He put his hand to her waist, aware of the way her breath hitched a little. He propped his head up on his hand so he could watch her face as he spread his fingers over her skin. “But you won’t tell me, will you?”
“No,” she said, not a hint of tension in her voice, just honesty.
Sliding his fingers down over her hip, he covered half her tattoo with his hand, then pushed slowly back up over the stark shape of the black tree. The tips of its branches stretched up her ribs, coming to a stop just below her heart. His thumb brushed the bottom of her small breast.
“Will you tell me about the tattoo now?”
“Why would I?”
“Because I want to know. Because I care what it means.”
“It’s just a tree,” she said, sighing.
“It’s black and bare. Cold. Or dead. Which one?”
She sighed again, then finally opened her eyes to look up at him. The weary black of her gaze was almost as dark as the ink of her tattoo, but so much deeper. “I don’t know.”
“You must know.”
“I don’t. Maybe it’s dead. Maybe it’s bare for the winter, just waiting to wake up and live again. But…maybe not. Nothing much has changed in the five years since I got it.”
“It’s not right, then,” he said. “That’s not you. You’re not cold and dead.”
“You sound awfully sure for a man who hardly knows me.”
“I know you well enough to see your heat. You’re alive and fighting and strong.”
He watched her throat work as she swallowed several times, then her face tipped slowly away from him. She stared into the dimness of his room as if there were a movie playing on the other wall. Finally, she shook her head. “Anger isn’t strength. It isn’t even living.” She added a moment later, “It’s like stars.”
He slid his hand up, over her breast and her beating heart and her beautiful neck. He smoothed her hair back, but she didn’t look toward him again. “What do you mean? What about the stars?”
“People look at them and see something beautiful. Something alive and bright.” Her voice had gone so flat that he felt a momentary fear. “But it’s just old light. Old and dead. Some of those stars aren’t even there anymore, did you know that? You think they’re alive and shining, but they died a long time ago. There’s nothing there.”
“Jesus, Grace. That’s not you.”
“It might be. I’m not sure. But I have to find out. I thought I was tough when I ran away from home. I thought I’d seen it all and I could handle anything. But at sixteen, I was still too alive. I could still feel it all.”
Cole realized his heart was beating harder. “What are you saying? You could feel what?”
When she finally looked at him, it had gotten too dark in the room to see much, but he thought he caught a glimmer of tears in her eyes. Grace laughed. “Nothing. I think I’m drunk.”
“Grace. You could feel what? Were you hurt?”
She shook her head. When he tried to brush a hand over her cheek, she batted it away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. You were just a girl. If you were hurt or raped or—”
“I was living on the streets. Of course bad things happened. To me and everyone else I knew. There were no doors to lock, and you can’t call the police when you’re a runaway. But at least when you’re drunk or high, it fades. It doesn’t matter. And eventually, you don’t feel it anymore. It’s the only way to keep going.”
“Grace, I…”
“At least I got out alive. Some of us didn’t. I try to feel grateful for that, but now…I don’t even know what I want to feel anymore, but something’s got to change.”
Turning her face away, she fell into silence. Cole’s chest ached, as if there was breath stuck and he couldn’t make his lungs work. But he was breathing just fine. He took a deep breath and another, trying to ease the tightness.
“I can’t keep going like this,” she whispered, “but what if I’m just old, dead light? What if it’s only anger in there, making me seem alive?”
“You’re alive, Grace.” He kissed her forehead, then her nose, her wet cheek. “You have a right to be angry, but that’s not all there is. Do you think anger makes me want to touch you this way?” He smoothed her hair back again, kissed her cheek, then her ear.
“That’s not the only way you touch me.”
“Oh,” he said as all the air left his lungs. “That’s not—”
“I know. And it’s good. It’s what I need. That’s my point.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually like that. If you don’t want me to—”
“I do want you to. You know that.”
“But if it reminds you of something bad… If it—”
“It doesn’t,” she said quickly. “I left all that behind. And I can’t be soft, but I have to find some way to bend.”
Cole didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to take back something they both wanted, but it killed him to think he might hurt her in ways he hadn’t realized. “You’re soft right now,” he whispered as the room finally went fully dark. “The softest thing I’ve ever felt.” She was. Her skin was hot beneath his hand, her limbs a languid line against him, and everywhere he touched was like silk.
“That’s old light, Cole,” she murmured.
“No. No, it’s not. It’s new. It’s for me.”
Whatever she said, he knew that was true. In public she was on guard, a bundle of tension and wariness and sharp claws. But in his bed, afterward, she was small and soft and warm. And so vulnerable it made him hurt for her. Not that he’d ever tell her that.
“What were you like as a kid?” he asked.
“Me? I don’t know. Skinny and wary and restless. What about you?”
“Skinny and loud and covered in dirt.”
She laughed. “I bet.”
“So you’re still skinny and wary and restless. Nothing’s changed. You haven’t gone supernova.”
“You, on the other hand… You’re not skinny and loud anymore.”
“But I am filthy.”
“Yes, you do still have that.”
They subsided into comfortable silence for a while, the darkness settling around them. It was only ten, but he was already sinking into that weightless space between wakefulness and sleep when she spoke again. “I’m ready to change. To give myself a chance. I need to start over and make a life for myself. Settle down and stop running away. Stop living like I don’t have anything valuable to lose.”
The thought that she might stop fighting him and they could see where this might lead… Cole would never say it to her or anyone else, but that seemed like something he could hold on to. Something that might see him through the next few weeks.
She was so damn strong. She’d been through a hell of a lot more than he had, and she was still going, still fighting the world. But maybe he could help her leave the battle behind. At least with him.
He’d never tell anyone else she was soft. He’d keep that secret safe. He’d even let her pretend she didn’t need anything but sex. But there was no mistaking the way she curled into him. Or the way she sighed when he pulled her closer still.
Grace Barrett was soft for him, and getting softer every minute. He didn’t want to go to sleep and miss it. “You want to watch TV? A movie? Anything?”
Her eyes opened. “What do you have?”
“Darlin’, I was on bed rest for quite a while. I have everything. Cable, pay-per-view, Netflix, some sort of streaming contraption. You name it, I’ve got it.”
She watched him for a long moment, and then she smiled. “Do you think you can get The Outsiders?”
“Is that a movie?”
“Only the best movie ever made. Assuming you like rumbles and hair grease. You’ve never seen it?”
He shrugged and grabbed the remote. “Nope.”
Grace bounced up to her knees, a grin taking over her face. “All right, cowboy. You find the movie. And I’ll…” Before he
realized what she was doing, she raised her hand and smacked his naked ass. Hard. “I’ll find some snacks. Do you have popcorn?”
“Jesus!” He rubbed a hand over the sting.
“What? I thought that was how you dismounted around these parts.” Laughing, she walked naked toward his kitchen, flashing a smile over her shoulder that Cole would never forget. If he had anything to say about it, he’d make her smile like that every day from now on.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GRACE WOKE TO AN OMINOUS SKY. She was in her own bed, at least, despite having fallen asleep at Cole’s place during the movie. She’d snuck out at two, when she’d woken up dying of thirst and still a little drunk.
She wasn’t sure exactly how many beers she’d had. She’d been nervous and stressed and angry. Four, maybe. Or six, counting the ones at Cole’s.
Whatever the number, it had been too many, because she’d blabbed about her life as if she’d been on a therapist’s couch. God. And all that after she’d begged him to fuck her.
As good as the sex had been, her face flamed at the memory. God, he must have loved that. Did he like her just because he wanted to see if he could break her down like that? Because it was a challenge to make the tough girl whimper and moan?
Grace stared at the lead-gray sky she could see from her air mattress. There were curtains in the bedroom, but they weren’t long enough, so whoever had hung them—Rayleen, probably—had just positioned the little spring-loaded curtain rod six inches beneath the top of the window frame. She had privacy, but not a lot of protection from the morning light. Grace couldn’t decide if it was ingenious or the tackiest thing she’d ever seen. After a few minutes, she decided on ingenious. After all, rich people paid a lot of money for those top-down blinds and got the exact same results. This was practically like living in Beverly Hills.
Despite her bad mood, Grace laughed at that as she crawled to the edge of the air mattress and dismounted. She was low to the ground, but the thing was as wobbly as a water bed, and she wasn’t quite at full strength yet. At least she’d had the brains to drink a huge glass of water when she’d returned to her apartment, or she’d be nursing a serious headache, instead of just a case of embarrassment.
“This time,” she whispered to herself, “you’re really not doing that again. Even if he is the best sex you’ve ever had.” And he was, damn it. He really was. And if she didn’t like him at all, she’d probably go ahead and indulge for the next few weeks. Scratch that itch until she left. But she did like him. He was sweet and strong and likable. The kind of guy she’d think about really dating if she were going to be around for a while. If he weren’t a cowboy. And if they had anything in common besides the sex. But she wasn’t going to be around for long, and they were nothing alike. And frankly, she wasn’t even sure he liked her. Oh, he liked the sex. He was a man, after all. But men didn’t fuck nice girls that way.
He took her the way she deserved to be taken. It was rough and brutal and intense. It was good. But it wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t gentle. Thank God. It was just what she wanted. But it wasn’t the way you made love to someone you liked.
By the time she showered and dressed and left for the bus stop, the sky seemed to have fallen lower. She ducked her head against a few raindrops and wondered if she was about to get the day off. The clouds looked really nasty. A sick gray-green she’d never seen in the sky in L.A., like something straight out of the Weather Channel. Maybe she was going to see her first tornado. The idea both thrilled her and scared her half to death, but she kept her head down and waited for the bus. Still, by the time it dropped her off near the studio, the air was so charged Grace found herself jogging down the wooden walkway, the hair on her arms standing on end.
“Hey!” she said too loudly when she burst through the door. “Are we going to the site today?”
“Sure,” Eve said, frowning at her laptop. “Why not?”
“There’s a big storm.” She gestured toward the windows.
“Oh, that’ll blow over any minute.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep, look how fast the clouds are moving.”
She edged back to the window and cast a doubtful eye toward the sky above the restaurant across the street. The clouds were scuttling pretty quickly past the roofline. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
“Come on. By the time we get out there, it’ll be blue skies. First the river location, then the ranch. I’m doing final framing shots. Normally preproduction would take care of all of it, but with this much CGI, they want backup. It’s half science, half art, and lots and lots of panoramic shots. You up for being my assistant?”
“Sure.”
Eve’s usual habit was to put on music when she drove, and today was no exception. She was quiet. Quieter than most women, but she sometimes forgot Grace was there and sang softly along with the music. She had a beautiful voice, husky and soothing. It matched her eyes, somehow.
“You don’t have to come on Sunday,” Grace said. “If you’re uncomfortable with the idea.”
“Uncomfortable?” She turned down the music. “Why would I be uncomfortable?”
“After what happened. I’m sure you didn’t want to say anything to Jenny.”
“Grace, I don’t know that production girl from Adam.”
“You don’t know me either.”
“No, but you’ve never given me a reason not to trust you.”
Grace suddenly felt guilty. Or maybe she just wanted to start cutting her ties. “I’m not planning on staying in Jackson. Not for more than a few weeks. Maybe less.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. But a lot of people say that when they move here. Even I did.”
“You’re not from here?” Grace asked.
“No. I moved here from Oklahoma when I was twenty-eight. I thought I’d be here for a ski season, then I’d move on to a real life somewhere. Settle down.”
“But you never settled down? I mean, you don’t have kids, right? You’re not married?”
“No,” she said, simply. “Never. But I guess I’m settled after all.”
There was a story there. Grace could feel it, swelling beneath the surface, but Eve didn’t so much as offer a glance of warning. She just stared straight ahead at the road, her hands loose and relaxed on the steering wheel. Whatever it was, Eve had no urge to share it. No need to get it out. She kept it close on purpose.
She’d meant to move on and she’d never left, and now she was settled by default. Grace wouldn’t make that same mistake.
“I’ve got a makeup gig in Vancouver,” she said. “In five weeks. The local film industry is pretty vibrant.”
“You know people there?”
“No. No one. Someone called a friend and set up this job. I don’t actually have anyone there.” Which was just the way she wanted it. “I thought, if everything works out well between us while I’m here, could I use you as a reference? I might look into working with a scout. It’s been really interesting. I think being in a trailer all day makes me grumpy.”
Eve laughed. “I can imagine. You’re quick. I think you thrive on action.”
“Maybe,” she said, realizing it was true even as she spoke. She was good at makeup. She was great with it. But maybe that wasn’t the only important thing.
“Definitely,” Eve said. “I can tell, because I’d much rather be locked up in my office, working on proofs.”
“Huh.” How had she never considered this before? That maybe her gift was a curse, keeping her locked in a small trailer for weeks at a time, in close proximity to the exact types of people she liked least. The production team was one thing. Some assistants and creative types were hard to deal with, but the equipment guys and preproduction crew were as varied as any other population. But in the trailer, it was the talent and the bigwigs, and the gossipy types that made them all beautiful. Sometimes she felt as if she was going to explode. Sometimes she did.
But this work, being outside, working with locals and
the people who did the strong work on the set—it felt so much more natural. Maybe she’d just have to work her makeup skills on friends and extras.
“You think I could do this? Every day?” she asked Eve.
“Absolutely. You seem very sure of yourself. People like that. Of course, if you go to Vancouver, you’ll have to work your way up the totem pole. It could be lean for a couple of years.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“I bet you can.”
“Did you always know you wanted to be a photographer?”
Eve smiled and shook her head. “No. I played at it for a while, but I majored in business in college. I figured photography wasn’t a real job—it was a hobby. But after college, I wasn’t very inspired by my life. I worked in real estate, then banking. When my company was bought out, I was laid off, and I decided I needed to take a little time to figure things out.”
“And you ended up here? I always thought people went to L.A., but maybe Jackson is the second stop on the road of confusion.”
Eve laughed. “Maybe.”
“So what happened?”
“I got a job at an art gallery here in town. It’s gone now. The owners moved away. But one of them was a photographer. He convinced me I had real skill and I deserved to give myself a chance to do something I loved.”
“And you did it. That’s pretty amazing.”
She nodded. “I did it.”
“So you’re happy you stayed?”
“Yes,” Eve answered. “I’m happy.” But her words were stiff with logic instead of light with joy. Did she wish she’d moved on? Was her gift also a curse?
Grace was thinking about asking more, but Eve leaned over and turned up the music, though she smiled as if to prove she wasn’t trying to avoid the conversation. She needn’t have bothered. Grace could respect a woman who liked to keep her problems to herself. She’d never understood people who wore their pain like a medal, showing it off to anyone who met their eyes. How could you want people to know your hurt? That only taught them what your weak spots were. Why not just draw an X over your heart and ask the world to take its best shot?
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