"That little brat chopped off all your hair!"
"She's still a kid," Kayla said, "and you're going to be nice to her. You're going to stop sniveling and snarking at me, and you're going to stop rearranging the shooting schedule to make me look bad as whatever kind of bizarre petty vengeance this is. If you don't, Iwillcall the guild and have you replaced."
"You can't get a decent director up here in back-of-the-woods New York?—"
"Clearly," Kayla said icily.
Cyril's eyes popped with outrage and his voice rose. "—on short notice?—!"
Kayla couldn't help a sudden smile. "You might be right. I might have to take over myself. I've always wanted to direct." That wasn't entirely true. She was genuinely happy on her side of the camera. But she'd been on dozens of film sets in her career, and was confident that she wouldn't do worse as a new director than Cyril would do as a vindictive petty one.
Mostly, though, the threat worked: Cyril's eyes popped again, and he spluttered a second time. Kayla lifted her palm, cutting off whatever he might say. "There's no reason for us to be at odds, Cy. We haven't dated in years, and this film is an opportunity for both of us. But I've had enough of your bad behavior. Either shape up or prepare to ship out."
Cyril's eyes narrowed. "This is about that man you met yesterday, isn't it? The one who recognized you,Kylie?"
Kayla stared at the director a moment. "If it's about Jordan, it's because you're making it about him. He's a friend fromhigh school, Cyril. You can't possibly be jealous. That would be ridiculous."
He's more than a friend from high school!her owl protested.
Oh, I'm sorry,Kayla said, annoyed.Did you want me to just tell Cyril I'm a shifter, then? Is that going to work out for us?
The owl didn't have a lower lip to pout with, but it did a pretty good job anyway. Kayla sighed, mumbled,Sorry,to her bird-brained inner self, and returned her attention to the sulky director. "Honestly, Cy, just get over it. I don't understand why you're even acting this way. We broke upyearsago."
"You and Boone McKelvie broke up last month," Cyril mumbled. "Immediately before we started filming."
"Yes, I kn…ooohhhh. And you hoped it was because I'd be working with you again and wanted to rekindle something," Kayla said in a flash of insight. "No, I'm sorry, Cyril. Boone and I wanted different things and it wasn't going to work out."
"See, you and I want the same things, we'd be good together again!"
Kayla physically bit her tongue, because it wouldn't help to say 'No, we don't.' Her owl whispered,Muuuurrrduuuuurrrr,and Kayla ducked her head, smiling at the bird, if not the director. She met his eyes again, said, "We're not getting back together, Cy, so either get over it or get out, because I don't want you wrecking this film with your fantasies."
For the second time, Cyril's pale cheeks blanched, then blushed. He gathered his dignity, such as it was, and said, "I'll have to think about that," which struck Kayla as absurd. "I'm cancelling filming for the rest of the day."
Kayla squeaked, "You'rewhat?", but Cyril spun away and stalked off through the snow like a petulant teen. Kayla gaped after him, then threw her hands in the air and turned back to discover a considerable portion of the cast and crew had gathered behind her. They stood at a respectable distance, justfar away enough that they probably couldn't overhear, but they were all obviously waiting to find out what was happening with the showdown between director and star. Kayla threw her hands in the air again. "Apparently we get the afternoon off. If we're not back filming in the morning, I'll…" She took a deep breath. "I'll let you know what's happening next."
The location manager took half a step forward, grinding her teeth as she did. "Ms. Walsh, we only have a limited amount of timetofilm outdoors here. The Christmas Market is going to be set up by tomorrow, and that'll change our whole background for the outdoors scenes. We don't have the budget to fix things in post."
Kayla scrubbed a hand through her hair, since it didn't have to be tidy for filming that afternoon, after all. "I know, Zoey. I…" A terrible idea trickled through her mind and she sighed. "I can go talk to the vendors and see if anybody on this side of the market is willing to hold off finishing their setup until tomorrow or the next day."
The location manager, a tall woman with braids trailing from beneath her winter hat, looked dubious. "With all due respect, Ms. Walsh, for one thing, that's my job, and for another, it's not like you're…"
"Tom Cruise?" Kayla asked wryly. "Yeah, I know. But in this case, what I am might be even more useful than that."
Glances were exchanged through the gathered crew, and finally a lot of questioning gazes came back to Kayla, looking for clarification. She sighed again. "In this case, what I am is Kylie Quinn, local girl, and people might just be willing to lend me a hand."
Chapter 8
Jordan hadn't offered to walk Kayla back to set because he thought it would seem like he desperately and passionately wanted to spend more time with her. That was true, but he was afraid it wasn't a good look, especially around a woman who probably had men acting like that all the time. Not that he wanted to play it cool. Jordan wasn't sure he was able to play it cool, really. But mostly he didn't want to come on like a wrecking ball.
The fact that Kayla had invited him out to dinner when she was next available seemed like a good sign, though. Like he wasn't coming across as a love-struck fool, even if that's exactly what he was. So he waited until she'd been gone for at least fifteen minutes before paying the bill and taking Barney out of the ice cream parlor, murmuring, "You were a good boy," to the black-and-white dog. "We'll take a nice long walk now. Maybe even long enough to tire you out."
Barney's fluffy flag of a tail curled up and waved like Jordan had issued a challenge. Well, as long as his knee held out, Jordan was up for it. "Tell you what, we'll go down and do the river walk, how's that sound? But I want to go back to the town square to geta doughnut to tide me over on the walk back, okay? Because the kiosk down there only does hot chocolates and coffee, and no hot chocolate on earth is ever going to live up to the one I just had. And I don't need coffee after three p.m."
The dog looked back at him, and Jordan realized he was making excuses to a pet. "All right, fine, the truth is that I want to hang around and see if I can watch Kayla filming for a while. Is that weird?" He frowned as they slipped their way down the sidewalk. "No, what's weird is that I'm asking a dog his opinion on my itinerary. Don't judge me."
Barney was clearly judging him. Jordan straightened his shoulders and informed himself that a Border Collie, no matter how smart, did not get to decide on the human's activities for the afternoon.
He had not quite convinced himself of that as they emerged on the eastern side of the square, where the new playground had gone up earlier in the year. Jordan wished they'd had something like it when he was a kid: it looked like the entire town's worth of under-12s were crawling over it right now, pelting snowballs, playing tag, and generally making an inconceivable amount of noise. One of the kids yelled, "PUPPY!" and came tearing over, leading about five others, all shouting with similar excitement.
