The groom. Which meant the man at the fence post was—
Stoney reached back and clapped him on the shoulder. "This is Dutch Lovett, my best man. Dutch — Jules Tully. She's here for the animals."
Dutch was already coming off the fence, easy, and held out his hand.
I took it, rough at the palm, steadier than anything I knew what to do with. I pulled mine back faster than I'd meant to, and the flush — the one that lives at my throat first and climbs to my cheekbones without asking — climbed, and he was watching it happen.
His expression didn't change. One corner of his mouth moved, small and deliberate.
STONEY WALKED ME TOWARDthe house and I got my first real look at the scope of the thing. The Dallas wedding photographer was handling the ceremony, the reception, and all the guests. I had the animals. It was a clean division of labor and I was good at it.
A tall, blond woman came down the porch steps in expensive jeans and a smile that had apparently been her default setting since birth, moving with the easy authority of someone who spent more time in the saddle than anywhere else and had never once been bothered by this.
"Jules!" She caught both my hands. "I'm Bobbie-Jean. I am so glad you're here." At her heels, on a ribbon leash, walked the largest dog I'd ever encountered outside of a nature documentary: a brindle Great Dane, measuring approximately four feet at the shoulder, proceeding with the measured dignity of a dog who understood she was the whole point. "This is Princess FiFi. She absolutely loves meeting new people."
FiFi demonstrated this by pressing her entire head into my sternum with great sincerity. I held my camera bag out of range and didn't step back.
"She likes you!" Bobbie-Jean said, delighted.
I smiled the smile I use when an animal has made a decision about me without my input. "She's wonderful," I said, and FiFi looked up at me with the expression of a dog who knew that and intended to keep proving it.
On the porch, in a rocking chair, sat a tiny woman in her mid-seventies: birdlike, silver-haired, in a pale blue short-sleeved sweater with a strand of pearls at her collarbone and frosty coral lipstick applied with the cheerful confidence of someone who'd decided lines were a suggestion. Penciled brows over sharp eyes that had watched the whole thing, fence post to handshake, with the attention of a woman keeping score. Cowboy boots on feet that didn't quite reach the porch floor.
"Groundskeeper," she said, from the rocking chair, before I'd reached the steps. She said it like she was tasting a particularly good piece of news. "'Are you the groundskeeper?'" She shook her head with the slow delight of a woman who intended to enjoy this for quite some time. "Lord, I like you already."
She stood up from the rocking chair with the speed of a woman who had never once been slowed down in her life, came down the steps, and pulled me into a hug that smelled like Chanel No. 5 and cedar and something that had recently been deep-fried. "I'm MeeMaw. Welcome to the family, sugar. Don't worry about Judge Judy — she only screams at people she's going to warm up to eventually." A small pause. "Mostly."
She released me, stepped back, and looked me over with the warm certainty of a woman who'd already decided. "You'll do," she said, with the authority of a verdict not subject to appeal, and went back up the porch steps and sat back down.
A three-legged Blue Heeler trotted around the far corner of the house, sniffed my flats with the thoroughness of an investigator running a full background check, and sat down at my left side. He looked up at me with the settled, purposeful expression of a dog who'd already reached a conclusion and was simply waiting on me to catch up.
"That's Sarge," Stoney said. "Looks like he's adopted you."
Sarge didn't contradict this.
Tent #4 had canvas walls, a real bed, genuine linens, a zipper with complaints, and the same temperature as outside, which made sense because it was made of canvas and had strong opinions about ambient heat. I unpacked the backup drives, squared up the lens cloths, and had just determined that six batteries and two camera bodies could coexist in one bag with strategic packing when I thought to ask about the bathroom.
The answer was: a luxury restroom trailer, past the second catering tent, about three minutes on foot. Running water, functioning showers, fresh flowers on the vanity counter. I was told this as though it was good news. It was, technically — I'd half-expected a portable toilet situation, so the flowers were a pleasant surprise. It was also two hundred yards away in the dark, over terrain I hadn't fully mapped yet, past at least one animal population whose nighttime habits remained unknown.
I filed this under things I had agreed to before fully understanding the terms.
My phone rang. Olivia.
"Mrs. Whitestone is threatening to pull the Persian booking," she said. "She says postponing three weeks is—"
"Tell her the Persian is a priority and I'll call Tuesday."
"She says Tuesday—"
"Olivia." I looked at the canvas ceiling. "Tell her I'm in Texas. Tell her the wait list is nine months. Tell her whatever version of that makes her feel most valued."
A pause. "Are you okay? You sound outdoorsy."
"I'm in a tent. I'm fine."
I hung up and went to work.
Texas light in early May wasn't what Manhattan had prepared me for. I read light automatically: direction, quality, angle, temperature. The light over The Last Resort came in warm and direct and completely uninterested in negotiating with anyone. It hit the bluebonnets in the ceremony meadow at the angle that makes flowers look like they know exactly what they're doing. I photographed for forty minutes and by the twenty-fifth frame I already had the cover of the venue's next five years of marketing materials.
