At least he had a plan for his own future. At least he could concentrate on that.
Sighing, Cole toed off his boots and unbuttoned his shirt. His fingers were on the last button when someone knocked on his door. The tentative rap froze every muscle in his body.
It couldn’t be…
She’d left.
Cole snapped from his shock and jumped up to open the door.
Grace stood there in the rain, hair dripping, shoulders bowed down by the weight of her bag. “I was arrested,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“In front of everyone.”
“Come here,” Cole murmured, pulling her into his arms. She was ice-cold and shaking. Or maybe he was shaking. He turned her, pulling her into the warmth of the room before he shut the door behind her and tossed her bag aside.
“You’re freezing,” he said, rubbing his hands over her arms before he pulled off her soaked hoodie. “I thought you were gone.”
Teeth chattering, she let him undress her until she was wearing nothing but her panties and a tank top. Then he pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped her in it. “Better?”
She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “You knew?”
“Of course I knew. It was the first thing I heard when I got back to town.” He smiled to take the sting away, to make it a joke, but she didn’t answer his smile.
“I can’t go back, Cole.”
“Of course you can. You think no one in town has ever been arrested before? And you left so quickly, people probably think you’re a fugitive. That only makes it more exciting.”
“The charges were dropped,” she rasped.
“I know.” He sat on the bed and pulled her into his arms. “You want to tell me what happened?”
“I never meant for this to happen,” she started, and then she told him the whole story. The cash she’d taken and lost. The way she’d fled L.A. in a panic that her ex might file charges. The money she’d sent and would have to keep sending for the next year or two.
“It’ll be okay,” he said. “It was a mistake. And bad luck. You don’t have to be ashamed.”
“But I do,” she whispered. “You don’t understand. When I was with Scott, I let him change me. I saw it happening and I went along with it, because…I let myself need him.”
“Shit, Grace. We’ve all done that.”
“That’s not true. When have you ever needed anyone?”
“As a matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons I don’t tell anyone about L.A. I became someone I didn’t like. I hated it and I didn’t stop it soon enough. I know what that’s like.”
“You don’t understand. It’s not simple for me. My mother was—is—weak. And everything I am, everything I want to be, it?
?s so I don’t end up like her. Getting stepped on and spit on and used. Doing anything she can just to keep a man, because she thinks she can’t make it on her own. Do you know what it was like to watch her do that? To change her looks and personality and interests every time some new boyfriend came to stay? She was a new person every year. Which one of them was my mother? Which one was real? I hated that. I hated her. And suddenly, it was me doing that. Because I needed him. Letting him treat me like shit.”
“You didn’t stay. You came to your senses.”
“No,” she whispered. “He kicked me out. That’s the worst part, Cole. He kicked me out like a dog he didn’t want anymore.”
“Ah, shit, Grace.” He kissed the top of her head and pulled her closer. “That’s not you. You were going to figure it out. Be glad it ended the way it did. Because I know you, and if you’d stayed longer, you would have eventually exploded in a way that would’ve resulted in injury to that man’s reproductive organs. And then you really would’ve gone to jail. And if you ended up on probation, how would you have come to Wyoming?”
He was relieved to hear a small, watery laugh. But she still felt too small in his arms.
“Listen, Madeline treated me like shit, too. And I left on my own. But then I went crawling back like a fool, only to find she didn’t want me anymore. So, yeah, we have all done that. Everyone in this room, anyway.”