Page 63 of A Cameo for a Cowgirl

He coughed. “Actually, I understand that she’s not really sick. Apparently Harrison talked to her and convinced her to make a complaint about domestic violence.”

Her breath hitched. “Poor Brenda.” And good on Harrison. Although how had he recognized that?

“Yeah, we’re doing what we can to support her. But in the meantime, we need someone to take her spot who can do it in a hurry. And, well, we’ve all seen your amazing riding skills, so we wondered if you might be interested.”

“Me?” Was he serious? “I’m not a stunt woman.”

“But you can ride a horse. And that’s all we require. We just need a woman riding a horse along the ridge and she has an accident and she gets rescued by our hero.”

Of course she did. She rolled her eyes internally. It was always the woman needing rescuing. Never the man.

Maybe something of that showed on her face because Mal’s head tilted. “Is something wrong? If you’re worried about what’s involved we’re only talking riding a horse, so there’s no real risk of injury. Not for someone of your experience. You don’t have to do it if you don’t wish to. It just means that we’ll need to reschedule how we do things.”

“No, it’s not that.” She drew in a breath. “It’s just the helpless female needing rescuing by a man that I’m not a fan of. It’s certainly not been my experience.” Try the other way around.

Mal’s eyes widened like she was suddenly speaking Japanese.

She hurried to add, “I don’t mean to sound disparaging, because I know people have different strengths and weaknesses. I just think it’d be good to see women having their strengths recognized too, that they’d be considered equal to a man and not feeble or weak.”

His brow lowered, his gaze thoughtful. “I know you’re tough, but I heard rumors from some of the cast that Harrison once saved you from a snake.”

“It was non-venomous, so I didn’t really need rescuing.”

“Ah.” He frowned, his fingers tapping the table between them. “Would you prefer not to work with Harrison, is that it?”

“No.” The thought of potentially working with him gave shivers of both dread and anticipation. She hadn’t seen him now in what felt like forever. How was he doing? Was he growing in faith? How had he known about Brenda’s domestic strife? She forced herself to focus on Mal’s question. “I guess I just feel that it’d be more interesting if the man and woman saved someone together. Or she saved him,” she dared.

He chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’re wanting to write our scripts now?”

“No, of course not. But it would be nice to see women being presented in a way that’s not reinforcing stereotypes of women being weak.”

Mal frowned, and when he spoke his voice was stiff. “I didn’t think our show did that.”

She winced. She really needed to work on cultivating graciousness. “I’m sorry, Mal. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. You know I’m a big fan of this show.” She gave an apologetic smile. “I guess I’m just a little amazed at being asked to do this.”

“Well, never mind. I can see that you have strong opinions about this. We’ll just re-organize our shooting schedule and not cause you to compromise your values.”

Whoa. Someone was offended. “Mal, no, I’m happy to do it. I just meant—”

“I’m sorry for wasting your time today.”

“But—”

“It’s fine, Cassie. “

Her heart tensed as she exited the room. It clearly wasn’t fine.

* * *

Harrison glanced around the dining area where an unscheduled production meeting had been called after the midday meal. Most of the senior cast and crew were there, along with one of the lead writers. Jerry was visiting the set again and seemed a nice enough guy. Ainsley had said Mal liked Jerry to touch base occasionally with the actors to get feedback on how things were going, especially given the latest ratings had just come in. Harrison had also heard rumors there might be questions about the future of some of the actors. Not himself obviously, because his work hadn’t screened yet, but some of those others who might not be gelling with the audience in the way the producers wanted. So this meeting could prove quite interesting.

Mal got up and knocked on the table several times to get people’s attention. “Thank you everyone for gathering together at short notice. I figured it’s easier to explain now that we’re all together. You all know Jerry, right?”

Harrison nodded as Mal looked his way.

“As you’re probably aware, the recent ratings for our final season have just come in and Jerry is here to help us as we try to iron out a few issues.”

The tension around the room ratcheted up. Nobody wanted to think a cast member’s role was on the line, but such was the nature of the business. And it was a business, as a show’s popularity had a direct impact on the kinds of sponsors and advertising dollars involved. Anything that potentially affected a show’s ability to bring in the dollars and affect the network’s bottom line would be cut. It was why actors risked losing their roles if they were perceived as immoral. A wholesome family-friendly show like As The Heart Draws couldn’t risk a whiff of suspicion and lose popularity and ratings. Similarly, if the audience didn’t connect with a character, they might end up being sent away, or worse, killed off, never to return. His lips twisted. There was no way to come back from a grave—although it had happened a few times in various daytime soaps.

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