‘Are you sure?’ she asked him, letting out a volley of curses when he apparently confirmed that he was. ‘He’s going to fucking hurt himself, Cole. I don’t like this.’
‘Lottie, please – tell me what’s going on?’ I asked, finally getting up and turning on the room light, grimacing at the brightness. A fluttering sensation had begun in my gut, a sense that something was off as the pitch of her voice changed. ‘You’re scaring me . . . Lottie?’
‘He’s . . . oh fuck. Cole says he’s getting ready to go up to the Livingston Peak rodeo a day early to practise. He’s going with a bunch of the other guys and their crew . . . but it’s the way he’s acting . . . like he doesn’t care. It’s really fucking reckless, bad enough with his wrist as it is anyway, but . . .’
My heart was beginning to hammer.
‘Put Cole on, Lottie. I want to speak to him, please,’ I begged, gripping the phone as if it was my only lifeline.
‘Hey, Hestia,’ he said. Even in those two words, I heard it – an undercurrent of mistrust, of the same tenor as Lottie’s question.
‘Can you tell him not to go?’ I asked, remembering our last conversation about this on horseback, what felt like a million years ago.
‘I’ve tried,’ he replied, his own anxiety now audible. ‘I’ve never seen him like this, he’s not listening to reason. I don’t know what else to do, other than hold him down on the fucking ground. I don’t know, maybe the other guys will help, maybe a bit of time and space on the drive up will clear his head . . .’
‘But he can’t do it,’ I pleaded. ‘What if he does something really stupid? What if he’s not fucking focusing? Oh shit, Cole,’ I begged, my voice giving way as I pictured what could happen, what’d happened to one of the riders at the first rodeo I’d seen, dragged out of the arena, limp and broken. ‘Go down there, please, I’m begging you. I’ll try and call, but he didn’t answer my messages before . . . what if he doesn’t pick up?’
I could feel the hysteria building. I was thousands of miles away and almost entirely helpless. If I was the reason something happened to Jesse . . .
‘Okay . . . maybe that’ll work. I’ll see what I can do to make him pick up,’ he reassured me. ‘But Hestia . . .’ He paused, clearly trying to arrange his words carefully. ‘He’s fucking devastated right now. Now, I like you a lot, but he’s my brother. I can’t let him get hurt all over again, you know?’
‘I know,’ I whispered, the familiar surge of self-hate washing through me. I fought it for a moment. ‘But Cole, I didn’t do anything with Cal. He was trying to fuck me over and make Jesse jealous. I fucking swear it on Lottie’s life.’ His breath caught for a moment, hesitating. ‘Youknowhow much I love that woman,’ I added, shaking my head. ‘I wouldn’t lie about this, Cole. There’s no other way I can prove it, but nothing happened with Cal other than me ending everything between us. We’ve always played this game . . . it’s fucked up and sad and awful.’ I stopped, drawing a ragged breath, desperate to keep it together. ‘But I would never hurt Jesse like that. I haven’t said it in as many words to him yet, but I love him, Cole, like you love Lottie. I love himso fucking much– I just don’t feel like I deserve him.’
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Lottie replied, her voice startling me as I felt tears building. ‘Cole put you on speaker. Don’t worry, it’s just us.’
‘I’m going down there now,’ Cole said. I could hear movement in the background. ‘Give me five minutes, Hestia, then try his phone, okay?’
I nodded to myself, more aware than ever of being alone.
‘I fucking knew it,’ Lottie croaked after a few more seconds, sniffing at her end of the line. ‘I knew you loved him.’
‘Smartass,’ I murmured, trying to smile. She almost laughed, but it turned quickly into a sigh.
‘It’s not going well, then, being home?’ she asked, keeping her voice low.
‘No,’ I said simply, getting up and walking into the bathroom, putting her on speaker as I attempted to sort my face out. Mascara smudged everywhere, hair sticking up at odd angles.
I briefly described the scene I’d walked into on day one, and then the state of the studio. Lottie listened in silence, with an occasional intake of breath at the particularly fucked-up moments.
‘Oh, Hes,’ she said after I’d finished. ‘That’s . . . a lot.’
‘Yeah. And now I’ve got to somehow extract Cal from the studio and get that going again. The years of building up our client base, the work to get it where it is – well, was.’
‘I know, I know. Look, are you sure –’ She broke off as I paused with the face wipes.
‘What?’ I asked, the same feeling of panic resurfacing.
‘He left,’ Cole growled, cursing with frustration in his voice as clear as if he was standing next to me. ‘I tried to talk to him but he wouldn’t have a bar of it. Said he was going into town to pick someone up, give them a ride up to Montana.’
There was a heavy silence on their side, a silent communication I wasn’t party to.
‘I’ll try him in his truck,’ I said, suddenly determined, knowing it was the only way to service the panic. ‘I’ll just keep fucking ringing until he picks up.’
‘Okay,’ Lottie agreed, an uneasy undertone to her answer. ‘Message me if and when you get through? You can call me any time, you know that?’
‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘Thanks.’
We hung up and I gritted my teeth, tapping on Jesse’s name despite the butterflies that launched as I did so.
