“Want me to introduce you?” Mabel asks, tugging her cowboy hat down over the unkempt silvering hair.
I cast a glance back at the car, then back at the father and daughter having a private moment as he loads her into the passenger seat of a lifted old farm truck. “No,” I breathe, in awe of strangers from afar, unable to explain why I’m staring like a starstruck fool. It’s just the feeling I get when I look at them.
I can’t explain it.
“I’ll meet him this week. He knows I’m coming.” Devin’s proxied email alleges that Landry is excited for the opportunity to be filmed, and yet as I watch him tip his hat at Mabel from my hiding spot ducking behind my steering wheel, I can't envision a man like that wanting a camera in his face, or his story to be on television.
“All right, on to the Feed ’n’ Seed,” Mabel says, climbing into the car with a huff.
We drive there and scout a handful of other locations, and I fill seven or eight pages in my notebook with ideas for footage and interviews. By the time we get back to the inn and have a nice dinner and plenty of wine (I really like Mabel Sable), I find myself dozing off early, excited for the next day of work.
I missed this feeling.
The hot cowboy I’m going to meet tomorrow? He doesn’t hurt, either.
CHAPTER 3
HANDSOME COWBOYS > DEVIL CHICKENS
“Oh,honey, those images are absolutely stunning,” Mom says, scrolling through the email I sent her yesterday morning, after Mr. McCharger scared me awake. Mabel said he’d peck at the door, but honestly, I forgot until my eyes flew open thinking the murderer fromI Know What You Did Last Summerwas dragging his hook down my closed door. Turns out, just an angry bird.
“I’m glad you like them. I had to hold my laptop in the empty fireplace up in the flue to get enough service to send them.” I’m a city girl. Not having service and having to hunt for it like a businesswoman in the nineties on the first flip phone is wild to me. Thank goodness I packed electrolytes in my purse. “I’m going to do a lot of different panoramic shotsthere,” I explain, scrawling the notes down in my notebook as I tell them to my mom.
“That’ll be great, Quinn. Gosh, you really have an eye for storytelling,” she sighs, still scrolling through the images. “So, how were the first nights at Sable Sky Inn?”
I pull my bare knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, the phone pinched between ear and shoulder. “Good.” I glance back to the pillow with the indentation of my head. “I slept like a log last night, and no devil chicken woke me up, either.”
“Your soul is settling, being away from Devin,” Mom suggests softly.
I don’t want to talk about Devin, not on this beautiful morning with sunshine pouring through the gauzy curtains, my toes curling comfortably into the soft linens. Mabel’s voice vibrates through the first floor, talking to what I’ve learned are her indoor animals—two cats, an old dog, and unfortunately, Mr. McCharger.
I push Devin from my mind, despite the fact that I think my mom is right. I think being away is good for my soul. I play with the loose threads on the hem of my pajama boxers. “I saw Landry Vaughn the other afternoon.”
“Oh?”
I swallow against the knot of excitement that erupts at the base of my throat at just the mention of his name. Two days back Mabel took me out to scout locations, and at our very first stop, I saw him.
And his daughter, too.
“Yeah,” I breathe, feeling my face fill up with heat. I press my cheek to my knee and exhale. “He’s really handsome.”
“Oh?” Mom asks, more pep in her step this time around.
“His daughter is beautiful.”
“Oh,” she says again, and this time the inflection gives away all of the sadness I felt the moment I heard their story.
Mabel was respectful, but still, I couldn’t help but bawl when she shared Landry and Sadie Vaughn’s history with me. “I read about them, after our call yesterday,” she starts, a door closing behind her in the distance. I can just imagine her at home, closing the back door as she curls up on the outdoor ottoman, the perpetual sixty-degree weather infusing her body with a sudden fullness as she watches the water eat the shore.
It’s strange. I’ve traveled a fair amount. I made a documentary about an all-girls private school in New York once. That was fun. The film company even sent me to South Dakota when they did an informational school piece about Mount Rushmore. That was interesting. Both of those trips, and of every trip I’ve taken, I’ve been anxious to get home. Missed it, even.
I love my mom, and hearing her voice makes me happy, and when I’m gone for a few days longer, Lane will eventually want to talk, and talking to her will make me happy too.
But strangely enough, I’m not dying to get back.
I’m not feeling homesick. Not yet.
“Yeah?”
