One Summer by JoAnn Ross Read Free Book Online Page A

surprised she’d know that, she shrugged again. “Both my parents just happen to be serial marriers. One of my stepfathers is Peter Gillette.”
    Although he might have spent most of the last years out of the country, even Gabe recognized the name. Gillette was, hands down, the most famous photographer of the rich and famous in the world. Gabe had attended a show of his at the Philadelphia Museum of Art while he’d been shooting in Pennsylvania, and had appreciated the way the photographer managed to reveal the individual behind the glamorous facade. Which sometimes, to the more judicial eye, wasn’t that flattering.
    “He’s a genius.” Gabe had always believed in giving credit where credit was due.
    “So they say. He was my mother’s fourth husband. They met when he did a photo shoot at our home for Town & Country magazine. When they were married, he used to let me sit in his darkroom while he developed his photos, which was cool.” She paused. “You probably use digital.”
    “Yeah. I started out using film, but digital’s faster when you want to get the photos out of a war zone fast. Besides, there were a lot of guys who liked having copies to send home to families.”
    “That’s nice.”
    Gabe shrugged. Like sweet , nice wasn’t a word he was accustomed to being used to describe him.
    “People, if they think about it at all, believe military photographers exist to take photos of medal ceremonies, or document wars. Which are both part of the job. But I always thought of it as capturing moments in history.”
    “There’s a difference between documenting a war and capturing history?”
    “I never thought about the fact that I was filming battles. What interested me was showing troops coping as best as they can in conditions civilians couldn’t imagine in their worst nightmares.”
    “Yet in order to capture those historic moments, you had to take as many risks and suffer the same hardships they experienced.”
    Gabe shrugged. “I was a Marine first. A photographer second. Though,” he admitted, “after Fallujah, I started carrying a helluva lot more rounds of ammunition.”
    He hadn’t realized he’d smiled until she said, “You should do that more often.”
    “What?”
    “Smile. It makes you look … well, less threatening.”
    “Are you threatened by me?”
    “No.” She tilted her head and studied him. “Should I be?”
    He gave her a hard, level look. “Probably. An ex told me I was the angriest man she’d ever known. Shortly before she left me.”
    “I’m sorry. But perhaps she needed an excuse to do what she already wanted to do for her own reasons.”
    The walls of the room had begun closing in on him. Gabe felt on the verge of suffocating. “And maybe she was right.” His curt tone declared the topic closed.
    Her hand absently stroked the dog’s head as her verdant green eyes swept over him, making him feel as if he was being examined. Which, of course, he was.
    “And maybe,” she suggested mildly, “you’re being too hard on yourself.”
    “And you know this how?”
    “I realize some people might consider it overly simplistic, but I tend to judge people by the way they treat children and animals.” She glanced down at the dog, who wagged his tail, then back up at him. “You interrupted your plans and intervened to possibly save this little guy’s life today. That is not exactly the behavior of an angry man.”
    Not knowing how to respond to that analysis, Gabe said nothing.

6
    Reading had brought Adèle Douchett a great deal of pleasure for more than six decades, first in childhood, serving as a magic carpet to carry her away to lands far from her isolated Louisiana bayou home, and later serving as a much-needed bit of brightness during the long, gloomy Oregon coast winters. But she’d been reading the same page now for what seemed like hours, and as soon as she’d finish a line, it would be as if her memory were a soap bubble that would immediately pop. So she’d