Chapter 144

She turned away, ostensibly to find her first shot, but more to steady herself again. His understanding and belief in her was a precious gift that made her even more vulnerable than his attempts at seduction.

A swallowtail on the edge of a leaf caught her focus—hers and the camera’s. She got the shot, repositioned for a better angle and took another, then another. She’d so missed having a camera as her second set of eyes.

Why had she abandoned it? Catching fire, she started working the room, watching, observing, letting the pictures come to her. Two of the same orange species side by side on the edge of a planter, one with wings out, one with wings folded. The small yellow butterfly clinging to the letter T of the word Death on a teenager’s jet-black T-shirt. The dark-eyed little girl barely containing her joy at being face-to-face with a monarch. Energy and effortless concentration, marred only by her constant awareness of a certain man watching her enjoy the immense sa