Page 63 of Untamed Heart
‘Is it your ex?’ he asked, keeping his voice neutral.
I shook my head.
‘I mean, he is still emailing me, but I just delete them. No, it’s a job offer, from the place I interviewed with yesterday.’
He nodded, trying to gauge my reaction.
‘A good one?’ he asked, the neutrality struggling to stay in place.
I blew out a breath.
‘Yeah, it is,’ I answered, shaking my head. ‘But it’ll have to wait.’
He nodded, jaw clenched. The conflict between heart and head was intense: my stomach flipped at the thought of fixing the situation at home, being able to maintain my life far better than before; but as I looked over at Cole, at the face that’d filled my thoughts, been pressed to mine in every possible way . . . the prospect of the job, of going home, felt . . . empty.
We got to the stalls and took the horses in, setting them up with a decent feed.
‘I’ll take over,’ he said, leaning over the door as I started to brush Jasper down. ‘You go in and wash up, rest for a bit. I’m used to being outdoors all the time, but I’m guessing you’ll be wanting a hot shower.’
I put the brush down, giving Jasper one last stroke and smiling as he leant his head into my shoulder for a moment.
‘You sure?’ I asked, coming out and standing in front of him. ‘I’m not a prissy city girl, you know.’
Cole smiled, his hand reaching for mine and squeezing it. I waited for the banter to follow, but instead, his face became serious as he took me in with an intensity that made my throat constrict.
‘Whatever happens now,’ he began, raising my hand, closing his other hand over it, ‘I want you to know I’ll never forget any of this. Not the time up there in the mountains, or the weeks before it. I knew when I saw you in that bar that you were . . . different.’ He placed my hand to his lips, kissing it so gently that tears sprang to my eyes. His sincerity ran so deep and he expressed it so naturally that I didn’t know what to say.
‘But I called you an asshole,’ I blurted, blinking back my tears.
His seriousness broke, that same beautiful, self-conscious smile making his eyes come to life.
‘Go on, go up to the ranch. Before we end up christening the stalls in front of the horses,’ he said, reaching out for one last touch of my hair, making my scalp tingle.
I made it back up to the house without encountering anyone, grateful to be able to decompress alone, to try and sort through the jumble of practicalities and emotions. It felt as though Cole had opened up a deep well – one that was potentially dangerous, but the feelings pulled from it coming up pure and untainted.
A hot shower did feel particularly good, tinged with unexpected sadness at washing away the remnants of the searing cold of the river, and the earthy-mineral smell of the hot springs. I’d got used to Cole’s smell, catching it on my shirt, my jacket, and without it, I felt . . . wrong. Back in my room and grabbing my shirt from the washing pile, I held it to my face, closing my eyes as his scent hit me again, creating an immediate, now familiar ache across my body.
Reluctantly I put it back, shaking my head and trying to focus. What I needed to do was find Lil and sit down with her, put our heads together to figure this out. There was a solution just out of reach, I could feel it. Like a reflection disturbed by waves on the surface; still there, just fractured.
As I dressed, I scanned my phone again, not quite daring to re-read the email from the company but spotting a series of messages from Hestia instead.
Are you around today, Lots? I need your icy-calm dealing-with-shit brain. I think I might actually end up killing Cal. And I’m just not up for jail yet, so call me when you get this?
Frowning, doing a quick mental calculation of the time difference, I called her.
‘Are you riding that cowboy yet?’ she said as soon as she picked up.
‘Hi, Hes.’ I smiled. ‘No cowboy chat until you tell me what Cal’s done now.’
She sighed, her voice unusually downbeat as she explained what’d been happening, how they’d been slowly growing apart until it had all finally snapped the previous weekend, how he’d now officially moved out for good.
‘I know we weren’t perfect, but . . .’ She stopped herself, an occurrence so rare that true anxiety for her bloomed. ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s stupid.’
‘Don’t be a dick,’ I said, using an imitation of her own technique for preventing me from spiralling. ‘Just tell me. You know I’m not going to judge anything you say.’
She groaned. ‘But it sounds really fucking stupid now I’ve said it in my head . . . even if it’s a little true.’ When I didn’t respond, waiting for her to continue, she groaned again. ‘Okay, fine. I just thought that . . . well, you know that Cal is even more of an emotional wreck than me. So, in my stupid, twisted logic I thought that if I couldn’t make it work with Cal, then it wouldn’t work with anyone. And now we’ve finally broken up . . .’
‘Oh, Hes,’ I murmured, wishing we were face to face, that I could give her a hug. ‘That’s not true. You must know that, deep down?’
