Intimate Portraits (11 page)

“Oh, I do, I do.” Paul blew on
the hot cider. “But when something like that gets started, you know how it
goes.”

“We’ll deal with it when we have
to. Fran and I have our strategy all worked out. We plan to go public with Gus’s
personal finances as well the campaign accounts. That should squelch any rumors
about illegal campaign funding. Right, Fran?” John looked toward Francisco for
confirmation, but Fran was too engrossed in his feminine audience to notice.

John rolled his eyes at Rennie.

Worse, Norma, not content with
Francisco’s monopolizing Autumn, had joined with Elena in a subtle offensive
designed to throw the two together.

His sisters needed to go soak
their heads.

As Laney drew Victoria up from
the loveseat and brought her toward John and Rennie and Paul, Norma pushed Francisco
down on it. He, the turkey, took full advantage of his sisters’ ploy to pull
Autumn beside him and fasten a possessive arm around her shoulders, chatting
all the while like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The devil take his whole family.

Rennie seldom allowed them to get
on his nerves, but they were particularly obnoxious today. Did they have to be
so obvious about pushing Autumn at Francisco? Not that his brother needed
encouragement.

Come to think of it, considering
the type women Francisco preferred, why the devil was he was hanging around
Autumn? There was nothing about Autumn to make a womanizer like Francisco fall
for her.

Nothing except those interminable
legs and that miniscule waist and that long smooth neck and those clear blue
eyes that narrowed when she got tickled about something.

She deserved better than Francisco.

Not that Rennie would let his
annoyance show. He wasn’t even sure it was annoyance that he felt.

But it sure was something. After
Autumn’s suggestive photograph teeming with Francisco’s sexual innuendo, he had
expected them to be paired up.

Which made his reaction on seeing
them together more incomprehensible.

“Move,” Laney said, hitting her
knee against his. “We’re tired of Fran’s monologue.”

Rennie obediently shifted his
legs so that Victoria and Elena could sink down on the floor beside his chair.

If Autumn was having an affair
with Francisco, it wouldn’t last long. Fran tired easily. It would be awful to
see Autumn’s heart broken. She was an old friend, almost one of the family. On
the other hand, maybe Francisco was in love with her. Maybe he would marry her.

Whoa.
That
threw him in
the dumps.

Later, having had the foresight
to shower immediately after getting back from their hike, Rennie didn’t need to
fight for a turn in the lone bathroom. Instead, he went for a walk in the park.
He needed to get away for a bit.

Something was going on inside
himself that he didn’t understand and wasn’t sure he liked. He’d come home
hoping to find peace but had found other, deeper desires emerging. Longings he
hadn’t known he possessed.

He wasn’t sure he knew how to
handle them.

Chapter 8

Autumn, waiting her turn to
shower, saw Rennie disappear out the cabin door and immediately looked for
Victoria.

The reporter was on the deck with
Norma and Paul, not outside waiting for Rennie.

Good. Did she dare follow after
him? No, if he’d wanted anyone along, he would have asked. He’d probably gone
out to his car for something. She’d wait.

He didn’t come back.

Looked like it was going to take
everyone a while to get ready to go out, so no use trying to get into the
bathroom. Might as well do something productive. And if she ran into Rennie…

Gathering up her Nikon, she went
outside and used the remainder of the afternoon to snap pictures of the scenery
around the cabin. But she couldn’t find Rennie, and the light wasn’t right, and
instead of her mind being on composition, it kept wandering to that moment by
the waterfall.

After a while, her camera sagged.
She was wasting her time. These shots would be trash.

Why hadn’t she simply kissed him
at the waterfall?

Because she was too scared, that’s
why. Scared of sticking her neck out. Scared of being rebuffed.

Coward.

Maybe it was as well she hadn’t.
He’d made it clear long ago she wasn’t for him.

Drooping, she went back to the
cabin where she was last in line to wash up. Then, before she could take her
turn in the one bathroom, she learned that a simultaneous and extended shower
by Laney and John—remarked on at length by Fran and Norma, to John’s
mortification and Paul’s amusement—had left no hot water.

Laney, never embarrassed,
shrugged her pretty shoulders and grinned like a Cheshire cat. “You’ll have to
take a cold shower,” she told Autumn.

“I think
not
, thank you
very much! It’ll heat up.”

Before the water warmed, the
others began to mill beneath the beamed ceiling of the living area, clutching sweaters
and jackets and gloves, impatient to leave for dinner in Helen.

Rennie wasn’t among them.

Nor was Victoria.

Victoria could be upstairs
getting her coat or outside taking a walk. She didn’t necessarily have to be
with Rennie.

Ragweed doesn’t cause hay fever,
either.

“Y’all go on, Laney.” How could
her voice sound so placid? So normal? “I’ll come along soon as I’ve showered.”

Fran, deep in conversation with
Norma and Paul Talliafierro across the room, overheard. “I’ll stay and drive
you in.”

“Nope. I want to do my nails and
some other stuff. I might even shave my legs for the occasion. If somebody’ll
leave me a car, I’ll be along in a half hour or so.”

“I won’t go without you,” Fran
said.

Autumn said, “Don’t be silly,
Fran.” The back door opened on Victoria, talking to someone outside.

Rennie, no doubt.

Autumn wanted to run away. “For
pity’s sake, go on, Fran. I’ll be worrying the whole time I'm dressing. You
know how antsy you get marking time. I’ll work myself up into a tizzy thinking
I’m making you late.”

The Degardoveras screamed with
laughter. “You’ve never been in a tizzy in your entire life,” Norma said. “Do
you remember that time Laney was driving us across town to take our PSATs and
our horrid car—”

“Amy,” Laney put in. “Rennie
named her Amy Jean.”

“Amy Jean,” Norma acknowledged, “quit
in the middle of Jimmy Carter Boulevard? Cars were honking, people gave us the
finger, Laney started crying, and I was mad as a hornet.”

“Hah. You were cursing like a
sailor,” Laney said. “Mom would have washed your mouth out with soap if she’d
been there. But Autumn laid her seat back and closed her eyes and I swear, I think
she slept till a tow truck came.”

“What else was there to do?”
Autumn tried not to listen as Victoria giggled over her shoulder at the back
door. “Amy Jean had quit and that traffic cop called for a wrecker. No, I mean
it, Laney, Norma. Leave me a car and y’all go on to the restaurant. I’ll be
along when I get bathed and changed.”

Fran would have argued further
but Victoria glided in and linked an arm through his. “Come on, Fran. You
promised we’d share a pitcher of beer and an anchovy pizza.”

“We can’t leave Autumn.” His
protest, with Victoria clinging to him, weakened.

Victoria kept hold of him, but
addressed Autumn. “You do have a driver’s license, don’t you?”

Competent, assertive, assured. Everything
Rennie liked in a woman.

Autumn nodded. She even smiled. “Sure
do.”

Victoria turned back to Fran. “See?
I’ll bet the helpless little woman can find her way into town on her own, too.
Come on, Fran, you promised.” She pouted. On her, it looked good. “Nobody else
likes anchovies. I've asked.”

“Do go on, Fran,” Autumn urged.
Why
wouldn’t they all leave and let her brood in peace?
“I’ll be on as quick as
I can.”

After another few minutes of
resisting, Fran gave in. “Here.” He dragged out his car keys and gave them to
Autumn, grasping her wrist with mock severity as she took them. “But if you’re
not at the pizza place in an hour, I’m coming back to look for you.”

Autumn, freeing her wrist,
dredged up another smile and agreed that if she wasn’t at the restaurant in an
hour, he should come back for her.

Oh, go to the devil, Fran, and
take Victoria with you
.

How mean-spirited.

Although Fran and Victoria did
make a nice couple. A power couple, that’s what they’d be if they got together.
And Rennie would be free for…

Hmmm. Food for thought.

With a little practice, she could
become as conniving as Laney.

“We won’t order anything till you
get there,” Laney promised as she looked for her coat.

“Make that we won’t order
anything with the exception of a pitcher of beer.” John came up behind his wife
with her pea jacket readied for her arms.

“Or two,” Fran amended from the
door.

“Uh oh, Autumn. You know what a
pitcher or two means to Francisco. We’ll be soused by the time you get there if
he has his way,” Norma warned as the group crowded through the kitchen. “Better
hurry if you don’t want to miss the fun.”

“Rennie was right out here a
minute ago,” Autumn heard Victoria say as she and Fran went out arm in arm. “Let’s
see if he’s already at the car.”

Great. Victoria wasn’t going to
be happy with one man at her beck and call. She had to have two.

The cottage seemed stark and
lonely without the merriment, when everyone had gone and she could take off her
happy face and wish again she’d begged off the weekend once Rennie showed up at
her condo. She could have pleaded the pressure of work, said she had to get
Sarita’s photos together by Monday.

The small interlude at the falls
that had prompted her to gather up her courage might never have been.

Just as well. Humiliation at
seventeen was one thing, but humiliation at thirty was something else. She was
old enough to know better. What was that old saying? Once burned, twice shy? No
need to stick her hand in the fire again.

After dragging herself upstairs
to get her makeup case, she came back down and took a shower. At least the
water had heated back up. Maybe it would leach out her sour mood.

Fran or one of the others could
give her a ride home tomorrow so she wouldn’t have to endure a trip back with Rennie.

She groaned, turned her face up
to the spray.

The thought of not going back with
Rennie was worse than the agony of being alone with him. And if she went with
him, he’d probably want to talk to her about Victoria.

Why couldn’t she be like Norma,
forceful and unafraid? Norma had no problems laying out her requirements for
men. She knew what she wanted and went after it. So did Laney.

She washed her hair and shaved
her legs in the shower, but when she pushed back the glass door, she didn’t
feel any better. She hadn’t expected to.

A gentle thump came.

Like the back door closing.

But everyone had left.

Spooked, hand frozen in the
process of reaching out for a towel, she let the steam curl up around her and
listened.

The noise did not repeat itself.

The woodstove. That’s where it
came from.

Sure. Logs popped and crackled
and fell. A wood fire could make enough noises to unnerve the faint of heart
like her.

That’s what she got for making
Fran go on. Of course, if Rennie instead of Fran had offered to stay with her…

“Darn you, Rennie Degardovera,”
she muttered. “What are you? Some kind of sorcerer? I refuse to live my entire
life eating my heart out for you.”

That made her feel better, braver.
“Either I’m going to get you or forget you. So there.”

Sure. As if she had any say-so
over her recalcitrant, foolish, sentimental heart. Still, her decision revived
her.

Wrapping one towel round her hair
and another around herself, she stepped out into the steamy room, looked into
the foggy mirror, and cracked the bathroom door to help dissipate the mist. Though
she listened hard, she didn’t hear another thump or any other unexpected noises.

“Old house noises,” she muttered.
“Ghosts.”

She propped a foot on the john
lid and slid her towel down to swipe at her leg.

Was that blood? Oh, great. She’d nicked
her ankle shaving. That’s what she got for letting Rennie Degardovera upset
her. She bent over to see how bad it was.

A door closed.