Through a Magnolia Filter (24 page)

Her green gaze sharpened. “You knew about this?”

“She mentioned it this morning.” He pressed his temple. The dream of being part of the Fitzgerald family was slipping away. “You can work remotely, right?”

“You think I want to be a website designer?” She set her glass down with a clang and stood.

“I know you want to be a photographer, but you've been doing designs, right?”

She crossed her arms. “You don't think I can cut it as a photographer?”

“No.” He hurried to her, catching her elbows. “I mean, yes, you can. Of course you can.”

She backed away from him.

He held up his hands like she was a hot stove. He was losing her. “I mean, you're already a photographer.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I put your picture in the articles because they're good,” he said.

She pointed a finger at him. “And your name came first. I wasn't even mentioned in the article.”

“How many times do I have to apologize? I tried to help you.”

She held up her hands, shaking her head. “When you think of me working, what comes to mind?”

“Land mines,” he said under his breath. He was going to step on one and have it explode in his face.

“What?”

“I...I don't try and put you in a...pocket. I see you first as a...Fitzgerald, a successful businesswoman. A woman who's part of an incredible family.”

She closed her eyes. “Don't.”

He closed the gap that was growing between them. “I also see you as a budding photographer, absorbing everything I can teach you.”

“Budding. Student.” Her words choked out.

“And talented.” He reached for her again.

Pain-filled green eyes looked up at him. “No one sees that but you.”

“Because everything you touch is gold. And, yes, you're an amazing website designer.” His words poured out. “But that's because of the creative way you view the world. You see the world through the lens of an artist.”

She sank back into the chair. “Like I said, no one sees that but you.”

“But they will.”

“Not if I move to New York and design websites.”

“Then don't.” His hands formed into fists.

“But...”

“Tell Barb you'll take the job but only if you can stay here.” With him. “You can head up there when necessary.”

“But...”

He wasn't going to let her line up her arguments.

“Stay here. With me.” He knelt at her feet. “I've fallen in love with your family, with Savannah.” He clutched her knees. “I think I'm falling in love with you.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You...you're what?” she squeaked.

He huffed out a breath. “I...I think I'm falling in love with you. Stay here with me and your incredible family.”

Her eyes were big green marbles. She gripped the chair arms as if her body would blow away in the storm. “I...I...”

His heart pounded in his chest. “I know you feel something.”

“But...” She pushed deep into her chair. Trying to get away from him?

He rocked back to his feet. “I thought you might feel the same. Was I fooling myself?” His voice growled a little.

“Liam. I...” She wouldn't look him in the eye.

She was pushing him away. He shook his head.

He'd misread her. Made tactical errors. Let his need for what she had, what he could be a part of rush him into a confession he wasn't even sure was true. Did he love Dolley?

“I don't know what I feel.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach and curled into a ball. “I don't know what I want. I don't know what's good for me.”

“We can work together.”

“I'd always be in your shadow.”

“But how can you leave your family, your friends?” What else could he use to convince her that she shouldn't move to New York? “Don't throw us away. I can't lose another family.”

“Family?” Her eyes flared open. “This is about my family, not me.”

“What?” Panic churned in his chest.

“I'm just a...a way for you to become part of the Fitzgeralds.” Her breath shook. “You don't want
me
. You want...
them
.”

“Dolley.” He pounded on his forehead with his fist. “We're good together. I can teach you more. We'll figure it out. But not if you move.”

“I'd be your apprentice. Always overlooked. You'd use me to get what you've always wanted...a family.” Injured green eyes looked up into his. “That's not what I want. I...I deserve more. When would I get to travel? When would I get my dreams? I want my own career. Not just to be an extension of yours.”

“I thought we were a team. I care about you!”

“Not enough,” she whispered.

Pain ripped through him. He wasn't enough for her. She wanted travel and recognition. She wanted to rip up the roots anchoring her to Savannah and leave.

If she left, where did that leave him?

She didn't care about him. She cared about what he could do for her career. He didn't matter.

“You only wanted me for what I could do for you.” Shaking his head, he moved to the door, his feet and heart heavy. “I'm never enough.”

* * *

W
HAT
JUST
HAPPENED
?
Dolley laid her cheek on her knees. Was Liam right?

She'd been confused about Barb's job offer, and Liam had shown his true colors. Just like every other man she'd dated, he was using her to get something he wanted. A sharp pain wracked her body. This time it had been her family.

No one wanted
her.
And his offer to stay and live in his shadow? How could she become a recognized artist like that?

Her throat ached like she'd swallowed a wad of paper and it was sucking up all her spit. Grabbing her glass, she took a sip. The whiskey burned a path to her stomach.

She pressed her palms into her eyes. No one would use her again. She and Liam were through.

How could he even say
I've fallen in love with Savannah, with your family?

If he did love her, it was a distant third behind her family and Savannah. Her body ached like she'd been pummeled in a boxing ring.

But she was in love with him. Her chest shook. How stupid was that?

The front door opened, footsteps echoing in the hall.

She rubbed her wet cheeks against her sleeve and grabbed her coat, not wanting a guest to find her. Escaping through the courtyard door, she wound her way through the patio furniture and headed to her apartment.

Habit had her glancing up to Liam's room. A shadow against the second-floor French door made her freeze.

He stared down at her. Even from here, she could see his clenched jaw and hooded eyes. The connection that sizzled when she looked at him—was gone. Pain hollowed out her heart.

She didn't know how long she waited for a sign from him. Ten seconds? Ten minutes?

He jerked away from the window and turned his back.

It was a sucker punch, knocking the breath out of her. Rejected again.

She stumbled to the apartment, tears filling her eyes. She would not cry.

Fumbling with the lock, she pushed inside and collapsed on the sofa.

She hadn't done anything wrong. Now she was the bad guy?
How had that happened?

She had a right to be confused about accepting Barb's job offer. She had a right to question whether Liam was using her to acquire a family.

She had a right to have someone love her like her sisters and her mother were loved.

Abby, Bess and Mamma weren't loved because they were Fitzgeralds and lived in Savannah. There were no conditions on Gray's, Daniel's and Martin's love.

The only man who'd cared enough to date her, wanted her
for her family
.

She deserved more.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A picture is a poem without words.

Horace

L
IAM
COULDN
'
T
RIP
his gaze away from Dolley.

For the last week, Dolley had done what they'd paid her to do—document the making of
Savannah's Irish Roots.
Their personal conversations were limited to directions and questions.

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. They were through.

She'd accused him of using her to get to her family. Didn't she understand everything was connected? Dolley, the Fitzgeralds, Savannah. He couldn't think of one without the other.

She'd pushed him away as easily as she was going to dump her family and town.

Maybe she wasn't who he'd thought she was. Maybe family wasn't as important to her as it was to him. Maybe she'd only wanted him to get her a leg up in the business, hoping he'd rocket her to fame.

He inhaled, breathing in freshly mown grass. Bollocks. He was being unfair. He was the one who'd mucked things up—not Dolley. He'd panicked.

He moved closer to the Fitzgerald family plot in Bonaventure Cemetery. The sisters hadn't known it existed until he'd searched the records.

Tom said something to Dolley, and she laughed, but it was only a half-hearted chuckle.

Liam's gaze snapped to her.

Her eyes were shadowed, deeper set in her face than they'd ever been. Her smile—nonexistent. If he suggested she count her smiles, she'd probably castrate him. This cold-shoulder routine twisted his belly in knots. Even the crew shot them questioning looks.

“Ready?” he asked Jerry. One more scene and they'd be done for the day.

“Another minute,” Jerry said, changing out a battery.

Dolley pulled a lone weed from between the markers. She didn't look up as she said, “Thank you for finding them.”

“Eventually, you would have looked.”

“Sometimes I think you care more about our ancestors than we do.” She crouched and turned her camera to the small statue. It marked the grave of one of James and Fiona's grandchildren. “I don't know if we would have made the effort.”

Was her comment another jab at him? He couldn't tell anymore.

“The documentary made me feel close to them.” James and Fiona had become his family. He held up a hand. “You've made an effort. Last time I was here, the place wasn't maintained.”

Now the weeds were gone. The sign saying Do Not Maintain had been removed, and flowering bushes lined the plot.

“After you told us about their graves, Bess hauled us out here.” Dolley sighed. “We had lunch while we worked. Just like great-grandmamma, I guess.”

“It looks nice.” He wanted to touch her. He missed the feel of her skin under his fingers. Missed kissing her and talking about their days. And he missed sinking into her body and having her melt around him.

“Why are you shooting out here?” she asked, still focused on her camera.

They hadn't talked about schedules or story lines for a week. And they hadn't talked or worked on her craft, either. This was the longest conversation they'd had in seven days.

“I plan to go back to Ireland and film in front of Michael's grave. Show the differences and the similarities between the two brothers.”

She stood and looked at him with sorrow-filled eyes. “Was this documentary always going to be about my family?”

“No. It was going to be about Savannah's Irish roots. Then I thought it was about haves and have-nots. But you made me push deeper. It changed. Now it's about what your family did for the immigrants.” He stepped closer, so the crew wouldn't hear. “I've changed, too.”

She took a step back.

“May I?” He held out his hand. He'd promised to help her with her art and hadn't fulfilled his part of the bargain.

She handed him the camera.

The emotions in the stills slapped him. Loneliness. Solitude. Sorrow. She'd shot the pictures in unforgiving black and white film. The sunlight shining on the plot wasn't warm, but harsh and ugly. Raw grief stared up at him.

The pictures were—incredible. But not his Dolley. Not the joy he'd come to rely on.

His fault.

She chewed her lip, waiting.

“What were you looking to expose?” His words croaked out.

“I...” She stared into his eyes.

“Pain. Grief.”

She nodded.

“They're amazing.”

“Really?” Confusion slipped over her face like a mask.

“I hate them.” He touched her cheek, couldn't stop himself.

She closed her eyes and relaxed into the cup of his hand for a few heavenly seconds, then jerked away. “You hate them?”

“Because they aren't you. You always find the good in life.” He shook the camera. “This view is
my
outlook on the world—not yours.”

She stared at the headstones. “It's sad that we didn't take care of their resting place.”

“I hate that I've done this to you,” he whispered.

She stared up at him. “I'll get over it. Over you. I always do.”

“Can we talk? Tonight?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“We're ready,” Jerry called.

Liam took a breath, trying to shake off his sorrow. He had a job to do.

Before coming to Savannah, filmmaking had been his life. Before he'd met the Fitzgeralds. Before he'd been with Dolley.

Now he wanted more.

He didn't know how to win her back. After analyzing what had gone wrong, he knew what his problem was. He'd thought his sense of belonging came from Dolley's family and Savannah. But it didn't. It was Dolley. She was the one who forced him to smile. She was the one to brighten his day.

He was in love with her.
Her
.

And he'd made the woman he loved miserable. If he couldn't have a life with Dolley, maybe he could help make her dream of travel and photography come true.

* * *

W
ATCHING
L
IAM
WORK
each day was like pouring salt on the hole in her heart. Dolley moved behind Jerry, making sure she didn't step into the frame.

She zoomed in on Liam's face. The makeup Sonjia had applied didn't disguise the shadows under his eyes. Those eyes blazed as he talked about James and Fiona. Even though she stood to the side of the camera, it was like he spoke only to her.

They repeated the take two more times, but finally wrapped for the day.

Dolley packed up her camera and filters.

Liam stopped next to her. “We haven't worked together for a while. I'd like to go back to Corrine's statue and see these bushes you said would flower. See what you can do now.”

His offer broke the wound in her heart open again. She hated the idea of spending even more time with him. And working together on her photography was too intimate.

But she'd be a fool not to get a few last hints on how to improve her art. “I could use the walk.”

“You drove?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Can I catch a ride back to Carleton House? Then the crew won't have to wait.”

“Sure.” She closed her eyes. They could work together, but she didn't have to talk to him.

“Thank you.” Liam talked to Jerry and came back with his camera bag.

“Do you ever go anywhere without your cameras?” she asked, forgetting that she'd planned to keep their conversation to a minimum.

“Not often. And if I do, I regret it.” He pulled out a Nikon she hadn't seen before. “Like when I came down to Christmas breakfast without one and had to run back upstairs.”

Christmas. That was aeons ago. She'd been like a puppy, trying to make Liam happy.

She stopped at a statue of an angel all crusted in black. Flowers bloomed at the base of the monument, bright spots of pink.

Liam knelt next to the ornate black iron fence. He took a breath before clicking the shutter. What was he after?

Without words, they exchanged cameras.

He studied her work. “Go in tighter. Make sure the cracks in her face show.”

She scrolled through the shots he'd taken. “Were you capturing repeating patterns?”

“I've been taking them for a couple of weeks. I thought it could be a series.”

Once he gave back her camera, she tightened the focus so each pit and crevasse in the stone told a story. The shutter clicked as she captured several images.

Even as she reviewed the shots, she knew they were better than the ones she'd taken earlier. When would she do the right thing by instinct instead of needing to be told?

Maybe she would never be more than a hobbyist. She handed her camera to him. “You were right.”

“These are good.” He tapped the final picture. “Don't be afraid to show the imperfections. Life is filled with flaws. They make the world and people more interesting.”

Was he trying to tell her something she didn't know? Liam's flaw of using her to acquire a family could not be ignored.

She had to move on from their relationship. If she could never have what her sisters had found with Gray and Daniel, then she would have a career that made her happy.

And to do that, she needed to learn everything she could from Liam. She had two weeks.

They took pictures of Corrine and the river until it was closing time. The azaleas were a cloud of pink behind the statue.

Even she could tell her emotions had changed since he'd looked at her pictures of the angel earlier today. So had his.

“This is peaceful,” she said.

“Something you never thought you'd see in one of my pictures?” A somber smile flashed across his face.

He'd stopped smiling again, and she didn't have the energy to remind him.

“No. You're always so...intense. I mean your pictures. They're intense,” she stuttered.

He handed her camera back. “And these pictures are, if not hopeful, at least content.”

So a photo didn't have to reflect the chaos inside her. If she could figure out how to wall up her own disappointment, maybe she could succeed.

No, she
would
succeed.

“Hi, Liam.” A worker drove toward them. “Time to get moving. I need to close up.”

“Will do, Paul.”

They packed up their cameras. “How does he know your name?” she asked.

“Paul's kicked me out of the cemetery a few times.”

They were together every day. When had he had the time?

“This is one of my favorite spots in Savannah. I can't stay away.” Liam matched his stride with hers. “Thank you for sharing it with me the first day we came out here. The last set of pictures you took are good. I'd like to add a section to the website on the cemetery. If we give the photos proper attribution, could we buy some of your pictures?”

“You don't have to pay me.” She waved her hand. “Not when we're taking pictures together.”

“You're a professional. You should be paid for your work.” He stopped. “Don't forget that.”

A professional. She never thought of herself that way. It took Liam to make that clear.

“I won't.” Dolley bit her lip, forcing back the tears. She would never forget him.

* * *

“T
HANKS
FOR
CALLING
BACK
, E
VAN
.”
Liam pushed out of his chair and headed to the balcony off his room.

“Are you giving up fame and glory to work for me again?” Evan asked.

“You were too demanding a boss.” But years ago, Evan had given him a shot. “I do have a promising apprentice you might like to hire on her way out of the starting gate.”

“I thought you'd sworn off apprentices.” Evan's laugh was deep and filled with gravel.

“I had, but she's good.” Dolley would be the last person he mentored.

“You've got me intrigued. Loner Liam working with someone. Shoot me some of her work.”

“I can do better than that. Check out this blog. Most of the pictures were taken
before
we worked together. Dolley Fitzgerald. She has a lovely writing voice.”

“You know I like photojournalists.”

“They keep your costs down.” Liam gave him the website address. And waited.

He could hear Evan on his keyboard.

“Where are you right now?” Evan asked.

“I'm in Savannah at the B and B. What page of the website are you on?”

“Some of the construction shots. Ooh. That's nice.”

“Dolley maintains the blog and takes the pictures. She's talented.”

“I'll take a look at the blog and call you if there's anything we can test her on.”

“Thanks.” He paused, then added, “I'm also calling Amelia.”

“My competition?” Evan huffed. “Give me a couple of days before you do.”

Liam nodded. “I will.”

After ending the call, he gazed across the dimly lit courtyard to Dolley's dark apartment. He wanted to tell her what he'd done but couldn't. Even though they'd worked together this afternoon, she wouldn't want him knocking on her door.

He'd screwed up. But maybe, just maybe, his conversation with Evan would make her dream come true.

* * *

“D
OLLEY
!” A
NNE
WAVED
from a table in the back of the pub. Green shamrocks hung around the bar, and the bartenders all wore green derby hats.

For the first time ever, she wasn't in the celebrating spirit.

Dolley wove her way through the crowd. She'd forgotten how noisy O'Gara's could be. The St. Patrick's Day visitor invasion had begun. Both Fitzgerald and Carleton House were full. This was her last free night for the next week.

“It's been ages since I've seen you.” Anne wrapped her in a bear hug. “I thought you were ignoring me.”