Breaking Free

“Megan!” a powerful male voice called out to them.

They both turned to see a tall dark-haired man in a cattleman’s hat, his left arm in a sling, striding towards them, three border collies at his heels.

“That’s Tyler. I thought you said you didn’t know him?”

“I called ahead. He’s expecting me.” Megan grinned. “And I guess he recognized Louisa’s Aston Martin.” She laughed. “Louisa claims it’s the Thoroughbred of motor cars.”

“That’s our place,” Heidi said, pointing to a rambling brick house behind which a field of tall dry grasses bent softly in the breeze. In the distance kangaroos grazed under eucalyptus trees fringing a ridge.

Megan slowed the convertible, pleased to finally be getting the hang of changing gears. In spite of its flash she liked the way the car’s manual shift connected her with driving—it made her feel more grounded. Everything about this valley seemed to be changing her in subtle ways, reminding her who she really was. What she liked.

Turning into the driveway, Megan caught a glimpse of a swimming pool at the rear of the house. She pulled to a stop in front of the brick garage. A tire swing hung from the branches of a gnarled deciduous tree, dog toys dotted the front lawn, and someone had carefully tended a lavenderfringed bed of iceberg roses that were peaking with a soft blush of pink. Feminine flowers, thought Megan. “Your mother must have a real green thumb,” she said, opening the driver’s-side door.

Heidi shot her an odd look. “My gran planted those.”

“They’re beautiful.” In fact, there was something genuine about the whole scene. It held a warm sense of family so welcoming and simple that it snagged Megan’s chest forcibly, and she had to stop for a second to analyze why.

Perhaps it was because she’d come to the Hunter Valley looking for her own roots and a sense of her own family, hoping to find it by discovering what had happened between Betty and Louisa. Maybe she even harbored a subliminal desire to bond with her great-aunt herself.

But as Megan climbed out of the convertible, the front door of the house flung open, and she froze.

Storming out of the house, bare-chested, damp tousled hair, bleached jeans slung low at his waist, a hairy mutt at his heels, and daggers in his clear blue eyes was…Detective Sergeant Dylan Hastings.

Her jaw dropped.

“Is that your dad!” she whispered to Heidi. Then it hit her—he’d said he had a fourteen-year-old child.

She’d just given the cop’s daughter a ride home.

This warm family house belonged to the detective trying to nail her aunt for murder, the man who’d declared personal war on the entire Fairchild clan.