Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty — Casey Read Online Free PDF

Len’s garage?’ She purposely left Joel out of the sentence; Lucky would understand. And Casey couldn’t see him. She’d learned her lesson—the next interaction he got would be from her lawyer.
    ‘Len doesn’t own the garage anymore,’ Lucky said, frowning slightly. ‘I thought Joel would have told you that the other night.’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Len had a heart attack about ten months ago,’ Lucky explained. ‘He’s alright, but the doc told him he had to slow down, take things easy. He decided to sell the garage and gave Joel first refusal. I’m not sure of the arrangements, but Joel’s been working his arse off since then to pay Len out.’
    ‘Holy shit. I’m glad Len’s okay.’
    ‘I’m not sure he would be without Joel. He’s really stepped up to his responsibilities. He’s a changed man, Case. He’s grown up.’ Lucky’s tone was serious. ‘I think you should go get your car yourself. You and Joel should talk.’
    ‘I tried that the other night,’ Casey scoffed. ‘It didn’t work. I’m glad Len’s okay and I’m happy Joel’s getting his act together, but that doesn’t change things between us. All he wants from me is sex and I want so much more from him.’
    ‘Are you sure that’s all he wants?’
    Casey swallowed; something in Lucky’s tone sounded ominous. Before she could reply, her friend continued.
    ‘I didn’t need you to come back for the rodeo,’ she confessed. ‘Joel asked me to get you home. He didn’t think you’d come if he asked, but he wanted to show you that—’
    Casey didn’t hear the rest of Lucky’s sentence. Joel wanted her to come back? Then why the hell hadn’t he called or emailed or anything in the twelve agonisingly long months they’d been apart? And men thought women were hard to understand. Her heart swum with emotion and she felt her throat clogging up with the knowledge that Joel had engineered her return. Did that mean he really was prepared to do what she needed and try again?
    She focused on Lucky again in time to hear her final nugget of advice.
    ‘Don’t walk away again without at least giving him the chance to talk. You owe him that much, but even more so, you owe yourself. What you and Joel have is special, Case. It’s not something that comes along every day. Hell, some of us never find it.’ And with that, Lucky turned on her heels and charged through to her office, closing the door behind her.
    ***
    Breakfast done and dusted, her last shift at the pub finished, Casey said goodbye to Lucky and dragged her small suitcase behind her across the wide main street to Joel’s garage. Music blared from the stereo in the workshop and her Cruiser was parked just outside, new tyres and looking a lot shinier than it had been when she’d left it on the side of the road. He’d cleaned it, which for some reason made tears spring up in the corner of her eyes. Unsure of what she was walking into—unsure of pretty much everything now—she wiped the moisture with the back of her hand, parked her case by her car and followed the music inside.
    The same scents that had ambushed her five days ago came at her again and this time she glanced around her at the workshop, noticing it looked a lot tidier than it had when she’d first started coming here all those years ago. The heavy beat of Joel’s favourite rock band was the only sound of life in the place, so she took a few more steps and then halted as she came upon a framed photo hung jaggedly on the corrugated iron wall.
    A rush of love flooded her heart as she remembered the day Joel had shown her this frame. He’d made it himself from four steel spanners and put his favourite photograph of her inside. A photograph in which she was perched on the bonnet of his ute, her smile ridiculously wide as she watched him stalk towards her, a predatory gleam in his eyes.
    ‘Casey?’
    She swung around at the sound of his deep voice and came face to face with Joel, in all his masculine glory. He’d looked