Page 32 of Coming Undone

“That first night at my house, while we stood in the surf, I asked you about it. Told you I’d like to see your work sometime.” He didn’t take the seat beside her, trying like hell to give her the space she seemed to crave. Instead, he leaned a shoulder into the window casing nearby. “Actually, never mind. I don’t mean to make a big deal about it. Do you want to go back outside or would you rather hang out up here for a while?”

Proud of himself for dropping it, he still found it tough not to get any answers. He drew the curtains across the bank of windows looking out over the back lawn where white lights were hung in all the trees and strung around the party canopy.

“It’s not that I’m not proud of my work.” She surprised him by answering his question. She picked up a desk-size stone labyrinth his mother kept on a shelf above the window seat and traced the ridges with a pink-painted fingernail. “It’s just that a lot of people find it tough to reconcile my current job with my roots in photojournalism. At least the book I wrote- while a critical flop- was ‘serious.’ Pet photography, on the other hand…”

“Would you think for a minute that I’d find fault with any job you enjoyed? Steph, if I was ever going to chime in about your work, I damn well should have opened my mouth five years ago and begged you not to travel to an active combat area then.” In those days, he’d been a whole hell of a lot better at keeping things light. Laid back.

And look how that had worked out.

“Well my parents think my business is a joke.” She reached the end of the twisting stone maze and then worked backward from the center. “So do a lot of my old colleagues. But it’s been really therapeutic for me. And I’ve helped a few animals in the process, too.”

“In what way?” He liked seeing this new side to her. For years, he’d been remembering her the way she’d been five years ago, never knowing the woman she’d become after her ordeal.

She set the miniature labyrinth on her lap her blue eyes meeting his. With her hair off her face, clipped with a rhinestone bow, there was a natural youthfulness about her. Maybe that’s why he had a hard time recognizing the ways he’d changed since he’d first met her. On the outside, she was just the same.

“I have a lot of wealthy clients who love extravagant photo shoots for their pets.” She pulled out her phone and, tapping into a wireless connection, opened a screen full of thumbprint images and handed the device to him. “They like huge, stately portraits for their libraries and more fun, action shots to post on their Facebook pages. That’s good work, but it also helps fund the pro bono stuff I do for animal shelters and adoption agencies.”

Danny slid through the pictures showing a dog in a green bandana leaping into a backyard pool, a feline curled on computer keys, and a pony nuzzling the jacket pocket of a giggling little girl. There were dozens in color and a few in black and white. One showed a parrot perched on an elderly lady’s shoulder and another with a lizard draped across the back of a heavily tattooed dude.

“No wonder Jennifer was impressed.” He studied photo after photo and amazingly, no two were even close to the same. “So what do you do for the shelters? Photograph animals to adopt?”

He ignored the band playing outside and the sounds of a couple of his brothers’ voices downstairs, probably on a mission to find him. Right now, he just wanted to get a handle on this woman who’d been so elusive. No way would he walk away from this chance to get to know her better.

“Yes.” She stood to peer over his shoulder and pointed to a fluffy cat wearing a small baseball cap tilted to the side like an eighties rapper. “See that one? That’s Missy. She’s so fun loving and good with kids. Getting that across in the picture helps a prospective owner connect with a pet and brings them in to adopt. I snap photos of the animals for the shelters’ websites.”

“It must take a lot of time. You’d have to build some rapport with each animal before you could photograph it.” Danny could see her irreverence in the photos and her warmth too.

“Definitely.” She turned the phone in her direction so she could see the screen better, then she tapped down to a picture of a cute but scrawny mutt with tufted ears and a nose that must have been pressed right up to her camera lens. “See this guy? That’s Buster, and it took me forever to get him to trust me because he’s super skittish. I went through a lot of dog treats and time to coax him that close, but it was so rewarding to snap a good series. I think he went through some rough times with his previous owner, but the photos helped him find a really good home with a sweet older couple.”

Danny tried to focus on Buster and what she was saying, but by now she brushed up against him, her skirt skimming his leg and the side of her breast grazing his arm.

“I’m glad to know that about you.” He could see how she would gravitate toward that work, helping animals escape the captivity of a shelter after she’d experience the fear of being held against her will. “I don’t know how your mother could fail to see how happy the work makes you.”

Shrugging, she took her phone back and clicked off the screen before slipping it into her purse.

“I’m not sure my happiness is a high priority for her, but yes, I like what I’m doing.”

“I promised myself I was going to keep things light and fun for you tonight,” he confided, folding her hand into his and savoring this moment alone a little longer. “I didn’t mean to turn all serious about your work, but I just-. It bothered me that I couldn’t even tell Ax’s girlfriend that I liked your photos since I’d never seen them.”

“I understand.” Her lips quirked in a half-smile. “When I’m around you, I have a habit of getting distracted.”

He recognized the way she navigated the conversation out of deeper waters and back to safer terrain, but he wasn’t going to complain. They were together and that meant he still had time to build on the attraction.

For now, that had to be enough.

“What do you say we head outside to dance under the stars, and we’ll see how much I can distract you there?” He bent to nip her bare shoulder, then drag a kiss toward her neck.

She shivered against him, her head falling back while he sought out the sensitive place in the hollow of her throat.

“Sounds like a daring move in front of three hundred party guests,” she murmured.

Lifting his head, he tugged her toward the door.

“That’s why I know you’ll love it.”

Chapter Eleven

As Stephanie followed Danny across the lawn and down to the dock that held a temporary dance floor, she felt her phone vibrate in her handbag.

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