Close Enough to Touch. Victoria Dahl

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      CHAPTER ONE

      THIS MADE IT OFFICIAL: Grace Barrett’s life was over. Or, at the very least, it was so irrevocably screwed up that a quick death would be a blessing at this point.

      She was twenty-eight, in debt to an angry ex-boyfriend, she had exactly $37.40, and she was here.

      In Wyoming.

      Well, she’d been in Wyoming for hours, actually. Hours of endless beige hills and barren mountains. Hours of cows. And sheep. And some strange creature she’d thought was a deer until she’d gotten a better look. Deer didn’t look as if they had exotic black masks painted on their little faces. What the heck were those things?

      Grace shuddered a little as she stepped out of the bus. Her feet touched the ground and there was no taking it back now. She really was in Wyoming. She was standing on it.

      “Damn,” she muttered.

      The elderly man in front of her turned with a concerned smile. “Sorry, ma’am?”

      Grace crossed her arms in defense. “Sorry about that. I was just…”

      He smiled and put a hand to his balding head as if he meant to tip a hat. “Beg pardon.”

      No one had ever begged her pardon before. Grace crossed her arms more tightly, unsure how to handle this situation. Thankfully, the man moved away before she was forced to respond.

      Grace glanced warily around. After her years in L.A., she knew to keep her guard up against anyone who approached her on the street, no matter how kind and polite the people here might seem. Nobody did, so she edged toward the driver as he unlocked the luggage compartments of the bus. She was used to being alone, but she’d been surrounded by people on this bus for nearly two days. She felt almost panicked with the need to be free.

      The driver began unloading the bags, laying them out in neat rows. Grace kept a sharp eye on his hands, waiting for her ancient camouflage duffel bag to appear.

      No one else seemed to be watching as closely. The other passengers were hugging friends and family or idly chatting with each other as their eyes traveled along the horizon. She spared only the barest of glances toward the view of the mountains. Someone could walk up and grab a bag and be gone before anybody even noticed.

      These folks were obviously not from L.A. Or…maybe their bags didn’t contain every ridiculous, precious thing in the world that belonged to them. Maybe their bags were just filled with dirty clothes and cheap souvenirs from a beach vacation. But when Grace’s bag appeared and was set on the ground, she jumped forward and dragged it away like a feral animal with a piece of precious meat. It was nearly too heavy for her to lift, but she’d have to find a way. She had no car, no spare money for a taxi—if they had such things here—and she hadn’t told her great-aunt when she’d be arriving. So she was hoofing it.

      “Hoofing it,” she breathed, managing a laugh as she glanced around to see if there were any cows standing next to her. Unlike the rest of Wyoming, the town of Jackson seemed to be blessedly cow-free. It was also slightly larger than she’d expected, dashing her hope that she could simply wander down the main street until she spotted the address she was looking for. She’d have to ask for help. The idea made her grimace as she took a deep breath and looked around. Maybe she could just find a free map.

      “Bingo,” she muttered as her eye fell on a big sign that spelled out Jackson Hole Information! in old-timey wooden letters. Grace had lived in Hollywood a long time. If there was one thing she knew, it was how to work a tourist trap.

      She dragged her bag across the asphalt and onto the wooden…sidewalk? Grace blinked and looked down the street, then turned to look in the other direction. Yes, as far as the eye could see, the sidewalks were wooden, like an Old West town.

      “Wow,” she muttered. These people were really trying hard, even if she had to admit that it was cute. Shaking her head, she pulled her bag down the sidewalk until she got to the brochure stand.

      “Do you have a free map of the area?” she asked the matronly woman who’d turned away to straighten papers.

      “Oh, hello!” the woman called as she spun around. “Good afternoon!”

      “Hi. Um. I just need a map of the town. Something simple.”

      The woman’s eyes flicked up to Grace’s hair for a moment, and Grace wondered what she must think of a purple-haired girl in combat boots asking about Jackson, but the woman’s smile didn’t waver. “Well, I won’t lie. There are a lot of choices. Here’s the official town map.” She laid out a folded brochure. “But—and don’t tell anyone I said this—I actually like the one the restaurant association puts out a little better.”

      “Thanks.” Grace took both the brochures and opened the one the woman had recommended.

      “What are you looking for, sweetheart?”

      Sweetheart? Grace glanced down at her T-shirt. Yep. It still advertised an old L.A. burlesque club. “Just a street,” she said softly, hoping not to invite more questions.

      “Which street?”

      Grace cleared her throat and shifted, her gaze desperately boring into the map, hoping she could just find it herself. “Um, Sagebrush.”

      “Sagebrush. That’s a long one. What’s the address?” The woman’s pink fingernail pointed toward the map, but it moved before Grace could register which street she was pointing to.

      “Six-O-five West Sagebrush,” she said, sighing.

      “Oh, that’s way over here!” The woman pointed again, and this time Grace saw it. A long line that meandered all the way through town and then followed the curve of a stream before it ended. It looked like quite a haul.

      “Thank you,” Grace said. She folded the map and hefted her bag up, biting back a grunt as she worked the strap over her shoulder. “This way?” She tilted her head in the direction she thought she needed to go. She’d always been pretty good with that sort of thing.

      “Yep!”

      Grace took a deep breath and started walking. Her boots clomped on the wood.

      “Oh, honey!”

      Grace pretended she didn’t hear.

      “Sweetie, stop! You can’t walk all that way.”

      “I’m fine,” she called.

      “But there’s a free bus!”

      Her boots stopped clomping. “Free?”

      “Totally free. In fact, it’ll stop right here in a few minutes. Comes every half hour.”

      Grace СКАЧАТЬ