Runaway Bride
Runaway Bride
Barbara Hannay
Your sexy ex roars up in a red sports car and offers to sweep you away from the mess you’ve made of your life…Well, wouldn’t you? With her wedding plans in tatters, and the local grapevine ablaze, Bella Shaw is getting out of town and speeding across country with gorgeous, dangerous Damon Cavello.Bella’s been playing it safe for far too long – and now her brooding rebel is back in her life it’s time to go wild!
Praise for Barbara Hannay
‘Barbara Hannay’s name on the cover
is a sure-fire guarantee of a good read.’
—www.cataromance.com
‘Stories rich with emotion and chemistry.
Very layered and lifelike characters …’
—RT Book Reviews
About the Author
About Barbara Hannay
Reading and writing have always been a big part of BARBARA HANNAY’S life. She wrote her first short story at the age of eight for the Brownies’ writer’s badge. It was about a girl who’s devastated when her family has to move from the city to the Australian Outback.
Since then, a love of both city and country lifestyles has been a continuing theme in Barbara’s books and in her life. Although she has mostly lived in cities, now that her family has grown up and she’s a full-time writer she’s enjoying a country lifestyle.
Barbara and her husband live on a misty hillside in Far North Queensland’s Atherton Tableland. When she’s not lost in the world of her stories she’s enjoying farmers’ markets, gardening clubs and writing groups, or preparing for visits from family and friends.
Barbara records her country life in her blog, Barbwired, and her website is www.barbarahannay.com
Also by Barbara Hannay
Bridesmaid Says, ‘I Do!’
Rancher’s Twins: Mum Needed
Molly Cooper’s Dream Date
A Miracle for His Secret Son
Executive: Expecting Tiny Twins
The Cattleman’s Adopted Family
Expecting Miracle Twins
The Bridesmaid’s Baby
Her Cattleman Boss
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Runaway Bride
Barbara Hannay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
THE sports car was very low, very bright and shiny. Very red. It growled to a throbbing halt right in front of Bella, and the driver killed the motor.
‘Morning, Bella.’ His faintly amused gaze dropped to the overnight bag at her feet. ‘Going somewhere?’
Damon Cavello. Again?
Twice in one week was too much.
Damon … with the same wild, dark hair and brooding, bad-boy looks she’d fallen in love with in high school.
No, not now. I can’t deal with this now.
In the last ten years, she’d seen him many times on TV, of course, in a flak jacket reporting from a war zone, or poised precariously above raging floodwaters in South America, playing the ultimate foreign correspondent.
But it was a very different matter seeing him again in the flesh, especially on this morning of all mornings.
Bella felt as if she’d been snap-frozen. She couldn’t have smiled even if she’d wanted to, and she had to swallow before she could speak.
‘Hello, Damon. I’ve come straight from the hotel.’ Last night had been her hen night. ‘I’ve had a call about my grandfather, Paddy.’
She nodded in the direction of the sign for the Greenacres retirement home on the stone wall behind her. Then with businesslike briskness she picked up her bag, dismissing Damon Cavello with a coolness that she hoped matched his. ‘Sorry, I can’t chat. It’s important family business.’
About to hurry inside, she was dismayed to hear the driver’s door opening.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Damon called as he got out.
With the flashy sports car as a backdrop, he should have looked cocky or faintly comic, but he looked neither.
Unfair. He was dressed in a faded black T-shirt and jeans, and in these clothes, with the added advantage of darkly lashed grey eyes and rumpled dark hair, he was as disturbingly sexy as ever.
‘I said I can’t talk, Damon. I have to go. Paddy’s disappeared.’
‘Take it easy, Bella. I can tell you what’s happened.’
Dumbfounded, she gaped at him.
He said, ‘Your grandfather has run away with my grandmother.’
A wave of dizziness threatened Bella. Her knees sagged. She really couldn’t deal with this now.
A mere hour ago her fiancé, Kent, had left her hotel room with her diamond engagement ring in his pocket and a new lightness in his step. Minutes later, she’d received a phone call from Greenacres with the news that her grandfather had apparently disappeared.
She’d assumed the old trickster was simply playing hooky. It had happened before. Any minute now there’d be news that Paddy had been found at the bowls club, or on the banks of Willara Creek, fishing. She’d never dreamed—
‘The Greenacres people rang me an hour ago and I’ve been checking it out,’ Damon said. ‘From all accounts, Paddy and Violet took off from here last night in Violet’s car.’
‘For heaven’s sake. A joy-ride?’
‘I’ve spoken to the fellow who runs the servo on the outskirts of town. He says they woke him up some time past midnight and begged him to fill their tank. They told him it was an emergency and they were heading north.’
‘An emergency?’ She frowned. ‘It’s not a joy-ride, then. How far north?’
‘That’s the burning question. They could be heading anywhere up the coast, possibly all the way to Cairns, and that’s at least two days’ drive. An elderly couple might take longer. The guy at the servo reckons they were on some kind of mission, and they were headed north-east, for the coast road.’
Bella rubbed at her brow as she tried to take this in. ‘But—but that’s crazy. They’re too old to just take off like that. They’re in their eighties, for goodness’ sake. Paddy has a pacemaker.’
‘And Violet has high blood pressure.’
At this she looked up, and without warning, her gaze locked with Damon’s. For a fraught moment, she forgot everything as she reconnected with the silvery grey gorgeous-ness of his eyes.
So many memories …
No. Heavens, no, she mustn’t start remembering now.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she snapped, deliberately shifting her gaze and letting out an audible sigh. ‘It would help if we could ring them, but Paddy doesn’t have a mobile phone. When he moved into Greenacres, he said everyone knew where to find him—he didn’t need a mobile.’
‘It was the same with Violet. Last thing she wanted was her phone going off at the hairdresser’s or in church. If people wanted her, they could wait till she got home.’
‘So … what can we do? Call the police?’
‘I don’t think there’s any need to panic,’ Damon said carefully. ‘Actually, I’ve got it sorted.’
‘How?’
‘I’m going after them.’
‘Oh.’ Bella drew a deep breath, let her gaze travel over the flashy red sports car. ‘In this?’ She raised a critical eyebrow.
He almost smiled. ‘Yes, Bella. In this. And yes, I know it’s a bright red phallic symbol, but it was all the hire car agency in this tinpot town could offer me. And it’s fine. It’s a hell of a lot faster than the car our grandparents are driving.’
Damon turned to leave. Having dutifully informed her, he was clearly in a hurry to get going. ‘I’m glad I saw you, but if I’m going to catch this pair I should hit the road.’
She almost called, ‘Wait!’ This was all happening too quickly—yet another surprise in a very surprising morning. But if she called Damon back, she wasn’t sure what she would say.
As if sensing her dilemma, he looked back at her with a frown. ‘How did you get here? Do you have a car?’
She shook her head. ‘I came straight from the hotel.’ All her friends, including her bridesmaid, Zoe, were back at the hotel sleeping off the hens’ party. ‘I was lucky enough to grab Willara’s one and only taxi.’
‘Let me give you a lift, then.’ He said this politely, but without enthusiasm as if he was as cautious and tense as she was. ‘Are you going back into town?’
‘Actually, I should go to Blue Gums to see my father.’ She had to tell her dad about Paddy’s disappearance, as well as the news that she and Kent were no longer getting married. She wasn’t looking forward to delivering either message.
‘I can drop you off. The farm’s on the way out of town.’
Bella hesitated. Getting into a sports car with Damon Cavello, her high-school sweetheart, was too much like a blast from the past.
It felt ridiculously dangerous—very Red Riding Hood and the wolf.
This man had always been the haunting ‘what if?’ in her life.
But this morning his offer was also her best option. ‘Thanks,’ she said just a little too breathlessly.
She dropped her overnight bag next to his in the boot, and their two bags—her soft leather holdall and his scuffed, heavy-duty canvas duffle—nestled companionably together.
It was an unsettling sight.
Mad with herself for feeling nervous, she slipped into the luxurious leather passenger seat and buckled her seat belt. Damon slid behind the wheel and she caught a teasing whiff of his cologne, spicy, exotic and manly. She wondered where on the planet he’d bought it. Europe? The Middle East? Somewhere in Asia?
So not the way she wanted to be thinking.
She supposed she should think of something to talk about. She knew Damon had gone to Kent’s bucks’ party last night, but if she mentioned that she might find herself having to explain about their wedding cancellation. This was possibly sensible as Damon was a wedding guest, but it all felt too difficult right now. Damon would ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer.
Anyway, he was about to take off up the highway. And fortunately, he wasn’t in a chatty mood. He made no attempt at conversation as they drove down Willara’s main street, which was quieter than ever on this early Sunday morning. Bella couldn’t help wondering if he was battling similar memories to hers.
Against her better judgement, she was picturing him all those years ago as he waited for her on the street corner outside the Willara café, wearing his ripped blue jeans and ratty, faded T-shirt. She was remembering the silver spark that had lit his grey eyes whenever he saw her, and she was feeling the giddy excitement of his lips on hers, the stunning joy of his arms about her, of his lean, tough body held hard against her.
At eighteen, Damon Cavello had been raw and dangerous and addictive. And forbidden.
He’d woken longings in her that had never been soothed.
Shut off the memories. Now. Stop it. But as they turned right, heading out of town, the car picked up speed and Bella’s sense of déjà vu grew stronger, taking her back to another time when she’d driven off in a car with Damon.
It had been a weekend towards the end of his last year of high school. They’d been driving out to the dam to join friends for a barbecue picnic. But at the turn-off, Damon had pulled off the road in the shade of paper-bark trees, and he’d just sat there, staring at the road in front of them.
‘Do you want to keep going?’ he’d asked.
At first, Bella hadn’t understood. ‘Keep going where?’
He’d grinned. ‘I don’t know. As far as we feel like going. Don’t you ever get the urge to just take off and see what’s around the corner?’
The idea had had instant appeal, but Bella’s conscience had troubled her. ‘The others are expecting us at the dam.’
‘It would spoil the fun if we told them what we’re doing. Let them guess.’
His eyes had been sparkling with excitement and a sense of adventure, and her heart had flipped, catching his enthusiasm and loving the way he continually surprised her.
Not that she would give in too easily. ‘I told my parents I’d be spending the day at the dam. I can’t just take off with you.’
‘We’ll be fine. I’ll have you home in plenty of time. Come on, Bell. Let’s have an adventure.’ He’d smiled, his bright gaze holding hers, and of course she’d melted faster than chocolate in a microwave.
‘Kiss me first while I think about it.’ Bella had loved Damon’s kisses, hadn’t been able to get enough of them. Already she’d unbuckled her seat belt and was edging closer, and his lips were soft and sexy and warm.
He was the most amazing kisser. The instant their lips met, the world had become theirs. Their kiss … their mouths touching, their lips pressing, exploring, parting …
The kiss grew hotter and hotter and it took the honking of a horn from a passing truck to drag them apart.
Bella was smiling and more than a little breathless. ‘Okay, you’re on. Let’s hit the road.’
Taking risks had been so easy. Back then.
The memory caused a bittersweet pang to tighten like a lasso around her heart. Without warning, she was swamped by a dark wave of depression.
She told herself it was aftershock, a reaction to the snowballing weirdness of her morning. For the past few weeks she’d been focused on her wedding, on gowns and flowers and reception menus, and she’d known exactly what was happening with the rest of her life. She was going to marry her oldest friend and neighbour, Kent Rigby. She would be a farmer’s wife, living on Willara Downs next door to her father’s farm.
Bella had been so certain of this—okay, yes, so resigned to this—that she’d abandoned her career in Brisbane.
This morning, after the decision to call the wedding off, she’d felt instant relief. Now, however, the relief was fading and she was facing the blankness of her future. No job, no plans. Just a gaping black hole. She felt as if she’d been sleepwalking and had woken to find herself directionless and alone, in the middle of a vast, empty desert.
Seeing Damon again made everything worse, stirring all kinds of dangerous memories. He reminded her of all the exciting things she’d once planned for her life, none of which had eventuated.
She’d played it safe. And where had that left her?
Jobless, partnerless, with no plans and nothing to do.
Even the task of calling off the wedding had been taken on by Kent. He’d insisted on ringing their guests, and he was asking Zoe, her bridesmaid, to help with the caterers and the hire people.
Now, her grandfather was off having some crazy, reckless adventure with Violet, and Damon was chasing after him.
And Bella would be left at home feeling flat and empty, overcome by a sense of anticlimax. Or she would be dealing with endless questions and sympathetic and curious glances from every busybody in the district.
The news of the wedding cancellation would spread like a bushfire. Country towns were notorious gossip machines.
Damon turned off the main road onto the dirt track that led to her father’s dilapidated farmhouse, and Bella sat up straighter, suddenly struck by a dazzlingly brilliant idea. ‘I think I should go, too,’ she said.
Damon frowned. ‘What do you mean? Go where?’
‘I should go to look for Paddy and Violet, as well as you. You can’t stop in every town. I can check out the places you miss. I can get another hire car.’ She pointed towards the sky. ‘With a roof.’
It was the ideal diversion, exactly what she needed. Apart from her genuine concern for their grandparents, the trip offered a perfect excuse to get out of Willara for the next few days.
There was, however, a longish pause before Damon responded. ‘Brilliant idea,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sure your fiancé won’t mind in the least if you go dashing up the highway.’ He sent her a strange, mirthless smile. ‘As long as you’re back in time to marry him on Saturday.’
Bella gulped, remembering the downside to her brilliant idea. She could no longer wriggle out of confessing the truth about the wedding to Damon. ‘You’re right,’ she said nervously. ‘Kent won’t mind.’
‘Bella, don’t be an idiot. Of course he’ll mind. He’ll be frantic. You don’t have time to chase all over Queensland. You’re a bride about to be married.’
‘Actually …’ Deep breath. ‘I’m not.’
To her dismay, Damon slammed on the brakes. They weren’t at the homestead yet, but clearly this news took priority. He turned to her, trapping her in an angry silver glare. ‘I’m sorry.’ Now he spoke very quietly. ‘You’re not making sense.’
Oh, help. It shouldn’t be so hard to tell Damon. He was nothing to her now. He’d been gone for ten years and in that time they’d both changed. So much. Bella couldn’t begin to imagine all the things he must have seen and done since he’d left Australia. They were light-years from the high-school kids who’d fooled around together.
So why did talking to him feel so very different from talking to any of her other old schoolfriends?
‘The wedding,’ she began, and then to her horror a small sound like a hiccup erupted from her throat. ‘It—it’s not happening.’
Damon’s eyes pierced her. ‘What’s going on, Bella?’
She gulped to swallow the huge lump in her throat. ‘Kent and I decided this morning. We’re not getting married.’
Several geological eras seemed to pass before Damon finally reacted. Then he rubbed at his temple as if he had a headache. ‘Did you—ah—say this was a mutual decision?’
‘Yes.’ Bella’s voice was choked. ‘But if you want explanations, I’m not really in the mood to give them right now.’ There was no way she could explain to this man about her and Kent’s lack of sparks.
‘No, of course you don’t have to explain,’ he said. ‘I’m not asking you to.’
That was a relief. She’d been dreading his probing questions—he’d had so much practice as an investigative journalist.
Damon frowned. ‘The last thing you need is this extra worry about your grandfather.’ He was apparently over his shock and back to normal. ‘It’s lousy timing.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ Bella forced a laugh to lighten the tension inside her. ‘You’d think our elders could be more considerate.’
At this, Damon actually smiled, and Bella decided to capitalise on his good humour.
‘So you can see why I’d welcome a project like trying to find Paddy.’
Almost immediately, he was shaking his head.
‘I’m as personally involved as you are, Damon. I’m worried about Paddy, and … to be honest, I’d like a few days’ escape from Willara. You know what the gossip in this town is like.’
‘But it’s such an overkill. Two cars, two lots of petrol and accommodation …’ Damon’s voice trailed off and he drew a sharp breath, as if he’d realised the implications of his words.
Bella had realised it, too.
It might have been unintentional, but he’d more or less suggested that it made sense for them to travel together.
Despite the warm summer’s morning, she shivered. She’d had no intention of joining Damon on a road trip. For all kinds of reasons.
‘It actually makes a crazy kind of sense, doesn’t it?’ he said quietly.
‘What does?’ she asked, playing dumb.
‘That we should travel together.’
Her heart leapt like a wild creature unexpectedly caught in a trap. ‘In this?’
‘You’ve seen for yourself, it’s a perfectly comfortable car.’
‘But I can’t come with you.’
‘Why not?’
His voice was cool and dispassionate, as if he didn’t care one way or the other about her answer. Bella had been about to make another flustered protest, but his coolness made her feel foolish.
Why shouldn’t they travel together?
From a purely practical viewpoint, it made good sense to share the costs and to take turns with the driving. On a personal level, they weren’t about to start anything foolish like a fling. She’d just escaped from making a serious mistake, and she had absolutely no intention of hooking up with a new man, especially this man who’d hurt her once before.
Besides, Damon had changed a great deal from the seductive charmer of his youth. These days, he was the perennial nomad. He’d made an art form out of being a loner. And there was something very closed and shut off about him now.
He was looking at her with a thoughtful frown. ‘I know I can handle Violet when I find her, but, to be honest, I’m not so sure about Paddy.’
It was another valid point. They still didn’t know why Paddy and Violet had taken off in such a rush, and two heads might be better than one when it came to dealing with the outcome when they eventually found their grandparents.
‘I guess it does make sense to go together.’ Bella sent him a nervous smile. ‘But you have to admit it’s a very weird situation.’
‘Mad,’ he agreed. ‘Off the planet.’
Even so, it seemed the decision was made.
‘I’ll have to explain to my father. He doesn’t even know the wedding’s off yet.’
‘Will he be okay without you? I heard he’s not well.’
‘He’s been very ill, actually, but he’s on the mend. And there are people to keep an eye on him. I—I think he’ll be fine.’
Damon started the car up again and they continued on down the track, around the final bend that led to the dilapidated Blue Gums homestead with its rusted roof and peeling paint and unkempt garden.
‘As you can see our place has gone downhill since Mum got sick,’ she said rather unnecessarily.
‘I was very sorry to hear that she died.’
Bella nodded. ‘You sent me a lovely card from Dubrovnik.’ His message had been heartfelt and touching and she’d cried buckets. Now, just thinking about how kind he’d been, she blinked away the sudden threat of tears. ‘I’m sorry. I’d like to invite you in, but although Dad’s a lot better, he’s not quite up to playing host.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll wait in the car.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ She opened the passenger door, and it was then she discovered how shaky her knees were.
Not so surprising, she thought as she headed inside. She could hardly believe the one-eighty degree turn her life had just taken.
CHAPTER TWO
DAMON was grateful for the chance to sit alone in the car while he gathered his thoughts, while he tried, desperately, to come to terms with the craziness of what had just happened.
He still couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to set out on a road trip with Bella Shaw, that he’d actually been the one who suggested they travel together.
He’d been so determined to stay clear of her. Hell.
He’d assumed that he’d grown wiser in the past few years. He’d seen so much—had witnessed terrible atrocities and disasters. He’d been detained at gunpoint more times than he cared to count.
And yet … here in the town where he’d spent his five years of high school … this sleepy little town set in the middle of golden wheat fields and dusty cow paddocks … he’d stumbled on an entirely new set of dangers. Unexpected traps.
Emotional traps … in the form of his sweet, elderly grandmother, Violet, the only member of his family who communicated with him regularly, and the one person in the world he loved unequivocally. And Bella Shaw …
Bella … of the pale silky hair, wide green eyes and lissom, almost waiflike body.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Damon propped his elbow on the car’s door frame and massaged his aching forehead. He willed himself to relax, to absorb the stillness of the countryside, the muffled buzzing of insects and the distant call of a magpie.
He’d spent the past decade in voluntary exile, first as a journalist in Singapore, then Hong Kong, and in more recent years, as a foreign correspondent. He’d been busy, constantly learning, dealing with danger on a daily basis, and he could have sworn that Bella Shaw no longer had a hold on him. She’d been his high-school crush, for heaven’s sake. Nothing more.
He’d liaised with many women since he left this town. Beautiful women. Wise, wicked and worldly women. And he’d found something to admire in all of them.
These days, he was a totally different person from the boy who’d lived here. In high school he’d still been impressionable, trying for the most part to fit in with the local kids, despite the wars at home.
Since then, he’d discovered his true calling as a loner, an observer always on the fringes, never staying in one place for too long. A man with no ties. A man who was no longer brought to his knees by the merest fleeting smile from one particular girl.
He had been so sure it was safe to come back.
It should have been easy. Dead easy. Bella was marrying Kent Rigby.
Those fateful words: ‘I do!’ A gold band on her finger. In one short ceremony Damon could close the door on his past, could free himself of haunting memories. Forever.
What irony.
Instead of burying his past, he’d dragged it with both hands into his present. Bella was still single, and he was going to be in constant contact with her, up close and personal, for an indefinite period.
Damn. Shoving the car door open, Damon jumped out. Hands plunged deep in his pockets, he paced along the narrow dirt track beside the Blue Gums fence line while the shock of the wedding cancellation reverberated through him like a string of explosives.
What had gone wrong with their wedding plans?
There’d been no sign of a problem at the bucks’ party last night. Thud.
The bucks’ party. He felt a slam of guilt like a fist in the guts. He’d been such a jerk, made a damn fool of himself. He’d fronted up to Kent, intending to congratulate the lucky groom, then he’d lost the plot and more or less questioned Kent’s right to marry Bella.
Remembering it now, Damon groaned so loudly he frightened a flock of finches in a nearby tree. What the hell had he been thinking?
He couldn’t blame the drink—that had come later when he’d realised how very unsmart he’d been.
Talk about uncalled for. He hadn’t seen either Kent or Bella in over a decade, and he’d severely stuffed his chances with her back then. He had no right to question Kent.
And yet he’d been unable to quash his doubts. He’d told himself the doubts were crazy. Unreasonable. Kent was a great bloke, an old mate. There could be no doubt that he and Bella were destined as Willara’s golden couple.
Just the same …
Damon couldn’t get his head around the idea. He couldn’t see how Bella would be happy as a farmer’s wife, couldn’t forget the way she used to joke about it.
‘Shoot me now,’ she used to say if anyone suggested she might live in Willara for the rest of her life.
Last night he’d spoken out of turn. This morning, it seemed his doubts had been spot on and he couldn’t deny a glimmer of smug male satisfaction that he was right.
But hell, look where it had landed him.
‘Damon!’
Bella’s voice brought him whirling round. She was standing at the front gate, holding a small bag that probably held spare clothes. She was ready to jump in a car with him, again, although not quite in the same spontaneous way she had all those years ago.
She was wiser now, thank heavens. Wiser and warier. And so was he.
‘Ready when you are,’ she called.
His stomach tightened.
Bella had deliberately changed into her plainest clothes—old and slightly baggy jeans, a sensible, sun-smart, long-sleeved cotton shirt and sneakers. No make-up, just sunscreen and lip gloss.
Her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and shoved inside a peaked cap. Sunglasses finished the picture and she hoped the message was clear: she was a flirtation-free zone.
The embarrassing thing was—it was she who needed to remember this. Not Damon. She knew there was absolutely no risk that he’d start flirting with her. His focus was solely on finding their grandparents.
‘How’s your father?’ he asked when he reached her.
‘Not too bad, thanks.’
‘He coped with the news?’
‘About the wedding? Yes.’
Actually, her dad had taken the news surprisingly well. He’d talked about sparks and chemistry, the kind of fire that had, apparently, kindled his happy marriage to her mum. Bella wondered if he’d guessed that a lack of these sparks had been at the heart of her problem with Kent.
‘He assures me he’s fine now,’ she said. ‘He’s only mildly concerned about Paddy, but he thinks it’s great that we’re going to find them and keep an eye on them. Oh, and he’s hoping to see you when we get back.’
‘Right,’ Damon said with the grim reserve that seemed to have become his default demeanour. ‘Let’s hit the road.’
The sun had climbed high and Bella turned up the collar of her shirt to protect her neck.
‘Are you worried about the sun?’ Damon was blessed with a natural tan, thanks to Italian heritage on his father’s side. He frowned at her. ‘We don’t have to have the top down.’
‘I’m okay for now, thanks.’ Risk of sunburn was not Bella’s first concern today. She was worn out after weeks of tension over the wedding and she welcomed a dose of sunshine and fresh air to blow away the cobwebs.
‘I’m planning to head across the downs to the coast via Kingaroy.’ Damon dropped a folded map into a pocket on the inside of his door. ‘I don’t expect we’ll need this, but I thought I’d play it safe.’
‘That’s not like you.’
He regarded her with a steady, cool gaze. ‘I guess I’ve changed.’ After a beat, ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’ In recent years playing it safe had become a habit. So much so that her life had come to a grinding halt.
But she would worry about reinventing herself once they’d found Paddy and Violet.
‘I brought a photograph of them.’ She reached into her bag. ‘It was taken at Greenacres last Christmas. I’m afraid we were all wearing silly paper hats, but you can see our faces quite well.’
‘Brilliant.’ Damon’s eyes warmed as he looked at the snap of the happy trio linked arm in arm in front of a Christmas tree. ‘It won’t be easy to ask nosy questions without arousing suspicions, but at least this photo proves that you actually know Paddy and Violet. Good thinking.’
Bella was ridiculously pleased by this small spoonful of praise. For heaven’s sake, she had to calm down. Unnerved, she looked away.
Damon was calm and businesslike. ‘I think we’re good to go. The Greenacres people have our numbers, so they’ll ring us if there’s any fresh news.’ And then he started the car.
Almost against her will, Bella found herself watching him. His hands had always been strong and capable and she used to love watching him do ordinary things—anything really—catching a ball, wielding a penknife, changing gears.
The car’s engine purred, she took a deep breath and they moved smoothly forward. Within moments, fields of crops and clumps of bushland flashed past and she turned her attention to the scenery, determined that by the end of this trip she would be an expert on Queensland’s geography. Not the driver.
From the start, Damon tried his best to concentrate on the road ahead and to remain impartial to Bella’s presence beside him.
But she was constantly there in his peripheral vision, and he couldn’t help being aware of her hands, restless in her lap, pale and delicate and city-girl cared for. Her nails were painted silver and every now and then she fiddled with her ring finger, rubbing at the skin where her engagement ring had been.
What was she thinking?
He couldn’t deny he was curious about her mood now that the wedding was off. Was she heartbroken? Relieved? He couldn’t tell.
It was none of his business, of course. He had to get his mind out of that groove. He should try to think of something to talk about, but the only thing they had in common were memories and they were as dangerous to negotiate as a minefield.
‘So how’s your father?’ Bella asked him suddenly.
Damon almost groaned aloud. From his point of view, she couldn’t have chosen a worse conversation opener.
One look at his face and she must have guessed this. Carefully, she asked, ‘Is he still being difficult?’
‘No.’ Damon glared through the windscreen to the road ahead. ‘We just stay well clear of each other.’
He knew that Bella would be recalling the escalating wars he’d had with his policeman dad during the five years he’d been stationed in Willara. The final showdown had led to the cancellation of his eighteenth birthday party, and the end of their high-school romance.
‘You’ve certainly made sure you stayed far enough away,’ she said.
Damon bristled. Talking about his father was guaranteed to make him snappy. ‘I didn’t leave Australia simply to escape.’
‘Didn’t you?’
There was no mistaking the faint criticism in her voice. But Damon wasn’t prepared to admit she was close to the truth, that reporting about other people’s problems had helped him to avoid his own.
‘I wanted to see the world,’ he said. ‘You know—broaden my mind—experience as many different cultures and perspectives as I could.’
‘That does sound very appealing.’
There was a wistful quality to her voice. He turned to catch her expression, but her face was mostly hidden by the brim of her cap and her sunglasses.
He thought how different her past decade had been from his. While he’d been the prodigal son, she’d been the good and dutiful daughter, staying in Queensland and worrying about her parents and their illnesses. Coping with her mother’s death. She’d been very close to her mother.
To make amends for his terseness, he said, ‘This probably sounds clumsy, but I really liked your mother. She was terrific.’
Bella shook her head. ‘That’s not clumsy. It’s nice. I don’t get to hear it very often. Most people avoid talking about Mum. I suppose they’re worried they’ll upset me.’ She turned to him. ‘Mum liked you, Damon.’
‘Until I blotted my copybook.’
‘No. I know it didn’t seem like it at the time, but my mother was a true-blue fan of yours.’ She looked down and rubbed at her finger again. ‘Did you know she’d made you a birthday cake?’
‘For my eighteenth?’
‘Yes, for the party that never happened.’ Almost immediately, Bella groaned. ‘Sorry. Forget I mentioned that.’
‘Mentioned what?’
She looked momentarily puzzled, and then she smiled. Damon smiled, too, and for a heartbeat, it was dangerously almost like old times.
They stopped for a late lunch at a roadside café. Bella wasn’t particularly hungry and only ate half of her toasted sandwiches, but Damon tucked into his hamburger.
On the road again, she felt her eyelids beginning to droop. She’d had very little sleep the night before. She’d tossed and turned after she’d received a late text message from Kent saying that he needed to talk. And then this morning he’d knocked on her hotel-room door at the crack of dawn, and, although she was happy with the outcome, reaching their final decision had been an emotionally draining process.
She yawned loudly.
‘Feel free to sleep,’ Damon told her.
‘Oh, it’s too early. If I sleep now, I’ll never sleep tonight. I think I need to keep talking.’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t know.’ She was too tired for anything serious like politics or current affairs. Problem was, Damon had been her first boyfriend and her head was full of memories of his kisses and caresses, of the exciting journey of sexual discovery that they’d begun together. ‘You could tell me about your girlfriends.’
‘Not much to report there.’
‘Rubbish. I’ve read all about you in a celebrity magazine. You’ve had girlfriends galore.’
She watched him silently, waiting for him to respond.
Instead, he bounced the question back at her. ‘And I suppose you’ve had lots of boyfriends?’
Ouch. She had no intention of telling Damon Cavello about her sadly minimalist relationship history. She sighed, knowing there was one topic she should probably broach. ‘I suppose I should explain about Kent,’ she said. ‘And why we decided not to get married.’
His hands tensed on the steering wheel. ‘Only if you want to.’
‘It’s okay. I think I’d like to explain. After all, you’re Kent’s friend. But it’s actually a rather long story.’
‘We have plenty of time.’
‘Yes.’ She drew a deep, steadying breath. ‘Well … it started when my father got really sick.’
‘You’ve had a rough trot, Bella.’
She nodded. ‘After Mum died, we were all rather lost … Dad, Paddy and I. But your grandmother was wonderful for Paddy. She went out of her way to cheer him up.’
Damon smiled. ‘She has a talent for cheering people up. I’m glad she was able to help. She mentioned that your father was very low.’
‘He was. He started drinking too much. Drowning his sorrows. It was really awful, actually.’
‘You were away, working in Brisbane, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, and I didn’t realise how quickly Dad was going downhill. He was neglecting the farm. He wasn’t paying bills. When I realised how bad things were, I started coming home on weekends, and Kent helped out on the farm. Mending fences. Ploughing. Kent was fabulous, actually.’
Damon slanted her a piercing glance. ‘Is that when the two of you became close?’
‘Yes.’ She looked away, then said carefully, ‘I’m not sure if you ever knew, but Kent’s always looked up to my father. You probably heard that Dad saved Kent from drowning when he was a kid?’ Damon nodded.
‘Kent felt that he owed him a huge debt. He became very worried when Dad started the heavy drinking. Then Dad developed heart failure. He’d been literally drinking himself to death.’
‘And Kent wanted to help.’
‘Yes.’
‘By marrying you?’
The fierce intensity in Damon’s voice made her shiver. ‘More or less.’ She rubbed at her arms. ‘Kent suggested we should get engaged, and suddenly it seemed to be the answer to all my problems. He and I would be living next door to Dad. We could keep an eye on him, get him to AA meetings and help him to run the farm.’
‘And there’d be grandchildren for your father to dote on. A reason for him to go on living.’
Bella drew a sharp breath. ‘That was what we hoped.’
After a beat, Damon said, smoothly, ‘It sounds like a great plan. Dare I ask what went wrong?’
Oh, help. This was the hard part.
There was no way she could explain to this man who set her heart spinning at fifty paces about their lack of chemistry. ‘We—ah—realised that gratitude isn’t a good basis for a happy marriage,’ she said quietly.
Damon’s clever grey eyes narrowed. ‘And it was an amicable decision?’
‘Of course.’
But suddenly she’d had enough. She’d told Damon far more than she’d intended and she didn’t want this clever reporter probing too deeply. ‘This isn’t an interview, Damon. If you don’t mind, I’m done with answering questions.’
With that, she yawned dramatically and closed her eyes.
Damon drove on, and it wasn’t too long before Bella’s head slipped sideways. Her cap fell off revealing the soft, pale gleam of her hair. A strand escaped and fluttered gently like a golden streamer. As her head tipped farther he caught sight of the thick fringe of her eyelashes behind her sunglasses. Yes, she was definitely asleep, and he was flooded by a surge of protectiveness.
He thought about the story she’d just told him. There’d been no sign of self-pity in her voice, but he’d found her tale incredibly sad. Bella, the fun-loving, sexy and adventurous girl he’d known, had been loaded with too many responsibilities and worries.
Reading between the lines … these worries were the reason she’d been prepared to sacrifice herself in a passionless marriage. The thought of Bella trapped by duty enraged him.
But … damn it. This was so not the way he wanted to feel. An emotional reconnection with Bella Shaw was definitely not part of his plan.
He forced his focus to the blue bitumen road stretching ahead, and to the wider, lighter blue of the sky arching above. Purposefully, he inhaled the scents of dry earth and the eucalyptus wafting in on the fresh, clean air.
For him, the allure of an open road had always been strong, and if he weren’t so concerned now about Violet and Paddy he would have absolutely loved this journey. Each bend in the road was a new possibility, a chance for adventure. He was always at his happiest when he was travelling with no clear destination.
At heart, he’d never changed. He was a gypsy, a nomad.
And he was quite sure that, for a nomad like him, it had been a mistake to come home.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Bella woke she was aware of a strange blue-grey light outside. She saw stands of tall pine trees flashing past. And she saw the back of Damon’s dark head.
The back of his head? That didn’t seem right. She blinked and tried to sit up, but she was held down by her seat belt. Her neck was stiff and she realised that her seat had been lowered into the reclining position. And the car had a roof.
When had that happened? She couldn’t remember.
Beneath her cheek, there was something soft and pillowy—a man’s sweater with a faint hint of Damon’s exotic cologne had been rolled up to cushion her head.
She yanked on the lever that raised her seat. ‘What time is it?’
Damon smiled. ‘Hey, there.’
Yawning, she reached for her water bottle and took a few sips. That was better. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked again. ‘Have I been asleep long?’
‘It’s almost five.’ He pointed to the clock on the dashboard.
‘Wow. I’ve been asleep for a couple of hours, then.’
‘More than a couple.’
Sleepily, Bella took another look at their surroundings. There was something about the light that didn’t seem right for five o’clock in the afternoon. It should have been all golden and coppery and sloping in low from the west. She shivered and frowned as a terrible thought struck. ‘Damon, it’s not five o’clock in the morning, is it?’
‘It certainly is.’
‘No! It can’t be.’ Shocked, she sat up straighter, and pulled her jacket more closely around her. Wait a minute. Where had her jacket come from? She turned to Damon. ‘Did you get this jacket out of my bag?’
‘You were getting goose bumps on your arms.’
She rubbed at the stiff spot on her neck. ‘But I can’t have been asleep all night.’
‘You were exhausted, Bella, and you needed to sleep. You’ve had a huge twenty-four hours.’
‘I know. But don’t tell me you’ve been driving all night?’ ‘I felt fine.’
‘Damon, you shouldn’t have. You should have stopped.’
She was beginning to feel quite angry. Guilty, too. They were supposed to share the driving. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t planning to stop?’
‘It wasn’t planned. It just seemed like a good idea to let you sleep and push on.’
‘But we could have stayed in a motel.’
He cocked a questioning eyebrow. ‘Were you anxious to spend the night in a motel?’
‘In separate rooms, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Faint amusement shimmered in his eyes.
Bella could feel her anger rising to the boil. ‘Anyone with any sense knows you have to have adequate rest on a long road trip.’ She should have guessed something like this might happen. Damon Cavello had always been a risk taker.
They rounded a curve and she shot an angry glance at the view of vast plains stretching ahead, soft in the morning light, and dotted with grazing cattle. ‘So, where are we?’
‘Just south of Rockhampton.’
‘Rockhampton? That’s ridiculous, Damon. What’s the point of haring up the highway when we don’t know for sure where Violet and Paddy are? We could have passed them in the night back in Gympie, or Hervey Bay.’
‘I take it you’re not a morning person,’ he said smoothly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Okay, she was being snappy, but she was justified. Damon might think he was bullet proof, but they were supposed to be a team and he should have at least consulted her before deciding to drive all night.
‘I’m fine once I’ve had coffee.’
‘There should be a coffee shop coming up very soon.’
‘I still think I was making a valid point. Let me remind you, you’re not still in a war zone, Mr Cavello.’
‘I had noticed.’
‘That means we don’t need to take the risks you’re so fond of. I don’t fancy finding myself wrapped around a gum tree because you chose to drive all night.’
‘I was fine, Bella.’
‘That’s not the point. From now on, we make joint decisions. If we need to drive all night, I’ll be part of the decision making. I’m not just here for the ride, you know. I’ll do my share of the driving.’ ‘I hear you.’
Annoyed by his quiet, smug responses, Bella threw in her trump card. ‘And. As I said, it’s crazy to race pell-mell up the highway when we don’t know where our grandparents are. We’re supposed to be stopping along the way and making enquiries.’
‘The circumstances have changed.’
Gobsmacked, she stared at him. ‘How?’
‘Brenda Holmes rang from Greenacres. They’ve found a note from Violet.’
Bella’s jaw sagged. ‘You mean I slept through a phone call?’
‘Snored your head off.’
If he weren’t driving she would have hit him. ‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘When I could get a word in edgeways.’
The nerve of him to treat her like a sleeping child and then throw joking insults. Bella was sorely tempted to continue her lecture. But she supposed it would be water off a duck’s back. The man was a law unto himself. Already, she was beginning to regret her rash impulse to join him on this wild chase.
‘So where was this note?’ she asked primly. ‘And why did Brenda Holmes take so long to find it?’
‘It was stuck, or caught, under Violet’s neighbour’s doormat. Violet must have slipped it under the door in the middle of the night. She was probably fumbling around in the dark, and it went under the mat, as well. At any rate no one saw it till last night.’
‘And what did it say?’
‘Not as much as we might have hoped. But it seems there’s been some kind of emergency in Port Douglas, and Paddy was determined that he had to be there straight away. Violet lent him her car and apparently decided she couldn’t let him travel all that way on his own.’
Bella blinked as she assimilated this news. ‘But they might have driven to Brisbane and caught a plane.’
‘I doubt it. The driver at the servo was certain they were definitely heading north.’
‘That’s true, and I’ve just remembered that Paddy’s not supposed to fly. It’s something to do with his heart.’
She let out her breath with a whoosh. She hadn’t dreamed their grandparents were on some kind of mercy dash. It was such a long way for an elderly couple to drive. ‘Port Douglas is even farther north than Cairns.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I decided to keep going.’
‘I wonder what the emergency is.’ She was thinking aloud now, trying to remember if Paddy had talked about Port Douglas. She had a vague feeling he had mentioned it.
‘I think one of Paddy’s mates lives in Port Douglas. I remember Paddy talking about a fellow veteran from the Korean War.’
‘Can you remember his name?’
‘No.’ She sighed. ‘It might come to me, but I’m drawing blanks at the moment. Dad might know. I’ll call him later.’
At least she was feeling wide awake now. ‘You should let me drive, Damon. You must be worn out.’
‘We’ll have breakfast in Rockhampton and then you can take over.’ He shot her a wink. ‘Once you’ve had your coffee.’
At the thought of coffee and food her stomach growled. She’d barely touched her lunch yesterday and she hadn’t eaten dinner. ‘I’m starving.’
‘That’s a good sign.’
His smile was a glimpse of the old Damon. It was the smile she’d fallen in love with.
There weren’t too many eating places open at such an early hour, but they found a roadside café, popular with truckies, where a heavenly smell of coffee greeted them as soon as they pushed open the heavy glass door.
Once they’d placed their orders, Bella went to the bathroom and washed her face, freed her hair from its ponytail and gave it a good brushing. Foolishly, she wished she could leave it down. She felt more attractive and feminine with her hair bouncing about her shoulders.
You’re a flirtation-free zone.
She thought about the way Damon had smiled at her a few minutes ago. There’d been a silver spark of emotion in his grey eyes. And a warmth that had sent tiny thrills rippling all the way from her head to her toes. Once again, she’d found herself thinking about their past, remembering their kisses and the exact feel of his lips touching hers and the way she used to melt.
Stop it.
Hastily, she pulled her hair back beneath the tight elastic band and jammed on her cap. She should be remembering that Damon was trouble. Back in high school, her parents had forbidden her to see him again, and they’d been wise. Soon after, he’d left town and broken her heart.
That was what she should be remembering. She was glad she had that sorted before she returned to their table.
Coffee arrived, hot and delicious, and soon after that a massive plate of bacon and scrambled eggs with slices of hot buttered toast. Normally, Bella would be daunted by such a huge meal. This morning she was ravenous and tucked in hungrily.
So did Damon. In fact they were both so hungry, they barely talked.
But with food inside her, Bella felt more relaxed. As she buttered a second slice of toast she said, ‘I guess you’ve eaten a lot of interesting breakfasts in different parts of the world.’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘Like rancid meat and yak’s milk in Mongolia.’
‘Eeeeuuuwwww. I’m afraid I’d have to stay with less adventurous food like fried rice or crêpes.’
‘There’ve been plenty of those.’ Damon set down his coffee cup. ‘You’d probably love churros and hot chocolate.’
‘That does sound yummy. Where can you eat it for breakfast?’
‘In Spain.’
Bella pictured Damon in Spain, walking down an old cobbled street where pretty señoritas flashed their dark eyes at him. ‘Do you miss Aussie food?’ she asked quickly.
He laughed and shook his head. ‘Violet sends me food packages all the time.’
‘Good old Violet. I’m so relieved we know where they’re heading now, and we don’t have to stop and search along the way.’
‘It’s a relief to know they haven’t gone crazy,’ Damon said quietly.
‘Were you worried about that, too?’
‘I was when I first heard that Vi was missing. It crossed my mind that this might have been the beginnings of dementia.’
‘But Paddy and Violet wouldn’t both get it at the same time.’
‘No, and Violet’s mind’s still razor sharp. She’s managed to keep in regular contact with me even though I’m always on the move. And the other day, she hammered me at a complicated word game.’
This time when Damon smiled, Bella had to look away. They still had a long drive ahead, up the Queensland coast, and she’d be a mess if she kept reacting to him like this.
At least she was confident now that they’d find their grandparents, and everything would be resolved in another day or two.
Then, Damon could look after Violet, and with a little luck Bella would coax Paddy into taking a train trip from Cairns to Brisbane and she’d have him safely back in Willara in no time. Then she’d be free.
Free of marriage plans, free of old boyfriends and hopefully free of family worries. She could work out, then, what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
She wished she felt happier about that. If only she felt free, rather than completely blank, like a deleted page on a computer screen.
Right now, she felt more lost than free.
But heavens … she couldn’t start worrying about her future just yet. For now, she had to try to relax.
As they left the café, Bella was surprised by how much better she felt. She’d had a good night’s sleep, her stomach was full and caffeine was pumping through her veins. She wasn’t even daunted by the sight of their red sports car looking ridiculously small and low as it hunkered between the massive haulage trains in the parking lot.
‘Let’s have the top down this morning,’ she said in a burst of enthusiasm. ‘Or would you like to leave it up while you sleep?’
‘Down’s fine.’ Damon was already pushing the appropriate lever.
Bella settled herself behind the wheel, adjusting the seat and the rear-vision mirror. She turned the ignition and the engine purred with the low throaty growl of a jungle cat.
Cool. Excitement pinged. For the first time in ages, she was looking forward to this adventure.
As they left Rockhampton behind them and headed north along the highway, the morning air was fresh and the sun not yet hot. This was cattle country, smooth and flat, with straight roads and few trees and plenty of visibility. The sky was clear and pale and endless, and a flock of galahs fluttered overhead, their rosy pink breasts a bright contrast to the soft pale grey of their wings.
Bella felt her spirits lift even higher. She put her foot down and the little car leapt in response. This was fun.
‘You should try to catch some sleep,’ she told Damon, but to her annoyance his eyes remained stubbornly open. Didn’t he trust her driving? She pressed the accelerator a little harder, but reluctantly had to ease back when the car shot over the speed limit.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Damon’s smile. No doubt he was amused and she wished he would go to sleep.
In a bid to ignore him, she let her thoughts turn to Kent. She’d fallen asleep last night without ringing to see how he was faring with the aftermath of their break up and it had been too early to ring this morning.
She hoped Kent was okay. At least she knew he wasn’t nursing a broken heart. She felt a bit guilty that she’d escaped the unpleasant job of ringing the wedding guests and the caterers, but he’d insisted that she leave him with the task.
This morning, she was truly relieved that they’d come to their senses in time. In fact, she could now look on her close brush with a serious, life-changing mistake as a useful warning. She would think very carefully before she leapt into any new relationship. She was certainly mega cautious about the man currently sitting beside her.
It was good to have these thoughts sorted, good to recognise that she felt more at peace with herself than she had in weeks.
To her relief, Damon was starting to relax, too. He stretched his legs out as far as the car’s cramped interior would allow, let his head fall back and closed his eyes.
Great. Finally, he trusted her driving, and she felt better than ever.
Bella drew a deep lungful of the fresh air rushing past them. She’d never been this far north before. She took in details of her surroundings and pondered on the lives of the people living in the vast cattle stations that stretched for miles on either side of the highway.
She felt so relieved and light-hearted she might have broken into song if Damon hadn’t been dozing. Instead, she hummed softly under her breath, and she was still humming when she saw the blue-and-white car appear in her rear-vision mirror.
Was that a police car?
Uneasiness lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. Hastily she checked the speedometer. Whoops—just over.
With a guilty grimace, she applied the brakes and hoped she wasn’t in range of the police radar.
She was out of luck. Almost immediately, blue-and-red lights began to flash behind her. Damn.
The police car drew closer, the lights flashing bossily. Bella groaned, ‘Oh, God,’ and unhappily pulled over to the edge of the highway.
Beside her, Damon stirred. ‘What’s up? What’s happening?’
‘Police,’ she muttered miserably. Wasn’t this the story of her life? Every time she tried the tiniest adventure, fate slapped her down.
Damon shot a glance behind and saw the police car pulling up. ‘Were you speeding?’ ‘Not really.’
Bella half expected Damon to swear, but he merely let out a soft, resigned sigh. She felt sick as she heard the crunch of a heavy tread on the bitumen behind them. In the car’s side mirror she saw a tall, blue-uniformed figure. She sat up straight, lifted her chin to a dignified angle.
The policeman was young and puffed with self-importance. ‘Good morning,’ he said in an annoyingly pseudo-friendly voice.
‘Morning, constable,’ Damon answered.
The young policeman ignored his greeting and fixed cool blue eyes on Bella.
She tried to look innocent. ‘I wasn’t speeding, was I?’
The policeman shrugged. ‘Can I see your licence, madam?’
‘Oh? Oh, yes. Sure. It’s in my bag.’
Her bag was at Damon’s feet and their hands collided as they both reached for it. Their gazes met and Damon’s eyes held a silent message of empathy. Then he smiled and winked.
His smile helped, but Bella was flushed and shaking as she handed over her licence. The young policeman frowned officiously and began to jot down her details in his notebook.
Beside her, Damon let out an annoyed huff. ‘How about an explanation, officer? What’s the problem?’
‘I’ll need your licence too, sir.’
Bella was sure Damon would protest this time. After all, he was merely a passenger. To her surprise he said quietly, ‘Yeah. Whatever.’ Then pulled his licence from his wallet and handed it over.
Now she was seriously scared. Why did the policemen want Damon’s licence, as well? This couldn’t be a mere speeding infringement.
Memories of Damon’s reckless reputation flashed through her thoughts. He’d been pretty wild in his teens. He’d even been arrested by his own father when he was eighteen and it had caused a scandal that fired up Willara’s gossips for months. Bella’s parents had listened, and they’d refused to let her see him. Not long after that Damon had left town.
She’d always believed the infamous event was a storm in a teacup, blown out of proportion by small-town rumours, but she had no idea what Damon had done since then. She wasn’t intimate with the details of his past ten years.
The policeman certainly seemed suspicious. Directing a mean, narrow-eyed glare at her, he reached in and snatched the keys from the ignition.
‘Hang on.’ Damon looked at the policeman in surprise. ‘You owe us an explanation, mate. What’s your problem?’
‘You’re the ones with the problem.’ The constable spoke with annoying, self-righteous confidence. ‘I’d like you both to step out of the car. This is a stolen vehicle.’
‘Stolen?’ Bella cried. ‘That’s impossible. It’s a hire car.’
She felt Damon’s hand close over hers, squeezing her fingers gently but firmly. ‘Just do what he says,’ he murmured softly. ‘I’m sure we can sort this out.’
The policeman nodded. ‘You’ll have to come back to the station with me.’
Bella choked on a gasp. This couldn’t be happening. It was a nightmare. She couldn’t breathe.
But she was also as angry as she was scared. She hated the policeman’s tone. Chin high, she challenged him. ‘Can’t we just follow you?’
‘No, Miss Shaw. I’ll arrange a tow truck for this car.’
‘Surely you’re not arresting us?’ asked Damon.
The young policemen almost smiled. ‘If you like, I can arrest you right here on suspicion, or you can come to the station to answer some questions.’
No! This couldn’t be happening!
Horrified, Bella turned to Damon. His lovely grey eyes were dark with sympathy and a deeper, unreadable emotion. She expected him to say something, to do something, to become the risk-taking hero she knew he could be. But he simply gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and then an equally faint shrug.
To her dismay, she knew exactly what he was telling her.
We have no choice. Come on. Let’s co-operate.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRAVELLING down the highway in the back of the police car, Damon was only concerned about Bella. She sat very stiffly with her back straight, her hands tight fists in her lap. Her green eyes were fixed dead ahead, not meeting his, and he knew she was terrified and bewildered. It was more than possible she was also wondering if he really had stolen the car.
He wished he could reassure her, but it wasn’t worth trying to talk within the copper’s hearing. This was probably Bella’s first encounter with the police, whereas he’d been pulled up more times than he cared to remember.
On many of those occasions the police had been nasty or they’d been agents of really nasty regimes, often armed to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons. Too often, they’d looked as if they wanted to shoot him, to take him off somewhere to interview him with electrodes attached.
Damon had learned fast and he knew there was always a system, always someone higher who would make the final call. The trick in these situations was patience. It wasn’t worth provoking or shouting about rights. It was best to hold your tongue, stay firm and confident. Not lose the plot.
He wished he could reassure Bella that on the scale of things Australia was the best place in the world to be riding in the back of a police car. She looked so serious and white-faced, so angry and afraid.
This was beyond awful.
Bella had never been inside a police car and she was fighting a rising tide of panic. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. None of this felt real. It couldn’t be happening, and yet the tiny part of her brain that was still functioning told her this was about as real as it got.
She wished she knew what Damon was thinking. His dark face looked unbelievably calm, and she wanted to believe he was innocent. Now, when the chips were down, she felt her old loyalty to him rushing back. She didn’t want to doubt him, but how could she be sure?
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Barbara Hannay
Your sexy ex roars up in a red sports car and offers to sweep you away from the mess you’ve made of your life…Well, wouldn’t you? With her wedding plans in tatters, and the local grapevine ablaze, Bella Shaw is getting out of town and speeding across country with gorgeous, dangerous Damon Cavello.Bella’s been playing it safe for far too long – and now her brooding rebel is back in her life it’s time to go wild!
Praise for Barbara Hannay
‘Barbara Hannay’s name on the cover
is a sure-fire guarantee of a good read.’
—www.cataromance.com
‘Stories rich with emotion and chemistry.
Very layered and lifelike characters …’
—RT Book Reviews
About the Author
About Barbara Hannay
Reading and writing have always been a big part of BARBARA HANNAY’S life. She wrote her first short story at the age of eight for the Brownies’ writer’s badge. It was about a girl who’s devastated when her family has to move from the city to the Australian Outback.
Since then, a love of both city and country lifestyles has been a continuing theme in Barbara’s books and in her life. Although she has mostly lived in cities, now that her family has grown up and she’s a full-time writer she’s enjoying a country lifestyle.
Barbara and her husband live on a misty hillside in Far North Queensland’s Atherton Tableland. When she’s not lost in the world of her stories she’s enjoying farmers’ markets, gardening clubs and writing groups, or preparing for visits from family and friends.
Barbara records her country life in her blog, Barbwired, and her website is www.barbarahannay.com
Also by Barbara Hannay
Bridesmaid Says, ‘I Do!’
Rancher’s Twins: Mum Needed
Molly Cooper’s Dream Date
A Miracle for His Secret Son
Executive: Expecting Tiny Twins
The Cattleman’s Adopted Family
Expecting Miracle Twins
The Bridesmaid’s Baby
Her Cattleman Boss
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Runaway Bride
Barbara Hannay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
THE sports car was very low, very bright and shiny. Very red. It growled to a throbbing halt right in front of Bella, and the driver killed the motor.
‘Morning, Bella.’ His faintly amused gaze dropped to the overnight bag at her feet. ‘Going somewhere?’
Damon Cavello. Again?
Twice in one week was too much.
Damon … with the same wild, dark hair and brooding, bad-boy looks she’d fallen in love with in high school.
No, not now. I can’t deal with this now.
In the last ten years, she’d seen him many times on TV, of course, in a flak jacket reporting from a war zone, or poised precariously above raging floodwaters in South America, playing the ultimate foreign correspondent.
But it was a very different matter seeing him again in the flesh, especially on this morning of all mornings.
Bella felt as if she’d been snap-frozen. She couldn’t have smiled even if she’d wanted to, and she had to swallow before she could speak.
‘Hello, Damon. I’ve come straight from the hotel.’ Last night had been her hen night. ‘I’ve had a call about my grandfather, Paddy.’
She nodded in the direction of the sign for the Greenacres retirement home on the stone wall behind her. Then with businesslike briskness she picked up her bag, dismissing Damon Cavello with a coolness that she hoped matched his. ‘Sorry, I can’t chat. It’s important family business.’
About to hurry inside, she was dismayed to hear the driver’s door opening.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Damon called as he got out.
With the flashy sports car as a backdrop, he should have looked cocky or faintly comic, but he looked neither.
Unfair. He was dressed in a faded black T-shirt and jeans, and in these clothes, with the added advantage of darkly lashed grey eyes and rumpled dark hair, he was as disturbingly sexy as ever.
‘I said I can’t talk, Damon. I have to go. Paddy’s disappeared.’
‘Take it easy, Bella. I can tell you what’s happened.’
Dumbfounded, she gaped at him.
He said, ‘Your grandfather has run away with my grandmother.’
A wave of dizziness threatened Bella. Her knees sagged. She really couldn’t deal with this now.
A mere hour ago her fiancé, Kent, had left her hotel room with her diamond engagement ring in his pocket and a new lightness in his step. Minutes later, she’d received a phone call from Greenacres with the news that her grandfather had apparently disappeared.
She’d assumed the old trickster was simply playing hooky. It had happened before. Any minute now there’d be news that Paddy had been found at the bowls club, or on the banks of Willara Creek, fishing. She’d never dreamed—
‘The Greenacres people rang me an hour ago and I’ve been checking it out,’ Damon said. ‘From all accounts, Paddy and Violet took off from here last night in Violet’s car.’
‘For heaven’s sake. A joy-ride?’
‘I’ve spoken to the fellow who runs the servo on the outskirts of town. He says they woke him up some time past midnight and begged him to fill their tank. They told him it was an emergency and they were heading north.’
‘An emergency?’ She frowned. ‘It’s not a joy-ride, then. How far north?’
‘That’s the burning question. They could be heading anywhere up the coast, possibly all the way to Cairns, and that’s at least two days’ drive. An elderly couple might take longer. The guy at the servo reckons they were on some kind of mission, and they were headed north-east, for the coast road.’
Bella rubbed at her brow as she tried to take this in. ‘But—but that’s crazy. They’re too old to just take off like that. They’re in their eighties, for goodness’ sake. Paddy has a pacemaker.’
‘And Violet has high blood pressure.’
At this she looked up, and without warning, her gaze locked with Damon’s. For a fraught moment, she forgot everything as she reconnected with the silvery grey gorgeous-ness of his eyes.
So many memories …
No. Heavens, no, she mustn’t start remembering now.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she snapped, deliberately shifting her gaze and letting out an audible sigh. ‘It would help if we could ring them, but Paddy doesn’t have a mobile phone. When he moved into Greenacres, he said everyone knew where to find him—he didn’t need a mobile.’
‘It was the same with Violet. Last thing she wanted was her phone going off at the hairdresser’s or in church. If people wanted her, they could wait till she got home.’
‘So … what can we do? Call the police?’
‘I don’t think there’s any need to panic,’ Damon said carefully. ‘Actually, I’ve got it sorted.’
‘How?’
‘I’m going after them.’
‘Oh.’ Bella drew a deep breath, let her gaze travel over the flashy red sports car. ‘In this?’ She raised a critical eyebrow.
He almost smiled. ‘Yes, Bella. In this. And yes, I know it’s a bright red phallic symbol, but it was all the hire car agency in this tinpot town could offer me. And it’s fine. It’s a hell of a lot faster than the car our grandparents are driving.’
Damon turned to leave. Having dutifully informed her, he was clearly in a hurry to get going. ‘I’m glad I saw you, but if I’m going to catch this pair I should hit the road.’
She almost called, ‘Wait!’ This was all happening too quickly—yet another surprise in a very surprising morning. But if she called Damon back, she wasn’t sure what she would say.
As if sensing her dilemma, he looked back at her with a frown. ‘How did you get here? Do you have a car?’
She shook her head. ‘I came straight from the hotel.’ All her friends, including her bridesmaid, Zoe, were back at the hotel sleeping off the hens’ party. ‘I was lucky enough to grab Willara’s one and only taxi.’
‘Let me give you a lift, then.’ He said this politely, but without enthusiasm as if he was as cautious and tense as she was. ‘Are you going back into town?’
‘Actually, I should go to Blue Gums to see my father.’ She had to tell her dad about Paddy’s disappearance, as well as the news that she and Kent were no longer getting married. She wasn’t looking forward to delivering either message.
‘I can drop you off. The farm’s on the way out of town.’
Bella hesitated. Getting into a sports car with Damon Cavello, her high-school sweetheart, was too much like a blast from the past.
It felt ridiculously dangerous—very Red Riding Hood and the wolf.
This man had always been the haunting ‘what if?’ in her life.
But this morning his offer was also her best option. ‘Thanks,’ she said just a little too breathlessly.
She dropped her overnight bag next to his in the boot, and their two bags—her soft leather holdall and his scuffed, heavy-duty canvas duffle—nestled companionably together.
It was an unsettling sight.
Mad with herself for feeling nervous, she slipped into the luxurious leather passenger seat and buckled her seat belt. Damon slid behind the wheel and she caught a teasing whiff of his cologne, spicy, exotic and manly. She wondered where on the planet he’d bought it. Europe? The Middle East? Somewhere in Asia?
So not the way she wanted to be thinking.
She supposed she should think of something to talk about. She knew Damon had gone to Kent’s bucks’ party last night, but if she mentioned that she might find herself having to explain about their wedding cancellation. This was possibly sensible as Damon was a wedding guest, but it all felt too difficult right now. Damon would ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer.
Anyway, he was about to take off up the highway. And fortunately, he wasn’t in a chatty mood. He made no attempt at conversation as they drove down Willara’s main street, which was quieter than ever on this early Sunday morning. Bella couldn’t help wondering if he was battling similar memories to hers.
Against her better judgement, she was picturing him all those years ago as he waited for her on the street corner outside the Willara café, wearing his ripped blue jeans and ratty, faded T-shirt. She was remembering the silver spark that had lit his grey eyes whenever he saw her, and she was feeling the giddy excitement of his lips on hers, the stunning joy of his arms about her, of his lean, tough body held hard against her.
At eighteen, Damon Cavello had been raw and dangerous and addictive. And forbidden.
He’d woken longings in her that had never been soothed.
Shut off the memories. Now. Stop it. But as they turned right, heading out of town, the car picked up speed and Bella’s sense of déjà vu grew stronger, taking her back to another time when she’d driven off in a car with Damon.
It had been a weekend towards the end of his last year of high school. They’d been driving out to the dam to join friends for a barbecue picnic. But at the turn-off, Damon had pulled off the road in the shade of paper-bark trees, and he’d just sat there, staring at the road in front of them.
‘Do you want to keep going?’ he’d asked.
At first, Bella hadn’t understood. ‘Keep going where?’
He’d grinned. ‘I don’t know. As far as we feel like going. Don’t you ever get the urge to just take off and see what’s around the corner?’
The idea had had instant appeal, but Bella’s conscience had troubled her. ‘The others are expecting us at the dam.’
‘It would spoil the fun if we told them what we’re doing. Let them guess.’
His eyes had been sparkling with excitement and a sense of adventure, and her heart had flipped, catching his enthusiasm and loving the way he continually surprised her.
Not that she would give in too easily. ‘I told my parents I’d be spending the day at the dam. I can’t just take off with you.’
‘We’ll be fine. I’ll have you home in plenty of time. Come on, Bell. Let’s have an adventure.’ He’d smiled, his bright gaze holding hers, and of course she’d melted faster than chocolate in a microwave.
‘Kiss me first while I think about it.’ Bella had loved Damon’s kisses, hadn’t been able to get enough of them. Already she’d unbuckled her seat belt and was edging closer, and his lips were soft and sexy and warm.
He was the most amazing kisser. The instant their lips met, the world had become theirs. Their kiss … their mouths touching, their lips pressing, exploring, parting …
The kiss grew hotter and hotter and it took the honking of a horn from a passing truck to drag them apart.
Bella was smiling and more than a little breathless. ‘Okay, you’re on. Let’s hit the road.’
Taking risks had been so easy. Back then.
The memory caused a bittersweet pang to tighten like a lasso around her heart. Without warning, she was swamped by a dark wave of depression.
She told herself it was aftershock, a reaction to the snowballing weirdness of her morning. For the past few weeks she’d been focused on her wedding, on gowns and flowers and reception menus, and she’d known exactly what was happening with the rest of her life. She was going to marry her oldest friend and neighbour, Kent Rigby. She would be a farmer’s wife, living on Willara Downs next door to her father’s farm.
Bella had been so certain of this—okay, yes, so resigned to this—that she’d abandoned her career in Brisbane.
This morning, after the decision to call the wedding off, she’d felt instant relief. Now, however, the relief was fading and she was facing the blankness of her future. No job, no plans. Just a gaping black hole. She felt as if she’d been sleepwalking and had woken to find herself directionless and alone, in the middle of a vast, empty desert.
Seeing Damon again made everything worse, stirring all kinds of dangerous memories. He reminded her of all the exciting things she’d once planned for her life, none of which had eventuated.
She’d played it safe. And where had that left her?
Jobless, partnerless, with no plans and nothing to do.
Even the task of calling off the wedding had been taken on by Kent. He’d insisted on ringing their guests, and he was asking Zoe, her bridesmaid, to help with the caterers and the hire people.
Now, her grandfather was off having some crazy, reckless adventure with Violet, and Damon was chasing after him.
And Bella would be left at home feeling flat and empty, overcome by a sense of anticlimax. Or she would be dealing with endless questions and sympathetic and curious glances from every busybody in the district.
The news of the wedding cancellation would spread like a bushfire. Country towns were notorious gossip machines.
Damon turned off the main road onto the dirt track that led to her father’s dilapidated farmhouse, and Bella sat up straighter, suddenly struck by a dazzlingly brilliant idea. ‘I think I should go, too,’ she said.
Damon frowned. ‘What do you mean? Go where?’
‘I should go to look for Paddy and Violet, as well as you. You can’t stop in every town. I can check out the places you miss. I can get another hire car.’ She pointed towards the sky. ‘With a roof.’
It was the ideal diversion, exactly what she needed. Apart from her genuine concern for their grandparents, the trip offered a perfect excuse to get out of Willara for the next few days.
There was, however, a longish pause before Damon responded. ‘Brilliant idea,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sure your fiancé won’t mind in the least if you go dashing up the highway.’ He sent her a strange, mirthless smile. ‘As long as you’re back in time to marry him on Saturday.’
Bella gulped, remembering the downside to her brilliant idea. She could no longer wriggle out of confessing the truth about the wedding to Damon. ‘You’re right,’ she said nervously. ‘Kent won’t mind.’
‘Bella, don’t be an idiot. Of course he’ll mind. He’ll be frantic. You don’t have time to chase all over Queensland. You’re a bride about to be married.’
‘Actually …’ Deep breath. ‘I’m not.’
To her dismay, Damon slammed on the brakes. They weren’t at the homestead yet, but clearly this news took priority. He turned to her, trapping her in an angry silver glare. ‘I’m sorry.’ Now he spoke very quietly. ‘You’re not making sense.’
Oh, help. It shouldn’t be so hard to tell Damon. He was nothing to her now. He’d been gone for ten years and in that time they’d both changed. So much. Bella couldn’t begin to imagine all the things he must have seen and done since he’d left Australia. They were light-years from the high-school kids who’d fooled around together.
So why did talking to him feel so very different from talking to any of her other old schoolfriends?
‘The wedding,’ she began, and then to her horror a small sound like a hiccup erupted from her throat. ‘It—it’s not happening.’
Damon’s eyes pierced her. ‘What’s going on, Bella?’
She gulped to swallow the huge lump in her throat. ‘Kent and I decided this morning. We’re not getting married.’
Several geological eras seemed to pass before Damon finally reacted. Then he rubbed at his temple as if he had a headache. ‘Did you—ah—say this was a mutual decision?’
‘Yes.’ Bella’s voice was choked. ‘But if you want explanations, I’m not really in the mood to give them right now.’ There was no way she could explain to this man about her and Kent’s lack of sparks.
‘No, of course you don’t have to explain,’ he said. ‘I’m not asking you to.’
That was a relief. She’d been dreading his probing questions—he’d had so much practice as an investigative journalist.
Damon frowned. ‘The last thing you need is this extra worry about your grandfather.’ He was apparently over his shock and back to normal. ‘It’s lousy timing.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ Bella forced a laugh to lighten the tension inside her. ‘You’d think our elders could be more considerate.’
At this, Damon actually smiled, and Bella decided to capitalise on his good humour.
‘So you can see why I’d welcome a project like trying to find Paddy.’
Almost immediately, he was shaking his head.
‘I’m as personally involved as you are, Damon. I’m worried about Paddy, and … to be honest, I’d like a few days’ escape from Willara. You know what the gossip in this town is like.’
‘But it’s such an overkill. Two cars, two lots of petrol and accommodation …’ Damon’s voice trailed off and he drew a sharp breath, as if he’d realised the implications of his words.
Bella had realised it, too.
It might have been unintentional, but he’d more or less suggested that it made sense for them to travel together.
Despite the warm summer’s morning, she shivered. She’d had no intention of joining Damon on a road trip. For all kinds of reasons.
‘It actually makes a crazy kind of sense, doesn’t it?’ he said quietly.
‘What does?’ she asked, playing dumb.
‘That we should travel together.’
Her heart leapt like a wild creature unexpectedly caught in a trap. ‘In this?’
‘You’ve seen for yourself, it’s a perfectly comfortable car.’
‘But I can’t come with you.’
‘Why not?’
His voice was cool and dispassionate, as if he didn’t care one way or the other about her answer. Bella had been about to make another flustered protest, but his coolness made her feel foolish.
Why shouldn’t they travel together?
From a purely practical viewpoint, it made good sense to share the costs and to take turns with the driving. On a personal level, they weren’t about to start anything foolish like a fling. She’d just escaped from making a serious mistake, and she had absolutely no intention of hooking up with a new man, especially this man who’d hurt her once before.
Besides, Damon had changed a great deal from the seductive charmer of his youth. These days, he was the perennial nomad. He’d made an art form out of being a loner. And there was something very closed and shut off about him now.
He was looking at her with a thoughtful frown. ‘I know I can handle Violet when I find her, but, to be honest, I’m not so sure about Paddy.’
It was another valid point. They still didn’t know why Paddy and Violet had taken off in such a rush, and two heads might be better than one when it came to dealing with the outcome when they eventually found their grandparents.
‘I guess it does make sense to go together.’ Bella sent him a nervous smile. ‘But you have to admit it’s a very weird situation.’
‘Mad,’ he agreed. ‘Off the planet.’
Even so, it seemed the decision was made.
‘I’ll have to explain to my father. He doesn’t even know the wedding’s off yet.’
‘Will he be okay without you? I heard he’s not well.’
‘He’s been very ill, actually, but he’s on the mend. And there are people to keep an eye on him. I—I think he’ll be fine.’
Damon started the car up again and they continued on down the track, around the final bend that led to the dilapidated Blue Gums homestead with its rusted roof and peeling paint and unkempt garden.
‘As you can see our place has gone downhill since Mum got sick,’ she said rather unnecessarily.
‘I was very sorry to hear that she died.’
Bella nodded. ‘You sent me a lovely card from Dubrovnik.’ His message had been heartfelt and touching and she’d cried buckets. Now, just thinking about how kind he’d been, she blinked away the sudden threat of tears. ‘I’m sorry. I’d like to invite you in, but although Dad’s a lot better, he’s not quite up to playing host.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll wait in the car.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ She opened the passenger door, and it was then she discovered how shaky her knees were.
Not so surprising, she thought as she headed inside. She could hardly believe the one-eighty degree turn her life had just taken.
CHAPTER TWO
DAMON was grateful for the chance to sit alone in the car while he gathered his thoughts, while he tried, desperately, to come to terms with the craziness of what had just happened.
He still couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to set out on a road trip with Bella Shaw, that he’d actually been the one who suggested they travel together.
He’d been so determined to stay clear of her. Hell.
He’d assumed that he’d grown wiser in the past few years. He’d seen so much—had witnessed terrible atrocities and disasters. He’d been detained at gunpoint more times than he cared to count.
And yet … here in the town where he’d spent his five years of high school … this sleepy little town set in the middle of golden wheat fields and dusty cow paddocks … he’d stumbled on an entirely new set of dangers. Unexpected traps.
Emotional traps … in the form of his sweet, elderly grandmother, Violet, the only member of his family who communicated with him regularly, and the one person in the world he loved unequivocally. And Bella Shaw …
Bella … of the pale silky hair, wide green eyes and lissom, almost waiflike body.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Damon propped his elbow on the car’s door frame and massaged his aching forehead. He willed himself to relax, to absorb the stillness of the countryside, the muffled buzzing of insects and the distant call of a magpie.
He’d spent the past decade in voluntary exile, first as a journalist in Singapore, then Hong Kong, and in more recent years, as a foreign correspondent. He’d been busy, constantly learning, dealing with danger on a daily basis, and he could have sworn that Bella Shaw no longer had a hold on him. She’d been his high-school crush, for heaven’s sake. Nothing more.
He’d liaised with many women since he left this town. Beautiful women. Wise, wicked and worldly women. And he’d found something to admire in all of them.
These days, he was a totally different person from the boy who’d lived here. In high school he’d still been impressionable, trying for the most part to fit in with the local kids, despite the wars at home.
Since then, he’d discovered his true calling as a loner, an observer always on the fringes, never staying in one place for too long. A man with no ties. A man who was no longer brought to his knees by the merest fleeting smile from one particular girl.
He had been so sure it was safe to come back.
It should have been easy. Dead easy. Bella was marrying Kent Rigby.
Those fateful words: ‘I do!’ A gold band on her finger. In one short ceremony Damon could close the door on his past, could free himself of haunting memories. Forever.
What irony.
Instead of burying his past, he’d dragged it with both hands into his present. Bella was still single, and he was going to be in constant contact with her, up close and personal, for an indefinite period.
Damn. Shoving the car door open, Damon jumped out. Hands plunged deep in his pockets, he paced along the narrow dirt track beside the Blue Gums fence line while the shock of the wedding cancellation reverberated through him like a string of explosives.
What had gone wrong with their wedding plans?
There’d been no sign of a problem at the bucks’ party last night. Thud.
The bucks’ party. He felt a slam of guilt like a fist in the guts. He’d been such a jerk, made a damn fool of himself. He’d fronted up to Kent, intending to congratulate the lucky groom, then he’d lost the plot and more or less questioned Kent’s right to marry Bella.
Remembering it now, Damon groaned so loudly he frightened a flock of finches in a nearby tree. What the hell had he been thinking?
He couldn’t blame the drink—that had come later when he’d realised how very unsmart he’d been.
Talk about uncalled for. He hadn’t seen either Kent or Bella in over a decade, and he’d severely stuffed his chances with her back then. He had no right to question Kent.
And yet he’d been unable to quash his doubts. He’d told himself the doubts were crazy. Unreasonable. Kent was a great bloke, an old mate. There could be no doubt that he and Bella were destined as Willara’s golden couple.
Just the same …
Damon couldn’t get his head around the idea. He couldn’t see how Bella would be happy as a farmer’s wife, couldn’t forget the way she used to joke about it.
‘Shoot me now,’ she used to say if anyone suggested she might live in Willara for the rest of her life.
Last night he’d spoken out of turn. This morning, it seemed his doubts had been spot on and he couldn’t deny a glimmer of smug male satisfaction that he was right.
But hell, look where it had landed him.
‘Damon!’
Bella’s voice brought him whirling round. She was standing at the front gate, holding a small bag that probably held spare clothes. She was ready to jump in a car with him, again, although not quite in the same spontaneous way she had all those years ago.
She was wiser now, thank heavens. Wiser and warier. And so was he.
‘Ready when you are,’ she called.
His stomach tightened.
Bella had deliberately changed into her plainest clothes—old and slightly baggy jeans, a sensible, sun-smart, long-sleeved cotton shirt and sneakers. No make-up, just sunscreen and lip gloss.
Her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and shoved inside a peaked cap. Sunglasses finished the picture and she hoped the message was clear: she was a flirtation-free zone.
The embarrassing thing was—it was she who needed to remember this. Not Damon. She knew there was absolutely no risk that he’d start flirting with her. His focus was solely on finding their grandparents.
‘How’s your father?’ he asked when he reached her.
‘Not too bad, thanks.’
‘He coped with the news?’
‘About the wedding? Yes.’
Actually, her dad had taken the news surprisingly well. He’d talked about sparks and chemistry, the kind of fire that had, apparently, kindled his happy marriage to her mum. Bella wondered if he’d guessed that a lack of these sparks had been at the heart of her problem with Kent.
‘He assures me he’s fine now,’ she said. ‘He’s only mildly concerned about Paddy, but he thinks it’s great that we’re going to find them and keep an eye on them. Oh, and he’s hoping to see you when we get back.’
‘Right,’ Damon said with the grim reserve that seemed to have become his default demeanour. ‘Let’s hit the road.’
The sun had climbed high and Bella turned up the collar of her shirt to protect her neck.
‘Are you worried about the sun?’ Damon was blessed with a natural tan, thanks to Italian heritage on his father’s side. He frowned at her. ‘We don’t have to have the top down.’
‘I’m okay for now, thanks.’ Risk of sunburn was not Bella’s first concern today. She was worn out after weeks of tension over the wedding and she welcomed a dose of sunshine and fresh air to blow away the cobwebs.
‘I’m planning to head across the downs to the coast via Kingaroy.’ Damon dropped a folded map into a pocket on the inside of his door. ‘I don’t expect we’ll need this, but I thought I’d play it safe.’
‘That’s not like you.’
He regarded her with a steady, cool gaze. ‘I guess I’ve changed.’ After a beat, ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’ In recent years playing it safe had become a habit. So much so that her life had come to a grinding halt.
But she would worry about reinventing herself once they’d found Paddy and Violet.
‘I brought a photograph of them.’ She reached into her bag. ‘It was taken at Greenacres last Christmas. I’m afraid we were all wearing silly paper hats, but you can see our faces quite well.’
‘Brilliant.’ Damon’s eyes warmed as he looked at the snap of the happy trio linked arm in arm in front of a Christmas tree. ‘It won’t be easy to ask nosy questions without arousing suspicions, but at least this photo proves that you actually know Paddy and Violet. Good thinking.’
Bella was ridiculously pleased by this small spoonful of praise. For heaven’s sake, she had to calm down. Unnerved, she looked away.
Damon was calm and businesslike. ‘I think we’re good to go. The Greenacres people have our numbers, so they’ll ring us if there’s any fresh news.’ And then he started the car.
Almost against her will, Bella found herself watching him. His hands had always been strong and capable and she used to love watching him do ordinary things—anything really—catching a ball, wielding a penknife, changing gears.
The car’s engine purred, she took a deep breath and they moved smoothly forward. Within moments, fields of crops and clumps of bushland flashed past and she turned her attention to the scenery, determined that by the end of this trip she would be an expert on Queensland’s geography. Not the driver.
From the start, Damon tried his best to concentrate on the road ahead and to remain impartial to Bella’s presence beside him.
But she was constantly there in his peripheral vision, and he couldn’t help being aware of her hands, restless in her lap, pale and delicate and city-girl cared for. Her nails were painted silver and every now and then she fiddled with her ring finger, rubbing at the skin where her engagement ring had been.
What was she thinking?
He couldn’t deny he was curious about her mood now that the wedding was off. Was she heartbroken? Relieved? He couldn’t tell.
It was none of his business, of course. He had to get his mind out of that groove. He should try to think of something to talk about, but the only thing they had in common were memories and they were as dangerous to negotiate as a minefield.
‘So how’s your father?’ Bella asked him suddenly.
Damon almost groaned aloud. From his point of view, she couldn’t have chosen a worse conversation opener.
One look at his face and she must have guessed this. Carefully, she asked, ‘Is he still being difficult?’
‘No.’ Damon glared through the windscreen to the road ahead. ‘We just stay well clear of each other.’
He knew that Bella would be recalling the escalating wars he’d had with his policeman dad during the five years he’d been stationed in Willara. The final showdown had led to the cancellation of his eighteenth birthday party, and the end of their high-school romance.
‘You’ve certainly made sure you stayed far enough away,’ she said.
Damon bristled. Talking about his father was guaranteed to make him snappy. ‘I didn’t leave Australia simply to escape.’
‘Didn’t you?’
There was no mistaking the faint criticism in her voice. But Damon wasn’t prepared to admit she was close to the truth, that reporting about other people’s problems had helped him to avoid his own.
‘I wanted to see the world,’ he said. ‘You know—broaden my mind—experience as many different cultures and perspectives as I could.’
‘That does sound very appealing.’
There was a wistful quality to her voice. He turned to catch her expression, but her face was mostly hidden by the brim of her cap and her sunglasses.
He thought how different her past decade had been from his. While he’d been the prodigal son, she’d been the good and dutiful daughter, staying in Queensland and worrying about her parents and their illnesses. Coping with her mother’s death. She’d been very close to her mother.
To make amends for his terseness, he said, ‘This probably sounds clumsy, but I really liked your mother. She was terrific.’
Bella shook her head. ‘That’s not clumsy. It’s nice. I don’t get to hear it very often. Most people avoid talking about Mum. I suppose they’re worried they’ll upset me.’ She turned to him. ‘Mum liked you, Damon.’
‘Until I blotted my copybook.’
‘No. I know it didn’t seem like it at the time, but my mother was a true-blue fan of yours.’ She looked down and rubbed at her finger again. ‘Did you know she’d made you a birthday cake?’
‘For my eighteenth?’
‘Yes, for the party that never happened.’ Almost immediately, Bella groaned. ‘Sorry. Forget I mentioned that.’
‘Mentioned what?’
She looked momentarily puzzled, and then she smiled. Damon smiled, too, and for a heartbeat, it was dangerously almost like old times.
They stopped for a late lunch at a roadside café. Bella wasn’t particularly hungry and only ate half of her toasted sandwiches, but Damon tucked into his hamburger.
On the road again, she felt her eyelids beginning to droop. She’d had very little sleep the night before. She’d tossed and turned after she’d received a late text message from Kent saying that he needed to talk. And then this morning he’d knocked on her hotel-room door at the crack of dawn, and, although she was happy with the outcome, reaching their final decision had been an emotionally draining process.
She yawned loudly.
‘Feel free to sleep,’ Damon told her.
‘Oh, it’s too early. If I sleep now, I’ll never sleep tonight. I think I need to keep talking.’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t know.’ She was too tired for anything serious like politics or current affairs. Problem was, Damon had been her first boyfriend and her head was full of memories of his kisses and caresses, of the exciting journey of sexual discovery that they’d begun together. ‘You could tell me about your girlfriends.’
‘Not much to report there.’
‘Rubbish. I’ve read all about you in a celebrity magazine. You’ve had girlfriends galore.’
She watched him silently, waiting for him to respond.
Instead, he bounced the question back at her. ‘And I suppose you’ve had lots of boyfriends?’
Ouch. She had no intention of telling Damon Cavello about her sadly minimalist relationship history. She sighed, knowing there was one topic she should probably broach. ‘I suppose I should explain about Kent,’ she said. ‘And why we decided not to get married.’
His hands tensed on the steering wheel. ‘Only if you want to.’
‘It’s okay. I think I’d like to explain. After all, you’re Kent’s friend. But it’s actually a rather long story.’
‘We have plenty of time.’
‘Yes.’ She drew a deep, steadying breath. ‘Well … it started when my father got really sick.’
‘You’ve had a rough trot, Bella.’
She nodded. ‘After Mum died, we were all rather lost … Dad, Paddy and I. But your grandmother was wonderful for Paddy. She went out of her way to cheer him up.’
Damon smiled. ‘She has a talent for cheering people up. I’m glad she was able to help. She mentioned that your father was very low.’
‘He was. He started drinking too much. Drowning his sorrows. It was really awful, actually.’
‘You were away, working in Brisbane, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, and I didn’t realise how quickly Dad was going downhill. He was neglecting the farm. He wasn’t paying bills. When I realised how bad things were, I started coming home on weekends, and Kent helped out on the farm. Mending fences. Ploughing. Kent was fabulous, actually.’
Damon slanted her a piercing glance. ‘Is that when the two of you became close?’
‘Yes.’ She looked away, then said carefully, ‘I’m not sure if you ever knew, but Kent’s always looked up to my father. You probably heard that Dad saved Kent from drowning when he was a kid?’ Damon nodded.
‘Kent felt that he owed him a huge debt. He became very worried when Dad started the heavy drinking. Then Dad developed heart failure. He’d been literally drinking himself to death.’
‘And Kent wanted to help.’
‘Yes.’
‘By marrying you?’
The fierce intensity in Damon’s voice made her shiver. ‘More or less.’ She rubbed at her arms. ‘Kent suggested we should get engaged, and suddenly it seemed to be the answer to all my problems. He and I would be living next door to Dad. We could keep an eye on him, get him to AA meetings and help him to run the farm.’
‘And there’d be grandchildren for your father to dote on. A reason for him to go on living.’
Bella drew a sharp breath. ‘That was what we hoped.’
After a beat, Damon said, smoothly, ‘It sounds like a great plan. Dare I ask what went wrong?’
Oh, help. This was the hard part.
There was no way she could explain to this man who set her heart spinning at fifty paces about their lack of chemistry. ‘We—ah—realised that gratitude isn’t a good basis for a happy marriage,’ she said quietly.
Damon’s clever grey eyes narrowed. ‘And it was an amicable decision?’
‘Of course.’
But suddenly she’d had enough. She’d told Damon far more than she’d intended and she didn’t want this clever reporter probing too deeply. ‘This isn’t an interview, Damon. If you don’t mind, I’m done with answering questions.’
With that, she yawned dramatically and closed her eyes.
Damon drove on, and it wasn’t too long before Bella’s head slipped sideways. Her cap fell off revealing the soft, pale gleam of her hair. A strand escaped and fluttered gently like a golden streamer. As her head tipped farther he caught sight of the thick fringe of her eyelashes behind her sunglasses. Yes, she was definitely asleep, and he was flooded by a surge of protectiveness.
He thought about the story she’d just told him. There’d been no sign of self-pity in her voice, but he’d found her tale incredibly sad. Bella, the fun-loving, sexy and adventurous girl he’d known, had been loaded with too many responsibilities and worries.
Reading between the lines … these worries were the reason she’d been prepared to sacrifice herself in a passionless marriage. The thought of Bella trapped by duty enraged him.
But … damn it. This was so not the way he wanted to feel. An emotional reconnection with Bella Shaw was definitely not part of his plan.
He forced his focus to the blue bitumen road stretching ahead, and to the wider, lighter blue of the sky arching above. Purposefully, he inhaled the scents of dry earth and the eucalyptus wafting in on the fresh, clean air.
For him, the allure of an open road had always been strong, and if he weren’t so concerned now about Violet and Paddy he would have absolutely loved this journey. Each bend in the road was a new possibility, a chance for adventure. He was always at his happiest when he was travelling with no clear destination.
At heart, he’d never changed. He was a gypsy, a nomad.
And he was quite sure that, for a nomad like him, it had been a mistake to come home.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Bella woke she was aware of a strange blue-grey light outside. She saw stands of tall pine trees flashing past. And she saw the back of Damon’s dark head.
The back of his head? That didn’t seem right. She blinked and tried to sit up, but she was held down by her seat belt. Her neck was stiff and she realised that her seat had been lowered into the reclining position. And the car had a roof.
When had that happened? She couldn’t remember.
Beneath her cheek, there was something soft and pillowy—a man’s sweater with a faint hint of Damon’s exotic cologne had been rolled up to cushion her head.
She yanked on the lever that raised her seat. ‘What time is it?’
Damon smiled. ‘Hey, there.’
Yawning, she reached for her water bottle and took a few sips. That was better. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked again. ‘Have I been asleep long?’
‘It’s almost five.’ He pointed to the clock on the dashboard.
‘Wow. I’ve been asleep for a couple of hours, then.’
‘More than a couple.’
Sleepily, Bella took another look at their surroundings. There was something about the light that didn’t seem right for five o’clock in the afternoon. It should have been all golden and coppery and sloping in low from the west. She shivered and frowned as a terrible thought struck. ‘Damon, it’s not five o’clock in the morning, is it?’
‘It certainly is.’
‘No! It can’t be.’ Shocked, she sat up straighter, and pulled her jacket more closely around her. Wait a minute. Where had her jacket come from? She turned to Damon. ‘Did you get this jacket out of my bag?’
‘You were getting goose bumps on your arms.’
She rubbed at the stiff spot on her neck. ‘But I can’t have been asleep all night.’
‘You were exhausted, Bella, and you needed to sleep. You’ve had a huge twenty-four hours.’
‘I know. But don’t tell me you’ve been driving all night?’ ‘I felt fine.’
‘Damon, you shouldn’t have. You should have stopped.’
She was beginning to feel quite angry. Guilty, too. They were supposed to share the driving. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t planning to stop?’
‘It wasn’t planned. It just seemed like a good idea to let you sleep and push on.’
‘But we could have stayed in a motel.’
He cocked a questioning eyebrow. ‘Were you anxious to spend the night in a motel?’
‘In separate rooms, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Faint amusement shimmered in his eyes.
Bella could feel her anger rising to the boil. ‘Anyone with any sense knows you have to have adequate rest on a long road trip.’ She should have guessed something like this might happen. Damon Cavello had always been a risk taker.
They rounded a curve and she shot an angry glance at the view of vast plains stretching ahead, soft in the morning light, and dotted with grazing cattle. ‘So, where are we?’
‘Just south of Rockhampton.’
‘Rockhampton? That’s ridiculous, Damon. What’s the point of haring up the highway when we don’t know for sure where Violet and Paddy are? We could have passed them in the night back in Gympie, or Hervey Bay.’
‘I take it you’re not a morning person,’ he said smoothly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Okay, she was being snappy, but she was justified. Damon might think he was bullet proof, but they were supposed to be a team and he should have at least consulted her before deciding to drive all night.
‘I’m fine once I’ve had coffee.’
‘There should be a coffee shop coming up very soon.’
‘I still think I was making a valid point. Let me remind you, you’re not still in a war zone, Mr Cavello.’
‘I had noticed.’
‘That means we don’t need to take the risks you’re so fond of. I don’t fancy finding myself wrapped around a gum tree because you chose to drive all night.’
‘I was fine, Bella.’
‘That’s not the point. From now on, we make joint decisions. If we need to drive all night, I’ll be part of the decision making. I’m not just here for the ride, you know. I’ll do my share of the driving.’ ‘I hear you.’
Annoyed by his quiet, smug responses, Bella threw in her trump card. ‘And. As I said, it’s crazy to race pell-mell up the highway when we don’t know where our grandparents are. We’re supposed to be stopping along the way and making enquiries.’
‘The circumstances have changed.’
Gobsmacked, she stared at him. ‘How?’
‘Brenda Holmes rang from Greenacres. They’ve found a note from Violet.’
Bella’s jaw sagged. ‘You mean I slept through a phone call?’
‘Snored your head off.’
If he weren’t driving she would have hit him. ‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘When I could get a word in edgeways.’
The nerve of him to treat her like a sleeping child and then throw joking insults. Bella was sorely tempted to continue her lecture. But she supposed it would be water off a duck’s back. The man was a law unto himself. Already, she was beginning to regret her rash impulse to join him on this wild chase.
‘So where was this note?’ she asked primly. ‘And why did Brenda Holmes take so long to find it?’
‘It was stuck, or caught, under Violet’s neighbour’s doormat. Violet must have slipped it under the door in the middle of the night. She was probably fumbling around in the dark, and it went under the mat, as well. At any rate no one saw it till last night.’
‘And what did it say?’
‘Not as much as we might have hoped. But it seems there’s been some kind of emergency in Port Douglas, and Paddy was determined that he had to be there straight away. Violet lent him her car and apparently decided she couldn’t let him travel all that way on his own.’
Bella blinked as she assimilated this news. ‘But they might have driven to Brisbane and caught a plane.’
‘I doubt it. The driver at the servo was certain they were definitely heading north.’
‘That’s true, and I’ve just remembered that Paddy’s not supposed to fly. It’s something to do with his heart.’
She let out her breath with a whoosh. She hadn’t dreamed their grandparents were on some kind of mercy dash. It was such a long way for an elderly couple to drive. ‘Port Douglas is even farther north than Cairns.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I decided to keep going.’
‘I wonder what the emergency is.’ She was thinking aloud now, trying to remember if Paddy had talked about Port Douglas. She had a vague feeling he had mentioned it.
‘I think one of Paddy’s mates lives in Port Douglas. I remember Paddy talking about a fellow veteran from the Korean War.’
‘Can you remember his name?’
‘No.’ She sighed. ‘It might come to me, but I’m drawing blanks at the moment. Dad might know. I’ll call him later.’
At least she was feeling wide awake now. ‘You should let me drive, Damon. You must be worn out.’
‘We’ll have breakfast in Rockhampton and then you can take over.’ He shot her a wink. ‘Once you’ve had your coffee.’
At the thought of coffee and food her stomach growled. She’d barely touched her lunch yesterday and she hadn’t eaten dinner. ‘I’m starving.’
‘That’s a good sign.’
His smile was a glimpse of the old Damon. It was the smile she’d fallen in love with.
There weren’t too many eating places open at such an early hour, but they found a roadside café, popular with truckies, where a heavenly smell of coffee greeted them as soon as they pushed open the heavy glass door.
Once they’d placed their orders, Bella went to the bathroom and washed her face, freed her hair from its ponytail and gave it a good brushing. Foolishly, she wished she could leave it down. She felt more attractive and feminine with her hair bouncing about her shoulders.
You’re a flirtation-free zone.
She thought about the way Damon had smiled at her a few minutes ago. There’d been a silver spark of emotion in his grey eyes. And a warmth that had sent tiny thrills rippling all the way from her head to her toes. Once again, she’d found herself thinking about their past, remembering their kisses and the exact feel of his lips touching hers and the way she used to melt.
Stop it.
Hastily, she pulled her hair back beneath the tight elastic band and jammed on her cap. She should be remembering that Damon was trouble. Back in high school, her parents had forbidden her to see him again, and they’d been wise. Soon after, he’d left town and broken her heart.
That was what she should be remembering. She was glad she had that sorted before she returned to their table.
Coffee arrived, hot and delicious, and soon after that a massive plate of bacon and scrambled eggs with slices of hot buttered toast. Normally, Bella would be daunted by such a huge meal. This morning she was ravenous and tucked in hungrily.
So did Damon. In fact they were both so hungry, they barely talked.
But with food inside her, Bella felt more relaxed. As she buttered a second slice of toast she said, ‘I guess you’ve eaten a lot of interesting breakfasts in different parts of the world.’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘Like rancid meat and yak’s milk in Mongolia.’
‘Eeeeuuuwwww. I’m afraid I’d have to stay with less adventurous food like fried rice or crêpes.’
‘There’ve been plenty of those.’ Damon set down his coffee cup. ‘You’d probably love churros and hot chocolate.’
‘That does sound yummy. Where can you eat it for breakfast?’
‘In Spain.’
Bella pictured Damon in Spain, walking down an old cobbled street where pretty señoritas flashed their dark eyes at him. ‘Do you miss Aussie food?’ she asked quickly.
He laughed and shook his head. ‘Violet sends me food packages all the time.’
‘Good old Violet. I’m so relieved we know where they’re heading now, and we don’t have to stop and search along the way.’
‘It’s a relief to know they haven’t gone crazy,’ Damon said quietly.
‘Were you worried about that, too?’
‘I was when I first heard that Vi was missing. It crossed my mind that this might have been the beginnings of dementia.’
‘But Paddy and Violet wouldn’t both get it at the same time.’
‘No, and Violet’s mind’s still razor sharp. She’s managed to keep in regular contact with me even though I’m always on the move. And the other day, she hammered me at a complicated word game.’
This time when Damon smiled, Bella had to look away. They still had a long drive ahead, up the Queensland coast, and she’d be a mess if she kept reacting to him like this.
At least she was confident now that they’d find their grandparents, and everything would be resolved in another day or two.
Then, Damon could look after Violet, and with a little luck Bella would coax Paddy into taking a train trip from Cairns to Brisbane and she’d have him safely back in Willara in no time. Then she’d be free.
Free of marriage plans, free of old boyfriends and hopefully free of family worries. She could work out, then, what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
She wished she felt happier about that. If only she felt free, rather than completely blank, like a deleted page on a computer screen.
Right now, she felt more lost than free.
But heavens … she couldn’t start worrying about her future just yet. For now, she had to try to relax.
As they left the café, Bella was surprised by how much better she felt. She’d had a good night’s sleep, her stomach was full and caffeine was pumping through her veins. She wasn’t even daunted by the sight of their red sports car looking ridiculously small and low as it hunkered between the massive haulage trains in the parking lot.
‘Let’s have the top down this morning,’ she said in a burst of enthusiasm. ‘Or would you like to leave it up while you sleep?’
‘Down’s fine.’ Damon was already pushing the appropriate lever.
Bella settled herself behind the wheel, adjusting the seat and the rear-vision mirror. She turned the ignition and the engine purred with the low throaty growl of a jungle cat.
Cool. Excitement pinged. For the first time in ages, she was looking forward to this adventure.
As they left Rockhampton behind them and headed north along the highway, the morning air was fresh and the sun not yet hot. This was cattle country, smooth and flat, with straight roads and few trees and plenty of visibility. The sky was clear and pale and endless, and a flock of galahs fluttered overhead, their rosy pink breasts a bright contrast to the soft pale grey of their wings.
Bella felt her spirits lift even higher. She put her foot down and the little car leapt in response. This was fun.
‘You should try to catch some sleep,’ she told Damon, but to her annoyance his eyes remained stubbornly open. Didn’t he trust her driving? She pressed the accelerator a little harder, but reluctantly had to ease back when the car shot over the speed limit.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Damon’s smile. No doubt he was amused and she wished he would go to sleep.
In a bid to ignore him, she let her thoughts turn to Kent. She’d fallen asleep last night without ringing to see how he was faring with the aftermath of their break up and it had been too early to ring this morning.
She hoped Kent was okay. At least she knew he wasn’t nursing a broken heart. She felt a bit guilty that she’d escaped the unpleasant job of ringing the wedding guests and the caterers, but he’d insisted that she leave him with the task.
This morning, she was truly relieved that they’d come to their senses in time. In fact, she could now look on her close brush with a serious, life-changing mistake as a useful warning. She would think very carefully before she leapt into any new relationship. She was certainly mega cautious about the man currently sitting beside her.
It was good to have these thoughts sorted, good to recognise that she felt more at peace with herself than she had in weeks.
To her relief, Damon was starting to relax, too. He stretched his legs out as far as the car’s cramped interior would allow, let his head fall back and closed his eyes.
Great. Finally, he trusted her driving, and she felt better than ever.
Bella drew a deep lungful of the fresh air rushing past them. She’d never been this far north before. She took in details of her surroundings and pondered on the lives of the people living in the vast cattle stations that stretched for miles on either side of the highway.
She felt so relieved and light-hearted she might have broken into song if Damon hadn’t been dozing. Instead, she hummed softly under her breath, and she was still humming when she saw the blue-and-white car appear in her rear-vision mirror.
Was that a police car?
Uneasiness lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. Hastily she checked the speedometer. Whoops—just over.
With a guilty grimace, she applied the brakes and hoped she wasn’t in range of the police radar.
She was out of luck. Almost immediately, blue-and-red lights began to flash behind her. Damn.
The police car drew closer, the lights flashing bossily. Bella groaned, ‘Oh, God,’ and unhappily pulled over to the edge of the highway.
Beside her, Damon stirred. ‘What’s up? What’s happening?’
‘Police,’ she muttered miserably. Wasn’t this the story of her life? Every time she tried the tiniest adventure, fate slapped her down.
Damon shot a glance behind and saw the police car pulling up. ‘Were you speeding?’ ‘Not really.’
Bella half expected Damon to swear, but he merely let out a soft, resigned sigh. She felt sick as she heard the crunch of a heavy tread on the bitumen behind them. In the car’s side mirror she saw a tall, blue-uniformed figure. She sat up straight, lifted her chin to a dignified angle.
The policeman was young and puffed with self-importance. ‘Good morning,’ he said in an annoyingly pseudo-friendly voice.
‘Morning, constable,’ Damon answered.
The young policeman ignored his greeting and fixed cool blue eyes on Bella.
She tried to look innocent. ‘I wasn’t speeding, was I?’
The policeman shrugged. ‘Can I see your licence, madam?’
‘Oh? Oh, yes. Sure. It’s in my bag.’
Her bag was at Damon’s feet and their hands collided as they both reached for it. Their gazes met and Damon’s eyes held a silent message of empathy. Then he smiled and winked.
His smile helped, but Bella was flushed and shaking as she handed over her licence. The young policeman frowned officiously and began to jot down her details in his notebook.
Beside her, Damon let out an annoyed huff. ‘How about an explanation, officer? What’s the problem?’
‘I’ll need your licence too, sir.’
Bella was sure Damon would protest this time. After all, he was merely a passenger. To her surprise he said quietly, ‘Yeah. Whatever.’ Then pulled his licence from his wallet and handed it over.
Now she was seriously scared. Why did the policemen want Damon’s licence, as well? This couldn’t be a mere speeding infringement.
Memories of Damon’s reckless reputation flashed through her thoughts. He’d been pretty wild in his teens. He’d even been arrested by his own father when he was eighteen and it had caused a scandal that fired up Willara’s gossips for months. Bella’s parents had listened, and they’d refused to let her see him. Not long after that Damon had left town.
She’d always believed the infamous event was a storm in a teacup, blown out of proportion by small-town rumours, but she had no idea what Damon had done since then. She wasn’t intimate with the details of his past ten years.
The policeman certainly seemed suspicious. Directing a mean, narrow-eyed glare at her, he reached in and snatched the keys from the ignition.
‘Hang on.’ Damon looked at the policeman in surprise. ‘You owe us an explanation, mate. What’s your problem?’
‘You’re the ones with the problem.’ The constable spoke with annoying, self-righteous confidence. ‘I’d like you both to step out of the car. This is a stolen vehicle.’
‘Stolen?’ Bella cried. ‘That’s impossible. It’s a hire car.’
She felt Damon’s hand close over hers, squeezing her fingers gently but firmly. ‘Just do what he says,’ he murmured softly. ‘I’m sure we can sort this out.’
The policeman nodded. ‘You’ll have to come back to the station with me.’
Bella choked on a gasp. This couldn’t be happening. It was a nightmare. She couldn’t breathe.
But she was also as angry as she was scared. She hated the policeman’s tone. Chin high, she challenged him. ‘Can’t we just follow you?’
‘No, Miss Shaw. I’ll arrange a tow truck for this car.’
‘Surely you’re not arresting us?’ asked Damon.
The young policemen almost smiled. ‘If you like, I can arrest you right here on suspicion, or you can come to the station to answer some questions.’
No! This couldn’t be happening!
Horrified, Bella turned to Damon. His lovely grey eyes were dark with sympathy and a deeper, unreadable emotion. She expected him to say something, to do something, to become the risk-taking hero she knew he could be. But he simply gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and then an equally faint shrug.
To her dismay, she knew exactly what he was telling her.
We have no choice. Come on. Let’s co-operate.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRAVELLING down the highway in the back of the police car, Damon was only concerned about Bella. She sat very stiffly with her back straight, her hands tight fists in her lap. Her green eyes were fixed dead ahead, not meeting his, and he knew she was terrified and bewildered. It was more than possible she was also wondering if he really had stolen the car.
He wished he could reassure her, but it wasn’t worth trying to talk within the copper’s hearing. This was probably Bella’s first encounter with the police, whereas he’d been pulled up more times than he cared to remember.
On many of those occasions the police had been nasty or they’d been agents of really nasty regimes, often armed to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons. Too often, they’d looked as if they wanted to shoot him, to take him off somewhere to interview him with electrodes attached.
Damon had learned fast and he knew there was always a system, always someone higher who would make the final call. The trick in these situations was patience. It wasn’t worth provoking or shouting about rights. It was best to hold your tongue, stay firm and confident. Not lose the plot.
He wished he could reassure Bella that on the scale of things Australia was the best place in the world to be riding in the back of a police car. She looked so serious and white-faced, so angry and afraid.
This was beyond awful.
Bella had never been inside a police car and she was fighting a rising tide of panic. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. None of this felt real. It couldn’t be happening, and yet the tiny part of her brain that was still functioning told her this was about as real as it got.
She wished she knew what Damon was thinking. His dark face looked unbelievably calm, and she wanted to believe he was innocent. Now, when the chips were down, she felt her old loyalty to him rushing back. She didn’t want to doubt him, but how could she be sure?
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Barbara Hannay
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Your sexy ex roars up in a red sports car and offers to sweep you away from the mess you’ve made of your life…Well, wouldn’t you? With her wedding plans in tatters, and the local grapevine ablaze, Bella Shaw is getting out of town and speeding across country with gorgeous, dangerous Damon Cavello.Bella’s been playing it safe for far too long – and now her brooding rebel is back in her life it’s time to go wild!