Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters)

“Is this going to be quick? I have to make a call.”

“Yes.” Hannah resisted the impulse to blow off the whole thing, tell Brinley it was nothing and walk away. “Actually, I don’t know if this will be quick? But I definitely think it’s worth carving out a few minutes.” Hannah exhaled and flipped open the folder. “These are original sea shanties. Written by my father, actually. And they’re good. Really good. A lot of them are about Westport and family and love. Loss. They capture the themes of the movie, and after speaking to my grandmother this morning, we have permission to use them. I think . . . well, I was hoping you would consider approaching Sergei about using these original songs? I know it would be some extra legwork getting them professionally recorded, but—”

“Exactly. How much are you planning to pile on top of this budget, Hannah?” Brinley’s laugh was exasperated. “Your last suggestion dragged us to the Capital of Fish. And now you want to record an original soundtrack? Maybe you want to hold the premier in Abu Dhabi—”

“I’d like to see the songs, please,” Sergei said briskly, stepping out from behind the trailer to Hannah’s right, almost startling her into dropping the folder. His gaze was hard on Brinley, who’d gone a ghostly shade of white, but his demeanor softened when he reached out to take the folder from Hannah. “May I?”

This kind of upstaging scenario was the last place Hannah wanted to end up. Brinley was good at her job, and she respected the woman. She’d been prepared to hand over the songs and let Brinley claim the original score as her idea.

That wasn’t going to happen now.

Hannah tried to communicate a silent apology to Brinley, but the coordinator’s attention was focused on Sergei as he read through the first couple of shanties. “It’s hard to get anything from just the words,” he said, sounding disappointed. “There is no way to hear them set to music?”

Brinley shot triumphant daggers at her.

“Well . . .” Hannah started, once again experiencing the urge to take back the folder, laugh, apologize for the bad idea. Instead, she took a deep breath and kicked down the door of her comfort zone. “I’m in the process of doing that. I’ve already arranged to have them recorded. It’s just a matter of whether Storm Born wants them for this project or not.”

That’s right. Hannah lied. Just a little.

She was planning on finding a way to record the shanties, wasn’t she? Sure, that ball had been set in motion only a matter of hours ago. There was also a strong chance the Unreliables wouldn’t be interested, or they would be unavailable when Shauna got in touch. If so, eventually she’d find somebody else. But bottom line, she was making it sound as though having the end product was imminent—and it wasn’t.

Sergei had a severely short attention span, though. And she had him semi-hooked on this idea she believed in with her heart, her soul, her gut. If she didn’t feed the director something real, something substantial, right now, it would blow out of his consciousness like white fuzzies from a dandelion.

And this was entertainment, baby. Fake it till you make it.

Sergei eyeballed her, right on the verge of interest. One more push.

How?

“I can . . . you know,” she mumbled into her chest. “I can sing one of them—”

“Yes, let’s do that,” Brinley said, beaming, resting her chin on her wrist. “Hey!” She leaned sideways and called to a group of crew members. “Hannah is going to sing us a sea shanty.”

The way everyone swarmed, she might as well have been Hailey Bieber walking out of LAX, suddenly the focus of rabid paparazzi. “Uhh.” She cleared her throat, reaching out to take the folder back from Sergei. This song had reduced her to tears last night. Was she really going to sing it in front of all her coworkers? Not only was she worried about having the same response in public, but her love for music didn’t exactly extend to sterling vocal abilities. “So . . . this is called ‘A Seafarer’s Bounty.’”

For once on the boisterous set, a pin could have been heard dropping.

Even Christian looked interested in the proceedings.

The first line of the song came out flat, kind of hushed. And then she happened to lift her eyes and see the Della Ray bobbing in the water just ahead in the harbor. Something moved inside her. Something deep and unknown, a little scary. A bridge to the past, to some other time. Her father had made his livelihood on that exact boat. He’d met his death on it. And she was singing one of his songs, so maybe she’d just better do it justice. She’d been handed all his words and thoughts. She’d never meet him, but in this small way, wasn’t she bringing him back to life?