Love Out of Focus Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2017

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Dedication

  To my friend and mentor, Sariah Wilson, without whom this book would never have come so far. Thank you for your unending wisdom, support, patience, and prodding. You are such an example to me, professionally and personally!

  And to cookie dough. Thanks for being cheaper than therapy.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Freaking A!”

  Mallory dropped the hammer and jerked her thumb to her mouth, sucking softly to deaden the throbbing pain. She slammed her other hand on the incomplete bookshelf that she’d been working on when she was injured, wishing for the fifty-second time that she had hired someone to do the handiwork on her refurbished studio. At this rate, she wouldn’t have any fingers left to actually take the pictures she had scheduled, let alone the ones she hoped to take in the future.

  “You know,” drawled a western-twanged voice from nearby, “your inability to swear is adorable.”

  Mal twisted her head to glare at the dark-complexioned, ponytailed young man leaning back in his chair, grinning at her. “Shut up, Dan,” she said around her thumb.

  His grin spread further, his dark eyes twinkling mischievously. “My grandfather would call you Terror with a Hammer.”

  Mal rolled her eyes and removed her thumb, shaking it. “Clever. What’d he call you, Brain of a Peacock?”

  Dan chuckled and folded his hands behind his head. “Peacocks are the finest birds on the planet. I could go for that.”

  Dan was insolent for a graduate assistant, especially seeing as his graduation and future were conditional upon her reports. But considering she wasn’t terribly demanding as far as mentoring was concerned, that was probably her fault.

  She grumbled under her breath and returned to the impossible bookshelf at hand. Dr. Durango had sworn up and down that the two students he’d sent for her to mentor were the best in his class and would be promising photographers themselves in the future, and she believed him. But working with them, or anyone, was not in Mal’s nature. At the moment, Taryn was working on taking secondary camera shots and manning the front desk while Dan handled editing and lighting. It wasn’t ideal for them—or for Mal, as she preferred to have her hands on everything—but it was the best she could come up with.

  Internships and assistantships for photography students were hard to come by. She’d never thought her old professor would consider her fit for mentoring, let alone guest lecturing, but she was finally hitting her stride with that.

  And the boost to her salary was pleasant.

  “Don’t you have some work to do?” she muttered, knowing Dan was still leaning back in his chair and watching her. “Or are you going to start talking about the ancestors now?”

  Dan shook his head in derision, his long hair whipping around in his ponytail. “You really need to get your ethnicities straight. I’ve told you before. It’s not Mulan; it’s Pocahontas.”

  She looked up at him with a raised brow. “You’re a Disney princess?”

  He opened his mouth to retort something that probably would have been brilliant, but they were both distracted by the appearance of Taryn, looking like the trendy fashionista she was, if a bit sloppy. She gaped at Mal with wide eyes, her Trident gum threatening to fall out of her mouth.

  “What?” Mal asked when it was clear her assistant was beyond words.

  Taryn’s blue eyes focused on her. “You never told me Jenna Hudson was your cousin.”

  Dan’s chair crashed backward, and Mal exhaled in a slow, measured breath. She’d gone most of her life without anyone making that connection. And she’d enjoyed every minute of it.

  “She is,” Mal finally said. “So?”

  “So?” Dan echoed in disbelief, picking himself up, finding his discarded baseball cap, and plopping it backward on his head. “So it’s Jenna Hudson.”

  “She’s in the front of the studio,” Taryn said, folding her arms. “And she’s asking to speak with you.”

  “Shasta,” Mal muttered, making Taryn and Dan grin at each other. She put the hammer on the floor and got to her feet, wiping at the sawdust that had settled on her black denim pants. She glanced down at the emerald-green V-neck she wore and remembered the mustard stain from lunch. There wasn’t much she could do about that now. Then she remembered the old button-downs she kept in the studio for little-kid shoots. The parents loved the dressed-like-dad look, so she kept a few on hand. She’d never thought she’d wear them herself. Still, there was no way she was going to face her Saks Fifth Avenue cousin looking like she did now.

  She grabbed an off-white pinstripe and tossed it on, rolling the sleeves to her elbows. Then she twisted her hair back into a messy bun, which hopefully came off as artistic, and fastened it with the hair tie that lived on her wrist. It would have to do, but for the first time ever, she was wishing she kept a mirror back here.

  Her assistants still stared at her, Taryn with arms folded across her chest and Dan with hands on his hips, both looking expectant.

  “What?” she asked, wiping under her eyes in case her mascara had smudged.

  Taryn pushed a strand of her hair, currently Ariel red, behind her ears. “Your famous southern socialite cousin comes to visit you in Denver, and you expect us to pretend it’s cool?”

  Dan shifted and looked at her. “It is cool,” he pointed out.

  Taryn nodded. “Truth. But we need the story.”

  Mal ignored that. “What does she want?”

  Taryn made a disgruntled noise. “Come on, boss! Tell us!”

  “You want me to keep her waiting?” Mal asked.

  That seemed to shake Taryn. “Why are you still standing here, woman? Go! Go, go, go!”

  Mal shook her head and passed both of them on the way to the front, knowing they would listen at the door. At this point there was only one thing that her cousin could possibly want enough to make her take the trip from Tennessee to Denver without some massive social event taking place. Despite what her assistants and pretty much everyone else thought, Mal did follow some of the celebrity gossip. And what was being dubbed “America’s Royal Wedding” was destined to be the most anticipated event since the actual royal wedding.

  Wealth and consequence could get people pretty far, but when southern tradition and family values came into play, everything was a whole new ball game. No one got invitations to these things. No one. When Tennessee’s favorite daughter married North Carolina’s pride and joy, a very select number of people with invitations would witness one of the rarest and most elite spe
ctacles in recent history. All wrapped up in perfect southern charm.

  Mal had wondered whether she would receive an invitation. She might not have been close with her father’s side of the family anymore, but they had been as thick as thieves back in the day. Besides, family meant something to the Hudsons. Always had, always would.

  The question remained whether or not Mal would accept the hypothetical invitation.

  She glanced into the waiting area and saw Jenna sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs, looking every inch like Carrie Underwood’s doppelganger. Her unnaturally perfect but natural blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her long lean legs were crossed, bouncing anxiously. Just as they had when she was a kid.

  Mal smirked at that. Despite what people said about Jenna Hudson—mainly accusations that she was a fake—Mal knew that Jenna’s perfection was genuine. She was rare that way. Or at least she used to be. She could be anybody now.

  “Jenna?” Mal said as she entered the room fully.

  Jenna turned to face her, her smile revealing blindingly white teeth. “Mal!” she squealed, getting to her feet. “Oh my gosh, you look so good!” Her accent sounded heavy to Mal’s ears, reminding her yet again how long it had been since she’d been down to Tennessee.

  It was clear that Jenna was going for a hug, but Mal wasn’t ready for that yet. “So do you,” Mal replied with a smile, intentionally not approaching. “Nice to know they don’t photoshop you.”

  Jenna’s smile faded, and Mal wanted to kick herself. It wasn’t Jenna’s fault she was a celebrity. All she had done was date a guy from high school who had gone on to become a country star. She’d been on his arm at events, and he hadn’t liked the fact that she had become more popular than he had. Even after he broke it off, the media had been more attracted to Jenna than to him. That was probably one of the reasons he was in rehab now.

  Mal gestured to the chairs, and she and Jenna sat.

  “It’s good to see you,” Jenna said, her smile tentative. “What’s it been, ten years?”

  “Roughly,” Mal replied. She’d visited after graduating high school, considering that her uncle Drake, Jenna’s father, had been intent on funding college for her. Checking in with her godfather had seemed appropriate at the time, even if she didn’t know him as well as she used to.

  Jenna looked at her for a long moment. She shifted, crossed and uncrossed her legs, and sighed. “Okay, I know you want to know why I’m here.”

  Mal smirked. For all her blonde hair, Jenna wasn’t an idiot. “True.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about my wedding in May,” Jenna said, pushing back a strand of hair, her extraordinary diamond solitaire glinting briefly.

  “I have,” Mal replied, shifting in her seat. “But the details are under wraps.”

  A thin smile appeared on Jenna’s face. “That’s on purpose. We’re going even smaller than people think. Tom and I have lots of friends, but most of them are ‘friends,’” she said, rolling her eyes and using her fingers to quote the word. “And we’re tired of pretending. I can’t get away from it completely, but we can cut down on it. So the location is top secret, and the invitations are strictly family, close friends, and significant people in our lives.”

  “And the press is gonna go for that?” Mal asked. With so many tabloids and magazines plastering pictures of Jenna on their covers whenever they could, Mal had a hard time believing that they would go along with that. Jenna was worth a mint every time they could snag a picture or story about her. No sane person in the media world would bypass the chance to sneak a glimpse of her wedding.

  Jenna shrugged. “They better. None of them are coming.”

  Mal’s jaw dropped. “No press?”

  Jenna shook her head. “Not a single reporter. No magazine access, no TV coverage, and no famous people.” She rolled her eyes. “Except for us.”

  Mal sat back heavily against her chair, impressed by the implications. If the plan worked. “How’d you manage that?”

  “I know people now,” Jenna said with a grin. “But we also promised the press something they can report on for a while.”

  Something in her cousin’s voice sent up a warning signal in Mal’s brain. “What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

  Jenna tapped the table between them lightly in an absent rhythm. “Postwedding access to a weeklong prewedding extravaganza involving the wedding party and immediate family. Exclusive photos from one official camera, which will be approved by me. If they agree, and there are no paparazzi, they get the photos and interviews with guests after the wedding. If they don’t, they get the secondhand version and the blurry selfies that Aunt Joni posts on her blog.”

  Mal barked out a laugh and covered her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut. That image would stick with her for months, and she’d enjoy it. Aunt Joni loved nothing in the world more than her niece’s fame and her cats, and she thought every family event was actually a tribute to her. She was tolerable in large family gatherings but lethal if she cornered you. Anybody limited to her view of the wedding via her blog would be in for an interesting rendition and not a particularly useful one.

  Jenna shrugged. “We’ll see if they agree to it. We have contract agreements with the major networks, so it looks good so far. We want our wedding to be like anybody else’s, you know?”

  Mal gave her a look that clearly told her what she was thinking. Thomas Gregory Yardley III and Jenna Charlotte Hudson were not just anybody, and there was no way they could have an event that would remotely resemble “anybody else’s.”

  “I know,” Jenna said, answering the look. “But we can try.”

  Mal would give her that one. If anybody could pull it off, it would be these two. Tom came from money and power, and Jenna could charm anyone into anything. And Uncle Drake wasn’t hurting for money either.

  “Who’s taking the exclusive photos?” Mal asked, thinking up a dozen names of people who would love to get their hands on the project. “You’ve got that all decided, right?”

  “Oh, I’ve decided,” Jenna said slowly, “and Tom thinks it’s a great idea. I just haven’t settled it yet.”

  Mal nodded, not sure why she was doing so, but it felt natural. “Better take care of that. You’ve got, what, two months? It’s going to be tight. Usually, high-end photographers book a year out.” She shrugged. “But it’s you, so I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting anyone you want.”

  Jenna smiled. “That’s good. Because I want you to do it.”

  Mal blinked once, then again. “Say what?”

  “I want you to take the pictures. During the whole week of the wedding party and at the ceremony and reception,” Jenna said, leaning forward. “But more than that, I want you there, Mal. I want you to be a part of this.”

  “I don’t do celebrity,” Mal said, ignoring the familial obligation. “I’m not that sort of photographer.”

  “I know what sort of photographer you are.” Jenna sat back, crossing her legs again. “You’re the best. And I am not just saying that because you’re my cousin. I went to the galleries in Colorado Springs and Des Moines. I saw your graduate project. Rustic Americana. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Mal could have been knocked over by a breeze. Never in a million years would she have pegged Jenna to have an interest in her work. And to go to the galleries? It was impossible.

  “It was so touching that you put on a show in Iowa so your aunt and uncle could see it,” Jenna said with a smile. “I bet they loved that. And their neighbors too. That one of the old man with the scruff and the prairie grass in his mouth? Was that your grandpa?”

  Mal nodded shakily.

  Jenna put a hand over her heart. “I loved that one, Mal. Loved. So poignant and moving. It’s his farm y’all lived on, right?”

  Again, Mal could only nod. Jenna had seen the pictures. And that one of Grandpa Ned was Mal’s favorite too. He’d thought it silly that she wanted a picture of him, but she’d
insisted. He’d died a month later, and it meant more to her now than ever.

  “And your aunt Nancy with the cow,” Jenna continued, shaking her head. “She looks so much like your mama, Lord bless her soul. It made me miss Aunt Tess like nobody’s business.”

  “You did see them,” Mal said in surprise.

  Jenna nodded, still smiling. “Told ya. And I want you to take the pictures, Mal. I know it’s not your thing, but I don’t want regular pictures. This is my wedding, and we are going to be in a beautiful place. Heaven on earth. I want your type of photos to capture it all.”

  Well now, that was a tempting offer. Someone who actually knew her work and wanted her style, even if it wasn’t her usual setting and theme … That sounded like a challenge she liked. Granted, at the moment her most regular clients were stay-at-home moms who wanted to test out Pinterest ideas, but sometimes she scored good projects she could actually put in her portfolio.

  “And if that’s not enough,” Jenna said, her voice growing more excited, as if she knew she was winning, “I scored you something else too. The resort we’re staying at? They need some new photos taken, something to get more publicity, and they want high class. The very best. Conveniently, I know the very best, so it works out well. Mountains, vistas, cabins, lakeside docks, old houses, and really bad cell reception … Mal, it’s perfect for you. You would have a field day.”

  Mal looked at her cousin, impressed again. She was actually quite brilliant. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

  Jenna grinned. “I couldn’t take a chance you’d say no.”

  “I haven’t said yes yet,” she reminded her. “I won’t do it for free, Jenna, not even for you.”

  Jenna snorted. “I would never ask you to, especially not with what we have in store. And the contract for the resort is all you, no favors here and no deals.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a slip of paper, folded it, and slid it across the table to her. “This is what we’re thinking for the wedding. I have no idea what your contract for the other work will be; that’s up to you and the resort. But it’ll be good, Mal. Promise.”