Dancing Away With My Heart (Wishful 12)

A chime sounded, indicating someone had opened the door. He sprang out of the chair and bolted for the reception area.

Lexi stood in the front office, a camera bag slung cross-body as she looked around at the gallery of photos on the wall. The sight of her was like the sun coming out, banishing the vague shadow that had hung over his day. He didn’t bother trying to tame his grin.

“Hey! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to be able to make it.”

“Sorry. I had to go by Brides and Belles to pick up the latest alterations. Mom insists she doesn’t need her ankle to do them, and neither Babette nor I could talk her out of it. Then it took a while to get her settled in her sewing room.” She shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, an old tell he recognized. He didn’t want her to feel awkward here with him.

“No problem. I was just doing some editing. Come, have the grand tour. It’ll only take about five minutes.”

He led her back to the studio and watched her take everything in with those dark eyes that missed nothing.

“It looks so different from when we interned with Byron.”

“After he retired, I had the guys come in to help me paint from top to bottom. And as soon as I could get rid of the early eighties era furniture, I did. I didn’t need too much. I do way more on-location shoots than studio work.”

They picked their way over the snaking cords of flash stands and around reflectors. “Same. It’s how I could get away with not having a proper studio all this time. I never liked working with backdrops.”

“They have their place, but there’s no substitute for natural light.” He showed her the prop room, full of everything from an assortment of chairs and artificial plants, to empty picture frames, to the buckets and baskets he often used for newborn shoots. And he took great delight in showing her the dark room.

She turned a circle in the small space. “You actually still do film?”

“Not as often as I’d like, but from time to time. There’s just something about doing the development yourself, you know?”

“Oh yeah. I have fond memories of the time we spent in the dark room back in high school.”

Coming from anybody else, that would’ve been a double entendre, but from Lexi it was nothing more than the truth. The dark room had been about confidences and confessions, and plenty of laughter. They’d had some of their best conversations there.

“Maybe you’d like to try your hand at it again, while you’re here.”

Her lips curved. “Maybe I would. For now, I’d like to see more of your portfolio. See the kind of thing your clients are expecting.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

She nodded and followed him into his office. Zach pulled up his digital portfolio and nudged her into the seat, trying not to loom as she clicked through.

“I thought I’d know more people.”

“You’ve been gone a long time. Things change, even here in Wishful.”

Lexi twitched her shoulders and didn’t look at him. “True enough.”

Damn. He hadn’t meant that as any kind of recrimination.

“Reed Campbell is getting married?”

Zach peered over her shoulder at the engagement photos he’d taken. “Got married last fall. Cecily is a blue blood from Connecticut, but we forgive her for being a Yankee since they’re besotted with each other.”

“It shows. She’s lovely.”

Lexi continued to scroll, commenting on others she recognized who’d gotten married or had kids. Eventually she sat back, a strange vulnerability to her expression. “It feels weird.”

Zach leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. “What does?”

“I don’t know. It’s like they’re all grown up, and I’m still playing at this adulting thing.”

“There’s no deadline on when or if those things happen. They’re not for everybody.”

She angled her head to study him, her full lips quirked in a sardonic smile that was a shade more of the Lexi he remembered. “You? Is there a prospective Mrs. Warren on the horizon?”