Free Picture Me Sexy by Rhonda Nelson

instructions.” She chuckled under her breath. “Trust me, Martha Stewart I am not. I don’t know how to make my own potpourri, or interesting party favors and I don’t color coordinate my clothes hangers. I’m a firm believer in the microwave and store-bought piecrusts. I’m hopelessly domestically challenged.” Wearing a wry smile, she looked up and her humorous gaze tangled with his. “The only thing that saved me from flunking home economics was sewing.”
    He arched a brow. “Sewing?”
    â€œYeah.” Delaney paused, wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “It was the weirdest thing. I’d failed at cooking, at household management, budgeting and planning. I broke my egg baby three times before Mrs. Hunter finally decided I was a hopeless case and refused to issue me another one. I—”
    â€œEgg baby?”
    Delaney glanced up and caught Sam’s puzzled expression. “Yeah. An egg baby. We were assigned eggs to take care of like babies.” Delaney poked her tongue in her cheek. “It was supposed to impart the key responsibilities of parenting. Eggs, like babies, were fragile and had to be treated with extreme care. We had to keep our egg baby with us at all times, had schedules we had to follow, feedings and diaper changes, the whole nine yards.” She waved her forkairily. “Even had to arrange for an egg-sitter if we wanted to go out.”
    Sam chuckled and gestured toward her omelette with his fork. “Are you feeling like a cannibal?”
    â€œNo.” Delaney sighed in mock dejection. “I never managed to keep one long enough to really form an attachment.”
    Delaney watched him flatten his wonderful lips to keep from laughing. “Because you kept breaking yours?”
    She nodded. “Right.”
    â€œOkay,” Sam said. “I’m with you. Now what about the sewing?”
    Finished with her dinner, Delaney leaned forward and slid her plate back onto the coffee table. Pleasantly full, she rested against the couch once more. “I was good at it,” she said, remembering with a fond smile. One of the only things she’d ever been good at. “Really good at it. I could look at an outfit, make my own pattern and go from there.” She shook her head and smiled. “I loved it, and finally finding something that I was actually good at was very gratifying. I knew from that moment on what I wanted to do. I might have killed a few egg babies,” Delaney said with a laugh, “but Laney’s Chifferobe was born out of that class, and for that, I’ll always be grateful. Mrs. Hunter was very encouraging, took extra time with me and really nudged me in the right direction. She was a special teacher.”
    â€œI had one of those,” Sam replied thoughtfully.
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œYeah.” A grin tugged at his lips. “Mine was Mrs. Farris. I was on the yearbook staff my last couple of years in high school. I’d always enjoyed taking pictures, but she was the first person who ever commented on my talent. I’d gotten some really good shots of the cheerleaders and—”
    Delaney huffed a derisive breath. “Why am I not surprised?”
    Merriment danced in his dark bedroom eyes. He lifted one powerful shoulder in a negligent shrug. “Hey, I’m a guy. What can I say? Anyway, up until that point, I’d always just played around with the camera, had never really considered it more than a hobby. But something about her confidence in my ability sparked a little ambition—” he sighed deeply and smiled “—and the rest is history.”
    A picture above the mantelpiece snagged her attention. An older Sam and a kind-eyed woman with salt-and-pepper hair gazed fondly at one another. It was a sharp black and white, a private moment caught on film and it seemed to capture the couple’s love, the essence of their