“How much longer?” Ethan asked, checking his watch.
Fox glanced at his timer. “Give us twenty-five minutes.”
“And not a minute more,” Ethan warned. “I’m going to get set up.”
He grabbed a pair of tripods, a reflector and a small electric fan before taking off for the auditorium at a dead run. His light meter was in his pocket. Thank goodness the Opry had state-of-the-art lighting.
He was still playing with the set when Sheryl ran onto stage. Flinging out an arm she cried, “Ta-da!”
Ethan looked around in time to see Fox and Gayla hauling Heather out of the wings and into the light. For a long minute all he could do was stare and hope his mouth wasn’t hanging open.
The long strapless gown fit as though it had been handmade for her. The organza train of the slender skirt pooled gracefully around stiletto heels that he knew were too big but nevertheless elongated the slim leg revealed by a side slit. Crystals graced her delicate throat and wrist and dangled from her dainty earlobes, working in concert with the gleaming hair piled on top of her head and wisping about her face to call attention to the graceful length of her neck. Rich auburn highlights and sable eye shadow had turned her light-brown eyes into enormous amber orbs, while vivid red lipstick plumped and defined a lush mouth beneath that pert, classical nose.
Right at the base of her neck, almost at her collarbone, was a small pinkish brown mark that she kept covering almost absently with her hand. A rose tattoo? he wondered, but no, Heather was not the sort to have that done. Strolling closer, he saw that it was a birthmark, irregular in shape, completely unique. Utterly fascinating.
He’d known she was pretty, suspected that she could be beautiful in a soft, delicate fashion. He’d had no idea that she could be stunning, breathtaking even.
“Talk about hiding your light under a bushel!”
He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Heather gusted a nervous laugh.
“That’s what my mom always says,” she admitted shyly, hunching her shoulders and shifting nervously.
Fox, who was busy trying to tweak the froth on top of her head into perfection, scolded her. “Keep still or I’ll be putting this up again!”
Ethan glowered at him. Didn’t the jerk realize who he was talking to? This wasn’t any plain Jane off the street. This was Heather, a Hamilton and, as it happened, the boss.
“Get out of my shot, Fox,” he ordered, turning his attention to the camera fixed to the nearest tripod. “Now listen up, boss lady. I want you to do exactly as I say. When I tell you to walk, I want you to put one foot directly in front of the other. Long, fluid strides. And keep your hands down unless I tell you otherwise. Okay?”
Heather nodded. She’d been around photo shoots often enough to know the drill, so he wasn’t worried. He set the shutter speed and palmed the switch.
“Walk forward. Look up. Way up. Stop. Half turn. Look at me!”
Click after click, he shot two rolls in rapid succession, moving from one camera to the other, directing her actions and catching the poses that took away his breath.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he muttered to himself, “a star is born.”
He couldn’t have been happier for her. He liked women too much not to relish seeing such a sweet-natured one as Heather Hamilton come into her own in such spectacular fashion. She was never going to be the same after this. She couldn’t possibly be.
She could scrub off the makeup and give back the clothes, but once she saw the before and after photos, she could never again believe herself to be the insipid, mousy sister that she’d pretended to be. She’d have to acknowledge what a beauty she truly was.
She still probably wouldn’t give him the time of day, though.
It was a depressing thought, but of all the single women in the office, Heather alone had never exhibited so much as a passing interest in Ethan. In fact, despite Melissa’s blatantly flirtatious manner, Ethan figured that he was not considered good enough for a Hamilton.
As an army brat whose parents had fought their way from posting to posting and finally to a divorce, he hadn’t expected anything else, which was all the more reason to take satisfaction in being part of Heather’s transformation, so far as he was concerned. No matter where he went after this, he suspected he’d have a hard time finding more enjoyable work or greater satisfaction in it.
Chapter Three
“It’s not like Ellen to take off from a shoot without a word,” Heather said, sliding her sunglasses into place and looking out across the parking lot. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Ellen’s the sort who can take care of herself,” Ethan observed. “But you’re right. She usually micromanages every detail of a shoot. Have you tried her cell?”
“No answer.”
He shrugged unconcernedly. “Well, then I guess I have to beg a ride. Hope you’ve got room for my gear.”
“No problem.”
“I knew I should have brought my car,” he muttered.
It was company policy for employees on the same assignment to share a vehicle. Why compensate two for mileage when one car could take them both where they needed to go? Apparently Ellen had insisted on driving her car for some reason. Fox, Sheryl and Gayla had already departed, but all of them were freelancers and none lived in Davis Landing anyway.
Heather helped Ethan drag his considerable gear to her car, still feeling a little embarrassed by the whole makeover thing. Once she’d finally gotten a look at herself in a mirror, she’d been wearing her own dress again, so only her head looked as if it belonged to somebody else. She wasn’t quite certain that it didn’t. The effect had been startling, to be sure.
The dress itself suddenly seemed too large, and she wondered why she’d taken to wearing the wrong size. She didn’t think she’d lost more than ten pounds since college and that had pretty much been due to a natural change of eating habits as she’d gotten older. Somehow she hadn’t adapted as she ought to have.
The hair was the biggest difference, though it had not, as she’d feared, all been chopped off. In fact, the back layer was only three or four inches shorter than before, and oddly enough, the other layers—which graduated from her shoulders to the bottoms of her ears, the tops of her cheekbones and mideye before finally ending with short, feathery bangs—actually made it seem as if she had more hair rather than less. The color was what surprised her most, however.
It had never occurred to her that she might make an attractive redhead. Yet, the auburn tones looked perfectly natural. Fox claimed that was due to the painting technique that he had used, resulting in the “expert integration” of her natural mousy brown with the richer reds.
The makeup seemed heavy-handed to her, and Heather wished she’d had time to remove, or at least lighten, it before they’d had to vacate the premises. She had no intention of recreating this look on a daily basis, of course. It wasn’t as if she was going to have her picture shot every day, after all, let alone published! Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt to buy a new lipstick and maybe even some eye shadow.
After seeing how she could look with a little—all right, a lot—of effort she was a little embarrassed by how lazy she’d become with her appearance. It had been a long time since she’d bothered with makeup or even plucking her eyebrows.
In some ways, the results of the makeover had shocked her, and yet she couldn’t deny the pleasure that she felt at realizing she wasn’t quite as hopeless as she’d imagined, especially when those dimples of Ethan’s cut grooves in his cheeks every time he looked at her.
They