Chapter 25 Taryn #2
“Yes,” I breathe. The symbolism is so perfect it takes my breath away, and the smile on my face grows.
I push through the snow, which is up to my knees here, and put the camera up to my eye.
Once I’m looking through the viewfinder, I see the world in a completely different way.
It’s more focused, showing me only what I want to shoot, and I drop into the narrow view the camera gives me, moving through the snow to get different angles on the trees and moving again to try to take advantage of the shadows they’re casting.
God, it’s gorgeous out here. Strange and alien and sort of wrong, with just the top halves of the trees growing out of the snow, but so quiet and stark and beautiful that I find myself holding my breath as I press the button on the camera again and again.
I move to a different spot, looking for a different view of the trees, and suddenly I’m not alone anymore. Something moves out of the corner of the viewfinder, and I swivel the camera in that direction, curious.
And there’s Gabe, wearing nothing but a pair of ski pants and suspenders, his arms over his head as he swings an axe.
I drop the camera to my waist and watch, mouth open, as he swings repeatedly.
His bare chest carries a dusting of hair, the fine down frosted by the snow flying up around him, and I can see the soft sheen of sweat across his skin.
Jesus Christ, he’s gained muscle since the last time I saw him without a shirt on.
His chest is heavily muscled, his shoulders broad and cut with strength.
The six-pack of abs shifts as he swings, the muscles flexing at the action of bringing the axe down.
A flash of darkness on his forearms tells me that he has ink there, and I cock my head, confused. How have I not noticed that before?
Because he hasn’t had his shirt off in my presence since we were sixteen, a voice tells me. It’s been winter, and I haven’t seen him in anything but long sleeves.
And holy fuck is he gorgeous without them.
The ink crawls from his hands up heavily veined forearms and onto his biceps, a trail of design that I can’t make out from here.
It curls around his arms and up to his shoulders, though, and I catch my lower lip in my teeth.
The tattoos are moving and shifting as he swings until they look almost alive, and I have the sudden and insane thought that I want to run my tongue along them. See exactly how his skin tastes.
Watch his eyes as I tease him.
I’m so shocked that I nearly hit myself in the nose when I jerk the camera back to my face.
I take a moment to settle myself and focus in on him, and then start shooting.
I take shot after shot, zooming in on his face.
His arms. His chest. I take several steps to the right to get the trees in the background, then focus on the axe hitting the wood he’s breaking up.
When he glances at me and stops, I catch the flash of blue eyes.
The crease of surprise on his forehead. The sudden grin.
“What do you think this is, a show?” he asks, laughing.
I laugh back and drop the camera. This is the first time I’ve seen him smile since the snowball fight. Lord knows he hasn’t been doing it much since we got snowed in.
“Obviously,” I answer. “Why else would you be out here without your shirt on?”
“Because it’s hot,” he returns slowly. “And having my shirt off makes it easier to move.”
I lift a brow. “Or maybe you like the idea of someone coming across you with your shirt off. Showing off with all that wood chopping.”
“You’re right. People always wander through the woods looking for half-naked lumberjacks. I’m just trying to satisfy their needs.”
It’s supposed to be a joke. I know it is. But the way he says ‘satisfy their needs’ takes his voice down into a low rumble, and it strikes me somewhere in my lower belly.
“Lucky for you I found you first then,” I murmur. “Keeps you from having to satisfy anyone else.”
His eyes grow suddenly darker and shoot down to my mouth, then back up. And fuck if my body doesn’t tense up, drawing in on itself and lighting a fire in my belly at his very presence. When the fuck did my stepbrother start turning me on with a look?
When the fuck did he get so sexy my mouth gets dry at the sight of him half-naked and chopping wood?
He breaks the eye contact first and looks down at the wood, a flush crawling up his neck and into his face. “Um, what are you doing out here anyhow?”
I am both thankful for the interruption and frustrated about it.
“Bored,” I say. “So I came out to take pictures. Then I saw you and...”
“And you thought you could get a show,” he finishes, looking up at me again.
I see now that his eyes have shutters down over them, his expression closed to me.
Terrific.
I put the camera back to my face. “Exactly. Local lumberjack poses in the forest as he’s chopping wood. Artist prepares his canvas.”
I drop the camera, the thought hitting me so fast that I feel like I might fall over.
“Oh my God, that’s it,” I mutter. I put the camera back to my face and look through the viewfinder, changing the angles and mentally laying text over the pictures.
Local artist doing his next project. Artwork that starts from the bottom.
See your table taking shape before it even gets into the shop.
If I was writing a marketing campaign for them, this is the one I’d write.
Not that they’ve asked me.
But it is what my degree is in, and once I have the idea, I can’t stop thinking about it.
Through the finder, I see Gabe drop the axe and walk toward me. “What’s it?” he asks.
I move the camera and watch him walk to me in person. “I know your business is struggling,” I say honestly. “I know you need a better marketing plan. And I think I have an idea.”
He snorts. “Good luck convincing Gunner to try anything new. He’s so stuck on the idea of people finding us organically that he can’t see anything else, and it’s destroying the business. But every time I try to talk to him about it, he tells me it’s not my place.”
He gets close and plants a casual kiss on my forehead, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “But maybe he’ll hear it if it comes from you. I hope so. We need help.”
Having him near me is so intense I can hardly breathe, and I feel like my skin is about to shatter with the pressure. The spot he kissed is burning on my forehead, my heart hammering out a frantic tattoo.
But then he puts his shirt back on, and the spell breaks, all the magic disappearing.
“Come back inside,” he says. “It’s fucking cold out here.”
He walks away without looking back, and as I turn and watch him, my heart hollow and empty at his casual dismissal of my idea, the phone in my pocket buzzes. I bring it out and glance at the screen, then freeze.
A text from a number I never wanted to see.
I know where you are, it reads. And I can’t believe you think you can hide from me. I want what’s mine, Taryn. And I’m coming for it.
It’s signed ‘Mom,’ like I can’t already see who it’s from, and when I drop the phone into my pocket again, I’ve forgotten Gabe and his chest and the fire that burns between us.
My mom has found me. I don’t know how, but I’m not surprised. She was always going to look here eventually. Or maybe she doesn’t actually know and is just expecting me to confirm or deny it by answering.
If so, she has another thing coming. I’m not that stupid. I don’t want her here, and I’ll do everything I can to keep hiding from her.
Because if she finds me...
I shut the thought down, positive that I don’t want to know what she’ll do. I just have to hope the snow will keep her away until I can figure out what to do about her.
And in the meantime, I have a marketing plan to write. We’re stuck in the house for the time being, and as long as I have the time, I might as well work on something that helps the men I’m currently depending on.
Even if neither of them will appreciate what I’m doing for them.