CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gannon adjusted his welding goggles and watched as Rocco, a skinny man in his mid-fifties with a bushy mustache, finished off a clean weld. They were shooting in a tiny rural town and hour and a half west of Portland in a custom welding shop.
He didn’t mind shooting scenes like this, giving other artisans some camera time while he looked on or tried his own hand at it.
It was, to him, one of the better parts of the show. Showcasing local artisans was a good karma kind of thing to do. Not only did viewers love the custom stuff they were able to do for families, but the artisans got a boost in business after the episodes aired.
Of course, Gannon would never let Paige know he liked doing these segments. He preferred to keep everyone thinking that he hated everything about filming. It was better if there were some things no one else knew. Though after tonight, he and Paige would know each other a whole lot better.
He felt his blood immediately leave his brain. Tonight.
His impatience was probably translating to the camera loud and clear, and if he chose to watch this episode when it aired, he’d remember exactly what he’d been thinking in this moment. Paige.
Rocco shut off the torch and flipped his visor up to admire the weld.
“That looks great, man,” Gannon said, clapping the man on his back.
Rocco’s lips twitched under his mustache in a shy grin, his earlier nervousness about the camera long forgotten. “Not too shabby,” he agreed.
“Can we take a look at the final design?” Gannon asked.
“Sure, sure.”
Rocco led the way over to a workstation designed purely for function with no regards for form. Three flat screen monitors squatted on a heavy, paint-splattered work table. He pulled the design program up, and Louis sidled up behind them to get a look at the screen.
“I took the sketch you sent me and then put some finishing touches on it here and here,” he said pointing to the corners of the canopy. Gannon listened as Rocco walked him through the finer points of the design until Mel laid a hand on Gannon’s shoulder.
He took one look at her unusually pale face and knew something was wrong. Gannon rose, his stomach sinking as the wheeled stool under him skidded out from under him. “What? What is it?”
She took a shaky breath. “There was an accident on set. Paige—”
He grabbed Mel by the shoulders. “Is she okay?”
Her eyes watered, and his heart stuttered.
“I don’t know.” Mel shook her head, a tear slipping out from the corner of her eye. “Andy texted, and he’s not answering his phone. ‘It’s bad’ is all he said.”
Gannon didn’t wait for anything else. “Keys!” he yelled and caught the van’s keys out of midair when Louis chucked them. “I’ll send a ride for you,” he called over his shoulder.
He was peeling out of the lot and dialing Andy’s number and then Cat’s. Neither of them answered. He slammed his palm down on the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Gannon tossed his phone on the passenger seat and floored the gas pedal. The van sluggishly lumbered up to speed.
She had to be okay. Had to be. What if she wasn’t? What if “bad” was the worst that could happen? Goddamn it.
He let the fear plague him until he felt like he could crawl out of his own skin and then picked up his phone and started dialing again.
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Paige let the water drum against her skin trying to feel something other than pain. Every inch of her hurt. She wasn’t supposed to get her dressings wet, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to bed still wearing blood and grit.
She had promised the well-meaning, helicoptering Cat that she was heading straight to bed to get rid of her friend so she could blatantly ignore doctor’s orders alone. The hospital had been an exhausting blur. Ashton was fine, thank God. He’d sustained a scraped elbow and lost a ducky shoe but had been otherwise unscathed. Tony, hero cameraman and child saver, had needed stitches in his arm. The details were still foggy, but Paige thought she’d heard he’d tucked Regina under his arm like a football and sprinted for the house where one of Brunelli’s crew grabbed her. Tony had dumped his camera on the porch and ran back trying to dig her out of the tent that had fallen on her.
Both her phone and mic had been destroyed. The phone cracked when a falling tent pole landed on her like a piñata, and water damage had taken care of the rest. She’d been pissed about the phone and not the least bit upset about the mic. But now she was just tired. Exhausted. Everything hurt. It felt as though a truck, not a tent, had leveled her. Thank God she hadn’t been under one of the woodworking pop-ups with two by fours and sharp tools.
No one would tell her anything about the set or the shooting schedule. She could only imagine that it was a chaotic mess. Andy had just repeatedly assured her via Cat’s phone that there was nothing to worry about and to get some rest.
It was bullshit. She hadn’t broken anything, although her face still felt a little wonky where one of the camera equipment cases had smashed into it. She’d hardly needed any stitches, yet they were treating her like an invalid. Cat had shot alternating dirty and then worried looks at her the whole way back to the hotel from the hospital where Paige had refused to stay for observation.
She just needed a shower and some sleep. Maybe a solid eight hours of sleep. Then she’d be back on her feet and everything could go back to normal. Thank God she’d scheduled an extra two days for this shoot. The cleanup alone would probably take a full day.
The warm water soothed her aching muscles, and she rested her forehead against the cool tile. The only thing she hadn’t anticipated was her inability to lift her arms. She couldn’t seem to get them past shoulder height, which left her hair a damp, dirty tangle of dried blood and who knows what else. Paige shifted her feet and winced as pain shot like electricity through her system.
How was she going to get out of the tub?
Great. She was going to drown in the shower. This was the way her life would end. Not with a peaceful passing in her sleep at age ninety-seven. No, she’d just slide down this ivory tile and drown.
The door to the bathroom flew open and bounced off the wall. “Jeez, Cat!” Paige groaned pitifully. “What the hell?” Annoyed that her friend had ignored her wish for privacy, she was a little relieved that Cat could help her out of the tub.
But it wasn’t Cat ripping open the shower curtain and glaring at her.
It was Gannon.