Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
MILLER
Frankie waves until my dad’s work van reaches the end of the driveway and turns onto the road to take them all back to Boston.
While it was great to see them, watching them leave lifts a pressure from my chest. It’s only now that I realize just how tense I’ve been these last forty-eight hours worrying about whether they might accidentally blow my cover.
There was a near miss when Ethan said, “We Malones can take our beer,” but I managed to explain that away as being a quote from a long-lost uncle.
Otherwise, it all went even better than I’d hoped.
Their presence definitely boosted my credibility with Frankie.
She clearly enjoyed their company—there was plenty of laughing and storytelling over dinner again last night.
And she can see that they’ve done a quality job on the barn and the stables, which are all now rock-solid and watertight.
And if she’s seen them as good people who can be trusted to do good work, then that should mean she trusts me by association.
“Thanks again,” she says, kicking at the dirt. “Taking away Skinner’s ability to threaten us gives me some breathing space.”
“Good. I was a bit worried you might be pissed off that I arranged it all without asking.”
“I normally would have been.” She draws a figure eight in the earth with her toe.
“So how come you weren’t?”
“Partially because it was incredibly helpful and something I could never have afforded to do. And partially”—she looks up at me out of the corner of her eye—“because you did it for all the right reasons.”
Oh, fucking hell.
I did not do it for any of the right reasons. I did it for all the wrong, Skinner-related, reasons.
And the list of those wrong reasons is getting longer.
But the new wrong reasons are wrong in a different, Frankie-related, way.
They’re wrong because they include how much pride I feel in doing something that’s lifted her mood these last couple of days.
How much I’ve enjoyed seeing the extra brightness in her face, the new spring in her step.
How I’ve fed off her infectious positivity that makes me excited and so fucking lucky to get to spend time in her orbit.
And how it all makes me not want to leave her side at the end of the day.
There is definitely a deep level of accomplishment to be taken from constructing a luxury building that becomes a Boston landmark.
But it’s not an accomplishment I sense in my bones and my heart the way I do when I see Frankie laugh with my family—that’s something that feels like an even more tangible achievement.
Is that what real feelings are? When you perfectly gel with someone does it make every other emotion you’ve ever had seem insignificant?
And does it feel new and fresh and like a whole new emotion that your body has invented all by itself, that no one else has ever experienced, one that makes you want to shout it from the rooftops to let them know this amazing feeling is possible and they shouldn’t settle for anything less?
Why does my only experience of feeling this way about someone have to be with a woman who doesn’t even know who I really am and would hate me for lying to her if she did?
The universe is punishing me for deceiving her by making her my perfect person, but who I can never have.
Nice one, universe. You clearly win. And I clearly deserve it.
But I’ll soldier on, trying to pretend I’m not fucked. Even though I know I am.
“I just hope the repairs make that asshole Skinner go away,” I say, sticking to the one hundred percent truth.
“Oh.” Her face breaks into a wide, delighted grin. “I forgot to show you this.”
She reaches under her jacket into the pocket of her overalls and takes out her phone. After some clicks and swipes she holds it up to face me, her sparkling eyes obviously eager for my reaction.
It’s a video, taken from inside the kitchen, of Dave opening the window, then Frankie’s hand appearing in shot to feed him a carrot.
I can’t help but chuckle at how fucking adorable it is. “That’s great.”
“But look at the views,” she says, pointing at a number on the side. “More than five thousand. And I only posted it this morning.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.”
“Well,” she says, her eyes filled with affection as she watches the video play again, “I’ve gotten more for a Crimson Finch mirror collection. But they have a couple of million followers. A few thousand is certainly good for a little dead account that I’m trying to revive.”
And there it is, a glimpse into her other life—the other Frankie. The one with the corporate job in Chicago, who deals with social media data and targets and projections.
Is that one so different from the woman in front of me with her ponytail hanging down the back of the flannel jacket she’s wearing over denim overalls tucked into muck boots?
She slides the phone back into her pocket. “Let’s go check that the donkeys all have enough feed.”
That certainly sounds like a good way to avoid the awkwardness of our renewed aloneness.
“Does Dave’s impending social media stardom mean you don’t have to consider selling?” I ask, remembering why I’m here. But the way the cool late afternoon sun catches her eyelashes as she turns away, showing a slight auburn tint to them, could easily make me forget again.
“Skinner can fuck off,” she says.
“That’s something we both agree on.” I fall into step with her and realize my innate hatred of that bastard was probably clear in every syllable of that sentence.
Frankie turns her head to look at me, slight furrows in her brow. “You sound as pissed off with him as if you’d heard him say all those awful things.”
“Of course I’m pissed off he’d treat you like that.” If only she knew how much I’d wanted to throw him off the property myself.
We take a couple of steps in silence.
“Does that mean you might sell, but are thinking about the other offer instead?” I venture, trying not to sound like I’m pushing the question too hard.
“Huh.” She gives a who knows shrug as we get closer to the stables.
“I had really good reactions from everyone in town who I spoke to yesterday about the Thanksgiving event. Polly from the produce store is going to donate a load of pumpkins. I thought I could carve some in advance to line the paths and use the rest for a carve-a-donkey-jack-o’-lantern competition.
The guys from the coffee shop said they’d set up a stall here and donate all the profits.
Jerry, the shoe repair guy who runs the pig tail game at the Christmas festival—”
“Pig tail game? That doesn’t sound very Christmassy.”
“It’s a long story. But he’s going to adapt it into a donkey tail game. Mrs. Bentley said she’d run the volunteer recruitment drive. And I know for sure she won’t let any slackers through.”
“I wonder if I’d have passed her strict screening process.”
“You passed mine,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “That’s all that matters.”
Her flirtatious tone sends a flame shooting from my belly to my groin.
And it’s one mighty dangerous sensation.
Thank God we’re at the stables and I’ve spotted a distraction.
“That feeder is looking a bit low for the miniatures.” And it’s a fine way to remove myself so I don’t risk grabbing her face and kissing her again. In fact, being in a different county is pretty much the only way I can stop myself from doing that. “I’ll go get some hay.”
I move away swiftly and, once inside the feed shed, shut the door and sit on a bale to try to pull myself together.
Jesus Christ. I’m falling for her, aren’t I? Falling for a woman I’ve given a false name to. A woman who would truly hate me if she knew that’s what I’ve done and why I’m really here.
Even my brothers could tell, and they can never tell anything.
I am such a fucking idiot. I can build a billion-dollar company from nothing, but this shit show of my own making might be un-fucking-fixable.
My phone buzzes with a message.
Even if this is the most complex work problem imaginable, I bet I can find a way to fix it. It’s just my own life I seem to find unsolvable.
Oh, it’s the Commoners’ group chat. And there are a couple of messages from earlier I must have missed while I was helping my dad and brothers load the van.
LEO
I still think we should sell him. We could get two new players with the proceeds.
CHASE
Or one player and more equipment for the Youth Academy.
Then there’s Oliver’s new message that just dropped in.
OLIVER
I can’t stop thinking that he’s a Commoners legend. A fan favorite. Is this a time where the heart of the club is more important than the economics of it?
I slump forward, elbows on my knees, head swinging like a pendulum ticking away the time to my own inevitable fate.
Oliver’s words could just as easily be applied to the very land I’m on and what it means to the Channings—and to the donkeys themselves.
It’s not a fucking commodity for Skinner to snatch up and bulldoze so he can make tens of millions more from commuter townhomes. Or a tool for me to abuse to exact my personal revenge on him.
These seventy-five acres are the most precious thing to Frankie. So precious she’s jeopardizing a job opportunity she’s worked toward for years to be here to help her grandpa and to honor her grandma’s memory.
In theory, the two sides to her shouldn’t sit well together. But, in reality, they make her the perfect whole.
On one hand, she’s the ambitious corporate marketer who’s fought her way up the ladder with her hard work, and talent.
But on the other, there’s her self-sacrifice, the warmth she extended to my family, and the way she’s spending every spare minute making amusing donkey social media posts to promote her make-or-break Thanksgiving event.
Everything about both parts of her is admirable and inspiring beyond measure.
Plus, of course, she’s as sexy as all hellfire, kisses me in a way that makes me forget my own name—both of them—and want to take her clothes off so badly I could rip out my own teeth.
I look at my phone again and start typing.
ME
There might be something in what Oliver says. Can someone set up a video call?
I haul myself vertical, shove the phone into my pocket and grab a bale. Christ, no amount of lifting weights in a gym prepares muscles for the daily grind of farm work. Parts of me that I didn’t know existed have been aching since I got here.
To save my arms, I balance the hay on the wheelbarrow outside the shed and trundle it back to the stable.
Approaching the door, I can hear Frankie’s muted voice talking to one of the donkeys. I put the wheelbarrow down and move closer to the doors, staying out of sight.
Oh my God. She’s not talking. She’s singing something.
With my back flat against the wall, I peer around the edge of the doorway.
She’s singing to the nervous little white donkey, Petunia. And petting from her shoulder down her front leg in long, smooth strokes, exactly the way she did the first day I was here.
My heart beats and swells and soars at how absolutely fucking adorable that is.
Then my hand flies to my chest when I figure out what it is that she’s so quietly singing. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Is this who I am now? Am I a man who can be brought close to tears by a woman singing to a donkey?
That’s not the man I was when I arrived here five days ago.
Or was it, and I’d just never realized?
And perhaps I never would have, if this woman who’s shaken off her business suit in favor of overalls and has replaced boardroom presentations with donkey serenades hadn’t brought it out in me.
I jump back out of sight at the sound of her phone ringing and scoot back to grab the barrow.
When I wheel it up to the entrance as if I’ve just gotten here, she’s saying goodbye and hanging up the call.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Poor Petunia.” She smiles down at the animal by her side. “She got spooked by a bee.”
“A bee?”
“Yeah, a big sleepy one that was lumbering around. I don’t even know what one is doing out and about at this time of year. But she was really scared. I shooed it out and calmed her down. Think she’s okay now.”
She scritches Petunia’s ear, and the donkey leans her head into Frankie’s hand.
And that’s it. The singing, the bee, the ear scritches, the donkey head tilt, that’s the combo that finally tips me over the edge and cracks me open.
This has to be the end of the road for me.
I can’t keep treating Frankie like a meaningless pawn in my revenge game.
I either need to vanish in the night and never see her again, or I need to come clean, tell her the whole truth about everything, and then figure out how to get her to forgive me when she’s inevitably furious and throws me out just like she did Skinner.
“One bit of bad news, though.” She holds up the phone that’s still in her other hand. “I have to go back to Chicago.”