Chapter 4
EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT B-ROLL FOOTAGE
Glitter on cowboy boots. Lord, now I’ve seen it all.
Dragging the old burlap sack off the seat in the four-wheeler in the barn, I move the bucket full of tools from the footwell.
“Here.” I motion to the seat for Quinn to sit, and drop my hand over the top of her head on instinct, same way I do with Sadie and Petunia.
Quinn’s green eyes leap to mine, those full lips of hers parted, a dip of confusion settling neatly between her brows.
“Habit,” I grouse, “my girl hits her head on the roof, so I put my hand on her head to absorb the blow if she forgets to duck.”
Slowly her face softens into a smile, and for some reason, I don’t like that. The back of my neck grows itchy as she stares at me, my fingers dusting her hair, which is as soft as I thought it’d be. I take my hand back. “Go on, get in. I ain’t got all day.”
Her face falls, and she ducks, sinking into the seat, her eyes on me as I walk around the front of the rig and get behind the wheel. “I kind of thought we’d walk the property and talk,” Quinn says, using the seat belt that I’m not sure anyone has ever used. Not even Sadie.
“Lotta acres,” I tell her, peering down at her boots. “Not sure those’d hold up.”
She clicks the heels together, like Dorothy, and smiles up at me, her long, blonde hair and pink cheeks a stark contrast to the dark barn and my hampered mood. I start the four-wheeler, drive out into the sun, and head toward the far end of the property line, figuring we’ll work our way back.
Driving past the chicken coop, I notice Henrietta and Sheila in their usual morning squabble over who eats where. “Hey! Quit that,” I holler at them as we pass by, the boom of my voice making the little blonde jump.
Over the sound of wind and chickens fighting, Quinn clears her throat. “Your daughter is so beautiful.”
I don’t know what to say to that, for some reason. I hear it in town all the time, and I’ve been repeating the same reply for years: “She gets it from her mama.”
But Quinn isn’t from Sable Sky. She’s a stranger, and it’s strange having her talk about my girl, forget the fact that making this film has got to be one of the last things I want to do.
Going back to the rodeo circuit is also riding high atop that list, if I’m honest. But I gotta do what I gotta do for my baby girl.
“Tell me about your approach to this documentary,” I start, glancing back at the coop to make sure no stragglers are following. We drive down the property line, and I stop at one point where the horses are gathered in the pasture. We watch them eat and run as she talks.
“I like to get pretty well acquainted with my subject, and while we’re getting to know one another, I start filming B-roll footage. You know what that is, right?”
“I know what B-roll footage is.”
She nods, dragging her pink fingernails through the ends of her hair mindlessly, and I realize in just being with her for a few minutes that she must do this when she’s in thought.
Sadie does it, too, wrapping one of her curls around her finger over and over.
I think of Sadie, and what both winning this rodeo and being in this documentary can do for her.
It can save this life that she knows, the only life she knows.
And with that thought, I focus on Quinn and take this seriously, trying to set aside all of my own feelings.
Quinn’s just doing her job, and it ain’t her fault I’d rather be doing anything but this.
My eyes catch on the ends of her hair, and the way her fingers wobble as they drag through a soft tangle.
Quinn catches me eyeing her. “Well,” she drags out, cheeks growing flush, “after I’ve mapped out the structure of the documentary, then I’ll start doing interviews with people of impact in your life, and I’ll interview rodeo folk.”
“Rodeo folk?” My lips twitch as I stack one boot on the dash, knocking my hat back to get a better view of her. “Now, who are the rodeo folk in your city-girl mind?”
She smirks. “The people who go to rodeos.”
Her hair lifts as the wind moves through the locks, but this time she produces a scrunchie, and pulls it up into a ponytail, exposing her neck. I look away, and focus my attention on the horses and the clear blue sky. “We just call them people.”
“Okay, well, after that I’ll film your training, a lot of your training, and a lot of footage of your normal life, too.” Her voice lowers, like she’s unsure of her footing. “Sadie will be a large part of it, because she’s such a large part of your life.”
“She’s my whole life,” I answer back. “I’m doin’ this for her.”
She doesn’t ask what I mean, and hell, I don’t know. Maybe she already knows that I’m drowning in debt. If she’s already started talking to the rodeo folk, it’s likely she’s chatted with Elena. I couldn’t ask Elena to hide how much she helps me, so it’s completely possible she’s aware.
Thankfully, she moves on.
“Tell me about your day-to-day, Landry. I think today, seeing your ranch and learning more about you is a great place to start.” She roots around in her messenger bag and pulls out a notebook, the words THE COMEBACK RIDER scrawled over the front.
I nod toward it as she pulls a pink pen from her bag. “That the name of it? The movie?”
She looks at the notebook then up at me, those green eyes of hers smiling pridefully. “Yeah. I came up with it.”
I run my hand down my thigh, remembering last night as I glance back at the barn. After I got Sadie to bed, I snuck out to the barn and dragged the cover off the mechanical bucker, and hopped on.
Foolish.
That’s what it was.
I wanted to see if I could even sit up on anything and feel something.
Excitement, happiness, nerves, anything at all.
It’s been so long since I’ve broken in a bronc or climbed on for a go.
I climbed on there and held tight, and looking at my palms today, you’d think I’ve been training for weeks already.
But I sat there, gripping the rig, stationary.
Damn thing wasn’t even plugged in. Still.
I sat there, gripping until my hand went numb, staring out into the stalls at the horses, and then up at the night sky full of glittering stars.
If someone would’ve told me the love of my life would be gone and that I’d be in a barn alone at night dreaming of the past while my baby girl sleeps upstairs, I’d have told ’em off.
Though it’s been six years, I don’t think I’ll ever stop mourning the life we all lost, together.
Quinn peers down at my hand, tapping the sore spot with the end of her pen. “Ouch. What happened there?”
“Ranch life,” I grouse, suddenly frustrated by the rush of emotions I find myself catching. Nostalgia is a more dangerous drug than any, I think. I peer over at her, watching her scribble in bubbly cursive. “You come up with the Beautiful Minds of the Bronx, too, then?”
She stops writing, blinking up at me with those mossy green eyes that have to be as beautiful as a clear Texas day. Maybe even more. I lick my lips, the back of my neck hot as awareness shudders through me in violent waves.
I’m looking at Quinn Farley the same way I looked at Amelia, all those years back.
“You… looked me up?”
I nod. “I looked up UBS.” Her face falls a little, but she plasters on a smile so quickly, it’s hard to get a sense of how she’s really feeling, or what she’s thinking. Is she disappointed I looked up her film company, or disappointed I didn’t look her up directly?
“Oh.” Another white-toothed smile. “I’ve only done three films so far, but if you’re nervous that I’m not experienced enough—”
“No,” I grumble, “I’m not… You’re here. I don’t want another person having to dig into my life. You’re here. You’re making the film.”
She blinks at me. I feel her stare along my profile, despite the fact that I watch the horses run for another minute.
“You know, everyone who watches the film is gonna learn a lot about you.” Her hand comes down on my thigh, and my eyes drop to her touch immediately.
She pulls it away, cheeks flaming with insecurity.
I’m not sure that touch was inappropriate, but it felt like it.
If Mabel put her hand on my thigh, I’d probably put my hand over hers and give it a nice, platonic pat.
“Just… want you to be comfortable with that, is all.”
I’m not. I don’t like it. I don’t like it for me, and I don’t much care for it for Sadie, either.
But when UBS sent me an email, then sent one to Tatum, my second-in-charge here at the ranch, he forced me to read it.
“A great way to bring attention to your return to the arena,” is the way that it was pitched, and as much as I hated every single one of those words, I saw an opportunity.
Not for me, but for my girl.
Writing an email back asking to be compensated for my participation was terrible. I hated every single keystroke. The shame that burned through my body as I sat at that stupid desk chair and wrote the words, Happy to participate in the film in exchange for a small stipend, is indescribable.
I don’t want charity.
I don’t want Elena to help me free of charge, or promise to add things to my bill then forget. I don’t want Tatum to work a second job because I can’t pay him. I don’t want my girl to grow up in a house that needs more work than not because her daddy can’t afford to make it pretty for her.
And I don’t want to get back on a bronc, not in the arena, not in front of Sadie, not in front of anyone, ever.
But I’m a parent, and what I want is meaningless compared to what she needs, what’s best for her. She’s already only living a fraction of the life we envisioned for her without her mama here, I won’t take her stability from beneath her, too.
I’ll compete, and I’ll win, and I’ll get paid for this young thing to be in my business for a few months, and when it’s all said and done, she’ll go her way and I’ll go mine.
I’ll save this land that’s been in my family for four generations and I’ll save this home, too. The only home my baby has ever known.
I take Quinn Farley and her pink boots through every acre of my property, showing her the wishing well, introducing her to the horses in the stable, and even taking her to the barn to show her where I work out, and the bucking machine. She takes notes the entire time.
An hour and a half later, we’re headed back to the house, Sadie outside with Petunia Collier, the two of them attempting to fly a kite shaped like a butterfly.
“Careful by that end of the porch now, you two,” Love Collier hollers from her spot on the lawn, resting on a quilt with their baby in her lap.
The porch isn’t safe on that side of the house anymore, what with dry rot and years of neglect.
While Sadie takes Quinn by the hand to her room to show her all of her horse stuffed animals, I park the four-wheeler and close the barn.
The sun licking at the side of my jaw, my attention is yanked to the second-floor window, where I see Quinn wearing Sadie’s hat, Sadie’s hand over her mouth to capture her uproarious laughter.
The side of my mouth lifts for a minute, then drops. And I head inside.