Midnight Kiss (Virgin River #12)(16)

Jack gave the bar a wipe. “You can bet she’s been asking herself that question for about a year.”

“TELL ME ABOUT THE photography business,” Drew said as they drove.

“You don’t have to ask that,” she said. “I can tell you’re a gentleman and that’s very polite, but you don’t have to pretend to be interested in photography. It bores the heck out of most people.”

He laughed at her. “When I was a kid, I took pictures sometimes,” he said. “Awful pictures that were developed at the drugstore, but it was enough to get me on the yearbook staff, which I only wanted to be on because Bitsy Massey was on it. Bitsy was a cute little thing, a cheerleader of course, and she was on the yearbook committee—most likely to been sure the lion’s share of the pictures were of her. I was in love with her for about six months, and she never knew I was alive. The only upside to the whole thing? I actually like taking pictures. I admit, I take a lot with my cell phone now and I don’t have any aspirations to go professional, but I wasn’t just being polite. In fact,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his cell, “I happen to have some compound fractures, crushed ankles, ripped out shoulders and really horrible jaw fractures if you’d like to—”

“Ack!” she yelled, fanning him away with her hand. “Why in the world would you have those?”

“Snap ’em in E.R., take ’em to report and explain how we treated ’em and have the senior residents shoot us down and call us fools and idiots. So, Sunny—how’d it happen for you—picture taking? A big thug named Rock who liked to pose for you?”

“Nothing of the sort,” she said indignantly. “I got a camera for Christmas when I was ten and started taking pictures. It only takes a few good ones before you realize you can. Take good pictures, that is. I figured out early what they would teach us about photography in college later—to get four or forty good pictures, just take four hundred. Of course, some subjects are close to impossible. Their color, angles, tones and shadows just don’t work, while others just eat the camera, they’re so photogenic. But…” She looked over at him. “Bored?”

“Not yet,” he answered with a grin.

“It was my favorite thing,” she said. “My folks kept saying there was no real future in it and I’d better have a backup plan, so I majored in business. But friends kept asking me to take pictures because I could. Pretty soon I had the moxie to ask them to at least pay the expenses—travel costs like gas for the car, film, developing, mounting, that sort of thing. Me and my dad put a darkroom in the basement when I was a junior in high school, but right after that we went digital and got a really good computer, upscale program and big screen. I built a website, using some of my stock for online advertising, and launched a price list that was real practical for people on a budget—but the product was good. My darkroom became a work room. I could deliver finished portraits in glossy, matte, texture, whatever they wanted, and I could do it quickly. Friends told friends who told friends and by my sophomore year I was booked every weekend for family reunions, birthday parties, christenings, weddings, engagement parties, you name it. The only thing I didn’t have when I dropped out of school to do this full-time was a studio. Since I did all my shooting on location at the site, all I needed in a studio was a desk, computer, big-screen monitor, DVD player and some civilized furnishings, plus a whole lot of albums and DVDs and brochures of photo packages. The money was good. I was set up before I was set up. I was lucky.”

“I bet you were also smart,” Drew said.

She laughed a bit. “Sort of, with my dad running herd on my little business all the time. He wasn’t trying to make me successful, he was looking out for me, showing me the pitfalls, helping me not fail. When it became my means of income, I think he was a little ambivalent about me quitting college. And my mom? Scared her to death! She’s old-fashioned—go get a practical job! Don’t bet on your ingenuity or worse, your talent!”

“Your guy,” Drew asked. “What did he do?”

“Highway Patrol. He liked life on the edge.”

“Did he like your photographs?”

Without even thinking she answered, “Of him. He liked being in front of the camera. I like being behind it.”

“Oh, he was one of the photogenic ones?”

“He was,” she admitted. “He could be a model. Maybe he is by now.”

“You don’t keep in touch?”

“Oh, no,” she said with a mean laugh.

“Not even through friends?”

“Definitely not through friends.” She turned to look at him. “You? Do you keep in touch?”

He shrugged but his eyes were focused on the road. “Well, she’s going to marry one of the residents at the hospital. We’re not in the same service—he’s general surgery. But she turns up sometimes. She’s polite. I’m polite.” He took a breath. “I hate that. I don’t know how she feels, but I don’t feel polite.”

“So you are angry,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice.

“Oh, hell yes,” he replied. “It’s just that sometimes the line is blurred, and I get confused about who I’m angriest with—her or me. She knew what she was signing up for, that residents don’t have a lot of time or money or energy after work. Why couldn’t we figure that out without all the drama? But then, I’m guilty of the same thing—I was asking way too much of her. See? Plenty of blame to go around.”