Read Online Dirty Shame (Bluefield Bad Boys #1) by Tess Oliver - Free Book Online Page A

road. Flat roofed, square houses with shabby lawns and old cars parked in front faded behind me, and the stately mansions and rolling lawns of north Bluefield loomed in the distance. The air was just as brisk and littered with the same microscopic float dust as the south side of town. But to the Highlanders, the grit was a small annoyance. Coal meant money and expanded wealth and better cars. The inconvenience of dirty air was a small price to pay because the rewards were great.
    I turned the corner onto the private road leading to Rylan’s house. It had been a long time since I’d ridden through that part of town. I’d had no real need to wander north of the tracks. There was nothing for me on this side. Rylan’s dad had made that clear as glass years ago.
    A tall black iron gate blocked the entrance to the long paved driveway leading up to the colonial brick mansion. A wall thick enough for a medieval fortress surrounded the property, a long lazy stretch of lush lawns, boxwoods and rose gardens.
    When we were teens, Rylan and I had discovered the easiest place to climb into the garden. Back then, we’d run hand in hand, trying not to laugh out loud or alert her parents as we made our escape. It had meant climbing down a less than stable trellis and jumping down off a ledge eight feet above ground but nothing stopped us. We couldn’t get enough of each other. My whole fucking existence had been circled around the green eyed girl with the laugh that could ease the worst pain or lighten the darkest day.
    I stopped my bike on the road and walked along the outside perimeter of the wall to the back of the property. The wall was a smoothly plastered brick barrier. A massive, gnarled mulberry stood just outside the wall. I was in luck. The tree’s long branches still curled up and over the wall. I’d always had a good laugh at the irony of it all. Merritt had gone to so much trouble to keep his family and property secure, but I’d breached his fortress dozens of times unnoticed.
    I walked up beneath the dense canopy of the giant tree. I didn’t know whether to credit the tree with happiness or heartbreak. Both, it seemed. Old fashioned as Graham Merritt was, I figured there was still a good chance that he had installed a more elaborate security system by now. But I was willing to chance it.
    Dying leaves rained down on my head as I reached up and grabbed a thick branch. I swung my feet up and over it. More leaves shivered and took their last breaths as they let go of the tree and fluttered to the ground. Winter was around the corner. Soon, every leaf still clinging to the twisted tree would be gone. I scooted toward the end of the branch. It dipped down as I pushed off of it and grabbed the edge of the wall. I hurled myself over it. My feet thudded onto the hard ground below.
    A bright porch light lit up the front of the house, but I was heading to the back, to Rylan’s bedroom window. Some of the landscaping was different but everything else about the place brought me back to that time, that time when nothing mattered but having Rylan in my arms.
    Her room was dark. I searched in the smattering of moonlight for three decent sized pebbles. I threw them at the windowpane one at a time. Each one plinked off the glass and then tumbled into the long vine of climbing roses covering the trellis below her window.
    I shoved my hands in my coat pockets and waited. No light came on. Just as I started my search for more pebbles, I heard the window above my head push open.
    Rylan leaned out. “Well, this is cliché. The old pebble against the windowpane trick.”
    I shrugged. “Yep, which means you’re supposed to climb down or tiptoe past your parents’ room in your silk nightie to meet me.”
    “I’m definitely not climbing down that trellis. And I’m old enough not to have to tiptoe. As for a silk nightie—” She stood up in the window and held her arms out to show off her flannel pajamas. She leaned her forearm on the