Undeniable (Always Book 3)

by Lexxie Couper

  I must admit, the second I’d learned I’d won my college’s scholarship to study Environment Studies abroad—and by abroad, I mean a gazillion miles away from Plenty, Ohio, my hometown and the only world I’d ever known—I’d been experiencing weird dreams about Australia.

  In one, I was dating a kangaroo that sounded like Chris Hemsworth. I remember waking in the morning stroking my pillow with the words “You had me at g’day,” whispering through my head. In another dream, a shark called Bruce kept trying to take a bath with me.

  See what I mean? Weird dreams. I chalked them up to nerves. Winning the scholarship, partly funded by Plenty’s only college, partly funded by the University of Sydney, was a double-edged sword.

  On one razor-sharp side there was the awesomeness of winning the scholarship in the first place. Mind you, winning makes it sound like luck had something to do with it, which it didn’t. Hard work, long hours studying, zero time socializing, movies missed, days and days researching, so many days I sometimes forgot what the sun looked like. That’s what earned me the scholarship. That, and my passion for the environment.

  I’m what my folks call a tree-hugging greenie. Well, my mom calls me that. My dad—who had grown up in Australia and moved to the US when he met Mom during a vacation in LA—has been dead for over three years now. Killed when a drunk driver ran off the road and struck him and our dog as they were jogging.

  I was a tree-hugging greenie wrapped up in the unassuming guise of a twenty-two-year-old hometown girl who still had bangs and wore pigtails on the weekend. Who still ate peanut butter straight from the jar and loved watching Sleepy Hollow and Gleewhen she wasn’t studying environmental degradation and its impact on wildlife the world over.

  On the other even sharper side of the damn blade was the fact I had to fly a whole day to get to Australia. Did I mention I’d never been outside of Plenty? I did mention a drunk driver killed my dad and my dog only a few years ago, right? Leaving my mom a widow?

  Did I mention my mom suffers from Parkinson’s disease?

  Did I mention I do as well?

  No on the last two, huh? Sorry about that.

  Yeah, I’m a shaker. But I’ve got it under control. Good meds, meditation, tai chi, and did I mention good meds? Add them together and I’m okay. Mom, however, isn’t. And with me being on the other side of the world, who’s going to help her up when she falls down? Which she does. Often.

  She told me to go, that’s why I’m here. She demanded I go. But being this far away from her … God, I don’t even …

  Sorry. Didn’t mean to get maudlin. Long and short of it, Mom has Parkinson’s. She’s alone and I’m here because I’ve never seen her so proud as when I won that scholarship. How could I not go?

  But now that I was here—and I was excited to be, I really was—where were the kangaroos? Even a stuffed one on a pedestal or something. And more to the point, where was my passport?

  Oh my God, where was my passport? I was about to go through Australian customs in about twenty seconds and I couldn’t find my passport. It was in my bag on the plane. So where was it now?

  “Next.”

  I started at the deep, authoritarian command, and shot the man behind the counter a harried look.

  I shook my head.

  He raised his eyebrows and beckoned for me to approach.

  I swallowed. Suddenly aware my fingers were shaking, I clenched my fist. Was it nerves? Or—

  “Miss?”

  The customs official was now frowning at me. A prickling pressure at the back of my neck told me my fellow travelers were probably glaring. Why wouldn’t they be? I’d be glaring too at the idiot who was rooted to the spot and holding up the line that allowed you to enter the country you’d just flown over nineteen hours to get to.

  I swallowed again. Cleared my throat. Squeezed my fist—crap, I really was shaking—and stepped forward.

  The man behind the counter gave me an expectant look. “Passport?”

  During the nineteen-hour flight over, I’d passed the time by imagining my first few moments in Australia. In my admittedly sleep-deprived fantasy, the customs official who granted me access would sound like the kangaroo I dated in my dreams. Yes, I will admit now, I have a thing for Chris Hemsworth. But how could I not? Have you looked at him? Is there a sexier, hotter guy on the planet? No, I don’t think so. Anyway, the customs official of my dreams would smile at me and tell me I looked amazing after such a long flight.

  I didn’t, by the way. My hair was flat and greasy, my eyes were scratchy and puffy, and I’d managed to spill most of the coffee the flight attendant had given me somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, somewhere around three am, all over my shirt. Or maybe it had been two pm? Who the hell knew? Helpful tip if you’re planning on any long-haul flights—don’t wear a white T-shirt, no matter how cute you think you look in it. It’s a bad idea.

  So, going back to my mid-flight fantasy … I’m greeted by a super-hot customs official who tells me I look amazing, just as a camera crew from one of those travel shows runs over and asks me if I mind being interviewed about being an American college student in Australia. Added to that, they also inform me Chris Hemsworth is in the airport and wonder if I’d like to meet him. He’s researching a role in a movie about the plight of the dingo in the outback and has read my paper about the environment and native animals online and wants to talk about it with me.

  In that fantasy, I had my passport.

  In reality, I had no idea where it was. God, how could I lose it between the plane and—

  “Passport, miss?”

  I gave the official—who didn’t appear inclined to say anything that sounded like “You look amazing”—a weak smile.

  Would they arrest you in Australia for trying to enter the country without a passport? I suspect so. I opened my mouth. A sound that may or may not have been a strangled squeak emitted from my throat.

  The official’s frown deepened. I couldn’t help but notice his right hand slipped under the counter.

  “I’ve lost my passport,” I said, although I think I may have mouthed it. For some reason, my voice had disappeared. Maybe it was with my errant passport? Perhaps both were on their way to Paris?

  The man behind the glass leaned forward. “Please repeat that, miss.”

  “I’ve lost my passport,” I said again. Louder this time. With less silent asphyxiation.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Since you boarded?”

  I nodded.

  “What flight?”

  My mind went blank. Oh God, I was doing an appalling job of representing the USA at this point in time. “Err,” I said. “Big plane. Had a … a kangaroo on the tail.”

  The man’s forehead furrowed. “A Qantas plane?”

  Relief flooded through me and I nodded, looking, I’m sure, like an unhinged bobble-head. “That’s it. Qantas.”

  “So you’ve just disembarked a Qantas flight from …”

  His silence told me I was meant to supply the answer. “Plenty,” I gushed. “I mean Dallas.”

  Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes. I ached for Mom so badly my heart felt like it was being torn out of my chest. What the hell was I doing here? Where was my brain?

  “I’m sorry.” I rubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands. My vision went that special kind of blurry that happens when you put too much pressure on your eyeballs, and I blinked. I needed to get a grip. Or a passport. A passport would be nice.

  I wondered for a stupidly surreal moment if the traveler behind me would let me borrow hers. Only until I actually got into Australia. Then she could have it—

  “Are you Maci Rowling?”

  A deep male voice with an obvious Australian accent caressed my tired, overwrought mind, and I jerked my head around, my heart pounding fast.

  An elderly gent, who had to be at least ninety in the shade, was standing at my elbow, holding what looked to be an American passport in one hand. In his other, he held a cane. Truth be told, it was th
e cane doing most of the holding, keeping the gentleman vertical.

  “I found it on the floor in the line a second ago,” he said, a friendly smile on his wrinkled face. “Think it might be yours.”

  He was old and feeble and holding a passport.

  And if he knew my name, it meant it was my passport.

  What else could I do? I threw myself against his frail body in a massive hug.

  Knocking him to the ground.

  Three hours later, I was allowed into Australia.

  It’s insane how long it takes to apologize sufficiently to an elderly gentleman you’ve just injured in your enthusiasm to thank him for finding your passport. Who knew it would be so easy to knock an eighty-two year old to the floor with a hug? I didn’t help that my hug was pretty … enthusiastic. Of course, after the poor old guy was taken away in a wheelchair, I received a rather stern lecture about my “enthusiasm” from the airport police. One of whom seriously looked like Russell Crowe. If Russell Crowe was fat. And older. And a woman. And after that I received an even sterner lecture about passport security from the same humorless officials.

  Finally, with the public humiliation over and done with, I was allowed into the country.

  Only to wait at the luggage carousel, watching it go round and round until I was the only person left, with no sign of my luggage on the conveyor belt.

  Thirty minutes later, I accepted the fact that my luggage—with all my clothes, including my Victoria’s Secret bra and panties I’d saved for freaking months to buy just for this trip—wasn’t going to appear through the clear flappy-plastic opening in the wall.

  Yay.

  I made my way to the service counter only to be informed the airline had no clue as to the current whereabouts of my suitcase.

  “I’m very sorry,” the cheery attendant behind the counter said, beaming up at me. “We shall contact you as soon as we locate it. Welcome to Australia.”

  Welcome to Australia? Yeah, right.

  Suffice to say, I wanted to go home.

  There and then.

  Badly.

  So badly I actually pivoted on my heel to head back toward the customs counters. And then I stopped when I realized I was being silly.

  Okay, confession time. I’m not exactly emotionally … stable. I mean, I’m not insane or anything. In fact, I’m quite intelligent and at times grounded—Mom’s word, not mine. But more often than not, I’m impulsive. I’m also sensitive, self-conscious, uncertain and … well, to put it bluntly—broken.

  It happens. When you spend almost ten years of your life watching your mother slowly being devoured by a disease with no known cure, a disease that was robbing her of her ability to smile, her ability to cut her own food, button her own buttons, talk at a normal volume, have normal bowel movements—hell, have any kind of normal movement, even something as simple as blinking and swallowing—and you know one day that disease is going to do all those things to you, you get a little screwed up.

  That’s what Parkinson’s disease does. It screws you. Messes with you. That’s what it’d done to my family, at least.

  I had to tell people Mom wasn’t drunk at my father’s funeral, that it was just her muscles refusing to allow her to walk without staggering about because her brain was betraying her. That messed with me.

  I’d sit opposite her nightly at the dinner table, on edge—terrified even—that her throat muscles would stop working halfway through her eating, causing her to almost choke to death, an event that had happened at least three times.

  It was bad enough for me to learn my mom had Parkinson’s when I was twelve. Try being told when you’re twenty-one that you have the same disease.

  I’d been living with early-onset Parkinson’s disease for a year now, and it wasn’t getting easier. Twenty-two was not meant to be like this, it was meant to be lived large, partying, meeting new people … not new doctors and specialists and medical-insurance representatives.

  Jesus, I sound miserable, don’t I?

  I’m not. Honest. I try to laugh about it. I tell Mom I’m racing her to complete neural shut-down. Whoever gets there first wins. And what does the winner get?

  A complete loss of dignity and—

  Holy shit, sorry. I truly didn’t mean to go there. It’s a bleak place, my self-pity, and I hate it. Let’s try not to go there again, okay?

  I forced myself to turn back around, hitch my carry-on bag—containing a spare pair of panties, thank freaking God—farther up my shoulder, stride through the last stage of customs. I had no food to declare. No insects, reptiles, items made of wood or animal body parts. I passed over my declarations card to the smiling lady collecting them, and stepped through the gates and into the Sydney International Arrivals terminal, surrounded by excited people waiting for their loved ones.

  It was then I realized I needed to pee. I hadn’t peed since somewhere over Hawaii.

  Oh boy, did I need to pee.

  And the second I acknowledged I needed to pee, the more I needed to go.

  Searching frantically for the restroom sign, I spied what I thought was the ladies’ room and ran for it, head down, fist gripping the strap of my bag as if it were a lifeline to bladder relief.

  So of course, when I slammed into something rock-solid but warm and firm as well, the first thing I thought was I was going to pee myself. Not, argh, I’ve just run into someone and I need to apologize.

  I stumbled back a step, flinging the poor woman in my way a harried glance. And froze when that harried glance found not a poor woman, but a tall, broad-shouldered, stunningly hot—no, change that—stupefyingly hot, gorgeous guy with shaggy dark-brown hair hanging over equally dark-brown eyes so intense and beautiful and sexy and—

  He wrapped strong fingers around my upper arms and steadied me before I could fall completely on my ass.

  “Hey, I think you’re heading into the wrong loo.”

  I gazed up at him and didn’t say a word. I’d’ve liked to have blamed sleep deprivation and jet lag for my ridiculous silence, but they weren’t the culprits.

  The guy holding my arms, keeping me upright, was stunning. Gorgeous. Hot. Like a brown-haired, brown-eyed version of Chris Hemsworth. Only sexier.

  I didn’t think that was even possible, but there you go. Tall, with a crooked grin that made my heart skip a beat and a goddamn divine body, all muscular and sculpted and perfectly proportioned with the broadest of shoulders, all wrapped up tight in a snug white T-shirt and snugger faded jeans.

  And he had an Australian accent.

  Oh boy.

  I gaped at him, my heart thumping in my throat.

  “Can you speak?” he asked.

  I caught my bottom lip with my teeth and shook my head.

  His eyebrows shot up. “You can’t?”

  “I can,” I blurted, nodding this time. Talk about being a mess of contradictions. “I’m just …” I paused, stopping myself from telling him I was falling in lust with him. Yeah, not exactly cool behavior. Gushing all over a complete stranger on the way to the bathroom? Welcome to Australia.

  “I’m just … desperate,” I finished, ducking my head. I sounded like an idiot.

  He gave a warm, friendly laugh. “To go to the loo?”

  I peered up at him through my bangs. “Yeah.”

  That crooked grin returned to his face. As before, it made my body do things I wasn’t entirely used to.

  “You better go then.” He stepped aside and held an arm out, directing me deeper into the men’s restroom.

  Oh my God, was I blushing? I shuffled my feet, frowning.

  Devilment danced in his dark-brown eyes. “Something else you’re desperate for?”

  Something else? Was he serious? A guy that looked like him, asking me what I wanted? If I were the brave, take-no-prisoners kind of girl, I’d tell him straight up. Something else I’m desperate for? Hell yeah, a kiss from you would be a start. But I wasn’t that kind of girl. I was a sleep deprived, jet lagged student with poor soci
al skills and a disease that wasn’t exactly high on the sexy list. Of course, I wasn’t going to ask him for a kiss.

  No matter how much the thought made my tummy flutter.

  He studied me with a playful grin. “Going to tell me what it is?”

  “A kiss.” The word fell past my lips before I could stop it.

  My face went cold as the blood drained from it. And then hot as all that blood rushed back into my cheeks just as fast. Holy shit, had I really said that aloud?

  “A kiss?” he repeated, lifting an eyebrow.

  Oh God, I had said it aloud. I stared at him, once again dumbstruck. What was I doing? Was I really that tired? Had to be. Why else would I say something so … so … embarrassing? I couldn’t be flirting with him. I wasn’t any good at it. I was an environmentalist dork with Parkinson’s. As if I knew how to flirt.

  Was I delusional? Was my brain finally betraying me compl—

  Warm lips brushed over mine in a lingering caress of skin on skin. I would have melted on the spot … if it wasn’t for the fact I yelped in shocked disbelief and stumbled back a step.

  Mr. Broad Shoulders laughed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  Just to make it clear before I continue, I’m not a virgin. I lost my virginity four nights after my sixteenth birthday, to my high school boyfriend—the quarterback, no less. How’s that for both an achievement and a cliché? But since I found out I have Parkinson’s, I’ve pretty much shut down any and all notion of romance. Who wants to get romantic with someone who’s going to be a shaky mess in a few years? I can’t imagine there are many guys out there willing to roll with that kind of burden, so I stopped putting myself out there. Which might explain my very active fantasy obsession with a married Australian actor, now that I think about it. Hmmm. Desire the impossible to substitute the denied. Makes sense, right?

  I gaped up at my mysterious kisser—again. Heart beating way too fast, I pressed my fingers to my lips. “Why did you do that?”