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hat seemed to dismiss everything, including him. “All right, it doesn’t matter. Is this your ranch?”
“I work here.”
“Perfect.” She looped her arm through his and tugged Cole out into the sunlight. He’d spent a lot of the past hours worrying about this moment. About seeing her. About how he’d react. But it was so surreal that it didn’t feel like anything at all. She was someone he’d known intimately. Someone who knew things about him that no one else knew, but she felt like a stranger. No, that wasn’t it. He felt like a stranger when he was with her. A stranger he didn’t like at all.
“This is my cowboy,” Madeline was saying to a group of people who were too well dressed to be actual crew. “Be sure to get Cole anything he needs while we’re here.”
“Actually…” He pulled his arm free of hers. “I’m taking care of things for Easy during the shoot. So let me know if you need anything.”
“Anything, huh?” Her eyes swept down him so quickly that he was almost sure no one else noticed. Almost. Before he could stop himself, he glanced toward the table where Grace had been sitting. She was still there, and she looked in his direction, but she was in the middle of a conversation with another woman and quickly looked away.
“I’ve got to check on the horses,” he said, not looking back toward Madeline.
“You know…” Her hand closed over his wrist before he could move away. When he glanced down and saw her red nails against his skin, a cold sweat broke out at the nape of his neck. “We’re going to get filming pretty quickly. Four weeks, I’d say, so we don’t catch the fall colors. You up for another go-round?”
He’d loved the sight of long red fingernails back then. The scrape of them trailing down his skin. He raised his eyes and met her gaze. “Excuse me?” he said coldly.
She smiled as if she’d just eaten something delicious. “My God, Cole. You’ve only gotten more handsome. How is that even possible? You’ve got to be in the movie. Please.”
The movie. She was asking him to be in the movie. Cole wanted to feel relief, but he wasn’t that stupid. After all, that was what she’d said the first time. Be an extra. Help us out. Tell me everything you know about ranch life.
Jesus, that had been a rush. Being singled out like that. Being approached by Madeline Beckingham, a woman who’d been famous since she’d directed her first film at nineteen. A woman who’d been famous before that.
At first, he’d thought her interest had just been about his riding. His skills. When he’d realized she’d noticed more than that… Shit, that had been so much better.
Cole reached for the hand wrapped around his wrist and carefully removed it. “I’ve got to check on the horses,” he repeated. But she didn’t look the least bit discouraged as he turned away. No didn’t mean no for Madeline Beckingham. It was just the opening volley. And somehow Cole had never managed to win a round. In the end, he’d lost every single one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I NEED YOU TO GO to the county offices to file the last of these permits,” Eve said, tossing Grace the keys to her car.
“But…” Grace caught the keys even as she shook her head. “You need me here.”
“Nope. You got us caught up on paperwork this morning. I’m going to spend the afternoon shooting photos for the production files. Finally.”
So this virtual stranger was just going to let Grace take her car? “Okay,” she said softly. “Right now?”
“Now!” Eve urged, making a shooing motion as she walked away.
“Okay.” Grace looked down at the little Lexus icon on the key. It was a nice car. Not flashy, but very nice. She didn’t understand these people. Eve knew she had nothing. No car. No family. Not even a halfway decent phone. Grace could just get in Eve’s car and be out of Wyoming before she was even missed. When she was sixteen, she might have actually done that.
But maybe nice people didn’t think that way.
“Grace!” Eve shouted. “One more thing!”
For a split second, she was sure Eve had realized how stupid she was being and changed her mind. But then she saw that Eve was walking toward her with Madeline Beckingham, so she pushed to her feet and moved out from behind the table.
The scrum of people who’d surrounded the director moved instinctively along with her, but they hung back a little. Eve winked as she drew closer. “Ms. Beckingham, this is Grace Barrett, the one I told you about.”
Grace shook her hand and tried to suppress her frown of confusion. “It’s an honor to meet you.” That was her standard greeting with directors and producers. Whether it was honest or not depended on the person.
“You’re good with makeup?” the director asked without responding to the greeting.
“I am. I’ve worked in the industry for almost ten years.”
The woman’s gray eyes studied Grace’s face with cool calculation. “You do a good job on your own makeup, but I need something more natural. Can you do that?”
“Um.” Grace glanced at Eve, hoping for a clue. “I’d need my kit, of course. But I can create any look you like.”
