Forever Yours, Sweetheart

Author

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Dedication

Stephanie Snopek and Steven Gill, for straightening out the sticky details of online security and the tech world in general for me. If it’s still wrong, trust me, it’s my fault, not theirs. And to Megan Snopek and Andrea Snopek, for listening to and commenting on various plot points and character traits. And of course, to Ray Snopek, for Greek salad and dishwashing and telling everyone that I’m a star. I love you, babe.

Dear Reader,

Psst. Wanna know a secret? Of course you do! Who doesn’t? Well lucky for you, Cherry Lake is full of them. Carrie Logan has a doozy, or at least it seems that way to her. Like many of us, she has aspects of her authentic self that are in conflict with the role she plays in her family. The sad fact is that her biggest source of pride would be, for them, deeply embarrassing. Poor Carrie. It’s a tough spot to be in. But she’s a tough gal and if they really love her – come on, family, step up, right? – then they’ll support her passion, whatever it looks like.

Yeah, but it’s a rocky journey. Fortunately, she finds someone who’s traveling his own rough road and sees a Carrie that’s completely different from the one her family knows. Turns out, they each could use a hand, and sometimes, lending a hand to another gives us courage to stand up for ourselves.

Everyone’s got secrets. I hope you enjoy joining Carrie as she brings hers to light and discovers a world of possibility. Happy reading!

–Roxanne

Chapter One

The first message in Carrie Logan’s inbox that morning was from GoDaddy, and read as follows: Due to a server breach, the security on your website has been compromised.

Carrie set down her coffee mug and opened a new window on her second screen, feeling her blood pressure rise as she waited for her website to load.

Compromised? What did that mean?

She was supposed to be finishing the family photo package for Rita Kauffman today. After that, she had Bethany Kyle’s wedding shoot to plan, not to mention preparation for the annual Cherry Festival. But if her site had been hacked, everything would take a backseat to damage control.

Not that she had any idea what that damage might look like. Or how to control it.

Oh, you know what it might look like, said a little voice in her head.

Stop it, she commanded the voice. Those pictures had been safely archived and forgotten, years ago. Hardly anyone even knew those pictures existed.

The spinning icon indicated that the page was loading, loading and still loading.

Did it always take this long? Was this the first sign of a problem? Cyber security was so not her strong suit. She should have outsourced her website management, but it simply wasn’t in the budget yet. Or, she’d put other things ahead of it. Things like groceries. And cat food.

She went back the GoDaddy message in her inbox.

Please be aware that your private information may have been taken.

As if there might be eyes blinking at her from the walls, Carrie looked around her office. What kind of private information? Her email list? Passwords?

Banking information? Her stomach clenched. Surely not that. She did most of her banking online, but it was encrypted, which meant it was safe.

Wasn’t it?

Ouch!

Carrie reached up and removed a tiny, razor-sharp claw from her neck. The claw was attached to a white-tipped paw, attached to a small silver-gray relentlessly affectionate tabby cat.

Belinda, she said, rubbing the scratch, this is not the right time.

It hadn’t been the right time at five this morning, either, when Belly-the-Terrible had been hurling herself at the bedroom door, yowling for breakfast.

The cat stepped delicately from the desk onto Carrie’s lap, purring like a machine-gun, then slipped and plunked onto the floor, taking a sheaf of papers with her.

Honestly! As Carrie grabbed for the papers, her elbow bumped the half-full coffee mug, sending it sloshing over a pile of unpaid bills.

In a flash, the cat disappeared up the stairs, all speed and grace when she wanted. The lower street-facing part of Carrie’s restored heritage house was devoted to her photography business. She normally kept the cat confined to their living quarters in the upper level overlooking the garden, and this was why. From Belinda’s vocal displeasure, you’d think she spent her days in an airless dungeon, rather than bird-watching on a sunny windowsill.

But given that Belinda had begun life in an actual airless dungeon – a Dumpster, in fact, on which the lid had fallen shut, trapping both mother and kittens – Carrie cut her a lot of slack.

Encryption, she thought. Wasn’t that the stamp of approval promising that private information was safe? Banks had vaults; vaults were like tombs, like crypts, hence the word, right? Encrypted. Secret. Secure. Sealed. In the vault, as they said.

Was GoDaddy saying that this vault, like Belinda’s Dumpster, had been opened?

As Carrie mopped up the mess, an even worse thought occurred to her. She had a shopping cart function set up on her website so clients could place orders digitally. It couldn’t be compromised... could it? It had that little lock icon and everything. Didn’t that mean it was secure?

The little wheel-of-death continued its cheerful rotation but just when she thought she’d lose her mind, the website popped up, Forever Yours Photography, looking as it always did.

She felt the familiar rush of pride at the display of her work: heart-warming images of Montana mountain scenes, kids poking sticks into streams, cheering third grade soccer teams, Sweetheart community events, families grinning cheese, all the images rotating smoothly on a classic, neutral background. Pretty much what you’d expect from a small-town photographer.

Carrie exhaled with relief. It had taken her weeks to learn how to build the site, even with a template. She couldn’t bear the thought of starting all over again.

She re-read GoDaddy’s message, which concluded with a recommendation that she contact a security expert and apologized for any inconvenience... blah-blah-blah.

The message was probably a hoax. Her website looked fine and – she took a quick scan through the rest of her emails – no other alarming emails. A scam, likely. And she’d fallen for it.

She went back to editing the Kauffman family photos, shaking her head at her unnecessary panic, glad no one was around to see it. Her mom’s tightly-wound overprotectiveness came out of love, she knew that, but it hadn’t achieved what she’d intended.

Thank goodness for Grandpa Nate, who’d always treated her like an ordinary person. The Starr clan might be messy and sprawling, but as far as Carrie was concerned, it was preferable to the Logan side of her family.

Carrie pulled her thoughts away from the mine-laden subject of her family, focusing instead on the Kauffmans. Despite being a friendly bunch, the shoot had been a challenge. The dad and kids looked fine no matter how Carrie arranged them, but it was the mother who’d decide whether or not Forever Yours Photography was worth the sitting fee and unfortunately, no amount of editing could make Rita Kauffman look the way she wanted in photos.

Which was sad, because objectively speaking, the mother was very attractive, with lovely eyes, graceful bone structure and elegant coloring. The fact that she was overweight didn’t detract from any of this. However, her obvious discomfort with her weight did.

Rita Kauffman wanted to look younger and thinner, of course. That was a given. But something about the quality of her smile and the way she held her shoulders suggested to Carrie that inside that comfortable, respected, expected matron persona was someone... lush. Sensual. Open to life.

Carrie knew it was in there. The trick, the magic, was finding it.

No, she reminded herself. You don’t do those pictures anymore.

She switched to the set of candid shots she’d gotten of the boy on the swing, his head thrown back, his flaxen hair flying in the breeze. Cute kid. Josiah. Then she pulled up the ones she’d taken of the mom as she watched her son. Lines softened, nerves lifted, eyes brightened. Pride and joy.

These, she thought, her breath quickening.

Time disappeared as Carrie cropped and framed, making the subtle adjustments in color and contrast that brought out the natural beauty of her subjects. Even days later she could feel the ease flowing between these parents and their children like an electric hum or sun-warmed lake water among smooth beach stones. There wasn’t much family resemblance; maybe the kids were adopted.

Perhaps that was the difference. Some people chose family; others – her own parents perhaps? – had family thrust upon them.

Ah, here was the winner. She pulled up a shot of Josiah jumping from the swing, frozen mid-leap, reaching for his mother at the same time she reached for him, the sun illuminating them like a blessing.

These were the images she loved best. The true moments, nothing posed. All she had to do was let them be, hovering quietly and unobtrusively around the edges.

Carrie was good at hovering in the background.

She pushed away from her desk, then reached up and stretched her arms, yawning widely.

A crash sounded from upstairs. Belinda.

Carrie jumped to her feet and raced up the stairs, still clad in her shortie pajamas. Feeding time at the zoo.

Bad girl, she scolded. Belinda blinked up at her from the kitchen table, below which lay the remains of a water glass. Six pounds of whiskers and attitude, and she ruled the house.

After finding shoes, cleaning up the glass, wiping the spill and feeding the cat, Carrie took a quick shower, got dressed and once more, went downstairs to work.

She checked her email again, then clicked onto her website, just to make sure. Still fine. Still lovely.

On a whim, thinking of the warning from GoDaddy, she Googled Carrie Logan Photography and hit Images. She probably should have done it right off the bat. There was one vault, after all, that she should have thought of immediately.

The response was immediate, overwhelming and devastating.

The coffee in her stomach curdled. She couldn’t feel her feet. A rushing sound filled her ears.

No, she thought, scrolling through the images while the mouse jumped and jerked in her hand. This can’t be.

But oh, it was. Pictures of herself, in all her glory. A decade younger, with different hair and cleverly shot with shadows and gauzy filters, but definitely her.

And mostly, but not entirely, naked.

The naughty bits were covered. As if that would matter.

Carrie couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screen as the images loaded onto her screen.

Password protected images. And not just of her, but of other women. She’d developed quite a clientele, in San Francisco. Goddess pictures, they called them. Or boudoir photos. Sexy ones for boyfriends or husbands, sweet ones of new babies at their mothers’ breasts, or those of courageous women preparing for mastectomies, wanting to remember their bodies before surgery.

And a few heartbreaking ones, too, referred to her by therapists, of traumatized young women wanting to reclaim their sensuality.

She’d loved the work. Until she started getting calls and messages from presumptuous strangers, creepy adult film and magazine executives. And then there was the effect on her love life. Men either hated what she did and demanded she stop, or worse, loved it too much.

Happy Sweetheart families might not present the creative or emotional challenge of her Forever Yours Intimate clients, she could safely display the photographs anywhere and everywhere.

Now, it looked like those old files weren’t as hidden as she’d thought they were.

Carrie leaned forward in her desk chair, blinking at the self-portrait staring seductively back at her, proud of it, despite her panic. This was a different Carrie. Beautiful. Powerful. Dangerous. Nothing at all like the Carrie who ran Forever Yours Photography and took g-rated pictures for family albums and school yearbooks.

No, Forever Yours Intimate had been where she explored her subjects with depth and vulnerability unavailable in a twenty-minute family sitting. It was where women like Rita Kauffman grew bold enough to access their inner sirens and discover their true beauty.

She covered her mouth with both hands, as the enormity of this hit home.

If anyone connected her current life with her old life, her business would be ruined. She could kiss her school board contracts good-bye. She’d probably lose her civic gigs, too. Family sittings, weddings, it would probably all disappear.

She scrolled through more images from the same shoot, trying to connect the fearless, sexy, naive, girl-Carrie of then, to the mature, responsible professional she was today. Those brief years in San Francisco had been nothing but an aberration. A fun aberration, to be sure.

But this was her life now. And these images had the power to destroy everything she’d worked so hard to build.

We recommend you contact a security expert immediately, said the message.

Yeah, Carrie said aloud. I just bet you do.

She thought of Scott Norman, the jovial man who ran the local hardware store. Carrie’s father kept telling her to get Scott to retrofit her house with an alarm system. She smiled wryly at the thought of asking Scott about a problem like this.

Not only was Internet security out of his wheelhouse, but the thought of Scott seeing these photos... she shuddered.

The thought of anyone she knew seeing those photos was simply, simply... impossible.

Oh, man, she moaned. What am I going to do?

Where did a person even start?

She typed Internet security expert into her Google search bar, and instantly pages and pages of responses appeared. The tension in her belly ratcheted up as she scrolled through them. Most contained numerous ads and seemed to be unconnected to actual human beings.

Maybe that would be her best bet. If she did it all online, she wouldn’t have to deal with the embarrassment of a face-to-face encounter.

But trusting the Internet had gotten her into this problem; wouldn’t trusting it for the solution carry the same risk?

Carrie stumbled out of her chair and went to the window, breathing hard. This was a nightmare. She was wandering around blindly in a land where she didn’t speak the language and masked bandits hid behind every tree. Why hadn’t she at least taken a computer science course in high school?

Barn doors and horses, honey, she muttered, as her mother had said so often.

Ugh. Her poised, polished, pillar-of-society mother would be devastated to learn of what her daughter had really been up to in California. Cathy Starr Logan had not raised her daughter to act in such a manner. Her parents hadn’t wanted her to study there in the first place; this would simply confirm that they never should have let her go.

Now, if Carrie’s cousin, Jessica, had taken photos like this, no one would have blinked. They’d have expected it, even.

Outside the window, a pair of young boys on bikes waved at her. She waved back.

This would change everything. Carrie Logan was a role model, and not just to her younger brother and sister. She volunteered at the animal shelter, gave blood, sponsored fund-raisers, attended town meetings. She was a good girl, an asset to the town, an example of the excellent stock founded on the great Nathan Starr.

But she was also Carrie Logan, who’d once secretly taken titillating, sensual photos. For money.

Pornography. That’s what they’d call it.

She swallowed. It was one thing to let down her parents; disappointing her grandpa Nate was another thing entirely.

No, she had to contain this disaster, no matter what it cost.

She went back to her desk and changed her search parameters to Internet security expert Montana. Some of the same links appeared, but there was one new one.

Ethan Nash Cyber-Security.

Something twigged. She’d heard that name before, but where? In what context?

She clicked on the website. There was very little information, no photo of the man, just a home page listing his