“Something to think about, I guess,” I say slowly. The idea has merit, but with only an hour and a half until we’re due to meet Tracy and Matt at the bar she dropped in the group chat, there isn’t time to dig into it. “Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll look into it,” I tell Wes, stretching to press a kiss to his cheek. “AfterI get these done. Stop distracting me,” I add with a playful shove.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I shiver at the memory of the last time those words left his lips and point sharply at his laptop. “Focus!”
Wes holds up his palms in a show of innocence that is immediately overruled by the wicked curve of his mouth.
“It will be faster if we shower together,” he says when I finally declare I’m done editing.
“Lies.” I shake my head and pull off my shirt, tossing it into his face. He catches it one-handed and doesn’t try to hide how he presses the fabric to his nose, inhaling my scent. I make it all the way to the bathroom door before I twist back to ask, “You coming?”
His face lights up like he’s won the lottery. With four long strides, he lifts me by my thighs and carries me the two steps into the bathroom. “Not before you do.”
Chapter Twenty-One
When I explain the compositionI’m considering featuring my dress to Wes the next morning, he lights up. “Put you out in a field with some lightning and you’d pass for a Valkyrie.” His gaze roams hungrily over me. “That would make a great contest entry to go with the shot you got yesterday. Let’s do it.”
“A Valkyrie, huh?” I slash my arm like I’m wielding an imaginary sword and stop just short of pretend-slicing off his head before I relax with a laugh. “Not far from what I’m envisioning, though. I just need to find the right spot. I only have”—I glance at the date on my watch—“nine days left to get this right.”
“Let’s focus on that today, then. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try again tomorrow.”
“You need to figure out your shot for the contest too,” I remind him.
“And I will,” Wes assures me with a light kiss on the tip of my nose. “But I’ve got another month of chasing ahead of me.We can focus on you and make sure you get what you need before you have to go home.”
It shouldn’t be a big deal, but the dirty secret of being chronically single is that the only person who makes you a priority is, well, you. To everyone else, there’s always someone more important.
It’s damn good to be Wes’s priority.
The weather sends us northwest in pursuit of a lazily spinning supercell spitting out lightning every couple of seconds. We stop a few times to photograph the storm’s structure from a distance before pushing on in search of the right setup for the shot I have in mind.
I know we’ve found it the second I get out of the car twenty minutes later. A long stretch of pale gravel road runs straight to the horizon, the storm looming over rich green fields to my left, while off to the right, blue sky peeks out from behind soft white clouds. The road neatly bisects the wrath of the storm with nature’s more gentle side, allowing me to stand smack in the middle.
I’ve always loved storms in part because no one tells Mother Nature to swallow her rage. There’s a paradoxical beauty in supercells, in the swirl of the clouds and the turquoises of a powerful storm, in the pinks and oranges and reds that sunset splashes across the towering mass of destruction. Storms are probably one of the reasons we think of weather in feminine terms—beautiful, yes, but deadly under the surface.
Barefoot in the middle of a country road, wearing an unapologetically vibrant pink dress as a storm rages in the atmosphere high above, I let that same power wash over me. Sure, it’s just a dress, but it’s the kind of dress my mother has alwayswielded as a weapon, all romantic lines and yards of fabric flowing out of the bodice to swirl around my legs. And it’s a color I’ve avoided out here for years, a deliberate attempt to remove anything that might tempt the good ol’ boys club to treat me like anything other than a fellow photographer.
This shot is more than a photo. It’s a reckoning. With my mother. With the photographers who’ve told me to go back to weddings.
And maybe, most of all, with myself.
“Ready?” Wes gently adjusts a strap across my shoulder so that it lies flat and rakes his gaze over me. My resulting shiver has nothing to do with the wind.
I take a deep breath and reach for the end of my braid, remove the elastic, and hand it to Wes to shove in his pocket. He moves behind me, sifting his fingers through the tangles, taking his time. When he’s done, he slides his hands down to my bare shoulders and digs his thumbs into the tired muscles until he’s coaxed me into relaxing against him.
“Nervous?”
“Not exactly.” I tip my head back to rest on his shoulder. “It’s just weird, being on this side of the camera.”
Wes brushes loose hair back from my eyes, his expression soft. “You’re amazing, Sloane.”
I raise one brow in a tease. “Me or the dress?”
“The dress is nice, but you could be doing this in muddy leggings and it would still work. You’re so talented. Talented and determined. You’ve made space for yourself out here, even when the idiots didn’t want to let you. It doesn’t matter if you’re telling someone else’s love story with their wedding portraits, or if you’re out here tellingyourstory. This is your gift.
“I may not have always known how to tell you in a way you’d hear me, but I’ve always been so impressed by you,” Wes continues. “Today included. This is going to turn out amazing.” He squeezes my shoulders one last time and then straightens. “Where do you want me?”
I gather up the long skirt in one hand before I turn, pausing to rub my thumb along his jaw. From under the rim of his baseball hat, his gaze is reverent. It’s almost overwhelming, having someone believe in me the way Wes does after a lifetime of the opposite.
