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“You’ll think it’s silly,” she warned.
I doubt it.“What was it?”
“I did a shoot for one of the animal rescues in Temple last fall. Animals up for adoption. It was hard, because I wanted to take them all myself, but my favorite because they all got adopted by Christmas.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I was. And so were they.”
“They wouldn’t be, if they’d seen those shots you did for the men-are-evil article.”
She sighed audibly.
“Look,” he said hastily, sorry he’d brought it up, “I get that you had no choice, once you were locked in. So you fought back the only way you could, and made the whole thing a farce.”
She hesitated again, then said, “A couple of those photographs were published elsewhere, later, after I got the rights back. They went up on a blog countering the gist of the first article. It ended up with more reach than the original.”
Clear of the rude little vehicle now, he glanced at her, one corner of his mouth lifting in a half-grin. “Nicely done.”
“Least I could do.”
Glad she was at least not mired in worry at the moment, he kept going. “What about the most exciting shoot?”
“Skydiving,” she said without hesitation. He almost did some rude driving himself as he gaped at her.
“You went skydiving?”
“Had to. That’s what the people paying me were promoting, a skydiving school east of San Antonio.”
“How was it?”
“Terrifying. Exhilarating. And a few other ‘ings’ I won’t mention.”
“Wow.” He meant it. Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane had never been on his list of things to do in life. “How’d you come down—no pun intended—after that?”
“I went to Gonzales. It’s only about fifteen miles south of there. A little time thinking of what they faced down and I was fine.”
He glanced at her again. Let out a compressed breath and gave a wry shake of his head. “No wonder you and Mom hit it off.”
“Did we?” It sounded as if it had escaped from her before she thought, because she hastily added, “I mean, I really liked her, and she’s been so nice to me, and—”
“You did,” he said, hating the life she’d led that made her so uncertain. How did somebody who felt that way about herself manage to also be so confident about her work, brave enough to go skydiving for a job, and be so determined to counter unfairness where she saw it in whatever way she could? She was a walking dichotomy, was Kaitlyn Miller. “In fact, you had it made from the moment Quinta decided she liked you.”
“She’s such a sweet dog,” Kaitlyn exclaimed.
“And a very good judge of people. I think Mom would take her assessment over anyone’s.”
“Even yours?”
He grimaced. “Especially mine. I don’t have the best track record with people.”
“I know the feeling,” she said, her tone heartfelt. “I’ve hit some big dips in that track.”
He glanced at her. “Another thing we have in common, huh?” That seemed to unsettle her, because she looked away quickly. “Who was your worst?”
“A…professor Jillian went to interview. I completely misjudged him.” Her voice had gone flat, and he wondered if her misjudgment had had personal consequences. “What was yours?” she asked, hurriedly, as if she was afraid he was going to ask her about it. “The Lake LBJ lady?”
So she remembered that. “Her name’s Chelsea. The lake was where she wanted to be. Didn’t realize I was as much décor as the chrome and glass of her condo.”
