CHAPTER ELEVEN
If they had more time…
As August began to slip by, that was the thought that continued to run through Bryan’s mind. With more time, they could have stayed longer at each stop. With more time, they might have passed through more states, more towns, more communities. There was so much to see, so much to record, but time was running out.
In less than a month, the school she’d photographed empty and waiting in the afternoon light would be filled again. Leaves that were full and green would take on those vibrant colors before they fell. She would be back in L.A., back in her studio, back to the routine she’d established. For the first time in years, the word alone had a hollow ring.
How had it happened? Shade Colby had become her partner, her lover, her friend. He’d become, though it was frightening to admit, the most important person in her life. Somehow she’d become dependent on him, for his opinion, his company, for the nights they spent involved only with each other.
She could imagine how it would be when they returned to L.A. and went their separate ways. Separate parts of the city, she thought, separate lives, separate outlooks.
The closeness that had so slowly, almost painfully, developed between them would dissolve. Wasn’t that what they’d both intended from the start? They’d made a bargain with each other, just as they’d made the bargain to work together. If her feelings had changed, she was responsible for them, for dealing with them. As the odometer turned over on the next mile, as the next state was left behind, she wondered how to begin.
Shade had his own thoughts to deal with. When they’d crossed into Maryland, they’d crossed into the East. The Atlantic was close, as close as the end of summer. It was the end that disturbed him. The word no longer seemed to mean finished, but over. He began to realize he was far from ready to draw that last line. There were ways to rationalize it. He tried them all.
They’d missed too much. If they took their time driving back, rather than sticking to their plan of going straight across the country, they could detour into so many places they’d eliminated on the way out. It made sense. They could stay in New England a week, two weeks after Labor Day. After long days in the van and the intense work they’d both put in, they deserved some time off. It was reasonable.
They should work their way back, rather than rush. If they weren’t preoccupied with making time, making miles, how many pictures would come out of it? If one of them was special, it would be worth it. That was professional.
When they returned to L.A., perhaps Bryan could move in with him, share his apartment as they’d shared the van. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
She didn’t want to complicate their relationship. Hadn’t she said so? He didn’t want the responsibility of committing himself to one person. Hadn’t he made himself clear? Perhaps he’d come to need her companionship on some level. And it was true he’d learned to appreciate the way she could look at anything and see the fun and the beauty of it. That didn’t equal promises, commitments or complications.
With a little time, a little distance, the need was bound to fade. The only thing he was sure of was that he wanted to put off that point for as long as possible.
Bryan spotted a convertible—red, flashy. Its driver had one arm thrown over the white leather seat while her short blond hair flew in the wind. Grabbing her camera, Bryan leaned out the open window. Half kneeling, half crouching, on the seat, she adjusted for depth.
She wanted to catch it from the rear, elongating the car into a blur of color. But she didn’t want to lose the arrogant angle of the driver’s arm, or the negligent way her hair streamed back. Already she knew she would dodge the plain gray highway and the other cars in the darkroom. Just the red convertible, she thought as she set her camera.
“Try to keep just this distance,” she called to Shade. She took one shot and, dissatisfied, leaned out farther for the next. Though Shade swore at her, Bryan got her shot before she laughed and flopped back on her seat.
He was guilty of the same thing, he knew. Once the camera was in place, you tended to think of it as a shield. Nothing could happen to you—you simply weren’t part of what was happening. Though he’d known better, it had happened to him often enough, even after his first stint overseas. Perhaps it was the understanding that made his voice mild, though he was annoyed.
“Don’t you have more sense than to climb out the window of a moving car?”
“Couldn’t resist. There’s nothing like a convertible on an open highway in August. I’m always toying with the idea of getting one myself.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Buying a new car is hard work.” She looked at the green-and-white road signs as she’d looked at so many others that summer. There were cities, roads and routes she’d never heard of. “I can hardly believe we’re in Maryland. We’ve come so far and yet, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like two months.”
“Two years?”
She laughed. “Sometimes. Other times it seems like days. Not enough time,” she said, half to herself. “Never enough.”
Shade didn’t give himself the chance to think before he took the opening. “We’ve had to leave out a lot.”
“I know.”
“We went through Kansas, but not Nebraska, Mississippi, and not the Carolinas. We didn’t go to Michigan or Wisconsin.”
“Or Florida, Washington State, the Dakotas.” She shrugged, trying not to think of what was left behind. Just today, Bryan told herself. Just take today.
“I’ve been thinking about tying them in on the way back.”
“On the way back?” Bryan turned to him as he reached for a cigarette.
“We’d be on our own time.” The van’s lighter glowed red against the tip. “But I think we could both take a month or so and finish the job.”
More time. Bryan felt the quick surge of hope, then ruthlessly toned it down. He wanted to finish the job his way. It was his way, she reminded herself, to do things thoroughly. But did the reason really matter? They’d have more time. Yes, she realized as she stared out the side window. The reason mattered a great deal too much.
“The job’s finished in New England,” she said lightly. “Summer’s over, and it’s back to business. My work at the studio will be backed up for a month. Still…” She felt herself weakening, though he said nothing, did nothing, to persuade her. “I wouldn’t mind a few detours on the trip back.”
Shade kept his hands easy on the wheel, his voice casual. “We’ll think about it,” he said, and let the subject they both wanted to pursue drop.
Weary of the highway, they took to the back roads. Bryan took her pictures of kids squirting each other with garden hoses, of laundry drying in the breeze, of an elderly couple sitting on a porch glider. Shade took his of sweating construction workers spreading tar on roofs, of laborers harvesting peaches and, surprisingly, of two ten-year-old businessmen hawking lemonade in their front yard.
Touched, Bryan accepted the paper cup Shade handed her. “That was sweet.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet,” he commented, and climbed into the passenger’s seat. “To keep down the overhead, they used a light hand on the sugar.”
“I meant you.” On impulse, she leaned over and kissed him, lightly, comfortably. “You can be a very sweet man.”
As always, she moved him, and he couldn’t stop it. “I can give you a list of people who’d disagree.”
“What do they know?” With a smile, she touched her lips to his again. She drove down the neat, shady street appreciating the trim lawns, flower gardens and dogs barking in the yards. “I like the suburbs,” she said idly. “To look at, anyway. I’ve never lived in one. They’re so orderly.” With a sigh, she turned right at the corner. “If I had a house here, I’d probably forget to fertilize the lawn and end up with crab grass and dandelions. My neighbors would take up a petition. I’d end up selling my house and moving into a condo.”
“So ends Bryan Mitchell’s career as a suburbanite.”
She made a face at him. “Some people aren’t cut out for picket fences.”
“True enough.”
She waited, but he said nothing that made her feel inadequate—nothing that made her feel as though she should be. She laughed delightedly, then grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You’re good for me, Shade. You really are.”
He didn’t want to let her hand go, and released it reluctantly. Good for her. She said it so easily, laughing. Because she did, he knew she had no idea just what it meant to him to hear it. Maybe it was time he told her. “Bryan—”
“What’s that?” she said abruptly, and swung toward the curb. Excited, she inched the car forward until she could read the colorful cardboard poster tacked to a telephone pole. “Nightingale’s Traveling Carnival.” Pulling on the brake, she nearly climbed over Shade to see it more clearly. “Voltara, the Electric Woman.” With a half whoop, she nudged closer to Shade. “Terrific, just terrific. Sampson, the Dancing Elephant. Madame Zoltar, Mystic. Shade, look, it’s their last night in town. We can’t miss it. What’s summer without a carny? Thrilling rides, games of skill and chance.”
“And Dr. Wren, the Fire Eater.”
It was easy to ignore the dry tone. “Fate.” She scrambled back to her own seat. “It has to be fate that we turned down this road. Otherwise, we might’ve missed it.”
Shade glanced back at the sign as Bryan pulled away from the curb. “Think of it,” he murmured. “We might’ve gotten all the way to the coast without seeing a dancing elephant.”
A half hour later, Shade leaned back in his seat, calmly smoking, his feet on the dash. Frazzled, Bryan swung the van around the next turn.
“I’m not lost.”
Shade blew out a lazy stream of smoke. “I didn’t say a word.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“That’s Madame Zoltar’s line.”
“And you can stop looking so smug.”
“Was I?”
“You always look smug when I get lost.”
“You said you weren’t.”
Bryan gritted her teeth and sent him a killing look. “Why don’t you just pick up that map and tell me where we are?”
“I started to pick it up ten minutes ago and you snarled at me.”
Bryan let out a long breath. “It was the way you picked it up. You were smirking, and I could hear you thinking—”
“You’re stepping into Madame Zoltar’s territory again.”
“Damnit, Shade.” But she had to choke back a laugh as she drove down the long, unlit country road. “I don’t mind making a fool of myself, but I hate it when someone lifts an eyebrow over it.”
“Did I?”
“You know you did. Now, if you’d just—”
Then she caught the first glimmer of red, blue, green lights flickering. A Ferris wheel, she thought. It had to be. The sound of tinny music came faintly through the summer dusk. A calliope. This time it was Bryan who looked smug. “I knew I’d find it.”
“I never had a doubt.”
She might’ve had something withering to say to that, but the lights glowing in the early-evening dusk, and the foolish piping music held her attention. “It’s been years,” she murmured. “Just years since I’ve seen anything like this. I’ve got to watch the fire eater.”
“And your wallet.”
She shook her head as she turned off the road onto the bumpy field where cars were parked. “Cynic.”
“Realist.” He waited until she maneuvered the van next to a late-model pickup. “Lock the van.” Shade gathered his bag and waited outside the van until Bryan had hers. “Where first?”
She thought of pink cotton candy but restrained herself. “Why don’t we just wander around a bit? We might want some shots now, but at night they’d have more punch.”
Without the dark, without the bright glow of colored lights, the carnival looked too much like what it was—a little weary, more than a little tawdry. Its illusions were too easily unmasked now, and that wasn’t why Bryan had come. Carnivals, like Santa Claus, had a right to their mystique. In another hour, when the sun had completely set behind those rolling, blue-tinted hills to the west, the carnival would come into its own. Peeling paint wouldn’t be noticed.
“Look, there’s Voltara.” Bryan grabbed Shade’s arm and swung him around to see a life-size poster that gave her lavish curves and scant cover as she was being strapped into what looked like a homemade electric chair.
Shade looked at the painted spangles over generous cleavage. “Might be worth watching after all.”
With a quick snort, Bryan pulled him toward the Ferris wheel. “Let’s take a ride. From the top we’ll be able to see the whole layout.”
Shade pulled a bill out of his wallet. “That’s the only reason you want to ride.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” They walked over, waiting while the attendant let a couple off. “It’s a good way of covering ground and sitting down at the same time,” she began as she took the vacated seat. “It’s sure to be an excellent angle for some aerial pictures, and…” She slipped a hand into his as they started the slow swing up. “It’s the very best place to neck at a carnival.”
When he laughed, she wrapped her arms around him and silenced his lips with hers. They reached the top where the evening breeze flowed clean and hung there one moment—two—aware only of each other. On the descent, the speed picked up and the drop had her stomach shivering, her mind swimming. It was no different from the sensation of being held by him, loved by him. They held tight and close through two revolutions.
Gathering her against his shoulder, Shade watched the carnival rush up toward them. It’d been years since he’d held someone soft and feminine on a Ferris wheel. High school? he wondered. He could hardly remember. Now he realized he’d let his youth slip by him because so many other things had seemed important at the time. He’d let it go freely, and though he wouldn’t, couldn’t, ask for the whole of it back, perhaps Bryan was showing him how to recapture pieces of it.
“I love the way this feels,” she murmured. She could watch the sun go down in a last splashy explosion of arrogance, hear the music, the voices, ebb and fade as the wheel spun around. She could look down and be just removed enough from the scene to enjoy it, just separate enough to understand it. “A ride on a Ferris wheel should be required once a year, like a routine physical.”
With her head against Shade’s shoulder, she examined the scene below, the midway, the concessions, the booths set up for games of skill. She wanted to see it all, close up. She could smell popcorn, grilling meat, sweat, the heavy-handed after-shave of the attendant as their car swung by him. It gave her the overall view. This was life, a sidelong glance at it. This was the little corner of life where children could see wonders and adults could pretend for just a little while.
Taking her camera, she angled down through the cars and wires to focus in on the attendant. He looked a bit bored as he lifted the safety bar for one couple and lowered it for the next. A job for him, Bryan thought, a small thrill for the rest. She sat back, content to ride.
When it was dark, they went to work. There were people gathered around the wheel of fortune, plopping down a dollar for a chance at more. Teenagers showed off for their girls or their peers by hurling softballs at stacked bottles. Toddlers hung over the rope and tossed Ping-Pong balls at fishbowls, hoping to win a goldfish whose life expectancy was short at best. Young girls squealed on the fast-spinning Octopus, while young boys goggled at the posters along the midway.
Bryan took one telling shot of a woman carrying a baby on one hip while a three-year-old dragged her mercilessly along. Shade took another of a trio of boys in muscle shirts standing apart and doing their best to look tough and aloof.
They ate slices of pizza with rubber crusts as they watched with the rest of the crowd as Dr. Wren, Fire Eater, came out of his tent to give a quick, teasing demonstration of his art. Like the ten-year-old boy who watched beside her, Bryan was sold.
With an agreement to meet back at the entrance to the midway in thirty minutes, they separated. Caught up, Bryan wandered. She wasn’t able to resist Voltara, and slipped into part of the show to see the somewhat weary, glossy-faced woman strapped into a chair that promised to zap her with two thousand volts.
She pulled it off well enough, Bryan thought, closing her eyes and giving a regal nod before the lever was pulled. The special effects weren’t top-notch, but they worked. Blue light shimmered up the chair and around Voltara’s head. It turned her skin to the color of summer lightning. At fifty cents a shot, Bryan decided as she stepped back out, the audience got their money’s worth.
Intrigued, she wandered around in back of the midway to where the carnival workers parked their trailers. No colorful lights here, she mused as she glanced over the small caravan. No pretty illusions. Tonight, they’d pack up the equipment, take down the posters and drive on.
The moonlight hit the metal of a trailer and showed the scratches and dents. The shades were drawn at the little windows, but there was faded lettering on the side. Nightingale’s.
Bryan found it touching and crouched to shoot.
“Lost, little lady?”
Surprised, Bryan sprang up and nearly collided with a short, husky man in T-shirt and work pants. If he worked for the carnival, Bryan thought quickly, he’d been taking a long break. If he’d come to watch, the lights and sideshows hadn’t held his interest. The smell of beer, warm and stale, clung to him.
“No.” She gave him a careful smile and kept a careful distance. Fear hadn’t entered into it. The move had been automatic and mild. There were lights and people only a few yards away. And she thought he might give her another angle for her photographs. “Do you work here?”
“Woman shouldn’t wander around in the dark alone. ’Less she’s looking for something.”
No, fear hadn’t been her first reaction, nor did it come now. Annoyance did. It was that that showed in her eyes before she turned away. “Excuse me.”
Then he had her arm, and it occurred to her that the lights were a great deal farther away than she’d have liked. Brazen it out, she told herself. “Look, I’ve people waiting for me.”
“You’re a tall one, ain’t you?” His fingers were very firm, if his stance wasn’t. He weaved slightly as he looked Bryan over. “Don’t mind looking eye to eye with a woman. Let’s have a drink.”
“Some other time.” Bryan put her hand on his arm to push it away and found it solid as a concrete block. That’s when the fear began. “I came back here to take some pictures,” she said as calmly as she could. “My partner’s waiting for me.” She pushed at his arm again. “You’re hurting me.”
“Got some more beer in my truck,” he mumbled as he began to drag her farther away from the lights.
“No.” Her voice rose on the first wave of panic. “I don’t want any beer.”
He stopped a moment, swaying. As Bryan took a good look in his eyes, she realized he was as drunk as a man could get and still stand. Fear bubbled hot in her throat. “Maybe you want something else.” He skimmed down her thin summer top and brief shorts. “Woman usually wants something when she wanders around half naked.”
Her fear ebbed as cold fury rushed in. Bryan glared. He grinned.
“You ignorant ass,” she hissed just before she brought her knee up, hard. His breath came out in a whoosh as he dropped his hand. Bryan didn’t wait to see him crouch over. She ran.
She was still running when she rammed straight into Shade.
“You’re ten minutes late,” he began, “but I’ve never seen you move that fast.”
“I was just—I had to…” She trailed off, breathless, and leaned against him. Solid, dependable, safe. She could have stayed just like that until the sun rose again.
“What is it?” He could feel the tension before he drew her away and saw it on her face. “What happened?”
“Nothing really.” Disgusted with herself, Bryan dragged her hair back from her face. “I just ran into some jerk who wanted to buy me a drink whether I was thirsty or not.”
His fingers tightened on her arms, and she winced as they covered the same area that was already tender. “Where?”
“It was nothing,” she said again, furious with herself that she hadn’t taken the time to regain her composure before she ran into him. “I went around back to get a look at the trailers.”
“Alone?” He shook her once, quickly. “What kind of idiot are you? Don’t you know carnivals aren’t just cotton candy and colored lights? Did he hurt you?”
It wasn’t concern she heard in his voice, but anger. Her spine straightened. “No, but you are.”
Ignoring her, Shade began to drag her through the crowds toward the parking section. “If you’d stop looking at everything through rose-colored glasses, you’d see a lot more clearly. Do you have any idea what might’ve happened?”
“I can take care of myself. I did take care of myself.” When they reached the van, she swung away from him. “I’ll look at life any way I like. I don’t need you to lecture me, Shade.”
“You need something.” Grabbing the keys from her, he unlocked the van. “It’s brainless to go wandering around alone in the dark in a place like this. Looking for trouble,” he muttered as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“You sound remarkably like the idiot I left sprawled on the grass with his hands between his legs.”
He shot her a look. Later, when he was calm, he might admire the way she’d dealt with an obnoxious drunk, but now he couldn’t see beyond her carelessness. Independence aside, a woman was vulnerable. “I should’ve known better than to let you go off alone.”
“Now just a minute.” She whirled around in her seat. “You don’t let me do anything, Colby. If you’ve got it in your head that you’re my keeper or anything of the sort, then you’d better get it right out again. I answer to myself. Only myself.”
“For the next few weeks, you answer to me as well.”
She tried to control the temper that pushed at her, but it wasn’t possible. “I may work with you,” she said, pacing her words. “I may sleep with you. But I don’t answer to you. Not now. Not ever.”
Shade punched in the van’s lighter. “We’ll see about that.”
“Just remember the contract.” Shaking with fury, she turned away again. “We’re partners on this job, fifty-fifty.”
He gave his opinion of what she could do with the contract. Bryan folded her arms, shut her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
* * *
He drove for hours. She might sleep, but there was too much churning inside him to allow him the same release. So he drove, east toward the Atlantic.
She’d been right when she’d said she didn’t answer to him. That was one of the first rules they’d laid down. He was damned sick of rules. She was her own woman. His strings weren’t on her any more than hers were on him. They were two intelligent, independent people who wanted it that way.
But he’d wanted to protect her. When everything else was stripped away, he’d wanted to protect her. Was she so dense that she couldn’t see he’d been furious not with her but with himself for not being there when she’d needed him?
She’d tossed that back in his face, Shade thought grimly as he ran a hand over his gritty eyes. She’d put him very clearly, very concisely, in his place. And his place, he reminded himself, no matter how intimate they’d become, was still at arm’s length. It was best for both of them.
With his window open, he could just smell the tang of the ocean. They’d crossed the country. They’d crossed more lines than he’d bargained for. But they were a long way from crossing the final one.
How did he feel about her? He’d asked himself that question time after time, but he’d always managed to block out the answer. Did he really want to hear it? But it was three o’clock in the morning, that hour he knew well. Defenses crumbled easily at three o’clock in the morning. Truth had a way of easing its way in.
He was in love with her. It was too late to take a step back and say no thanks. He was in love with her in a way that was completely foreign to him. Unselfishly. Unlimitedly.
Looking back, he could almost pinpoint the moment when it had happened to him, though he’d called it something else. When he’d stood on the rock island in the Arizona lake, he’d desired her, desired her more intensely than he’d desired anything or anyone. When he’d woken from the nightmare and had found her warm and solid beside him, he’d needed her, again more than anything or anyone.
But when he’d looked across the dusty road on the Oklahoma border and seen her standing in front of a sad little house with a plot of pansies, he’d fallen in love.
They were a long way from Oklahoma now, a long way from that moment. Love had grown, overwhelming him. He hadn’t known how to deal with it then. He hadn’t a clue what to do about it now.
He drove toward the ocean where the air was moist. When he pulled the van between two low-rising dunes, he could just see the water, a shadow with sound in the distance. Watching it, listening to it, he slept.
Bryan woke when she heard the gulls. Stiff, disoriented, she opened her eyes. She saw the ocean, blue and quiet in the early light that wasn’t quite dawn. At the horizon, the sky was pink and serene. Misty. Waking slowly, she watched gulls swoop over the shoreline and soar to sea again.
Shade slept in the seat beside her, turned slightly in his seat, his head resting against the door. He’d driven for hours, she realized. But what had driven him?
She thought of their argument with a kind of weary tolerance. Quietly, she slipped from the van. She wanted the scent of the sea.
Had it only been two months since they’d stood on the shore of the Pacific? Was this really so different? she wondered as she stepped out of her shoes and felt the sand, cool and rough under her feet. He’d driven through the night to get here, she mused. To get here, one step closer to the end. They had only to drive up the coast now, winding their way through New England. A quick stop in New York for pictures and darkroom work, then on to Cape Cod, where summer would end for both of them.
It might be best, she thought, if they broke there completely. Driving back together, touching on some of the places they’d discovered as a team, might be too much to handle. Perhaps when the time came, she’d make some excuse and fly back to L.A. It might be best, she reflected, to start back to those separate lives when summer ended.
They’d come full circle. Through the tension and annoyance of the beginning, into the cautious friendship, the frenzied passion, and right back to the tension again.
Bending, Bryan picked up a shell small enough to fit into the palm of her hand, but whole.
Tension broke things, didn’t it? Cracked the whole until pressure crumbled it into pieces. Then whatever you’d had was lost. She didn’t want that for Shade. With a sigh, she looked out over the ocean, where the water was green, then blue. The mist was rising.
No, she didn’t want that for him. When they turned from each other, they should do so as they’d turned to each other. As whole, separate people, standing independently.
She kept the shell in her hand as she walked back toward the van. The weariness was gone. When she saw him standing beside the van watching her, with his hair ruffled by the wind, his face shadowed, eyes heavy, her heart turned over.
The break would come soon enough, she told herself. For now, there should be no pressure.
Smiling, she went to him. She took his hand and pressed the shell into it. “You can hear the ocean if you listen for it.”
He said nothing, but put his arm around her and held her. Together they watched the sun rise over the east.