Picture This (23 page)

“Take advantage.”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay. What else?”

“I want to stop saying yes all the time, to everyone, not just my parents. George was right—whatever anybody asks me to do, I do.” She thought another moment. “I want to be a photographer, not just work for Vic.”

“No reason why not.”

“I want . . .” Celia suddenly stopped walking, spun around until she was toe-to-toe with Niall. “Are you really telling the truth about you and Tiffany?” she demanded.

Back to that, then? Niall was a little surprised, but he answered immediately. “I swear. Here.” He dug out his phone and brought up the file Trent had sent him—the letter of dissolution, with Tiffany's loopy tween-like signature at the bottom. It never failed to surprise him that she didn't dot the
i
in her name with a heart or a flower. He held up his phone, and Celia took it from him. Niall stood over her while she read the letter. The light rain had accumulated in beads on her hair, catching the light from the streetlamps, making her look like she was adorned in precious gems. A wave of her scent, still fresh and flowery even after a long day, drifted toward him.

“I have a question,” he murmured.

“What?” she asked, eyes still on the screen.

“Why did Matt ever leave you?”

Startled, she looked up. After floundering for a moment, she stammered, “The . . . the usual. He fell in love with somebody else. Happens every day, right?”

“No, I mean how could he ever leave
you
? Is he insane? You . . .” He faltered, barely aware of what he was saying, barely aware of anything except the beautiful woman in front of him and the pull of his body, and his heart, toward her. “You're perfect.”

“Niall, I'm not—”

“You
are
.”

She could protest that she wasn't perfect or special or out of the ordinary all she wanted. Niall knew otherwise. His heart hammering in his chest, every single nerve ending in his body vibrating with energy, he wanted nothing more than to gather her into his arms again, kiss her even more deeply, even longer, than he had in the kitchen at the inn. But he didn't dare. He stopped talking and didn't move a muscle.

She kept her eyes down, making a business of pushing the button on his phone to turn off the screen and handing it back to him. He watched the smooth, soft skin of her neck move slightly as she swallowed.

“And you have to sign this letter now?” she asked.

“Yep,” he rasped.

“And then it'll be over?”

“Yep.”

Celia took a deep breath. “All right, then. What I want . . . ?”

“Mm. Go on.”

“You.”

And suddenly she rose up on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him for all she was worth. He stumbled, surprised, but recovered quickly, meeting her lush lips, pulling her to him and lifting her off her feet completely. He kissed her deeply, and deeper still, biting her bottom lip just a little, just to get her to make her hungry noise once more. And there it was. Then his lips were everywhere—her cheeks, her chin, her eyelids, her neck. He nibbled on her earlobe. She squirmed a little, giggling. He pulled back for a moment to see her grinning from ear to ear. She was happy.

This
, he thought.
Absolutely this
.

As he nuzzled the crook of her neck again, she murmured breathlessly, “Niall?”

“What?” he asked, his voice muffled against her skin.

“For God's sake,” she said with a sigh, “sign the paper.”

C
elia looked around the auditorium, prowled among the seats for a good angle, and raised the camera to her eye. What a lovely shade of purple Ray was this afternoon. That would make a good shot. She just had to make sure he never saw it.

“Why are you here?” Ray was ranting at Audra. “It's too early for this. We don't need
wardrobe
yet.” Apparently his little crush on the younger woman was temporarily dwarfed by his panic about the show.

Audra was unimpressed. And not intimidated in the least. She cracked her gum, propped her hand on her hip, and shot back, “There's no such thing as starting too early with wardrobe, Ray. I mean, look at these people! They all need my help—really bad, you know?”

“Speak for yourself, dear,” Missy Preston called out. “I've got my outfit all sorted out. I won't be needing your help. Thanks all the same.”

Audra rolled her eyes and cracked her gum again. “Oh God,” she drawled. “Scary.”

Mrs. P opened her mouth to protest, but Ray spoke first. “Just don't go all Miley on Brianna, Audra, you hear me?
Tasteful
.”

“It won't matter, Mr. Dubois,” Brianna spoke up, coming out onto the stage from the wings. “My dad still won't let me do the show.”

“Dammit!” Celia watched Ray's color intensify even more. “Then why are you still here, Brianna? Huh?”

“Be-because I want to sing.”

“Exactly. Tell your father that.”

“He won't listen.”

The rest of their discussion was drowned out by the continuing argument between Mrs. P and Audra, and someone—wait, was that Burt Womack?—banging on the top of the small karaoke machine with his fist, trying to get music to come out of it. This whole thing was quickly devolving into chaos, and it was making Celia's head hurt.

Kraken,
she thought, setting down her camera.

She started by separating Audra and Mrs. P and sending them to opposite sides of the stage. Audra grumbled something about her art not being respected and dragged her rolling rack of clothes into the wings; Mrs. P refocused on her partner, Nestor, who had been standing by quietly the entire time—as usual.

Celia asked Burt, who had recovered from being booted out of the auditions and agreed to be an odd jobs person during rehearsals, to kindly refrain from breaking the karaoke machine until they'd had a chance to use it. When he insisted it wasn't working, she took a close look at it . . . and plugged it in. Happy blue lights danced across the display and a vocal-less Tom Jones melody wafted out of the speakers. She sent Burt off to sweep the stage.

She handed Ray a bottle of water and ordered him to take five. He nodded and almost went to sit down. Almost. Then . . .

“Let's do this, little girl!”

Darryl was lumbering down the aisle, making a beeline for Brianna, who had no idea what he was talking about, as her wide-eyed expression showed.

“What?”

“I'm your new partner! Let's go!”

Ray was six inches from the folding chair, but his behind never made it onto the seat. He was upright again like a shot, dropping his water bottle, which rolled away in a lazy arc. “Darryl? What the hell's going on here?”

“I'm gonna be Brianna's partner, man,” Darryl informed him in his booming voice.

“Now just a darn minute. I don't appreciate you marching in here and deciding how this thing is going to go.”

“Oh yeah? You mean you forgot that it was my idea in the first place?”

“
Your
idea—?”

“Oh, dude! Brush up on your acting skills. You know what you did.”

“You've got nothing on me. Mind your own business, Sykes.”

Celia put herself in front of Ray and held Darryl off. Darryl was twice Ray's size and half his age. It would end badly. “Ray, hold on,” she said quickly. “Darryl, what do you want?”

“I want this idiot to come clean.” No answer from Ray. “But we all know he won't. So I want a piece of this.”

“Okay,” Celia said. “Ray, you lost Alice. Who
is
going to be Brianna's partner?”

The man spluttered for a few seconds. Then he fought out, “
I'll
do it, if need be!”

“That's insane.”

“What, you think I can't?”

Celia was well acquainted with her old boss's habit of wanting to steal the spotlight at every opportunity, but right now that was the worst possible idea. “Just the other day, you told everybody to focus on their jobs and not try to do other things, and here you are ignoring your own advice. You can't be her partner. If Brianna wins, everyone's going to think you rigged the competition. If Brianna
doesn't
win, everyone's going to think she wasn't allowed to win because you were her partner. You
can't
participate in the contest. Be the organizer, be the judge. That's all.”

This was too much logic for Ray. He changed the subject. “And just what's gotten into
your
britches, little lady?”

“Maybe you should ask ‘who,' ” Darryl snickered.

Celia felt herself flush as Ray rounded on him. “Hey, hey—we're keeping this clean, you hear me?”

“Ray, take a walk, man. You're gonna blow a gasket.”

Celia whirled around at the sound of Niall's voice, desperately hoping he hadn't heard Darryl's last comment, but dying inside because she was pretty sure he had. Still, he gave no indication of it (a very good actor indeed); he simply blinked mildly at Ray until the man deflated a little bit.

“And where have you been? You're late,” Ray groused.

“Personal business. I told you, remember?” Niall got up on the stage, close behind Celia. “Now I'm done. I'm all yours.”

He was still talking to Ray, but she got the distinct impression his last words were for her benefit.

“Thanks for filling in,” he murmured in her ear, his breath tickling her neck. “Nice kraken.”

“You annoyed Ray again,” she said, but with a smile.

“Looks like he had a head start on that. Besides, I told him
in advance
I wasn't going to be available most of today. By the way, when I got back to the inn last night, I woke up Casey so I could use his office. That, uh,
important document
was printed, signed, rescanned, and in Tiff 's attorneys' inbox by midnight. As for today . . . I'll tell you about it later. I promise.”

 

As soon as Ray announced a dinner break, Niall took Celia to Café Olé on Main Street and surprised her by requesting a table outside. Where everyone could see them. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he knew what she was thinking.

“Starting now,” he murmured to her as they followed the hostess, “I'm going public with you. If you're okay with that. Are you okay with that?”

“I am more than okay with that.” She smiled, enjoying the light touch of his fingers on her back. Since last night, when Niall had explained there
was
no relationship with Tiffany that he needed to get over, she had been hoping for just this moment.

“Well, good, then.”

They settled at a table in the warm, humid evening, the sun still high, washing the street in a golden glow.

Niall took her hand. “All right?”

“Just great.” And she meant it.

They did get curious looks—from their waiter, from the other patrons, from the people passing on the street. Mrs. Rousseau, a plastic shopping bag dangling from her gnarled fingers, passed by and stopped dead when Niall leaned over to kiss Celia on the cheek near her ear. It tickled, and Celia laughed—at the feel of his lips on her sensitive skin, and at the look Mrs. Rousseau was giving them.

“Evening,” Celia greeted the old woman, trying to ignore the fact that Niall was still nuzzling her.

Mrs. Rousseau huffed, “Young man, get your nose out of that girl's ear. Nobody needs to see that when they're trying to eat dinner. And I don't like your shirt.”

“My—?”

“And my name is Rousseau, not Trudeau.”

As she stalked off, Niall glanced at Celia. “How did she know I called her that?”

Celia shrugged, grinning. “She knows everything.” When Mrs. Rousseau got to the corner, Celia saw her pull a phone out of her pocket. She pointed it out to Niall. “The whole going public thing? You got your wish. Mrs. Rousseau's a texting fiend. She's firing off a message to half the town right now about what she just saw.”

“Oh no. That's too bad.”

“Second thoughts?”

“Not even. It's just a shame she missed this.”

And he grasped her chin in his long fingers, turned her face to his, and kissed her deeply. Celia gasped but didn't pull away. She couldn't. The feel of his soft lips on hers, this time so determinedly, claiming her in front of the whole town, was irresistible. She leaned into the kiss, and Niall's generous mouth curved up in a smile against hers.

“Well, hello there.”

“Shut up and kiss me again.”

“Kraken. Which is good, by the way. Very, very good. You're not even blushing as much as you used to.”

“You mean you've made me shameless?”

“Oh, I haven't even begun
that
project yet. Darn. Now you
are
blushing as much as you used to.”

“Well, stop looking at me like that.”

“Can't help it.”

“You get the credit for it.”

“Nope. It's all you.”

“Partial credit, then.”

“If this is a test, did I pass?”

“Not sure. Better kiss me again, and I'll let you know.” Niall seemed more than happy to comply. “So,” she murmured as he rested his forehead against hers, “is it kraken-like to invite you to stop by after rehearsal's over?”

Niall drew his head back, looking intrigued. “Oh?”

“When I got home last night, I found this note from my grandmother.” She handed him a slip of paper.

He unfolded it and read aloud, “ ‘Gone to the Indian res casino with the girls. Got to get my ya-yas out—' ” He glanced up at Celia with a cocked eyebrow. “Interesting word choice. ‘Got to get my ya-yas out,' ” he repeated, “ ‘before you lock me up and throw away the key. Hoping to win enough at the craps table to buy a mobility scooter and oxygen tank. Be back tomorrow or the next day maybe. Love, Gran.' Well, she certainly has a flair for the dramatic, I'll give her that.”

“For the record? The senior home has monthly bus trips to the casino.”

“Irrelevant, apparently.”

“When she wants to play the guilt card? Definitely.”

“So you're, what, lonely? Bored? Afraid of being in the house alone?”

“Whatever excuse you want to use. Take your pick—just keep me company?”

“Don't have to tell me twice.”

Niall kissed her again. Celia was vaguely aware of a server arriving at the table, waiting uncomfortably for a few seconds, then disappearing again. She didn't care. About anything, other than making up for lost time with this man.

It was the sound of repeated clicking that broke them apart. They were both very familiar with the noise, but not in this context. Not in Marsden. Not when they were busy not eating dinner. Celia looked around. Sure enough, there was a man, a stranger, crouching on the sidewalk, taking their photo with a very impressive Nikon D3S. Under any other circumstances, Celia would have admired it and maybe asked him more about it. Not at the moment, however.

He craned his neck from behind his camera and said, “Wow. Sexy. Let's have one more like that.”