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There was a muscle in his jaw that twitched when certain things were mentioned, and this was apparently one of them. She assumed that meant his jaw was clenched. She was stressing him out, which was the last thing she wanted to do.
“My brother’s top consideration is keeping everything running,” Landon said. “That’s how he makes his money.”
Hmm. So, it was all about the money. Of course, it would be. He wasn’t doing all this work out of the goodness of his heart.
“It’s weird.” She glanced over at the bank, where they were working hard to get the lighting and camera angles right. “I never really thought of this stuff as business.”
“What did you think it was?” he asked.
She shifted her attention back to him. His eyes were narrowed slightly in that perplexed look he tended to have for her. Already, she’d noticed that was a “thing,” and she’d literallyjustmet him.
After only a moment’s hesitation, she blurted, “Fantasy. Most of us watch these movies to unwind after a hard day at our own jobs. Knowing someone makes a living creating all of this…”
Great. Had she just insulted him? She didn’t want to do that. He was just a consultant here, though. As a former rancher, he might relate more than anyone to the fact that it was absurd that this was something people called a job.
He laughed, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she hadn’t offended him, after all.
“I get it,” he said. “After spending a morning mucking stalls, checking to make sure the actress will be on set on time seems pretty easy.”
“But you’ll be helping out with the ranch part of things when the time comes, right?”
Maybe she’d misunderstood. She’d have sworn he said he was here as a consultant, not an actress fetcher. Was his brother putting him in that awkward position?
“I’m here as a consultant.” He smiled. “You know how it is with family.”
That smile was contagious. “Christian’s kind of like family, so yeah, I get it.”
She glanced over to the left. Where was Christian? She needed to go track him down.
“Can we get hair over here?”
It took Audrie a second to realize she was the one they were referring to when they said, “hair.” Yes, that was what she was here to do. And it was between scenes, so she was expected to touch up Jessica’s hair. Peter, too, but she’d already gotten the impression that everything revolved around Jessica on this particular set.
“Duty calls.” She smiled at him.
“Duty calls.”
Landon smiled back, and their gazes lingered. The stare lasted a heartbeat or two longer than it should have, but that was okay. It would help her get through the challenges of the morning.
“Landon, can I see you over here?”
Audrie had already pulled herself away from Landon and was heading in that direction when the second command came from the same direction. She would glance back over her shoulder but navigating the sloped bank behind the house was no joke. She had to watch every step to make sure she didn’t fall into the water. If she lost her footing and slipped and landed in the pond, that would give everyone something to talk about for a while.
Knowing he was behind her and could see her ungracefully trying to keep her balance made things tough. She kept her gaze focused on the ground ahead, carefully placing her feet with each step. Her canvas sneakers were lightweight, but luckily, they had ridges on the bottom to grip the ground.
She was so focused on not falling that Audrie forgot to stress about her destination. When she arrived at the small crowd, Audrie’s nerves kicked in again. Jessica was there alone, standing in the center of it all. It took Audrie an extra second or two to spot Peter, the actor whose hair she’d quickly touched up that morning before sending him on his way.
He was talking to Tracie. The actress who was playing Jessica’s sister wasn’t even on the call sheet for this scene. She’d mentioned spending most of the morning waiting around to shoot her scene in the kitchen, so that must be why she was hanging out here, smiling up flirtatiously at Peter.
“This one needs some frizz control,” Michael, the director, called out without even looking at her.
Audrie’s gaze immediately went to Jessica, who should have flown into a tantrum over being called “this one,” judging by what Audrie had seen of her that morning. Instead, she seemed distracted. She wasn’t even looking at her phone, which was a first.
“Sure,” Audrie said.
She stepped forward, glancing down at the apron tied around her waist. It had been left in the trailer for her. Tracie had been kind enough to tell her the stylists wore them so they’d always have their supplies handy on set. At the time, Audrie hadn’t thought she needed it, but she wore it that morning anyway. And now she saw its value.
Without even looking down, Audrie closed her hand around the bottle of anti-frizz spray. If she was going to be sticking around here for a while, she’d need to negotiate funds to pay for these products. They weren’t cheap.
