Wild Action

by Dawn Stewardson

  Nick didn’t know why they’d want to light an outdoors set, but he wasn’t about to display his ignorance again. Deciding the answer must have to do with shadows or something, he tuned in on Carly once more.

  “And for Attila’s stand-in you’ll use…what?” she was asking Jay. “A couple of big men?”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got that all figured out. And as long as he can do everything the script calls for, I’ve seen what I need. But how about that pond?” Jay pointed across the field to it. “Does he like to swim?”

  “Sure. Bears love to swim.”

  “Hmmm…Then maybe I should use some shots where—”

  “Jay?” someone interrupted from a distance.

  All four of them looked toward a man rushing down the hill.,

  “Must want something darned important to be running in this heat,” Nick quietly said to Carly.

  “I’m afraid there’s more bad news,” the man announced as he reached Jay and Goodie.

  “What is it with this movie?” Goodie snapped.

  “What’s up now?” Jay asked the man.

  “The lab just called, and they screwed up. All of yesterday’s filming is a wipe.”

  “What?” Jay screamed. “You mean we’ll have to reshoot an entire day?”

  “Woof!” Attila said so loudly it almost made Nick’s heart stop.

  “It’s okay, boy,” Carly said gently as Jay whirled around. “Everyone really does have to remember the noise rule,” she told him.

  “You don’t want him angry at you,” Nick added for good measure.

  “Yeah. Right,” Jay mouthed. He eyed Attila for another second, then turned toward the man again. “What the hell went wrong?” he whispered fiercely.

  “They don’t know. But they’re claiming it’s not their fault, that the film must have gotten exposed before it was shot.”

  “Is that possible?” Goodie asked.

  Jay shook his head. “Not unless someone intentionally did it. The lab people just want to make sure the blame lands on someone else.”

  “Is there anything I should do?” the man asked.

  “You could go on a shooting spree in the lab,” Jay muttered. “And I don’t mean with a camera. But, no, what the hell is there to do?” he added, waving the man away and turning back toward Attila’s field.

  “Okay, just make sure he’s ready to go in the morning. Hell, he looks like it’ll take till then to get him brushed.”

  “Brushed?” Carly repeated.

  Jay made one of his sweeping gestures. “All that scraggly fur hanging off him. He needs a good grooming before we shoot him.”

  “What about the movie’s integrity?” Nick said. He’d liked that phrase when Goodie used it. “I mean, your movie’s set in July. And as you can see, bears moult in July. If we brush him, he’ll look less authentic.” Besides which, Attila might not like being brushed, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to try doing anything Attila didn’t like.

  “He wouldn’t seem as fierce if they cleaned him up,” Goodie said. “He’d look less wild.”

  “Well…” Jay took off his glasses, peered at Attila without them, then put them back on. “Okay. We’ll shoot tomorrow with him like this and see how it comes across in the rushes. Assuming the lab doesn’t screw up again and we get rushes.” He glanced at Nick, adding, “Just so you’re ready for it, I’m going to start with the scene where he’s chasing the boys.”

  “Oh,” Carly said.

  Nick looked at her and felt a chill of apprehension. By now, he’d seen that anxious expression often enough to know something was wrong. So, despite what she’d told him, she must not be sure that Jay intended to shoot Attila running separately from the boys.

  “What’s the problem?” Jay demanded. “He can see Nick’s hand signals from a distance, can’t he?”

  “Yes, of course. I only—”

  “I’ve always heard bears are blind as bats,” Goodie put in.

  Nick didn’t bother telling him that bats actually have some sight. He’d rather hear what the problem was.

  “Half the experts say bears can’t see well and the other half say they can,” Carly said. “As for Attila, he seems to do just fine.”

  “Then what is the problem?” Jay asked again.

  “Oh, there isn’t one. Not really. I was just going to suggest that you leave the running scene until later and shoot some of the foreshadowing ones first. Ones where he’s not really doing much. That would let him kind of warm up to the action.”

  Jay shook his head. “It’s the action I want to be sure he’s capable of.”

  “Jay,” Nick said, “Attila is the Robert De Niro of bears. He’s capable of anything.”

  Carly gave him a glance that said he was laying it on awfully thick—even though he’d only been trying to help. If she didn’t want to do that scene first, then he didn’t, either.

  “Well, I still think we’ll shoot the running scene tomorrow,” Jay said. “Goodie and I are going to go check out the woods right now and decide exactly where we want to film it. Then the crew can start setting up at dawn.

  “I’ll let you know later where we’ll be shooting and when you should get the bear there.”

  Carly nodded. “But wouldn’t you like me to go with you now? If you don’t know the forest, it’s easy to get lost.”

  “I never get lost. Besides, when Gus and I were making arrangements, he drew me a map and marked some places he said sounded like what I wanted.”

  She nodded. “He mentioned that.”

  “Did he also mention that once I choose the sites we’ll have to cut a road or two through the woods? To get the lights and equipment in? I paid dearly to have the contract allow for that.”

  “Yes, I’ve read the contract. I know the terms.”

  “Good.” Jay gave them a curt farewell nod, then turned away with Goodie. “I guess,” he said as they started off, “we’ve got to find your wife and—”

  “Would you please stop referring to her as my wife?”

  “I guess,” Jay began again, “we’ve got to find Barb and take her with us. We’re not going to come up with a location that won’t need some set dressing.

  “Maybe we could get her lost,” Goodie muttered.

  Nick waited until they were out of hearing range, then said, “Okay, what do we do if Jay expects Attila to actually chase the kids?”

  “I can’t imagine he will. But if he does, I’ll just explain why it wouldn’t be safe—and make sure the boys’ mothers are there when I do.”

  “Then why did you look so worried when he said he wanted to shoot that scene first? And why were you trying to convince him not to.”

  She scuffed the toe of her sneaker against the ground. “I was just hoping you’d have more time to work with Attila before they got to that scene.”

  “Because?”

  “Because,” she said with an unhappy shrug, “the most difficult thing to make him do is run on command.”

  WHILE CARLY AND NICK were cleaning up after dinner she did her best to keep her eyes off him, but it was a losing battle. They were spending virtually every waking minute together, and that was fueling her attraction to him like oil-fueled flames.

  He caught her watching him and grinned, sending a warm rush through her. She looked away, telling herself she’d better take her hormones in for a tuneup. They definitely weren’t working in sync with her common sense. And they were making her so darned aware of him that she was having trouble concentrating, even though she knew she’d be out of her mind to get involved with him. If she did, she’d only be left hurting when he went back home.

  Maybe some women could separate the emotional from the physical, but she wasn’t one of them.

  Besides, even if he was going to be around forever, he definitely wasn’t the man for her. He could be just too aggravating.

  Jay Wall had only been here since this afternoon. But already, every time Nick opened his mouth around the man she found h
erself praying he wouldn’t say something to antagonize him.

  “Carly?”

  When she turned from the sink, he was standing far too close for comfort. Near enough that she could feel his body heat and see the warmth in his gray eyes.

  That did funny things to her insides, so she casually edged away a few inches and tried to think of something innocuous to say.

  “I’m really glad I found Dylan to help look after the animals” was the best she could come up with. “I don’t know how we’d manage without him now that we’re into the movie. And he’s so reliable. Not all high school kids are.”

  “Uh-huh. From what I saw, he’s doing a good job.”

  Nick seemed to be easing closer again, but before Carly had to retreat even farther along the counter, the Marx brothers began to bark and went racing to the front door—scattering the three cats in their wake.

  “Company!” Crackers announced when somebody knocked.

  Carly exhaled slowly, feeling a mixture of relief and something rather the opposite that she resisted putting a name to. “I wondered how long it would be until one of the movie people needed something,” she said.

  When she started for the front of the house, Nick tagged along, so she added, “Jay told me they’d be totally self-contained and that everyone would be instructed not to bother us, but I knew things wouldn’t be entirely peaceful.”

  She told the dogs to sit, then opened the door and discovered Jay’s number one cameraman standing in the twilight.

  “You made it back from Toronto,” she said.

  Royce nodded. “A couple of hours ago. Some idiot stuck the filters in a storage room. That’s how they got missed. But it didn’t take me long to find them.”

  “Well, would you like to come in? Nick and I were just going to have coffee.” She half hoped Royce would say yes, so she wouldn’t be alone with Nick again for a while, and half hoped he’d say no, so she would.

  “Thanks, but I only came to collect Jay. A lot of people need to talk to him—including me. I don’t even know where we’re shooting tomorrow.”

  “Jay’s not here.”

  “What? Then where is he?”

  “He must be somewhere in your camp,” Nick offered.

  Royce shook his head. “People have been looking for him for hours. And neither he nor Goodie showed up for dinner. That’s what made me figure you’d invited them to eat here. Goodie never misses a meal.”

  “Well…maybe they went to a restaurant in Port Perry.”

  “Or maybe,” Nick suggested, “they got lost in the woods.”

  “Oh, Lord,” she murmured, instantly certain he was right. “Royce, was Barb Hunt at dinner?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. There are an awful lot of people in the camp.”

  “You’d better see if you can find her,” Nick said. “Because she went off into the woods with the other two. So if she’s not around, either…”

  “She went off with Goodie? She’s liable to be in a shallow grave by now.”

  Nick acknowledged the remark with a tight smile, then said, “Look, we’ll go down to the camp with you. If none of them is there, we’ll have to organize a search party and find them before they get eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

  That, Carly thought, wasn’t the only thing they might get eaten alive by. People were always spotting wild bears in the area.

  She wasn’t sure if she should mention that or not If she did, they might end up with an awfully small search party. And as long as the searchers made a lot of noise, any bear that might be around would run the other way.

  Just as she decided to keep quiet, at least until they got under way, Nick said, “You know the woods pretty well?”

  She nodded. “And Gus told me which places he suggested to Jay—the ones he put on that map he drew. But they’ve been gone so long there’s no telling where they’d be by now. We could take the Marx brothers, though. They’d be a help.”

  Leaving the dogs in the house for the moment, Carly and Nick trekked down the drive with Royce and started asking people if they’d seen Barb Hunt recently.

  No one had, and when she wasn’t in her trailer, Royce began passing the word that Jay, Goodie and Barb were lost in the woods and that anyone willing to go searching for them should wear pants and a long-sleeved top.

  “We’re lucky there’s a night search scene in the movie,” he told Carly and Nick. “We’ve got a whole carton full of flashlights.”

  “Life imitating art,” Carly said.

  Royce laughed. “Only if you consider a Jay Wall film art.”

  By the time someone had located the flashlights and everyone who’d needed to change clothes had done so, it was completely dark beyond the perimeter of the camp.

  “Okay, here’s the drill,” Nick told the assembled group. “When we get to the woods, everyone’s going to fan out in a long line. And as you’re walking, make sure you can always see the lights on either side of you.”

  Someone asked a question, and he was just answering it when Garth Richards swept through the crowd—trailed by his wife. He marched up to Nick and imperiously announced, “I’m Garth Richards. And you are…?”

  “Nick Montgomery.”

  “Well, Mr. Montgomery, I’m not sure having anyone go out into the woods at night is a good idea. Someone could get hurt. Or more people might end up lost.”

  “It’s okay, I know what I’m doing. I’ve organized searches before.”

  “Even so, I think the appropriate thing would be to call the police and let them handle it.”

  “It would be sometime tomorrow before they could provide as much manpower as we’ve got right here.”

  Garth’s dark eyes flashed with annoyance. “Even so, I—”

  “Mr. Richards, this is my property. Ms. Dumont’s and mine,” he added, nodding toward Carly. “And if people are lost on it, we’re going to go looking for them. If you don’t want to join us, fine. But those who do are coming with us right now.”

  While Carly was wondering whether her sister would still be a Garth Richards fan if she’d seen that little performance, Nick turned and stalked off toward the house without a backward glance. Everyone with a flashlight started after him.

  “Good Lord,” she whispered, falling into step beside Royce. “That Garth’s a real charmer. You’d think he wanted them to be lost all night.”

  “He probably does,” Royce whispered back. “Jay, at least.”

  “Oh? Bad blood?”

  “The worst. Jay had an affair with Sarina a year or so back. After he dumped her, she patched things up with Garth, and it’s pretty obvious there’s no love lost between them and Jay.”

  “Then why on earth are they making a movie with him? And why would he cast them?”

  Royce shrugged. “We’re talking Hollywood types. Who can explain half the stuff they do?”

  When they reached the house, Carly quickly changed into jeans and a jersey, then sat down on the floor with the dogs and explained the situation.

  “They can’t really understand English, can they?" Nick asked when she was done. “I mean, beyond simple commands?”

  “It’s hard to know exactly how they get the message—it’s partly the words and partly the tone. But they’ll know I want them to look for people. They’re really smart.”

  Once they went back outside, the search team started across the clearing—the Marx brothers bounding along in front.

  “Royce,” Nick said as they neared the tree line, “you anchor one end of the line and I’ll take the other.”

  “Okay, everyone,” he added more loudly, “Carly has some ideas about which way they might have gone, so she’s going to walk a few yards ahead of the line.”

  “Oh, and everyone make a lot of noise,” she put in. “So they’ll hear us when we get close.”

  “And so the wild animals will hear us and get out of the way,” one of the searchers called.

  His remark was greeted with a round of laughter. Carly didn
’t join in.

  “Keep an eye on Carly’s light and watch your footing,” Nick said. “We don’t want any broken ankles.”

  Imagining how fast Garth Richards would say he’d told them so if there were any mishaps, she started into the woods with the dogs excitedly darting into the underbrush.

  Not much moonlight made it through the trees, but between the little that did and the beams of the flashlights, she could more or less figure out where she was going. She headed for one of the areas Gus had recommended to Jay, and when that produced no results, she led the way to another. By the time they reached it, there’d been so many sounds of people slapping their skin that she knew the mosquitoes were tormenting everyone.

  Then, ahead in the distance, Harpo began to bark. Within seconds, Chico, Groucho and Zeppo joined in.

  “I think we’ve found them!” she called excitedly.

  “Jay?” Nick hollered. “Goodie? Barb?”

  Carly hurried in the direction of the barking, and sure enough, the dogs had done their job.

  “Shee-it, am I glad to see you,” Jay called when she was close enough that they could make out who she was.

  “We thought the dogs were wolves before they started barking,” Barb cried. “We thought we were goners.”

  As the other searchers converged on them, Goodie said, “It was the damn map that got us lost. We couldn’t find a single site that was marked on it, and by the time we realized it was all wrong we didn’t know where the hell we were.”

  “What?” Carly said. “That doesn’t make any sense. Gus knew these woods like the back of his hand.”

  “I’m absolutely covered in bites,” Jay complained.

  “You think you’re the only one?” Goodie snapped.

  “I’m so glad I thought to slather on bug repellant before we started out,” Barb said, causing both Jay and Goodie to glare at her.

  “Could I see the map?” Carly asked.

  Jay dug it out of his pocket and thrust it at her.

  Shining her flashlight on it, she slowly turned it around, trying to make it bear some resemblance to reality.