Page 70 of Rebel Moon

“I need a professional favor,” I said, when Blake opened the door.

She looked at me for a second, long and unhurried, then she stepped back and let me in without a word.

Her cabin was a nest of equipment. Hard drives stacked like books, a monitor, headphones, and a tripod folded in the corner. She’d been up early too. She had coffee brewing.

“I need to talk to you about the film.” I kept my voice in its register and spoke precisely. “If there’s footage of Knox and me … doing whatever we’re doing, I need it cut. Anything with the two of us together, anything that reads as personal. I’d like your word it won’t be in the documentary.”

I’d braced for whatever she was going to say next.

Blake just said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I told you from the beginning, I’d never keep something in that made any of you uncomfortable.”

“Thank you.” I’d come armored for a fight and she’d just agreed to my demands without making a fuss, just as she had when I asked her to take out Rhett’s monologue about me.

Blake touched my arm, her eyes kind. “I’ll flag it all today. It won’t be in the final version. You have my word.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“May I ask why?”

“I don’t want people seeing me,” I said. “Anything personal, I mean. Knox and the band are too much in the public eye. There’s a reason I work behind the scenes.”

“I get that.” She looked down for a moment. “When I was a kid, wherever we went, people wanted to talk to my father, get his autograph, pitch him an idea for a documentary. I hated it. I just wanted my dad to be my dad. To pay attention to me instead of whatever project he was immersed in. But he was a huge celebrity. Nothing about my childhood felt safe because of it. There were always cameras around, wherever we went, and there I’d be, awkward and shy, walking just a few feet behind him. He was such a big personality. There was no room for me. Even though all I wanted was for the cameras to be turned off and to go home to make pancakes with my dad, he never understood that. He wanted to tell the stories he was obsessed over. I was not one of those stories.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The reason I’m saying it is to tell you that I understand not wanting the world to see something private. Falling in love with the cameras rolling all around you makes it feel like someone else’s story instead of your own. I’ll take it all out. You don’t have to worry.” She smiled. “But I would like to show you some of what we caught. Not for public consumption. Just for you. Later, you might like to show your children the month you fell in love with their father.”

I twitched slightly and placed a cool hand against my hot neck. Children. Father. No, that was not me. That was not happening. Not ever.

Blake turned the monitor toward me and began to play footage of the last few weeks, mostly candid stuff. Me in the sleigh, grinning and singing—off-key. Clearly drunk. But having a heck of a good time.

I groaned, hiding my eyes with my hands for a split second. If any of this got out, I’d be the laughing stock of Nashville.

Blake kept going. There was me at the sledding hill, screaming, both hands in the air, terror and delight all over my face. Me in the church, candlelight glowing in my eyes, watching something off-camera. I knew exactly where my gaze had been directed. Right at Knox. Because that’s all I could do that night. Bask in his beauty. Then came me at the campfire, laughing with my head thrown back.

The next footage was of Knox and me together. Him lifting me out of the sleigh, a protective expression on his face. Another of the two of us with our heads together at the supper table, clearly speaking intimately. Yet another of the two of us at the stargazing night all wrapped up in the blanket, looking up at the sky with childlike delight. And finally, a close up of me watching him whittle on stage, then a cut to the moment he gave me the ornament. Seeing it like this, there was no question. We were in love. And everyone else on the ranch would have seen it too.

Weeks of me. Or, rather, weeks of Mindy. Mindy, alive and luminous. Singing, laughing, having fun. Weeks of Knox and me together, our attraction impossible to deny. A deep love growing between us.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to be with a public figure,” I said to Blake. “I’ve seen what they’ve done to Ivy and Jack. Waiting around every corner with their invasive cameras. Trying to figure out where the wedding was. You can’t imagine the ruse Rhett and I had to pull off to get them here without the press knowing.”

“You don’t want the world knowing your business,” Blake said. “It’s perfectly understandable.”

“Is it?” I asked genuinely, hoping she could explain that my reaction was normal.

“You came from humble beginnings, which can be hard to look back on without fear.”

“That’s right. Of going back there. Being stuck again.” That was what I’d told myself, but I knew Mindy was right. She thought he would eventually leave us, and I couldn’t bear the thought of everyone seeing my failure.

“Loving Knox is not that, though,” Blake said gently. “But it would be public.”

“Especially if you put it all in your film.”

Blake shook her head. “Which I won’t do unless you say it’s okay. You have my word on that, and I’m nothing without it.” She paused, tilting her head. “What, down deep, are you truly afraid of? May I take a guess?”