Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (39 page)

“What did you mean when you said your Dad
promised to keep an eye on me?”

Though, I already knew the answer. It was a
test to see if he felt the same way I did about honesty and
openness.

He looked deep into my eyes. Then he kissed
me. It wasn’t long or deep. It was soft and sweet and
reassuring.

“I’ll be right back.”

And he stepped through the adjoining door
into his room. When he returned he was carrying a leather binder.
He sat back down next to me and examined my face once more.

“Now, you have to understand something. This
kept me going all that time I was waiting for you. It was my life
line. It made life bearable for me. It made my week, every week.
And I just wanted you to be safe. So please don’t be angry.”

Then he opened the binder. Inside clear
sheet protectors held in place by a golden and brushed leather
version of a three ring binder were color images on letter size
paper, laid out sort of like a newsletter, or a magazine article
with captions under the pictures and paragraphs providing more
detail on the activities and events pictured.

Each page had between two and four shots.
Each shot was a picture of me.

Gray looked at me warily but began to relax
as he sensed my lack of surprise, anger or revulsion, or even
embarrassment. But that gave way to confusion as it registered with
him that I should have all of those reactions and worse, in the
realization that he possessed a secretly compiled scrapbook of the
last year of my life in his hands.

It was interesting and educational to see
where it started and exactly what they had captured. I had struck
upon them very early indeed—within the first few months, in fact.
The very first picture was of me outside on the deck, just staring
off into space on a warm spring day—the leaves on the trees were
barely there. I was probably thinking about Gray. At that point I
rarely thought of anything else.

I noticed that there was no mention of the
drug store or Great Wolf incidents, but that made sense when I
considered how explanations of either situation would have gone
over with the client.

The pages of the spring were very boring. In
the beginning, some weeks only had pictures of the back of my head
in a car as I was being driven back and forth to school. Those were
the really bad times, when I slept as much as I could stand. Then
there was a picture of me on the Belle of Louisville with Mom and
Hoyt. In the picture I looked oblivious, though I wasn’t really by
that point.

My finger played over the picture of me in
my mom’s Derby outfit the day I went to the downtown branch of The
Bank of Louisville.

Gray chuckled and said, “I really liked the
hat.”

But I kept moving, not wanting to
explain.

You could see where things began to pick up
for me life-wise when my pictures started to include my new Goth
friends. I had been looking silently at the pages until this point.
When I saw a zoom in on Trevor looking particularly scary, (one of
the few times I wasn’t in the frame) I laughed out loud.

“What did you think of my new friends?” I
inquired, unable to hide my amusement.

“I was worried at first. Especially when I
thought you might get hit on by that,” and he pointed at Trevor.
“But it was obvious that you were very happy so I figured it was a
good thing. A strange thing, but a good thing.”

“Just like me,” I said, a little bit
sourly.

“A very good thing,” he replied and leaned
in to kiss my cheek.

The pictures of my driving lessons in a
cherry red muscle car were funny to look at. Apparently we had not
been alone at the Kentucky Speedway or the DMV. And somehow they
were able to get a copy of my driver’s license to include with the
report for that week.

Gray said, “You looked really good behind
the wheel of a Corvette. Would you like me to get you one like
that?”

I was fairly sure he was joking but I played
along any way and said, “Sure, so long as it’s pink.”

He chuckled and kissed my cheek again,
squeezing me in a tight embrace this time.

I was only about half way through but I
flipped to the end, out of curiosity. To my surprise, the pictures
on the last page were from this week. There was a shot of Gray and
me sitting together on the banks of Bow River. Next was an image of
us walking into the dining room downstairs. It had not been my
imagination. People in the picture were definitely looking at me.
Another shot captured our lunch together at Lake Louise. I was
staring off into space again, but in a different galaxy—no surprise
there.

Nothing I had seen so far had made me too
uncomfortable, not until I reached the last picture. It was on the
flat boulder at Lake Oesa, and I had Gray’s face in my hands,
kissing away at him. That was damaging. It was probably exactly why
I hadn’t heard from Ash, and might never again—that along with
whatever he had seen and heard at the pub.

“That picture alone was worth the entire
program. They got the best moment of my life on film.”

Gray’s smile was decidedly victorious
looking.

I closed the book.

“You don’t want to look at the rest of it?”
he asked, clearly disappointed.

“I don’t need to.” I replied.

I could feel the emotions coming back and I
knew some of the things I would see next would cause them to spill
over in the form of more tears.

Gray examined my face while I stared
straight ahead, scenes of my life in the spotlight scrolling
through my mind. Finally he sighed and took my hand in his.

“You took that remarkably well, Ellie. You
don’t seem as surprised or upset as I thought you’d be. Why is
that?”

He was very sincere. Now I was the one being
tested.

“As of the Belle of Louisville picture, I
knew about the ‘transparent’ security team. I found out about them
by accident, but I decided to play along because they turned out to
be very helpful,” I said, with a tone of finality.

Gray wore a dumbfounded expression—something
I’d never, ever seen—it was very satisfying.

“Do you mind telling me how?”

I just looked at him and shrugged.

“You’re amazing. When are you going to stop
surprising me?” he asked, his hand framing my chin.

I switched gears while he was being pleased
with me.

“Does it upset you for me to wear this?”

My mind had settled on the most helpful of
security agents as I fingered the aquamarine he had given me. He
thought about that for a while, and I knew he was deciding between
what he wanted to say and what he thought I’d want to hear.

He drew in a breath and sighed in a long
exhale.

“As long as it doesn’t upset you. I had your
hand in mind when I designed it. As long as you wear it on the
right side, I’ll never complain.”

Then he tenderly kissed my left hand,
starting with the bixbite ring and continuing in a line along the
top of my hand. Gently turning my wrist upward, he kissed there
too, following a path all the way to the inside of my elbow. For
movements that had nothing to do with my lungs, his actions made it
surprisingly hard for me to breathe.

I had been longing for the time when I could
wear my aquamarine openly. I had no idea what bittersweet emotions
the fulfillment of that wish would involve. The two incredible
rings, mirroring each other on both my hands made very fitting
symbols of the men they represented. The aquamarine stone and Ash:
I had stumbled across them both, stared long and hard, imagining
that each was mine, and somehow I got my wish for both at Lake
Louise. The bixbite stone and Gray: Both were something my grandpa
wanted me to have, and I discovered at Lake Oesa that both had been
mine all along without realizing it.

I couldn’t rightfully hold on to both rings
or men. There was no justice in that. But parting with either would
be horribly painful for me, and potentially fatal for one of
them—if my own reaction to being on the receiving end of a
rejection from either of them was any guide.

Then it occurred to me that the solution lay
in the notion that I probably shouldn’t be wearing any rings at
all.

Chapter 32
–
Pitch Pile

After the bizarre trip down memory lane,
Gray put the scrapbook away and led me into his room where our
backpacking equipment was arranged on the floor in front of the
window. He’d had his things shipped to the hotel from his place in
Raleigh, and at his instruction, I’d had mine shipped from home,
though nothing was technically mine. The tent, sleeping bag and
mat, even the backpack itself were all from the Lidia free store.
Now we were going to check through our gear and provisions in
preparation for our outdoor adventure, which would begin early the
next day.

Not long after, there was a knock on the
door and Gray jumped up to go answer it. I don’t know who I was
expecting, though the unreasonable side of me was hoping it might
somehow be Ash. Instead, he greeted a petite, dark haired lady who
marched purposefully right into the center of the room. She was
dressed very casually in jeans and a tee shirt with a Banff
National Park logo on the chest. She wore her longish curly brown
hair in a braid, very similar to the way I had my own hair tied
back at the moment. She was one of those very healthy but slightly
weathered looking people who could be in their twenties or forties,
with no way but a birth certificate to be certain. Her eyes were
dark and piercing, and she exuded business-like confidence as she
assessed the look of the room, our gear, and Gray and me.

“Ellie, I’d like you to meet Elsie. She’s
going to be our guide this week.”

Even in a formal introduction, Gray used my
sobriquet (an affectionate or humorous nickname). In fact, I had
never heard him speak my given name. I wondered if he actually knew
what it was. I tagged that question for follow-up.

Rising to my feet, I approached to shake her
hand. She seemed so businesslike that I almost aborted my opening
joke, but on an impulse I pushed ahead anyway.

“So you’re the person who’ll be taking me to
pee in the woods at night? It’s very nice to meet you.”

There was that normal interval of time where
people questioned whether they’d heard me right and then decided on
the proper reaction. To her credit, she accomplished these mental
calculations faster than most and laughed out loud, with
pleasure.

Then she said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you
too. But you should know it will cost you something extra if you
expect me to wipe!”

I bet we could expense that.

I loved her immediately, and apparently my
joke did positive things to her estimation of me.

After some opening pleasantries with Gray,
who apparently knew her from before, she explained to me that
before she would accompany any hiker into the woods as a guide it
was mandatory that she be allowed to check the contents of their
pack and the quality of their gear. I could see the logic when she
explained a few of the scenarios that had led to this unbendable
rule.

“First there was the time that these two
guys forgot to pack the tent they were supposed to be sharing and
we all three had to cram into my one person digs.”

She shook her head and laughed.

“Then there was the time this idiot brought
fresh beef to make chili around the campfire. We had two grizzlies
show up before dinner to help unpack the meat. After that I decided
I wasn’t going to die of vicarious stupidity and I always check
packs or I don’t go. No offense,” she said, giving me a rueful
smile.

I wondered if she was arktophobic (fear of
bears) or just idiophobic (fear of idiots).

“I know I can trust Gray here, but I’m
afraid I’ll have to check your stuff out before we go. I’ve seen
things in people’s packs I never would have known to ask about.
It’s just safer if I have a look for myself, little girl.”

That was kind of funny because she wasn’t
all that much taller or bigger than me. In fact she was probably
smaller in her frame than me, just more muscular than me over top
it. I bet we could probably wear the same clothes. I loved it that
she was going to be our fearless leader as we trekked though the
wilderness. I had found another heroine to admire and I couldn’t be
happier.

She got to work examining my things. I had
no fears though. I knew everything would be just as good and
appropriate as anything Gray possessed, possibly better.

“Is this your gear?” she asked as she picked
up the neatly compacted tent that looked brand new, though I had
been assured that Hayden Christensen had once been a guest inside
it.

“It’s on loan. It all belongs to a friend
back home in Louisville,” I explained.

“Louisville? As in the Derby City?”

She even pronounced it correctly with me,
saying it like the locals: Loo′ – uh – vul.

“That’s the one. Have you been there?” I was
enthused.

“A couple of times. I was at the Derby when
Big Brown won a few years ago. And I went down last year with my
boyfriend to the Kentucky State Fair to watch him show his
Arabians. He won first place.”

This was punctuated by a big smile of
remembrance and pride.

“Wow. That’s really cool.” I thought about
how if it had been any other year besides the most recent, I
probably would have seen those Arabians myself. The equine
competitions were among my mom’s favorite features of the Kentucky
State Fair, which we always attended together, and never missed,
except for last summer, when I’d misplaced my will to live. Scenes
of animals, quilts, farming exhibits and tractor pulls were among
the earliest memories I possessed.

“It really was. But driving the damn horses
from Calgary and back…” she shook her head, “not cool. I’m never
doing that again,” she said and laughed.