Knowing Piper, she wouldn’t agree to such a thing. He also could see why she had her own personal gym on the premises. He figured she used the trick riding in some of the films, but he was unaware of what it took for the dangerous drops, car crashes, jumping off hills and falling off buildings that were involved in her work. The gymnastics equipment was part and parcel of it, of her success. She had to keep in shape if she planned to continue as a stuntwoman, to take the risks she did.

  He wondered if she’d made that dangerous decision for her future—and frowned.

  * * *

  “WHEW.” NAOMI KNOCKED and opened the door. Her face screwed up and she fanned herself. “You need to shower,” she said, not mincing her words.

  Cal could say nothing.

  “You’ve been in here going on two days. So you’d better go wash up and let me clean and air out this room.”

  He stood up, holding his hands out. “Don’t clean in here.”

  “Why not?”

  “I still have work to do and I don’t want anything moved.”

  “Ha, that’s not going to happen.” Naomi gave him her no-nonsense look.

  “I’ll do it myself,” he offered. “When I’m finished with everything.”

  “You don’t have time for that.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause that pretty little lady from next door is getting out of her truck right now.”

  Cal glanced at the window.

  “Go,” Naomi said, strongly. “I’ll try to air the place out.”

  Cal was already in motion but shouted over his shoulder, “Don’t move anything.”

  Taking the stairs in twos and threes, he pulled his shirt over his head before reaching his room. Hopping on one foot, then the other, he pulled his boots off. His pants and socks followed in quick succession. The bed had not been slept in. He should be sleepy, but he felt energized. In seconds he was under the spray of the shower, hot soapy water beading down his back and over his head.

  Five minutes later, Cal was barely dry when he entered the office. He saw immediately that telling Naomi not to clean his office had been the wrong decision. He should have let her do it. Piper stood looking at the papers that were on the desk and those that had fallen on the floor.

  “You’re investigating me?” she accused. Her voice was low, not a shout and all the more menacing for its low volume.

  “It’s not like that,” Cal tried to explain.

  “Then what is it like? All this.” She shook the pages in her hands and turned a full circle, encompassing the room. “It’s all about me and the accident.”

  “It is, but—”

  “No buts. If you wanted to know something about me, why didn’t you just ask? There was no reason to pretend to want lessons and pretend to help me, when your real intention was just—” She stopped.

  Cal could only imagine what she intended to say. Whatever it was, it wasn’t true.

  “Could I get a word in here?” he asked.

  Thrusting the pages at him, she pushed them into his chest. “These are all the words you want. They tell you everything. I’m a screwup and it was my fault.”

  She turned and left, her footsteps angry, her body as straight and hard as stone.

  “Piper,” he called. She didn’t answer or slow down.

  He followed her but stopped when the door slammed.

  Naomi came up behind him, entering the hallway that led to the front door. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cal said.

  “Probably had something to do with all those pages and news reports on her accident. I guess she didn’t know you were looking into her past. How would you feel if she opened the closet that held your skeletons?”

  Naomi drove the dagger further into him. Cal knew what he’d done was wrong. He should have asked her about it, but he thought it would stress her more and she was stressed enough. He should have told her, warned her before she went to wait in his office, yet in retrospect, that was the place they had spent so much time together. Why wouldn’t she go there? Especially if she was interested in whether he found out anything more about the accident.

  Well, she’d found it. And now he had to backpedal.

  “No time like the present to try and smooth things over,” Naomi said as if she was his conscience.

  “Got any more of that cake?” Cal asked.

  * * *

  JUST AS HE had the first time he approached Piper, he carried two containers of Naomi’s cake. He was sure the older woman kept it in the house just to push the two of them together. He headed for Piper’s ranch. Cal walked the unpaved path that connected them. The extra time it took to get there would allow him to put his thoughts and emotions in check and hopefully Piper had done the same by then.

  He wasn’t fighting his attraction to Piper. It was natural. Even though he knew he planned to leave, there was something about her that drew him, forced him to take a closer look at her. He wanted to be around her, protect her, help her prove her innocence. This wasn’t totally unlike him. He was often helping someone in one way or another. However, he felt an affinity for Piper. It was stronger with her than he could ever remember feeling before.

  Cal tried to fend off the unaccustomed emotions and regain his usual composure. But Piper was on his mind. Somehow he needed her as much as he thought she needed him, even if she didn’t think she did. He was compelled to be there for her.

  After Piper’s stunt was over, after she found her answer, then he could go. And she could return to Hollywood or decide what she’d do next.

  Cal stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up at Piper’s front door. He took a deep breath, went up the steps and knocked on the door. Nothing.

  He regretted looking into her life without telling her. They had reached a plateau where they were on friendly terms, working together—kissed even—but he’d destroyed that small space he’d hoped would get wider. No chance of that now.

  Cal knocked on the door again. He’d hoped, but didn’t expect her to answer. When there was no response, he tried the knob. It turned and he walked inside, closing the door loudly enough for her to hear.

  “Piper, please, I want to talk to you,” he called.

  She appeared in the entryway, facing him, her arms crossed in front of her. “What could you possibly have to say? How much you’re sorry you invaded my life? How you planned to tell me? How in order to help figure out the accident, you needed all that background information about me? And how I was really at fault? Did I get it all or is there more?”

  He walked toward her. Neither Piper nor her folded arms moved.

  “You got it all,” he said. “Now—” he lowered his voice “—I apologize. I shouldn’t have invaded your life without letting you know. I planned to tell you what I found. Yes, I needed background information, but I went further than I should have. I’m a thorough kind of guy, so when I start down a road, I take all the detours to see what the stumbling blocks are. And ultimately, I don’t think you were at fault.”

  Her arms fell to her sides and she stared at him. “You don’t?” Her voice was low as if her throat had closed.

  Cal shook his head, allowing a smile to creep across his features. Soon, he saw the beginning of her smile. Then she ran across the room and jumped into his arms.

  Cal stumbled back a step as her body threw him off balance. The cake containers plopped to the floor. He hugged her back.

  “You’re the first person who didn’t know me before the accident to say that.”

  He would have gone on holding her, but she pushed herself away.

  “Did you find something to support that theory?” she asked. Her voice was slightly higher than normal. He could tell she wasn’t totally immune to having feelings for him. Her face had turned a deeper shade of red and her gaze wasn’t meeting his.

  “Support what?” He was having a hard time concentrating. She had just flown into his arms.

  “A problem that caused the failure.”

  “Oh.” Cal finally remembered what they were discussing. “I could find no flaw in the mechanics. You set up everything perfectly. If anything, it had to be human error, meaning whoever was doing the stunt.”

  “Austin, the stuntman who was injured, is a professional. He’d done stunts for years. That doesn’t mean a veteran can’t make a mistake. But I never found anything to indicate he did anything wrong. Did you?”

  Cal shook his head.

  “Then it had to be me, a flaw in my design,” she stated.

  “Not necessarily.”

  Piper’s eyes were all but questioning him, imploring him to go on.

  “I thought of something we could do,” he said.

  She raised her brows, again remaining quiet and waiting for whatever his plan could be.

  “I have enough information to do a model of the stunt.”

  “Do you think that would help?” Piper asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “No? Then why—” She spread her hands in confusion.

  “I think we should skip the model and go for the real thing. Build it,” Cal told her.

  “To the exact size and dimensions?” Her eyes widened. Then she blinked several times.

  He had to believe she thought he’d taken leave of his senses. He had a fair idea of the monumental task he was proposing, but there were aspects he hadn’t encountered before. Yet Cal knew he could work them out.

  “Of course,” he responded. “Why not? You’ve got the space for it.” Cal spread his arms toward the windows, encompassing the entire ranch. “And you’re far enough from town that the zoning laws don’t apply to you. Re-creating the problem is the only way to determine what really happened.”

  “How could we even begin such a venture? We have no equipment, no crew. It takes a massive effort to re-create that framework, not to mention the scores of people needed to pull off the stunt.”

  Cal kept himself from smiling. Despite her words, she was buying into it. He could tell.

  “I’ve got some ideas on getting a crew.”

  “Mind sharing them?” she asked.

  Cal was excited about this engineering project. His brain practically begged for her to agree. Besides a new build, it would mean spending more time with her.

  “There are schools in this part of the world that focus on acting or aspects of filmmaking.”

  “Perfect,” she said. “I’ve worked with a few of their directors, even did a lecture series for one of them. Depending on how they feel about me and my current circumstances, I might find someone who’s willing to help.”

  “Especially if we can convince the school that this falls under the heading of practical experience.”

  “Good angle,” Piper said. “Not sure if I have any friends left over there, but I’ll see.”

  Her voice was full of optimism, but Cal heard the underlying fear as well. He wondered how long it would be before she started to believe in herself again. She put on a good show and probably most people wouldn’t see through to the vulnerability that lay beneath the surface. But he did.

  Cal knew it was a risk. Normally, he’d go for the model, but it didn’t seem practical. The stunt needed to be re-created, and a model couldn’t do that. Nothing short of the real thing would work. And he was sure nothing else would satisfy the Piper he’d come to know in such a short period of time.

  * * *

  THE CAKE SURVIVED the fall. Piper made coffee and they ate it on her porch, looking out on the land where Cal thought the structure could be built.

  She finished the dessert and set the empty plate on a small table. Leaning back, she stared at the mountains that seemed so close but were so far away. She knew she was going to have to leave for a lesson soon, but she wanted a moment to just think. Her thoughts weren’t on the task before them, but on the past.

  “You were researching me,” she began.

  “I apologi—”

  She quickly interrupted him. “His name is Xavier. No doubt you’ve read that in the research you did.”

  Cal nodded, saying nothing.

  “He’s a stunt coordinator with a very lucrative business. Studios pay top dollar for his services.”

  “You worked there?” Cal asked.

  Piper nodded. “I worked for three companies, moving up each time I changed. When I went to work for Xavier, I had specific goals for advancement.”

  “Did he know that?”

  “I laid everything out, down to charts, graphs and costs. He said he was impressed and hired me on the spot.”

  Cal smiled but still remained quiet.

  “Don’t you need a script before you decide on the stunts?”

  “You do. So I wrote one. At least I wrote a treatment, a story idea. It was rough, but it served to demonstrate the stunts I was using for the presentation.”

  “The interview?”

  “Same thing,” she said flippantly.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Four years. Even though he hired me, it took a while for me to get my own project.” She paused, remembering that day and how thrilled she was that some of her future stunts might be filmed. If only she’d known the disaster that was waiting for her, would she have been able to prevent it? She’d never know.

  “And the stunt?” Cal prompted.

  “The account in the papers was true. The stuntman overshot the drop point. He had a head injury and three broken bones, two legs and an arm. He was critical for weeks, but he finally pulled through. Unfortunately, he had no memory of the accident.”

  “So all that was left was you,” Cal stated.

  “All that was left was me. I had to have made a mistake.”

  “You weren’t the only person working on that stunt.”

  “But I was in charge. It doesn’t matter that I’m not an engineer or a technician. I was responsible for everything about it. Therefore, I was wrong.”

  “And I see Xavier made sure everyone knew that. From what I read, his comments were very strongly worded.”

  Piper didn’t want to review that part of it. She could still hear her ex’s tone and the way he spoke before the review board and the police investigators. Piper was lucky to not have been charged with anything, but her credibility and reputation in Tinseltown were gone with the proverbial wind.

  “Stunt work seems very dangerous and a little unusual for a career choice,” Cal said. “How did you get into that?”

  “By opening my big mouth at the wrong time.”

  Cal smiled. “It’s a very pretty mouth.”

  Piper blushed. Heat started at her neck, burned her ears and flooded into her face. Why did Cal have the power to set her off as if she were a human firecracker? No one had ever done that before.

  “So, what’s the story?” he asked.

  Piper looked around at the ranch. “I started right here,” she said. “My uncle taught me to ride. One day he saw me fooling around on a horse trying various jumps and tricks I’d seen done on television westerns.” She glanced at Cal.

  “What happened?”

  She nodded. “I got such a stern dressing-down from my uncle that I never did that again.” She tried not to laugh but couldn’t hold it in. Eventually, it broke through. Cal also laughed. She liked the combination of their voices as they rose into the bright sky.

  “I was trying to hit the ground and get back in the saddle while the horse was running. I fell.”

  Cal raised his brows. “I didn’t fall.”

  “You were lucky. I fell multiple times. After my uncle gave me a thorough tongue-lashing, he woke me up one morning at dawn and took me to the horse barn, where he taught me my first riding trick.”

  “I bet you were a model student.”

  “Of course I was.” She threw her head back, displaying her mocked indignity. “I was really motivated. I loved doing it, and by the time I was in high school, I was competing.”

  “You weren’t competing. You were winning,” Cal corrected. “I’ve seen your trophy room. Very impressive.”

  “Thank you. Anyway, while I was at UCLA, I got a summer job at one of the studios. My title was something nice,” she smirked. Nice meant terrible. “But my real job was being a glorified gopher. I had to get coffee, get water, get wardrobe. I was always running back and forth. But it was summer and the money was pretty good.” She hunched her shoulders, brushing it off. “And here’s where the big mouth comes into play.”

  “I was wondering when you’d get to that.” Again, Cal smiled. And again, Piper’s heart flipped.

  “There was a horse riding stunt that a stand-in was doing and she kept missing the mark. During a break to reset the scene, I said I could do that better than she could. I didn’t know she was standing behind me.”

  “And she challenged you,” Cal finished.

  “Loudly. Her voice reached everyone in the company. I had no choice but to accept. So I got on the horse and performed the stunt.”

  “Flawlessly, I’m sure,” Cal said.

  “I don’t know about that, but I was offered a job as a stunt rider on the spot.”

  “What did the other rider have to say?”

  “She was so angry. Much like Shelby Chase. Venom spewed from her mouth. When she finished with me, she started in on the rest of the crew.”

  Piper tried to make the memory vanish. She hated scenes that weren’t strictly for film.