Dirty Little Secret

by Jennifer Ryan

  Roxy wasn’t in the mood to play games and get caught up in whatever drama her mysterious stalker had planned.

  She had work to do.

  The unexpected neglect and abandonment of the house and property solidified her resolve even more. Austin’s wealthy father had turned his back on his son and left him living in squalor. No wonder Austin had floundered this past year. If he grew up anything like Noah on a prospering ranch made even more successful by the Hubbards’ thriving mining business, then Austin had been ill-equipped to face the hardship and struggle of turning this place into something with no money. When you’ve always had money and knew it solved most any problem, trying to do anything without it seemed like a daunting task. Add in that Austin’s father had probably thwarted his efforts and degraded him for every attempt to change his circumstances and it’s no wonder Austin gave up.

  Sometimes parents sucked.

  She parked in the driveway next to Austin’s truck, the only thing in sight that the last decade and more hadn’t deteriorated. The farmhouse and outbuildings had a corroded feel. They stood rotting in the sun.

  And so was the man who stumbled out of the barn. Though his unsteady gait said he was also marinating in whiskey.

  Roxy exited her car and walked toward Austin, hoping she didn’t have to catch him if he lost his struggle against gravity.

  One quick glance down the driveway confirmed her suspicions. Their unwelcome audience intended to stay for the show.

  “Aren’t you a pretty sight on this shitty morning?” Austin didn’t stop in front of her like she expected but walked right into her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug that turned into her holding up his big frame. The stench coming off him wrinkled her nose. Whiskey and sweat. He needed a shower, coffee, and time to sober up.

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Truer words . . .” Austin’s hands slipped down her back to her ass. It probably had more to do with his lack of coordination and the booze than him trying to cop a feel.

  She pushed against his chest to get him standing up straight so she could see his face. “I need to talk to you. It’s time to stop the self-pity and be happy again.”

  Austin frowned and shook his head, his eyes at half mast, bloodshot, and filled with misery. “Happy is for people who have something worth living for.” He cupped her face and stared down at her. “Noah has you.”

  She appreciated the drunken admission laced with true appreciation and tinged with envy that Austin sincerely wanted Noah to be happy.

  “I have this shithole that is worth less than spit.” He glanced at the land and buildings around them. “Maybe I should just sell the place to my father, take the easy way out, and leave for good.” Austin released her face, stepped back, turned toward the hills, flipped them off, then shouted, “Fuck him. Why the hell does he want this place? Just to take it from me. So I don’t have anything.” He took a step toward the hills. “I don’t have anything, motherfucker!” He flung his arms wide to encompass the desolate land and shabby buildings that anyone passing by would assume had been abandoned long ago.

  Roxy hooked her arm around Austin’s waist and led him toward the porch. He draped his arm over her shoulders and leaned on her. Mostly so he didn’t face-plant in the knee-high weeds.

  It wasn’t the first time she led a drunk where they needed to go. She hoped he’d let her lead him to a better sort of life. Back to the kind of life he’d had growing up. A life he didn’t think he deserved anymore because Austin’s father wanted him to think that without him, Austin was nothing but a worthless failure.

  Roxy spotted the cot and sleeping bag on the porch with the mostly empty bottle of bourbon beside it. A stack of clothes, a pair of boots, miscellaneous bathroom supplies, and a two gallon jug of water made it appear Austin was living outside. The stench she’d mostly attributed to Austin got worse as they walked up the porch steps and approached the door.

  “What the hell is that smell?”

  Austin stopped in his tracks and tried to turn her back to the steps. “You should go. No one should be here.”

  Roxy tried to steer Austin to the door, but he held his ground, strong and determined despite his intoxication.

  “We can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want to see what’s in there.” Austin shuffled over to the cot and sat on it. He propped his elbows on his knees and raked his fingers through his hair and held his head between his hands.

  She crouched beside him. “Austin, I’m here to help. Tell me what is going on.”

  “The kind of help I need . . .” He shook his head. “Even if I could make it work, the amount of money it would take . . .”

  “If you had the money, what would you do with this place? What’s the dream, Austin?”

  He stared out across the porch and property. “A working ranch. Horses. Cattle. Life,” he added on a whisper. “Grandpa talked about mining treasure. I’d like to see if that was just old west bedtime stories or if this land really has a hidden treasure.” He glanced at her, his eyes filled with loving memories. “I see now why he told me wanting more than you need can lead a man to ruin. I certainly don’t need this headache.” He held his hands out to indicate the property he kept instead of selling it because it meant something to him despite the fact it cost him everything. “This place has ruined me.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  He shot her an incredulous look, then exploded. “I have a house that’s a cemetery to rats, squirrels, and God knows what else. It’s filled with every single thing my grandfather ever owned. To the rafters. The stables are falling apart. I wouldn’t dare put a horse in there, but it’s where I sleep when it’s too damn cold to sit on my throne here and lord over my pile of rubble and rail at my grandfather for leaving me this mess, and my father for taking everything I ever had just so he can have this piece of shit property.” Austin sighed out his frustration and anger and glared at everything around him. “You know what I want? To show him what this place could be. That I’m the better man because I turned this pile of shit into something worth having.”

  “Okay. Let’s do that.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll get right on it.”

  “We’ll start with coffee and making a list of what needs to be done first.” She headed for the front door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the kitchen to make coffee.”

  She opened the front door and took two quick steps back as the stench hit her like a tidal wave and the sight before her stunned her speechless.

  Austin scrambled to the door and pulled it shut. “I warned you.”

  “Austin? How can you live in there?” Newspapers, books, shopping bags, boxes, Christmas and other holiday decorations, a colander, and dirty clothes filled the room from floor to ceiling, leaving only a foot-wide path from the front door into what could only be described as a junk heap on steroids.

  “No one can live in there. My grandfather died because he couldn’t let go of anything.”

  “What happened?”

  “I came out here all the time to check on him. He always met me on the porch. This place shamed him, but he didn’t have it in him to fix it. He refused to talk about it, let alone admit he had a problem.”

  “Why haven’t you cleaned it out?”

  Austin swung his hand out toward the door. “How the hell do I fix that when I can barely afford to feed myself? Garbage service picks up the recycling and garbage can each week that I fill to the brim and then some, but let’s face it, it’ll take me ten years to clear that place out.” Austin went back to sitting on the pathetic cot. “I look at that house and see how easy it was for my father to manipulate him to do what he wanted. He made my mother believe he saved her from this place. That she should be grateful. Maybe she was. I don’t know. But I do know she loved her father. I loved my grandfather. Even with all this,” he pointed with his thumb at the house behind him, “he was
still a better man than my father could ever hope to be.”

  “You’re a better man than you’ve been this past year,” she pointed out. “Which is why I’m here.”

  “Why the fuck do you care about me? Go home to Noah. He loves you. You guys have the ranch. A life together.”

  “I care because I know what it’s like to have a parent turn their back on you. I know what it’s like to feel worthless and useless and determined with no means to turn that determination into dreams that actually come true despite the nightmare of your life.”

  “I don’t want your help,” he snapped.

  “Well, you’ve been having this pity party all by yourself for a long time. Now, I’m RSVP’ing and shutting down the blues.”

  Austin glared up at her, still not willing to even hope she could turn this party around and make his life a celebration and not a wake for all he’d wanted and never achieved.

  “You and I are starting a business together. We’ll start by getting this ranch up and running. I assume you know a few geologists and mining experts we can have come out and survey the land. Who knows, maybe you’re sitting on a shitload of sapphires or a huge deposit of copper.”

  “I’m sitting on a lump of coal.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s shoved up your ass and making you a total jerk.”

  Austin pressed his lips together, holding back a grin he didn’t want her to see. “Don’t you have something better to do with your time and money?”

  She copped a squat on the weathered porch boards in front of him and settled in to let him know she had no intention of letting him push her away. “Noah says you’re worth the bet. I’m from Vegas, and willing to take a gamble on you. So what’s it going to be, Austin? Can you turn this place into a winning hand if I stake you?”

  Austin stared over her head at the land he so obviously loved. “If I had the money, I could make this place something.”

  She heard his unspoken, I could make myself into something.

  “Let’s get down to business.” She pulled out a notebook from her purse and flipped it open.

  “Roxy?”

  She looked up and got caught in the sincerity in his eyes, the depth of gratitude she saw in them, and a hint of fear that she’d back out or disappoint him when he dared to hope. “It’s going to be okay now, Austin. I promise.”

  To give Austin time to let it sink in and shift his focus to the job at hand, she clicked her pen and put it to paper. “Let’s start with the house. What needs to be done?”

  “Aside from bulldozing it to the ground?”

  She laughed under her breath. “I think we can salvage it.” A touch of relief lit his eyes. “This place means everything to you. You don’t want to demolish it. You want to hold on to it and the fond memories you have of your grandfather. We’ll keep the good and toss out the trash.”

  She began her list with ordering several large dumpster bins for trash and recycling.

  “Thank you, Roxy.”

  She glanced up at him. “For what? We haven’t even gotten started.”

  “For seeing what no one else but me seems to see in this place.”

  She nodded, acknowledging his attachment to the ranch, the house, the legacy his grandfather left him that may not be much, but it meant the world to him. It was a piece of his history, his family, and the mother he lost far too soon.

  John left her a legacy. Maybe not the one she wanted, but she’d make the most of it and use what she earned to help her sisters and Austin. And on Speckled Horse Ranch, she’d found peace and love and a home.

  Austin deserved that, too.

  But it would take a lot of work to turn this place into a home again.

  Austin needed help, and Sonya needed to set her numbers aside and live a little. They both needed this project.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Noah pulled his phone from his dusty jean pocket hoping Roxy sent the text. He stared at the picture of Austin embracing Roxy with his hands on her ass for a good ten seconds with his heart clenched tight in his chest cutting off his breath and turning the lead stone in his gut to a roiling ball of rage. A second text popped up.

  Cheryl: Since Austin doesn’t have any money she must be giving it away

  His anger found the right target.

  Another picture popped up. The second picture showed Roxy and Austin walking with their arms around each other up to Austin’s house.

  She swore last night in his arms that she’d never leave him. He believed that all the way to his soul.

  Because he trusted her, he dismissed what the pictures implied.

  He rode the mare he’d been training for the last hour back to the stables and handed her off to one of the stable hands who eyed him with alarm when he ran off. He jumped in his truck and tore out of the driveway.

  The pictures of Roxy with Austin burned in his head. The reason they were sent roiled his gut. He expected Cheryl to be there when he arrived and he wasn’t disappointed. She sat in her car at the end of the drive and stepped out when he slid the truck to a jarring halt behind her car and jumped out.

  “You got here fast.”

  “Why the hell are you stalking my girlfriend?”

  Taken aback, Cheryl retreated as he advanced on her. “Why are you mad at me? She’s the one secretly meeting Austin. Your best friend.”

  “I know she’s here. I know why she’s here. Because she’s a good person and wants to help him. Why are you here? Just to cause trouble? Make up more shit about her?”

  “You saw the pictures. The way they were with each other.”

  “Neither Austin nor Roxy would ever do anything like what you’re suggesting. I know that. But what does it say about you that you’d follow her here looking for any little thing you can spin into a sordid tale to get me to break up with her?”

  “She’s not good for you, Noah. She’s the Madam of a notorious brothel at best. We all know what she really is.”

  “You and all the others you include in that we can all go to hell. Stop calling and leaving me messages. Stop texting me. We’re over.”

  He turned to walk away, but stopped at her next words.

  “I know you don’t want to see Annabelle ordered to live with her mother. Send Roxy away, or that’s exactly what will happen. Roxy doesn’t belong here.”

  “No one will ever take Annabelle from me or her home.”

  “Playing house sounds like a good idea, but in the end, she’ll get bored and she’ll leave you. She’ll go back to what she knows.”

  “What she knows?” He glanced up at the sky, thinking about what Roxy knew. “You want to know why she’s here? To start a business with Austin. To help my friend dig himself out of the hole his father unfairly put him in.”

  “Buying off your friends,” she suggested, her words filled with skepticism.

  Noah shook his head, disheartened that Cheryl, someone he thought of as a friend, refused to see the truth or even give Roxy the benefit of the doubt.

  Lisa’s influence no doubt.

  “Helping others, taking care of them, that’s what Roxy knows. Annabelle has blossomed. She’s found her confidence. She stands up for herself and others and doesn’t fall to peer pressure. She’s found a purpose that makes her happy. All of that because of Roxy’s influence.” Noah held up his hand to stop her from saying anything. “Before you turn even that into something ugly, you should ask yourself what you hope to accomplish by trashing Roxy, because I want nothing to do with you. Lots of good folks got an up close and eye-opening introduction to Roxy last night. They liked her. They learned about who she really is. Rumors and trash talk aren’t going to be believed so easily anymore.”

  She gave him a snide smile. “A picture is worth a thousand words. It brought you here today.”

  “Only to stop you, not because I believe anything is going on with Roxy and Austin. What are you going to do, smear his name and mine just to get in a dig at her? People will see, just like I do, that it’s
petty and rooted in jealousy.” He purposely looked her up and down and shook his head. “And why wouldn’t they believe that, because she’s beautiful inside and out and you’ve shown your true colors. Keep this up, you’ll be the one ostracized and talked about behind your back.”

  The stricken look on her face tweaked his conscience. He didn’t like hurting her, even though he spoke the truth. And because he had nothing left to say, he walked away and hoped this was the last time she interfered in his life under the misguided notion that she was helping him.

  “Noah, it can’t end this way,” she called after him.

  He held the door to his truck open and looked back at her. “It ended when you made it clear I didn’t appeal to you as much as what you wanted from me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Sure it is. That’s why you showed up for the reading of the will under the guise of consoling me over John’s death. But we both know you tried to use that as your way back in. It didn’t work and it’s made you desperate and bitter.” He contained his anger and tried to remember that once he’d liked Cheryl. Once, they’d been happy together. “Let this go, Cheryl. Don’t make me hate you.”

  This time, Noah jumped into the truck and sped down the driveway. Roxy and Austin walked out of the dilapidated stables, Roxy with her head down as she wrote something in a notebook. Austin tapped his elbow to her arm to get her attention. Roxy’s head came up. Even from twenty feet away he saw the annoyance and anger flash in her eyes when she spotted him getting out of his truck and walking toward her.

  He didn’t stop until he stood right in front of her and took her beautiful face in his hands. “Are you okay? She didn’t say or do anything to you, did she?”

  Roxy leaned into his palm and the anger faded from her eyes and turned to resignation.

  “Who was that woman?”

  “My ex, Cheryl.”

  “Well, Cheryl wants your attention, not mine. Looks like she got it.”