Page 13 of Secrets of Riverside

‘Ha, what are the chances of that happening, hey?’ She looked at him like she was trying to read him. ‘Fancy that,’ she added with a shrewd smile, like she was privy to something he wasn’t.

A little confused as to what was going on in that pretty head of hers, he graced her with a small, but charming smile. ‘Like I said, it was a wonderful coincidence.’

‘Sounds like you’re in a rush to fill the position.’ Her tone was inquisitive.

‘Yeah, you could say that.’ He grimaced. ‘My previous cook and I came to a mutual understanding earlier today that she should hang up her apron.’

‘You mean you fired her?’

‘Yeah, after she broke the number one rule when you’re employed at Riverside Acres, by sleeping with my nephew.’ He chuckled, shaking his head at her look of incredulity. ‘And besides this candid bit of information, her food was crap.’

‘Say it like it is, why don’t you?’ She chuckled, addictively so, enticing the same reaction from him. ‘I really like people who are up-front and honest, you always know where you stand with them, so good on you, Jarrah, for doing what you had to.’

Liking how his name sounded rolling off her tongue, he almost blushed with her compliment. ‘Thanks, Millie.’

They fell into a comfortable silence, and only then did he turn the radio up. Waylon Jennings was belting out the lyrics of ‘Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way’. With her foot tapping and her fingertips drumming her leg, her lips moved ever so slightly to the words of the song, letting him know she liked her country music. And only a true country lover would know the words to this particular song. Another tick to his long list of attributes that he liked in a woman.

Dog lover. Tick. Country music lover. Tick. Gorgeous natural looks. Tick. Sassy. Tick. Independent. Tick. And all in a matter of less than an hour.

Thankfully, he’d made sure any woman he had the least bit of interest in had a lot to live up to: that way he always had a reason not to give in to his emotions. Because his emotions ran extremely deep, deep enough to drag him under if he wasn’t careful. He had a lot of love to give, hidden within his shackled heart. That was why he kept it under lock and key.

Apart from what he already liked about her, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something special about Millie, something he needed to understand, to know more of. And although it felt bizarre, there was part of him that felt a strong need to protect her, to shield her from whatever, or whoever, she might be running from. In the strangest of ways, he almost wished she was his. And that floored him.

A relationship could spell disaster for him.

In so many ways.

He needed to be very, very, careful.

CHAPTER

5

Millie was glad for the scruffy dog that sat between them – in spite of the fact that its breath stank to high hell and its slobber was dripping onto her legs – and not only because she didn’t know this tower of virile man from a bar of soap, but also because she felt like she did. It was an oddly conflicting sensation. One she didn’t know what to make of. As the highway rolled away, she couldn’t help but wonder if this rugged-looking bloke was the person behind her being here. If he’d been the one to put pen to paper. Or was he the one who would slip up and reveal the truth? There was an addictive air about him, suffused with mystery and determination and an unfathomable depth – a powerfully heady combination. Her heart quivered as she recalled turning to see him for the first time, the shifter in her hand her only means of protection. It was an intense moment, and she’d felt a magnetic attraction to him in that instant, as well as an intoxicating aura of safety within his presence. As if they’d already spent a lifetime together.

Or maybe a past one …

Giving Scruff a distracted scratch on his neck, which he was lapping up – shame the same couldn’t be said about his slobber – she snuck curious, sideways glances at Jarrah. Something about him was niggling something deep inside of her. Maybe it was purely because he was easy on the eye. Maybe it was because her hormones had been all out of whack since her miscarriage. She could come up with a myriad of reasons, or excuses, depending how she looked at it, but if she were being completely honest with herself, with his shaggy light-brown hair, tinged with a bit of grey near his temples, and his angular jaw hardened even more by his five o’clock shadow, and the tattoos she was privy to on his forearms and one of his hands, he was a hell of a lot of man. One she needed to turn a blind eye to if this trip up north was going to prove successful. She had one goal, and one goal only – to know the truth. Besides, she knew the pain of wearing rose-coloured glasses all too well. Most men lied, almost all eventually cheated, and in one way or another members of the human race in general let down the people closest to them, the people who would do anything for them.

Slowing at an intersection, the four-wheel drive then veered left, and a little further down the road the tyres met with the crunch of a gravel road. Not long after, they rattled over two cattle grids, both making her teeth chatter. Scruff barked as he bounced in his seat. Jarrah laughed at his dog’s antics, and she couldn’t help but chuckle to herself too. Another kilometre or so down the road, Jarrah accelerated through a running creek bed, sending a spray of water over the bonnet, then, reaching the top of a steep rise, they met with bitumen again just as a packet of Minties fell from the dash and upended in her lap. It appeared he liked the same lollies as she did.

Gathering the teeth-sticking mint-flavoured sweets and plonking what she’d been able to retrieve back into the bag, she looked to Jarrah. ‘Gee whizz, your roadhouse is off the beaten track, isn’t it?’ Sitting ramrod straight, she braced herself for more surprise bumps.

‘Ah, not really, sorry about the bush track, but I took a short cut through the back of my property.’ He pointed up ahead. ‘Other people usually come from that way.’

‘Ahhh, okay, gotcha.’ Her eyes widened as she inhaled the refreshing aroma of the lush tropical rainforest floating through the air vents of the LandCruiser. ‘This is all yours?’

‘It sure is, and isn’t she beautiful.’ He sighed, and dimples appeared on his cheeks as he smiled dreamily. ‘I have to pinch myself every single day I’m lucky enough to wake up to it.’

Nodding in awe, she had to agree wholeheartedly. With thick shrubbery surrounding them, the deep green umbrella of the foliage above, and bright pops of colours from tropical flowers amid it all, the entirety of it was a multisensory overload, especially for a gal who had grown used to the big smoke of Sydney.

‘You would never believe it, but this place is apparently over one hundred and thirty-five million years old,’ he said, his tattooed hand rubbing his stubbled chin.

‘Holy moly, really?’ Handsome and intelligent, this man was growing on her way too quickly.

‘Never a truer word spoken.’ He nodded earnestly. ‘David Attenborough said it’s the most extraordinary place on earth, and I have to say I totally agree with him.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Her words were more breathed than spoken, as her eyes gladly rested back on the view through the windscreen. Never in her life had she seen a place so lush and pure. It was utterly breathtaking.

---