Wild Action (5 page)

“P
UT THE HAT ON, TOO
,” Carly said. “Gus always wore his hat.”

Nick took the cowboy hat off its peg and slapped it on his head, even though he knew damn well Attila wasn’t going to think he was Gus. Not for a second.

Clothes don’t make the man,
the saying went. And the fact he had on a pair of Gus’s jeans and one of his shirts wasn’t going to fool a bear any more than it would a person.

“Good,” Carly said, eyeing him approvingly. “If you look and smell like Gus, it’s bound to help.”

That, Nick knew, was not a fact. It was merely another of her possibilities, and he didn’t like them any more than he liked her.

Maybe she’d initially seemed to be a nice woman, but first impressions could be wrong. And in this case there was no ‘could’ about it. That easy manner he’d liked had been hiding her true self—a manipulative woman who’d maneuvered him into doing this. And he hated being either manipulated
or
maneuvered. The problem was, he suspected he’d hate a life of poverty even more.

“Ready?” she said with a bright smile.

“Dying to meet him,” he muttered, hoping the remark wouldn’t prove prophetic. “But if he hurts me, I’ll be voting to turn him into a bearskin rug.”

“He
won’t
hurt you,” Carly said for the millionth time.

Picking up the pail full of raw, boned chicken, which she’d told him was the bear’s favorite treat, Nick followed her out the back door.

As they walked down the hill toward Attila’s field, he tried to convince himself it was only the heat that had him sweating buckets.

Every instinct for self-preservation was telling him to turn around and run, and the farther they walked, the harder it became to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Raising his forearm to his nose, he sniffed the sleeve of Gus’s shirt. He didn’t smell a damn thing, but Attila would. Carly had said bears had an incredible sense of smell. So Attila would smell Gus’s scent, but he’d know Nick wasn’t Gus. And he’d think…

What if he thought this guy who smelled like Gus was trying to put something over on him? And what if it made him mad as hell?

Nick wanted to ask Carly about that, but his heart was suddenly in his throat, making it impossible to speak. He could see the bear now. It had spotted them and was ambling in the direction of the fence.

“Hey, Attila,” Carly called.

The bear plonked down on his haunches about ten feet away from the gate. The next thing Nick knew, he and Carly had reached the fence.

He tried not to look at Attila while she sorted through the keys on her ring. Instead, he gazed at the pond, then eyed the hibernation cave. But despite his best efforts, his gaze was drawn back to the bear, and all he could think about was how damn big it was.

“Poor baby looks a little unkempt because he’s molting,” Carly said, sticking a key into the padlock.

Nick nodded, but he was far less interested in the condition of the bear’s fur than he was in the fact that its thick claws looked about a foot long. And its teeth were undoubtedly even bigger and sharper. The only small things about Attila were his rounded ears and beady little eyes.

“He’s not exactly Winnie the Pooh,” he whispered nervously as Carly opened the gate.

“He’s going to love you,” she whispered back. “Just follow me inside and put the pail down for the time being. He knows he doesn’t get the chicken until after he’s been good.

“Hi, Attila,” she added to the bear as Nick set the pail beside the fence. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”

Attila grunted, then fixed Nick with a glare that didn’t look even remotely loving.

Not that he really wanted the bear’s love. He’d be happy if it just didn’t eat him. After all, Carly had admitted she couldn’t really count on Attila to listen to her at the moment.

“Now, I know you’re probably feeling a little uneasy,” she said, glancing at Nick and slipping into her queen-of-understatement routine again. “But just try to remember everything I told you. Especially that you should never excite his predatory instinct by running.”

With that, she slowly walked over to the bear and scratched him behind the ear.

“You still okay?” she asked, looking at Nick once more.

“Sure,” he said. In truth, of course, he was as far from okay as he could ever remember being. He couldn’t keep his eyes off those claws, and he couldn’t stop thinking a scratch from them would make one of Blackie’s feel like a pinprick.

Carly rubbed the bear’s nose for a minute, then said, “Attila, that’s Nick over there. I want you to go and
say hello
to him.
Two feet.”

The bear glared over again. Then he pushed himself
up onto his hind feet—sending a rush of utter terror through Nick. Standing up, he looked like an enormous sumo wrestler in a fur coat.

“Good boy,” Carly said. “Now go
say hello.”

Attila gave a little snort and started toward Nick, stopping a couple of feet away. Nick stood stock-still, even though the urge to run was almost overwhelming. In his cowboy boots, he was well over six feet tall, but the bear’s eyes were level with his. And it was so close he could smell its earthy scent and hear it breathing.

“Nick?” Carly whispered. “Say hello to him.”

He swallowed hard. “Hello, Attila.”

The bear eyed him for another second, then took a final step forward, wrapped its arms around him and began squeezing him to death.

“C
ARLY
, I can’t breathe!”

She was so thrilled to see that Attila liked Nick, his words didn’t register for a second. Then she realized Attila was getting carried away with his bear hug.

“Attila,
enough,”
she said. When he didn’t stop, she felt a flutter of concern. An enthusiastic bear was hardly the same as an enthusiastic puppy. “You tell him, Nick,” she quickly suggested.
“Enough
is the command, and be firm.”

“Enough,”
he said, sounding more strangled than firm.

Miraculously, Attila grunted and backed off. Dropping to all fours, he began snuffling the leg of Nick’s jeans.

Carly almost jumped for joy. If Attila was going to listen to Nick, things just might work out.

“He obeyed you!” she said excitedly.

“Obeyed me? He practically killed me!”

“No he didn’t. He was being friendly.” And she was
so
relieved. She hadn’t told Nick about the phone call, because she hadn’t wanted him feeling even more stressed when he met Attila, but now she could.

Before she had a chance, though, he took a backward
step and said, “Listen, if that’s his way of being friendly, I sure as hell don’t want to be near him when he’s being grouchy. This isn’t going to work, Carly. We’ve got to figure out some way of making him listen to you better.”

“Give him his chicken.”

“What?”

She pointed at the pail. “Give him his chicken or he
will
be grouchy.”

Nick grabbed the pail, then turned back toward her. “I just put it down in front of him?”

“You could. But if you feed him by hand, it’ll help the two of you bond.”

“Bond? Did you go deaf in the past minute? I said this isn’t going to work. I’m not…
comfortable
close to this animal. You’re going to have to handle him.”

“Nick, do you want Jay Wall to be happy with us or not?”

“Of course I do. I just don’t want to work with a bear.”

“Well, it could take months to figure out how to get him to listen to me better. And the chemistry’s obviously right between you two.”

“No. It was right between him and Gus. I’m wearing Gus’s clothes, remember, so it’s his scent on them—his chemistry. And what happens after they get washed?”

“Well, maybe there are enough of his things to last through the filming.”

“Not a chance. His closet’s practically empty. And after I wear something once or twice, there’ll be more of my scent on it than Gus’s. How will Attila take to that?”

Carly told herself he’d be okay with it, but she knew it might be a problem.

“Maybe the scent’s not really important,” she said hopefully. “Maybe it’s your deep voice Attila responded to. I mean, he did what you told him even though you didn’t sound very authoritative.”

“What do you mean I didn’t sound authoritative? I’ve been
trained
to sound authoritative. And the bear listened, didn’t he?”

“My point exactly.”

Attila woofed; Nick’s gaze flashed to him.

“He wants his chicken.”

As Nick looked down at the pail, then back at her, Carly prayed he wouldn’t simply turn and walk away. But she could hardly blame him if he did. Wild Action might mean everything to her, but it meant little to him. And even though she was certain Attila wouldn’t harm him,
he
obviously wasn’t.

“Nick,” she said at last, “I know how much I’m asking of you, but if you’ll try working with him I’ll be right there every minute. And…Look, I hate to put even more pressure on you, but Jay called while you were changing into Gus’s clothes. The cast and crew will be arriving before lunchtime tomorrow. And the way things stand, your working with Attila is the only hope we’ve got.”

N
ICK HAD WASHED HIS
hands half a dozen times, but he could still smell the raw chicken on them. He could also still feel Attila’s smooth warm tongue licking them.

But hell, while he’d been feeding the bear he hadn’t been sure how much longer he’d
have
hands, so maybe he should count his blessings.

Of course, tomorrow he’d be right back in the lion’s den—or the bear’s field, as the case might be— even though he was probably insane to be going along with Carly’s plan. He looked across the kitchen to where she was stirring the spaghetti sauce, wondering exactly how she’d convinced him to do something he
seriously
didn’t want to do.

Then he recalled how her smile had lit up her entire face when he’d agreed to try working with the bear. It was, he’d discovered, a very dangerous smile, because it made him feel strangely warm inside. Which, in turn, made him tend to forget all about her negative qualities.

Obviously he was going to have to be even more careful around her than he’d realized.

“That salad almost ready?” she asked, glancing over.

“Uh-huh.”

“Almost ready?” Crackers repeated from his perch in the solarium.

“Yeah, almost ready,” Nick told him, thinking the house was
very
full of animals. He’d probably hardly notice the three cats if they were the extent of the menagerie, but he’d be a while getting used to those huge Marx brothers flopped all over the floor. And to a big blue bird that talked. Especially when Carly’d said it could amputate a man’s hand.

Every time he looked at Crackers, he found himself wondering if he should find a pair of heavy work gloves to wear while he was here. Between that beak and Attila’s teeth…

“There’s something I’ve been forgetting to ask you,” Carly said.

He looked over at her again.

“You don’t have any orange clothes, do you?”

“No, why?”

“Oh, I just wanted to check. Fruit and vegetables are okay, but for some reason anything else orange makes Crackers a little nutsy.”

When she didn’t elaborate, Nick decided he didn’t want to know what a macaw did when it got nutsy. So, instead of asking, he began mentally running through the list of Attila’s commands and hand signals once more—feeling as if he were cramming for finals. In the past couple of hours, he’d learned enough about bears to fill an encyclopedia on them.

The entire time he’d trooped along with Carly, helping her tend to the outdoor animals, she’d told him about bears’ behavior in general and Attila’s behavior in particular.

Then, while they fed the dogs and cats, she’d drilled him on the commands Attila responded to. Or maybe
was supposed to respond to
would be a better way of putting it. He was still far from convinced the bear was going to obey him. And if he inadvertently did something that made Attila angry…

Forcing that thought from his mind, he glanced at his watch—and then at the phone on the counter beside him.

Before he’d left Edmonton, he’d told his ex-partner that he’d be home in a few days. But now that he wouldn’t be back for weeks, now that he was going to need Ben’s help getting his things moved out of his house, he wanted to let him know as soon as possible.

He looked over at Carly once again, thinking how Ben always yelled into a phone, then thinking about
the extension he’d noticed when he’d glanced into her bedroom.

But he’d feel funny asking if he could go use it. And since he never seemed to be in the kitchen when she wasn’t, he might just as well phone Ben right here and now. No matter how loudly he talked, Carly was hardly going to hear him from the other side of the room.

“Carly? Would you mind if I made a long-distance call?”

She smiled. “You don’t have to ask. It’s half your phone.”

He reached for it, dialed and got Ben’s wife, Ida.

“Nick!” she greeted him. “You’re back already?”

“No, I’m calling from down East.”

“Oh, well, it’s good to hear your voice. But you could have knocked me over with a feather when Ben told me you’d quit. I mean him putting in for early retirement is one thing, but you just walking away at your age…”

“Yeah, I guess it surprised a lot of people.” He glanced uneasily at Carly, but she didn’t seem curious about what had surprised people.

“That must have been some terrific inheritance you got”

“Well, I’ll tell you all the details once I’m home. But right now I’m using someone else’s phone, so is Ben around?”

“No, he had to go down to Lethbridge for a bit. Something came up there about a case he worked on years ago. Want me to give him a message?”

“Yeah. Please. I’m going to be stuck here for a lot longer than I figured. And I don’t know if he mentioned
I’ve got to move at the end of the month, but—”

“He sure did. That sort of thing should be against the law, you know. Those landlords get away with murder.”

“Maybe. At any rate, I need a huge favor. If he could get some of the guys to help move my stuff out and put it into temporary storage…”

There was a silence at the other end, which probably meant Ida was wondering why he didn’t spend some of his terrific inheritance on hiring a moving company. But all she finally said, was, “Sure. I know he’d be glad to help out.”

“Great. My next-door neighbor has a spare key. I’ll call and tell her what’s happening.”

“Okay. And give me the number where you’re staying in case Ben needs to ask you about anything.”

“Sure.”

After he’d given it to her she said, “Now don’t, you go blowing your entire fortune on those fast eastern women, eh?”

“No, I won’t. And thanks, Ida.”

As he hung up, Carly said, “I couldn’t help overhearing.”

“That’s okay. It was my partner’s wife I was talking to.”

Ex-partner’s,
an internal voice of truth corrected him. But the phrase had slipped out easily. He hadn’t
really
started thinking of Ben in those terms yet

“But you have to move?” Carly said.

“Uh-huh.”

“And you said temporary storage. So you don’t have a place to move to?”

“No. I was looking for another house, but I hadn’t found one yet.”

“And despite all that you stayed here?”

He merely shrugged, then changed the subject by saying he had to call his next-door neighbor to let her know what was going on. He quickly dialed Hilda’s number, thinking that the last thing he wanted was to get into a discussion with Carly about why he’d stayed

Normally, he was a pretty honest man, and at the moment his conscience was telling him to straighten her out about his newly unemployed status. But she’d think he was an idiot for quitting his job so rashly. And since he’d be out of her life again in only a few weeks, there was no real reason she had to know.

Besides, telling her at this late date would be a little tricky. She’d been sitting right there when he’d phoned and supposedly arranged for time off.

When Hilda answered, he explained that he was going to be away for longer than he’d expected and that Ben would be looking after moving his things.

“Well, don’t you worry about your mail,” she said. “I’ll keep taking it in. But what if there’s anything important looking? Or letters? If there are, I should forward them, shouldn’t I?”

“That would be great,” he told her, although he doubted there’d be anything except junk mail and bills.

He gave her the address just in case. Then he hung up, tossed the salad and carried it over to the table. Carly dropped a handful of spaghetti into the boiling water, then came and sat down across the table from him.

“I want to say something,” she told him after a moment

“Say away.”

“I want to tell you how much I appreciate your helping out. Aside from anything else, I know this has to be vacation time you’ve given up to stay here. And the fact that you’re willing to inconvenience your friends to help me…”

He smiled uneasily. There was gratitude written all over her face, and his conscience started in on him again. He really
should
tell her he wasn’t quite as terrific as she figured, that he was motivated by a lot more than a desire to help her.

But before he could make himself say anything, she went on.

“And I can imagine how nervous you must be about working with Attila.”

“I’m sure that’ll fade.” Unless, of course, the bear did something to make him even
more
nervous. Or to make him dead.

“I’m sure it will, too.” Carly gave him one of her terrific smiles. “At any rate, I just wanted you to know I really appreciate what you’re doing—especially when keeping Wild Action afloat can’t mean anywhere near as much to you as it does to me.”

He managed another smile of his own, but keeping the agency afloat meant a whole lot more to him than she realized. It would keep him out of the poorhouse.

W
HEN HE’D PHONED YESTERDAY
, Jay Wall had told Carly he’d be arriving with the cast and crew well before noon. By eleven-thirty, sitting on the porch and still waiting for them to appear, she was a nervous wreck.

She glanced over at Nick, who was reading her copy of the
Two for Trouble
script, and reminded herself that his morning session with Attila had gone fairly well. But that was no guarantee things would go smoothly during the shooting. And if they didn’t, Jay would want her head on a platter.

She’d never met the man, but Gus had. He’d spent a week in L.A., working out the details of the contract with Jay and the producer. And he’d come home referring to the wunderkind director as “that obnoxious young snot.”

According to Gus, Jay was charming one minute, explosive and demanding the next, and drove everyone he worked with crazy.

He was also, she knew from the phone conversations she’d had with him, extremely annoyed that Gus had had the audacity to die before
Two for Trouble
was in the can. And he was
not
pleased that he’d be stuck working with the “understudy,” as he’d called her yesterday.

Sight unseen, he’d decided she was second rate. “You’re certain,” he’d demanded, “the bear’s performance will be up to scratch if
you’re
working with him?”

Naturally, she’d assured him it would be, but she suspected he’d have tried to back out of their contract if he’d been able to line up another trained bear on short notice.