Second Chance Bride (Montana Born Brides)
Author: Morey, Trish
Date: 2014-04-06
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group

Second Chance Bride
a montana born brides novel

Trish Morey

Second Chance Bride

© Copyright 2014 Trish Morey

The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-940296-32-6

Dedication

To Jane Porter
and all at Montana Born Books,
who offered this writer a ray of sunshine
during one of the toughest years of her life.

Thank you for helping me rediscover
the sheer joy of writing.

xxx

Dear Reader

Who doesn’t love a wedding? The gowns, the flowers, the color and the sheer glamor of it all–what’s not to love? And that’s all besides the romance and hopes and wishes for the happy couple, who’ve found their perfect partner and their happy ever after.

I was totally chuffed to be invited be part of the Spring Brides series, to write a story that links with novellas by some of my favorite writing colleagues and friends. It was pure romance, pure escapism, all dressed up in a gorgeous frothy wedding gown.

That’s not to say I didn’t give my heroine, Scarlett, plenty of grief along the way. Scarlett is a twin and she’s the flaky sister. Her older sister by five minutes, Tara, is the sensible one (and yes, their mother is a dyed in the wool Gone with the Wind fan). With Scarlett’s own wedding plans gone askew, she gets to help out hero Mitch at another wedding, that turns out to be the kind of nightmare we all hope won’t be our own. Oh, I had so much fun writing this story!

It was so lovely to be able to bring Scarlett and Mitch together at the end. These characters so deserved one other. I really hope you enjoy reading their journey into married life together as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And then watch out, because Tara’s story, Almost a Bride by the incomparable Sarah Mayberry, is up next!

Much love and romance to you!

Trish
x

Contents

Dedication

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Montana Born Brides

About the Author

Chapter One

Mitch Bannister needed a cold beer and a hot woman, preferably in that order. The cold beer would go down fast, he knew, but the hot woman—well, it had been a while, and so he’d rather linger over that particular pleasure.

He strode down Hannan Street, feeling the beat of the summer sunshine through the shirt on his back, knowing he’d made the right decision to spend the first of his seven days R&R here in the outback town of Kalgoorlie.

He could have headed straight to Broome, where his best mate, Robbo, was to be married later in the week, and where the pre-wedding party was already underway. But then, as much as he liked his mate, this was one wedding he wasn’t particularly looking forward to.

Alternatively, he could have headed to the city, to Perth. Plenty of his workmates went back to the big smoke when they’d finished their rostered fourteen days straight at the mine. But Mitch wasn’t a fan of the big smoke. He preferred his country wide open, with a sky that went forever and then some.

Besides, it wasn’t like he had anyone waiting for him back in the city.

He almost snorted aloud at that thought. Kristelle had made damn sure she wouldn’t be waiting for him barely ten minutes after his suggestion that they needed a break. Ten whole minutes before she was warming someone else’s bed. Ten minutes more and she was marrying the dumb arse.

And that was fine. Really it was.

Right now he was still so relieved at having escaped her clutches that he wasn’t interested in diving back into that particular shark pool again.

Right now he preferred his life without complications, even if this meant turning up at the wedding alone. Not that he was about to arrive looking like he’d gone without, mind. Because it had been a while.

Which was why a temporary woman for the next hour or so suited him just fine.

He checked the street sign at the next corner. Perfect. Just a mere block or so back from here he’d find Hay Street and the place someone had told him about that promised exactly what he needed.

A cold beer, a hot woman and no complications.

The concept had a hell of a lot going for it.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Aunt Margot had used those exact words when, as a ninth grader, Scarlett had dumped an entire box of platinum hair color on her head and turned her honey blonde hair green, sending her mom into hysterics. Aunt Margot had calmly uttered the phrase as she’d reached for a bottle of ketchup and shoved Scarlett’s head over the kitchen sink.

She’d remembered that saying while she’d been in Perth. “Go to Kalgoorlie,” a girl she’d worked tables with in a cafe there had told her when Scarlett had looked at her pay slip, despairing that it would take forever to save the fare home. “That’s the place you can make the fare home in a couple of weeks and it’s legal.”

She’d balked at the suggestion then.

Legal or not, she wasn’t that desperate to go home.

Until her twin sister had emailed with the news of their mom’s diagnosis and a plea to get back to Marietta as quickly as possible.

She’d added up the numbers that night and worked out it would take more than half a year of saving at her current rate in the cafe. Aunt Margot’s words had played over and over in her mind as she’d tossed and turned in her backpacker hostel single bed. And she’d figured it might be a desperate measure, but these were desperate times indeed.

She could bury her pride for a couple of weeks, surely? And then she’d go home to Marietta and forget this whole sorry saga ever happened.

And the best thing? Nobody else need ever know.

Which was why she was right at this moment sitting nervously in an office in Kalgoorlie being interviewed by an unexpectedly bookish-looking fifty-something woman named Bella. And right now, desperate times were the only thing keeping her from bolting for the door.

“So, have you ever done this kind of work before?” the woman asked, and Scarlett was tempted to answer, well, I’ve had sex, how different can it be?

“Sure,” she said instead, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel as she brushed a flake of nothingness from her arm. Because she was twenty-six and of course she’d had sex, though probably not half as much as what her up-tight sister no doubt imagined. And then she added, “Back home, in the States,” just in case the school librarian posing as a madam asked for references or something.

“Okay, that all sounds fine,” said Bella, “and now I need you to fill out this form. But I will need your real name, sweetie, for the records.”

“Um, Scarlett Buck is my real name.”

The woman blinked and looked doubtful. “Scarlett Buck is your real name?”

“Seriously.”

Bella’s eyes glittered like she’d hit pay dirt. “So welcome to Bella’s Belles, Scarlett Buck. I can see we’re going to get along just famously. Now you finish off the paperwork and I’ll grab you something to wear. I’ve got just the perfect outfit in mind.”

Bella didn’t believe in wasting time. Barely an hour later Scarlett was dressed as a cowgirl, and that was kind of funny, because she kind of was, but still this cowgirl felt out of place here in the Australian outback town of Kalgoorlie.

In fact, wearing a pink cowgirl hat teamed with her own pink spangly boots and nothing more than a black corset with pink bows and tiny panties in between, she could almost imagine she was back circa eighteen-seventy, preparing to strut her wares along the balustraded balcony of Marietta’s Grey’s Saloon. Which is exactly where she wished she was right now—in Marietta, at least.

But it wasn’t eighteen-seventy and Marietta was more than fifteen hundred dollars and an entire half world away from the down-under escort agency she’d just signed on with.

Except it wasn’t exactly an escort agency either...

It was a house of ill repute.

A bordello.

A brothel.

And maybe it was a legal brothel courtesy of the mining town’s rich historic past and a bending of the State laws.

But it was still a brothel.

She swallowed, despairing of both desperate times and desperate measures and of being forced to make such a choice.

Not your proudest moment, Scarlett Buck.

Maybe not, but she’d done some crazy stuff in her time and she could do this if she had to.

After all, she rationalized, it was just sex.

All she had to do, she figured, was to take her mind off it. Think about something else. Something boring. Something dull to take her mind off what was happening.

She could do that.

After all, she’d jumped out of an airplane once. Climbed out onto the wing of a tiny plane in spite of a lifelong fear of heights, and calmly waited for the instruction to jump, all thanks to her six times tables. She’d got all the way to eleven-times-six-is-sixty-six before her chute had cracked open above her head and she’d realized her arithmetic had given her fear of heights a run for its money.

And if she could do that?

She could do anything!

Empowered, she swept aside the bead curtain to the Ruby Room. The glow from fringed lampshades bounced red light between richly textured wallpaper and red velvet sofas, soft music playing in a place that hummed with the promise of sin.

This was where the clients would be introduced to the girls.

This was where they would make their choice.

And if they chose her?

Her palms grew damp, her stomach wobbled, her boldness wavering. It was what she wanted—needed—and yet...

She perched down on the edge of the nearest sofa, crossed her legs and fiddled with the bows on her corset before uncrossing her legs again. Because if they chose her, then she’d soon have the money to get home to her mom. To her sister.

Oh hell.

Of course she could do this.

“I heard there was a new girl.”

Scarlett jumped. She’d thought she was alone, but now her eyes were beginning to adjust to the low light, she could see the woman sitting on a sofa across the room, a magazine in her lap, her skin fair, her lips red and her long black hair gleaming under the lights like a silken curtain.

“Is it that obvious?” Scarlett said, trying to sound light but painfully aware of the nerves in her voice. Any minute someone was going to figure her for the impostor she was and throw her out.

But then the woman smiled. “First day in a new place is always the hardest. I’m Jasmine,” she said, her name as exotic as her looks.

“Scarlett.”

“You’re American?”

“Yeah. From Montana. You?”

“Thailand,” she said, shifting the magazine to smooth down the fluffy hem of the red baby doll that floated just above her slim thighs. “Bella’s is a good place to work. You’ll like it.”

Scarlett very much doubted it but she smiled and nodded her thanks anyway. There was no point explaining she’d only be here until she made enough money for her fare home.

And then Bella walked in with her grey bob and pearls and looking so much more like a school librarian than any madam she could possibly have imagined.

She clapped her hands, “Look lively girls, Rule number one, let’s not keep the customer waiting.”

Uh-oh.

Scarlett was so not ready for this. Oh, she might be Scarlett Buck, the flaky twin, the girl with the anti-Midas touch who could turn golden opportunities into dust and managed to do so with infuriating regularity. She might have driven her sister to despair and her mother to drink on too many occasions to count, but to be forced to this?

Jasmine rose from the sofa and flicked back her hair, no trace of hesitation. Whereas she—

Barely-contained nerves got the better of her.

Time.

She needed more time—just a few more minutes to get used to the idea. ‘I’ll sit this one out,’ she offered. “Jasmine was here first, after all.”

“Nonsense!” boomed Bella as she took her hand and hauled her off the sofa in a very un-school librarian kind of way. Before Scarlett knew it she was lined up alongside the other girl and Bella was reminding them to smile. “Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end, I always say.”

Great. So much for getting used to the idea. Any moment now a middle aged man with grey hair and a paunch would come sauntering through that door and size her up to be his sexual plaything for the next however long and still she would have to smile and make him feel like she wanted nothing more than to hop into the sack with him.

Just sex?

Oh, Scarlett Buck, you have really have done it this time.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and sent one last silent prayer to the heavens and her family and anyone else who might possibly be listening up there and could help: I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But it won’t be for long, I promise, and after this I’ll never, ever, disappoint you, ever again.

And then she heard Jasmine’s, “Welcome to Bella’s, I’m Jasmine,” and a cold shiver of apprehension snaked down her spine as she summoned up a smile. She opened her eyes, her hundred watt smile fully charged and ready to dazzle the client despite the nerves clawing at her insides. “Welcome to B—”

She stopped and blinked, and tried again. “Welcome to...”

But there was no finishing. Because it didn’t make sense. Because he didn’t make sense. She’d been expecting middle aged and desperate whereas the man in front of her was anything but. He was nowhere near middle aged for a start, his short cropped hair dark blonde and thick, and—she flicked her eyes down his denim clad legs and up again—there wasn’t so much as a hint of a paunch in sight.

Far from it.

Instead, he was built. Six foot two of hard-packed built, if she wasn’t mistaken, with a face that looked in the glow from the red light like it had been chiseled from outback rock itself, full of rugged angles and red planes and secret, shadowed depths.

Since when did someone who looked like him have to visit a place like this?

“You must forgive Scarlett,” Bella said from what sounded like a long way away. “She’s new.”

“Excuse me,” she said, snapping to, her smile getting tangled in the confusion on her lips. “Welcome to Bella’s.”

And with that he was gone, disappeared with Bella back into the office to make his choice.

Like he needed time for that.

She dropped back into the sofa, her face in her hands. Oh god, was there nothing she could do right? Nothing she couldn’t screw up?

Apparently not.

She might as well pack her things right now.

“Scarlett!”

She looked up, resigned for the dressing down if not the sacking from Bella she knew was coming, that she knew she deserved. “Yes?”

“Congratulations.” Bella looked as surprised as Scarlett felt. “You just got your first client.

Chapter Two

“Me?” Scarlett looked over at Jasmine. “But...?”

“Don’t worry about me,” said Jasmine, flopping back down on the sofa, “I’ve got a regular coming in at two, it would be nice not to have to rush.”

“But...”

“Well, get going,” said Bella, shooing her with her hands. “Rule number one, remember?” Scarlett remembered all right. Don’t keep the customer waiting.

And she also remembered what she was doing here and why. Cold hard cash. Soon she’d have the price of a one way ticket home. The first client—the first day—would be the hardest. It would get easier after that.

Keep telling yourself that!

So she put on a brave face, collected her client and calmly led him to the room that would be theirs for the next however long, while her insides buzzed and frayed. And not just because she was nervous about what was coming.

But because of him.

Her first impressions hadn’t told her the half of it. He had the rugged good looks and the broad shoulders of a Montana cowboy, not to mention long legs and strong thighs that were born to be wrapped in denim, and probably then around a horse or a bull. Even the way he moved said he knew his place in the world.

Somehow she knew he’d be no slouch in the sex department.

And didn’t that just make her insides buzz all the more?

“Shower first,” she said with a tight smile, handing him a bundle of towels and whipping her hand away at the zap as their fingers brushed.

And he took them and turned and she reminded herself to breathe as he headed for the private bathroom.

The breathing helped.

Right up until the moment he stopped short of the bathroom and sat down on a chair instead, pulling off one of his boots. The second one followed, landing with a thunk on the carpeted floor. His socks were off before she could blink. He was already standing, putting his hands to his belt when she found her voice.

“Um, what are you doing?”

He paused, considering her a while. “Is that a trick question?”

Her eyes narrowed. After three weeks in Australia, she was becoming aware that Australians didn’t always say exactly what they meant. It was kind of funny when she could keep up. But how did you respond when you weren’t sure? “I don’t—think so.”

“So what’s it look like I’m doing?”

“You’re taking off your clothes?”

He smiled, and she damn well wished he didn’t look so happy with it. “Bull’s eye.”

“But...”

“But... what?”

She blinked as he stood and undid the belt at his jeans and then unzipped his fly. She felt every one of those zipper teeth scorching a heated trail down her backbone. “Nothing.”

“You’re not shy, are you?”

“No! I’d just hate for you to catch cold.”

He hesitated with that, the start of a smile tweaking his lips. “I didn’t expect Bella’s Belle’s to take care of all my physical needs.”

“All part of the service,” she said breezily, willing the floor to open up and swallow her whole and spit her out the other side of the world. Anywhere would do. Anywhere at all would be preferable to being here. “Which reminds me,” she said, latching onto an alternate means of escape, albeit temporary, “how about I get you a beer or something?”

“Had one,” he said, a slight frown creasing his brow while the fingers of one hand casually flicked open the buttons of his shirt. In spite of herself and her needing to flee, her feet stayed exactly where they were as her eyes were drawn to his chest, tan-skinned and dusted with hair. Firm skin. A dusting of hair rather than a forest. Just the way she liked it. Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms to stop them aching to reach out and run her fingers through it. “And the last thing I want right now is brewer’s droop.”

She blinked, and had to drag her eyes away to meet his. “Excuse me?”

“Too Aussie for you, sweetheart? I do want to be able to perform.”

“Oh.” Heat scorched her cheeks and she looked away, although she wasn’t really sure it was because she was embarrassed at his words, or because he’d peeled off his shirt and dispensed with his jeans in quick succession, leaving nothing to cover him but a band of black, that hugged the nether regions of his body and left nothing to the imagination.

Absolutely nothing.

Suddenly her lungs felt as if they were flapping around like freshly landed trout on a lake shore. She put a hand over her chest to try to calm their flailing tails before they flapped right out of her. “Right,” she managed at length. “That would a shame.”

He looked at her then, his eyes going from the cowgirl hat on her head all the way down to her boots and back again until her skin tingled inside and out, and he smiled a broad hungry smile that this time set every organ inside her flapping. “Cowgirl, that would be all kinds of tragedy.”

And he turned and swiped off his underwear, picked up his towels and padded naked to the private bathroom.

Breathe she reminded herself, as the sight of the most perfect male buns she’d seen in a long time disappeared from view. Buns with dimples nestled just above, either side of the spine that bisected the two perfect halves of his back. Buns that sent a rush of heat to her blood and a tingling anticipation between her thighs.

Because soon he and his buns and his dimpled spine and his hungry eyes would be back and they’d climb onto that big wide bed together and make love and...

Whoa, right there!

What the hell was she thinking, constructing some kind of fantasy version of what was happening here? There was no making love. No matter what his hungry eyes might say, this was sex, pure and simple. A business transaction pure and simple, nothing more.

Business, she reminded herself, as she busied herself checking that everything was in order even though she already knew it was—the sheets freshly changed, the box of Kleenex at the ready, the condoms that were waiting on the bedside table.

Three condoms, she couldn’t help but notice.

Gulp.

Mitch wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it sure hadn’t been the green-eyed cowgirl waiting for him in the bedroom. Sure, she looked hot enough with scarlet hair that matched her name and dressed in that cute little black and pink number and those perky little boots, Oh man, if those provocative little boots on the end of those pins were enough to make him hot under the collar, it had definitely been too long. Yes sirree, he’d been looking for hot. He just hadn’t expected the skittishness.

But then, Bella or whatever her name was had said this girl was new. Maybe that was why.

Or was that just part of the act?

Maybe some guys went for that?

He shrugged as he put his face into the stream of water to rinse his hair. He had no idea what other guys went for. But he’d handed over his credit card and he was paying the money and he was already half primed in anticipation. Something about that nutty combination of black satin and pink bows and red hair and green eyes and a name like Scarlett—because what else could she be called in a place like this? Whatever, he could do a hell of a lot worse than an hour or two with someone who looked as good as this temporary cowgirl.

And if it meant he’d be in a better mood by the time he got to Broome for Robbo’s wedding, so much the better. He didn’t want to go anywhere near Kristelle with anything like a hungry look in his eye or she’d take it a sign of victory. And he was so not giving her one of those.

He felt himself wilting and cursed, snapping off the flow of water. Why the hell would he be thinking about Kristelle when he had princess in boots waiting in bed for him, and when he was paying for her time?

Why waste a minute of it?

Scarlett was sitting on the bed, her legs crossed, trying to look casual when the guy emerged from the bathroom. It was his fault entirely that she wasn’t able to carry it off, emerging as he did with his hair beading moisture at the ends and with a towel slung low on his hips.

Dangerously low.

Dangerously... delicious.

Just business, she reminded herself, when in truth it was all she could do not to drool at that glorious expanse of chest and abs, and that beguiling line of hair that separated the two sides of his abs and circled his belly button before heading south and disappearing under a knot of fluffy white towel.

She looked up and found him smiling at her, and she knew she’d been sprung. But he looked so good when he smiled that it was all but impossible to stop herself from smiling back. And somewhere in the back of her mind she knew one shouldn’t drool at a client, or smile without having to make some kind of effort. Shouldn’t actually be tingling at the thought of having sex with this man. But the way he looked at her made it so damned hard to remember this was business.

He took her hands and hauled her to her feet. “I thought we were going to bed.”

And the jolt she felt on contact, a hundred times more powerful than when their fingers had brushed, warned her that the six times tables or even the sevens weren’t going to cut it. It was time to bring out the big guns.

One times eight is eight.

Two times eight is sixteen.

“Sure,” she said, with her head back in a Marietta Elementary School classroom with a wall filled with numbers and tables and charts and old Mrs. Henson with her stick pointing out the next line in the chant and she felt better already.

Three times eight is twenty-four.

“In that case,” he said, as he swiped the hat from her head and spun it away into a corner, “it appears one of us is over-dressed.”

Four time eight is...

He touched his hands to her shoulders—long-fingered hands that brought with them that jolt of electricity and the wall of charts and tables blurred and faded in the knowledge that these hands—these electric long-fingered hands—would soon be all over her, and that thought damn near sucked the air from her lungs along with her recital.

Four times eight, she persisted, finding her place. Four times eight is thirty-two.

Good. She just needed to stay in control. Who was the client here after all? She made a move to twist out of his arms, to sit down on the big wide bed. “I’ll just get my boots off—“ But he stopped her descent, her shoulders held fast in his big hands, fingers squeezing into her flesh, and she knew that if her knees buckled under her right now, she would not fall.

And given the way the muscles in his arms and chest had contracted as he’d supported her, it was a wonder her knees hadn’t buckled.

Forget muscles!

Think boring.

Five times eight is forty.

Six times eight—

“How about we leave the boots on, cowgirl, at least for now.” His voice was husky low and so sexy that there was only one way for her pulse to go and that was into overdrive. And that was before he dipped his mouth to her throat, drawing her closer as his lips set fire to her skin, sending her senses damn near into meltdown.

She heard a sigh, and realized it had come from her, as he collected her close against his chest, his hands molding her to him, from shoulder to waist to butt, his mouth doing wicked things to her skin, the drumbeat of her blood blocking out rational thought, so that she wondered the point of an eight times table, anyhow?

It made no sense at all.

Nothing made sense beyond the desperate need to lace her arms around his neck and drink in the feel of him, hot and hard against her.

God, but he smelt good, of clean skin and lemon soap and all overlaid with the scent of masculine desire.

She shuddered against him. He was like Christmas and New Year all rolled into one; the surprise package under the Christmas tree and the fireworks on New Year’s Eve. He was the birthday present she’d always wished for and never gotten, and the blessing she would have given eternal thanks for at Thanksgiving.

He was the lover she’d imagined meeting when she’d knocked on that ordinary door on an ordinary house in a middle-class suburb in Perth.

And didn’t that sluice a bucket of cold water over her right there? How cruel life was that it would send her a man who could make her feel like this now. Here. In this place.

A place where she had no wish to feel anything, least of all this heavy, pooling heat between her thighs.

Vaguely was she aware of the towel at his hips tugging loose between them and falling away at the same time as his hand curled over her breast, his thumb tracing the line where skin disappeared under fabric.

His mouth moved lower and he kissed her there, his tongue flicking fire across the skin of her breast and she gasped, knowing she’d lost any semblance of control—times tables long forgotten, her senses in disarray.

A day or two more—a few more clients—and she’d be used to this.

And part of her rebelled.

She didn’t ever want to get used to this.

She didn’t ever want to be numb to something that felt so good.

Didn’t want something that felt so good as to be ultimately meaningless.

She felt his hands at her back, felt a tug and a loosening and his hands easing the corset down and her nerves turned to panic with the knowledge that she couldn’t do this—could no more turn off from what was happening than pretend that up was down or that night was day.

Couldn’t bring herself to do this, whatever the reason, and knew that her mother would never in a million years expect her to.

“Actually, you know, maybe not,” she said, wriggling away on an bubble of panic that came out half way to laughter, while her fingers held on tight to the front of her loosening corset.

He growled approvingly against her ear, his warm breath threatening to break her resolve as his hands skimmed her body and honed in on her panties instead. “You want to keep it on with the boots? Kinky.”

“No! Yes!” She shook her head and tried to wriggle away. “But no, that wasn’t actually what I meant.”

“So what—” he said, not letting her go and nuzzling the skin below her ear so that she almost purred with it, “—did you mean?”

She pulled herself away from his hot-as-sin mouth. “I meant, you seem like a nice guy ’n’ all… ” She searched for the words. “But I’d rather not have sex right now, if it’s all the same to you.”

Finally she had his full attention. The hands at her hips stilled as he pulled his head back to look at her. “You’d rather —what did you say?”

The hungry growl in his voice was gone, she noticed, replaced by a tone a lot less friendly. And it was a shame to make him mad when he seemed like a nice guy, but she guessed he had a right to be just a little cranky. She shrugged and smiled apologetically. “I don’t know about you, but it’s just not working for me.”

His hands fell away from her, his blue eyes disbelieving, his lip tugged up into a what-the-hell without the words. “You’re kidding me, right?”

She shrugged. “I’m real sorry, truly I am, but under the circumstances, I can’t see the point of going on with this. So—uh—if you don’t mind, you might put your clothes back on and—” her fingers did a little walk in the air between them—“go?”

His face screwed up. “Is this some kind of game? Because I didn’t pay for the innocent virgin package or the comedy bedroom capers. Straight-up sex, that’s all I’m here for. That’s what I chose you for.”

She swallowed and held her ground, which he wasn’t making any easier for her. He looked gorgeous even when he was angry. Angry, naked and utterly gorgeous. There should be a law against it.

“Well, there’s the problem in a nutshell right there,” she said, clutching her loose corset to her breasts like a shield. “Because I didn’t choose you.”

“What?”

“Nobody asked me what I wanted.”

“What?”

“I’m real sorry.”

“You already said that,” he growled, as he plucked up his underwear and his jeans and thrust his legs through the holes like he was punching fence post holes in the ground. “Okay. I’m going.”

She swallowed. She felt bad, she really did, just not bad enough to change her mind again. “I’m sure Bella will give you a refund. Or maybe Jasmine—“

“Forget it.” No way was Mitch staying in this nuthouse a moment longer. He swiped on his shirt, stuffed his feet into socks and shoes. “What is your problem anyway?”

She blinked up at him and for a moment he feared those big green eyes were going to spill with tears, reminding him of another time and another’s tears. Being spun back to that time was just what he needed to get the hell out of here before things got a whole lot uglier. “Forget I asked,” he growled, as he pulled open the door. “I don’t want to know.”

Chapter Three

“I’m hoping to find work.”

Mitch was nursing what was left of his second beer at a table in the front bar of the York Hotel when he heard it: the unmistakable twang of an American accent. A strikingly familiar American accent. His head snapped up and sure enough, she might be baring less skin than the last time he’d seen her, and have tied her hair back into a long rope of a braid for sure, but it was her. With hair that color, it couldn’t possibly be anyone else.

And for the space of a second, until the shock of seeing her again dissipated and her words actually registered in his brain, he was half thinking she must have followed him here. Except he’d left Bella’s more than an hour ago and there was no reason after what had happened—or more to the point, what hadn’t happened—that she’d want to follow him anywhere. He was in no rush to renew their acquaintance. He pushed back in his chair, shrinking back into the shadows, wishing he had a hat to pull down over his face like they always did in the western movies he used to watch as a kid.

She let the big backpack drop from her shoulder onto the floor where it landed with a heavy thud. A backpacker then, he thought, as his eyes took in the view of her from the back in a little white shirt and faded jeans. That made sense. The west was full of backpackers, come to make their fortune, or at least enough money before moving on, while it seemed the rest of the Western Australian population was busy working at the mines.

“Are you hiring at the moment?” he heard her ask the young barman, who, given his accent and his blonde northern European looks, was no doubt a backpacker himself.

The young barman shrugged. “You’ll have to ask the boss,” he said, gesturing towards the fifty-something woman returning from the lounge bar behind. “Maude does all the hiring.”

“What’s that, lovey?” the woman said, hearing her name.

“This girl wants to know if there are any jobs.”

“I’m new in town,” Mitch heard her say, “And someone at the bakery told me she’d heard you had a vacancy.”

The woman frowned and tossed a dish towel over her ample shoulder before placing her hands wide apart on the bar and all but resting her bust on the counter. “Yeah we did. But I’m sorry lovey, not any more. We just hired a new girl yesterday.”

“Oh.” He saw her shoulders drop even though she managed a tight smile. “Okay,” she said, wearily, “thanks anyway.”

She was lugging her pack from the floor and already turning to leave when he heard Maude say, “Have you tried Bella’s? They’re always looking for new girls.”

He saw her eyelids droop, witnessed the intake of breath, before the girl turned back with a weak smile and said, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

And then she was gone.

Mitch sat there for a while after she’d left, contemplating the foamy residue sliding slowly down the sides of his glass. So the cowgirl had lost her job. Or given it up. Either way, he shouldn’t feel bad, it was clear she wasn’t cut out for it. It wasn’t like he’d done anything wrong.

Damn it, he hadn’t done anything at all.

Other than leave Bella’s a few hundred bucks poorer and a whole heap less satisfied.

So much for no complications.

The wooden bench outside the York Hotel had been soaking up the summer sun and was way too hot to sit on for long, but Scarlett had only realized that once she’d sat down and felt the sun’s bite through her jeans. But right now a too-hot slab of wood beneath her butt and the sting of the sun on her shoulders were the least of her worries. Because she had walked the length and breadth of the main street looking for work and all she had to show for it were pairs of aching feet and shoulders. And the soul-destroying realization that Scarlett Buck had failed in spectacular style yet again.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise, she figured, given her life history, and yet this failure stung more than most. Maybe because there was no getting out of this one: no older-by-five-minutes sister close by to help her out of a sticky situation, no Aunt Margot to run to when her sister had despaired of her and there was no one else to turn to.

So she was stuck here, half a world away and at least fifteen hundred dollars from home and it was nobody’s stupid fault but her own that she was even here. Nobody else to blame for spending her entire bank balance on a one-way ticket to Australia when everyone had warned her against it and she’d gone ahead and done it regardless. And nobody to blame but herself that she’d taken a second to email Tara, all excited when she’d got the gig at Bella’s to tell her she’d be home in no more than a week or two.

So premature.

So typical.

So stupid!

And now Tara was wanting to know her flight details and when she’d be home and when Scarlett could be the one chasing her mother’s appointments rather than her sister having to fit them all in to her shifts.

Which would all be perfectly fine and reasonable given Tara had shouldered the load and ferried their mom back and forth for her medical tests and shopped and cleaned for her while Scarlett had been traipsing half way around the world in the—okay, what had turned out to be futile—pursuit of true love. Except she wasn’t going to be coming home any time soon after all.

What was she going to tell her sister now? That she’d been so turned on by her first client in her new job, that she’d freaked like some tensed-out virgin and been told to pack her things and go? What would her police officer twin sister make of that?

She could hear her entirely calm and sympathetic response right now.

“You took a job in a brothel?”

“It’s not that bad, it’s legal here, just like in Reno.”

“It’s still a brothel!”

“But it’s okay, because I left before anything actually happened—”

“But you took a job—in a brothel!!!”

By that stage, her strait-laced police officer sister would be practically foaming at the mouth, and things would most likely go downhill from there.

No, it was better Tara didn’t know.

Ever.

Because then there was no chance she might tell their mom. God knew, their Mom had way too much to deal with right now as it was.

Early Onset Parkinson’s.

When her sister had told her the news, she hadn’t believed it. Only old people got Parkinson’s, didn’t they? And Mom was what? Forty-five? Surely she was way too young. But no, the doctors were certain that the sometime falls she’d been having, the shakes and unsteadiness that she and Tara had put down to a couple of bourbons at night, had a far more sinister cause.

Who could blame their mom for getting depressed about it? Who wouldn’t be depressed when there was no cure and when you knew that bit by bit, you would lose control of your movement and functionality and everything in life you took for granted. And now her mom needed her and she needed to be with her mom and instead here she was, stuck in some tiny podunk Australian town with no quick way of getting home. God, she was all kindsof fool. But she would make it up to her mom and her long-suffering sister one day. Come hell or high water, she’d make it up to them.

Tears squeezed unbidden from her eyes and she cursed and pressed the heels of her hands into her face. Dammit, she would not cry! She might be bone tired and in a tight spot, but she was twenty-six years old for heaven’s sake. She would not damned well sit here and feel sorry for herself! She’d never get home to help her mom that way. No, she’d pick herself up and dust herself off and find a job and somewhere to bunk down for as long as it took to save up enough money for the fare and then she’d go home. End of story.

She swiped the tears from her cheeks and blinked to clear her vision as she stood, swinging the pack over her shoulder in the process.

She didn’t see the man coming.

She didn’t see anyone coming for that matter.

But she sure as hell felt him.

It took a few moments for Mitch’s eyes to adjust to the sunlight when he left the relative darkness of the pub, and by the time he saw her, sitting on the bench at the edge of the veranda, he was already half way to her. His footsteps slowed. God, what were the odds?

Then again, who needed odds? It was small town coincidence, he decided, and pure dumb luck.

He almost turned around and walked the other way but why should he? She was the one with the problem, after all. Besides, just like she hadn’t noticed him in the bar when she’d turned up half an hour ago, she hadn’t noticed him now, hadn’t so much as turned her head towards him—or anyone else walking by for that matter. Just kept staring blindly out across the wide Kalgoorlie street, seemingly oblivious to the moving streetscape and everything and everyone around her. She looked younger than she had at Bella’s, looked lost and lonely and at the end of her tether, and for a moment he was reminded of another girl, lost and lonely and desperate.

No!

Not your problem, he told himself. She’s not Callie. It’s just the guilt talking. Move along, nothing to see here.

Someone lurched into him from behind and belted out a curse, before staggering off along the veranda, more than a couple too many beers under his belt.

She noticed none of it. Just muttered something before dropping her face into her hands.

Perfect. She was so focused on whatever was on her mind, she wouldn’t even notice when Mitch walked right on by. Which he was seconds from doing when the drunk in front of him lurched suddenly to the right at the same moment that the girl sprang up and around, the pack on her back connecting with the guy and sending him sprawling. The drunk stumbled, wrong-footed, across the veranda, before crashing into the pub wall with a loud, ‘Oof!’ and all hell broke loose.

“I’m sorry!” she cried, reaching for his arm to steady him, her eyes big and too late noticing the world around her, once again. “Are you okay?”

“You bloody bitch!” the drunk bit out, peeling himself off the wall slowly before wheeling around with a speed that should have been impossible given his intoxicated state.

“Ah hell,” Mitch muttered, knowing dumb luck wasn’t done with him yet.

The drunk flung out his arm as he spun, the back of his elbow heading straight for the girl’s jaw.

Mitch wrenched her clear with one hand, blocking the man’s arm with the other. “Calm down, sunshine. We don’t hit women here.”

The man either didn’t hear or didn’t care, just kept on coming, his face twisted and malevolent as he swung his other fist wildly around. Mitch caught that one too. “Little bitch knocked me over,” the drunk snarled, as he tried to twist his limbs free. There was spit coming from the side of his mouth and he stank of stale beer and sour body.

“I didn’t see him,” she pleaded, all big green eyes in a face bleached of color, and if she was relieved to see it was Mitch coming to her rescue, it didn’t show.

“You weren’t bloody looking, bitch!”

“Calm down!” Mitch gave the drunk a shove, not letting go of his arms just yet. “You’re drunk and you can’t walk straight. Go home and sleep it off.”

“I don’t have to take orders from you.” He pushed hard against Mitch, a lumbering mass of drunk whose blood alcohol level was higher than his IQ, and Mitch had no trouble slamming him up hard against the wall. “Didn’t you hear the lady? She said she was sorry. How about you accept her apology and go home? Before the police want a bit more than just an apology from you.” The drunk blinked bloodshot eyes at that, the logic of Mitch’s words filtering through the fog of alcohol clouding his brain. “I’m goin’,” he said Not that it stopped him letting let fly a few more curses after Mitch set him free with a shove, and he staggered off down the street.

The few pedestrians who’d stopped to watch a free show filtered off until just the two of them and an uncomfortable silence remained. He should go too, he thought, before things got even more awkward between them. It wasn’t like he needed to be reminded of what they might have been doing earlier today if she hadn’t decided it hadn’t been working for her. It wasn’t like he needed another lesson in humiliation.

“I didn’t choose you.”

The words had stuck in his craw ever since she’d uttered them. Well, fine. He’d done his good deed for the day. He could choose not to hang around here any longer.

Move along.

And he was moving along. Heading back to his blessedly uncomplicated life even if that did come with its own frustrations.

“Wait.”

He stopped and glanced at the veranda. “Now you and I both know you don’t really want me to.”

“At least let me thank you.”

He didn’t bother glancing, this time. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I do. Let me at least buy you a coffee or something.”

He turned, all set to say no again, but he saw her looking up at him, her face still pale, and he felt the shadow of his little sister in the hurt and despair in her eyes and his gut twisted so tight he couldn’t breathe.

What if someone had been able to help Callie but they’d chosen to walk away instead?

What if this girl needed help and he walked away now? Before at least making sure she was okay? Would it kill him if he stopped long enough to find out?

The girl made like she was going to say something, her lips poised half way to a word, but then she closed her mouth and gave her head a shake, as if she’d decided against it. Instead she hauled her backpack over her shoulder. “Sorry,” she simply said, before she turned to go. “I’m the last person you’d want to have coffee with.”

She was right and she was wrong. He’d been happy to leave her at Bella’s. Would have quite happily lived his entire life without their paths ever crossing again. But they had crossed, and she’d needed help, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she still did.

And maybe she didn’t particularly want his, but hell, it seemed to him like she could hardly afford to pick and choose.

“Coffee would be fine,” he said. And just in case she needed to have it spelled out, in case she might imagine he was still trying to collect on the money he’d dropped at Bella’s, he added, “Just coffee.”

Her lids shuttered down, long lashes lingering a while on her cheeks. Not a blink, but a measured pause for a measured response, before she opened her eyes on a nod, “Just coffee then,” she said, “I owe you.”

He didn’t argue the point. Just nodded and felt himself smile.

Her face relaxed enough to smile back, just tentatively, but it was a start. She looked summer fresh, dressed as she was in a lacy white cotton vest with faded jeans tucked into tan boots and her scarlet hair braided into a thick rope down her back. Girl-next-door pretty, with clear skin and a wide mouth and eyes almost too big for her face—until she smiled and the curve of her lips somehow balanced it all out.

He looked away before he could dwell too much on how good she looked, because that wasn’t why he was having coffee with her, and pointed out a cafe across the street that had stools along a bench overlooking the street and where he knew they’d both be more comfortable than sitting face to face. She wouldn’t let him carry her pack, even though it had to weigh twice as much as she did. Independent, mistrustful, or just plain stubborn, he didn’t know what she was, but he couldn’t help but find a measure of respect for her, right there.

“What can I get you?” she asked, checking out the drinks menu. The cafe was busy with the afternoon tea crowd, but they found a couple of stools like he’d hoped at the front.

“Long black,” he said.

Americano, she translated in her head approvingly. But then, he hadn’t struck her as a cappuccino or a soy latte sort of guy. Her stomach rumbled and she thought longingly of food—how long had it been since breakfast? But cafe prices were too extravagant for her limited budget. Every dollar would have to count now, more now than ever—and so when the waitress came for their order, two long blacks was the extent of it.

She pulled a few coins from her coin purse and stacked them in a pile, and when that was done, stared out at the passing traffic, grateful that the man beside her seemed content to just sit and watch too. And it was easier looking at the traffic than looking at him sitting beside her and being reminded of how he looked dripping wet and naked but for a fluffy white towel lashed around his hips.

Don’t go there, she told herself, just say what you need to say.

And she was about to, but his leg brushed against hers, denim against denim, and she jumped. Hoo-ee, if the guy wasn’t electric or something. “I really could do with that coffee,” she said, looking over her shoulder as she poked a few strands of hair back behind her ears.

“It’ll come,” he said. “You’re bound to be a bit shook up.”

She smiled. If only he knew what was shaking her up. Well, there were a couple of things shaking her up, and only one of them was him, and if she didn’t say something soon about the other, she’d burst.

“About before,” she started, her eyes still fixed on the moving streetscape. “I’m real sorry about what happened.”

“Not your fault. He was drunk.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Not that before. The other before. At Bella’s.”

A pause.

“You don’t need to explain.”

His voice had a gruff edge to it. He was still sore about it, she could tell, and that was fair, but she still needed to explain. “No, listen.” She dragged in air that tasted of summer dust and small town, and it struck her that it wasn’t that different from how summer air smelt back home in Marietta. Except it was winter at home now and the air blowing down off Copper Mountain and whistling along Main Street would be cold and clear, and her mom would no doubt be doing battle with the central heating and losing again. She shouldn’t have to struggle with that on top of trying to cope with everything else. Scarlett turned away from the traffic and thoughts of home. What was the point? It would be months before she’d get home now. “Bella told you I was new. I was brand new, as it happens. You would have been my first.”

His eyes opened wide. Really wide. “First? What, first time ever, you mean?” He sounded appalled.

“Oh hell no,” she said, laughing. “Not that kind of first. Just first in my new ex-job. But I do feel bad about it and I just wanted you to know, it wasn’t you or anything you did, it was me.”

Their coffees arrived and she was grateful for the interruption before she’d gone and told him how it had been damned near impossible to stop and wouldn’t that have been embarrassing? She breathed in the bewitching aroma of her coffee instead. It smelt strong and rich and exactly what she needed right now.

‘It wasn’t you—it was me.’

Funny, Mitch thought, that was almost the same thing Kristelle had told him, only the other way around. It was kind of refreshing not to be blamed for something for once.

“How about we forget about what happened before and start again.” He held out his hand. “The name’s Mitch. What’s yours?”

She frowned a little as she regarded his hand. “Scarlett,” she said, raising her eyes as she slipped her hand warily into his. “But you already know that.”

It took a moment for the name to register, maybe because her hand was smooth in his and came with a burst of feel good that reminded him just how good she’d felt in his arms. And because his body didn’t need a reminder of what he’d been so close to having and missed out on, he let her hand go and focused on her words instead. “Like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, the very same. Mom’s the original Gone with the Wind Windie. Would you believe, I have a twin sister called Tara.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah. Mom even has a poster of Rhett Butler hanging above her bed.”

Her voice went quiet at the end and she lost her smile, her eyes a million miles away, her hands fiddling with the ends of the thick red braid dangling heavily over her shoulder.

“You miss them?”

She sighed. “Hell, yeah.” And then she looked up, a forced smile that couldn’t mask the tension around her eyes, and he figured there was something majorly unsaid right there. “But that’s normal when you’re so far from home, right?”

“Sure it is. So where is home, Scarlett?”

“Montana. A little town called Marietta, not far from Bozeman. Ever heard of it?”

“Can’t say that I have. Haven’t spent a lot of time in the States, though I did get to New York once.” He sipped his coffee. He remembered it well. Kristelle had wanted a treat for their two month anniversary. A week ‘somewhere special’, she’d said.

Looking back, he could see it had been a test. ‘How much do you love me?’ she’d been asking even then. ‘How much am I worth to you?’

But back then it had suited him. He’d always wanted to go to New York City and why not indulge her? There were only seven days out of every twenty-one when they could even see each other, which was hardly conducive to getting to know someone.

At that stage, he’d still thought she might be worth getting to know.

The taste of the coffee turned bitter in his mouth.

More fool him.

“Kalgoorlie reminds me a lot of Marietta, actually.” The girl alongside him looked thoughtful as she swirled her coffee cup in her hands, before she took a sip and turned her attention out the window. “All these gorgeous old buildings with balconies and verandas.” She turned to him, “Marietta started as a mining town too, you know, but not with gold like here. They found copper up on Copper Mountain and for a while the town did really well, but then the copper ran out and Marietta almost became a ghost town for a while.”

She screwed up her nose. “Anyhow, that’s probably way too much information. The point I was getting to is that Marietta’s about as different from New York City as this place here is.”

She was wrong about the too much information. Mining was in his blood, it was part of who he was and what he did fourteen days straight of twelve-hour shifts. He could listen to her talk about her town’s copper history all day. Then again, he could listen to her talking about anything. Her accent matched her boots for pure country and the way her face lit up when she was talking about her home town, he could almost see it projected from the depths of her green eyes.

“I believe it,” he said. “Like chalk and cheese.” Like the world of difference between Scarlett and Kristelle, it occurred to him. And then he wondered how he could be so certain when he’d known Scarlett for all of ten minutes and they’d hardly got off to an auspicious start.

But now that he’d put the two women side by side in the same thought, his mind began to play with the germ of an idea.

A mad idea, sure, but it had possibilities.

And if it helped his lonesome cowgirl out into the bargain, everyone was a winner.

The more he mulled it over, the more perfect it became until even his coffee started tasting better.

Because he wasn’t interested in commitment, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she had a hankering to get home. What could be better? She could still be his temporary cowgirl—only for a few days instead of the few hours he’d imagined.

It could work.

Hell, it would be worth turning up with Scarlett on his arm just to see the look on Kristelle’s face.

“Anyhow,” Scarlett said, swallowing down the last of her coffee before she stood and reached for her pack. “I better get moving. Thanks for, you know, helping out and—um—well, for the conversation.” She pointed to her small pile of coins. “I’ve left the money for the coffee.”

And Mitch knew the moment was now. He’d wanted to help her and he wasn’t sure how, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that a conversation over a cup of coffee was going to magically solve all her problems. But something else might...

“Where are you headed?”

“Oh, you know,” she looked out the window longingly, and he could tell she didn’t have a clue, “I thought I’d just check out the town a bit.”

“And where are you staying?”

“Excuse me, but I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“Okay, let me put it like this. Seems to me that you need money to get home but you haven’t got a job, and I’m guessing, the way you’re lugging that pack around, that you haven’t got anywhere to stay either.”

Her green eyes opened wide with shock and indignation. “What? What’s it to you anyhow?”

“Simple,” he said, knowing he’d hit the mother lode. “Because I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Chapter Four

Scarlett laughed if only to cover up her disappointment. She’d had plenty of propositions before and she was pretty certain of what this one might entail. And there she’d been thinking he was one of the good guys. There she’d been thinking she’d almost miss him once she walked out of here. “Thanks but no thanks.”

“You haven’t even heard what I’m offering yet.”

“You think I need to? A proposition, you said. Sounds to me like you’re still looking to collect. Though I really don’t understand why you’d want to throw good money after bad.”

“After what happened before, do you really think I’d be insane enough to offer you money for sex?”

Heads at nearby tables swiveled at the S word. Conversations and clatter stopped and all ears angled closer. She scanned the faces looking at her, held out her hands in a shrug and smiled. “Can you believe it? He’s still sore because I turned him down. What’s a girl to do?”

“Good for you,” said one nodding grey-haired matron at a table nearby.

“Make him work for it, I say,” added her friend.

“Hear, hear,” said someone from another table, “make him sweat!”

Scarlett laughed and bowed a little. “Why, thank you all for the advice. I’ll be sure to do that. I’d just hate for him to think I was easy.”

“Hell, Scarlett,” he said, “I know you’re not easy.” He took her by the hand and hauled her pack over his shoulder and said, “Let’s blow this joint.”

“Have fun, you two,” called the first woman after them.

“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t.”

“Well, that leaves plenty of scope!”

The cafe dissolved into shrieks of post-menopausal laughter that followed them out onto the street.

“Why did we have to leave?” Scarlett asked, still smiling as she waved back to her new friends through the big open window. “That was just getting to be fun.”

“How was I going to negotiate anything with the entire cast of the Golden Girls listening in? I’d be toast.”

She laughed and it felt so good. He was still holding her hand, his fingers warm and sure around hers and she liked it. Liked it? She damn well near sizzled with it. It was the best she’d felt since she’d landed in Perth and called the number she’d rehearsed so many times she knew it by heart.

And look how that ended.

A sliver of fear wound its way around her stomach and pulled tight. “Hey, are you married?”

He looked down at her, his expression guarded. “No-o-o.”

The knot slipped undone and she found she could breathe again. “Good.”

“And just for the record, I’m not looking for a wife.”

“Even better. Nothing personal, but I’m not looking for a husband either.”

“Excellent,” he said, “so we understand each other.”

She wasn’t so sure about that. There was plenty she didn’t know about him, but she did know he had nothing to worry about on her part. After making a complete ass of herself over Travis, she was so not going down that road again in a hurry. In fact, it was high time she stopped doing everything in a hurry. Maybe if she took her time and seriously considered the pros and cons of things a little more before she dived—headlong—in, she wouldn’t get herself into these messes. Maybe it was time to act a bit more responsibly like her sister, with her good sense and her good job and her oh-so-sensible fiancé.

Then she thought about Tara’s history teacher fiancé, Simon, for a moment. Hmmm, well, maybe she didn’t especially want one of those, exactly, but she could do responsible if she really set her mind to it, she was sure.

Meanwhile this man’s hand was warm around hers, his fingers long. Was it sensible to be holding hands with a man you barely knew? Maybe not, but she could hardly expect to get this sensible thing down pat in one shot.

“This should do.” He pulled her down next to him onto a bench outside the information center, where there was not a golden girl in sight and no risk of their conversation being overheard except in meaningless snatches in passing. He released her hand to let her pack down onto the ground.

“Jesus, that thing’s enormous, I thought backpackers traveled light. What the hell have you got in there?”

She shrugged as he settled back down alongside her and cursed the lack of interest on eBay. “You really don’t want to know. So tell me, Mr. Mitch deal-or-no-deal, what exactly is this proposition of yours?”

He looked at her, at her startlingly red hair and her green eyes and a mouth that made words sound too cute to be real and wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life. Then again, life had been pretty dull lately and it was a hell of a way to go. “I was right about you needing money to get home, wasn’t I?”

She stretched her long legs out and stuck her hands in her jeans pockets and looked out at the traffic. “Maybe.”

“That’s okay, I don’t need the details. That’s your business. All I need is a favor.” And something to distract me from those legs.

Clad in denim with cute little rips in all the right places and ending in those fancy cut leather boots, they were long and lean and the best thing he’d seen since he’d eyeballed them unwrapped back at Bella’s. And while he told himself her legs weren’t the reason he was asking her to do him a favor, he sure wouldn’t object to seeing them unwrapped again sometime soon.

Maybe he would.

And that was a worry when he was supposed to be doing this to help her out.

So much for being altruistic.

“So what’s the favor…? Earth calling Mitch?”

He looked back up, wondering just how long he’d been missing in action thinking about little tears in jeans that opened when she moved and revealed a tiny glimpse of tan skin beneath. “Yeah, here’s the plan. I need a temporary girlfriend, or someone to act as my girlfriend. Just for a few days. For a wedding I have to attend this weekend.”

“So why do you need a pretend girlfriend?”

“Because it’s my ex getting married.”

“Well, that’s a no brainer. Just don’t go.”

“Not possible. She’s marrying my best mate.”

“Ah.” This time she nodded. “But I’m sure he’d understand if you choked, given he’s marrying your ex and all. He’d probably rather you weren’t there anyhow.”

‘Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Trouble is, he’s asked me to be best man.”

She sat up. “What the hell? And you said yes?”

“Only because he didn’t tell me who he was marrying before I agreed to do it.”

She stretched back out again. “Wow. So does this guy have it in for you or something?”

“No, like I said, he’s a mate.” And Robbo was. They’d met at university and done two years of engineering together before Robbo had decided that he preferred counting things to building them and switched to accounting instead. He still worked for a mining company, but his place was firmly behind a desk in the big city head office.

“Yeah, I can see that. A good mate, clearly, because in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s marrying your ex.”

“I had actually noticed that.” And he couldn’t really blame Robbo for jumping at the chance, because Kristelle was really something to look at and Robbo had never had much luck in the female department. He must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when she’d knocked on his door bemoaning Mitch’s failings.

“Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re stuck with going to this wedding, because you’re the best man, only he’s marrying your ex and you don’t want to go alone because you don’t want to look like some kind of loser?”

Good grief. So maybe this wasn’t his best ever idea. “Thank you for your succinct and incisive assessment, but can we drop the loser angle? Maybe I just don’t want her to think I’m available.”

“Why? You think she’s still got the hots for you or something? Then why would she marry someone else?”

Who knew? “Look, Kristelle and I were together a couple of months all up—most of the time with me on shift so we didn’t get to see that much of each other. And it was it good at first but it clearly wasn’t going anywhere, so I suggested a break.”

“And let me guess. She didn’t take it well.”

He thought back to the tears, the melodrama, the breast beating and the incessant ‘whys.’ “Yeah, you could say that.”

She nodded. “So you think she’s marrying your friend to get back at you.”

He shrugged. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“Maybe they really love each other. How long have they been together now?”

“Three months.”

“Wow. She is a fast worker.”

“Oh yeah.”

“So basically you don’t trust her or her motives.”

He thought back to her final words. ‘You’ll be sorry. I’ll make you sorry.’ At the time he’d thought nothing of it. She was angry. She’d get over it. Hell, it wasn’t like they’d ever professed undying love for each other.

It was Robbo who’d explained that as soon as Mitch had left Perth and gone back to the mines, Kristelle had turned up on his doorstep in tears needing comfort. And finding it, apparently, though Mitch had stopped Robbo short before he could tell him all the gory details. And it was Kristelle who’d apparently begged him not to tell Mitch they were together so as not to upset him. Like hell. More likely so she’d have Robbo wrapped around her little finger before Mitch could warn him to run like hell.

No. He didn’t trust her one little bit. “Not entirely.”

“But what can she do? She’s marrying someone else.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know if she’d try anything, but I sure wouldn’t put it past her. The simple fact is she’ll have less opportunity than if I turn up alone.” He looked at her. “Think of your role as insurance.”

She screwed up her nose. “I’m not sure I can do insurance. It sounds awfully dull.”

“Then think of it as being a guard dog.”

She smiled. “Now that I can do.”

He looked at her with new admiration. “I always wanted a red headed Rottweiler. So—will you do it then?”

“What’s in it for me?” she asked, but she was smiling and he had a good feeling about this.

“You’re doing me the favor. You name your price.”

Was he for real? “Okay.” She stuck up her chin. If he wanted a pretend girlfriend for a few days, it was going to cost him. “If I’m going to even think about this—just think about it, mind—I’m going to want fifteen hundred dollars on the table. Cash. Paid in full the day after the wedding.”

He didn’t even blink. “Done. Plus expenses of course. So you’ll do it?”

“Um.” Had he really said ‘done’? Could she really have the funds to go home in just a few days’ time and all she had to do was pretend to be someone’s girlfriend? It was that simple? Hope, that fragile bubble of hope, that had been dashed and bruised and battered by today’s disappointments, peeled itself off the floor and sucked in air.

“Oh, and you’ll need something to wear for the wedding of course. Unless you’ve got something suitable in your backpack.”

Suitable for a wedding? Now, that was funny.

“Nope. Nothing suitable for a wedding,” she said, with a straight face. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Okay.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow. So, what else do you need to know? Will you do it?”

It was all happening so fast. She liked fast. She thrived on fast. But it was her downfall too, she’d learned. Things looked so good on the surface, she didn’t bother with the details. She had to learn to bother with the details. And there was one detail that was unsaid, and sizzlingly unsettling, and it couldn’t stay that way.

“What about sex?” she asked. ‘Will that be expected as part of the pretend girlfriend deal too?”

“We’ll have to look like a couple. You’ll have to share the villa they’ve booked for me.”

“So that’s a yes?” Damn, did she sound too hopeful?

“Sex is actually outside this arrangement.”

“So, that’s a no?”

He smiled and that killer combination of blue eyes and smiling mouth almost did her head in. “That’s not what I said.”

Oh hell. What was that supposed to mean?

“So what’s it to be Scarlett?”

“Hang on a minute, I have to think about this.” She squeezed her mouth and her eyes tight shut, the cogs in her mind spinning around, putting the brakes on the Hell yes! response that she was renowned for. If she was going to be more responsible she was going to have to stop doing that. She was going to have to seriously think about this. Think about the pros and cons and what could possibly go wrong, because sure as God made little green apples—if she didn’t, something would.

Pro, she thought: it was quick easy money, quicker than even Bella’s had promised to be. And it was all expenses paid. Bonus.

Pro: she wouldn’t even have to confess to Tara that she’d been sacked from a brothel. Yes!

Pro: she’d get to spend the next few days with a guy who came with an electric touch that made her toes curl. All that rampant electricity. All that masculine heat. Just remembering how he’d felt naked and next to her sent her pulse tripping all over again.

Oh hell. She turned her mind to the cons before she’d talked herself into it on the pros alone.

Con: she’d jumped before at the chance for quick easy money, and look how that had turned out.

Con: she didn’t really know this guy. He could be an axe murderer for all she knew. Why should she believe his story about a jilted lover and her need for revenge when he could be packing an axe?

Con: if she ended up dead, Tara would never forgive her. Oh, maybe that should be a pro?

Con: she’d get to spend the next few days with a guy who came with an electric touch that made her toes curl. All that masculine heat. Ooh, but that was a pro too. Then again...

“Excuse me?”

She was still tossing up whether spending more time with this guy was a pro or a con. She didn’t appreciate the interruption. She didn’t bother opening her eyes. “What?”

“What are you doing?”

She cracked open her eyes and peeked up at him. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m thinking.”

“So why’s it taking you so long?”

“Because I’m weighing up the pros and cons. Making a sensible decision. I always jump into things and it always goes wrong. This time I’m determined to do the right thing.”

“Fine,” he said, “just keep in mind that the wedding is Saturday.”

“That’s three whole days away.” She closed her eyes again.

“But our plane leaves in two.”

She cracked them open again and looked at him. “What plane? Where’s the wedding?”

“Broome, on the north west coast. Pearl capital of Australia. Sandy beaches, camel rides at night and the best sunset in the world. And if the weather gods are favorable, the not-to-be-missed Staircase to the Moon. Are you coming?”

She blinked, his words adding six more pros to the mix right there. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” She’d heard about Broome while she’d been waiting tables in a cafe in Perth. Heard the buzz about the Staircase to the Moon effect across the mud flats at full moon and how it wasn’t to be missed if she could get there. She’d given up all hope of getting there this visit. Assumed it was just another addition to the bucket list of things in Australia that she’d have to go home without seeing this time.

“So?” he said, staring at her like she was crazy, “Will you do it?”

“Hell, yes!” she said, punching his arm and with a smile that felt a mile wide. “Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to let you turn up alone and look like some kind of loser.”

“What’s your name?”

Scarlett was sitting on an arm chair in his rented apartment doing a Sudoku while Mitch was on the phone to his travel agent or airline or something. He’d found her a single apartment in the same complex and she’d stashed her pack away and hung up her dress—the wedding dress—new, with tags—that continued to go irritatingly bid-less on eBay—in the little closet. And now she was waiting for him to finish whatever he was doing so they could go out for Chinese food.

“Hey!” He was frowning when she looked up. “What’s your name?”

“Scarlett,” she said back, wondering why he was having such trouble remembering her name. She’d told him, what, twice already?

“No. Your second name.”

“Oh. Buck.”

“What?”

“Buck. Scarlett Buck. Have you got a problem with that?”

“Buck? No, no,” he said shaking his head to whomever was on the phone, though they would miss the head shaking completely. “I said Buck. B-U-C-K. B. For brandy. Not—” he laughed. “Yeah, not that.” He raised his eyebrows at her and she laughed and went back to her Sudoku as he pulled out his credit card and finished the reservation.

“All done,” he said, repocketing his cell, “Ms. Scarlett Buck.”

Something about the way he said her name alerted her. She looked up from her puzzle. “Yes?”

He was smiling. “Cute name.”

“Yeah. Bella thought so too.”

His smile widened. “I bet. Probably thought she was going to make a killing. Guess you must have had a bit of a rough time growing up though.”

She screwed up her nose. “You better believe it. Tara and I spent an entire childhood being pooped on from a great height because of our name.” She shrugged. ‘”We got so used to it after a while that someone would say something and we’d just laugh and say it was water off a Buck’s back.” She grinned up at him. “They breed us tough in Montana.”

He liked it. “Beer?” he asked, as he pulled a Corona from the fridge and held it up. He pulled out another and flipped both lids when she nodded. “What’s she like, this sister of yours?” he asked, as he handed her the longneck and sat down in the other arm chair, his elbows resting on wide-apart knees. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up and his forearms were strong and lean, and she didn’t know what it was about him but just looking at him was intoxicating and one beer would likely put her over the limit. Lucky she wasn’t driving. “Same as you?”

She laughed at that, happy to be distracted. “Hardly.”

“But you’re twins, right?”

“We’re twins, but not identical. We’re pretty different, when all’s said and done.”

“How so?”

She shrugged. “Tara’s real pretty—”

“Not so different then,” he said, and she felt a bloom of heat burst open inside her right there.

She bowed her head and raised her beer at him. “Thank you, kind sir. What I was going to say, is Tara’s real pretty only she doesn’t like to show it too much. I mean, she’s got the most gorgeous long blonde hair, but she pulls it back real tight and wouldn’t be caught dead getting a color—well,” she lifted up her hair, “anything like this. And she’s real sensible and does everything right.” She took a sip of her beer. “Whereas, and you may have noticed this, I tend to be the one who jumps in feet first and, more often than not, bucks up.”

He laughed into the neck of his beer before he took a draught. “Sounds like you’re pretty hard on yourself. She can’t be that perfect.”

“Ha, then listen to this. She doesn’t just have a good job, she’s a cop—a patrol officer over at Bozeman and she’s marrying sensible Simon the history teacher later this year. No doubt about it, Tara is the perfect daughter.”

“Definitely hard on yourself.”

She shook her head and threw her legs over the arm of the chair and looked up at the ceiling, the bottom of her beer resting on her belly. “You know, I think I’m just starting to realize how much grief I’ve put everyone through these past twenty-six years. Tara’s the sensible twin and I’m the flaky one, the one who dropped out of school, the one who spent more time under the bleachers researching anatomy with boys than cheering my sister on her ribbon-winning way from up top. And sometimes I’ve thought Tara’s just being a party pooper when she gives me advice or tells me not to do something, but I’m starting to see that sometimes she’s even a little bit right. Well, a lot right, actually, come to think of it. Sometimes I think I should be more like her.”

He sipped his beer. “Interesting.”

He was being polite, she was sure. She’d seen Amtrak timetables that were more engaging than the details of her family’s dynamics. “What about you? Have you got family somewhere around?”

“Mum’s still going well in Melbourne. Dad died a few years back. Heart attack.”

“Nasty. Our Dad left when we were thirteen. I think Mom would have been a lot happier if he’d had a heart attack.” She looked over. “Oh, damn, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s okay.”

She smiled her thanks. “So, any other family?”

His lips pulled tight. “I had a sister. Once.”

Crap. She’d done it again. She really had to learn to quit while she was ahead. She put her beer down. “I need the bathroom.”

She was half way to her feet when he said, “Thank you,” from whatever dark place he was inhabiting.

“What for?”

His eyes, when he looked up, were more gray than blue, a clear sky scudded with clouds. “For not saying you were sorry like it was somehow your fault, like most people do.”

That was a hard one to respond to. “I am sorry though, but for your losses. Especially for your sister. Because as much as my own sister drives me crazy trying to protect me, I can’t imagine life without her.”

He took a deep breath and smiled uncertainly as he raised his beer. “To sisters, then,” and she picked up her beer and they clinked bottles.

“I’ll drink to that.”

They had Chinese food in a restaurant nearby, honey shrimp—except they were called prawns here—and crispy duck with fried rice washed down with an almost local Margaret River white wine. The food was small-town Chinese restaurant good, and Mitch talked about his fly-in fly-out job at the mines, about the fourteen day shifts filled with twelve hour work days and big meals in the mess and maybe a swim before bed and then getting up the next day to do it all over again. Scarlett listened and crunched shrimp tails between her teeth and sucked honey off her fingers and thought that maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea that she’d come to Australia after all, or she would never have known about any of this kind of lifestyle.

Or more importantly, that otherwise she would never have met Mitch. Maybe she should send Travis a thank-you postcard from Broome? She was halfway tempted.

And Mitch watched a woman who could follow his every word and ask questions while eating with gusto and relish and who wasn’t afraid to get her fingers dirty in the process. And he liked it. A lot.

When she licked her fingers clean, he wished she’d offered them to him first.

And then he smacked his lustful thoughts down hard. He was trying to help her out. Offer her a solution to her problems, so that whatever was bothering her would disappear.

At least, that had been his intention.

Now that she was coming with him to Broome he wasn’t so sure of his motives. She was fun. A breath of fresh air into his highly regulated existence. A temporary cowgirl for a short-term problem.

And while sex wasn’t part of their deal, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t welcome it if it happened. He wasn’t looking for commitment but where was the risk? She was going home in a few days. And they were going to be sharing a villa after all. Sure, it was a big villa. Loads of space for two.

Loads and loads of space.

And one really big bed.

Chapter Five

They went shopping the next day, to a boutique in a building that would have been right at home in Marietta: an old three level Victorian with arched windows and a veranda that had been prettified up outside in pinks and whites. Inside was a confection of dainty bow-legged furniture topped with flower arrangements and there were crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and wall-length mirrors reflecting the rows and rows of tulle, satin, and silk dresses.

Scarlett had to pause for a second, remembering a trip not long ago to the local bridal store, Married in Marietta, where she thought she’d found the bargain of the century. A two thousand dollar Vera Wang designer last-season gown marked down to three hundred and fifty bucks, all because some poor woman had been stood up at the church and wanted to return it. It had been crazy because she’d only gone in to the store for a look around because the town was full of the talk of the Graff Hotel’s one hundredth anniversary Great Wedding Giveaway. She knew she’d never be part of that, because she was so full of thinking about Travis and all his talk of soul mates and forever that she was dreaming what-ifs. But when she found the dress, it was like a sign. An omen.

Even if it came with more yards of frothy tulle than she’d had frosty winter mornings.

Even if it teetered so very dangerously on her own personal borderline between classy and meringue. What the hell did that matter?

It was a Vera Wang two thousand dollar dress on sale for three hundred and fifty bucks.

And she’d had to have it.

Travis would love it, she’d told herself. He’d get the surprise of his life when she turned up on his doorstep, and then she’d be wearing it in mere weeks! She’d beat her sensible sister down the aisle and wouldn’t she be the good daughter for once?

Idiot!

“You okay?”

She looked into Mitch’s sky-blue eyes and blinked away the past. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

He made her try on a dozen gorgeous cocktail dresses, any of which she would have been perfectly happy to wear, but he only let her stop when he found it: emerald green and the perfect foil to her hair, in a strapless design that hugged her breasts and fitted slim over her waist and hips in layers of ribbon-wide satin.

“You look amazing,” he said, and it wasn’t his words that warmed her through and through, it was the husky quality to his Aussie drawl and the raw heat in his eyes. If she’d had any qualms that he was dressing her to make his ex feel bad, they were banished before they could take root. He was dressing her for him.

She’d never thought blue was a warm color, not until now, not until she’d felt this slow, warm glide of his eyes over her form leaving a smoking trail of heat.

So sex wasn’t part of this deal?

Didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen.

Shoes and accessories were next. He took his time, not rushing and not checking out the sale items like she was, but going for top shelf every time.

She wondered whether he was as attentive a lover as he was a shopper.

And then she remembered that first encounter in Bella’s, and the hot stroke of his tongue against her breast.

Oh yeah!

“We should work out some kind of story,” he said, when the shopping was done and they stopped for a bite of lunch, “for when we’re in Broome. Someone’s bound to ask how we met.” Like Kristelle for example.

“Sure. So who are we expecting to meet up there? Apart from your ex and her lover.”

He shot her a dark look. “We’re staying at the same resort as Robbo and Kristelle and their parents.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What, with the bride and groom and both sets of parents?”

“Yeah, and the bridesmaid. Sharon, I think her name is.”

The reality of the task ahead suddenly loomed. Maybe this wouldn’t be quite the cake walk she’d imagined. Pretending to partner Mitch for an ex who might or might not be out for revenge was one thing. But questions would invariably be asked and the lie would grow and grow, and barefaced lying to decent people whom she had no wish to deceive and who’d never and were never likely to do her or her nearest and dearest any harm was another thing entirely. “That sounds like fun,” she fibbed. “Will there be alcohol?”

“Lots, I’m hoping. The villas have full butler service with all the trimmings.”

“Excellent.” Those butlers would no doubt be busy. “So what’s our story then?”

“I’m thinking we keep it simple. We met in Kalgoorlie. You were backpacking around Australia and we bumped into each other.”

“Now there’s a bit of creative genius.”

“So what would you say?”

“No, I like it, let’s keep it simple. We met in Kalgoorlie. No lie there. Me the hapless tourist and you who just happened to be in town for a few days. Almost the truth. How long have we been seeing each other?”

“Long enough to cover a couple of my leave periods. Let’s make it a bit over a month.”

“Okay. I was barely in Australia back that far, but nobody’s going to check my travel arrangements surely?”

“Exactly how long have you been here?”

“Not long. Not relevant. I’m sure it won’t come up. So we met in Kalgoorlie and clicked and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Yeah,” he said uncertainly, “That ought to do it. What do you think?”

“Perfect,” she said. She just loved a man who spent time on the important things. Like shopping.

“I’ll get this one,” she said, going to pick up the tab as they left.

“Hey.” His hand came down on hers. “All expenses paid, remember?”

“Yeah, and you just paid for some absolute doozies. So allow me a little pride.”

He took his hand away. “Your wish is my command.”

“Atta boy,” she said with a smile. “That’s definitely more like it.”

The girl at the cash register punched in the order and brought up the total. “That’ll be twenty-five dollars and seventy cents, thanks.”

“There you go,” she said, handing over the notes and change she had ready in her hand. The girl counted it and flicked her eyes up suspiciously.

Scarlett had already turned away. “So where to next?”

“What about your change?”

“I gave her the right money.” She turned and the woman waved all okay.

“So how did you know how much it would be before she’d put it in?”

She shrugged. “I added it up.”

“But there were no prices on the tab.”

“But there were on the menu.”

“You remembered?”

“It’s not rocket science, Mitch, it’s just a lunch tab. Now, what do we do next?”

They spent the rest of the day sightseeing. They walked the length of the main street, most of which Scarlett had already seen in passing, but this was stopping to check out the history of the buildings. And then Mitch took her to the town’s biggest attraction. Scarlett gazed over the massive Super Pit, the gold mine that was more than a mile long, half that wide and a quarter mile deep and that never slept, the sides stepped and dusty from the endless parade of giant trucks up and down the tiered terrain twenty-four hours a day.

It was late afternoon by the time they got there, and Scarlett’s feet were aching in her boots, but the view was breathtaking, the slanting sun casting a golden glow over the walls of the massive mine. Copper Mountain back home in Marietta had always seemed the biggest thing in the world to her, a huge backdrop to the town she’d grown up in, but this thing—this mine—was mammoth.

“Is this like what you do up north?”

“Kind of, but it’s iron ore country up there, rich and red like you wouldn’t believe.”

“What do you actually do there?”

“Lots of things. As a mining engineer it can be anything from feasibility studies to mine planning and open cut design to budgets and reports. It can be physical one day and then you’re stuck in meetings the next. But it’s good. What do you do back home?”

She crossed her arms along the wire fence barrier and looked out over the vast hole in the ground. “Well, that’s a hard one. Drop out of things mostly. I worked in the local diner for a while. Tried a bit of work at the salon where Mom works as a nail technician but it didn’t appeal. I’m not really qualified to do anything. Apart from screwing up. If I could make a living from that I’d be doing great.”

He was about to tell her she was being hard on herself again, but she was leaning her head on her arms looking at him and her green eyes were smiling and the sun was turning her scarlet hair as red as the Pilbara country where he worked. The breeze was turning the loose tendrils of hair around her face into snakes and he thought, beautiful and couldn’t help but lean closer.

“You’ll find something,” he said, snagging a flying tendril and curling it behind her ear, knowing there just had to be something amazing in store that deserved this woman.

“Yeah, that’s what Aunt Margot says. She says sometimes the way isn’t clear straight up but you’re on the right track all along even if it winds around a bit. She’s got this Joseph Campbell quote she reels out at me whenever I’m feeling like I should be doing something serious with my life. It goes like this. She took a breath and looked skywards, as if she was concentrating on the words. ‘If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living’.” She smiled and looked around. “How cool is that? It makes me feel better anyhow.”

“I like the sound of your Aunt Margot.”

“Yeah, she’s cool too. Always knows the right thing to say at the right time.”

“It won’t be long now until you see her.”

“Yeah.” And she did that measured blink of her eyes thing again and turned her head back out over the pit before she’d opened them. “Not long.”

“Uh-oh, that’s not good.”

Scarlett turned off her phone, peeved to find there were still no bids, to check out whatever Mitch had found. “What’s not good?”

Mitch gestured up to the TV in the corner of the bar by the ceiling as he put down their drinks. “The weather in Broome. They reckon there’s a system sitting off the coast and they’re worried it could make landfall late tomorrow or the day after.”

She looked up at the screen, at the chart that bore no resemblance to the weather charts she was used to at home and meant nothing to her now. “What would that mean exactly?”

“Anything from a bit of a blow to a full-on cyclone.”

The weather map disappeared and the news went back to a recap of the headlines. She pulled her wine glass closer. “Oh, that’s definitely not good news for a wedding. Will they have to cancel?”

“I suspect not. They’re already all up there, having a pre-honeymoon honeymoon before the real honeymoon in Bali.”

“Two honeymoons?”

“You can never have too many honeymoons, apparently.”

“And we’ll be okay to get up there?”

“Looks like it at this stage.” He shrugged. “Be awful to miss it.”

“Yeah, I’d be without a job.”

He twirled a spare beer coaster in his fingers. “I’m sure I could find something else you could help me out with.”

A waitress arrived with their food, hamburger and hand-cut chips—aka fries—for him, salt and pepper squid for her. “Yum,” she said, because it was easier thinking about the food than about his last comment. Did he really mean what that had sounded like? More fool him if he didn’t realize he didn’t have to pay her for sex. She’d do that for free.

The squid was excellent, melt-in-the-mouth tender with just the right amount of spice. Her thoughts were even spicier. She put her knife and fork down knowing she’d burst if she didn’t speak. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Mitch was feeling mellow. He had a cold beer, a damn fine hamburger and the prettiest woman in the pub sitting opposite him. Right now he would have agreed to the sun not coming up in the morning.

“Why did you choose me?”

“What?”

“Back in Bella’s—why me? I messed up my lines and stood there staring at you with my mouth open looking like a goldfish. I thought for sure you’d choose Jasmine.”

He frowned. “You mean the Asian girl?”

“Yeah. Why didn’t you choose her?”

He considered his hamburger for a while. “Because she was tiny.”

“I know. She was exquisite.”

“Yes. No. Tiny. I felt like a giant next to her.”

“Oh.”

Mitch looked up at her. He’d knew that kind of ‘oh’. It was loaded. Clearly he’d said something wrong.

“And you looked cute.”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Try to make me feel better by pretending you were interested in me all along.”

Bam, there it was. “Who says I was pretending?”

“Me. You’re just saying that to make me feel better. You wouldn’t choose Jasmine because she was tiny. And so you chose me because I wasn’t.”

He put his hamburger down. It was his favorite, one with the lot, which in this part of the world meant onion, salad, bacon, cheese, beetroot, pineapple and pickles, so putting it down was a tough ask, but still he did it, because he’d just made a discovery, and he wanted to ruminate on that for a while. Because it seemed to him that even when a hamburger was complicated, it was still simple. There was a lot to be said for a hamburger. A hamburger might come with pickles, or sesame seeds on top, but it never came with a Catch 22. “I swear I will never understand how a woman’s mind works.”

“Then you’re not really trying,” she said.

He sighed. “So how about I just have a thing for redheads?”

“Uh-uh. I’m not falling for that one. You know it’s not really red and now you’re just trying to make stuff up.”

“So maybe I have a thing for women in corsets and pink boots.”

That was probably closer to the mark. “You mean, wearing nothing else but?”

“Hell, yeah. I loved those spangly pink boots. And maybe I have a thing too, for teensy tiny pink bows that look like sugar and like they might melt in your mouth.”

“You remember the pink bows?”

Did she really think he’d forget? “You’re kidding me. I do believe those pink bows were the ruination of my sleep for these last two nights.”

The slow burners inside her kicked on. Who needed alcohol when you were sitting opposite the man who kept you awake and wanting into the early hours, who’d just admitted she’d done the same to him. “Tell me, why do we need two rooms here in Kalgoorlie when we’ll be sharing only one in Broome?”

“You know why. Because sex was never part of this deal.” He paused. “And because up in Broome we won’t have a choice if we want to look convincing.” She liked that he didn’t sound too thrilled about it.

She angled her head. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that convincing thing,” and across the table from her, Mitch didn’t move a muscle. “We’d be far more convincing in front of your friends if we were an actual couple.”

He jacked up one eyebrow. “You think?” And it warmed the cockles of her heart that he didn’t need her to explain.

She smiled, their eyes locked, green with blue, flickering at the edges with heat. “I know. New lovers are just so convincing, don’t you think? They can never keep their hands off each other.”

She liked the way the fingers of his hands curled on the table. Liked it that he probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. “It’s your choice, Scarlett,” he said, his blue eyes as heated as a gas flame. “This time you get to choose.” And his voice was husky and low and thick with wanting and she had a burning desire to hear it from the pillow next to hers.

“Mitch Bannister,” she said, taking his hand, “I choose you.”

And for the first time in his life, Mitch Bannister failed to finish a hamburger with the lot and chips. But only because he had more important things to do.

They’d barely got outdoors before he’d backed her up hard against a veranda post

“What?” she whispered as she looked up at him.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time,” he said, his lips the length of a whispered breath above hers, before breathless mouth met breathless mouth. And everything she promised was right there in that first kiss: the heat, the attraction, the sheer bloody bliss of it.

“Oh yes,” he murmured into her mouth as her body pulled away from the post at her back and molded to his as if it had been made for it.

They probably looked no different to a lot of other lovers, wending their way down Hannan Street to their accommodation, holding each other close, pausing every now and then to taste each other, with their mouths and with their hands, feeding the simmering tension that bubbled inside, snatching the chance to drink in the feel of a curve or a dip before they pushed apart and moved on a few steps until the next hot clinch.

No wonder it seemed to Scarlett that it had taken forever until they were back in the apartment.

But no sooner were they inside that locked door than she was ripping the clothing from his body. “Oh my god, at last.”

He just groaned, and all the things he’d made her feel just yesterday at Bella’s, when she’d been dressed up like the hooker she was supposed to be and had been forced to use every weapon in her arsenal to feel nothing in the face of his electric touch and still it was not enough, all those things she welcomed. This was no place to bring out the times tables. This time those feelings felt right. This time she wanted to luxuriate in every single toe curling moment and simply enjoy.

He shredded her clothes from her body as fast as she shredded his, his hot mouth keeping her busy in between the attacks of his hands on her shirt and on her jeans.

“Your boots,” he huffed against her ear with hot breath as he wrestled with his own.

“Gone,” she said, shrugging them off with her toes. She felt the jeans follow and then his, and then there was nothing between them but air and even that was in short supply where their bodies met.

But who needed air when where their bodies touched was all kinds of bliss and beyond, flesh against flesh, heat against heat, his every fantasy about to come true. His mouth was busy with the feel and taste of her, his need was her need, or so it seemed as she sighed or gasped with every single stroke of his fingers or tongue.

He was thick and hard between them and her senses and flesh were pulsing with need, the ache between her thighs building so hard that when he took one nipple into her mouth, she almost exploded with it.

“Mitch,” she whispered breathlessly, at his next onslaught to the other nipple, “I don’t think—I don’t—I can’t wait.”

He growled low in his throat, frustration meshed with need. He’d wanted to take his time, take the slow road, make it as special for her as it felt for him. But with the drumbeat of his blood pounding in his ears, urging him on, he didn’t think he was capable. Because right at the forefront of his mind was this desperate need to be inside her. Only that. Hearing her put voice to his need only made him want it more. There was no way he could last now, no way he could wait.

He lunged for the bedside table drawer handle, so far away now, and wished he’d had time to plan, but putting them in his bedside drawer had seemed like wise planning back then and his hopes had only been that. And when he angled sideways, he felt her hand take him, squeeze him, stroke him.

Oh, god. Please god let him last.

And then his fingers found what he was looking for and he ripped the foil with his teeth and pushed her hand out the way to roll it on. He positioned himself between her thighs and rested there a moment. “This is so not the way it should happen,” he said, “but you’ve been driving me crazy a day and a half and I don’t think I can last.”

“For god’s sake, just take me,” she said, “and we’ll worry about how it should happen later.”

He loved a woman with common sense. A woman who could make a decision in a split second. Sure, she might be impulsive, but there was a place for impulsive.

But most of all he loved a woman who was warm and sexy and who wanted what he wanted. Good times and good sex and no complications. A woman like that had a hell of a lot going for her.

This woman.

He pushed into her, felt her around him, surround him; felt the clench of her muscles and slick heat of her desire, and damn near had to grit his teeth not to come there and then.

“Yes,” she whispered, as he pulled back, with her voice like honey and a beckoning sweet body that called him home. “Ahh, like that,” when he thrust into her again.

Then there were no more words, only the sighs and sounds of passion, quickening and intense and with only one place to go.

He felt her go, felt her body tense and still and erupt around him like a fireball, consuming his last shred of control as he followed her.

“I just knew you’d be good at that.” Sweat-slick and replete, she lay panting by his side, her head against her shoulder, his arm holding her snug against his body.

He kissed the top of her head. “Do I need to tell you how good you were?”

“Yes please.”

He chuckled, more like a rumble, and she liked it. “You’re amazing. In fact, so unbelievably amazing, that I can honestly say, that you are, without exception, the best Buck I ever had.”

“Hey!” she said, sitting up and smacking at him with her hands, “quit it with the Buck jokes.”

He laughed and grabbed her wrists. “Make me,” he challenged, and she pulled at her hands and wriggled, jiggled and growled and made him laugh all the more until she stilled and said, “I know how to make you shut up anyhow.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” And she used his arms for supports and dropped herself over his chest and teased his mouth with a nipple.

Oh, yeah, he thought, as he opened wide to accept this unexpected gift, that’d do it

Chapter Six

They got away early the next morning on time, a seventy-minute hop to Perth before a short break for the connection to Broome that would have them there around mid-afternoon. Flights were still moving while the tropical storm continued to hover directionless off the north-west coast.

“Damn,” she said, as they passed through clouds and the view disappeared. He watched as she flicked through the flight magazine and found the puzzle page and dug out a pen.

“How much have you seen of Australia?”

“Not a lot.” she said, as she started jotting down numbers. “A bit of Perth. Kalgoorlie.”

“That’s it?”

She shrugged. “I’ll see Broome. That’s a bonus.”

“So why Perth? Most people would head to Sydney, especially when they’ve come from the States.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly come to be your traditional backpacker-type.”

“No?”

“No. So... Perth suited me.”

“Okay, are you going to tell me why?”

She screwed up her mouth. “You really want to know?”

“Scarlett, give.”

She looked at him, her lips tight. “Only it’s not something I’m real proud of or anything.”

“Scarlett!”

She pouted. “Okay, seeing you insist ’n’ all. It’s like this. I came to g—” and whatever else she said was masked under her hand as she turned her head towards the window.

He captured her chin with his hand, and pulled it around. “You came to get what?”

Green eyes sent out an SOS. “You really want to know?”

He was impervious to SOS’s sent by green-eyed minxes “Yes. I really want to know.”

“Okay. I came out to get married. Well, I thought I was going to get married.”

“Seriously? Who to?”

“Just some guy I met.”

“What? In Marietta?”

“Well, kind of. I was in Marietta, at any rate.”

“Oh Scarlett, tell me you didn’t find this guy on the internet?”

“So?”

“You’re kidding me. You fell for that?”

“He was nice! And we started out as just friends. We chatted. He told me about Perth, and I told him about Montana. It was fun. He was like a pen pal.”

“And so you came out on the strength of that?”

“No! Do you think I’m nuts?” Her fingers flicked at the corners of the magazine, her eyes watching them work. “No, we’d been talking for a while and we were getting to be more than friends. We Skyped every Sunday. He told me I was his soulmate. He told me he loved me. That we belonged together. But it was impossible for him, he said, because he worked such long hours. He couldn’t see a way for us to be together just yet. But we would be, just as soon as he could get leave.”

Her eyes flicked up to his. Big green eyes that still bore the hurt. It didn’t take much to know it hadn’t ended well.

“It was his birthday coming up and I wanted to surprise him.” A pause, before she continued, her voice flat. “And I did.”

“What happened?”

“I texted him once I was in Perth. I said from the airport, ‘Surprise, I’m right here in Perth!’ He texted back right away. Said what a surprise and he was thrilled and where was I staying?

“And fool that I was, I couldn’t see it even then. I said, with him of course.

“That’s when he said he was away on business and to get myself booked in somewhere overnight and he’d fix everything when he came back the next day.

“And I sat in this dingy tiny box of a hotel room, because it was all I could afford after blowing my money on a one way ticket, and there was nothing in it but a fuzzy TV and a Gideon’s Bible and a phone book. And because stupid me hadn’t ever bothered to find out his address, because stupid me thought he’d be so happy to pick me up from the airport, I wouldn’t need his address, I had no idea where he lived. So I looked him up. And I found him.”

Her fingers were still troubling the pages of the magazine. Mitch put his hand over hers and she looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes. “I knocked on the door of this very suburban house in a very suburban street with a car out the front that had kiddie seats in the back and I remember thinking, please god, let me have this wrong.

“He opened the door in the middle of saying something to someone behind him and I remember there was a kid’s trike hanging from his hand and toys spread all over the floor. Then a woman appeared from another room asking who it was and she had a belly the size of a basketball and I died on that front porch. I just died.

“And I remember I said, ‘Sorry, wrong house,’ and he shut the door in my face and went back to his suburban existence and his pregnant wife and his kids and just left me standing there.”

Mitch put his arm around her and pulled her close. She shook her head. “I’m not crying because of him. I’m crying because I was so stupid. Everyone warned me and I didn’t listen. Because Tara told me I was crazy and that he’d be some sixty-year-old pervert but I knew better, because we’d Skyped and he was so good-looking and I knew she was probably just jealous because she’s such a stick-in-the-mud and her Simon is so darn dull. And I just, I just wanted to show everyone that I could do something right.”

She hiccupped against his chest, her long braid a heavy snake over his arm. “I’m going to be more like Tara from now on. I’m going to stop being impulsive and I’m going to be sensible and I’m going to think about things.”

‘‘Maybe you needed to come here,” he offered, his thumb stroking her shoulder. “The big changes in our lives rarely take place with us just wanting them. Usually they come about because of some major defining event.”

“You think Travis was my major defining event?”

“Maybe.”

“But then I jumped head long into Bella’s.”

“You were desperate, that’s all. Look how long you had to think about my offer, and I thought that was a no brainer. So you see? You are being less impulsive already.”

“You think?”

“So long as you remember one thing.”

She sniffed and sighed, and he could feel her body relaxing into him, “What’s that?”

“Don’t try and be someone else, even if it’s your own sister. Don’t change who you are, Scarlett. I like you, just the way you are.”

After a little while, she said sleepily, “You sound a lot like my Aunt Margot.”

He kissed her hair. “I knew I liked the sound of her.” And as she fell into a doze against his chest he wondered where his words had come from. He’d met her barely two days ago—what did he care about her messy impulsive life that he needed to reassure her, even if it was the truth?

That was the bit that niggled at him the most.

Because he did like her.

A lot.

Broome was hot and humid and her jeans stuck to her legs but after bumping their way down through the clouds, Scarlett was too glad to be safely down on the ground to care. But it was exciting too. Broome was like no place she’d ever been before; even the airport felt tropical and exotic with its palm trees and light spaces and cane furniture. A private car met them and whisked them off to their resort on Cable Beach, the fourteen-mile ribbon of white sand that fringed the turquoise Indian Ocean.

“When do we meet the others?”

“Tonight before dinner. They’re all off on some excursion to a pearl farm today.”

The wind gusted and tore at the palm trees along the road. “Wind’s picking up,” he said.

“Bad news for the wedding?”

“From what Robbo was telling me, Kristelle is hoping for her wedding to be blessed with an appearance by the Staircase to the Moon. You can only see it at full moon between March and October and this weekend is the first for the year.” He looked up at the cloudy sky. “Don’t fancy her chances if this keeps up.” They pulled into the gates of a resort. “Looks like we’re here.”

Her eyes bugged. She climbed out of the car, taking in the long colonial building with its timber veranda decorated with Chinese artefacts and low-slung furniture, the gardens spilling with palms and brightly colored plants. “Oh my god,” she said, “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

The driver holding her door smiled. Mitch was smiling too. “Don’t mind her,” he said, “she doesn’t get out much.”

The driver laughed and tipped his hat. “A pleasure to meet you both,” he said, “enjoy your stay.”

“What was that all about?” she asked, as the car pulled away and Mitch took her hand.

“It means they’re too used to toffee noses around here.”

“Toffee noses?”

“Um, what would Americans say? Let’s think: Preppy types. Rich people.”

“Oh.”

“You’re like a breath of fresh air.”

She looked up at him quizzically and he added, “He liked you. Then again, maybe he’s just met Kristelle.”

“Hey.” She stopped and he had to stop too. “I know she’s your ex ’n’ all and you’re not sure of her motives, but that doesn’t mean she’s an awful person. It just means you two didn’t get on.”

He touched his finger to the tip of her nose and followed it with his lips. “I stand corrected. No more digs about Kristelle.”

“Good.”

She took a step but he mumbled something under his breath, and she just knew he was going for the last word. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

She shook her head. “That poor girl didn’t deserve you.”

“Finally,” he said, “something we can agree on.”

She pressed her nails into the back of his hand. “She and I are going to get on like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Right again. Are you going for the trifecta or something?”

She just looked at him. “Unbelievable. It’s a wonder she didn’t end up in therapy after you.”

He smiled and she just looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Like I said: unbelievable.”

Check-in was as smooth as silk, and in no time they were in their assigned villa. It was insanely luxurious, a private house more than a mere villa, with a massive king-sized bedroom plus separate lounge and dining rooms and, to top it all off, a private courtyard with plunge pool.

She eyed it with intent and a certain amount of satisfaction. Take that, Travis.

“I’m hopping in the shower to freshen up before drinks,” Mitch said from inside. “Coming?”

“Sure. Give me a minute, I just need to hang something up.” With a bit of luck the closet was so big, he might not even notice it.

“Don’t be long.”

She smiled. “Not a chance.”

A minute later she joined him in the enormous shower. “You know, you were right,” he said, reaching for her. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“You’re supposed to be saving that for when we’re in front of the others,” she said, but she wasn’t exactly chiding him. Not when her breath hissed through her teeth at his touch. He looked damned fine dry to be sure. But he looked even better dripping wet.

And what he did to her with that bath gel was amazing.

She was just drying off when she heard him yell, “What the hell is that?”

Darn. She had a fair idea where he was and what he’d found and realized that maybe the gown hadn’t been quite as well hidden as she’d hoped. After all, there was at least a hundred yards of tulle in the skirt. But there were at least a dozen yards of closet too. Did he have to go opening that particular one?

Anyhow, no point admitting anything just yet. He was a man after all. Maybe he’d just found the ironing board.

“What’s what?” she asked innocently, padding barefoot into the room.

“This thing. This—frothy- white—thing.”

She peeked over his shoulder. “Oh, so you found it?”

“How the hell was I not supposed to find it? It takes up half the bloody wardrobe. What the hell is it?”

“A mistake. You know how I told you I was impulsive—“

“Hell, Scarlett, I told you I’m not looking for commitment!”

“What? You think I’m planning on marrying you?” She laughed out loud but somehow he didn’t share the joke.

“What’s so funny about that?”

She laughed even more. “You’re funny! First of all you’re outraged at the thought I might be secretly planning on marrying you, and then you sound insulted when I tell you I’m not. It’s the gown I was going to wear to marry Travis. I brought it all the way from Marietta, Montana to marry that jerkball of a cheating husband in.”

If he was relieved, he didn’t let it show. “So what’s it doing here?”

“It has to hang to get out the creases.”

“No.” He sighed. “Not here in the wardrobe. Here in Broome?”

“Well, I could hardly leave it in Perth.”

“Why not? Why take the damned thing anywhere? Why didn’t you throw it away? Burn it. Do whatever pissed off brides do when they’ve been dumped?”

“Because I need the money! It’s a two thousand dollar Vera Wang gown, and maybe I bought it on sale for way less than that, but I reckon I should be able to get at least a grand for it.”

“So sell it then.”

“I am. I’m trying. I’ve got it listed on eBay. ‘New. With Tags. Never worn’,” she quoted, “only that’s a bit of a fib because some poor woman before me got stood up almost at the altar in the damn thing, but I could hardly say that.”

He shook his head and headed back to the bedroom. He’d never understand women. He hadn’t understood a word of what she’d just said.

What he had understood, though, was that she’d thought the concept of marrying him hysterically funny.

Oh yeah, he’d understood that bit perfectly.

And didn’t it grate?

“Are you ready? We’re due at the bar ten minutes ago.”

“You go ahead,” she called from the bathroom, “this humidity is turning my hair into seaweed. I’ll find you.”

Mitch went off smiling, his mind suddenly busy imagining pictures of Scarlett as a mermaid, on a rock, her scarlet hair wending like rivulets over her breasts. Oh yeah, he could see that. That would work. The bar was still only half full and the wedding party no trouble to spot: Robbo and his parents and another couple who must be Kristelle’s, plus the bridesmaid he presumed. He scanned the area. No Kristelle. Bonus. He had time to have a word with his mate first.

“Mitch,” Robbo called out, as he pulled Mitch into a man hug, clapping him on the back. “It’s good you could come.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Robbo peered around his shoulder. “And the friend you were bringing?”

“She’s still messing with her hair.”

“Oh,” he rolled his eyes, “the humidity, tell me about it. Kristelle’s been banging on about nothing else but. I told her March would be dodgy up here but she did insist.” He laughed, a little uncertainly, and Mitch wondered if all was well in the lovers’ nest. “Well, you know what she’s like.”

He did but still he managed a smile as Robbo started with the introductions. His parents, Virginia and Andrew Farrant, he already knew, and then there were Rolf and Alice Svensson and a sparky brunette, Sharon, who was the bridesmaid. Someone put a beer in his hand and the party got underway before Robbo pulled him aside, an arm around his shoulder. It was a stretch for the shorter man.

“No hard feelings, eh?” he said, squeezing his shoulder. “About me marrying Kristelle? I’d hate for this to come between us.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Mitch said.

“Only I know how hard it must have been when she said no to you.”

His head whipped around. “What?”

“When she turned you down. I know you took it rough. I understand it would have been a blow.”

Oh good grief, so that was the story she’d spun. “Look Robbo—” He hesitated. His mate was getting married in less than twenty-four hours and he might not get another chance. Besides, he was sure he hadn’t imagined the tightness around his friend’s features when he talked about the woman he was lining up to marry. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“About marrying Kristelle. It is what you want, isn’t it?”

The hand around his shoulders fell away. “So it’s like that is it? You’re still sore. Well, let me tell you,” Robbo said, poking him in the chest with his finger, “you had your chance, Mitch. You blew it, big time. So suck it up, princess.”

Mitch sighed. “Robbo, mate, listen a minute.”

“No. Tomorrow Kristelle is marrying me and you are just going to have to learn to live with it.”

“All right, I’ll live with it,” he said, holding up a hand in surrender, when what he would have really liked to do was give his friend a good smack about the head with it and see if that knocked some sense into him.

“Excellent,” the smaller man said, flexing his shoulders like he’d just gone ten rounds and come out a champion. “Mates again then?”

“Yeah, mates,” he said, and reached for another beer.

He was catching up with Robbo’s parents a couple of minutes later when he heard her voice. “Robert, darling, I’m so sorry...”

Mitch stiffened and stood up straight at the bar and he had a sudden insight into why someone had invented the phrase, ‘girding your loins’, because girding was exactly what his loins were doing right now. “Oh, Mitch,” she said, her voice as heavy and sultry as the air, “I didn’t know you’d arrived. How lovely to see you.”

She did all the moving. She practically glided towards him like a ship on the sea. A warship. A destroyer.

She had the capability, that’s for sure. She looked amazing, better maybe than he remembered, with her Nordic good looks and blonde hair swept up, her perfectly tweaked and preened body clad in clever layers of silk that shifted as she walked, revealing a glimpse of leg here, a slice of toned belly there.

And a warning inside his head sounded out. Prepare to repel boarders.

“How are you, Kristelle?”

She smiled and kept right on coming and reached her hands to his shoulders and pressed herself close. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?” She pushed herself high—blow it if he was going to make it easy for her by bending—and pressed her lips to his mouth, lingering there a moment too long. Mitch cleared his throat and reached along the bar for his beer, feeling Robbo’s eyes on him the whole time.

“All ready for the big day?”

She pouted a little as she leaned away, as if she was disappointed with his response, but if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a challenge in her eyes too.

“I am. We are. If only this wretched weather would behave.” Then she frowned a little, checking who was there. “Robert mentioned you were bringing a friend.” She looked delighted when she couldn’t find a likely suspect and the challenge in her eyes became an invitation. Nope, he was right not to trust her an inch. “Did you change your mind?”

He took a swig of his beer. “Nope, she’ll be along. She’s fixing her hair.”

“Mean of you to make her arrive by herself. It’d be daunting to have to turn up to a party all on your own.”

He thought about Scarlett and grinned. “I doubt it.”

In the end Scarlett gave up wrangling with the question of what to do with her hair, and tied it into a simple sideways braid, took a last look in the mirror to check that she looked presentable in the simple little sundress and sandals she’d chosen in deference to the heat and in the hopes of making a good impression for Mitch’s sake, and headed for the bar. She was looking forward to meeting everyone, Kristelle especially. She was probably nothing like Mitch had made out. They’d probably end up being best of friends. Ha, wouldn’t he just hate that!

The bar was as beautifully decked out as the rest of the resort with white clothed tables topped with crystal glasses, and high-backed cane chairs spilling outside onto a wide deck overlooking the beach. It was glorious. Even with the cloud scudded sky and wind whipping at the palms that lined the shore, Scarlett was seriously loving this place.

She spotted Mitch at the bar, tall and gorgeous and her heart did a little lurch thinking back to that episode in the shower and at the fact that he was all hers for the next two days. He was leaning on the bar, talking with a pair of middle aged couples, the parents she presumed, and there was a younger couple, a man shorter than Mitch with the beginnings of a pot and who looked like he spent a lot of time behind a desk—it had to be Robbo—talking to a younger woman with curly dark hair and a nice smile; if that was Kristelle, she was sure they were going to get along just fine. She was just making their way over to greet them when another woman glided into focus. Tall, svelte and cool as an iceberg in the humid air, she said something to the shorter man before she spotted Mitch, and something about the way his jaw set as he straightened told her she’d been wrong. The brunette must be the bridesmaid. This supermodel-slash-ice queen had to be Kristelle.

She watched as Kristelle seemed to float toward him, her dress like a cloud of liquid silk, watched as she floated right up to Mitch and stretched herself up high like a cat upon his chest to kiss him. And lingered.

Scarlett’s blood started to boil.

Nuh-uh, that was so not happening. Not on her watch.

And she looked down at her cotton sundress and simple sandals and headed straight back to the villa. It was time to bring out the heavy artillery.

Mitch checked his watch. They’d be heading for their table soon and there was still no sign of Scarlett. Kristelle was still standing there, talking away, making out like they were best of friends, while the parents had formed their own private collective and Robbo—who had practically warned him off his wife-to-be—was deep in conversation with the bridesmaid. How did that work?

And meanwhile he stuck here getting a blow-by-blow description of the wedding plans, right down to the gazebo and the lily pond and what was on the menu.

Maybe Robbo could hear the conversation and thought there was nothing going on, but it wasn’t about the setting or the arrangements at all. It was about Kristelle being oblivious to his signals to give it up and making pretty eyes, come hither smiles and forever moving a hand there, a gesture here, the flick of a bit of invisible lint from his shirt.

He’d just about had a gut-full of it.

“Hey, sugar.” The voice was right but the accent was wrong, and he looked around, confused. He was more confused by what he saw. He seemed to remember Scarlett had been wearing something else when he’d left because he sure as hell would have remembered if she’d been wearing this. She was dressed, if you could call it that, in a teensy tiny denim skirt with a teensy tiny white tank with fringing and spangles along the neckline. Not that, he noted, it ventured anywhere remotely near her neck. And if he wasn’t mistaken, on her feet were the same pink spangly boots she’d been wearing at Bella’s.

Those boots that had been almost enough to make him hard all by themselves.

Those leave-them-on boots.

His tongue stuck hard to the roof of his mouth.

Had she been packing those boots all along? Words would be said. But later. Right now he was too busy watching, as she sashayed between the tables, her hips swaying like a pendulum, the fringe at her breasts swaying to the opposite beat. It was provocative. It was mesmerizing. And despite the fans working overtime overhead, the heat in the room went up a dozen degrees.

She stopped just shy of him. “I missed you,” she said, and hooked her fingers under his waistband and yanked him close. The other hand snaked around his neck and pulled his head down to her red painted mouth where she damn near sucked out his brain with her hot mouth and clever tongue.

Oh yeah!

When he lifted his head, her eyes twinkled up at him conspiratorially and he made another addition to her impressive skill set. She was the best damned red-headed Rottweiler he’d ever had.

Finally he looked around at the startled group, knowing his lips must be as painted red as hers. “Everyone,” he said, “Meet Scarlett.”

Chapter Seven

Scarlett couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun. The setting was out of this world and the company was fine too, once they’d recovered from the shock, and even if, she noticed, Robbo’s mom did look a bit tense from time to time.

But Scarlett’s accent soon brought the topic of travel to the conversation, with plenty of questions about Montana, and it was surreal to conjure up pictures of snow-covered mountains and crystal clear lakes when she was sitting in a tropical beachfront paradise half a world away. Even more surreal to think she’d be back in Montana in a few short days and this would all be just a memory.

Even though she needed to get home—wanted desperately to get home—her head wasn’t ready to leave this place just yet. Instead she planned to extract every last shred of enjoyment from the experience.

So when the chance came, she let the conversation move on. The long flight to Australia had shown her the world was a far bigger place than just Marietta and Big Sky country. The stories she was hearing now made that world expand even more.

Robbo’s parents fought it out with Kristelle’s parents for the prize of the best trip ever, to which there was no easy winner, before they headed into the territory of worst travel experience.

There was still no winner until Sharon told the story of when she’d been waiting for a train at a quiet station deep within the Arctic Circle, and how the train had grown later and later and how she’d grown colder and madder, until finally, shivering her ass off on a lonely seat in a lonely station, she’d figured out that the trains only ran in the summer, and her train wouldn’t arrive for another three months. Sharon won the contest hands down. Scarlett liked her stories and her easy laugh.

As for Robbo, he just kept smiling benevolently over at her and Mitch as if her presence had made his day. And when the topic of conversation had moved on and one of the parents asked Sharon what she did, it was Robbo who answered, ‘Sharon’s an accountant. We only found out when we were having drinks in the bar before. Can you believe Kristelle never mentioned it?’

Kristelle just rolled her eyes. “Maybe because I never knew. It’s not like we work together. We’re gym friends, aren’t we, Sharon?”

Sharon just smiled weakly and reached for her wine.

“Truly,” Kristelle continued, “It is fabulous our special friends and family could be here to share this happy event, especially given how suddenly this was all arranged. Darling Robert just couldn’t wait a moment longer to tie the knot.”

Robbo raised his eyebrows a little at that but agreed with the sentiments. “Hear hear. And we’re very grateful our parents could all be here with us and that both Sharon and Mitch could be on hand as our bridesmaid and best man. We’re honored to have you all,” he said, raising his glass in a toast to them.

They drank and then Mitch proposed a toast to the happy couple and they drank some more and the mood was fine.

Until Kristelle said, with a laugh as she looked squarely at Mitch. “It is funny, though, isn’t it, that you’re called the best man? When obviously—you’re not.”

Scarlett, who’d been thinking that maybe she’d just been a bit too hard on Kristelle because everyone was getting along so well, and who’d noticed a definite tic in Robbo’s mom’s eye every time the bride-to-be spoke, thought again. “Maybe that just depends,” she said, with a smile as she wound her arm around Mitch’s and laid her head adoringly on his shoulder, “on your point of view. I’m perfectly happy to settle for good ol’ Mitch here.”

“Hey babe,” Mitch said, with a smile, “you’re pretty good yourself.”

“Hear hear!” said Robbo once more applauding, clearly getting into the swing of things. “Well said!”

“How lovely,” said Robbo’s mom, looking relieved, “I wonder if there’ll be another wedding before too long.”

Mitch took Scarlett’s hand between his and looked into her adoring eyes, “Well, there’s no saying what’s in the future for any of us, but if anything does happen between Scarlett and me, you can be sure, as parents of one of my oldest friends, we’d want you there to celebrate with us.”

Robbo’s parents puffed up. “We’d be honored, son,” said Andrew.

“How sweet,” Kristelle said with a smile, while her eyes sent a death stare straight to Scarlett.

Scarlett sent a smile back that was so dripping with sugar, it should have come with its own dentist’s drill.

There was no time to enjoy the moment because right then, sunset arrived, not with a whimper, but a bang, the way it apparently always did in the tropics. One moment the light was bright and hard, dulled only by the grey clouds, then next the sun had slanted and lit a wick that set fire to the sky. The clouds turned orange and the sea turned gold and the restaurant fell silent as every eye was drawn to the spectacle.

And Scarlett, who back home in Montana had witnessed some of the world’s most spectacular sunsets, found one more place where the simple act of the sun setting could rock your world.

“Wow,” she said, clutching Mitch’s hand as the last of the red light faded into black. And on impulse she turned and pressed her lips to his cheek. “Thank you so much for bringing me here,” and he smiled and lifted their joined hands to his mouth and pressed his lips to the back of her hand, and her heart gave a little wobble at what she saw in his eyes.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

She wondered at how easily the line had blurred between acting a part to look convincing and honestly expressing her feelings. Or his.

Their appetizers arrived, and Scarlett found she could breathe again, as various amazing offerings of scallops and pearl meat and more found their owners. Mitch and Scarlett laid claim to the shared mezze plate for two, featuring chorizo, harissa prawns, grilled squid, marinated feta, and olives.

“Plain salad, no dressing?” a waiter asked and Kristelle waved her hand. “Here.”

“This looks amazing,” said Mitch, popping a piece of chorizo into Scarlett’s mouth. “Try this.”

“Mmmmm.” She returned the favor and he took it from her fingers, his tongue licking the slickness clean, and she said “mmmm” all over again and saw the heat flicker in his eyes. Oh boy.

Together they demolished the platter, feeding each other morsel after morsel, and nobody could say that they didn’t make a convincing couple.

And while a newly discovered voice of sense and reason in the back of mind told Scarlett that she really needed to remember this was a role she was playing, it was all too tempting to blot it out and just enjoy this man’s attentions while they lasted. Was it so wrong, she asked herself, to wish that things could be different, that she wasn’t a mere day or two away from leaving here and Mitch forever; that there was something more in his heated looks than mere lust?

Then something touched her thigh and she jumped and figured that maybe the answer to question number two was a definite no. Because beside her, Mitch was busy staring the other way while his fingers were attempting to sneak under the hem of her skirt. “‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

“Finding out if you’re wearing knickers.”

She shied away. “You’ll just have to wait.”

“I can’t!”

She smacked his hand away. “Down boy!”

Across the table Robbo laughed. ‘Mitch getting a little frisky for you over there, Scarlett?”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Honestly, sometimes he’s like a dog with a bone.”

The men snorted, the two mothers didn’t know whether to be shocked or laugh, Sharon sucked her lips between her teeth to stop herself laughing, and Kristelle just looked glummer and glummer. “I’m worried about the weather,” she lamented, looking out at the threatening sky. “What if it gets worse? What if there’s no Staircase to the Moon?”

Robbo turned to his fiancée, his hands upturned. “Then there’s no Staircase to the Moon, Kristelle, It’s not going to be the end of the world. We’ve still got our wedding to look forward to.”

“But it’s supposed to be the Staircase to the Moon. It’s supposed to be magical.”

“It’ll be fine, sweetheart,” soothed her mother, “your father will fix it.”

Rolf spluttered, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. “How, in heaven’s name, am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know, darling,” she said, patting his hand. “But you’ll find a way, I’m sure.”

Scarlett glanced up at Mitch who was way too cowardly to meet her eyes and luckily the entrees arrived and they had more food to concentrate on, the seafood paella for Scarlett, a grilled eye fillet of Kimberley beef for Mitch. Robbo stumped for the lamb shank, and there were a number of fish that gave up their lives in the cause of a very good feed also.

Kristelle, who hadn’t ordered an entree, picked valiantly at her salad. She looked accusingly over at Scarlett’s paella. “Clearly you’re not the one who has to fit into a designer wedding gown tomorrow.”

“No, thank god,” said Scarlett. “Someone pass the garlic bread.”

Mitch was only too happy to comply. “Here you are, sweetlips, we need to keep up your strength.”

Kristelle’s barely-used silverware crashed to the plate.

Robert looked around. “Are you okay?”

“I’m so sorry,” she said with a jagged little laugh. “They must have slipped. Excuse me a moment.” And she rose and left.

They all looked at each other. “Should someone go with her?” Scarlett said.

Sharon was already on her feet. “I’ll check.” She was back inside a minute, her face burning red, her mouth tight. “She said she just wants to be alone a minute or two. She just needed some air.”

“Oh, the excitement’s getting to her,” said her mother. “I remember what it was like before our wedding, Rolf, I was so excited.”

Rolf grunted, deep in remembering, his hand firmly wrapped around a tumbler of scotch.

Scarlett looked at Mitch. He took her hand, clearly thinking along the same lines, that it was a different kind of excitement getting to Kristelle than pre-wedding jitters and that she’d probably had enough of being convinced they were a couple for one night.

“We’ve had a long day. We might call it an early night, if you’ll excuse us.” He dropped a heap of twenties on the table and saw Scarlett eyeing the stack. “Is that enough?” he said for a joke, and she nodded. “Good tip, too.”

Robbo looked disappointed that the party might be breaking up so early. “Mitch,” he said, “before you go, can I have a word?”

“Go ahead you two,” Scarlett said. “I’ll see you back at the villa,” and she bade them all a good night.

“I’m sorry, mate,” Robbo said, when they were far enough away. “I came on a bit strong before.”

“No,” Mitch said. “I shouldn’t have asked you what I did.”

“Well...” Robbo’s head bobbed from side to side. “When it comes down to it, I have been having doubts.”

“About Kristelle?”

“Yeah, that too. And Kristelle’s been so insistent on you being here for the wedding it got me wondering whether she was having second thoughts and I guess you got me at a raw moment. But I can see you’re happy with Scarlett and frankly, I can see why. She’s a top sheila.”

“Yeah. That she is.”

“So, no hard feelings. And I really mean it this time.”

“Sure, no hard feelings.”

He let himself into the villa. “Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, still worried about Robbo. But only until he caught sight of Scarlett in that mini and those boots again.

“Time for bed?” he said, ever hopeful, as he headed for the bathroom to do his teeth.

“I was thinking of a swim in the plunge pool first.”

His eyebrows shot up, his toothbrush barely in his hand, as he remembered all those mermaid pictures he’d thought of before. The plunge pool would do nicely in the interim. Very nicely.

“I’ll just grab my shorts,” he said, about to change his mind and head for the dressing room.

She appeared at the door, wearing only her scarlet hair. “What do you need swim shorts for?”

Good question.

They made love in the pool, slow, slick love until they were too weary of trying to keep their heads above water, and then they moved to the bed, where they made love all over again.

Afterward, as she was lying in the crook of Mitch’s arm watching the lazy rotations of the ceiling fan in the shadowed light, she said, “I think I will send a postcard to Travis. And it’ll say, ‘Having a ball in Broome. Give my love to your wife and kids’.”

“Would you do that?”

“No, tempting though it is. In fact, I actually should thank him. I wouldn’t be here with you in Broome without that little disaster.” She held out her arms toward the ceiling, “Thank you Travis!” she said to the universe. “You asshat.”

Mitch chuckled beside her and she dug him in the ribs. “Hey, you should thank Travis too.”

“Me?”

“Sure. You got what you wanted didn’t you? A Rottweiler to protect you from the clutches of the evil Kristelle.”

Yeah, he had. But it wasn’t Travis he owed thanks to.

Travis might have dropped her in his metaphoric lap, but it was his little sister who’d stopped him from walking away. It was Callie, who’d made him wait long enough to have coffee with Scarlett and make sure she was okay. Callie, who’d given him time to come up with this plan.

Thank you, Callie, he said silently, as he drew Scarlett closer into the crook of his arm.

“You are one hell of a Rottweiler. And there was me thinking you were going to give Kristelle the benefit of the doubt. You came out all guns blazing.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling against his shoulder. “So maybe I had a hunch.”

He sighed and for a moment she thought he was going to sleep, and then he said. “Now I’ve got a hunch.”

“What about?”

“I’m thinking you should talk to Sharon.”

“What about?”

“About her being an accountant.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re good with numbers. When you’re not working out restaurant bills, you’re working on those damned puzzles.”

She shrugged. “They’re just Sudoku.”

“Yeah, but they’re numbers.”

“I thought accountants were supposed to be boring.”

“Does Sharon look boring?”

“No, she looks nice. She is nice. I like her.” She thought about it for a while. “Mitch, do you think I could be an accountant?”

“I don’t know, Scarlett. Like I said, it’s just a hunch. Maybe you should talk to her.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Now go to sleep.”

Scarlett lay there a while, listening to the whisper soft whir of the fan. Accounting. It sounded horrible. But what did she really know about accounting? She’d never met an accountant before. And now she knew two, Robbo and Sharon. But there was a CPA firm in Bozeman near the police department where Tara worked and they had a branch in Marietta. She remembered their signage, Morison and Daume CPA.

And she didn’t have a clue what they did inside that office of theirs, but if it was something to do with numbers, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it was worth thinking about.

Maybe.

The next morning brought good news on the weather front when the weather forecast on the television confirmed what they saw out the windows. The cyclone off shore had blown itself out and winds were easing, the clouds already less threatening, and there was a chance of clearing skies by evening. Mitch flicked off the TV. “Looking good for Staircase to the Moon,” he said, and Scarlett would have been excited, except she’d just checked her phone.

With a sigh she put it down on the side table.

“Nothing?”

“Not a nibble.” She turned in his arms. Sighed again. “You know, I’m beginning to think it’s better if the dress doesn’t sell. I mean, some woman in Marietta took it back because she was abandoned at the altar and then the damn thing offered me no joy either. Maybe it’s a bad luck dress. Maybe I shouldn’t even be trying to sell it because the darned gown is cursed. Why would I want to pass on a dress that’s likely to ruin some poor woman’s life?”

“It’s just a dress, Scarlett. How can it be cursed?”

“I don’t know, but it is, and it’s a sign that it’s not selling. I’m going to take the listing down. I don’t want anyone else to buy it.”

“Okay, so take the listing down.”

“Wouldn’t you do the same?”

“If I happened to have a wedding gown that was cursed and that wouldn’t sell on eBay, you mean?”

“Now you’re just poking fun at me.”

“Not at all. It’s a fair question. I just need to think about it a while, do a thorough assessment of the pros and cons. You can’t be too impulsive about these things.”

She sat up and snatched up a pillow. “Mitch Bannister, you are making fun of me!” and she swiped him with it as he lay on the bed.

“Hey!” he said, “don’t go hitting a bloke when he’s down.”

“So get up and fight like a man.”

And he did, retaliating with his own pillow, and it was on. They went blow for blow on the already tousled bed until he managed to knock her pillow out of her hands and grab her flailing wrists to drop her bodily to the bed. She was panting and laughing while he pinned her there, her gorgeous breasts rising and falling with her chest, her scarlet hair like a crazy tangled crown around her head, and his lungs squeezed tight in his chest.

“You’re beautiful, Scarlett Buck,” he growled, in a voice that felt like gravel, as he gazed down upon perfection, from her crazy scarlet crown all the way past her luscious curves to her provocative red tipped toes. “So crazy beautiful.” And the green eyes that looked up at him glistened like waterholes that were so goddam deep you could drown in them, and god, he was tempted to jump right on in.

But those toes had given him an idea that might save him from saying anything even crazier before all the blood drained from his brain and headed south.

Though it might not save his sanity.

He reared back on his knees.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t help but feel something’s missing,” And he disappeared into the dressing room.

“Like what?” she called behind him.

He came out brandishing a grin and her pink sparkly boots. “These.”

“Now who’s kinky?” she said, reaching for them and pulling them on, before reclining on her side, propping up her head with her hand, the other on her hip. “So, how do I look?”

He looked at her, naked but for those outrageous boots, and with his mouth watering and his cock standing to attention, knew his sanity was a lost cause.

“Like every cowboy’s dream come true.”

She smiled, a slow, wide, knowing smile. “Then what are you doing standing all the way up there, cowboy?”

Yet another good question. He loved how this woman’s thought processes worked.

He launched himself onto the bed, collecting her in his arms and meshing his mouth with hers and tumbling her across the big wide bed until he stopped with her on top. “Hey cowgirl,” he whispered in hot, heavy breaths against her throat, “seeing as you’ve got your boots on and all...”

“Uh-huh?”

“I thought maybe you’d like to go for a ride?”

Thank god, she thought moments later as he lay sheathed and ready to guide her hips down over that long, hard length of his, some decisions didn’t need thinking about.

Some decisions came to you gift-wrapped on a dish.

They made it down to lunch eventually, surprised to find only two of the party at the table. Sharon was laughing and Robbo was grinning and there was no mistaking the way they both sprang back in their chairs at their approach. “Kristelle’s at the spa with her mother,” Robbo explained as they sat down, “and the others took the chance to grab a helicopter to go sightseeing. They’ll be back soon.”

“How is Kristelle today?” asked Scarlett, and couldn’t help but notice the way Sharon’s once warm smile grew tight at the mention of the bride-to-be.

Robbo took a breath, and fiddled with a stray coaster and frowned absently out over the spectacular coastline where the turquoise sea fairly sparkled today. “Nervous. I mean she’s happy about the weather improving, and the improved chances for seeing Staircase to the Moon, and now she’s aiming for achieving Zen-like calm at the spa.”

“Excellent,” said Mitch, “maybe we should talk about the plan for the rings.”

“The rings! They’re in the safe in the villa. How about I give them to you now?”

The men wandered off while Scarlett sat back with a freshly delivered coffee and said to Sharon, “You didn’t fancy going to the spa?”

The other woman shook her head. “To be honest, it’s nice to have a little space. This is all really weird. I’m still not even sure why I’m here.”

“Why? How long have you known Kristelle?”

“See, that’s the thing. I started at a new gym a few months ago, and the first time I went, Kristelle asked me for coffee after. I thought it was a nice gesture. So we had coffee and a chat and it just became a regular thing. But y’know? I don’t think she actually listens to anything anyone else says, if you get my drift.”

“She knew sooo much about your job, right?”

She laughed. “Yeah, exactly. I remember talking about it and then being envious when she said she didn’t have to work. She only did it for the—” She rolled her eyes and raised her fingers to make quote marks in the air—“sense of purpose, apparently.”

“And then just a couple of weeks ago, she told me she was getting married and asked me to be her bridesmaid, because it’s such short notice that nobody else she’d asked could make it. And I thought it was strange that she was asking me, but I had days off owing and it was an all-expenses-paid trip to Broome staying in Cable Beach of all places, and she was in a tough spot and I thought, why not?” She shook her head. “But then I got here and it’s like she can hardly remember anything about me. I’m like an accessory after the fact. And I know it’s bad, but I started wondering if she even has any other friends.” And then she grimaced. “I told you it was weird.”

It was weird. But then Kristelle seemed to be one out of the box.

“Maybe she’s just stressed.”

Sharon nodded. “She’s stressed all right.”

“Maybe the spa treatment will work.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” But Sharon didn’t look like she believed it and Scarlett had to admit, she had good cause.

“So Sharon,” she said, leaning closer, “This might sound strange too, but I’m curious about this accounting thing. Tell me about your job, what do you actually do?”

The men returned a few minutes later and the sightseers returned a little after that, full of all the amazing things they’d seen from the air, and the conversation was lively and lunch was ordered and arrived and was demolished with gusto and the atmosphere was festive.

With two hours to go before the wedding, people were just thinking about making a move to prepare for the ceremony when Alice Svensson bustled nervously up to Robbo’s side. “Robert, Kristelle wants to know where you’ve put the gown.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t put it anywhere.”

Alice blinked and swallowed and tried again. “So where is it?”

This time Robbo twigged. “The dress? You’re looking for the wedding dress?”

“Ye-es.”

“I thought you had it.”

“Oh, god.” Alice peeled away from the table and disappeared and everyone around the table blinked, and that was really all there was time for because it was Kristelle who appeared next; Kristelle in a sundress with her skin glowing and hair all pinned up into an intricate and elegant up-do, and how every bride-to-be would want to look, if it wasn’t for the rabid eyes and her mother hovering anxiously behind.

“Robert, darling,” she said with words that fairly dripped with arsenic, “where is my dress? You know, the one I’m supposed to marry you in. In. Less. Than. Two. Hours. From. Now?”

A sheen of sweat broke out on Robbo’s forehead as the coaster in his fingers shredded. “I don’t know, darling. Where can it be?”

She laughed, if you could call it a laugh. “You seriously mean to tell me that you don’t have it?”

“I thought it was bad luck for me to have anything to do with it before the wedding day. When you weren’t carrying it, I assumed Alice had brought it with her.”

“Aaaaargh!” She turned on her bridesmaid. “Sharon, you should have done something. Why didn’t you think of it?”

Sharon sat bolt upright in her chair. “How? Why?”

“Because you’re supposed to be supporting me. You should have known something was wrong. You should have done something about it.”

“But you came up the day before me. I didn’t know you didn’t have the dress.”

“You could have asked!”

“And you could have realized then and I could have brought it the next day.”

“You’re saying this is my fault? You’re useless!”

“Hey,” said Robbo, “Leave Sharon alone. It’s not her fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“Oh god,” said Rolf across the table, who looked like he’d been visited by the ghost of weddings past, and hailed a passing waiter for a double scotch.

“Calm down,” said her mother nervously hovering behind Cyclone Kristelle, “we’ll get another dress. We’ll go shopping. It’ll be fine.”

Kristelle’s fists clenched at her sides. “We’re in a tiny town at the arse-end of the world and I’m supposed to be getting married in less than two hours. Where am I supposed to find a dress?”

“Actually,” Mitch piped up, and said, before Scarlett could stop him, “Scarlett’s got a dress.”

All heads swiveled her way. “What?”

“You wouldn’t mind if Kristelle borrowed it, would you, Scarlett?”

She shook her head. “I really don’t think...”

“A wedding dress?” all of them said. “You’ve got a wedding dress? Why?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

Kristelle huffed. “This is pointless. Even if she had a dress, it would hardly be suitable for me.”

“I dunno,” said Mitch. “It’s white and frothy and takes up half the wardrobe. What did you say it cost? Two thousand dollars? A Vera Wong or something.”

“Vera Wang,” Scarlett corrected. “But I don’t think—”

Alice gasped, her gaze going from her daughter to Scarlett and back again, mentally sizing them up. “You’ve got a two thousand dollar Vera Wang gown hanging in your closet?”

“Mother, I hardly think—”

“Well think again,” her mother snapped. “Because right now there don’t appear to be too many other options.”

Which was why Kristelle and her mother were standing in their villa two minutes later as Scarlett unzipped the cover on the dress. “Oh my god,” Alice said, her eyes popping out at all that tumbled tulle, as if even she hadn’t believed this might work. “Kristelle, get your clothes off, right now.”

“It gapes,” complained the bride-to-be a few minutes later.

“It’s bound to,” said her mother, who already had the villa’s pre threaded needle kit out and ready to go. “You’re not as well-endowed as our American friend. But apart from that, it’s perfect. Hold still and I’ll fix it.”

A few tiny stitches under the arm, and it was done. And even Kristelle had to admit, she looked amazing. But still...

“Look, I have to warn you, I don’t think it’s a very lucky dress.”

“Oh, you’d do that, wouldn’t you?” Kristelle sniped, “You’d deny me this dress to ruin my wedding day.”

Oh good grief, thought Scarlett. “So go ahead. Take the dress.”

“It’s a dress,” Alice said, matter-of-factly as she helped her daughter climb out of it. “It’s lucky you had it,” she said, securing it back in its protective cover. “I’ll see you back at the villa, Kristelle,” she said, and left with the gown.

“So long as you understand, Kristelle, this dress has bad luck. Two brides and two disappointments.”

“Two?” She blinked, as she climbed back into her own clothes, and then shook the question away. “Well, that’s hardly likely to happen to me,” she said knowingly, “Robert can’t wait to get that ring on my finger. He loves me. Besides, he’d never marry better and he knows it.”

“Lucky Robert.” Try as she might, Scarlett couldn’t keep the snipe from her voice.

Kristelle paused, her hands behind her back at her zipper. “It should have been lucky Mitch, as it happens, but I’ll settle. Meanwhile, we all know Mitch can do a whole lot better than you. And he will, because he’s not going to marry you, you know. If he wouldn’t marry me, he’s hardly going to stoop to marrying trailer trash like you.”

Wow. Nothing like laying it on the line. Had she just lent this woman a wedding gown? Scarlett found a smile from the nether regions of somewhere. “You know, I really wish there was a way to say this nicely, seeing as it’s supposed to be a wedding ’n’ all. But I asked Mitch what you were like before we came, and he told me you were beautiful.

“Turns out he was wrong, as it happens, because you’re stunning. Super-model gorgeous in fact.” Scarlett paused, the look on the other woman’s face telling her she was clearly wondering what her problem was.

“What he didn’t tell me, because he’s too much of a gentleman, is that you’re a complete and utter bitch.”

Kristelle’s face turned as cold and hard as marble. “Trailer trash!” she repeated, as she headed for the door.

“Happy wedding,” Scarlett said. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Chapter Eight

Robbo and Mitch were sharing a last pre-wedding tipple at the bar—one of a series of last pre-wedding tipples—when Mitch looked at his watch and stood up.

“C’mon, mate,” he said. “Gotta get you to the church on time.”

Robbo didn’t move, just sat hunched on his stool looking melancholy. “To be honest, I was kind of hoping she’d call it off.”

Mitch blinked and sat back down again. He was feeling a bit dazed. The events of the past couple of days were spinning around in his brain and after a few drinks it was hard to pin them all down long enough to make sense of them. “Hang on, mate, what are you saying?”

“I thought it was a solution to everything.”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

Robbo screwed up his face. “That’s a hard one. Ask me something else.”

“Do you love her? Do you love Kristelle?”

“Oh, Kristelle. She’s beautiful isn’t she? Like an ice princess or ice goddess or something. Ice. Cold. Something.”

“Mate, do you love her?”

Robbo frowned. “Who?”

“Kristelle!”

“Oh, you still talking about her?” He shook his head. “I dunno. I must. I mean she tells me I do.”

“So you don’t actually love her?”

“I dunno. How do you know when you love someone? I mean, how do you know you love Scarlett?”

Mitch shook his head. “Mate, it’s not like that.”

“Of course, it is. Anyone can see you’re nuts about her.”

“Robbo—”

“And she’s nuts about you. The three blind mice could see that. God, it should be you two tying the knot.”

“Robbo, listen, this isn’t about me. This is about you. You and Kristelle. Because if you don’t love her, why are you marrying her?”

Robbo sighed a long loud sigh of frustration. “Because she wanted to get married and I’m scared to bloody death of her! Why do you think? And because when I said I had doubts about getting married so quickly, she said I was nuts if I didn’t because I’d never do better.” He looked sadly over at his friend. “She was right, wasn’t she? I’m too bloody ugly for someone like her.”

“Jesus mate, has she got you well and truly stitched up.”

Robbo shook his head and drained what was left in his glass. “And then I came here and met Sharon—” he looked at his mate, “Have you met Sharon? She’s an accountant, too.”

Mitch clapped Robbo on the arm. “Yeah, I know. I’ve met Sharon.”

“Yeah?” Robbo grinned. “Isn’t she something else?” He hiccupped and turned his empty glass upside down on the counter. “I need another drink.”

“No you don’t,” said Mitch, signaling to the bartender for two big black mugs of coffee. “What you need right now is a clear head and courage.”

“I’d rather have another drink.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said, “wouldn’t we all?”

The elegant gazebo was the perfect site for an intimate wedding. Surrounded by the lush tropical gardens and verdant lawns, the lily pond below lent an aura of tranquility, as silver and golden fish flashed by the surface and lingered a moment before swimming away, and exotic birds made even more exotic calls from the trees around.

It could have been tranquil too, if the groom and best man weren’t missing in action.

“I’ll go look,” offered Scarlett, when the celebrant looked at his watch for about the seventeenth time.

She found them on their way, dressed formally for the wedding, sure, but looking more than a bit frayed around the edges. She caught Mitch’s arm and caught a whiff of alcohol with it. “Where the hell have you two been?” Although the answer seemed pretty obvious.

“Pondering the question of life, the universe and everything,” Mitch said.

“What?”

“Robbo has to talk to Kristelle. Where is she?”

“She’s with her father waiting to walk down the figurative aisle. Where do you think she is?”

Mitch smiled down at Scarlett in the green dress they’d bought together in Kalgoorlie and with her hair tied into an elegant knot. “Geez, you look beautiful, Scarlett.” And suddenly, in a bolt from the blue, he had the answer to Robbo’s question.

How do you know when you love someone?

You just do.

He blinked as his heart lurched with the enormity of the discovery. He glanced down at his watch. He needed to sit down and work this out a while. “How much time do we have?”

“No time! Are you drunk?”

“Not half as drunk as Robbo.” He looked around for his mate. “Robbo?” But his mate was long gone, already wending his unsteady way along the path towards the gazebo. “Shit!”

They chased after him but he had a decent head start and beat them there. “I can’t do it,” they heard him say to the celebrant and his parents and Kristelle’s mother. “The wedding’s off. Where’s Kristelle? I have to tell her.”

“You’re not marrying her?” said his mother.

“Nope.”

She put her hand to her head. “Oh, thank god for that.”

“Virginia!” Andrew chided, gesturing with his eyes in Alice’s direction, “Not now.”

Virginia put her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Nothing personal, Alice, because I like you and Rolf, I really do. But I have been worried about this whole wedding.”

“Really?” said Robbo. “I wish you’d told me. I wish someone had told me.”

“What is going on?” cried Kristelle, marching down the path toward them in her borrowed Vera Wang gown with her father and bridesmaid chasing after her. Quite a sight.

“Wow, that’s three hundred and fifty dollars’ value right there,” muttered Scarlett and earned herself a pinch on the ass from Mitch for her observation.

“Ah!” Robbo turned. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

“What is happening, Robert? Why are you so late?” And then she came closer and recoiled. “Oh my god. You reek!”

“I can’t marry you, Kristelle.”

“What?”

“I can’t marry you. I don’t love you.”

“What are you saying?” She was blinking wide eyes and smiling brightly and really turning it on. “Of course you love me, Robert.”

“Nope. I love the idea of you, sure, and I love the idea that someone as beautiful as you might want to marry someone as ordinary as me. But I don’t love you. I don’t think I even like you.”

Kristelle’s face turned so hard it looked like it might shatter. “You’re drunk.”

“And you’re an ice... cold…bitch!”

“Oh!” She threw her flowers onto the ground and stomped on them before turning away, about to storm off, before she spotted Scarlett and Mitch on the periphery. “This is all your fault,” she said to Scarlett, tugging at the bodice and ripping her mother’s clever stitches so that it gaped and sagged and looked as sad as she did. “You knew this gown was bad luck, you knew!” And then to Mitch. “And it’s your fault too. You bring this piece of trailer trash to my wedding and look what happens.”

There was an audible hiss as everyone sucked air in and held their breath. Mitch looked at the woman before him, the woman he’d once shared a bed with, and didn’t that knowledge make him feel sick to the gut. “Be grateful you’re a woman,” he said, through a jaw so tightly set it was a wonder the words could squeeze through, “because if you were a man, your face would be wearing my fist right now.”

There were tears spilling from her eyes, her beautiful face twisted and ugly in her anguish. “Don’t you see what she is? Are you blind?”

“Kristelle,” said her mother, gently. “Come on, sweetheart. We should go.”

She looked around, appealing to them all. “Are you all blind? Mitch should be marrying me! Not her!”

Looks were exchanged. Robbo shook his head. Sharon slipped her hand in his and he leaned into her, and his parents bowed their heads and gave silent thanks. The celebrant just sighed and closed his book and quietly drifted away.

“Come,” said Alice and Rolf to their distraught daughter. “Come.”

Mitch whisked Scarlett away from Cable Beach where the fallout and recriminations from the doomed wedding were bound to continue, and took her to Town Beach, on the Roebuck Bay side of Broome. Here there was a market set up with stalls selling food and souvenirs, with jugglers and buskers providing the entertainment, as people gathered in preparation for the famous Staircase to the Moon.

He was glad he hadn’t said anything foolish to her before the wedding. Now he’d had a chance to think about it, he could see it would have been a mistake. Robbo had simply been so taken in by their acting roles, that he’d actually believed they were in love, and in Mitch’s alcohol-assisted brain, he’d almost believed it too.

Lucky he’d sorted that out in time.

Because it would have been the last thing Scarlett would want to hear. She was leaving. Going home to a place half a world away, and possibly as early as tomorrow. And he’d go back to his fly-in, fly-out job and he’d probably forget all about her by the next time he was on leave again.

They wandered around the stalls and ate Indonesian satay and noodles before they found a place on the grass overlooking the bay before things got too crowded. There, as they sat and watched the huge tidal pull suck the bay dry, shrinking it to a tiny rivulet and leaving the muddy flats exposed and glowing under the fading sun, he called his travel agent.

Paying Scarlett in cash was no problem if that was what she wanted, he’d told her, but making a reservation would be quicker and easier on his card, and she’d agreed to that, so long as it didn’t cost more than fifteen hundred dollars, or she’d rather take the cash and work it out herself.

And even as he dialed, he was selfishly hoping there was nothing available at short notice, and she’d have to stay a few more hours, even just overnight, until he himself had to catch the shuttle back to the Kimberleys. Was it too much to ask for one more day and one more night? Just twenty-four hours more with a woman who had turned his world inside out and upside down in the space of just a few short days?

But then it had all been an act from the start. And now the failed wedding was behind them, there was no need to act like a couple any longer. There was no need for them to be together any longer. The agent promised to get back to him as soon as he could.

The sun was setting behind them, painting the sky in vivid oranges and lemons. “It’s beautiful,” Scarlett said, and Mitch agreed, even though he knew the sunset would have looked more spectacular over the sea from Cable Beach.

“Just wait until the moon comes up,” he promised her.

She smiled, but only weakly, before she turned her head away to watch the last of the sunset sky.

He was worried about her. She seemed on edge tonight, as if the failed wedding had knocked the stuffing out of her and even the vibrant market atmosphere couldn’t spark her up. Maybe given Kristelle’s verbal attack, it was no wonder she was flat. Or maybe she was just feeling like she didn’t have to pretend any more. She probably couldn’t wait to get home. At least he’d be able to let her know how long she’d have to wait before a flight out.

Scarlett sat there while Mitch went to refresh their drinks. He was making her flight reservation. He wasn’t even waiting until tomorrow to give her the money he’d promised. He was making her reservation now. All under the pretext it would be better.

Better for whom?

And although the beach was getting crowded, Scarlett felt utterly alone. She watched the darkening sky erase the last of the color from the sunset, and that was exactly how she felt right now: as if all the color was being sucked from her life. Did he really want to erase her from his life that swiftly?

She’d thought they could have one last night before acknowledging it was over. But Mitch paying so much attention to his phone made it feel like he wanted it over now.

And she did want to go home.

She needed to go home.

Although those two things weren’t as closely in sync as they once were.

Because there’d been magic happening here in Broome. Magic in the location, sure, but magic between her and Mitch too.

And while she needed to be home, it didn’t stop her wishing that things could be different.

Mitch returned with their drinks and sat next to her and she was so busy thinking of all the reasons she’d miss him, that she all but missed the collective hush that descended over the crowd that had gathered around the edges of the lawn while they’d been waiting. And then the haunting tones of the native Australian didgeridoo music broke the silence as a glow appeared behind the mudflats and kept growing until a silvery burst of light appeared on the horizon and the audience burst into spontaneous applause.

It was amazing to be there, and even more amazing to have Mitch’s arm wrapped around her shoulders while it happened, to feel his heat and his heartbeat as this disc of a moon slowly rose from the earth and grew and grew.

And she forgot about leaving, she forgot about everything as she watched the moon grow big and fat and finally slip free of the shackles of the earth and launch itself wholly into the sky.

It was breathtaking, like a giant pearl in the low sky, hanging creamy and white, its glow catching on a strip of the damp mud flats below. And that was when the magic really began, for as the moon climbed higher in the night sky, more of the mud flats were caught in the band of light, illuminating them as the big moon rose, creating the illusion of a staircase rising from the earth to the moon.

Mitch had seen the Staircase to the Moon before but he’d never appreciated the sheer wonder of it until he saw it reflected on Scarlett’s face. Her eyes were huge, her lips slightly parted, her breathing faster as if she was moved by the spectacle.

He took her hand and she looked at him, and there were tears swimming in her eyes. “It’s so beautiful,” she said.

And for all the wonder and beauty of this night, nothing, nothing was more beautiful than she was in that moment. He almost let those words slip again, almost said the words that he’d discounted but that wouldn’t go away.

I love you.

“Scarlett,” he said, struggling with the discovery. Because she was leaving. Walking away from his world and rejoining hers, half a planet away. The knowledge almost tore him in two. “You’re the one who’s beautiful,” he said instead, and pressed his lips to hers and cursed the cruel fates that had brought them together, only to fling them apart again.

Together they watched as the moon rose, the staircase growing until, as it had once broken free of the horizon, it also broke free of its more tenuous of link to the earth, and the staircase fell away.

Eventually they wandered back through the market stalls and they found one they hadn’t noticed before selling pearls and exquisite pearl jewelry. “You should have a souvenir to take home,” he said. “Something from Broome.”

She shook her head, even as he saw her eyes fall on one display, of a strand of pearls hung with a single teardrop pearl at its center, with matching teardrop earrings.

“It’s too much!” she protested, when he asked if she’d like them, “you’ve already given me too much,” but eventually she agreed to take the earrings.

His phone buzzed as he’d finished the purchase. He looked at the screen and felt his heart sink. “Good news,” he lied, “we’ve got you ticketed right through to Bozeman leaving tomorrow. You’ll be home in two days.”

“Great,” she said, clutching his gift to her chest.

Their lovemaking was tender that night, and sweet. Mitch took his time because that was all he had now and even that was slipping away and he wanted to remember every single thing he could, every freckle, every taste, every tiny detail, about this woman after she’d walked out of his life forever.

He’d never been a forever kind of guy, but right now the thought of never seeing Scarlett again was killing him and if he didn’t say something it surely would.

“Stay,” he whispered, as their bodies hummed down from the dizzy heights of pleasure. “Even just a little longer. And next leave I can take you to Sydney. Or Uluru. Or Melbourne. There’s so much you haven’t seen. You don’t have to go tomorrow.”

“No, I really do have to go.”

“Just because some jerkball let you down doesn’t mean—“

“No. I never told you why I needed the money so bad, did I?”

“I thought...”

“Yeah, I know what you thought.” She pulled his arm tighter around her. “You see my mom’s sick. I’d barely arrived in Perth and the doctors finally found out the reason for her falls and her shakes. She’s got Early Onset Parkinson’s. And Mom’s still trying to come to grips with that and Tara’s been running her around trying to cover everything and it’s not fair that I’m not there to help out, not to mention that I just want to see her.” She turned her face to him. “I have to go, Mitch, Mom needs me, but I want you to know I’ve had the best time with you, really I have.”

Home. To Marietta and her Mom and her sister.

Scarlett lay on the bed, watching the fan make patterns on the ceiling as the first light of dawn peeked around the curtains. She should be excited. It was what she’d wanted. What she’d set out to do and for once in her mistake-prone life, was going to do.

She should feel proud of herself.

She should feel excited.

Instead she felt empty.

And she knew the reason why.

Because this man had taken her heart and she was leaving here without it.

“Don’t come in,” she said, when they arrived at the airport and the driver opened her door. “Please, just go.”

“Scarlett—”

She held up one hand to him, threw the backpack that the driver had retrieved from the trunk over her shoulder. “No! Really, there’s no need. I hate airports and I hate goodbyes and it’ll just make my mascara run and I’ll look ridiculous and you don’t want me to look ridiculous.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Do I get to kiss you goodbye?”

She reached up, put her lips to his and breathed in his warm breath for the last time before she drew away. “There. Thanks for everything,” she said, and then she had to turn away while she could still see her way into the terminal.

She waited in line feeling utterly miserable, and was never more pleased to get the check-in desk and hand over her documents. All she wanted was to ditch her bag and go hide in a corner somewhere and cry her eyes out.

“You’ve been standing in the wrong line, Ms. Buck. You’re ticketed in business class all the way through to Bozeman, you didn’t have to wait in line.”

“Business class?”

The attendant smiled as she waited for the boarding passes to print out. “All the way.”

“I didn’t know.”

The attendant handed her the passes. “Then you must have someone special looking out for you.”

Mitch. Who’d insisted on buying her tickets for her and who must have planned this the whole time and whom she’d sent away before she could discover his surprise. And she turned towards the windows and mouthed the words she would now never get to say to his face, “I love you, Mitch.”

The cleaners had been through in Mitch’s absence and the villa was clean and sparkling again, the big wide bed put to rights. But the place was empty without Scarlett, devoid of life and laughter and even her scent. His gut clenched, he couldn’t stay here a moment longer. He only had one more night here but he’d ask for another room. This one held too many memories.

He was on his way out when he noticed them in a corner, and for a moment he thought she’d forgotten them. Until he picked them up and inside one spangly pink boot, he found her note.

To Mitch, with thanks from the best Buck you’ll ever have.

All my love,

Scarlett
xx

And he slid down the wall cradling her boots to his chest.

Chapter Nine

Tara came to meet Scarlett, picking her up after one of her shifts. The sisters fell into each other’s arms and there were tears and laughter and Scarlett couldn’t believe that it had only been a few weeks since she had left, because it felt like so much had happened.

“How’s Mom?” she asked, as Tara loaded her bag into her truck and headed for Marietta. “How’s she taking it all?”

“You know Mom.” Tara shook her head. “Drama queen all the way. But it’ll be better now you’re back. She’s been worried about you, of course, so that’ll be one less thing for her to worry about.”

“And her illness? Any news?”

“Seems the same. Doctors said she’s probably had it a while without knowing and it may not progress too quickly if she’s lucky. The drugs should help with that. But she’s worried about losing her job of course. It doesn’t pay for a nail technician to have tremors.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyhow, now that you’re back, we can all be one big happy family again, right? Unless you’ve got other crazy plans you haven’t told me about? Hmm?”

Well, she would think that. And she’d be justified in thinking it too. “Tara.”

The pickup rattled across a railroad track and Tara kept her eyes on the road. “Yeah?”

“I need to apologize. You told me it was a mistake going to Perth to meet Travis. You warned me it would go bad.”

“Hey,” she held up a hand. “You already explained what happened. The guy’s an asshat.”

“Yeah, but I should have listened to you. I should have thought about what I was doing a little more, at least, given myself an escape plan.”

Tara pulled her sunglasses down her nose and peeked over them at her sister. “Is this my madcap sister, Scarlett, talking? What happened to you over there, anyhow?”

Scarlett looked out the window at the view. They’d left Bozeman behind and now the thirty or so miles to Marietta were open farmland, dotted with ranches and colored barns and all set off by the snow topped jagged peaks of the mountains behind. A view so unlike the one she’d left behind.

“I don’t know. I grew up a bit I think. And I met someone.”

“Yeah. Asshat!”

“No. Someone else.”

Her sister looked over at her. “Well? Are you going to tell me or do I have to Taser you to get the truth out of you?”

Scarlett laughed. Tara would never change. “Just a guy who helped me work out what I need to do.”

“Yeah? Sounds serious. Like what.”

She shrugged. “Get a job. Go back to college. Maybe not in that order.”

“What doing?”

“I was thinking about asking that CPA firm if they need anyone. You know, the one across the road from you in Bozeman.”

“Morison and Daume?”

“Yeah, they’ve got an office in Marietta too. I thought it worth a try.”

“You’re going to become a CPA?”

“I thought I’d ask if they had any entry-level positions going, test the water a little.”

Her sister hmphed. “Well, good luck with that.”

Scarlett smiled. She’d thought it crazy at first too. “Thanks.”

“And this guy who helped you work things out. Does he have a name?”

“Mitch.”

“And is he the one who upgraded the fare for those fancy priority baggage tags your bag is wearing?”

Scarlett’s mouth fell open.

“Hey, I’m a cop. I’m supposed to notice things. Anyhow, nobody gets off a plane that fast unless they’re up the point end. So is he?”

“Yeah, that was Mitch too. I kind of did him a favor and he helped me get home. I didn’t expect business class though. That was nice of him.”

“Must have been some kind of favor.” Her sister looked over at her. “You gonna see him again?”

Scarlett breathed in the sweet Montana air and turned her eyes up to the roof of the car to stop the moisture from trickling down. Even if he had felt half way inclined, the news that her mom had a potentially hereditary illness was sure to put any man off. “I don’t see how.”

“Yeah,” said her sensible sister and slapped her twin on the leg. “Well, maybe that’s for the best. You don’t exactly have the best track record with men.”

Ain’t that the truth?

“So how’s Simon?” she asked, before Tara could expound on the rest of her character faults.

“Oh, the same.”

“You guys still entered in The Great Wedding Giveaway?”

“Yep. Simon’s brilliant idea to score a free wedding. Hey, there’s a barn dance coming up in April where they announce the semifinalists. You coming to support your big sister? Mom’ll be there. You can give her a lift there and back.”

“Sure.” So nothing had changed here in Montana then. She was back ten minutes and her sister had her organized. But that felt good too. She was back at home and this was the way things had to be, and so she smiled, even though she was over weddings for a while. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Chapter Ten

“The name’s Mitch Bannister. I’m looking for Tara Buck.”

Everyone in range turned at his voice, the police officer behind the counter cocked his head. “You a friend of Officer Buck, sir?”

“A friend of her sister.”

“I see.” He picked up a phone. “I’ll just see if she’s available.”

Mitch nodded. He sure hoped she was available. He wasn’t certain how he’d find Scarlett otherwise, although come hell or high water he swore he would.

The officer behind the counter put down the phone. “She’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” He gestured to the row of seats along the wall. “Would you like to take a seat?”

“No thanks.” He’d been sitting for far too many hours as it was. Instead he turned and watched the people of the good city of Bozeman go about their business through the windows. A busy place, the street filled with shoppers and workers on their lunch break, the parking spaces along the side of the road filled with pickup trucks and SUVs. And somewhere out there in Montana was Scarlett.

So this was Mitch. Tara’s eyes narrowed as she checked him out. Not bad from the rear. “Mr. Bannister?”

He turned, his eyes narrowing, also, “Tara Buck?” And she had to admit the view from the front was pretty good too.

“I hear you’re looking for my sister.”

“That’s right.”

“She expecting you?”

“No.” He smiled. “I thought I’d surprise her.”

“Long way to come to surprise a woman. What if she doesn’t want to see you?”

“I’ll take my chances. Do you know where I might find her?”

Through the window Tara saw her twin coming back from the deli with the office lunch orders and disappear inside. “Yeah, maybe. You wanna ride?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure, give me a minute.”

She grabbed her hat and some car keys and told her co-workers she’d be back in ten.

He’d barely climbed into the black and white alongside her when she pulled out into the traffic. “So what do you do back in Australia?” she asked.

“I’m a mining engineer at an iron ore mine in the northwest.”

She took a right. “Yeah? That must pay pretty well?”

“Not bad.”

“Not bad? I’ll say if you can pay someone to fly home business class, it’s not bad.”

Mitch smiled. “It’s a long trip. I thought Scarlett could at least do it in comfort.”

“Very decent of you. So long as you’re not expecting anything in return, that is.”

“Like what?”

Another right. “You tell me.”

“Scarlett is safe with me,” he said.

“Yeah,” Tara said, with the indicator on again. They waited at the traffic lights before she made another right. “That’s what they all say. But Scarlett’s come back and she’s all settled down and I don’t want her shaken up again.”

“I appreciate that.”

She looked over at him. “So you’re not planning on shaking her up again, right?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Good. Then we might even end up friends.”

He looked around. The street looked familiar. “I thought you were taking me to Marietta.”

Then he saw the police department directly ahead. She pulled up slightly short of it.

“Why would I take you to Marietta?” said Tara, “when Scarlett works right across the street.”

He looked out his window, searching for a clue. There was an old timber building, done up and with a sign out the front written in western style lettering.

Morison and Daume CPA

And there inside the glass frontage he saw a flash of color and movement.

Scarlett!

Tara got out of the car and leaned against the fender with her arms crossed. “Now you go see my sister, and I’ll wait right here, just in case she’s not all that happy with your little surprise.”

He smiled and said, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Officer Buck.”

Scarlett picked up the ringing phone, “Morison and Daume CPA, can I help you?” She listened a while and then, “just putting you through.” And punched another line before she hung up. Phew. After a week, she had the veritable antique of a switchboard mastered.

The bell above the door rang and she swiveled in her chair ready to give a similar greeting to whoever had just come in. “Welcome to Morison and... Morison and... Mitch?”

“Hi Scarlett. Long time no see.”

She squealed and jumped up from her chair and flew into his waiting arms. Mitch spun her around, their lips locked tight in a kiss that said it had been way too long.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, breathless and blushing, her eyes so big and green and alive.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

He looked around the office. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a job.”

“As an accountant?”

“Yeah. No. Not quite. But I’m learning about the office and I’m going back to college and if I do okay, over the next few months, the firm will let me work part time while I study.”

He smiled. “That’s great Scarlett. That’s really great.”

“I know. And I owe it all to you. But hey, how did you even find me?”

“Your sister showed me where you worked. But only after giving me the third degree on the drive here.”

She frowned. ‘She works right across the street.’

He smiled. “So I discovered.”

She laughed and looked out the window and there was her sister, indeed, right across the street, leaning against her patrol car. She waved to her through the window.

And Tara, watching from across the street, waved back and mouthed, “Go Scarlett,” and went back to work.

“How long are you here?”

“Not long.”

There was a cough behind them, and she turned to see old Mr. Morison sticking his head out of his office. “Everything all right, Ms. Buck?”

“Oh, Mr. Morison, yes sir.” And to Mitch she said, “I have to get back to work. Will you wait for me?”

“Sure, I’ll take a look around town.”

“Oh! And it’s the Barn Dance tonight for The Great Wedding Giveaway. Tara and Simon are entered and they’re announcing the semi-finalists. I’m going with Mom. Will you come with me? You have to come!”

He smiled. It wasn’t quite the way he’d planned the night to go, but he was here and she hadn’t recoiled in horror and maybe this wasn’t such an insane idea. “Sure, it’d be my pleasure.”

The blood in Scarlett’s veins fizzed as she slipped on the emerald green dress Mitch had bought for her in Kalgoorlie. It seemed fitting that she’d chosen it to wear tonight. Fitting that he’d arrived today in time to see her wear it again.

Why had he come? Simply because he’d missed her? She’d counted the days off since she’d come home, counted them in blocks of fourteen days on and seven days off. Felt a pang of hope during that seven days that maybe—but nothing. And then fourteen long days on again.

She’d hardly dared hope this time. But he was here.

Her heart was racing. She checked herself in the mirror, knowing she couldn’t linger. Right now Mom was entertaining Mitch in the front room and she daren’t leave them alone too long. If he thought a grilling from Tara was tough, he hadn’t seen nothing yet.

She was half way out the door before she remembered them, the earrings he’d bought her at the Staircase Markets that last night in Broome. Then, with one final glance in the mirror, she was done.

Mitch stood as she entered the room. “You look beautiful, Scarlett.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself, Mitch.”

Her mom flapped and fussed, as if charged by the crackling electricity in the room, fumbling for her purse and a coat. It was Mitch who took the coat from her shaking hands and slipped it over her black sequined top and leopard skin mini.

“Thank you, Mitch. Now we must get going. They’ll introduce all the couples and we can’t miss Tara and Simon.”

Scarlett let Mitch drive, giving him directions to Samuel T. Emerson’s big cattle ranch and the magnificent old barn, where the dance would be held, and she was glad she wasn’t driving. It meant she could sit back and concentrate on him while her Mom fired question after question.

He looked better than she remembered, and he’d looked damn fine then, and when he looked over at her now, her blood just fizzed some more. He smiled. “What are you looking at?”

“You.”

She was so busy watching him that they missed the turn off to the ranch and had to turn around and go back.

Mitch couldn’t believe the size of it when he drove up. He’d been expecting something like a shearing shed like they used at home for barn dances. But this was no old tin shearing shed. This was enormous. This was the mother of all barns.

Scarlett’s mother was already making a wobbly dash for the entrance when Mitch said, “Tammy—Mrs. Buck—would it be all right if we caught up with you in a moment? I just wanted to have a word with Scarlett.”

“I’ll see you inside,” she said, “I’ll save your seats.”

And Mitch pulled Scarlett around the side of the barn.

“We don’t have long,” Scarlett said, but her eyes were bright and hopeful and he was hopeful too.

“This won’t take long.” He took a breath. “Scarlett, I had to come because I had to tell you something. Something I didn’t have the courage to tell you back in Broome and something I thought I’d get over when I got back to work, but I didn’t, and I kept looking at that note you left me, and I had to come and find out if you felt the same way.”

Her eyes were wide and waiting, her breathing hitched. “Tell me,” she whispered.

“I love you, Scarlett. And I need to know if you could love me too.”

“Oh Mitch!” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh yes, I love you! I’m crazy about you. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Didn’t you know? Couldn’t you tell?”

He was spinning her around, laughing and so filled with joy, there were tears in his eyes. “I was too afraid to hope. I was too wrapped up in my own misery.” His heart was filled to bursting as they kissed, but there was still room for more. There was still more he had to ask.

“I know this is sudden,” he said, “but I don’t have long and I know you’ve probably had a gutful of weddings for a while, but I need to know.” He swallowed. “Scarlett, will you marry me?”

Scarlett stood there, like a deer in the headlights. “You know about my mom, I told you about her sickness. You know there’s a chance...”

“Everything in life is ruled by chance, Scarlett. And maybe there’s a risk of something happening down the track and maybe there isn’t, but I do know that if I don’t take this chance on loving you, then I’m the loser, whatever happens.”

Her eyes filled with tears, she put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Mitch. I love you so much. So yes,” she said nodding. “Yes, of course I will marry you.”

His heart crowed—buckadoodledoo!—and the music started up while they were kissing again and Scarlett said, “We have to go inside.”

“One more thing,” he said. “I don’t have a ring for you, but I do have this.” He pulled a pouch from his pocket and a string of pearls with one single teardrop pearl in the center. The one that matched her earrings.

And as he fixed it around her neck, he let his lips brush her skin, and felt the heated charge that came with being with this woman, and knew that it was right.

“Where’ve you been?” whispered Tammy as they took their seats under the crisscrossing fairy lights strung across the barn as the music wound down, “They’re about to introduce the couples.”

“Mitch asked me to marry him.”

“Oh!” Her mother slapped her hands over her mouth. “And what did you say?”

Scarlett smiled. “I said, yes, of course.”

“Oh my lord!” Tammy said, and at least a half dozen tables turned their way at the commotion. “First Tara and Simon, now you and Mitch. You have made me the proudest mama.”

Scarlett smiled up at Mitch and mouthed, “I love you.”

Epilogue

Miss Scarlett Buck became Mrs. Scarlett Bannister a month later under a warm spring sun on the lush lawns of Marietta’s Bramble House, an 1890’s Queen Anne mansion built on Bramble Lane by one of the founding families of Marietta.

Her aunt Margot gave her away, with Scarlett wearing a gown of organza and tulle with a ruched bodice and long floaty skirt that she’d found at Married in Marietta, though not on the sale rack this time, and not with, Scarlett had made sure, a past. In her hands were the sweetly scented roses that clever Risa Grant from Sweetpea Flowers had formed into a bouquet, and at her throat and on her ears were the pearls that Mitch had given her.

On her finger was the rock he had bought for their official engagement. A one carat Kimberly pink diamond. Nestled right up to the matching wedding band.

Her sister, Tara, looked stunning in her sapphire bridesmaid dress. She and Simon hadn’t semi-finalled that night at the barn dance, and while Simon had seemed disappointed, it hadn’t fazed Tara at all. She’d just blown off the disappointment and gone back to making their wedding plans the way she’d expected to all along.

Tammy was in her element, her blonde hair back combed to within an inch of its existence, her leopard print silk jacket floating over a gold pantsuit.

Afterwards they had cocktail hour on the white balustraded balcony and bride and groom mingled with their guests, both far-flung and local. An intimate wedding by wedding standards, but definitely a good one.

Mitch’s mum was over from Melbourne, loving every minute of it, and loving Scarlett’s mom and Aunt Margot into the deal. This end of town was like her part of Melbourne. She could do leopard print and new age crystals with the best of them.

Robbo had made the trip over too, to be Mitch’s best man, and he’d brought a glowing Sharon along with him. “We’re getting married ourselves,” he admitted after the ceremony, as he pumped Mitch’s arm to congratulate him. “Sometime in spring back home, we’re hoping. And we’d really like it if you could both be there. Um, especially since we’d like you to be best man, Mitch.”

Mitch laughed. “Best man again, huh? Maybe this time I’ll get it right.”

“You just did, sweetheart,” said Scarlett, punching him in the arm, before reaching across to kiss them both, “We’re thrilled for you.”

And even Robbo’s parents had made the trip, just as they’d promised they would.

“A beautiful wedding,” sighed Virginia. “I’m hoping our next has a bit less drama than the last.”

Andrew wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “You know, we had a lucky escape from the daughter-in-law from hell. We’re not sure which of you two we owe the most to, but we just wanted to say thank you.”

It was a small wedding, but it was a great wedding. And after all the meet and greets had been done and dusted, and as soon as there was a break in the traffic, Mitch plucked two glasses of champagne from a tray and took his new bride aside.

He wrapped his arm lovingly around his new wife and planted a kiss on her lips before handing her a glass. “How do you feel, Mrs. Bannister?”

“Special. Loved. Like my life is starting over. Like I’ve been offered a second chance at everything. A second chance at life. A second chance at love.”

“A second chance bride?”

And she looked up at him. “Yeah, but this time, I got it right.”

“That you did,” he said, as he pulled her into his kiss. “That you did.”

The End

Montana Born Brides

The excitement is building in Marietta, Montana, with a series of stories centered around the 100th Anniversary of the Graff Hotel and—as part of the celebration—an incredible Wedding Giveaway.

The Graff Hotel has enlisted the entire town to stage a spectacular 100-year repeat of the Great Wedding Giveaway of 1914. Photographs and posters of the original event inspired a look back to an elegant time. Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States and King George V ruled England. High fashion drawings featured long skirts and elaborate feathered hats. As the dance craze swept the world, everyone was learning the tango… hemlines started to rise and “dance shoes” became popular.

Today’s Great Wedding Giveaway seeks to recapture the style and grace of Marietta’s past and launch a campaign to make Marietta a wedding destination. So couples from all over the country are invited to enter the contest and compete for the works—air fare, bridal gown, flowers, photography, food, the wedding suite at the Graff, a honeymoon, and more.

The stories in the Montana Born Brides series bring you the heart, humor, and charm of Marietta and the people who want to get married there (or not). Some brides are sweet, some are sassy, and all are as unique as Montana snowflakes. Watch for new releases… you won’t want to miss a single one!

Click here to learn about Montana Born Brides releases:

www.MontanaBornBrides.com

If you enjoyed Second Chance Bride, you will also love…

What A Bride Wants

Kelly Hunter

“Yes, I know he’s perfectly presentable and possibly a very nice person. Second-born son from a good ranching family. All good things. It’s just that when he looks at me he sees Emerson Holdings and award-winning bloodlines – money on the hoof. He doesn’t see me.”

Ella Grace Emerson leaned against the walnut desk and watched with fond exasperation as her father paced the length of his study. He stopped and stooped to add another block of wood to the fire that sat snug within the stonework of the study’s western wall. A huge picture window took up most of another wall and in the distance loomed the soaring, snow-clad Crazy Mountains of Montana. The charity dinner they’d just returned from had dragged on late into the evening. They’d been seated at a table of eight that had included Joe Carter and his middle son Max, and the blatant matchmaking efforts of both fathers had been enough to set Ella’s teeth on edge.

Max’s half-baked interest in her good-self had done the rest.

“It was worth a try,” her father argued. “You and Max have similar social status, similar interests. It could have worked well.”

“That’s what you always say. And it never does. Daddy, I am not a cow to be bred. You need to let me find my own man.”

“But you don’t.” Samuel T. Emerson threw up his hands.”

What a bride wants…

Ella Grace Emerson adores her father, but he keeps trying to marry her off to every eligible rancher in Montana. When he puts an ad in the paper on her behalf – for a docile house-husband – Ella retaliates with one of her own, pinned to the noticeboard of the local saloon. No husband required, housebroken or otherwise. What she wants is the perfect lover.

What a bride needs…

Newcomer Cam Sawyer is perfectly willing to tear up the sheets with Ella and be her partner in chaos. She wants a bad boy and he’s had experience aplenty. But what she really needs is a strong and loving partner, and until Sawyer stops running from his past he can never be that.

Sawyer’s the one Ella wants. But can he be the man she needs?

Available Now!

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling Author, Trish Morey has written thirty romances for the internationally bestselling Harlequin Presents line and her stories have been published in more than 25 languages in 40 countries worldwide, including being published in Manga comic book form in Japan, and as Trish Moreyova in the Czech Republic. Trish was awarded Romance Writers of Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year Award (the Ruby) for short, sexy romance In 2006 and again in 2009, as well as being a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Awards in 2012. A qualified Chartered Accountant by trade, Trish was employed as financial manager at a major business school prior to her first sale.

Trish lives with her husband, 4 daughters and assorted menagerie in the beautiful Adelaide Hills.

For more from Trish, visit TrishMorey.com.

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