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obscenely.
    â€œGod dammit Nathan!” Holly shrieked.
    Our intruder burst into outrageous, puerile laughter. “You should have seen your faces!” With the same long body lines and straight, dark hair, you could see he and Holly were brother and sister. His face was stronger, with a narrow, proud nose and deep-set eyes beneath dark brows. The dust and sweat stains on his white button-down shirt made me think he’d been crawling around in the attic. He collapsed with laughter, his hands on the dusty knees of his trousers.
    â€œYou’re such a juvenile shit,” Holly said, then to me, “This is my stupid brother, Nathan. He’s retarded.”
    â€œI’m not retarded!” He glared at Holly.
    â€œAre, too.”
    â€œHolly’s the slow one in the family,” he said to me. “I dropped her on her head when she was a baby. On purpose.”
    I believed him.
    â€œY’all were so scared! I thought you were going to pee yourself. You were scared, too, Deacon.”
    â€œYou got me, Nathan,” the preacher chuckled.
    Nathan’s eyes dropped to the camera around my neck, then traveled down the length of my body, taking me in with a hungry glance. “You about blinded me with that flash.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œWhat kind of Canon is that?” He reached for it, as though he expected me to give it over. I shook his hand instead. Too surprised to pull away, he cleared his throat and said, “I’m a photographer. Not a professional, of course. I have a real job and a business to run.”
    â€œIs that so?”
    â€œNathan is a popsicle man,” Holly snickered.
    â€œMy company, Happy Time Frozen Treets, has a fleet of twelve vans,” the brave young entrepreneur boasted. “I don’t drive one, of course. I have an office.”
    â€œDaddy bought it for him.”
    â€œAt least when I was your age, I wasn’t still living at home.” He turned back to me. “My camera’s a Nikon D3X digital SLR with 24.5 megapixels. I bet your Canon isn’t as good.”
    â€œIt’s several years old,” I said.
    â€œWhat are y’all doing in Meemaw’s house?”
    â€œThis house will soon belong to the church, Nathan.” Deacon introduced us, but this time we didn’t shake hands. “Jackie is doing the photography for the restoration.” Although he still hadn’t officially offered me the job, I was starting to consider upping my fee, especially if the Lord had been so generous.
    â€œI’m free all this week. I could start shooting tomorrow.”
    He shook his head. “There’s a lot to do before you can begin,” he said. “We should run power to the house. It hasn’t had electricity since the ice storm knocked the lines down in 1993. And it’ll be three weeks before we can clear the brush around the house and bring in a cherrypicker.”
    â€œWhat do you need with a cherrypicker?”
    â€œDo you want to hang off the roof to photograph the cornices and architraves?”
    I saw his point. “I could start inside the house while you do all that.” I really needed that money right away.
    â€œBut I won’t be here. I have to leave for New Orleans after Sam’s funeral. I’m already supposed to be down there. We’re closing on a house that will be dismantled and used for the restoration of this place. I’ll be home in Louisiana for two weeks maybe.”
    â€œI could let her in, show her around, keep an eye on things,” Nathan offered. Although I desperately needed the money, I didn’t care to spend any time alone in the house with him. I figured I’d be too busy batting him away to take any pictures. Handsome as he was, something about him put me off. It wasn’t just his adolescent behavior or the way he stared at my tits.
    â€œI need to be with Mrs. Lyons to show her what I want photographed,” Deacon said as he