Page 38 of Over & Out (Redbeard Cove #3)

Hopper

H OPPER: You know that’s apparently not a real thing?

CHRIS: What’s that?

HOPPER: Over and out.

I send her the link where I read this. Over means passing the mic over to the other person, so you’re waiting for a response. But out means the transmission is over. That is, done.

CHRIS: The words are a contradiction.

HOPPER: Exactly.

CHRIS: Kind of like us?

HOPPER: Hell no. We’re a perfect match.

CHRIS: If the pilot didn’t know that, imagine what else he didn’t know! I can’t believe we didn’t crash.

HOPPER: What a way to go, though, right?

That was three days ago, my first day on set after our trip to LA.

I had to restrain myself from skipping everywhere between takes.

Like, physically, my body wanted to jump around like my work boots were made of clouds.

Toni had to keep cutting takes because, quote, “You’re supposed to be a grumpy lumberjack, Donnach, what the hell is with that goofy grin? ”

“I’m not grinning!” I insisted.

“You were, and now you’ve got a goddamned twinkle in your eye.”

“Am I twinkling?” I asked Charlene.

“You’re twinkling,” she said, giggling.

Three days later, though, after eleven hours of filming yesterday and today with barely a break, I’m not twinkling.

I’m cranky and sore, and I desperately want to get back to Chris.

It’s been three days since we got off the plane and I had to head straight to set.

Three days since I’ve seen Chris’s beautiful face.

But it’s been one day since I got a call from Mabel that threw a dark shadow on my mood.

I was so thrown by it that I crashed in my trailer last night, knowing I didn’t want to bring that energy home to Chris.

Despite how fucking badly I miss her. On top of all that, even with all the workouts I’ve been doing, my whole body aches from swinging an axe for three days straight.

“Cut!” Toni yells.

I throw the hatchet down with a thud into the stump in front of me. “I’m getting perilously close to losing my shit, Toni.”

“Nearly there,” she insists. “These takes are much better. You’re nailing the grumpy lumberjack vibe. I’m sure we’ve got it in the next take.”

We don’t. Not the next one either .

I pull out my phone as hair and makeup flitters around me. It’s been an hour since Chris texted last, and I’m getting fucking desperate.

HOPPER: I miss you.

HOPPER: I want you.

HOPPER: I can still taste you.

My phone buzzes back.

CHRIS: I’m at the grocery store!

I groan. It’s been like this all day. She’s been keeping professional, like we agreed we needed to be after our texting turned dirty the other night. I have absolutely not.

As we set up the next take, I close my eyes like I’m centering myself.

Instead, I replay the last time I saw her for the hundredth time today.

After the plane landed, we’d accidentally fallen asleep. Who could blame us after being up for nearly twenty-four hours minus that little catnap when she discovered my notebook—and then the greatest fucking sex of our lives? My life, anyway. Hopefully hers too.

A heavy knock on the door woke us up. I’d bolted upright and answered in my underwear, thinking it was the pilot.

The pilots for this charter fly world leaders around and are known for their absolute discretion.

Unfortunately, it was the customs officer, a fierce-looking middle-aged woman with her braided black hair in a tight knot at the back of her head and a hard line where her mouth should have been.

“Sir, you can’t enter Canada with no pants,” she’d said.

I wanted badly to ask if that was an official rule, but I could sense Chris freaking out under the sheets. So I asked her to please wait while we got dressed.

The officer looked very disinterested the next time I opened the door—both Chris and I fully pantsed. She checked our information and handed our passports back to us.

“Welcome home, Mr. Donnach. Ma’am.”

“Do you think she’s going to tell anyone we were together?” Chris asked worriedly after she left.

“One person is no big deal,” I said. “Not enough credibility for a rumor.”

I didn’t mention it to Chris, but I learned a long time ago that people who appear disinterested can sometimes be the most interested.

I don’t trust anyone not to call up a tabloid looking for a quick buck or to get in on the ground floor of a scandal.

If anything does come up, Mabel’s a pro at squashing these kinds of things.

But in that moment, I remembered everything Mabel told us.

How she warned me to stay away from Chris.

I can’t do that, but I did need to protect her.

“If anyone else sees us together,” I said, “it does have the potential to become a thing. ”

Chris blanched. “We don’t want it to become a thing, right?”

I wanted very badly to argue that I did actually want it to become a thing. I would very much like the whole world to know how I feel about Chris Maplewood.

But my dad’s face appeared in my mind then, at his angriest. Most vengeful. Drunkest. “No,” I said, the word feeling wrong in my throat. “We don’t.”

Something flickered in Chris’s expression, but it vanished when she suddenly laughed, hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe you answered the door to a border officer in no pants.”

“Down with pants,” I said.

“Literally,” she’d laughed.

After we get the take, I tell Toni we’re cutting out early. I know I’ve used this card already, but I play it like I’m Santa Claus. “People need time to buy Christmas presents, Toni. Give them a few hours to do that during the day when the stores are open.”

“You really care about everyone on this movie, don’t you?” she asks after she finally relents, begrudgingly agreeing we all need a break.

Sure. This is not about my desperate need to be close to Chris again. To be so close I’m quite literally inside her.

“The most,” I say, already heading to my trailer.

“Hopper, wait.”

I groan inwardly, resisting the urge to check the time. Now that I’ve got the time off, all I want to do is GTFO and head straight to Chris.

But Toni decides to take this moment to blow smoke up my ass.

“Hopper, I’ve been meaning to say, I appreciate how you took the lead with Chad.

Marlo’s been incredible in his place.” If by taking the lead, she means telling Chad to fuck off, I guess she’s right.

I found Marlo because I asked Charlene which AD she’d worked with lately had been her favorite. Then I paid her a signing bonus myself.

“That’s not all, Hopper.”

Fuck me. She goes on to tell me how she knows it was me who insisted the studio give everyone a travel budget to get home over the holidays, then lists off ten other things I apparently did that make her so happy she ignored everyone’s concerns about hiring me.

“Thanks?” I say at the backhanded compliment. The thing is, most of the things I made happen stem from questions Chris asked me at various meetings about inequities she saw in the industry. I tell her that now when she says again how much she appreciates my “team effort” on this picture.

“I’m no saint, Toni. I had to have these things pointed out to me.”

Toni smiles. “Yeah, well, not everyone would have sent those things up the chain.”

Honestly I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t notice half these things until Chris. But I’m not surprised that being around her seems to be making me a better person.

I scowl now. “Are we done with the lovefest? I have shit to do. ”

Toni chuckles like she’s Santa Claus.

Twenty minutes later, I’m pulling up to Chris’s place, damp and cold from the ride over but happy as fuck because I’m finally here.

I’ve dropped her off here before but never gotten closer than the front door, so I’m excited to check it out.

I want to see a whole world full of Chris.

As I head up her porch steps, my brain goes to ways we could warm up together.

There’s the obvious, since I’m feral for her.

But cuddling up with her in front of a fire would be amazing too.

Hell, I’ll do a jaunty round of caroling if that’s what she wants, though that’s probably not the best way to keep us under wraps.

Plus I haven’t exactly celebrated Christmas since Mom got sick and haven’t sung a carol since I was a kid in early grade school.

I knock on the door. Chris said she’d be here at this time, so I try to ignore the little spark of concern in my stomach when she doesn’t immediately answer.

Her place is about a ten-minute walk to the edge of Redbeard Cove, nestled in the trees, with a view of the mountains.

It’s private—the closest neighbors are a half kilometer down the road—but still not far enough out for me to worry about her being too isolated.

It feels isolated now, though. As I knock again, a little louder, the sound echoes through the trees.

“Chris?” I call.

I know I shouldn’t worry, that she’s obviously just out, but I can’t help it. Mabel’s call comes back to me, making my stomach churn.

“He’s in town, Hopper. Or at least close by. My people have spotted him in Vancouver. Just thought you should know.”

“That’s not exactly in town,” I told her, like I wasn’t concerned.

But I was. I am. I know as well as she does that it’s not normal for my father to be out west. He lives four thousand kilometers away, in the bleak and fading town I grew up in, and is mostly a recluse.

We know because we have someone keeping tabs on him out there.

But considering the kinds of things he contacts Mabel about, I tend to picture him with a creepy-ass murder board up on his wall, tracking all the ways I wronged him.

It’s never worried me as much as it does now.

Mostly because the money I send him every month is his sole source of income.

And it’s a shit ton of income. But as I stand here on this porch, I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the weather around me.

The stakes are higher now, with Chris involved.

I find myself walking around the side of the house, scanning the trees. And the cottage, which suddenly looks extremely vulnerable. I wouldn’t peg my father for breaking and entering, but what about his goons?

I get a brief flashback to a door kicked in. Blood on the floor. The agony of knowing I could have done something different.

How good are the locks on Chris’s house? In the woods, a crow caws, and off to the back of the house, I hear the steady trickle of water down a drainpipe. But besides that, it’s eerily silent.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, making me startle .

Fuck. I shift my helmet under my arm to access my phone. I need to get a grip.

When I see Chris’s name on the screen, though, the relief that hits me is huge. Bright. Life-giving.

CHRIS: Hey! Guessing you’re on set?

HOPPER: I’m not actually. I’m looking for someone. But they don’t seem to be home.

CHRIS: OMG! You’re at my place?

HOPPER: Yes, bangles. And I need to see you. Now, preferably. Please tell me you’re not on a massage table or something. I’d be happy for you, but I’m selfish, so please say no.

CHRIS: LOL. I’m not. And actually…I could really use your help right now.

My stomach flips. Is she in trouble? I grip the phone tighter.

HOPPER: Are you okay?

HOPPER: Where are you? I’ll be there in thirty seconds.

HOPPER: Answer me, Chris.

I’m aware I gave her .04 seconds to answer my first question.

Still, the thought of her being in danger sends me into a kind of panic that feels unhinged.

I have never, ever worried about someone like this before.

Not even my mom, because she always had Mabel by her side, as well as various bodyguards.

I pick up the phone, frantically hitting the call button. Pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick?—

“Hey!” Chris’s voice is like a balm to my fucking soul.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

“What? No. I’m at a dirt track, of all places.”

My stomach drops.

“Do you think you could come here? With the truck? I’ll send directions.”

As if the place isn’t burned directly into my mind.

“Are you hurt?”

“What? No, I’m not riding.”

Right. I’m not supposed to know she used to ride. I fucking hate this. It feels deceitful. But I think of Mabel, and then I think of my dad. He’s here, somewhere. Waiting for me to mess up. Ready to throw her under the bus.

“Right,” I say. “Of course. What are you doing there?”

“It’s easiest if I explain once you get here.”