A Photo Finish: A Small Town Second Chance Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 2)
A Photo Finish: Chapter 25

“I DON’T THINK you should be mad at him, Violet. You didn’t see him. He was . . .” Billie trails off with a faraway look in her amber eyes. They pinch at the sides. “I think it would have made him feel better if you’d just taken a minute to show him that everything was in working order.”

“Why?” We’re wiping down our tack together, and I rub the saddle soap covered sponge over the reins of Pippy’s bridle roughly. I’m aggravated. “I’m doing my job. I don’t need him here micromanaging me and telling me what to do. Can you imagine if I waltzed into his office and did the same?”

“I know. I know.” Billie squeezes the water out of her sponge with a loud sigh. “But sometimes, when we care about someone, we make their priorities our own. You didn’t see him, Violet. He sprinted. I thought he was going to hurl right on the track. I don’t think Cole’s priority is to micromanage you—it’s keeping you safe. Your safety is important to him. So, throw the guy a bone and just, like, wiggle your toes and catch your breath next time before you jump right back on.”

“Didn’t know you were on Cole’s team.” I instantly hate myself for saying that. Childish.

“I didn’t know you were twelve.” Billie arches one shapely brow at me, successfully chastising me without saying more. She squeezes my shoulder and drops a sisterly kiss into my hair. “See you later, tough cookie.”

But as soon as she goes, the sentence that runs through my head as I finish my chores in silence is the one about shared priorities. I’m still mulling it over when I pull up to his house, knowing that we need to hash some things out. Because if I’m going to make his priorities my own, he needs to make mine his, too.

I’m about to open the door and walk in when nervousness hits me. Had I been too hard on him? Snappy? I was miffed I fell off because I wanted to give Pippy the best experience possible, and that didn’t happen. I was being hard on myself, and I think that spilled over into being hard on Cole. Based on Hank and Vaughn’s faces, I feel like I might have been harsher than necessary. Unintentional as it might have been.

I opt to knock instead, feeling the distance between the two of us already, and not wanting to intrude.

“Come in.” His voice is ragged, tired sounding.

I twist the knob and step into the pretty farmhouse. So light and airy, painted in whites and blues. It reminds me of delft pottery—the kind my dad still keeps in a china cabinet in the dining room from my mom’s family in the Netherlands. I remember pulling them out as a child, running my sticky little hands over a plate or a bowl and making up stories in my head to go with the scenes painted on the sides.

Cole is in the corner, sitting in the cushy armchair where we first made love, looking like a dark shadow. Pure turmoil. I must have missed how insanely handsome he looks today when I was laying in the dirt. Gray dress pants with a bit of a sheen to them, black dress shirt with beautiful pearl cufflinks. His elbows are braced on his knees and his head is dropped, his eyes fixed on where he spins one cufflink near his wrist.

He doesn’t bother looking up at me. He’s always looking at me like I’m the sun and he’s been living underground for years. The way he looks at me warms me to my toes. I want him to look at me like that forever. So, this—him avoiding me altogether—stresses me instantly.

“Hey,” I say cautiously, unzipping my paddock boots and setting them neatly on the mat by the door. He likes it tidy. See? Here I am. Sharing priorities.

He mumbles something in response but doesn’t change position.

“Cole? Are you okay?” I pad across the floor, onto the Persian area rug in the living room, and kneel before him, trying to get his eyes on mine. Seeking that warmth.

I fold myself onto my knees, butting up against his feet. One flesh, one plastic. I wrap my hands around each of his calves. One flesh, one plastic. “Hey. Look at me.”

When he finally does, my heart lurches in my chest. He looks tortured. Broken. So lost. His eyes are glassy, his longer hair on top disheveled and flopped over his forehead. His face looks more lined than usual, showing our difference in age. The difference in how our lives have played out. Sure, I’ve had my challenges, but Cole . . . it’s like he got dropped in the middle of the mountains at seventeen and has been forced to survive on his own.

I feel guilty. Like I haven’t really wrapped my head around just how much he’s been through. I’ve been so focused on wanting him, on showing him, that maybe I missed seeing just how lost he is. Has he been pretending to be fine this whole time, for my sake?

I think back to his nerves around me riding Pippy in the fields, or that he never watches any races from ground level, his vocal dislike of horses—save for Pippy, who seems to have completely won him over—and realization dawns on me.

Dropping my head, I kiss his knee. “I’m sorry I scared you. It wasn’t my intention. Is this something that’s been bothering you for a while?”

“Yes,” he says, looking at the ground again. Not touching me back. Zero reassurance in his body.

“Okay.” My hands rub up and down his calves, silently begging him to look at me. “We can work on that. Figure out a happy medium. I don’t want you worrying about me like this.”

“Then stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Making me worry.”

I chuckle sadly. It’s such a sweet sentiment. “Tell me how. I’ll try.”

I feel his heavy sigh over the tips of my fingers as he finally pulls his head up and looks at me. The sigh is defeated, and so is the look in his eye. “I can’t do this.”

I lean back, away from him, like he just slapped me. “What?”

“This.” His voice has transformed to the cold, unfeeling version of him I started out with a couple of months ago. His defense mechanism. “You and me. Us. I can’t do it.”

My pulse throbs in my throat as I try to keep up with what he’s saying. Seems like an extreme reaction to a simple spill off a horse. Not my first. And definitely not my last.

“Why?”

“The riding. The horses. The racing. It’s more than I can handle. Day in and day out. Every weekend. My dad died on that fucking track. I’m both drawn to it and repulsed by it. You deserve someone who can be there for you. You deserve someone who will be your biggest fan. And I can’t do that.”

I reel. First, I’m devastated, and then suddenly I’m furious. “Are you telling me if I found a new job we’d be fine?”

His eyes shift away and his jaw ticks, like he’s too ashamed to admit I hit the nail on the head. I let my hands fall away from his legs and flatten them on the carpet to ground me, breathing deeply and taking in the low-pile threads, the way the dark blues and creams and whites blend. Him and I. Dark and light. I feel like he just plucked my thread right out and tossed me away.

“So, you kept this going, pursued me even, knowing the job I’ve always dreamt of and am finally making a name for myself at would be a deal-breaker for you?”

He groans and runs his hand through his hair, tugging at the ends angrily.

“And now you have the gall to ask me to quit for you?”

He looks at me quickly now, his eyes blazing. “I would never ask you to quit for me.”

I push up to my feet, shaking my head as I go. “Ask it. Imply it. What’s the difference?”

“Violet—”

“No.” I hold both hands out to stop him. “Nah. Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. You’ve always been clear about your limitations. And now I need to set my own. I spent a whole year thinking I might be the exception to your rule. That maybe, just maybe, I would be the one to change your mind. Which is stupid, right?” I laugh tearfully, knowing I’m losing the grasp on my control, and move swiftly toward the door. “I’m never going to force you to change, and twice now, you’ve proven that I’m not worth changing for. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

“Violet, please, you have to know it has nothing to do with—”

I spin and stare back at him. One tear spills out on my cheek. “I know, I know. It’s not me, it’s you. Except it’s not. You’re so much more than you give yourself credit for. I wish you could see it in yourself. What I see in you? So much strength. So much love. But I can’t make you embrace it. That’s on you. I don’t believe for one second that you don’t want us. But you’re stuck, Cole. You can’t see past one moment of your life. One terrible moment. And you’re letting it define your entire existence.”

I jam my feet into my boots, hating walking away from him when he looks like he needs me more than he ever has before. “When you’re ready to make other moments just as important, let me know. This isn’t me quitting on you. But I won’t wait around forever, Cole. Figure your shit out.”

I keep my eyes trained on the door as I say it. My escape route. Because if I look at Cole right now, I’ll go back to him.

I’ll wrap him in my arms. I’ll kiss him.

I’ll forgive him.

And that’s not what either of us needs right now.

I HAVEN’T SLEPT. I haven’t cried either. I’ve just thought. I laid in my bed all night thinking. About Cole, about his scars, his insecurities, about his trauma. And about me and mine, too. About how mad I am at him, and about how my heart bleeds for him.

I don’t want us to be over. But I need him to be the one to take that step. And if he can’t get over my chosen career path, then we weren’t meant to be. I’m not folding to make another overbearing man in my life happy anyway. It’s not even on the table.

“That’s not the new Violet,” I mutter to myself, staring into my coffee cup in the staff room, wishing I could hook it up to myself with some sort of IV drip. I should talk to Mira about that possibility.

“Hi, New Violet,” Mira says as she marches in, like I willed her into existence, and grabs herself a mug. She’s obviously oblivious to what went down yesterday.

“Funny,” I deadpan.

“What was old Violet like?” She stirs her coffee with a smile on her full lips.

I groan. “Meek. A pushover.”

“Maybe you’re not new. Maybe you’re just growing. Nobody stays the same. New goals, new experiences . . . they’re all building blocks that put a person together. Constantly shifting.”

“Are you a doctor of philosophy or veterinary medicine?” She laughs and takes a sip of her coffee. “You’re in a good mood. What’s wrong?”

Her feline gaze peeks over her mug at me as she grins. “I’m always in a good mood.”

“You’re not usually this talkative.”

“Sometimes I learn more by listening.”

“You scare me a little bit.”

She throws her head back and laughs. “I’m in a good mood because I just came from a meeting with Vaughn and your boyfriend. They’re going to be building a clinic here on the farm for me to work out of. Not enough quality facilities around, so apparently they’re expanding into their own.”

I smile, and it’s genuine. I couldn’t be happier for Mira. “That’s amazing! Congratulations . . . But he’s not my boyfriend.”

She scoffs and tops her coffee. “He looks just as shitty as you. Actually,” she peers at me closely, “worse. The man’s got it bad. What did you do to him?”

“What did I do to him? Why is everyone taking his side?”

“No one is taking his side, Violet. I just know you’re strong. And yeah, that man might fill out a T-shirt like it was painted onto him, and he could probably bench press me, but he’s in pain. It’s written all over him—even before you guys had your little spat. I diagnose animals who don’t talk for a living. He’s basically the same thing. Trust me.”

I laugh and then look at her seriously. “You think I’m strong?”

“I do. And you shine bright. Bright enough that a man like that might need you to light his way.”