Butterfly Summer

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.

Chapter Three

“It’s not like Ellen to take off from a shoot without a word,” Heather said, sliding her sunglasses into place and looking out across the parking lot. “I hope she’s okay.”

“Ellen’s the sort who can take care of herself,” Ethan observed. “But you’re right. She usually micromanages every detail of a shoot. Have you tried her cell?”

“No answer.”

He shrugged unconcernedly. “Well, then I guess I have to beg a ride. Hope you’ve got room for my gear.”

“No problem.”

“I knew I should have brought my car,” he muttered.

It was company policy for employees on the same assignment to share a vehicle. Why compensate two for mileage when one car could take them both where they needed to go? Apparently Ellen had insisted on driving her car for some reason. Fox, Sheryl and Gayla had already departed, but all of them were freelancers and none lived in Davis Landing anyway.

Heather helped Ethan drag his considerable gear to her car, still feeling a little embarrassed by the whole makeover thing. Once she’d finally gotten a look at herself in a mirror, she’d been wearing her own dress again, so only her head looked as if it belonged to somebody else. She wasn’t quite certain that it didn’t. The effect had been startling, to be sure.

The dress itself suddenly seemed too large, and she wondered why she’d taken to wearing the wrong size. She didn’t think she’d lost more than ten pounds since college and that had pretty much been due to a natural change of eating habits as she’d gotten older. Somehow she hadn’t adapted as she ought to have.

The hair was the biggest difference, though it had not, as she’d feared, all been chopped off. In fact, the back layer was only three or four inches shorter than before, and oddly enough, the other layers—which graduated from her shoulders to the bottoms of her ears, the tops of her cheekbones and mideye before finally ending with short, feathery bangs—actually made it seem as if she had more hair rather than less. The color was what surprised her most, however.

It had never occurred to her that she might make an attractive redhead. Yet, the auburn tones looked perfectly natural. Fox claimed that was due to the painting technique that he had used, resulting in the “expert integration” of her natural mousy brown with the richer reds.

The makeup seemed heavy-handed to her, and Heather wished she’d had time to remove, or at least lighten, it before they’d had to vacate the premises. She had no intention of recreating this look on a daily basis, of course. It wasn’t as if she was going to have her picture shot every day, after all, let alone published! Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt to buy a new lipstick and maybe even some eye shadow.

After seeing how she could look with a little—all right, a lot—of effort she was a little embarrassed by how lazy she’d become with her appearance. It had been a long time since she’d bothered with makeup or even plucking her eyebrows.

In some ways, the results of the makeover had shocked her, and yet she couldn’t deny the pleasure that she felt at realizing she wasn’t quite as hopeless as she’d imagined, especially when those dimples of Ethan’s cut grooves in his cheeks every time he looked at her.

They had almost reached her car when Ethan asked, “So, was it as bad as you feared it would be?”

She glanced up at him, her arms full of tripod and folded reflector. “Let’s just say it was strange being on the other side of the camera.”

“In case you’re wondering, Fox isn’t usually that rude to models.”

Heather sent him a slightly amused look. “I realized that, and in case you’re wondering, I didn’t see any reason to object. I was a reluctant subject at best, and sometimes as boss it’s more important to bring the shoot in under deadline than throw your weight around.” When he stopped dead in his tracks, she had to stop, too, and turn to face him. “What? You don’t agree?”

He blinked as if seeing something he hadn’t seen before. “I guess I just never thought of it that way. I mean, throwing around their weight is what bosses do. Usually. Which is why I’ve always preferred to be a lowly wiseacre.”

She sent him a skeptical look. They both knew he enjoyed a reputation as a first-rate photographer.

“I just prefer to make sure that the job gets done when it’s supposed to get done,” she told him. “And I don’t think of you as a wiseacre.”

“No?”

She gave her head a slight shake and hitched the tripod higher in her arms.

“I think of you as an artist with a well-developed sense of humor.”

“I like your version best,” he told her. Grinning widely, he repositioned his own burdens and started forward again. “Any chance we’re getting close to your car?”

“The blue Saab on the right up there.” She followed him, feeling the heat rise in steamy waves from the pavement.

“Aero,” he said, naming the model of her car. “Sweet. I’d like to tool around town in a racy little Saab, but I have to drive an SUV because I have so much gear to haul. Not all of our sites are as well lit as this one, you know.”

She placed her load on the ground and opened the hatch back, saying, “My brothers all voted for the SUV or the wagon, but my sisters thought I ought to get the convertible.”

He shook his head and started loading his gear. “Naw, this is you, I think. Quality, high-performance but sensible.”

She laughed because those were exactly her own thoughts on the matter. He straightened abruptly, almost as if she’d taken a sudden swing at him.

“What?”

“I’m just still getting used to the new you,” he said, grinning again. “This new look is going to cause some waves back at the office. You mark my words.”

A hand rose to touch her hair self-consciously. She could only hope that she didn’t look as strange as she felt.

Ducking her head, she hurried around to slide behind the driver’s wheel, leaving Ethan to carefully stow away his gear. She dug her phone out of her purse, deciding that it might be a good time to check in with her parents, and dialed the hospital.

Nora told her that, owing to the severity of her father’s condition, the doctors were urging Wallace to consider transferring to the hospital in Nashville right away, but he wanted to remain close to the family—and the business—as long as possible. Once they started preparing Wallace for the bone marrow transplant, however, he would be in sterile seclusion, his immune system so compromised that the slightest infection could kill him.

Heather ended the call and bowed her head, the phone still clutched in her hands.

Oh, Lord, I just keep coming to You with this, but he’s so very ill and You are a God of miraculous power. Please heal my father. Please let us find that perfect bone marrow donor, and please help my mom and all the rest of us through this.

The passenger door opened and Ethan dropped down into the seat. Heather sat up a little straighter, stashing her phone in a convenient recess in the dash.

“Something wrong?”

Surprised that he could so easily read her mood, she let a second or two pass before saying, “I just talked to my mom at the hospital.”

“How is your dad doing?”

Heather sighed and started the car to get the air conditioner going. “His condition is serious enough to keep me on my knees, I can tell you.”

Ethan cocked his head. “On your knees? Is that a Tennesseeism I’m not familiar with yet?”

She stared at him, thinking that the meaning would surely click in place for him momentarily, but then she realized that his confusion was entirely genuine. Faith was such a part of Heather’s life that she sometimes forgot that it held little or no place in the lives of others.

“I just meant that I’ve been spending a lot of time in prayer over this,” she explained gently.

The light finally dawned. “Ah. Well, that makes perfect sense. For you.”

“But not for you?”

He shrugged. “I guess I just don’t know much about that sort of thing.”