Wild Action

“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.”

NICK 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.

WHEN 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.

“What’s with this scene where Attila chases the boys?” Nick asked.

“Oh, that’s the pivotal one I mentioned yesterday.”

“No, I mean what’s with him chasing them? You told me people should never run away from bears. You said it excites their predatory instincts.”

“Well, the boys won’t really be running away from Attila. I know the notes call it the scene where he chases them, but Jay will do separate takes of them running and Attila running. Then they’ll edit the sequences so it looks as if he’s chasing them.”

“Ahh.”

When Nick went back to his reading, she sat watching him, still not quite able to believe that he was actually helping her. Of course she realized it was to his benefit, as well as hers, if things worked out with Jay. But most men would never have stayed when they’d been in the midst of looking for a place to live.

Even fewer would have agreed to work with a bear, no matter how much it might prove to be worth to them financially. Especially when they already had a good job. Which added up to the fact that she felt very, very grateful. And despite her resolve to keep their relationship strictly business, she was aware of feeling more than simple gratitude.

As hard as she’d tried to fall asleep last night, she’d lain awake for a long time, extremely conscious that Nick was in the bedroom right across the hall—and that both their doors were open to allow what little breeze there was through the house. Then, at breakfast this morning, before he’d shaved, it had been impossible to ignore how sexy he looked.

Just as she was ordering herself to think about anything other than him, he tossed down the script and glanced over at her. “Here they come.”

Trying to quell a fresh surge of anxiety, she rose and looked across the clearing. Sure enough, there they were, just rounding the curve in the road.

Three black stretch limos led the way, followed by a convoy of trucks, trailers and RVs that would be home to the cast and crew while they were on location here.

The noise sent the rabbits scurrying under the safety of the porch, and in the house the Marx brothers began barking. They hated being shut inside, but she couldn’t chance letting them out until everyone was safely parked. All in all, there was such a commotion that she half expected to see Rocky Raccoon peering down from the porch roof—even though it took a lot to rouse a coon from his day’s sleep.

“Looks like an invasion,” Nick said.

She glanced at him and forced a smile, hoping he couldn’t tell how nervous she was. It would do nothing for his self-confidence.

The trucks began turning off into the field where she’d told Jay to set up camp, while the limos pulled up in front of the house.

The third one had barely stopped before the back door flew open and two boys leapt out

“I guess those would be our ten-year-olds,” she murmured as they headed for the porch.

“Hi, I’m Kyle,” the blond one said, grinning at her. “And this is Brock,” he added, pointing at the dark-haired one.

Brock produced a grin of his own.

“Well, hi. This is Nick and I’m Carly.” She glanced at the two frazzled women who’d hurried after the boys—their mothers were on location with them, she knew.

“They’ve been sitting in the limo too long,” one of the women said. “Would you mind if they looked around a little? Burned off some of their energy?”

“We’ll keep an eye on them,” the other woman promised.

“Sure. Go ahead. Just don’t let them stick their fingers into the aviary.”

By the time Carly turned her attention back to the limos, the drivers of the remaining two had opened the back doors. A couple of men were getting out of the first one, while Sarina Westlake and Garth Richards emerged from the second.

Carly focused on Jay Wall, whom she recognized from Gus’s description. Of average height and weight, he had long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, a scraggly beard and wire-rimmed glasses. His clothes said he wasn’t a man who dressed to impress—tattered jeans, a T-shirt with Two for Trouble printed across it and a bright orange baseball cap pulled on backward.

Luckily Crackers couldn’t see him from the solarium, but she made a mental note to mention the bird’s little color quirk the first chance she got Some of the cast and crew were bound to end up in the house, so they’d all have to be warned.

Glancing at Nick, she whispered, “The one in his early thirties is Jay. And I think the midfifties one must be the producer, Brian Goodfellow.”

“You’re sure he’s not the director?” Nick whispered back. “He’s got that pear-shaped Alfred Hitchcock look.”

“Well, despite that, he has to be the producer. Get Real Productions is his company.”

“Carly, darling,” Jay said, heading for the porch as the limos started back down the drive. “Finally, we meet in person.”

Reaching her, he took both her hands in his and stood beaming at her so warmly that, if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was positively dying to work with her. For a director, he made a great actor.

“This is Brian Goodfellow,” he added, releasing her as the short, rotund man joined them on the porch.

“Goodie,” he said, nodding to Carly. “Everyone just calls me Goodie.”

“And our stars…” Jay paused and made a sweeping gesture toward them.

Sarina and Garth nodded from the drive, then went back to whatever they’d been talking about.

“And this,” Carly said, “is Nick Montgomery, my new partner in Wild Action.”

“Oh?” Jay extended his hand to Nick, his expression saying he didn’t like surprises.

“Nick will be doing most of the work with Attila,” she added.

“Oh?” Jay said again. “Do you have a lot of experience with bears, Nick?”

“Actually, most of my experience has been with cats.”

“Big cats, he means,” Carly said quickly, shooting Nick a look that said this was no time for humor. “Lions, tigers and panthers mostly, right?”

He grinned at her. “Right. But Attila and I are good buddies,” he added to Jay.

Before there was time for anyone to say another word, a child yelled, “Jay? Look what we’ve got!”

Carly turned, then froze in horror. The two boys had come around the side of the house—Kyle with Crackers on his shoulder.

“We went in the back to get some water,” he said excitedly. “And all I did was say hi to him, and he hopped right on me.”

Behind the boys, their mothers appeared, both wearing “Aren’t they cute” expressions. A split second later, Crackers noticed the orange baseball cap.

He shrieked. Carly dove at Jay.

“Shee-it!” he said, ducking to avoid her hand.

She still managed to grab the cap—but only an instant before Crackers swooped through the air and snatched it from her. Landing on the porch railing, he sat bobbing his head up and down, the cap’s bill securely in his beak.

“Awesome!” Brock said. “Can you make him do it again?”

“Sure,” Nick told him. “Want to see him do it again, Jay?”

The director glared at him. “I hope you’re a better bear trainer than you are a comedian.”

Smoothing his hair, he looked at the mothers and snapped, “Keep those kids away from the animals, understand?”

When they nodded in unison, Jay turned his glare on Carly.

“I’m so s-sorry,” she stammered. “It’s the color orange. It sometimes makes him freak out.”

When Jay glanced over at Crackers as if he’d like to wring his little feathered neck, Goodie said, “You’re lucky he didn’t sink those claws into your head. If he had, I’d be starting to believe this movie really is jinxed. But come on, let’s go make sure all the equipment made the trip safely.”

Jay nodded, then looked at Carly again. “Goodie and I will be back after we’ve had lunch. I’d like you to show us the bear then. And you think you can keep that parrot in a cage for the duration?”

“Well, the bird likes his freedom,” Nick said. “So we’re not going to coop him up in a cage for a month or more. But all you need to do is tell everyone not to wear orange.”

“Or maybe we could see if the chef has a recipe for parrot cacciatore,” Jay muttered.

IT TOOK AT LEAST fifteen minutes for Carly to get Crackers back into the solarium—by which point the baseball cap was in shreds.

Nick had hovered nearby while she’d coaxed and cajoled, but he wasn’t nearly as much help with the bird as he was with Attila. She probably shouldn’t have told him Crackers could amputate a man’s hand.

Just as Crackers finally flew onto his perch, the phone began to ring.

“Don’t you move,” Carly said sternly, pointing her finger at him before she reached for the phone.

“Hi, darling,” her mother’s voice greeted her.

“Oh, hi, Mom, What’s up?”

“Nothing much. I just wondered if you’d heard exactly when your movie people are arriving.”

“Actually, they got here about half an hour ago.”

“Oh, good. And is everything going well so far?”

“Everything’s just fine.” Except for the fact that Attila might not perform for the camera and an unnervingly attractive man was living in her house. Not to mention having an entire horde of people setting up camp in her field and a parrot who’d come close to scalping the man who could make or break Wild Action.

“Well, I won’t keep you, dear. But we were curious about what happened when you met with the lawyers. How did that nephew of Gus’s take to learning that he’d left half the estate to you?”

“Ahh, he took it pretty well.” She glanced over and saw that Nick was still hovering. “Actually, he’s going to be staying here while they’re shooting. He’s helping out with Attila.”

“Really” her mother said, packing about thirteen questions into one word.

Carly had no desire to answer even one of them with Nick standing there listening, so she said, “Mom, things are pretty hectic and I’ve got to run. But I’ll call you in a few days—let you know when you should drive down.”

“All right, dear. We’re really looking forward to it. Your father won’t admit it, but he’s been a little bored since he retired, and he’s really interested in seeing a movie being shot. And Lisa’s just dying to meet Garth Richards.”

“I’ll call as soon as I know what’s what. ‘Bye for now.

“My mother,” she told Nick as she hung up. “My parents and sister want to come down for a few days and see how movies are made.”

“Your sister lives with them?”

“No, she’s a year older than me and married. But she’s a big Garth Richards fan. And she’s a teacher, so she’s free during the summer.”

Wondering what her family was going to think when they got a look at the man who was sharing the house with her, she turned her attention back to Crackers and told him to get into his cage. Instead, he tucked his head under his wing, trying to make himself invisible.

“I thought he hated being in there during the day,” Nick said.

Carly shot him a warning glance. She was hardly happy about the way he’d been such a smart ass with Jay; she just hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with him yet. And at the moment, she could certainly do without his taking the bird’s side.

“He’s got to learn he can’t behave like that,” she said. “And when Jay gets back here, I want him to see we’re being cooperative. Crackers, move it,” she added.

His head bowed, he shuffled along his perch and kicked a bar of the cage with one foot.

“In,” she said firmly. “You can come back out at dinnertime if you promise to be. good.”

He gave the cage another kick, graced her with a bird’s version of a dirty look, then eased inside.

“And the next time you get another birdbrained idea, remember this is what happens.” -She carefully latched the door, then turned to Nick. “As for you, were you deliberately trying to annoy Jay?”

“What? All I said was we weren’t going to keep Crackers in his cage for an entire month.”

“That’s not what I was referring to. I meant your line about most of your experience being with cats. If you’d told him you meant the neighbor’s pussycat, I’d have killed you. And when you asked if he’d like to see Crackers come swooping down at him again… What on earth were you thinking of?”

“Well, the guy’s a schmuck and I—”

“That is entirely beside the point. The point is we want him to think Wild Action is terrific, remember? So when he goes back to L.A. he’ll give his friends rave reviews about us.”

“A guy like that can’t have any friends. And stop talking to me as if I were twelve years old. You may own fifty-one percent of this operation, but don’t try laying down rules about what I can and can’t say to people.”

“That’s not what I was doing. I was merely offering a little constructive criticism—which you obviously can’t take. Dammit, Nick, you’re exactly like Gus.”