“I will.” If her daddy hadn’t been bald as a cue ball and her mama hadn’t always cut her own hair, they’d have spent a little time in the Cuttery, the barbershop/salon where Harlan usually spent most of his time when he wasn’t acting as mayor, or playacting as Preacher Man.
Harlan headed off and Galen returned, wearing his own shirt and usual hat. On him, the black hat wasn’t the least bit villainous. It was just authentic.
“You even wore a cowboy hat back in high school, didn’t you?” she said aloud.
“Huh?” His fingertips lightly touched her back as they set off for the closest gate.
Her cheeks felt warm, but it was nothing compared to the shiver spiraling down her spine. “Nothing. Just thinking that Cowboy Country did a good job choosing you to make sure all things cowboy around here are actually believable.”
He grimaced, looking self-conscious. “It’s extra money in the bank,” he muttered. They’d reached the gate and he pulled it open for her, waiting for her to walk through first. “Every smart rancher knows it’s good to set some aside for leaner times.”
She watched him from the corner of her eye. “Your spread’s doing okay, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He stopped outside Gus’s General Store where a selection of leather goods was on display. “My mom would like this,” he said, lifting a leather purse. But when he looked at the price tag, his eyebrows shot up. “Holy Chr—” He bit off the rest. “Even with all the Fortune money she refused to take from her newfound brother, that’s a ridiculous price.” Shaking his head, he dropped the purse back in place and continued down the boardwalk fronting the stores, the heels of his boots ringing out.
“I’ve heard a little about that,” Aurora said, skipping a few times to keep up with his long-legged pace. “Mostly that Jeanne Marie found out she’s twin sisters to British royalty?”
“She’s one of triplets,” he corrected. “Lady Josephine Chesterfield and James Marshall Fortune. Separated when they were babies. Josephine grew up in England. James in Atlanta. Mom here. Their birth mother only gave up the girls.”
She made a face. “I’m sure there’s a reason, but that sounds terrible.”
“She’s dead. It was only ’cause James started looking that they know anything about each other at all.”
“What’s it feel like finding out that you have scads of family across the world that you never even knew existed?”
“Pretty much the same way it felt not knowing they existed. I know it’s been important to my mom finding out about her birth family. The fact that both Josephine and James and their other brother, John, are all loaded is beside the point. But to me, it just means more cousins around the dinner table.” He gave her a sideways look. “You’re not one of those folks who got all het up about the royalty thing, are you?”
She shrugged and shook her head, even though it was a lie. She’d been just as fascinated as every other person in Horseback Hollow when their one-horse town first brushed up against royalty. “I ran into Quinn and Amelia Drummond the other day outside of the Hollows Cantina. They had little Clementine Rose with them. She’s a doll.”
“I guess so. Haven’t given the baby much thought.”
She tsked. “Just like a man.”
“What?” He frowned. “I know my new cousin had her in January. And I know things sure got interesting around these parts last year when the media found out Lady Amelia was pregnant.”
That was certainly true. A person hadn’t been able to get through town without running into one of the reporters camping out everywhere trying to get a shot of Lady Amelia and her rancher lover.
“Besides that,” he continued, “it’s like I said. Another person around the dinner table.” He shot her a grin. “Only the little munchkin is sitting in a high chair with strained peas all over her face.”
She smiled. “Still, I’d think it would feel pretty strange,” she said.
“Ending up with a passel of cousins?”
“Finding out I have more family than just Mama and Daddy.”
Galen shot her another glance. His grin died. “I still think about your brother,” he said quietly. “About Mark.”
“Me, too.” She was glad they’d reached the end of the block and gestured. “Casting is back this way.” She turned the corner and walked even more quickly down the street. She didn’t want to talk about Mark. Didn’t want to think about him, actually.
Maybe that made her the worst sister in the history of the world, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive her big brother for dying the way he had. For leaving her parents so broken it had taken them a decade before they were managing to find a little joy in life again.
In silence, she passed the Olde Tyme Photography studio, where guests could dress up in vintage clothing to have their portraits done, and went through another wooden gate, this one manned by a uniformed security guard.
“Afternoon, Tom,” she greeted as they passed from the nineteenth-century cowboy town back into the very modern present of steel and glass and asphalt.
Thanks to the park’s clever designers, neither the stark building housing Cowboy Country’s business offices nor the large employee parking lot were visible to Cowboy Country guests.
Excruciatingly aware of Galen following close on her heels, she went inside the office building and made her way back to the casting office.
“Hi, Diane,” she greeted the sleek, black-haired young woman sitting at the main desk in front of a half dozen hard chairs, most of which were occupied by people clutching comp cards in one hand and job applications in the other. “Have you gotten any word yet on how Joey Newsome is doing?”
Diane shook her head, barely looking at Aurora because she was too busy visually devouring Galen. “Who are you?” she asked in her throaty voice.
“Cowboy Country’s authenticity consultant. Galen Fortune Jones,” Aurora said abruptly. In her dealings with the casting department so far, she knew that Diane used to work at a modeling agency located in Chicago, where Moore Entertainment’s corporate headquarters was located.
Undoubtedly, the woman was stripping Galen down in her mind to chaps and nothing else.
Then Aurora wished she’d left off the “Fortune” part, because Diane’s eyes seemed to grow even more interested, if such a feat were possible.
“Galen Fortune Jones,” she purred, rising slowly from her desk, putting Aurora in mind of a cobra rising from her nest. “I’ve been learning lots about the Fortunes.” She actually put her slender hand on Galen’s shoulder and circled around him, giving every inch of him a closer look.
And while it made Aurora’s nerves itch as though they’d been dipped into fire ants, he didn’t seem to be bothered one little bit.
“I’m more Jones than Fortune,” he drawled. He’d removed his cowboy hat the second they’d entered the building, and he gave Diane the same crooked smile that used to have cheerleaders and bookworms alike swooning back when Aurora was a high school freshman and he and her brother were the senior football stars. “Haven’t seen you around Horseback Hollow. I’d have remembered if I had.”
Diane laughed, low in her throat. “I drive over from Vicker’s Corners,” she said, as if doing anything else was insane. “Offers a little more civilization for my tastes.”
Aurora hid a sudden smile, for there was nothing more certain to turn off Galen Jones than to compare Horseback Hollow unfavorably against its nearest neighbor, Vicker’s Corners.
“Well,”