by Cat Johnson
He spared her a brief glance before his gaze moved to Jamey. “Hey, would it be okay if we hung in your trailer for a couple of hours?”
“We who?” Jamey spun around again and leaned forward, making Jeannie have to step backward out of his way for the second time.
“Me and my buddies.”
Jamey’s eyes widened. “The SEALs? They’re here?”
“Yes, the SEALs. You mind? We need someplace private to talk and brainstorm. And we need a copy of the script if you’ve got one we can borrow.”
“Sure. Definitely. Mine’s in the binder in my trailer. Make yourself at home.”
“Cool. Thanks.” Rick tipped his head toward Jamey before directing his focus toward Sierra. “Can we borrow your script too?”
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to determine what he and his friends could be planning. “What are you up to?”
“I told you before. I caused this cluster fuck. Now, hopefully with Jon and Zane’s help, I’m gonna fix it.”
Could he fix it? And how?
Of all the skills and experience she knew he and his SEAL friends had, movie production was not one of them. At least, not that she knew of, anyway.
Maybe he figured if he and the guys did a real good job correcting the military stuff, Howard would forgive him.
That wouldn’t help fix Jamey’s face any faster but it was better than doing nothing, she guessed. “Yes, you can borrow my script. It’s in my trailer.”
“Thank you. Any chance you can get us a third copy this morning?” he asked.
“Um, I’m not sure. Production is pretty strict about access to the script. The studio doesn’t want anything leaking.”
Sierra sighed when she saw Rick’s brow shoot up. She didn’t ask why, because she could easily guess what he was thinking.
“And yes, I realize you all had all sorts of top secret clearance in the military but that doesn’t matter here.”
“I hate to say it, but she’s right, man,” Jamie said. “It’s a different world in here. Studios operate by their own set of rules.”
“Oh, believe me. I know.” Rick blew out a breath. “Okay, we’ll deal with sharing the two copies.”
“Just don’t take them off the lot. We could get in trouble,” Sierra said, starting to worry this was one more thing Rick might do wrong that would blow back on her.
Rick rolled his eyes. “I won’t leave the lot. I promise. We’ll be in Jamey’s trailer for the next couple of hours.”
As Rick reached for the doorknob, Jamey leaned forward again, about to stand. “Wait. Let me give you the key.”
Rick shook his head. “No worries. Those locks are child’s play.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful to hear,” Sierra said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
“Not yours, princess.” He forced a humorless smile as he used the nickname he knew she hated. “I beefed up the lock on your trailer the day we arrived.”
“Really?” Humph. What else did Rick do without her knowing while she was occupied elsewhere?
The possibilities were intriguing as well as frightening.
Jamey ignored both her comment and Rick’s as he planted both hands on the arms of the chair, like he was about to stand. “Wait. I want to come with—”
“No.” She and Jeannie said the single word simultaneously.
“I need a little more time to cover that.” Jeannie indicated the swollen mess that was Jamey’s formerly perfect profile.
“You definitely want your face to look as good as it can to keep Howard calm, since we’re not sure if whatever plan these guys can come up with is going to work,” Sierra added.
She caught Rick’s scowl over her doubt out of the corner of her eye.
“Okay.” As Jamey let out a sigh and eased back into the chair, Rick opened the door.
“And on that note,” he said. “I think I’ll be going.”
“I’ll see you in my trailer in a few minutes,” Jamey called after him.
Without turning around, Rick waved one hand in the air before closing the door behind him.
“How much longer?” Jamey asked Jeannie, tapping his feet against the floor like a kid unhappy to be in the barber chair.
Sierra laughed. “I hope it’s soon. He looks like he’s going to bolt.”
“I know.” Jeannie sighed and stepped back, turning the chair and Jamey to face Sierra. “What do you think?”
Normally when asked a question like that, she’d barely look, say fine and move on.
Not today.
She stepped forward, bending at the knees to get a look at his face from different angles. Any angle the camera might capture if the director chose to try to shoot the scenes scheduled for today.
It was a new scene, so continuity from the prior day’s shoot wouldn’t normally be a huge issue. But today, a good portion of Jamey’s face was larger than it used to be. The difference in his appearance was going to stand out like a sore thumb in comparison with what they shot when his face was normal.
“I don’t know,” Sierra said, pressing her lips into a tight line. “Maybe we can get away with it if they get creative with the camera angles.
“Which scene were you supposed to shoot this morning?” Jeannie asked.
The morning, which was already almost gone? Sierra ignored that fact and tried to remember all that was on today’s call sheet. “The wedding scene was supposed to be this morning.”
Which meant all those extras brought in to fill the chairs for the ceremony were sitting around getting paid to do nothing. Howard must be losing his mind.
Jeannie let out a short laugh. “Too bad the groom can’t wear the veil, huh?”
“No kidding.” She could only hope Howard thought the makeup covered enough.
“So can I go?” Jamey asked.
Sierra knew exactly where he wanted to go. To his trailer to be with Rick and the guys.
He wasn’t going to get there if she had anything to say about it.
When had leading men gotten so young that she felt like their mother? She didn’t want to know the answer to that. She suspected they seemed younger only because she continued to get older.
That was a concern for another day. A day when there weren’t dozens of extras getting paid to sit around and wait.
“You can’t go back to your trailer. There’s an entire crew on the clock plus a bunch of extras, all costing money while we find out if we’re going to be able to shoot today or not. You need to go to Howard’s office and see what he thinks. If he says we can get away with the scheduled scene, I need to go to wardrobe and get into that wedding gown.”
Her unhappy co-star pouted.
“Come on. I’ll go with you to Howard’s office. We’ll convince him everything is fine, we’ll get to set, late but not too bad, and get this damn movie back on track. Deal?”
“Yeah.” Jamey moved toward the door literally dragging his feet.
Sierra shook her head at him. “Hey. How about I text Rick and ask when Jon and Zane will have to leave? Then we’ll make sure you get to at least meet them before they go.”
“Really?” He brightened. “You’d do that for me?”
She patted his good cheek. “Yes, Jamey. Anything to make you happy.”
If she’d learned anything over the years, it was that happy heroes made for good footage. The way things were going, this film needed every advantage it could get.
“Cross your fingers this works and Howard let’s us shoot,” she said to Jeannie as she reached to close the door behind her.
Jeannie smiled. “Fingers and toes crossed. And I’ll be there personally for touch-ups, just in case.”
“Good. Thanks.” Sometimes it took the women on the set to keep the men on track. And sometimes a bit of luck didn’t hurt either.
CHAPTER 9
Another snort came out of Zane as he whipped the pencil out from behind his ear and attacked the page in the script binder that had apparently offen
ded him.
Rick had seen pretty early on that he couldn’t give Jon or Zane free rein with a pen. They were going to have the pages so marked up they’d be illegible.
In an effort to minimize the damage, he’d scrambled and come up with a couple of pencils instead.
Thank God he remembered the guard at the gate always had a crossword puzzle in front of him. Luckily he also had a couple of pencils and was willing to part with them.
Hell, Rick would buy the guy a year’s supply worth of brand new #2s. Anything if it meant he could win back the director’s trust by correcting all the military stuff the original script had wrong.
But it would require more than correcting mistakes to get this movie back on track.
He’d been in that makeup trailer. He’d seen Jamey’s face. The makeup wasn’t going to be good enough. Jeannie and Sierra might have hope, but he feared it was wishful thinking on their part.
Movies went from the big screen where everything was blown up way larger than life, almost directly to streaming on high definition wall size televisions. There was no room for flaws in today’s blockbuster films.
Critics, fans, somebody was going to notice that in one scene Jamey looked normal and in the next his face was blown up. The director would realize that. And that was why Rick needed a plan.
They were going to have to figure out a way to film the flashback stuff, which luckily were mostly military scenes. Right in Rick’s wheelhouse.
He turned back to Jon, who was a lot more calmly tackling his half of the script than Zane was.
Rick had taken the pages out of Sierra’s binder and divided them up between Jon and Zane, then he’d kept Jamey’s for himself, so all three of them could work simultaneously with only two copies.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t getting a whole lot of reading done. Concentration was near impossible.
His mind was all over the place. Thinking. Planning. Worrying—mostly worrying. About the movie. About Sierra.
He pushed the worries aside and asked, “What do you guys think so far?”
The flashback scenes were scattered throughout the movie, so both Jon and Zane should have been able to read a portion of the military parts at least, even having only half the script each.
Zane raised his gaze. “I think whoever wrote this thing should be court marshaled.”
Jon snorted. “Can’t disagree there.”
“I meant, what do you think about the location requirements?”
“Like for the ambush scene?” Jon asked.
“Yeah.”
He shrugged. “It seems pretty generic to me. It could probably be shot anywhere. Where did you say he had it planned?”
“I don’t know. All I know is the location isn’t available until next month but we need to shoot this now. This week.” Rick remembered the other half of the equation and ran a hand over his face in frustration. “Shit. He’s also got extras lined up for that scene, but not until next month, so there’s no guarantee they’ll be available early either.”
“Extras to play the SEAL team?” Zane asked with obvious derision.
“Yeah, I assume. But also to play the enemy, I suppose.” What the fuck did Rick now? He was just guessing at this point. Maybe it would help to have Jamey here with them.
“Hmm. I wonder . . .” Jon’s comment captured Rick’s attention.
“Wonder what?” he asked.
“You thinking the same thing I’m thinking?” Zane smiled at Jon.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Jon grinned.
“Well, would someone like to tell me?” Rick huffed out a breath.
“San Clemente Island,” Zane said.
San Clemente. One of the Channel Islands located off the coast of California. The Navy had been using it for training for decades.
Rick’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. That would be perfect. You think we could get approval?”
Zane stood and pulled his cell out of his pocket. “Let’s see.”
“Who are you calling?” Rick watched in amazement as Zane scrolled through his contact list. Who was on there? He’d love to see.
“The director of the National Park Service owes me a favor.”
Rick drew back, suitably impressed. “Damn.”
Jon laughed. “Yeah, it’s handy having Zane living in D.C. and racking up favors. Now for those extras you talked about. I have an idea.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.” If it was half as good as Zane’s idea about the location, they might be able to pull this thing off.
“How many days we talking here?” Jon asked.
Rick glanced at the script. “I’d have to ask to be sure, but I can estimate.”
He’d been on enough sets with Sierra to have a feel for how long things took.
This would be his first movie with military operation scenes but he knew the general timeline. Knew about how long the rest of the movie would take to shoot. Knew the studio would be too cheap to spend too much time and budget on scenes that weren’t going to be a major part of the movie.
This was first and foremost an emotional flick. Not a war movie.
“Maybe two days? Three max, I guess?” Rick lifted a shoulder.
Jon nodded, looking pleased with that answer. “You know we were just at Coronado.”
“Yeah.” Rick nodded, not sure where Jon was going with this.
“They’ve got a class that’s graduating tomorrow. You know those guys are going to take liberty right after.”
Rick’s brow furrowed in a frown. “Wait. Are you suggesting using the graduates as extras for the movie? You think they’d really do it?”
“Think back to when we graduated. We were so hyped up and full of ourselves. Yeah, they’ll go home thinking they want to spend time with their families, but after two days they’ll have enough. I would have loved to hang out with the guys from my class instead of sitting home jonesing for action.”
Rick had to agree. Going back to the normal world—aside from being able to sleep for days if he wanted to—had been an anti-climatic conclusion to what had felt, then, like the most momentous accomplishment of his life.
Jon was right. He would have loved to hang out with people who understand what he’d gone through because they’d been through it too.
“Besides,” Jon continued, “after graduation, they’ll be looking for pussy and booze. Being able to say they were in a big blockbuster movie, and getting paid to do it . . . Hell, that’s a surefire recipe for getting laid and they’ll have some extra cash in their pocket to go out and have fun with.”
As piece by piece fell into place, Rick’s pulse sped. This could actually work.
“You might be right.” He knew if he brought his teammates in they’d solve this problem.
“Of course, I am. And as soon as Zane gets off the phone with the parks guy, we’ll have him call Coronado and see about ordering us a team of brand new SEALs.” Jon stood and slapped Rick on the back. “Now, did you mention us getting a drink somewhere?”
Rick let out a laugh. “Yeah. You earned it. And if this all pans out, you definitely deserve more than a drink.”
He stood and moved to the cabinet. He’d replace Jamey’s bottle later but right now, they all deserved a drink for the work they’d accomplished so far.
It was a good plan, but a plan that depended on so many moving parts it could just as easily fizzle and die as soar.
Yup. Rick sure as hell needed a drink.
It was time to celebrate the small wins now . . . in case it all fell apart later.
CHAPTER 10
“I can’t believe he won’t let us shoot. He sent all those extras home and canceled everything on the call sheet for today for what? I look fine.” Jamey ranted as he and Sierra walked toward his trailer.
“No, Jamey. Howard is right. You don’t look the way you did for yesterday’s shots. It’s going to show.”
“So use CGI or something. They do all this fucking amazing stuff for Sci Fi movies. Why can’
t they do that for this?”
“Because CGI isn’t in the budget for this movie.” Neither was losing weeks of filming because of Jamey’s broken cheekbone thanks to her Spec Op-trained boyfriend’s jealous temper and quick fists.
The anger started to glow again inside her chest.
“We could have worked around it. Shot something else today so continuity isn’t an issue. Howard’s just being a fucking dick.”
Production of major pictures like theirs couldn’t pivot on a dime. Jamey should know that. He was just being irrational because he was pissed.
She was pretty pissed herself, but not enough to forget where they were. “Shh. Get inside before you start saying shit that could get you fired,” she warned.
Jamey scowled. “He’s not going to fire me. We’ve got too many hours shot already.”
Stranger things had happened in this business and Sierra wasn’t going to take a chance on sinking this film. She climbed the few steps and yanked open the door of Jamey’s trailer.
He followed her up, but was blocked from entering as she was stopped dead in the doorway by the sight that greeted her.
It looked more like a war room than a set trailer. Not that she knew exactly what a war room looked like from personal experience but she’d watched enough military TV shows and movies to recognize this resembled one.
Zane was on the phone. Jon and Rick were clustered around the mirror. Upon closer inspection she saw Jon was drawing on the surface with a black marker.
Rick leaned in, a red marker in his hand and added a few circles to whatever it was they were drawing.
“Wow. What’s going on?” Jamey’s excited exclamation had Rick turning toward the door.
Rick grinned and hooked a thumb toward Jon. “Jamey Garret, meet Jon Rudnick. And that guy on the cell currently convincing someone that he needs to get us approval to film your scene in Channel Islands National Park with actual SEALs as your extras is Zane Alexander.”
Jamey moved Sierra over with a hand on each of her shoulders and moved toward the mirror as if in a daze. “Holy shit. And what’s this?”