Beach Town (54 page)

She leaned over and buried her head in his shoulder. Her voice was muffled. “I know.” She pounded his chest with her fist. “Dammit.”

He tucked one finger under her chin and turned her face toward him. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

Tears welled up in her eyes again. “I don't know. I'm no good with this stuff. I'm just as lousy at being a daughter as he was at being a dad. I do know he can't stay by himself. Not for a while, anyway.”

“Rehab center?” Eb asked.

“Maybe. But aren't those usually short term? What happens when he's ready to go home again? His eyesight isn't going to get any better. He's going to need some kind of help.” She smiled crookedly. “God help Clint. I guess that's got to be me. I'll have to figure out the logistics. Eventually I guess we'll have to find a home health-care nurse … or something. I do know that I can't stay at his place, not permanently. It's a double-wide. I'll have to find a place nearby.”

Eb looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “I have a place nearby.”

“You want to rent me a room? Why? Because you feel sorry for me?”

He took off his glasses and wiped the lenses on the tail of his shirt, then put them on again.

“You're doing it again,” Greer whispered.

“I don't want to rent you a room and I don't feel sorry for you. I want you to marry me. Because I love you.”

He was clutching both her hands in his and holding on for dear life. There would be no running away this time. For either of them.

“I know this is a terrible place for a marriage proposal. I'm sorry about that. When this…” he gestured around the waiting room, and noticed out of the corner of his eye that the desk clerk was watching, and listening. “When this is over, we'll go down to the beach behind the Silver Sands, at sunset. I'll get a good bottle of wine and buy you an engagement ring and we'll do it right.”

Greer shook her head.

“Okay,” he said impatiently. “You're the location scout. You pick the spot. I'll show up with the ring.”

“No,” Greer started to say.

For a moment, Eb felt like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. But then he recovered. He had to make her listen, and believe.

“Okay. I know there's a lot to think about right now, with your dad and all. And I know I'm not the easiest guy to live with, what with the messiah complex and all. But this morning, when I hadn't heard from you—when I thought you were leaving town for good this week? I wasn't just angry anymore. I was desperate. I knew, no matter what, I had to figure out how to be with you.”

“Eb,” Greer said, trying to pull her hands away.

“Just let me finish. All this time I've been so busy trying to save the casino and the town and Allie? I was really the one who needed saving. And you did that. You saved me.”

“Me? I saved you?”

“I thought I was responsible for fixing everything around me that was wrong. But some things can't be fixed. Jared. Maybe not the town.” He shrugged. “I don't care about any of that. I just care about you. Marrying you and making a life with you. On whatever terms you say. If you want, I'll come to L.A. I could get an engineering job again. We can figure it out.”

Eb took a deep breath. “Okay. I got it out. Now what were you trying to say?”

She turned around and pointed to the desk clerk. Who was standing just a few feet away, grinning, with a chart in her hand. Obviously she'd heard the whole proposal.

“Miss Hennessy? Your father's back down from X-ray, and the doctor will be out in a minute to talk.”

*   *   *

The doctor was an alarmingly young woman, with soft brown eyes and brown hair worn in a ponytail.

“Eleanor Oetgen,” she said, shaking Greer's hand. “Your dad is going to be fine. As you know, he had a cracked middle rib from his last accident. Apparently, when he tried to push his car, he punctured the space between the lung and the chest wall, which is the pneumothorax.”

“Good God,” Greer whispered.

“That's the pain he was feeling,” Dr. Oetgen said. “He tells me he thought he was having a heart attack but he didn't want to tell you that, because he was afraid you'd panic while driving and get in a wreck of your own.”

The doctor shook her head. “He's quite a guy, your dad. Anyway, we've put a tube in his chest, and he's been sedated, but right now he's awake if you'd like to see him. We'll keep him for a couple days, just to make sure he's healing properly, then you can take him home.”

Greer shot Eb a guilty look. He shrugged.

*   *   *

Clint's eyes were heavy lidded. He was semi-reclined, but he struggled to sit up when he saw his guest enter the room. She walked over to his bedside and shook a finger in his face.

“I can't believe you're alive after all that,” Greer said, trying to scold her father. “You really do take a licking and keep on ticking.”

Clint licked his lips and tried to smile. “You can't kill an old stuntman,” he said wheezily. “I've had lots worse wrecks than that.”

“No more wrecks, please,” Greer said. “You might be tough enough, but I'm not. Promise me, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “Now promise me something. Go on back to work. I ended up here because of my own stubborn pride. You go on back to work. I know you've got a big shoot tomorrow, and I don't need you hanging around this hospital.”

“No. I'm staying with you,” Greer said.

“The hell you will,” Clint shot back. “I've done without you for thirty years, I guess I can do without you for another day or so.” He looked over at Eb. “You're her fella, right? Maybe she'll listen to you. Make her go back to work.”

“I can't,” Greer said. “I got fired. Which is okay, because the producer/director is a royal pain in the ass. I should have quit a long time ago.”

Eb coughed discreetly, and both father and daughter turned to him in surprise.

“I don't know if I should tell you this or not, but Bryce called me while I was on the way to meet you earlier. He wanted me to beg you to come back to work. Just to finish the shoot. He's uh, offering you the equivalent of a signing bonus.”

“No way,” Greer said flatly. “I am done with Bryce Levy and
Beach Town.
”

“It's ten thousand dollars,” Eb said. “For that kind of money,
I'll
get a radio and go over there and tell people where to park.”

Greer's eyes narrowed. “You think that's all I do on my job?”

“No-o-o,” he said hastily. He glanced over at Clint. “Help a brother out here, will you?”

“The man is right,” Clint said. “Pride is one thing. Common sense is another. I've been in the movie business for fifty years. You quit a job and leave a director hanging and word will get out that you're unreliable. Flighty, even. That's your reputation, Greer girl. Ain't nothing can fix that. Besides, Hennessys aren't quitters. I know Lise didn't raise you to quit, and Dearie sure didn't, either.”

His eyelids fluttered, then he focused on her again. “Go on. Go back and do your job. I ain't going nowhere. I just need some sleep.” He waved at them dismissively. “Shoo.”

Eb cleared his throat again. “Mr. Hennessy?”

“Clint.”

“Um, Clint, there's just one more thing. I was wondering if it would be okay if I married your daughter.”

Clint's eyes snapped open. He glanced over at Greer. “I'd say that's up to her. Did you ask her already?”

Eb nodded.

“Did she say yes?”

It was Greer's turn to speak up. “He didn't really give me a chance.” She smiled at Eb, who was frowning now, and who seemed to be holding his breath.

Clint regarded Eb with new interest. “He seems like a presentable-enough guy. Well-spoken and all. What'd you say he does for a living?”

“This and that,” Greer said teasingly. “He owns a grocery store, and an old boathouse and marina, and half a crappy motel. He's also the mayor of Cypress Key.”

“Don't forget I also have a real estate business, too,” Eb said helpfully. “I was also, until very recently, city engineer.”

“Okay. Just as long as he's not in the movie business,” Clint said.

“I can promise you, I have absolutely no interest in making movies,” Eb said. “Also, I love her beyond all reason.”

Greer let go of Clint's hand and took Eb's. “I love you, too.”

Clint leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. Greer and Eb exchanged worried glances. Greer took her father's hand. He opened his eyes again.

“Then I guess it's okay with me,” Clint said.

“Okay with me, too,” Greer said. “I think I'm done with L.A. anyway. With all the film and television projects being done in the South these days, I can just as easily work from Cypress Key as anyplace else.”

Eb took her in his arms. She was damp and muddy and her blond curls were full of pine needles. But her kiss was warm and sweet and full of the promise of sunny skies, sandy beaches, and cookies. Lots of cookies.

When they finally pulled apart, Clint seemed to be sleeping.

“We'd better go,” Greer whispered.

Clint's eyes opened again. He gave Eb a stern look. “There's just one more thing I need from you.”

“Anything,” Eb said fervently.

“Seems like you're a sort of jack-of-all-trades. You know anything about cars?”

“I know enough. I change my own oil and I tinker with boats some.”

“Good enough.” Clint pointed at a large plastic bag hanging from a hook on the back of the door. He took several wheezy breaths. “My billfold is in that bag. There's three thousand dollars cash in there. You go see that fella with the Willys jeep over in Roberta. If that thing is anywhere near what it should be, I want you to buy it. Try to get the price down a little, but if you have to, pay him the money. I been looking for a World War II Willys for twenty years. You get me that jeep, I'll throw in a daughter. Deal?”

Eb clasped Clint's hands in both of his “Deal.”

 

65

She called Bryce on the way back to Cypress Key. Greer's tone was businesslike and direct.

“I'll come back to work tomorrow and finish up the shoot and everything else you need before Wednesday,” she said.

“Great. That's great. I knew I could count on you,” Bryce said.

“Just a couple of things. I don't know how you're planning on paying me that signing bonus you mentioned to Eb, with the studio breathing down your neck about budgets. That said, this bonus doesn't go through studio channels. It comes from you, personally.”

“I can't do that. My own money? You know it doesn't work that way.”

“It works that way this time or it doesn't work at all,” Greer said. “I'll expect a check from you, tomorrow, when I show up for call time. For the full amount. And just so you know I'm serious, when the banks on the coast open tomorrow, I'll be on the phone with them, making sure the funds are in your account.”

“What? You don't trust me?”

“Not especially,” Greer said. “Also, with Zena gone, I'm going to need an assistant. Allie Thibadeaux's uncle has agreed to let her come back to work, on one condition. Kregg is not to speak to Allie. He is not to look at her. She'll be paid the same salary Zena was making, for the next three days.”

“She's a kid! You want me to pay a kid that kind of dough?”

“Yes. She's twice as hard working as Zena ever was, plus she has a brain. So. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yeah. See you in the morning.”

*   *   *

Greer's radio crackled. She switched on the mike. “How's it looking over there, Allie?”

Her new assistant was on a golf cart, troubleshooting between the boathouse, where the morning's shoot would begin, and the pier, where the plan was to move later in the day.

“Bathrooms are here, the tents are going up, and we've got the pier barricaded,” Allie said. “The catering guys want to know if you want full hot lunch or if sandwiches and salads and stuff are okay.”

“Light lunch,” Greer said. “Tell them to make sure we've got plenty of energy drinks and water and fruit.” She was running over a mental list, wondering if she'd forgotten anything. She'd been so distracted over the weekend, she was uneasy about her preparations.

“Anything else?” Allie asked.

“That's it. Just remind the security guys over there we need them on the water no later than ten. I don't want any boatloads of reporters and fans zooming in and out of camera range.”

“Got it,” Allie said.

*   *   *

It had been a tense morning. Bryce had to coax Adelyn Davis to join Nate, who was playing the sheriff, in the cigarette boat for establishing shots, but when he announced that Nate would actually pilot the boat for a few hundred yards away from the boathouse, she flatly refused.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don't do boats. It wasn't in the script and it's not in my contract. No boats.”

“He won't go very fast,” Bryce pleaded. “After this, Courtney will take over for you. But I've got to have you and Nate in that boat for about fifteen minutes.”

Adelyn shot daggers at Bryce. “I hate you, dude. I really, really hate you.”

Bryce signaled for the driver of the camera boat to pull away from the dock, and a moment later Nate steered his boat away from the dock too. Seconds later, Kregg, who'd somehow won the battle to do his own stunting, followed in the orange cigarette.

Despite his promises to the contrary, as soon as Bryce called “Action” the cigarettes roared away from the dock at full throttle.

The action was repeated six more times, each time with Bryce calling directions over a megaphone.

An hour and a half later, the cigarette boats returned. Adelyn climbed out and promptly vomited all over the dock.