Chapter 6 #2
“Yeah, but that’s two different things. Not having time to work on it is not the same as not thinking about it.”
She shot him a wry smile and toyed with the hair at his nape. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
He grinned. “For which I am eternally grateful. But seriously, if your thesis and master’s degree was a thing that really, deep down, mattered to you beyond checking off a box to say ‘I did that. I finished that,’ wouldn’t you have been thinking about it in the back of your brain, despite everything else that’s going on? ”
She tried to bite back the defensiveness. This wasn’t a criticism. He was just making conversation. “I’ve been struggling with writer’s block for months. The hope was that coming up here would get me unstuck.”
“Well, in that light, maybe the not thinking about it will end up being productive for you. I don’t know.
I just don’t think that you pursuing a PhD program that’s going to last for years more is going to make you happy.
And I freely admit that there’s a selfish component in all that for me because I want you to be happy.
I want to have the chance to make you happy. ”
His words struck her as far more serious than he probably meant them.
But that didn’t diminish their impact. When had anybody really concerned themselves with her happiness?
The idea that this intelligent, interesting, sexy man cared enough to want to contribute to that absolutely knocked down her defenses and made her yearn.
This was all bumping up against the future and the after that they were both being very, very careful not to talk about.
Because the truth was that as intimate as they’d been, and as important as they’d become to each other, they’d only known each other for a matter of days.
And the idea of making a change—a significant change—in her life, for a man she knew so little, struck her as the most reckless, irresponsible thing that she could do.
And that didn’t dim the wanting one bit.
Not wanting to read more into his statement than was there, she kept her tone light as she curled a lock of his hair around her finger. “Well, you’re doing a pretty damned good job.”
“Oh, would you look at that view.” Sarah’s voice was hushed and reverent, her camera already at her eye.
Watching her, Beckett smiled to himself.
Today had been amazing. Free to be themselves, without worry of being overheard or having to maintain the deception, he’d been able to get to know her on a deeper level.
She fascinated him. They were very different people, and he didn’t entirely understand her innate sense of competition.
But she made him think. And, as always, she made him want.
He truly liked her on every possible level.
The official purpose of this overnight camping trip, at least insofar as work was concerned, was to choose appropriate locations for the Scout Wars events later in the summer.
But his greater purpose had been to show Sarah all the beautiful places in the area to feed her inner photo bug.
She’d told him that she’d wanted to be a photographer in a way that said she hadn’t ever really considered it a viable career option because of her parents.
Yet she’d loved it enough to keep taking classes, keep learning about it.
And certainly she’d kept shooting. He hoped that by bringing her to a lot of his favorite places out here, she’d have a chance to indulge that love.
And maybe he’d find a way to help her consider it as an actual profession.
Because he saw the light in her when she had a camera in her hands that he hadn’t seen when she’d discussed any of the degrees she’d earned.
The quiet click of the shutter was background noise as he slid off his pack and began to make preparations for camp, digging out the tent.
When she saw what he was doing, she started to put the camera down. “What can I do?”
Beckett waved her off. “I’ve got this. You keep taking photos. You’re having such fun with it.”
Sarah flashed him a giddy sort of smile and turned back to her work. That smile was worth every mile they’d hiked today.
He unfurled the tent and stretched it out on the grass.
“What is it you love about taking pictures?” He was legitimately curious.
Photography was such an artistic thing, and every other degree she’d sought had been so painfully rigid and scientific.
He was still trying to square the two sides of her.
She seemed to consider the question. “There are beautiful things in the world everywhere you look. I love being able to capture that. To show people there’s a different way to look at things.
I love the challenge of getting the shot that I envision in my brain, making people see things that I see.
And I love the ability to capture a moment in time—a memory—and pull it out later to relive.
There’s magic in that.” So saying, she lifted the camera again and aimed it toward him.
Click.
“There’s an element of comfort to it, too, I guess. It’s soothing. The camera is an extension of my hands. I mean, there’s still thought involved in settings and angles, in the consideration of all the technical aspects, but it’s not the same as being actual work.”
“Do you feel like something that isn’t hard somehow matters less?
That because you find it easy, and you’re not having to work at it, that makes it something that you don’t actually want to pursue?
” He legitimately wanted to know. Was her deeply ingrained sense of competition really that much of a driver for her?
She crouched to take a shot of a cluster of purple coneflowers at the edge of the clearing. “No. It’s just not a practical job.”
“You talk a lot about that. About the practical. Why the obsession?”
Her brows drew together, and Beckett hoped he hadn’t crossed some line. He didn’t want to offend her, he just wanted to know the answer.
“One of us had to be practical growing up. By default, that ended up being me.”
Beckett chose his words more carefully. “That doesn’t sound like a choice.”
Her shoulders twitched in a shrug. “My sister made the choice for me. Because she never stopped to think and consider before making any sort of decision. She just leaps feet first, and damn the consequences. She’s always been able to do that because I was there to help manage them. And there were always consequences.”
There was both love and exhaustion here, and Beckett was starting to understand how much being a twin had impacted her.
He didn’t think her obsession with perfection was necessarily actual temperament so much as reaction to a lifetime of being the more cautious one.
As they worked together to set up camp, she told him more stories.
The picture she painted was of a twin who was not at all afraid of action or of failure.
Yeah, Taryn had made some bad decisions and had some crappy things happen to her as a result of that.
But the end result was that Sarah had never been given the freedom to feel as if she could make a mistake because Taryn had the market cornered.
It made Beckett realize that it was an even bigger deal that she had decided to take a chance on him.
He hurled the weighted end of a rope through the fork in a tree above and tugged to set up a line where they could hang their food overnight, out of reach of any bears in the area.
“I’m starting to see how this thing with me, with us, is really out of character for you.
And I am so incredibly grateful you were willing to take that leap with me. But I’m compelled to ask… Why did you?”
He knew he was pushing, hoping to nudge her into admitting that she also couldn’t bear for this to be over after this week. That she was willing to pursue this thing between them further.
She was silent for a while as she gathered wood for a fire. When she finally spoke, her voice was low. “Because the idea of not pursuing it felt like a bigger risk than being with you. Not knowing would’ve haunted me a whole lot longer than whatever the fallout is after.”
It was something. Maybe not as much as he wanted, but he realized that what he wanted was an awful lot in a very short span of time.
Twin impersonation aside, she was a demonstrably cautious woman.
So he would take what she offered and be grateful.
And hopefully, somewhere in the time they had left, he’d find the key to unlocking her reluctance and grabbing onto this with both hands the way he wanted to.
He crossed over to where she knelt by the ring of stones for their fire pit and reached for her hand.
When she laid it in his, warmth and electricity shot up his arm and into his chest. He drew her to her feet, pulling her flush with his body.
She flowed into him without hesitation. Beckett loved that.
Loved the instant surrender. The sensation of a click, as if they fit together like two puzzle pieces.
Seeing the same wanting he felt reflected in her big Bambi eyes.
Linking his hands behind her back, he dropped his brow to hers. “Then let’s make the most of it.”