“Oh, I’m not hungry at all, Mabel,” I tell her, “but thank you, though. I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
She waves me off. “None of that. C’mon. It’s not about food. It’s about your cowboy.”
Somehow, that gets me on my feet and into the kitchen—but only after Mabel goes out first, letting Mr. McCharger into the coop to leave my poor ankles alone.
In the kitchen, there are wildflowers in vases everywhere, a card attached to each. My eyes sting, and I look at Mabel, who's watching me. “He came by three times a day, all week, just leaving you flowers and notes, in case you decided to come out.”
My chin wobbles. “But… Why was he calling someone else?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. I do know that Landry Vaughn loves fiercely, and I’m not bribing you to forgive that man if you’re not ready, or if it’snot right. But I am thinkin’ that a man who doesn’t care about someone doesn’t behave this way. You know?”
I bob my head. “I know. But he called her so many times! And Doris lost her man to a buckle bunny and?—”
Mabel’s lips form a thin line as she stops me with a halting hand. “Doris? Do you mean Doris at the market?”
I nod.
Mabel rolls her eyes. “She just won’t shut the hell up about it already. It was twenty years ago! I wasn’t a buckle bunny— Norris was my high school sweetheart! I had him first!”
My brain spins. “Norris was your great love?” I press a shocked hand to my chest since I didn’t bring clutchable pearls. “And you had an affair?”
“An affair!” Mabel smacks the dinner table with her palm, making flowers rattle in their vases. “Did she tell you that?”
I wobble my head. “That was the insinuation if I remember correctly.”
“They weren’t married. Norris and I were together for years, then we had a little hiccup. We broke up for, I don't know, maybe a month? And in that time, she weaseled her way into his life. But he never stopped loving me.”
“So wait, they’re not together, but you two aren’t together, either?”
Mabel starts pulling cards from the vases, and I trail after her, collecting them as she hands them back to me. “When we broke up, I didn't start a romance with someone else. I took time to think about what I wanted from life. When he didn’t do the same, I figured he wasn’t the one for me after all.”
I open one card, and all it says inside is“I miss you, come home.”I shove it under my arm and keep following her, ignoring the sudden tightness at the back of my nose, and in my chest too.
“Were you right?”
She lowers a vase of peonies and lilacs to the side table. Her eyes are more serious than I’ve ever seen them when she looks at me. “No. I was wrong. He was wrong. And we were both too stubborn to admit it. So now I run an inn with an ugly rooster and play Cupid when I get a guest.”
“Oh, Mabel,” I sigh, shaking my head. Then we hug in the kitchen, surrounded by flowers from a man who I love, while a rooster who I hate loses his little mind outside.
And I decide, right then and there, to talk to Landry.
Because I love Mabel, but I don’t want to run an inn and live with a devil chicken.
CHAPTER 36
THE PREMIERE
With just a fewdays to prepare for the local premiere, I made the choice to not reach out to Landry until afterward. I let the news about Devin’s affair get to me last time, and as it is, I’m already disappointed in myself for how things have transpired.
I came here to make a film, to further my name in the indie documentary space, and I wound up falling for my subject and complicating everything. Had I been focused on work, I’d still be at Vaughn Ranch, we’d be driving to the inn together, and tomorrow, I’d be leaving.
Instead, I let my emotions take over, and I refuse to let this premiere suffer because of it.
I’ve spent the last few days helping Mabel get things ready. We’ve strung Edison lights in the back courtyard, setup tables with horseshoe- and spur-themed centerpieces donated by the local rodeo association, and just this morning, we set up all the chairs and put up all the signage. Now, I’m setting up the photo board depicting key scenes from the film, along with all the flyers overnighted to us by UBS promoting the Indie Film Festival, and a QR code for anyone who wants to order a digital or physical copy.
As it stands, we’re ready for tonight.
I’m ready.
