Chapter Eleven

Jarrah tipped back his hat and scrubbed the dirt and sweat from his face with an even dirtier and sweatier shirtsleeve. A day in the saddle had transformed the tension that’d kept him tossing and turning most of the night into exhaustion, and a certain blond-haired lifesaver still haunted his thoughts. Even with ten hours’ worth of dust caked onto his face, he could still feel her chocolate-flavored lips sliding over his. He shifted in the stirrups to ease the pressure on his groin and blinked away visions of what could’ve been.

Christ, why the hell had he let her escape last night without at least finding out what she’d wanted to do? If she’d swallowed the red pill and followed him back to the derelict feed shed he’d borrowed for his holiday accommodation, his crotch might be aching for a whole different reason other than saddle soreness. And if she’d chosen the blue pill, he could hang the Do Not Disturb sign over that damned body and get on with his life. Either way, he would’ve at least gotten some freaking sleep.

Yeah, right, like he was getting any rest soon. As long as Dr. Williams was within a hundred meters of him, there was no way he was getting any peace. What hurt even more than his aching back was the truth. He hadn’t pushed her last night because he’d been shit scared of her answer. And that scared him almost as much as the very real possibility that he may never kiss her again, or hold her, or—

“For Christ’s sake, Armani Dundee, pull your head out of your arse and focus.”

He cursed and flipped Maddie off. Nudging the thousand-year-old quarter horse the crew had saddled him with, he shook visions of the good doctor from his mind and pointed Delores after the strays that’d snuck into a wash-away. He couldn’t blame the exhausted heifers for trying to escape his sister’s wrath. He’d only been back a few days and was already calculating how much of a bribe it’d take for Ryder to drop Maddie out in the desert. Problem was, the mean shrew was just tough enough to crawl back through the scrub and kick both their arses.

As if sensing where his thoughts had wandered with that damned Special Forces ESP, Ryder swooped down in Wingarra’s toy helicopter and scared another mob toward the thousand-or-so head they drove toward one of Maddie’s custom-designed holding yards. Jeddah and Kira pounced on the newcomers and merged the gang of two-year-olds into the herd with the unconscious grace of stockwomen who’d spent most of their lives on horseback. He would’ve been jealous and a little ashamed of how fit and strong they looked if he hadn’t been so proud.

The wedding had been thrown into disarray by Ethan’s Evel Knievel impersonation. And no one cared, least of all the bride-to-be, who’d probably be just as happy skipping the whole thing and riding off into the sunset with her man. So with the ceremony on hold and the mustering crew primed and ready to go, Maddie had kicked off the muster early. Today had been a warm-up in one of the nearer paddocks to ensure the seasonal workers who’d descended on Wingarra for the dry season hadn’t gone soft during their wet season working holidays on the coast. No one had told his pride or his arse that today had just been practice.

During the shakedown run, his ball-breaker of a sister and her equally caring full-time crew had never missed an opportunity to remind him how little time he’d spent in the saddle over the last decade and how long it had been since he’d held the numero uno stockman title. He’d grown so used to their teasing over the years that he barely noticed it these days. He simply kept running tallies of the insults for the next time the smart-arses came crawling to him to pull their less-than-kosher businesses out of the shit or to save their dodgy butts from the tax office.

He caught himself sighing with relief as Wingarra materialized through the heat haze and straightened in his saddle as much as his screaming muscles and stiff joints allowed. He’d laid off the muffins and cupcakes Charlie insisted on baking him and their clients and sweated his arse off each morning before work. Yet nothing short of time in the desert could prepare a body for fourteen-hour days in the saddle with the sun beating the crap out of you and the dust grinding its way into every last one of your body’s orifices. He crunched down on the grit coating his teeth and leaned forward on his stirrups to take the weight off his butt before whispering another thank-you into Delores’s floppy ear for taking it easy on him.

“What’s the matter, big brother? That fancy city life softening you up?”

Even with his filthy shirt sticking to his soaked skin and his lower back begging for mercy, he couldn’t help smiling as Jeddah trotted over to him on Buttercup, the ferocious quarter horse his sister half stole, half rescued from a shit-bag breeder as a foal and hand-raised and broke in herself.

He pretended to check Delores’s bridle before patting his lazy mount’s fleshy flanks and faking a smile. “Just checking on the old girl.”

Delores huffed out a rebuttal but was thankfully too exhausted to take her objection further. Jeddah raised an eyebrow and pulled up beside him looking like she’d just returned from a lazy afternoon canter in the countryside. Christ, even Buttercup looked as fresh as a daisy, which was as impressive as it was annoying since they’d done most of the heavy lifting throughout the day. He was no longer anywhere near the horse whisperer Jeddah was, and probably never had been, yet he could’ve sworn Buttercup rolled his eyes at exactly the same time as his sister.

Twenty-four minutes separated him and his twin, yet the full-grown woman floating beside him would be his kid sister till the day they buried him in the scrub. “So, how many eligible bachelors do I need to run background checks on while I’m out here?”

This time he was sure his sister’s first true love grunted and stink-eyed him. Jeddah chuckled and soothed her overprotective mount with the same calm she managed the station with. “Like any guy I date is going to be worried about you after Mum, Maddie, and Kira have put him through the wringer.”

He’d made his fortune debating the undebatable, yet he couldn’t argue. Any man who made it through the coven of witches running roughshod over Wingarra deserved his sympathy rather than scrutiny. And if worst came to worst and the guy turned out to be anything other than a gentlemen, Ethan and Ryder could dispose of the poor bloke’s remains in the desert.

“Danny didn’t work out?” He knew damn well the hardworking foreman Jeddah had dated for the last year and a half hadn’t worked out. However, the emails and video calls he and Jeddah shared hadn’t given him the information he’d been chasing. Even after everything they’d survived, he still couldn’t see through the mask she hid her pain and fear behind unless he looked her dead in the eyes.

Jeddah shrugged and stared at the Big House’s shimmering roof through the dust cloud enveloping them. “He was offered a position in Brisbane he couldn’t refuse.”

The hurt concealed in her casual dismissal hit him square in the chest and had him grinding more grit between his teeth. Outback life was hard enough without trying to find someone to settle down and raise a family with. It was even harder when you were a twenty-nine-year-old black woman with a biological clock counting down and a bond to the land that was almost as important to her well-being as breathing. Danny hadn’t been perfect; then again, no man would ever be good enough for any of his sisters. Yet the thirty-year-old stockman cum foreman had cared for his sister and made her happy, which put him in the okay basket.

He unclenched his jaw and drew in the dung-tainted air. “You know, I could use a hand in town. You could stay with me until you find a place of your own, or move in with someone.”

The all-knowing smile that had driven him insane throughout their adolescence spread across her face. “Nice try. But that cowboy has well and truly ridden off into the sunset. And there’s no way in hell I’m living with you and making small talk with a different woman each morning over breakfast.”

He faked an innocent smile and tried remembering who’d been his last breakfast partner. Veronica, or had it been Astrid? It’d been so long since he’d had a woman hang around long enough to eat breakfast he couldn’t figure out if it’d been the Bentley & Allan’s straight-talking senior partner or the genius business analyst from Sharp Consultancy. Either way, his sister wasn’t buying his bullshit so he met her condescending glare and widened his grin.

The same sigh he’d been hearing most of his life eased out her mouth. “And I’m sure Charlie would be overjoyed sharing you.”

His underworked and overpaid office manager had been at him for months to hire someone to help her out with their ever-growing and more demanding client list. Charlie would’ve been ecstatic to have a cohort to help torment him. However, his right-hand girl or his random breakfast partners weren’t the reason Jeddah turned him down. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d asked her, pleaded with her, and tried bribing her to at least check out city life, but leaving the land she belonged to would hurt his sister more than the loneliness shadowing her otherwise perfect life. Unlike him, she’d survived puberty without hoarding a forest’s worth of chips on her shoulders that had driven her to the city in search of glory.

He shifted his weight onto the parts of his butt that hurt least. “I’m thinking of firing Charlie.”

Jeddah rewarded him with the laughter he’d been fishing for. “If anyone’s getting fired from that fancy office of yours, it’s you, big brother.” She tilted up the sand-colored Akubra he’d bought her for Christmas and eyed him. “Enough about my pathetic love life. Tell me what’s going on with you and the doc. You two look at each other much harder and you’re going to set fire to something.”

He’d been amazed Jeddah had held her tongue this long. Before he could answer, Kira circled his other flank and casually pulled alongside him like they’d planned an intervention. The youngest and newest Harper boxed him in with the shimmering ebony Goliath, the huge partly feral stallion that had fallen in love with his tiny sister the instant he’d laid his wild eyes on her.

Kira practically floated above the custom-made saddle he’d surprised her with for her twenty-first birthday as she fell into stride beside him. With an evil grin, his youngest sister leaned forward like an Akubra-wearing pixie riding a fire-breathing dragon and looked around him to Jeddah. “Have you asked him yet?”

Jeddah peered around him. “Can’t you hear that huge lawyer brain whirring to life preparing his defense?”

His head had spun out of control for three straight days along with certain parts of his anatomy. And his nosy sisters were the last people he wanted knowing about the havoc Dr. Williams was having on his mental well-being or his Southern Hemisphere. “She’s my future sister in-law, lives on the other side of the world, has a career that’s even more demanding than mine, and is here for four weeks.”

Kira sighed dramatically and slumped back into her saddle. “Yeah, you’re probably right. A sleazy bullshit artist like you would need a heck of a lot longer than a month to fool a woman like her.”

He might not have used those exact words when he’d stared up at the feed shed’s roof all night and argued with himself, yet Kira was bang on in her assessment of the state of play. His only hope for peace was that the doc was okay with a future siblings-in-law with benefits arrangement. Even if she was after a no-strings-attached holiday fling with a part-time stockman there were at least half a dozen much less complicated options hanging around her like freaking flies. And every one of the lecherous arseholes had made it more than obvious they’d be willing to scratch any itches Olivia had.

Of the dozens of scenarios he’d run through while staring into the shadows above his swag, none had ended well. Hell, he was the master of friends-with-benefits relationships. It was the only way he and his equally overworked romantic partners squeezed some normality into their crazy lives. There were only two rules when it came to convenient intimacy. Full disclosure and an ironclad guarantee that if things went south neither party had to see the other ever again. Not in the coffee shop, not in the office, not in the boardroom, and sure as hell not across the dining table over family dinner.

“What did I miss?” Maddie grinned at him as she strolled beside Jeddah on Xena the Warrior Quarter Horse, the cantankerous mare that was as unstoppable as her cattle-boss owner.

Great, just freaking great. He shook the voices from his head and scowled at his most lethal sister. “Don’t you have cattle to scare and stockmen to eat?”

Maddie met his glare with an angelic smile. “Plenty of time for that. We’re only warming up.” She eyed Jeddah and jutted her chin toward him. “What’s the word?”

Jeddah at least had the decency to look at him before feeding him to the dragon. “The word is the good doctor shot him down in flames.”

“Told you we had nothing to worry about. She’s way too smart to fall for this sleazy bogan’s bullshit.” Maddie’s maniacal cackles scared the nearest heifers into a panicked sprint before she whipped off her Akubra and wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve like the star of a feminine hygiene commercial.

Maddie’s rare smile and even rarer laughter faded before she slapped her hat back on her head and zeroed in on him. “Speaking of shit. How much are we really in?”

He didn’t need to look at his other two sisters to know they stared at him the same way Maddie did. Their gazes pressed in on him. He’d run through the highlight reel of his latest bout with Carter Industries during his welcome-home dinner but had buried his gut feel beneath facts. His mother had sensed something but had let him off the hook, probably to protect his brothers and sisters and not dampen the celebrations.

He glanced at his sisters and tried swallowing past the fist clamped around his throat. The three women staring back at him were more than capable of surviving anything nature threw at them. Problem was there was nothing natural about the storm looming on the horizon. “The law’s on our side and that’s not going to change any time soon.”

Maddie’s glare almost burned a hole straight through his forehead.

Jeddah sighed. “But that won’t stop them trying.”

He considered spouting more legalese to reassure the three remarkable women he’d dedicated his life to protecting, but they deserved the truth. He studied each of them before slowly shaking his head.

The light faded from Kira’s eyes for a split second before she straightened in her saddle and hit him with a smile that almost had him blinking. “Just as well we’ve got the best lawyer in Australia then.”

He chuckled despite the weight crushing his chest. He was far from the best, but Dean Manningham and Carter Industries would have to kill him before they got their hands on Wingarra.

“Fucking dodgy arseholes.”

For an instant he thought Maddie had vocalized what they’d all been thinking, but when he looked up, he found her glaring into the distance.

He followed her death stare to the small crowd gathered under the shade of the Big House’s veranda; and the city girl holding all the men’s attention. Even with a couple hundred meters of cattle separating them, Doc’s smile penetrated the heat haze like a cruise missile and hit him square in the chest. She waved at them before guiding the three Fitzgerald girls, who followed their parents to Wingarra each year, into the Big House and leaving behind the five stockmen who should’ve ridden out to help him and his sisters a good half hour ago.

“So that’s where they got to.” Maddie unleashed a string of feral obscenities that merged into one prolonged war cry before disappearing in a cloud of dust and insults toward her missing men.

If not for the insane jealousy replacing the anxiety twisting his insides he’d have felt sorry for his brothers-in-arms. He couldn’t stop smiling as Jacko, Dave, Mick, Darren, and Bazza scattered like frightened wallabies under Maddie’s tirade before leaping onto their horses and charging out to meet them.

He turned to find Jeddah studying him. Before he could figure out what she’d discovered with her all-seeing gaze, she pivoted Buttercup and exploded into the dust to control the right flank of the herd. After hitting him with a grin that had him worrying his baby sister had picked up way more than she was letting on, Kira set Goliath free and shot after Jeddah.

Jealousy, anxiety, and logic were still waging war for control of his emotions when he pulled up in a quiet nook of the stables and half dismounted, half collapsed off Delores. He’d had fun playing stockman, not as much fun as he used to have, but fun was just another thing he’d sacrificed to reach the top. He hung back and waited for the crew to hand their mounts over to the kids set to become the next generation of stockwomen and men. The jilleroos and jackeroos Maddie had hired were as enthusiastic as they were dedicated and would’ve had the horses fed, watered, and brushed down, and the tack sorted, probably before he worked the stiffness from his numb legs. But Delores had taken mighty good care of him, and he was personally spoiling his old girl rotten before tucking her in for the night.

“You look like shit, cowboy.”

He focused on unbuckling Delores’s saddle like he was defusing a bomb and fought the desperate urge to look at her. “That’s stockman, uptown girl.”

Her soft chuckle called to him. He ignored the urge to turn around and swung Delores’s saddle and pad off her back and onto the corral’s partition.

“My bad. You look like shit, stockman.”

The teenagers hustling to finish their chores before enjoying a well-earned dinner drowned out her footsteps across the stable’s hard-packed dirt floor. He didn’t need to turn around to know where she was headed. Every step had his exhausted body vibrating like a Geiger counter.

He snatched up a brush with as much enthusiasm as he could fake before his body reminded him it had been a year since he’d ridden a horse. He might have been able to leverage his reputation to convince the inexperienced kids rushing around him that he wasn’t dead on his feet, but even with the adrenaline Olivia had just injected into him, there was no way in hell he was fooling a doctor who’d spent years stitching tough guys back together.

He rested his forearms on Delores’s back, dropped his chin to his chest, and stretched out his shoulders. “I’m getting too old for this shit.” Even as the words fell out of his mouth, he wasn’t sure if he was referring to the ten hours he’d just spent mustering or the intoxicating woman stalking him.

“I don’t know. You looked pretty rugged out there on this magnificent animal.”

He raised his head to find her grinning at him from over Delores’s back. “And now?”

Her smile disarmed yet another fail-safe protecting his sanity. “Now you just look filthy and exhausted.”

He nodded. “Don’t get too close, otherwise you’ll add smelly to the list.”

She raised her arm and sniffed her armpit before wincing. “It’s no sunshine and roses over here, either. This Outback doctoring’s hard work.”

Even with the odor of two-dozen horses and centuries’ worth of musters permeating the air, and a mound of sweaty equine separating them, her scent still worked its way into his lungs.

She reached over Delores and nodded to the brush clutched in his hand.

He straightened and shook his head before running the brush down his old girl’s flank. “You’re meant to be on holiday.”

“I am.” She jutted her chin toward the brush and wiggled her fingers. “Trust me, performing routine physicals, fixing ouchies, cuddling babies, and preparing young women for the joys of womanhood is paradise compared to pumping stomachs and stabbing chests with adrenaline.”

HHe wasn’t surprised word of Olivia’s superpowers had reached Baroona. For a population starved for news and medical facilities, Ethan’s accident would’ve almost been as exciting as having a genuine doctor in town. He’d expected a few visitors dropping by with the hope of exchanging baked goods, casseroles, and home-brewed beer for friendly chats that would no doubt lead to impromptu checkups. From what he’d heard, Olivia had been flat-out repaying his town’s less-than-honorable Outback hospitality by working her butt off. Abi had even turned the Big House’s lounge into a makeshift triage area to cater to the steady stream of sticky beaks looking to put a face to the legend and the genuine patients needing help. Olivia should’ve been pissed off, annoyed at the very least, yet she radiated a joy that had him feeling way lighter than he had a few minutes ago.

He tore his gaze from the damp strands of hair clinging to her glistening cheeks and focused on the slender fingers massaging Delores as she cooed and patted the old girl. “You know a doctor visits twice a month and the flying doctor runs clinics throughout the year.”

She cursed and shook her head. “My welcoming committee filled me in on how much ground the flying doctor covers. I can’t believe they’re responsible for pretty much everyone in the Outback.” The cheeky smile she’d been torturing him with vanished. “Christ, you even have a clinic in town that sits empty pretty much all year. I don’t give a shit how far Baroona is away from civilization. A town of close to a thousand people needs a full-time doctor.”

He knew that, his family knew that, and his 830-some odd neighbors knew that also. “Not that simple.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She mumbled another curse and drew an appreciative whinny from their equine chaperone as she gently combed her fingers through Delores’s mane. “Shit hours, shit pay, shit facilities, shit support, no chance of promotion, no vacations, and having to live in the middle of nowhere.”

All he could do was nod and continue brushing the grit off Delores’s flanks. So many doctors and nurses had passed through Baroona since old Doc Martin had passed that the town had practically given up on finding a permanent replacement and focused their meager resources on securing what reliable health care they could. A couple of days a month was miles away from enough, but at least it was consistent and people could plan ahead for anything routine. God help them if anything urgent popped up, though.

Olivia leaned over Delores and grabbed the brush. “Hand it over, cowboy. You’re dead on your feet.”

While disarming him, she’d inadvertently captured a few of his fingers in the process, and the sensation was even more powerful than he remembered. Her eyebrows rose as her surprised gaze locked with his before she folded Delores’s mane out of the way and brushed her neck.

With her attention fixed on her task, he leaned against Delores and took in the woman who’d caught the attention of pretty much everyone in town. She was somehow even more alluring than she’d been two nights ago, yet he couldn’t miss the fatigue dragging on her. And he couldn’t ignore the caveman need tightening his gut to protect her as a few jolts of anger joined the chaos in is head. “I’ll have the crew spread the word when they head into town tonight that you’re officially on holiday.”

“Don’t you dare.” Her glare had him rocking back on his heels. “I’ve already been through this with Ryder, Maddie, Jeddah, and Kira, and if it hadn’t been for Abi having my back, I’d still be in kitchen arguing with them.”

Her anger was quickly replaced by the passion he was developing a serious thing for. “I became a doctor to help people. This is probably the last chance I’ll have to strap a sprained ankle or dress a grazed elbow. And there’s no way in hell I’m sitting on the veranda sipping lemonade while you guys bust your asses out here and people need help.”

How long had it been since he’d been driven by something other than his clients’ greed or the need to build his business? How many years had passed since he’d used his powers for good instead of evil? Christ, he was too damn tired to remember and way too preoccupied enjoying every single thing about her to open up that can of worms.

She sighed and wiggled her eyebrows as she focused her brushing on Delores’s ample rump. “Plus, you should taste the goodies stacked in the fridge and piled on the dining table. I’m going to have to buy bigger jeans before I leave.”

Some of the warmth flowing through him chilled. Three days had already passed, which only left twenty-five more to go. Enough time to drive him insane and nowhere near enough time to explore everything he wanted to do to her. He blinked the visions of her squeezing into her jeans from his mind and dumped a bucket of oats into Delores’s feed trough. “I’m guessing the prospect of not having to cook for the rest of the month was what convinced my deadbeat family to allow you to run your illegal lifesaving activities from the house?”

She chuckled and drew another contented whinny from Delores by massaging her ears. “That and the promise I’d turn away any of Maddie’s men if they came to me for anything less than a life-threatening condition.”

Illogical jealousy surged through him as he hung Delores’s reins up and tidied the remainder of her tack. “I’ve known some of those guys twenty years. I can’t remember any of them ever voluntarily going to a doctor.” His words sounded like they’d dribbled out of a spoiled teenager, and her eyebrows rose before he could recover.

Delores huffed out a protest as Olivia stopped massaging and eyed him. “What’s the matter, cowboy, you jealous the doc’s not fixing your boo-boo?”

Her cheeky smile melted another fail-safe around his self-control. Christ, the list of things he wanted her to fix grew with every minute he spent with her. Fixing a scowl on his face, he cursed and gestured to the Big House. “You didn’t leave my family alone with your hard-earned kickbacks, did you?” It wasn’t his best redirection, but given the lack of blood reaching his brain, it was the best he could hope for.

Her eyebrows crept a little higher and her smile a little wider before she let him off the hook and got back to spoiling Delores. “Relax. I may have hidden some of my booty to repay my Aussie legal team. You know, for their services.”

Did she just nibble her bottom lip and give him that look? Or had his overloaded brain conjured up the whole thing? His own legal team screamed at him to seek an adjournment to review the new evidence, but before he could approach the bench, his traitorous face hit her with his best Blue Steel. And his rampant lust forced the challenge out.

…

“And what services do you require, Dr. Williams?”

Holy shit, what had she done? Jarrah’s words washed over Olivia and flowed into all her secret hidden spots like chocolate syrup. She’d convinced herself she’d come out to the stables to enjoy the relative cool of the late afternoon and see the horses. One look at what a day in the saddle had done to the millionaire lawyer had confirmed she was full of crap. No man looking that dirty and tired had the right to look that good. To make matters worse, the smart-ass only got sexier the closer she got.

What had started as another battle in their ongoing war for control spiralled out of control. She found herself using a beautiful old horse as both a shield and support as she floundered under his scrutiny. Sucking in a breath, she tightened her grip on the brush to prevent her fingers from trembling and resumed grooming Delores as casually as her twitching muscles allowed. “Teaching a city girl how to ride and take care of a horse, showing a visitor around his backyard, escorting a young woman to a genuine Aussie pub for some dinner and dancing. Why, what services did you have in mind?”

And there she went again. She just couldn’t help herself. It was like the guy was her personal brand of crack. And it wasn’t like she was spoiled for choice when it came to potential escorts. She must’ve spent the day politely shooing away every eligible bachelor within a hundred-mile radius and heard the résumés of a half dozen more from their matchmaking mothers, sisters, and aunts. All the men overflowed with the same hardworking honesty that seemed to connect everything in the Outback, and none had made her chest tighten or her belly flip-flop like the cowboy rolling his eyes like she’d just broken his spirit.

“Dinner…and dancing?”

The pleading look he shot her over Delores’s freshly brushed back and his agonized sigh had her feeling guilty for adding the night out on the town to her list. But she’d been losing the war and was dying to experience the cultural adventure that was Baroona’s infamous Grand Hotel.

She pursed her lips and shrugged. “If you’re too tired, I could ask Mick to take me. After all, he was the first of the dozen or so hunks to ask me out.”