Chapter 4
Emily popped two Advil onto her tongue and swallowed them with water.
The almost-full bottle hit the dressing table with a thud as she looked at her reflection in the trailer mirror. Hair and makeup were done. Scene clothes were on. Now she just needed to get out there and act.
But she didn’t want to. No part of her wanted to.
It was another scene that would take a lot out of her physically. It would involve running and dodging and balancing on wet stones to cross a river. They’d done a run-through yesterday and she’d tripped at least three times—two of those times, jamming her knee.
She’d wanted to refuse to do the scene today. Wait for this mystery stunt double to arrive in Deep River. She’d argued with her mother about it all morning until she’d been too exhausted to fight anymore.
Would her knee hold out today? What if she slipped on the stones this time and fell into the water?
Her phone vibrated from the dresser.
Mom: Where are you? Roscoe’s getting impatient.
Roscoe’s getting impatient. Not, “Are you okay?” Or, “I know these scenes are hard for you both physically and emotionally. Is there anything you need?”
She dropped her cell onto the dresser and looked back at her reflection.
She wouldn’t slip. Her knee would hold. She’d be fine.
She closed her eyes and took a moment to breathe, cursing herself for the thousandth time for agreeing to do this movie.
Roscoe had a bad track record of working actors to the bone. It was why she’d originally turned down the part. But when the actress who’d signed on had gotten into a car accident, the studio had upped the money. Her mother had basically shoved the pen into her hand to sign the contract.
When exactly Emily had stopped caring about her career, she wasn’t sure.
The night she’d met Ryan? Or had it all come after that?
After Ryan was gone and everything she’d thought she wanted suddenly felt hollow without him.
She couldn’t even explain why. Just that every career milestone, every goal she’d hit, had all been accompanied by this certainty that something was missing.
Her phone vibrated again.
Mom: Emily!!
Jesus Christ. She pushed up from the seat. No groan of her knee. No pain at the moment. Good. That was good.
Outside, cool air slipped over her cheeks, making her dig deeper into her thick jacket. She hated filming in cold places. Because there was always a point where the jacket had to come off and she needed to appear like she wasn’t freezing her ass off.
As she wove through the trees, the sound of the river grew closer. The rush of water against rocks. The whooshing. Was the current strong today? Would the rocks be damp?
It was fine. They had a safety coordinator named Larry. There was a downstream safety team, and she’d be wearing a hidden harness. She’d be fine.
A bird chirped somewhere close by, and a small smile curved her lips. Back home, the only things she really heard were car engines and horns blasting.
She could see why Ryan had moved here. This town was small and charming and homey. Even her room at the inn had a cozy feel that she wasn’t sure could be recreated in her home.
Her mother had chosen her place. A huge, gated property with security and marble floors. It even had an elevator.
It wasn’t home. She was barely ever there. But then, nowhere had really felt like home for years.
A minute later, voices sounded. She stepped into the clearing, only to immediately grind to a halt.
Ryan.
Even amongst a sea of people, at least a dozen cast members and crew, he was the first person she saw. Maybe because he towered over the rest. Maybe because when he was close, her heart ached.
He wore jeans and a navy sweater and he looked so good.
For a second, she stood frozen. He’d worn navy that first night they’d met. It had looked black in the dark bar. All it had taken was one glance, one single look, and she’d been hooked.
Emily’s gaze shifted to the man two seats down, her vodka soda cooling her fingers as she cradled the glass.
The bar was loud, but she barely noticed.
Her attention had been on the guy since he’d sat near her ten minutes ago.
Just like her, he appeared to be alone. He smelled of evergreen, and he was cute.
No, that wasn’t the right word. He was tall and rugged, with the thickest arms she’d ever seen.
He hadn’t smiled yet. She wanted to see his smile.
She had a feeling it would be one of those devastating kinds hard to look away from.
She looked at the vase of flowers that sat on the bar between them. “I’m a sucker for flowers. Is it sad to admit they’re why I come here?”
The guy looked up at her, his dark eyes piercing, intense, maybe even a bit dangerous. “Excuse me?”
“You wouldn’t expect to see flowers in a bar like this. I like it.”
He seemed to take a minute to consider her words. “You come here for the décor?”
“Haven’t you heard? Flowers are the way to a girl’s heart. Or mine, at least.” She sipped her drink. “Why do you come here?”
“Close to base.”
“Base?”
“I’m in the military.”
“Ah, that explains the danger signals I’m getting.” She sipped her vodka soda.
“Danger?”
“Oh yeah. It radiates off you.”
His lips twitched. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”
“Only if you use your powers for good.”
This time his lips curved into a full smile, and it was every bit as devastating as she’d known it would be. “I’ll try. But only because I want to be another reason you come to this bar.”
She pulled herself back to the moment.
Back then, she’d been a nobody. Her name had meant nothing. Her face hadn’t been recognizable.
But he’d seen her. He’d bought her a drink. Charmed her. It was the night everything changed. And over the next five months, she’d changed. Every carefully laid plan, every aspiration, had all shifted to orient around Ryan and a different kind of life.
“Ready?”
She jumped and looked at Faye. The other woman wore all black, and the blue mask was between her fingers by her side.
“Ready to get almost sliced and diced, you mean?” Emily asked.
“Not sure how much slicing and dicing this can do.” She pressed the tip of the fake knife to her other hand. The plastic bent easily.
For a prop, it looked pretty realistic. It was even weighted like a real knife.
Preston threw his arms over both their shoulders. “Hello, my lovers. We ready to get our slashers on?”
“You’re enjoying this far too much.” Faye laughed.
“Nah, I’d need to be holding the knife for that. Maybe one day I’ll get to play the bad guy.”
Faye rolled her eyes. “You’d have to give up the lead for that.”
As the two continued to banter, Emily looked across at Ryan again.
He stood behind the cameras, hands shoved into his pockets, focus on her. His dark gaze looked almost…angry.
Because Preston had his arm around her?
“Finally!” Her mother suddenly appeared and pulled off Emily’s jacket. “You’re late.”
“It’s ten. We’re starting at ten.”
“Thirty minutes early and you’re on time. A minute past and you’re late.”
She bit her tongue to silence a reply as the breeze chilled her bare arms. Nothing good would come from her mouth right now.
“All right, let’s do this,” Roscoe shouted, as he clapped his hands.
One last glance at Ryan to see his thick arms folded, features unreadable, before she slipped on her practiced mask and transformed from Emily Prior, Academy Award-winning actress, into Jessie Fuller, twenty-three-year-old college student who was camping with friends…and running for her life.
Over the next two hours, they filmed a forest chase scene. She had to sprint hand in hand with Preston—and fall over and over again. It took so many takes that the Advil started to wear off and the pain in her cries required less and less acting.
Preston threw his body on top of hers during the next take, and her knee hit the ground hard.
Ow!
“Cut.” Roscoe clapped his hands. “Okay, I think we got that one.”
She groaned and pushed into a seated position, giving her knee a gentle massage.
“Here.”
She looked at the hand in front of her, then traced it up to Ryan’s face.
She didn’t want to take it. But people were watching…and it wasn’t like Preston had offered to help her up. He was already on his feet, standing by the monitor, watching the scene back.
Tentatively, she slipped her palm into Ryan’s. His large hand swallowed her small one, his fingers wrapping around hers tightly.
A jolt of awareness shot through her system, squeezing the air from her lungs.
Gently, he tugged her to her feet, and suddenly he was close. So close that their breaths mingled and his smell, that damn evergreen, swallowed up the years that had passed.
“Thank you.” The quiet words fell from her lips, her gaze stuck to his like a seal she couldn’t break.
His thumb slid gently over the back of her hand, making goose bumps race over her arms. “How’s your knee?”
That one single question pulled her back to reality.
Her knee. Her damaged knee. Damaged the night her world had changed.
She tugged her hand free, hating that she immediately missed his warmth. “It’s fine.”
“Emily.”
She looked at the director.
“We’re doing the river-crossing scene now.”
She wanted to groan. Or maybe she did, because Ryan asked, “Doesn’t she get a break?”
Roscoe’s eyes narrowed on him. “Stay in your lane, kid.” He looked at Emily. “Come on. We need to harness up.”
She glanced at the river just past the trees. It was moving fast today. So fast that she almost stepped back unconsciously.
“She’s ready.”
Her jaw ground at her mother’s answer to her question.
Melanie Prior stopped to the right of Emily, slipping an arm around her waist, and in the process, pulled her away from Ryan.
“Come on.” Her mother ushered her toward the river.
They moved out of the trees to see the rocks she had to cross. Water lapped over them. But she knew they were safe. The safety coordinator had coated them in a spray that gave them grip. And there was also the harness and safety team downstream.
So why did nerves kick at her belly?
She’d be fine. She was a professional. She could do this. She would do this.
Larry, the safety coordinator, approached with a bundled harness.
“Ready?” He held up the harness.
No. She nodded.
“It’s going to sit under your top.”
Laura, the costume coordinator, came over, and between the two of them, they got her harnessed up.
“The main line attaches here at the back.” Larry patted the central clip. “We’ll have a cable running to a spotter on the bank. It’ll have enough slack that you won’t feel it unless you slip.”
Laura stepped back and inspected. “Good. You can see a slight line if the wind catches, but that can be edited out.”
Emily nodded. “Thanks.”
The two of them stepped back.
Hushed arguing sounded from near the cameras. She glanced over to see Ryan in a heated discussion with Roscoe.
Were they arguing about her? About doing this scene?
Screw that. She didn’t need an ex from five years ago speaking on her behalf.
She straightened. “I’m ready.”
“See? She’s ready.” Roscoe turned away from Ryan.
Emily moved into position, then slipped on her mask. Nothing like the pale blue one that Faye wore. A less obvious one. The mask that transformed her into a terrified college student.
“Okay, everyone,” a voice shouted. “Quiet on set.”
The crew silenced.
“Roll sound.”
Wind ran over her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.
“Sound speed,” someone else shouted.
From her peripheral vision, she saw someone adjust a tripod.
“Roll camera.”
“Camera speed.”
Deep breath, Emily.
“Scene twenty, take one.”
Clap.
“Action!”
Emily ran, chest heaving, scanning over her shoulder, searching for the threat, before she looked back at the river.
Her boots pounded against the dirt, a branch slapping against her cheek before she stopped at the riverbank.
Water whooshed over the rocks, making the small sliver of sun that remained in the sky reflect off the stones.
Don’t think, just move.
The words had no sooner whispered inside her head before she leaped onto the first rock. Then the second. Her knee groaned, an ache slipping up her thigh.
Third stone.
Water sloshed over her boots, cold seeping into her socks.
Rock four.
Rock five.
Almost there.
She eyed the sixth rock. This one was farther away, the water dark and deep beneath it.
One single breath and she jumped across.
All she did was touch it and her foot slipped beneath her. It wasn’t even her knee’s doing, there was just no grip.
She cried out, her arms shooting up as she swung wide in the harness.
Shouts thundered through the air from the crew, but she only heard them for a second before the harness snapped and she dropped into the water. The world silenced as cold, icy water swallowed her, throwing her back to the worst day of her life.
Tears streamed down Emily’s cheeks as she drove, the rain blinding her. A voice in her head told her to pull over. The storm was fierce and there wasn’t enough visibility. She could barely see the bridge ahead.
But the pain in her chest, the one that came from a heart being torn in two, took away her ability to think and process and make smart decisions.
Her phone rang from the middle console.
For a second she wondered if it was him. Maybe he was calling to say he’d made a mistake. That he still loved her.
One glance at the screen. Hope crashed and burned.
Not Ryan. Her mother.
A frustrated cry cut from her throat. Before she could think better of it, she rolled down the window and threw the phone out.
She’d only looked away from the road for a second. A single, careless second.
That was all it took.
She glanced back at the road.
Headlights.
A truck.
He was too close, over the center line.
She jerked the wheel to avoid the hit. Her car slid, tires losing their grip on the wet road.
Her stomach dropped and she screamed as her car barreled through the guardrail.
The world tilted. She was only airborne for a moment before water exploded over the windshield. Emily lurched forward in her seat, her left knee smashing against the dashboard.
Pain shot through her leg like a bolt of lightning. It was so intense that it darkened her world and made her scream.
Then freezing water poured into the car through the open window.
The car began to sink.
No, no, no!
Water climbed past her ankles.
She fumbled for the seat belt.
Click.
The belt released, but fresh pain burst through her knee at the movement. More water rushed in.
The car sank faster.
The river had just swallowed the car, water enveloping her head, when she forced the blinding pain down and urged her body through the open window.
Her injured knee twisted, sending a blinding pain throughout her body. She tried to kick with her good leg, her lungs burning.
The surface was too far.
She wouldn’t make it…