Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters #2)

A salt-air breeze filtered in through the cracked bus window. While it jolted her with nostalgia, kissing her skin with welcome wherever it touched, it also told Hannah they were really close to Westport. If she wanted to make the slightest step toward progress, she needed to act now.

Hannah rolled her shoulders back and shoved the baseball cap into her tote bag, ignoring the curious looks from cast and crew as she picked her way up to the front of the bus. Her pulse ticked in the base of her neck, moisture fleeing from her mouth. When she drew even with Sergei and Brinley, they smiled expectantly. Kindly. As in, Kindly explain why you’re interrupting our conversation.

Not for the first time, she wondered if Brinley and Sergei were secretly seeing each other, but the gap of pleather seat between them—and the rock on Brinley’s finger from someone else—spoke to them being just friends.

Fact was, the two of them had to work closely. Coordinating music for movies was an intricate process, the score often crafted in postproduction. But Storm Born had their own way of compiling the track list that would play beneath the dialogue or during montages. They created it while the filming process took place, relying heavily on the mood of the moment (read: Sergei’s whims). And they tended to use music that already existed and trimmed it down accordingly, rather than creating music to fit the film.

Hannah couldn’t dream of anything better than summing up a distinct moment with the right song. To help weave together the atmosphere. Music was the backbone of movies. Of everything. One line from a song could help Hannah define her own feelings, and the opportunity to put that passion to art was something she spent every day wanting.

Ask them. The bus is almost there.

“Um . . .”

Oh, good opener. A filler word.

Hannah dug deep for the girl who’d been brave enough to pitch Westport to a room full of producers and talent. She was starting to think her nostalgia for this place had spoken on her behalf. “Brinley. Sergei,” Hannah said, making herself look them both in the eyes. “I was wondering if—”

Of course the bus chose that moment to stop.

And of course Hannah was too busy adjusting her clothing and twisting her rings and generally fidgeting to catch hold of anything that might prevent her from sprawling sideways down the center of the row. She landed hard on her shoulder and hip, her temple connecting with the floor. A truly humiliating oof launched from her mouth, followed by the most deafening silence that had ever occurred on planet Earth.

No one moved. Hannah debated the merits of crawling under one of the seats until the world had the decency to end, but thoughts of hiding vanished when Sergei hopped across Brinley and stepped over Hannah’s legs, bending down to help her back to her feet.

“Hannah!” His eyes ran over her, top to bottom. “Are you okay?” Without waiting for an answer, Sergei directed an angry look toward the front of the bus where the driver sat watching them, unfazed. “Hey, man. How about making sure everyone is seated before hitting the brakes?”

Hannah didn’t have a chance to rightfully claim the blame, because Sergei was already ushering her off the bus while everyone stared openmouthed at the PA with the growing knot on her head. Yup, she could already feel it forming. Good God. She’d finally mustered up the courage to ask if she could observe the soundtrack process. Now she might as well just quit and start looking for positions as a sandwich-board operator.

Although, there were worse consequences to stupidity than having the dreamy director’s arm around her shoulders, helping her off the bus. This close, she could smell his aftershave, kind of an orangey clove scent. It was just like Sergei to pick something unique and unexpected. She looked up into his expressive face, at the black hair that met in the middle of his head in a subtle faux-hawk. His goatee was engineered to perfection.

If she wasn’t careful, she’d read too much into his concern. She’d start to wonder if maybe Sergei could learn to love an accident-prone supporting actress instead of a leading lady, after all?

Realizing she was staring, Hannah tore her wistful eyes off the man she’d been crushing on for two years—and saw Fox crossing the parking lot in their direction, his striking face a mask of alarm. “Hannah?”

Her mind made a scratchy humming sound, like the one a record makes in between songs. Probably because she’d communicated with this man every day for six—no, nearly seven—months now but never heard his voice. Perhaps because his identity had been whittled down to words on a screen, she’d forgotten that he commanded attention like a grand finale of fireworks in the night sky.

Without turning around, she knew every straight woman had her face pressed up against the windows of the bus, watching the maestro of feminine wetness cross the road, his dark blond hair blowing around in the wind, the lower half of his face covered in unruly, unshaped stubble, darker than the hair on his head.

With that pretty-boy face, he really should have been soft. Used to getting his way. Maybe, possibly even short. God, if you’re listening? But instead he looked like a troublemaker angel that got booted out of heaven, all tall and well-built and resilient and capable-looking. On top of everything else, he had to have the most dangerous job in the United States, the knowledge of fear and nature and consequences in his sea-blue eyes.

The relief of seeing Fox practically bowled her over, and she started to call out a greeting, until she realized the fisherman’s gravitational-pull eyes were homing in on Sergei, setting off a tectonic shift of plates in his cheeks.

“What happened to her?” Fox barked, bringing everything back to regular speed. Wait. When did her surroundings go into slow motion to begin with?

“I just fell on the bus,” Hannah explained, prodding her bumped head and wincing. Great, she’d split her skin slightly as well. “I’m fine.”

“Come on,” Fox said, still bird-dogging Sergei. “I’ll patch you up.”

She was about to raise a skeptical brow and ask to see his medical degree, but then she remembered a story Piper had told her. Fox had once given Brendan makeshift stitches for a bleeding forehead wound. All while keeping his balance during a hurricane.

Such was the life of a king crab fisherman.

Couldn’t he just be super short? Was that so much to ask?

“I’m fine,” she said, patting Sergei’s arm, letting him know she was okay to stand on her own. “Unless you have a cure for pride in your first-aid kit?”

Fox licked the seam of his lips, brows still drawn, and his attention slid back toward the director. “We’ll take a closer look when we get home. You have a bag I can carry or something?”

“I . . .” Sergei started, looking at Hannah as if there was something new about her and he wanted to figure out what it was. “I didn’t realize you were . . . so close to anyone in town.”

Close? To Fox? Seven months ago, she would have thought that a stretch. Now? It wasn’t exactly a lie. Lately, she’d been talking to him more often than Piper. “Well—”

Fox cut her off. “We should get that bump looked at, Freckles.”

“Freckles,” Sergei echoed, checking her nose for spots.

Was something afoot here?

Both men were inching toward her subtly, like she was the last slice of pizza.

“Um. My bag is in the luggage compartment of the bus.”

“I’ll get it,” they said at the same time.

Was her head wound releasing some kind of alpha pheromone?

Fox and Sergei sized each other up, clearly ready to argue about who was going to get her bag. The way her day was going, it would probably ensue in a tug-of-war, the zipper would break, and her underpants would rain down like confetti. “I’ll grab it,” Hannah said, before either one of them could speak, hotfooting it away from the masculinity maelstrom before it affected her brain.

She turned for the bus just as Brinley glided down the stairs, giving Fox a curious look that Hannah was amazed to see, thanks to the window’s reflection, he didn’t return. Those sea-blues were fastened on her bump, instead. Probably trying to decide which needle to use to mutilate her.