15. Tess #2
Tess stared at the space he had opened between them.
At O’Malley’s, he had stood there and endured the pose. He had let the cameras decide where his hands belonged.
Not this time.
Marcus stepped forward. “Enough. You’ve made your point. Get in the vehicle before you turn a manageable absence into a contract disaster.”
Camden kept one hand against his injured side.
“I am drawing a hard line at this dock. Your corporate rules have zero jurisdiction over this yard, Dad.” He looked sharply toward the photographers. “Tell them to kill the lenses before I smash the glass.”
Nobody spoke for a beat.
Tess stayed against the shack, watching Chloe stand alone in the dirt.
He kept his hand pressed to the tape as he faced his father.
The first photographer moved left.
Tess caught the shift from the edge of her vision. His lens had been fixed on Camden and Chloe a second ago. Now the glass tracked past Camden’s shoulder and settled on the bait-shack wall.
On her.
The second stringer adjusted his stance near the SUVs.
“Move left,” he called. “I’ve got the bump from here.”
Tess turned sideways and pressed her shoulder against the siding.
The shutters started again.
They’re photographing the baby.
A gust pushed loose hair across her face. She shoved it back and angled farther toward the wall, but there was nowhere to disappear. The flannel hung open over the curve of her stomach. Four months of keeping this child outside the sports pages had been undone by a camera lens in Sully’s driveway.
“Camden,” she said. “They’re not shooting you anymore.”
He turned.
One of the stringers stepped around him.
The camera rose.
“Put it down,” Camden said.
The shutter fired anyway.
Sully came off the deck.
A steel boat gaff rested beside the loading area, propped where the charter crews left it after clearing fish boxes. He seized the shaft in both hands and crossed the shells, the hook scraping a line behind him.
“Sully,” Tess called.
He kept moving.
The photographers eyed the gaff and shifted their feet, but neither lowered his camera.
“Drop the glass,” Sully said. “Five seconds. After that, this hook goes dead center into your engine blocks, and you’re walking off my gravel.”
One stringer laughed.
“Take it easy, pops, just securing the candids! The forums are going to melt down when they realize QB1 is actively hiding a pregnant liability in the mud!”
Pregnant liability.
Tess stopped trying to turn away.
There it was.
Not a woman. Not a wife. Not a baby.
Content.
Marcus stepped between Sully and the nearest SUV, his expression hardening.
“Drop the rusty hook, you lunatic. My attorneys will bury you under assault charges before you can even take a swing.” He pointed toward Camden. “Get out of the dirt and step inside the vehicle.”
Sully lowered the hook a few inches, but his hands stayed wrapped around the shaft. “Your attorneys can explain trespassing to the sheriff.”
The stringer nearest Tess took another step sideways.
Camden moved with him.
“Enough,” he said. “You have your pictures of me. Get those cameras out of her face.”
“Not how this works,” the photographer replied.
Another burst flashed across the yard.
Tess braced herself against the wall. The siding offered no cover from that angle, and moving toward the stairs would only turn her profile toward the cameras.
Camden dropped his hand from his taped ribs.
His gaze followed the stringer.
Not toward Marcus.
Not toward Chloe.
Toward the lens.
Then toward Tess.
He looked down.
The next shutter burst caught the front of her flannel, the curve beneath it, and both of her hands trying to hide what could no longer be hidden.
Camden went still when he followed the lenses to her stomach.
Another flash burst across the yard.
He moved before either photographer could adjust again.
He dragged his boots through the shells as he backed toward the bait shack, keeping his injured side angled away from the stringers. Tess lost sight of one photographer when Camden stepped into the shot. Another step erased the second camera behind his shoulders.
The flashes stopped hitting her face.
For the first time since the SUVs arrived, she could look straight ahead without staring into glass.
“Camden,” she said. “Your ribs.”
He didn’t turn.
One photographer shifted right.
Camden matched him.
“Stay where you are,” Camden said.
The man lowered his camera a few inches. “We’re standing in the driveway.”
“And she’s standing on private property.”
Sully remained several yards away with the gaff lowered beside his leg. “You heard him. Pack the toys and get off my gravel.”
Marcus gave Sully a dismissive glance, then fixed his attention on Camden. “You’re accomplishing nothing except making this uglier.”
Camden’s shoulders dropped.
Tess frowned.
Seconds ago, he had been ready to break camera glass. Now the fight seemed to drain out of him. The tape shifted beneath his shirt as he adjusted his stance, keeping himself between her and the stringers.
Marcus noticed it too.
His expression changed.
Not a smile yet.
Something close.
Camden looked toward the two photographers. “Call off the stringers. Lock them in the vehicles, and I take the backseat.”
Tess pushed away from the wall.
“What?”
Camden stayed facing Marcus.
Marcus folded his sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. “Say that again.”
“The cameras leave her alone.” Camden pointed toward the SUVs. “They put the equipment away. Nobody takes another shot of Tess, the shack, the apartment, or anything else on this property.”
“And then?”
“I get in the car.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Tess stared at the tape visible beneath his shirt.
No.
Marcus finally smiled.
“You were always going to surrender to the math.” He turned toward the photographers and flicked two fingers toward the vehicles. “Pack it up. We have what we need.”
Both stringers hesitated.
Marcus’s voice flattened. “Now.”