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She drew herself up. Took in a breath. Somehow knowing he would support whatever decision she made, made the right one easier. “I’m not going to do it.”
The smile he gave her then warmed her to the core. But then he surprised her. “I think we need to go there.”
“What? Why?”
“I think we need to formalize the new…policy.”
And so she found herself once more standing in a jail waiting room, to see the woman who’d borne her. After getting to know Maggie Rafferty, she couldn’t bring herself to call the woman mother any longer. To Kaitlyn she was barely recognizable as the woman of that decade-old ad campaign.
“Well, well,” the woman said when they brought her out and she spotted Ry. “Your taste has certainly improved.” She shifted her bloodshot gaze to Ry. “Or did she just luck out with a ride-share driver?”
“Shut up,” Kaitlyn said, with utter calm.
Her mother blinked. “What did you say to me?”
“You heard me.” She nodded at Ry. “I’m only here because he wanted to meet you.”
“Well of course he did,” she said, the insult apparently forgotten.
“She reminds me of someone,” Ry said, looking only at Kaitlyn. “Same sort of self-centered, undeserved high opinion of herself.”
Kaitlyn couldn’t help it, she laughed out loud. She looked back at the woman who had made her life so miserable. “I’m not bailing you out. And I’m never helping you again. You’re a lost cause, and this is me, washing my hands of you.”
“How dare you! You’ll be sorry for this—”
“She will not,” Ry said, and his voice was so icy cold even her mother stopped to stare at him. “And I’m here to warn you, you pitiful excuse for a human, that if you ever,everhurt Kaitlyn again, physically or emotionally, you’ll answer to me.”
Kaitlyn had never seen her mother so stunned. Ry was looking at her as a person looked at a cockroach. And then, utter disgust on his face, he shook his head.
“How on earth did you ever have a beautiful daughter like her? You’ve got to be the ugliest person I’ve ever met.”
Kaitlyn smothered a gasp. She was certain she’d never told him her mother’s usual lament, about how a beautiful woman such as herself had ever had such an ugly child. But somehow Ry had known exactly what to say. And Kaitlyn knew she would treasure the memory of her mother’s shocked expression for a very, very long time.
*
Kaitlyn looked upfrom the laptop screen at the woman who’d written the lengthy profile she’d just read. One that captured the essence of a man, his talent, his love of his home, his history, his family, and how deep his roots went in this demanding but rewarding corner of the country. More than once she’d teared up reading it; Lily Highwater definitely had a way with words.
“It’s wonderful,” she said, her throat tight. “I hope they don’t change a word.”
“They didn’t. It’s been accepted as it stands,” the other woman said with a wide smile. “And I’m sure a big part of that was your amazing photos.”
“Thank you,” she said, instead of shrugging as she might have before the last few weeks spent savoring Ry’s unstinting and constant support.
“And—now don’t get mad at me—I pitched them another piece, and they’re enthused about it.”
Kaitlyn’s brow furrowed. “Why would I get mad about that?”
“Because I sort of promised we’d both do it.”
Kaitlyn couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. “I’d like that. A lot.”
Lily grinned at her. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”
“Don’t care,” Kaitlyn said, meaning it. She’d learned quickly that working on something with Lily Highwater was far different than that woman she refused to name even in her mind any longer. “But what was the pitch?”
“That Texas itself, in all its diversity, is a natural work of art worthy of their magazine. And that you were the perfect photographer who could show that. And don’t worry, I know you’ll have to fit it in with your work for Sydney and The World in a Gift. We’d have to do some traveling, but I think Ry could spare you for this, don’t you?”
“I think,” Ry said from above, where he was just coming downstairs from the loft, “that he’d love to go along and schlep bags or whatever.”
