Close Enough to Touch

by Victoria Dahl

  Three hours. She could stay awake until then.

  She eyed the dead coffeemaker sitting on the counter of the bus station. Bus room would be a more accurate description. But she couldn’t complain. The clerk had left the door unlocked when he’d gone, allowing Grace to stay inside instead of waiting on the curb. Once again, Grace wondered if that would’ve happened with the purple hair.

  She decided to stick with brown and black for a while. As bad as her luck had been, she wouldn’t dare the distrust of strangers right now.

  At least today had been the nicest bus ride she’d ever been on. She hadn’t expected Yellowstone to look like the landscape of an alien planet. Steam and geysers and strangely colored rock. And amidst it all, animals roaming everywhere, as if there weren’t tourists following just behind them, snapping pictures. Grace had seen elk, finally. More elk than she could have dreamed of, and now she saw the difference that Cole had laughed about. She wouldn’t mistake them for deer again.

  And bison just wandering around as if it were normal. She’d even spotted a moose, and once, a fox trotting along next to the bus.

  If she had any money to spare, she would’ve hopped off the bus and stayed. For days or weeks. She would’ve stayed and seen things she’d never imagined. The geysers erupting in the distance. The bears she remembered from old cartoons. Staring out the bus window, the signs in the park had been nearly painful to see, knowing she’d never discover what they named. Mud pots and waterfalls and lakes. Lookouts and rivers. Those things weren’t for her. She was only passing through.

  But she was in Montana now. This was someplace she’d never been. That was something good.

  But not good enough to offset the past few days. Nothing could make that better.

  Grace dragged her duffel bag closer on the row of seats and pulled one end of it onto her lap so she could lay her head down. She stared at the torn edge of a promotional poster and told herself not to go to sleep. Not yet.

  But she was so tired. Jail wasn’t exactly a restful haven. And fury and mortification had kept her awake since then. She still couldn’t believe Scott had actually done it. He’d had her arrested. Sent her to jail. This man she’d once shared a bed with had put her through the fear and shame of being arrested and strip-searched and processed like a felon.

  That first phone call had been easy. She’d called Scott and told him exactly what she thought of him. “How could you?” she’d yelled. “I sent you money! I was doing what I promised!”

  “I just got the money today,” he’d answered, sounding more subdued than she’d expected. “I didn’t think—”

  “I told you I’d pay you back.”

  “I know, but Willa got back and she came right over here to tell me you were lying.”

  Grace hadn’t even been shocked at that. “What would Willa know about it?”

  “She said you were driving around Jackson Hole in a nice Lexus, partying with—”

  “No. No! That was my boss’s car! My ex-boss, because there’s no way I have a job now, since I was arrested in front of her, you asshole.”

  “Grace, look—”

  “I’m paying you back,” she’d said, the words breaking into a sob. “That woman was just pissed because I embarrassed her in front of Madeline Beckingham. I sent you money and I’ll send the rest as soon as I can. Please don’t do this. Scott…” Hating herself, hating him, she’d begged him to drop the charges. She’d wept and she’d begged him.

  It had worked, anyway. And being out of jail was a sweeter victory than salvaging whatever pride she’d had left. She’d showered and packed and then taken the tattered rags of her ego and she’d run as fast as she could. She hadn’t seen Eve, at least, and Aunt Rayleen had held her tongue. Out of kindness or disgust, Grace wasn’t sure, but she’d been thankful for the reprieve from insults.

  It already felt far away. Jackson Hole. A different world. She was alone in a state where no one knew her. She could walk out the door and disappear and no one would even know she’d been here. She would’ve found that comforting a few weeks ago. Now it scared her. As if she were barely tethered to the earth. One wrong move and she’d float into space and never be found.

  Grace held tighter to the rough canvas of the bag. She wished it was 1:00 a.m. She wished she could go to sleep and open her eyes and be anywhere else.

  The door whooshed open beside her, and Grace sprang upright with a gasp. She’d fallen asleep. The bus was here. The driver would—

  “Grace?”

  At the sound of Cole’s voice, she shoved the bag off her lap and lurched up.

  “Grace?” His confused gaze drifted up to her hair, but he quickly shook his head. “Are you okay?”

  “What are you doing here?” She hadn’t expected to ever see him again, and her heart sped to an alarming pace as she took in his scruffy jaw and weary blue eyes. When he stepped forward, she held up a hand in panic. “Did Jenny call you? Did… You were in California. What are you doing here? I—”

  “I wasn’t in California. Who told you that?”

  “Everybody knows you went to L.A. with Madeline,” she snapped, backing away.

  Cole’s cheeks burned bright red at her words. “I’m not sleeping with Madeline.”

  She remembered, suddenly, why she was so mad. Why she hated him so much. She stopped retreating. “You lived with her!” She stabbed her finger toward him. “You lived in L.A. with that woman.”

  “That was a long time ago. I haven’t… I’m not…”

  “You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie. I swear I’m not sleeping with her. That was thirteen years ago. I was a—”

  “Yes,” she ground out. “Thirteen years ago when you lived in L.A. A little fact you forgot to mention. Why? Because you thought it was funny to keep me in the dark?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. I never talk about that time. I’m not proud of it. Listen…” He moved forward, reaching for her shoulders.

  Grace pushed his hands away. “What are you even doing here?”

  “Grace.” He looked stunned. She was stunned herself. Everything was bubbling up. Fury. Betrayal. And awful humiliation. She didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want him to know. She panted, her hands squeezed to fists with the urge to hit him. For seeing her.

  “I’m here for you,” he finally said, his voice soft. “I didn’t want you leaving this way.”

  “What way? In complete disgrace?”

  “No. Thinking the wrong things about me. About us. It wasn’t like that, Grace. I only let you think that because I was pissed. You’d bruised my pride. But I wasn’t seeing Madeline. I didn’t want to see her. Literally. Jesus, that’s why I was so mad about the film. Because I never wanted anything to do with her again.”

  She shook her head, trying to buy time. She didn’t know what to think. He’d popped out of the night like an apparition. Maybe he wasn’t real. Maybe she was dreaming. The thought calmed her a little. “I don’t know what to believe, Cole. And it doesn’t even matter.”

  “Of course it matters. I don’t want you to leave, but if you have to… You need to know that you mean something to me. I need you to know that, and take that with you.”

  Grace felt her heart calm a little more. He didn’t know about the arrest. No one had been morbid enough to tell him. That was the only explanation. He didn’t know what had happened and he thought everything was the same. “Cole, it doesn’t matter, because I’m leaving. I don’t belong here.”

  “What if you do?”

  “I don’t. It’s obvious to everyone.”

  “Grace,” he said quietly. “What if you do?”

  The words snuck inside her as if she had no defenses. They curled up in her chest and hurt. “You don’t know me.”

  “That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” she snapped back.

  “Liar. You’re afraid to let your guard down. You’re afraid to be soft. You’re afraid to
let anyone know you. Why?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It is ridiculous.” He smiled, showing his dimples, and the hurt in her chest swelled larger.

  “Please go,” she whispered, throwing a desperate glance at the door. Escape was right there, but she’d never get past him. “You have to go now. Please?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m leaving, and none of it meant anything.”

  “Liar,” he said.

  “You have to go.” She heard the desperation in her own voice. She heard the fear and she hated it.

  “Are you running away, Grace?”

  Yes. Yes, she was running like hell.

  He nodded as if he’d heard her. “Go on, then. If that’s what you want. But know that you’re leaving me behind.”

  She set her jaw and said nothing.

  “I’m not afraid to say that now. If you go, you’re leaving me, because I want you to stay. With me.”

  She nodded and managed to meet his gaze without flinching. “Goodbye, Cole.”

  His smile faded. “Yeah? You’re going to run?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “All right.”

  All right. He’d go. Despite the wave of relief that swelled through her, the hurt stayed. “Goodbye,” she said again.

  “All right,” he repeated, as if he were trying to resign himself to the truth. “There’s a motel one block down. I’ll be there. Call me if you change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  Cole reached one hand up for a moment, as if he wanted to touch her, but then he let it fall. “Bye, Grace. You’re not old light, you know. Not at all. You shine so bright it hurts my eyes.” He reached for the door. “Oh, and Jenny says to tell you she misses you.”

  He left then, cool air gusting over her as the door hovered open behind him. When it finally shut, she took a deep breath. Then another.

  She couldn’t tell truth from lies anymore. She couldn’t trust her own judgment. Did he know about the arrest? Was he lying about Madeline Beckingham? He had to be. Men lied about that kind of thing all the time. But if he’d just been playing Grace for a fool, he’d be relieved she was leaving, wouldn’t he?

  It didn’t matter. None of it did. She couldn’t go back. Maybe there would’ve been a chance of fitting in before, if she’d stopped throwing her hands out and claiming not to fit. But now, she may as well have been arrested in front of the whole town. Everyone would know. Cole would find out. And whether he’d lived in L.A. for a few months or not, he was still a nice cowboy surrounded by wholesome people. No one wanted a criminal in their midst. No one wanted a loser.

  Jenny says to tell you she misses you.

  More likely, she just felt sorry for Grace. But not as sorry as Grace felt for herself.

  She dragged the duffel bag back up to the seats, then laid her head on it and waited for 1:00 a.m. to arrive.

  * * *

  WHEN IT STARTED raining, Cole found himself standing in the doorway of his motel room, staring into the wet night and worrying about Grace. He checked his phone a dozen times. She was only one block away, but if she called, he’d drive over to get her. He didn’t want her walking through the cold rain. She might be tougher than him in a hundred other ways, but she wasn’t used to the cold, and the temperature had dropped about twenty degrees in the past hour.

  But the rain kept falling and his phone stayed dark and silent. At midnight, Cole closed the door and sat down wearily on the bed. And at one, he watched the bus drive by, taking her away.

  He looked hard at the long line of windows as it passed, but they were pitch-black in the night. He couldn’t see her in there no matter how hard he looked. All he saw were streetlights reflecting off the glass.

  “Damn.” He sighed as he sank into the bed. She was gone. He wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t seen much in her eyes except panic and anger. She’d wanted to go and he couldn’t stop her. It was that simple.

  There was no question it hurt, but the pain was simple loss. Grief for what he’d wanted with her, not anger or humiliation. She’d been running so long she didn’t know how to stop.

  Just a few days ago, he would’ve been too bruised and beaten to feel anything but rage. But he actually had Madeline Beckingham to thank for something. Hell, he might even owe her an apology. Because she was right. He hadn’t really loved her. That love was a lie he’d lived with for thirteen years, painting himself as a heartbroken victim of a cold woman. But he hadn’t truly known her. She’d been a shiny toy for a boy too young to know the difference between lust and love. And she’d been an easy name to give to the guilt he’d felt. The unyielding sorrow of knowing his last words to his father had been shouted with scorn and disrespect. Of knowing he could’ve reached out and hadn’t. Granted, his dad had been wrong, too. But that didn’t absolve Cole. Young as he’d been, he’d been a grown man, and he’d never forget that lesson.

  Which was why he’d decided to lay his pride down and tell Grace how he truly felt. The fact that she’d gotten on that bus didn’t change that. She was scared. And dark. And damaged. How could he hate that about her? She wouldn’t have been strong and brave and passionate without that same past.

  But fuck, it hurt.

  At least he had a plan for his own future. At least he could concentrate on that.

  Sighing, Cole toed off his boots and unbuttoned his shirt. His fingers were on the last button when someone knocked on his door. The tentative rap froze every muscle in his body.

  It couldn’t be…

  She’d left.

  Cole snapped from his shock and jumped up to open the door.

  Grace stood there in the rain, hair dripping, shoulders bowed down by the weight of her bag. “I was arrested,” she said quietly.

  “I know.”

  “In front of everyone.”

  “Come here,” Cole murmured, pulling her into his arms. She was ice-cold and shaking. Or maybe he was shaking. He turned her, pulling her into the warmth of the room before he shut the door behind her and tossed her bag aside.

  “You’re freezing,” he said, rubbing his hands over her arms before he pulled off her soaked hoodie. “I thought you were gone.”

  Teeth chattering, she let him undress her until she was wearing nothing but her panties and a tank top. Then he pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped her in it. “Better?”

  She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew. It was the first thing I heard when I got back to town.” He smiled to take the sting away, to make it a joke, but she didn’t answer his smile.

  “I can’t go back, Cole.”

  “Of course you can. You think no one in town has ever been arrested before? And you left so quickly, people probably think you’re a fugitive. That only makes it more exciting.”

  “The charges were dropped,” she rasped.

  “I know.” He sat on the bed and pulled her into his arms. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “I never meant for this to happen,” she started, and then she told him the whole story. The cash she’d taken and lost. The way she’d fled L.A. in a panic that her ex might file charges. The money she’d sent and would have to keep sending for the next year or two.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said. “It was a mistake. And bad luck. You don’t have to be ashamed.”

  “But I do,” she whispered. “You don’t understand. When I was with Scott, I let him change me. I saw it happening and I went along with it, because…I let myself need him.”

  “Shit, Grace. We’ve all done that.”

  “That’s not true. When have you ever needed anyone?”

  “As a matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons I don’t tell anyone about L.A. I became someone I didn’t like. I hated it and I didn’t stop it soon enough. I know what that’s like.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s not simple for me. My mother was—is—weak. And everything I am, everything I want to be, it�
�s so I don’t end up like her. Getting stepped on and spit on and used. Doing anything she can just to keep a man, because she thinks she can’t make it on her own. Do you know what it was like to watch her do that? To change her looks and personality and interests every time some new boyfriend came to stay? She was a new person every year. Which one of them was my mother? Which one was real? I hated that. I hated her. And suddenly, it was me doing that. Because I needed him. Letting him treat me like shit.”

  “You didn’t stay. You came to your senses.”

  “No,” she whispered. “He kicked me out. That’s the worst part, Cole. He kicked me out like a dog he didn’t want anymore.”

  “Ah, shit, Grace.” He kissed the top of her head and pulled her closer. “That’s not you. You were going to figure it out. Be glad it ended the way it did. Because I know you, and if you’d stayed longer, you would have eventually exploded in a way that would’ve resulted in injury to that man’s reproductive organs. And then you really would’ve gone to jail. And if you ended up on probation, how would you have come to Wyoming?”

  He was relieved to hear a small, watery laugh. But she still felt too small in his arms.

  “Listen, Madeline treated me like shit, too. And I left on my own. But then I went crawling back like a fool, only to find she didn’t want me anymore. So, yeah, we have all done that. Everyone in this room, anyway.”

  She shook her head.

  “I never thought I’d have the guts to beg again, but look. Here I am on my knees for you, begging you to stay.”

  “You aren’t on your knees.”

  “No, but I would be, if I thought it would work. You have a job here. And friends. Just try, Grace. See how it feels.”

  She shook her head, but at least she didn’t say no out loud. With her, that was progress.

  “When I went to L.A. all those years ago, I didn’t exactly receive a hero’s send-off. I’d lived here my whole life. I had friends, a job, obligations. I had a girlfriend I walked away from. And my dad… We fought. We pushed each other. We said terrible things.”