A Photo Finish: A Small Town Second Chance Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 2)

Golddigger85: Do you live near your family?

I SHAKE my head at myself. This is my lame attempt at making conversation. We’ve been talking for several months now, and I’m not oblivious to the fact she’s been carrying most of the conversation. To be frank, I’m not sure why she sticks around.

I give her almost nothing, and she keeps coming back. Most people have friends because they enjoy their company. I have this friend because knowing she deserves better reminds me how badly I’m failing. I’m a fucking masochist, and I can’t even stop myself.

Every time she’s chipper and sweet, I feel more like a shit bag. But I can’t walk away from her. I live in the shadows, and she’s like this ray of light that brightens my day. I’m so fucking greedy.

Pretty_in_Purple: No. I moved to get away from them.

I don’t want to pry, but that sounds brutal. So, I settle on:

Golddigger85: Oof.

Pretty_in_Purple: Haha. No. That sounds bad. I love my dad and brothers. And they love me too, just a little too fiercely. Like . . . smother me fiercely. And in a small town? Forget it. I couldn’t put a foot wrong or stay out too late. Even dating was brutal. They were constantly meddling, even when I was old enough to handle myself. So I had to get outta there. Fresh start. Fresh me. Naked on the internet was a step for me. Lame as that sounds. They would HIT THE ROOF. But I did it anyway. Once. I’m good now.

Golddigger85: You showed them.

Pretty_in_Purple: Something like that.

Golddigger85: What about your mom?

She takes a few moments to type even though I can see that she’s seen the message.

Pretty_in_Purple: She died having me.

This is why I don’t try to make conversation. The fuck am I supposed to say to that? My thumbs hover over my phone, and I feel my heart rate increase, pounding against my ribs. I know a thing or two about dead parents. I settle on the lamest thing I can think of.

Golddigger85: I’m sorry.

Pretty_in_Purple: Ah. Don’t be. People get all weird around me about it when the fact of the matter is, I have no frame of reference for what I missed out on. I had a good childhood. I was well-loved. I mean, I am well-loved.

She’s so forthcoming. So honest. I have the sudden urge to spill my dad’s whole story. About that day. About watching it happen and about how my life was all downhill from that moment. It would feel so good to get that off my chest, to say the words that have solidified and gone stagnant there. Like when you don’t quite swallow that pill, and it’s just sort of lodged there in your throat.

But I don’t.

Nobody wants to hear about my shit, and I don’t want to scare her away.

THIS PLACE IS TERRIFYING. I’ve seen some scary shit, but Neighbor’s Pub might top that list. Who puts carpets in a pub? I watch my feet as I walk into the dim bar, and I swear I can feel them sticking slightly to the carpet with each step I take. I peek over my shoulder to make sure that Violet isn’t entirely stuck to the flooring.

Instead of frowning at the interior, I see a small smile touching her lips as she looks around the place. With her silvery hair still in a big bird’s nest and her petite body swallowed by an oversized cream sweater, she looks altogether too bright to be in such a dump. But based on the look on her face, she doesn’t seem to agree.

“Where do you want to sit?” I ask her, eyeing the dark wooden tables suspiciously.

“Keep going. There’s a table at the back beside a fireplace.”

In a few more steps, the table—small and round with two mismatched captain’s chairs and a tacky green and brown stained-glass light dangling over top of it—comes into view.

I huff out a laugh, disbelieving that I’m actually doing this. “Trixie would love this place.”

“Who is Trixie?” Violet asks, coming to stand beside me.

“My therapist,” I blurt out before I realize what I’m saying. Motherfucker. Since when do I overshare? What else am I liable to blurt out around Violet? I’m getting comfortable around her—which is a problem.

“Cute name. I like it,” she says cheerily before charging ahead and grabbing the seat that faces the front door.

That’s it? No questions or interrogation? I expected judgment about being in therapy. Instead, she makes an off-handed comment and sits down. Right in the seat I prefer. My PTSD is mostly under control these days; it’s the image of a lump on the track and hooves pounding past it that keep me up at night now. It’s taken years of hard work, but my deployments don’t haunt me like they used to. I still like to assess the room though, see my way out, know if there are threats looming. I hate the idea of having my back to the room, the danger it could put me in. The danger it could put Violet in. I know I’m not in Iraq anymore, but these are the things that stick with you. The training that sticks with you. You’re never just a civilian again.

I sit down stiffly, feeling all wrong about what I’m doing, but not wanting to reveal any more than I already have.

“How ya doin’, hun?” I startle when two plastic menus are tossed down on the table between Violet and me.

The waitress beams down at me, and I lean back in my chair, gripping the armrests, as I grind out, “I’ll have a water.”

Violet gives me a flat, unimpressed smile. A silent scolding for what I’m sure she sees as inappropriate behavior. Chastising I don’t need or want—which is why I prefer to spend my time alone. Less explaining. Fewer expectations to fall short of.

Her look brightens as she smiles up at the waitress. “I’ll take a Guinness, please.” Her eyes dart over to me briefly before adding, “And thank you. Never mind my friend’s manners.”

“Sure thing!” The girl darts away, and I glance over my shoulder to watch her head back to the bar and get our drinks.

“A Guinness?” I ask Violet. I expected her to order a margarita, or at least something that came with an umbrella in it. Not a thick, dark beer.

“Yup.” Her eyes dance with amusement. “Not what you would have guessed?”

I check over my shoulder and reply absently. “No . . .”

“I grew up on a ranch with a single dad and three older brothers. Once I could drink, beer and whiskey were the only options in the house.”

One side of my lips tip up. “You don’t strike me as a whiskey girl.”

Violet smiles shyly. “You might be surprised then.”

I look back up at the bar, wanting to make sure I’m not startled by the waitress again. I can feel my pulse jumping in my wrist—I can see it even.

“Want to switch seats?” Violet leans across the table. She asks so quietly that I almost don’t hear her.

“What?”

She pushes her chair out and stands. “Switch seats.”

I want to say it’s fine, but the truth is I’m utterly relieved by the prospect. Now she’s standing beside me, looking down and waving her hand like she’s shooing me out of my seat. So I go and don’t ask questions. I just let myself accept the way I’m feeling rather than beating myself up about it. Trixie would approve.

“Better?” she asks as we both settle into our new chairs.

I look away like it’s no big deal. It is. Not a single person in my life has ever picked up on anything like this before. On my nervousness around adjusting to civilian life. On how I avoid pieces of garbage on the ground, just in case. My refusal to let anyone else drive. I liked to think I didn’t have post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead, I would say the military trained me to be ultra-cautious—Trixie didn’t agree.

“Yep.” I look away, feeling a little . . . I don’t know. Vulnerable maybe?

“My brother is a veteran, you know.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

She winks playfully, but her tone isn’t a match. “You never asked.”

That blow lands. She’s right. I asked almost nothing about her personal life in the year we spent corresponding. It started out that I didn’t care to know. And then it turned into me knowing that if I asked, I would care. But I cared anyway. I kept telling myself that people don’t fall in love on the internet. They don’t develop real feelings. But looking at her now, I feel sure that what I’m feeling is pretty damn real. And it’s also a pretty damn terrible idea.

“Do you know Billie calls you G.I. Joe?” she blurts out, obviously trying to fill the space.

I can’t help but laugh at that. A low, deep rumble that feels warm and unfamiliar in my chest. Billie is a funny duck, and her ranting has come to seem endearing to me. “I can totally envision her calling me that.”

Violet laughs, her eyes all wide and shocked looking.

“What?”

“You . . . you just laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

My head quirks as I lean in a bit. “I laugh.”

Violet crosses her arms and leans closer across the small table. “Did it hurt?”

My lips twitch. But I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of making me laugh again. Mostly, I want to thank her for ditching the veteran talk. For not looking at me with pity. For just throwing me a fucking bone without starting the Spanish Inquisition into my past.

But I don’t. I shake my head instead.

“Get a drink.” Her eyes are twinkling now.

“Beer is fattening.”

Violet busts out the most unladylike snort. I had no idea someone so small and dainty could honk like this. And then her face is flaming as she slaps both palms over her mouth and dissolves into a fit of giggles.

I stare back at her, trying to look unimpressed, even though her amusement is contagious. Even though she’s so fucking beautiful that it hurts.

“I think your abs will survive to see another day,” she gasps out from behind her hands. And then she clamps them down harder over her mouth, and her eyes bulge out of her head, like she can’t quite believe she just blurted that out. She looks mortified.

And I can’t help it. I laugh. A genuine laugh. It erupts from me like an animal that’s been caged up for too long. Like a racehorse shooting out of the gate.

I watch her face transform from embarrassment to pure glee. The look on her face? It heats me from my core. Like a spark on dry grass that sends flames dancing across arid land. Fast and out of control. After all, wildfires are dangerous.

The waitress finally makes her way back over. You’d swear this place was packed, and she had to collect my water out of Ruby Creek itself. She slides Violet her dark frothy beer just as Violet quirks one eyebrow at me.

“I’ll . . .” Ugh. Am I about to get roped into this? “I’ll have one of what she’s having.”

I’ll work out twice tomorrow.

I barely feel the waitress’s hand land on my shoulder. Unsolicited touching is something that would normally annoy me, but right now, looking at the woman across from me, I hardly even notice. I vaguely hear her say, “No problem, hun.”

Violet presses her lips together so hard it must hurt, except she doesn’t look in pain. She looks like she’s going to break right open and beam at me and is trying not to. She looks like she did that day after she won the Denman Derby. Happy. And for once, I don’t want to ruin it. For once, I don’t want to lie down and bask in my own shit.

Right now? I want to enjoy it.

But not too much.

“What? The water in this town is poison. Have you smelled it?”

Violet nibbles on her bottom lip and shakes her head at me.

“I’m only having one.”

She nods.

“What?”

“A girl could throw her panties right in your face, and you wouldn’t pick up on it, would you?”

I rear back. Why would a girl throw her panties in my face?

She takes a small sip of her beer, smiling knowingly into the creamy top of it as she does. “Our waitress. She’s into you. Didn’t you notice?”

My eyes shoot up over Violet’s head to look back at the bar, and—sure enough—the girl is staring straight back at me as the bartender places my Guinness on her tray. I didn’t notice because my mind has been fixated on the same girl for two damn years.

I roll my shoulders back and sit up taller, feeling a little less comfortable. “I don’t think so.” Eyes on me, even appreciative ones, have a way of making me squirm. I’m terrified that if someone looks too close, they’ll see what I’m hiding. You’re half the man you were when you left. That’s what Hilary said to me that night. That’s the sentence that’s stuck with me, that’s made me want to hide myself away.

But when the girl comes back to drop my beer off, she winks at me and taps my hand lightly before departing. And I almost can’t believe it myself. “Women are never into me,” I grumble as I look down at the carpet.

Violet leans back in her chair with her eyebrows pinched together and points at me. “She is.”

“No chance. I’m too old.”

She snorts. “You’re not.”

I finally look up and shrug. “I have to be at least ten years older than her.”

“You’re ten years older than me.”

“And?” I take a sip of the malty black beer and sigh inwardly. It tastes so fucking good. I can’t remember the last time I let myself enjoy a beer without worrying about taking optimal care of my body.

“It didn’t seem to bother you with me.”

I freeze, placing the pint glass back down. I don’t have that much experience with navigating women and their feelings, but I know a field full of landmines when I see one.

“That was—”

She cuts me off before I can finish what I wanted to say to her, waving me off with her hand, “Don’t worry about it. How’s work going?”

Work. I can talk about work.

“It sucks. We bought a company full of fucking idiots.”

“You’re a regular ray of sunshine, you know that? I think your swearing might be worse than Billie’s.” She pulls her good leg up onto her chair, resting her socked foot on the edge and bending her knee. Looking supremely comfortable—a way that most people don’t look in my presence.

I groan and scrub at my stubble before taking a long pull of my drink. “People swear in the military, Violet. This is why Vaughn is the happy shiny face of the family company.” I spin my glass in my hands. “And the new company? It’s just disorganized. Financials are a mess. Safety standards are fucking terrifying. Nobody knows what they’re doing. Basically, there’s a reason we got a rock-bottom deal on the place.”

She shrugs. “I’m sure you’ll turn it around.”

My cheek twitches at that. “How can you possibly be sure of that?”

“I don’t know. You just don’t strike me as a quitter.”

I grunt, mind racing with what she could mean by that statement. How much does she know? Maybe she saw my last messages? The ones I tried to delete, but the damn app wouldn’t let me. The ones I sent when I realized she wasn’t coming back. That I’d fucked up beyond repair. I wanted to be mad at Pretty_in_Purple for ghosting me, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t blame her.

I’d leave me too.

I clear my throat, not wanting to go down that rabbit hole during what has otherwise been a surprisingly enjoyable outing. I also don’t want to think about the bouquet on the kitchen counter. About some shmuck bringing them to her, doing nice things for her, when I’ve done nothing but be growly and awkward in her presence. I see red at the prospect. The truth is, I don’t know how to act around Violet, how to handle the feelings she pulls up in me. Feelings that make my dick twitch and my possessive side rear its ugly head.

So I change the conversation to work. The number one conversation boner-killer next to the weather. “How about you? What’s the plan for everyone’s favorite jockey?”

Violet looks around the room in response, and I wonder if maybe she didn’t hear me. I’m pretty sure the country music playing isn’t that loud.

“I don’t know.” Her tongue darts out, wetting her bottom lip as she looks back at me. Her entire body heaves with the weight of her sigh. “I’m kinda pissed off, you know? Last season was like a dream come true. Like I just fumbled my way into this once-in-a-lifetime situation. Billie. DD. Hank. Just the whole thing was so . . . perfect.”

I nod, remembering a time when my life felt the same. The perfect family. The perfect girlfriend—according to everyone else. My future set in stone and paved in gold. And then my dad died, and everything went to shit. I let it.

“But I still feel like I need to prove myself. The other jockeys . . .” She gestures down at her leg. “They obviously don’t like me. I waltzed into those wins. I didn’t earn them. I want to earn it. I don’t want to be coddled and set up for success. I’ve had that my entire life. I want to struggle and come out better on the other side. You know? I want to prove that I can overcome and still be the best. And only for myself. I need to know that I can do it. My success so far just feels . . .” Her face squishes up, and her eyes go distant as she searches for the word. “Incomplete. And now I’ll be behind. I’ll have lost fitness, hours in the tack.” Her shoulders droop, and she looks down into her beer like she’d like to drown herself in it.

“I can help you work out.”

Her head flicks up. “Really?”

“Sure.” That’s an offer I shouldn’t make, but I can’t stand seeing her look so downtrodden over an asshole like Patrick Cassel. “There’s lots you can do that doesn’t include using your leg.”

She blinks rapidly at me, as if she thinks I might be some sort of illusion. And to be frank, I can’t quite believe myself either.

“Okay,” she breathes.

“Patrick is going to pay for that move he pulled.”

Violet rolls her eyes. “That’s what Billie keeps telling me. It’s under review right now. But who cares? He’s out there riding, and I’m here. Doing—” she waves a hand over the table, “this.”

My mouth quirks up in response. The odd smile feeling more natural every time I do it. I double tap the table with my fingers as I lean back with my pint in hand and shrug. “This isn’t so bad.”

IT’S dark out and pouring rain by the time we leave Neighbor’s Pub.

“Wait here,” I say to Violet as I duck and run to the truck.

No point in both of us getting soaked. I jump in, turn the key, and hear it roar to life as I immediately drive to the front door to pick up a very confused looking Violet.

She pulls herself in awkwardly and wipes away a drop of rain from the tip of her nose. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I shrug, pulling away from the bar. “I know.” But I’m in a good mood, and I wanted to. I’m internally shocked I had a great time tonight. I even ate chicken wings in that questionable establishment. They might be the death of me, but I must admit they tasted pretty good. I hardly go out anymore. I mean, nobody asks me—but I don’t welcome the invites either.

My mom drags me out for coffee now and then, which always strikes me as a way to soothe her guilty conscience rather than to spend time with me. I let her do it anyway. Vaughn got pimped out on her dream dates with country club girls, and I got awkward coffee dates with Mom. As far as I’m concerned, I got the better end of that deal.

She went off the rails when Dad died, lost herself in the bottom of a martini glass for a while—or so I hear. Something she hasn’t forgiven herself for, obviously. I wasn’t here for that part. As soon as I could, I put a ring on my girlfriend’s finger—because that seemed like the right thing to do—and then enlisted. I joined the army and got the fuck out of dodge. I stayed in for twelve years and kept myself safe and unscathed until the last month of that final tour.

Then an already numb existence went blank. Flatlined. But tonight, I’ve felt the odd blip of a beating heart, like maybe I’m not entirely down for the count after all.

“Thanks,” Violet says quietly. “That was fun.”

“It was.”

Her smile is shy as her focus moves away into the distance. I wonder who else gets to soak up those smiles when I’m not around, and it makes me irrationally jealous. Enough so that I say, “Nice flowers you got today.”

The moment the words leave my mouth, I hate myself for even saying them. I shouldn’t care if some guy is bringing her flowers. And I definitely have no right to be jealous about it. But I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been niggling at me all evening.

Her lips roll together like she’s trying to clamp down on an even bigger smile. “Yup. Hank is a sweetheart.”

“Hank?” Now I officially look like a psycho. The longest standing friend of our family brought her flowers, and I’m acting like a possessive tool about it.

“Mhmm,” is all she says. But I can hear the trace of humor in her voice. Like she sees my comment for exactly what it is.

My fingers flex on the steering wheel, and we fall into an awkward silence. Where conversation flowed pretty easily in the dingy little pub surrounded by the hum of local regulars in for their daily happy hour and the twangy music playing through the cheap speakers, it feels more strained in the quiet of my truck. Like there’s too much left unsaid between us. It’s too intimate. Too dark.

Too much.

I nod and retreat into the silence as we travel down the dark side roads back toward the ranch. When we pull up to the house, I shoot Violet a look which garners me an eye roll. But she doesn’t move to jump out of the tall truck on her own.

The minute my door slams, the brown horse whinnies loudly to me from her gate, looking like a drowned rat. A happy drowned rat with her ears all flicked forward.

I ignore it and jog around the front of the truck, yanking the passenger-side door open to get Violet out before I get totally drenched. The rain beats steadily across my shoulders as I look down at her in the dimly lit cab. Each drop feels like a pinprick on my skin as she looks up at me without turning her body; she hesitates. Like she doesn’t quite want to face me. Her blue eyes darken somehow in the low light—going almost indigo—and her hair looks more golden in its shimmer. I watch as her tongue darts out across the seam of her shapely lips.

We stand in limbo, her in the dry warmth of the truck, me out in the rain drinking her in like I’ve been stuck in the desert. Parched.

My body pulses in time with my heart as she spins herself toward me slowly, one hand on the handle and the other on the edge of the seat, lifting the cast gingerly. I run a hand over the top of her injured leg to hook my palm behind her knee and pull her closer. She shivers, like she’s cold, so I slide my eyes back up to her face. “Are you—”

She cuts me off this time. “Thank you again for tonight. I know you don’t like me. But I still had a good time with you.”

My chest fills with heavy air and self-loathing as I step in and feel my knees bump against the truck, my waist centered between her slender thighs. My fingers lock onto the back of her knee as I ask, “Why would you think I don’t like you?”

Violet looks over toward the horse, avoiding my eyes, stammering as she does. “I . . . I . . .” Her sigh is a harsh emptying of her lungs through that distracting, heart-shaped mouth. “Because I ghosted you? Because I’m in your house? Your life? I’m not stupid—I know I’m invading your space. I know you like your privacy. I’m an inconvenience. I can tell you don’t like me. And you know, really, that’s my issue. It’s not my problem if people don’t like me. Not really. But it bugs me, you know?”

I almost want to laugh at the absurdity of the statement. She thinks I don’t like her? If she only knew is what runs through my head as I lean in closer.