“Wait!”
She drew back, panting. Not daring to look into his eyes, she stared at her hands splayed on his thighs instead, listening to the sound of her breathing, which was amplified in her ears, heavy and ragged.
Lifting her fingers, she reached up to touch the tender, hot skin of her lips with a tentative caress, finally looking up at Lars. He was watching her, searching her face with an unapologetic, unwavering gaze.
“I wasn’t…expecting that,” she murmured.
He released her hips and smiled, reaching up to push an errant curl back from her forehead before leaning back against his seat. “You’ve got it all wrong, Jane Mays.”
No. You’ve got it all wrong, Lars Lindstrom. You haven’t met Sara yet. You don’t know what I know. She stared at him, unsmiling, conflicted between her growing feelings for him and the pain of loss she’d feel later.
“Do I?”
“You’re not just the friend,” he said.
Yes, I am, her brain insisted, though her breath still shuddered from their kiss.
“We’ve got chemistry, Minx. Any way you slice it.”
“But what does it mean?”
He leaned over her to pull her seatbelt back over her chest and she felt his breath hot against her cheek. She closed her eyes, longing pooling again in her belly and making her heart race.
“It means…you’re different,” he growled lightly in her ear. “Come to the Labor Day fireworks in the park with me tomorrow night.”
“M-more sightseeing?” she murmured.
“Nuh-uh.” He rubbed his stubbled cheek lightly against her flushed one and she felt his breath hot on her earlobe. “A date.”
She swallowed, distracted by a thick haze of desire, her insides melting to liquid. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “A date?”
“Mm-hm.”
Her seat belt clicked into place, her eyes popped open to find him smiling at her from his seat, amused, delighted.
“You want to go out on a date?” She straightened up, running both hands through her hair. “I don’t know. I…”
“Such enthusiasm, Jane! You’ll make me think you don’t like me one bit.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
“Aw, Minx. All evidence to the contrary.”
“So conceited.”
“So adorable.”
Adorable! She grinned at him in spite of herself.
“So…how about it?” he asked.
She shook her head, even though her resistance was fading, and her decision to be “only friends” was disappearing with the rest of her self-control.
Because he felt inevitable, at least for now, she surrendered.
“Yes. I will go see fireworks with you tomorrow night.”
And we will have one sweet evening together before Samara turns your head on Tuesday. She thought of Ray’s text, trying to hush her misgivings. I deserve it. I do.
“Fireworks. Excellent.” He winked at her and buckled his own seat belt. When he turned the key, the truck didn’t start. He tried again, but it grated and crunched.
Lars looked at her, trying again, and smiling with relief when the engine finally turned over. “She’s temperamental sometimes. Like a cute wise-ass I know from New York.”
And that time, because he said it so sweetly, she didn’t argue.
***
Darn it, she thought, walking over to the Prairie Dawn that evening. She had meant to ask Lars how the heck you play euchre. But with the entire day fraught with sexual tension or packed with actual work, she never got around to it.
After he had kissed her and coaxed her out on a date tomorrow night, they had turned on The Beach Boys Endless Summer and spent the remainder of the day singing along, bonding over favorites and feuding over the worst.
The locations Lars had scouted for the photo shoot were inspired. They were all within about an hour of Gardiner on the Grand Loop to keep travel time to a minimum, but they were evocative, dramatic and beautiful, and would create a masterful editorial, possibly Samara’s best yet.
The plan was to set out for one location each day—a full crew from Trend, in addition to the photographer, Samara’s team, Jane and Lars—on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week. They prayed that the weather would hold each day, or the shoot would carry over into the second week. The Trend people had already been out two weeks before, scouting with Lars until they were satisfied with the locations, so Jane was really only taking pictures for Samara, per her request, so that she could anticipate her surroundings each day.
Jane used her Nikon to take shots of each of the three locations from different angles. The stark architectural beauty of Sheepeater Cliff, made of basalt columns. Old Faithful geyser, which proved unfaithful in the short time Jane visited, but for which she knew they would wait a full day to get the right shot with Samara. Lastly, Lars had chosen a spot at Yellowstone Lake that he told Jane was his favorite.
As she took photos from a boardwalk that separated Black Pool from Yellowstone Lake, Lars leaned against the railing, looking out over the lake. Jane had lowered her camera to watch him for a moment, to take in his worn, faded jeans slung low on his hips, long legs and cowboy boots peeking out from underneath. He had on a white golf shirt, stark against his tan skin, which made his ice-blue eyes seem even more piercing. She raised her camera and took a picture of him in partial profile, his blond hair like burnished silver in the light of the afternoon sun. He heard the camera shutter and turned to her with an expectant look, a lazy smile tugging at her heart.
“What are we taking pictures of, Minx?”
“Can’t help it if you’re in my shot.”
He had tilted his head to the side then, and she took one more: Lars smiling at Jane.
Later, in her hotel room, Jane was careful to rename and copy those two photos, and put them in their own separate folder, called simply Lars. One day, weeks from now, when she was home in chilly New York, she could open that file and remember the warm sunshine of today, the way his lips had felt when he kissed her, the fleeting sweetness of knowing he wanted her, even though by then he would surely be long lost to her. She could still have her memories, and the photos to prove that once upon a time Lars Lindstrom really happened to Jane Mays and for once in her life, Jane knew what it was like to be the pretty one.
She opened the door to the Prairie Dawn and, glancing at the teenage girl working at the coffee bar, searched the room for her new friends. Upon finding them she did a double take, because she was sure she was looking at Maggie, Paul and Lars, but a deeper look confirmed that while the family resemblance was striking, she was actually looking at Maggie, Paul and Nils, Lars’s older brother.
Maggie saw Jane and stood up, waving her over.
“Jane! You made it! Grand!”
She made her way around the eclectic furniture of the coffee shop to join them.
“Heya, Paul.” She grinned. “How’re things with Miss Mystic?”
He smiled easily, winking at Jane. “I’ll tell you all about it, Janie.”
She turned her eyes to Nils. “I’m Jane. I’d know you for a Lindstrom anywhere.”
“The New Yorker. Good to know you.” They shook hands and Maggie went to get Jane a cup of coffee. Jane took the empty seat between Paul and Maggie, facing Nils, who shuffled a deck of cards distractedly.