Poor thing, thought Carrie, deleting the appointment from her calendar. She’d sounded heartbroken. How humiliating to have to go to every service provider and tell the same story over and over again. You’d think someone else might have taken over the task for her.
Then again, Gibson Kyle was known to be strict; could be they were making Bethany feel the weight of her mistake, making her accountable for her actions.
Carrie knew how that felt.
Perhaps Bethany was facing everything as a way of attaining closure.
Carrie knew about that, too.
Still, try as she might, Carrie couldn’t see either one of the lovebirds breaking it off.
She went back to her photo editing program with a heavy heart. Her own love life being non-existent, she took vicarious pleasure in the happiness of others. There was so much disappointment in the world; you had to celebrate with those who were able to find their soulmates.
An image of Ethan Nash’s deep, dark eyes flickered into her head. The smile-that-wasn’t-a-smile she saw in their depths. That luscious bottom lip.
She pushed down the quiver of pride at the way he’d looked at her photos. It had been a long, long time since any man had looked at her that way. It had been a long time since she’d wanted anyone to.
Too long?
No. He’d had a normal male reaction to her picture, and she’d seen it. That was all. It meant nothing. Even if he was attracted to what he saw, so what? Male libido was the least reliable force in the universe. Non-specific, short-lived, utterly fickle and completely, totally one hundred percent unreliable.
Too bad there was so much of it.
She clicked through the Kauffman photographs. They looked happy enough but there was still something off.
Perhaps it was nothing, but the camera often revealed things to Carrie that were invisible to the naked eye, things that were invisible even to the subjects themselves.
She was never going to figure it out with a dark, sexy face hovering at the edge of her mind.
To her relief, clattering sounded at the front door. Jessica was home. Case in point.
Carrie didn’t need a lens to see the desperation that had driven her wild-and-crazy cousin to come home to Cherry Lake with her tail between her legs.
“Hey,” she called. “I’m in here. I hope your day is going better than mine.”
She got up out of her chair, stretched out her back, and decided it was time to quit for the day. The biggest problem of being self-employed was giving yourself time off.
Jess walked in, gave a quick pat to Belinda, then threw her purse into the corner and collapsed onto the couch. “I hate my life. Have you ever been inside the men’s bathroom of a gas station? It’s a special kind of Hell. Damon didn’t have a haz-mat suit so it was just rubber gloves between me and… it.” She shuddered. “Is there anything to eat?”
“Did you bring anything home with you?”
Carrie was happy to have Jess stay with her while she got back on her feet but she wasn’t about to let her take advantage.
“Hey,” said Jess, “I’ve been working. All day long.”
The dramatic way she said it underscored the fact that this was new behavior for her. She’d come back hoping for an advance on her share of the inheritance, but Grandpa Nate wasn’t handing over anything without strings, gainful employment being the primary thread.
“Welcome to the club,” said Carrie, flopping down beside her. “My day didn’t involve urine, but that’s about the best I can say of it.”
“Why?” asked Jessica. “What’s the worst that can happen in your world?”
Jess was one of the few people who knew about Carrie’s earlier work, and didn’t find it the least bit shocking.
“You know my, uh… other pictures? The ones I used to take?”
Jess’s eyebrows rose. “The sexy ones? Yeah, why?”
“My website misfired. Security blew up. Firewalls fell down. Something like that. Good thing I only had pictures of myself on it because if you know where to look, they’re out there, for all the world to see.”
“Pfft. Big deal. You should see the stuff actors post. On purpose. Don’t worry about it. We all should look so great.”