Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor: Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor

Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor: Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor
Margaret Way

Teresa Carpenter

CATTLE BARON NEEDS A BRIDE Margaret WayIn the battle for the attention of eligible cattle baron Garrick, there can be only one winner. Zara Rylance was Garrick’s friend, his lover – but that was five years ago, before she flew to the city and out of his life. Now she’s back, and Garrick won’t let her run again!SPARKS FLY WITH MR MAYOR Teresa Carpenter When the town’s women nominate Dani to be mayor, the busy single mum’s first response is no. Then she meets her sexy, arrogant opponent Cole. He knows how to press her buttons, and Dani finds herself saying yes…to the challenge, that is!

In July you met

Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor,

Corin Rylance.

Now read Corin’s sister Zara’s story in:

CATTLE BARON NEEDS A BRIDE

by Margaret Way

THE RYLANCE DYNASTY

The lives & loves of Australia’s most powerful family

Growing up in the spotlight hasn’t been easy, but the two Rylance heirs, Corin and his sister Zara, have come of age and are ready to claim their inheritance.

Though they are privileged, proud and powerful, they are about to discover that there are some things money can’t buy…

…And from cattle ranching to campaigning, the race is on in:

SPARKS FLY WITH MR MAYOR by Teresa Carpenter

But will it end at the podium or…the altar?

Cattle Baron Needs A Bride

BY

Margaret Way

Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor

BY

Teresa Carpenter

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Cattle Baron Needs A Bride

BY

Margaret Way

MARGARET WAY, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatorium-trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing—initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining al fresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft: from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars, and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, and she finds the laid-back village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over one hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

Chapter One

THIRTY minutes out of Brisbane, dark silver-shafted clouds, billowing like an atomic mushroom, began to roll in from the east. A veteran of countless flying hours, he watched in familiar fascination as the pluvial masses began to bank up in spectacular thunder heads that spiralled into the stratosphere. Nature at its awesome best, he thought; unimaginable power that could pick up a light plane, roll it, drop it, strike it with lightning, or miraculously allow it to pass through.

This afternoon’s pyrotechnic show was one he knew he could handle. But spectacular or not, a line of raging thunderstorms wasn’t what he needed right now. He felt a knot of frustration tighten in his chest. Abominable weather inspired trepidation in any pilot but he hadn’t got the luxury of giving into it. The Baron nosed into the dense grey fog. It closed in on all sides like a wet, heavy blanket, swallowing the aircraft up. Streams of tarnished silver shot through with silent lightning like tracer bullets flew past the wings.

He couldn’t accept another disruption to his long journey in stoic silence. He let out a few hearty curses that steadied head and hand, effectively reducing the build-up of tension. As the man behind the controls, he had to remain passive. It was the only way to stay in command. He was an experienced pilot. It was a long time since he had gained his licence—as it happened, immediately he was eligible. His father, Daniel, had been so proud of him, clapping a congratulatory hand on his shoulder.

“You’re a natural, Garrick. You do everything with such ease. I couldn’t be more proud of you, son!”

Surely the answer lay in inherited skills? His father had been his role model for everything. He had taken to flying the same way his father had. Naturally. But he was no fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants pilot. He was meticulous. Flying was the stuff of life for him. It was also the stuff of death. He could never forget that. Not for a moment. There had been far too many light aircraft crashes in the Outback. Yet he loved flying with a passion! The roar down the runway, then lifting up like an eagle into the wild blue yonder with only the clouds for company. The incredible freedom of it! It was marvellously exhilarating and marvellously peaceful at one and the same time. Yet over the years he had flown through countless bad and often frightening situations. One need only consider the perilous weather—far worse than what he was encountering now—over the stifling hot and humid immensity of the Top End savannahs in the middle of the wet season!

His brief moment of frustration over, he found fresh energy, bringing his concentration to bear on winding the plane in and out of a series of down draughts, the sort that always left passengers seriously sick and shaking; there was comfortable seating for four passengers aft. But, for him, there was a weird kind of rush negotiating the thermal traffic. The Beech Baron was a beautiful machine—a symbol of what his pioneering family had attained—from the twin Continental engines to the state-of-the-art avionics. The Baron was religiously maintained to keep it as safe and airworthy as humanly possible. Even so, at one point severe turbulence began to toss the 2500 kilogram aircraft around like a kid’s toy. Mercifully, it cut out before it became a real nuisance.

All in all it had been one hell of a trip. First up, he had agreed to take on a medical emergency flight for a neighbouring station owner who had been without wings for some time. Big financial setbacks were the cause he knew. It was his grandfather, Barton, who had made Rylance Enterprises one of the first pastoral companies to diversify to the extent that Coorango was only one of a number of major income earners. The dicey situation that had faced Garrick on this flight was to land on a sealed Outback road. A road that cut through the middle of the uninhabitable wilds: risky at the best of times, given the width of the road and the danger the kangaroos in the area posed. Kangaroos were easily spooked by noises, never mind the hellish din made by the descending Beech Baron’s engines. Generally they went into a blind panic, hopping all over the road and near vicinity, presenting a range of hazards. Some would plonk down on an airstrip as if overtaken by acute arthritis, turning soft dark glossy eyes that said, don’t hurt me. Kangaroos didn’t do common sense well.

At least there had been no danger of the makeshift airstrip being too short. The bush highway went on into infinity, cutting a straight path through a fiery rust-red landscape densely sown with billowing clumps of spinifex bleached a burnt gold, stunted shrubs with branches like carvings, innumerable dry watercourses that the nomadic Aborigines used as camps and here and there life saving waterholes that gleamed a molten gold in the sunlight.

Sand. Spinifex. Claypans. Such was the Interior.

The station hand, poor guy, had been grey-faced, sweating, in all sorts of agony. Not that to his everlasting credit, he uttered a single word of complaint. At best guess, a gall or kidney stone. The station owner and two of his men had brought the patient by ute to the highway, where they’d loaded him aboard the Beech Baron on a stretcher. It was his self-imposed task to fly the man to the nearest RFD Base. The Royal Flying Doctor Service at that particular point in time was pushed to the limit with an unusually high number of young mothers going into labour and all kinds of serious station injuries, like having a shoulder run through by a bull’s horn for one. Apparently the poor beggar had been pinned to the rail for a good twenty minutes.

His Good Samaritan act had set back his time log. He didn’t think he deserved the barrage of thanks he had received from the grateful group.

“You’re a marvel, you are, Rick, old son!” Scobie, the station owner, a giant of a man with the girth of a beer barrel, had slapped his back in admiration. A lesser man would have lost his balance and toppled to the ground. “Takes one hell of a pilot to land a Beech Baron worth well over a million dollars, dead square at 180ks on a bush highway. Can’t thank you enough, mate. Whitey here had his eyes covered the whole time you were landing!” Scobie looked across at the whipcord-lean stockman, who grinned sheepishly.

“Never seen nuthin’ like it, Mr Rylance!” volunteered Whitey. “Word is, you’re an ace!”

“An ace with a lot of luck, Whitey!”

By the time he reached Brisbane, the storm was over as if it had never been. A brazen brassy sun slanted through the massed cloud display, swiftly dispersing it. The sky was washed a vigorous opal-blue. It was coming on to sunset, the usual tropical glory, but soon after the indigo dusk of the tropics would fall like a curtain. He landed the aircraft as smoothly as any blue crane landing on water, parking it behind a Gulfstream jet. Time would come when he’d get around to buying one outright himself. After flight checks were done, he disembarked from the plane, making his way across the concrete apron to the chauffeur driven limousine waiting to take him to the Rylance riverside mansion.

“Good flight, Mr Rylance?” the chauffeur asked, tipping two fingers to the smart grey cap of his uniform.

“I’ve had better.” He smiled, keeping his hand on his one piece of luggage, a large suitcase which he swung into the boot. He didn’t need the chauffeur to do it for him, for goodness’ sake.

A moment more and they were underway, keeping to pleasant small talk. The purpose of his long journey was to act as best man for his kinsman, Corin, at his wedding in two days’ time. This was to be a great occasion after the extremely traumatic months following the deaths of Dalton Rylance, Corin and Zara’s father, and his glamorous second wife, Leila in a plane crash in China. It was an event that had shocked the nation. Dalton Rylance had been an industrial giant. But life went on and one had no recourse but to go with it. Or go under. Corin was a warrior. He was now to receive his reward, marrying the love of his life, Miranda Thornton.

Garrick had met petite, silver-blonde Miranda at Dalton’s funeral and taken to her immediately. Not only was she enchanting to look at, she was highly intelligent—she planned to become a doctor—so that engaging manner might come in handy at some patient’s bedside. Corin was lucky. And deserved to be. Life hadn’t been easy for him, or Zara either, after the premature death of their mother, the first Mrs Rylance, universally adored by the extended family. Not so the second Mrs Rylance. She certainly hadn’t won his mother’s heart. Garrick’s mother from time to time had a scathing tongue. He had met Leila on isolated family occasions and found her unexpectedly warm and charming. Or at least she had turned on the charm which she had in abundance for him.

“You’re a rich, handsome young man, my darling.” His mother had offered an astringent explanation. “Goes a long way with women like Leila.”

Be that as it may, Leila Rylance had been a stunningly glamorous woman and she had made the arrogant and demanding Dalton happy. So, tragedy all round. Even the super-rich couldn’t escape it.

Dalton Rylance and his father Daniel had been second cousins. His own branch of the family had been sheep and cattle barons since colonial days. His father was a wonderful man, a truly inspirational figure and a hero to his family. Tragically, for the past few years he had lived out his life in a wheel-chair after suffering severe spinal injuries in a riding accident, caused when he went to the assistance of a foolhardy jackeroo on the station.