Back In Fortune's Bed. Bronwyn Jameson
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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