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

  I was free.

  I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, speeding out of Manhattan with my middle fingers raised, but there had been traffic on the GWB and then again on Route 80. I’d pulled over to nap somewhere in the Poconos and then woke up with a horrible neck cramp to watch the sun peek over the horizon.

  As I drove, I called a real estate agent and made an appointment for the next morning. I needed the money. Fast. To restart my life free of the band. And Killian.

  And hell, I was probably looking at a ton of breach of contract lawsuits. I was fucked no matter how you looked at it, but at least I’d have something of my own. Killian didn’t know that. That’s why he’d treated me like he did. Because he thought I had nothing but him.

  Fuck him.

  I mean, fuck coming home to Reckless Falls too, but fuck Killian harder. All I needed to do to was meet with a real estate agent really quickly, have her look at the place and then I’d be out of my backwater hometown before anyone, including my parents, could see me.

  I was buzzy and light-headed with exhaustion when I pulled my rental car into her office lot. She was waiting, clipboard in hand, dressed in a navy-blue suit from a few seasons ago and I hated that I fucking knew that. Killian used to crow about how he’d changed me from some backwater rube to a star, but I was still a Reckless Falls girl at heart. The first thing I was going to do now that I was free of him was to change into my favorite pair of battered jeans.

  She introduced herself as Fiona Negron. I didn’t recognize her last name, which was a good thing. She wasn’t a local. I introduced myself as Jane and when her eyebrows furrowed, I cleared my throat and corrected it to Aria. She didn’t ask any more questions, which was good, because I wasn’t sure how in the hell I’d answer her questions. I didn’t know the answers myself.

  Luckily she was quiet once we got into her sedan and started the drive to my grandfather’s place. I ducked down as we passed through the center of town, but no one was out this early. The tourists were gone and the Victorian storefronts were still closed up, already switched over to winter hours even though the leaves had just barely started to turn.

  I sat back up again as we started the climb out of the valley. Fiona had a lead foot, whipping around the curves with practiced precision as she chattered on about property values and the red-hot rental market. I found myself tuning her out as I craned my neck to see the familiar sights. The slate-gray barn where the furry brown cows lived. The pin-neat rows of grape vines at Arborvale Winery. I knew these places. I used to travel these roads too. They were as familiar as the back of my hand.

  I hadn’t expected to feel this happy about that.

  But as we pulled off the highway and onto the narrow country road that climbed straight up the side of the low mountain, I chewed my nail nervously. I was running on negative sleep, and the anxiety of being back here suddenly had my heart thudding in my ears. Fiona kept asking me questions and I kept missing them because I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my own pulse.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  She smiled her photogenic smile. “It’s beautiful up here. Very desirable real estate.”

  I nodded. “Cool,” was all I said and went back to my nail chewing.

  But she wasn’t picking up on my clear signal to shut up. “Mr. Dolan’s estate has one of the most coveted views of the lake. And I believe you can access the Falls from up there too.”

  “It’s a half a mile down the road,” I corrected. She looked at me oddly and I shrugged. “I came up here a lot as a kid.”

  She smiled blandly and once again I gave thanks that she was clearly an out-of-towner who couldn’t put two and two together. Mr. Dolan, one of the richest men in town, was the grandfather of the missing Aria Dolan. If she’d been a local, she’d have figured it out by now.

  That the missing granddaughter was me.

  I finished chewing off my thumbnail and immediately moved to my index finger. I kept my nails long on my right hand, better for guitar playing, but who the fuck knew if I’d ever play guitar again? Killian would have yelled at me for chewing my nails, so as an extra fuck you I chewed them all the harder.

  “It’s right up here,” I said, pointing. The entrance from the country road was pretty nondescript, just a gap in the trees. My grandfather had liked it that way. He hated the new trend of building your giant fucking lake house right on the road, with spotlights shining on it so everyone could see how successful you were. He was old school that way, showiness wasn’t his thing. He valued privacy which was why I was doubly floored that he’d tried to find me in the first place.

  Though I was really glad he did.

  We bumped onto the steep gravel drive and began to climb. Once we were above the trees, I couldn’t help myself. I twisted in my seat and looked back.

  From here you could see over the tops of the trees, and above that, a humped, looming mountain with a blunted slope that looked like the head of a whale. Ganagua Lake stretched out in a shimmering ribbon, a narrow strip of blue tucked in a steep valley surrounded by rolling foothills. And if you closed your eyes and concentrated, you could almost hear the sound of the Falls as they leaped into the water. I felt a swell of something long dormant in my chest. This is my home, it said, before I swallowed and squashed it down.

  This was no time to get sentimental. I was here to sell this place and get the hell out.

  The drive curved gracefully up the mountain and as it did, the great house emerged from the trees. I sucked in a deep breath to see it standing there, all locked up and empty, the great swatch of front porch emptied of everything except one single deck chair. With a lurch I realized that was where my grandfather had sat, alone. Hurt and anger and yes, a little guilt welled up in my chest. Exhaustion was already pushing me to the edge of hysteria. I moved to brush the tears out of my eyes before they had a chance to fall.

  A dart of movement flitted in the corner of my vision. “Who the fuck is that?” I shouted.

  I was already out of the car before Fiona could even respond. My head was whirling with righteous indignation. How dare he, whoever he was? This was my grandfather’s place, and now it was my place. It was my only fucking solution to the pile of shit my life had become. It was my fucking safe place and he’d invaded it and who the fuck did this asshole…

  At that moment I realized I’d seen this guy before. The partying playboy asshole who thought he ruled my high school was acting like he was ruler here too.

  Derek fucking Granger.

  He was standing on my grandfather’s lawn, shirtless and tanned and completely at ease and acting like he fucking belonged there.

  I started running.

  I was going to kill him. I was going to shove him to the ground and punch his face bloody. How dare he? Was he squatting? Trespassing? Had he been swindling my poor grandpa? What the hell was he up to?

  Whatever it was, I was ready to beat it out of him.

  Until my foot hit a divot in the otherwise manicured lawn and down I went.

  My weak ankles have always been a curse, but never more so than right then. Derek reached out and caught me without a second thought.

  I didn’t mean to hit him.

  Yes, I did.

  Because what the fuck was I going to do now? Derek had seen me. He knew me, I could tell that immediately, in spite of the fillers Killian had made me put in my lips and horrible red hair dye that obscured my hair. And Derek knew fucking everybody in this town.

  “Derek Granger?” I shouted and it came out like a sob. “This is my house! What the fuck are you doing here? ”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Derek

  Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were blazing. Her flame red hair tumbled in shattered locks over her shoulders and was hanging in her face. She looked like a bonfire made human and I stepped back two quick paces before I got burned.

  “What am I doing here?” I asked. I clenched my fist, cracking my knuckles and then tried to shove my hands in
to the pockets I didn’t have. “I live here.”

  By that time, her companion, a dolled-up, dark skinned woman whose business suit was practically painted on had picked her way carefully across the lawn. I suddenly found myself wishing for a good, soaking rain to sink those stiletto heels down in the mud, but all summer we’d been caught in a fierce drought, so there was no mud puddle lying in wait. Nothing to prevent her from coming up to us and smiling like we were all good friends.

  “Oh!” she chirped. “Aria! You didn’t tell me you had a tenant.”

  Aria exhaled sharply and tried to kill me with her eyes. “I didn’t know I had a tenant,” she seethed. She closed her eyes and caught her hair back in her fist. I watched as she did something complicated with her hand that resulted in an elaborate knot on the top of her head. For a second I found myself lost in the sweep of her neck and thudding pulse under her jaw. I had a perverse desire to press my fingers there and feel it beating under my fingers.

  That’s what happens when you spend almost a year alone, away from women. You start thinking weird shit like that.

  I cleared my throat. “Why do you keep saying you have a tenant?” I demanded, even though the sinking feeling in my stomach told me I already knew the answer.

  She stood up and wiped the dirt from her skintight leggings. Then she straightened up and lifted her chin. “Because,” she said, loudly. “This is my house, asshole. My grandfather left it to me.”

  Something loud roared in my ears as all at once I realized just how fucking stupid I had been. Of course this was what Mr. Dolan was after. He was making his will and he wanted me to track down his granddaughter so he could leave her this place. Leaving me in a lurch.

  By finding her, I’d essentially rendered myself homeless.

  What a fucking idiot I was.

  And Miss Priss here, she was looking at me with this expression on her face like she was thinking the same damn thing.

  There was a fucking reason I didn’t like talking to people. Gorgeous not-withstanding, they pretty much suck.

  The smiling doll-lady suddenly turned fierce as fuck. She turned to me, clutching her clipboard to her breasts like a shield. “Excuse me, sir, do you have a rental agreement we can see?”

  I folded my arms across my chest. I may have brought this upon myself by tracking Aria down, but that didn’t mean I had to make it easy for her. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Who the fuck are you again?

  Doll- lady sniffed. “Fiona Negron, Vineland Realty.” She extended her hand smartly. I just looked at it until she slowly drew it away. Her nostrils pinched in, then flared. She turned and looked at Aria. “A house with a standing tenant is going to be a lot harder to sell, especially in the fall market. We’re talking a matter of months instead of the weeks I promised you.”

  Aria’s face crumpled and for a second she looked panicked. She whirled at me. “You need to get the hell out.”

  I stifled a laugh. “You’re trying to kick me out? Of my home?”

  “It’s my house.” She folded her arms across her chest.

  I mirrored her pose, which seemed to throw her off a bit. She stepped back. “No.” I cleared my throat. “It isn’t.” I gestured to the gray-shingled building that stood brooding at the top of the rise. “The carriage house is mine.” I turned back to her and grinned. “Says so on my rental agreement,” I smirked.

  Her face fell further. She twisted her hands around and around. I only needed to glance down to see that all of her nails were bitten down to the quick. She was seriously agitated. Probably tweaking out, I realized. She was a rock star, after all. Most likely going to sell this place for drug money. Fuck that.

  She gave a quick nod. “Okay. Well… then…. I’ll buy you out!” she said, with a sudden rush of clarity. “Yeah. I’ll pay you… Refund your rent or whatever.” She twisted her fingers again and again. “You just need to move.”

  I’d only known Mr. Dolan for the last year of his life, but I’d learned a few things about the old man. And I was certain of at least one thing. He hadn’t willed this gorgeous place to his wayward granddaughter, only to have her turn around and sell it off for drug money. No way. If I owed him anything for what he’d done for me, I owed him this. “Not happening,” I told her firmly. “I like it here.”

  The noise that came out of her mouth was something I’d heard in the woods at night. The cry of a trapped wounded animal. “Goddammit Derek!”

  I held her with my gaze. “What…. Aria?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You always were an asshole.”

  “And you always did think the sun shone just for you. Running away like that. Your poor parents.”

  Aria looked stricken. She shot a look at Fiona who was standing there gaping. You could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aria said. Her voice was little more than a gasping whimper.

  And I might be an asshole, but something in the way she cowered like that made me bite my tongue. Whatever shit I wanted to give this tweaked out girl could wait until later. I had all the time in the world.

  After all, I wasn’t going anywhere.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Aria Jane

  Everything was crashing down. All at once.

  All the hope I’d felt when I saw that email from the lawyer started draining away when I saw Derek’s placidly stubborn face.

  I wasn’t getting out of this.

  Panic rose up, clawing at my throat. The familiar taste of bright copper pennies burst in the back of my mouth, a squirt of adrenaline to clear my head so I could figure out what the fuck I needed to do next.

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  Fiona leaned forward with her clipboard. Her business-like charm had no place here, I realized. Not when I wanted to leap at Derek’s face and claw his eyes out. And especially not if I was going to keep my visit here a secret. She’d looked a little too curiously at me when Derek mentioned my parents and the time I ran away.

  She needed to go.

  That was the first step.

  “Okay,” I repeated, looking Derek right in the eye. “You’re not leaving. Well…neither am I.”

  I folded my arms over my chest and waited.

  He blinked slowly, and I saw his shoulders rise and fall in an invisible sigh. Over our heads, a puff of wind enlivened the tree branches, rustling the red leaves of the maple and sending puffy white clouds scudding across the sky. It was turning into a beautiful morning and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

  “Ahem.” Fiona cleared her throat. “I do have a ten o’clock appointment.”

  “Go ahead,” I told her, still staring Derek down.

  “Ah, yes. Well, you’ll need a ride.”

  I lifted my chin, still looking at Derek. He’d grown, that was for sure. A man now, not a boy, but his eyes, the ones that were looking back at me with bland stubbornness, those hadn’t changed.

  His dark brown, nearly black eyes had always been his most arresting feature, such a contrast with his blonde hair. With those cutting glass cheekbones and dark, soulful eyes, he could have done something altogether different with his life. I'd seen guys that looked like him, hell, guys that didn't even look half as good as him, walking the runways in New York, strutting their stuff while women fucking hung off of them. And here he was living on my grandfather’s property…alone?

  This didn’t make fucking sense.

  I needed to figure this out.

  “I’m not leaving,” I told Fiona.

  Her voice rose into a confused little squeak. “But your car is at my office.”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  The corner of Derek’s mouth twisted up a bit. God damn him. He was enjoying this. It was just a game to him. Like everything.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  Derek Granger was a myth, a goddamned legend. He was the wildest guy, who threw the wildest parties and everyone adored him. He knew how to keep you dancing and laughing u
ntil dawn and always made sure you were doing exactly that. He was that guy, made of magic.

  That was the Derek I had in my head, a blurry tornado of bad decision-making.

  In high school, I’d watched him from afar, with the jealousy that only an awkward freshman can muster for a confident senior. I’d stepped aside as he moved through the halls of our high school, flanked by his posse. He always seemed shiny, like a spotlight was trained on him no matter what he did. I'd worshiped him.

  Maybe if we'd been closer in age, I would have worked up the courage to do something with my crush. But by the time I started finding myself, crawling out from underneath Violet’s long shadow, he was gone and graduated.

  But now he was here.

  “Well then! Let me know what you decide!” Fiona chirped brightly. I heard her turn and hightail it back across the lawn, her footsteps receding until the sound of her car door made me exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding. And still, Derek didn’t move.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m going to my house now,” I told him.

  “Fine,” he said easily. “I’ll go to mine.”

  I clenched my fists. “Fine.”

  And then, without looking back at him, and with as much dignity as I could muster, I started the long, long walk up the lawn to the main house.

  I’d come tearing across this lawn a million times as a kid. It never seemed so big, but I could feel Derek watching me as I held my head high, and so I was acutely aware of each step. I watched for divots and ruts. The last thing I needed was to turn my ankle again.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I climbed the wide wooden stairs up to the front porch. The view was best up here, but I couldn’t savor it. Not with Derek still watching me from a distance.

  A breeze lifted an errant hair and brushed it across my neck. I swallowed hard and went to the door.

  The key slid easily into the lock. I took one more deep breath, ignored the buzzing of my text message alert on my phone, and walked inside.

  The house smelled silent. I can’t explain it, but it’s instantly recognizable. The scent of something shut up for a long time, old air that hasn’t heard laughter or conversation or been drawn in a pair of sleepy lungs by my grandfather’s enormous yawns. Stale, settled air.