Maximum Exposure

Book 0: The Heartlands Series

by Jenny Harper

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

She?s a professional photographer ? but is she ready to expose her heart? Adorable but scatterbrained newspaper photographer Daisy Irvine becomes the key to the survival of The Hailesbank Herald when her boss drops dead right in front of her. And while big egos and petty jealousies hinder the struggle to save the paper, Daisy starts another campaign ? to win back her ex, Jack Hedderwick. Ben Gillies, returning after a long absence, sees childhood friend Daisy in a whole new light. He?d like to win her love, but discovers that she?s a whole lot better at taking photographs than making decisions, particularly when she?s blinded by the past. When tragedy strikes Daisy?s family, loyalty drives her home. But it?s time to grow up and Daisy must choose between independence and love.

Release date: December 11, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 288

Sample

Chapter One

Outside the offices of The Hailesbank Herald, a late frost edged the cobbles with a white rime that glinted and sparkled in the thin early morning light. Daisy Irvine retrieved her camera kit from the boot of her antiquated mud-splattered Suzuki and fumbled for her office key in the depths of her bulky fleece. Being the youngest ever chief photographer at the local newspaper was an achievement she was really proud of, but early-morning call-outs were a definite downside to the job.

She shoved the door open with her shoulder and the heat in the office slapped into her with a force that felt almost physical. She peeled off her jacket, swung her bags onto her desk, and registered that the editor was already in and flouting the law as usual by smoking a cigarette. She was just working out how to frame her request for a pay rise when she heard a strange moan.

She looked up and saw Angus MacMorrow fall, straight as a newly felled tree, onto the shabby threadbare carpet of his smoke-filled lair.

Damn and blast.

The pound signs in her mind popped and evaporated like soap bubbles in the pale February sun. She was sympathetic, but she wasn’t unduly alarmed. The old reprobate had collapsed before. Everyone knew his health was dodgy. Only a year ago he’d had a heart attack and spent a week in hospital recovering. Serve him right, the old bugger, for being overweight and seriously unfit.

She marched across the main office to Big Angus’s door. Despite his recent health scare, he’d refused to stop smoking, cursed the government for banning the practice in the workplace, and ranted at length to anyone who would listen about the temerity of having his human rights curtailed by small-minded, meddling politicians.

Daisy studied the slumped body. In the heat of the office, she felt as though her cheeks were on fire, yet all the colour had drained from Angus’s face. The folds of flesh that sagged from his chin in flabby jowls looked flaccid and waxy. Dammit, he didn’t look good. She stooped over him, prised his still burning cigarette from one hand, and stubbed it out in the ashtray he insisted on keeping on his desk. There were already three stubs there and it was still only six thirty. In his other hand he was clutching a sheet of paper. She wiggled it free and stuffed it in her pocket, then set about loosening his tie and collar and rolling his bulk – with great difficulty – round a teetering pile of back copies of the newspaper into the recovery position. His timing was bad. It had been ages since she’d had more than a cost of living increase and she was feeling the pinch.

Still thinking about the negative balance in her bank account, Daisy sighed. Her plea would probably have to wait a week or two now. Absently, she pushed up the rough tweed of Angus’s jacket and felt for his pulse. Nothing.

She shifted her fingers and tried again.

No movement, not even a tiny flutter.

She must be missing something. Focusing her attention more sharply, she tried for a third time. She redoubled her efforts. A sense of alarm stirred somewhere near her stomach, which only a few minutes ago had been craving a bacon sandwich.

Still nothing. Rocking back on her heels, she studied the inert form closely, her misty grey eyes widening. She’d seen dead bodies before in the line of duty, but this was the first time she’d been the person to find one. And the fact that the body was her boss, the much satirised, belligerent, annoying, lazy, old-school, cynical, hard-bitten, highly experienced – bizarrely lovable – editor of The Hailesbank Herald, made the whole thing much, much worse.

Time to call an ambulance.

Thirty miles away, Ben Gillies woke up in a small guest house on Lindisfarne to a fog so impenetrable that if he hadn’t known there was a castle not half a mile away, he could never have guessed at the fact.

He pushed aside one chintzy floral curtain and peered out of the window. Pale grey light filtered through the wet glass but failed to catch the red highlights in his rich brown hair. The mist hung in heavy droplets on the bare branches of the tree outside his room. The garden looked dank and dreary, with patches of sad, limp detritus from last year’s growth begging to be cleared and a lawn that was clearly waterlogged. He could just about see the wall at the bottom of the sad expanse of green. He flicked the curtain back into place. Time to get moving.

‘So that’s it then?’ His mind went back again to the last scene he’d played out with Martina. No rows, just a kind of inexorable inevitability about the end of their four-year relationship.

‘I guess.’ She’d looked pinched and miserable, but there was no attempt at compromise, really nothing left between them. Her jumper hung off her in baggy folds, and her legs looked stick thin and delicate. For a second he felt protective, then he remembered that she didn’t want his protection.

He’d picked up the last of his bags and stuffed it into the battered old car he’d bought for this journey.

‘Bye then. I’ll be in touch.’ He bent and kissed her forehead, a melting pot of a dozen conflicting emotions – sad, relieved, angry, empty, exasperated, and liberated.

The idea of the walk – four days from Melrose to Lindisfarne – only came to him when he was already half way up the A1 on the way north to Hailesbank.

‘… the reverse of the route of the pilgrims when they fled with the body of St Cuthbert from Lindisfarne at the start of a two-hundred year journey,’ said the voice on the car radio. ‘This walk has everything. Hills, woods, rivers, moorland, and finally, a walk across the stretch of sand to the Holy Isle itself.’

The programme had held his attention from the beginning. He used to love walking. He had all the time in the world, with no job, no commitments. What better way of marching into a new life than a long walk? Plenty of time to think – or not, as he pleased.

On impulse, he swung off the main road and into Morpeth. There he added to his life’s clutter by purchasing stout walking boots, socks, a backpack, waterproofs, a vacuum flask, and a pair of walking poles. He made a few phone calls to arrange accommodation and baggage pick up and headed for Melrose.

Nefertiti, ensconced in the front seat beside him, turned heads at every stop along the way. Ben grinned to himself and thoughts of Martina were edged out of his mind by memories of the day he’d bought the life-size clothes mannequin. He’d walked past a dress shop in Camden Town when it was closing down and the dummy had been mere pennies. He couldn’t resist the joke, even though he’d had to carry her along four streets and across a park to the flat he shared at the time with three other blokes. She’d been stark naked, her body a dull biscuit colour, a small bash disfiguring her right hip. She was remarkable for her lack of nipples and – mercifully – of pubic hair, though she sported a fetching black bob above a face that was oddly sweet.

Nefertiti had caused a storm with his flat mates, who battled him endlessly for custody. They dressed her, undressed her, decorated her with police hats or underwear they’d begged, borrowed, or stolen from girlfriends, dates, or sisters. Finally she’d become more or less inseparable from a scarlet negligée and she’d stood in his window, gazing unquestioningly out on the world and causing, from time to time, great amusement to passers by.

Martina had seen the joke, at first. But in time poor Nef became one of the causes for friction and was relegated to a cupboard. On the road, she wasn’t too much of a problem, but in towns he’d found that he had to cover her completely with a sheet to avoid unwelcome attention. In Melrose, leaving the car in the care of the guest house where he spent the first night, he took the usual precautions then, leaving even this responsibility behind, set off on his own personal pilgrimage.

The four days since then had been the most uplifting, most liberating, most carefree of his life. He’d been blessed with great weather – cold and frosty but clear as a bell. Underfoot, the trail had been springy but passable. Day after day he plodded forward, feeling his lack of fitness at first, then through the tiredness finding new motivation and a sense of achievement. He’d seen buzzards and rooks, peewits and pheasants and even, one day, sitting perfectly still on a rock as day drew to a close, had watched a badger lumbering out of its set in search of food. The sharp edges of Martina’s face had begun to blur and fade and the tightness round his heart had loosened. In front of him, like the miles to Lindisfarne, his future lay uncertain but exciting, a path that promised adventure, twists and turns, with long vistas and not a few challenges.

But now the mist had drifted in. Ben dropped the curtain and turned back into the room. His pilgrimage was over, Nefertiti was waiting for him, loyal and uncomplaining under her protective sheet in his rust-heap back in Melrose, and his parents were expecting him in Hailesbank.

Who knew what the future held? Who cared? Ben turned towards the shower, rubbed his hand over the gingery stubble on his chin, and grinned. He felt very relaxed. And there was something exciting about uncertainty.

Chapter Two

Daisy Irvine, dreaming of thumps and bumps, falling timber and toppling editors, woke with tears wet on her cheeks and an empty space in her heart. She wished, more fervently than she had wished over a long year of wishing, that Jack Hedderwick was still by her side.

Angus MacMorrow’s death had shaken her more than she cared to admit. So he’d shouted at her and cursed her (he yelled and swore at everybody) but he’d also been her mentor and guide since the day she’d joined The Hailesbank Herald, young and green and very unsure of herself. She ventured a pyjama-clad arm out into the cold of her cottage bedroom, pulled a tissue from the box by her bed, and blew her nose noisily. She thought she’d held it together well when Jack left, but maybe she’d just shoved the pain deep down inside her as she’d sleepwalked through the last year. Anyway, it seemed that Big Angus’s demise had brought all her insecurities to the fore because in the three days since he’d had that final fatal heart attack, she’d thought of little else but Jack.

Pain sliced through her and came to a juddering halt in her heart. She took a deep breath, but still felt the unavoidable constriction, like a tourniquet tightening. It had been a year now and she still hadn’t got over the shock and anguish the break-up had caused.

An image of Jack’s familiar features rose in her mind, as real as if he was standing in front of her. He had a sweet, baby face, with clear blue eyes and soft fair hair that curled in wisps round his ears. Jack the lad, with his lean frame and hips so sexy she still felt weak thinking about them –

Beside Daisy’s head, her alarm trilled loudly.

‘No-o-o-o.’

She jumped, unprepared, and fumbled for the off button. It was too early. She wasn’t ready to face another day without Jack. The duvet, ice blue and feather-light, billowed above her as she pulled it over her head, then settled around her, snug and warm. Just ten minutes, she allowed herself. Then she’d shower and dress. Just ten minutes to remember all the wonderful things Jack had done for her.

Precisely five seconds later the tumbling electronic notes of her mobile phone repeated insistently from her bag across the room.

‘Bother,’ said Daisy crossly as she threw back the cover and padded across the room in bare feet, reluctantly obedient to the phone’s command. ‘Hello?’

‘Daisy? We’ve just had a call from a punter. A lorry’s overturned south of Eyemouth and its load’s escaped.’ Sharon Eddy, the Herald’s chief reporter, sounded hideously cheerful for the time of day.

‘Escaped?’ It seemed an odd word to use.

‘Pigs. Big fat porkers. Bacon sarnies to you and me. They’re having a hell of a time catching them apparently. See you there soon as? Could make a great picture.’

‘OK,’ Daisy said resignedly, although she was already turning over the pictorial possibilities in her mind. Escaped pigs sounded like fun and anyway, life went on, with or without Jack, just as the paper had to go on without Angus MacMorrow.

Shivering, she flicked on her one-bar electric heater and started to clamber blearily into her jeans. The shower would have to wait.

Four days later, Daisy pulled on her black trouser suit, the one she kept for posh jobs and funerals. It came to her that today really was the end of an era. Angus MacMorrow was dead and this morning he would be buried.

She flopped down on the edge of her bed to wriggle into her tights. They felt just that – tight. She had to get a grip on her weight or she’d never win Jack back, that much she knew. Since he’d left she’d overeaten constantly by way of compensation, though it only made her more miserable. On the mantelpiece above the fireplace opposite the end of the bed, assorted cuddly toys were ranged. They surveyed her reproachfully.

‘I know, I know,’ she sighed. A battered teddy bear looked back at her, one eye lower than the other, but said nothing. ‘I’ll start next week. But today’s the big man’s funeral so I can’t really be expected to think about lettuce, can I?’

Her gaze moved along the line to Minty, the now grubby polar bear her mother had bought for her sixth birthday, too rich with smells and stains and memories to consider cleaning him. She could remember the day perfectly. The parcel lay by her place at the breakfast table, enticingly mysterious with its crisp, crinkly silver wrapping paper and ice-blue ribbons. She’d been excited. It was a special day and if she was good maybe Daddy wouldn’t shout at her. Mummy helped her to unwrap the parcel. The knots were too tight for her small fingers and she couldn’t wait to see inside. As soon as a corner of the silvery paper was open, she put in her little hand and felt soft fur and gave a squeal of anticipation. The fur was silky and comforting. She pulled out the toy and fell instantly in love with the round, snuggly bear with its soppily contented expression. She cradled it close to her skinny chest and thought the day was going to be as perfect as she’d dreamed it would be.

Then her father said, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t buy her these wretched animals, Janet. She’s much too old for that nonsense,’ and she put it down, slowly, her lips trembling just the tiniest bit. Why did Daddy always manage to spoil things? Later, she found it when she went to bed, snuggled against her pillow, under the blanket. Mummy must have hidden it there for her. She kissed it one hundred times to make up for having abandoned it all day.

She couldn’t remember what her father’s gift had been. Some educational book or other, long since abandoned, she imagined, designed to fashion her into something she wasn’t while Minty the bear lived on in her heart and on her mantelpiece.

‘He’s really gone, Minty,’ she breathed softly to her captive audience while thinking of Angus MacMorrow. ‘Definitely deceased.’

She’d never managed to rid herself of the habit of talking to her menagerie. The companionship of her furry animals had always been important to her. When her father had shouted at her, she would run to them for comfort, picking one at random and hugging it close fiercely. Her animals didn’t think she was spineless. They didn’t tell her to ‘buck up and get on with it’ or bawl at her when she failed to get a good grade. When her mother, as soft and ineffectual as a waterlogged sponge, failed to comfort her, it was to her animals that she’d reveal her insecurities, trust her innermost thoughts and share her anger.

‘Why?’ she addressed her menagerie in a tone of deep despair, inviting their views on life in general. When there was no response, she gave a small sniff and put her hand in her pocket to find the comforting presence of Tiny Ted – TT – the smallest of the bears and her constant companion.

‘They’re not real, Daisy,’ a voice came from her bedroom door, but gently.

Daisy took a last look at the sheep, the lion, the bears, and the rest of the tattered toys and raised a sceptical eyebrow before swinging round and saying indignantly to the tall figure lounging against her door-post, ‘I know that, Lizzie.’

Lizzie Little, lazy-limbed and heavy-lidded, possessed a languorous beauty that she was quite unaware of (which was an important part of her attractiveness). In the cottage that Daisy had shared with her since Jack had left her homeless, Lizzie had the largest room, where she surrounded herself with rich velvets, sumptuous silks, soft woollens in every colour and hue imaginable, the tools of her trade. They lay draped over chairs, hung from tailors’ dummies, swathed round the curtain poles, stacked in shimmering layers, skimmed across the radiators, formed pillows and covers on the bed.

Lizzie sat on the bed next to Daisy and wound her long legs into a lotus position. Still in thick brushed cotton pyjamas in a glorious deep purple and a luxurious Carmen red velour wrap, she put her arms around Daisy’s shoulders and asked tenderly, ‘You OK?’

Daisy nodded, tears coming unanticipated to her eyes. She’d thought she was OK until Lizzie’s sympathy caught her out. She pulled a tissue from out of her sleeve and blew her nose loudly.

‘’Course. It’s only a funeral. I’ve done loads before.’

‘But not Angus’s. Not a friend’s.’

Had Angus MacMorrow been her friend? Daisy considered the word. She’d always thought of Angus simply as her boss. When she’d gone to the Herald, he’d been the scariest person on the planet. The huge mass of him, bulging and straining above his trousers, the barking intolerance of bad spelling or the misuse of apostrophes, the constant urging to ‘Use your brain girl, if you have one,’ had been overwhelming. At first she’d thought he was just like her father – ordering, criticising, vetting her every move so that she couldn’t talk, think, or breathe for herself. But soon she’d seen his humour and his kindness and had come to understand that his carping was driven by a passion for high standards, that Angus would defend his staff to the death, while at the same time shouting at them for their failure to get a story before The East Stoneyford Echo.

Fourteen years old. Another birthday – and, for the first time in her life, a gift from her father that she actually liked. A gift that was to change her life.

‘Here.’ Her father shoved a bag at her. His hands were big and clumsy, strong but lacking in any kind of finesse. They were hands designed to catch a struggling criminal and handcuff him, but never to touch skin and thrill to its human warmth. She could still see the hairs on the fingers, darkly sprouting and could almost smell the rough maleness of him.

‘For me?’

He looked around the kitchen before saying sarcastically, ‘Is there someone else in here who has a birthday? I don’t see anyone, do you, Janet?’

The bag read ‘Tibbett’s – for all your photographic needs’. She could see the blue and red lettering as clearly now as she had then. Inside, there was a box.

‘SLR,’ Daisy read, curiously.

‘Single Lens Reflex,’ her father filled in before turning back to his newspaper. It was the end, apparently, of his interest.

Why a camera? Daisy had never shown the slightest interest in photography. She fingered the box tentatively, turning it round to view the image of the contents. Was this yet another attempt by her father to direct her life? Daisy pushed the box away at the thought. She didn’t want it. She couldn’t bear to have him looking over her shoulder, criticising every picture she took.

‘Thanks,’ she said dully, expecting him to demand that she open it. He’d pull out the instruction book himself, take charge, force her to sit and watch while he read through the notes, worked out what to do.

‘There’s a couple of films to start you off.’

He got up and patted her on the head, then turned and left the room.

She sat staring at her mother. Janet, her eyes grey and wide and so like her daughter’s, stared back silently, her small mouth hanging slack. Daisy didn’t know who was the more surprised.

Had Eric Irvine been bizarrely struck by prescience? Uncharacteristically infused with insight? Or had he simply been passing Tibbett’s and been drawn by a sale sign? Daisy never knew the answer. A week or two after that birthday, she’d finally opened the camera box and lifted out the gleaming black and chrome apparatus inside. From the second she’d touched it, she knew that this was her destiny. She found freedom behind the camera. She cherished the feel of it in her hands, trusty and true. It did her bidding, responded as she demanded, produced results that she could control and that she felt proud of.

Three years later, when she decided on photography as a vocation, she inevitably incurred her father’s disapproval – ‘Really Daisy, you’ll never make any money’. When her mother had diffidently pointed out that it was he who had started her passion for photography in the first place, it silenced him on the matter for long enough to allow her to enrol in college.

Her confidence battered by constant criticism, she discovered (to her astonishment), that people thought her photographs were good – people like Angus MacMorrow who had, in his own inimitable way, encouraged her and helped her to realise her potential. Now he was dead and she had to take pictures at his funeral.

A friend? A better one than she’d ever understood.

‘I’ll be fine. Thanks Lizzie. Just another job,’ Daisy said, moving out of Lizzie’s kind embrace and reaching for her camera bag. Never let your feelings come between you and an assignment. Angus’s words. Be professional at all times. Thanks Angus, she smiled palely at the ghost of the big man, I will be.

She checked her appearance in the mirror – black trouser suit, safety pin at the waist to give her another inch of slack, touch of smoky shadow at her eyes to enhance her best feature – and turned to leave. The funeral was in less than an hour and all Hailesbank would be there. Her job was to capture it on camera. The Herald had to give its editor a resounding send-off and her role in that was crucial.

‘Bye, Dais,’ Liz. . .