Jennifer Crusie: Don't Look Down

The brunette went after Connor, catching his arm, and he stopped and tried to shake her off.

Gloom's dark brows met over his nose. "If you said, no, why-"

"And then Daisy called and said to please come down because we hadn't seen her and Pepper in so long, and I said no, I'd send her the money to come visit us…"

The brunette held on, but Connor yanked free, making her stum-ble back as he came up the bridge, oblivious to the chopper closing in on them. He kept his eyes on Lucy, everything in him focused completely on his objective.

And that's why I married you , Lucy thought.

"So why are we here?" Gloom said.

"Because Daisy put Pepper on the phone and I told her we weren't coming and she cried." Lucy switched her attention back to Gloom. "Pepper's not a crier, you know that, Gloom, but I understand that you hate Connor, so you go tell Pepper we're not staying. Take Kleenex. Meanwhile, I'll explain to Connor why he'll be directing these last four days himself instead of paying us a small fortune to do what we can do in our sleep."

"What?" Gloom said and turned to follow her eyes and saw Connor. "Oh, fuck."

"Be nice," Lucy said. "He-"

She broke off as the bubble-shaped helicopter suddenly gained altitude and swooped over the closest bridge tower, sharp against the red sun. Connor stopped and looked up at it and then got an odd look on his face, anger or surprise, she couldn't tell.

Gloom stepped closer to her as the chopper dived to the middle of the bridge and abruptly slowed, coming to a perfect hover just to the east, well out of the way of the cables that lined the roadway. Then it pirouetted smoothly, moved sideways down the bridge, and to the ground. Pepper came running back from craft services to say, " Wow ," as the chopper touched down lightly next to the roadway.

"There's no helicopter on the shooting schedule," Gloom said, frowning. "And that one has-is that a machine gun?"

Lucy peered at the ugly-looking contraption bolted to the right skid. "I think so." She bent to pick up Pepper. "I don't think it's on Connor's schedule either. Look at him."

Connor's shoulders were set as he reversed direction and headed for the chopper, walking past the brunette without even acknowledg-ing she was there until she grabbed his arm again. Honey, never interrupt him when he's on a mission , Lucy thought and looked back at the helicopter.

A man got out, ignoring the blades whooping by just over his head, broad shouldered and slim hipped in Army camouflage, with none of Connor's electricity or glossy good looks, just tan and solid in the middle of the noise and wind. He walked forward out of rotor range and halted to look back at the chopper, his lantern jaw in profile, completely still in the storm, and Lucy lost her breath.

"Tell me that's my action star," she said.

Another man dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and flip-flops got out of the copter on the other side, tripping over the skid as he stumbled out from under the blades. Then he stood up and joined the quiet man on the edge of the road, swaggering as he went.

" That's your star," Gloom said. "Bryce McKay. Medium-famous comedian. Great at pratfalls. Action? Not so much."

"Right," Lucy said, but her eyes went back to the quiet man, so much like Bryce physically, so much his opposite in every other way. Anybody that still had to have his act together. None of that macho garbage that had driven her away from Connor after six months of marriage.

Connor shook off the brunette and moved down the bridge to the helicopter, his focus on the newcomer, his hands out at his sides. Hell , Lucy thought. He's already gunning for this guy .

The quiet man turned to face him. Connor stiffened, and the other man stared back, not moving.

"Oh, boy," Gloom said happily.

"Oh, great," Lucy said. "And they're both thinking, 'Mine's bigger than yours.'"

"I love this," Gloom said. "It's like High Noon . Maybe somebody will finally outdraw that son of a bitch."

"Yeah, that would be good except this is real life, not a Western," Lucy said, exasperated. "Why don't they just pull them out and show them to each other?"

"Pull out what?" Pepper said.

"Their binoculars." Lucy put the little girl down. "I have to go see what's going on, baby. You wait here with Gloom."

"I want to come," Pepper said, her smile gone.

"Oh, I do, too." Gloom picked up Pepper. "I think this is going to be my party."

"Try to control your joy," Lucy said and headed down the bridge to contain the disaster, trying not to admire the quiet man for remaining so still in the midst of the chaos.

Captain J.T. Wilder stood as still as possible in deference to his screaming hangover, looked around at what he'd figured was going to be a good deal, and thought, Clusterfuck .

Beside him, Bryce McKay, Wilder's cross to bear, shouted over the whine of the copter's engine and the whoop of the blades: "This is what a real movie set looks like. Well, usually there are more people."

A real movie set looked like a mess to Wilder as he looked down the bridge, although that was not something he was going to share with Bryce, since he wanted to keep his new temporary job. Play nice , he thought. Do the man's stunts for him. Make lots of money. Then get the hell out of Dodge . He heard the engine on the Little Bird start to shut down and winced, knowing that his second cross to bear was going to get out of the chopper and hang around, which had not been in the plan.

Wilder's attention focused on the pissed-off-looking ex-military guy heading their way, an angry brunette following him. The guy had a gun, a big one, resting on his hip in a quick-draw rig, something Wilder hadn't seen anywhere outside of, well, a movie. So he guessed that made sense, although Bryce hadn't said anything about this being a Western.

Wilder's buddy LaFavre came up after shutting down the chopper, surveyed the scene from behind his aviator sunglasses, and said, "Circle jerk."

Wilder said, "Pretty much."

"What, Major LaFavre?" Bryce said anxiously, and Wilder almost felt sorry for him. The poor guy had been trying to buy LaFavre's beat-up flight jacket for the past two hours on the flight from Fort Bragg and got nowhere, then he'd gotten airsick when LaFavre had played chicken with the crane, and now he wanted to bond. Not going to happen .

"Nice day," LaFavre said.

"Yeah." Bryce nodded.

"You can go now," Wilder said to LaFavre under his breath, regretting his drunken call the night before to have LaFavre fly up to Bragg and fetch them.

"Not yet. I came to see the actresses," LaFavre said, cheerful as ever. "Would that be one?" He nodded toward the pissed-off brunette, who'd caught the arm of the guy with the gun.

"No idea," Wilder said. The brunette looked like the kind of woman who was always unhappy, the kind of woman who sucked the life out of a man. Angel of Death , Wilder thought and almost felt sorry for the guy with the gun, who wasn't getting away from her anytime soon.

"Perhaps I should introduce myself," LaFavre said, and Wilder shook his head and then winced.

"No, you should not. Goodbye." His hangover was getting worse. If he could get rid of LaFavre, shut Bryce up, and defuse the dickhead with the fast-draw rig, he could find out what they needed him to do, do it, get paid, take some aspirin, and go to bed. "Who's the guy with the gun?" he asked Bryce.

"That's Connor Nash, our stunt coordinator. Connor planned all the stunts and picked the bridge. Isn't it great?" Bryce gestured to the steel suspension cables above them. "It's won awards and stuff. It's going to look awesome on film when the helicopter comes down."