Ride Rough - Tessa Layne Page 0,67

the shower. He turned on the water then stepped into the spray. Portia had texted earlier that there was an offer on his place. Take it, he'd texted back. He didn't care what the offer was. It didn't matter - he'd made up his mind. He'd always had a knack for figuring things out as he went and he was going to do that again. Working the ranch for four months had changed him. He guessed that's why so many veterans successfully went through the program. There was something about hard physical labor in the outdoors, that forced a person to look inward and wrestle with their bullshit. Same with riding a bull. Those animals smelled a man lying to himself a mile away. He'd miss the adrenaline of being on set, but nothing said he couldn't do a movie every year or two. Maybe Cecilia would come with him. He leaned into that fantasy while he cleaned up, until he registered pounding at his door. "Hang on," he hollered. He rinsed off the rest of the soap and threw a towel around his hips. Momentary panic shot through him. What if something had happened to Cecilia? He opened the door to Robbie's thunderous face, Jax's right behind.

Before he could ask, Robbie had pushed in and pinned him against the wall. "What the fuck is going on?" He growled. "What fucking game are you playing at... McBride?" he sneered, arm pressing painfully into his collarbone.

McBride? Jesusfucktits, how had they found out? Someone had spilled the beans. Portia? Ophelia? Who else knew where he was? His stomach dropped like a stone. Had Emerson leaked? Or worse, Travis or Sterling? He shut his eyes, trying to gather his wits. "I can explain. Can I explain?"

"You wanna explain why you've been lying to us for the last four months? Go right ahead," Robbie ground out.

Jax kicked shut the door and leaned back against it, arms folded.

"Who told you?" Trace asked.

"Izzie."

Shit. "I swear, I was gonna tell Cecilia on Sunday when I got home."

"Looks like you're a little too late," Jax answered with a dry laugh.

"Who knows?"

"How the fuck do I know?" Robbie shouted. "Why don't you start worrying about how your girlfriend is going to react instead of worrying about doing damage control? This is going to send CiCi over the edge."

"So Tony's probably gonna make good on his promise to beat the shit out of me?" he asked with a wry smile.

"If there's anything left when I'm done, yeah."

"Can I come clean?"

"I don't see as you have a choice," called Jax from his spot at the door.

"Come in and sit down, I'm not gonna bolt, and I'm not gonna call security either."

Jax's jaw set, but he came into the room and dropped into the chair by the desk. Trace took a seat on the edge of the bed. Robbie remained standing.

"Okay. So I'm going to operate under the assumption that you probably don't follow my career in the tabloids."

Robbie grunted.

"So..." Trace swallowed, then puffed his cheeks and blew out a heavy breath. "I've been a fuck-up most of my adult life. All of it, really. Without giving you the blow by blow, the instafame and wealth went to my head, and I didn't have another adult in my life to help me make the adjustment. I blew the first half of my fortune on women, booze, and a fuckton of illegal shit. When I turned thirty, I cleaned up a bit and hired an investor to take care of what I did have. But it wasn't until a big scandal that cost me a job I enjoyed, that shit started to be different. Getting sacked cost me everything. You can google that shit if you want. I was pretty much blackballed overnight. One of my only friends in California, Portia Taylor, knows Jason Case. And a few years ago, in a sober moment, I came out to Prairie for your charity Vets & Pros baseball tournament."

"I remember that," said Robbie. "You look a lot different, now."

"I call it the ranch life diet. I should take it to California and make a cool mil."

His friends remained awkwardly silent at his feeble attempt to joke.

"Okay, joking, sorry. So Portia helped me get out here on the condition I work as one of the guys for six months to a year, and once things died down in Hollywood, maybe I could find a plum movie part and make a come back."

"In a year," Jax reiterated.

Trace