Just Physical (8 page)

While Crash unpacked the paper takeout bags, Jill walked over to the mini fridge, pleased to feel her left leg cooperate. “Diet Coke?”

“Do you have any water?” Crash asked. “I try to avoid soda if I can.”

Was she a health nut? Her body certainly looked as if she took good care of it.
Focus. Her body is none of your business.
Jill grabbed a can of Coke and a bottle of water and carried them over to the couch.

They sat side by side, sipping their beverages and digging into their food.

Jill moaned at the taste of her lamb souvlaki, deliciously marinated in rosemary, oregano, and lemon.

They ate in silence for several minutes.

“Can I ask you something?”
What the heck…?
Jill hadn't meant to say that. But admittedly, she was curious about Crash.

Crash looked up from her box of gyros. “Sure.” She took a sip of water. “If I get to ask you something in return.”

Jill instantly regretted her question. She knew what Crash would ask now that she had found out about the MS. Since revealing her disease to the public, she got the same type of questions over and over. But Jill had started it, so she wasn't about to back down now. Reluctantly, she nodded.

“So, what's your question?” Crash leaned back and sprawled out her legs, the picture of relaxation, so totally comfortable in her own skin that Jill couldn't help envying her.

Dozens of questions shot through Jill's mind. She'd always been a curious person, but it amazed her how much she wanted to know about Crash. Finally, she settled on “What's your real name?”

“Ooh, you're going right for the jugular.” Crash grinned at her and popped a piece of chicken into her mouth.

“Let me guess. You could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me.”

“Kill you? Nah. I could think of much more pleasant things to do with you.”

Her words and her low voice, smooth as honey, with just a hint of a Texas drawl, made Jill tingle all over—a tingling very unlike that in her left leg.
Snap out of it.
She cleared her throat. “Don't try to distract me. Your real name.” She waved her fingers at Crash. “Tell me.”

“Okay.” Crash put down her plastic fork and sat up straight. “Ready?”

Jill nodded.

“My real name is Edna Myrtle Patterson.”

“Uh…” Jill eyed her warily, not wanting to say anything wrong in case Crash wasn't joking. “Really?”

“What? It's a perfectly good name for a nice girl from Texas,” Crash drawled. Then she couldn't keep up her serious facade any longer and burst out laughing.

Jill socked her in the shoulder. “Liar. Your name isn't really Edna Myrtle…is it?”

“No. My parents are not that cruel.”

“So, what is it? Come on!” Jill wriggled her fingers in a gimme motion.

“Kristine No-Middle-Name Patterson.”

“Kristine,” Jill repeated, testing out the sound of the name. She decided she liked it. With a glance at Crash's athletic frame and her strong jawline, she asked, “Do you go by Kris?”

Crash energetically shook her head. “Nope. I've got enough of the lesbian stereotype going on, thank you very much.” She ruffled her short, wind-blown hair. “It's Kristine.”

“No middle name?”

“No middle name,” Crash confirmed. “After having four boys, my parents had given up hope of ever getting a daughter, so they hadn't picked out a first name, much less a middle name for a girl. I was lucky they didn't name me Christopher, which was the name they had picked out for child number five.”

Jill laughed. “So you have four brothers?”

“Five,” Crash said with an affectionate smile. “My little brother, Cody, is a year younger than me.”

“Wow. Five brothers.” Jill shook her head. She couldn't imagine growing up like that. “I suddenly feel like saying ‘I'm sorry.' Having one brother is more than enough for me.”

“Nah. It wasn't that bad,” Crash said. “Raising five boys prepared my mother for having a daughter like me… Although she would probably say that there is no way to prepare for that, other than having good insurance.”

“So maybe Crash is a fitting name for you after all,” Jill said with a smile. “Even if it doesn't seem to be the best nickname for a stuntwoman. I mean, who wants to be known for crashing?”

Crash shook her head. “That's not how I got my nickname. When I first started out in the stunt business, I did a lot of driving gags. I kind of specialized in crashing cars—on purpose, mind you.”

Jill tried to imagine having a job like that, but she couldn't wrap her head around it. Why would a reasonably sane person voluntarily risk life and limb every single day? Jill would have given anything to be healthy again, while Crash readily accepted being hurt, maybe even ending up in a wheelchair or possibly dying, every time she went to work. “How did you get into stunts?”

“You realize that's a second question, don't you? Does that mean I'll get to ask you a second one too?”

Shit.
Jill's mother had always told her that her curiosity would be her downfall one day. It seemed she'd been right after all. Or maybe not, because Jill's biggest flaw wasn't her curiosity—it was her inability to back down. She sighed. “All right.”

“I've always been very athletic,” Crash said. “In my family, everything revolved around sports. My father is a football coach, and my mother used to be a gymnast. I started taking Taekwondo classes when I was seven; I was into horses, and I took pretty much every sport you can think of in high school. Everyone always thought I'd either break my neck at a young age or win fame and fortune as a sports star.”

“But you haven't done either,” Jill said with a glance at Crash's strong yet slender neck.

“Not yet.” Crash grinned. She chewed a forkful of her gyros, which by now was probably just as cold as Jill's lamb souvlaki, and swallowed before continuing. “When I was sixteen, there was a movie being shot not far from where I lived, and they were looking for a teenager who could ride a horse out of a burning barn.”

Jill's eyebrows crept up her forehead. “Your parents let you do that?”

“Well, I broke it to them little by little,” Crash said with a mischievous smile. “By the time they found out that detail about the burning barn, they had already agreed to let me do it.”

“I'm beginning to see why even raising five boys couldn't prepare your mother for having a child like you,” Jill said. “So, after that burning barn stunt, you tasted blood and started working as a stuntwoman?”

Crash let out a snort. “I wish. I had to wait until I was eighteen. Even then, it wasn't easy to break into the business, especially for a woman. There aren't that many stunt jobs, so I spent my first two or three years in LA introducing myself to a lot of stunt coordinators and teaching Taekwondo to a lot of kids before I had done enough gags to qualify for SAG membership.”

Jill nodded slowly. “I know what you mean. I had to kiss a lot of frogs too before I started getting better roles.”

“Literally?” Crash asked.

“Thank God no. Although I once did a commercial where I had to kiss a guy who did look a bit like a toad.”

“Ugh,” they both said at the same time and then laughed.

They grinned at each other, and Jill thought again how warm Crash's blue eyes seemed. Then she reminded herself that she had no business getting lost in Crash's baby blues and moved a few inches away on the couch.

“My turn,” Crash said.

Jill stiffened but nodded for Crash to go ahead and ask. A deal was a deal, after all.

Crash had just opened her mouth to ask her first question when a knock sounded at the door and one of the PAs poked his head into the trailer.

“Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Corrigan. Mr. Manning sent me over to see if you're still here. He's going over the dailies and thought you might want to see them too.”

Jill looked from him to Crash. “Um…”

“Saved by the PA,” Crash said with a slight smile. “Go ahead. I'll save my questions for another time.”

With everyone else, Jill would have breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that the other person would have forgotten about it by the time they talked again, but she already knew Crash wouldn't forget. Suppressing a sigh, she glanced back at the PA. “Tell him I'll be right there.”

CHAPTER 5

Friday evening, Crash groaned as
she got out of the shower and dried off. Since she'd started working as a stuntwoman, hardly a day had gone by without some minor pains and bruises from a dangerous gag or extensive training, and she wondered how it compared to having MS.

She wasn't normally one to brood or obsess over things she had no control over, but since finding out Jill had a chronic illness two days ago, it was all she could think of.

Come on. She's just some actress you're doubling. One of many.
But she knew she was lying to herself—and not very successfully. Jill was as special as she was stubborn. There was a spark of life in Jill's green eyes that made it hard to believe she was sick. Under different circumstances, Crash could see herself asking Jill out. Well, she
had
asked her out when Jill had joked about buying her dinner first. But that had been before she had found out Jill had MS. Things were different now.

Really?
She towel-dried her hair and glanced at herself in the mirror. Did she no longer consider Jill dating material, just because she had MS?

The thought made her cringe. On the one hand, Crash didn't want to believe she was that superficial. She had encountered that attitude too often in the stunt industry. As soon as you were no longer perfectly healthy, Hollywood dropped you like a hot potato.

But on the other hand, MS was a serious disease and she would be stupid to jump into anything with both feet. Even though Crash might be ready for a relationship again, she had promised herself to be more careful with her heart. Getting involved with someone who came with so much baggage wasn't the way to do that.

It was all a moot point anyway. Jill had made it clear that she didn't want to go out with her, so why was she even thinking about this?

Barefoot, she padded over to the kitchen to make herself a smoothie and then opened her laptop to check the weather report for the next week.

She was scheduled to do a ratchet stunt on Thursday, faking an explosion of a gas pipe that had been shattered by the earthquake. Things could heat up on set, so some June Gloom would make it more bearable. The thought of a giant ball of fire coming toward her, the flames licking at her face, made her shiver. She clutched the laptop with both hands and consciously slowed her breathing.

Calm down. Ben takes safety seriously.

This wasn't the set of
Point of Impact
. But no amount of reasoning could sooth the hasty thrumming of her heart. She'd just have to tough it out. Once she'd made it through this stunt with a tiny bit of fire involved, she hoped she'd be able to handle the big fire gag coming up at the end of the movie.

Sighing, she scrolled down to Thursday's weather. Just her luck. Apparently, LA would get an early heat wave next week. Rehearsing that ratchet stunt over and over while the sun beat down on them wouldn't be fun. Well, at least the ice-cold fire gel would feel refreshing on her overheated skin.

She clicked over to her e-mail. Her oldest brother had sent baby pictures, claiming his youngest took after his aunt since he was always getting into some mischief. Snorting, she shot off a quick reply and then closed her e-mail. With her hand already on the lid of the laptop, about to close it, she paused.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she entered “multiple sclerosis” into the search box and hit enter.

Twenty-three million results.

She clicked on the first link and started to read. She breathed a little more easily after finding out that MS wasn't considered a fatal disease, but the rest of the information made her head buzz and her heart feel heavy.
Damage to the CNS. No cure. Blurred vision. Unstable walking. Heat sensitivity. Muscle weakness. Fatigue. Slurred speech. Bladder problems.
The list of possible symptoms went on and on, and apparently, there was no way of telling how the illness would affect each individual.

Now a lot of things about Jill made sense—why she wasn't allowed to do most of her own stunts and why she retreated to her air-conditioned trailer instead of hanging around on set during breaks.

After a while, she stopped reading and reached for her smoothie. God, she could use something stronger than the blueberry-banana mix. Was Jill experiencing all of those symptoms? And why on earth had a woman with these kinds of problems chosen to star in a disaster movie and not in a nice little comedy or something?

Crash snorted. After working with Jill for two weeks, she knew the answer to that question already. The more someone else insisted Jill couldn't do something, the more Jill wanted to do it.

Oh, yeah, and you aren't like that at all, right?
She remembered repeating a difficult wire stunt eighteen times, refusing to give up until she got the timing just right. The difference was that she got to strip off the stunt harness and the safety wire at the end of the day, while Jill would have to live with her symptoms for the rest of her life.

Her chest felt tight. She was tempted to just close the laptop and try to forget about this damn MS, but as a stuntwoman, she had learned not to back off when things got scary. She squared her shoulders, carried the laptop over to the couch, and settled down for an evening of research.

Monday was just as hot as the weather report had promised. Crash and the rest of the stunt department had been measuring, calculating, and preparing for hours and then rehearsing the gag for several more hours. She really doubted that their audience could appreciate how much work went into a scene that lasted three seconds on the screen.

Finally, even Ben couldn't stand working in the heat any longer, so he allowed them to break for lunch.

Most of her colleagues headed over to where the catering service was handing out hot meals. After a moment's hesitation, Crash walked toward the craft services tent instead, where smaller snacks were available for the cast and the crew all day. She told herself it was because the tent held healthier food choices and because it would be less busy, but deep down, she knew it was because the tent was Jill's refuge when she wasn't in her trailer. Crash had observed her disappearing into the tent any chance she got in between scenes.

She pushed back the flap and smiled.

The craft services tent was empty except for one person. Jill stood at the long table, her left side toward Crash. She had the sleeves of her costume pushed up, and several buttons on the high-necked blouse were open.

Crash was just about to call out a greeting when Jill reached into a bowl and took out an ice cube. She ran it over her palms and trailed it along the inside of her wrists, where her skin was even paler, then to the bend of her elbow until just a sliver of ice remained. Immediately, she took another cube. She lifted up her flaming-red hair and rubbed the ice along the back of her neck. Her eyes closed, and her head tilted back as she let out a sigh of relief.

Crash's mouth went dry, and she wished she had a handful of ice too so she could cool herself down.

The next ice cube traced a path along the elegant slope of Jill's neck and then across her collarbones.

Crash imagined following its path with her lips, flicking drops of water from Jill's skin with her tongue.

The heat of Jill's skin melted the ice. Droplets of water slid down her throat and into the cleavage of her costume. Jill reached into the bowl once more, put an ice cube into her mouth, and sucked on it.

A low groan escaped Crash.
God, that's hot.

Then she immediately felt guilty for thinking so. Jill wasn't doing sexy things with ice cubes to turn her on. She didn't even know Crash was there, watching like some voyeur, and the ice cubes weren't devices of seduction; they served a strictly medical purpose. According to Crash's research, most MS patients suffered from heat sensitivity. Any rise in their body temperature could make their symptoms flare, and ice was a good way to counteract that.

Unfortunately, Jill's cooling-off techniques had the opposite effect on Crash's body temperature. She glanced back and forth between the ground and the path of the ice over Jill's skin. Was she allowed to find it hot, even though it had to do with Jill's MS?

Jill was still an attractive woman. Was Crash being respectful by trying not to think of her
that way
, or was she reducing her to an MS patient, even though Jill was so much more than that?

Crash wasn't sure what the right thing to do was.
Well, ogling Jill without her knowledge isn't.

Loud voices headed toward the tent—probably someone from the grip department in search of some candy for dessert.

Jill turned toward the approaching voices.

Quickly, Crash slipped from the tent before she could be discovered. She'd go eat with her colleagues, giving Jill—and herself—a chance to cool down.