Page 80 of Then You Happened
Good. It should be. If the images she posted in the newspaper were any indication of her talent, then her putting the camera down is a damn travesty.
“I do sometimes.” She looks over to the competition where a huge cheer just went up. “Did you see that? He—”
“Uh-uh, Tate. You are not skating out of answering this question. You have serious talent. Your pictures should be on a wall somewhere.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Her lips say the words but her eyes have a flash of regret or maybe resentment in them.
“What happened? Why did you stop pursuing it?”
“I had some opportunities, but Fletcher needed me on the ranch.”
That’s such bullshit, but I bite back the comment about what a crap move that was on Fletcher’s part.
Look at me, Tate.
My refrain from last night hits my ears and has me gripping my beer bottle a little harder than I should be.
“Needed you?” I ask as politely as I can. “Because taking photos took too much time away from grooming horses and playing the part?”
Her fingers flexing is the only sign she gives me that what I said was accurate.
My own fists clench in response. My own temper fires at the thought.
“I had some galleries interested in my work. I had some companies who wanted to purchase some.” Her voice is barely a whisper but the shame in her tone rings through loud and clear.
“What happened?” I would put money on the fucker’s ego being more important than his wife’s dreams. It had to be about him. His successes were his. His failures were hers.
“It was bad timing. They called, but I had just lost the baby and—”
“Jesus Christ, Tate.” I scrub a hand through my hair and feel like the asshole I am for pressing. “I’m sorry.”
Her smile is tainted with melancholy when she offers it with a slight shrug. “It’s okay. It’s life. It happens.”
I reach out and grab her fingers atop the table. “Yeah, it happens but it’s still horrible. I don’t even know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. I was six months along and . . . then I wasn’t.” Her voice is soft and loaded with a sadness I know I can’t chase away so I don’t even attempt to. “Besides, it was a long time ago.”
“Did you try again?”
She twists her lips and stares back out the window for a beat before speaking. “The timing was never right after that. A part of the reason I left home was because of the baby and when she was gone, life kind of became about making the ranch work. Another mouth to feed and hospital bills weren’t exactly what we needed.” Her smile is tight when she offers one, and it tells me that a baby might not have been what Fletcher thought was right but was what she still wanted.
“Even so . . . I’m sorry.”
“Anyway, where were we? Photos and the people who wanted to buy them?” she asks, obviously not wanting to stay on the subject, and I nod. “It was shortly after we lost her when they called, and instead of letting me drown myself in work and spend hours getting lost in light and depth and shadows and filters like I wanted to, Fletcher decided it was his chance to make me a part of his world.”
“But what about your world?”
She looks down at her fingers twisting on the stem of her glass, regret heavy in her slumped shoulders as her teeth worry over her bottom lip. “I had just walked away from everything I had ever known for him and for the baby we no longer had and for the dream he wanted to chase. There was no going back. Call it stubborn, call it stupid, but I wasn’t giving my parents the satisfaction of knowing they were right.”
Call it her wild.
I nod as I glance around, giving her a moment to gather her thoughts as I wonder what her life would have been like if she hadn’t met Fletcher.
“Look at the pair of us,” I say. “Two kids who ran away from their parents to rebel against their expectations but were both too stubborn to admit they were wrong.”
“Look at the pair of us.” Her smile is soft and genuine, and fuck if it doesn’t tug on parts of me that don’t need to be tugged on.
Our eyes hold despite the chaos ensuing around us, and it takes everything I have to look away.
