Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jason held the door for those leaving the meeting because he was standing beside it and he was a gentleman. The people passed by in twos and threes and made short comments to him and each other. “Good vote.” “A bit chilly tonight.” “Heard you took the Forsythe colt.”
Mrs. Bailey came through with Danny and gave him a nod. The young man in the feed store cap came through with his shoulders up and didn’t look at anybody.
Jason said his name and the kid stopped. “Tate’s short a hand through calving. You should come by.” The kid looked at him for a second and then went on out, walking with a bit of a spring in his step.
Tate went to get the truck. Wendy went by with Tripp and said, “Did you see her?” to nobody in particular, and Rylee squeezed his arm on her way past and didn’t say anything at all.
The gym slowly emptied. Cece came out last.
She had her father’s easel under one arm and he had the renderings, and they crossed the lot together to the rental car without talking.
Jason stayed at the door. This wasn’t his situation to walk into.
He’d learned that the same place he’d learned the rest of it, in a round pen, where the whole trick was knowing when not to move.
Reginald put the easel in the trunk and closed it. He stood a moment with his hand on the lid. Then he looked across the lot at Jason, and Jason looked back, and there wasn’t anything in it either direction that needed saying. The older man nodded once. Jason touched his hat.
Then Reginald said something to his daughter that Jason didn’t hear, and got in the car, and drove off toward the lodge road. Cece stood in the lot with her arms wrapped around herself, and then she turned around and came to him.
“He said to tell you he’s leaving in the morning,” she said.
“Is he all right?”
“No.” She looked up at him. “He will be, though. He’s lost before.”
“And you?”
She thought about it. He liked that she thought about it.
“I’m cold,” she said. “And I’d like to be somewhere that isn’t a parking lot.”
“Let’s fix that. Come with me.”
The school sat two blocks off the square, and the square was empty, and every window on it still had a piece of orange paper in it that Wendy was going to spend tomorrow taking down. The Bloom Shop was dark. The sign above the flyer hadn’t come down.
He had a key. The woman who owned the building had put it in his hand leaving the gym.
“Jason, what’s this?”
He held the key up between two fingers so she could see it. “I saw the upstairs office space is for lease. Thought it might suit your needs. I opened the door, but the rest is up to you.” He put it in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “Wanna go up and take a look?”
Cece looked at the key, and then at the stairs beside the shop, and then at him.
“Faith said you do stuff like this.”
“Faith has a big mouth.”
They both smiled and she turned toward the side door and the stairs to the second level.
The stairs were steep and her shoes were wrong for them. She took them anyway with his hand up in case she faltered on the stairs. The door at the top stuck. She put her shoulder into it, and it opened on two rooms and a window.
That was all it was. Two rooms plus a small bath. She stopped just inside and took it all in.
“Looks like the floors are newly waxed. That’s nice.”
He nodded and let her continue her inspection.
“That window is huge. I like the natural light.” She went over to the window and looked down at the square. He stayed by the door.
She stood there a long time. He let her.
“The square is beautiful from here,” she said.
He nodded. “Everyone who walks across that square is going to look up.”
“And see me working.”
“Yes.”
“Did you call her? The owner?”
“I did. Not to butt in, just to help you out a little. I hope you don’t mind.” He took a step into the main room and then went to stand next to her looking out over the square.
She put her hand flat on the glass. “I’d have to start small.
Smaller than small. One room and a phone.
Of course a desk and some chairs. I’ll have to get some files and books and stuff from my office back east.” She looked at him and reached her hand out to take his.
“I don’t mind that you’re helping me out.
It’s sweet and thoughtful. Just like you. ”
Jason blushed at her calling him sweet and waited for her to finish her thought. She wasn’t quite done yet.
“I know this could be a long slog since nobody around here really needs a publicist.”
“Well, you’ve got one client already.”
She started to speak, and then didn’t.
“Local outfit,” Jason said. “Horses. Owner doesn’t talk much and the truth is he can’t pay you what you’re worth. But he’s got a growing business and needs to focus on the day-to-day work. He’d rather have you do the talking for him.”
It took her a second. But then it clicked.
“You want to hire me.”
“I want to be first. There’s a difference.”
She laughed. It filled up both rooms and made its way out the window down to the square, and he’d have paid real money to hear it again. The envelope full of money her father had offered him wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover what he’d be willing to spend.
“Oh, there’s a back room,” she said, as she explored a little further. “With a door.”
“There’s a bath.”
“I could live here.”
“I guess you could.”
“In a rented office space with an extra room over a flower shop. My father would need a week to recover.”
“He’d need two.”
“Come here,” she said.
He stepped over to her.
She’d taken her hand off the glass and there was a print left on it, five fingers and a palm, going soft in the cold. She stood with her back to the square and her face to him. The radiator ticked in the background.
“I love you,” he said.
That was all of it. He didn’t have a longer version and he’d never needed one.
He’d known it since a paddock fence, or a couch and a movie neither of them could have named, or a rail at the rodeo with her hand in his and everyone watching.
He’d known it long enough that saying it wasn’t news. It was signing his name.
She didn’t answer right away. She looked at him with her eyes going bright and let it stand in the room a while, and he could stand there in them as long as she needed.
“You want to know what I like most about this place?” she said.
He knew this question. She’d asked it on a trail with her cheek on his arm and answered it with the mountains, and he’d known even then it wasn’t the whole answer.
“Most people would say the landscape,” she said. “Or the people.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“They’d be wrong.”
She reached up and put her hand on his face, the same as in the lobby, and this time he was the one who didn’t move.
“You,” she said.
He kissed her in front of the window, with the whole square below them where anyone could watch. She didn’t care who was watching.