Read Take Only Pictures Online
Authors: Laina Villeneuve
Take Only Pictures
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Kristine Owens is back in the saddle to deal with unfinished business from her last summer guiding horseback tours in California’s High Sierras. A dalliance with an attractive blonde biologist would be a dangerous distraction. She must stay focused on the path that leads to her independence.
A summer assignment in Mammoth Lakes becomes even more attractive when Gloria Fisher crosses paths with Kristine. Playful wit, tight jeans, cowgirl boots—the sparks are real. But can they burn brighter than her lifelong career goals?
Only a fool takes two things for granted—Mother Nature, and the ways of a woman’s heart.
Copyright © 2014 by Laina Villeneuve
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
First Bella Books Edition 2014
eBook released 2014
Editor: Cath Walker
Cover Designer: L. Callaghan
ISBN: 978-1-59493-414-8
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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About the Author
Laina Villeneuve admits that her real-life courtship would read like a blatant plot manipulation. In the last ten years, she and her wife have been married, had a baby, been legally married and had twins. An English professor and voracious reader, she also has a lifelong love for horses.
Dedication
For my wife
The trail is sweeter with you
Acknowledgments
Time is precious, so I must first thank my family for weekend date nights that allowed my wife and me to get out and see where the story wanted to take us. Thanks especially to my mom, Aunt Diane and my niece Emily who gave us a few weekend getaways that became writing retreats.
Nat and D, thank you for looking at early chapters and encouraging me to keep going. Wes, thanks for the pep talks about wrangling words to paper. Jennifer, you were so kind to listen to all the progress reports, especially during the editing process. Roberta, thanks for being my emotional buttress.
Many many thanks to Carsten for the first major revision suggestions. I thought your character suggestion was crazy but am very glad I listened. The plot and action are so much better because of your help—a true testament to the benefits of peer editing!
Thanks to the generous Mammoth Lakes rangers who helped me with so many of my backcountry facts. If I’ve gotten it wrong, it’s my fault, not theirs.
I am so thankful for my editor, Cath Walker, who asked such good questions, pushed me for more detail and saved me from embarrassing grammatical errors. I appreciate your patience and guidance in the process.
My lovely wife, I still remember introducing you to Kristine and Gloria across the street from the old house on our way to drop the kids at school. I hope you don’t regret saying it would be good to have something other than parenting and work to talk about.
Chapter One
Kristine felt her father stop in the doorway, but she kept her back to him and continued piling clothes into her duffels. She counted out her underwear, hoping to make him uncomfortable enough to leave. Her subtle gesture did nothing to throw him off.
“You planning on staying there the whole summer, or do you even have a plan?” Cliff Owens demanded, no amusement in his deep voice.
She faced him squarely. Even in socked feet, his frame filled her doorway, a technique which once cowed her into seeing things his way. Though she’d physically grown to almost match his six-foot stature, he still treated her like a teenager.
“There are two ways off a horse, you know.”
“When it’s their idea, and when it’s yours,” she recited, knowing that in his eyes, she was letting her little brother control her life. He hadn’t approved of or understood why she returned from her summer job years before. She had failed his expectation to get back on the horse when the next season rolled around and she refused to go back. Trying to acknowledge his concern, she said, “This is my idea.”
“Gabe’ll get over his heartbreak like he always does. Put your things away.”
Kristine recalled how free she had felt at seventeen when she’d first accepted the job offered by her father’s top buyer. She spent that whole summer, as well as the following three, out from underneath her father’s thumb. She clenched her jaw and added more underwear to her bag. His attitude cemented her resolve to get away. “I promised Gabe I’d be there for the summer.”
“And I told Leo to hire another packer,” Cliff said, running his hand through his coarse, near-black hair in agitation.
“You’re the one who needs to hire a hand here on the ranch.”
“You said that six months ago when you finished your internship.”
“That was a job…temporary, but still a job,” Kristine argued.
“You live here, you work for me.”
“I help out here. Leo’s offered me a job.”
Cliff scoffed. “Till it gets too tough like it did last time? You have no idea how long it took to live down that embarrassment.”
Kristine bristled, knowing that he and the entire staff still believed she’d left because she’d been injured by a horse in the backcountry. “I expected you to be happy that I’m getting back on the horse.”
“It’s time you committed yourself here to the ranch.”
“I’ll find something in photography. I still have applications out.”
“When are you going to give up that childish dream?”
“I’ve been called back for a second interview several times. I’m close.”
“You’re ignoring the fact that you belong here.” He punctuated his sentence with a sharp thwack of his palm to the doorjamb before disappearing down the hallway, giving her no opportunity to engage further in their recurring dispute about why she, and not Gabe, had to be the one to take over the ranch. She kept telling her father that it was his dream not hers, but he always countered with a horse analogy about how a horse is only capable of being a horse—you don’t try to make him something he isn’t. According to her father she had a gift with horses. It was in her blood, thus she belonged on the ranch not goofing off with a camera.
Arguing with him was pointless. Her father understood livestock, not art. Art was foreign and held no weight with him. To suggest otherwise just got a tired dismissal and his usual disappointment. She was used to seeing it in his eyes. However, this morning, she’d seen his anger, and anger, Kristine decided, was good. Anger might help him see that she was serious about walking her own path, not the one he’d put her on.
Being passed over after what she considered successful interviews with the message that she had talent but just wasn’t the right person had made her angry, too. She embraced the feeling, pushing out the self-doubt her father had been fanning since she’d come home. More importantly, she felt this anger replace the worry and dread she felt whenever she pictured returning to The Lodgepole Pine Pack Outfit. She reminded herself that she was different now, not the tagalong girl who felt like she needed to prove herself. At least that’s what she wanted to believe.
Arms wide, she bowed her head and took deep breaths, bracing herself against the bed. She felt as sick as she had when she’d taken off from the Lodge, run home from the last trip she’d done. She hadn’t thought she’d ever go back, but here she was answering Gabe’s call, not just for him but for herself.
A warm hand settled between her shoulders. “Are you sure about this?” Roberta Owens’s calm voice washed over her.
She turned and sat on the edge of the bed. Her mother followed suit and stroked her hair. She had her father to thank for her height and thick hair, but in coloring and features, she and her mother matched. When she’d worn her light brown hair long like her mother, people often mistook them as sisters, noting the same pixie shape of their faces. “I’ll be okay,” Kristine said.
“Your father’s right. I know Gabe’s been looking forward to running the Aspens, but he’ll be fine at Leo’s main outfit.”
“I know he’d be. It’s just that…” Kristine couldn’t explain how she was motivated by more than the fact that Leo was giving the autonomous position at the smaller outpost to an established team if Gabe was returning to the outfit by himself. She owed it to Gabe to go back. She studied her mother’s strong hands hoping she took some of that strength with her because her future depended on being able to confront the past. Once she put things right, she knew she’d gain the confidence she needed to land the job that would take her away from her father’s ranch forever.
* * *
Kristine’s journey to the Lodge was a study in contrasts. Previously, she would have been blazing the road with an eye out for cops, blaring the radio and singing at the top of her lungs to the songs she adored. When the season started early enough, she could drive to Mammoth straight from her college campus, first at the local community college in Quincy and later when she was studying agriculture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
The school year drained her, juggling the demands of her coursework and what social life she could piece together. The Lodgepole Pine Pack Outfit offered the complete opposite. She thrived at the outfit that offered an array of day rides led on horseback as well as all kinds of guided trips out into the backcountry. At school, she learned equine training techniques and some of the basics for packing. The Lodge offered total immersion to the art of taking a pile of camp gear and loading it into two balanced packs onto a mule to carry into the backcountry. She learned some hitches from the old-timers that her professors back at school had never even heard of.
Each summer she gorged herself on the social opportunities first denied by her small-town origins and later by her heavy course load. Her gregarious nature was an asset in interacting with the tourists who chose to experience the backcountry on horseback instead of by foot.