“Hey,” he said, that universal male greeting that can mean anything from “hi” to “didn’t see you there” to “thank you for last night.” This was a decidedly dispirited “hey.”

Which was a shame, because last night really had been pretty good.

“Hey,” I responded in kind, trying to infuse as much sympathy as possible into the one syllable. I pushed aside my own worries about next year. We could deal with that later. Colin had enough on his plate right now. “So, um, how are things going down there?”

Colin pulled a face and jerked two thumbs downward.

“That good, huh?” Let’s pretend I hadn’t been listening at the window.

“The idiots wanted to cut down a three-hundred-year-old oak because it was in the way of their shot.” His voice dripped with disgust. “Then they wanted to know if we could move the folly. It’s only been there since 1732.”

“Two days down!” I said with forced cheerfulness. If I smiled any wider, my face would probably crack in two.

Colin grimaced. “How many more does that leave?”

I tucked my legs up under me in the chair, making the ancient springs creak. “Don’t make me do math.”

“That’s because you know I won’t like the number.”

Too true. The director—via Jeremy—had estimated two weeks on location. I wouldn’t have put money on Colin making it through one. It was a good thing he lived a healthy, outdoor life, because his arteries were doing overtime.

I peered at him over the computer screen. “Would you—I don’t know—like to go somewhere? Away? We could stay at my flat for a couple of days.”

True, my basement flat was small even by London standards and Colin banged his head on the sloping bathroom ceiling every time he washed his hands, but even a week’s worth of lumps on the noggin was preferable to his going into cardiac arrest every time one of the film crew wandered through the wrong door. Forget his nerves; I wasn’t sure mine could stand another week of this.