Close Enough to Touch

by Victoria Dahl

  “Lumberjacks are pussies.”

  She slapped a hand to her mouth to cover her laugh, and that made Cole smile so hard he felt like a fool. It felt like triumph, making this girl laugh. Like a prize. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to make her moan. Damn.

  “So what got you fired this time?” he pressed. He didn’t have to be told that she was an expert at dropping subjects. But she gave in more or less gracefully this time.

  “I was working on a movie set. I’d been doing pretty well this year, trying to keep my head down.”

  “No punching?”

  “No punching. And I got an amazing gig, working on a big film. Working with the stars of a big film, not just the secondaries, you know? I won’t say who it is, but the starring actress is one of America’s sweethearts. And she seemed perfectly nice. Quiet. Polite. And with a couple of fading bruises on her neck. Whatever, though. People are kinky. If she liked a little choking during sex, it’s none of my business.”

  Cole coughed and reached for his coffee as his eyes watered. “Sure,” he finally managed to say.

  “But one day the producer came to the trailer while I was working on her. He was her boyfriend. It was an open secret. And she flinched when he gestured. That was it. Just a tiny flinch I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been working on her eyes. The next week, her lip was a little swollen. And when he came to the trailer and started berating her about something, I couldn’t keep myself from calling him on it.”

  “The producer.”

  She glared at him. “An abusive ass is an abusive ass.”

  Cole raised a conciliatory hand. “I agree. I’m just impressed you were brave enough to say something.”

  Grace snorted. “It’s not bravery. I don’t think about it. I just blow up. Anyway, I cursed him out and told him what I thought of him. He fired me immediately.”

  “And?” he asked, aware of the weight in her words.

  “And I told him I’d file a complaint with the union. He said he’d ruin my career, and I said I’d tell the press. Unfortunately, I was the one who was bluffing.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Nobody would’ve cared. I could’ve told the tabloids about what I’d seen, and who would it have hurt? Her, maybe. Definitely me. And definitely not him, because he would’ve found some way to prove it wasn’t true. So here I am.”

  “You couldn’t get another job?”

  “It was complicated. And the word is out that I drink on the job.”

  His eyebrows flew up. “Do you?”

  “No. Never. I rarely even drink at parties.”

  “Only in saloons?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Only in saloons.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Yeah.” She’d stopped eating, and when her smile faded, she stared at her plate.

  “Hey, Grace?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry about that. You being fired by that asshole.”

  When she looked up, he saw surprise in her eyes. Just a brief, bright flash, and then it was hidden by old anger. “It’s no big deal. Nothing new. I’ve got to learn how to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Maybe not. You did the right thing.”

  “Ha. The right thing. It didn’t help her. I probably made it worse. You should have seen her scrambling to defuse the situation. Begging me to stop. It was all about me, wasn’t it? Me telling myself that I’m not the kind of person who’d just stand by while a man treated a woman like a worthless dog. The worst part? Turns out I’m exactly that kind of person.”

  “No, you’re not. You said something. You didn’t just sit there and ignore it because you were scared.”

  She smiled again. A grimace of a smile, bitter and hurt. And then she jumped to her feet. “Thank you for breakfast. Again.”

  “Hey, wait. What are you doing today?”

  She was already walking toward the door, her bare feet silent against the wood. She was so much smaller without her heels. “I’ll probably walk around town some more. See what there is to see.”

  “Ah. The antlers.”

  She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “The what?”

  “The antlers. Haven’t you seen the antler arches yet?”

  Her expression defaulted to grumpy again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t know how you missed them. They’re right in the town square.”

  “Antlers?”

  “Yes. Elk antlers. Thousands of them. The National Elk Refuge comes all the way up to the city limits.”

  “And there are elk there?”

  “Not right now, but they’re around if you drive up into the mountains. They come down to the refuge during the winter.”

  “And bring their antlers?”

  He grinned. “Something like that, yes.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t leave. Her hand was still on the doorknob, but she just stood there looking thoughtful.

  “Want to go for a drive? I’ll show you around. There’s a lot more to see than just the town, you know.”

  She glanced in the direction of the Tetons, even though the blinds were closed.

  “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “Aren’t you busy?”

  “Nope. I’m off work today, so it’s either you or laundry.”

  “I win out over laundry, huh?”

  “Only because I did a load last weekend. Otherwise it’d be laundry all the way.”

  That relaxed her. An insult. That was what soothed her prickly stance and made her laugh. Another thing that set her apart from the women of his past. “Then I’d better take you up on it. I might not be so lucky next weekend, and I’ll go crazy if I stay cooped up any longer.”

  “Come back when you’re ready, then.”

  She was back in three minutes. Cole was still washing the dishes and shouted for her to come in.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve stayed to help, right? People don’t cook for me very often. Let me…”

  “Believe me. It’s no big deal. A lot easier than cleaning a stew pot on the trail, I can tell you that.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, sounding as if the words scraped her throat as they came out.

  “You can make me dinner sometime.”

  She looked slightly panicked. “I hope you like sandwiches.”

  “Peanut butter?” he asked.

  Grace’s cheeks flamed red. “I haven’t had time for a real shopping trip,” she said sharply.

  Yikes. “I was just kidding.”

  She crossed her arms and wandered over to look at the books on his coffee table. By the time Cole dried his hands, her cheeks had faded to pink. He was glad he hadn’t been standing next to her and made a note to himself that she had some sort of peanut butter trigger. Maybe peanut butter was her secret high-calorie indulgence. If he was going to piss her off—and he wasn’t averse to that—he wanted it to be over something worthwhile.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She put down the book she’d been looking at, but her eyes stayed on it.

  “You like horror novels? I’m done with that if you want to read it.”

  “Yeah?” She picked it back up again and opened it to the first page. “Was it good?”

  “His best in years.”

  “Okay, sure. Thanks.” She slipped it into her purse and shrugged her jacket on. “I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I read fast.”

  “An expensive habit.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “The library. Anyway, I’m not a resident here, so…”

  “I’ll check some out for you if you like. Give me a list.”

  She glanced at him as she passed him on the way out the door. “You’ve got a library card?”

  “Sometimes they let cowboys in on free range days.”

  “With fair warning to the public, I hope.”

  God, she made him laugh. He wanted to push and goad her just to s
ee what she’d say next. She might be a touch prickly, but, hell, talking to Grace, he felt more awake than he’d been in months.

  * * *

  WHAT THE HECK was she doing hanging out with the cowboy again? When she’d walked out of that saloon yesterday—being very careful not to sway or trip over her own feet—she’d given herself a little talking-to.

  Yes, she was bored. Yes, she was a little lost. But flirting with a guy just to pass the time? That was stupid. Especially when he was hot and lived a few feet away from her bed. It wasn’t as if she had a history of restraint. Or wise choices. Or self-control.

  Case in point? Less than a day after telling herself to stay away from him, she was climbing up into his big black pickup and settling into the leather seat.

  But despite her self-recriminations, Grace felt a thrill of satisfaction as she buckled up. She was going somewhere. Getting out of the house. How many days had it been since she’d even ridden in a vehicle that didn’t have dozens of seats? Even in L.A., she’d been taking the bus or train for weeks.

  As Cole started the truck, she rolled down the window, breathed in the cool morning air, and she felt free.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

  Where? She had no idea. She should go to the store. She should get to know the town better. She should find the post office and the bank and the library. But she took a deep breath and said, “Just drive.”

  “You got it,” he said softly.

  Cole turned toward town, which surprised her, but she watched the streets pass with new eyes. It was different when you were driving. Everything so quick and temporary and new as it passed her gaze. The Western shops were cheesy but charming. The wooden sidewalks so different from anything she’d ever seen. They passed the bus station where she’d first set foot in Wyoming, and then she saw them: the antlers.

  “Oh, my God. There are thousands of them.” There were. They formed a wide, tall arch at the corner of a square park. When they turned, she saw that there was another arch on the next corner. And another on the other side of the park. And there was a carriage parked there, the horses shaking their manes in the bright sunlight. It really was amazing that she’d missed them.

  “Did you want to stop and look?”

  “No, keep going.” The tourist shops slid past her, the tourists already out in their shorts and sunglasses. They passed another carriage rolling along, two small children looking slightly stunned and unsure as the carriage rocked around a turn.

  Then suddenly the crowded blocks of hotels and shops were gone. There was a green park, and then…nothing.

  Nothing but a huge expanse of rolling meadows and a tumbling stream and flocks of birds rising up into the bright blue sky.

  “Wow,” she said. She hadn’t expected this at all. Somehow it was all invisible from inside the town, but now she couldn’t imagine there was a town anywhere nearby.

  They drove along the bottom of a ridge for a while, Grace staring hard over the fields that stretched out from there, watching for elk or anything else she might see. Then the ridge fell away and in the distance, the mountains rose up.

  “Wow,” she breathed again. “It’s amazing.”

  Cole caught her eye and grinned. “You know, this is what most people do the first day. Jackson’s nice and all, but nobody comes here for the small-town charm. It’s the mountains. The parks. The wildlife. The sky.”

  The sky, yes. Something so simple as air, and yet it was beautiful. Magical. Stretching for miles of impossible blue before falling behind the mountains.

  She wished she had a camera. It was almost an ache inside her, the need to try to capture the beauty of the moment. They had mountains in California, and she’d passed plenty on the bus ride here, but this moment was just…stunning. A perfect contrast to how screwed up and dark and complicated her life was. She felt insignificant, and that was a relief. That whatever mistakes she’d made, all the things she’d managed to mess up were all meaningless and small.

  She wanted to capture that, somehow, in a picture, but she’d pawned her camera the week before. And the kind of cell phone that let you buy sixty minutes at a time definitely didn’t come with a camera.

  But for the moment, Grace let that desire go and simply took it all in.

  “Where do you want to go?” Cole asked, seemingly unmoved by the amazing sight. Then again, he saw it all the time. Maybe that was why he smiled so easily.

  She looked around, searching for a place she wanted to get closer to. A sign at the side of the road pointed the way toward the national parks. They were completely surrounded by beauty. How could she possibly choose? What did she want?

  “Take me somewhere no one else goes,” she said.

  He was quiet for a moment, looking out the window as if he could see something puzzling up ahead. Finally, he nodded. “All right. I can’t promise no one goes there, but I don’t think many tourists get that far off the path.”

  She glanced down at her boots. These were sturdy, but she wasn’t sure they were good for hiking.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t mean that kind of path.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “I’m sure you can handle anything.”

  She felt a warm rush at his words. He said it as though he admired that. Most guys didn’t. Most guys wanted to feel needed. They resented that she didn’t need them. And she didn’t.

  The warm rush dropped away like falling water.

  She couldn’t say that anymore, could she? She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t need anybody and never had. But she’d never let anyone else know that. She’d rather die.

  So she smiled. “I’m pretty tough. But I’m not sure if the boots are.”

  He glanced down to her feet. “They look pretty tough to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said, the appreciation in his tone obvious even before he glanced at her with heat in his eyes.

  Wow. Grace cleared her throat. He liked the whole tough-girl thing, huh? Wanted a little edginess in his life, maybe? She told herself she didn’t feel flattered. She wasn’t traveling entertainment for a small-town country boy.

  Then again…he wasn’t just a small-town country boy. He was a man who worked with his hands every day. His dimples were sweet, but his hands were scarred and strong. She snuck a look at the steering wheel, at the fingers wrapped around it.

  Cole slowed the truck and took a right turn, distracting her from thoughts of his hands. This road cut through a field. She couldn’t tell if it was hay or wild grass or something else, but the wind rippled over the golden stalks, and it looked like an ocean. It was beautiful, and the shushing sound of it filled the truck.

  Grace spotted something moving through the grass and choked on excitement. “Is that an elk?” she gasped, pointing.

  “That’s a deer.”

  “How can you tell the difference?”

  Cole looked at her and a smile spread over his face. He chuckled. “They’re totally different animals.”

  She slumped a little in her seat and crossed her arms. A strand of purple hair blew into her eyes and she shoved it out of the way. But there was no way to stay mad. Not right now. The world was too beautiful in that moment. She knew it would be crappy again soon enough. She couldn’t waste this, so she turned away from Cole and watched the strange view sliding by her window.

  They passed more deer. Probably. How could she be sure when he wouldn’t tell her? Then the land got a little hillier. They were driving higher.

  Deer jumped out of some bushes at the side of the road and raced away. But they looked a little…

  “Holy shit, what are those things?” Grace yelled, grabbing Cole’s arm.

  The brakes screeched for a moment. The truck jerked right and then left again. But Grace was too busy watching the freakish deer to care. They were the ones with the black masks again. The creepy black masks tattooed over their little deer faces.

  “What the hell?” Cole snapped.

/>   “Those things! What are they? They’re bouncing! And creepy!”

  “Creepy?” He pulled to the side of the rode and shook his head. “Those are pronghorn. And I almost rolled the truck.”

  “Pronghorn?” She craned her neck to watch warily as the herd headed away.

  “Antelope.”

  “Antelope? Like in Africa?”

  “No, antelope, like ‘the deer and the antelope play.’ You know? The song about America? Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  “Oh.” The animals had finally bounced out of sight, so Grace gave up her vigil and looked at Cole. “Those are antelope? American antelope? Are you sure? Because they’ve got little masks and pointy black horns and they look like they should be grazing next to giraffes.”

  He frowned. His mouth opened. Then closed again. He blinked several times. “You’re really damn weird, you know that?”

  “Oh, I’m weird? Have you gotten a good look at those things?”

  “Grace… You…” He couldn’t seem to get any words out after that.

  She shrugged. “I’m going to do some research. I’m pretty sure those things aren’t native. They’re probably an invasive species.”

  “What?”

  “Like killer bees. We’ve got a big problem with those in L.A. now. Some genius brought them over from Africa.”

  His eyes were wide as he stared at her.

  “Africa,” she said, raising her eyebrows in exaggerated alarm. “A coincidence? Or a clue?”

  His eyes narrowed. “How long have you been screwing with me?”

  She grinned hard enough that her cheeks actually hurt. Apparently it had been a while since she’d used those muscles. “Not very long, I’m embarrassed to say.”

  “So, you really didn’t know what they were?”

  “Are you kidding me? Those things are not right. But I guess I have to believe you when you say they’re antelope. And I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “Come on,” he huffed. “I wouldn’t say you scared me. You just startled me. Thought there was a buffalo on the road or something. Oh, sorry. Bison. I don’t want you worrying that someone’s accidentally introduced African water buffalo into the ecosystem.”

  Grace laughed. She laughed so hard she had to press her hand to her mouth to try to stop it. That didn’t work. In fact, she laughed harder. Laughed until tears overflowed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “They just freaked me out.”