Close Enough to Touch (Jackson Hole 1)

Eve ran a hand across the back of her neck and grimaced. “I’ve only done a little scouting before,” she murmured. “But, okay. Here’s the deal. One of the locations has fallen through. This was supposed to be the final recon on sites they’d already contracted, but now… Jesus. The director is here and everyone is totally freaked out.”

“Who’s the director?”

“Madeline Beckingham.”

Grace blinked. Wow. Director, indeed. Beckingham was a powerful, beautiful woman who’d made her mark by directing fiery, fast-paced action movies. She was the daughter of Hollywood royalty, and at first, the brass had treated her like the child of Joseph Beckingham. A woman to be coddled and amused but not taken too seriously.

Not anymore. Now she was the heir apparent. Now she got whatever she wanted, and she wanted a lot, if the rumors were true.

“Have you worked with her?” Eve asked.

“No. Never.”

“Well, here’s your chance. I need you to track down the location coordinator and get the location list I was promised. I’m going to find the manager and find out exactly what’s going on with each site. None of my files are up-to-date, and from what I’ve heard, the scout took all his files with him. They’re going to need new photos, the specs reverified…”

“Got it. I’ll get everything I can from the coordinator.”

Grace had never done anything like this, but she approached it the way she did anything else. She jumped in and dared the world to screw her over. Sometimes that didn’t work out very well and the world happily called her bluff, but she wasn’t sure how else to get through life. She figured if she was going down, she’d go down swinging.

In this case, it worked out fine. Three hours later when everyone broke for lunch, Grace could barely catch her breath, but she had a notebook full of scrawled instructions, copied reports and a head full of ideas.

“Tell me everything,” Eve said as soon as Grace joined her at a tiny round table in the restaurant bar.

Grace went through everything while Eve ate her lunch. Finally Eve stopped her and waved toward the other sandwich. “Eat. This is all beyond my pay grade, but I think the river site is fine. They’ve got all the photos on it, and the paperwork has already been filed. I’ll call Carly on the county council to

be sure. The ranch shoot, though… Shit. Uh, sorry. Pardon my language.”

Grace nearly choked on her food. “I think I can handle it.”

“I’m sorry to have thrown you into all this.”

“It’s fine. And they’ll only be here for a week or so, right? Filming won’t start for a little while?”

“Oh, sure. But you know how that goes. They’re already behind schedule. Nothing’s going right. I might have to bring more people in. Maybe one of the employees from the old company has some ideas for—”

“Wait. I think we’re going to be okay. It’s just a new ranch site that’s needed?”

“Yes. That idiot never finalized the deal, and now the property has changed hands. We need a new ranch site with power and accessibility, but it can’t be too modern. It’s for the opening scenes in the movie, and they take place in the fifties.”

“That shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“It depends how difficult Madeline Beckingham will be about what’s modern and what’s not.”

“Well, let’s try it at least.”

“Yeah?” Eve cocked her head and studied Grace. “You’re up for that? We’re talking full-time hours. Overtime, probably.”

“Yes.” She was up for it. Surprisingly up for it. She would’ve thought she’d hesitate after the past few months. Work had been bad enough, but then Scott had started twisting her arm, making her go to industry functions with him. The parties had been full of fake, grasping, ambitious liars who swarmed like insects around producers and directors. They’d always made her skin crawl.

But somehow this felt different. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the sense of independence. A feeling that they were on her territory now. Stupid, of course. Wyoming wasn’t hers. She’d only been here a few days, and she obviously didn’t belong.

So maybe it was just the pay. A week of working like that, and she could actually send Scott some money. Enough to hold off his threats until she got to Vancouver.

“It’s some kind of Western, right? They said they wanted an isolated ranch with panoramic views for the sky shots.”

“Yeah.” Eve chewed her thumbnail and stared across the restaurant. “It’s a big-money cowboy monster movie. I’ve got a couple of ideas. A place I did a magazine shoot at a couple of years ago, but it’s probably a little too modern-looking.”

“I have an idea for a place.”