Million Dollar Baby

His world had come crashing down when he discovered his childhood sweetheart had married another man. Even worse was Rose’s crushing rejection of the love they had once shared. The long-ago heartache was still vivid to him.

He had married her best friend.

But now he was confused.

“Go,” she cried, tears gleaming in her eyes.

He caught her hands in his and held them tightly, even when she tried to yank away. “Did your father do something to you, Rosie?” His heart sank.

Her lower lip trembled. Suddenly, she looked every one of her sixty-seven years. “None of you cared,” she whispered. “I was a prisoner, and you and Sarah never saw through my facade.”

“I don’t understand.” His chest hurt. He couldn’t breathe.

“He threatened me. My mother was desperately ill. He was going to let her die if I married you, refuse to pay for her treatments. So I had no choice. I had to pretend. I had to choose my mother’s life over my happiness. I had to marry another man.”

“My God.”

Rose stared at him, her eyes filled with something close to hatred and loathing. Or maybe it was simply grief. “Go, Augustus. We’ll continue our plan to keep Daniel and Alexis apart. But please don’t come to my house again.”

* * *

Somehow Brooke managed to work on her mural hour after hour without passing out or giving up, but it wasn’t easy. The episode with her mother had upset her deeply. She felt wretched. Even now, her legs trembled and her stomach roiled. Her life was a damned soap opera. Why couldn’t her family be normal and boring?

She paused in the middle of the day to eat the peanut butter sandwich she had packed for her lunch. The club had a perfectly wonderful restaurant, but dining there would have meant changing out of her paint-stained clothes, and Brooke simply didn’t have it in her today. So she sat on the ground with her back to the wall and ate her sandwich in the shade.

She half hoped Austin would show up to keep her company. But clearly, he was very busy with the new project. She saw him at a distance a time or two. That was all.

On the one hand, it was good that he didn’t hover. She would have hated that. She was a grown woman. Still, she’d be lying if she didn’t say she was looking forward to their picnic.

By the time she finished a section at three thirty and cleaned her brushes, she was wiped out. Today’s temperature had been ten degrees above normal for mid-October. It was no wonder she was dragging. And she had forgotten to wear sunscreen. So she would probably have a pink nose by the end of the day.

She stashed her supplies in her car, changed out of her work clothes into a cute top and jeans, and went in search of Austin. Her palms were damp and her heart beat faster than normal. The last time the two of them had spent any amount of time together, they’d been naked.

Despite that anomaly, they really were little more than strangers. Perhaps if she treated this picnic as a first date, she could pretend that she hadn’t propositioned him in a bar and made wild, passionate love to the handsome cowboy.