"Okay," I said. "If it's later and I fall asleep, I just might not hear it, but that's fine."
"Will you be up until midnight?" he asked.
I could hardly look at his face. It was rounded and sharp at the same time—rugged and manly, but still fair and angelic.
The eyes.
Those amber eyes.
His whole face was majestic. His eyes glowed, and that was emphasized in the bright daylight. I could hardly make eye contact without feeling antsy.
"Yeah, I'll be up until then," I said. "I just meant don't feel bad if you get busy and can't call." I bit my lip again.Why was I doing that?This guy made me feel all sorts of things.
"Josie." His deep voice cut through the silence, and my eyes snapped up to meet his again. "I'll call you tonight." He grinned, and I felt a fluttery feelingthat made me understand why people called it butterflies.
I nodded and waved at him. "Okay, I'll talk to you tonight."
Chapter 10
It was mid-afternoon the following day when my sister and I left Missoula. Luna came with us. It had been a whole thing where my sister begged for her to be included. I was happy that Audrey was looking out for Lu and wanted to encourage her, so I asked Alex even though I felt a little awkward about it. He was nice and said that we should definitely bring Luna.
We arrived on site and followed laminated paper signs with arrows to the wardrobe tent. Alex had told them we were coming, and they had things prepared for us. I was surprised by what we were wearing. There were two types of clothing in the scene. Audrey and I had expected the poor people's clothes, but the dresses that were waiting for us in the trailer were the fancy ones—at least hers was. I saw a dress on a rack when we walked in, and it had a piece of paper on it with my sister's name.
The colors were still somewhat muted, but the dresses on that rack were made with tailored corsets and full skirts. There was a lot of detail on the whole thing and several layers on the skirt. I had to assume mine would be similar. I had to hope it would be, and not just because I wanted to wear it, but also that we could be standing together.
"Oh, I love this dress," she said when she came in behind me and saw her name. "It's amazing." She turned and stooped nervously to speak to her daughter. "Now, Luna, you just do whatever they tell you, okay?" Luna nodded with wide eyes. We had already given her talks about how late she would have to stay up, and we made her take a nap in the car on the way there.
"Okay, is this Josie Wells?" a woman said, coming over to us when she saw us come in.
"Yes, she's Josie," my sister said, pointing at me.
The woman came straight over to me. "Congratulations, you got a role, my love," she said to me with a bright smile.
Fear and dread washed over me, and I wanted to deny that that could be the truth, but I simply stood there with a frozen smile. My sister patted my back as if agreeing with the congratulations.
"Have you been to the barn to be told what you're doing for the scene?"
"No, we just got here," I said, feeling thankful that my voice was working.
"Okay, look, I'm stuck in here and don't have time to walk you over there. But I know Cameron wants to talk to you before we fit your costume. I can tell just by looking at you that we'll be okay with your dress, though. Just wait right outside, I'm going to call Cameron and tell her you're here."
I made a surprised expression at my sister on my way out, but otherwise we didn't say anything toeach other. I stepped outside, and within seconds, the young woman from the grocery store walked up to me.
"Josie?" she said.
"Yes."
"Hello, dear. I'm Cameron."
"Hi," I said.
"How are you? I hear we're going to have you dancing at the start of this scene."
"I don't know of any dance yet," I said, shrugging and smiling timidly through the nerves.
"Oh, I'll show you. You'll be with James. He's good, and he knows what to do. He'll lead you. Come with me, please. I'm going to take you into the building where we're filming tonight. Some people call it the barn or the hall—it's a multipurpose building. It's been so helpful for us. This place just got finished a month ago, and it looks like it's a hundred years old. The Sutters did an amazing job." We went past the row of tents, and I could see the building she was talking about. "Henry's parents had this built for us, if you can believe that. We had this scene planned for Darby, but it's so much easier to get it done here."
I knew some of what she was talking about from Alex. I knew that Henry was their friend who was also a horse trainer. I also knew that Henry's parents were the Sutter family, who owned this ranch. I was working on keeping up with everything she was saying. I followed her inside the wooden building.There was a large door that was open on one side with a lot of camera equipment near the entrance.
