Taming Her Hollywood Playboy Read online

  ‘Are you staying a bit longer?’ he asked when he returned. ‘Do you want to watch more filming? The next scene involves some of the other characters, while I’m missing, presumed dead.’

  ‘Do you always film out of sequence?’ Kat asked; she hadn’t imagined it happening like that.

  ‘More often than not, I guess we do, but it depends on a lot of things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Weather and location mostly. Or sometimes if an actor has to lose or gain weight or change their hairstyle through the movie...that will affect the order. It also might depend on who is required for the scene, if we need a lot of extras, things like that; they might be brought in for a few days to do all their scenes. Then, of course, there are always retakes, which can be difficult to manage, particularly if we’ve got other filming commitments for other projects. Would you like to watch? Otherwise we could hang out in my trailer?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want any rumours.’

  ‘Rumours with you I don’t have an issue with—you’re single and over the age of eighteen,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘With protective relations who spend their days blowing things up for fun. Are you sure you want to take them on?’

  ‘They blow things up for fun?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s legitimate. They’re opal miners.’

  ‘And they mine using explosives?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘OK, forewarned is forearmed, I guess. If you like I can show you the reels from the other day; you can see what the stunts look like and why the first-aid officer quit. No ulterior motive, I promise. I’ll even leave the door open if it makes you feel more comfortable.’

  * * *

  ‘I can’t believe you walked away without a scratch,’ she said when she’d finished watching the footage. She had forced herself to concentrate but it had been difficult. They were sitting side by side on the couch, as it had the best view of the screen, but, while Oliver appeared relaxed, Kat was a bundle of nerves. She was super-aware of him beside her. She could feel him breathing, and every time he moved she braced herself in case he touched her. Each time he did her heart raced, her mouth went dry and her skin tingled.

  ‘I had a few bruises and a headache but I’m fine.’

  ‘Why on earth would you do your own stunts?’

  ‘Because it’s fun.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about getting hurt?’

  ‘I’ve always loved testing my limits. My brother and I grew up in a house with very strict rules, thanks to our father, and I always enjoyed breaking them. I guess I thought of them more as recommendations.’

  ‘What happened when you got caught?’

  ‘We were punished, so I learnt the hard way to balance risk and reward. If I thought the risk wasn’t worth the punishment I learnt to rein in my wild side. Stunts are calculated risks, mostly. The buzz I get from doing them outweighs the risk that something might go wrong. It’s Chris’s job, and yours, to keep me safe.’

  ‘If Chris does his job right then you shouldn’t need me,’ she retorted. ‘There’s only so much I can do.’

  Kat liked to follow the rules. She’d seen too many times the things that could go wrong when rules were broken.

  There was a knock on the door and Oliver was summoned back to Make-Up and Wardrobe.

  ‘We’re filming a love scene this afternoon, so the set is closed,’ he told her, ‘but if you’re free later, why don’t you come back for dinner? I’m helping out on the grill.’

  ‘I have an ambulance shift tonight.’ She could have left it at that—he didn’t know how things worked around here—but she found herself elaborating. ‘But I can be on call. I’ll let Dave know where I am and he can call me in if he needs me.’

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to be held responsible if you’re needed.’

  ‘Positive. As long as I’m contactable it’s fine.’

  She had intended to heed George’s warning and resist Oliver’s charms, but it was harder than she’d anticipated. It was one thing to tell herself that she could resist him when she was home alone, but quite another when he greeted her with a big smile and laughter in his blue eyes. He was charming and irresistible and she suspected it was only a matter of time before he would win her over.

  CHAPTER THREE

  KAT PUSHED OPEN the door to the police station and squeezed herself inside. It looked as if the whole town had come running when the cry for help had gone out, and the small station was bursting at the seams. She’d been getting ready to go back to the film set for dinner when she’d received a call telling her that a missing person report had come in. She had called Oliver with her apologies and headed for the station. Unfortunately, a missing backpacker trumped her other plans. She searched the crowd for her cousins, knowing they would be in the thick of the action, as she wondered if she’d get another dinner date. No, not a date, she reminded herself, an invitation.

  She’d just spotted her cousins when she heard someone calling her name. She turned around to find Oliver coming through the door behind her.

  ‘Oliver! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, I thought your excuse was either the best rejection I’d ever received, or if it was true we figured you could use some help.’

  ‘We?’

  Kat looked at the men filing in behind him and saw that Oliver had brought Chris and some of the crew with him.

  ‘Someone has gone missing?’ he asked.

  ‘Pietro Riccardo, an Italian backpacker, has been reported missing by his girlfriend. He went noodling—fossicking for opal,’ Kat clarified when she saw several confused expressions, ‘on his own. The girlfriend didn’t go with him because she had a headache, and Pietro hasn’t come back. There’s a public noodling area in the centre of town but he’s not there. The police have called the hotels, bars, pubs and clubs, thinking he might have just stopped for a drink, but he’s not at any of those either. We have to start spreading the search.’

  ‘Is there something we can do? Can we help?’

  ‘If you’d like to, thank you. I’ll see if I can get you assigned to my search party.’

  ‘You’re searching? You’re not taking the ambulance?’

  Kat shook her head. ‘The crew who were already on shift will stay at the station. We don’t know which way Pietro’s gone, so there’s no point sending the ambulance off in one direction, only for them to have to turn around and head a different way. We’ll split up into search parties, and the search will be coordinated by the Coober Pedy mine rescue team.’

  ‘You’re telling me this happens often enough that you have an official search and rescue unit?’

  ‘Yes. There are enough accidents on the mines with both miners and locals that we are needed fairly often.’ Kat and her cousins were all members of the team. ‘We’re assuming the missing backpacker is injured, which is why he hasn’t returned of his own accord, but there’s also a high possibility that he’s fallen down a disused mine shaft.’

  ‘Are there really exposed mine shafts around here?’

  ‘Of course. There are thousands of them. You’ve seen the warning signs, haven’t you?’

  ‘The signs that say “Don’t Run”, “Deep Shafts”, “Don’t Walk Backwards”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Those signs are serious? They’re not just for the tourists to take selfies with?’

  ‘They’re definitely serious. We’re not on a movie set; this is real.’

  Oliver frowned. ‘And just how often do people fall down mine shafts?’

  ‘More often than you’d think and far more often than we’d like. You were told to watch where you walk around town, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t really think about why.’

  ‘Luckily for you most of the shafts in town have been covered over. It’s just once you ge
t out of town you need to be careful. People have gone missing and never been found. It’s presumed they’re down a hole somewhere. It’s a perfect way to get away with murder.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I’m not actually, but don’t worry, that doesn’t happen as much now. It’s not the wild west it once was out here. People are a little more law-abiding.’

  ‘OK, let me get this straight. We’re going to be wandering around, in the dark, looking down old mine shafts.’

  ‘He could be anywhere, and he might not be down a mine shaft, but if you’re worried, no one will mind if you back out.’

  ‘I’m not backing out. I offered to help and unless I’m going to be in the way I’m happy to be another pair of eyes.’

  ‘The more people we have searching the better. Pietro didn’t take his car, which is good and bad. Bad because we can’t search for the car, which would be easier to find, good because it means he needs to be within walking distance of town, but bad again because we don’t know in which direction he’s gone and his mobile phone either isn’t on, is flat or is out of service range.’ She broke off as she was approached. ‘Hey, Dave. Oliver, this is Dave Reed, another paramedic. Dave, this is Oliver Harding; he and some of the cast and crew from the movie have offered to help search.’

  ‘Good to meet you; appreciate the help.’ Dave was his normal, relaxed self; good in a crisis, he was one of Kat’s favourite colleagues. They had been rostered on together for the night shift until the missing-person report changed their plans. Dave and Oliver shook hands as the crowd was silenced so instructions could be given.

  They were spilt into search parties to head out of town in all directions. Kat took Oliver with her and they joined Dean and Roger. She was glad to be in the same search party as her cousins, not only because of their search and rescue skills but also because they were experienced miners who were fit and strong, but she was a little concerned about whether they would see Oliver as a valuable asset or as a liability. She’d been aware of them watching her as she’d spoken with Oliver and she hoped they didn’t make him uncomfortable. As far as she was concerned, he was welcome to join them, and she didn’t need her cousins to run interference on her behalf.

  They collected their torches and Dave also handed Kat a backpack full of supplies that he had collected from the ambulance station on his way.

  ‘What about tracker dogs?’ Oliver asked after he’d offered to carry Kat’s backpack and hoisted it onto his shoulders.

  ‘The police force doesn’t have tracker dogs, and the Aboriginal trackers we do have said the ground is too dry and there are too many prints in town to follow. If they knew which direction Pietro went in then maybe they’d have a chance, but,’ she shrugged, ‘we’ll just have to walk and hope.’

  Their group headed south, walking in a long line, side by side. They were supposed to spread out, swinging their lights in an arc several metres to either side of them, but Oliver kept bunching up, walking nearer to Kat, staying close to her. She wasn’t sure if it was deliberate or if he wasn’t aware that he was doing it, but she was very aware. He was quiet, there were no jokes, no banter, so he appeared to be taking this seriously, but she was still super-conscious of him.

  The desert night was quiet and still, the air clear and cold. The sun had long since set, taking the heat of the day with it. The search party continued their slow and steady pace, taking it in turns to call Pietro’s name.

  ‘Are you sure his girlfriend was at the hostel?’ Oliver asked after several minutes of silence. ‘They didn’t have an argument and she saw an opportunity to get rid of him?’

  Kat laughed. ‘I don’t think she’s a suspect and I think you’ve got an overactive imagination!’

  ‘Maybe I’ve read too many movie scripts, but there’s always a twist in the tale.’

  * * *

  They were into the second hour of the search, when Pietro was finally located, injured but alive, at the bottom of a disused mine shaft.

  Oliver sat on a rock in a desert in the middle of South Australia and listened to the experienced rescuers plan Pietro’s extraction from the mine shaft. There were literally thousands of mine shafts, as Kat had told him, and he’d thought it was an impossible task to find someone who could have fallen into one, so had been amazed when Pietro had actually been tracked down. The whole situation was surreal.

  He listened to Pietro’s apologies echoing up from the shaft. Oliver felt for the guy. He sounded embarrassed. It turned out he was a doctor, in Australia on a three-month holiday before he was due to return to Italy to start his surgical residency. He was mortified that he had sustained an injury and needed rescuing, but Oliver thought he should be grateful that he’d been found, that the people of Coober Pedy knew what to do.

  But even Oliver couldn’t believe what he heard next. What those same people were planning on doing. Or, more to the point, who was going to be doing it. He stood up and approached Kat, forgetting in his consternation that he probably should stay out of the way and that this retrieval had nothing to do with him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘You’re not going down there?’ The shaft was pitch black, the opening narrow, maybe only three feet wide, but the drop to the bottom was deep. When they had shone their torches down hundreds of these while looking for Pietro, Oliver had got the impression that this was what the mines looked like until Kat had explained that a lot of these narrow shafts were from exploratory drilling. If opal traces, or anything that had potential, was found the miners would excavate further. They might go down the hole for a look but most of the mines were now open cut using big machines. But it seemed as though Kat was about to descend into this darkness.

  ‘Of course I am,’ Kat replied. ‘Someone has to. That shaft is over thirty feet deep. He says he’s broken his ankle but he could have sustained more serious injuries. He needs to be assessed and then he needs to be brought up to the surface, which means he needs a harness. Someone has to attach that to him. There’s not much room, and I’m the only one with the right experience who will fit.’

  ‘Is it safe? It won’t collapse?’

  ‘It’s sandstone. The same rock we build our houses with. It’s safe enough. You don’t need to worry—I’ve done this before. It’s no more dangerous than when you do your own stunt work. Probably safer. You’re not worried because I’m a woman, are you?’

  ‘No, of course not. I work with stunt women all the time, and I know they’re as capable as men.’ But he was worried because it was Kat.

  ‘I’m trained for this. I’ll be fine,’ she told him as she stepped into a harness.

  Oliver watched, his heart in his mouth, as Kat’s cousin Roger checked the harness. He had to trust that Kat knew what she was doing but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He didn’t want anything to happen to her before he got a chance to know her better. He had never met anyone like her and the more time they spent together the more fascinating he found her. She looked like a supermodel but seemed completely unaware of how stunning she was. She was smart and sexy but with an unusual air of innocence. He knew he had to be careful. She didn’t seem as wise in the ways of the world as the women he normally mixed with, and he’d seen how her cousins kept one eye on her at all times—which meant they had one eye on him too tonight, which, he had to admit, made him a little uncomfortable, but he was respectful, and despite what the tabloids said about him that had always been his way.

  A winch on the front of the four-by-four police vehicle lowered Kat into the hole. Oliver didn’t think he breathed once until, after what seemed like a lifetime, she finally emerged again. With Pietro strapped to her.

  Oliver wanted to rush over to her to make sure she was OK but this was not about the two of them and this time he forced himself to wait in the background as Kat, Dave and the other paramedics, who had arrived with the ambulance, attended to their patient. He felt like
a teenage schoolboy longing to be noticed, but he was prepared to wait.

  Eventually, as Pietro was being loaded into the ambulance, Kat came over to him. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. Pietro’s English is good but his Italian is better. I speak Italian,’ she said with a shrug, ‘so I’ve offered to go with him to the hospital.’

  ‘Of course.’ Oliver didn’t have any expectations that they’d get time together tonight; he realised that her job came first. Much like his. He couldn’t object to that.

  ‘Thank you for your help. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to dinner.’

  ‘That’s OK. I’ve got tomorrow off. If you’re free we could reschedule till then.’

  She hesitated and he prepared himself for the brush-off, but she surprised him when she said, ‘I’d like that. But, assuming the rest of my shift is quiet, why don’t I pick you up in the morning? I have a place I’d like you to see. Can you be ready early? Say, eight o’clock?’

  * * *

  Saskia was ready and waiting when the ambulance pulled up at the hospital.

  ‘This is Pietro Riccardo...’

  Kat pushed the stretcher through the emergency doors as she listened to Dave’s summary of Pietro’s suspected injuries, most of which Saskia knew from the phone call they’d made en route, and then the summary of treatment so far.

  ‘Put him in the first cubicle. Damien is already here; we’ll get him sorted,’ Saskia told them, before turning her attention to the patient. ‘Hello, Pietro, my name is Saskia.’

  ‘Italian is his first language,’ Kat told her before translating for Pietro. ‘Saskia is a nurse and this is our doctor, Damien,’ Kat continued the introductions as they wheeled Pietro into a treatment bay. ‘They’re going to do a more thorough assessment and I’ll stay to translate if you need me to, OK?’

  ‘Grazie.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’