The Australians Convenient Bride

by Lindsay Armstrong

  “It’s not often one gets the opportunity to mix business with pleasure the way we could, Chattie,” he added musingly.

  That did it. The explosion he was waiting for—had even hoped to provoke?—came. She sprang up with her fists clenched and opened her mouth.

  “Let me guess,” he murmured, and got up himself. “I’d be the last man on the planet you’d marry? You’d rather socialize with a snake?”

  Chattie closed her mouth, almost biting her tongue as he took the words right out of it.

  “Don’t you think you are kidding yourself?” he added softly, but lethally, as he came to stand right in front of her.

  She took a distraught breath. “No.”

  “Well, I do.” He reached for her. “This morning you told me it was rather lovely to be in my arms. What can have changed?”

  “You’ve changed,” she said bitterly.

  Where spirited women win the hearts of Australia’s most eligible men!

  Experience the romance of Australia, as only the bestselling authors from Harlequin Presents® can imagine.

  Coming soon to a store near you.

  Lindsay Armstrong

  THE AUSTRALIAN’S CONVENIENT BRIDE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  STEVE KINANE turned off the highway, swore beneath his breath and pulled his Range Rover off the dirt road towards the girl thumbing a lift on this isolated outback road.

  Country ethics dictated that you didn’t ignore any travellers in distress but it had been a long day and he got the feeling he was about to be taken out of his way. Then he noticed—and this slightly qualified his ‘damsel in distress’ reading of the situation—that she had an efficient and fit-looking bodyguard: a blue heeler with black points on a lead. While only medium-sized dogs, their devotion to duty was legendary.

  He opened his door cautiously and the dog barked but, at one word from its mistress, sank silently to its haunches, Steve firmly in its sights.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, approaching the girl. ‘Where are you headed?’

  She was a cool, young blonde—in her early twenties, he guessed. Her hair was long, fair, curly, and tied back under a blue linen sunhat. Her eyes were grey and direct and her figure in jeans and a T-shirt—his eyes widened—was slim and curvy.

  ‘Afternoon,’ she replied. ‘Thanks for stopping. I’m headed for Mount Helena station. I think it’s about ten miles down the road.’

  He frowned. ‘Are they expecting you?’

  ‘Does that mean you know it?’ she countered politely, taking in his stained, frayed jeans, his bush shirt, battered boots and dirty hands.

  He looked down at himself and said, not entirely truthfully, ‘I—work there.’ Then immediately wondered why he was being selective with the truth—obviously some instinct he couldn’t pinpoint was directing him.

  But the girl seemed to relax. ‘I’d really appreciate a lift, then. This isn’t the busiest of roads, is it?’ She looked nervously at the empty landscape before turning to look straight back at him. ‘I’m Charlotte Winslow, by the way,’ she said without dropping her gaze and while confidently putting out her hand.

  He took it, noticing that her arm was lightly tanned with skin as smooth as silk. The dog growled warningly.

  ‘It’s OK, Rich,’ she murmured, but instantly withdrew her hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, but Charlotte Winslow doesn’t ring a bell,’ he said.

  ‘Please call me Chattie, everyone does,’ she invited. ‘Uh—they may not have had time to discuss me with—uh—you.’

  ‘They may not have,’ he replied sardonically and allowed his cool, dark gaze to drift down her figure again.

  She took a sharp breath as she suffered the paralysing experience of being mentally undressed before his eyes narrowed and focused on hers again. ‘Are you after Mark Kinane, by any chance?’

  She hesitated. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘It’s been known,’ he replied. ‘Are you?’

  Chattie debated for a moment, and decided the simplest way to go would be to admit to it and let this man make whatever he liked of it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How come?’

  She chewed her lip. ‘We, that is, Mark, talked a bit about the place and he issued an open invitation, so here I am!’ Surely he can tell I’m lying, she thought.

  ‘How the hell did you get this far?’ Steve Kinane asked incredulously.

  ‘I got a lift from Brisbane with a friend who was going through to Augathella. He would have brought me the whole way but it wasn’t a four-wheel-drive and he didn’t want to risk his suspension off the highway on this kind of road.’

  She looked expressively westward along the dusty red road with its potholes, gutters and ridges.

  ‘What would you have done if no one had come along?’

  She shrugged, hopefully disguising her own surprise that her friend had just abandoned her here. ‘I was going to give it another hour, then walk back to the highway. I’d have had no trouble getting a lift to the nearest town and—tomorrow is another day.’

  ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘The dog can go in the back with your bag.’ He heaved up her holdall.

  Five minutes later they were all aboard and under way with the dog planted alertly in the back seat. To his irritation, Steve could feel it breathing down the back of his neck.

  Chattie, on the other hand, couldn’t help but be impressed by his expert handling of the vehicle on such a difficult road and it came to her unwittingly that this employee of Mount Helena station, with his strong hands and long lines, was rather a fine figure of a man. She even felt herself blush as these thoughts brought back the memory of his visual exploration of her body earlier.

  Stunned by the direction of her thoughts, she immediately and sternly told herself she must be out of her mind, this was not the time or place for anything of that nature, and she concentrated fiercely on the countryside instead. Still vast, it wasn’t quite so empty now, she noticed, with some interesting rocky outcrops and more trees.

  Then her lift said, ‘How long have you known Mark, Chattie Winslow?’

  She thought back carefully. ‘A few months, I guess.’

  He flicked her a glance. She’d taken off her hat and her profile was delicious. A short, straight little nose, lovely curving mouth, delicately sculptured jaw and a smooth, slender throat. Even her ear, and it occurred to him he’d never really considered ears before, was pretty with that riotous fair hair tucked behind it.

  I have to hand it to you, Mark, he thought, you sure can pick ’em, although why do I get the feeling you may have bitten off more than you can chew here?

  ‘How did you meet Mark?’ he asked.

  ‘At a party,’ Chattie answered honestly but conscious at the same time that, in her quest to keep things simple, she was presenting herself in the light of Mark Kinane’s girlfriend, which could complicate things for her. She added, with a smile curving her lips to take the sting out of it, ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re interrogating me?’

  A corner of his mouth twitched; it had been an enchanting smile. ‘Just interested. I guess you’re a bit of a diversion from damn cows.’ He waved a hand at a mob of cattle gathered around a small dam. ‘Sometimes they’re enough to send you stir-crazy.’

  Chattie looked ahead and laughed, an attractive musical sound. ‘I guess I can understand that. I b
elieve Mark felt the same.’ She stopped and bit her lip. Until she found Mark Kinane, she didn’t want to discuss him with anyone, let alone an employee, so why did she keep bringing up his name?

  ‘I could tell you something about me,’ she offered. ‘I’m a teacher.’

  The Range Rover veered off course briefly until he corrected it.

  ‘What’s so surprising about that?’ she asked, amused at his reaction.

  ‘You don’t look like a teacher.’ He flicked her another glance, but this time she met it and their gazes caught and held for a brief, but telling, moment.

  Trying not to sound as shaken as she felt, she said, ‘Thanks, but your ideas about teachers could be a bit outdated.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘What do you teach?’

  ‘Domestic Science—as in cooking and sewing, which is rather lucky because I love to do both.’

  Curiouser and curiouser, Steve Kinane reflected. His brother Mark’s taste in women didn’t run along domestic lines, or hadn’t to date. Models and starlets had featured prominently in his love life: beautiful, flighty creatures with few practical talents that he’d been able to detect, at least.

  Yet, although this girl had the looks, she not only taught down-to-earth, practical subjects, but, if the way she’d got herself this far into the outback and the way she’d trained her dog was anything to go by, she was both practical and down-to-earth herself.

  ‘Is there anything wrong with that?’ Chattie enquired as the silence stretched.

  ‘Not at all,’ he denied, but added the silent rider to himself—Just doesn’t make sense.

  ‘I also paint and play the piano,’ she offered gravely, but now he got the distinct impression she was laughing at him.

  ‘What do you know about Mount Helena?’ he asked abruptly.

  Chattie searched through her knowledge of the place and found it to be minimal. ‘Er—not a lot.’

  He glanced at her suspiciously. ‘Mark must have told you something!’

  Chattie detected both the suspicion and the fact that he was less than amused. On the heels of this discovery came the realization that he might only be an employee but he was also tall and tough and quite capable of questioning her right to be ferried to Mount Helena. And equally capable of turning back and dumping her on the highway if he decided she was less than legitimate.

  ‘Uh—I gather that Mark hasn’t decided whether he wants to be a cattleman yet but he did say it was quite a place. I’ve never seen a cattle station.’

  ‘Go on.’

  It was definitely an order and Chattie bristled. ‘What more do you want to know? He has an older brother who runs the place and goes around like a dictator, but if you work there you probably know that as well as anyone.’

  Whether prompted by her tone or his, Rich growled softly as if to back her up.

  Steve Kinane looked irritated beyond words but the glint of suspicion died out of his eyes, although he did say, ‘You obviously have no qualms about foisting your dog on unsuspecting hosts?’

  ‘He’s trained to sleep outside, if necessary, and I’d be more than happy to introduce him to anyone he needs to know so they needn’t be scared of him. He’s actually a very friendly dog,’ she said evenly.

  ‘So long as no one raises a hand or their voice to you.’

  Their gazes clashed briefly.

  ‘When I found Rich he’d been abandoned as a puppy in a box in a building rubble dumpster,’ she said coolly. ‘How he wasn’t crushed I’ll never know. I had to climb into the bin and literally dig him out. He’s been my constant companion ever since.’

  ‘As well as suitably grateful and devoted,’ Steve commented, but as her eyes flashed added, ‘Don’t get your hackles up, I would have done the same.’

  He turned the wheel and drove through a set of wire gates and they trundled over a cattle-grid. The legend on the gates—MOUNT HELENA—was not flashy but the road improved immediately.

  ‘Nearly there, I gather?’ Chattie hazarded.

  ‘Yep, about a mile to go.’

  They drove the last mile in silence until Steve pulled up outside a garden fence.

  Chattie looked through the windscreen at the sprawling white-painted house with a red tin roof beyond the fence. It was surrounded by lawn and shrubbery and neatly fenced off, everything was neat and trim for that matter and although the house was old, it gleamed with new paint. Behind it were several water tanks smothered with bougainvillea and allamanda, and the land rose from there to a series of low hills cloaked in gold grass studded with blackboys.

  Marvellous colours, she thought, taking in the red-gold soil, the sky, the grass and the house again, and she heaved a sudden sigh of relief.

  Steve Kinane glinted a question at her.

  She smiled with a touch of embarrassment. ‘It looks quite civilized.’

  ‘You expected to have to rough it?’

  ‘I wasn’t quite sure, to be honest. Mark, well, most men,’ she amended hastily, ‘aren’t very good at describing houses, are they?’

  Steve didn’t reply but had she thought to check his expression, Chattie would have discovered it to be rather grimly thoughtful.

  Then he shrugged and opened his door. ‘I’ll drop you off here. The—uh—housekeeper should be around somewhere—oh, there he is. I’ll just have a word with him.’

  Chattie blinked. The ‘housekeeper’ was a tough, leathery-looking man in his forties with a bald pate and grey pony-tail. Steve met him at the garden gate but their conversation was inaudible, although Chattie did observe that there seemed to be an aura of incredulity about it. There was certainly a bit of head-shaking on the part of the housekeeper.

  Then her lift—it was at this point that Chattie realized she didn’t know his name—brought the other man over to introduce him.

  ‘Chattie, this is Slim,’ he said through the window. ‘He’s in charge of the house and he’ll look after you until…things get sorted out.’

  ‘How do you do, Slim?’ She stuck her hand out of the window to have it taken in a strong grip. Rich barked.

  ‘Howdy,’ Slim said in a deep, gravelly voice as he ducked his head to look in at her. ‘Well, I’ll be…’ He didn’t finish as his gaze ran over Chattie and the dog. ‘That is to say, welcome to Helena, miss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Chattie replied. ‘Is Mark around?’

  ‘Not at present,’ Slim replied.

  ‘Oh.’ She looked uncertain.

  ‘Doesn’t mean to say we can’t make you comfortable,’ Slim offered. ‘Let’s get your gear out. Is the dog house-trained?’

  Chattie explained that it certainly was and received the information that the house was between dogs at the moment but there would be no objection to a suitably trained one taking up temporary residence.

  She couldn’t help herself from raising her eyebrows at the man who had driven her here, only to be ignored, and not much later she was installed in a guest suite beneath the red roof of the Mount Helena homestead.

  Slim had provided her with afternoon tea on a tray. He’d also advised her that dinner was scheduled for seven o’clock and recommended that she not bother about unpacking but have a rest instead.

  Her lift had disappeared before she could thank him or discover his name.

  Her question to Slim about when she could expect to see Mark Kinane had been answered with a shrug and a negligent wave of his hand—as if to say she shouldn’t bother her head about it. Then she’d been left alone.

  She sat down on the vast bed and Rich sat at her feet with his head on her knee. ‘Why—’ she stroked his nose and spoke with a frown ‘—am I getting strange vibes? Don’t tell me I’ve come on a wild-goose chase and Mark isn’t here?’

  She looked around. Although rather old-fashioned, it was a large, comfortable room with a covered, screened veranda and its own bathroom.

  In fact, everything in the bedroom was on a grand scale. Big bed, large mahogany wardrobe with an oval mirror in the central pan
el, divine chest of drawers starting small at the top, the drawers, and graduating to full width towards the floor. Pretty curtains in an old-fashioned floral cretonne with twisted cord tie-backs and a rose-red sumptuous silk-covered eiderdown on the bed.

  The bathroom appeared to have been modernized recently, the veranda had two comfortable cane chairs and a table on it and the whole was spotlessly clean and polished.

  But as she poured then sipped her tea gratefully her thoughts turned to the predicament, or one of them anyway, she appeared to have got herself into—suspected of being Mark Kinane’s girlfriend, in other words. Of course, she acknowledged, the whole reason for her being at Mount Helena had all the hallmarks of a tragic predicament, but for her sister Bridget.

  Mind you, she sighed, since she and her younger sister had been orphaned and placed in the care of an aunt who had found them burdensome, Bridget had been a predicament in her own right. Even now, at nineteen, absolutely lovely and training to be a model, she was as vulnerable and defenceless as she had been from the time of the loss of their parents.

  Or, Chattie suddenly wondered, was she always destined to be the same? Warm, loving, generous, scatty and staggeringly unwise at times without me to lend a guiding hand?

  And was I always destined to feel responsible for her, to sometimes feel a hundred years older than her although I’m only twenty-two?

  She sighed again and put her cup back on the tray. Whatever, when Mark Kinane had entered their lives at a party and completely bewitched Bridget with his good looks and fun ways, she had done her level best to keep Bridget’s feet on the ground. Her utmost to prevent her sister from being swept off her feet and then her warmest and wisest when Mark and Bridget had broken up and she’d been left to pick up the pieces.

  The only time she’d lost her cool had been when Bridget had shown her a positive home-pregnancy-test kit and announced that it was Mark’s baby and she would never love anyone else.

  ‘Does he know?’ she’d cried with utter frustration. And—‘How did it happen?’

  He didn’t know because Bridget had not known herself at the time. How it had happened had been typical Bridget, a tale of mixed-up dates and forgotten pills, or perhaps the one night they’d both got so carried away it hadn’t entered their minds?