Cori wandered to the square center where a giant gazebo sat. A sidewalk with offshoots in the four cardinal directions circled the large building. Cori found an empty bench that faced the Sheriff's Office. For being so small, the town was bustling. She lifted her camera and took several shots. Mostly of the landscape or the wisp of a skirt from a child running behind a tree. A couple of ranchers rode horses into town and tied them up to a post outside the diner. She laughed as she captured the image. It was charm and camaraderie. Wolf Creek was community.

As she scrolled through the digital images, deleting the blurry ones, a tall woman about the same age as Cori sat down beside her. She leaned over and looked at the screen. “Wow, that's really good.” It was a shot of a horse fanning itself with its tail and the rancher beside it, his back large and broad, doing the same with his hat.

Cori turned off the camera and turned to the woman. Not only was she tall to Cori's short but light to Cori's dark. She had caramel-colored hair and friendly-looking, light hazel eyes.

She extended a hand. “Hi, I'm Megan, but everyone calls me Cricket.”

“I'm Cori.”

“Oh, I know. You're all everyone can talk about.”

Cori experienced a flash of panic.

Cricket rushed her next words. “Only because they are excited to meet you. They find you fascinating. The girl who captured Fort's heart.”

Cori looked away embarrassed and a little sad that Fort was what made her fascinating. She understood, she supposed. He'd fascinated her as a kid, but just once she'd like to be the source of interest because of who she was, not for who she was pretending to date. “Please spread the word, there is nothing interesting about me.”

“May I?” Cricket took the camera from Cori. She scrolled through the images on the screen. “I'd say these are pretty amazing. I find that interesting. You're a natural behind the camera.”

“Being behind it is easy,” Cori said.

Cricket chuckled. “How long did you do the pageant circuit?”

Her question caught Cori completely off guard. Her mouth dropped open with no words but “uh” escaping. How did Cricket know? Had she searched Cori's name on the web and knew her history? Was she about to pepper her with questions about her dad? If Cricket knew, then others would, too. That's how small towns work.

Cricket's smile was soft, kind. Did she pity Cori?

“I know a pageant smile anywhere. I did them all through my teens and finally convinced my mom to let me quit when I hit college. My sister did them through college.”

Cori slowly let go of the breath she was holding, somewhat relieved, not that she wasn't waiting for the next boom to come.

“I did them until I hit thirteen. I flat refused to do them after that.”

Cricket nodded with understanding. “Broke my mom's heart when I stopped. Or would have if I hadn’t jumped into the family business.” She gestured to the building across the street that housed the local newspaper.

Cori looked between the building and Cricket. “The family business is a newspaper?”

“Yep, my great -grandfather on my father's side started it. My dad had no interest in continuing the family business and became a rancher. He hired my mom who was a journalist in Salt Lake City to come and run the paper. She took it from a one-town once-a-week rag to the only paper for the county. We cover our town, Bison's Prairie, and Elk's Pass, which is on this side of us.” She gestured with her thumb to the east. “We print twice a week. Wednesdays and Sundays. It helped that my dad is a rancher since most of our stories are for the ranchers and about the ranchers. Now I run it.”

“That's supercool,” Cori said. She'd have liked to take over the family business, back when she thought that was ranching.

“And I'm looking for a photographer. Currently, it's me, and I'm not that good. Plus, I can't be two places at once. You're excellent. I can't pay you a lot, but I can give you a byline.”

“Um…” Cori didn't know what to do. It was wrong to take a job knowing she was leaving, but this was an opportunity for experience she couldn’t afford to ignore.

Cricket nudged her. “Come on, say yes. You can cover the election and do fun things like stakeout Mr. Phillips’ land. He's had some cows go missing and swears it's the work of aliens.”

“Aliens? You don't say.” Cori lifted her camera to her eye. She'd like to get a picture of that. Not that she believed in aliens, but she wasn't about to rule anything out. Not if it could get her the winning slot in the photography contest.

“Yeah, there's no sign of the missing cows. No footprints. No carcass. Nothing.”

“No crop circles? How about in the house? Cups of water everywhere? TV signal staticky?” Cori asked, laughing at her M. Knight Shyamalan reference.

Cricket chuckled. “Yeah, none of that. That I know of. Boy, this would be fun around Halloween.”

“Timing is everything,” Cori agreed.

“So, how about it? I'm a family-friendly place. Once you and Fort are married, and if you decide to have babies all the time, I can work around that. I really could use the help.”

Cori was nodding before she knew she'd decided. Her heart was ahead of her brain. “Yeah, okay. I'll give it a shot.”

“Great! Now, get me some shots of the candidates so I can put together a spread.” Cricket jumped from the bench. “Thank you so much, Cori. You're a lifesaver.”

Wow. When had she ever heard that? Um, never.