Heartbreak Homestead (Hearts of the Outback Book 2) Read online

  Heartbreak Homestead

  Susanne Bellamy

  Hearts of the Outback

  Book 2

  Copyright © 2016 Susanne Bellamy

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  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

  About the Author

  Hearts of the Outback: Book 3

  More Books by Susanne Bellamy

  Dedication

  To my parents, who gave me a wonderful childhood, and to my sisters for making it so much fun.

  Chapter One

  Lizzy Wilmot looked at the congregation assembled to farewell her brother. Despite growing up in separate households after Mum died, a twinge of sadness for Jeb and the man he might have been brought a lump to her throat. Few people remembered they were siblings since her adoption by Aunt Trish, and Lizzy hadn’t expected so many of her friends and colleagues at his funeral.

  Beside her, Donna, her sister-in-law rocked her two-month-old son and dabbed her eyes with a soggy tissue.

  “I don’t know why I’m still so teary after everything that happened but I can’t seem to stop crying.”

  “He was your husband. No matter what Jeb did, it’s tragic his mental health issues led him to take his life.”

  “It’s not Jeb’s fault. He couldn’t— damn.” Donna’s tissue fell to pieces and she reached down for her handbag with one hand.

  Lizzy held her arms out to take her nephew while Donna scrabbled for more tissues. At eight weeks of age, Daniel Campbell was the most beautiful baby she’d seen. And if she had anything to do with it, he’d grow up like his brave mother and avoid the abusive behaviour common to the Campbell men.

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Donna. Jeb behaved appallingly to you. Don’t forget, both you and Dan might have died if not for the Flying Doctor.”

  Fresh tears welled in Donna’s eyes. “I’ve never seen Jeb lose it like he did when the doctor wanted to bring me into hospital. He really thought I was going to leave him.”

  Lizzy patted her shoulder. “If it’s any comfort, I think he was sorry for what he did. He did let you go.” Unlike their father who had refused to allow their mother to leave ‘Craeborn’. They’d lost both their mother and baby brother. Lizzy had used that memory to convince Jeb to put away his gun and let his wife be taken to hospital.

  ‘Don’t be like our father. Trust the doctor and let us take Donna to hospital. Now.’

  ‘Take her. Get out of here.’ Jeb had turned on his heel and that had been the last time she’d seen him.

  Donna gulped back a noisy sob. “Yes. He let me go. If you love someone . . .”

  “See, deep down, he must have cared about you.” Although Lizzy doubted any man could hit a woman he truly loved but the half-truth would provide a little comfort for Donna on this difficult day. As Donna dabbed at her eyes Lizzy frowned; Donna’s face was gaunt and shadows filled the deep hollow beneath her eyes. And her frequent teary outbursts had encouraged Lizzy to seek counselling for her sister-in-law.

  “He did. He loved me, and he would have loved Dan if he’d had the chance. He always said a child needs both parents and your father was better when your mother was still alive. I don’t know what I’ll do now. How will I bring Dan up without his father?” Donna slumped onto her shoulder, her tears soaking Lizzy’s white blouse.

  As she cradled her nephew, Lizzy mulled over why Donna grieved so much for a man who had mistreated her so badly.

  Donna sat up and wiped her shaking hands over her cheeks. “The thought of anything happening to Dan scares me witless. I don’t want to go back to the property.”

  “Too many bad memories. I know what you mean. I’ll be happy if I never see that place again.” Goose bumps traipsed down her spine. The memory of her brother aiming a gun on the doctor and pilot who had responded to Donna’s radio call, while Donna lay screaming in childbirth invaded her sleep. How much worse would it be in the house where her father’s rages had seeped into the very walls? If not for Dr. Dan Middleton, Lizzy doubted either Donna or young Dan would be here today. No wonder Donna had named her son for the Flying Doctor.

  “Hey, Donna, how are you doing?” Amy Alistair, the RFDS pilot who had flown Donna to the hospital during her labour, kissed her cheek before turning to Lizzy. “How’s young Dan? He’s grown a lot.”

  “He sure has.” Over Amy’s shoulder, Lizzy spotted John Padstoke entering the chapel. “Hey, can you sit with Donna? There’s someone I’ve got to see.”

  “Sure.” Amy slid in beside Donna.

  Handing Dan to Amy for a cuddle, Lizzy slipped along the side aisle towards the double glass doors.

  “Mr. Padstoke?”

  The stooped, grey-haired lawyer stepped out of the line of people coming into the chapel and joined her in the space between the glass door and a plaster column.

  “I received a message you wanted to see me as soon as possible?” she said as he held her hand between both of his.

  “My condolences on the loss of your brother, Ms. Wilmot. I didn’t mean today. It’s a difficult time for your family. Could you call into my office at your earliest convenience? Would two o’clock tomorrow afternoon suit?”

  “I can be there. I assume this is to do with my brother’s will. Does my sister-in-law need to come too?”

  “Ah, perhaps it might be—easier if we discussed things without her.”

  He was right. The business of today was to bury her brother.

  ##

  “Elizabeth Wilmot to see Mr. Padstoke.” Lizzy smiled at the receptionist and turned to take a seat.

  “Ms. Wilmot, please come straight through. He’s expecting you.”

  She followed the trendily dressed thirty-something woman down a corridor and waited while she knocked on the end door. “Ms. Wilmot is here.”

  Lizzy stepped into the office and Mr. Padstoke came around his desk to shake her hand.

  “Thank you for making the time to see me. I’m sure you have a lot to do but time constraints make it imperative we talk with you as soon as possible. May I introduce Alex Carter?”

  Dressed in a dark grey suit and burgundy tie, Carter’s white shirt contrasted with his olive skin. Dark brown eyes fringed by thick lashes widened as their gazes met and a spike of sexual chemistry punched through Lizzy’s body with the force of a tsunami. His face was too angular to be conventionally handsome but an aura of power surrounded him.

  Momentarily deprived of speech, Lizzy held out her hand. Despite the warmth of his skin as he shook hands, and the flare of sexual awareness in his eyes, there was something hard about him. His mouth was set in a tight line; beautiful but cold, it looked as if it had been chiselled by a sculptor.

  A premonition of something not quite right sent a frisson of fear down her spine. Pulling her gaze from his lips, she squared her shoulders, and raised her chin. “How do you do, Mr. Carter?”

  His eyes narrowed so fleetingly before his lips parted in a polite half smile, Lizzy wondered if she’d imagined the assessing look.

  “Ms. Wilmot. It’s a pl
easure to meet you. I’m sorry for your loss.” In contrast to the stony features, his voice was a rich baritone and it reached inside warming her like a Cognac on a cold night.

  He waited until she was seated before taking the seat next to her.

  “I thought this meeting was about my brother’s will. How do you fit into the picture?”

  “A straight talker. Good. What we have to discuss comes directly as a consequence of your brother’s will. How much do you know about his business?”

  “Nothing. We were not—close.”

  Mr. Padstoke drew a document from the yellow folder on his desk. “I have a copy of Jeb’s will for you to take away and study at leisure. There are provisions in here for his widow and child. There is one section in particular that demands urgent attention. It’s to do with the responsibilities attached to ownership of the family property.”

  “Didn’t he leave it to his wife and child? ‘Craeborn’ has always passed to the eldest son.” Why was the solicitor talking to her about inheritance? As emotional as Donna was, it would be hers to make decisions about for her son.

  Mr. Padstoke took off his glasses and polished each lens. “Inheritance rights aren’t written in stone. I suspect there is a great deal we don’t know about Jeb but one thing is certain; he hated his wife’s family and would do anything to ensure ‘Craeborn’ didn’t fall into Tait hands.”

  “I don’t understand. Donna is a Tait and he married her. How can you say he hated her family?”

  The solicitor settled his glasses on his nose and picked up the will. “Perhaps your sister-in-law can shed light on that for you. What I can tell you is that Jebediah made provision for his wife and child, but ‘Craeborn’ does not form part of their inheritance.”

  Lizzy shook her head and a chill ran down her spine. “Then who inherits it?”

  “You, my dear. ‘Craeborn’ passes to you.”

  Chapter Two

  “Impossible.”

  Alex watched emotions play over the face of Elizabeth Wilmot. Surprise, shock, those he’d anticipated after his earlier meeting with John Padstoke. After all, it wasn’t likely Jeb Campbell had shared the contents of his will with a sister who, despite living in town, Padstoke explained, he’d had little to do with.

  But denial—that reaction was unexpected. Beneath the wayward auburn curls, her face paled and her jade-green eyes widened as she stared at the solicitor.

  Gripping the arms of the chair, she shook her head. “Impossible.”

  Unexpected and unwelcome.

  Alex hadn’t foreseen dealing with a reluctant owner. Nor was Ms. Wilmot anything like what he’d expected after a single meeting with her brother. Insular and unforgiving, Campbell wouldn’t have been his first choice as business partner. ‘Craeborn’ suited his company’s requirements and Alex had accepted dealing with its taciturn owner as a necessary evil. His suicide had changed the game.

  Elizabeth Wilmot was an unknown quantity, but a variable he needed to get a handle on quickly. Her decisions would impact his ability to keep the program on track. His stomach clenched as he examined her profile. The deal with Indonesia and his company’s research depended on her co-operation. Which may not be forthcoming if she was as reluctant to accept the bequest as she appeared to be.

  His new business partner dragged in an audible breath and his gaze was drawn to her chest. Well stacked, with curves his hands imagined shaping and a mouth made for kissing. Certain muscles tightened, ready and willing for action.

  Shit. Right at this moment, he’d have preferred Jeb Campbell to be sitting in that chair instead of his distracting and very appealing sister.

  “Ms. Wilmot, would you like a cup of tea or coffee or—?” Padstoke looked like he was on the back foot, an unusual reaction from the usually unflappable solicitor who had served his family for almost three decades.

  “Nothing, thank you. Why would Jeb do such a thing? What about his wife and little Dan?”

  Auburn hair pulled into a messy bun left the slim column of her neck bare, aside from a few wayward tendrils. Vibrant in stark contrast to her pale cheeks, Alex wanted to wrap one of those curls around his finger while he kissed his way from shoulder to ear and around to her full lips.

  “He made provision for them. But he did say that the only thing he loathed more than the idea of a woman running ‘Craeborn’ was the thought of Tait getting his hands on the property.”

  “Mr. Padstoke, the twisted path of my brother’s thinking is more than I can handle right now. Can we move to something simpler, like why Mr. Carter is attending a meeting about my brother’s will?”

  Her voice drawling his name with a hint of sarcasm brought Alex back to the business at hand. And reminded him to think with the head on his shoulders. Sexual attraction had no place in business.

  In profile, Elizabeth’s likeness to her brother was more evident. They shared the same patrician nose and a way of looking down it at the world. Her brother had lacked the dry sarcasm that tripped easily from her tongue, but perhaps she wasn’t so very different to him after all.

  Alex crossed one leg over the other and leaned back. “I can answer that. Your brother was my business partner in a venture my company is developing. Mr. Padstoke realised how your decisions about ‘Craeborn’ could be affected by the contractual obligations your brother has made. In fact, there are commitments in place which fall due a month from now.”

  Mr. Padstoke pushed his glasses up his nose and placed his elbows on his desk. “I regret the necessity of pushing you for an answer but there is a chain of contracts that begins with you. I thought meeting Alex here might make it easier, particularly if you have any questions about the legal aspects of your partnership with him.”

  What the lawyer didn’t mention was that Alex had cajoled John into inviting him to the meeting. Flying in to Mt. Isa at lunchtime yesterday, he’d been forced to cool his heels in the hotel. Not even the contract to be filled was urgent enough to intrude on Campbell’s funeral.

  “I would like to talk through what is currently in place and see if we can proceed from there. Would dinner this evening be convenient for you? Say seven-thirty?” He looked at his new business partner and held back a sigh.

  Her cool, green gaze flicked over his face. “Certainly, Mr. Carter.”

  An unwanted lick of heat curled in his belly. “Please, call me Alex. Give me your address and I’ll pick you up.”

  She opened her slim leather handbag and took out a business card and pen. Flipping it, she wrote on the back and handed it over.

  He checked the address. It was on this side of town not far from his hotel. Out of curiosity, he turned it over. ‘Lizzy Wilmot – SES Mt. Isa’. Probably she worked in the office but it gave Alex hope. If she was community-minded enough to volunteer for such an organisation, maybe she wouldn’t be as difficult to deal with as her brother. “Thanks. And John, I’ll be in touch tomorrow after Ms. Wilmot and I have talked.”

  He buttoned his suit coat, picked up his briefcase, and left them to deal with the legalities of Jeb Campbell’s death. Crossing the road in front of the law firm’s office, Alex looked for a café. The one thing he missed when he was away from Brisbane was good coffee. He spotted the name of a well-known franchise and took a punt.

  Seated in a corner by the front window, Alex opened his laptop to deal with his emails. While he waited for the slow Wi-Fi connection, he went over the meeting with Elizabeth—Lizzy—Wilmot. Elizabeth was strong and controlled and, he suspected, no walkover, even if she knew little about the property. But Lizzy—how that name suited the woman whose red hair and green eyes and challenging, direct gaze hinted at a passionate nature.

  Analysing every word, every nuance of body language from the moment she’d been introduced to him, he knew she was going to be a challenge. John Padstoke had been reticent about details, other than that she was single and lived with her aunt, but Alex would bet she was the sort to make a man’s life complicated. A firm hand and a clear head—
and turning off my libido around her—would get the deal done.

  Turning his attention to the screen, he checked in with the Brisbane office. Indonesia had confirmed the cattle order, but—he swore under his breath as he read the next sentence—the latest results on the cross-breeding program had been delayed by missing data Jeb Campbell should have sent over two weeks ago. Alex scrolled back to find Campbell’s last email. There it was, the day before he killed himself.

  ‘Data attached. Report will follow.’

  Except there had been no attachment and no report had arrived in the next few days. After a week of unanswered emails, the solicitor’s news of Jeb’s death had brought Alex up to the mining town on the next flight. Unless he could convince Lizzy Wilmot to head out to ‘Craeborn’ within a couple of days and hunt for the missing information, the trials would be delayed and that would set them back weeks, if not months.

  He picked up his cup and sipped. At least the coffee was decent. It was the only good thing so far today. An image of Lizzy Wilmot’s green eyes and raised chin floated into his subconscious, diverting his attention from his emails. Deliberating on whether to list her as a positive in a less than stellar week, his groin tightened again. He shook his head.

  Attractive as she was, he could do without the distraction. Dinner tonight would be all about business.

  ##

  Alex pulled the hire car up in front of an elegant Queenslander home. A veranda wrapped around three sides of the building, shaded by several small trees that gave the house privacy and a settled air. As he mounted the front steps, the sounds of a baby crying overtook the cricking of cicadas in the bushes.

  He rapped on the green door with the brass goanna-shaped knocker. The door opened suddenly and a harassed looking brunette holding a baby stepped aside.

  Before he managed a word, she turned and, speaking over her shoulder, led the way down the hall. “Come in. I’m Donna and you must be Mr. Carter.” She took him through to a lounge room that could have graced the front cover of a home decorating magazine. Except for the sofa, which sported baby paraphernalia strewn across a baby blanket.