Snowed by Pamela Burford Read Free Book Online

blog.”
    “‘We’?”
    “I have an assistant. Miguel. If it weren’t for him, I’d be tearing my hair out right now, stuck here with no phone.”
    Leah had accidentally left her cell on its charger in her hotel room, and James, as it turned out, didn’t even own one. He’d shrugged at her incredulity. I don’t believe in being available twenty-four seven . That blessed aloneness thing.
    “Then by all means give Miguel a raise,” James said.
    “What?”
    “I’d hate for anything to happen to your hair.” In the semidark he reached out and stroked her head. “Your hair is beautiful, Leah. Like an angel’s.”
    She stood rooted to the spot, barely breathing, as his warm fingers threaded through her hair. She shivered, every nerve ending on fire as his fingertips grazed her scalp.
    “Angel hair,” he murmured.
    She didn’t trust her voice to even say thank you.
    He went back to his enlarger, and she took a deep, silent breath. As she watched, he used a meter to gauge the exposure, then set the timer and toed a foot switch. The enlarger light went off as an amber bulb went on overhead, bathing the room in a murky half light. He asked, “Would you get me a piece of paper from the third drawer of that paper safe?”
    She complied, and he positioned the eight-by-ten-inch piece of photographic paper in the easel, shiny side up. The amber safe light went off as the enlarger light once again snapped on.
    “So many little steps,” she said.
    “It’s like any other enjoyable activity. If you spend enough time and effort making sure all the parts are as ready as they can be, the end result is that much more satisfying.”
    His face was exasperatingly unreadable in the gloom, leaving her to wonder if she’d only imagined the double meaning.
    “I’m surprised you even have a darkroom,” she said. “I thought photographers nowadays used digital cameras.”
    “Most of my professional work is digital. But not the stuff that matters—my own personal photography. For that, only film will do.”
    “What’s next?” she asked.
    “We’re waiting for it to expose.”
    She could tell it was a picture of a face. But since the image was in negative
—
dark where it should be light, and light where it should be dark
—
that was all she could tell.
    “You’re pretty young for an entrepreneur,” he observed.
    “I was twenty when I set up shop. Before that, I waitressed at an all-you-can-eat catfish place for four years. Four long, greasy years of fried fish, hush puppies, bad slaw, and worse tips.”
    “I take it you chose not to include those particular delicacies in the Harmony Grits catalog.”
    “You got that one right,” she muttered. “I will never set foot in that joint again as long as I live. In fact, if I never see another piece of catfish again
—
”
    “I get the picture. What’s this catfish place called?”
    “Ma Chum’s Catfish Shack.”
    “Classy. So what exactly do you sell in your catalog? I assume it’s something along the lines of
—
”
    “If you say chitlins and corn pone, you’re going to eat that enlarger,” she warned.
    “Actually, I was going to say salsa and refried beans. Chili and guacamole. That sort of thing.”
    “Well, that’s Tex-Mex really, southwestern, and we do carry some of that ’cause it’s always popular. Also Cajun items
—
gumbo and dirty rice. But the bulk of my business is in Deep South delicacies, the things that haven’t found their way into Middle America yet.”
    “Such as...?”
    “Oh, such as pralines. Green tomato pickles. Chowchow.”
    He gaped at her. “Isn’t that a kind of dog?”
    She laughed. “Chowchow is a spicy relish mixed with mustard.”
    “Don’t know how I ever lived without it.”
    “Of course, a lot of our customers like to cook, so we carry raw ingredients, too, most of it pretty hard to find in stores. Like just about every variety of hot pepper there is. And a whole slew of cornbread mixes.”
    “You must have a