CHAPTER ONE
Three Years Later
Even after changing out of the leather costume, I still feel a little like Vanessa. The leggings and hoodie are mine, but the way I’ve been holding my shoulders back and my head high for the last several hours? That’s all her.
“Sorry, love,” Vanessa says, bustling out of the studio warehouse we’ve been filming in. She tosses her huge purse onto the bench seat next to me, then slides into the golf cart. “I got caught up talking to the makeup girl— she’s a bit of a fan.” She smiles as I put the cart into drive, pulling out her phone and typing rapidly. Her peppy British accent gives no hint that she’s been working since dawn.
“These look great,” she adds, zooming in on a photo. “You absolutely smashed it.” She grins at me. “Thank god our arses are still so similar.”
A laugh bubbles out of me.
“Thank you again for coming today,” she says, setting her phone down.
“You’re a real lifesaver.” I smile tightly. Today was just a one- time thing. Filling in for Vanessa’s usual stand- in for a jewelry brand deal photo shoot that she absolutely could not miss. It was much easier than being her stunt double, like I used to do. All I had to do was drive into Burbank and stand in an uncomfortably tight outfit, keeping still while the cameras were on me.
Tomorrow, I’ll be back to teaching kids how to ride horses at my dad’s farm: fewer cameras, more manure.
“Did you have fun?” Vanessa asks. The question sounds simple, but it trips me up, sending my brain into overdrive. Did I have fun today? It was a glimpse into a life I’ve left behind, but I left it behind for a reason.
“I guess?” I say, but it sounds more like a question.
“I know this was a little below your pay grade,” she says. “Not quite like stunts.”
“Well,” I hedge, “you know I don’t do stunts anymore, so there’s no use comparing. It was certainly more glamorous than my usual job these days.”
She shrugs like the little fact of my radical career change doesn’t matter in the slightest. “Do you ever miss it?” she asks wistfully. “The— the thrill, the rush, or whatever it is you adrenaline junkies are always chasing?”
A studio tour cart crosses the street in front of us, so I slow to a stop.
The honest answer is that I do miss it. I miss it with every fiber of my being, like an innate biological pull that I’ll never be able to claw free of. I miss it like it’s gravity and I’m constantly swimming upward. But I try not to dwell on it. I focus on the present, not the past.
This is something I shouldn’t admit to Vanessa, but there’s no point lying to her. She can always see through me. We may not work together anymore, but she’s remained a fast friend, holding on to me so tightly I couldn’t get away even if I wanted to.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat against the unexpected emotion clogging it. “I do miss it. Sometimes.”
There was a moment today while filming when the cameras were on me and the photo shoot director asked me to leap off a three- foot block, arms out to the sides. I clambered up, then leapt down, imagining the slow- motion effect that will be added in postproduction. In that millisecond between jumping and landing, my stomach tensed in anticipation of flying, forgetting that these days, my feet are rarely more than a few feet off the ground. But the tug in my stomach, the lightness in my chest— it was something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wanted to fly. I wanted to fall.
I shake my head. This whole thing was a mistake. I thought I could waltz in here, look pretty for a few hours, and then go back to my life. I thought it wouldn’t affect me. But I was so wrong it hurts.
We turn in the direction of the parking lot where I left my car, passing another tour cart in the process. Vanessa waves, causing one woman to fall right out as she tries to take a photo. I hit the gas, and Vanessa cranes her neck as we speed away.
“I think she’s okay,” she says anxiously.
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
Vanessa takes a big breath and turns toward me in her seat. “The thing is, Mave,” she says, then pauses. Vanessa Watkins hardly ever pauses. Not without good reason. Or rather, reasons I don’t usually like.
“Vanessa,” I murmur, sensing that a request is coming. “Don’t— ”
“I need you to come back for the End of the Earth sequel,” she says in a rush.
I whip my head around to face her, then quickly turn back to the street in front of us. I slam on the brakes, pulling sharply to the side of the road. The golf cart screeches to a halt beside one of the hundreds of nondescript windowless warehouses filling the studio lot.
“Sequel?” I say, accidentally spitting on her. She takes off her glasses, wiping them dramatically on the front of her shirt before replacing them on her nose.
There can’t be an EOE sequel. The first movie ended in such a final, gut- wrenching way. Why would they dredge it all up again? “How can there even be a sequel? Cleo’s dead . . . right?”
Vanessa wiggles her eyebrows at me, and I realize I’ve showed my hand too much. I should’ve feigned disinterest. Shrugged it off. Said I had other commitments. “
She’s a vampire, Mave,” Vanessa says in a low voice, glancing around like she’s worried someone will overhear.
“Seemed pretty dead to me,” I harrumph.
“You haven’t even watched the first film all the way through,” she says indignantly. “Don’t lie,” she adds, holding up her finger between us. “I know you haven’t.”
I bite my tongue, because she’s right. I watched it in parts as we filmed, but once it was done, once the world grabbed on to the story with both hands and it seemed like everyone and their mother went as cowboy vampires for Halloween— then, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. To revisit the best and worst moments of my life, the stunts that pushed me to my limits, made me feel more alive than ever, then nearly broke me.
I couldn’t bring myself to witness the epic love story of vampire Cleo and her wayward human lover, Cash, not when it felt like such a parallel to the whirlwind romance I’d been caught up in while filming. At least until the end, when it all fell apart. Watching the movie from my dad’s couch while the others attended a red carpet premiere would have caused way too much self- pity for my liking.
End of the Earth was supposed to catapult our careers to new heights. In Vanessa’s case, it did. The roles got bigger, the paychecks astronomically larger, and going public with her relationship with Kerwin kept her in the headlines for months. But for me, it was the beginning of the end. Just when I had a taste of the big leagues, I fucked it all up. And until today, I’ve done my best not to look back.
I’m quiet for a few seconds, not considering her demand, but . . . not not considering it. She’s still talking, but only about half of it makes its way into my brain.
“I’m going to be an executive producer— this is my first time, Mave. Kerwin’s an EP too,” she adds.
It’s yet another thing that stings. While my own romance on the EOE set went up in flames, Vanessa and Kerwin became the perfect Hollywood couple. According to online “Kerwessa” fandoms, Kerwin texts Vanessa a line of poetry every night they’re apart while filming separate projects. I haven’t asked her if this is true.
“But he has more experience as a producer,” Vanessa continues. “I just need it to go well. I can’t be worrying about who’s doing my stunts.”
I fiddle with the keys of the golf cart dangling from the ignition. I should’ve insisted that we drive from the parking lot to the filming studio in my car. It may have a broken fender but we’d already be back by now, not stuck in conversational purgatory in a vehicle that can’t go more than ten miles per hour. “Can’t you get your new girl to do it?” I ask, a little too sharply.
Vanessa doesn’t rise to the bait.
“Simone’s great with hand- to- hand and driving, but she’s shit on a horse,” she says matter- of- factly. “And there won’t be any car chases in the sequel, much to Kerwin’s disappointment.”
In spite of myself, I’m a little affronted that she actually considered Simone for the part.
She reaches out and takes my hand. “Love, you used to be the best in the business for Western and horse stunts. That doesn’t just go away overnight.”
I swallow hard. “Does it go away after three years?” I ask quietly. “Because that’s how long it’s been. I’m out of practice, I’m out of shape, I’m— ”
“The hardest-working person in the world,” Vanessa finishes for me.
My chest warms. In a business often propped up on facades and phony personalities, Vanessa’s earnest attitude has always been a breath of fresh air. “
You teach those little children seven days a week, you work your arse off for your dad and he doesn’t even pay you. You train like a bloody doomsday prepper— don’t deny it, I know those biceps don’t come from mucking out horse poo.”
I try to cut in. “Actually, I do get paid, but— ”
“You ride horses every day, don’t you?” she says, holding out her hands like it’s obvious. “How different can this really be?”
“It’s very different.” Riding around a fenced- in arena and teaching four- year- olds to trot on ponies is nothing like galloping alongside a moving train or doing complex wirework. Comparing them is like comparing a remote- controlled toy plane to a fighter jet.
She waves this off. “You’ll be fine,” she assures me. “It’s just like riding a bike, right?”
If only.
“Except the bike has brains and may or may not decide to eat you,” she adds.
“Being eaten by a horse isn’t high on my list of fears,” I say dryly.
“Well, good then,” she says. “Besides, you’re Mavis fucking Stilton. Anyone who doubts you is a fool. Including yourself.”
She’s not wrong, though my last name echoes in my ears. Because before I was tapped to work with Vanessa, I wasn’t Mavis. I was a Stilton. The daughter of a boundary- pushing, legendary stunt double I got to know mostly through her movies after she died. The sister of the stunt doubles of all the famous Chrises. It made me work ten times harder, because I wanted to earn a name for myself. I grew up watching my mother vault over fences and scale walls and crash cars at a hundred miles an hour. How could I not want to be exactly like her?
It’s this declaration, more than anything else, that makes me pause, actually consider Vanessa’s offer.
When I left stunts behind three years ago, I did my best not to look back. With my brothers, it was still part of my orbit, talk of rigging and blood squibs as common at family dinners as the weather. But in some private, hidden part of myself, I missed it. Of course I missed it— miss it. Stunts were my entire life for so long, and then I ripped it all away in one fell swoop. I ride almost every day, teach lessons nearly as often, but it’s not the same. Nothing could ever be the same as the rush of falling from a hundred feet in the air.
“So what do you say?” Vanessa asks in a small voice.
“This could be the comeback you’ve been waiting for.”
I glance up at her. “I didn’t know I’ve been waiting for a comeback.”
She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t think you were going to leave it behind forever, did you?”
That’s exactly what I thought, but it seems silly to tell her that when she clearly knows me better than I know myself. It’s the danger of being best friends with someone who’s like a mirror of you. A British, infinitely more glamorous, glasses- wearing mirror. Or maybe this is what it would’ve been like to have a sister: the constant push and pull of affection and affront. With two older brothers, I guess I’ll never know.
Vanessa tilts her head as she studies me, like she’s looking for more than my reaction in my face. Like she just caught a flicker of something that had been missing.
An internet search of Vanessa brings up articles about her shiny hair and fourteen-step skincare routine. A search for my name returns very different results. Headlines like “Mavis Stilton, stunt double to Vanessa Watkins, sustained life- threatening injuries but is expected to make a full recovery. Thankfully, the star herself was not harmed in the accident.” A bitter reminder that my job was to be expendable, because Vanessa wasn’t.
“Please say yes,” she breathes. “I would’ve told you sooner, but I . . . I was worried you wouldn’t say yes.”
I frown. Three years ago, I always said yes. That old instinct rears up again, the lurch in my chest screaming that this could be my only opportunity to get back in the game. I doubt the instinct will ever go away. It’s the benefit— or maybe the curse— of having come of age in a male- dominated industry. I’m always hyperaware of just how far I’d have to climb to get to the top, painfully conscious of how much harder it will be if I start over from the bottom.
But it’s not as simple as just saying yes. For the past three years, I’ve been struggling to keep my head above water, throwing myself into teaching and helping out my dad to avoid facing the gaping hole in my life where my work used to be.
I open my mouth to say no, because that’s the only real answer I can give, right? But what comes out is, “What if I screw up . . . again?”
Her face softens instantly, and she places her hand on my arm. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Mave.”
I shrug. “Yeah, it was. At least a little.” I start the golf cart up again and pull out onto the road, heading for the parking lot near the main entrance.
“Well, I need you, Mave,” she says. “I don’t ask for a lot, but I’m asking for this. I need this film to go well, and I don’t care if you think you’re replaceable or whatever. You’re not.”
It stings, because as much as our relationship often feels lopsided (me, driving her to the dentist so she doesn’t embarrass her usual chauffeur if she’s groggy from anesthesia; me, picking up middle- of- the- night phone calls when she has a crisis about a project), when it comes to bigger things, it’s weighted in the opposite direction. She had groceries delivered to my dad’s house after my accident, poured money into the repairs he needed on the barn, called to check on me multiple times a day.
I hit the gas along a bright stretch of road, the parking lot in sight just ahead.
“There’s just one thing . . .” Vanessa trails off, and my brain fills in the gaps in her sentence with alarming speed, going right to the place I’ve so far managed to avoid. The burning question is who Kerwin’s stunt double will be, because we both know he’s too concerned with self- preservation to attempt his own stunts. And for a project of this caliber, there’s only one person Kerwin would choose.
Vanessa plays with a lock of her shiny hair. “So what do you say, love— AHHHHHH!”
My eyes dart up across the road as a shape appears in front of the golf cart. I slam on the brakes, but it’s not fast enough. Something thuds over the top of the golf cart and lands behind me as I screech to a halt. I throw the cart in park and leap out. There’s a body sprawled on the ground behind the golf cart, groaning. The brown hair and physique and expensive jeans all jump out at me.
“Oh my god, Kerwin?” I cry, sprinting forward as Vanessa drops to the floor of the golf cart in full bomb- threat position. If I just killed Kerwin McCaffrey . . .
But it’s not Kerwin McCaffrey. This man is wearing a backward baseball cap and formfitting light- wash jeans. The kind that fit him too well to be a casual off- the- rack choice. He groans and raises himself up on an elbow, then turns his head to look at me. My stomach bottoms out as his warm brown eyes meet mine.
There’s barely a scratch on him, except a small smudge of dirt on his chin. Not after being thrown over the top of a golf cart and dumped on the other side like a pool noodle. But I don’t know why I’m surprised.
Fox Wildwood could always take a hit better than me.
Copyright © 2026 by Isabelle Engel