“We didn’t. We went to Mayor Marsha. She showed us some of your work.” Robert turned to Del. “We understand you work with Maya, and we want to hire you, too. She said you were a team.”

Just then Maya’s cell phone rang. She would have ignored it except she had a feeling she knew who was calling.

“Hello?”

“It’s Mayor Marsha, Maya. Are they there?”

“Uh-huh.”

The mayor laughed. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but they’re a local business and we do help out our own. I spoke to the city council and we’re going to release you for a week. That should be enough time, don’t you think?”

If she worked twenty-hour days, Maya thought. Still, a national commercial was a big deal. To have that on her résumé would be something.

“Oh, and tell them we want copies of their B-roll. They’re going to ask you to get shots of the town and the area. We should be able to put those to good use in our videos, don’t you think?”

“I’ll make it a condition,” Maya murmured, more than a little impressed that the mayor knew what B-roll was.

“Good luck.”

“Thank you.” She hung up and looked at the men. “That was Mayor Marsha. When would you want us to start?”

The men exchanged a glance.

“Today,” Roberto said. “Now.”

Maya nodded. “Give me a second. Del?”

They stood and walked into the hall. Maya led the way to a second, empty office and went inside. When he followed, she shut the door.

He grinned at her. “Are you excited? That’s so great. They want you, Maya.”

“I’ve never done a commercial,” she admitted, her head spinning. She felt light-headed and shaky, but in a good way. Possibilities crowded her brain. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You have great instincts. You can do this.”

“I want to,” she admitted. “It would be great.” She told him about Mayor Marsha wanting access to the B-roll.

“You should get a copy of the footage for your résumé, or whatever you call it.”

“You’re right.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m terrified. Can do you do this with me?” Because she would feel better with him along.

“Are you kidding? It’s a chance to work with you. Think of what I’ll learn. I’m in.”

She stared into his eyes. Loving Del was easy, she thought. Especially at moments like this. He wasn’t insulted they hadn’t come to him instead of her. His ego wasn’t bruised because he knew he was good at what he did. His self-confidence meant he wasn’t threatened by her. A rare trait, she thought. At least from what she’d seen in her career.

“We only have a week,” she warned him. “It’s going to be long days. I’m guessing their advertising agency will hire someone to do the editing. If they do, we won’t have control over the final product.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “What does your gut say?”

“Jump.”

He lightly kissed her. “What was that line from Titanic? If you jump, I jump?”

She laughed. “All right, Mr. King of the World. We’re about to take a really big leap.”

* * *

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS OF preproduction wasn’t nearly enough, Maya thought, telling herself to breathe. The temporary offices for the commercial production were housed in a large conference room in the Lucky Lady Hotel. She had three computers, a giant screen, the rented equipment, a list of people hired for the shoot and ordering privileges with room service. The latter would be great if she wasn’t so nervous that she couldn’t eat.

Ernesto walked her through the storyboards for the three commercials they would be shooting. Three commercials in five days. Impossible, but she was going to make it happen. The alternative was telling them no—forcing them to rehire all the equipment, production people and actors. No way that was going to happen.

Editing would take another couple of weeks, but that wasn’t her problem. Right now she had to get organized to take advantage of the best hours to shoot outdoors. The indoor shots could be done in the middle of the day and throughout the night.

Del hurried over with several printouts. “Weather,” he said, handing her pages. “Cloudy tomorrow.”

If they’d been alone, she would have kissed him. Because clouds were her friend. Everyone wanted the magic shot. Blue skies or a perfect sunset. Great for B-roll, but when it came to shooting actors, clouds dispersed light. Clouds allowed her more control over her own light and when it came to making the shot look amazing, light ruled.

She returned her attention to the storyboard. “You’re missing the call to action.”

Robert and Ernesto looked at each other, then back at her. “Excuse me?”

“The call to action.” She lowered her voice to sound like an announcer. “Call now and reserve the time of your life.” She returned her voice to normal. “Whatever it’s going to be. You want whoever is watching to do something, right? Not just think, hey, great commercial. You need to show the phone number, the website, offer a discount. Close the sale. Technically, we refer to that as a call to action.”

“She’s right,” Ernesto said. He stared at the storyboard. “They’re all missing a call to action.”

“We’ll fix that,” Robert told her quickly. “Can you still get this done on time?”