Chapter 3

After a couple cups of tea and some time sitting on the hearth in front of a stone fireplace with a crackling fire, David felt better. At least he was warm and dry. He stood at the window overlooking a beautiful snow-covered valley and watched the crew building a cabin in the bottom near a stand of evergreens. Because of the cloud cover daylight faded fast, so the workers hurried to finish anchoring a log before quitting for the day. The cabin would be the crux of the episode that they were scheduled to start filming in a few days. He was amazed at the speed with which they worked.

"Those guys build cabins like that all the time. They're pros," Ian told him. "They build 'em just like the pioneers, except they use power tools." He grinned.

"Pretty impressive work. I wasn't expecting them to build something that would last long after we're gone." David looked down into his empty cup, thinking that more tea would be good.

Without a prompt, Ian took his cup, retreated to the kitchen and returned with it filled. A tea ball stuffed with lavender steeped its home-grown goodness into the hot water. He'd never had anything like it before, and he silently hoped that he could take some home to Susan. She would love it. He yawned and realized that the three hour time difference was starting to catch up to him, not to mention the relaxing scent of the lavender. "Any idea on how long this snowfall is supposed to last?"

"The forecast is for snowshowers overnight, and by morning we should have a blanket of 2-3 inches of new cover. I think we already beat that, though."

David chuckled mirthlessly. "No kidding. Have you heard from any of the others?"

"Yeah, Rick's coming over tonight for dinner, and Jackie and Tony are planning on having dinner in town. Stella hasn't called me back yet. I think she's in the area, but I don't know for sure." He took a sip from his mug. "If she is, I think she's afraid to drive in this. Maybe you should get her a driver. Otherwise, either Leesa or I can pick her up."

"Nah, she's probably better off staying at the hotel until tomorrow. I wasn't planning on going over any business tonight. I basically just came out here to get my phone charged and see how the construction was going. Otherwise, I would have stayed at the hotel myself," he responded as he watched the big puffy flakes tumble from the lead gray sky. "I'd like to start some rehearsals tomorrow." He paused and glanced at Ian. "I hope you guys got the first pages of the script."

"Oh yeah, they came by FedEx yesterday, and I've been studying hard," he replied with a cocky grin.

"Oh, the FedEx guys can get through but normal guys like me..."

"It wasn't snowing yesterday. You shoulda been here. The sun was shining, it was in the 40s...a gorgeous day!"

"Figures."

"Man, I think you need something a little stiffer than that tea."

"Maybe later."

"But then I won't be able to let you drive, because if you can't make that curve sober..."

David couldn't help but laugh. "You've got a point. Whatcha got?"

While they waited for Rick to arrive, Ian took David out to meet the builders and he spent some time talking with them about how they constructed the cabin. He was a little concerned that they'd done it too well, because he had plans for the thing. Plans for its demise.

"Hey, um, how much of a charge do you think it would take to blow this thing up?" He finally built up the courage to ask.

" A charge? You want to pay us to blow it up?"

"No, explosives. How much would we need to reduce this thing to splinters?" The looks of horror on their faces were enough to tell him that he should have kept his mouth shut.

"You wanna destroy the cabin? Why?"

"Well...um...it's part of the show."

"The show."

"Yeah, haven't you guys ever watched Burned?"

One guy scratched his head as the others looked at each other with clueless expressions. "When's it on?"

"Thursday nights, on the American Network. On cable, or satellite, whatever you've got out here."

Heads bobbed as if they were one. "Oh, that explains it. Thursday nights are bowling nights, except when the league is over. And then we're watching the hunting and fishing shows and such. So nope, sorry, we've never seen it." The foreman, who introduced himself earlier as Buddy, added, "We all knew that Ian was some big actor, but we never thought he was the star of a TV show."

"One of the stars. It's an ensemble cast," Ian explained.

"An on...what?"

David shook his head. "Never mind. The point is, Burned is a show about a guy named Michael Westen. He used to be a spy, but then he got burned, meaning fired, and he's trying to get himself back in. In the meantime, he takes on these cases, and well, things usually get blown up or destroyed. It's just part of the fun."

The construction workers looked at David and Ian as if they were crazy. When the silence got too uncomfortable, Buddy replied, "Never heard of nobody blowing up stuff for fun. Around here, when things explode, they explode for a reason." He shrugged. "Okay boys, it's getting dark. Time to knock off. We'll be back to finish up the exterior tomorrow!"

"Thanks, fellas. You're doing a great job," David praised as the workers gathered up their tools, and headed away from the construction site. He didn't notice until then that they parked in the valley and left through a makeshift trail in the woods. What didn't escape his attention was that they all drove Jeeps and big four wheel drive trucks. Not one of them got stuck.

"Well, we better get back up to the house. Don't want you to freeze out here."

"I'm taking that piece of crap back to the rental agency tomorrow, first thing, and getting something more solid."

Ian slapped him on the back and grinned. "Now you're starting to think like a native!"