Wild About Harry (Hearts of the Outback Book 5)

  Wild About Harry

  by

  Susanne Bellamy

  Copyright © 2017 Susanne Bellamy

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  For Dad, my very own Harry

  Acknowledgments

  With huge thanks to Annie Seaton and Erin Moira O'Hara for their encouragement along the way, and to the writers in WCW.

  .

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A taster for you from:

  Hearts of the Outback- Book One

  About the Author

  More Books by Susanne Bellamy

  Chapter One

  Headlights pierced the gloom as Harrison Douglas drove south along the narrow strip of bitumen, back to Mt Isa. A sliver of rising moon hung low on the horizon, its feeble light lost as iron-grey clouds scudded across the sky and fat drops of rain splattered against the windscreen. The edge of the storm he’d hoped to beat had moved further north than expected.

  Stifling a yawn, he regretted not accepting Alex Carter’s offer to borrow his Cessna instead of driving back to Mount Isa. He’d have been home in time to have dinner and bath Vicky, five-years-old and the light of his life. But even for his daughter, he hadn’t been able to change his plans.

  Minutes passed and rain battered the roof of his ute, drowning his thoughts. He increased the wiper speed and eased his foot off the accelerator, but visibility was down to fifty metres and rapidly decreasing. By the time he reached home, Vicky would be sound asleep and the young nanny anxious to be gone.

  He sighed, knowing he had no choice but to employ a nanny if he was to give Vicky the stability she needed. He tried so damned hard to be both father and mother to his daughter. Ever since Linda—

  He clamped his teeth together before the roar of outrage welling within escaped. Alone and in the middle of a storm where no one would hear, he refused to lose control. Linda was dead and their daughter, motherless, and he had to deal with it the best he could.

  But grief sat on Harry’s shoulder like a black eagle every damned hour of the day waiting to sink its beak into the shell of a man he’d become.

  He focused on thoughts of Vicky. How her blonde hair curled softly when he tied it up in two high scrunchies above each ear. And how she jumped into his embrace, her arms wrapped around his neck like a limpet as soon as he walked through the kitchen door.

  Vicky was his sanity. For her, he hauled himself out of bed each morning. His reward was reading a bedtime story together, his favourite time of day.

  It was normal.

  It was safe.

  And it was satisfying, especially when she snuggled into his neck and fell asleep, her warm breath soft across his skin.

  But tonight, all he had to look forward to was work. He reached over and his hand rested for a moment on the laptop case on the passenger seat. Alex and Lizzy were excited about the small deposits of lithium he’d found on their property, ‘Craeborn’, and they’d talked for a long while after lunch. If Harry’s initial analysis and report determined the find was viable, they would decide which mining company to approach.

  Realising he could no longer hear the podcast on training tips for quick, effective workouts, it occurred to Harry that it wasn’t because he’d lost interest in the topic. Rain thundered on the roof of his ute and streamed down the windscreen, reducing visibility to a bare twenty metres. The Wet had well and truly arrived. Forget missing bath time with Vicky. There was a real chance he wouldn’t be able to cross the creek.

  Twin beams from the headlights struggled to illuminate the road ahead and water lapped the edges of the road. Predictions of record rains for the Outback were likely to be realised. His mind raced, calculating how far he was from terrain high enough not to flood.

  Why hadn’t he listened to Alex? Despite his friend arguing long and hard that flying back to the Isa was a safer choice, and citing the weather warning and not getting home to Vicky as a last appeal to Harry’s logical mind, the compulsion to return the same way he’d arrived won the day.

  Plan everything and stick to the plan.

  Safe. Secure.

  Now here he was, with the very real possibility of being stranded on a lonely stretch of road, miles from shelter.

  It wasn’t part of his plans.

  His headlights reflected off metal a little way ahead before his ute bounced through a dip in the road and he briefly lost sight of it.

  A stranded motorist? Thinking about his emergency supplies, he calculated they could stretch to three days if carefully shared.

  The ute crested a slight incline and the headlights spotlighted a small, dark, two-door sedan sitting at an odd angle on the opposite shoulder of the road. The driver’s door hung open, its corner digging into churned up red mud.

  A twinge of unease flickered and he shielded his eyes against the high beam. Keeping his wheels on the strip of bitumen, he eased to a stop in front of the vehicle. There was no sign of anyone in the car.

  Grimacing at the thought of wading through red mud, he looked regretfully at his neatly pressed dark grey trousers before reaching under the seat for his heavy-duty torch.

  He drew a deep breath and opened his door, stepping into rain as heavy and blinding as a waterfall. Within seconds, his clothing clung like a second skin. He blinked and swiped a hand over his face before sheltering his eyes against the onslaught.

  “Hello, anybody there?” He directed the torchlight through the windscreen and edged around the front of his ute towards the open door of the small car. “Hello?”

  Lightning flashed across the sky, turning night into day for brief seconds. Thunder clapped almost directly overhead. Had the driver been rescued already?

  Squelching through muddy water, he drew level with the driver’s door. Slim, jeans-clad legs and a pair of sturdy, thickly mud-encrusted boots appeared in his torchlight. The legs wriggled backwards and a distinctly feminine bottom arched up, followed by the rest of her body, also liberally coated in red mud. The woman stood and a tanned face squinted up at him before he lowered the beam. The torch in her hand glowed dimly and, as Harry watched, the bulb winked out.

  “Hi. Thanks for stopping. I think I have a broken axle. Can you give me a lift back into Mt Isa?” Rain pummelled the woman, running off her clothes in rivulets and red-puddling on the bitumen beneath her feet.

  “Want me to take a look for you?” Harry knew his voice lacked enthusiasm. It wasn’t that he didn’t get dirty in his work; surveying mineral deposits had its moments, but they were planned and he carried a change of clothes.

  He lifted a boot. It came up reluctantly with a slow, sucking release he felt more than heard as he stepped back onto the bitumen.

  The woman stood and swiped her arm across her forehead. A glimmer of a smile peeked and vanished as she brushed at the mud clinging to her jeans. “Not much point. My car isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Just
a ride into town would be great though.”

  “Grab your gear and jump in my ute. Anything I can carry for you?”

  He flashed his torch through the side window. She pushed the driver’s seat forward and gripped a hard black case. Two-handed, she passed it to him. “My most precious possessions are in there. Treat it gently please. In the cab would be preferable.”

  The case was heavy for its size. Harry carried it to his ute and placed it on the floor on the passenger side. He turned to find the woman already behind him. She clutched a battered carry on-size suitcase, which she handed to him. “Just clothes. Not important stuff.” She grinned and jumped into the passenger seat.

  Harry shut her door and sloshed through puddles to the rear. His grip slipped as he opened the back door and he dropped the case. It fell on his boot and toppled sideways, greedily soaking up the encroaching water. Biting back an expletive—not that the woman would hear him in the storm—he picked up the case and packed it carefully on top of his equipment boxes.

  Soaked to the skin and sporting a streak of mud down his work shirt, Harry climbed into the driver’s seat and tugged his door closed. His jeans clung to his legs, heavy and uncomfortable and distinctly cool. Water clung to his eyelashes and dripped from his nose, his chin, his fingers. Everywhere. There wasn’t a square, unsaturated inch on him.

  He turned to the woman.

  She was watching him as she patted water from her hair with a navy blue camping towel. “Thank goodness for leather seats, hey?” She wiped her hands and offered him the towel.

  Harry stared at the muddy material before finally, he accepted the towel. If he couldn’t see, he couldn’t drive, and if he didn’t drive, he would be stuck here with this woman.

  This very muddy woman.

  As she leaned forward and adjusted her precious possession between her feet, Harry winced at the muddy smears on his cream leather seats. Being a Good Samaritan had its drawbacks.

  The woman sat back and a pair of blue eyes regarded him. Laughing blue eyes that, even in the dim light from the dash seemed to be enjoying the situation. Streaks of mud marked her cheek and chin, and her hair was tangled and plastered to her head, but none of that appeared to worry her as she held out a hand.

  “Briony Middleton.”

  He wiped his hands on her towel and shook hers. “Harrison Douglas. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get through, but I’ll do my best. No guarantees.” Hoping they made it through the creek before it became impassable, he texted Vicky’s nanny and snapped his phone shut.

  “Thanks. Doesn’t worry me, Harry—Harrison. It’s all an adventure.”

  Adventure?

  Likely his jaw dropped because Briony grinned. “I enjoy not knowing what each day will bring, don’t you?”

  He cringed and his stomach dropped like when his plane hit an air pocket. Not knowing meant not planning, and not planning wasn’t an option in his world.

  Not anymore.

  “The possibility of being stranded with a stranger doesn’t worry you?”

  “Are you mad or a serial murderer?” She shimmied out of her muddy over-shirt, dropped the ruined garment at her feet and sat back. The movement drew his eyes to the wet T-shirt clinging to her breasts.

  “Of course not.” But a very male response slammed through him before he dragged his gaze back to meet hers. Once upon a time, when Linda was alive, he’d have felt a spike of guilt about the moment of attraction. Eighteen months of living through hell had changed guilt into surprise—he’d noticed a woman, and a beautiful one at that.

  “In that case, what’s the worry? I’ve seen Wolf Creek and docos about the outback. You look nothing like the men in them.”

  “A definitive conclusion then?” Harry shook his head and started the engine.

  He had enough to worry about, especially the possibility of the creek flooding before they reached it. But this woman was mad. Certifiably mad. She called their predicament an adventure!

  Once upon a time, he’d believed in the power of prayer. Back when life had shone with endless possibilities and love. If events hadn’t shown him how useless such thoughts were, right now he’d be sending his words skywards.

  Chapter Two

  Bri held her breath as Harry—thinking of him as Harrison made him seem stuffy—pulled up shy of the bridge and peered into the darkness. Muddy water swirled in the drop off along both edges of the approach and the creek was no longer a trickle, but a river beginning to spill over the edges of the bridge.

  Living beside a coastal river that occasionally flooded, Bri had seen enough floods and been stranded once, on the wrong side from home. And that had been an experience not to be repeated, with or without company. “It looks okay, but you’re local. What do you think?”

  “We’ve made it just in time, but keep your eyes peeled.” Harry put the ute into gear and drove onto the bridge, navigating steadily through water inching higher by the minute.

  As they drove up the incline on the far side of the creek, she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. “Phew! That was close. I guess my car won’t be getting towed anytime soon.”

  Several heartbeats passed before Harry responded. “I wouldn’t have risked crossing if it had been flooded.”

  “Yeah, water can be scary sometimes. I wasn’t too keen on being stranded again.”

  “Again? So this isn’t an adventure? Glad to hear you do have some sense of self-preservation. You’ll need it travelling these roads alone.”

  Bri burred up, more at his tone than what he said. If she had been less grateful for the rescue she’d have told him where he could shove his pontificating. Just because she’d broken down at the side of a lonely stretch of outback road didn’t mean she wasn’t careful. Or that she shouldn’t look for some pleasure in the situation. Imagine if Hugh Jackman had pulled up in his car and offered her a lift.

  “Of course I’m careful, but that doesn’t mean life can’t be fun. I welcome new experiences. But having once been stuck looking across a raging torrent at my home on the other side, I appreciate a solid roof and a soft bed when it’s pouring outside.”

  “Was that just bravado before, making the best of a bad situation?”

  “No. It will all make an interesting story when I’m old and grey. Bri, the brave, Bri, the adventurer, fording flooded rivers and so on.” She grinned. “It’s all part of my life story and I plan to make it a damned good one.”

  “Story? Or life?”

  “Both. Live life to the full, I say. You only get one shot at it.”

  In the dim light of the dashboard, she thought she saw Harry’s lips press tight shut. His hands tightened around the wheel and she had the odd sensation he’d retreated behind a wall. Thanking her lucky stars she only had to spend a short time with him, she realised how ungrateful she was. He’d come to her rescue in his white dual cab ute like a knight in the historical romance tales her mother wrote.

  But they were fiction and Harry was no knight. That name implied fun and enjoyment. Harrison suited him much better. Formal, stand-offish . . . dull.

  Her rescuer wasn’t a white knight but a tense, taciturn, boring man.

  A Harrison.

  She dredged deeper in search of some gratitude. “What would you have done if we’d been stranded?”

  “I carry emergency rations in the car; extra supplies when I’m doing fieldwork.” He pressed his lips together again.

  He’d let something he hadn’t meant to slip. Fieldwork? A solitary occupation, which probably suited his personality.

  “Makes sense. What do you—”

  “What’s your precious possession?” He tipped his head towards the bag lying between her feet without taking his eyes off the road. His first contribution to the conversation and he cut her off.

  “My cameras. I’m a freelance photographer.” She looked at the miserable view. The heavy rain was another reason to be grateful she wasn’t the one driving. Was the rain easing, or was that wis
hful thinking on her part?

  “As in, you never know where your next job will come from?” A hint of distaste coloured his words. Most people thought her work was exciting, but she’d bet her last dollar Harrison was the sort who’d never leave anything to chance. He probably planned everything down to the last teaspoon in his emergency pack.

  Bri peered through the gloom trying to read his expression. Dour, taciturn? She couldn’t decide how to describe it, but he was self-contained. Definitely not chatty.

  Not like her.

  You’d talk underwater with a banana in your mouth. Gran’s frustration with her youngest granddaughter had given rise to a store of colourful family expressions. She shook her head and vowed not to annoy her saviour.

  Harrison’s focus was fixed entirely on the road.

  She wasn’t comfortable driving her little sedan on outback roads, but she had yet to capture that image through her lens that would make her fortune and let her buy a decent four wheel drive.

  And she was grateful to have been rescued by this solid, capable man. Truth be told, there was something about Harrison that made her feel safe.

  Safe but bored.

  She sighed, knowing her answer wouldn’t mean the same to him as it did to her. “Sort of. I’m master of my time, and I follow things I want to. No slaving for a boss in an office for me.” She’d tried it after uni and run from the mind-numbing boredom as soon as she could.

  “So freelance means free as a bird for you? No family?”

  “Youngest of two sisters and no ties. I can go wherever I choose and move on whenever the fancy takes me. Do you have a family, Harry?”

  “Yes. Where do you want to be dropped off?”

  She looked through the windscreen, surprised to see they’d reached the outer limits of Mt Isa. “First hotel with a vacancy sign is fine, thanks.”

  He slowed as the first couple of motels came into view. “No Vacancy” signs swung or flashed below the names of the motels and Harry drove on. As they passed the fifth—or was it the sixth motel, she’d lost count—he pulled over.