Princes of the Outback: The Rugged Loner / The Rich Stranger / The Ruthless Groom

“How’s that?”

“No need to toss you for her.”

Tomas frowned. “I don’t follow…”

“Ange is the perfect solution for one of us. If you’re not interested, then I’ll ask her.”

To sleep with him, to have his baby? Tomas was shaking his head before the thought finished forming. “You and Angie? No way.”

“Why not?”

Tomas forced himself to relax. His fingers, he realized, had curled into fists. His gut felt about the same. “What makes you think she’d be interested in helping either one of us out?”

“She has this thing about owing the family. For Mau looking out for her with all the girl stuff and Dad getting her into the fancy boarding school. For keeping her father on the payroll even after he was too sick to work.”

“That’s bullshit.” Not what the Carlisles had done for Joe Mori and his family—that was all true—but the debt thing. “She doesn’t owe us a thing.”

“She thinks she does.”

“You’re not serious. About asking her to…” Tomas couldn’t say the words. They stuck in his throat, all wrong.

“There isn’t anyone I’d rather ask.”

“I thought you didn’t give a damn about your inheritance.”

“I don’t.” Rafe swallowed the rest of his drink, then clamped a hand on Tomas’s shoulder. Their eyes met and held, his brother’s intensely serious for once. “But I know how much you care about yours.”

“You’re not martyring yourself for me.”

“One in, all in. Your words, little brother, and the only way to do this thing. We increase our chance of success and lessen the onus on any one of us. No martyrs here, Tomas, just realists out to get the job done.”

“Not with Angie,” he said tightly.

“Think about it, bro’. She is just about perfect.” And with a last squeeze of his shoulder, Rafe turned and disappeared into the house.

The motionless silhouette of horse and rider etched against the clear blue sky must have been a mirage, because when Angie lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the morning sun, only a single Leichardt pine broke the horizon. She sat forward in the passenger seat and stared harder through the Land Rover’s dusty windscreen.

Right the first time—nothing broke the mile-long line of ridge save that tree. The crazy woman not only let fly with impulsive offers in the midnight dark, but now she’d started seeing things! With a rueful half laugh, she sank back into her seat. And heard the driver clear his throat.

“You all right, mate?”

“Fine,” she assured Jeremy, the stockman who’d been coopted into driving her to the airstrip. “I thought I saw someone up on the ridge is all.”

“Coulda been the boss.”

“Oh?” Angie forced herself to sound casual. “He’s out riding then?”

“Went out at sunup. Coulda been him up there.”

Good to know she wasn’t delusional. Not so good to know that Tomas had ridden out at dawn, was likely somewhere beyond the Barakoolie ridge right now, and therefore stood no chance of arriving at the airstrip before they left for Sydney.

Disappointment spiked, quick and sharp, in her chest. She shook her head. What had she expected? A chance to say goodbye or a last second I’ve-been-thinking-about-what-you-said-last-night turnaround?

Is that what she even wanted?

After a night spent tossing and turning, she’d thought not. Sometime in the hour before dawn she’d managed to talk herself into a rational, sensible acceptance that she had no business offering Tomas anything.

So, okay, she had felt rudderless in the last months, unsure what she wanted to do with her life, where she wanted to live, how she wanted to live. She’d returned to Australia because Charles Carlisle was dying, but now she knew she was home to stay.

But having a baby, even Tomas’s baby…

In perfect synchronicity with her heart and stomach, the Land Rover lurched and bounced through a series of potholes.

“That snuck up on me, mate. Sorry.”

Jeremy, barely seventeen and a hoon at heart, grinned unapologetically without slowing down. In fact, he applied a tad more gas as he swung the vehicle in a wide circle before skidding to a dusty stop alongside the plane. Angie tsked her disapproval although she’d driven in much the same way growing up here.

As she slid down from the cab her gaze skimmed along the empty horizon one last time. She called the resultant hollow sensation deep inside hunger. After all that tossing and turning and self-debating, she had slept eventually. Right through her alarm.

Meaning Rafe had turfed her out of bed with no time for anything but a hasty shower and a quick farewell to Maura and the household staff. Too late to catch a lift when the boys left to perform their pre-flight checks. Too late for breakfast.

She ferreted a fruit bar from her bag and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything less healthy on you?” she asked Jeremy as they walked side by side to the plane.

“Nah. Sorry, mate.”

“Too bad.” While Jeremy stowed her luggage she finished the breakfast substitute, but the hollow feeling in her stomach only intensified. “Do you suppose they’re almost ready for takeoff?”

“Just about.”

For some reason Angie wasn’t. She’d come up north for the funeral, but also to say farewell to her childhood home and her teenage daydreams. Instead she felt…fretful.

As if she were leaving something behind, unfinished.

“See ya later then, Ange.”

With a casual wave, Jeremy started to turn away and ri-

diculous panicky I’m-not-ready-to-leave tears sprang to Angie’s eyes. Before she could stop herself she grabbed hold of the young jackaroo and planted a smacker on his cheek.

So, okay, the kid looked a dozen shades of embarrassed as he sidled away, but she felt better. She even managed a big smile as she called after him, “Look after yourself. And drive carefully.”

Holy cow. She sounded like a mother!

Was that some kind of a sign? Her destiny sneaking up to answer all the unanswered questions of the night?

Smile fading, she let her hand drop away from its cheerful wave as the ute sped off, dust billowing in its wake. She didn’t know if this atypical fragility stemmed from returning home after so long away, the emotional circumstances of her visit, or lack of sleep.

Most likely, all of the above.