Chapter 3
HANDSOME COWBOYS > DEVIL CHICKENS
“Oh, honey, those images are absolutely stunning,” Mom says, scrolling through the email I sent her yesterday morning, after Mr. McCharger scared me awake.
Mabel said he’d peck at the door, but honestly, I forgot until my eyes flew open thinking the murderer from I Know What You Did Last Summer was dragging his hook down my closed door. Turns out, just an angry bird.
“I’m glad you like them. I had to hold my laptop in the empty fireplace up in the flue to get enough service to send them.
” I’m a city girl. Not having service and having to hunt for it like a businesswoman in the nineties on the first flip phone is wild to me.
Thank goodness I packed electrolytes in my purse.
“I’m going to do a lot of different panoramic shots there,” I explain, scrawling the notes down in my notebook as I tell them to my mom.
“That’ll be great, Quinn. Gosh, you really have an eye for storytelling,” she sighs, still scrolling through the images. “So, how were the first nights at Sable Sky Inn?”
I pull my bare knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, the phone pinched between ear and shoulder. “Good.” I glance back to the pillow with the indentation of my head. “I slept like a log last night, and no devil chicken woke me up, either.”
“Your soul is settling, being away from Devin,” Mom suggests softly.
I don’t want to talk about Devin, not on this beautiful morning with sunshine pouring through the gauzy curtains, my toes curling comfortably into the soft linens.
Mabel’s voice vibrates through the first floor, talking to what I’ve learned are her indoor animals—two cats, an old dog, and unfortunately, Mr. McCharger.
I push Devin from my mind, despite the fact that I think my mom is right. I think being away is good for my soul. I play with the loose threads on the hem of my pajama boxers. “I saw Landry Vaughn the other afternoon.”
“Oh?”
I swallow against the knot of excitement that erupts at the base of my throat at just the mention of his name. Two days back Mabel took me out to scout locations, and at our very first stop, I saw him.
And his daughter, too.
“Yeah,” I breathe, feeling my face fill up with heat. I press my cheek to my knee and exhale. “He’s really handsome.”
“Oh?” Mom asks, more pep in her step this time around.
“His daughter is beautiful.”
“Oh,” she says again, and this time the inflection gives away all of the sadness I felt the moment I heard their story.
Mabel was respectful, but still, I couldn’t help but bawl when she shared Landry and Sadie Vaughn’s history with me.
“I read about them, after our call yesterday,” she starts, a door closing behind her in the distance.
I can just imagine her at home, closing the back door as she curls up on the outdoor ottoman, the perpetual sixty-degree weather infusing her body with a sudden fullness as she watches the water eat the shore.
It’s strange. I’ve traveled a fair amount.
I made a documentary about an all-girls private school in New York once.
That was fun. The film company even sent me to South Dakota when they did an informational school piece about Mount Rushmore.
That was interesting. Both of those trips, and of every trip I’ve taken, I’ve been anxious to get home. Missed it, even.
I love my mom, and hearing her voice makes me happy, and when I’m gone for a few days longer, Lane will eventually want to talk, and talking to her will make me happy too.
But strangely enough, I’m not dying to get back.
I’m not feeling homesick. Not yet.
“Yeah?”
She hums. “Yeah. How tragic. That poor little girl.”
“I know,” I whisper, glancing out the window to endless miles of dirt road and rolling green pasture on the other side.
“I’m going out there today to meet them,” I tell her, my stomach twisting from the truth.
“I’m a bit nervous to meet him.” I roll my lips together, then correct myself. “Them, I’m nervous to meet them.”
“You make a great first impression. You’re smart, a quick learner, and most importantly, you are an incredible filmmaker, Quinn. Don’t be nervous, you’ve got nothing to be nervous about.” What she’s saying is, don’t let what Devin did to me get in my head. Not again.
I can’t help but smile. I love my mom. She’s the best. And she’s right—I am an incredible filmmaker.
My last film not getting nominated for the Indie Spirit Award wasn’t an indication of my filmmaking capabilities but more so, an indication that it’s time for a break from relationships.
I was so focused on it and him that I let my work slip.
I won’t let that happen again.
“Thanks, Mom,” I sigh, throwing my legs off the side of the bed. “I should get going. It’s nearly eight in the morning here, which is basically like lunchtime for ranch folk.”
Mom laughs. “Okay, good luck with Landry and Sadie. Break a lens.”
“Will do.”
I stand at the sink, washing dishes in the basin under cool water as Mabel wipes up the table after our brunch. “I’m surprised Landry agreed to being filmed,” she says out of nowhere as I restack her china on the open-air shelving.
“Yeah?” I take a second to pull my hair behind my back, wrapping it in a wad using a pink velvet scrunchie. My favorite scrunchie. “Why’s that?”
She lifts a shoulder, dragging her green-and-white checkered dish towel around the tabletop a few times. “I don’t know, I guess because he’s a real private guy.”
“Yeah?” My skin heats learning that he’s private, which is absolutely ridiculous because I have no business getting the hots for a man I don’t even know.
A dad nonetheless. Someone’s father cannot be getting me moist. Not to mention I’m here to make a great film and stay focused.
Still, my eyes flick to Mabel as I wait with bated breath for her response.
“Even before,” she says, leaving off the terrible part of that sentence that we are both fully aware of. “He was always private. A man like Landry doesn’t do anything without reason, so I’m guessing this film company of yours is paying him. Am I right?”
I nod, remembering one of the attached documents in the first email.
It wasn’t something we normally do, or not anything I’ve seen in the three years I’ve been at United Broadcasting.
I opened it once, and after scanning it for a minute or so, realized it was a payment contract between UBS and Landry Vaughn.
I closed it before looking at any amount, but she’s not wrong. He is getting paid.
Shrugging, I tell Mabel the utter truth. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to answer that honestly, and I’m on thin ice at work.” I pout. “Just being honest.”
Mabel blinks at me a few times before straightening, tossing the rag onto the counter and moving to the coat rack near the back door.
“I know you’re honest. I see that in you.
” She plucks a red hat off the rack, a cowboy hat that looks like it’s real familiar with the Texas sun.
“Here,” she says, handing it to me. “Now, go get dressed, put this on, and I’ll take you to ’em. ”
After I tried and failed to mount Mabel’s favorite horse John Wayne, I convinced her to let me drive us to the Vaughn Ranch. She chatted away the entire drive, filling me in on the town, the residents, the slow way of life and the excitement that the rodeo draws out of everyone.
As we approach, I don’t double-check with Mabel that she has the right address because it’s insulting to a native, I’m sure. But I am surprised when she wags her finger out the windshield, pointing to the oversized, aged farmhouse in the middle of a massive ranch.
A single cowboy and his daughter living a quiet life in Sable Sky, Texas?
I envisioned something quaint. With a stream, maybe, or one of those old-timey windmills made of repurposed metal.
Maybe a dog tied to the porch and some lavender growing in a windowsill.
A few windows, and a back porch meant for watching sunsets and flipping burgers.
What I see instead is something much grander. A large farmhouse, three stories tall, with a sprawling property enclosed in white fencing as far as the eye could see. And at one point, I couldn’t see the fence anymore, and that’s when I asked Mabel how much property the Vaughn’s owned.
“The house and land are fourth generation,” she says as I slow the car, taking in every bit of the property as we approach.
“Couple hundred acres. I don’t know the exact amount.
But it’s big. A lot for the two of ’em to take care of.
” She motions to the house, where the white paint is peeling off slats of wood in thick strips, where one shutter hangs from a nail, the screen door looking worse for wear with a strip of duct tape along the middle.
“They keep it tidy till they can do more.”
My mind gets stuck on they. “Who?”
Mabel blinks at me, then realizes what I’m referring to, giving a short chuckle.
“Oh, I meant Landry and Tate. Tatum Collier. He and his family live there,” she says, pointing beyond the stable to a second farmhouse I hadn’t spotted earlier, at least three football fields from the Vaughn ranch house.
“Tate and Landry grew up together. Tate works the property with him, to help.”
I put the car in park, and we get out. “All right, well, now that we’re here, you don’t need to hear it from me!” Mabel says as she thumps her closed first along the screen door, which rests over an old farmhouse door, blue paint peeling off in long, weathered strips.
My stomach tightens nervously as she knocks.
I think this is the first documentary I’ve worked on that has a real human story attached to it, and I feel a rightful pressure to honor that story for this stranger and his dream.
Not to mention I want to land on my feet and show Devin and Camel Toe that their affair didn’t break me. That I’m unshakeable.