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That was more important to her than anything else. Not having financial stress would take a huge load off.
“You’ve got a deal,” Audrie told Rourke. “I’ll stay away from your brother. You don’t have to worry about it for the other productions, either. I won’t be getting anywhere near Landon Dixon ever again.” And she meant that. She pushed her chair back and stood. “Excuse me.”
She didn’t head back to her table then. Instead, she walked out of the tent and straight to her car. She dug her keys out of her pocket and unlocked the doors, climbing in.
The tears didn’t come until she pressed the ignition, but she still held them back until she was off the property. The last thing she wanted to do was let Landon Dixon see her cry.
16
What had he done?
Landon knew he’d made a big mistake as soon as it had happened. And he’d been kicking himself every day since. A full week of kicking himself, in fact. A full week of Audrie avoiding even being in the same room as him.
He wasn’t even sure how it happened. His brother had cornered him before dinner, demanding to know why their lead actress had said that his fling with the hairstylist was unprofessional. In his drive to reassure his brother that he was, in fact, behaving as a true professional, Landon had gone too far. He’d basically painted his relationship with Audrie as some sort of one-sided teenage infatuation. And she was the one doing all the infatuating.
But on the final morning of the first shoot, as he stood in the middle of complete chaos, it hit him and hit him hard. It was a slow dull ache that had been building inside him since he’d stormed out of that food tent over a week ago. He missed her. He missed her more than he’d ever missed anyone or anything in his entire life.
And now, as he stood alongside his brother, tacking Christmas cards to the wall of a barn, Landon knew there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. She was here, in fact. On the other side of the barn, working with Poppy and Christian. Every now and then, he’d hear her laughter ring out, and it would go straight to his heart.
As it turned out, the only thing worse than not being able to be with her was standing just feet away from her and not even able to look at her. He snuck a glance every now and then, of course, but he always had to make sure nobody was watching, including Audrie.
“Where’s Jessica?” someone asked.
It took Landon a few seconds to realize that someone was Tracie. He looked around, assessed the situation, and confirmed that Jessica was actually missing. Not that he would have expected her to help out on something like this. This was physical labor. She showed up on set, waited for everyone to fuss over her, then acted her heart out until she could take a break and have more people fuss over her.
“I don’t know, but she and Peter are supposed to be here to help,” Rourke said. “I guess they’re running lines or something.”
“This is Friday night,” Landon said. “It was a big week. They probably just both need a break to rest up for tomorrow. Peter said it’s a pretty big scene.”
“Pretty big day,” Tracie added.
They were shooting the big finale tomorrow. It was the final scene and the final day of shooting, which wasn’t all that normal. These things were rarely shot in order, Landon had learned. But in this case, they had to use this barn for a bunch of other scenes, so covering it in greeting cards was best left for the last minute. This way, they could put all the cards up and take them down after shooting wrapped.
That brought him to the next challenge. There would be only a one-day break before they started production on the second movie. The new cast would start arriving in town this very weekend. Then they’d start over again with an all-new script and an all-new set of challenges.
“We found a hairstylist,” Rourke suddenly said in a tone low enough that only Landon would hear. “She’ll be here Monday, just in time for the next shoot.”
Rourke glanced over his shoulder at Audrie, which basically gave Landon permission to do the same. He had to check to see what his brother was staring at, after all.
She looked mesmerizing. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. She’d changed at some point during the day. He’d seen her that morning at breakfast, wearing a pair of jeans and a red blouse. Tonight, she’d come ready to work.
“Oh?” Landon asked, trying to sound disinterested. He turned back around and leaned over to pick up another group of cards to hang.
“I know Jessica’s leaving after tomorrow, so that problem will be solved, anyway,” Rourke said. “But it’s really best for everyone. An experienced professional on the set, someone who’s worked on productions like this and knows the demands.”
Landon couldn’t seem to control the look of horror that spread over his face at those words. “Audrie has done a great job,” he said. “No matter what you say about her, she’s worked hard, and Jessica’s hair has never looked better.”
And he meant every word of that. Landon had watched the dailies—the very ones Jessica seemed to think were proof that her hairstylist wasn’t doing her job. She looked great, as did Peter and Tracie. Tracie, in fact, had praised the work Audrie had done and asked if they could have her for future productions.
“No, nothing against her,” Rourke said. “Nothing at all. She’s great. But she has a business to run. She owns a salon. It’s best for everyone involved if she goes back to her life and we continue ours.”
Landon didn’t have a response for that. The good news was, he didn’t have to. Rourke turned and started directing the guys with the ladder to move it to where he and Landon could hang cards from the wires they’d tacked up to the rafters earlier. Rows and rows of wires.
Rourke had decided since this was their master plan, the two of them should do the ladder work, and at the time, Landon didn’t argue. He just wanted something to occupy his mind. But now, standing back and watching everyone move things into place, he realized he just wanted to hang out with Audrie. He wanted things to be like they’d been before he messed everything up. Before he’d let his brother believe that whatever was going on between him and Audrie was all on her end.
Rourke climbed up on the ladder first, cards in hand. His goal was to demonstrate what they would be doing.
“Do you need us for this?” Christian asked.
