Chapter 5

Chapter 5 (Monday, February 9th, 4pm)

Stone stood up and offered her his hand, yet again. “Come on. Let’s take some pictures.” He quickly pulled Annie to her feet, then just as quick, turned and headed back towards the safety railing near the edge of the vista.

“You brought a camera, Stone? Wow, can’t believe I forgot to bring mine today. Do you think I could get a copies of some of your shots?” Annie asked as she scrambled up beside him.

He gave her a slow, lazy look that made something melt inside. She thought maybe it was her bones, because her knees turned to jelly when he looked at her that way.

Stone stopped and turned to look at her. “What do I get for them?” he asked. The corner of his mouth turned up in a most seductive way.

Annie was momentarily lost. “For what?” she said slowly, as she struggled to pull herself together. Not only had her knees turned to jelly, but her brain had turned to mush. She tried to bring things back into focus.

She was absolutely adorable when she was confused. Luke could gaze into her eyes for hours, watching the way the flecks of gold swam in the sea of green, the same color as the lush green Nualolo Valley below. “For the copies of the pictures, AJ,” he clarified. “What do I get if I give you copies of the pictures we’re gonna take now?”

Annie didn’t know quite what he meant. Money? Well, of course she’d pay for her copies of the prints. She was hoping they could stop in town somewhere and drop off the roll of film for one hour developing and get duplicates. But… maybe he had a digital camera and he didn’t usually get prints made. But that was ridiculous, she scolded herself. It’s even easier to get prints of digital shots, because you don’t have to develop the whole lot of them. Either way, she was still confused by what he meant… ‘What do I get?’ What did he want? Maybe this was his subtle way of trying to get her address? Under the pretense of mailing the pictures back to her? Well, that was certainly believable, but he didn’t have to…

“AJ, smile!” Stone snapped a picture of her, as she stood there, lost in her thoughts. She didn’t quite smile before he’d snapped the shutter release.

“Oh, I’m sure I looked my best in that one. Can you take another? Or…” she paused a second, “how many shots do you have left on that roll?” That, Annie figured, was as sublte as she could get, if she wanted to know what type of camera he had. She couldn’t tell if it was film or digital just by looking at it.

“Well, seeing as how I’ve got a 1GB card in the slot here, I’d say I only have… oh, over 500 shots left.” The upturned corner of Stone’s mouth twitched as he chuckled. “Don’t worry, I can always delete some of those shots of you if I need to make room for other pictures.”

Annie grinned at him, but still threw a punch at his arm. “Ha, ha. So you’ve got the memory space for a few bad pictures. Give me the camera and let me snap a couple of you.” She reached out her hand for the camera.

Luke didn’t think twice about handing over his new camera to AJ. She wasn’t the kind of person who would deliberately try to break it, and she certainly couldn’t outrun him if she planned on stealing it. No, there was a certain level of trust and comfort between them, even though six hours ago, he didn’t know her from Adam. Wow. Only six hours? It seemed like days, weeks, months ago that he’d met her. A part of him felt like she’d always been there with him. How was it possible to feel this way about a woman he’d just met?

- - - - -

“And this is the zoom?” Her soft voice broke into his thoughts. He looked up, right into her captivating eyes. Again, he could gaze into them for hours. Hmm. Maybe he could capture that bit of beauty on ‘film.’ Then he could gaze at them to his heart’s content.

“Stone?” He tore his gaze away from her eyes and brought the rest of her into focus. He heard the distinctive blip as she pressed the shutter release and took his picture. Then another. And then again. She must be using the view screen to frame her shots, instead of the tiny viewfinder.

“Come on, Stone. Give me a smile. Oh, that’s a good one. Now, I’ll get one of you with the drop off to the ocean in the background.” AJ moved to position herself so she could get the shot she wanted. She moved with grace, he observed, on the rocky, uneven ground here. And she seemed to be a natural photographer.

Luke let her take a few more shots, then asked for his camera back. “This is the fifth time I’ve hiked the Nualolo Trail. But this is the first time I remembered to bring my camera with me. I want to take some shots of the views here. Later on, I’ll play around with them and digitally paste them together to make a 360 panoramic view.”

Annie watched him step on the bottom rung of the rail, then position himself against the upper railing for stability. He took at least a dozen shots from that one position, slowly turning to face a different direction with each shot. When he moved to face where she was standing, she stepped behind him so she wouldn’t be in his shot. A few moments more and he was done.

“Okay,” he said. “Now you. Smile!” he pointed the camera towards her upturned face.

Annie crinkled her nose. Then she smiled for him. He stepped off the railing, but continued to snap pictures of her. He walked around her, snapping away, each shot with a different background. The ocean, the valley, the trees, the drop-off - he got some of each.

“Take your hat off,” Luke requested. He held the camera low and waited a moment. When AJ gave him a puzzling look, he clarified. “You’ll thank me. ‘Hat off’ pictures are infinitely better than ‘hat on’ shots. You’ll see.” He motioned to her with his camera. “I want to take a few pictures of you without your hat on. I like the way the wisps of hair around your face flutter in the ocean breeze. .”

Annie thought about it a moment and decided that he made sense. She complied and removed her White Sox cap, fixed her hair as best she could, then turned to face Stone.

“Ok. Smile. Let’s take a picture of you.” The smile AJ gave him was a genuine smile, if he’d ever seen one. Her whole body seemed to smile for him, from her eyes to her toes. He wondered what he’d said to elicit such a warm and genuine response from her. Whatever he’d said or done, he was glad he did it. I wonder what’s on AJ’s mind right now? he wondered.

- - - - -

Annie smiled, lost in thought. If Stone only knew what she was thinking now. Lordy, where had her mind gone today? When he told her he wanted to take pictures of her without her hat on, what her sex-starved body told her brain she’d heard was that he wanted… She blushed at the thought. That her hat was all he wanted her to have on when he took her picture.

Not that she would dream of taking her clothes off out here, but in her mind… Her fantasy was taking her places where, in reality, she hadn’t been in months. Almost a year.

Her smile unconsciously faltered as she thought of her ex-boyfriend and the circumstances that led to the demise of their relationship. Liar, she thought. Never could stand a liar. And Greg was one of the biggest she’d ever met. How she hadn’t seen right through his lies and figured out that she was ‘the other woman’… No, she wouldn’t waste her time on him anymore.

She brought herself back to the present, and when she brought her eyes back to focus on the man before her, she saw he was as different from Greg as day was from night. When she finally saw Greg for who he was, she saw he didn’t even look like a man you could trust, much less love. But there was just something about Stone that made you know you could trust him. With your life. With your heart. Whoa! Okay! Where had that come from???

- - - - -

Luke watched her through the camera, as he continued to snap a couple dozen shots of AJ. The green eyes he was zoomed in on swirled with emotion. They went from bright happy green, to a dark misty green; then to grass green, where the gold flecks around the edges sparkled like coins lost in grass.

What was she thinking about? Her smile had slipped a moment ago and then it appeared AJ was deep in thought. About…? Something disturbing? Her brow had furrowed just the tiniest bit, but then she shook it off. And now… now, she was looking at him like a hungry lioness looks at her prey.

Was she hunting him? No, he hadn’t gotten that impression about her. AJ struck him as an independent woman who didn’t need a man to know who she was in life. What had she said? “I’m always looking.” Did had to mean she hadn’t found what she was looking for, didn’t it? So she hadn’t yet found a man that she needed in her life. Maybe I could be that man. Huh. Luke didn’t even realize he’d wanted to be that man for any woman till that moment.

But not just for any woman. He wanted to be that man for her. Where were these thoughts coming from? For as long as he could remember, he’d never wanted to be with just one woman. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be in a committed relationship.

Just six hours of knowing AJ, and he wanted it all. He want one woman, and he wanted a committed relationship with her. Could there possibly be any truth to what they said about ‘love at first sight’? There had to be. He felt it in his soul that this was the match for him. There wasn’t a logical explanation for it, that’s just what he felt.

Annie looked at Stone – he wasn’t taking any more pictures of her, as far as she could tell. He looked like he was far, far away, lost in thought. Where was he? Was he wishing he was anywhere but here with her? No, that wasn’t the feeling she’d gotten from him earlier. No, all day he kept looking at her in a way that made her melt inside. And the things he said…! Lordy, she could feel her heart beating faster just thinking about what he’d said.

So romantic. Such a blatant come on. She tried to rationalize her thoughts. No man is that perfect. No one guy has the whole package going on. Stone has that gorgeous body. He’s got that seductive look about him, and a lopsided grin that sends a rush of heat through me. And then his mouth. Lush and entirely kissable, but the words that came out of his mouth… well, that had to be a come on. No one guy looked that perfect and said all the right things too.

I want to take pictures of you. The view is better because you’re here. Did real guys actually say stuff like that? Or was that just stuff romance novelists dreamed up? Annie wondered if what Stone had said had meant anything to him, the way it meant something to her.

A passing tour helicoptor buzzed near the Nualolo Valley and shook both Annie and Luke from their thoughts. They looked up and waved to the tourists in the coptor above, then watched as it flew off in search of inland waterfalls.

Luke looked at his watch. “We need to start heading back. It’ll take us a close to two hours to get back and it’s almost five now. Guess we spent more time out here at the vista than we should have.” He pulled the hydrapack from his back, put the camera bag in the pocket, and slung the pack into place again.

“Stone, thank you for this. *I have you to thank for this day, this moment.” AJ had said it so softly, Luke wasn’t sure if she’d actually said it, or if he imagined she did.

“You’re welcome. For what exactly, I’m not sure, but I’m happy to oblige.” Stone looked at her with a grin.

“For the pictures. Okay, maybe not all the pictures you took, but at least for the ones that will remind about today. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have that.” Her green eyes sparkled as she stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.

“You wouldn’t have… what?” he gently prodded.

“All I would have would be memories. But thanks to you, I’ll have pictures to remind me what I found out here today.” And with that, she turned back towards the path.

What I found here today? What did she mean by that? Was she talking about the views of paradise? Or something else entirely? Luke had to lengthen his stride to catch up to her.

He reached her just as AJ stopped short. “Why’d you stop?” he said as he bumped into her backside.

Annie could feel the raw male heat of his body behind her. What she wouldn’t do to wrap herself up in that heat right now. She turned to him, her pleading eyes looking up into his stormy gray ones. “Don’t make me do this alone.”

Luke was slightly confused. Don’t make her do what alone? Is she talking about kissing? Does she think…

AJ closed her eyes tightly. “Don’t make me walk that part alone. I can’t do it again.” She turned and looked behind her. The path along the peak of the ridge between the valleys. It was a narrow path, quite intimidating.

“How’d you get across to come out here? When I got to the vista you were already there,” Stone said as he laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I think I walked it with my eyes closed. I’ve never had a fear of heights, but just looking at the sheer drop on both sides of that path freaked me out a little. I saw the view beyond that death walk and just knew I’d regret it if I didn’t walk all the way out to the end. But once I crossed the peak, I climbed up as far from the edge as I could get, and sat down to catch my breath.”

“Where I found you, sitting by the tree,” he said softly.

AJ nodded; a single tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t think I would have gone over to the railing to see the panoramic view if you hadn’t come along.” She looked away. It was hard enough to say this without having to look into those caring eyes, to look at that gorgeous face, his brow wrinkled in concern. For her.

“Okay. Shhhh. Look. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go across together. We can’t walk side by side, but I’ll be with you every step of the way. We go at your pace, okay?” Stone gently turned her back towards the narrow path along the peak.

“Do you want to go first, or do you want to follow me?” he asked.

AJ shook her head. “Not sure. How ‘bout you go first and I can step in your footprints? A misstep is the thing I’m worried about most here, so that sounds like the best idea, for me to follow where you go. Because if you take a step and fall, I’m gonna be sure not to step there!” she managed to say with a relieved laugh at herself.