Wild Action

“What? More than a million bucks’ worth?”

“Well, Gus was always trying to expand and improve. You know, replace old equipment, upgrade the facilities. Just this spring, we built a big new aviary for the owls.”

“We have owls,” Nick said dully.

“Uh-huh, and some other birds of prey. At any rate, between improvements and the day-to-day expenses… The bear’s food alone costs over a thousand dollars a month.”

Nick’s face went pale beneath his tan. “A bear? What kind of bear?”

“Oh, just a little black bear.”

Roger snorted. “You call Attila little? Hell, Gus told me he was pushing six hundred pounds.”

“Well…yes, I guess he is on the large side for a black bear,” Carly admitted, wishing Nick wasn’t looking more upset by the second. “I just meant he’s not a grizzly or anything really big.”

“And his name’s Attila?” Nick said. “As in Attila the Hun?”

“Yes, but he’s actually a sweetie. His only drawback is that he does eat up a fair bit of the revenue.”

“So to speak,” Nick said dryly.

“Yes…so to speak.” She smiled, surprised he could joke under the circumstances.

He eyed her for a long moment, then said, “Do we own a swamp full of alligators, too?”

She eyed him back, not entirely sure whether she found his sense of humor amusing or annoying. “If a movie’s set in a swamp, nobody’s going to shoot it in Canada,” she said at last. “So having alligators would be rather foolish. But getting back to the point I was making, the bottom line is that there’s no money. The company’s entire cash reserves would barely buy you a ticket home to Edmonton.”

Nick rubbed his jaw, looking even more unhappy. “Then do you know anyone who’d be interested in buying my forty-nine percent?”

She shook her head.

“I expect finding an investor would take time,” Roger said. “People are leery of getting into minority ownership positions. Besides which, Wild Action isn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill sort of business.”

“What about mortgaging the property?” Bill Brown suggested.

Roger gave him a quizzical glance. “It’s already mortgaged to the hilt. Did Gus forget to mention that, too?”

Carly glanced at Bill, wishing Gus had kept him better informed. The man was obviously not pleased that Roger kept handing him surprises.

“We took out the mortgage when we had a chance to buy a new trailer for Attila,” she explained. “We desperately needed one to get him to shoot sites, but it cost a small fortune. And Gus said that as long as we were taking out a mortgage anyway, we might as well make it big enough to build the new aviary and fix up a few other things.

“But look,” she continued, focusing on Nick, “I’m really sorry things aren’t the way you expected them to be. I feel badly about the whole situation.”

He exhaled slowly. She couldn’t feel anywhere near as bad as he did. But it wasn’t her fault there was a new will. And he’d known bad news came in threes, so if he’d used his brain, he wouldn’t have been so damn quick about quitting his job. Then this situation wouldn’t be such a disaster.

“Nick?” Brown said. “Lawyers are always coming across people who want to invest in a business. So if both Roger and I keep an eye out, sooner or later we’ll find someone to buy your share.”

Sooner or later. Nick had no doubt it would be later rather than sooner, and what the hell was he going to do in the meantime? Or maybe he should be more concerned about what was going to happen to the company in the meantime. Carly might have been Gus’s right hand, but that didn’t guarantee she could run things herself.

“Carly?” he said. “Are you going to be able to manage the business on your own?”

She shook her head. “I’ve found a high school kid to help out for the moment, but I’ll have to get somebody who knows more about animals. And hopefully has a head for business.”

“Absolutely,” Harris agreed. “And fast. You couldn’t possibly handle everything yourself even if you didn’t have the Get Real people practically on your front porch.”

“The Get Real people?” Nick said.

Carly looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he had to ask. “Get Real Productions. An up-and-coming player in L.A. Gus landed us a film contract not long ago—for a film directed by Jay Wall, no less. And Get Real is providing the financing.”

Nick nodded. He didn’t have a clue who Jay Wall was, but he could do without another of Carly’s “Did you just crawl out of a cave?” looks.

“They’ve already been filming in Toronto for a week,” she went on. “So any day now, Jay’s going to decide he wants to start shooting the wilderness scenes.

“This was supposed to be our big break,” she added. “Gus said that if a director like Jay Wall was happy with our animals, the sky would be the limit But now…”

“But now?” Nick prompted, the uncertainty in her voice making him nervous.

“Well, it’s still the limit. And this movie will really help with the bottom line. Gus negotiated a great fee for the animals, plus Jay’s doing a lot of the shooting on our land and we’ll get paid for that So Wild Action will have cash in the bank—assuming things go well.”

“You mean we won’t get paid if they don’t?”

“Well…if we don’t fulfill our end of the contract… If the animals didn’t perform well enough or something.”

“Is that a real possibility?”

Carly shrugged uneasily. “I’m afraid that with Gus gone there are some problems. And if Jay doesn ’t end up happy, not getting all our money for the film wouldn’t be our only worry. He’s the type who’d go out of his way to ensure Wild Action’s name was mud.”

That possibility was enough to make Nick break into a cold sweat. He owned forty-nine percent of land that was mortgaged to the hilt and a company that might self-destruct if Carly didn’t please some hotshot director.

If that happened, forty-nine percent of Wild Action would probably be worth about a dollar and a quarter.

“But if you do make Jay happy?” he said.

“It would open the door to more Hollywood deals, and Wild Action would have so much money coming in that you wouldn’t have to look for a buyer. I’d be able to buy you out in no time.”

Which meant, Nick realized, the only intelligent thing for him to do was help make Jay Wall as happy as hell. And if that required a stint of playing zookeeper…

The prospect sure wasn’t appealing, but it seemed like the only sensible solution. Of course, he had to move at the end of the month, but he could always get some of his buddies to put his things in storage for a while.

“How long will this movie take?” he asked Carly.

“It’s hard to be sure. When Jay’s on location he shoots every day—assuming the weather’s right for the scenes. But the animals don’t always cooperate, and without Gus…

“But if things go right, they shouldn’t be filming on our property for more than a month or so.”

Nick nodded, his decision made. He could stand anything if it was only for a month or so. Besides, he assumed that if you weren’t pretty hard-nosed, those Hollywood types would walk all over you. And after a couple of looks into Carly’s big brown eyes, he figured she was about as tough as a marshmallow.

“What if I stuck around for a while?” he suggested. “As a working partner. That would get you through this movie and let you look for someone to hire.”