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

FOR THE SECOND morning in a row, I wake with Violet snuggled into my chest. She’s curled into me like she can’t get close enough. Little hands grasping at the white T-shirt I’m wearing, fisted into it to keep me close.

I smile, liking how it looks. Liking the thought that she wants me close. Liking waking up next to her, the smell of her on my sheets. Even the purring doesn’t bug me. Someone so small and dainty making that noise is just plain charming.

The sun filters in through the windows of the room, casting a sparkly glow over her pale hair. She looks downright angelic. With those pouty, rose-petal lips parted slightly, I can’t help but think back to sliding my cock between them, the way she’d kneeled before me and looked up into my eyes.

I feel myself swell. Fuck. That was something I’ll never forget. She might have been the one on her knees, but it felt more like I was the one begging. Even this morning, I feel like I should pinch myself. A woman like Violet wants me. And I can’t wrap my head around it.

She asked why her when I could have anyone I want. A comment that still makes me shake my head. I’m a thirty-six-year-old man with nothing to show for my years on earth except a company that was handed down to me and a nice lingering dose of PTSD from a dead dad and a blown-off leg. No house. No friends. No kids. I’ve always wanted kids, but here I am without a single one of those things on the horizon.

And in walks Violet, every one of those things readily available to her, and she wants what? Me? I just can’t reconcile it. I haven’t even tried to pretend I’m something else. I’ve been surly, unreachable, and the odd time I’ve given into her allure, I’ve ended up shoving her away like she’s nothing.

I realize she might be everything.

The light at the end of the dark tunnel. The sunshine my dark existence so desperately needs. I can’t stop myself from brushing my lips across her temple. She feels so precious wrapped up in my arms right now.

“Hi,” she murmurs quietly, nuzzling against my chest.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“I’m glad you did. That’s a pretty good way to start the day.”

My heart thunders against my ribs. Is she serious?

This time, I press a kiss to her hair and cup the back of her head, still amazed she’s even letting me touch her. She’s so fucking precious.

“What time is it?” She doesn’t even poke her head out of our little cocoon.

I look over at the bedside table. “Eight.”

She groans. “I need to get going.”

“For what?”

“Into the city. I’ve got rides today on some of the younger horses early on. And then DD in the stakes this evening. You coming to watch?”

Her voice sounds so hopeful. I swallow roughly. I don’t love watching the races at the best of times. But now? After this? Having to watch Violet on a horse, running at breakneck speeds, over the ground where I watched my dad die? It feels impossible. Terrifying.

It feels like I need to call Trixie and confess some shit.

“Sure,” I say woodenly as I trail a hand over her slender back, feeling it rise and fall with each breath. Something that feels reassuring as I try not to fixate on the thought of her getting hurt out there. Or worse.

She slides a hand over my ribs and squeezes. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” I murmur back.

The lie tastes sour on my tongue. I don’t know that she’ll be fine. I can’t predict that kind of thing. The words feel cheap, but I say them because I know they’re what she wants to hear.

THE TRAFFIC HEADING into the city is obnoxious. I guess after over a month of living out in Ruby Creek, I’ve grown accustomed to getting anywhere I need to go in mere minutes and without encountering a single other person.

Something I appreciate. Not having people everywhere all the time is preferable to the noise, the mess, the ant-colony feel of downtown Vancouver. Just a bunch of mindless little worker ants scurrying off to their job so they can overpay for rent—or God forbid, a mortgage. The housing market in this city is downright criminal.

I could afford one if I wanted, but it’s the principle. A run-down bungalow on a small lot shouldn’t cost a person over a million dollars. I’ve seen how people live in other parts of the world, and the excess of this city grates on me. It’s wasteful.

Maybe that’s something I’ve come to appreciate about country living and small-town residents. They live well within their means. Hardworking people who aren’t trying to keep up with the Joneses. It’s like another world. A smaller, quieter, more real world where people work to enjoy what they’ve got rather than working to afford something that might impress their friends.

Just a completely different mentality. One I like—that I might align with more than I initially thought.

Since traffic doesn’t appear to be going anywhere—on a fucking Sunday afternoon—I decide I might as well bite the bullet and call Trixie. Something I’ve been avoiding doing because, truthfully, I don’t know how she’s going to react to everything that’s transpired.

Have I gone off the deep end? Is this happening too fast? It feels fast. We haven’t even talked about what we’re doing. Violet kissed me sweetly, deeply, when she left my house this morning and then hopped in her car and drove off.

All she said was, “See you later,” and I’m so fucking out of practice with women that I don’t even know what that means.

I blurted out more to her last night in that bathtub than I’ve said to anyone, other than Trixie, and she didn’t run screaming for the hills. So where does that leave us? I feel like a teenager all over again. Can I just leave her a note like I would have back then?

Want to be my girlfriend? Check yes or no.

I scoff as I jam my finger at the screen of my phone and hear the ringing filter in through my Bluetooth system.

Trixie’s voice booms through the cab of my truck, making me wince and adjust the volume. “Cole. It’s a Sunday.”

“I had sex.” That should change her attitude.

The speakers are quiet for a few beats. “Real sex? Or internet sex?”

Why does everyone keep calling it that? “Real sex.”

She lets out a long whistle. “How was it?”

“Jesus Christ, Trixie. Is that something therapists ask their patients?”

“Ha! I don’t see why not. If you’re going to call me on a Sunday like I’m a guy friend, then I might as well ask the same questions someone like that might.”

I groan. Trixie is anything but your average therapist. Of course, that’s actually what I like about her. Sad as it sounds, she’s also one of the closest things I have to a genuine friend. And I pay her.

“It was . . . overwhelming.”

“Overwhelmingly . . . good?”

“Yes,” I bite out, feeling uncomfortable even though I’m the one who called her.

“Okay. And where did you meet this person?”

“It was Violet.”

I swear I can feel Trixie smile through the phone. She’s spent the last year telling me I needed to bite the bullet and reach out to Violet. Say something. Anything. Rather than pretending she doesn’t exist. That even if it didn’t go anywhere, I might feel better just getting everything off my chest.

But I kept putting it off, telling myself I’d do it eventually. All I’d have to do is drive out to the farm and talk to her. But no, instead I hid out in the owner’s lounge and scowled down at her during every race she ran. I hadn’t missed many since I figured out who she was. The one where Cassel took her down, because I was busy moving out to Ruby Creek, and yesterday, when I was just too tired and too sore from our adventure up on the mountain to make it. It felt wrong not being there. Like I’d been in this secret relationship with her for the last year that she had no idea about.

Because I had. Writing her in the chat, watching her from the skybox, getting updates from Vaughn, who always eyed me suspiciously as he did. You’re so fucking lame, Harding.

“I’m happy for you, Cole,” Trixie says. Like she doesn’t think I’ve fucked up at all.

“That’s it? No words of wisdom? No advice? No scolding?”

She hums. “What would you like me to tell you?”

“I don’t know. Something. Anything? She’s young. Maybe I’m a creep.”

“Is she of legal age? Did she consent?”

I want to feel you inside me, that’s what she said, and Trixie knows Violet is well into her twenties. She’s only asking to prove a point.

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t see the issue,” she says simply.

“She’s just so vivacious. Really going somewhere, you know?”

“And you’re not?”

I groan. She always does this. Spins it back around on me.

“I don’t feel like I am.”

“Okay. And have you asked her how she feels? Do you think that a woman who you’ve described to me as intelligent and going somewhere would saddle herself down with someone she perceives to be dead weight? What would that say about her?”

My brain backflips to follow her logic. But I see what she’s saying. If Violet is who I’ve told her she is, then she must see something in me I can’t see in myself.

She takes my silence as an answer. “Presumably, she knows about your leg now?”

“Yeah.” I scrub at my face, remembering how I felt like my world was falling apart that day on the mountain. How I felt like I wanted to dissolve into the dirt path to avoid her knowing about it. “My prosthetic malfunctioned on our hike. She knows about it in graphic detail.” I spit the last part out, still hating how incapable it makes me feel.

“And what was her response?”

I think back on the hopping and crawling jokes she made and sigh. “She didn’t seem to care at all.”

“I’ve been telling you for two years that no one cares about your leg except for you.”

I can’t help but chuckle as I recall the few times Trixie has told me this. You’re not a special snowflake. Stop acting like one.

“I guess I needed proof. The universe forced my hand with this one.”

“It has a funny way of doing that, doesn’t it?”

Traffic crawls toward Bell Point Park as I mull over those words. All the ways I’ve woven Violet into the fabric of my reality. How inescapable she’s become.

“Guess so,” I muse. “I just don’t want to hold her back.”

“But you want to keep her?” Trixie sounds far too hopeful. I almost hate to confess this to her.

“Yes,” I reply, because I do. I’ve avoided admitting this to myself, but it’s true. I want Violet as way more than a pen pal or friend, and definitely as more than a one-time thing.

“Then don’t hold her back. Bolster her up. Be her biggest fan.”

All that hope sprouting in the dusty wasteland that is my heart shrivels. Can I bring myself to support her when I can barely stand the thought of her out there on the track? And why the fuck would the universe put her in my path when I can barely stand the thought of kissing her goodbye to go do the very thing that killed my dad?

“And Cole,” she adds, “talk to her.”

Right. Talk to her.

I STAND in the owner’s lounge beside my brother, looking down over the track. It’s almost time for the stakes race, and I feel like I might barf. I cross my arms over my chest and squeeze, trying to push the panic clawing its way up inside of me back down.

“You look like you’re going to kill somebody.” Vaughn takes a sip of his scotch and shoots me a playful glance. Always joking around. What must it be like to feel so carefree? I wish I knew.

I just grunt. I’m okay with looking like I might kill someone. It means my poker face is still intact because I definitely don’t want to look like I might breakdown. Or worse, like a love-struck idiot. And even more, I don’t want to talk about my past with Violet now that he knows about it. In fact, I’m a little surprised he hasn’t cracked a joke about it yet.

“Gentlemen,” I hear from behind me and turn around, coming face-to-face with a man I’ve never met before. Dark blonde hair, crooked nose, expensive suit. He looks like a total chump.

“Dalca,” Vaughn says, his voice going chilly after teasing me mere moments ago. “What can I help you with?”

Ah, this is Stefan Dalca. The man who almost took my little brother for a ride. The man who employs Patrick Cassel, the shithead who made Violet fall. I want to kill them both.

“I just wanted to apologize for Patrick Cassel’s behavior. He’s no longer employed by me.”

Okay, I want to kill him a little less now. Maybe just maim him. Break that nose again. “The person you owe an apology to is Miss Eaton.”

The man turns his hawkish eyes my way. They’re intelligent, scanning—altogether too confident. I don’t trust this guy as far as I can fucking throw him.

“I’ll track her down.” His lips tip up into a sly smile that I want nothing more than to wipe off his face. But instead, I nod. My days of flying off the handle are behind me. I’ve got different problems now. “Good luck today.” He sticks his hand out as though I’ll shake it.

I look at it and then shift my gaze up to his face. I’m not shaking this guy’s hand. All I’m giving him is an unimpressed look. Vaughn does the same.

“Okay. Tough customers,” he says with a chuckle before he swaggers away. I can see why Billie hates the guy. She’s nothing if not an excellent judge of character.

“Nice. I love it when you go all glacial like that. It’s fucking terrifying.” He drinks again with a big goofy grin on his face. “Violet is a braver woman than I am.”

There it is. I shift my eyes over to Vaughn, who looks like a kid on Christmas morning, far too excited to see my reaction to that comment.

“And Billie is a more patient woman than I.”

Vaughn barks out a loud laugh that has people looking our way as his shoulders shake. “Thank fuck for that,” he says, looking back out over the track. “There they are!”

He points toward Violet, sitting atop a shiny dark horse in matching black and gold silks, her champagne hair plaited straight down her back. I feel instantly nauseous at the sight of her out there but swallow it down.

I don’t want to be that guy. And I don’t want my snoopy little brother knowing that I feel like that guy.

DD prances beside the pony rider that leads them along the track, and I’m glad that someone is there to escort them safely. Some horses are really riled, jumping around, but not the little stallion. He prances along slowly, like he knows he’s fancy—perfectly confident. Violet looks that way too. Still and quiet, one hand smoothing up and down the horse’s muscular neck.

I shouldn’t be nervous about this race. It’s not a huge deal. It’s a qualifier. But I am. My chest is tight, and I feel like my throat is trying to crawl up out of my mouth.

I cross my arms over my chest again as they load up into the gates. I know DD gets nervous in there because I’ve heard Violet talk about it. I also know jockeys can get injured in there if things go sideways. My fingers wrap around my thumbs underneath my biceps and squeeze tightly. Maybe if something hurts, I’ll be able to get a handle on my anxiety, focus on something else.

The bell rings, gates fly open, and the line of horses surge out in a mass of pounding hooves and flying dirt. Violet and DD hang back predictably. This is their play, their move.

My teeth grind as I watch her sink into the tack. So in sync, moving in time with the horse as he stretches out underneath her. He’s a finicky stallion, but Violet doesn’t get in his way. She lets him be quirky and uses it to their advantage, making it a winning feature rather than forcing him to be a type of horse he isn’t.

They keep to the back—but not too far behind—down the first stretch. But when they move into the first turn, their focus changes. Violet shifts down lower, pushes her hands farther up his neck, and he surges up through the middle, making his way into the pack.

Exactly where it happened. The slip. The fall. The hooves. And a still form in the dirt as the pack continued to head away toward the finish line. Like a man in the dirt was nothing.

It’s been years, and that image is still burned into my mind. No one stopped. No one went back. In the army, we always went back. Even if it was just for pieces.

A gray horse moves out in front of Violet, and I suck in a breath. Vaughn notices, but he doesn’t say anything. He just peeks at me out of the corner of his eye. Violet backs off, playing it safe, looking for an opening. And when she doesn’t see one coming out of that final turn, she takes him wide. It means they’ll be forced to cover more ground.

But if anyone can pull the move off, it’s going to be this team. Even I know that much. Murmurs roll through the skybox as she flattens out and pushes her arms at DD while his stride eats up the ground. I know he’s not a large horse, not even especially leggy by racehorse standards, but the little spitfire doesn’t let that stop him.

It is truly a sight to behold.

As they near the finish line with a wide-open lane, I feel my icy dread morph into something warmer. Excitement. She’s about to do it again. And I am so damn proud.

Hard work, sweat, and her fierce determination are paying off in spades. A little country bumpkin with a no-quit outlook and infallible positivity is making her dreams come true. And I admire the hell out of her for it.

They fly across the finish line, and it’s tight with DD and the other horse pretty much nose-to-nose. To be honest, I can’t tell who won. But I don’t care. All I want to do is see Violet. I realize in this moment how badly I need her—want her. I want to run my hands all over her body. I need to feel her. To know she’s okay. I haven’t felt this level of anxiety since right after my discharge, when I couldn’t even hear a car door slam without jumping. You’re fucking losing it, man.

“A photo finish,” Vaughn mutters as he shakes his head and jangles his keys in his pocket.

I’m not the only nervous wreck it would seem, but he stays up here because Billie gets anxious. She doesn’t like him in her space when she’s working, which is something I can appreciate. Suddenly, I realize I don’t know what Violet likes. Would she want me down there? Are we going to be a thing where that’s even an option? I’m not sure if I could handle it. What about now? After the race? Do I wait until tonight, back at the ranch? Tomorrow? Follow her around like a sad little puppy dog? So fucking lame, Cole.

I groan, hating how uncertain I feel about this whole thing. I hate feeling out of control. This is when accidents happen. Missions go wrong. People get hurt.

Hearts get broken.

“I gotta go,” I say to Vaughn as I turn to leave before he can see my face. Because as good as I am at hiding my emotions, I feel like they are probably written all over me right now. I don’t care about the photo finish results; I just need Violet.

I shoulder through the crowd in the skybox, heading to the exit, down the stairs, out the door and into the muggy heat. Rather than turning toward the track, I head in the direction of the barns.

I’m going to see Violet because it feels right. And if I think about it too much, I’ll let my uncertainty talk me out of it. God knows the woman has put herself out there enough times for me, to get to know me. And I’ve been a closed-off dick about it, taking far more than I give.

What’s the worst that could happen? She tells me now’s not a good time? She’s busy? Seems to me I’ve faced bigger disasters for less reward.

I stride into the barn and turn down the row of stalls with the Gold Rush Ranch sign at the entryway. Mira, the vet, is at one stall going through what looks like a big toolbox.

“Where’s Violet?”

She turns and looks up at me slowly, like she has all the time in the world. “Excuse me.”

“I said—”

“No,” she cuts me off, “I know what you said. But you missed saying it politely.”

My jaw ticks. What is with all the insanely lippy women at Gold Rush Ranch? Has Vaughn made it a job requirement? Even Violet isn’t as mild-mannered as she used to be, which is good. Billie and Mira are good for her. But man, getting called on my shit all the time is tiring. It’s like I’m living amongst a bunch of young Trixies.

I sigh dramatically as I try again. “Excuse me. Have you seen Violet?”

“I knew you weren’t as bad as Billie makes you out to be,” the black-haired woman sing-songs. Fucking Billie. “And also no. I imagine she’s weighing in. Head out that way and you’ll probably run into her.” She points to the opposite end of the darkened alleyway.

“Thanks.” I wave as I head in that direction.

She just winks at me. Like she knows I’m a total fucking goner. But as I round the corner, all I can think about is Violet. On her knees. In my lap. In my bed.

It’s like she broke down all the walls around me, and now I can’t stop myself from spilling everywhere. I’m oozing out all over the fucking place. When I walk out into the sunlit road, I catch sight of Violet walking toward me, wearing a simple blue wrap dress that matches her eyes perfectly. Her hair is drawn up tight in a bun, and her smile is blinding when she catches sight of me.

“Hey, you!” she calls out with a small wave and a little skip in her step. “I’m so glad you’re here! We won!”

And then I go full caveman.