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I smiled and grabbed the door handle with my free hand. “Like I’m very wise for choosing you as my best friend.”
Reese snorted out a laugh, and I knew she was rolling her eyes at me. “Who says I didn’t choose you pretty boy? Good luck.”
The call was over before I could say anything else, so I shoved the phone in my pocket and went inside Janey’s studio. The place was brightly lit, as expected, but what I didn’t expect was to see so many different types of photos. I mean I knew she was a photographer, but the shots on the wall were good. Really good.
Too good for Tulip, good.
“Take a look around,” she called out. “I’ll be with you shortly.”
Her voice came from the back and I headed that way. Following the clicking sounds and bright flashes until I found a big warehouse style room divided into three different sections.
“Looked a lot different when I did the safety checks on this place.”
I heard the small gasp of breath at the sound of my voice, even if the young couple did not. “Chief Montgomery, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
If she only knew how much I loved that attempt at frosty professional distance, she’d stop it in a heartbeat. “I was hoping for a moment of your time. I’ll wait.”
She wanted to say more, desperately, but she was working. “Fine. As long as Mark and Anna don’t mind? This is their engagement photo shoot after all.” Her tone told me I was intruding on a private moment, and I looked to the couple for confirmation.
“We don’t mind,” Anna said with a wide smile. “Love is in the air and all that.” She flashed a wink which I ignored and turned my gaze back to Janey.
“They don’t mind.”
“Then neither do I.” She shrugged and turned back to her subjects, giving them her full attention while she posed them this way and that.
I watched Janey for another long moment, the same way I watched her in Santa Fe, the way she moved so effortlessly. So unaware of her own appeal, and how it only made her more appealing. She smiled at the couple and asked questions, pulling wide but genuine smiles from them the entire time. She was a hell of a woman.
“I didn’t realize you had such a big portfolio Janey.”
She stiffened at my words, but continued to aim her camera at the couple. “Oh yeah, she did these super hot boudoir photos for my friend Phoebe, and I knew I wanted her. I mean she made Phoebe look like a ten. A ten!”
I flashed a knowing smile at Janey. “Interesting.”
Her skin flushed pink. “I’m a lot of things, Rafe.”
“I’m just curious to learn a few more of them.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Anna added unnecessarily, but I was happy that it served to deepen Janey’s blush. “You guys are cute together.”
“Thanks,” she said stiffly and finished the shoot without another word for me, at least not until Mark and Anna were long gone. She organized the modern living room setting she’d used for the backdrop. Replacing certain items and wiping everything down. Methodically. Carefully. Almost obsessively.
“Janey.”
That was all it took for her to turn on me, fire burning in her green eyes. “That was completely and totally unprofessional! What were you thinking?” She was working herself up into a good rage, without any help from me. But I was nothing if not a helpful kind of guy.
“I was thinking that you’re really hot when you’re mad.”
She growled form somewhere deep, and I felt the sound wash over my skin, even though I knew she was upset. Really upset. “Stop saying things like that,” she snarled, and I took a step forward.
She glared at me until I stepped aside. “It’s true, but I’m sorry if saying so annoys you.” Most women appreciated being called beautiful, got all giggly and girly about it.
“It doesn’t annoy me,” she growled and carefully put away her camera, so at odds with the tone of her voice. She shoved the cushioned bag into a locker and whirled on me. “It’s disingenuous. That annoys me.”
I frowned, and shook my head. “I’ve known some confusing women Janey, but you take the cake. I don’t say things I don’t mean, but I’m happy to show you how much I mean it. If that’s what you need.”
Heat and fear flared in her eyes at once, even as she tried to shake off the effect my words had on her. “You can’t just stop by and try to knock me off my game like that,” she insisted, fidgeting with the edge of her blouse before stilling her hands and walking around me, anything to keep from being too close to me. Or looking at me.
I smiled and gave her a few feet of distance before I followed her back to the studio. “I did knock you off your game, didn’t I? Wonder why that is?” She pretended to have no reaction to me, but that one hot night told me what a lie that was.
