“I guess they might be a little odd-looking compared to mule deer.”
“You think?” She laughed even harder when he smiled. “God, stop making me laugh. Just drive.”
“I’m still a little shaky.”
She hit his arm and relaxed back into the seat. “So, where are we going? The mountains are the other way.”
“Don’t worry. There are plenty of mountains to go around. We’re taking a back road into the Gros Ventre River valley. There are campgrounds and trails here, but it’s not one of the main tourist stops.”
As they worked their way higher up the hill, the shrubs and grasses were occasionally interrupted by groves of aspen, their leaves pale green in the sunlight. The only sounds were the truck engine and the shushing of leaves in the breeze. She breathed in and sighed. “It’s amazing here. So quiet.”
“Yeah.”
“You wouldn’t believe how noisy the city can be.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been to a city before, you know.”
“Yeah?” she teased. “Like Boise?”
“Something like that.”
She smacked his arm again. “I’m kidding. But really. L.A. is just heat and cars and…hunger.”
“Hunger?”
She hadn’t meant actual hunger, but when he frowned, her cheeks burned, and she scrambled to cover the truth in her words. “Everyone is starving for something there. Fame or fortune or sex or beauty. Even when you have what you need, the next person is always showing you why it’s not enough. Everyone feels desperate.” And then there was the actual hunger. Plenty of that to go around, too.
She wasn’t sure why kids with nowhere to go gravitated to Southern California. Maybe it was because it rarely got cold, but she didn’t think it was that logical. Maybe it was as simple as following the line of other souls who thought they were too jaded to hope, but somehow found themselves wishing for more. Or maybe it just felt like a place where things were possible.
Unfortunately, things were possible in L.A. Anything was possible. From your wildest dreams to a darkness you could never have imagined for yourself. She’d seen it all. One old friend had ended up on the number-one sitcom in the country. Many others had ended up dead. Or worse. Maybe she should be thankful she’d found some middle path.
Cole finally broke the silence. “Does that mean you’re happy you left?”
Happy? She looked at Cole and then back out the window. A tiny creek flowed along the road here. It looked happy, but Grace wouldn’t truly describe herself that way. But right at this moment, at least, she felt peaceful. “I’m relieved,” she said softly. And she was. She was also scared and worried and pissed off and bitter. But underneath all that, she was relieved. “I haven’t spent much time outside L.A., and I’m not sure I would’ve left on my own. But now, now it’s almost like I’ve broken free of something.”
It was. She was in Wyoming, after all. It was impossible not to feel as though she’d stepped out of her real life and was watching it from afar. You couldn’t get much farther than mountain wilderness, after all.
She couldn’t help feeling lost, though. For so many reasons, and all of them were her own fault.
“I know what you mean,” Cole said.
“Yeah?” She didn’t turn toward him. She didn’t want to meet his eyes. Not when she felt so vulnerable.
“I’ve felt that way before. Like you escaped something just in time. You can feel it brushing past you. Danger you just barely managed to dodge.”
Forgetting her need to stay removed, Grace turned to him with a frown. “That’s it, isn’t it? What did you step out of the way of?” She couldn’t imagine. He was a cowboy. He lived in Wyoming. He worked on land like this, with creeks and trees and blue, blue skies. She knew there were problems in small towns. Plenty of her friends on the streets of L.A. had come from small towns where a parent beat them or an uncle raped them or schoolmates tormented them or people just couldn’t find jobs. But Cole was talking about a whirlwind. A larger danger.
His face showed nothing as he stared straight ahead, but when he finally looked toward her, he winked. “You know. Bucking horses. Panicked cattle. I’ve managed to dodge a lot of things in my life.”
He was blowing off her question. Ignoring what they’d both meant. But that was fine. She wasn’t planning on telling him her secrets either. Better that he didn’t try to get close. The last thing she needed was a big, sweet cowboy confessing his emotional scars and wounds. In fact, the thought made her shiver with fright. She had too much to carry as it was. She didn’t want anyone else’s burden.
She should’ve realized that a long time ago. She was better off alone. Her own mess was too complicated, even without letting someone else thread their issues through it.
“Where’s your ranch?” she asked, ready to change the subject.
“I just work there—it’s not actually my ranch. But it’s not too far from here.”
“Can I see it?”
“Oh. Sure.”
Sure? He didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic.
“We’ll drive by on our way back. But right now there’s something prettier to see.” He took a right onto a dirt road that wound through the trees. Actually, it looked more like a trail than a road. Branches dragged over the windshield. Shrubs scraped the bottom of the truck. She cringed at the sight of the road falling away ahead of them and curled her fingers tightly into the door handle.
“Uh, Cole…”
He took the turn easily and she tried not to look down to see how far it dropped.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing,” she rasped, then yelped when the truck dipped abruptly into a pothole. She could deal with navigating the back alleys of a big city and all the scary things that lived in them, but this was a bit much. The truck rocked. She wanted to ask Cole to turn around, but he couldn’t do that. It would be a three-point turn into oblivion.
“Damn,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Damn, damn, damn.” She didn’t like this. Someone else being in control of her life. Someone else deciding how close was too close.
The truck slowed to a stop. The engine cut off.
Grace opened her eyes, expecting to see something worthwhile. Something worth risking her life for. But all she saw were aspen trees and undergrowth that looked a lot like poison ivy. Then again, anything leafy and green looked like poison ivy to her, which was why she tried to avoid it.
Cole’s door closed and suddenly he was opening hers. “Come on, tough girl.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she snapped.
“Absolutely not. Your whimpers of terror were the toughest I’ve ever heard.”
“Screw you,” she muttered, ignoring his hand to jump down from the truck.
“You’re cute when you’re grumpy.”
“You know, nobody knows I’m with you. I could kill you out here and just walk away.”
“You could kill me out here and then wander around in the woods until you died of exposure.”
Grace crossed her arms and tried to frown at his smile. “I could take your truck.”
“You’d never make it back to the road. That’s a ten percent grade on gravel around a curve.”
He had a good point. She’d be stuck here if she killed him, so she shrugged. “Did you want to show me something?”
His lips parted, but his gaze slid to the side and he shook his head. “Come on. The trail’s this way.”
He started walking, so she followed. It was that simple. She wasn’t going to stand around waiting for a bear to attack or some of those weird pronghorns to wander up. Cole held branches out of her way and occasionally told her to watch her step. Then the path opened up and they were standing on a bluff.
Grace skidded to a halt with a sharp gasp. The whole world looked spread out before her. Or at least the only part of the world she’d ever want to see.
Rocks tumbled away into treetops. The trees rose up from a steep cliff face that went down and down and
down until it disappeared into a dark green jumble of pines. And at the very bottom a silver river cut a path through the earth, tracing its way out into the distance. Far below, she could see a waterfall. Past that, another. And then the river disappeared into the V-shaped valley.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
“You like it?” Cole asked.
“What kind of question is that?”
He laughed and turned to gaze out over the valley with her. “Some people don’t care about things like this.”
“Some people are idiots.”
“True enough.”
“It’s incredible.” The word seemed wholly inadequate, but she couldn’t think of something that captured the miracle of this view.
They stood in silence for a long time, and Grace tried to absorb as much of it as she could. The beauty, yes. But the peace, as well. And the wonder. It had been a long time since she’d felt wonder. But standing before this expanse, she felt like a child, as if there were millions of things she couldn’t know and never would. It was a relief from the feeling that she’d seen everything already and found that none of it was very good.
“Do you think there’s anyone out there?” she whispered.
“People? Sure. There are a couple of campgrounds by the river. Fly fishermen stay there. And people who hate the crowds at the bigger parks.”
“It feels like we’re totally alone. It feels like not one person has ever been here before.”
“Yeah.” She felt him turn to look at her. “It sounds like you like that.”
“I do. I’ve never seen a place like this before.”
“Never?”
She shook her head and had to swallow a lump in her throat. It wasn’t sorrow or even something as simple as joy. It was more like that relief again. The feeling that she was small. Tiny. Minuscule. And all the stupid things she’d done, and all the mistakes and all the pain didn’t mean anything at all. It was all too small to matter.
Some people would hate the feeling of being insignificant, but she felt filled with it. Overcome. “It’s beautiful. Thank you so much for showing me this.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, but, God, he was so wrong about that. Right at that moment, it was everything.
They watched in silence for a long time before they went back to the truck.
Cole drove back up to the road. He took her farther down the valley, every curve revealing another view, another breathtaking wonder.
When she could think again, Grace reminded him that she wanted to see the ranch where he worked.
“Sure. Of course. You’ve got time?”
“I do.”
He took her back a different way, and in between two big hills that would’ve been called mountains in L.A., he slowed the truck and turned onto a dirt road. They passed under a sign that said Easy Creek, and then he pulled to a stop.
“Is this it?” she asked as she looked over the wide valley that flattened out in front of her. “Easy Creek?”
“It is.”
She could see ranch buildings a quarter mile away, and behind them, the mountains rose in the distance. It was beautiful. He worked here every day. This was his life.
“It’s going to be mine one day,” he said softly.
“Is it owned by your family?”
“No. But Easy’s like family to me. I’ll buy it when he’s ready to retire.”
“That’s amazing.” He probably thought she meant the land, which was amazing. Beautiful and quiet and so peaceful. But what she really meant was that kind of security. Cole was a cowboy. Just that. He’d lived in Wyoming his whole life. He worked here on this ranch with friends who were like family, and someday the land would be his. What would that be like? To have always known where you belonged? Her life felt like it had been a series of bad places and rushed decisions.
For a while there, it had gotten smoother. But it had never been anything like this. It had never been safe.
“Thank you for showing me,” she whispered.
He drove a little closer, and she could make out a low, long house with a front porch and dark wood walls. A big barn stood nearby, a wooden fence circling out from it. It looked like something out of a John Wayne movie. Two cowboys rode along a trail farther on.
He turned around before they got any closer.
It wasn’t until she got home and closed her own door that she realized what had happened. Cole hadn’t wanted to drive up to the ranch, because he hadn’t wanted to be seen with her. He hadn’t wanted to introduce a purple-haired girl to the other cowboys.
She told herself it didn’t matter. And it didn’t. After the beauty he’d shown her today, Grace could forgive him such a small, human failing.
And anyway, she was tough. Just as he’d said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GRACE WAS BACK IN THE THICK of L.A.
That’s what it felt like anyway, all these people rushing through the hotel with expressions that made clear they were important. Really important. Certainly more important than anyone who actually lived in Jackson Hole.
“You doing all right?” Eve asked.
“I’m great.”
“I know this is a lot for a first day.”
“I’ve worked on a lot of movie sets. I’m used to it.”
Eve let out a deep breath. “Good. Because I’m not. I’m really glad you’re here. I didn’t expect to have this whole mess dumped in my lap. The guy who worked with the studios on Jackson location scouting disappeared two weeks ago. Apparently he left behind a mess of screwed-up paperwork and some unhappy leasers. Nobody told me about that part of it when I agreed to take this on. I thought I was just going to take care of a few details.”
Eve ran a hand across the back of her neck and grimaced. “I’ve only done a little scouting before,” she murmured. “But, okay. Here’s the deal. One of the locations has fallen through. This was supposed to be the final recon on sites they’d already contracted, but now… Jesus. The director is here and everyone is totally freaked out.”
“Who’s the director?”
“Madeline Beckingham.”
Grace blinked. Wow. Director, indeed. Beckingham was a powerful, beautiful woman who’d made her mark by directing fiery, fast-paced action movies. She was the daughter of Hollywood royalty, and at first, the brass had treated her like the child of Joseph Beckingham. A woman to be coddled and amused but not taken too seriously.
Not anymore. Now she was the heir apparent. Now she got whatever she wanted, and she wanted a lot, if the rumors were true.
“Have you worked with her?” Eve asked.
“No. Never.”
“Well, here’s your chance. I need you to track down the location coordinator and get the location list I was promised. I’m going to find the manager and find out exactly what’s going on with each site. None of my files are up-to-date, and from what I’ve heard, the scout took all his files with him. They’re going to need new photos, the specs reverified…”
“Got it. I’ll get everything I can from the coordinator.”
Grace had never done anything like this, but she approached it the way she did anything else. She jumped in and dared the world to screw her over. Sometimes that didn’t work out very well and the world happily called her bluff, but she wasn’t sure how else to get through life. She figured if she was going down, she’d go down swinging.
In this case, it worked out fine. Three hours later when everyone broke for lunch, Grace could barely catch her breath, but she had a notebook full of scrawled instructions, copied reports and a head full of ideas.
“Tell me everything,” Eve said as soon as Grace joined her at a tiny round table in the restaurant bar.
Grace went through everything while Eve ate her lunch. Finally Eve stopped her and waved toward the other sandwich. “Eat. This is all beyond my pay grade, but I think the river site is fine. They’ve got all the photos on it, and the paperwork has already been filed. I’ll call Carly on the county council to
be sure. The ranch shoot, though… Shit. Uh, sorry. Pardon my language.”
Grace nearly choked on her food. “I think I can handle it.”
“I’m sorry to have thrown you into all this.”
“It’s fine. And they’ll only be here for a week or so, right? Filming won’t start for a little while?”
“Oh, sure. But you know how that goes. They’re already behind schedule. Nothing’s going right. I might have to bring more people in. Maybe one of the employees from the old company has some ideas for—”
“Wait. I think we’re going to be okay. It’s just a new ranch site that’s needed?”
“Yes. That idiot never finalized the deal, and now the property has changed hands. We need a new ranch site with power and accessibility, but it can’t be too modern. It’s for the opening scenes in the movie, and they take place in the fifties.”
“That shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“It depends how difficult Madeline Beckingham will be about what’s modern and what’s not.”
“Well, let’s try it at least.”
“Yeah?” Eve cocked her head and studied Grace. “You’re up for that? We’re talking full-time hours. Overtime, probably.”
“Yes.” She was up for it. Surprisingly up for it. She would’ve thought she’d hesitate after the past few months. Work had been bad enough, but then Scott had started twisting her arm, making her go to industry functions with him. The parties had been full of fake, grasping, ambitious liars who swarmed like insects around producers and directors. They’d always made her skin crawl.
But somehow this felt different. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the sense of independence. A feeling that they were on her territory now. Stupid, of course. Wyoming wasn’t hers. She’d only been here a few days, and she obviously didn’t belong.
So maybe it was just the pay. A week of working like that, and she could actually send Scott some money. Enough to hold off his threats until she got to Vancouver.
“It’s some kind of Western, right? They said they wanted an isolated ranch with panoramic views for the sky shots.”
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