Marble Falls Royalty
LILA
Even though I have a busy day at work the next morning—taking in a new shipment of antiques I sourced at Round Top down in Texas, organizing the store to make room for them, pricing adjustments and check-ins on shipments and all the million logistical things that come with owning a small design firm and boutique—I can’t stop thinking about last night.
About the poor injured dog and how she’s doing during her overnight stay at the vet.
And about the breathtakingly handsome, gruff cowboy who helped rescue her.
Not just a cowboy, either, apparently. The first thing I did when I got home was do a thoroughly stalker-ish Google deep dive on one dark-haired, green-eyed, hot-as-hell Slade Rhodes.
But not before several other things happened.
For one, when I went up to the counter at the vet to ask if they could split the bill over several credit cards, the receptionist told me, “Your boyfriend already paid,” and lifted her chin towards Slade with a wink at me.
And when I tried to tell Slade that was crazy, that I couldn’t possibly let him do that, he just quietly let me babble on for a while before giving my arm a brief touch and saying, “It’s already done.”
I’ve dated men who made a production of picking up a check at a restaurant, who wanted you to notice and be grateful. Slade paid a four-figure vet bill for a stray dog without blinking and then changed the subject.
And then he drove me back to my car, waited the entire time while the locksmith worked, and insisted on footing the bill for that too.
He’s an old-school, traditional kind of guy. I never thought I’d be into that. The kind of traditional guys I knew growing up were the ones who got off on plastering their family name all over libraries but shriveled at the thought of their wives and daughters studying inside those same buildings.
But Slade is traditional in a good way. A way that made me feel safe and cared for.
His professional accomplishments are all over the web, but there was absolutely nothing about his personal life.
No pictures of him with girlfriends on the red carpet.
The paparazzi shots that are out there consist of pictures of him wearing various team baseball caps pulled down low over his eyes while he scowls in the direction of the camera.
For a famous athlete, he’s still quite mysterious. And apparently intensely private.
Which has only made my curiosity about him go up to the n-th degree.
I gave him my business card, not really expecting that he’d use it. But he texted me that same night to make sure I made it home okay.
I was kind of hoping he’d use it as a pretext to asking me out, but no such luck.
I guess he’s just a decent guy who was trying to do the right thing. Not actually into me or anything.
Which I get. I mean, I looked like a crazy person dressed in a sexy bunny costume. He’s a professional athlete. He probably quietly dates supermodels or something.
While I rearrange some of the lamps and vases atop our new reclaimed wood dresser, my shop assistant Sarah comes over, handing me a maple latte.
“Thank you! You’re a life saver,” I tell her, taking a sip.
She arches a pierced eyebrow. “As good as the ones I used to make?”
“No one will ever make a cup as good as you,” I tell her honestly.
Sarah was working as a barista at Bison Brew down the street when I met her.
We started chatting and one day she told me she was miserable working there now because her ex-situationship still came in for coffee every day and treated her like a stranger, like nothing more than an employee. Didn’t even tip.
I was outraged on her behalf and offered her a job as my shop assistant on the spot. Not just out of pity, either. If she could speak with such passion about a literal bag of coffee beans, I knew she’d make a fabulous sales associate.
“How was the charity auction last night?” she asks.
I shrug. “Never made it.”
I tell her the story about the dog and meeting Slade.
She goggles at me. “You spent the night with Slade Rhodes?”
I feel my face heat. “I didn’t spend the night with him. It was just a few hours at the vet while we waited for the dog to come out of surgery. She’s doing great, by the way.”
I make a mental note to call the vet clinic on my lunch break. The dog is the whole reason any of this happened, and I’m worried about her.
Sarah waves that away. “Cool, cool. Tell me more about Slade.” She props her chin on her fist. “I think he’s my favorite Rhodes brother. There’s just something about a broody hockey player, you know?”
“You know all the Rhodes brothers?” I ask.
“Not personally. Obviously. They’re famous and they’re, like, Marble Falls royalty. Everyone knows them.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re new here.” Her eyes widen. “Oh my God, do you think he’ll invite you to Wild Rose Ranch?”
“What is that?”
“Lila! Come on. This is your new home town. You’ve got to catch up on all the major players here. Wild Rose is legendary. They’ve filmed movies there. I heard some billionaire tech bro tried to buy it for a hundred million dollars and the Rhodes family turned him down.”
Sarah seems dazzled by all of that, but I grew up with money and I know better than to be impressed by it.
“Oh,” I say, arranging our new shipment of handmade ceramics. “Okay.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re so weird sometimes, Lila. You get excited by a dusty old chair but a family of rich, famous, smoking-hot cowboy brothers does nothing for you.”
I think about those dark green eyes staring into mine. Those big rough hands lifting me over that fence like I weighed nothing more than a feather, when I definitely have the curves to prove otherwise.
I wouldn’t say that one certain smoking-hot cowboy does nothing for me. I’d say entirely too much, actually, for a man I spent about three hours with while covered in pink feathers.
I really should have left well enough alone and not Googled him. Because now I know what Slade looks like in full gear on the ice. I’ve seen the sheer size of him with those hockey pads on. That dark, smoldering glower of concentration during games. I’ve seen that power and athleticism in motion.
I know he’s a man who can skate backwards on the ice and body slam another giant athlete into the boards at high speed.
I know those powerful arms that wield a hockey stick like a weapon can also gently carry an injured dog.
That those big hands span my waist as he lifts me over a fence, as carefully as if I was made of glass.
And then my traitorous brain goes one step further and starts thinking what it might feel like to have that kind of strength used in an entirely different context. Nothing between us, no fence, just those hands on my hips as he—
Okay, it’s been way too long since anyone touched me that way.
I try to change the subject. “In any case,” I say, “I’m sorry I missed the chance to do my part for the animal shelter. I got all dressed up in that silly bunny costume for nothing.”
Sarah scrolls through her phone. “The website says they pulled in forty-four thousand last night.” She looks closer at her phone. “Woah. Ten thousand of that was for a date with you.”
Shock pings through me. “Excuse me?”
She shows me her phone. Sure enough, next to my name, there’s a winning bid of ten thousand dollars for a date.
And it’s anonymous.
Sarah takes her phone back. “I don’t get it. Why would you bid anonymously on a date with someone? You can’t even collect it if you don’t reveal your identity, right?”
My mind immediately goes to one person.
But no. He wouldn’t.
I mean, I did tell him he could bid remotely. But that was a joke.
“Maybe it was a mistake and they meant to do a general donation and just clicked on my name or something,” I say.
She shrugs. “Whatever, girl.”
I try to keep my mind off it all morning, and I sort of succeed.
It’s almost noon, a perfect sunny fall Montana day, and I take a moment to appreciate the dry heat and golden light of the West. It’s so different than the grey dreary East Coast weather I grew up with, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop taking my new home for granted.
I’ve bounced around the country, from Los Angeles to Austin to Charleston, trying out different places to hang my hat, but I knew the second I landed in Marble Falls that this place would be my home.
I instantly fell in love with the towering mountains and limitless plains of sweetgrass cut through with powerful rivers.
The cottonwood trees that fade to gold in the autumn.
The chameleonic sky, some days a clear sapphire, other days cloaked in storm clouds.
The charming downtown with its old brick buildings and storefronts that bedeck themselves in epic Halloween and Christmas and Fourth of July finery.
Plus, there’s a healthy tourist population, along with a clientele base of wealthy full-time residents and even wealthier vacation home owners. So for a small town, the interior design business is excellent.
I’m up on a ladder stacking pillows on a display case when the bell above the door jingles.
“Be right with you!” I say, not looking, concentrating on my place on the ladder.
“Take your time,” comes a deep, rough, sexy voice.
It’s a voice that’s quite familiar now, since I’ve been replaying it in my head constantly over the last twelve hours.
It’s Slade Rhodes.