Dirty Country Love: A Step-Brother Romance Novella by Candy Quinn Page A

family, after all.
    Still, she did her best to tidy up and look through things, though
she didn’t have much of a heart for disturbing the order of the
place and claiming stuff for herself. So instead she scrubbed the
floors, dusted the furniture, and got it all as spick and span as she
could.
    Though a task as big as that was somethin’ for more than one
day, and well after night fell, she was bushed! Too beat to even
cook, she felt. But then, without someone to cook for she never much
felt like eating anyhow.
    She went back to her old room and laid out on the bed, fully
prepared to drift off in her former room — which looked the
same as the day she left it — when suddenly the roar of a motor
tore the quiet of the night apart.
    It made her heart race!
    But Britney, still dewy from working a sweat up cleaning, went to
the window and peered out cautiously.
    There, still a ways off, she could see a single light coming
towards the farm.
    She didn’t know what to make of it, but as the roar grew
louder and it turned down the lane… she realized it had to be
a motorcycle.
    The porch light was still on, so when the bike came to a halt
before the door, it was enough to shed some light on who she was
dealing with.
    Was a big, tall fella, in black leather and jeans. A hard lookin’
sort, though she couldn’t make out much more.
    She got to worrying, being all by herself in the house, and went
to fetch the gun she knew old Drake kept by his bed.
    She had to load it, but there was time. The man seemed in no rush,
and his loud, heavy bootsteps could be heard coming up the front
porch steps before he got to the door.
    Britney’s heart raced, but she loaded up the revolver before
the man was coming up the stairs to the second floor.
    Trying to calm her breathing, she cursed her luck.
    Her first night fully alone — no family or roommate —
and something like this had to happen!
    She waited beside a door for the sound of the man reaching the top
of the stairs, where the squeaky floorboard would give him away. And
as soon as he got there she came around the corner and pointed the
gun.
    “Stop right the—” she began to shout, but the
thug vaulted over the railing and grabbed her arms, pointing the gun
away in less than a heartbeat!
    She knew it was all done then, because the man was broad and
strong, and had over a foot in height on her!
    “The fuck you doin’?” he said, his voice
gravelly and dark.
    Gravelly, dark and familiar.
    Her vision went all blurry with the stress of the situation, but
hearin’ that hard but familiar voice, she stepped back, or
tried to at least. The big brute of a man kept her in place as he
wrenched the gun from her grasp.
    “Britney? That you?” he said in the light above the
hall, staring at her in disbelief.
    Her own shock was no less, because though he was dressed in thick
boots, black jeans and a leather jacket, looking like some biker
criminal off of the TV, his dark hair and strong-jawed face was all
too familiar.
    “Damien,” she said in a light, airy voice; stunned
almost to silence by the sight of her former crush.
    “Shit,” he said, still holding her tight as he looked
her up and down. “It is you,” he remarked, with a shrill
whistle, and a wry grin that said he was impressed with how she’d
changed in all the years past.
    It made her heart beat even faster than before, and she was glad
it was still dim inside so her blush was a bit more private. Pressed
right up against him, though, it was hard to believe he couldn’t
feel her heart near ready to break out of her chest.
    “You scared me,” she replied with a bit of a grimace.
She shouldn’t be surprised he’d come back for his own
father’s funeral, but still, she wasn’t expecting him
either.
    “I ain’t the one pointin’ guns, Britney,”
he said, that wry look on his rugged face still before he checked the
chamber of the revolver and gave a whistle. “Fully loaded too.
You was ready to pump me full of lead it