Blankets stacked once more, Galen straightened and stuck his hand out toward the newcomer as he came into the trailer. “Galen Jones,” he offered, and sent a silent apology to his mom for omitting the “Fortune” part that they’d all been adding to the “Jones” ever since his mom’s birth family had found her. He was trying to get used to the addition. But it still didn’t come all that naturally. Not because he was opposed to acknowledging the Fortune connection. But to him, it just all sounded sorta...fancy. Which he wasn’t.
The other man shook his hand briefly before grabbing a black hat—a whole lot cleaner and dandier-looking than Galen’s usual one—and setting it on his gleaming blond head. “Frank Richter,” he said, studying his reflection in the mirror over the drawers. “I play Frank, the dastardly villain. Nice to have the right name already for a part.” He adjusted the hat so it sat at an angle, dipping low over his right eye. “Haven’t seen you around here before. You been with Moore Entertainment for long?”
“Not all that sure I’m technically ‘with’ Moore Entertainment.” Galen didn’t need to adjust his hat. He dropped Rusty’s Stetson on his head the same way he did with his own cowboy hat every single day. Didn’t matter if it was black or white or straw. For him, the covering wasn’t a matter of costume, but nature. Same as his leather Castleton boots that he got resoled every few years. “I’m the authenticity consultant.” He felt more than a little stupid just saying the words, same way he felt using Fortune Jones as his last name when all his life, “Jones” had been plenty, and he flipped up the collar of Rusty’s shirt and started on the tie. He didn’t need a mirror for that, either. He’d worn a similar one to the Valentine’s Day wedding when three of his brothers and one of his sisters all got hitched on the same day.
The powers that be for Moore Entertainment considered him a cowboy. So he guessed that made the tie authentic enough for the theme park.
“Heard they’d hired something like that.” Frank was running some dinky comb covered with clear goop through his eyebrows, and Galen nearly stared. “You’re supposed to make sure Cowboy Country rings true.” Frank air-quoted the word and looked over his shoulder at him. They were about the same height, though Galen damn sure never once combed his eyebrows, with goop or without.
“That’s about it.” Galen finished tying the tie and flipped down the collar.
“Well, make sure your punch during today’s show doesn’t ring entirely true,” Frank said, looking back at his reflection. “I don’t need to end up with any real bruises. I’m getting new head shots done tomorrow. I’m trying to get into the Moore Dinner Theatre in Branson. Lot more exposure there than in Hicksville Horseback Hollow.” He made a face in the mirror, then pulled another, and another, stretching his face into comic proportions before he fixed on a dark handlebar mustache over his top lip. “Most any one of Moore’s other Coaster World locations would be better than here. Not surprised they’re having a hard time getting Cowboy Country off the ground in a little Texas backwater like this.” He glanced over his shoulder again. “Know what I mean?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Galen said with irony. He, for one, was glad that the company had chosen not to follow the Coaster World model like the rest of its theme parks. Horseback Hollow was special.
Any park that was going to be there needed to be special, too.
He grabbed the script and reached for the trailer door. “Seein’ how I’m one of the hicks.”
He stepped outside and spotted Aurora leaning over her old-fashioned buttoned boot that she’d propped on a picnic bench. The curls of her hair hung over her shoulder, leaving the crisscross laces on the back of her dress visible. They cinched together down the center of the lacy fabric hugging her torso, seeming to make a point of showing off the way her waist nipped in all small and female, and swelled out again over her hips.
He frowned, yanking his eyes away.
He’d always lumped Aurora in the same category as his little sisters. She’d been the kid sister of one of his best friends. Noticing anything about her waist or hips, or anything else for that matter, wasn’t something he was altogether comfortable with.
He settled his hat more squarely on his head and made some noise thumping down the metal steps, and as he’d hoped, she lowered her foot and straightened as he approached.
Her blue eyes ran over him. “I knew Rusty’s costume would fit you.” She gave a quick smile. “You don’t know how much I appreciate you doing this.”
“Don’t y’all put on this wedding show more than once a day?” The other shows he’d noticed in his week working here had repeated themselves several times a day. There was a bank robbery thing that happened out on Main Street as Aurora’s show did, a stunt show that was held at the far end of the park in the corral set in the shadows of a wooden roller coaster complete with two loop-the-loops, a saloon girl dancing show held almost hourly inside the Texas Rose restaurant, and a few others that seemed to alternate, all designed to keep the guests entertained.
Aurora was nodding. “You and I...well, Rusty and Lila get to pledge their troth four times daily.” She pulled on the thin gold chain hanging around her neck and a locket emerged from the front of her dress. He realized it was a watch when she flipped it open. “Which we’ve got to do in ten minutes.” She slid the locket back into her cleavage.
Somehow he’d missed the fact that Aurora McElroy even possessed cleavage. That time at the feed store he was certain she’d been wearing a plaid work shirt that had been big enough to fit her daddy.
He dragged his mind away from cleavages. They were fine in their place. He was even a man who enjoyed his fair share of ’em.
But not when their existence seemed to come out of the same left field as Aurora’s “I need you to marry me” had.
“Seems to me missing one show wouldn’t be the end of Cowboy Country,” he said, keeping his eyes well above her neckline.
“We get paid by the show,” Aurora said. “Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of Cowboy Country. But it cuts into the performers’ paychecks, believe me.” She gestured at the script. “Did you look through it?”
He grimaced and dutifully opened the script. Fortunately, it was easy to read. Only a few words per line, running down the center of the page. The action took up more space than the dialogue and attested to what he already knew—that the show involved stagecoaches, racing horses, and a lot of melodrama. “I guess I can manage,” he muttered.
Even a hick rancher could read a few lines of dialogue.
He scanned through the pages, easily grasping the gist. He was to escape Frank’s goons who were holding him captive and race to Aurora’s rescue with the deed to her daddy’s ranch in Rusty’s name, narrowly preventing Frank from forcing her to say “I do” in front of the preacher.
Like Aurora had said. It wasn’t Shakespeare.
It was just a ten-minute show that took place in the middle of the whole dang park since someone, in their brilliance, had recently decided the Wild West Wedding stage needed to be relocated there.
People could be eating hot dogs in the Main Street Grill, watching a demonstration over in the smithy or buying hand-dipped candles in Gus’s General Store; they’d catch the wedding.
“It’ll be fun,” Aurora promised.
