"Give us two minutes," I called back.
I turned to Daniela. Straightened the brim of the hat I'd retrieved from the dirt and held it out.
"Last time," I said. "You remember everything?"
She took the hat. Put it on. Crooked, same as always.
"Go limp," she said. "Don't turn into it. Let it take me."
"And if something feels wrong?—"
"I tuck and roll and you sue the production company." She smiled. "I'm kidding. I call out and Bishop stops."
"Bishop stops," I confirmed. "Rick stops. Everything stops."
"I know." She held my gaze. "Sawyer. I've got it."
She did. That was the thing. She absolutely had it.
I stepped back and gave her the mark with a look, and she walked to it and squared up. I went to stand with Dale and told myself to watch the horse.
I watched her instead.
THREE
Daniela
"Cheers to a damn good shoot."
We all clinked our glasses together, cheap beer spilling over the sides of our mugs. Everyone had headed here after we'd showered at the hotel—exhausted, loud, ready to celebrate after a job well done.
And it had been a good shoot. A really good one.
I was wrapped. Three days, every scene in the can, and Ellis had called cut on my last shot and looked up from the monitor and saidthat's the onein a tone that didn't leave room for argument. Dale had clapped me on the shoulder. The DP had told Mark—loud enough for me to hear—that I had a great face for this format, and Mark had texted me three exclamation points from six feet away.
Even Rick, who played the villain and had the easy confidence of a man who'd been told he was charming so many times he'd stopped questioning it, had shaken my hand after the kidnapping scene and said I'd made him look good. Which was generous, or a line, or both.
I was going home tomorrow. One pickup shot in the morning—a quick reaction Ellis wanted for coverage—and then I was done. The leads were flying in tomorrow afternoon and thereal movie would begin and I would drive back to Albuquerque and fly home to San Antonio and call my abuela and tell her everything.
It was everything I'd wanted. I knew that.
I leaned against the bar and looked around. Dale's guys were three rounds deep and loud. Mark was on his phone, smiling at something, probably already thinking about the next thing. Rick had drifted over and positioned himself at my elbow sometime in the last twenty minutes, close enough that I'd clocked it and filed it without reacting. We’d all had a few shots of tequila and I was going to feel it tomorrow.
I hadn't seen Sawyer since the paddock. He'd watched the actual shoot from behind the monitors with Dale, arms crossed, and when Ellis had called cut the last time and everyone started moving I'd looked for him and he was just—gone. Back to the property, probably. Back to Bishop.
He hadn't said anything about tonight.
I didn't know why I'd been thinking about it.
Someone clasped my shoulder and I turned to find Ellis Jones herself. Sunglasses indoors, the smell of a whole box of cigarettes, the vague shape of a smile on her face.
"You were great today, Wilder," she said. "Looking forward to working with you again. I'll be in touch with your agent."
"I—thank you, it was a real honor?—"
"Don't." She squeezed my shoulder once. "Just pick up when I call."
Gone. Back out into the New Mexico night before anyone could make it a moment.
