Acting Happy (Texas Desires #2) by Rylie Roberts Read Free Book Online

different than the hundreds of men who came through those doors every year. To hike this terrain, none could be slouches. Most of the men were rugged and flirty. Just being away from home always lightened guys up, but today there was something different. Something unsettling. Something that stuck with her for the rest of the day and apparently into the evening too.
    “Let me get that for you,” William said, reaching for the bucket. She should have stopped him, emptied the dirty water on her own, but she always made a mess.
    “Thank you. Is it because you’re being nice or you’re waiting for me to finish so you can leave?” she teased loud enough for him to hear. The old man who was at least eighty ducked his head, laughing a little as they moved toward the workroom.
    “You don’t want me to really answer that, do you?” he said, hoisting the bucket and neatly dumping the dirty water down the drain. She took the mop and cleaned it under the running water before wringing out as much as she could then storing it away.
    “Selling them chairs was good for you today,” he said, his voice always a couple of decibels louder than necessary.
    “It’ll be a good donation.” She waited as he slowly made his way out. She flipped off the light before they both went for the back door. The front doors had been locked up tight a long time ago.
    “You’re a good girl,” William said, opening the back door for her. He lived on the other side of the property in a small house right on the edge. He’d been there for at least the last fifteen years. When her home schooling activities started to take her out of the home, he’d been hired to watch the place in their absence and inevitably became a trusted part of their lives.
    “Thank you, William. I’m not so sure of that,” she said in a rare moment of honesty.
    “Those charges will be dropped and you learned lessons you needed to learn. You can’t just trust people to do the right thing,” he said like he had half a dozen times since she’d been home.
    “I hope so,” she confided, and like the anthem running through her mind over the last few weeks, surely the justice system wouldn’t have let her leave Austin if there were a chance those charges would stick, but she hadn’t got the final confirmation from her attorney, and until then, she was too scared to think too far into the future. And it was most definitely way too early to even consider the best way to rebuild her life.
    From the corner of her eye, she caught movement. Kenzie turned her head to see her father climbing over the tailgate of his old truck, hoisting one of her chairs inside. Her mother trailed behind, holding another one, struggling under its weight.
    “Hey! What’re y’all doin’?” she called, taking several steps in their direction before turning back to William. She waved and yelled a fast goodnight before taking off, jogging to her parents. “Mom, hang on. Let me help you!”
    She got to the truck as the chair started to slip from her mom’s hold. She grabbed the side, trying hard to raise it high enough, but the dang thing was heavy—made of solid wood, not easy to manage. “What’re you guys doing? Shouldn’t you be in there watching TV?”
    “We thought we’d take these over for Mr. Bateman tonight,” her mom said happily, like that explained anything. She could only assume Mr. Bateman was the man who’d bought both chairs this morning.
    “He said he’d come get ’em in the morning,” she answered as her mom went around to the side of the truck. She was torn between following after her and going to the back of the truck to help make sure her father got out all right.
    “I know, honey, but he paid a lot of money. We can deliver them,” her mom called out, dusting her hands on her shirt. Luckily, she’d stayed behind because her father missed the bumper. He could barely see on a good day; he should have never climbed in the truck to begin with.
    “You should go grab a