Read Online Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty - Frankie (Novella) by Jackie Ashenden - Free Book Online

Episode 8—Frankie
    Frankie scrubbed her palms down the worn denim on her thighs, trying to get her thumping heart under control. She was standing just before the front step of Mac’s cottage, the great open bowl of the Queensland night sky above her head, and she felt kind of sick.
    She probably shouldn’t have had those beers Lucky had pulled for her at the Milpinyani Springs hotel, but she needed something in the way of Dutch courage tonight. This was probably going to be the worst move in the history of creation, but shit, she had to do something.
    Nearly a year had passed since her father’s death and her stupid stepbrother, bloody Mackenzie Hamilton, was still here. And what was worse was that he still owned half of Red Creek, the cattle station Frankie loved.
    Before he’d succumbed to the cancer that had killed him, her father had promised her that the station would be hers. She’d grown up in the red dirt of this place, had the bloody stuff running in her veins. She loved this land, loved the life of a cattle farmer, and had great plans for extending the place. But what she did not love was having to share it with Mac just because he was the son her father had always wanted. And she did not love that she was in love with him, and had been for years, while he barely even knew she was alive.
    Well, tonight things were going to change. She’d finally got enough money together, and she was going to make him an offer.
    Tonight, she was going to buy him out come hell or high water.
    The nerves in her stomach clenched tight. Shit. It had seemed a good idea when she was talking to Lucky, but now? Not so much. But then that was a great reminder of why Mac had to go. He had the ability to tie her up in knots so tight she’d never get free. He always had.
    She couldn’t manage the station with him around. She couldn’t do anything with him around. Having him here in close quarters was making her miserable, and he had to leave or else she was going to go out of her bloody mind.
    She swallowed, gave her palms another scrub, then walked slowly up the wooden stairs to the cottage’s little porch.
    A light glowed behind the glass in the front door. Great, so he was probably home at least. She lifted her hand to the brass door knocker.
    Okay, so once she knocked, there was no going back. No wimping out. She’d have to start strong and go hard-out. None of the stammering or stuttering or blushing, or any of that kind of carry-on that always happened in his general vicinity. Basically, acting like a normal bloody adult was needed.
    She could do that, couldn’t she? Jesus, she was twenty-six, not a silly little teenage girl.
    Frankie slammed the knocker against the wood, the sound reverberating. Then she did it again for good measure.
    There was no response for a moment, and a small part of her was secretly quite relieved, wanting to turn tail and go back to the main farmhouse. Forget all about this nonsense.
    Yet another reminder that that response was the whole reason she was here in the first place.
    God, she had to pull herself together.
    A shape loomed behind the glass, tall and broad and male.
    And her heart sped up the way it always did whenever he was around. The way it had done ever since her father had married his mother, back when she was sixteen. Back when her stepmother’s son had abruptly come back from the city to live in the rundown cottage near the main house, fixing up the place and helping her father around the property, slowly taking the place of the son her father had always wanted. The son she was desperately trying to be.
    The door handle turned; the door swung open. And there he was, standing in the doorway, looking down at her, all six foot four inches of lean, hard muscle and tanned skin. Close cropped black hair. Clear amber eyes.
    Beautiful was a term she didn’t normally use for guys, but there was only one word that could encompass the gloriousness that was Mac Hamilton and beautiful was