Love in Bloom Read online

  The darkening sky cast gray shadows over Carson's face, but the clarity of his gaze never wavered. The rain plastered his hair to his head, sluiced smoothly over his torso and washed away the accumulated sweat and dirt. His muscles flexed and slowly he advanced; his movements sleek, stealthy, with a jungle cat's grace. Eva held her breath.

  He stopped. Inches separated their rain-soaked bodies. The air swirled close, the moisture thickened. The fog of Carson's body heat scented the air. Droplets caught in Eva's lashes and she raised determined eyes.

  He meant nothing to her any more; he was no longer a part of her life. But her thighs quivered, and her breasts tightened. And she knew the lie had run its course.

  Carson lifted a finger, hesitated, then flicked a raindrop from the end of her nose. A second kissed her lip, slipped down her chin, ran the length of her neck and soaked into the neckband of her T-shirt. Carson's gaze followed, then traveled lower. His eyelids grew heavy, his breathing sharp and ragged. And Eva pressed back against the fence.

  The distance was no deterrent. Carson stepped into her space. He traced the path of the raindrop with the pad of his index finger. His rough skin pulled at the pillow of her lower lip. She opened, allowed him to dip inside and leave a tempting hint of his taste. A taste she remembered too clearly. A taste that made her hungry again.

  She tilted her head against the rough cedar board, giving him access to her neck. She wanted him. Dark secrets from the past pulled them apart, yet this white-hot electricity arced between them, spanning the years as well as the lies of omission. Making a mockery of the life she'd built for herself and her son.

  His touch drifted feather light, drawing a single line down her neck. Her breath caught in the back of her throat; her erratic pulse pounded beneath his touch. His finger slipped lower, grew bolder, tickling a line between the valley of her breasts.

  She shivered from the cool touch of the rain, from the hot touch of his finger. In a minute she'd stop him. For just one more minute she'd soak up his touch and let the rain wash away the years. For one second longer she'd pretend this was real and dream all those fantasies one more time. Make believe their differences didn't matter. Fool herself into believing they had a chance.

  "Eva." Her name escaped his lips in a grating whisper.

  LOVE IN BLOOM

  Alison Kent

  A big thank you to Diana C for catching what I couldn't see!

  Praise for LOVE IN BLOOM

  "... always delivers a good story with characters who make you care, and LOVE IN BLOOM is no exception. Whether she is writing under Michaila Callan or Alison Kent, this author never disappoints. Good characters, good story, good plot. That unique writing voice always stands out."

  -~ReaderToReader.com

  "She was a picture-perfect memory. But when he meets her again seventeen years later, he realizes that time has not dimmed his passion for her. But will their newly re-awakened feelings survive when she reveals the secret she has kept all those years, the secret he has every right to know?

  LOVE IN BLOOM (4) ... is a beautiful love story filled with sensual delight."

  ~Romantic Times

  For Walt, who allows me to bloom

  Chapter One

  Carson Brandt checked his watch for the second time in as many minutes.

  Disgusted with time for creeping by, with himself for keeping track, he scrunched down in the burgundy velvet theater seat, propped his one black dress shoe on the opposite knee, and wedged the cast on his foot up under the seat in front of him.

  He was not a happy man.

  Bailey, Carson's assignment editor, had stuck him on a society shoot any kid with a Polaroid could handle. And to top off the indignity, he had to drag around a cubic foot of fiberglass cast, a bottle of Vicodin, and a back-up photographer cut from six feet, three inches of comic relief in tennis shoes.

  The worst part was admitting he had no one to blame but himself.

  He was the one who'd pitched the therapist's exercise schedule into the whirlpool, the one who'd refused to take sick leave, the one who'd ordered Bailey to send him somewhere, anywhere, just send him.

  And Bailey had done just as Carson demanded, pulling the cushion of sick leave out from under him and sending him to New York to cover the first stop on the U.S. leg of the International Summit, a Worldwide Symposium in the Arts.

  The Arts. Right. Must be the big one I spent all those months in Fallujah prepping for.

  Uncrossing his leg, Carson scooted forward, stuck his index finger in the collar of his shirt, and tugged. It was useless. The collar was in cahoots with the cuffs and the cummerbund. They intended to clothe him to death.

  "Man, would you, like, chill?"

  Carson answered with a low growl. "Chill? In this friggin' oven? I'm trussed up like a Butterball, kid. Chillin' ain't gonna happen."

  Sprawled in the aisle seat, his hair a slash of surfer cut blond, Jamison snickered. "Guess that means you and the show'll be done 'bout the same time."

  "Funny. Very funny." Carson pressed the same index finger against the atomic pressure mushrooming behind the bridge of his nose. Yeah, Jamison needed to work on his hair. And his sense of humor could use a lotta help. But his observations and recommendations were dead on.

  Carson did need a change. Of attitude. Of pace. Of scenery. Of mind. Hell, a change of clothes sounded like the answer to his prayers, he groused, yanking down his cuffs. Whatever the change he needed to make, he needed to make it soon.

  Because now, with his broken ankle forcing him to slow down, he found himself studying the world with his eyes, instead of through a lens. The world whose introduction he'd made through postcards. Snapshots. Photographic studies.

  He'd become acquainted with Sicily and Cyprus, gotten to know the Taj Mahal and Buckingham Palace—all more intimately than he'd ever known the parents who'd chronicled their travels on film for the son they'd left behind.

  But now the reality of focusing and framing, studying and sizing up without a safety net supplied by Nikon or Canon was getting to him, forcing him to confront the fact, the truth, that life—his life—did not exist in pixels.

  Neither was it as easily touched up.

  Still, until he could smooth the waters with Bailey, chillin' would have to wait—though a sandy beach, cool seas, and a month of oblivion sounded like a plan. Early retirement sounded even better.

  He might just be thirty-nine, but he figured he could afford it. From what his accountant told him, he made good money. He didn't know how good because he didn't make it a habit to whip out his net worth and see how he measured up. His only possessions besides his clothes were his cameras. He'd relied on taxis and rental cars since selling his 300ZX turbo seventeen years ago.

  Home was where he dropped his camera bag and, depending on the country, might be a hotel room, tar paper lean-to, or bamboo hut. The inconveniences didn't bother him as long as they didn't interfere with his work. Like now. Knowing he wouldn't be stuck with a broken ankle if he'd listened to Bailey and returned to the states a day sooner didn't help his frame of mind.

  He ground his jaw, and jerking again on both his collar and his cuffs, mentally counted to ten. Then to twenty. And for good measure to fifty-five.

  Tuxedos sucked lemons. Who was he supposed to impress? Prokofiev and Mozart were dead. They'd never know if he wore dress black or jungle fatigues. Now, the Rolling Stones were a different matter. He'd slip into a straight jacket for the chance to hear Mick scream for satisfaction, 'cause he knew better than most where Mick was coming from.

  He glanced at the offending face of his watch again. Seven fifty. About damn time. He shifted sideways in his seat, bumped his walking cast against his camera bag, and bit off a curse.

  "What's with you, m
an?"

  Carson gave a one-shouldered shrug in Jamison's direction and glanced toward the door. He didn't have the words to define what was with him. Describing his fidgeting as uncontrollable sounded lame.

  And making any attempt to explain the obsession that fueled his nervous energy would take hours. If he could figure it out first for himself.

  The seconds ticked by as he scanned the last- minute stragglers, waiting, watching. He started to give up, to return his attention to center stage, then stopped. In one quick, electric jolt, his heart zapped the hair off his chest.

  She was right on time. Five minutes to curtain as he'd expected. And, as hoped for, she was once again alone.

  He'd yet to see her closer than the width of an auditorium; he wanted to see her up close. But each evening she disappeared into the crowds before he and his cast and his ton of equipment could make their way through the throng.

  His gaze followed the woman as she made her way down the far aisle. She slipped into an empty seat and tilted her head in apology to the older woman beside her. The lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture.

  Carson's gaze stayed on the woman; the woman who'd haunted him since he'd first laid eyes on her last week at the ballet.

  She was the only reason he hadn't told Bailey to take this entire frou-frou assignment and shove it down a tube. For the first time in a lot of years, he actually wondered more about a woman than how her body would fit to his.

  The woman intrigued him.

  The reason was simple.

  She reminded him of Eva.

  At seventeen, Eva Channing had been the Montclair Agency's teen modeling sensation—and Carson had been Judith Montclair's twenty-year-old golden boy photographer. Judith hadn't any intention of investing time and money in the unknown model from America's heartland without a guaranteed return. She'd given Carson the job of turning Eva into a household name and walked away from her worries.

  Carson grimaced with the annoyance of discomfort and settled deeper in his seat. Funny thing about time. This woman looked enough like Eva to bring back those two years as if seventeen hadn't rolled by in between.

  Even her short spiky hair was the same reddish brown, though Eva, like Cindy Crawford, had worn hers in shoulder-length waves. He remembered the way she'd fingered a strand over her ear when agitated, when he couldn't get the lighting right or the camera angle he wanted.

  He'd gotten it right more often than not. The pictures had sold millions in fashions and cosmetics. Eva's eyes had become the stuff of teenage male fantasies. Carson had raked in his fair share of the profit and convinced himself nothing else mattered. That once again the perfection of his art had paid off.

  He stared off into space; the music served as a backdrop to his musings. His gaze slid back across the crowded hall.

  This woman was even the same height, yet her bearing ... She was tall and willowy, yes, but she possessed an elegance, a confidence Eva had been too young to have developed. The mystery female's body was that of a woman, tightly muscled, enticingly curved, with none of a model's gaunt lines.

  But then Eva had been on the cusp of eighteen when he'd met her. When he'd lost himself in her. If lost even covered the way he'd known nothing during their two years together but the way she'd made him feel. Oh, how she'd made him feel.

  Eva had been a natural, treated the camera as a friend, seduced it as a lover. Flirted with it, pouted at it, laughed as she danced around it. But more than anything, she'd made love to it with her eyes, knowing all the time he was the man behind the lens.

  The shoots had become impossible to finish in public. They'd ended them privately, in cramped trailers or bathroom stalls, splitting zippers, popping buttons, never bothering with more clothing than necessary for hard flesh to find soft.

  But as much as she'd made him feel, she'd made him think. About things like forever after and having her in his bed every night of his life. She'd been more family than he'd ever had, more home than he'd ever known, more woman than he'd ever encountered.

  Then one day she didn't show. No word. No goodbye. Nothing. His pride hadn't let him look for her, but had grabbed his cocky, twenty-two-year-old balls and squeezed. A real man didn't chase what came free and easy.

  And he certainly didn't run after an emotion found only in chick flicks and fairy tales.

  He'd let her walk away. He'd spent the next seventeen years working in the field, using film and flash and a telephoto lens to strip humanity to its basest of roots. And he'd forgotten the beauty he'd once created. And the woman he'd made into a household name.

  "Yo, Brandt," Jamison whispered, leaning against Carson's shoulder and into his memories. "We gotta split. This gig's up in fifteen. We don't go now, you don't get pictures on tomorrow's society page."

  Carson blinked. He'd sat through the concert without registering a note.

  "Yeah, let's go," he muttered. Not that he gave a damn about tomorrow's society page, but he knew Bailey would chew his backside raw and doom him to the bowels of photographic hell if he didn't get the job done.

  He struggled to his feet, gripped the back of a chair for balance, and hefted his camera bag over one shoulder. With a final glance across the theater, he hobbled up the aisle behind Jamison.

  He'd lost his last chance to meet her, along with a chance to prove to himself that given the right time, the right place, any woman would do. That Eva hadn't been so special. That the return to New York and his idle mind were embellishing the long-ago past.

  It had been a hell of a fantasy while it lasted. Damn if Mick Jagger didn't know what he was talking about. Satisfaction sure seemed hard to come by these days.

  Eva closed her eyes against the rising lights and the final, haunting strains of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3. Anticipation, odd yet strangely familiar, fluttered around and settled in her soul like a long lost friend coming home.

  This music, the glitzy, bustling New York ambience, the past two harried weeks posing for THE Magazine's "Where Are They Now?" reunion shoot. Each brought back bits and pieces of earlier years.

  One memory more than any other refused to stay buried, insisting she remember. Eva wasn't surprised. Losing one's virginity was not an event easily forgotten.

  Neither was Carson Brandt.

  "Eva." Judith Montclair nudged her arm, easing her back to the present. "Show's over."

  "Sorry." Eva forced an appropriate smile and turned to her friend. "Guess I drifted away." Too far away. To a tiny loft apartment full of memories. Memories she hadn't dredged up for a very long time.

  Eva sighed. She couldn't wait to get home.

  "Let me guess," Judith interrupted again. "You're thinking about going home."

  "Am I that obvious?" Eva asked.

  "For the first time in too many years you're finally back in a place you never should have left, and all you've done is talk about Texas, your son, and that nursery of yours." Judith paused for a deep, dramatic breath. "My word, Eva. How can you stand living in that heathen country?"

  Eva grinned, wrapped one arm around the older woman's fashionably gaunt shoulder, and hugged. "You make it sound like the wilds of Africa."

  Judith studied one wine-colored nail and clicked her tongue. "Might as well be. What kind of culture can you get in a city full of'—" she affected a repulsed shudder "—pickup trucks and cowboy boots? I'll bet you haven't gone to a concert in years."

  "Now that's a bet you'd lose. I went to one two months ago with Zack."

  "The Houston Symphony, I hope? I hear Hans Graf is divine."

  "No," Eva admitted, a rush of pure deviltry sending the corners of her mouth upward. "The Beastie Boys."

  Judith stared in wordless answer, then completely changed the subject. "Why don't you postpone your trip home? Stay with me for a while. We can do the town the way it needs to be done. You could even lend your expert hand at the agency." She smoothed the black taffeta of her ruffled skirt, playing the trump card Eva'd been expecting. "The gir
ls would love to have an icon in their presence."

  "Yesterday you were complaining about the calluses on my hands and now I'm an icon," Eva said teasingly, though seeing Judith's pained expression, measured her next words carefully. She owed Judith so much. "You know I'd stay if I could, but I've already been away too long. I'm sure Zack's pulled out what hair he hasn't already shaved off. Besides, I can't stand the hustle bustle anymore."

  "Is that why you hide yourself out in the sticks instead of living in town?"

  "Partially, I suppose. I've grown to like the quiet life of suburbia."

  "Suburbia. Hmph. And working like you do," Judith admonished, her posture finishing-school correct and as stiff as her views on refinement. "I didn't think we'd ever find anything to fit you for the shoot. I don't care what the fitness experts say. Muscles are not chic."

  Eva had to chuckle. In Judith's line of work, work that a lifetime ago had been her own, a body had to be thin enough to wear any fashion. These days she sported curves best suited for spandex. "Chic or not, I need my muscles. And my jeans, work boots, and flannels fit fine."

  Judith's gaze skated across Eva's head. "I guess this primitive lifestyle has something to do with your absence of hair as well. I almost fainted when you got off the plane, though, I must admit ..." Her gaze took in the rest of Eva as well. "Overall, the buff look suits you."

  Eva ran a hand through her feathered locks. "I've had it short for so long I'd forgotten you hadn't seen it. I wonder how the pictures will turn out."

  "Exactly as they always turned out. Perfect."

  Perfect. The only thing Carson had ever accepted.

  No matter how many rolls of film he'd had to shoot.

  No matter how many hours she posed under the blistering lights.

  No matter that any other photographer would have been satisfied with just plain good. Or even excellent.

  Not Carson. He had to have perfect.