Close Enough to Touch

by Victoria Dahl

  Madeline Beckingham was a woman of passion and drive, and not just for her work. Even when he’d been twenty-one and she’d been thirty-two, she’d been nearly too much for him, needing sex more often than he had. And on rides like this, she’d sometimes been overwhelmed with the beauty of the place, and the ideas swirling violently through her head, and she’d almost been manic in her need.

  “Jesus,” he cursed, hoping like hell that he didn’t round a corner and find her riding Jeremy like some crazed pagan, naked in the rain and wind.

  Cole had thought she was a legend. An artist. A force of nature. And the truth was, no matter how much she’d hurt him, she was all those things. He’d been a fool to think she’d settle down with a man like him.

  The same fool he was being for Grace. If he wanted a wild woman who couldn’t be tamed, then he’d have to learn to live with being left standing there, scratched and bruised and alone.

  At three-quarters of a mile up, his hip felt as though it was going to disintegrate. It felt as if every step were splitting him slowly in two. The wind suddenly died down, and the trail edged around another rock face, the rain falling steady now, slicking the rocks. Cole breathed in the wet air and tried to ignore the pain, but in that moment, staring down at the seventy-foot drop, he knew. It was over. Despite all his brave words, despite his denial, his life on horseback was over.

  He’d been in the saddle for half an hour and it took everything in him not to scream with each step. He’d never make it through an eight-hour day, much less the sixteen-hour days during a roundup or a drive.

  This was it. He had the money to buy the ranch, but what would be the point? This was the end. All his plans were dead and had been for almost nine months. He just hadn’t realized it until now, even if everyone else had.

  He made himself keep his eyes sharp on the view below, but his shoulders slumped. He could find work around here. He knew too many people to find himself without a job. But what would he be working toward? What was he going to do with himself?

  Rope tricks at a dude ranch? Cooking brisket at some tourist joint? Maybe he could work at a hole-in-the-wall bar and drink his way through his nights the way his dad had.

  His father hadn’t been mean or embarrassing or even particularly drunk. He’d just popped open a beer when he walked in the door at night, and pounded them back until bedtime. He’d been…numb.

  Cole wouldn’t mind a little numbness right about now.

  Cringing at a particularly bad spike of pain, Cole rounded the last, long curve before the trail headed up toward the break in the rock above. He didn’t see any sign of Jeremy or Madeline yet, or the horses.

  Thunder rumbled, and after the violence of the lightning strikes, the sound was almost soothing. But as he rode higher and higher toward the summit of the trail, Cole began to worry again. He’d expected to find them just at this point, sheltered beneath the overhangs of rock nestled in the aspen.

  Lightning struck again, farther away this time, and Cole dared to urge the mare all the way to the split in the rock that the trail edged through.

  He fought the urge to close his eyes against the pain in his hip. Every step the mare picked out was a brutal reminder that he was doing more damage. He reached the split in the rock and tightened his fingers just the smallest bit. The mare still knew him, and his sense of her was coming back. Cole patted her neck and sat as straight as he could.

  A small valley spread out below. They used it for grazing in the early spring, but the cattle were higher now, eating grass that didn’t green up until late June. Rain sheeted in the wind, but it wasn’t so heavy that he wouldn’t have been able to spot two riders. No one was there. Where the hell were they?

  There was nothing down there but a grove of aspen and an old sheep-camp trailer. The wind gusted, blowing the rain toward him for a moment. He ducked his head and let it drip off his hat, then tried again. Despite the wind, the rain was dying off again. Cole squinted into the valley, then caught a hint of movement. He looked again, back toward the old trailer. Something moved beneath it.

  No, not beneath it. Behind it. A horse shifted and poked its head around the corner.

  “Bingo,” Cole breathed, and urged his mare past the rock and down the trail. He was a quarter of the way down when he realized maybe this was none of his business. If they wanted to snuggle up in a broken-down love hut, they were welcome to it. But Jeremy should’ve known better. He was on the clock, and Cole would be damned if he’d let the boy get paid for sex.

  When he got to the bottom of the trail, he almost kept riding. There was a creek at the mouth of this valley, and he could just follow it down to a dirt road that crossed it a mile up, then circle back to the ranch. But he’d still only seen one horse. There was a chance there was a problem. A small chance.

  Cole set his jaw and rode across the grass. The sharp agony had faded into a strange buzzing numbness around the edges of the pain. Probably not a good sign, but it was a relief. He still kept the horse to a walk.

  When they got close, the mare snorted and whinnied to the gelding hobbled behind the little camp hut. A few seconds later, the tin door of the hut flew open. “Cole!” Jeremy called. He seemed fully clothed, but his shirt was wrinkled and matted to his body.

  “Is Madeline in there?”

  “Yeah, her ankle’s pretty swollen, though. Her mount spooked in the storm and took off. Luckily, she was already off and just holding the reins. Got yanked off her feet. She should be fine, but I didn’t want to risk riding through the storm.”

  Cole glanced at the sky. “I think it’s letting up.”

  Madeline hopped into the doorway as Jeremy stepped down to the grass. “I need to get back, Cole. Is it safe?”

  Aside from the foot she held off the ground and some damp patches on her clothes, she looked totally unaffected by the adventure. Smoke puffed from the tiny chimney of the stove that heated the trailer. Jeremy had played the gentleman, it seemed.

  “Hey!” Jeremy said. “You’re riding!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want to take Ms. Beckingham back while I look for that horse?”

  “I—” Cole cut himself off. No, he didn’t want to ride back with Madeline tucked against his back, but he couldn’t trot around for an hour or two looking for a lost horse. He met Madeline’s eyes. He didn’t know what she and Jeremy had been doing in front of that stove in the camp hut, but the good news was that he didn’t care. “Hand her up,” he said tersely.

  Madeline grabbed the fur-edged vest she’d been wearing and shrugged it on, then Jeremy tossed her up to sit behind Cole’s saddle. Her arms went around his waist. She put her chin to his shoulder. “Thanks, Cole,” she said softly. She didn’t offer a farewell to Jeremy.

  “Come back along the creek,” Cole ordered, then headed that direction himself.

  For a while, he was so aware of this woman pressed against him that he forgot his hip. It felt strange to have her touching him. She’d once been his lover, and then he’d hated her. Now it just felt like a stranger was embracing him. He shifted and cleared his throat.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine. You?”

  “I’m good.” A few heartbeats passed before she spoke again. “How badly were you hurt?”

  He hoped she didn’t notice the way his muscles twitched at her question. The woman was too quick by half. He didn’t answer.

  “You said you’d hurt your leg, but the limp, the way you favor that side… Jeremy seemed surprised to see you riding, which made me realize I haven’t seen you on a horse once since I got here. You were glued to one on that first set.”

  “This isn’t a set. It’s my life and my work.”

  “More reason to be on a horse, then. What’s going on, Cole?”

  God, his jaw ached with the strain of his teeth grinding together. It was none of her damn business. More than that, he didn’t want her to know. He’d never thought he’d see her again, but if he’d had to choose,
she wouldn’t have seen him like this. The lowest point in his life. The weakest he’d ever been. She’d left him lying on the ground like trash, and here he was again, as if he’d been ruined by her. As if he’d never gotten up and moved on.

  He imagined Grace coming through ten years from now. Imagined himself as his father, broken-down and numb and bitter.

  Christ. That couldn’t happen. He’d have to find some way. He couldn’t let these people determine who he was and wasn’t. Madeline, Grace, Easy, the doctors. He couldn’t measure himself with their words, see himself through their eyes.

  “I shattered my femur,” he finally said. “Broke my pelvis. I haven’t been on a horse in nearly nine months.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Cole. I’m sorry. But you’re better now?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, thanks for coming to my rescue. I think that boy was scared of me.”

  He grunted and eased the horse down a steep bank. Shifting again, he tried to find a way to stall the pain for a moment.

  “We can walk if you want,” Madeline said quietly.

  Cole stared straight ahead. “I’m not sure that would work at this point.”

  She touched his hip, slid her hand over him with proprietary ease. He looked down to see her hand on his thigh, her fingers sliding slightly under the edge of his chaps. It reminded him of Grace touching him, so he let her do it. It hardly mattered at this point.

  “You need help, Cole?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think cowboys have the best health-care plans, do they?”

  “I had insurance,” he said dully. “I’m fine.”

  Her hand rubbed up and down his thigh, and he hated that it felt good. “You’re back in the saddle now. Are you just going back to being a cowboy, then?”

  “Yes. This place will be mine soon,” he said, not knowing if it were true anymore.

  “That’s why you’ve been so possessive about it.”

  He stayed silent, keeping his eyes on the creek as he led the mare along the shallow edges.

  “Why don’t you let me help you?”

  Her hand slid to his inner thigh. Cole gritted his teeth against the feeling, but his cock began to swell. “What are you talking about?”

  Her hand slid up. She chuckled and scraped her nails along the fabric that strained over his erection. He wanted to tell her it had nothing to do with her. Nothing at all. It was just an automatic response to touch. But that would sound pitiful, so he just moved her hand back to his thigh.

  “I know what you must think of me, Cole. But I know what I want and I go after it. And I want you. Again. The way it was before. You were good then. I know you’re even better now. More mature. A man’s touch. A man’s knowledge.”

  “Just say it,” he growled.

  “I’m leaving today. I’ll be in L.A. for a few weeks before coming back to film. Why don’t you come out to California with me? Like old times. You can recuperate. Relax. Sit in the hot tub. I’ve even got a personal masseuse. It’ll be good for you. You’ll be a new man.”

  A new man. He’d been a new man after his last trip to L.A., too. He’d gone out there an arrogant kid, and he’d come back a man, though not for the reasons she’d think. When she’d kicked him out, he hadn’t wanted to go home. He couldn’t have imagined it. Dragging back into town with his tail between his legs. All that bragging he’d done. All the friends he’d blown off. And his girlfriend, whose family had once embraced him as one of their own—he’d broken her heart. But more than anything else, he hadn’t wanted to face his father.

  His dad had been disgusted that Cole had even wanted to work on the movie set in the first place. And when Cole had decided to leave town, his dad had called him a disgrace. The worst kind of son. And a man who didn’t know how to keep his word. “You’re a fool if you think those people want you,” he’d said. “And you’re a fool if you think I’ll want you back when they’re done.”

  So Cole hadn’t gone back. His pride hadn’t let him. Instead he’d stayed in L.A. with the money Madeline had showered on him. He’d partied and slept around, hoping the news would get back to Madeline and hurt her. He’d gotten drunk and popped pills so he wouldn’t have to see what he was doing to himself.

  A few weeks later, his father had died. Alone. A heart attack that Cole could easily blame on himself. His pride had meant nothing then. He’d come home to try to inch his way back into being a man his dad could’ve been proud of. Cole owed him that, at least.

  He shook his head.

  Madeline made a soothing noise and slid her hand back to his cock. “You didn’t love me, you know.”

  He let her hand stay where it was this time, because he wanted her to feel that her touch wasn’t working anymore. But he should have known better. She just stroked him and pressed her breasts against his back.

  “You didn’t love me,” she repeated. “You loved the excitement. The newness. The adventure and the sex. You didn’t know me well enough to love me. So whatever you tell yourself about what happened, know this—when you whispered that to me, it wasn’t true, and that’s what I had to live with. That’s what I’ve always had to live with, whether it was you or someone else. People want things from me, Cole. Even when I was a little girl, my friends knew who my father was. And their parents knew.”

  She stroked him the whole time she spoke, and when he finally swelled against her hand, she hummed approvingly.

  “People want things from me. Sex, excitement, money, power, fame, glamour. And you weren’t different from anyone else. But you were sweet, at least. I’ve never forgotten that.”

  He finally admitted to himself that he couldn’t steel his body against her touch, and he moved her hand away again in defense. “I wasn’t using you,” he said, but her words had changed his certainty.

  “You were,” she said softly. “But I liked you. And I have to admit, I half hoped you’d turn down my offer to come to L.A. that time. I kind of wanted you to say no. To tell me it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t what you wanted from me. But you did come. And it was fun. But it wasn’t love.”

  Cole wasn’t ready to concede anything yet. He’d been damn sure he loved her, but when she put it like that… What exactly had he known about the woman? “If it didn’t mean much, what is it you want from me? Just sex?”

  “Well, the sex was good, make no mistake. But it’s not just that. I know you. Money can buy a lot of things. It can buy sex. But it can’t make it good. And it can’t make it sweet. You were sweet, Cole. I want that again for a few weeks. That’s all.”

  “I’m not sweet anymore, Madeline.”

  “Yes, you are. Look how you came out to rescue me, a woman you have every reason to hate. You’re sweet.” She kissed his shoulder. “And strong.” Then his neck. “And big.”

  This time when she cupped him, Cole closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. Sex with Madeline again. He could do it. But did he want to? After what he’d had with Grace… Hell, brief as it had been, that affair had rocked his idea of what intensity was.

  With Madeline, it wouldn’t be the best sex he’d ever had, but sex was sex, and it couldn’t all be the best. He knew it wouldn’t be bad with Madeline, it would be fine. But afterward—there was the problem. Afterward, could he live with himself?

  It wasn’t as if he’d be betraying anyone. But Grace immediately invaded his brain. Her face, her dark eyes, her body melting into him. Except there’d be no more melting in Vancouver. Not with him, anyway.

  And there was the real truth. The reason he hadn’t said no out of hand. Because Grace was going to leave him behind. In a few weeks, she was going to walk away while he watched. But her memory would stay here. At the ranch. In his bed. In the saloon. She’d leave, but she wouldn’t take her ghost with her. She’d leave that behind, tucked up against Cole like a shadow.

  But in L.A., he could forget her. Just for a while. Long enough to ease this need for her, maybe.

  Madeli
ne’s hand slid up to his belly and she kissed the back of his neck again. “Think about it,” she murmured.

  That was the terrible part: he already was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR with Madeline Beckingham.

  Grace watched as Madeline slid off the horse and immediately turned back to smile up at Cole. Her hand went to his knee, then a little higher. She touched him as though she’d touched him before. As if touching was the least of what they’d done.

  Grace couldn’t see Cole’s expression beneath the hat, but he didn’t edge the horse away or move the woman’s hand. In fact, he nodded at whatever she said, and Madeline laughed.

  Something shifted inside Grace’s chest, something swelled and twisted and burned a hole inside her. She’d thought the sex between her and Cole had been honest. Not meaningful, maybe. Not tender. But honest. She’d understood it, and she’d trusted it.

  But no.

  No. Of course not. Of course it hadn’t been any more honest than the rest of this fucked-up world. He’d been sleeping with Madeline, too. Probably holding her like some cherished china doll while he did her.

  Grace felt herself sneering in his direction and made her mouth relax. She didn’t care. She didn’t care enough to show him anything.

  It’d just been sex. She’d told him that over and over again. Just sex. He hadn’t owed her anything. He certainly didn’t owe her anything now.

  Still, he’d tried to make it into something more. That bastard. He’d tried to make it more, and he would’ve hurt her if she’d believed him.

  Her gut instinct had been the last thing she’d been able to trust in this world, and now that was gone, too. First her pride in her own strength, now the basest of animal instincts. She had nothing.

  She watched him move the horse back to the barn. Apparently he could ride again. Apparently he was just fine. Had that been another lie?