Rachel dragged all her camera equipment out of Tim’s truck and handed nearly half of it to the man. She’d decided he was her designated pack mule. When she told him, he was now Tim-the-pack-mule, he grinned and brayed loud enough to draw everyone’s attention and then laughed his fool head off, when she turned bright red. Alyssa just rolled her eyes at him and started off toward the graduation venue.

Adam walked up. “Did you bring everything you owned?”

“Nearly, I don’t know what kind of pictures Alyssa wants or what the lighting will be like or how far away we’ll be, so yes, I brought nearly everything, except the light boxes.”

“I can help carry if you want,” Adam said.

Rachel grinned at him, she had no intention of turning down help, the less she had to carry the easier it was to stay focused on the actual photography. “Awesome.”

Tim patted Adam on the back. “You are going to regret offering to help, my friend. She takes it as a lifelong commitment. But I’m happy to have a fellow pack mule.”

Adam raised one eyebrow. “Lifelong? How long have you been toting and carrying?”

Tim shook his head sadly. “She got her first camera when she was about eight I think, but she didn’t need much help back then. In fact, no one was allowed to touch it or even breathe near it. But then she started acquiring more and more and more crap. So about ten years.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “I didn’t get tripods or extra lenses or anything for you to carry, until I hit sixteen, and started taking pictures for the school newspaper. So, it couldn’t have been any longer than six years, drama queen.”

Tim put his hands on his hips. “Drama king. Thank you very much.”

“Enough of your silliness, Tim Jefferson, we need to catch up with Alyssa. Thanks for your help, Adam.”

“Hey, I’m helping too,” Tim whined.

“Yes, you are, but A, you’re complaining about it, B, it’s your sister that I’m taking pictures of, and C, I’ve known you since birth. But I still do appreciate the help. Now let’s move it.” She started off at a fast clip to follow Alyssa and the rest of the family that were a couple dozen yards ahead of them. But she still heard Tim muttering about bossy women and Adam chuckling at him.

She hoped having Adam near and at her disposal wouldn’t distract her too much. She was normally able to tune out everyone when she was in the photographer zone, but Adam was a force of nature she’d never encountered. With his rugged good looks and dark curly hair, she loved that he was so tall. And did she mention he smelled good, too? Yeah, the man was walking distraction. If he had a better personality she would be all over him. Fortunately for her and her peace of mind, he was kind of grumpy. She’d seen him nearly pleasant a few times, but he always held back from entering into the chaos and fun that surrounded both families.

She loved that chaos, most of the time anyway. Growing up, as an only child, could be lonely. So, she’d always enjoyed going to Alyssa’s house where she had surrogate siblings. And at the end of the day, she could also go back home, to her quiet life. When they all got to be too much for her.

* * *

Adam watched Rachel charge after Alyssa, she moved with a feminine grace that was poetry in motion. Her legs ate up the ground and her hair flew behind her. He tried not to make it obvious he was staring. But he saw Tim look at him, then look at Rachel and smirk.

Tim chuckled. “You and every other living breathing man, my friend.”

Adam just ignored the remark and kept walking. He had no intention of giving Tim any more ammunition than he already had. Plus, he had no intention of going after her, so it was a moot point. But he could admit to himself that she drew every one of his mating instincts to the forefront, and he had to fight to keep from imagining her wrapped around him in every way.

Alyssa’s graduation was like all other graduations he’d ever attended. A bunch of people pontificating on the amazing lives the graduates had spread out before them. The best part of the whole thing was that the class was relatively small since it was just the biomedical sciences and veterinary school graduating. So, the diploma ceremony was quick. Rachel switched between her zoom lens and the telephoto taking pictures of the whole class and the stage and even some of the crowd.

Alyssa looked to be quite popular with her class as everyone came to get their picture taken with her. Rachel was patiently taking all the pictures and promised to send each person a copy. How she was going to manage to get all their emails he didn’t know. But maybe Alyssa already had them or there was a class mailing list or something. He was proud of Beau when he didn’t get jealous over the number of males in her class that wanted pictures with Alyssa.

Once all the festivities were over the Jeffersons’ kissed Alyssa goodbye and headed off for home. Alyssa started to look distressed at their leaving. He noticed Rachel tried to help by asking Alyssa what she wanted pictures of across the campus. That did help, and Beau had stories and anecdotes about those same locations from when he’d been a student. Finally, they’d taken pictures of everything and were ready to get on the road.