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Again, Audrie and Landon exchanged a look. The woman had turned and walked through a doorway at the back of the store. Audrie started in that direction, and he followed.
The backroom was even more cluttered than the store itself. That was no surprise really, but it made it tough to find the employee they were supposed to be following. There were stacks of boxes all the way to the ceiling, and books littered the floor.
He wasn’t a big reader, but his mom was. He could imagine her horror at the way these paperbacks and hardbacks were just scattered all over the place.
“Over here!” he heard a voice say.
Audrie had slowed by then, but she picked up her step and started in the direction of the voice. At least he thought it was the correct direction. It was a little hard to judge.
And then he lost her. She disappeared in the boxes. Only a couple of steps later did he see there was a gap to the left and he took it. At the end of that row of boxes stood Audrie and the woman, who had her hand on a shorter stack of boxes than those that surrounded it.
“These are last year’s Christmas cards,” she said. “We didn’t sell them, even though we marked them down to almost nothing in January. If you want them all, she can offer you a discount or you can go through and pick the ones you want.”
Audrie looked over at Landon as though it was his decision. Oh wait, it was. He’d be expected to know just how much money they were willing to spend on a prop they were going to use one time. Maybe twice.
“Let’s just take a quick look and see,” Landon told Audrie. “If the cards are covered in a bunch of gold and silver, there’s no point in filling your trunk with it.”
From the look on her face, he could see they’d hit a snag. Yeah, that tiny car would no doubt have a tiny trunk to match. No way would they be able to get all four boxes in one trunk.
A door chime rang through the air, and Landon recognized it from the noise he’d heard when they walked in. Someone had entered the store.
“Excuse me,” the woman said, staring off in the direction of the front of the store. “If you need me, I’ll be out there.”
That left Landon and Audrie alone in what he assumed was the stockroom. He’d done his fair share of physical labor over the years, and as a result, he’d built up quite a bit of strength, so he had no problem tackling the stack of boxes. But they were heavier than he’d assumed for Christmas cards. He supposed when you packed a bunch of them together, the weight added up pretty quickly.
He set the four boxes on the ground and ripped the first open with his bare hands while Audrie was wandering around, looking for something sharp to cut them with. When she turned, her eyes were wide as she saw he’d opened two of the boxes and was starting on a third.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s…”
“I see silver,” Landon said as he ripped open the fourth box and pulled both flaps back.
Audrie came over and looked down at the box’s contents. “We can’t use any gold or silver?”
She was standing close to him then. So close, he could smell her light scent. She smelled like coconut—he assumed that was from the hair products she used. By the second time he’d visited the trailer, her whole area had smelled that way.
“What about red metallics like this?” She knelt and pulled out a box of cards that had been on top. “Wouldn’t that reflect light?”
Audrie looked up at him then, and he felt that not-so-gentle tug on his heart. She was beautiful—stunning, actually. She had a smooth, creamy complexion that was a contrast to her large brown eyes and dark hair. She wore no lipstick, but her mouth still looked kissable, and when she smiled, her entire face lit up.
He tore his gaze away and looked around the room for no reason other than to just keep his mind straight. “That’s a good point,” he said, tracking back to her question about metallics. “Let’s just see if we can find any that won’t reflect light.”
Apparently, she was counting on him as an expert, but he really had no idea what would catch the light. The paper itself on most of these cards was shiny, but nobody had told him to stay away from glossy paper. Besides, if they limited it only to matte cards, there was no way they’d reach a thousand.
First, he pulled everything out of one of the boxes, then began stacking “to take” cards separate from “to leave.” At that point, he shifted to filling the empty box with the ones they were taking with them.
“Are there a lot of cowboy scenes in this movie?” Audrie asked. They’d already made small talk about the production and Christian’s ranch, so it made sense in the context of the conversation.
“Not really.” Landon hated to admit it, but he hadn’t read the script in depth.
He’d scanned the script, stopping at various sections, and he’d read that particular day’s sides while waiting around for shooting to start, but he couldn’t say for sure how many scenes would require a cowboy’s expertise, which was what she was asking
“There’s the barn,” he said. “But it’s not really a barn anymore now that they’ve redone it.”
“It never was much of a barn,” Audrie said. “They had some horses here back in the day, but mostly, this was your typical cattle ranch. Cows, cows, and more cows. But the focus was on making a profit, not caring for the animals.”
Squatting was getting uncomfortable, so Landon adjusted his position until he was fully seated on the floor in front of the second box. He then dove back into sorting.
“Are there still cows there?” he asked.
