BREE WAS SOUND asleep when a hand came in loud and shocking contact with her derriere. She sat up with a jolt, rubbing her butt cheek and glowering in the dark. Wait. It was still night. Why was she awake? Oh, yeah, someone spanked her bottom and woke her. It could only be one person, and he was about to pay for it.
“Cole, what the hell? It’s the middle of the night!”
His voice next to her ear made her flinch. In the darkness, she didn’t realize how close he was. “It’s almost dawn, Hollywood. Get dressed. We’re going to greet the sun in one of my favorite places.”
“Unless that place has a cappuccino machine, I’m not interested. Wake me when the sun is up for real.” She started to lie back down, but a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her upright. An arm that had clothing on it. Her eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, and she realized he was already dressed. He pulled her to her feet.
“Get dressed, Bree. We’re going for a little ride.”
In less than fifteen minutes, they were stretched out in the back of Cole’s pickup, wrapped in a blanket and sipping on hot coffee from the thermos he’d filled. He’d driven up behind Nell’s house to a stand of trees at the top of the hill. He’d swung the truck around and backed up so that they faced the eastern horizon, where a thin slice of pink was beginning to show. To the left was the small gully where Trixie had given birth to Malibu. The cattle were grazing and casting curious glances at the big truck parked in their midst.
“So this is a favorite spot, huh?” She was sitting between his denim-clad legs, leaning back against his chest. His arms wrapped loosely around her, and his fingers intertwined with hers. She felt him nodding against her head.
“One of them. The best morning spot, for sure. Wait until you see all the farms spread out in front of us as the sun rises. It’s really something.”
“Where are your other favorite spots?”
“Other than inside you?” The words were murmured low into her ear, and she closed her eyes and sighed before answering.
“Yeah, besides that.”
“There’s a little swimming hole back behind my place that’s a good thinking spot in the evening.”
“The one you talked about on the tractor? Where you have bonfires?”
“Nah, the bonfire place is farther up the road, where there’s room for a crowd. This is a private spot. The river has a pretty good current, so my great-granddaddy dug out a swimming hole for his boys where the water would be more still. There’s a big old tree there with a rope on it. Ty and I grew up swimming in that hole, and I still drive back there at night and just think.”
“You have a lot of thinking spots, Cole. What are you thinking so much about?”
“Things you don’t want in your head, Bree. Things I don’t like to talk about, but that I need to think about, to try to exorcize them from my brain.”
“You know they have counseling for those kinds of thoughts, right?” Nell had told her he didn’t believe in therapy, but surely a professional could help him.
“I’m not a big believer in that stuff. Chris dragged me to his therapy group, but I couldn’t take more than a couple sessions. They want to make you relive everything, in detail, in front of a group of guys who all have their own horrible memories. Instead of unloading, it feels like I’m just piling my shit on top of theirs, and vice versa. I have enough nightmares of my own. I don’t need theirs.”
“You have nightmares?”
He nodded. “I told you I’m a mess. Some days are fine, but there are days when I’m just barely hanging on. Far worse than what you saw during the storm or at the bar...”
Looking to lighten the mood, she wiggled back against him and peered up at his face. “I kinda liked you during the storm, Plowboy.”
He kissed her lightly. “I’m sure you did, Hollywood. But you’re missing the show.”
She turned back to the east and smiled as the sky slowly turned from black to dark blue to pinky-peach. The soft light shifted across the farms below them, making the haze on the fields glow like fire. But she was distracted at the thought of him not reaching out for help to deal with his issues. In Hollywood, everyone went to counseling for something. She couldn’t comprehend why he didn’t want professional help.
“So if a group wasn’t for you, how about private sessions? Have you tried that?”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” She didn’t answer right away, so he filled the silence, just as she’d hoped. “I’ve looked into all that stuff. Chris and Ty want me to go to the Flat Rock Retreat, which is an inpatient program over in the mountains that specializes in PTSD. But I can’t just walk away from the farm for two months and go to some fancy place. It’s not covered by the VA and it ain’t cheap. I’ll deal with this on my own. Lots of guys do. In fact, I was visiting a kid who agrees with me that day you helped Trixie give birth.”
“Really?” So that was where he was. “How’s he doing?”
He shrugged. “He’s good. He’s working on his father’s farm. Travis and I believe working on the land and just putting all that crap behind us is the best way to go, and it seems to be doing the trick for both of us.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “And that’s enough on that topic. Now it’s your turn. Are you really okay with all this media business?”
She considered a moment.
“It was hard to see all those clips about my marriage, the reality show meltdown, the divorce. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” He pulled her in close. She didn’t want to, but it wouldn’t be fair to refuse after she’d pushed him so hard. So she leaned against him as his fingers traced circles on her arms and she told him all about the romance made for Hollywood—a beauty queen and a popular actor who’d just been voted the year’s sexiest man.
Their wedding had been paid for by an entertainment magazine in exchange for exclusive rights to the photos. It was a surreal experience, saying her marriage vows on the lawn of the Beverly Hills Hotel while helicopters full of paparazzi hovered overhead. The mix of opulence and chaos was a foretelling of what their life together would be like. Money flowed like champagne, and it gave her a feeling of security that she hadn’t experienced since her mother died. Nothing bad could happen as long as she had enough money and influence to deal with it.
“Then Damian’s show was canceled, and things went to hell. He started drinking and I suspected he was using cocaine. Damian had this reputation as Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, but he got angry a lot those days.” Cole’s arms tightened around her. “Every time he went to an audition and didn’t get the part, he’d come home and...vent.”
“Tell me exactly what that means.” Cole’s voice was low and tense.
“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking. Just a lot of yelling and breaking things. He finally checked in to rehab after things got a little too crazy one night.”
“Define crazy.”
“He was high, and I was furious. We had a horrible screaming argument. You know I have a hot temper, and I was in his face...”
“Don’t blame yourself for someone else’s actions, Bree. What happened?”
“He shoved me up against the railing on our third-story balcony and it started to give way. We both felt it, and for just a second, he pushed harder before yanking me back to safety. It scared both of us, and he went off to rehab. He begged me to wait for him, and I did. Not as much for him but because I liked our lifestyle, and I didn’t want to lose it. I loved our home in Malibu, the parties and all of it. That sounds shallow, but that’s who I am. Or was. I don’t know...”
After a brief pause to control her spinning thoughts, she quietly finished the rest of the story. She and Damian joined Hot Hollywood Housewives to jump-start his career. In the third season, with no good roles being offered, Damian started to unravel. Her husband became a cliché, inhaling white powder off cocktail tables through rolled hundred-dollar bills on camera. And he was cheating on her with one of the other wives. The show set it up so she’d walk in on them having a romantic dinner while on camera.
“I flipped over a restaurant table, and the rest is history. I quit the show and hired a divorce lawyer. All I wanted was the beach house, and the judge gave it to me. Poor Damian’s still trying to get it back. First he appealed the judgment, and now he wants to buy it from me.” She looked up and found Cole gazing at her. He seemed deep in thought. “And then the stalker showed up, and that safe life I’d wanted so much started to feel really scary.”
“Do you think the stalker could be Damian?”
“No. His career is finally heating up again, so what’s the point? The movie he’s filming is supposed to be a hit, and I’m glad for him. Our marriage was a farce and he was a train wreck, but I never hated the guy.”
The horizon turned orange and pink and silver. Birds were beginning to sing a lovely morning chorus in the trees around them.
“It’s so beautiful here.”
* * *
COLE LOOKED DOWN at Bree gazing out over the Carolina farmland he loved so much, and shook his head in wonder. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and her freckled skin reflected the colors of the sunrise, all pink and peach.
“It is beautiful,” he agreed.
He wasn’t prepared for what he felt when they were together. It was more than the terrific sex. Everything was just so damned easy with her. Sure, they liked to bait each other verbally, but that was just their way of handling the passion that was always bubbling beneath the surface.
She was still staring at the horizon when she spoke again.
“Where do we go from here?”
“Well, I’m thinking breakfast sounds like a good idea. If Nell heard us drive by earlier, she’s probably got something ready for us.”
“You know I’m not talking about that, Cole. What are we going to do about...us?”
His heart drummed solidly against his ribs. It was a fair question, but he had no idea what the answer was. He couldn’t expect her to walk away from her West Coast life and stay here. And he had no interest in joining her in Holly-weird. Sure, this felt perfect, wrapped around each other and sated from a night of great sex, but that could only carry them so far. His life was here, and hers was there.
“Nothing’s changed, Bree.” He forced the words out. “We’re still a bad idea. We only work after dark and between the sheets.” She stiffened in his arms, but he didn’t stop. “Plus, I’m dealing with a lot of crap right now and it’s not fair to drag you into that.”
“You mean the way you dragged me up here so we could watch the sun come up together? Yeah, that’s really twisted, Plowboy.”
He couldn’t help but smile at her ever-present sass, but he didn’t let her distract him. “Look, I may not want therapy, but I know I have stuff to work through. I need to figure out how to get back to living a normal life again, and I don’t think you and I are anywhere near ‘normal,’ sweetheart.”
“There may not be a way to go back to the normal you knew before. But you can create a new normal, Cole. You can move forward by inventing a new path.”
A new path. Could that path possibly include a pretty redhead with a sharp tongue and a sharper mind? He quickly dismissed the thought as setting himself up for heartache. She was going to be heading back to Hollywood soon. But she was here now. Before he could talk himself out of it, he heard himself speaking.
“Why don’t you stay at my place for a few days? It’s farther from the road, and you can sit on the back porch and be out of sight of anyone driving by. You’ll be safer there.”
“And I assume you think your big bed would be perfect for those after-dark activities we’re so good at?”
“I don’t assume anything. If you want to use a guest room...”
She tipped her head back and met his eyes.
“I want to be with you, Cole.”
Damn, if those words didn’t make his heart flutter like a girlie little butterfly. This woman was so bad for him in so many ways. He forced his voice not to waver.
“Look, whatever this is that’s going on between us, let’s keep it real. We know it’s temporary, so let’s not pretend it’s more than it is. Let’s promise to be honest with each other about how we feel and what we want. Okay?”
She stared at him for a beat then nodded. “Okay. And as part of that promise to be perfectly honest?” She waited until he shifted behind her in impatience. “The sun is up and it’s time for breakfast, Plowboy.”
He looked up and blinked at the bright sun now more than halfway above the horizon. A new day had begun. And tonight he’d be going to bed with this woman in his arms. They’d agreed that whatever this was between them was for after dark, and they knew it was short-term. What could be more perfect?
So why did something feel just a bit off?