“Or at least to cut back your hours,” Megan confirmed.
“But you said I could balance the two sides of my life,” Moira protested, as if it were Megan’s fault somehow that she obviously couldn’t.
Rather than taking offense, Megan merely smiled. “And the day will come when you can do that easily, but you may not be there yet. Until the photography is second nature to you, you might have to work at it a bit harder, take the time to truly master it.” She gave Moira a direct look. “Or you can choose to let it go.”
Luke walked in at the end of the conversation. Apparently, he’d overheard just enough, because there was worry in his eyes.
Megan gave Moira’s shoulder a squeeze. “Let me know how it’s going, okay?”
Moira nodded as she left, then sank down into the chair with a heavy sigh.
“There’s a bump in the road?” Luke asked.
She nodded. “She thinks the only way I’ll be able to get enough incredible pictures for a show is to quit my job here with you or at least to cut back on my hours so I can focus on my photography.” She gave him a rueful look. “I guess I took it for granted that all I needed to do was snap the shutter to create something wonderful, but it’s a job like any other, isn’t it? It requires real dedication.”
“Sounds that way to me,” he said. “Have you decided how you want to handle Megan’s suggestion?”
“I want to pretend she’s wrong,” Moira said, then sighed. “But she’s not.”
He sucked in a breath. “Then quitting is what you need to do,” he said decisively. “A consultant’s role was only meant to be temporary, right?”
“I never thought of it that way,” she argued. “I love working with you.”
“Is it forever that you’ll have to focus a hundred percent on the photography?”
She shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s impossible to say.”
“Then it’s only temporary.”
“How can I walk out on you when this place has only just begun? And Josh will be leaving in a week or two as well to work with Mack. We’ve yet to hire and train a replacement.”
“I can handle that,” Luke said. “You have this place running like a well-oiled machine. I’m sure I can manage.”
“Would it be so easy for you if I walked away?” she asked irritably.
“Not easy at all,” he soothed. “Just a sacrifice worth making.”
“I don’t see it the same way. I see it as throwing away something I love, something I know I’m good at, for a risk.”
“Megan doesn’t think of it as a risk, does she? Shouldn’t that at least give you the courage to try?”
“I’m not scared!” she retorted heatedly.
He merely lifted a brow at her display of temper.
“I’m not,” she said, though with slightly less force. “Not of failure, as you’re thinking, anyway.”
“Of what, then?”
Could she admit her heart’s deepest secret and risk total humiliation? Did she have a choice? Luke deserved honesty.
“I’m afraid you’ll discover you don’t need me at all.”
His eyes widened in shock. “There’s nothing that could be further from the truth,” he said. “I need you in a hundred different ways, and only a handful of them have anything at all to do with your working here. I can bear to lose my consultant, but not my partner. You’ll always have a role here, if you want it.”
She took some solace from his words. “You’re sure? You’re not just saying that because you don’t want to stand in the way of my big opportunity?”
He smiled. “I’m probably not that unselfish,” he admitted. “What I’m saying is the truth. Cross my heart.”
She nodded slowly, letting his certainty steal into her heart and calm her fears. “Then I suppose I could take a brief leave of absence, no more than a couple of weeks, to see if I can do this photography thing right. If I give it my full attention, maybe that’s all it will take, and I’ll be back here before you even have time to miss me.”
“You’re going to succeed magnificently,” he predicted with confidence. “And I’m going to be standing in the background at Megan’s gallery in a couple of months while people heap tons and tons of praise on you. Then I’ll be the one worrying if you’re going to be so wildly successful that you’ll run off and leave me in your dust.”
“Never,” she said, standing up and moving into his embrace. “I will only go if you no longer want me.”
His eyes lit with satisfaction at her words. “Then we have nothing to fear at all,” he said, kissing her thoroughly to prove it.
21
Mick was about to leave his house and make the usual rounds of his family’s businesses just to check in with everyone when he saw Dillon walking up the driveway. He took a seat in his favorite rocking chair on the porch and waited for him.
“It’s a lovely morning,” Dillon called out. “Were you about to go somewhere? I can come back another time.”
“I usually take a walk around town this time of day to see how things are going with my children. You’re doing them a favor by keeping me out of their hair. Being semiretired is a blessing in many ways, but I find that too often I have no idea what to do with myself. Doing this, I can at least claim I’m out walking for my health, though I doubt any of my children actually believed that. So, tell me, what brings you by?”
“I thought we should talk, man-to-man,” Dillon said, his expression serious.
Mick’s heart seemed to thud at Dillon’s words. No good ever came out of a conversation that began like that.
“About?” he asked.
“Your mother and
