Million Dollar Baby

“A zing, I guess. Animal attraction.” She shifted her weight and nearly injured him. He was so hard his balls ached. The condom was in arm’s reach. All he had to do was grab it. But he didn’t want this to be over. He didn’t want the night to end.

Without warning, Brooke rolled off him, settled onto her side, and took his sex in her hand. “I like the way you look, Cowboy.” She stroked him slowly, her gaze focused on the task at hand.

The feel of her cool slender fingers on his taut flesh skated the line between pleasure and pain. He gritted his teeth and tried not to come. “I told you my name,” he groaned.

She rested her cheek on his shoulder and continued her torture. “Yes, you did.” She gripped him tightly. “Austin.” She whispered it low and sweet.

Sweat broke out on his brow. This woman was killing him slowly...

* * *

Brooke was hot and dizzy and elated. For an idea that had begun so badly, this was turning out to be a night to remember. Austin was everything she could have asked for in a lover. Demanding and yet tender. Tough and masculine, but still considerate of her insecurities.

He grabbed her wrist and moved it away from his erection. “Enough,” he croaked.

Before she could protest, he reached for the condom, rolled it on and dragged her panties down her legs. Then he was on top of her and in her and she forgot how to breathe.

He was heavy and wildly aroused. Thankfully, she was equally excited. Despite his impressive stats, her body accepted him easily. It had been a long time for her, but he didn’t have to know that. She canted her hips, tried to relax and concentrated on the incredible sensation of fullness as her body became one with his.

Something about the moment dampened her eyes and tightened her throat. Maybe it was the thought of all he had lost. Maybe it was a breathless yearning to have a man like this for her own one day. Whatever it was, it made her weepy and left her feeling raw and vulnerable. As if it were impossible to hide from him.

He came quickly, with a muttered apology, his chest heaving. Brooke tried to squelch her disappointment. After a quick trip to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, he returned. In their hurry, they had left the lamp on. Now, he flipped the switch, plunging the room into darkness. Only an automatic night-light in the bathroom dispersed some of the gloom as their eyes adjusted.

Austin smoothed the hair from her face. “I’m sorry about that, honey. You had me pretty wound up, and it’s been a little while for me.”

“It’s fine.”

His grin was a flash of white. “It’s not fine. But it will be. Spread your legs, darlin’. Let me show you the fireworks.”

She moved her ankles apart obediently, but inside, she grimaced. This had never been her strong suit. It was too personal, too intimate. The only man who had ever gotten this far with her had been really bad at it.

Fortunately, Austin wasn’t privy to her negative thoughts. He cradled her head in his arm and touched her with confidence, the confidence of a man who knew how to pleasure a woman and liked doing it. “Close your eyes,” he crooned. “Relax, Brooke.”

It was only when he said those two words that she realized her fingers were clenched in the sheets and her shoulders were rigid. “Sorry,” she muttered. “You don’t have to do this.”

Austin frowned. “I need to touch you. Your body is beautiful and soft and so damn sexy. I want to hear you scream my name.”

“Arrogant cowboy...”

He entered her with two fingers and used his thumb to stroke the spot where she ached the most. The keening cry that escaped her throat was embarrassing. But soon, embarrassment was the furthest thing from her mind.

Austin decimated her. He whispered naughty things and caressed her with sure steady touches until her own responses shocked her and her body became a stranger. Just as her spine arched off the bed, she did indeed scream his name. Moments later, he moved on top of her and entered her a second time.

The orgasm was incredible. On a scale of one to ten, it was some imaginary number that only scientists from outer space could decipher.

This time, Austin was just getting started as she tumbled down the far side of the hill. He laughed roughly and shoved her up the peak again, thrusting harder and faster and holding her tightly until they both found the pinnacle at almost the same moment and lost themselves in the fiery pleasure.

Brooke was boneless, elated and utterly spent. Never again would she settle for the kind of relationship that was boring and mundane. This wonderful cowboy had given her that.

They lay together in a tangle of arms and legs as their bodies cooled and their heartbeats slowed.

At last, Austin shifted so she wasn’t bearing his full weight. “You okay?” he asked, sounding sleepy and sated and maybe a little bit smug.

She nuzzled her head against his warm, hard shoulder. “Oh, yeah. Better than okay.” Tomorrow morning, she was going to get online and give this hotel five stars across the board.

He groaned and rolled away. “Don’t move. I’m coming back.”

She heard the water run in the bathroom. Then silence. Then a low curse.

“What’s wrong?” she said, raising her voice in alarm.

He stumbled back into bed, his skin chilled. “The condom broke.” His voice was flat. She couldn’t read him at all.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m on the pill. For other reasons. And besides, it’s the wrong time of the month.” She was due to start her period any day, actually.

“I’m healthy, Brooke. Nothing to worry about there.”

“Then we’re in the clear.”

He yawned and pulled her into his arms, spooning her from behind. “Let me sleep for an hour, and we can go again.”

“You’re out of condoms.”

He kissed the nape of her neck. “We’ll improvise.”

Brooke lay perfectly still and felt the exact moment when Austin crashed hard. His breathing deepened. The arm that encircled her became heavy.

She knew the time had come for her to go home, but she couldn’t leave him. Not yet. This night had turned into something she hadn’t anticipated, something she hadn’t really wanted.

Here was a man who had known pain and loss. Even if they lived in the same town, he wouldn’t want a woman like her. She couldn’t even stand up to her parents. She had her own battles to fight. And she would have to do it without this sweet, gruff cowboy.

She inhaled his scent. Tried to memorize it. The way his body held hers seemed fated somehow. But that was a lie. He was a man she had picked up in a bar. A man with demons, like any other man.

Carefully, with her chest tight and her hands shaking, she extracted herself from his arms one heartbeat at a time. It wasn’t easy. Fortunately, Austin slept like the dead. Once she was out of the bed, the rest went smoothly.

She visited the bathroom. She dressed quietly. She took her bag and her purse and slipped out into the hall.

On the other side of the door, she started to shake. Leaving her one-night stand cowboy was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.

The drive from Joplin to Royal in the middle of the night seemed surreal. Punching in the alarm code and sneaking into the house was almost anticlimactic. She was too tired to shower. Instead, she tumbled into bed and fell asleep instantly.

Three

Two months later

Austin parked his truck across the street from the Texas Cattleman’s Club, got out and stretched. It had been three years...maybe four...since he had last been in Royal, Texas. Not much had changed. An F4 tornado a while back had destroyed a few homes and businesses and damaged others, but the town had rebuilt.

The club itself was a historic structure over a hundred years old. The rambling single-story building with its dark stone-and-wood exterior and tall slate roof was an icon in the area. Ordinarily, Austin wouldn’t be the kind of guy to darken the doors, but he was meeting Gus Slade here at 10:00 a.m.

Austin had plenty of money in the bank...likely more than he would ever need. But he didn’t have the blue-blooded ranching pedigree that men like Gus respected. Still, Gus had invited him here to do a job, and Austin had agreed.

Audra was right. He’d been drifting since Jenny died. It was time to get his business back on track. He’d rambled all over a five-county area in recent years doing odd jobs to pay the bills. The truth was, he was a damned good architect and had been wasting his skills.

Even this job with Gus was a throwaway. But it could open the doors to something more significant, so he had jumped at the chance.

He took his time crossing the street. No need to look too eager. Already, he had made concessions. Instead of his usual jeans and flannel shirt, he had worn neatly pressed khakis, a spotless white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his best pair of boots. Cowboys came in all shapes and sizes in Texas. Austin was shooting for ambitious professional for today’s meeting.

It was who he had been once upon a time. Until Jenny got sick...

Shoving away the unhappy memories, he ran a hand through his hair, flipped his phone to silent mode and strode through the imposing front doors. A smiling receptionist directed him to one of the private meeting rooms partway down the hall.

Augustus “Gus” Slade was already there, deep in conversation with two other men. When Austin appeared, Gus’s two companions said their goodbyes and exited.

Gus held out his hand. “There you are, boy. Right on the money. Thanks for coming. It’s been a long time.”

“It’s good to see you, sir. Thanks for offering me the job.”

Gus was an imposing figure of a man. He was tall and solidly built with a full head of snow-white hair. Piercing eyes that were blue like the Texas sky reflected a keen intelligence.

By Austin’s calculations, the man was probably sixty-eight or sixty-nine. He could have passed for a decade younger were it not for the leatherlike quality of his skin. He’d spent decades working in the sun long before warnings about skin cancer were the norm.

At a time in life when many men his age began to think about traveling or playing golf or simply taking things easy, Gus still worked his cattle ranch, the Lone Wolf, and wielded his influence in Royal. He had plenty of the latter to go around and had even served a few terms as TCC president. Though the burly rancher loved his family and was well respected by the community at large, most people knew he could be fierce when crossed or angered.

Austin had no plans to do either.

At Gus’s urging, Austin settled into one of a pair of wing-backed chairs situated in front of a large fireplace. The weather in Royal was notably mercurial. Yesterday, it had been in the fifties and raining. Today, the temperature was pushing seventy, and the skies were sunny, so no fire.

Gus took the second chair with a grimace and rubbed his knee. “Got kicked by a damned bull. Should have known better.”

Austin nodded and smiled. “I worked cattle during the summers when I was in college. It was a great job, but I went to bed sore many a night.” He hesitated half a breath and plunged on. “So tell me about this job you want me to do.”

When he had been in Royal before, Gus had wanted him to design and build an addition onto his home. Austin had still been paying for Jenny’s medical bills, and he had needed the money. So he had worked his ass off for six months...or maybe it was seven.

He’d been proud of the job, and Gus had been pleased.

The older man twisted his mouth into a slight grimace. “I may have brought you here under false pretenses. It’s not like last time. This will be a one-and-done project. But as I mentioned on the phone, I think being here at the club for a few weeks will give you the chance to meet some folks in Royal who are movers and shakers. These are the kind of men and women who have contacts. They know people and can make things happen to push work your way.”

Austin wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, it made sense to rebuild his career. It had stalled out when he made the choice to stay home with Jenny during what turned out to be the last months of her life. It was a choice he had never regretted.

Even in the depths of his grief, when he had drifted from town to town and job to job, his skill set and work ethic had made it possible for him to command significant compensation for his quality work.

Did he really want to go back to a more structured way of life?

He honestly didn’t know.

And because he didn’t, he equivocated. “I appreciate that, sir. But how about you tell me the details of this particular project?”

“The club is hoping to do more with the outside space than we have in the past. Professional landscapers are in the process of developing a site plan for the area around the gardens and the pool. What I want from you is a permanent outdoor venue that will serve as the stage for the charity auction and can later be used for weddings, etc. The audience, or the guests, will be out front...under a circus tent if the weather demands it.”

“So open air, but covered.”

“You got it. Plus, we want the stage to have at least two or three rooms behind the scenes with bathrooms and changing areas...you get the idea.”

“And what is this auction exactly?”

Gus chuckled. “It’s a mouthful...the Great Royal Bachelor Auction.” He sobered. “To benefit the Pancreatic Cancer Foundation. That’s what my Sarah died of, you know. My granddaughter Alexis is on the foundation board. I’d like for you to meet her. Your wife has been gone a long time. It’s not good for a man to be alone.”

“I mean no disrespect, sir, but you don’t seem to be taking your own advice. And beyond that, I have no interest at all in a relationship, though I’m sure your granddaughter is delightful.”

Gus scowled at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to turn her down. A lot of men would jump at the chance to have my blessing.”

Austin smiled. “If Alexis is anything like her grandfather, I’m guessing she doesn’t appreciate you meddling in her affairs.”

“That’s true enough,” Gus said. “She seems determined to fritter away her time with a man who is all wrong for her.”

They had strayed off topic again, which made Austin realize that Gus was inordinately interested in matchmaking. He sighed. “I’ll need a budget. And the exact specs of the area where I’m allowed to build.”

“Money’s no object,” the older man said. “We want top-of-the-line all the way. And make sure to include some kind of outdoor heating units, concealed if possible. You know how it is in Texas. We might wear shorts on Christmas Day, and it can snow eight hours later.”

“What’s my timetable?” Austin asked.

“The auction is the last Saturday in November.”

Austin tried to conceal his shock. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”

Gus nodded. “I know. It will be tight. But the club’s custodial staff has been given instructions to help you in any way possible, and we’ve also allotted extra funds to hire part-time carpenters to rough in the framing and anything else you need. I have faith in you, boy.”

“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“Call me Gus. I insist.”

After that, they made their way outside so Austin could see exactly what he had to work with. Despite his reservations about the quick turnaround, excitement bubbled up in his chest. This was always one of his favorite phases of a project—looking at a bare plot of ground and imagining the possibilities.

The gardens were soggy, but Austin could see that someone had already begun placing markers and lining off planting areas.

Gus pointed. “Over there is where the stage will be.”

Austin nodded. “I can work with that.”

In the distance, he could see the pool, now closed for the season. The new structure would tie in with the gardens and the rear of the original building to create a peaceful, idyllic setting for entertaining.

To their left, a small figure in stained overalls stood three feet off the ground on a stepladder painting a colorful mural on an outer wall of the club. Gus waved a hand. “Let’s go say hello,” he said.

It was only a matter of fifteen yards. Twenty at the most. They were close enough for Austin to recognize the pale, silky ponytail when it hit him.

The woman turned around as Gus hailed her. The paintbrush in her hand clattered to the ground. Her face turned white. She clutched the top of the ladder.

Austin sucked in a shocked breath. It was her. Brooke. His mystery lover.

Only a clueless fool would have missed the tension, and Gus was no fool. He frowned. “Do you two know each other?”

Austin waited. Ladies first. Brooke stared at him, her eyes curiously blank. “Not at all,” she said politely. “How do you do? I’m Brooke Goodman.”

What the hell? Austin had no choice but to follow her lead. Or else call her a liar. He stuck out his hand. “Austin Bradshaw. Nice to meet you.”

The air crackled with electricity. Brooke didn’t take his hand. She held up both of hers, palms out, to show they were paint streaked. “You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t want to get you dirty.” She shifted her attention to Gus. “If you two don’t mind, I’m trying to get this section finished quickly. They tell me another band of showers is going to move in tonight, so the paint needs to dry.”

And just like that, she turned her back and shut him out.

Four

Brooke felt so ill she was afraid she might pass out right there on the ladder. She stood perfectly still and pretended to paint the same four-inch square of wall until she heard a door open and shut. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the two men disappear inside the building.

What was Austin doing in Royal? Had he come to find her? Surely not. He’d been with Gus Slade. If she put two and two together, maybe Austin was the architect Gus had hired to build the fancy stage and outdoor annex. How did Gus even know Austin?

Who could she ask? Alexis? Then again, did she really want to draw attention to the fact that she was interested in Austin? She wasn’t. Not at all.

Liar.

What made the situation even worse was the expression on Austin’s face when he saw her. He’d been equal parts flabbergasted and horrified. Not the look a woman wanted to see from a man she’d spent the night with.

And see what he’d done to her, damn it...now he had her ending sentences with prepositions.

When the coast was clear, she wiped her brush and gathered her supplies. Ordinarily, she went inside the club to a utility sink and cleaned up before going home. Today, she couldn’t take that chance.

For the rest of the afternoon and all night long, she fretted. She’d spent the last eight weeks trying to forget about her one-night-stand cowboy. Now he had appeared in Royal, completely out of the blue, and looking about ten times as gorgeous and sexy as she remembered. If he really was the new architect, she was going to be forced to see him repeatedly.

Her body thought that was a darned good idea. Heat sizzled through her veins. But her brain was smarter and more sensible. This was a bad development. Really bad.

The following morning, when the sun came up on another beautiful October day, she wanted to pull the covers over her head and not have to think. Still, the memories came rushing back. An intimate hotel room. A rugged cowboy. Two naked bodies. What was she going to do? With yummy Austin in town, there would be hell to pay if her secret came out.

More than ever, she needed to get her own place to live. With the money Alexis was paying her for the murals, there would soon be enough in her modest bank account for first and last month’s rent on a decent apartment. In three and a half years, she would receive her inheritance from her grandmother and thus be able to start her after-school art program. Everybody took dance lessons and played sports—Brooke wanted to build a small studio where dreamy kids like she had been could dabble in clay and paint to their heart’s content.

All she had to do in the meantime was find a permanent job, any job, that would give her financial independence from her parents. That task was tough in a town where the Goodmans pulled strings right and left. Brooke had been unofficially blacklisted time and again.

Her parents’ behind-the-scenes manipulations were humiliating and infuriating. And all because they wanted her to be the kind of high-powered entrepreneurs they were.

It was never going to happen. Brooke liked who she was. It wasn’t that she lacked ambition. She simply saw a different path for herself.

Fortunately, her parents were both early risers and left for the office at the crack of dawn. Brooke was able to enjoy her toast and coffee in peace. Her stomach rebelled at the thought of food this morning, probably because she was so upset about the prospect of seeing Austin again.

What was she supposed to say to him?

Could she simply avoid him altogether?

She was small. Maybe she could hide.

When she couldn’t put it off any longer, she drove into town. Her parents’ Pine Valley mansion had been her childhood home. She’d left it only to go to college and grad school. Now it had become a prison. Her whole family was seriously broken in her estimation. Her brother Jared’s poor fiancée had been forced to run away from her own wedding to escape.

Brooke was still trying to find a way out. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. But she was at least working on a plan.

When she arrived at the club, she parked one street over and gathered up the canvas totes that contained her supplies. At least she knew what Austin’s truck looked like. So far, she didn’t see it anywhere around. Maybe he was at his hotel doing whatever architects did on their laptops before they started a new job.

Hopefully she could get her murals done before he showed up again. Didn’t a project like this require site prep? Surely an architect wasn’t involved in that phase.

Her heart slugged in her chest. This was exactly why she had gone to another town for her secret fling. She hadn’t wanted to face any ramifications of her indiscretion afterward.

Remembering that night was both mortifying and deeply arousing. What thoughts had gone through his head when he woke up and found her missing? She had second-guessed that decision a thousand times.

In the end, though, it had been the only choice. She and Austin had been strangers passing in the night. Joplin wasn’t home for either of them. It had been the perfect anonymous scenario.

Except now it wasn’t.

To access the gardens, it was first necessary to go through the club. She greeted the receptionist and made her way down the corridor hung with hunting trophies and artifacts. Both of her parents had been members here for years. The building was familiar.

What wasn’t so familiar was the sensation of apprehension and excitement. She told herself she didn’t want to see Austin Bradshaw again. But the lie wasn’t very believable, even in her head.

It was almost anticlimactic to arrive in the gardens and find herself completely alone. The landscaping crew came and went at odd hours. This morning, no one was around to disturb Brooke’s concentration. Up until now, she had enjoyed the time to focus on her creations, to dream and to let her imagination run wild. Today, the solitude felt disconcerting.

Doggedly, she uncapped her paints and planned the section she would work on next. It was a large-scale, multilevel task. Instead of two long gray stucco walls at right angles to one another, Alexis had charged Brooke with creating a whimsical extension of the gardens. When spring came and the flowers bloomed, there would be no delineation between the actual gardens and Brooke’s fantasy world.

The work challenged her creativity and her vision. Not only did she have to paint on a very large canvas, but she had to think in bold, thematic strokes. It was the most ambitious project she had ever tackled, and she was honored that Alexis trusted her to handle the makeover.

When the stage was built, the new landscaping was complete and Brooke’s paintings were finished, the outdoor area would be spectacular. It felt good to be part of something that would provide enjoyment to so many people.

She selected the appropriate brush and tucked it behind her ear. Soon she would need a taller ladder, but for now, she was going to finish the portion she had abandoned yesterday. It was a border of daisies and baby rabbits that repeated along one edge of her mural.

Grabbing the metal frame that held four small paint pots, she climbed up three steps and cocked her head. White first. Then the yellow centers.

“Are you avoiding me, Brooke?”

The voice startled her so badly she flung paint all over herself and a huge section of blank wall and the grass below. “Austin,” she cried.

He took her by the waist, lifted her and set her on the ground. “So you do know who I am.” He smirked. “Yesterday, I wasn’t so sure.”

She scowled at him, trying not to notice the way sunlight picked out strands of gold in his hair without his hat. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t tell Gus how we met.”

Austin’s lips quirked in the kind of superior male smile that made her want to smack him. “Most people would have come up with a polite lie.”

“I’m a terrible liar,” she said.

“I’ll have to remember that. It might come in handy.”

The intimate light in his warm brown eyes and the way he looked at her as if he were remembering every nanosecond of their night together made heat curl in her sex. “Why are you here, Austin?”

“I have a job to do. Why are you here, Brooke Goodman?”

“I live in Royal. And I have a job to do as well. So that makes this terribly awkward.”

“Not at all.” He eyed her mural. “This is your work? It’s fabulous. You’re very talented.”

His praise warmed her. Other than Alexis, few people knew what she was capable of doing—at least, few people in Royal. “Thank you,” she said. “I still have a long way to go.”

“Which means I’ll get to watch as I build the stage.”

Her heart stuttered. He didn’t mean anything by that statement...did he? “Austin, I—”

He held up his hand. “You don’t have to say a word. I can see it on your face. You’re afraid I’ll spill your secret. But I won’t, Brooke, I swear. You had your reasons for what happened in Joplin, and so did I.” He cleared his throat, then went on. “The truth is, as much as I like you, we need to leave the past in the past. I’m done with relationships, trust me. And in a town like this, you clearly can’t do anything without the whole world knowing your business.”

He was saying all the right things. Exactly what she needed to hear.

So why did she have a knot in her stomach?

“I should get started,” she said.

“For the record, I was damned disappointed when I woke up and you were gone.”

“You were?” She searched his face.

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“It was an amazing night for me, but I didn’t have much basis for comparison.”

He chuckled. “Your instincts were spot-on. If I were in the market for a girlfriend and you were five years older, we might give it a go.”

Her temper flared. “Do you have any idea how arrogant you sound? I’m getting very tired of everybody in my life thinking they know what’s best for me.”

“Define everybody.”

Brooke looked over his shoulder and grimaced. “Here comes one now.”

Margaret Goodman was dressed impeccably from head to toe. Though she was well into her fifties, she could easily pass for a much younger woman. Her blond hair, sprinkled with only the slightest gray, received the attention of an expensive stylist every three weeks, and she had both a personal trainer and a dietitian on her payroll.

Brooke’s mother was ambitious, driven and ice-cold. She was also—at the moment—clearly furious. A tiny splotch of red on each cheekbone betrayed her agitation.

“What are you doing here, Mama?” Brooke stepped forward, away from the cowboy architect, hoping to defuse the situation and at the same time possibly avoid any interaction between her mother and Austin.

Her mother lifted her chin. “Are you trying to spite me on purpose? Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to know that my only daughter is grubbing around in the gardens of the Texas Cattleman’s Club like a common laborer?”

Brooke straightened her backbone. “Alexis Slade hired me to do a job. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Don’t be naive and ridiculous. This isn’t a job.” Her mother flung a hand toward the partially painted wall in a dramatic gesture. “A child could do this. You’re avoiding your potential, Brooke. Your father and I won’t have it. It was bad enough that you changed your major in college without telling us. We paid for you to get a serious education, not a worthless art degree. Goodmans are businesspeople, Brooke. We make money, we don’t squander it. When will you realize that playing with paint isn’t a valid life choice?”

Her mother was shouting now, her disdain and reproach both vicious and hurtful.

Brooke had heard it all before, but with Austin as a witness, it was even more upsetting. Her eyes stung. “This is a real job, Mama. I’m proud of the work I’m doing. And for the record, I’m planning on moving out of the house, so you and Daddy might as well get used to the idea.”

“Don’t you speak to me in that tone.”

“You don’t listen any other way. I’m twenty-six years old. The boys moved out when they were twenty-one.”

“Don’t bring your brothers into this. They were both far more mature than you at this age. Neither of them gave us any grief.”

Brooke shook her head, incredulous. Her brothers were sycophants and weasels who coasted by on their family connections and their willingness to suck up to Mommy and Daddy. “I won’t discuss this with you right now. You’re embarrassing me.”