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  “I mean, its hardest on the director’s reputation, but it’s a black mark against the actors, too. And when word gets around about which crew members worked on a stinker, they sometimes don’t get offered many jobs for a while.”

  “But Jay and Goodie have by far the most to lose.”

  Carly nodded. “Jay being Jay, I imagine he’d really hate to be associated with a turkey. And if that’s what it turns out to be, Goodie’s bound to lose a lot of money.”

  “Okay, then maybe we should be looking for a motive like revenge. I’ll bet Jay’s alienated a lot of people in the business.”

  “I’ll bet he has, too. In fact…” She paused, her pulse skipping a beat as she remembered what Royce had said earlier. There’d been so much going on, she’d forgotten all about it.

  “What?” Nick prompted.

  “Royce told me something earlier. A year or so back, Jay had an affair with Sarina Westlake.”

  That was enough to make Nick lean forward in his chair. “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. And Jay dumped her. At this point, neither she nor Garth has any use for him.”

  “Then why on earth are they doing this film with him?”

  Carly smiled wearily. “I asked Royce the same question. He said we’re dealing with Hollywood types, and nobody can explain half the stuff they do.”

  “You’re sure Royce knows what he’s talking about?”

  “He usually does. As far as I know, any gossip he told me last time we worked together was on the money.”

  “Then I think we’ve just zoomed in on our prime suspects. Our saboteur could be Garth or Sarina or, most likely, the two of them working together.”

  “You really think so? Don’t forget they’d be doing damage to their own reputations.”

  “Maybe they figure it’s worth it And it would explain why they agreed to star in the film in the first place.”

  “Yes…yes, it would, wouldn’t it.” Carly began to feel better. This detective stuff wasn’t nearly as hard as she’d imagined.

  “Unless Goodie’s the target,” Nick said. “And it’s not Jay at all.”

  The “better” feeling rapidly dissolved.

  “Who would hate Goodie?” Nick pressed. “Aside from his soon to be ex-wife?”

  “I don’t know of anyone else,” Carly said slowly. “But what about Barb?”

  “Well, she probably would love to get revenge, especially if Royce was right and she isn’t Ms. Stability. But I don’t have the impression she’s Ms. Stupid, either, so I doubt she’d try to hit him in the wallet.”

  “No?”

  “Uh-uh. If Goodie got into divorce court and proved he’d just lost a bundle on this movie, it would likely reduce her settlement.”

  “Oh, right. That makes sense. So we’re back to Sarina and Garth?”

  Nick nodded. “We’ll start with them, but as I said, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open.”

  “And by starting with them, you mean…?”

  “Let’s not get into that until tomorrow, okay? I can’t give you the entire detective crash course in one session.” With that, he rose, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  Carly called the Marx brothers, and they all headed into the house. It hadn’t cooled down much, but the dogs raced directly upstairs—each to his favorite spot.

  “You’d better lock up,” Nick suggested. “We’ve got a lot of strangers around.”

  “I always lock up at night anyway, but I guess now we’d better remember to do it during the day, too. Especially when there are two little boys who might want to take Crackers outside again.” The mere thought made her shudder.

  Once the main-floor lights were turned off, she trudged up the stairs ahead of Nick, the heat increasing with every step.

  “You think we should splurge on a couple of air conditioners?” he asked.

  “I think we’d better not splurge on anything until we see how the shooting goes.” And when it was finished, of course, Nick would be leaving, so he’d no longer care about the house being hot

  “Well, good night,” she said, stopping outside her bedroom door.

  “Night,” Nick said quietly. “Carly?” he added as she turned away.

  She turned back, her heartbeat accelerating.

  But instead of making the move she’d expected, he said, “I was thinking maybe I’d go with you in the morning. Thinking that Jay, Goodie and Barb might be a pretty terrible trio to cope with on your own.”

  “Well…” It was sweet of him to offer, and she very much wanted to say yes. But her brain was warning her that taking some time away from him would be far wiser. She had to figure out what was going on between them and…

  Oh, why was she trying to kid herself? She knew exactly what was going on. She just needed time to decide for sure what she was going to do about it. Her resolve to do absolutely nothing seemed to be evaporating at a very rapid rate.

  “No,” she said at last. “It’s nice of you to offer, but one of us might as well get to sleep in.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not a great one for sleeping in. Besides, now that it’s occurred to them that there are wild animals out there, they’ll probably want to take Gus’s rifle along. And I’d rather it was me carrying it than Jay or Goodie.”

  “I’d rather it was you, too,” she said, doing her best to ignore the imaginary voice that was whispering in her ear again.

  This time, it was asking why she didn’t tell Nick that Gus had taught her how to shoot years ago? And that she could easily carry the gun herself?

  “Then it’s settled,” he said, giving her a smile so warm it melted something inside her. “I’ll see you for breakfast?”

  She nodded, but neither of them turned toward their doors. Her heart began beating rapidly again.

  “Carly?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re awfully worried, aren’t you?”

  Not as awfully as she’d have been if he weren’t here to help. But she couldn’t say something like that unless she was sure she wanted him to—

  “Would a hug help? Or is it too hot?”

  Of course it was too hot, but she suddenly wanted a hug more than anything in the world. “I think it might help,” she murmured.

  He gave her another smile, then stepped closer and folded her into his arms.

  His body felt as hard and leanly muscled against hers as she’d imagined it would, and there was a slight scent of the outdoors about him that she loved.

  She also loved the way be lightly rested his chin on her head and simply held her. If she’d had a fever of 112 degrees she couldn’t have been any hotter, but she didn’t want him to ever take his arms away.

  When he finally did, he stepped backward and simply stood looking at her. The message in his eyes was clear. He was leaving the next move up to her.

  Forcing her gaze from his, she stared at his cowboy boots and mentally recited the reasons she’d be crazy to get involved with him. But the feeling that it was inevitable had been growing. And if it was, did it make sense to put off the inevitable?

  From the long-ago past, she could hear her mother saying, “Never rush into anything with a boy, Carly.”

  Nick wasn’t a boy, though. He was a man. A man she was inordinately attracted to. But also a man who’d be walking out of her life before the summer was over.

  “And do you really want to be left hurting?” the imaginary voice asked.

  Taking a long, slow, breath, she made her decision.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Push Comes to Shove

  NICK SHIFTED Gus’s rifle to his other hand and glanced at his watch, wondering how many more sites they’d have to look at. It was getting close to noon, and this scouting expedition had turned out to be even worse than he’d anticipated.

  Of course it didn’t help that he hadn’t slept all night. But it had been so damn hot in his bedroom….

  The thought trailed off as he looked at Carly. The heat hadn’t been the only
thing that had kept him awake. He hadn’t been able to stop their good-night scene from replaying over and over in his mind.

  When he’d held her, her wonderful wildflower scent had been positively intoxicating. And she’d felt so soft and warm and womanly that he’d.wanted to make love with her more than he could remember ever wanting anything.

  But he’d known she didn’t want to get involved with him. So why had it felt like someone punching him in the heart when she gave him a final, quiet, “Good night, Nick,” and walked into her bedroom alone?

  One thing was certain. He sure didn’t want to feel like that again. And if he had any future thoughts about more than a business relationship with her, he was going to stop them in their tracks.

  Forcing his eyes from her, he looked over at Barb Hunt. She was the only one of the terrible trio who hadn’t been getting on his nerves all morning, and it was making him wonder just how exaggerated those stories Royce had heard about her were. At the very least, she could behave appropriately when she wanted to.

  On this outing, she’d simply kept her mouth shut and made notes whenever Jay had talked about what set decorating would be necessary for the sites he liked.

  Jay and Goodie, on the other hand, had been grade A pains. Goodie was making an obvious point of refusing to even look at his wife, and Jay had asked Carly about a hundred times if she was sure the map she’d drawn for him was accurate. And despite being slathered from head to toe with calamine lotion, both men were constantly scratching and complaining about their mosquito bites. To top it off, it was a wonder Goodie hadn’t dislocated his neck looking for wild bears behind every tree. Nick was dizzy just from watching.

  “Okay,” Jay said with another glance around the clearing. “I think this’ll do it.” He looked at Nick and Carly, adding, “When we get back to base, I’ll send some people out to cut a road through.”

  “You’ll keep the cutting to a minimum,” Nick said.

  Jay frowned at him, but said, “Of course.” Turning to Barb, he added, “And if you spend the rest of the day pulling together what we’ll need for tomorrow, we should be ready to roll.”

  “Thank heavens,” Goodie muttered.

  With Carly leading the way, the five of them trudged off through the woods again. This time, they eventually emerged from the forest on the far side of Attila’s field.

  Jonathan, the gangly friend of Dylan’s who was taking the day bear watch, waved to them, and Jay said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I want to see the bear swim.”

  “Not now,” Goodie objected. “It’s lunchtime.”

  “You think Raffaello’s going to shut down the kitchen before we get there?” Jay demanded. “I told him we’d be back for lunch.”

  “I’d like to see the bear swim, too,” Barb put in.

  While the three of them started toward the field, Nick quickly closed the gap between himself and Carly, trying to ignore his panicky feeling. If there was a command to make Attila swim, he didn’t know it.

  “Carly?” he said, falling in beside her.

  “I know,” she whispered. “There was nothing in the script about swimming, so I didn’t bother getting into it with you. I figured you had enough to learn.”

  “But Jay said something yesterday about maybe wanting some swimming shots. So we should have—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll look after it.”

  Nick nodded, mightily relieved.

  “I just hope Attila listens to me,” she added, putting the boots to his sense of relief.

  When they reached the gate, she unlocked it and reached for the pail full of trout sitting beside it.

  “Dylan already fed him a ton of vegetables and stuff,” Jonathan told her. “But he said the fish was dessert and that you’d probably want to give it to him yourself.”

  Nick’s stomach turned over. The raw chicken was bad enough, now there was raw fish, too.

  “Is fish his favorite food?” Barb asked.

  “Uh-uh. Raw chicken,” Jonathan said. “You oughta see him gobble it down.”

  Carly pushed the gate open, then glanced at the terrible trio. “Why don’t you walk around to the other side where you’ll be close to the pond?”

  “Okay, but you come with us,” Jay told her.

  “No, I’m going to handle Attila this time. I haven’t been working with him enough lately.”

  Jay looked at Nick. “You work with the birds?”

  “No, just the bear.”

  “Then you show me the swim bit, because I want to talk to Carly about the owls.”

  “Oh, we can do that later,” she protested. “We—”

  “I have other things to do later. I need to talk to you about them now.”

  She glanced at Nick. He shrugged uneasily. He’d started feeling a little confident around Attila, but damned little. And if he didn’t have a clue what he was doing…

  “All right,” Carly told Jay. “You start walking and I’ll catch up in a minute. There’s something I have to tell Nick, and I don’t want to forget.”

  She waited until the other three had headed off, then put down the pail and said, “Okay. Here’s the signal to go into the water, and the verbal command is ‘water.’”

  He watched closely while she repeated the hand signal a couple of times, then tried it himself.

  “Good,” she said. “And to make him swim, you just gesture which way you want him to go and say ’swim.’”

  “Okay. Show me the hand signal one more time.”

  “Carly, are you coming?” Jay screamed.

  Attila growled loudly.

  Jay clapped his hand over his mouth and rapidly nodded in their direction, silently assuring them he’d remembered the noise rule.

  “A little late, wasn’t it,” Nick muttered. “I swear, if he starts screaming while I’m in that field working, I really will kill him.”

  Carly glanced uneasily at Gus’s rifle, then reached for it ”I’d better look after this while you’re in with Attila. And good luck, but I’m sure you won’t need it. He loves the water.” With that, Carly started after Jay, Barb and Goodie.

  Nick watched her walk away, wishing to hell he’d had time to practice the “water” signal in front of the mirror, the way he had all the others.

  Reminding himself he was a quick study, he headed into the field and closed the gate.

  “What are you going to do?” Jonathan asked.

  “Give him a swim.” I hope.

  “If he wants to swim, doesn’t he just go into the pond on his own?”

  Nick picked up the pail and started away without answering. The last thing he needed was a kid asking annoyingly logical questions.

  “Hey, Attila,” he said, stopping as he neared the bear.

  Attila eyed the pail and made a loud, snuffling noise.

  “No, you know the drill. Work first, treats second." He walked on over to the fence and put the pail down near where Carly was standing with the others.

  Goodie wrinkled his nose at the fish. Carly gave Nick a reassuring smile that didn’t reassure him in the least. It only made him wish that she was doing this instead of him. But since she wasn’t, he walked back to where the bear was standing.

  “We’re going to go over to the pond now, boy. Attila, come.” Giving the hand gesture, he started off, telling himself “So far so good” when the bear lumbered after him.

  He reached the water’s edge, then turned to Attila again. Just as he was about to try to get him into the water, Jay said, “Can he walk in standing up?”

  Nick’s anxiety level began climbing fast. He had no idea what the answer was, or what commands to use if it was yes.

  “Sure he can,” Carly said. “We just give him the command to stand up, then follow it with the command to go into the water.”

  Thanking his lucky stars his partner was quick on the uptake, he focused on the bear once more. “Attila, two feet.”

  The bear grunted and stood up.

  “Good boy.” He mentally r
eviewed the hand signal Carly had shown him, then gave it, along with a firm “water” command.

  Attila started forward. He seemed to be walking straight at Nick, but he told himself it was only his nervousness making him think that. And then Attila stopped right in front of him.

  Before he could decide what to do, the bear gave him a hard shove with his front feet and sent him sprawling backward into the pond.

  Nick simply sat there, stunned, soaked and absolutely terrified, with six hundred pounds of bear glaring down at him.

  Jay and Goodie began to laugh.

  “Oh, Nick,” Carly said, “this isn’t the time to be fooling around.”

  He looked at her in disbelief, saw how pale her face was, and felt more terrified yet.

  “Nick is such a joker,” she told Jay. “I think he inherited that from his uncle Gus. He gave Attila the “shove” hand signal instead of the “water” one. But Jay doesn’t care about that one, Nick.”

  “Hey, maybe I do,” Jay managed through his laughter. “That was funny as hell, so maybe I’ll get him to push one of the kids into a stream or something. But let’s see him swim now.”

  “Sure. Attila, you listen to me,” Carly snapped in such a no-nonsense tone that Nick suddenly found himself sitting at attention.

  “Water,” she ordered, giving a signal.

  He was sure the one he’d given looked exactly like it, but Attila didn’t go over and try to shove at her through the fence. He merely grunted, then walked obediently into the pond—stopping just before he stepped on Nick.

  “Good boy. Now swim.” Carly gestured to the left, and Attila gleefully heaved himself into the water, sending up a tidal wave that soaked Nick all over again.

  SINCE JAY AND GOODIE had walked up to the house with them, Jay still asking Carly questions about what the owls could do, Nick had been forced to keep quiet. And that had only made him more angry when he’d already been mad as hell—not to mention sopping wet.

  He hated being made to look like a fool every bit as much as he hated being maneuvered or manipulated. And he sure didn’t intend to give that bear any more chances to make him a laughingstock.

  “Okay,” Jay said, lingering on the porch even though Goodie was clearly dying for lunch. “We can’t start lighting the set until the sun’s fully up, so let’s say you get the bear there about ten.”