by Jae
“But you haven’t done either,” Jill said with a glance at Crash’s strong yet slender neck.
“Not yet.” Crash grinned. She chewed a forkful of her gyros, which by now was probably just as cold as Jill’s lamb souvlaki, and swallowed before continuing. “When I was sixteen, there was a movie being shot not far from where I lived, and they were looking for a teenager who could ride a horse out of a burning barn.”
Jill’s eyebrows crept up her forehead. “Your parents let you do that?”
“Well, I broke it to them little by little,” Crash said with a mischievous smile. “By the time they found out that detail about the burning barn, they had already agreed to let me do it.”
“I’m beginning to see why even raising five boys couldn’t prepare your mother for having a child like you,” Jill said. “So, after that burning barn stunt, you tasted blood and started working as a stuntwoman?”
Crash let out a snort. “I wish. I had to wait until I was eighteen. Even then, it wasn’t easy to break into the business, especially for a woman. There aren’t that many stunt jobs, so I spent my first two or three years in LA introducing myself to a lot of stunt coordinators and teaching Taekwondo to a lot of kids before I had done enough gags to qualify for SAG membership.”
Jill nodded slowly. “I know what you mean. I had to kiss a lot of frogs too before I started getting better roles.”
“Literally?” Crash asked.
“Thank God no. Although I once did a commercial where I had to kiss a guy who did look a bit like a toad.”
“Ugh,” they both said at the same time and then laughed.
They grinned at each other, and Jill thought again how warm Crash’s blue eyes seemed. Then she reminded herself that she had no business getting lost in Crash’s baby blues and moved a few inches away on the couch.
“My turn,” Crash said.
Jill stiffened but nodded for Crash to go ahead and ask. A deal was a deal, after all.
Crash had just opened her mouth to ask her first question when a knock sounded at the door and one of the PAs poked his head into the trailer.
“Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Corrigan. Mr. Manning sent me over to see if you’re still here. He’s going over the dailies and thought you might want to see them too.”
Jill looked from him to Crash. “Um…”
“Saved by the PA,” Crash said with a slight smile. “Go ahead. I’ll save my questions for another time.”
With everyone else, Jill would have breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that the other person would have forgotten about it by the time they talked again, but she already knew Crash wouldn’t forget. Suppressing a sigh, she glanced back at the PA. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
CHAPTER 5
Friday evening, Crash groaned as she got out of the shower and dried off. Since she’d started working as a stuntwoman, hardly a day had gone by without some minor pains and bruises from a dangerous gag or extensive training, and she wondered how it compared to having MS.
She wasn’t normally one to brood or obsess over things she had no control over, but since finding out Jill had a chronic illness two days ago, it was all she could think of.
Come on. She’s just some actress you’re doubling. One of many. But she knew she was lying to herself—and not very successfully. Jill was as special as she was stubborn. There was a spark of life in Jill’s green eyes that made it hard to believe she was sick. Under different circumstances, Crash could see herself asking Jill out. Well, she had asked her out when Jill had joked about buying her dinner first. But that had been before she had found out Jill had MS. Things were different now.
Really? She towel-dried her hair and glanced at herself in the mirror. Did she no longer consider Jill dating material, just because she had MS?
The thought made her cringe. On the one hand, Crash didn’t want to believe she was that superficial. She had encountered that attitude too often in the stunt industry. As soon as you were no longer perfectly healthy, Hollywood dropped you like a hot potato.
But on the other hand, MS was a serious disease and she would be stupid to jump into anything with both feet. Even though Crash might be ready for a relationship again, she had promised herself to be more careful with her heart. Getting involved with someone who came with so much baggage wasn’t the way to do that.
It was all a moot point anyway. Jill had made it clear that she didn’t want to go out with her, so why was she even thinking about this?
Barefoot, she padded over to the kitchen to make herself a smoothie and then opened her laptop to check the weather report for the next week.
She was scheduled to do a ratchet stunt on Thursday, faking an explosion of a gas pipe that had been shattered by the earthquake. Things could heat up on set, so some June Gloom would make it more bearable. The thought of a giant ball of fire coming toward her, the flames licking at her face, made her shiver. She clutched the laptop with both hands and consciously slowed her breathing.
Calm down. Ben takes safety seriously.
This wasn’t the set of Point of Impact. But no amount of reasoning could sooth the hasty thrumming of her heart. She’d just have to tough it out. Once she’d made it through this stunt with a tiny bit of fire involved, she hoped she’d be able to handle the big fire gag coming up at the end of the movie.
Sighing, she scrolled down to Thursday’s weather. Just her luck. Apparently, LA would get an early heat wave next week. Rehearsing that ratchet stunt over and over while the sun beat down on them wouldn’t be fun. Well, at least the ice-cold fire gel would feel refreshing on her overheated skin.
She clicked over to her e-mail. Her oldest brother had sent baby pictures, claiming his youngest took after his aunt since he was always getting into some mischief. Snorting, she shot off a quick reply and then closed her e-mail. With her hand already on the lid of the laptop, about to close it, she paused.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she entered “multiple sclerosis” into the search box and hit enter.
Twenty-three million results.
She clicked on the first link and started to read. She breathed a little more easily after finding out that MS wasn’t considered a fatal disease, but the rest of the information made her head buzz and her heart feel heavy. Damage to the CNS. No cure. Blurred vision. Unstable walking. Heat sensitivity. Muscle weakness. Fatigue. Slurred speech. Bladder problems. The list of possible symptoms went on and on, and apparently, there was no way of telling how the illness would affect each individual.
Now a lot of things about Jill made sense—why she wasn’t allowed to do most of her own stunts and why she retreated to her air-conditioned trailer instead of hanging around on set during breaks.
After a while, she stopped reading and reached for her smoothie. God, she could use something stronger than the blueberry-banana mix. Was Jill experiencing all of those symptoms? And why on earth had a woman with these kinds of problems chosen to star in a disaster movie and not in a nice little comedy or something?
Crash snorted. After working with Jill for two weeks, she knew the answer to that question already. The more someone else insisted Jill couldn’t do something, the more Jill wanted to do it.
Oh, yeah, and you aren’t like that at all, right? She remembered repeating a difficult wire stunt eighteen times, refusing to give up until she got the timing just right. The difference was that she got to strip off the stunt harness and the safety wire at the end of the day, while Jill would have to live with her symptoms for the rest of her life.
Her chest felt tight. She was tempted to just close the laptop and try to forget about this damn MS, but as a stuntwoman, she had learned not to back off when things got scary. She squared her shoulders, carried the laptop over to the couch, and settled down for an evening of research.
Monday was just as hot as the weather report had promised. Crash and the r
est of the stunt department had been measuring, calculating, and preparing for hours and then rehearsing the gag for several more hours. She really doubted that their audience could appreciate how much work went into a scene that lasted three seconds on the screen.
Finally, even Ben couldn’t stand working in the heat any longer, so he allowed them to break for lunch.
Most of her colleagues headed over to where the catering service was handing out hot meals. After a moment’s hesitation, Crash walked toward the craft services tent instead, where smaller snacks were available for the cast and the crew all day. She told herself it was because the tent held healthier food choices and because it would be less busy, but deep down, she knew it was because the tent was Jill’s refuge when she wasn’t in her trailer. Crash had observed her disappearing into the tent any chance she got in between scenes.
She pushed back the flap and smiled.
The craft services tent was empty except for one person. Jill stood at the long table, her left side toward Crash. She had the sleeves of her costume pushed up, and several buttons on the high-necked blouse were open.
Crash was just about to call out a greeting when Jill reached into a bowl and took out an ice cube. She ran it over her palms and trailed it along the inside of her wrists, where her skin was even paler, then to the bend of her elbow until just a sliver of ice remained. Immediately, she took another cube. She lifted up her flaming-red hair and rubbed the ice along the back of her neck. Her eyes closed, and her head tilted back as she let out a sigh of relief.
Crash’s mouth went dry, and she wished she had a handful of ice too so she could cool herself down.
The next ice cube traced a path along the elegant slope of Jill’s neck and then across her collarbones.
Crash imagined following its path with her lips, flicking drops of water from Jill’s skin with her tongue.
The heat of Jill’s skin melted the ice. Droplets of water slid down her throat and into the cleavage of her costume. Jill reached into the bowl once more, put an ice cube into her mouth, and sucked on it.
A low groan escaped Crash. God, that’s hot.
Then she immediately felt guilty for thinking so. Jill wasn’t doing sexy things with ice cubes to turn her on. She didn’t even know Crash was there, watching like some voyeur, and the ice cubes weren’t devices of seduction; they served a strictly medical purpose. According to Crash’s research, most MS patients suffered from heat sensitivity. Any rise in their body temperature could make their symptoms flare, and ice was a good way to counteract that.
Unfortunately, Jill’s cooling-off techniques had the opposite effect on Crash’s body temperature. She glanced back and forth between the ground and the path of the ice over Jill’s skin. Was she allowed to find it hot, even though it had to do with Jill’s MS?
Jill was still an attractive woman. Was Crash being respectful by trying not to think of her that way, or was she reducing her to an MS patient, even though Jill was so much more than that?
Crash wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was. Well, ogling Jill without her knowledge isn’t.
Loud voices headed toward the tent—probably someone from the grip department in search of some candy for dessert.
Jill turned toward the approaching voices.
Quickly, Crash slipped from the tent before she could be discovered. She’d go eat with her colleagues, giving Jill—and herself—a chance to cool down.
CHAPTER 6
As a redhead who got sunburned easily, Jill had never really been a sun worshipper, but right now, moving to the Arctic felt like a nice option.
June had only just begun, but the air already hung thick and muggy over Los Angeles, and smoke from a forest fire curled up over the San Gabriel Mountains. Temperatures had hovered just below the eighty-five-degree mark since Monday. Too bad she couldn’t wear her cooling vest beneath the costume. She couldn’t wait for next week, when they would fly up to San Francisco and shoot in cooler weather for a few days.
The clouds blocking out the sun every now and then didn’t bring much relief. She was grateful for the parasol that was part of her costume, lending at least some shade while she had to wait around for the grips to set up the green screen and camera cranes for the next scene. When she stepped out of the way to give them room to work, her foot made a scuffing sound on the cobblestones.
She looked around, making sure no one was watching, before experimentally taking another step. Her toes immediately dropped down, dragging across the ground.
Great. Foot drop. She eyed the distance to her trailer, where she always kept an ankle-foot brace that fit into her costume shoes, just in case she needed it. But she’d have to ask for a break to put it on, and she hated to hold up shooting.
Just as she was weighing her options, the cloud cover got thicker, obscuring the sun. Distant rumbling warned them that one of the area’s rare thunderstorms was approaching fast.
While her colleagues threw worried glances up at the sky, Jill nearly let out a relieved laugh. For once, the weather seemed to be on her side.
Chaos broke out as the first lightning bolt flashed across the sky.
“Get the cameras and the equipment inside,” Floyd shouted over a clap of thunder.
Most members of the cast and crew were from the West Coast, so they weren’t used to thunderstorms. Jill, however, had spent several summers with her grandparents in Florida—the lightning capital of the country—as a teenager. In the ensuing commotion, she grabbed a lighting stand and pretended to carry it to safety while using it as a cane. She grinned triumphantly when she reached her trailer without anyone seeming to notice her limping.
But she had cheered too soon. Someone stood on the top step of her trailer. Was it a grip who had noticed her little excursion with the lighting stand? Cautiously, Jill moved closer.
The person turned and directed her trademark crooked grin at her.
Phew. It was just Crash, not a member of the crew come to investigate the theft of the lighting stand. Although judging by the way Jill’s heart beat faster, her body didn’t think of her as just Crash. “What are you doing here? I thought you were shooting with the second unit?”
“I was, but we’re done for the day. Am I interrupting something between you and your friend?” Crash asked, pointing at the piece of equipment Jill was holding on to. “You two look awfully cozy.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “And here I thought you were a stuntwoman, not a comedian.”
“Well, I have many skills.”
Another bolt of lightning flashed above them.
“Unless one of those many skills is acting as a lightning rod, you might want to move away from those metal stairs,” Jill said.
“Said the woman carrying a piece of metal,” Crash answered.
Oops. Dragging the stand with her, Jill limped up the three steps.
When her toes caught on the second step, making her stumble, Crash jumped to her aid and wrapped one arm around her. “I’ve got you.” She reached for the lighting stand with her free hand. “Both of you.”
Crash’s warmth against her side made Jill feel even more overheated. If she kept standing here for much longer, she’d collapse into a puddle at Crash’s feet. She reached into the beaded purse that was part of her costume, got out the key, and unlocked the door.
“Thanks,” she said. “You can let go. I’m fine now.” She pushed away from Crash and dragged herself into the trailer. As soon as she entered, she turned on the air-conditioning and then gestured at Crash. “Come on in.”
Angling the lighting stand, Crash carried it in. She looked almost comical clutching the thing, and Jill had to laugh despite the circumstances.
“So,” Jill said as Crash closed the door behind them, “what brings you to my humble abode?”
Crash lifted one shoulder into a half-shrug. “Well, it’s got the best air-co
nditioning on the set, so…”
Jill fixed her with a narrow-eyed stare. “You want me to believe that you keep hanging around my trailer because of the air-conditioning?” Unlike Jill, Crash didn’t seem to suffer much in the heat. The T-shirt she wore didn’t even have sweat stains. Besides, she had already wrapped up work for the day and could just drive home.
“It also has the nicest view,” Crash said.
With a disbelieving snort, Jill looked through one of the small windows to the dusty back lot and the rows of white trailers outside. “You call that a nice view?”
“I wasn’t talking about what you see when you look outside,” Crash said. A grin curled up the corners of her mouth, but the expression in her eyes was completely serious.
Folding her arms across her chest, Jill gave her a strict look. “You can stay…as long as you turn off the blarney.”
A sigh came from Crash. “Whatever happened to women who could accept a compliment graciously?”
“They have lived in Hollywood, the city of meaningless flattery, for too long,” Jill answered. She limped toward the trailer’s tiny bathroom. “I’ll go get changed. I don’t think we’ll shoot another scene anytime soon.”
“Need any help getting out of that dress?”
Was there a suggestive undertone in Crash’s voice? Jill wasn’t sure, but she wanted to nip this in the bud once and for all. She turned back around to face Crash. “I’m amending the conditions of your asylum in my trailer. No flattery. No suggestive remarks. I’m not on the market, so just keep it professional, okay?”
“That wasn’t a suggestive remark.” One corner of Crash’s mouth twitched into a hint of a smile. “Well, okay, maybe a little.” She held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “But mostly, I just wanted to help. I can tell that the heat is getting to you, and I remember how much trouble you had with those pesky buttons.”