in the depot.”
“Good morning to you too, Carter.” Christina caught his elbow and kissed his cheek then waltzed off to the depot.
Carter said nothing, but he looked pleased.
It was fun—for a while—pretending to be a train passenger from a hundred and thirty years ago, getting robbed by Wild West bandits.
Especially when one of the bandits was Grant. Christina, sitting in the rather hard train seat in her high-necked, long-skirted dress, fantasized about the train robber with the beautiful blue eyes, who’d sweep her up and carry her off to ravish her privately.
Hard to act terrified of the gunslinger when Christina had woken up with him this morning, sunlight brushing his bronze-colored skin. Grant’s touch on her had been gentle, caressing the marks his mouth had left on her last night.
After the small train went around on its circular tracks about ten times, however, and they did the scene again and again, the fun started to ebb.
Christina was getting motion sick on the swaying, stuffy car. By the time the extras were finally released, she was hot, sweating, and ready to hurl.
Changing back to her regular clothes then sitting outside at the depot to watch the stunt work helped some. There was a breeze, and the early April day was pleasantly cool.
The train went around again. Grant came flying off the back, landed, rolled, grabbed his running horse and swung onto the saddle, galloping off into the grasses.
Tyler and Carter each did their jumps from the train, Tyler making his leap to his horse by putting his hands on the horse’s backside and vaulting forward into the saddle.
Next they did a shot of all of them jumping off at the same time, only they didn’t bother getting on the horses for that one. Every piece of action would be cobbled together later by the editors to produce a smooth sequence of events.
The director wanted more shots, but it was getting late and Carter stopped him.
“Don’t want to wear out the horses,” he said. “We’ve done enough for the day.”
Christina was happy to head out to the parking lot to watch Grant help his brothers load the horses into trailers. They’d used Buster today, and he didn’t want to go back into his trailer. Finally Grant coaxed him in with Carter and Tyler blocking from behind, and the trailer door shut. Buster kicked it once, just to be a shit, then settled down.
Grant came back to Christina, half exasperated, half amused by Buster’s antics, and gave her a kiss good-bye. He had to return to the ranch with Carter and Tyler to look after the horses, but Christina was grateful to go home alone to rest. Acting was a lot of work, she reflected. There was a lot of sitting around waiting, and then going over the same scene again and again. Exhausting.
Christina was so worn out and overheated that she called Karen and canceled the meeting for tonight. Karen didn’t sound happy but rescheduled for the next evening. They’d have dinner, she said, six o’clock, at Mrs. Ward’s diner. From Karen’s tone, Christina knew she’d better show up.
Grant called from the ranch’s office, using the land line because he’d lost his cell phone again.
“Want some dinner?” he asked.
Hearing his velvet tones made Christina’s blood warm, but she knew she couldn’t get up from where she lay on the bed even for Grant tonight. And the thought of food made her even queasier. “I feel like crap, to be honest,” she said. “Throwing up on you would embarrass the hell out of me, so I’m just going to have some club soda or something and go to sleep. Your own fault, making me train sick.”
“You okay?” Grant’s concern warmed her even more.
“I’ll be fine. Just need some sleep. No more going around in circles for five hours again, all right?”
“You got it, sweetheart. But hey, you know, it’s a paycheck.” Karen’s production company paid their extras. A lot of smaller studios didn’t.
“Looking forward to it,” Christina said sincerely.
“You call me if you need anything, all right?” Grant said. “I’ll try to find my phone, but don’t hesitate to call Carter or my mom. They’ll get me.”
Grant let her go after a few minutes of whispered sexy talk, like they used to do. Finally he said, “Good night, baby. Remember, call me if you need me.”
“You got it. Good night.” Christina wanted to add, but wasn’t sure she should, Love you.
She felt better when she hung up. She’d missed every nuance of their