Page 41 of Always My Love

“Then let’s get to work.” She clapped her hands and had both dogs bouncing around happily.

This time, she was more hands-on. She helped Nick lift the huge sheets of backing board for the tile into place and held them while he screwed them into the walls he’d built yesterday.

Within hours, the shower was looking like a real shower, minus the tile. Nick had her sit on the bench a few times to make sure it was the right height, then they found the best place for the niche. She took Hailey’s tallest shampoo bottle and set it in there to make sure it was tall enough.

She had to admit, she was having a blast.

When they started working on the vanity, the work slowed to a crawl.

She had to keep flipping off the electric so Nick could change out old wiring with new and attach the new lights they had purchased for above the two sink mirrors.

“I wanted to ask you about the photographs on the walls. Were those your uncle’s doing?” he asked when they broke for lunch. He motioned to the photo of an old barn just down the road that she’d taken one rainy morning.

“No, I took those. I found an old camera of my uncle’s and learned how to develop film,” she answered between bites of her sandwich.

“You… you took them and developed them yourself?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah. I turned what used to be a shop area in the carport into my darkroom.” She scratched Blue’s head as he begged at her feet.

“Can I see?”

“Sure.” She got up to take her plate to the sink.

Nick followed her outside to the carport area where her car and the back of his Jeep sat under the protection from the rain that had yet to stop since midday yesterday.

She opened the door and turned on the light, and he followed her into the small space.

She had three strings tied up over an old work bench. Her latest photos hung on them.

She reached up and started gathering them, but Nick stopped her so he could examine each of them carefully.

She and Lucy had taken a hike one foggy morning, and she’d thankfully taken her camera with her.

“This shot is amazing.” Nick turned a photo around, and she smiled at the image of a large buck standing between a row of trees in the mist and looking at her.

“I thought he was going to charge me. Thankfully, Lucy didn’t bark at him and he turned and walked away. We had a moment and then he was gone.” She sighed and enjoyed the memory playing in her head.

“I want this,” he said, suddenly. “A copy. Can you blow it up?”

She was surprised and took the image from him.

Yeah, it was good. You could see the mist swirling around the buck and see his breath in the cool morning air. His eyes were gentle. Searching.

“I hadn’t realized it turned out so good,” she said under her breath.

“It’s amazing. All of these are.” He held up another one of the buck standing on top of the hill, walking away from her. Here, he was nothing more than a shadow in the mist. “I want a copy of this one too.”

She chuckled. “After all the work you’ve done in the past two days, you can have whichever of my pictures you want.”

Nick’s head jerked towards hers and then he smiled slowly. “Promise?” He raised his eyebrows.

She felt her face heat and then she smiled. “Isn’t that breaking a law or something? Sending nude photos?”

He set down the stack of photos he’d been looking through and was beside her in an instant. When he reached for her, she went into his arms.

“In some states, but thankfully not Oregon.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Trust me. I am the law.”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Does that line ever work for you?”