Tracy

062:

         

*****062:

She had to admit, the scenery was breathtaking. The meadow they'd camped in not far from where they were filming was the most verdant, bumpy, rocky, wind-blown, and stark meadow she'd ever encountered. And she hadn't--had not-- encountered many. The wind never stopped blowing here and it was always cold.

Not sleeping at night gave her dark circles and a pale or sallow complexion. Avoiding Richard's probing expressions wasn't hard, he stayed clear, he stayed professional, and friendly, but he'd deliberately stopped pushing her, and never spoke about her marriage. She was grateful-- and lonely. She could admit it. In the day, and sometimes the night as they ran lines, or did their scenes, when he coached her, cajoled, instructed, or threatened her within an inch of her life if she didn't get a scene right things were okay between them. But on the off hours-- and there weren't many-- she took Danny, and walked the perimeter of their allowed area and watched the guys cutting down trees.

She was cold. Always cold, but the guys, Austin and Richard and some of the others spent their late afternoons when the shadows were deep and filming was not desirable felling trees for their cabin. They literally insisted they were going to build-- from scratch-- a cabin.

There was a lake nearby, with geese and a resident moose that Jake kept scaring off, when it strayed too close for comfort. They'd heard a bear one evening, but hadn't seen it. The consensus was that the moose was dangerous, but it wasn't pestering them, and still hung out close by without charging-- so it probably wasn't going to.

Monday deserved some free time.

So Tracy and Danny went for a walk to the lake, listening to the sounds of chainsaws and the good-natured yells of the guys in the background every now and then. Her music swirled around her consciousness like the wind-- wind-inspired music. She sat on a rock as Danny played in the tufty grass, Jake conveniently far off with his fishing pole. A hawk lazily grazed from above, and Tracy didn't have to squint into the sunset to see it. The sky had turned a hazy golden color, tinged with orange and blue.

She would have to give Alaska that. It definitely had the corner on sunsets. And now, this close to April, it had left off snowing, in favor of blowing a promising spring spray.

She hugged her parka to her. Danny was completely absorbed in two sticks and an abandoned gopher hole, so she mentally sighed and let the cares of the day--the week-- wash over her.

It had been the most grueling two weeks of her life.

Bar none.

And in order to survive it, she'd gone somewhere inside herself, far inside, deeply entrenched in her own private world. She had a cold virus complete with headache and chills before she'd arrived and it hadn't completely gone away. She felt sick to her stomach nearly all the time, even her herbal shakes didn't completely take the feeling of impending puke away, and she had puked a number of times, much to Austin's annoyance and Richard's amusement.

He smirked at her-- wasn't sympathetic like Monday and Jake were. He wasn't intentionally rude or anything. He just had this perpetual expression of near laughter that riled her. Not to mention made him look so amazingly knowing and compassionate, without stealing into her space, as if he simply waited for her to need him. And there was a part of her that wondered if she did.

But after pushing it the first night, he had not crossed that line.

At all.

She looked behind her as the wind whipped loose curls into her vision, she held them back, watching as a huge tree--- easily the largest they'd attempted, began to rip and tear from its moorings, and with terrible thunderous creaking and groaning, it came crashing down. It would take them hours to clean its huge limbs.

She could see Richard, minus his outer shirts, the white undershirt he wore glued to his chest with sweat as he pumped the air with his fist and did this funny little victory dance, stomping and hunched over like an aborigine, whooping, and hollering. Her lips curled up in a smile as she watched him-- boy-like-- exuberant over a stupid tree.

But she couldn't take her eyes off him.

His dark hair waved longer than she'd ever seen it, thick and unruly, falling over his shoulders. He had a large tattoo on his left shoulder and it peeked out now and then as he raised his arms. He was built and had gotten more defined these last few weeks. She felt she'd become an observant study in men's physique's, being one of only a handful of women on set. Every single man out here was built.

Richard's eyes suddenly darted to where she huddled on her rock. She could see them from this distance as they reflected the last dying rays of sun, and the whisper of wind across the water. He chin checked her, acknowledging her perusal with a flip of hair and hand. She wanted to-- knew she needed to look away.

She didn't.

And that apparently was invitation enough.

******