Page 34 of Christmas with the Cowgirl
This time she was the curious one.“But your shows deal with that.Like inEastside, when Margo’s dad runs out on them.”
He blinked and drew back slightly.Then he smiled, and it was a warm, sweet thing.“That, in fact, was my idea.I’m forever trying to figure it out.”
“And when do you give up trying to understand acts that are beyond understanding?”
He let out an audible breath.“Sadly, never.Not completely, anyway.”
“So once it’s a question in your head, it stays until it’s answered?”
“Exhausting as that can be, yes.”
Riley tilted her head in turn.And realized that this was why this man’s work, his ideas, caught people so.Because he was doing the heavy thinking, the wrestling, the figuring out that too many of them were either too oblivious or too lazy to do themselves.
And he was altogether too fascinating for a simple Texas cowgirl.
Chapter Eighteen
She got it.
Miles realized he was staring at her but couldn’t seem to stop.Not once he’d seen that gleam of understanding in her eye.
She really did get it.She got the deeper parts of what he tried to do, and how he fashioned everything around that, that no matter where he set a show, or what the background story was, or who was cast in it, the dynamic was ever and always the human aspect.His characters grew, learned, and when necessary—but only when necessary—changed.
The plot specifics he mostly left to the writing rooms, but the human story, the character growth, he never let up on those.He knew a lot of folks in his business thought he was over-involved, that once the show was rolling, he should step back, let the people he’d selected and hired carry it.But he was incapable of doing that, and he made sure that all those people knew it.That they knew he was going to be around, that he would be participating every step of the way.The actors, the writers, they all knew it going in, and those who didn’t or couldn’t work that way didn’t last.The success of his first two shows had earned him some leeway, but the roaring success ofStonewallhad solidified his place in the echelon, and nobody questioned how involved he was anymore.
He’s got the magic.Don’t question it, just enjoy the ride.
He smiled inwardly at the memory of those words, spoken by someone in thatStonewallwriter’s room as he’d left one day.He’d thought it a bit overstated—it was more work than magic—but it had pleased him nevertheless.Maybe some part of him believed it was, at least a tiny bit, magic, the way the idea had grown out of simply staring at a painting.
And then, before he’d realized he was going to, he was telling her about the note that had come with the paperwork from the art gallery.
She took the abrupt jump in subject in stride.“A note?From Kyle Rafferty himself?”
He nodded.“A very…emotional one.It says a lot about how much he loved this place and his family.I brought it with me, if you’d like to see it.”
“Oh!I’d love to, but…Maggie and the family, they should see it first.It’s their legacy.”
He smiled, widely, both because she’d arrived at the same conclusion he had and that she understood why.
“I know,” he said quietly.“I plan on heading out there tomorrow, to show it to her.”
“Wonderful,” she said, smiling as widely as he had.
“I…would you want to come along?”He’d almost said“with me,”but had chickened out at the last moment.And hastily tried to give her a good reason.“She knows you a lot better than she knows me, so she’d probably like someone…familiar involved.I have a feeling it’s going to be kind of emotional.”
He had to stop and swallow, trying to rid his throat of that lump that had appeared when he thought of the words of that note.
“Was it for you?”Riley asked, looking at him as if she’d read him perfectly.
He didn’t even try to deny it.“Very.”
She was quiet for a long moment before she said, very quietly, “It’s wonderful that you understand what it will mean to Maggie, to all the Raffertys.Kyle meant so very much to them, and died far, far too young.”
She lowered her gaze then, but he didn’t think he was wrong for thinking those deep blue eyes had taken on a sheen, and the fact that she blinked rather rapidly a few times told him he was right.
“I remember him, so clearly, even after twenty years.”
“You knew him?”He knew he sounded startled.So he let the sheepishness that had followed show when he added, “Of course you did.Everybody in this town knows everybody in this town.”
