‘Do you think it’s possible to die of thirst out here?’ he mused, knowing full well there was plenty of water in his backpack.
Amy stopped abruptly and turned to look at him with an exasperated frown, hands swooshing the skirt of her filmy yellow sundress. ‘Don’t start, mister. I know you’re enjoying yourself. You only complain this much when you’re really, really, enjoying yourself.’
She was right but that wasn’t the point. ‘Care to tell me why we’re doing this in the heat of the day rather than at a more sensible time?’
‘Because I promised Jo we’d look after Tiffany. It’ll be the first night she and Stephen have had a breather for ages and I want to spend a bit of quality time with my niece before we leave for your book launch in London.’ She gave him a pointed look, then flicked her ponytail over her shoulder, marching towards the trees and dam in the distance again.
Ben was momentarily distracted, watching her pert little backside moving from side to side before he snorted and caught up, long strides eating up the ground. ‘Quality time? The child’s seen so much of you, she’s probably confused who her real mother is. Don’t even think of getting any ideas. We discussed this.’
‘Hmm?’ Amy’s voice was all too innocent as she paused to open a homemade wire and ring-lock gate, letting Ben through, then deftly closing it again.
Ben didn’t like the sound of that. ‘I’m not impregnating you until you get off your high and mighty horse and agree to marry me. That damn dog of yours is more than enough for now. One of these days I’m going to break my neck falling over him instead of merely bruising my ego.’
From the back he caught Amy’s cheeks plumping out as she chuckled and felt the urge to grin back, despite his exasperation. Four times. He’d asked her to marry him four times over the past six months, and every time she’d turned him down, saying he had to do his time in purgatory, living in her house, before she could agree.
He’d jumped through the hoops, passed the bloody test and she was going to agree to marry him today or he was going to do something unspeakable, which would more than likely result in him getting something Australian stuck in a crevice or two when he got her underneath him until she said yes.
He was prepared for a long siege. He had the engagement ring he’d picked out six months ago in his back pocket. He’d brought a picnic blanket this time and, unbeknown to Amy, he’d arranged for a gourmet packed lunch and a rather lovely bottle of champagne, currently residing in a compact chiller providing a blessedly cool patch on the otherwise overheated skin of his back.
It took them another ten minutes to reach the relative cool of the clearing next to the dam. Like last time, Amy inspected it in silence before walking forward. Taking his baseball cap off to smooth a hand over his damp scalp and letting the backpack slide off his shoulders to rest on the ground by his feet, Ben watched on as warmth bloomed in his chest. Damn, but he loved this woman.
‘Ben?’ Amy turned and held out a hand for him. She was standing right next to the large, gnarled tree she’d told him was the site of her old childhood hidey hole.
He walked forward, wondering at the sparkle in her eyes while being completely charmed and gratified by the happiness in her expression. He’d been a little worried that this place would still hold shadowy memories for her, not only of her childhood but of his much more recent stupidity that had nearly been the end of them.
He took her hand. ‘Are you happy?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded emphatically.
‘You’re not feeling down about the partnership?’ he asked, referring to Amy selling forty per cent of her business to her friend and colleague, Mel. The decision had been a hard one but both Ben and Mel had finally convinced Amy it was the right thing to do, along with hiring a second barber, Cathleen, who was turning out brilliantly.
Be that as it may, Ben couldn’t help but notice that Amy had experienced a few pangs of anxiety during her first ever trip overseas last month to see Alex in the opening night of Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
‘I was feeling a bit flat, but I’m not now,’ she replied. ‘I’ve done the right thing.’
‘You have.’ Ben saw she was rubbing her thigh with the palm of her hand, the way she always did when she was nervous or anxious. Something was up. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Even after six months of close proximity, he was still not fully versed in all her moods. She kept him on his toes.
‘Ben?’ She looked up at him, her expression earnest. Too earnest.
‘Yes?’ he asked warily.
‘There’s something I want to ask you. Could you promise me you’ll be quiet for a few seconds and not say anything?’
He felt a small curl of apprehension. ‘This isn’t going to be depressing, is it?’
She shook her head, a small smile playing around her mouth. ‘Nope.’
He nodded. He would have shut up for a bloody year if she’d keep smiling.
She pulled her hand out of his, looked up into his eyes, then bit her lip. ‘Close your eyes.’
He opened his mouth to protest but quickly snapped it shut when she raised her brows. He heaved a massive sigh instead and did what she’d asked, feeling a full wave of apprehension wash over him.
‘You still with me?’
He nodded and felt two warm hands pressing on his already overheated chest through his T-shirt. His mind was buzzing. What the hell could his little barber be up to?
‘Will you marry me?’
It took a few seconds for the words to register and when they did Ben’s eyes snapped open, his words coming out in an indignant roar. ‘You devious wench!’
Amy’s wide grin turned into hearty, full blown, head-to-toes laughter. ‘You’re supposed to say yes.’
‘No!’ Ben exclaimed in outrage. Six months he’d been asking and now the woman springs this on him. As if he hadn’t been sweating bricks the entire time. He shook his head emphatically. ‘Oh no. No way. You made me wait for six months and turned me down four times. Four times. And then you—’ He paused, momentarily lost for words. ‘Apoplectic, sweetheart, there’s no other description for how I feel right now. Start running because when I catch you, you’re backside’s going to be too damn sore for you to move for weeks.’
‘So yes, then?’ Amy stood on tiptoes, planted a quick kiss on his firmly closed lips, then turned to sprint away, her laughter trailing behind her.
Ben let her get a little bit ahead to keep things interesting, then gave chase, hounding her steps through the trees, across a patch of dry grass and up along the bank of the dam. Amy ran ahead of him, her head thrown back, her gleeful laughter filling the air, ending with a choked giggle as he picked up his speed, grabbed her around her waist and threw her over his shoulder.
‘Put me down!’
‘No. I’m afraid you’re getting what you deserve this time.’ Ben strode determinedly down the bank. ‘It’s not like my shoes aren’t already ruined, so trust me, this is going to hurt you far more than it does me.’
It took Amy a few seconds to gauge his intent before she really started struggling. ‘No! My hair—’
‘Will bloody well survive, never mind that my ego is in tatters,’ he said indignantly, holding her just at the water’s edge. It did look blessedly cool. ‘I want a “yes” in retrospect. No, bugger that. I want four in retrospect, or you are going to have a bath within the next thirty seconds.’ He made as if to let go.
Amy squealed. ‘Yes, yes, yes and yes–now put me down.’
‘Okay.’ Ben promptly dropped her in the water.
When she finally picked herself up, spluttering and cursing him, he was sitting on the bank only a few feet away, holding up a ten-carat diamond engagement ring between thumb and forefinger. ‘Love me?’
She stood on one foot, pulling off one sodden sneaker, then another. Her hair was a bedraggled mess around her cheeks; her dress was plastered to her body. She was perfect.
I
gnoring the ring completely, she sniffed. ‘I can’t answer that until I get an answer to my proposal.’
He pretended to look thoughtful, angling the ring so the diamond caught the sunlight and sparkled. ‘Which one was that?’
His answer was a massive splash of water fair in the face, then another that hit his chest. Before long he was dripping wet, feet sliding on the slippery clay bank as he struggled unsuccessfully to get to his feet.
‘Yes, yes. Bloody well stop–stop that! Yes!’ he managed, spluttering in between the laughter, hands coming up to shield his face.
The water abruptly stopped.
‘Good.’ With a satisfied nod, Amy walked over, plopped herself in his lap and took the ring, sliding it on her finger while Ben watched on in a blissfully silent moment of pure happiness.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank four amazing ladies, whose friendship means so much to me; Theresa Mathison, Anja Dreyer, Jennifer Hogan and Jo Henrickson. Thank you so much for the feedback, encouragement and the smiles.
Also, if it wasn’t for the Hoffies, I never would have “finished the damn book.” I owe you all a world of gratitude.
Finally, I’d like to thank Carol George and Sarah Fairhall at Destiny for their wonderful enthusiasm and Alex Adsett for helping me navigate the scary waters of my first big publishing contract.
In short, you all rock.
About the Author
Georgina Penney first discovered romance novels when she was eleven and has been a fan of the genre ever since. It took her another eighteen years to finally sit in front of a keyboard and get something down on the page but that's alright, she was busy doing other things until then.
Some of those things included living in a ridiculous number of towns and cities in Australia before relocating overseas to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and presently, Brunei Darussalam.
In between all these travels, Georgina managed to learn to paint, get herself a Communication and Cultural Studies degree, study Psychotherapy and learn all about Hypnotherapy. In the early days she even managed to get on the IT roller coaster during the early noughties boom, inexplicably ending the ride by becoming the registrar of a massage and naturopathy college. There was also PhD in the mix there somewhere but moving to Saudi Arabia and rediscovering the bodice ripper fixed all that.
Today she lives with her wonderful husband, Tony in a wooden stilt house on the edge of the Bornean jungle along with a contrary stray cat named Milli Vanilli.
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Chapter One
It was half-past-eight on the corner of W53rd and Broadway, Midtown Manhattan, and nigh on the dating hour. My phone was ringing.
There are two things every girl wants: the first is for promises made to her to be kept and the other is to keep the promises she makes herself. Wavering good intentions and the chances of life all but guarantee some disappointment in the first, but as for the second – the promises you make yourself are the ones only you can keep and the ones that really matter. Or so I was telling myself.
‘Elan,’ said a familiar voice, when I answered the phone. My stomach sank – the soon-to-be-broken promise tickled my ear. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
I’ve always hated the phrase ‘I’m sorry’. Social convention dictates that once the phrase has been uttered I am required to forgive the speaker regardless of how hurt, let down or plain hacked off I am feeling. Unless of course I am the one saying it. Then it is dead useful. What? A little well-practised hypocrisy makes for a nicely rounded psyche.
I bit down firmly on the tip of my tongue as I listened to the explanation that followed.
The dark of night, when the old year turns into a new one, is the traditional time for self-made promises. I’d made a few of my own. This was to be my year of keeping the promises I made: of being kinder, not saying what I thought at the worst minute, saying what I meant when it mattered – for giving the unknown a chance and perhaps changing the weight of contentment into the fuller joy of happiness.
Right at this moment, keeping those promises was proving challenging. Especially when someone else kept breaking his. Still, being an understanding girlfriend probably fell into the being-a-better-person category, so I squashed my frustration and found a laugh.
‘Well, you’ll have to make it up to me with a variety of favours, foot massages, multiple viewings of The Notebook and the like,’ I said to Hunter, who chuckled. ‘But I understand. Work is a priority.’
‘You’re sure you don’t mind,’ said Hunter, not really asking a question, his low, serious voice sounding relieved.
Second place is beginning to feel like last, I felt like saying, but I kept the words down. ‘No, it’s fine. Lily and Marcus could do with my help anyway. Who else is going to put things on the high shelves?’
‘You go put those long legs to good use, Miss Moore,’ said Hunter. ‘I’ve got to go, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.’
Then, dial tone. I sighed and went back into the bathroom to take off the beginnings of my makeup. I ignored the reproachful look of the blue eyes in the mirror. After all, most of the time Hunter was a boyfriend par excellence.
It’s just that Saturday night in New York City conjures endless possibilities. Should I strap on my red-soled dancing shoes and hit the Meatpacking District? Get dinner in SoHo and stumble into one of the pop-up clubs? Or maybe I’d wear my favourite black velvet cocktail dress and down a couple of drinks on Park Avenue? Alternatively, my overachieving, corporate shark of a boyfriend would be putting in yet another ninety-hour working week and my best friend and soon-to-be ex-flatmate would have press-ganged me into helping her move in with the man across the hall.
It’s not that I mind helping Lily; she’s been my best friend since we were five, and Marcus, aka the man across the hall, is a complete sweetheart. But I’d been seeing a lot of the inside of my apartment recently and Hunter had promised that tonight we would
go out on a date that didn’t centre around my (admittedly comfortable) couch. There was no use complaining about it though, so I slipped into my yoga pants and my ‘I heart Australia’ tee shirt, changed my painstakingly upswept hair into a messy bun, and resigned myself to an evening of manual labour.
‘Anything else?’ I asked as I set down the last box of shoes just inside Marcus’s guest bedroom – shortly to become Lily’s walk-in wardrobe unless I missed my guess.
‘No, Marcus is getting the last couple of boxes,’ Lily’s voice drifted from the kitchen. ‘Wait, Elan, where’s the green tea?’
‘If I have to run over here to get you every time Aunty Sun rings on the landline,’ I replied, lying down on Marcus’s couch, ‘I will count the green tea as my payment for maintaining this tangled web of lies.’
‘I can just go into the apartment and get it,’ Lily pointed out.
I smirked. There were some benefits to being almost a foot taller than Lily. ‘Good luck with that.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘You’ve hidden it on one of the top shelves, haven’t you?’
‘You and the step ladder will have fun together,’ I said.
I could hear the glare in Lily’s voice. ‘Your passive aggressive expression of disapproval is noted.’
‘There’s nothing particularly passive about it,’ I retorted as Marcus walked into the apartment, carrying two boxes of Lily’s books.
‘That’s the last of it,’ Marcus said, and kicked the front door shut behind him. Lily, delicate and somehow glossily finished despite the old tank top and short shorts she was wearing, came out of the kitchen to reward him with a kiss. Marcus put down the boxes so he could wrap one impressively muscled arm around Lily’s waist and deepen the kiss. It went on and on and on.
‘I’m still in the room,’ I said grumpily to the ceiling. ‘And you two are about to cross the line from PDA to visuals I just don’t need.’
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