Millionaire Cowboy Seeks Wife

“Can I?”

“Sure.” He stood and squinted up through the tree branches. “But I don’t know if this is the best kind of light for a picture.” He looked down at her. “What do you think?”

She hitched up both shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“Guess we’re not going to learn much about photography by talking to each other.” He swept his hat off the grass and settled it back on his head. “We could talk to Krystof.”

“Krystof?”

“Krystof Laszlofi. He’s a kind of photographer—a cinematographer. Come on,” he said, plucking the books off her toothpick legs. “Let’s go.”

He headed back to the set, pretending he didn’t notice her attempts to stare without actually staring. Pretty polite, for a kid. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been called Mr. Kelleran by someone who didn’t have an angle.

“So, Jody Harrison,” he asked, “have you been studying photography a while?”

“No. I just got interested from, you know, watching some filming last week. And Jason—he’s a Steadicam guy—he told me some stuff and let me look through the lens.”

“It’s pretty cool stuff.”

“Yes, sir.”

Krystof climbed on the camera dolly to make an adjustment as they approached.

“Hey, Krys,” said Fitz. “Got a moment?”

Krystof peered down with his pouchy, basset-hound eyes. “Yes, I can make a moment. I am learning to make many moments, and to have much patience these days.”

Fitz shot a glance over his shoulder at Van Gelder, who was harassing a grip. “You ought to be a real pro in a couple of months.”

He reached behind him and dragged Jody forward. “This is Jody Harrison, a student of photography.”

Krystof nodded slowly. “How do you do, Miss Harrison?”

“How do you do, Mr. Lazz—”

“Laszlofi. It’s Hungarian. All the best cinematographers are Hungarian,” he said before launching into a discussion of shutters and settings. Jody nodded at the appropriate moments and asked the right questions, but she sneaked a cross-eyed glance Fitz’s way to share the pain of the technical tedium.

He grinned back at her. Cute kid.

Damn if he didn’t feel that funny tug in his chest again. He tipped his hat back a bit. “Lunch break. Coming, Krys?”

“In a minute.”

“Jody?”

“Me?” She pointed at her bony chest, and then at Fitz. “Eat lunch with you?”

“If you don’t have any other plans.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and angled his head back toward the white vans. “Come on. Keep me company, Jody Harrison.”

CHAPTER SIX

FITZ HAD SECOND THOUGHTS about the cute-kid impression as Jody grilled him over barbecued chicken and potato salad.

“Why does Mr. Van Gelder ask you and Nora for so many takes?”

“How come it’s ‘Mr. Van Gelder’ and ‘Mr. Kelleran,’ and Nora gets to be Nora?”

“It’s a girl thing,” she said, licking sticky red sauce off her thumb. “She likes to hang out at the house. Gran’s teaching her to knit.”

“Nora? Knitting?” Leave it to Nora to use the Method to prepare for the role of motherhood.

“She says it gives her something to do. You know, with her hands.”

Idle hands. Devil’s workshop. Maybe he should take up needlepoint. He’d keep his hands full of sharp, pointy objects to help keep his mind off a certain sharp, pointy woman.

“So, what’s up with all these takes?” Jody persisted. “What’s he looking for?”

“There are two kinds of directors.” Fitz rested his elbows on the table, ready to share the wisdom he’d acquired as a child actor learning his trade in television commercials. “There are the ones who know exactly what they want, and keep you trying to give it to them. And then there are the ones who aren’t sure what they want, and keep you trying to help them figure it out.”

Jody chewed silently for a moment. “So, which kind is Mr. Van Gelder?”

“The third kind. The kind that doesn’t know what in the hell he’s doing, and keeps us all busy trying to cover his ass. Pardon my French.”

“French?”

“Ass.”

“Ass isn’t French.”

“It is the way I just used it.”

He grinned at Jody’s laugh, surprised to discover he was having a good time. The best time he’d had with a female outside of the bedroom since…since the last time he’d gotten a rise out of her mother.

“Why did Mr. Van Gelder get this job?”

“Probably because the producer’s married to Van Gelder’s ex-wife,” he said. “I’m thinking it’s some kind of twisted Revenge on the Range.”

“Cool.” She took another bite of chicken. “This is, like, movie gossip, right? The kind of stuff that’s in those supermarket magazines.”

“God, I hope not.” He forked up some salad, determined not to let the tabloids put a crimp in his appetite.

“So, if Mr. Van Gelder is such a bad director, why are you working with him?”

“I like westerns, but they don’t make many of them any more. I took a chance on this one.”

“You seem like a real cowboy.” Jody chugged from her milk carton and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I mean, you know, like you’re not acting or anything.”

“Thanks.”