Dotted Line

by Elise Faber

  “Oh!” I called, “There’s an envelope for him on my desk. Says Sam on it.”

  “Olivia.”

  Shit.

  I stopped and glanced back at the woman who was very close to my age but always managed to pin me in place with a stern tone and a stony look. “Only thing on there,” I told her. “You can’t miss it.”

  A beat then, “Viv.”

  And they said I was the bitch.

  But that thought made my lips twitch. “I got some tickets to some videogame YouTuber thing. They were free,” I added, even though they weren’t. “I’m certainly not going to use them. You guys might as well go and enjoy yourselves.”

  “Maybe if it wasn’t something to do with gaming or YouTube, I could.”

  “You’re welcome,” I teased, then sent her a salute and continued my trek to the front doors.

  “Viv.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, fingers on the handle.

  “You don’t need to look after us,” she said. “But thanks for doing it anyway.”

  There were a dozen things I could say to that, but they all sounded cheesy or inauthentic in my head, so instead I settled on, “You’re welcome.”

  Short. Sweet. Punchy.

  Exactly how I liked my alcohol.

  Speaking of which, it was time to get a move on. I had a pair of shoes to take off, pajamas to slip into, and a cocktail to mix up.

  Then I was going to turn on Netflix and veg.

  By myself.

  Exactly how I liked it.

  Even if by myself was just the teeniest bit lonely.

  Four

  Cole

  There was nothing better than the breeze on your face.

  I’d felt that way from the time I was a little kid. Cool air coming off Puget Sound in Seattle. The frosty chill when stepping out on the ice. The wind tugging at my hair as I stopped on the bluff overlooking the ocean.

  I slid from the saddle and ground-tied Bucky, letting him have his head so he could graze while I sank down and settled in to watch the sunset. I’d camp there that night, letting the crashing of the waves settle over me. Buck liked it too, getting out of the ranch, being able to stretch his legs through the long, winding paths.

  Fine.

  Truth was, I liked it.

  I liked the freedom and the ocean, the tang of salt in the damp air.

  I’d just been too busy to enjoy it for the last month.

  The car company had come back with an offer, doubling their money and committing to make a permanent yearly donation to the youth ranch. It was generous, too good to pass up, and so I signed on the dotted line.

  Then I had spent the last thirty days either meeting with wardrobe people or memorizing lines or getting my hair styled—fucking ridiculous, the lot of it—or I’d been at the ranch, supervising construction and hiring staff and working with members of the board I’d brought in because they knew how to run a charity, and I wanted my job to be less day-to-day and more in name.

  I also wanted to make sure it would last, and it could be run without me.

  Because one day, it would be.

  Morbid? Maybe. But I wasn’t immortal, and I knew well enough that bad stuff could happen without warning.

  The end effect was that after a month of work, everything was more manageable, money was secured in a trust for the ranch, and we had a good, background-checked staff in place.

  “So, now what?” I muttered, leaning back against a rock.

  Another goal met, another life’s dream under way.

  And. Now. What?

  I stared at the waves, their frothy tops flipping over, coating the navy in white foam. They pounded against the beach that was more rocks than sand below. I watched them roll in, covering the rocks, turning them almost black in the waning light. Less than thirty minutes before sunset, night was tucking in around me.

  Perfect.

  Isolated.

  Lonely.

  Shoving the thought away, I’d turned to grab my tent from Bucky’s back when I saw it.

  A shadowy creature floating across the sliver of sand.

  She walked gracefully, and my breath caught as the breeze pulled at her clothes, tugging them against her body in such a way that I knew it was a her. Dark hair whipped around her face, and I watched her struggle with it for a second before bending to set a pair of shoes on the sand. Then she did that intrinsically female thing—looking out at the distance while instinctively pulling back and securing her hair. I’d always thought the action was sexy, a little peek into a woman’s life when she didn’t think people were watching. It also didn’t hurt that the action was unintentionally sensuous, thrusting out her breasts, arching her spine—

  So, I was occasionally a pig.

  But it was actually a good thing I was watching so closely.

  Because otherwise, I would have missed her falling.

  It happened between one split second and the next. She was balancing on one foot, preparing to stretch the other for a rock when the wave hit.

  With a shriek, she lost her balance and went seesawing through the air, legs up, arms scrabbling, and water washing over her. I stiffened, waiting for her to get up, seeing her struggle, but then another wave came crashing in.

  That’s when I moved.

  I bolted for the winding path that led down to the beach, rushing over the steps intermixed with cliffside, plants, and sand, all while knowing I was less than thirty feet above her, but also that the distance between us seemed interminable now that I was hurrying to cross it.

  Finally, my boots hit the sand, and I ran across the surface.

  My hands grabbed one arm, the other flailing for a moment before I wrapped my fingers around a slender wrist.

  And then I pulled, yanking her up and out of the swirling wash of water, thinking it was lucky she’d landed the way she had, otherwise I’d be cleaning up blood. As it was, the current was strong, she was soaked, her clothes weighing her down, and it took every bit of my strength to wrestle her up and away from the incessant waves without ending up in the little crater myself.

  “Hang on,” I told her, stepping carefully through the rocks to a safer stretch of the beach.

  “My—” She coughed. “Wait.” Another cough. “My shoes.”

  Brows drawing together, I glanced at the pair of heels abandoned in the sand, their red soles evident even from a distance. My eyes flew to the bundle of woman in my arms.

  Black hair.

  Lush body I’d been attempting to ignore.

  Red, red lips.

  “Olivia?” I nearly dropped her where we stood.

  Her eyes widened, showing off those gorgeous blue irises. “Cole?”

  “What are you—?”

  A huge wave crashed into the rocks behind us, loud enough that we both jumped, and I was reminded of the fact that we were on a narrow stretch of beach in the middle of nowhere with the tide coming in.

  “Hang on,” I said, plunking her down on the sand while I retrieved the shoes she was obsessed with. A moment later I was back, tucking them into her shivering lap before I lifted her in my arms again.

  She made a noise of protest, starting to stiffen.

  “Shush,” I said sharply, surprising myself with my tone. I was never sharp, but she was shivering and wet, night was falling, and we were on what was turning out to be a dangerous outcrop of beach.

  I must have surprised Olivia, too, because she didn’t protest further—or shockingly, argue with me. Instead, she clutched her shoes with shaking fingers and let me carry her back up to where I’d left Bucky and my supplies.

  Thankfully, Bucky was a well-trained horse and hadn’t wandered off.

  I set Olivia on a rock then grabbed my pack, pulling out a large towel to wrap around her. “Your car here?”

  There was a parking lot about a half-mile down the road.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Not at the lot though. At the barn.”

  I frowned. “The yellow one or the old one?”
/>
  “If the old one is the pile of logs somewhat resembling a barn, then that one.”

  “That’s over a mile back.”

  She shuddered. “I know. Engine died.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “You hit your head?”

  “No.”

  “Anything injured?”

  “N-no,” she said through chattering teeth. “J-just cold.”

  That was lucky, at least. I never brought my cell on rides like this. Stupid now that I thought about it. This was California, but there were still venomous snakes and mountain lions. Not to mention it was getting dark and it would be pretty convenient to be able to call down to the ranch for someone to pick us up.

  I grabbed the pack on Buck’s other side and started pulling out my tent.

  “It’s going to be pitch black here in a few minutes,” I said. “I need to get this set up.

  “A-and st-start a-a f-fire?”

  I shook my head. “That I can’t do. Burn ban,” I added when she glanced up at me in confusion. “But I can get you some dry clothes and a place to stay for tonight.”

  “St-stay?” she asked.

  Ignoring the question because I didn’t have time for an argument, I began pulling out clothes. Sweats, boxers, socks, a fresh shirt, a heavy flannel, a sweatshirt. I might have played hockey and been used to sweating in the cold, but it was a completely different feeling sleeping next to the Pacific out here. The cool temperatures had a way of permeating multiple layers.

  So, I came prepared.

  “Strip,” I told her.

  “What?” she exclaimed. No chattering this time, but her skin had taken on a bluish tinge I didn’t like.

  “I won’t look. Promise,” I said. “The only thing those wet clothes will get you is hypothermia.” Then I set the dry clothes in front of her and returned to the pile that was the tent and started to put the poles together.

  I expected an argument, but I’d meant what I’d told Lane before.

  Olivia was smart and tough and logical.

  If presented with something she didn’t agree with but it made logical sense, she would consider it fully then implement as necessary. In this case, it was necessary she change clothes because freezing her ass off on a cliff overlooking the ocean wasn’t an efficient use of that gorgeous brain of hers.

  I heard the plunk of something sodden hit the rock then several others, but I kept working on the tent, sliding the poles through the channels while simultaneously trying to ignore the fact that Olivia Rogers was probably naked behind me at that very moment, and I was thinking of poles and channels.

  “Do you have your phone?” she asked. “Mine died a watery death courtesy of the waves.”

  I finished with the poles then began on the stakes. “No,” I admitted. “I don’t bring one when I go riding.”

  Silence.

  I turned, brow raised, never knowing her to pass up an opportunity to give me shit when I was doing something stupid.

  “What?” she asked, popping her head through the sweatshirt like a whack-a-mole.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m not going to say it’s stupid,” she said, “because you already know it’s stupid not to have a cell in case you break your dumb neck on that horse of yours.” A sigh. “I’m also not going to say it’s stupid for me to be climbing over rocks in bare feet and work slacks after leaving my car on the side of the road to wander through a countryside that I’m unfamiliar with.”

  Well, put it that way.

  I smirked.

  “Shut up,” she snapped, picking up her clothes and laying them on the rock to dry out. I tried and failed to ignore the fact that the red lace matched her lipstick.

  Pervert.

  Maybe.

  But damn was Olivia sexy.

  “You warm enough now?” I asked, reaching for the sleeping bag and pad I had on Bucky’s back. She nodded as I spread them out in the tent then went out to take care of Buck, spreading some hay on the ground before filling a bucket at the freshwater stream between the trees.

  Once that was done, I returned to see her sitting on a rock, staring out at the horizon.

  “Why were you out here anyway?” I asked, reaching into my pack and pulling out a couple of protein bars and peanut butter sandwiches. I didn’t exactly live it up with gourmet meals while out here, but at least I had some food to offer her.

  “You mean, why am I out in nature when I obviously repel it?”

  I grinned. “Or piss it off?” I teased, remembering how the almost angry waves had taken her down.

  “I refuse to anthropomorphize nature.” She said, lifting her chin.

  “This is from the woman I once saw give a lizard a top hat?”

  “It was a toad.” She tore off the wrapper of a bar and took a bite. “The alliteration makes it funnier,” she said, after chewing and swallowing. “But the toad was your teammate’s pet, so it wasn’t really nature.”

  I raised a brow, lips twitching. “Does a toad not come from nature?”

  “Technically, I believe it came from a pet store,” she said. I snorted. She laughed then bumped my shoulder. “Thanks for the assist. I was really scared there for a second.”

  I was tempted to dismiss her words with an “It was nothing,” or a “No problem,” but I knew her, knew she was being sincere, so I just went with a simple, “You’re welcome,” and watched her blue eyes warm from the inside out. “Should we circle back to my previous question? Are you going to tell me why you were out in the middle of nowhere, stumbling around in your Louboutins?”

  “I resent that statement,” she said, starting in on the peanut butter sandwich. “I do not stumble on my Louboutins. I saunter.”

  “Noted.”

  Because she did saunter.

  And it was a damned fine sight to see. That was for sure.

  “So, why were you sauntering?”

  Blue eyes met his, a touch of heat in their center. “I was looking for you.”

  My heart skipped a beat, a slow grin curved my lips, my cock twitched.

  Fucking finally.

  Five

  Olivia

  For a second, I swore I saw heat in Cole’s eyes, but then I kept talking and realized that I must have been mistaken.

  No heat was there.

  Not for a city girl who wore heels to a dude ranch.

  Fine. Not a dude ranch. A youth ranch.

  “Jasper is sick, so Devon asked if I could call you about some other opportunities.”

  His blond brows drew down. “Is Jasper okay?”

  I nodded. “Just a cold, but he’s little and Dev is a first-time dad.” I shrugged, remembering the worried look in my friend’s eyes and how even though I’d ordered him to go home and be with Becca and Jas, that he hadn’t fought me very hard.

  He had a life, and his job hadn’t gotten in the way of him living it.

  Maybe that was why I’d come up here.

  I’d called Cole’s phone, and instead of leaving it until he called me back—like I would have done any other time in the past that I’d reached out to him with career opportunities—I’d left the office early and driven up here.

  Early for me, of course.

  Since I hadn’t actually headed out until close to seven, but that had been a good thing, traffic-wise. I’d cruised—mostly—up the highways, had been enjoying the way the scenery seemed to stretch out in front of me for miles and miles. Funny, that. I’d never imagined I would have missed wide, open stretches of land, not after having grown up in the middle of nowhere.

  I liked my easy access to mani-pedis. Loved Amazon Prime delivery and DoorDash and Instacart. I liked nice clothes, heels, makeup.

  And yet . . . I stifled an internal sigh.

  I kind of liked this, too.

  “Must be terrifying.”

  For a second, I thought he meant me nearly dying in the ocean, the rush of water slamming over me, pinning me down to the sand. My pulse picked up at the memory, and I knew I’
d never hear the crash of the waves in the same way. That beauty would always be tempered by deadly force.

  But I was fine.

  Safe.

  Felt a bit like I’d been pulled backward through a hedge, but I was . . . fine.

  Just like always.

  I blinked away the waves, the fear, shoved them both deep, deep down, and turned to Cole. “W-what must be terrifying?”

  He froze, studied me for a long moment. “You really okay?”

  Yeah. So not going there. “Fine,” I said brightly.

  More freezing. More of his eyes studying mine before he sighed, as though deciding he wasn’t going to battle me to dig the thought out of my mind.

  Probably because he knew by now that was impossible. I was a stubborn bitch and no amount of pushing, cajoling, or pressuring would do anything aside from getting me to dig my heels.

  “Suddenly becoming wholly responsible for the well-being of another person,” he said instead of trying to get me to talk.

  My lips twitched. “Especially one who can’t even hold his head up.”

  “That, too.”

  We sat for a few minutes in companionable silence, during which I wrapped my head around the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere, it was nearly dark, and the only reasonable accommodation around was a tent.

  And one sleeping bag.

  I’d noted that, too, right around the time I’d downed the protein bar, not having realized how hungry I’d been and how grateful I was that Cole had shared. But I had a predicament.

  Cole was my predicament.

  “Why didn’t you just call?”

  See? That was why Cole was a quandary, a mental and physical quagmire. I was attracted to him, and not just his body. His brain was sexy, too, as was his ability to see through the bullshit I was painting.

  Jasper was sick, of course. I wouldn’t lie about that.

  But I’d been hoping to avoid the actual reason for my little jaunt up into the rolling hills. Frankly, I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself yet, preferring to pretend it was work that brought me up, and not suddenly that I’d had the urge to jump in my car and scratch an itch that was all things Cole.