High Noon: A Sweet Romance (Red Canyon Series Book 3)

by Laura Westbrook

  “Wouldn’t that look weird to them? Some women in plain dresses and some in fancy ones?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “Samuel doesn’t seem to mind. Sure, it’s not quite accurate to have that much variety all in one place back then, but there are a lot of things in this park where we stretch things a bit. I mean, it’s about suspending disbelief, right?”

  Lynn rubbed a petticoat between her fingers. The lace fell between her fingertips, and she eventually let it drop. “That’s a little deep. I’m just here to play a character…for some reason. Then everything will go back to normal.”

  “You never know.” Vanessa held up a solid, white, button-down top in front of her. “You could end up liking it. It’s fun to dress up girly sometimes.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Lynn said with a huff. “I’m just doing this to check a box.”

  “We’ll see. Maybe I’ll make a believer out of you yet. But if you complain too much, I’ll put a bonnet on you.”

  “You’ll probably do that anyway.”

  “Okay, you’ve got me there. But I’ll make it one of the ugly ones.”

  That got a chuckle out of Lynn. “By that, you’re suggesting that some of them are beautiful.”

  Vanessa looked around like she searched for something specific. “They’re a little clunky, but they have their place. They’re definitely only attractive in the rustic sense of the word.”

  “Rustic is a good word for it,” Lynn murmured.

  Vanessa shot her a look.

  “I mean, I can’t wait,” Lynn said.

  “That’s more like it. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Lynn leaned up against the wall. “So, how do you decide who wears what kind of dress?”

  Vanessa’s voice was a little muffled. “Well, it depends on how many people we have. We can’t have everyone being either one or the other, so we have to spread it around a little. I figured I’d start you out simple and work you up from there.”

  Lynn smiled, mostly to show that she wasn’t completely a poor sport. “So, once I gain enough experience points and turn pro, then I’ll graduate to the poofy ones, right?”

  “Something like that. There are probably enough face characters here who already wear the poofy dresses to where you won’t need to worry about it. Could you try this on? I’m pretty sure it’s your size, but I want to see how it looks.”

  “Sure, no problem. Just go to the dressing room around the corner?”

  “That, or you could change back there. There’s a curtain we hung up for quick changes. Wherever you’re more comfortable.”

  “Okay, off I go.” Lynn made her way through the maze. Samuel was certainly right about how deep the warehouse was. She wouldn’t be surprised if people had gotten lost trying to find their way out. Maybe the prop skeleton she’d seen earlier wasn’t fake. Poor lost soul running out of food and water before she found her sweet freedom.

  For once, something was easy to find back there. The hanging curtain was bright orange, a stark contrast to pretty much everything else around. Some of the nicer dresses had some vibrant colors, but a neon sherbet wasn’t exactly one of them. She drew it shut, careful to close any of the openings. There was a small stool in the corner she set the costume down on.

  Just when she had her T-shirt over her head, something tapped the outside of the sheet. It created a huge billow effect, and Lynn had to scramble to keep the opening on the side shut. She’d already used the two large fabric clips provided, but it was more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything else.

  “Yes?” The tapping from the other side almost looked like a single knuckle, similar to how a police officer would rap against a window.

  “How much longer do you think you’ll be with the costume department?”

  “Carol?”

  “Correct. The time we have set up is in ten minutes. And after talking to Vanessa, she thinks she’ll need more time with you than that.”

  Seriously, does she not have anything better to do than follow me around? She’s like the appointment police. “I don’t know. She has a few things she wants me to try on. Or just this one thing, maybe, if it fits well. She’s in charge of this stuff.”

  “All right. I’ll be in the office waiting for you. I have a tight schedule today, so we need to get moving soon.”

  “Okay…um, I’m dressing.” Lynn reached for the costume and pulled it over her head.

  There was no response. After a few seconds, Lynn stuck her head out of the curtain, between the two clips, and didn’t see anyone around. Carol must’ve left immediately after what she’d said last. She had the social skills of a circular saw.

  The skirt was a little snug as she stepped into it and tugged it upward. There were ways to tighten it, but there clearly was no need for that. She resisted the urge to inch the tucked top out from under the waist of the skirt. It was supposed to be tightly shoved down under there. No proper pioneer woman back then would’ve had a waistline that loose. They had to give those wilderness men something to look at without being obvious about it. At least, that’s what she imagined had happened.

  Finally, she gave up and loosened it anyway. She was too used to wearing T-shirts and looser fitted clothing, sometimes compromising on a blouse or top. They were fitted, but not nearly as form fitting as this. Vanessa probably wouldn’t let her get away with it, but it was worth a try. They were friends, after all.

  Lynn glanced at her street clothes on the stool. She figured they were safe to sit there while she checked with Vanessa. There was more than one dressing area, so the odds were low of someone coming in within the next few minutes. Still, she felt naked without her cell phone. At the last moment, she stuffed it into the waistline. It was worth it.

  “Look at you.” Vanessa attempted a curtsy in her modern clothes and was surprisingly effective at it, despite not having anything to pinch between her fingers. “You’re looking lovely. Like you walked right out of a Western.”

  “If I did,” Lynn said dryly, “I’d be pretty overwhelmed with all this newfangled future stuff. I might faint before they can take me back to my time period.”

  Vanessa moved closer and shoved the pulled-out bits of the top back into the waist of the skirt. “If technology overwhelms you, then this won’t help.” She placed Lynn’s cell phone on a nearby chair.

  “Let me look at you,” she continued, taking a step back. “It looks good. I think I have a few different colors in this size, so that’ll work out well for you. How does it feel?”

  “On a scale of one to being hit by a bus, it’s a seven.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” Vanessa said. “You look good in it. Trust me, some people don’t. I couldn’t even tell you why. It’s just a feeling, you know? Like they’d stick out, somehow.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess.”

  “Sure, why not? In a world of critiques, we should take all the compliments we can get. I’m not saying you don’t get complimented often, but you get the idea.”

  Lynn tapped the toe of one of her shoes on the floor, looking odd peeking out from behind the old-fashioned skirt. “So, why did you allow Carol back there? I was changing and all.”

  Vanessa grimaced as she wrote some numbers down in the notepad she usually kept with her. “You say that like Carol listens to anyone. She pays attention to what Samuel says, but even then, only sometimes. She usually ends up doing what she wants, anyway.”

  “Tell me about it. And I’m training with her when I get done here.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Vanessa said. “The thing that sucks about it is that she’s usually right most of the time, as much as I hate to admit it.”

  “Yeah, but she’s too right. Or right too often. She’s not even smug about it. It’s just matter-of-fact.”

  Vanessa gestured around her. “Well, you’re welcome to stay and try on more outfits if you like, but you trying on this one told me all I needed to know.”

  Lynn snorted. “If I thought it’
d get me out of spending time with Carol, I’d try on a hundred of these, but I don’t think that’ll happen. Besides, you probably have other things to do.”

  Vanessa shrugged. “I find this kind of stuff fun. I guess that’s why I’m in this department.”

  “Well,” Lynn said in the verbal version of dragging her feet. “I suppose I’d better change back and head over.”

  Lynn wasn’t exactly in a hurry, but she didn’t dawdle either. She’d probably get an earful if she did, so she decided it wasn’t worth it. She breathed a little easier once she returned to her normal clothes. Thankfully, Vanessa hadn’t included a corset in the ensemble. Lynn was pretty sure some women historically wore a full corset under pioneer clothes, so it could’ve been a thing. Maybe Vanessa had mercy on her.

  It hit her that she was knocking on Carol’s door the same way Carol had on the dressing room curtain. Carol turned her head just enough to tell who it was and motioned inside.

  “Have a seat. We’re eleven minutes behind schedule, so I’ll need to go through each item a little bit quicker to compensate. I trust you brought something with you to take notes with?”

  As a knee-jerk reaction, Lynn glanced around her, even though she knew she hadn’t. What sort of things do I need notes for? I walk around and pretend stuff.

  Carol sighed and opened a drawer. “In this instance, I’ll give you a brochure. It details out what you should’ve written down as notes. I’ll still go over the material, as there are multiple ways people learn—you might be an auditory learner, for example.”

  Lynn doubted she’d write down this amount of notes even if she did have a notebook handy, and it certainly wouldn’t be this detailed. Still, she took the brochure. Along at the top, it read Behaviors of the 19th Century. Even a cursory glance showed that it read more like a college thesis than a training manual. Tightly contained inside her mind, she groaned. There better not be a test on this.

  “Read it over tonight between today’s and tomorrow’s training. The more you absorb the culture, the better your acting skills will be and the better the guests will enjoy the park. Any questions so far?”

  Do you color code your socks? Lynn leaned forward. “No. No questions.”

  “All right, let’s begin then. I’m to walk you around key areas of the park and familiarize you with how your new role works.”

  Lynn stood up and made for the door. “Where are we heading first?”

  “First, we’re going to pick up your backstory sheets.”

  Sheets plural? That sounded like a lot to memorize.

  Lynn noticed that Carol took several pauses with that last sentence, and Lynn realized it was to adjust the timing so that they stood right in front of the sheets themselves by the time she finished her sentence. “Usually, these would be accompanied by information about what you’ll be doing during that shift, such as what path or routes you’ll take around the park, or sometimes it’ll be about what performances you’re a part of.”

  Lynn nodded. “Okay, like that kidnapping rescue a week ago?”

  “All the information about what would happen in the skit was enclosed in those sheets. It’ll be the same for you.”

  “It was pretty interesting to watch. I had to stop myself from sticking around, with a job to do and all.”

  Carol blinked at her. “It’s technically time card theft to be on the clock and not working. It’s stealing productivity from the employer.”

  “Uh, sure. I’ll keep it to a minimum.”

  Carol didn’t change her expression until Lynn eventually said, “or not at all.”

  Only then did Carol continue. Lynn wasn’t sure how much of a snitch Carol was or wasn’t, but sometimes, it was better safe than sorry. The thought of being in one of the performances was certainly more appealing than walking around. That part might actually be fun, maybe with some action and gunfights and all that. The only letdown was that they probably wouldn’t let her participate in any shootouts, considering the gender roles back then. Too bad. She could give them a run for their money.

  “Anyway, here is your backstory. I printed it up this morning.”

  For some reason, that moment was the first time Lynn felt a little nervous. It was silly, but it felt like what was held within the pages was important. With tentative fingers, she leafed through the two pages, which was a lot of information, given how the font was smaller than what she’d expected.

  Lynn looked up. “Abigail Huntsford?”

  “It’s a perfectly acceptable name for the period,” Carol said in a rather matter-of-fact tone. “We do online searches before naming any of our characters to keep things authentic. I modeled you after a homemaker and housewife of childbearing years who lived just outside Flagstaff. Your expertise is cultivating dairy products, churning butter, and raising chickens. On rare occasions, when you have access to sugar, you make homemade taffy.”

  “Um, thanks?” Lynn wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Back then, that was all probably quite normal, but really it all sounded like day after day without being able to use the internet.

  “Unfortunately, your husband, who has yet to provide you a child, has met an untimely accident while ranching cattle. The horse he rode was spooked by a rattlesnake, and they both fell, with the horse on top of his leg. It’s now broken, and he’s out of commission for weeks. Now, it’s up to you to run errands in town to pick up the supplies you need before heading back to the ranch. You’ll probably also need to fill in for your husband with chores until his leg has healed enough.”

  “Wow, that’s…specific.”

  “We do it for everyone.” With that, Carol opened the door, walking out of the office and down the stairs. They crossed the short section of the parking lot before entering the customer area. Modern, functional buildings gave way to production ones. If someone had closed their eyes and walked from one end to another, they would’ve thought they fell out of a time machine. The only thing that would’ve given it away were the customers themselves. And the occasional plane flying overhead.

  Carol pointed. “This is the general store. The merchant, played by three different characters, carries everything from pitchforks to coffee beans. There’s a lot of interaction that goes on in the store, so that’s something to remember for later.”

  They walked in alongside several other customers and made a loop through the building.

  Of all the places she’d been to and worked on within the park, that was one she hadn’t visited before. It was pretty neat seeing all the different displays and products. All of those cans, barrels, and bags had to be either purchased from antique shops on the cheap or from commercial replica producers. She’d overheard the process explained before, and it hadn’t sounded easy.

  “There is the town hall, hotel, and doctor’s office. The doctor’s office is merely an excuse to set out replica medical equipment from the time period, which the guests love to look at. Or cringe over, depending on your view. Some of the methods back then were pretty brutal at best.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Most people think the town hotel doubles as a brothel, but that’s not logical. Back then, the hotel would be a reputable place of business. Likely nobody would want to have a shady underbelly like that anywhere near it. So, we decided to include the brothel as part of the saloon.”

  “So that’s what the rooms upstairs are for. I was wondering about that. I figured it was like a mini hotel extension within the saloon or something like that.”

  Carol continued staring straight ahead. “You could say that, only the more salacious type. We’ll take a right here, but taking a left would lead to the train station. I think you’ve worked on it before, so you know what it looks like.”

  “With the tracks that don’t go very far? Yeah, I have.”

  “As far as the edge of our property allows.” Carol adjusted the collar of her crisp, button-down top. “The park’s property, that is. At one point, we thought about making the back story that the
railway hasn’t been completely built yet, but then we decided that having a train heist as a performance was far too tempting.”

  Carol pointed to something else, but Lynn was suddenly distracted. A man walked toward them with a particularly competent walk about him, a swagger almost. He wore black pants over the top of black boots. A long-sleeve, white shirt peeked out from underneath a black vest with vertical white pinstripes crossing it. A thin, gold chain, likely leading to a pocket watch, dove into a pocket not far from his shiny sheriff’s badge. They had run into Luke, and Lynn couldn’t say she was disappointed.

  Chapter Four

  As he reached them, he stopped as if about to talk to them. Courtesy would demand that he divide his attention between the two women, but he seemed to only have eyes for Lynn. He wanted to talk to her—she was sure of it. Or it could just be her imagination. Do I want to talk to him that badly? She decided no. He was just a co-employee—nothing more. And yet, he still hadn’t even glanced at Carol.

  He opened his mouth to say something to Lynn, and at that moment, a family of four rounded the corner and shared the road with them. As if he was a different person, he gripped the edge of his ten-gallon hat and dipped his head.

  “Howdy, ma’am.” He finally turned to Carol. “Ma’am.”

  “Hi, Luke,” Lynn said. “Having fun out here?”

  He glanced at the family and then back at her. “I won’t be enjoying myself too much until the outlaw McDowell is finally under custody. He has some explaining to do about several witnesses who said he participated in some horse thieving activities. I won’t rest until I have my answers. Only then can justice be served. Have you seen any suspicious activity recently?”

  “I did see that someone took the last bagel in the employee lounge,” Lynn said. “Before everyone got one, namely myself. I’ve heard rumors about the Concession Stand Gang, but I’m not one to repeat them.” She couldn’t help herself.