Free Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

she’d never been to before (like the crumbling antebellum mansion in Mississippi or the amazing scenery in Montana) had definitely had its perks. Sometimes, too, she liked to stay close to home, so she often took jobs based near her home base of Nashville. But more often than not, she listened to the ones that called to her. That’s really why she requested the pictures. In college, when she was studying Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, even before she began her internship and started her hands-on experience at Belmont Mansion in Nashville, the images of some places called to her before others did. She had more than just an eye for some things—she had an ear for them.
    Taryn was always keeping her eyes and ears out for the next place. Her feet itched for the next adventure and she didn’t like grass to grow under her feet. Not for long. Her bank account wouldn’t let it, for one, and although she liked to pop back into Nashville to check on her apartment and make sure everything was still there, she preferred to spend as little time as possible in the cramped quarters. On the road, she had space; freedom to move around. In Nashville, she rented a studio apartment with a kitchenette and a range with one and a half burners that actually worked and a microwave with a short in it and an elevator that smelled like melting cheese.
    She’d owned a house once, with log cabin furniture and handmade quilts and knickknacks that had been picked up at antique stores all over the country and lovingly carted back home with excitement. Those were all in a storage unit and had been locked up for years. She wasn’t sure she could ever look at any of those again.
    Answering her correspondence took up a lot of her time. Catching up with her television shows and reading took up the rest. Her parents, before the plane crash in her teens, taught her that you could never have too many books going at once. She learned the same went with television shows. Taryn didn’t believe in just watching one show, she watched them all. An ex-boyfriend compared watching TV with her to watching a tennis match with a sea otter on speed. She never stayed with anything for very long, but she could follow everything very well. She easily switched from a comedy, a talk show, a murder mystery, and an infomercial within a matter of seconds and instantly know what was going on within all of them with little to no difficulty. It was a skill she proudly developed over time.
    She could do the same with books.
    Her parents hadn’t been book snobs, and neither was she. This was something that embarrassed Matt to no end. “How can you possibly read that?” he’d mutter with disgust as she’d gleefully delve into a trashy bodice-ripper without any apologies.
    “The same way you can read that ,” she’d point to the leather-bound copy of whatever pretentious classic he was holding. “I tried to read it at least a dozen times and I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on.”
    “It’s- ,” he’d start to object.
    “I know who it is,” she would roll her eyes. “But that’s the problem with literature. So much of it seems to be so esoteric. It’s like it has to be weird for people to think it’s any good. I think it’s kind of like the emperor’s new clothes and I’m just the one in the middle of the room telling everyone that he’s actually naked.”
    Of course, she did like a lot of the classics, but she also liked to mix things up and read a little bit of everything. Mostly, she liked to get Matt’s goat now and then and keep him on his toes. And he knew that. He’d slip her some Dickens to keep her honest and she’d read him VC Andrews to add some trash to his life and they were able to even out one another in that way. It kept their friendship fresh.
    The routine kept the days going as quickly and smoothly as possible, but there still wasn’t a whole lot she could do about the nights. They