Janice Maynard - Million Dollar Baby

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?”