“What’s your mom’s address?” Chance waved Kim close.
“Why?”
“I’m going to hire someone to go take care of it.”
“No.”
“It’s part of the expense of making you come, Madelyn.” Guilt glinted in his eyes.
Madelyn leveled an irritated look at him. “My mom will figure it out.”
“Just let him do this,” Kim said, sounding bored, but she had her tablet out, ready to write down the address. “This kind of thing makes him feel good.”
“Madelyn!” her mom said, sounding even more freaked out. If Madelyn didn’t take care of this now, she might as well kiss the article goodbye and be on her way back to California to wash up several-hour-old vomit. Pretty much a metaphor for how her entire life was going.
“I can fix this,” she insisted to the duo.
“Who are you talking to?” her mom asked.
Madelyn turned her back to Chance and lowered her voice. “Chance Risk. I’m supposed to be interviewing him.”
“I heard him say he was going to get someone to help.”
Madelyn let out a growl of frustration. “Mom. Seriously. Take care of this. You don’t need him to fix this for you.”
“I want to talk to him,” her mom said stubbornly.
“Fine,” she said through her teeth, and thrust the phone at Chance.
Chance looked at her questioningly but took the phone. He listened for a moment and then said, “We’re going to hire someone to come clean it up, okay?”
He relayed the address to Kim before handing the phone back to Madelyn. Her mom was never going to change, and even though it rankled that Chance had stepped in to fix this for her without talking to her first, she knew she should be grateful for Oliver’s sake.
“Can I talk to Oliver?” Madelyn asked.
While her mom walked with the phone and gushed about how wonderful Chance was, Madelyn mouthed a reluctant “thank you” to Chance, who still had his eyebrows drawn down in concern.
“Hi, Mommy.” Oliver’s little voice came on the line.
“Hi, sweetie. Grandma said you aren’t feeling good.”
“I feel good now!” he said, energy infused in his voice. “My tummy hurt really bad, but then I threw up and I feel better.”
“No more junk, okay? If Grandma gives it to you, tell her no. You need your fruits and veggies.”
“I like junk,” he said with a giggle. It had only been a day since she’d seen him—they’d been separated longer than that when Jason took him on a road trip a few months ago—but she still missed him like crazy. “Just kidding. I’ll eat my veggies.”
There was her serious, obedient boy. “Love you. Be a good boy for Grandma.”
“I will.” They hung up.
“So things haven’t changed much with your mom?” Chance asked quietly.
She wished she could say they had, but he’d just seen the proof. “She’s been married a couple of times in the last eight years and always manages to figure things out while she’s married, but when the marriage ends …”
“She’s back to needing you.” He cracked her knuckles, a nervous habit she remembered from before. “I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes,” he said questioningly, like he didn’t quite know what he should be apologizing for.
“Graham.” She rubbed her temples. “Chance. I’m capable of solving problems. I’ve been doing it without you for years.”
His eyebrows drew together, confused. “I know.”
“I don’t mind that she needs me.” Even if Madelyn wished it wasn’t quite so much.
“Okay,” Chance said, clearly not understanding. He never had. He reached out as if to take her hand, but their guide clapped to get everyone’s attention.
“I think we’re ready to head down,” the guide said.
Chance stared at Madelyn for another second, making her traitorous heart skip a beat, before turning around to face the group, a huge grin crossing his face. “Let’s do this.”
Madelyn stayed as far from the edge of the switchback as she could. She’d expected thousand-foot drops, but so far, she hadn’t had to look over the deep precipice of certain death. Still, she wasn’t taking any chances.
Not like Chance, who walked backwards while Rog filmed him talking about the history of the area.
“The Havasupai people have lived in the Grand Canyon for over eight hundred years,” he said, sounding like he was actually having a conversation. Madelyn froze whenever the camera swung in her direction. She couldn’t imagine being so at ease, like the lens was an old friend. Madelyn couldn’t get past the knowledge that if she did something dumb, it was recorded forever. Of course, her worry became a self-fulfilling prophecy and she actually became dumb every time the camera focused on her.
“Havasupai City is the capital of the Native American reservation. It is one of the most remote cities in the United States, and its only access point, other than the sky, is the trail we’re on,” Chance continued.
Madelyn kept to herself for the first half of the hike while the team raced down the trail in spurts, stopping to take pictures or do more filming. Rog had also brought a drone he used to get aerial film of Chance.
After a few hours of hiking, the sound of their breathing filled the spaces between them. Madelyn focused on placing one throbbing foot in front of the other, surprised it was so difficult to hike downhill. The fear of falling had abated, but her knees ached from the steady downhill climb at a pace that stretched her physical limits. Chance, Hannah, and Rog were more conditioned than her, but her pride, always one of her best (and worst) traits, helped her to mostly keep up.
“How are you doing back here?” Chance asked, coming even with her. He appeared as if he’d been out for a brisk morning walk, barely winded.
“Not bad for someone whose workout consists of waiting tables and chasing a five-year-old.”
“Five-year-olds never stop,” he said with a smile that revealed a row of white teeth. “Rog’s niece just turned five and reminds me of an active puppy.”
Madelyn laughed at the comparison. “Oliver isn’t quite as hyper. He’s more of a pensive kid.”
“Kind of like his mom, then.”
She smiled sideways at him. “Yeah, a little bit. Guess he didn’t stand a chance.”
“I don’t know. He could have taken after his dad.” He let the statement hang there like a question.
She didn’t take the bait to describe Jason. There were few things she could think of that would be more awkward than talking about one ex to another. Especially when she was starting to realize how much Jason and Chance had in common—at least when it came to adventures. Chance didn’t press, and they found themselves walking in comfortable silence for several switchbacks.
“So, how did you get started with Take a Chance?” she asked.
There was that stomach-flipping grin again. “You want my origin story?”
“Yeah. You and Rog met behind the scenes of a movie you were both working on, but how did you go from being coworkers to starting a MyChannel show?”
He hooked his hands into the straps of his daypack and stared ahead of them. Madelyn wished she could capture this moment—the smile on his face, the distance in his eyes as if he were seeing into the past. He radiated calmness, peace, and an absolute love of nature and his job. She envied that.
“Let’s stop for lunch,” he said. She followed him to a shady spot a few hundred feet ahead on the trail, and they sat and pulled their food from their backpacks. She closed her eyes with relief when she sat. Her stomach growled, and she dusted off her apple.
“You feeling okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“If you’re sure.” He waited for her nod, and then continued. “Like you’ve already heard, I met Rog on the set of Shoot to Kill. He was an intern and I was doing stunts. We became friends, and one night we were talking about all the things we hated and loved about the film industry. And why we kept being d
rawn back into it again and again. We had the same conversation probably a thousand times over the next year while we worked together on the set of Danger Dives, which was the first time I swam with sharks.”
“What’s it like?” Madelyn asked.
He held out his bag of trail mix and she took a handful. “Intense. The sharks we use are mostly docile and well-fed, but in the end, they’re powerful creatures and you never know if something is going to backfire.”
“But you do it anyway?” She couldn’t wrap her mind around taking that kind of risk.
“Hard to believe, right?” He nudged her shoulder lightly with his, sending warmth cascading down her side. “Anyway, one night Rog and I grabbed dinner and fell back into griping about the industry, and dreaming about what we could do if there were no limits. I was still on such a high from swimming with sharks, all I could think was, ‘I want to do this.’”
“Swim with sharks?”
“Yes. And have other adventures. I wanted to live life.” His passion was evident in every word. “I was doing a job because I needed the money and I thought I could get my foot in the door with it, but I’d never wanted to be a stunt guy. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Rog and I could continue to complain about how he never got to do anything artistic with his filming and how I was the faceless person behind the stunts.
“But that night we asked ourselves: What if we could do the things we love? What if we started a MyChannel station where we had adventures, met interesting people, tried new things, and experienced what this world has to offer? Rog would film and do initial edits and I would do the final cuts and upload it.”
It all sounded so risky, but incredible. “What was your first episode?”
“We didn’t have a ton of money to work with, so I reached out to the marina we used in Danger Dives to see if we could do a swimming-with-sharks episode. It was short—only about five minutes long—and was supposed to focus on me in the shark tank for a few minutes, and then I’d talk about it afterward. But one of the sharks was in a nasty mood.”
“Wait! I saw that one!” She’d seen all of his episodes, but he had several where he swam with sharks. It had become his signature stunt. “It grabbed your flipper and ripped it off of you. It’s my son’s favorite episode.” She’d seen bits and pieces of it several times but had never sat down and watched the whole thing until that weekend.
He gave her a sardonic smile. “My friend got me out before it injured me worse than twisting my ankle, but my heart was pounding so hard, I think you could hear it through the mic if you listen closely enough.”
“That’s crazy. So you uploaded it, and your channel took off?”
“Yep. First video went viral. It was more than we’d expected. We’d hoped to eventually monetize our channel, but it was like diving into the deep end when we both barely knew how to swim. We quit our jobs and worked full-time to put out a new episode every week.”
“And your show just continued to grow,” she said for him.
“It did. It grew faster than either of us anticipated. That’s when I knew I needed more help, and I hired Kim. She handles all of our public relations and scheduling. Basically, anything that’s not actually being out here on the trip, she takes care of it.”
“I could use a Kim in my life.”
“Everyone could. She’s amazing.”
“And she’s Evan Corrigan’s daughter, right?”
“She is,” he said cautiously. “That’s not a secret. But she doesn’t want to be mentioned in this article at all, other than her first name. She’s had too much bad press.”
“I wasn’t planning on shedding any negative light on her. This is a spotlight on you.”
“I understand. But leave her out of it, or the deal is off.”
She held up both hands, and pretended that she didn’t feel hurt at his proclamation. Of course he didn’t trust her. Why would he? After what she’d done eight years ago, it was a miracle he was even talking to her now, much less letting her write something about him. “I won’t say a word about her at all.”
When he didn’t respond right away, she nudged him gently. “I’m sending you the article for review, remember?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck before looking at her. “She’s like my family. They all are. That’s partly why I haven’t spoken to any reporters until now.”
“Why are you making the exception now?”
“Pass,” he said.
“What?”
He gave her a half-smile. “I’m abstaining from answering. And it’s my turn to ask a question now, anyway.”
“Wait. You didn’t tell me about how Hannah joined your group.”
He gave her a knowing look. “I know you’re stalling, but I’ll answer anyway. We’d been doing this for about a year and knew we needed to expand into a website and have an even more professional presentation, which meant hiring a photographer. Hannah had just graduated from college, and her photographs were fresh, off the beaten path. The fact she’s my cousin was just a bonus.”
A vague memory nipped at Madelyn of a teenage girl meeting them for lunch. “I remember Hannah! She’s so grown-up now!” She felt dumb recalling the unexpected flares of jealousy the night before at their closeness.
“She’s incredibly talented. Kim hired out the website design, but every single picture you see on there is from Hannah.”
“Her panoramic of Paris is gorgeous.”
Chance looked at her appreciatively. “You’ve been to the website.”
“Of course.” Did he think she was winging it? Probably. She had to keep reminding herself they didn’t know each other anymore. “I do my research.”
“Good,” he said. “The Paris pictures are among my favorites.”
“Do you anticipate hiring anyone else? I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d love to work with you.” And she’d love to be the one to announce the job opening. That would drum up some clicks for sure.
“Not right now,” he said, dashing her hopes. “We want to keep it small.”
“Hey, Chance!” Rog called out from ahead. “We’re getting ready to cross a vista. Let’s do some more video.”
“Duty calls.” Chance stood and held out his hands to help her up. Her entire body groaned with the movement. “But don’t think I forgot that you owe me the answers to a bunch of questions.” He pointed at her and her heart skipped a beat as he jogged off to be filmed by Rog and Hannah.
Their walk continued for several more hours, but between the filming and photography, Madelyn didn’t have any more alone time to talk with Chance. She learned a lot by observing how he worked with Rog and Hannah. It was no wonder they’d all become like family. Chance was the face of Take a Chance, but he clearly respected their ideas and deferred to them several times. Maybe that’s part of what made Take a Chance so successful—he harvested their strengths and made it into something brilliant.
Madelyn had watched other travel shows to see how they measured up to Chance’s, and none of them could compare in quality of production. Nor were their hosts as engaging.
A few of her research articles had hinted at the decline in interest in Take a Chance, none venturing guesses as to why and how they’d lost one of their biggest sponsors a few weeks ago, a subject Madelyn was hesitant to broach with Chance, but would be necessary to mention in her article.
“We’re getting close!” Hannah called back to Madelyn. It had been hours. Seven hours, to be exact. Her heel ached with blisters that rubbed deeper with every step. All she wanted was a hot tub and a nice soft mattress, both things she very much doubted she’d get at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
“Yes!” Chance jumped up and raced toward Madelyn, his grin wider than she’d seen it. “Come on. You’re going to love this.”
She followed him, his energy contagious. They rounded a corner, and Madelyn stopped in her tracks, placing a hand over her mouth in surprise.
“What do you think?” Chance asked,
unable to hold back his excitement. “Unexpected, right?”
She pulled her glasses from her pack and slipped them on, needing to see every detail.
A full, gorgeous waterfall cascaded down from a red rock ledge into a pool of crystal clear water. The setting sun gave everything the appearance of being kissed with gold. It was more than unexpected. It was completely stunning.
“Was it worth the hike?” Chance asked teasingly.
“I wouldn’t have believed this existed without seeing it myself. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was totally worth it.”
He laughed at this, tempting her to join in, her heart feeling lighter than it had in a long time.
Chapter Eleven
Chance often received emails with suggestions of places he should go, but Havasupai was one that had intrigued him the most. An oasis in the middle of the Grand Canyon. In Arizona, no less. It wasn’t just a beautiful place compared to other sites in Arizona. It was a paradise that made you feel like you’d been transported into a new world. Even seeing pictures hadn’t done it justice.
“They were right,” he said.
“Who?” Madelyn stood beside him, her face pink with exertion and streaked with sweat and dust. She swiped her hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear, and Chance wished he could come closer, do it for her. But she wouldn’t want that, and he shouldn’t want that either. He turned his mind back to her question.
“The viewers who told me this place was incredible.”
She turned toward him, her eyes wide and surprised behind the black, taped-together frames. “You read your emails?”
He held out a hand and moved it back and forth. “I used to. Kim reads them and forwards me the ones worth reading. I get too many, and some of them started to get so off-the-wall.”
“Off-the-wall?”
“Mean. Or weird. Or borderline scary.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. Kim does a good job of sifting out the bad.”
“She seems great. It’s too bad she isn’t here to see this.”
He agreed. He’d stopped trying to convince Kim to come a long time ago. She was vehemently against going on his adventures, but he knew it wasn’t because of some hidden fear of heights or physical exertion. She liked being their anchor, and she did a great job of it. But Chance wasn’t going to tell that to Madelyn and risk it getting published in an article.
Take a Chance on Me_A My Heart Channel Romance Page 7
