by Elise Faber
“The team needed baby pictures for their Kids’ Night promotion.”
My arms tightened around her. “They didn’t need a bare-ass naked one of me in the bathtub.”
She laughed, full and throaty and, just like that, I was hard again.
And just like that, she noticed.
“Ignore it,” I muttered. “Common problem around you.”
Her hips shifted. “Kind of hard to ignore it when I know how good it feels inside of me.”
Killing. Me.
“Plus, I happen to like your ass, cute baby version or hot adult male variety,” she said. “And you still haven’t really explained about the horses and the ranch.”
I winced. “Didn’t forget about that, did you?”
“You subtly avoiding answering a question by offering up other information you’re comfortable with sharing?” She turned slightly, blue eyes drifting up to meet mine, a twinkle in their depths. “I think I was the one who taught you that trick.”
My lips quirked. “Maybe you did.”
I paused, loving this part, loving the annoyed little noise she always made in the back of her throat when I made her wait, all the while wondering if she’d make the same sound if I ever summoned up the patience to make her wait before she came.
Maybe once the edge was off . . . though all of that was based on me being able to get between her thighs again.
With Olivia, I couldn’t just assume.
However, in this case, she didn’t disappoint me and my preconceived notions. She gave me that huff, the little groan that was equal parts sexy and irritated, and snapped, “Spill it, McTavish.”
Fuck, I loved that she was full of fire.
“We had an old box TV when I was a kid, a VCR, one movie, and no cable.” I leaned a little closer to her, resting my chin on her head and soaking in her scent as I waited for the sound, round two.
She gave it again, but as always with Olivia, she also kept me on my toes, leaning to the side and tilting her head up to nip at my jaw. “You’re trying to piss me off.”
I rubbed the stinging spot, though her teeth had been more teasing than hurting.
“I like you pissed off.”
She grinned and turned forward again. “Dish, Cole.”
“Want to guess what that one movie was?”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t Moana.”
I burst out laughing. “No,” I said when I could get it out without busting a gut. “It wasn’t Moana. Probably a good thing or I might have decided that I needed to have sailing as a hobby rather than horses, and boats are even more expensive than these guys—” I patted Bucky’s flank. “It was The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?” I asked. “That’s it?”
“Yup.”
Such a pain in my ass, and I was loving every second of it.
Because then she laughed and relaxed against my chest, and I was inundated with flowers, salt, and the soft woman in my lap, her softly musical voice drifting up, “Clint Eastwood. I get it.”
Of course, she did.
“It was escapism,” she said. “Not the most moral movie choice for a child to watch growing up, but I’m guessing you didn’t exactly understand all of what was going on.”
I laughed. “My mom had banned me from watching it, hid it in the cabinet above our fridge when she realized I’d seen it. But you’re right. I didn’t really get it until I was older. As a kid, all I saw were gunfights and horses.” A shrug. “I loved how free they looked. No cars or busy streets. Just open air and freedom and space to roam.”
Her breath caught. “Ah,” she murmured. “And now I understand the ranch.”
“Gives the kids a place to find that,” I agreed. She knew we were targeting inner-city kids, those who didn’t have the opportunity to go out in nature, maybe had never seen a horse or a campfire. Most had never gone swimming in the ocean or hiked a trail, never had the opportunity to use those as escapes from reality.
Life was shit sometimes.
People and kids needed a way to escape.
And I wanted to help them find it.
I wasn’t some noble asshole with a hero complex. I’d just lived that life, had been given some lucky breaks, had experienced generosity, and I wanted to pay it forward in a way I was passionate about.
“You’re a good man, Cole,” she murmured.
And there it was again, the slight edge creeping into her tone, the verbal expression of her inner turmoil. She was comparing them again and finding herself lacking.
Bullshit.
But she needed to see that, to understand that the way she viewed herself wasn’t exactly accurate. At least to me.
Now, how to explain that to her without sounding like a high-handed man-splainer.
Impossible.
Sighing, I held her close, vowing to be patient. “Don’t think I haven’t seen what you’ve been doing either,” I murmured. “You may not be focused on escapism, but you’ve done a lot for the community.”
“Getting some designers to donate old clothes isn’t equivalent to building a youth ranch.”
“It’s a damned good thing, and helping people in your own way,” I said. “Plus, I feel like half the time when I tell people I’m working on getting the youth ranch up and running, they think I’m some sort of creeper who’s into kids.”
She gasped. “People don’t think that.”
“I’ve gotten some looks.”
“Probably more because they can’t understand anyone finding peace out here.”
Bucky started to move up hill, nearing the turn off for my house. “And are you finding peace out here?” With me? I didn’t ask the second aloud, even though I hoped it was true, that I was affecting her as much as she was affecting me.
She was quiet for a long time. “Yes,” she eventually murmured. “Surprisingly, I am.”
And since she seemed to be answering his unspoken question, that was enough.
Eleven
Olivia
We crested the top of the hill on horseback like the stars of some western movie—I smiled internally as I thought about little Cole watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on repeat.
But then that inner smile disappeared, and my breath went alongside it.
The valley was spread out below us, green and lush due to the river snaking through it. Quaint cabins were tucked along one edge, larger buildings on the opposite end. It was a hidden nirvana in a sea of rolling brown hills. I spotted a huge circle of rocks surrounded by benches for campfires, along with a shed near the river that I imagined contained life jackets and swimming gear and fishing equipment. But the most startling visual wasn't the buildings, but nature itself. The way it wove through the camp, the cabins almost blending into the trees.
It was an oasis.
Clink.
One of the chains locked tight around my heart fell to the ground.
Yes, I knew it was a mental manifestation. Yes, it probably meant I was going insane. But no, I also couldn’t begin to pretend that what I saw in front of me didn’t just mean that Cole McTavish had stolen a piece of my heart.
Fuck.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, swallowing against the panic.
I’d kept my distance before because I’d had a good excuse. I didn’t shit where I ate, and I was a fucking professional. Now, keeping that distance was harder.
Because I’d leaped.
Because the only thing that was keeping my heart safe was the knowledge that he was good, and I was bad, and I couldn’t have him permanently.
But was I bad?
Was I really?
I’d gone through my whole life with a chip on my shoulder, having spent my childhood being told I was no good, that I wasn’t worth much, that I was rotten inside. I’d found my worth in work, but it was also all tied up in that. The job, getting my clients the best deals at any expense.
I worked hard because it had been the only thing I was good at.<
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And now I wondered if that was gone, who would I be?
I’d always told myself that I was going to work hard and fast and intense until I was fifty, and then I’d retire on a beach somewhere, having done my time. But that imagery never contained another person—or at least not one aside from a cabana boy. Now I wondered if it would be enough. If without the work, I could find my worth in other things.
Was I even capable of that?
Without my career, what was I?
A card house, beautiful and intricate on the outside, but empty and crumbling on the inside?
That was what worried me.
I’d thought I was strong, but then plunk me back into circumstances similar to my childhood and I was losing my mind, breaking down at a nickname, crying over a long-gone horse, fucking a man who’d I’d purposefully kept at a distance because he deserved to find his happy . . . and not with a woman who at thirty-two still didn’t really understand the person she was inside.
But had I really tried to understand her?
Or had I grasped onto the first thing that someone had praised me for and then made it my entire life, shunning any distractions that might shatter the illusion?
I . . .
The second.
Fuck, it was the second.
“I—”
I rotated in the saddle to tell Cole . . . something, anything. Perhaps to confess, to repent, maybe to scream or cry, but then I saw his face and the pure joy of his expression.
And I knew I couldn’t ruin that.
So, I swallowed it down and pointed to the cabins. “Who designed those?”
His eyes warmed as he leaned closer, telling me about the designer, showing me the hidden buildings and parking areas that I’d missed on the first exploration. He told me about the female contractor who was the shit and how she’d managed to source local materials, including the river rocks making up the cabins’ facades that were found on a farm that had been sold to developers and was being turned into housing. And he explained what the kids would do when they were there, how the camp manager had loads of ideas for activities and excursions.
It was fucking fantastic.
More chains fell as more realizations struck home. Distance was more than just physical, and while I hadn’t slept with Cole, hadn’t closed that type of distance until just a few hours before, I realized he’d slowly been weaseling his way into my heart for years.
It wasn’t a matter of letting him in.
He already was in.
I wanted to be the kind of girl who’d spin in his hold and confess everything I’d just realized. To tell him I’d been in love with him for years and like an idiot, I’d just recognized it, along with the fact that my entire adult life was a sham because I was empty and twisted and dark inside without my job and didn’t realize that was all bleeding over into how I viewed myself.
I wanted to tell him I pretended I was confident, but it was a shield.
I wanted to confess I was lonely, but not with him.
I wanted to admit that my mother’s words and abuse had broken something inside me, that even though I knew it was unhealthy to still believe the words, that I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to logic my way through them, but that I wanted to.
With him.
But I wasn’t the kind of girl to confess all.
So I studied the cabins, asked the right questions.
And if I leaned back a little bit more against his chest because it felt incredible to do so, then it was simply incidental contact.
My foot was propped on a pillow, the rest of my body secured on Cole’s couch with an influx of still more pillows, a glass of wine within reach of my left hand, and a blanket draped over me.
Throw pillows and a blanket.
A woman’s touch.
Funny how I didn’t like the idea of Cole having been around a woman enough for her to impart her touch on his space.
Okay, not funny. Not at all.
And I was slowly going insane, though I was glad to finally be off Bucky’s back and reclining on something soft. My foot hurt more than I cared to admit, given the hissy fit I’d thrown over Cole’s fussing, not to mention my thighs weren’t used to riding . . . a man or a horse.
I’d done plenty of both that day.
Cole’s place had been another hour up the trail, something that might have taken twenty or thirty minutes by car, but because there had been two of us on one horse, who wasn’t used to carrying two humans, the distance hadn’t exactly gone fast.
Or maybe that was because I was mentally spinning.
Me in love with Cole.
That love not making one bit of difference—
Enough.
It was just enough.
I tucked the swirling thoughts deep down in my brain and focused on the beauty of his house. The front was similar to the cabins in the valley, all stone and dark wood, the trees creeping in close enough to camouflage it from view. Inside was all open space and wide windows, cozy furniture, and rustic woodwork. His kitchen practically gave me an orgasm with all the marble and cabinets and the huge ass stove, and I could barely boil water.
But his fireplace was the part that made my heart sing.
Floor-to-ceiling, covered in variations of gray stones, a huge piece of reclaimed wood just above the gas insert set into its middle. No TV above it, just a cozy couch positioned where the warmth of the flames could reach someone lounging on it and a low bookcase perched to one side. I’d already mentioned the loads of pillows and blanket, or rather blankets. Definitely a woman’s touch there, but also, it was the epitome of lovely, of warmth and comfort . . . and Cole.
“Men,” I muttered, wondering when in the hell I’d become this soft.
Probably around the time I’d almost drowned in the ocean and Cole had swept in all strong and hero-like and rescued me.
“What did the male populace do now?”
I jumped, not having heard him cross the room, and tore my eyes from the flames flickering in the fireplace, glancing at him while lifting my glass to my mouth at the same time. To delay, to give me time to think of something quippy and funny to say in return.
Because I couldn’t do serious.
“Don’t.”
I blinked, almost choked on the wine.
“Don’t feel like you have to hide from me,” he said. “You’ve always given it to me straight. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Cole—”
He shook his head. “I’m not saying you need to confess your innermost thoughts, honey, just that you don’t need to cover them up with some pithy one-liner.” He took the glass and set it on the table. “If you’re uncomfortable, I won’t press. I just want you to know that I meant what I said before—you get ready to shed that armor, and I’m here to carry it.”
My breath caught.
It was a wonder I had any armor left.
With Cole I felt exposed and vulnerable and—
He got that.
After picking the glass of wine back up, he put it back into my hand. “They’re doing a dry run at the camp this weekend, so the medic is on his way up. He’ll look at your foot. Your car has been towed to the shop in town, but realistically, no one will be in to look at it until Monday. I can drive you back to the city, though, if you need to get back. In the meantime”—he plunked a cell phone into my hand—“a connection with the outside world.”
I glanced at the phone then up at him. “Don’t you have plans tonight? You don’t really want to drive two hours each way, just to get me home. I can call for a car—”
“I would love nothing more than two more hours of your company.”
He dropped that declaration there, like it was no big deal, and it took me a minute to catch my breath. It had taken us most of the day to get to his house, and the sun was already starting its downward trek. If the doctor was coming to look at my foot, it would be even later before we left. “By the time you get back—”
“It’s no
t like I had hot plans today, honey,” he murmured. “I was camping. Further that, I’m used to late nights, having had my fair share of them.”
“But—”
“And if it does get too late, I’ll stay at my place in the city.”
He had a place in the city?
Cole’s thumb brushed over my lips, the latter having parted in surprise. “Yes, I love nature,” he said. “No, I don’t want to live in it all the time.”
Oh.
Oh.
The man was full of surprises.
He grinned. “I do occasionally trade the boots for wingtips and the jeans for suits.”
I wrinkled my nose, thinking of the last time I’d seen him in a suit. He’d worn a Christmas-patterned monstrosity to Prestige’s holiday party the previous year. “I think I prefer you in jeans.”
A brush of his mouth to my jaw. “I don’t think jeans would go with those sexy little work outfits you like to wear out.” My breath caught, but before I could fumble around to reply with anything, the doorbell rang and Cole straightened, moving away to answer it.
Not disappointment.
I wasn’t disappointed that his mouth hadn’t found mine.
Hell, who was I kidding? That was only disappointment coursing through me, well, disappointment along with an aching need, reminding me that while I’d had Cole once, it was not nearly enough.
Especially as I watched him walk, loose-limbed and confident, graceful for such a big man. It reminded me of how it felt to be in his arms, cradled against his chest.
I wanted more of that.
But could I get my shit together enough to grab hold of it?
I logged into my email while Cole talked with whom I assumed was the doctor at the door a minute, and when the man disappeared back outside with a, “Let me grab my other kit,” I quickly typed off a text to Dev, letting him know I was all good, but my car had broken down, along with my cell taking a plunge in the ocean, and that I was borrowing Cole’s for the time being.
A reply came back in barely a minute.
I’m glad to hear from you. Couldn’t decide if I should be worried you didn’t make it or jumping for joy that you’d finally gone off the radar with Cole.