Wild Action (14 page)

Initially, of course, she’d just been so darn grateful that he’d given up his vacation time to stay and help her. But the better she’d gotten to know him…

Oh, she’d come to love his dry sense of humor, the way he just dug in and did whatever had to be done, how good he was with the animals and…She shook her head. She could list a hundred different things, but it all came down to the fact that she’d fallen in love with the man. That she wanted to make love with him.

Do you want to be left hurting when he goes?
she asked herself again. But the question had lost its power—defeated by her desire.

Maybe, in the long run, she’d regret that. But in the short run, she wanted Nick too much to resist.

She turned down the Sixth Line, her heart beating faster with every click of the odometer. By the time she reached the gravel drive, her heart was racing a mile a minute.

The camp, she absently noted on her way past, was showing no signs of settling down for the night. Of course, it had still been twilight when she’d left Port Perry, so’ it wasn’t all that late.

Ahead, the house stood in darkness, and disappointment rippled through her. Nick must be in the camp.

She parked and went inside, where the Marx brothers treated her to their usual frantic greeting. After they retreated and gave the cats a chance to say hello, she talked to Crackers for a minute, then took the dogs out for a brief walk—down the hill far enough toward Attila’s field to see that Craig, the kid on this watch, was awake and alert.

When she got back to the house, the phone was ringing and Crackers was crying, “Phone. Phone.”

“Hi, Carly,” her mother’s voice greeted her.

“Oh, hi, Mom,” she said, feeling a stab of guilt. She’d promised to phone back and let them know when it would be a good time to come, but with all that had been happening she hadn’t gotten around to it.

“How’s the movie going?”

Fleetingly, she pictured Attila destroying the stand-in bear. Then a replay of the chicken-and-rock fiasco
flashed through her mind. ”Fine,” she said. “It’s going just fine.”

“Oh, good. Then it would be all right if we came down
soon?
We were thinking about the day after tomorrow. John’s company is sending him to some training course in Chicago, and you know how your sister hates being in that big old house alone.”

“Ahh…” Carly thought rapidly. Surely tomorrow they’d get Attila’s running scene shot. And once that was a wrap, it would be relatively clear sailing.

“Dear? Would that be all right?”

“Sure. The day after tomorrow’s great.”

“Good. We thought we’d leave right after breakfast.”

Which meant they might be here before she and Nick had even
had
breakfast. The drive from Kingston was only a couple of hours, and her parents were
very
early risers.

“Well, I don’t know what the shooting schedule will be yet. But if I’m not in the house when you arrive, just make yourselves at home.

“No, wait, I’ve been keeping the house locked because there are so many strangers around. But there’ll be a kid watching Attila’s field, so I’ll leave a key with him.”

“You have someone watching Attila’s field?”

“Uh-huh. With all those people…I just don’t want any of them bothering him.”

“Oh, of course. Well, we’ll see you the day after tomorrow, then.”

“Right Say hi to Dad for me.”

Once she’d hung up, she poured a glass of iced tea and sat out on the dark porch to wait for Nick.

Rocky ambled across the lawn and kept her company
for a while, and when he went off to do coon things she simply sat gazing out into the moonlight, listening to the crickets chirp and thinking what a romantic night it was. And that Nick would soon be here to share it with her.

But when she eventually spotted him coming up the drive, her stomach gave a sick lurch. Not only was Barb Hunt with him, they were walking arm in arm.

Carly’s face began to burn and she felt positively ill. Only this morning, Nick had been kissing her as if he were madly in love with her. And his long, lingering glances had been telling her that, too. But apparently he liked to spread his love around.

Angrily telling herself it was just as well she’d discovered that before he’d spread much her way, she pushed herself out of the chair and started across the porch, hoping she was hidden by the darkness.

She hadn’t quite made it to the door when Nick called, “Carly? Where’re you going?”

Silently swearing, she turned in time to see him disentangling his arm from Barb’s. “I assumed you two would like some privacy,” she said icily.

“Privacy?”

“Oh, it’s not what you think,” Barb said. “Nick didn’t seem
entirely
stable on his feet when he was leaving, so I just thought I’d walk him home.”

Looking at him again, Carly wondered how she could have missed the fact that he was tipsy—if not downright inebriated.

That probably meant she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about him and Barb. But it also dashed any thoughts of romance.

“I figured if our bear trainer fell and broke his leg,
Jay would be positively suicidal,” Barb added. “At any rate, I’ll see you both tomorrow.” She gave a little wave, then started back down the drive.

While Nick cautiously negotiated the porch steps, Carly said, “You’re drunk.”

“I certainly am not. I just had a couple of beers.”

“Some
couple.”
She turned and marched into the house.

“Maybe it was three,” he said, trailing her inside.

“Maybe you missed counting a few,” she muttered, locking the door and heading for the stairs.

He followed her, and when they reached the upstairs hall, said, “I don’t know why you’re making a federal offence out of this. I really don’t drink much. Especially not for a cop. But I figured I’d better keep up tonight. You know, be one of the boys. Because Barb and I were sitting with these other people at dinner and—”

“You had dinner with Barb?” she said, wishing that didn’t annoy the hell out of her. But if he’d had dinner with Barb, and he’d still been with her at ten o’clock…

“Well, I didn’t have
you
to eat with, did I? You went off to paint your…whatever it is you paint.”

“Tonight it was a nude man.” She liked the way that information made Nick’s jaw drop.

Then he recovered and grinned at her. “Naaah, you’re joking.”

“No, I’m serious. We quite often have live models, and tonight’s was a very well-built nude man.”

Nick’s grin was abruptly replaced by a frown. “Well, anyway,” he said after a minute, “as I was saying, there were all these other people at dinner, so
I hung around talking to some of them—fishing for clues.”

“Did you catch any?”

“Any what?”

“Clues. The ones you were fishing for.”

“Ahh. That time you were joking, right?”

“Nick, if you can’t even tell whether I’m joking or not, it’s time to call it a night.”

“Oh,” he said, looking distinctly disappointed.

“And maybe you should have a hot shower before you go to bed. If you don’t, in the morning you’ll wish you had.” She walked into her room and closed the door as he muttered something.

She wasn’t positive, but she thought it was, “Maybe I should take a
cold
shower.”

A
T BREAKFAST
, N
ICK WAS
feeling a little fuzzy around the edges. The headache pills he’d taken hadn’t kicked in yet, so there was a dull thudding in his temples.

His stomach wasn’t doing too well, either. He was certain Carly had cooked the bacon and eggs with extra grease, intentionally trying to punish him.

“This is a short day for us, isn’t it?” he said, hoping he was right. The way he was feeling, it was going to be tough getting through even a couple of hours.

She nodded. “After they shoot Attila’s running scene, Jay’s going to concentrate on the boys—shoot their running sequence, then some earlier scenes. I think he’s planning on the ones where they break their compass and realize they’re lost

“So what should we do while that’s happening?" she added. “Hang around the set and see if there are
any new ‘problems’ or spend our time asking questions in the camp?”

“Well, maybe neither. The more I’ve been thinking about things, the more hopeful I’m getting that our troublemaker might have decided to back off.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. After that incident with the rock,
everybody’s
realized that someone’s intentionally been causing trouble. And Barb mentioned that you can practically see everyone watching everyone else, which is going to make it pretty hard to set up more incidents without getting caught. So if this guy has a brain, he’ll quit while he’s ahead.”

“Oh, Nick, I sure hope you’re right.”

He forced down another piece of bacon. Then, when Carly got up to get something from the fridge, he lowered his plate onto his lap.

Zeppo helped him out by greedily wolfing down the leftovers, but Crackers blew the whistle on them, crying, “Oh-oh! Bad dog! Bad dog!”

“Damn feathered rat fink,” Nick muttered under his breath, trying to get the plate back onto the table.

He wasn’t quite fast enough to keep Carly from looking his way and catching him. “Feeling a little green around the gills?” she said.

“Just watching the cholesterol.”

“Oh. Good. Because if Attila balks at running, I’d hate you to have to work at persuading him when you were hung over.”

“Well, I’m not, so let’s get going.” Pushing back from the table, he grabbed the cooler she’d filled with bear treats.

They said goodbye to the dogs and Crackers, then
collected Attila from his field and took him to the shoot site.

The morning was incredibly muggy, which wasn’t good. Attila might decide it was too humid for running. But as they walked, Nick tried to think only positive thoughts.

They’d left the hot wires in place yesterday so there wouldn’t be much work to do before they could get going—which meant they’d get a good, early start on the shooting.

And Kyle and Brock should be feeling back to normal, in which case Jay wouldn’t nail him to the wall for letting them ride the ponies. All in all, by the time they reached the set, Nick had decided this might be a pretty good morning. And later…

He glanced at Carly, not at all certain what would happen later. But it could hardly be any worse than what had happened last night, when he’d gone to bed aching with wanting her.

The buzz on the set died as people noticed Attila had arrived. He was obviously still making them nervous.

Then Jay looked over and called, “Oh, good. Perfect timing. We’re just ready for you.”

Nick nodded, telling himself that positive thinking worked. He only wished he could positively think his headache away. It was hanging on with annoying tenacity.

“Barb’s not finished repairing the rock,” Jay added. It had been moved to the “safe” side of the hot wires, and he gestured to where she was working. “So we’re going to begin with Attila’s running scene.”

Nick nodded again, and he and Carly walked Attila
around to the far side of the wires. He put the cooler down behind a real rock, where it would be out of sight from the cameras, then they led Attila to the end of the clearing and into the surrounding woods. The scene required him to charge out of it and across the clearing.

When they reached the markers that indicated his starting point, Carly removed his collar and chain, then gave him a hug. “You work nicely for Nick and there’ll be serious treats,” she murmured.

Nick could have done with a hug himself, but all he rated was a quick “Good luck.”

“Okay,” Jay said. “Everyone remember the rules. Quiet as you can be, and nobody off the set moves while we’re shooting. Cue the bear, Nick.”

“Let’s do it, fellow,” he said to Attila, backing away into the clearing. He checked where the cameras were and kept moving until he figured he had to be out of even a wide shot.

“Okay,” Jay said again. “Bells! Clear the eyeline… Dammit, Carly, move farther away from the bear! Right…and roll it.”

There was a few moments’ hush, then the soundman quietly called, “Speed.”

The production assistant said, “Scene 121—Take one.” She clicked the hinged stick onto the slate with barely any noise.

“Action!” Jay said.

Nick stared through the trees to where he could make out Attila’s big shape and called, “Attila, run." He made the hand signal even broader than usual because of the distance, but the bear didn’t move.

He tried again—with the same nonresult.

“Cut!” Jay said, giving him an evil look. “You want to go have a talk with him?”

Nick unhappily headed back across the clearing and into the woods. “Can’t you prod him or something?” he asked Carly.

“Not without being in the frame.”

“Then what do we do?”

“You’ll have to entice him.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Get some of the raw chicken out of the cooler, then come back and show him you’ve got it.”

With his hangover, the thought of handling raw chicken was enough to start Nick’s stomach churning. “Can’t I use something else?”

“There’s a bag of marshmallows. You could try them if you’d rather.”

While he walked all the way to the cooler, then back to the woods again, he could feel Jay fuming.

Stopping a few yards from Attila, he dangled the bag as temptingly as he could and said, “Look what I’ve got, boy.”

The bear gave an interested growl.

“They’d really hit the spot, eh? So you just come running when I call, and they’re all yours.”

“Well?” Jay said as Nick headed back out into the clearing once more. “Is he going to cooperate?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

This time, when they got to the part where the P.A. said, “Scene 121—Take two,” Nick was praying.

It didn’t help. Attila stayed right where he was.

“Cut!” Jay snapped.

Before he could say anything else, Carly appeared at the edge of the clearing and called, “Jay?”

“What?”

“If Nick ran ahead of Attila with some treats, kind of made a game of getting Attila to chase him, how close could he be to the bear without getting in the frame?”