Close Enough to Touch (26 page)

“Hell, I’m drunk,” Jenny whispered. “The more, the merrier. I’m
going to go dry my hair for the big reveal.”

Grace was just finishing up towel-drying Eve’s hair when Jenny
started to scream. Grace’s heart dropped, and Eve actually looked as if she
might start crying. But then Jenny leapt from the bathroom and screamed again.
“Oh, my God, it’s beautiful! I love you, Grace Barrett! Look at it! Look at my
hair!”

Grace laughed. Jenny’s hair did look beautiful, shiny and
textured and warm. But it was a subtle change for such a strong reaction. Still,
when Jenny threw herself into Grace’s arms, Grace hugged her back. Hard.

“I want to dry my hair,” Eve said calmly, but she gave up her
solemn look when Jenny grabbed her hand and dragged her into the bathroom. They
were both giggling madly.

This felt like…high school. But the best part of high school.
The kind of girl parties you saw in movies. The kind Grace had scoffed at in
disbelief, because her teen parties hadn’t been lighthearted at all. They’d been
about forgetting. And treading the line between danger and despair.

“Good Lord Almighty,” Rayleen muttered. “That girl screams like
a monkey on fire.”

“Yeah,” Grace agreed, but she couldn’t make it sound like a
criticism. She could only wish she had that kind of joy. Maybe Rayleen felt the
same, because she fell silent.

Grace joined her at the table and shuffled through the
remaining boxes of hair dye. There was a deep walnut-brown that caught her eye.
It was almost her natural color, just a little darker and richer. When was the
last time her hair had been that shade? A year ago? No, two years ago. Before
she’d met Scott.

Back when she’d been…happy? Was that possible? She’d had her
own place, her own car. Merry had been in Texas already, but Grace had had a few
friends. People to go out with. People to laugh with at work.

Then she’d been with Scott for a while, and that had been fine.
But it had felt off, somehow. She’d felt confined, even as she’d sunk deeper
into it. She’d made her hair darker, then added bleached layers. Then more
black. Then pink and red and finally purple. Going wild again, as she had in the
years before. A small rebellion against growing up. Against giving in. Or giving
up.

“Ta-da!” Jenny called, sweeping back through the door.

Eve’s response was more subtle, but she was beaming. Jenny had
dried her hair straight, and the length shone beneath the lights. “I love it,”
she said simply. “Thank you. So much.”

“Let’s do makeup now,” Jenny said, clapping her hands. “I
already feel like a new woman.”

“Okay,” Grace agreed, but then she looked back to the box in
her hand. “But… Would you be willing to wait a little while? I think I’m going
to change my hair up a little.”

“But your purple!” Jenny said.

“It’s starting to fade. These bright colors only last a few
weeks.”

Rayleen snorted. “Good riddance!”

“Well.” Jenny sighed. “I suppose it’ll be fun to see you with
nonpurple hair. But maybe you’ll dye it another wild color for me sometime.”

“For you?” Grace laughed.

“Yes! You take all the risks, and I’ll enjoy pretending I’m
marginally involved.”

“Okay. Deal. Let me get the color on my hair, and then I’ll
start your makeup. It’s going to take a while for this brown to set anyway.”

By the time she sat down at the table to do Eve’s makeup, Grace
had lost even the memory of being nervous. And doing makeup relaxed her even
more. All her unhappiness faded, receding until it was only the faintest
background buzz in her mind. She couldn’t even credit it to the wine. She’d been
too busy to do more than sip hers, unlike everyone else in the room. Even Aunt
Rayleen had cracked a goofy smile or two.

Knowing Eve would be horrified by anything garish or even
glamorous, Grace used a light hand with her makeup. Tinted moisturizer and
translucent powder paired with a hint of warm pink on her cheeks and lips. She
dusted her eyes with a neutral sand color, then smudged an espresso-brown shadow
along her lash line. Finally, she used a light coat of mascara and darkened her
brows with pencil.

With a smile, she turned Eve around to look at herself in the
full-length mirror Jenny had brought from the bedroom.

“Oh,” she said softly, her eyes widening. “Oh, my God. How do
you do that?”

Jenny clapped. “You look so pretty!”

“When I put on my own makeup, I look like a clown!”

Grace laughed. “Just use neutral colors. Your skin is amazing,
so you want to brighten it up a little, not cover it.”

“My turn!” Jenny squealed. “Do mine like I’m going to a party.
I want to look like a sexy beast! Or, you know, as close as I can get to
that.”

“You’re plenty sexy.” Grace laughed, then shot Rayleen a glare
when the woman snorted.

Fifteen minutes later, she turned Jenny around with a flourish.
“Ta-da! Sexy beast, as requested.”

Even though she braced herself for Jenny’s squeal, she still
wasn’t ready for it. Amazingly, the mirror didn’t shatter, though Grace’s
eardrums trembled.

“Look at my eyes!” she screamed. “Oh, my God, will you show me
what you did?”

Grace gave her a quick demo, showing her how to brush a medium
color nearly all the way up to her brow to disguise the fact that her
Scandinavian eyes didn’t have much of a crease. “Then a lighter color here, just
beneath your eyebrow.”

“I look so hot! We have to go out, ladies. We
have
to. I’ll never look like this again.”

“Yes, you will. You can do your makeup exactly the same way.
I’m not a magician. It’s just powder and cream.”

“Blah, blah, blah. Finish your hair. We’re going to the saloon!
I want to show off to all the people who normally see me covered in beer stains
after an eight-hour shift.”

Grace quickly rinsed her hair and dried it, surprised when it
turned out almost exactly as she’d planned. The black layers were still there,
but the browns were deeper, and the purple was now a dark auburn-brown.

She carefully applied her own makeup, taking special care as
she changed it to enhance the new hair color. Instead of blacks, she chose deep
browns that made her eyes look softer, and a pretty pink lip gloss.

When she was done, she packed up her makeup kit and wiped down
the counter. But she didn’t open the door. Instead she took a deep breath and
looked at herself. She looked almost pretty now. Younger and softer. More like
her natural self and less like an angry warning. She looked like a girl who
might try to fit in if she found the right place.

It was scary. She felt stripped of her armor. Exposed. What if
she saw Cole?

A terrible thrill coursed through her, and she glared at her
reflection. She wanted him to see her like this. Wanted him to think she was
pretty.
How weak was that? How pitiful?

But it didn’t matter. Good for him if he thought she looked
pretty. He’d just have to live with wondering whether he’d really known what
kind of girl she was, after all.

Reaching for the doorknob, she hesitated for another long
moment, then took a deep breath and opened the door.

This time, the girls didn’t scream. They just stared in
openmouthed shock.

Rayleen recovered first. “Well, look at that. Maybe you’ll stop
scaring off my customers now.”

Jenny pressed her hands to her mouth to try to suppress a
squeal. It didn’t work. “You look so pretty!”

“Thanks. Are we ready to go?”

“Look at you!” Jenny continued, undeterred. “Oh, my God. Cole
is going to swallow his tongue when he sees you.”

“Cole!” Rayleen barked. “That cowboy’s long gone.”

“What?” Grace asked in utter confusion. How did Rayleen know
they weren’t seeing each other anymore?

Rayleen rolled her eyes. “I hope you two weren’t serious.”

“We weren’t,” Grace answered quickly.

“Good news, because Cole took off.”

“For where?” Jenny asked after a few heartbeats of awkward
silence.

“Not sure. He paid rent early and said he’d be gone for a
couple of weeks. But considering the timing, I’d guess the boy went back to
California for a little more time in paradise.”

“What?” Grace breathed. “
More
time?”

“He lived in L.A. for a couple of months when he was young,”
Jenny said. “It was a long time ago.”

Grace’s mind was spinning. He’d lived in
L.A.?
That couldn’t be right. Why wouldn’t he have told her
that?

Rayleen snorted. “There’s more to the story than that. Rumor
has it he was shacking up with Ms. Madeline Beckingham in her Hollywood
mansion.”

Jenny gasped. “What? I’ve never heard that.” Her gaze slid
nervously toward Grace. Grace found herself looking blankly into Jenny’s worried
eyes.

“Oh, the talk died down when he came back so quickly. I don’t
even know if it was true. He said it wasn’t.”

“Then it probably wasn’t,” Jenny cut in.

Rayleen shrugged. “Maybe not. But he left with her last time,
and he’s gone again. I’m just saying, it’s suspicious. That’s all.”

Suspicious.
No, that wasn’t the
word for it. Because Grace knew he was sleeping with Madeline. And now she knew
why he’d never mentioned his time in L.A. He’d let Grace tell stories about her
life there as if he knew nothing about L.A. He’d let her talk about it like a
fool. No, the timing wasn’t suspicious. It was damning.

“Who cares about him?” Jenny said brightly. “All the more
reason to go out and have fun with the girls. We’ll flirt with more men than we
could ever need. Right? Let’s go!”

“No,” Grace said softly. Everyone froze. Even Aunt Rayleen lost
her scowl and finally seemed to realize that her gossip might have been
unwelcome.

“Eh,” she muttered. “I’m sure it’s not true. He’s probably
camping.”

“No,” Grace repeated. She blinked her eyes, trying to clear the
dizziness from her brain. When her vision cleared, she found herself looking at
her aunt and seeing her with new eyes. Rayleen looked worried and a little
guilty. And, truth be told, she looked frail without her scowl and her whiskey
sour and her unlit cigarette. She was lonely. She was
alone.
Because she’d done too good a job of protecting herself from
love and hurt.

That might be Grace someday, but even if it wasn’t, she could
understand what Rayleen had done. She could admire that the woman had had a
tough life, and she’d had to make herself hard. But Rayleen deserved more than
that. She deserved to be happy someday, and not hurt. Just as Grace did.

“Grace…” Eve started, but Grace shook her head.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, we need to do Aunt Rayleen’s
makeup first. That’s all. She’s one of the girls, right?”

“Oh, poo,” Rayleen scoffed. “Nobody’d notice my makeup even if
you made me look like a whore.”

“What about Easy?” Grace asked.

Rayleen’s eyes went wide as saucers.

Grace couldn’t help but smile, despite the hurt banging around
inside her. “Would Easy notice if you looked especially whorish?”

Her papery cheeks flushed. “What?”

Jenny giggled. “Oh, come on. We’ve all noticed the way you two
flirt.”

“Flirt? I wouldn’t flirt with that old cowhand if he was the
last man on earth.” She cleared her throat. “Why? You think he’s flirting with
me?”

“I think he is,” Grace said. “But even if he’s not, I’d love to
do your makeup.”

“Makeup,” she huffed. Then she shrugged as if she didn’t care.
“Sure. Knock yourself out. But don’t make me look like some old fool.”

“Got it.” She used a creamy foundation to hide fine lines
without looking cakey, and a bit of concealer to brighten under her aunt’s eyes.
But as Grace moved on to powder and blush, her mind wandered back to Cole. She’d
felt betrayed before, and told herself she had no right to. But this…this felt
worse. As if she’d known nothing about him from the start. He wasn’t who he
pretended to be. She might not be a wonderful person, but at least she’d warned
him right away.

Biting back the hurt, Grace smudged a neutral color over
Rayleen’s eyelids to cover the pink that showed through her thin skin, then she
carefully dusted a dark gray shade along her lash line and finished up with
mascara.

“There. Easy as pie.”

Rayleen scowled, as usual, but when she turned to look in the
mirror, her scowl fell away. She didn’t smile, but her eyes lit up. Just a
little. “All right,” she finally conceded. “It’s fine.”

Eve and Jenny exchanged amused looks. It was more than fine.
Rayleen looked almost ten years younger, and her white hair only looked more
beautiful against the careful palette of coral and gray.

Rayleen didn’t smile, but she did look at herself for a long
time before she finally slapped her knees and stood up. “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Jenny shouted. “I need to take a picture. Girls’ night
out!”

Grace made herself smile for the picture, but as they left the
condo, her heart was sinking. She couldn’t do this. Go out and act as if she
didn’t have a care in the world.

It was stupid to feel so betrayed. He was a man she’d had sex
with. He couldn’t betray her, because he hadn’t promised anything. So maybe it
wasn’t him. Maybe it was herself. There’d been a connection. A chemistry.
Something that had made it feel different. But it hadn’t been different. It had
been the same in the very worst possible way.

She realized that she was planning excuses with every step.
Planning a way to escape from these women and lock herself in her apartment to
lick her wounds alone. But what if she didn’t? What if she swallowed all this
strange grief and went to the saloon?

Despite the short length of time she’d known them, Jenny and
Eve had given her a chance. They seemed to like her, or at least to want to like
her. They might be friends. Actual friends. If they didn’t want sex or money or
connections, maybe they just wanted
her.