Take Only Pictures by Laina Villeneuve Read Free Book Online Page A

bottle instead of targeting anyone in the circle.
    “You look a lot like your brother. Who’s older?”
    “He lords his seven inches over me, but I’ve got two years on him, and I don’t ever let him forget that.”
    Gabe wrapped up a song, and Dozer shouted across the campfire. “Teach me that one you say works wonders on the ladies.”
    Sandy smacked Dozer’s arm.
    “It’s good for tips,” he defended himself.
    “I’m sure that’s Kristine’s excuse, too,” said a cowboy so lanky his chest seemed concave. He wore a mean expression with a hawkish nose and dirty blond mustache. She recognized the speaker as Leo’s son and read the animosity in the eyes that blazed in Kristine’s direction.
    “Nothing wrong with being a flirt,” Kristine said, lightheartedly, eyes not meeting Nard’s.
    Dozer guffawed. “Your reputation goes way beyond flirting!”
    “C’mon. I was a teenager away from my parents trying to set a good example for my little brother. Sing that George Strait song for us. The chords are easy enough for Dozer, and it’s always a crowd-pleaser.”
    Gloria noticed Kristine’s hands tight on the bottle she held and realized that she was uncomfortable with the ribbing from her friends. She could easily read the dynamics between Dozer and Kristine, his crassness something she, too, experienced from colleagues who argued that their pushing the line with their jokes was their way of accepting her as “one of the guys.” His taunts, though, didn’t rattle Kristine in the same way Nard’s did. He’d fixed his hard stare on Kristine, and she studiously kept her eyes from him.
    From the stories they told of their past summers, their triumphs as well as their disasters, Gloria gathered that most of the group had worked many seasons together. Since she had become a specialist, traveling around to work with different crews on bear/human cohabitation, she often found herself the outsider observing tightknit groups.
    Most of the time, she enjoyed her solitude, but the banter at the campfire made her realize how much she missed the camaraderie that came along with the chaos. The warmth of the campfire extended beyond the flickering glow of the flames. Their shared memories made Gloria miss her family back in Eureka. Her earliest memories were of singing rounds at the campfire with her mom and dad in the summers, back when they used to pick a different camping destination every summer. Back when her mom had the stamina to hike the most difficult terrain.
    “You have siblings?” Kristine’s voice interrupted her memories.
    “Nope. Just me.”
    “All the attention lavished on you, huh?”
    “You could say that.” Gloria admired Kristine’s natural beauty. Flecks of gold in her brown eyes reflected the dancing flames of the fire.
    “I imagine it would be even more fun to be the one lavishing attention,” Kristine said.
    A wave of warmth shot through Gloria’s body, and she openly stared at Kristine, who was leaning back into her chair, propping her feet on the stones of the firepit. Nothing in her posture suggested she’d uttered the come-on, yet Gloria’s body hummed with the prospect of Kristine’s scrutiny fixed upon her. Wood popped and shifted in the pit, sending another shower of sparks beyond the ring which Kristine quickly stamped out. Smoke rose into the canopy, and owls hooted as the night deepened.
    Kristine spoke, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t they miss you? I imagine you’re out in the forest quite a bit.” The fire popped sending a spray of sparks into the night.
    Gloria frowned. She thought they’d been flirting, but there was certainly no innuendo in Kristine’s question. “They do. But I’m their vicarious link to all this,” she said, gazing up at the treetops. A stronger wind moved in the canopy, a distant roar like the ocean in a seashell. She shuddered as much at her memory of the ocean and home as how cool the evening grew as the sky deepened