angel with just the hint of the devil in those eyes of yours. I’m telling you, Madison Avenue would eat these up.”
“I like to take pictures, not pose,” she’d replied, though the idea of modeling held more than a little appeal.
“So spend a few years in front of the lens. Make some bucks, give it your best shot before you grow old and fat, or God forbid, fall in love.” Rory was a tall man, thirty-five or so, with a dishwater-blond ponytail that was starting to thin and streak with gray. His face was perpetually unshaven and he never wore a tie. “Now, do we have any Christmas props? These pictures are a Christmas gift for Mrs. Murdock’s husband, even though Christmas is what—seven months away?”
“Five,” Carlie said. “I’ll check the upstairs.” She climbed the rickety staircase and opened a door. The attic was sweltering and dusty. She dug through some boxes and came up with several sprigs of fake holly, some red candles that had already melted a little and a stuffed animal that looked like a reindeer. She even uncovered a rolled backdrop of a snow-encrusted forest.
Carrying the box downstairs, she blew her bangs from her eyes. “There’s not much,” she admitted as the front bell chimed and Mrs. Murdock strolled into the reception area. She held a perfectly behaved border collie on a leash and her dynamo of a two-year-old son was wearing a white shirt, red-and-green plaid vest and black velvet shorts. Red knee socks and black shoes completed the outfit.
She offered Carlie a tired smile. “I know this won’t be easy,” she admitted as she licked her fingers and tried to smooth a wrinkle in her son’s hair. He jerked his head away with a loud protest. “Jason’s in the middle of the ‘terrible twos,’ but my husband would love a picture of him with Waldo.” At the moment Jason was tugging hard on Waldo’s leash and the dog was sitting patiently.
Carlie led the entourage back to the studio where Rory was adjusting the light.
Mrs. Murdock’s prediction was an understatement.
Jason pulled at his bow tie, cried, pitched a fit and generally mauled the dog, but both the collie and Rory were incredibly calm. By the end of the shoot nearly two hours later, Carlie’s patience was frayed, Mrs. Murdock had lost her smile and Rory wasn’t convinced any of the shots he’d taken would be satisfactory. “Keep your fingers crossed,” Rory suggested as they locked up for the night. “I’d hate to go through that all over again.”
The thought was depressing. “I’m sure at least one of the shots will turn out,” she said, hoping to sound encouraging.
“If today was December twentieth, I would worry. As it is, we still have a lot of time for retakes.”
Carlie groaned inwardly at the thought. She drove home in her hot little car and felt positively wilted. Sweat collected at the base of her neck and dotted her forehead, and her clothes, a black skirt and white blouse, were wrinkled and grimy.
Wheeling into the parking lot, she nearly stood on the brakes. Ben’s truck was parked in the shade of a larch tree and he was leaning against the fender, arms crossed over his chest, as if he had nothing better to do.
He glanced up when he saw her and shifted a match from one side of his mouth to the other. His lips twitched in what one might consider a smile.
She cut the engine and climbed out.
“Thought I might find you here,” he said, taking the match from his mouth and breaking it between two fingers.
“Have you been waiting long?”
Shaking his head he glanced at his watch. “A few minutes.”
She couldn’t stop the wild beating of her heart. He looked much the same as the last time. Again he wore faded blue Levi’s, but this time a white T-shirt stretched across his chest. His gaze was lazy when it touched hers. “I wondered if you wanted to go for a drive. Up to the lake or something.”
“I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
Again the sexy smile. “Forget you?” He let out a silent laugh. “Is that possible?”
“It’s been a while since I heard from you.”