Near and Far

  Once I’d made it past the willow tree perimeter and was looking at it from the inside out, back-floating in the middle of the water, well . . . it was magical. It had become a favorite of Jesse’s and mine. That was the first time we’d been able to swim since I left for school, but we’d made plenty of visits just to curl up in a blanket on the dock.

  “Let’s hurry up and enjoy some Garth-free time.” Jesse shoved his door open and grabbed my hand to help me out.

  “I enjoy all of my Garth-free time.”

  Josie moved to the tailgate to open it for Jolene. “How you doing back here, Gimpy?”

  “Stuck, I think. Garth had to help me in. Someone else is going to have to help me out since he’s probably still coughing up dust.” Jolene’s eyes landed on my certain someone.

  “Well, don’t look at me. I’m not going to sprain my ankle helping your gimp ankle out.” Josie crossed her arms and took a couple steps back. Some best friend-slash-cousin.

  “Jesse?” Jolene said slowly, expectantly. “Mind being your usual gentlemanly self and sweeping a girl off her feet?”

  I didn’t even try to keep from rolling my eyes. Whenever that chick opened her mouth, an eye roll came standard.

  “Sure. No problem.” Jesse shot me a nervous glance before moving toward the tailgate. I wasn’t irritated with Jesse. His willingness to help anyone at any time was one of the things I loved most about him. I was irritated with those who took advantage of his selfless qualities.

  Jolene really ate up the whole thing, winding her arm around his neck, snuggling in nice and tight against his chest, making those damn Bambi eyes at him like he was the be-all-end-all in all maledom . . . which Jesse was. But that was for me to know and no one else to find out.

  Jesse did his good deed of the day, kept his hands and arms to all of Jolene’s super safe areas—yes, I was watching—and was just about to lower her to the ground when she clung a little tighter. Subtlety was a nuance lost on that one.

  “That’s a long trek down some treacherous terrain. Mind carrying me the rest of the way?” she asked, practically batting her lashes. “I’d hate to sprain the other ankle or see those muscles of yours go to waste.”

  If I wasn’t seeing a special shade of pissed, I might have gagged a little.

  “Um . . . are you sure you can’t make it? It’s really not that bad . . .” Jesse didn’t need to look at me to feel me seething. I’m sure he could feel it rolling off me in radioactive waves.

  “Oh. I’m sure.”

  Oh, I knew she was.

  “Okay, well . . .” Jesse turned slowly, partially wincing like he was bracing himself. “Will you be okay if I walk Jolene down real quick and come back for you and Josie?” I knew he was really asking Are you going to be pissed beyond the point of appeasing if I do this?

  The answer to that was yes. And no. Jolene might have made the list after that morning’s shenanigans, but she’d just landed the number one spot on my shit list. Jesse . . . he’d never been anywhere close to it. I doubted he could do anything to wind up on that list. Just because a scheming little trollop was using his goodness against him didn’t mean I was going to hold him responsible.

  “Yeah. We’ll be great.” I shot him a thumbs-up.

  Jesse’s whole body relaxed. “Be right back.” He managed to press a quick kiss into my lips as he walked by. Jolene’s Barbie-doll hair came dangerously close to my hands. So close that I had to fight the urge to yank a chunk of it.

  I only watched Jesse and Jolene walk away for a second because I realized it was a real-life vision for a secret fear: Jesse walking away with a girl as seemingly perfect as him and leaving me behind to wonder if my time with him had been nothing but a dream. It was baseless and unfair and gave away just how insecure I could still be, but it was there.

  “Put your kitty claws away, Feisty.” Josie nudged me as I yanked my beach bag from the truck.

  “You still can look me in the eye and tell me your sweet and innocent cousin is not head over heels in panting lust-love with my boyfriend? I mean, come on, Dolly Parton wrote a goddamned song about some girl named Jolene sauntering in and taking some lesser woman’s man. I don’t want to be the girl whose man leaves her for some flaming locks of auburn-haired girl.” How a forty-year-old country song could seem so prophetic I don’t know, but damn if it didn’t seem to be telling my life story at that juncture. That I knew who Dolly Parton was and what songs she sang gave away just how much time I’d spent at Willow Springs and just how much they loved their iconic country singers.

  Josie yanked off her tank top and adjusted her bikini, bouncing her boobs into position. “You’re so melodramatic, Rowen. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  In fact, someone had. On my first day at Willow Springs, a certain cowboy might have accused me of such.

  “No. Never,” I lied. “Anyone ever tell you you’ve got your damn head in the clouds?”

  “I’ve been accused of that plenty of times, for sure.” Josie laughed as she shrugged out of her cutoffs. Stripping down by the truck was easier. Less to pack down to the swimming hole. “Okay, I’ll give you Jolene is flirting with Jesse. But that’s who she is. She’s the girl who flirts with every single guy she comes in contact with. She’s been doing it for so long she doesn’t even know she’s doing it anymore.”

  I tugged off my slip dress and tossed it into the cab. “That isn’t flirting. That isn’t even an innocent crush.” I waved my hands toward the spot Jesse and Jolene had disappeared into the trees. “That’s a bad case of I-want-to-build-a-shrine-to-you-and-have-a-dozen-of-your-babies.”

  “Please, Rowen, give me a little credit here. One, I’d know if my cousin was wanting to have wild-monkey sex with your boyfriend because the girl can’t keep a secret to save her life, and two, there’s a code between relatives out here.”

  “A code?” I adjusted my own swimsuit top, although I didn’t have as much filling mine as Josie did. My black bandeau top didn’t do anything to enhance what I had either.

  “Yeah, a code. You don’t date each other’s exes.”

  I wasn’t familiar with that code, but Montana people did things a bit differently. “What’s the time period on that? Weeks? Months?”

  Josie got in my face and clapped her hands over my shoulders. “Ever.”

  “Like never ever?”

  “Is there another kind I’m unaware of?”

  I let that settle in for a moment. I wasn’t sure if I bought it, but Josie clearly did, and she was no fool. I might have had a few more points I wanted to clarify, but a cowboy hustling his way back up the hill came within earshot.

  “How was that for record time?” He stopped in his tracks at the front of Old Bessie when it registered I was in nothing but my swimsuit. A slow smile fell into place. A smile that made me feel things I shouldn’t be feeling with that stupid bet hanging above us.

  “How’s Jolene?” I asked.

  Jesse shrugged. “Good. I’m not really sure why she was so excited to come. She doesn’t want to even get in the water. Something about not wanting to get her hair wet.”

  If Jesse truly was stumped as to why Jolene was so eager to come, men really were a clueless species.

  “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t want to sit up here and melt any longer. I’m diving in.” Josie plunked her red sunglasses on and started down the trail toward the swimming hole.

  It was hot. So hot, I felt sweat beading on the back of my neck. “Hey, wait up. We’re coming!”

  Jesse peeled off his shirt and was stepping out of his boots when I passed him. Not missing an opportunity, I slapped his backside. “Come on, Cowboy. Time for a swim.”

  “Right behind you. Just have to get my shorts on.”

  Jesse was working his belt free when I caught up to Josie. She arched an eyebrow, her gaze fixated on him. “You need any help over there, Jesse, let us know. My guess is that you’ve got three willing and eager female volunteers.”

  “Get goin
g, man-ogler.” I shoved Josie’s shoulder then gave her another one when she glanced over her shoulder one more time. “I think that flirt gene runs in the family.”

  “You think right,” Josie replied, wiggling her butt and shaking her arms to an imaginary beat the rest of the way down the trail.

  I didn’t know if I attracted the crazy ones or they were attracted to me, but I had plenty of friends who fit into the escaped-from-the-psych-unit category.

  “So you really think Garth will be all right?” Josie asked as we wove through the willow trees.

  “I think Garth Black would be all right even if he was injected with Ebola virus. The mean ones just keep on keepin’ on. Kind of like the Energizer bunny.”

  “Spoken like someone who knows.” Josie let a curtain of willow branches fall in my face.

  “Hold up. Are you calling me mean now too? I guess informing me I was a bitch just wasn’t enough for one afternoon—now you have to drop the mean card on me?” I shoved the branches aside and glared at her back.

  “Stop glaring daggers at my back. Meanie,” she tacked on.

  “For future reference, honesty is overrated. Way overrated in your case.”

  Josie laughed and paused long enough to let me catch up. She planted a surprise kiss on my cheek. “Good thing you love me.”

  I wiped my cheek and tried to snatch my elbow away when she wove her arm through it. I should have known better than to put up a fight. “Good thing,” I sighed, letting her pull me along the rest of the way.

  After being whipped, smacked, and assaulted by an army of willow branches, we broke free of the tree wall. The swimming hole was so flat it didn’t even look like water. The willow leaves were just starting to bud and the water looked dark, almost black, without the usual rainbow of green. Absence of color or not, it was still beautiful. Then a figure waved from the dock, and the beautiful moment was pretty much ruined.

  “’Bout time you showed up. What took you so long?” Jolene called.

  “We were having a threesome. Sorry,” I piped up, making Josie choke on her gum. “Jesse’s an animal. Just ask Josie.”

  Jolene laughed nervously. She hadn’t been immersed in my dry sense of humor like Josie had. “Where’s Jesse?”

  “With Garth now.” That time, Jolene did choke. “Kidding. No sexual acts, favors, or advances were made. After you left.” I just couldn’t help myself on the last part.

  Josie hissed at me as she jogged down to the dock. “Did you forget your swimsuit, Jo? After all that deliberating and trying on five hundred this morning?”

  “No. I’ve got it on,” Jo said, setting down the magazine she was flipping through.

  “What is the girl who hates tan-lines waiting for then?” Josie plopped down next to her cousin and scooted onto a corner of her beach towel.

  Jolene caught sight of something over my shoulder. I didn’t need to check who it was. The smile about to tear her face apart gave it away.

  “I wasn’t waiting for anything. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” Jolene hobbled to a pathetic stand and did her wiggle, shimmy strip tease. The one where the chick with the perfect body takes her time sliding off her clothes, adjusting her swimsuit just so, making sure every last eye on the beach is on her. The one that makes every guy’s throat dry and makes him roll onto his stomach to keep his “approval” from showing. Yep, that was the one Jolene was unearthing with my boyfriend getting closer.

  I should have shoved the bitch into the lake when I had the chance. Before Jesse was there to witness it. Despite knowing Jesse would be in his swim shorts—and the less clothing that covered Jesse Walker, the better—I didn’t want to turn around. I didn’t want to see him staring at another girl as she stripped a few yards in front of him. I didn’t want to see him wipe drool from the corner of his mouth. No man alive could keep his eyes diverted when a girl like Jolene was stripping down to her spandex underpants, so I wouldn’t blame him. It was just that . . . well, it would break a little piece of my heart. Stupid and cliché, I know, but I already felt that painful ache in my chest.

  When I found the courage to turn around, my eyes locked on his . . . and his eyes locked on mine too. Grinning, he jogged until he was right in front of me. His eyes didn’t leave mine the entire journey. I wanted to cry with relief. I wanted to cry with the love I had for the guy standing in front of me, a love that, inconceivably, grew each day.

  “Go for a swim with me,” Jesse said, grabbing me and hoisting me up until my legs tangled around his waist.

  “Now? No sun tanning to warm us up before we jump into that glacial water?”

  “Nope. I need to go in now.”

  I grabbed Jesse’s upper arms and held on as he started toward the end of the dock. When we passed Jolene, he acted like he didn’t even know she was there. Her on the other hand? She definitely knew he was there. She was running those eyes all over there again.

  “Why? What’s the rush, Walker?” Not that I cared, but we both knew the water would feel like tiny needles pricking our skin until it went numb.

  “I need to cool down.”

  My eyebrows pinched together in confusion. His hips rocked gently into me, and I understood. “Super. Now I’m in need of cooling down.”

  “Good timing, then.”

  “Good timing for what?”

  Jesse’s arms tightened around me before he leapt into the air. “For this!”

  That water wasn’t just glacial; it was something else. My skin was unable to decide if it was closer to burning or freezing, but I couldn’t have cared less if my skin was actually on fire. When Jesse held me that close, nothing else seemed important. When our heads burst to the surface, we sucked in gulp of air. Jesse let me have a second breath before his mouth covered mine. I didn’t even realize we were in water anymore, let alone that it was freezing cold. I loosened my legs around him just enough to drop a few inches. From the feel of it, the water wasn’t cooling him down much.

  “Hey! I didn’t sign up to watch the two of you suck face all afternoon. Detach and behave yourselves,” Josie shouted from the dock.

  “Then don’t watch!” I broke away from Jesse long enough to yell back. “We didn’t sign up to have a third wheel times three this afternoon!”

  Josie waved dismissively. “Whatevs. Get over yourselves and your all-consuming love for each other thingy. We get it already.” Josie stood, stretched, and tested the water with her toes. “Let’s do something fun.” Jesse and I lifted her eyebrows. “Fun for all of us. Not just the horn-dogs in the bunch.”

  “You look like you’re having a blast up there on that dock,” I said.

  “I’m bored, and we’ve been here a grand total of two minutes.”

  I don’t know why Josie had been so eager to tag along. She knew we were going to the swimming hole. As far as entertainment went, she needed to get creative.

  “What did you have in mind, Josie?” Jesse asked, swimming us toward the shore until we could touch bottom.

  “Ooo, I know!” Jolene interjected in her excited voice, with her excited face and her excited eyes. Excited. Bleh. “Let’s have a camel fight.”

  Could the girl get anymore Girls Gone Wild? First the slow, porn-quality strip, and now this? A camel fight? Jiminy Christmas.

  “Sold. That sounds ten times better than sitting on this rickety old dock just waiting for it to sink.” With that, Josie tossed her sunglasses aside and jumped in.

  Jolene took a minute longer, having to take off her ankle wrap and pull her hair into a bun. After adjusting her swimsuit—for the bajillionth time—she hurried to the shallow end of the dock and stepped in where the water was at knee level. The way she’d booked it down the dock further confirmed my theory that she was milking her ankle injury for all it was worth. Especially if it was worth a ride in Jesse Walker’s arms.

  “Are we really doing this?” I asked Josie when she paddled up to Jesse and me.

  “You better believe your grumpy ass we are.”
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  “I call shoulders since I’m temporarily handicapped,” Jolene said, wading toward us.

  She was going to wind up permanently handicapped before the week was over.

  “Well you’re not riding my shoulders because that ass of yours might be bony, but you’re as tall as an Amazon. Find another pair of shoulders,” Josie said.

  “Looks like it’s you and me then, Jesse.”

  And just like that, we’d all walked right into her web.

  “Hello.” I waved. “There is one other person here.” As much as I knew she’d like to ignore me.

  “Oh. Yeah. I know. Sorry, Rowen, and no offense, but”—Jolene’s smile screamed condescension—“you’re the littlest of us. I didn’t think you’d be strong enough to take me. Why don’t you ride on Josie’s shoulders?”

  I had to bite my lip. I had to bite it so damn hard to keep from spewing what I wanted to reply. I hadn’t missed her choice of wording with take me, and from the tilt of her brow, she hadn’t wanted me to miss it either.

  “Lean down a bit, Jesse.” Practically shoving onto his shoulders, Jolene finagled her way up them in two seconds flat. Sprained ankle, my ass. “Hold on tight to my legs. The tighter the better because I do not, and I repeat do not, want to get my hair wet.”

  Jolene was just rising to every one of my cliché standards for her.

  Jesse gave me that look, one I was getting familiar with. The look that said Is this okay? The one that asked What do you want me to do? That look endeared him to me that much more.

  Replying with one nod, I practically dunked Josie while climbing on her shoulders. Josie grumbled a few words, gave me a hard pinch, and grabbed hold of my knees.