She should be annoyed by his persistence.
Instead, she found herself smiling.
Just a little.
Chapter Ten
Marnie didn’t know whether to curse Lila Rose or give her a big hug.
She’d had nonstop phone calls from people wanting to set up appointments for three solid weeks. And if they couldn’t reach her by phone, they were coming by the studio and knocking on the door. Everyone wanted new pictures taken before the holidays, and several had asked if she could do Christmas cards.
Hank and his team were working around the clock, though they’d had a setback in the schedule. Someone had thrown a brick through her front door in the middle of the night. They’d reached through the hole in the glass and turned the deadbolt, letting themselves in to do some damage to the walls and some of the framed photographs she’d already hung.
Even in a resort town like Laurel Valley, the downtown district grew quiet in the small hours of the morning—the tourists tucked into their rental chalets, the restaurants and boutiques dark until morning. The culprit had waited until the deputy on duty left the office next door to do a quick patrol. It was all very quick, and the destruction inside seemed almost like an afterthought—holes punched in the fresh drywall with whatever tools had been left lying around, scratches gouged into the surface of the new desk.
Hazel’s presence hit Marnie the moment she walked in to see the damage. But Hazel hadn’t acted alone. Someone else’s essence lingered there as well—male, angry, vindictive. Denny, she suspected.
Marnie mentioned the confrontation at her house to Blaze, so he went out to question Hazel. But according to Hazel’s mother, her daughter had been out of town visiting friends during the break-in and wouldn’t be back for another week.
Most of the damage had been cosmetic and was easily fixable, but it was still a personal attack, and Marnie wasn’t about to let it slide. She could bide her time and be patient. Hazel couldn’t hide forever, and Marnie had worked too hard to just roll over and take it. If she let it go once, Hazel would do it again and again.
She was at least able to schedule delivery for all the supplies she’d ordered while Hank and his team did the repairs. Photography wasn’t for the faint of heart or wallet—especially not if you wanted to do the job right.
Canvas, stretchers, presses, computers, printers, screens, backdrops, props—they took up a lot of room and were costly investments, but she couldn’t do the job without them.
When she had a camera in her hand, something inside her changed. She wasn’t the abused little girl she’d once been, and she wasn’t Clive Wallace’s trophy to be displayed like he’d created her talent himself. The camera was hers and hers alone.
And as the days and weeks went by, she found herself out in the community, capturing the lives of the people she’d always observed as an outsider—smiles and tears, joy and sorrow, hope and desperation. It was life. And Laurel Valley was teeming with it.
Beckett had stayed true to his word. He kept asking. And she kept saying no, reminding herself each time of the scene with Hazel. She couldn’t let herself get involved in a relationship again. She’d felt repression at the hands of her father and then Clive, and she’d promised herself she’d never let anyone have that kind of control over her again. That kind of power.
But Beckett was starting to wear on her.
It had started the day after their initial meeting, the same morning Hazel had paid her a visit. Marnie had been in the back, going over paint samples with Hank, when there’d been a knock at the door. Her head had been pounding after the confrontation, and she wasn’t in the mood for visitors.
She’d known there would be gossip when she returned to Laurel Valley. She’d expected it. But she’d be lying if she said it didn’t bother her that they were talking about her down at Duffey’s. That Hazel’s brother had called her common trash. Words hurt, no matter how thick your skin. It was how you reacted to them that mattered. But sometimes she wondered how strong she really was. What her breaking point might be.
The delivery boy on the other side of the door must’ve heard the gossip too, because he looked at her like she was a ghost and practically shoved the basket into her hands the moment she opened the door.
“I’ve got a delivery for you, Miss Whitlock.” He swallowed once and took a step back.
“Thank you,” she said, and dug in her pocket for the crumpled bills she’d shoved there after buying a drink from the mercantile that morning. She handed them to him and he practically ran back to the bakery.
There was a little note attached to the basket that said, I’m just being neighborly. He hadn’t signed his name, but she found herself smiling anyway.
He sent something new every day. Scented candles for the store. Bath salts she could use to soak in after a long day. A bouquet of stargazer lilies and tulips he must’ve paid a fortune for since they were out of season. Chocolate-covered strawberries. They were all accompanied by the same note: I’m just being neighborly.
And she couldn’t get him out of her head. It was far too easy to let those girlish fantasies come back to the surface. To bring back the taste of his lips against hers on the Ferris wheel and the butterflies in her stomach as infatuation had turned to something more.
He’d stopped by her house on a whim one evening as she was unloading groceries. He helped her carry them inside and then looked at her dishwasher when she mentioned it was making an odd sound. The sight of him in work-worn jeans, his sleeves rolled up as he tinkered with the machine, stirred something in her she’d tried hard to ignore. The artist in her could appreciate the lines of his shoulders and arms as he worked. The woman in her appreciated them even more.
She’d put away the groceries while he worked, and they’d talked about his family and what was happening on the ranch. When he finished, he put his tools away, tested the dishwasher, and then asked if she wanted to grab a pizza and catch a movie—in the same casual tone he’d used when talking about his cattle.
Telling him no had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
But he didn’t push. He just smiled and said she might change her mind tomorrow or the next day, so he’d keep asking.
That had been three days ago, and though she hadn’t seen him again, his gifts continued to arrive each morning.
