“No, I have it in perfect position.”

“I’m not going in the woods with you unless I see it.”

After her morning from hell, seeing him squirm made River finally laugh. “You’re actually scared of me. You? Of me?”

His beard twitched. “I’m not one to discount a woman’s ability to kick my butt. Not with a sister who’s done so more times than I can count.”

River tried to imagine what a female version of this man would look like. “Your family tree frightens me.”

“It frightens me too, ma’am. About that earpiece…”

He had to be ma’aming her on purpose because otherwise, he was the densest person on the planet. Rolling her eyes, River pulled her carefully placed headset out of the scarf and waggled it at him. “See?”

Warm, brown eyes looked at her, not the blacktop in front of them. And it didn’t matter if they were the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen on a man, River wasn’t about to die on the side of the road because he drove them both into a tree.

“Focus, big guy. Eyes on the road. Hands at ten and two.”

Exhaling a low chuckle, he did as he was told. For a moment. “You’re not shy, are you?”

“Why would I be? And turn right.”

He turned right, although not with as much enthusiasm as she would have hoped.

“You could have made me ride in the truck bed,” she said, unable to keep from teasing him. River waggled her fingers. “I can’t get you if I’m back there.”

“It’s still a possibility,” he muttered.

Bumping along the rough gravel road, River slumped back in her seat. A headache was forming between her temples, and it wasn’t the first one she’d had since coming to Moose Springs. She could only imagine how exasperated her film crew was with their lack of progress today. This was the first time River had been behind the camera too, not only in front of it, and she was so frustrated, she couldn’t see straight.

Without the experience to pad her résumé, no one had wanted to take a chance on her directing/producing abilities. So when her agent had passed along that the Alaskan Tourism Board—a nonprofit organization working hand in hand with the Alaskan state government—was looking to have a documentary made about the tiny town of Moose Springs, River had jumped at the chance. She’d fought hard to get this job, and she’d called in every favor she had to get two of the best crew members in the industry to help her make this a documentary that knocked everyone’s socks off.

The only problem? Moose Springs was about as welcoming to them as a grizzly bear with a face full of porcupine needles.

Small town hospitality her ass.

They were on a razor-thin budget, and River had yet to film anything in town legally. None of the permits she’d applied for had been emailed to them as promised by the city website, and they couldn’t film in town without permits or permission from each local business owner. No one had agreed.

“Are you okay?”

River looked over at the man taking up the driver’s side. Just when she thought she was immune to the male form—too many years with attractive costars of the opposite sex—a flannel-wrapped hottie like him dropped into her lap. Not that he was wearing flannel, but River would bet money his closet was full of the stuff. The fact that he was driving with one massive shoulder wedged against the window, like he was ready to bail out of the moving vehicle if she looked at him wrong, made her fight down a laugh.

It was possible River hadn’t made the best first impression on him.

“I’m fine. Turn left over there.”

Her crew was waiting for her when they crested the hill. They’d found a perfect location to shoot from, their rental SUV wedged dangerously close to a drop-off, leaving the road mostly free from vehicular hazards. Still, a few hard looks had been sent their way by locals forced to edge around their car as they passed on the tight winding road.

The man driving her was no different. With a wordless growl of annoyance, he slowed to a crawl and hit his hazard lights.

“They need to move,” he told her in that low, rumbling voice. “A school bus will be coming through soon.”

“It’s impossible to find a good place to park around here.”

“That’s because it’s not supposed to be for people parking. It’s for people driving.”

“It’ll take more than a few growls to run us off,” River replied as he pulled in behind the SUV.

With a snort, he killed the engine and got out of the truck. “I’ve got a chain and the number to a tow truck if that helps,” he said before closing the door.

River followed suit, then she looked at the stranger who had driven her to her crew. River was average height, so she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. Yes, the man was huge, but no, he didn’t intimidate her. Very little intimidated her. Growing up in the country might not have prepared her for surviving Los Angeles, but surviving Los Angeles had prepared her to survive anything.

Lean hard muscles from hiking and rock wall climbing defined her natural curves, and she hadn’t felt so healthy and strong since leaving Wyoming—nineteen and naive. Who knew ten years was enough time to make it in Hollywood and then start a downward slide into ambiguity, threatening to lose it all? She refused to age out gracefully.

Screw that. If they were done with her, River was going out with a scream of defiance, not a whimper of defeat.

“Are you kidding me?” Jessie, her director of photography and coproducer, stomped over to her, sounding as disgusted as River felt. “All of these shots are ruined.”

“I know, I know. It’s not like I was flagging them down, Jessie.”

“Well, you could’ve waved them past.” Jessie, being the odd man out of their group of three, was one of few in the male-dominated industry who was more than happy to share a producer’s spot with a woman. He was also a grumpy ninety-year-old woman stuck in a tightly muscled thirtysomething’s body.

Being nagged by Jessie took up the bulk of River’s days.

“Actually, I couldn’t. Every single person was determined to convince me I needed help. This is what you get. We’re filming somewhere people are nice. Nice people make sure someone isn’t stuck on the side of the road. I told you this was a bad idea.”

“It would have been a great idea if you’d—”

“What? Kicked their tires and told them to scoot along?”

Realizing she was twanging, River took a deep breath, then another. After years of schooling away her natural accent, she rarely heard her redneck mountain roots in her voice anymore.