KEPT: A Small Town Second Chance Romance Novella (Reckless Falls Book 0) Read online

  I closed my eyes. I heard the scraping chairs and for a moment I thought about just keeping them closed until they left. I thought about leaving right now and heading back to New York City, of facing Killian. Of saying I was sorry for flying off the handle and crawling back into the only life I’d known. The mad rush of being onstage. The band fights, the drunken parties, the emptiness inside me as I listened to Killian sing songs about women I’d used to think were me. Leaving right now and moving back. Back to pretending I was someone else.

  But something bubbled up in my throat.

  “No,” I called over the noise of them leaving. “No, it’s not.”

  I opened my eyes to see my parents staring at me. I lifted my chin and slowly stood up.

  “This is my home. It’s as much mine as it is yours.” I said, and my voice didn’t quaver so I could almost believe myself. “And I think I’m going to stick around for a little bit.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Derek

  I was engrossed in my rendering, but not so engrossed that I didn’t hear the sound of the cars in the driveway starting up.

  I jumped to my feet, sending a flurry of sketches to the floor. The wrist joint was giving me fits and I was glad for the distraction, even if all I saw was the taillights of the Benz disappearing around the curve of the drive.

  “Shit,” I exhaled, more disappointed that I’d missed seeing who was leaving than I cared to admit. All damn day I’d been as curious as fuck about who the hell Aria had up there in the great house. And now I’d fucking missed seeing them when I had the chance.

  I stepped back from the window and thought for a second. I was nearing a breakthrough on this model, I could feel it. Just a few more hours and I could print the prototype, then call up my contact at the county hospital to see about the need for this version. I was almost done with my work….

  But I wanted to see Aria. I wanted to know if her visitors were welcome ones or not.

  I look a deep breath and ran a glass of water from the tap, staring out the window at the great house. There was no light or movement inside. Once or twice I thought I heard a sound drifting down the lawn, but it was muffled and indistinct, and the harder I strained my ears, the more distant it sounded.

  It was frustrating. I had this perverse protectiveness going on. Or maybe I’d been living alone too long and I was just being nosey for nosiness’s sake. Whatever it was, I wanted to see her. And when I wanted something, it was usually because it was the worst fucking thing for me. I’d learned over the past three years of clean, sober living to be really fucking suspicious of what I wanted.

  But then again, she was a person, not a fucking pint glass. There was no reason I couldn’t go and check on her.

  So I decided to nut up and do just that.

  I opened the door to my place and started across the lawn. It was markedly cooler than it had been this morning and I regretted not grabbing a jacket to throw over my thin t-shirt. The weather was changing, the temperature dropping. Puffy white clouds scudded quickly across the sky, ahead of a line of gray off to the west. It was a fall sky for sure, the sun lower along the horizon giving everything a golden autumnal glow. Here and there, bright red maples stood out against the dulling brown of the foliage. The drought this summer made for crappy fall foliage, which didn't bother me that much. Fewer tourists clogging up the roadways with their leaf peeping….

  I heard that sound again.

  My first thought was that life had somehow acquired a soundtrack, that thunderous classical music was accompanying the sweeping view of Whaleback Mountain and the blaze of autumn leaves upon it. Hell, if I were a movie director, I would write music for this view that sounded exactly the same way.

  Then I blinked and realized the music wasn't coming from inside my head, but rather inside of the house. Blasting classical music.

  That wasn’t what I expected from a rock and roll idol like Aria.

  The closer I got to the house, the more concentrated the sound became. Until it distilled into one spot. The glass-walled atrium off the east-facing deck. I figured Miss New York was sitting and listening to her tunes while sipping a cup of green tea or doing a juice cleanse or whatever the fuck fancy New York people liked to drink. I headed to the side doors expecting to see exactly that.

  Then I stopped.

  Through the glass I could see her, her long, sinuous body weaving and bobbing as she sat at the baby grand piano that dominated the floor-space. Mr. Dolan had kept it in memory of his late wife but as far as I knew, he never touched it. Now it thundered with long suppressed music.

  But it wasn’t the surprise piano that had me frozen in my tracks.

  Her eyes closed, her fingers moving so quickly across the keys that they were little more than a blur, she coaxed a rolling wave of sound from the lower register and then quieted down to this lilting little melody on the high keys that made me think of icy winds, and cold winter nights, and the things I'd lost over the years.

  I stood there, transfixed. I’d pegged her as a drama queen, as an impulsive, punked out, flame-haired wild child, but this? This was something altogether more elegant and refined. It was like watching a sculpture take shape from the clay or using a chisel to carve the shape free from the wood. She had become something…more.

  I had no idea how long I stood there. I didn't want to disturb her. This was the kind of shit rich people paid astronomical sums of money for, but she was playing it all for herself. All for me. It felt like a secret that she and I could share, should share, and I felt myself smiling to know that we had this.

  The music rolled up into a crescendo, and then with a last, thunderous chord, her hands slipped from the keys and fell into her lap like two tired, fluttering birds. She opened her eyes, sleepily…

  And then screamed.

  "Holy shit, what the fuck are you doing?” she yelled, standing up so quickly that the piano bench fell with a crash behind her, spilling out all of the sheet music that had been stored inside.

  I held up my hands to ward off her fear. "I didn't want to interrupt!" I called through the glass.

  "How long have you been there?" she demanded

  I didn't know what to say. "You're really good," I said, trying to stall.

  "How long have you been there?” she demanded.

  Her eyes were shining like she was about to cry. I looked at her, then looked down at my hands helplessly. "I actually have no idea," I called.

  "What do you want?" she barked.

  I winced a little, remembering how rude I was last time I had seen her. Was this how it felt? To make an overture and have it rejected. It felt kind of shitty. “I saw the cars leaving,” I said. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  Her nose twitched and her shoulder softened slightly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Thanks. I mean, sorry,” she said. She waved to the door. “Come in, it’s unlocked.”

  “Yeah?” I said, pushing open the door and trying like hell not to betray how happy it made me that she invited me in.

  She took another glance at me. “Why do you look like you’re heading out into the wilderness?”

  I looked down at my clothes. I hadn’t bothered to change when I got home from the falls. Or shower, even. Mud still clung to my damp boots and there was a rip at the hem of my short that I hadn’t noticed until now. ”Just came back, actually,” I said, lying about how long it had been. "I went on a hike."

  She raised her eyebrows. ”Oh yeah? Where to?"

  “Up the falls. "

  She narrowed her eyes. “You mean… when you say ‘up the falls’…”

  "Yes," I nodded. "Meaning, I climbed them."

  “With your bare hands?”

  "There are ropes," I said, laughing.

  She looked flummoxed. "Are they safe?"

  "I'm still here, aren't I?"

  She looked skeptical. "I suppose you are," she said. "But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't break any second." />
  "They haven't broken in the long time I've been doing this hike." Then I looked at her more closely. "You've never hiked up the falls?” I repeated. "And you grew up here. Are you sure you grew up here?"

  She laughed. "You know damn well I grew up here. I'm just not a hiker."

  “Well you’re fit enough to be one," I said casually. The way her eyes darted up to stare at me made me realize that I’d confessed that I've been looking at her body. I looked away, embarrassed.

  When she spoke again, her voice had taken on a different quality. "You should take me," she said. "Since you know so much about that hike."

  "Yes," I said. “I should.”

  She fixed me with her gaze for a second, and I was forced to stare right at her face. Yesterday, I had been certain her eyes were blue, but today they had taken on a greener quality. Maybe it was the green in her shirt that was making them look so teal. Her eyes were the same color as the lake on a cloudy day. “And what about you, Aria?” I heard myself say. “How have you spent the day?”

  She suddenly looked down at her phone, which had been vibrating on the piano. She wrinkled her nose, then swiped her finger across the screen several times, deleting a bunch of messages en masse. "Your boyfriend?" I asked.

  She looked at me with an air of finality. "Ex-boyfriend," she said, with steel in her voice. Then her eyelids fluttered a second. “Since you asked, I’ll tell you. I’m having a bad fucking day.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She let out an abrupt, barking laugh. “Oh, nothing. Just…you know. It turns out that everything I thought I knew was wrong.” She buried her face in her hands and raked her fingers down her face.

  “Well….” I said, unsure of how to respond.

  She waved her hand. “But thanks for checking. You’re a real full-service tenant.”

  I gave a stiff little bow and then straightened up. Before I could catch myself, the words slipped from my mouth. “I can be of service in other ways too."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Aria Jane

  My jaw dropped and it was like a bomb went off in my skull. “What did you say?”

  His lips twisted a little and he rolled his eyes and looked away from me, his tongue poking into the corner of his mouth. “Fuck it,” he said, grinning. “You heard what I said.”

  “What I heard and what you said have got to be two different things.”

  “Do they?”

  Just then my phone buzzed loudly against the top of the piano. I laughed out loud. “How can you be of service to me? You can get me the fuck away from this phone.”

  He grinned that grin again. There was something different about him today. He looked…he looked like he gave a shit again.

  And the result was fucking devastating.

  He’d shaved off some of the scruff that clouded his features into a closely trimmed beard. His jawline now appeared burnished in gold. Instead of lowering his eyes every time I spoke to him, he kept them level with mine, sometimes letting them fall to my lips. I found myself watching that wicked mouth of his, and it made it all the better when the words that came out of it were spoken quiet and intense. “I can do that,” he said.

  I sat up straighter. “You can get the lawyers off my back?”

  “Nah. I mean, maybe. Sure, you want me to answer?”

  I laughed, picturing Killian’s face when one of his team of bloodsucking leeches came back to report that another man had answered my phone. It was almost too tempting. But then again, I couldn’t afford to antagonize him. I shook my head. “No. If they keep calling, though.” He stepped forward a bit. “Maybe,” I said, warding him off.

  He stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Well if you won’t let me tear some suit a new asshole, how about you let me distract you some other way?”

  I bit my lip. I could think of a few nice distractions. In the space of a few moments, the schoolgirl crush had come roaring back and I was blushing like a virgin.

  And he saw. Fucking hell, he saw how my cheeks colored and there was no way he wasn’t feeling the heat that flamed across them. He stepped towards me. “I was thinking…”

  “Yeah?”

  “You and I could go somewhere….”

  “Yeah?”

  “No one else around…”

  “Uh huh?”

  “And go on that hike.”

  I did a double take. “What?”

  He loped over to the glass door and peered critically at the sky. “The weather’s not going to last. It’s already dropped ten degrees since this morning. Before long this place is going to be buried under snow.”

  “Really?”

  “They’re already calling for it in the forecast next week.”

  I cleared my throat, trying to adjust to the sudden change in topic. “Ah, Reckless Falls' winters. I haven’t missed those.”

  “You’re staying here over the winter?” he asked, looking surprised.

  “Is that going to bother you?”

  “It’s your house.”

  “Damn straight it is.”

  He lifted his chin. “And am I staying here this winter too?”

  I licked my lips. “Sure,” I said, shrugging. “Why the hell not? It’ll be nice to have some company.”

  He stood there a moment staring at me. I couldn’t tell what his expression meant. Was it…gratitude?

  He stalked away for a second, then turned back, suddenly all business. “Have you had the propane tank for the generator filled yet?”

  “I haven’t needed to. It’s warm.”

  “Yes, it’s warm today, but next week the temperature’s dropping.”

  I turned back to the piano and ran my fingers over the keys. “I’ve got time,” I said softly.

  “What about a plow service, have you lined them up yet?”

  “Not yet…”

  “And the furnace, have you had it serviced?”

  “Jesus, Derek!” I exploded. “What is this?”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Well, I don’t need help!” I thundered.

  “Yeah?” He loped over to the doorway again and muttered something.

  “What was that?”

  “I said, ‘it seems like you do?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Well, there’re plans to be made, and you don’t strike me much as a planner.”

  He had me there.

  He shrugged his hands in his pockets still. “So I figured you might need some help.” He turned and looked me dead in the eye. “And I thought I’d like to be the one to help you.”

  I swallowed hard. He was a player, an asshole. I knew his party-boy reputation. Even with his claims of sobriety, even with his strangely secretive ways, and the rumor of some accident my mother brought up out of nowhere, I still had him pegged. He was a manwhore. Probably had a hell of a lot of experience with women. Probably knew how to touch a woman just right to make her forget all of the problems that mounted, the woes that gathered on her shoulders. My schoolgirl crush reasserted itself, and I remembered how it felt to wonder what those lips would taste like on mine. Right now it didn’t fucking matter that he was in my way. The way he looked at me made his intentions clear. He was a means to an end and the end I had in sight was forgetting all of the shit I had on my shoulders. I looked up at him and licked my lips, taking special note of the way his gaze dropped to my breasts before landing on my lips. “You wanna take me on a hike?” I asked him, jutting my chest out a little. I’d tried to use music to block out the bad thoughts in my head, but this was a better idea. Being alone in the woods with Derek Granger, that could only lead to one thing.

  And maybe that one thing was exactly what I needed.

  He blinked. “Now?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, uncrossing my legs. I was wearing my favorite pair of boots. They weren’t exactly hiking boots, but they would have to do. If I didn’t do this now, I’d lose my nerve. “Right now.”
/>   He looked me down and back up again, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Derek

  She climbed into my Jeep with a wary look on her face.

  “Are you thinking about your phone?”

  She nodded. “He’s being a cunt on purpose.”

  “Is it just you and your ex in the band?”

  She shook her head. “There’s three other guys too. All Brits.”

  “How’d you end up with a bunch of stuffy British guys?”

  She grinned. “Nothing stuffy about these guys. They’re three brothers from Manchester. They like to fight almost as much as they like to rock out. Niall, Jules and Ewan.” She smiled a little wistfully. “I miss them. They were like the big brothers I never had. They sort of adopted me and showed me the ropes. They never really wanted to get big, though. That was all Killian.”

  “He’s a Brit too?”

  She nodded. “They were friends from the neighborhood. He convinced them to move to New York and to get a female vocalist.” She leaned back in her seat. “They heard me singing alone at a concert…”

  “The one you ran away to see…

  She wrinkled her nose. “I always meant to come back.”

  I could hear the years of hurt layered onto her voice. “You’re here now.”

  “Yeah, but at what cost? My parents hate me. My band, the guys I think of as my brothers, they’re pissed at me for bailing on them. I’ve fucked every single thing up.”

  I reached over and took her hand. She looked down at it, and then up at me, alarmed. “Not every thing,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You’re pretty good at piano.”

  She laughed, then twisted in her seat and stared at me. “Do you remember me? From back then?”

  “You mean high school?”