Just Physical (6 page)

“And Lucy is one of only eight thousand lady doctors in 1906,” Crash added.

“Right.” To prepare for her role, Jill had read the memoir of one of the first women to graduate from a medical college, so she knew what that meant. “She's a woman living and working in a man's world.” A thought occurred to her. “Just like you.”

“Things are much easier for stuntwomen nowadays, but I've heard some stories from women who used to be in the business twenty or thirty years ago…” Crash shook her head. “Let's just say I understand why Lucy wouldn't react too well to being ordered around when she's trying to do her job.”

Jill looked at her with new respect. She hadn't expected Crash to be able to provide such insights into her character.

Crash laughed. “What? You thought I was all brawn, no brains?”

Jill's cheeks warmed, and she cursed the fair complexion she had inherited from the Irish side of her family. “Well, far be it from me to underestimate your intellect, but I think Ben hired you for your athletic skills.”

Crash let out an exaggerated sigh. “Story of my life. People just want me for my body.”

A witty—and slightly flirty—reply was already on the tip of her tongue, but Jill bit it back.
Back to work.
“Could we try the scene again?”

“Sure. I'm all yours.”

So she wasn't the only flirt around. Too bad it couldn't go anywhere. “Let's take it from ‘There's no time.'”

Crash nodded and moved back to the door, as if she had just entered. “There's no time! If the fire reaches the park, the tents will go up in flames within seconds!”

Jill stiffened her shoulders but kept working on her patient.

Urgently, Crash strode toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

Jill allowed herself to connect with all the anger she'd bottled up inside in the last two years. Anger at this damn disease that made her future unpredictable at best. Anger at the doctors who were just as helpless as she was. Anger at the acquaintances who told her how good she looked every time they saw her, as if that somehow meant she couldn't possibly be sick.

Rage bubbled up from the deepest core of her being until the next line almost burst from her lips. “What do you think you are doing, Corporal?” She grabbed hold of the coffee table with one hand and swung up the nearest object with the other, waving it threateningly. “If you don't let go of me this instant, I'm going to stab you with—”

“The remote control?” Crash burst out laughing.

Jill's gaze went to the object in her hand, which was indeed the remote control. “My scalpel,” she said, trying to hold on to her anger, but then she couldn't help it. She joined Crash's laughter.

They fell onto the couch next to each other, holding their sides.

A knock on the door interrupted their hilarity.

Jill wiped her eyes. God, she couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed like this. It felt good. She took a calming breath and called, “Yes?”

The door swung open, revealing a PA with a walkie-talkie hanging around his neck. He looked from Jill to Crash with a curious expression, obviously having heard their laughter through the door. Then his gaze zeroed in on the remote control Jill hadn't realized she was still clutching.

Jill looked over at Crash, who gazed back with one corner of her mouth twitching.

They burst out laughing again.

“Uh, they need you in five minutes, Ms. Corrigan,” the PA said and left with a puzzled shake of his head.

When she could talk again, Jill shook the remote control at Crash. “If I burst out laughing while we're shooting the scene, you're in trouble.”

“Me?” Crash clutched her chest with a faux innocent expression.

Jill dropped the remote control onto the couch and walked to the door. “Better stick to stunt work. Your acting skills are seriously lacking.”

Grinning, Crash followed her back to the set.

CHAPTER 4

When Jill got her first
good look at the large concrete deck they had built in the studio's back lot, she stopped midstep to gape up at it.

An entire building had been erected on the platform—or rather what was left of it after an earthquake had hit it. Only one wall and a portion of another remained standing, and most of the roof had caved in. The chimney had crashed down, and the crew was installing a wire cage so one of the stuntwomen could safely be buried under the debris.

“Impressive, isn't it?” Crash said as she walked up to Jill. “They built it on hydraulic actuators, so the floor will really be shaking once we start shooting. Should be a lot of fun.”

Two years ago, Jill would have readily agreed. The whole setup reminded her of a simulator in an amusement park—and she was about to get a free ride. But now that her balance was less than stellar, she was a bit worried about how she would hold up on that swaying platform. She nodded in reply to Crash's words, but secretly feared that this scene would be even more of a challenge than the scene with the soldier the day before—which had needed four takes before she'd managed to make it through the scene without bursting into laughter.

Ben and Floyd walked over. Normally, Floyd stayed at the first-unit location to shoot with the leading actresses, but it seemed not even the director had wanted to miss the big spectacle.

“Ready?” Ben asked.

Still looking at the platform, Jill nodded.

He seemed to sense her hesitation. “Are you sure you're up for it? We could have Crash—”

“No,” Jill said, finally wrenching her gaze away from this newest challenge and looking him in the eyes. She had already argued with Floyd for an hour before he had agreed to let her do this scene, and she wasn't about to repeat the same with Ben. “I'm good. Crash can take over when the wall comes tumbling down, but the rest has a lot of close-ups. This scene is important and much more emotionally challenging than the bedpan scene. I want…I need to do it myself.”

Ben traded gazes with Floyd, then nodded.

The rigger and his assistant attached a safety wire to the harness Jill wore beneath her costume. “Okay, one final check and we're good to go,” the rigger said. “Um, Crash, could you…?”

“Uh, sure.” Crash shouldered past them, bent, and gave Jill an impish grin. “May I?” She grasped the hem of Jill's dress and nodded down at it.

Jill grinned back. “Don't you think you should buy me dinner first?”

Crash barked out a startled laugh. Then she sobered, tilted her head, and looked up at Jill from her half-bent position. “Actually, I'd like that,” she said so quietly that only Jill could hear it. “If you want, we could—”

“I was joking.” Jill wanted to step back, get some distance between them, but Crash still held on to her dress, so she was forced to remain where she was.

“Right. There I go again, making assumptions about you. I thought you might be,” Crash lowered her voice even more, “gay.”

“I am, but…”

“It's okay,” Crash said with a hint of a smile. “I know it's hard to believe, but you're not the first woman to turn me down.”

Jill bit the inside of her cheek until it started to hurt. She felt bad letting Crash believe she wasn't interested in her specifically, but what could she say without explaining why she'd decided to forgo dating and relationships? Other than with Grace, she hadn't talked about it with anyone, and she wasn't about to start, especially not here.

Now all business, Crash lifted up the dress and the two petticoats beneath it.

The old-fashioned drawers covered most of Jill's body, but instead of the corset, she was wearing the body harness today.

Crash checked the two straps around Jill's upper thighs, tugging on the buckles to make sure they were securely fastened. Her fingertips traced the straps upward.

Oh God.
Arousal hit her hard, making her clit twitch.

“They're not too tight, are they?” Crash asked from halfway under her skirt.

“No,” Jill got out. Definitely not too tight. The blood flow to her crotch was just fine, thank you very much.

Crash tugged on the straps once, then, thankfully, retreated. She got up from her kneeling position and trailed her fingers over the straps hidden beneath the costume bodice—directly beneath Jill's breasts.

Jill's nipples instantly hardened.
Down, girls!
She prayed that Crash didn't notice.

Finally, Crash was satisfied with the fit of the torso straps. “Good to go,” she announced and stepped back. Even her tan couldn't hide the flush on her cheeks.

Jill bit back a grim smile. Even though she'd had to reject Crash's dinner invitation, she couldn't help being glad she wasn't the only one affected. She tugged down the petticoats and the dress and made sure they fell just right over her lace-up boots.

Ben and Crash grabbed her hands and helped her climb up onto the concrete deck.

She ignored the way Crash's strong hand felt holding hers and focused on the rest of her body. It was still tingling, but she hoped it was just the after-effects of Crash's touch, not her MS symptoms threatening to flare up. Her left side felt a bit stiff, and the restricting dress and body harness weren't helping. The safety wire, which would be edited out in post-production, pulled taut as she climbed over the rubble.

“Okay, that's far enough,” Ben called.

All around the large concrete deck, smaller platforms with cameras were moved into position.

“Cameras ready?”

“Ready.”

“Sound ready?”

“Ready.”

“And…action!” Ben shouted.

Jill forgot her concerns and immersed herself into her role. She became Dr. Lucy Sharpe—healthy Lucy, who could climb over debris to get to someone trapped beneath. She barely felt the debris dig into her skin as she went down on all fours and started removing stones and bits of plaster with her bare hands.

The ground beneath her started shaking as the city was hit by aftershocks. Large fans blew dust, ash, and tiny pieces of plaster into her face, so she had to squint to see anything. She grabbed bricks and threw them left and right in her frantic attempt to free the trapped person.

Heat rose around her while she worked as the flames came closer and closer to the crumbled house.

Every brick seemed to weigh a ton, but a moan from under the rubble spurred her on.

Finally, after lifting away the dented remainders of a washbasin, she caught sight of the woman. Blood ran down her face and matted her hair.

Jill knew it was only some very convincing film makeup, but for a moment, the sight still made her queasy.

The woman's eyes fluttered open.

Jill tried to pull her out, but the woman grabbed hold of the debris with both hands. “We need to get out of here!” Jill shouted. “The fire is nearly upon us!”

“My boy!” The woman looked around, her eyes wide with panic. “Please! We have to find him!”

“Cut!” Ben shouted.

Jill got to her feet and turned toward him, stumbling as a bit of debris slid out from under her feet. She caught herself, arms spread wide to help keep her balance.

“Sorry.” Ben pointed upward, to where the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. “We lost the light. Let's go again once we get it back.”

Jill lost track of time as they shot take after take of the scene. Circumstances seemed to conspire against her: the stage makeup of the trapped woman had started to dissolve, so they had to send someone up to fix it. Then the dust made the cameraman sneeze in the middle of shooting. Each time, they had to cover the poor woman with fake bricks again, and Jill had to make her way back across the debris, only to do it all over again.

The heat from the fire burning next to the platform made her sweat. The dress stuck to her chest. Even the large green screen they had erected on one side of the concrete deck, where CGI would later create the ruins of other buildings, seemed to reflect the heat back at her.

With each take, fatigue settled on her like another layer of dust, and it took more effort to move the damn bricks. An electric current crept up her left leg. Her entire left side felt as if she had been burned by the fire, but each time she checked, her skin looked completely normal.

Jill knew what it was: a warning sign. She needed to cool down. If she kept working in this heat, her symptoms would get worse until she couldn't move a muscle and would have to be carried down this mountain of debris.

But whenever she glanced down in between takes and looked into the skeptical faces of Ben and Floyd, she wanted to try harder to prove them wrong.
You can do it! Just once more.

“Guys,” the stuntwoman who was playing the trapped victim finally called down to the crew. “I don't know about you, but I think the two of us need a break.”

Jill had to restrain herself from hugging the woman for saying it first. She hadn't wanted to be the one who called for a break. It would have felt as if she were admitting defeat, letting her MS beat her. She just hoped she would be able to make it back up on this moving pile of debris once she had climbed down. The deck felt as if it were still shaking as she made her way toward the edge, but she knew the hydraulic actuators had been shut off; it was her muscles that were shaking.

Crash helped down her colleague, who had reached the edge of the platform first, then unhooked the safety wire from the harness Jill wore and helped her down too.

No longer having the energy to climb down gracefully, Jill nearly fell into Crash's arms.

Crash caught her. Her closeness made Jill's body temperature climb even more until she almost expected steam to come out of her ears. Her legs felt like overcooked spaghetti.

“You okay?” Crash asked, her breath tickling Jill's ear.

A new current of electricity went through Jill, but this one had nothing to do with the MS. She nodded with as much energy as she could muster. “I'm fine. I just need a drink…I mean, something to drink.”

“Do you want me to get you—?”

Jill cut her off with a wave of her hand. “No, thanks.” Just a cold beverage wouldn't do. She needed a bowl of the ice the craft services people always kept around for her. If she ran it along her arms and neck for a few minutes, her body temperature would go down and the MS symptoms would disappear or at least lessen.

“Okay,” Ben said. “Why don't you two take five while we set up everything to go again.”

Jill didn't have to be told twice. As fast as her shaky legs would carry her, she fled to the craft services tent.

Crash watched Jill's retreating back. The actress looked as if she was about to collapse from a heatstroke or something. Crash wanted to hurry after her, but she sensed that Jill didn't want her to make a fuss.

Just the opposite of Crash's ex, who had been vying for her attention twenty-four/seven, and when Crash—busy with her career—had failed to give her constant admiration, she had found someone else. Not just anyone else but Crash's mentor, the woman who had taken her under her wing when she had first gotten into the stunt business.

After that, Crash had sworn off women for a while, at least for anything more than a fling. Now, nearly two years after Kyleigh had broken her heart, her emotional wounds had healed and she felt ready to get involved with another woman on a more serious basis.

She certainly wouldn't mind getting involved with Jill Corrigan—for a fling or maybe even something more. Too bad Jill wasn't interested in her. At least that was what she said. Her body language seemed to say something else, though.

Ben and Floyd looked toward the craft services tent, where Jill had disappeared.

“I told you they shouldn't have cast her,” Ben said.

Anger gripped Crash. It surprised her how protective of Jill she felt, but she didn't stop to question it. She faced him squarely. “What's that supposed to mean? Jill did a fantastic job with that scene!”

Ben held up both hands in a defensive gesture. “Nothing. She's a good actress and a real trooper, but with the MS and everything…”

Crash felt as if the wire attached to a stunt harness had just jerked her to a sudden halt, knocking the air from her lungs. She stared at the second-unit director. “She…? Jill has MS?”

“I assumed everyone knew,” Ben said. “I guess you didn't.”

Her vocal cords refused to work, so she just shook her head.

“Didn't you pay any attention to the tabloids last year? It was all over town. Hell, all over the country!”

Crash never paid much attention to the gossip rags or the Hollywood rumor mill, especially not last year, when she'd recovered from her accidents and the breakup with Kyleigh. “No,” she said around the large lump in her throat. “I had no idea.”

She wanted to go after Jill, but Ben's voice held her back. “Why don't we shoot your scenes while we wait for Jill to get back?”