Outback Sisters
Authors: Rachael Johns
SISTERS
RACHAEL JOHNS
Rachael Johns is an English teacher by trade, a mum 24/7, a chronic arachnophobic and a writer the rest of the time. She rarely sleeps and never irons. A lover of romance and women's fiction, Rachael loves nothing more than sitting in bed with her laptop and electric blanket and imagining her own stories.
Rachael has finalled in a number of competitions, including the Australian Romance Readers Awards.
Jilted
(her first rural romance) won Favourite Australian Contemporary Romance in 2012 and she was voted in the Top Ten of Booktopia's Favourite Australian Author poll in 2013.
Rachael lives in the Perth hills with her hyperactive husband, three mostly gorgeous heroes-in-training, two fat cats, a cantankerous bird and a very badly behaved dog.
Rachael loves to hear from readers and can be contacted via her website
www.rachaeljohns.com
. She is also on Facebook and Twitter.
Man Drought
The Hope Junction novels
Jilted
The Road to Hope
The Kissing Season
(e-novella)
The Next Season
(e-novella)
The Bunyip Bay novels
Outback Dreams
Outback Blaze
Outback Ghost
Secret Confessions Down and Dusty: Casey
(e-novella)
The Patterson Girls
Once upon a time I created a town called Bunyip Bay and a cast of crazy characters who lived there, and decided to write three stories about them. Some of you may have read themâ
Outback Dreams, Outback Blaze
and
Outback Ghost
. Although I never intended to write more, the response from you guys was out of this world and so heartwarming to this little writer. When you asked for more Bunyip Bay, I wanted to give you what you requested and really the only characters I could think of, who had become a big part of the stories but hadn't yet starred, were sisters Frankie (who runs the town café) and Simone (a single mum of teenage daughters).
Ideas come to writers from ALL over the place and it was during a conversation on a road trip while touring with my friend and awesome author Fiona Palmer, that the seeds of this story sprouted.
Outback Sisters
is a story of family, friendships and following your heart. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
Happy Reading
In memory of the road trip I took with Fiona Palmer in October 2014.
Without our long conversations on the road, I'm not sure Frankie and Simone would ever have gotten their own story.
Chapter One
Francesca Madden, known as Frankie to everyone who mattered, closed the café door behind Stella's bridal party and breathed a sigh of relief. With only four weeks to the big day, excitement was really ramping upâbut for some reason she was struggling to get into the mood. She slumped in a chair at the table the group had been sitting at and eyed the half-finished chocolate mud cake. While the meeting had been in progress, Frankie had been so busy helping to serve everyone that she hadn't had time to eat. To say she now felt exhaustedâemotionally and physicallyâwould be the understatement of the millennium. She sighed and dragged the plate towards her, hoping, as she dug a fork into the cake, that a little chocolate boost would help renew her energies.
It wasn't that she didn't like weddings. She couldn't be happier for her cousin Adam and his soon-to-be blushing bride, Stella. If any two people deserved happiness it was them, but they weren't the only loved-up couples around hereâher thoughts drifted to Faith and Monty, Ruby and Drew, Ryan and Grant; even her niece Harriet had herself a high-school sweetheart, for crying out loud. In fact, it was starting to feel like everyone in the worldâor at least in Bunyip Bayâwas getting a happy ever after.
Everyone, that is, except her.
Oh, and Simone, but at least her big sister had once experienced the blessing of true love. Although Simone had been widowed for almost ten years, she knew what it felt like to be the centre of someone's world, to be the last thing someone wanted to see when they went to bed and the person they couldn't wait to wake up to in the morning.
Was it wrong that Frankie wanted that too? She had good health and a wonderful business and that was a lot more than some people. Shouldn't the café, her friends and family be enough? She shoved more chocolate cake into her mouth just as one of her waitresses stuck her head out from behind the counter.
âAre you okay if I head off now?' Stacey asked as she scribbled down her hours on the staff clipboard.
Frankie glanced around the café, noted the two elderly diners still nursing cups of tea, decided she could handle them on her own, and hurried to swallow her mouthful. âYeah,' she said as she stood and started to collect the plates from the table. âThanks for all your help today.'
âNo worries. I'll see you Tuesday.' Stacey whipped off her apron, grabbed her bag from under the counter, released her long, wavy, blonde hair from her café cap and all but skipped out the door. It wasn't that she didn't like her job, but rather she had a date with the new vet that she'd been looking forward to all week. Frankie couldn't blame herâDr Mitchell Clarke was undeniably hot,
and
good with animals. What was there not to love? She lifted a hand to wave. âHave fun.'
See? Love was everywhere, except she must be in some kind of bubble because no-one had asked her on a date in what felt like forever. All the local guys treated her like a good friend. Maybe she needed to go further afieldâjet off on a Contiki tour or something and find romance on foreign shoresâbecause it didn't look like Mr Right was going to come to her. But where would that leave the café?
Telling herself to stop being a sorry-for-herself grump, she finished clearing the table, asked Dolce and Mrs Brady if they wanted refills, silently cheered when they declined and then went to grab a cloth to start the evening wipe down. Frankie was about to begin on the table she'd been sitting at when the door to the café squeaked loudly, signalling another customer. She fixed a smile on her face, despite the fact it was nearly closing time and she was already thinking about curling up on her couch, reading
Picnic at Hanging Rock
with her kittens for company. Halfway to becoming a crazy cat woman, that's what she was.
She opened her mouth to begrudgingly welcome this latecomer but the greeting died on her tongue. Standing in the doorway, his tall, incredibly buff body filling the space, was without a doubt the hottest guy she'd ever laid eyes on. About her age, or maybe a few years older, he wore faded jeans, a navy blue chambray shirt with sleeves pushed up to his elbows and heavy, brown bootsâclassic farmer attire.
Well, hello there! No farmer around these parts had ever made her stomach flutter the way looking at this guy did. He couldn't be a local because she'd lived in Bunyip Bay all her life and if there was a specimen like this in the region without her knowing ⦠well, that was impossible. His dirty blond hair was cropped close to his head and she had a crazy urge to run right over and sweep her fingers through it. Maybe the sugar had gone to her head.
âHey there.'
As he spoke, she glanced behind her to check he wasn't talking to a customer she'd missed sneak in, but unless said customer was invisible, he was speaking to her. She turned back and he hit her with a sexy grin that made her feel like she was the centre of his world, which was ridiculous because they'd only just met. Well, technically they hadn't even done that yet but this had to be love at first sight. She felt giddy, like her knees were about to fail her. Visions of puffy white dresses danced in her head.
âUm ⦠Hi â¦' she stuttered, straightening to a stand as she summoned a smile.
Don't blow this, Frankie. First impressions and everything.
âWhat can I get for you?'
In reply, this tall, dashing hunk of a man closed the short distance between them, put his hands on either side of her face, drew her towards him and then lowered his mouth to hers. Her eyes widened as heat flooded from her long-ignored lips right through her body. Places that hadn't felt a man's touch in years lit up and burned. His three-day stubble felt deliciously rough against her chin and she couldn't help but whimper.
Is this a dream? A divinely inappropriate but wonderful dream?
If so, she didn't want to ever wake up.
Somewhereâit sounded very, very far awayâshe vaguely registered the disapproving tutting of the two old women, and the mundane reality of her everyday life threatened to intrude.
Who was this guy? He was the epitome of all she'd ever fantasised about in a man: tall, ruggedly handsome, desperately sexy ⦠but she didn't know him at all. He could be a crazed psycho or an axe murderer for all she knew. A tiny voice told her she should slap him in the face and ask him what he was doing, but that would mean ripping her lips from his, and that would be an atrocity. Whatever this was, she couldn't bear to break the illusion of bliss, so instead, she wrapped her arms around the handsome stranger and pressed her body against his. To hell with local gossips like Dolce and Mrs Brady; hot men and bone-melting kisses like this didn't come along everyday.
He was all firm muscle and yummy hardness and for a few brief seconds, Frankie thought that maybe her luck really had changed. Maybe it was fate that had brought this man of men into her café late on a Friday afternoon. Stranger things had happened at sea, right?
And then he pulled back.
She swallowed a moan of disappointment and pressed a hand against her chest to try to slow her racing heart.