скачать книгу бесплатно
“Diana.”
No hello, just her name spoken in a tone as flat and dry as the outback plains of his home.
That short greeting did, however, answer her earlier unspoken question. He recognized her all right, which meant she hadn’t imagined his snub at the party. She couldn’t pretend that the knowledge didn’t hurt, but today he was her client. She had to forget their past encounters, both recent and distant, and focus on the job.
“Is this the mare you want photographed?” she asked.
“You’re the horse photographer?”
She bit back the instant response—is that so hard to believe?—because the answer was written all over his face. Way back when he’d teased her about her degree in arts and the classics, about her society-girl lifestyle and lack of a work résumé of any description. This was her opportunity to show that she could do something practical, and that she could do it well.
“That is what I’m here for,” she said crisply, reaching for the clip on her camera bag.
“Is it?”
Alerted by the skepticism in his tone, she looked up and found him eyeing her, head to toe and back again.
“Why else would I be here?” she asked.
“Beats me. From what I remember, horses scare the living daylights out of you.”
“That was a long time ago, Max. I’m not that girl any more.”
Something shifted in his expression, and Diana stiffened in expectation of what he might say about the past and the hours he’d spent coaxing the horse-shy New Yorker into the saddle on one of his Australian stock horses.
But perhaps all she’d seen was a wall going up, because he said nothing about the past, returning instead to their present situation.
“You don’t look like you’ve come here to work with horses,” he pointed out. “You’re wearing a skirt.”
A frown pinched her brows together as she glanced down at her clothes. Had she broken an unwritten dress code for equine photographers? Yes, she wore a skirt but it was a conservative A-line, teamed with a cable-knit sweater and practical low-heeled boots. The outfit would take her from this job to a charity committee meeting Eliza had roped her into, without needing to go home to change.
“I understood Sky booked me,” she said, cool, polite, restrained, “to take a simple portrait of a horse. She didn’t mention it was your horse. Believe me, I am as surprised as you about that! But I am here to do that job and if that requires me to get down and dirty for artistic angles or special effects, just say the word. I’m sure Sky will loan me some jeans.”
Although his jaw flexed, he remained blessedly silent. Diana decided to take that as a positive sign, but only because this job meant too much to blithely toss it away. Establishing herself as a photographer was the first goal she’d been passionate about in a long, long while. There was a certain cruel irony in the fact that her start involved working with the last object of her total passion. But she wouldn’t allow that joke-of-fate to drive her away. She might have set out this morning with the aim of proving herself to herself, but in the last few minutes it had become equally important to prove herself to Max.
With a brisk and businesslike nod of her head, she indicated the horse now prowling the stable at his back. “So, this is the job?”
“Yes.”
Diana met his eyes and there, behind the flat, guarded admission, she read acceptance—albeit reluctant—of her role. Silently she breathed a sigh of relief. “Then let’s talk about the photos you require.”
“What do you suggest?” he asked after a measured pause. “You’re the expert.”
It was a test, she knew, since Max Fortune always knew exactly what he wanted. He’d told her as much the night they met. The night he decided he wanted her in his bed.
He’d been the expert then, but today it was her turn.
Nerves flapped vulture-sized wings in her stomach as she considered the challenge he’d set. She had photographed horses once—Sky’s horses, as it happened. That had been a class assignment back before Christmas and she’d spent long hours alternatively perched on a railing fence and prone in the frozen meadow capturing the vibrant spirit, the athleticism, and the individual personalities of a group of colts in a field beyond Sky’s barn.
The results had impressed her teacher so much that he’d included them in a winter exhibition in his gallery and then offered her a job there. They’d impressed Sky so much that she’d offered her this job.
Which left one person still to impress….
He was leaning on the half-door, watching her watch his horse. That silent observation fed more adrenaline into her system and she had to fight a momentary attack of who-am-I-fooling panic. Throwing up her breakfast would not look expert, capable or professional.
Forcing her focus to the horse as it paced the roomy stable, she framed a series of shots through an imaginary viewfinder. What she saw settled and excited her nerves in equal measures. Could she capture that ripple of muscles beneath the horse’s burnished copper coat? Could she depict all that latent power in a single flat dimension?
“I’ll have to take her moving,” she decided, “in order to do her justice.”
“Not a portrait?”
“That would be too static, don’t you think?” He looked dubious, but the longer Diana watched the animal’s graceful stride, the more confident she became in her first instinctive call. She tried another angle. “I gather she’s a racehorse?”
“A retired one.”
“Was she a fast one?”
“Fast and strong,” he supplied, and the softened note of respect in his voice drew Diana’s gaze back to his profile. Still the same square jaw that framed his face in steely strength.
Or, when he wanted his own way, in stubborn determination.
But the years had sculpted change in the hollowed planes beneath his cheekbones, in the fretted lines radiating from the corners of his narrowed gaze, in the straight set of his unsmiling mouth.
Diana longed to ask what had turned him so stern and disapproving, and why he was directing that acrimony toward her. But in talking about his horse she sensed the first easing in the tension between them and she wanted to prolong that mood. It wasn’t exactly harmonious but it was a start.
“I would like to depict her as that fast, strong athlete you described. In motion. With the sun on her coat.” She paused, watching his face, trying to gauge his reaction. “That’s what I see when I look at her, but you’re the client.”
“And the client is always right?”
“No, but the client pays the bill so he always has the final say.”
As if she wanted the final word, the horse extended her neck over the door and whinnied softly. Aware of Max’s watchfulness, of being under his judgment, she forced herself to hold her ground. The horse seemed friendly enough. It was sniffing at her hair. No teeth were visible, which had to be a good thing. Diana took a steadying breath.
“Hello,” she said softly, and was pleased that her voice didn’t betray her horse-getting-far-too-close jeebies. “What is your name, beautiful?”
Max might have cleared his throat. Or it could have been a throaty horse noise from a neighboring stable. Diana lifted a hand—it hardly shook at all—and stroked the horse’s face. A brass plate attached to the leather halter she wore was engraved with a single word.
“Bootylicious,” she read. Brows lifted in surprise and amusement, she turned to Max. “Is that her name?”
“Don’t blame me.” He held up both hands defensively. “The name came with her.”
And it was so not a name he would have chosen. Diana couldn’t help smiling. “I think it is a very fitting name. Unique and distinctive,” she said, pleased that the tension had eased enough that she could joke and smile without it feeling like her face might split with the effort. “Perfect for a foundation mare for your new stud farm,” she continued, tongue-in-cheek. “You could name all her offspring Booty-something.”
He shot her a disgusted look. “Luckily she’s not part of the new operation.”
“She’s not? From what Sky said, I thought you and Zack were over here buying breeding stock.”
“We are.” He shifted his position, allowing the bootylicious one room to move off, before he leaned back against the door. Almost relaxed, Diana noted, with rich satisfaction. And finally he’d stopped glowering. “This mare was a champion miler but she’s got too much sprinter’s blood in her pedigree.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not for some studs, but we’re looking to breed champion stayers…for long distance races,” he clarified, when she looked askance. “This one’s bloodlines don’t fit the bill.”
“But you bought her anyway?”
“A gift for my parents. I’m leaving her here with Sky until she’s safely in foal. That’s why I want the photos, to send them in lieu of the real thing.”
“Easier to gift wrap.”
“Much,” he agreed, and a hint of the lopsided grin she loved lurked around the corners of his mouth.
Loved? Diana gave herself a quick mental shake. What they’d shared was not love, no matter what she’d thought during those blissful months. Mention of his parents whom she had never met acted as the perfect reminder.
“How is your family?” she asked out of politeness.
“They’re all well.”
“And you, Max?” Not out of politeness, but because she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
On the surface it sounded liked a stock answer, the kind you pay no heed to. But all traces of that near-smile had vanished from his face and, as he pushed off the door and started toward the horse, Diana detected a stiffening in his posture.
Alarm fluttered in her chest. “Are you?” she asked, before she could think better of it.
“Why would you assume otherwise?”
“Because you seem so different, so—” she let her hands rise and fall as she struggled to describe the vibes he’d been giving off “—uptight.”
“You said you’re not the same person. Same goes.”
Okay, but now he sounded downright hostile and Diana couldn’t let it go. Not now that she’d started. “We’ve both changed, as people tend to do, but at Case’s party you were unfriendly to the point of rudeness. I thought you might have been too travel-lagged to recognize me, or that you simply may not have remembered. But that’s not the problem, is it?”
He clipped a lead rope onto the horse’s halter before he turned. The hat shaded his eyes but the line of his mouth definitely fit her description. Uptight and unfriendly. “You were introduced as Diana Young. Do I know you?”
“After my husband died it was easier to keep his name. Plus there are advantages to not carrying the Fielding name around…not that it matters. I’m still me.”
“Well, there’s the thing,” he said in his deep, down-under drawl. “I don’t know that I ever knew you.”
That shocked a short, astonished laugh from Diana. Never in her thirty-one years had she been as honest, as open, as herself, as in the time she’d spent as Max’s lover. “How can you say that? I shared everything with you!”
“Yeah, you shared. That’s what I don’t appreciate, Mrs. Young. That’s why I’m not feeling as friendly toward you as I used to.”
“What do you mean?” Diana shook her head slowly. “What on earth do you think I shared?”
“Your body, mostly. How did Mr. Young like that?”
“Are you implying that I was already married?” she asked with rising incredulity.
“Not married, but you must have been engaged.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You expect me to believe you met and married this Young character less than three weeks after leaving me? I guess it must have been love at first sight, then.”
Diana reared back, stung by the bitter irony of his accusation. Love at first sight had been Max. Her marriage to David Young, a big, inescapable, back-firing disaster. She’d always guarded the details closely because she knew what the gossip media would make of it. And because she didn’t enjoy admitting to the naivety and weakness that had opened her up to emotional blackmail, to the power she’d allowed her father and David Young to exert over her.
At one time she would have shared those details with Max—she’d called him, Lord knows, she’d tried. But not now. Not after those coldly delivered accusations.
Instead she fastened on the other untruth in his argument. “I didn’t leave you, Max. I went home because I had to…and only after we agreed that we saw our relationship somewhat differently. You wanted sex, I wanted more.”
He stared at her a moment, no sign of giving in the hard set of his face. It was the same uncompromising expression as the night they’d quarreled, when she’d realized how woefully she’d misconstrued their relationship. “You wanted to get married that bad?” he asked now. “That you said yes to the first batter up after I walked away from the plate?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she fired back. “David was my father’s business partner. I didn’t agree to marry him for the sake of a wedding band, okay?”
His lips compressed into a straight line of condemnation, and Diana realized that her angry outburst added weight to his belief she’d been involved with David all along. She thought about rephrasing but what did it matter? Driving here today she’d cautioned herself about getting involved again. She did not need this old heartache.
“My relationship with you was over when I returned to New York and you didn’t bother to acknowledge my calls,” she said, mustering some dignity and wrapping it around her like a protective cloak. “It’s been ten years. Why are we rehashing old quarrels?”
“You brought it up.”
“And, frankly, I’m sorry I did.”
“Seems we agree on one thing.”
For a long moment Diana couldn’t find any comeback, and to her horror she felt the ache of tears building at the back of her throat. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t pretend emotional detachment any more than she’d been able to ten years before.
“It seems that I’ve come to agree with you on another point.” She swallowed against the painful lump that was making it so dashed difficult to maintain her dignity. “I don’t believe I’m the right photographer for this job after all.”
“Suit yourself.” He gave a curt shrug. “You’re not indispensable, Diana. I can find a replacement.”
Glutton for punishment, she had to ask. “Is that what you did after I left Australia? Is that why you never returned my calls?”
He paused in opening the stable door, close enough now that she could see the wintry chill of his eyes and beneath the green patina a hint of some deeper emotion. Pain? Regret? Frustration? He shut the door behind him with a thud of finality and whatever she’d thought she’d seen was gone.
“Something like that,” he said in answer to her question. Then he touched his hat in a cowboy’s salute of farewell and walked away.
Two
“Is there something wrong with your lunch?”
Diana blinked until the chicken breast she’d been worrying around her plate came into focus. “No, it’s fine.”
“And you know this,” Eliza asked, “because…?”
Trust her friend to point out the obvious. Diana gave up on her untouched meal and put down her silverware. “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this.”
This happened to be a late lunch in the atrium restaurant at the Fortune’s Seven Hotel. The hotel’s ballroom was the scene of next month’s Historical Society Auction to raise funds for reparations to the city’s Old West Museum. The fundraising committee, chaired by Eliza, had met earlier to discuss the function with hotel staff, and Eliza had used her gently persuasive charm to cajole Diana into lunch and a shopping expedition afterward.
