Читать книгу: «Butterfly Summer», страница 2

Heather agreed with Jeremy’s decision not to prosecute Curtis and to demand restitution instead. Tim, however, did not. Amy claimed not to care so long as the money was recouped. Chris had taken no position, and only spelled out the likely consequences of prosecuting Resnick when asked to do so by Jeremy. Thankfully, Wallace had left the decision to his eldest son, who seemed determined to be generous as well as fair. After all, he and Curtis had been very good friends at one time.

Whatever opinion any of them held, however, no one wanted to be dealing with the aftermath of embezzlement while Wallace was fighting for his life. It was added stress that none of them needed just now. Yet, they’d get through it.

They were Hamiltons, and Hamiltons might bend, but they didn’t break. If Heather hadn’t learned anything else from her father, she’d learned that much. It was one more reason why going on without him was almost unthinkable at this point.

“Oh, Lord,” she prayed aloud, “I don’t know what Your purpose is in all this, but I do know that You have one. I just hope that when all is said and done, it includes healing my father and bringing our family closer together. I won’t ask for things to be the way they were before. We’ll never be the same after this, but we can be better. Isn’t that what You always want for us, Lord, to be more like You? Use this, then, toward that end.”

She went on with her prayer, fervently seeking God’s will and claiming His mercy. Afterward, as always, she felt better, strong enough to face whatever awaited her at the office.

As features editor of the magazine, she was always dealing with some crisis, stepping in to settle differences and adjust priorities, choosing projects, making sure all the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed—whatever it took to get each feature and column brought in under deadline. She just never dreamed that today of all days she would become the feature.

Chapter Two

Heather walked into the stately three-story brown brick building on the corner of Main Street and Mill Road in the very center of the city and smiled at the elderly pair sitting behind the reception counter in the small lobby.

The Gordons had been with Hamilton Media since the days when the Davis Landing Dispatch had been a weekly, rather than a daily, newspaper. Since then they had each “retired” from one position to another, finally winding up as self-proclaimed “gatekeepers.”

Stooped and gray, they resembled nothing so much as someone’s great-grandparents, which they were. They were also sweetly formidable, and as such had earned the nickname “The Gargoyles.” It was virtually impossible for an outsider to get past either one of them and into the building without an appointment, let alone into the offices of the newspaper on the ground floor, those of the magazine on the second or those of the corporate center on the third.

Without missing a beat, Mr. Gordon hopped up from his stool and swiftly crossed the polished marble floor to the elevator, punching the up button, so that the door stood open and waiting when Heather strode into it, her flowered skirt belling out as she turned on the toes of her sensible pumps. Mrs. Gordon, meanwhile, was already on the phone, alerting whoever had inquired about her return that Heather was once again in the building.

As the old-fashioned elevator, sumptuously appointed in dark paneling and gleaming brass, rose laboriously toward the second floor, Heather took a moment to straighten the square oversize collar that all but obliterated the fitted bodice of her dress, which was short-sleeved in deference to the weather.

As the door slid open once more, Heather greeted the secretary to the head of advertising, who shoved a clipboard and pen at her as she stepped out of the elevator.

“The lifestyle column has to be cut,” she stated unceremoniously, “and they’re holding print until you okay it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“A larger than normal advertisement.”

Heather sighed inwardly. Carl Platt, the author of that particular column, would be screaming.

“Which advertiser?” Heather asked, glancing swiftly over the reedit as she moved past the receptionist’s desk and into the warren of cubicles that made up the magazine offices.

A popular Nashville restaurant that was both a regular and valued advertiser was named. Heather didn’t like cutting short one of their most popular features, but she knew too well on which side the Hamilton bread was buttered to kick up a fuss, not that she would have anyway. She added her initials to those of her sister Amy’s, endorsing the change, and passed the clipboard back to the twentysomething secretary, who promptly disappeared.

True to form, Carl Platt, whom Heather thought of as a rotund prima donna in a bow tie, pounced the moment she turned the corner. She nodded distractedly as he ranted.

“I know, I know,” she murmured sympathetically, tsking at the injustices Carl Platt heatedly recounted. “I’ll tell Amy as soon as I see her.” For all the good that would do.

Amy made decisions based on the overall needs of the publication and its parent company, but Heather didn’t bother pointing that out to Platt.

No sooner had she mollified him than another clipboard appeared beneath her nose. This one involved a title font change.

Heather liked the looks of the original, but it appeared to be impossible to center on the page. The proposed substitute was more uniform in the space required for each letter.

She added an exclamation mark for balance and kept the original font. Then she spent several minutes perusing a paragraph in an article that she was going to edit in its entirety at a later date anyway, before finally reaching her assistant’s desk.

In her forties, with teenage children and a husband crippled by a rare form of arthritis, Brenda was efficient, reliable, professional and not at all shy about voicing her opinions.

“Ellen’s in a panic. Like that’s anything new,” Brenda announced, handing over half a dozen phone messages. “Honestly, someone ought to give our beauty editor a personality makeover.”

Heather smiled without comment. Ellen Manning was something of a character. Physically stunning with long, perfectly styled ash blond hair, meticulous makeup, vibrant blue eyes and fingernails like manicured talons, Ellen approached her job as if beauty and fashion were the be-all and end-all of human existence. Consequently she was very good at it, which was reason enough so far as Heather was concerned to put up with her high-handed, overbearing methods and short fuse.

Holding up three of the messages in one hand, Heather commented in surprise, “These are from Ethan Danes.”

Ethan was the staff photographer currently working with Ellen on a photo shoot at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Tall, dark and breathtaking, Ethan was the new office heartthrob—and for good reason. He had a quick, million-watt smile and a smooth, masculine charm that oozed from his pores.

“Yeah, I guess Ellen’s meltdown is justified this time,” Brenda conceded. “To hear Ethan tell it, we may not have a Makeover Maven feature this month.”

Frowning, Heather pushed through the door into her small office. Not much wider than the single window at its end, the room had just enough space for a file cabinet, a desk, a table wedged into one corner, an extra chair and the small potted plant perched on the windowsill. A large dry-erase board took up the whole of the wall behind her desk, leaving the wall opposite it for a series of framed covers and family photos. Only the ceiling fan, circling lazily overhead, kept the tiny room from becoming a stifling closet in the sultry June heat.

Heather reached immediately for her desk phone and dialed Ethan’s cell phone number. He answered on the first ring.

“Crisis central, this is the shutterbug speaking.”

“Ethan, what on earth is going on down there?”

“Well, let’s see. The makeover candidate is a no-show.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, this time she’s the one with the flu. Guess she got it from her kid. Anyway, the Opry says we can’t reschedule. Again.”

“Hasn’t Ellen explained the circumstances?”

“Let’s just say that Ellen is making enemies and influencing no one,” Ethan quipped. “Meanwhile, the window is closing. You’d better get down here and apply some of that patented Heather healing balm before we’re permanently barred from the most popular venue in town.”

Heather healing balm, was it? She tamped down a spurt of pride and made a quick decision. Well, she’d wanted to stay busy today.

“I’m on my way.”

“Come around to the side. I’ll be there to let you in.”

After hanging up, she headed back the way she’d come.

“If anyone needs me,” she said, breezing past Brenda’s desk, “tell them to ring my cell.”

“Better turn it on then,” Brenda called as Heather hurried away, mentally smacking herself in the forehead. Of course she’d turned off the phone while she was the hospital, and of course she’d forgotten to turn it back on again.

She dug in her bag on the way to the elevator and had the thing operational by the time she started her descent. It was ringing before she reached the street, and kept ringing for almost the entire next hour as she drove her deep blue Saab into Nashville and the Opryland complex.

After parking in the surprisingly crowded back lot, she made her way toward the side of the performance hall. To her surprise, Ethan was waiting for her outside the building, one scuffed brown loafer, worn sans sock, propping open a heavy metal door.

Tall and lean with that thick, black-brown hair falling rakishly across his brow, he wore not one but two cameras dangling around his neck on nylon straps. A third hung from his belt, a disreputable strip of cracked brown leather slung low around his lean hips.

As was often the case, he needed a shave. Yet even in comfy jeans and a snug black T-shirt worn beneath an open chambray shirt with the cuffs rolled back and the tail hanging out, he looked more like a model than a photographer. Dark almost to the point of black, his eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief as he smiled a stark white welcome at her, displaying killer dimples that cut long grooves in the square-jawed rectangle of his face.

“You’d better get in there,” he told her with a jerk of his head. “Ellen’s been snarling and howling since we got here. I’m surprised they haven’t tossed us out already.”

Heather glanced at her simple, utilitarian wristwatch as she moved past him into the shadowed interior of the building. “They can’t toss us. We’ve still got nearly three hours.”

“Fat lot of good that’s going to do us if we can’t find a makeover candidate and get her here ASAP,” Ethan said, following swiftly behind her.

“We’ll find one. We have to. We’ve already spent a small fortune on this shoot.”

“Not to mention the makeup artist, hairdresser and wardrobe shopper cooling their heels backstage,” Ethan added drily. “End of the hall and up the steps.”

Heather moved in the direction that he indicated, listening to the quick patter of their footsteps and the gentle clunking of his cameras as they bumped together. The half flight of stairs was surprisingly dark and narrow, which no doubt prompted Ethan to stay close and place a hand on her shoulder.

“Left,” he prompted at the top of the steps.

Heather quickly found herself in a back hallway onto which a number of dressing rooms opened. The strident sound of Ellen’s voice pulled her forward from there.

“What is it about this situation that you don’t understand?”

“Not a thing,” came a calm, masculine reply. “What you don’t seem to understand is that I need these premises vacated by 2:00 p.m.”

“I have a deadline!” Ellen shrieked. “I’ve got to have those photos!”

Heather walked into the room and straight into the conversation, her right hand extended.

“How do you do? I’m Heather Hamilton, features editor of Nashville Living.”

The poor fellow looked so relieved that Heather knew Ellen had seriously overstepped the bounds of civility. Unfortunately, the public relations manager didn’t have much to offer her.

“I’m sorry, we just don’t have another slot available within your time frame,” he said.

Heather laid a hand on his arm and walked him out into the hall and away from Ellen’s agitated mumbling, not to mention the avid interest of the makeup artist, hairdresser and wardrobe girl. As she squeezed past Ethan he grinned, though what he could find to grin about in this situation she couldn’t imagine. Then, at the last possible moment, he winked.

Heather felt color rise in her cheeks. As she took her leave of the public relations manager, she kept wondering what that wink meant. Surely Ethan wasn’t flirting with her. The instant she was free, Heather zipped back into the dressing room.

“Now what do we do?” Ellen demanded, folding her arms across the silky middle of the lilac-colored twin set that she wore with a short, straight off-white skirt and sharp-toed high-heeled mules.

“We’ve got to get another makeover candidate in here right now,” Heather stated emphatically.

Ellen threw up her pale lilac fingertips, speaking so forcefully that tendrils of her long golden hair shook free of its sophisticated up-sweep. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? I’ve called every homely female in Nashville!”

“There has to be someone,” Heather argued desperately.

“On such short notice?” Ellen began to pace, throwing out her hands in every direction as she spoke. “I don’t think so! I’ve called every name on my list. I’ve called women we haven’t even screened. I’ve called my neighbors, for pity’s sake!” She spun on one heel, and the instant that her gaze dropped onto Heather’s face, her blue gaze lit. “Wait a minute. You! You can do it! You’re our makeover candidate!” As Heather’s jaw dropped, Ellen clapped her hands together in a self-congratulatory manner.

“Me?” Heather squeaked, inwardly cringing. Okay, she was no beauty, but she wasn’t homely. Was she?

“Oh, honey,” drawled Sheryl, the makeup artist, one hand flopping out in Ellen’s direction. “You are brilliant. She so needs a makeover.” This from a female with orange spiked hair and multiple piercings.

Ellen turned to the balding, ponytailed hairdresser. “What do you think, Fox?”

He sauntered forward, comb in hand, to slide his stubby fingers through Heather’s hair. “Hmm. Well, if we have time for a coloring and Sheryl can pull off her end, I can hold up mine.”

“You’ll have to work at the same time,” Ellen decreed, turning to Gayla, the wardrobe mistress. “Can we make it happen?”

The cadaverous woman tapped a finger against her protruding front teeth speculatively.

“It won’t be what we planned. She’s smaller than the other one, but I’ve got a few size sixes we can use.”

“Six!” Heather protested. “I wear a ten.”

“That doesn’t mean you are a ten,” Gayla told her.

Ellen clapped her hands. “Okay, let’s get to work, everyone!”

Heather backed up a step. “Wait a minute! I haven’t—”

A pair of large, strong hands closed around her shoulders and literally spun her.

Suddenly she was looking up into the dangerously attractive face of Ethan Danes.

“This can work!” he told her, his dark eyes burning with unusual intensity. “Think about it.” He lifted one of his cameras. “I’ll take some unflattering photos.” He shrugged. “Trick of lighting, you’ll see.” He waved a hand, setting the scene like a movie director. “The genius squad here will do their thing. I’ll do what I do best.” He grinned. “The ‘after’ photos will be smashing. Trust me.” He stepped closer. “I know you try to play it down—the boss lady and all that—but you’re really very pretty. It can’t fail.”

Heather could feel her jaw descending again, but all she could think was that he’d called her pretty—and how very tall he was, taller than she had realized, at least a couple inches over six feet. That made him almost a foot taller than her. Well, ten inches anyway, which meant that the top of her head would reach, oh, say that finely sculpted lower lip of his. Realizing that she was staring, she jerked her gaze away—and found herself swept summarily behind a dressing screen.

“Wait!” Ethan exclaimed, snapping on harsh florescent lights overhead. He appeared behind the screen, clicking away with the camera attached to his belt. Tugging and pushing, he moved her into the position that he wanted, then crouched and aimed the camera at her. “Tuck your chin.”

“What? L-like this?” She tilted her head down until it seemed to her that he was looking straight up her nostrils, and that’s precisely when he took the photos.

“Okay. That’ll do.”

Ethan disappeared with another wink. Gayla stepped up again and stripped Heather to her skin with a few swift movements. After hustling her into undergarments, Gayla handed her a simple cotton robe. As Heather shrugged it on and belted it, Gayla shook out the flowered dress that Heather considered her favorite summer outfit for the office. Holding it out at arm’s length, Gayla dropped the dress on a chair in the corner.

“Say goodbye to the 1980s and get ready to meet the new century.” With that she pulled Heather from behind the screen and pushed her into the tall chair stationed in front of a narrow counter and lighted mirror.

While Sheryl slapped gunk on her face and wiped it off again, muttering that if she wasn’t going to wear foundation she ought to at least use sunscreen, Fox began spritzing her hair with water, then sectioning and cutting it. Heather cringed and bit her lip, hoping she’d have hair left when the stylist was done.

Then Sheryl attacked her with a pair of tweezers. When her eyebrows had been shaped to the makeup artist’s apparently exacting standards, Heather’s hair was tossed forward into her face.

She could only pray that they weren’t all teetering on the edge of catastrophe. How mortifying would it be if, after all this, her “after” photos weren’t good enough to print?

Ethan captured shot after shot, bobbing and weaving to avoid the hands that plucked, swabbed, rubbed, combed, buffed, squeezed, folded and painted the new Heather over the old.

Watching the transformation through the lenses of his cameras proved to be a supremely satisfying exercise, and he found his enthusiasm mounting with contemplation of the finished product. He’d wanted to see Heather take some pride in her appearance for the past six months, which was just about the length of time he’d been with Nashville Living.

Jobs didn’t usually last this long for Ethan. He liked to keep moving. That was part of the reason he’d chosen a career in photography. He could take his pick of assignments, moving on whenever the mood struck. He didn’t have the foggiest idea why he’d stuck around Davis Landing this long.

Even coupled with the shabbier neighborhood of Hickory Mills by a pair of bridges spanning the Cumberland River, the graceful old community couldn’t have comprised more than thirty or forty thousand people. Although Nashville was “just around the bend,” as the locals stated it, living was pretty slow and easy in Davis Landing. Many nights Ethan did nothing more than park in front of the tube, but he figured this experience was worth at least six months of cooling his heels in Tennessee.

From day one he’d wondered why this Hamilton daughter had chosen to hide her gentle beauty beneath boring hair and baggy flounced prints, allowing her delicate features to fade into the background. Her sisters had definitely learned to flaunt their looks. Well, okay, the little flirt Melissa flaunted, almost desperately so; Amy, on the other hand, projected, wearing her self-confidence like a mantle.

As attractive as each was in her own way, though, Ethan saw that Heather was the real beauty of the family. She just didn’t seem to realize it.

He couldn’t remember ever seeing her wear so much as a touch of lipstick, and while her medium brown hair was sleek and healthy looking, she never seemed to do anything with it. Letting it hang straight from that excruciatingly precise center part just made her slender face look longer and more narrow than it really was. He was liking the shaggy bangs and long, tapered layers that were taking shape now much better.

While Fox painted highlights into Heather’s newly cut hair, Sheryl started trying foundation colors against her skin and Gayla commandeered her impossibly narrow feet, trying shoes on them until she found a size that would work, at least for the purposes of the photo shoot. Next Gayla laid out an array of clothing and accessories, while Sheryl polished Heather’s nails and Fox stuffed all those folded strips of tin foil beneath the soft hood of a portable hair dryer in order to speed the processing of the color. All the while, the makeover team discussed makeup, hairstyles and clothes.

Their limited selections—after all, they’d come prepared for a different model—dictated some of their choices. Ellen dictated others—until she received a call on her cell phone and stepped out into the hallway to take it. Knowing what shots they’d tentatively chosen, Ethan felt justified in making a few suggestions in her absence.

“That clingy red job would look great against that midnight blue light on stage.”

Sheryl held a cherry red lipstick next to Heather’s creamy ivory skin. “Works for me.” She looked up at Fox for his verdict.

“We’re not going orange, so the red ought to do.”

“Oh, I—I don’t wear red well,” Heather objected. “It just sort of overpowers me.”

Sheryl lifted a pierced eyebrow, declaring, “Well, sugar, you’re going to overpower it today.”

Ethan managed to hide his grin behind the camera, saying, “What about those skinny black jeans and that little turquoise leather jacket with the red boots? We could park her on a bale of hay.”

“The boots are too big,” Gayla said somberly.

“She doesn’t have to dance in them,” Ethan pointed out. “She just has to keep them on long enough to get her picture taken. It’d be a great theme shot.”

“Please God, don’t let them say the cowboy hat,” Heather muttered, which had Ethan chuckling.

“Are we doing exteriors?” Sheryl wanted to know.

Ethan dropped the camera that he held in his hands. “We talked about it, but I’m not sure. I’ll go ask Ellen.”

He stepped out into the hall, only to find it empty. That wasn’t like Ellen. Usually she wanted to personally oversee every stroke of the mascara wand and click of the shutter. Shrugging, he ducked back into the dressing room.

“Guess we play this one by ear.”

Sheryl gave him a disgusted look. “Are we doing exterior shots or not?”

Ethan glanced at a pair of white cuffed shorts and a filmy, lace-edged top that Gayla was holding up and figured, Why not?

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.” He took one more look at that slinky red dress and made another decision. “Normally we’d start with the casual exterior shots, move into the foyer and then finish up on stage with that red number, but with our time running out, we’re going to have to reverse that. Can you handle it?”

Sheryl dove into her makeup kit. “I’ll use a neutral brown shadow and cream lipstick so it wipes off easy.”

“How much longer?” Ethan asked, checking his watch.

Fox glanced at his timer. “Give us twenty-five minutes.”

“And not a minute more,” Ethan warned. “I’m going to get set up.”

He grabbed a pair of tripods, a reflector and a small electric fan before taking off for the auditorium at a dead run. His light meter was in his pocket. Thank goodness the Opry had state-of-the-art lighting.

He was still playing with the set when Sheryl ran onto stage. Flinging out an arm she cried, “Ta-da!”

Ethan looked around in time to see Fox and Gayla hauling Heather out of the wings and into the light. For a long minute all he could do was stare and hope his mouth wasn’t hanging open.

The long strapless gown fit as though it had been handmade for her. The organza train of the slender skirt pooled gracefully around stiletto heels that he knew were too big but nevertheless elongated the slim leg revealed by a side slit. Crystals graced her delicate throat and wrist and dangled from her dainty earlobes, working in concert with the gleaming hair piled on top of her head and wisping about her face to call attention to the graceful length of her neck. Rich auburn highlights and sable eye shadow had turned her light-brown eyes into enormous amber orbs, while vivid red lipstick plumped and defined a lush mouth beneath that pert, classical nose.

Right at the base of her neck, almost at her collarbone, was a small pinkish brown mark that she kept covering almost absently with her hand. A rose tattoo? he wondered, but no, Heather was not the sort to have that done. Strolling closer, he saw that it was a birthmark, irregular in shape, completely unique. Utterly fascinating.

He’d known she was pretty, suspected that she could be beautiful in a soft, delicate fashion. He’d had no idea that she could be stunning, breathtaking even.

“Talk about hiding your light under a bushel!”

He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Heather gusted a nervous laugh.

“That’s what my mom always says,” she admitted shyly, hunching her shoulders and shifting nervously.

Fox, who was busy trying to tweak the froth on top of her head into perfection, scolded her. “Keep still or I’ll be putting this up again!”

Ethan glowered at him. Didn’t the jerk realize who he was talking to? This wasn’t any plain Jane off the street. This was Heather, a Hamilton and, as it happened, the boss.

“Get out of my shot, Fox,” he ordered, turning his attention to the camera fixed to the nearest tripod. “Now listen up, boss lady. I want you to do exactly as I say. When I tell you to walk, I want you to put one foot directly in front of the other. Long, fluid strides. And keep your hands down unless I tell you otherwise. Okay?”

Heather nodded. She’d been around photo shoots often enough to know the drill, so he wasn’t worried. He set the shutter speed and palmed the switch.

“Walk forward. Look up. Way up. Stop. Half turn. Look at me!”

Click after click, he shot two rolls in rapid succession, moving from one camera to the other, directing her actions and catching the poses that took away his breath.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he muttered to himself, “a star is born.”

He couldn’t have been happier for her. He liked women too much not to relish seeing such a sweet-natured one as Heather Hamilton come into her own in such spectacular fashion. She was never going to be the same after this. She couldn’t possibly be.

She could scrub off the makeup and give back the clothes, but once she saw the before and after photos, she could never again believe herself to be the insipid, mousy sister that she’d pretended to be. She’d have to acknowledge what a beauty she truly was.

She still probably wouldn’t give him the time of day, though.

It was a depressing thought, but of all the single women in the office, Heather alone had never exhibited so much as a passing interest in Ethan. In fact, despite Melissa’s blatantly flirtatious manner, Ethan figured that he was not considered good enough for a Hamilton.

As an army brat whose parents had fought their way from posting to posting and finally to a divorce, he hadn’t expected anything else, which was all the more reason to take satisfaction in being part of Heather’s transformation, so far as he was concerned. No matter where he went after this, he suspected he’d have a hard time finding more enjoyable work or greater satisfaction in it.