Just The Way You Are Part 12

"You must have other jobs to do."

"They can wait."

"Jimmy, you're not going to talk me into a photo shoot while I'm in this place. This isn't my home. This isn't my life anymore, and I don't really want anyone to know about it."

"Why not? Why all the secrets, Tessa? Why not tell the world you have a grandmother and a sister and a niece? Why not tell them you grew up in a small town by the sea, that you still like a good cup of clam chowder no matter how many calories are in it?"

"No one wants to know that about me. They want to see my fancy apartment, and my new emerald-green Jaguar, and hear about my trip to Europe and my last date with the latest celebrity of the moment. And I thought we weren't going to talk about this."

"Maybe you sell your fans short. Maybe you sell yourself short. You're more than your photograph."

"Sometimes my photograph feels more real than me."

His green eyes seemed to bore right into her soul, and she knew she'd revealed far too much. So she tried for the practiced smile, the artificial laugh, the uncaring toss of her hair that would draw attention to her beauty and away from her soul.

"You've been a good friend, Jimmy, the best photographer I've ever had, but this isn't your business. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but-"

"You want me to b.u.t.t out."

"Yes, I do. I'm sorry, but this is personal."

"The least you can do is show me around your hometown."

She sat back in her chair, not sure she wanted to show him even that much encouragement. "There's not much to see."

"I don't know about that. It's been pretty interesting so far."

She saw his charming smile and knew she couldn't say no to his adorable face. Jimmy had a way of making her do things she never wanted to do, like wearing a bikini on an Aspen ski slope or riding a horse bareback down a Texas dirt road. She supposed this was an easy request compared to some of them. "You are nothing but trouble, you know that, don't you?"

He leaned forward, so close she could see the gleam in his green eyes, and she felt an unexpected tingle go down her spine.

"Sometimes a woman needs a little trouble in her life," he said.

She laughed. "Does that line really work on women?"

He grinned back at her. "You'd be surprised."

"I think I'd be more surprised if you ever stopped flirting."

"I keep hoping, that's all," he said lightly.

"Hoping? For what?"

He shrugged, a Mona Lisa smile on his lips that made her surprisingly uncomfortable. This was Jimmy, she told herself. A fun guy, a charmer, a man not to be taken seriously.

"You're not making any sense," she told him.

"Good, I'd hate to ruin my rep. Come on. Show me your old stomping grounds, where you went to school, what roads you took on your driver's test, where you parked to make out with all the boys."

She punched him in the arm. "Some things are private."

"Hey, if you can't tell your photographer, who can you tell? I know all your other secrets, babe, the freckles you hide behind powder, the way your hairline veers on the right side, that tiny little blemish under your left eyebrow." He leaned forward and cupped her face with his hands. "You can't hide from me, Tessa. Sooner or later, you're going to crack."

"Not even if you threaten to break my finger-nails," she said, trying to lighten a mood that had suddenly gone serious. "Don't forget I know a few secrets about you, too, Jimmy boy. So, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

"How about your front?"

"Stop," she said, getting to her feet. "Enough. You're making me laugh. And I'm not supposed to be laughing right now. I'm supposed to be serious and concerned and worried."

"Not for the next hour. Give yourself a break, Tessa. The worry will be waiting when you get back."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Chapter 10.

*"Relax, nothing will happen in the next few hours, except that you're going to think about something besides your grandmother and Tessa," Sam said to Alli as he steered the boat out of the harbor Alli wrapped her heavy sweater around her as the ocean breeze caught at her hair. She'd exchanged her skirt for a pair of jeans she kept in the back of the shop, and her sandals for white canvas tennis shoes.

"I feel so decadent," she confessed. "I should be working at the shop, or at the very least I should be at the hospital."

"You are working-for me," Sam said with a grin.

He'd looked downright pleased to see her arrive, and when he'd introduced her to the newlyweds, he'd called her his wife. Not his ex-wife, but his wife. For some reason, the distinction seemed important. "And you know Phoebe would want you to take a break," he added.

"I suppose." Alli rested her arms on the rail and glanced over at the young couple who were sitting on the bench seat in the stem of the boat, watching the white water kick up behind them as they gathered speed and left the harbor behind for the wide-open Pacific Ocean.

"They're cute," she said to Sam. "Young love."

"Young? They're our age."

"Really? I feel older than they look."

"So do I," she admitted. She stared out at the horizon for a long moment. "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be twenty-seven and single, no child, no husband, no mortgage, no business to run, just myself to take care of."

"You'd probably be bored."

"Maybe."

"What's the point in looking back anyway? You can't change what happened," Sam said.

"I can't help it," she said wistfully. "Don't you ever wonder what it would have been like if we'd never gotten together that Christmas? I mean, what if you hadn't come to the party? Or if I'd left before you arrived? Things could have turned out so differently."

"But I did come to the party, and you were still there. I don't have time to wonder about what might have been, and frankly I don't see the point. We've got enough to do just dealing with the present." He stared out at the water, standing tall and straight, his hands firmly on the wheel in front of him.

She supposed that was one of the big differences between them: Sam didn't want to a.n.a.lyze any of it, and she wanted to pick it apart down to the last detail. "I guess the good thing about having a child young is that we'll still be young when Megan grows up."

"That's a long ways off."

"Not really, only ten years till she's eighteen. The last nine have gone pretty fast. And since we don't have anymore children..."

"Don't start, Alli."

"I know you don't want any more children, but I do."

"You just said you wondered what it would be like to have no children. Make up your mind."

"I meant that hypothetically. I wouldn't trade Megan in for anything in the world."

"Neither would I." He sent her a brief look. "And I don't think you'd be happy with no one to take care of, to boss around, to get into fights with. You're not a loner, Alli, you never were. I was always tripping over you growing up. You were in the middle of things, stirring up trouble wherever you went."

"It was the only way I could get your attention," she admitted.

He laughed. "I think you had everyone's attention when you dyed your hair green."

"It wasn't supposed to be green, it was supposed to be blond," she replied.

He laughed. "What happened? Did you forget to read the directions? Oh, that's right, you don't believe in reading directions. Leap first, look later. That was always your style."

His tone was too gentle for her to take offense. "I was in a hurry."

"You were always in a hurry." He sent her a knowing look that reminded her of how many years they had known each other.

"You didn't exactly get through childhood unscathed," she said.

"Let's change the subject."

"Remember that party you had when your parents went out of town?"

"The one you talked me into having?" he asked pointedly.

"And somebody broke the picture frame that Tessa had given you to hold your prom photo?" she continued, ignoring the fact that she had been the one to encourage the party. "You thought Tessa was going to kill you for sure."

"So you went all the way to Portland with me to find an exact copy," he said quietly, turning to face her. "I'd forgotten about that. Why did you help me?"

"I didn't want you to get into trouble."

"Really?" he asked skeptically.

"Okay, I got to ride in the Thunderbird and spend time with you. But it was still a nice thing to do, even if my motives were a bit selfish."

"You were a pal."

She sighed. "And I wanted to be so much more."

"Well, it turned out that way."

For a few moments all was quiet between them. Alli leaned against the rail and watched him sail. Here on the water, he was completely at ease, master of his destiny, strong, powerful, a part of nature as much as the wind and the sea. It was how she always thought of him, the mist off the ocean dampening his hair, his cheeks burning from the midday sun, his eyes dancing with a joy that only being on the water could give him.

"You love this, don't you?" she asked, even though it wasn't really a question.

"More than I ever thought I would."

"So this part of your life turned out okay?"

He smiled at her. "Yeah."

"I'm glad." She looked out at the miles of water stretching before them. "Do you think we'll see any whales today?"

"I hope so or the Starks will be disappointed."

Alli turned her head to see the newlywed couple exchange a deep, pa.s.sionate kiss. "I'm not sure they will come up for air long enough to see a whale."

"You might be right about that. By the way, we should talk about our kite. The festival is only a few days away. Have you thought about the design?"

"Megan wants to do a picture of our family for the design. She even drew three stick figures. Yours has great hair. Mine just looks fat."

"You always think you look fat."

"I have a mirror."

"You don't look in the mirror. Most of your impressions are stuck in your head from a hundred years ago. Maybe once you looked fat, so forever you're fat. That's the way it is with you. You never change your mind."

"That's not true," she automatically denied, although she had the vague impression that he might be somewhat right.

"Sure it is. Twelve people could say you were skinny and one person could say you were fat, and who would you believe-the one person who said you were fat."

She thought about that for a moment, wondering when Sam had gotten so good at a.n.a.lyzing her. "Maybe."

"Not maybe; it's true."

"It was different for me, Sam. Growing up, you and Tessa had each other for support. I didn't have anyone."

"You had friends."

"I didn't have a relations.h.i.+p like the one you and Tessa had. What was it about her that made you want to be with her every second of the day?"

He thought about her question for a moment. "Tessa was an incredible storyteller," he said finally. "We'd sit for hours in the treehouse and Tessa would talk about climbing the Pyramids and shooting the rapids and coming face-to-face with wild tigers in the jungles of Africa."

"Like any of that would actually come true," Alli said scornfully.

"It didn't matter. The story was enough."

"Did you really want to do all those things-shoot rapids, hunt tigers?"