by Bronwyn Sell
© Nicola Topping
BRONWYN SELL is many things—bestselling author, award-winning journalist, yogi, theatre nerd, karaoke hustler, soccer mum, lover of wines in the sun, perpetually terrified taker of creative risks—but at heart she’s an eternal romantic and optimist who is happiest playing with words and imaginary friends. She is proud to share her study with a coveted RITA statuette, the world’s premier award for romance fiction.
Readers can connect with her at bronwynsell.com or on Facebook (facebook.com/bronwynsellauthor) or Instagram (@writerbron).
Also by Bronwyn Sell
Romantic thrillers (as Brynn Kelly)
Deception Island
Edge of Truth
Forbidden River
A Risk Worth Taking
Non-fiction
Long Shots
Kiwi Heroes
Lawbreakers & Mischief Makers
Lovestruck
Bronwyn Sell
www.harlequinbooks.com.au
Contents
Also by Bronwyn Sell
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Acknowledgements
Book Club Discussion Questions
Trip Review: Curlew Bay, Curiosity Island, The Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia
Rating:
Review: I booked this resort because of its stellar reviews but I didn’t know it was going to be so remote! You literally could not get off the island except in a boat or a helicopter.
1
Amy
So much about this was wrong. Wrong because Amy Lowery’s date to her dad’s upcoming wedding was her mum. Wrong because Amy’s black-on-black-on-black Melbourne wardrobe was perfectly unsuited to her grandmother’s Whitsundays resort—even now, at eight in the evening, she could swear steam was rising from her jeans. But mostly wrong because she and her mum were perched at the bar swooning over the man her dad was about to marry.
‘Mum, as unlikely as this sounds,’ Amy said, as the lovely Sanjay’s laugh rumbled all the way from the dance floor like a seismic event, ‘this time in six days, you will no longer be my hottest parent.’
‘It wasn’t my plan,’ Rosa replied. ‘When you got a gorgeous new stepfather, he was supposed to be my husband. There’s one!’ she added suddenly, pointing a baby-pink fingernail across the busy pavilion to the dimly lit deck, as if they were engaged in a game of spot-the-dolphin rather than spot-the-eligible-hetero-man. ‘That guy outside, on his phone. Blue T-shirt. He’s straight.’
Amy swatted her mother’s finger down. ‘Mum, you’re shouting.’ Rosa had many excellent qualities, but subtlety was not one of them. The guy was maybe mid-thirties, with the hair, body and tan of someone who’d been surfing as long as he’d been walking. ‘You know him?’
‘No, but I can tell these things.’
Amy switched her focus to her dad, who was reining Sanjay in by his purple paper lei. ‘Evidence would suggest otherwise. My existence would suggest otherwise.’ She straightened so her jeans didn’t sit so tightly around her waist. She must have retained water on the plane. She should probably switch from vodka to coconut water. Or a coconut water/vodka cocktail? Hey …
‘I’ve been schooled by bitter experience,’ Rosa said, rolling back her shoulders as if subconsciously consoling herself. Her shoulders—a dancer’s shoulders—were the envy of the family, and she brought them out as often as possible, tonight in a turquoise halter-neck top. ‘Oh, would you look at that,’ she added in a tone somewhere between resentment and awe as Sanjay pulled Amy’s father in for a kiss. Geoff’s moon face was crimson from dancing and his half-untucked shirt clung to his back sweat. He trailed a finger from Sanjay’s temple to his lips, gazing at him like, well, like Amy and her mother were gazing at him. At least they could all agree on one thing.
Rosa absentmindedly traced a path around the base of her wine glass. ‘He used to do that to me.’
Amy stared at her mother staring at her father. Wait—Rosa wasn’t ogling Sanjay. She was ogling Geoff. ‘Uh, Mum?’ Amy said with a touch of panic. ‘Are you still in love with Dad?’
Rosa made a face. ‘Don’t be silly.’
Amy swivelled on her bar stool to face her mother. ‘Tell me you don’t get The Pull in your heart when you look at him.’
‘I really don’t. Can’t say I ever did.’
‘You must have, at some point.’
‘Geoff and I were always best friends. Still are. But I was way too young to realise that there should be more to it than that, and he was confused about who he was, so …’ Rosa shrugged, like marrying a man who turned out to be gay was as big a life event as buying a dress in a no-returns sale and later deciding it was the wrong colour (which never happened when you wore only black). ‘But it’s not good for the self-esteem to fly solo at your ex’s wedding.’
‘I guess not.’ No one wanted to go solo to any wedding, let alone an ex’s. Here was Amy feeling sorry for her dateless twenty-seven-year-old self, but she hadn’t stopped to think about her mother. Maybe, for once, it was a good thing Amy was single yet again. She could heroically be there in Rosa’s hour of need. ‘So, offering to host the wedding here—what kind of self-flagellation was that?’
Rosa groaned. ‘It seemed so symbolic, bringing Geoff back to where we were married to give us both a blessing to move on. Acknowledging the past as a foundation for the future. I think I actually used the words “circle of life”. Or was it “cycle”? Which one even is it? Anyway, how could I say no? He’s still the most wonderful man I’ve ever known, and it’s the most beautiful thing to see him so happy.’ She slugged her pinot gris, a gulp or two more than was socially acceptable to sink at once, not that Amy was judging.
‘Mum, if any of us deserves to break the family love curse, it’s you.’
‘And how’s your progress on that front? Anyone crossed over from the Friend Zone?’
Amy screwed up her face. She hadn’t even bothered to tell her mother about her latest (imploded) relationship, if she could even claim it as a relationship. ‘There are no crossings. That bridge is out. Detonated. Ka-boom. And the river is festering with crocodiles and piranhas and freaking cholera and— it’s not funny, Mum!’
Rosa choked as another mouthful of wine got stuck somewhere between a laugh and a cough. Amy whacked her on the back a smidgeon harder than the emergency necessitated, though at least her misfortune had brightened her mother’s mood.
‘Maybe it’s time you moved up here,’ Rosa said. ‘We always laugh more when you’re around. You could try for a research grant? Plenty of interesting weather to study. More by the day.’
‘You know Nan’s rules. I’m not allowed to move up unless I imp
ort a partner.’ Amy mimicked her grandmother’s brisk tone from their brief chat (read: love-life interrogation) that afternoon as she’d stepped onto the blessed blond-sand crescent of Curlew Bay. ‘It would be so nice to have you on the island permanently, my love, if I didn’t already have three daughters and eight grandchildren here to marry off. You have no idea how hard it is to find that many suitable prospects. And she has a point, seeing as at least eighty percent of the permanent inhabitants of this place are related to me.’
‘Did you know she’s taken to hiring staff purely for their potential as family marriage prospects?’
‘Is that legal?’
‘You should hear some of the questions she asks in interviews. I have to keep talking over her. And she tries to sneak the words “must be single” into job ads. She doesn’t want to even look at a resume unless the candidate can feasibly be paired off with one of us. Can you believe my mother is still trying to marry me off, at my age?’ Rosa pointed at Amy’s nose. ‘Maybe you do need to stay out in the big bad world a little longer. You’re the only one of us who hasn’t returned a failure at love. And you don’t want to be subjected to Nan’s matchmaking.’
‘As pleased as I would be to lift the curse, it’s not a decision I can make unilaterally.’
Rosa frowned. ‘You always seem so casual about your boyfriends, like you can take them or leave them. Are you talking about someone in particular?’
‘Oh, only every guy I’ve been in love with who hasn’t felt the same, which is—let me count—all of them. It’s them who are casual about me.’
‘But you’ve always been surrounded by guys, ever since you were a kid. They clearly all adore you. I don’t get why things never seem to go beyond that.’
‘Mum, not only do I have our family curse, I also have the friend curse. Guys don’t see me as girlfriend material. They lock me into the friend box—or worse, the friends-with-benefits box, but not literally because that sounds serial-killer creepy—and won’t let me out until I’ve set them up with my hot girlfriends. That’s never changed, right through school, uni, work …’
‘I don’t understand it,’ Rosa said. ‘I don’t understand them.’
‘That’s because you were in the hot-friend category. Still are.’ It was like explaining snow to a crocodile. Amy was pretty sure no straight man had ever wanted to be ‘just good friends’ with her mother. Hell, a gay man had been confused for a while. ‘Why didn’t I get that gene?’
‘Just because some women get more male attention, it doesn’t mean it’s the right kind. In fact, it’s usually not.’
Amy pressed a hand to her heart. ‘Let me try to feel the sympathy …’ She winced, looking up at a fan suspended from the pavilion’s cathedral ceiling. ‘Sorry, nothing.’
Rosa laughed, but there was a note of sympathy in it. ‘It’s a compliment that men want you for a friend—women too. You’ve never been short of friends. People feel comfortable around you. You’re like your dad in that way.’
Amy grunted. Could she not swap just a little friend-magnetism for babe-magnetism? She inhaled, welcoming the warm salty breeze into her airways, letting it scour away the self-doubt that had been gumming up her brain for weeks. One good reason not to move here—this place was her escape from all that. And escape she would, for an entire glorious week. Swimming, scuba diving, reading, happy hour on the deck with her sister and the cousins, cuddles with her niece … The whole island was like a wireless charger for her soul. And as much as she loved small doses of her family, she was in no hurry to live in the staff compound with all her maternal relatives in shouting distance. If men were easily deterred now …
‘Fortunately for both of us,’ Rosa said, leaning back on the bar, her shoulders shimmering under the warm lights, ‘there’s a new bloke fresh off the boat every few hours.’ The guy in the blue T-shirt had wandered inside through the open bifold doors and was chatting with Sanjay, their heads bowed close. Someone had forced a green lei on him. Amy’s money was on Geoff, who’d bought the monstrosities in bulk from a dollar store in Fitzroy last week. ‘Where did they find these guys?’
‘Rainbow Casting Central?’ Amy offered. ‘Hire-a-Hottie? At least it’s victimless gawking. It’s like having a celebrity crush. It’s a hundred percent safe because nothing can ever come of it.’
‘Twenty bucks says that one’s straight.’ Rosa nodded toward Blue T-shirt Guy.
‘You’re on,’ Amy said, taking the excuse for a perusal. ‘But you’re wrong. What percentage of straight men get their eyebrows groomed? And his hair is so salty and now in that fresh-from-the-beach way, even though we know he’s just arrived. That look of effortlessness takes a lot of effort. Definitely gay, and I’ll allow you to pay me in overpriced vodka on Sanjay’s tab.’
The guy looked up, straight at them, as Sanjay spoke into his ear. His brow creased in a do-I-know-you? way.
Amy grabbed Rosa’s forearm, spinning their stools to face each other. ‘Please tell me we didn’t both just get caught leering at him.’
Rosa grimaced. Amy risked a glance at the dance floor, where Sanjay slapped the guy on his shoulder and pushed him toward the bar, winking at Amy.
Amy went hot and cold at once. Who knew that was even possible? ‘Don’t look now but he’s coming this way.’
So of course Rosa looked. ‘Could be a set-up, Aims. Sit straight. You got this.’
Amy surreptitiously pulled a few strands down from her (very) messy updo. Why oh why hadn’t she scraped up some cash to redo the blonde highlights in her brown hair? And would it have killed her to have spent five minutes blow-drying after her swim that afternoon? Nerves rolled up from her stomach and into her throat as he approached, looking taller, hotter and more weather-beaten with each step. Maybe early forties rather than mid-thirties, but what did age matter when it came to love?
Amy gulped her vodka, leaving herself with a mouthful of liquid as he reached them. Genius move. She swallowed too quickly, swivelled to one side and coughed a little. Like mother, like daughter.
‘How did you two manage to escape wearing one of these things?’ he said, lifting his lei over his head. He lowered it onto Rosa’s shoulders like he was anointing her. ‘Will you please do this sambo or mamba or whatever it is with me? Geoff’s insisting that this is his party and we have to dance his new steps tonight, and Sanjay says you’re an excellent teacher.’
‘Me? Uh … uh …’ Rosa sent Amy a panicked look.
‘Yes,’ Amy said, blinking away the tears that had sprung up during her coughing fit. Sanjay was setting the guy up with Rosa, not her. And somehow that came as a relief. ‘She absolutely will dance with you.’
‘I will?’
‘You will,’ Amy said firmly.
‘O-kay, good,’ the guy said with a bemused grin. He held out a hand and Rosa let him pull her up. ‘I’m Viggo, by the way.’
Amy had heard that name but couldn’t immediately place it. Rosa glanced at her with a look of are-you-sure-you’re-okay-with-this? Amy gave a tiny nod. She’d had a nervous moment but it was just panic. He was hot, sure, but she hadn’t felt any pull for him, and certainly not The Pull. And her mum was well overdue some fun and flirting.
Still, Amy’s smile became forced as they walked away. Because now she was sitting alone, even more overheated, and ogling not one but two stepfather-figures.
2
Amy was chasing the last of the ice around her glass and thinking about walking straight out onto the deck and into the pool fully dressed when her sister walked in. In a sleek blue-grey jumpsuit, her dark hair pulled into a glossy ponytail, and wearing the signature red lipstick that might as well be tattooed on, Carmen looked simultaneously hot and cool. How was it that Amy had inherited their father’s trunk legs and even his boobs, and Carmen had Rosa’s heart-shaped face and Scarlett O’Hara waist that you had the urge to close your hands around just to see if you could?
Carmen spotted Amy and sidestepped her way through the dance floor, wher
e Rosa was nailing the tango (of course) and her partner was evidently impressed (of course). ‘I see Mum’s getting along well with Viggo,’ Carmen said as she reached the bar.
‘You know him? The silver surfer?’
‘Sanjay’s business partner. I met him this arvo.’
‘Ah, that guy. The one who always cancels at the last minute because he’s got somewhere more important to be.’
Carmen pulled herself onto a bar stool. ‘Don’t let that beach-bum look fool you. Apparently, he’s as loaded as Sanjay.’ On the dance floor, Rosa broke off from Viggo and hugged Geoff, who whispered something in her ear that made her giggle. ‘Oh, they are so sweet. If they were still together, they’d be embarrassing.’
Carmen waved to their cousin Harry, who was serving at the other end of the bar. He raised his chin in response. Unshaven and with his thick dark hair even scruffier than usual, he looked like he’d been fished out of the ocean and dumped straight into bar duty. And he probably had—when Amy had passed him on the path up from the ferry that afternoon, he’d been heading to his boat.
As he neared, Carmen stretched up and peered over the bar. ‘Would it kill you to wear shoes?’ she called. ‘You’re an OH&S nightmare.’
He grinned. ‘Probably not but why risk it? What can I get you, little cousies?’
Before Amy could ask for a vodka, Carmen ordered two Sazeracs.
Harry held up his palms. ‘My skills are limited to pouring tap beer and reading wine labels but tell me what’s in it and I’ll give it a crack. If it sucks, it’s on the house.’
‘So generous,’ Carmen said. As hospitality and events manager, she was the house. She filled him in, and he started gathering ingredients. ‘How about we find you a silver surfer, Aims?’ she said. ‘Nan instructed Sanjay to import spares, though I suspect she forgot to specify sexual orientation.’
‘I thought you were dating your workmate at the uni,’ Harry said, scooping ice. ‘The one with the motorbike. What happened to him?’
‘Rode off into the sunset with one of my students after begging to switch tutorial groups with me. And I’d just asked him to be my wedding date.’