ANNA
She kept having to remind herself of this fact no matter how final it seemed every time she came to the conclusion that she was unwanted.
Even so, within about ten minutes, she’d forget her own good sense and start feeling like it was her fault Charlie wasn’t here, like she’d stolen something from him somehow.
But she hadn’t. She hadn’t. She’d saved it for him.
“I said, you look miserable,” Jasmine repeated. “What can I do to cheer you up?”
“You’re in a relationship?” Jasmine asked. “I had no idea.”
“Don’t feel too bad,” Jasmine said. “We’ve all done it. Men are just good at faking it right up until they’re not, you know? They say and do all the right things, and we fall for it because we just want to be loved. It keeps happening to me, anyway, over and over again.”
“Really?” Anna was surprised anyone would be so honest and open so easily.
She decided she should probably reciprocate.
“I guess I just thought he was different. He didn’t seem like that’s what he wanted.
In fact, I kind of thought he hated me at first. I mean, he was cute, but he seemed to be mostly annoyed by me.
I was surprised when he actually kissed me out of the blue. ”
“That just confirms it,” Jasmine said. “He only wanted what he wanted, and he wasn’t interested until he thought he could get what he wanted.
Honestly, I’ve been there, too. It sucks.
But he doesn’t deserve you anyway. Right?
Look at you!” She nudged Anna with an elbow.
“You’re a catch! Anyone with eyeballs can see that.
He’s an idiot to let someone like you get away. ”
Anna recognized that for the flattery it was, but she’d be lying if she claimed it didn’t make her feel any better. The fact that anyone cared enough to flatter her was a comfort all on its own. “Thanks, Jas,” she said. “You’re right. I should stop moping.”
“Oh, I didn’t say stop moping.” Jasmine laughed and waved the bartender over. “Just mope better. Mope louder. Mope on the dance floor with a drink in your hand.”
Her voice was so reassuring and energetic that Anna couldn’t help perking up at the sound of it.
“You know, you’re right,” she said, downing the last of her drink and handing the empty glass to the bartender.
“One more, please.” Then she turned on her stool to see the rest of the bar’s patrons all sitting quietly, nursing their individual drinks.
“Too bad there isn’t a dance floor here,” she said.
“Oh.” The bartender’s voice came from behind her. She turned to find him holding out a fresh drink for her. “That’s something we can fix for you, if you like.”
Jasmine didn’t even wait for Anna to reply. She just jumped up and said, “Yes! Teach us all to line dance. Wait. Do you know how to line dance?”
That was the beginning of the rest of the evening, which so successfully pulled Anna out of her funk that she never thought of it again that night.
She was determined to enjoy her last week on the job.
There was a benefit to never putting down roots—you never got attached to anything.
And walking away was something Anna was uniquely good at doing.
She’d been doing it since she was a child.
She’d been saying goodbye to friends and places, teachers and coworkers.
There never really was a place she called home, and if that was good for anything, it was good for a situation exactly like this one.
If he breaks your heart, you let him go. You walk away, and you never look back.
In a sense, the director had handed Anna a gift.
He’d allowed her more time to find the location for one scene, the climactic scene, the last love confession.
She’d been all around town looking for the perfect spot.
To her, the entire movie hinged on getting this one scene right, and no particular location seemed to fit like the glove she so badly wanted it to be.
They’d been filming in town that morning and had moved to the ranch in the afternoon to get a few shots redone.
Anna had seen nothing of Charlie, though she didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing.
The ranch itself now held so many memories for her.
A week ago, she would have told anyone who asked that they were treasured memories she desperately wanted to keep.
Now, she felt quite differently about them.
They didn’t represent anything worth remembering anymore.
In fact, the only reason she might want to remember any of them was to prevent herself from making the same mistake twice.
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to get off the ranch as quickly as possible, if only to minimize the memories she was now being forced to relive. It really was good at holding on to memories, this land, wasn’t it?
She wandered past the barn and recalled Charlie looking after his horse.
She recalled the way she felt like that was the first time she had ever truly seen him.
Just seeing the building brought that all back.
The outline of his truck in the distance brought back the memory of their first meeting, just as the outline of his house brought back the memory of her first night there.
There was no surprise, no question why Charlie had fought to hold on to this place.
It was all he had left of his family, his childhood, his mother.
He had been so vulnerable to share any of that with her.
She couldn’t believe the same man who had allowed himself to be that vulnerable had only wanted a night with her, after which he intended to throw her away.
It just seemed so unlike him. But maybe he was as good an actor as any she had seen on camera.
Maybe Jasmine was right that this was just something men were good at doing—taking advantage and walking away.
Every time Anna considered it, though, something in her fought the idea.
She could chalk it up to pride, but that didn’t seem right either.
He wasn’t someone she thought of as a proud man.
He was just reserved, and there wasn’t really anything wrong with that.
She couldn’t fault him, not even a little bit.
Every time part of her wanted to blame him or think ill of him, she remembered that conversation they had beneath his mother’s favorite tree.
And then it hit her. Out of the blue, it hit her.
She’d been walking toward that spot, glancing up every now and then, trying her best not to let herself get too sentimental about a man she barely knew, honestly.
Once, she looked up and saw that tree again, standing on the horizon, just at the crest of the hill.
And she could almost see two figures standing beneath it, just off to one side, holding hands and then kissing.
It was perfect. She took off running in the opposite direction.
When she reached the place where the crew was still packing up, she called out for the director. “Carl! Where the heck is Carl?”
A cameraman answered, “He headed out already. What do you want him for?”
“I found it!” She was out of breath by the time she got to where the cameraman stood. He was putting his gear into his hatchback. Anna could hardly wait for him to finish before she grabbed him by one arm and shook him. “I found the last location. Oh, my gosh, it’s perfect!”
The cameraman, Terry, looked doubtful. “How so? There’s barely any description of it in the novel. I still don’t understand why it was giving you all so much trouble. Just pick anywhere. We’ll tinker with the lighting and make it look romantic later.”
Anna shook her head and started dragging him by the arm. “Have you even read the book?”
“Most of it,” he said. “I skimmed the rest. If I remember rightly, the location is barely described in that scene. So what’s the big deal?”
“It’s a big deal because the scene is pivotal,” Anna said.
She was out of breath, more from the excitement than the jog back to the spot.
“There’s a certain mood to it. I can’t really explain it, but you have to read the book.
I mean really read it. Don’t just skim it.
Get into it. Get into the characters’ heads and the heads of the readers, too.
Trust me, the fans are going to eat this up. It’s perfect!”
They came to a stop just at the spot where Anna had first noticed the silhouetted outline of that hill and the tree that stood on it.
It looked even better now, with the setting sun casting all kinds of colors across the land.
Terry stopped in his tracks at the sight of it and muttered one word. “Wow.”
“Right?” Anna grabbed his arm again. “Tell me this isn’t perfect. Just a flash of this in a trailer is going to get potential audiences absolutely drooling.”
“Eww!” Terry pulled his arm away. “Why’d you have to put it like that?”
“Because I’m not romantic like you are.”
“That’s bull and you know it,” Terry said. “The way you’ve been eyeballing our host—”
“Shh.” Anna hushed him before he said something he couldn’t take back. “That’s a sore spot for me, so you should probably just let it drop.”
He raised both eyebrows in sudden understanding. “Dropped,” he said. “Not another word.”
“And that’s why I love the people I work with.
” She headed back to inform the others, and Terry followed at a close distance.
“You’ll see. We already have the permits for this property, too, so we won’t need to deal with any red tape.
This is going to be perfect. I already know everyone will love it. ”
But of course, there was one person she wasn’t really thinking of, and that was because thinking of him made her feel awful.
So, every time he even threatened to enter her mind, she pushed him out, and she had every intention of continuing to do so until this shoot was wrapped up and she could finally go back to California with a song in her heart—one that was definitely anything but country western.