Filming went on for several more minutes, with three cameras picking the scene up from different angles, and when they broke, Kayla came back to Jordan's side. "What'd you think?"
"I think watching you work is amazing. Who's your city boyfriend, there?"
"That's Milo Scott. I don't think he'll be working in low-budget romcoms for long. I mean, look at that face."
"Ah, but can he act?" Jordan asked wisely, and Kayla laughed.
"He's not bad, honestly. He's also ten years younger than I am, so he's got a lot of room for up-and-coming."
"Seriously?" Jordan looked back at Milo, whose cheekbones looked like they'd been carved from glass shards, and whose dark eyes seemed to flash even without any lighting to account for it. "How do you cope with being surrounded by people this attractive all the time? I know you're one of them, but good grief, Kayla."
"You kind of get used to it over time," she said with a shrug. "And then you go away from a set for a while and you come back to do a reshoot and you fall over because how could you have forgotten how good-looking they are? But you do get used to it. Mostly."
"I'll take your word for it. So what's the plot of this one?"
"I'm home to sell the family's B&B and have a high-octane corporate lawyer job to go back to, only there's the small-town mindset of 'you left and now you think you're too good for us so to hell with you,' and worse, the first thing that happens when I get here is this," Kayla said, gesturing at her terrible haircut, which was still under a hat, as it had been for the whole scene they'd shot, "so nobody will take me seriously. I run into my old high school sweetheart—that's Anderson—and he takes pity on me and helps out, because everybody around here still loves him. When he finds out I'm only selling the family business because the building is falling apart and the family doesn't have the money to restore it. Anderson's a carpenter, obviously, so he starts work on the place for me, but then Milo comes down from the city to woo me back."
"You and Anderson have a fight and he walks away from it all, but then finds himself staring up at the old B&B late one night, and then we see him shaking his head and getting his toolbox?"
Kayla grinned. "Youhavebeen watching my romcoms. And of course Milo is shocked and horrified by the 'new' me?—"
"A bad haircut isn't a new you!" Jordan protested.
"Which is how we know he's wrong for me," Kayla said, smiling up at him. "But I arrange a sale and accept that the building is going to be knocked down, then go back to the city, get a chic new haircut and go back to my fancy corporate job. But now I feel something is missing from my life, and I realize too late that I should never have sold the family business. I race back to my hometown, knowing it's too late to save the B&B but having to try anyway…"
"And it turns out Anderson bought it and has finished restoring it. He didn't know what he was going to do with the old place, but it means everything to him because it once meant everything to you…"
"Very good. And then we make up and live happily ever after running our little B&B together in our little hometown."
"So basically I don't stand a chance," Jordan said thoughtfully. "You said you sold your family house years ago. How can I rebuild it into an up-to-code B&B if you don't even own it anymore?"
Kayla laughed. "Is 'carpenter' one of your hidden skill sets?"
"Oh, God, no," Jordan said with feeling. "But since the whole house thing is the first problem I've got to overcome, I figured I'd worry about not being a carpenter later."
"I'm sure you'll work around it somehow," Kayla said with a grin. They called her name and she blew him a kiss before heading back to her place, leaving Jordan to smile like a fool. There she was, in the literal spotlight, the actual star of the show…and she'd toldhim, Jordan Rhodes, washed-up baseball player, that he would figure it out.
In other words, he stood a chance with the most fabulous woman he'd ever met, and he honestly couldn't ask for more.
Chapter 15
By the time they broke for lunch, Jordan texted an apology and left the set. Kayla couldn't blame him: it was cold enough under the lights, and he had a dog to think about. She texted back to say she hoped she'd see him later, just before Cyril called her over.
Murder,her owl offered as her stomach clenched and her shoulders stiffened.
I'll get back to you on that,she promised. But the director, not quite meeting her eyes, muttered, "Sorry, I've behaved poorly."
After a moment of wondering if that was it, Kayla accepted the apology as graciously as she could. Cyril relaxed a bit, and Kayla went to grab a bite to eat, murmuring,I wonder if the studio called and read him the riot act last night,to her owl.
The owl went off on a series of outraged, threatening hoots and wing-spreads, making itself large and alarming in her mind, then ended with the sense of a query, as if asking whether that qualified as a 'riot act'. It was hard to keep from grinning, or speaking out loud.That's exactly what reading the riot act sounds like, yep.
The owl fluffed its feathers and settled, feeling smug.He deserved it. Or murder.
Let's have lunch instead of murder.
FOOD!Crunchy mice?her owl asked hopefully.
…how about some crunchy potato chips instead?
