“They’re going to cover me for everything.” It had been a long couple of days waiting for the result.
“That’s great!” Fleur said.
“But it’s going to be six months until you’ve got a building,” Kit pointed out.
Mai grinned, excited to share the news. “Well here’s the thing. I’ve been researching the delivery option Kit suggested. You know, allow people to order and pay for food and have it delivered to their door.”
“But where will you bake?” Jamie bit into his scone.
“From my parents’ place,” she said. “They’ve got a huge kitchen and I can get a licence to operate from there until the development is finished.” She grimaced. “But it does mean I have to move back in with them temporarily.” Part of the food licence she’d applied for required her to live at the place where she baked. “I’m going to set up the website for orders and have a cut off time for next day delivery. Then I’ll know how much I need to bake each day. It won’t be as much as the bakery, but it will ensure people remember me.”
“What about your staff?” Fleur asked.
That was the worst part. “There’s not a lot I can do for them. I’ll need someone to drive the delivery van, but that’s all I can offer at the moment.” She might be able to do a roster to employ both Jodie and Sylvia part-time. “If it’s a success, Penny can bake at her place too.”
“You’ll make it work,” Kit said.
She would. She felt far more optimistic about everything. After surviving Shane and the bush fire she could handle anything that came her way.
They swapped other news until people began to make a move.
“We need to pick Felix up from Jacob’s place,” Hannah said as she got to her feet.
Nicholas handed Mai her crutches and they went outside. She hugged her friends, ending with Fleur. “Thanks for giving me a place to stay.”
“Any time. If you need a break from your parents, you’re welcome to drop by.” Fleur glanced at Nicholas. “Though I suspect you might have a better option.”
Mai smiled. She and Nicholas hadn’t spoken any more about the future. It hadn’t helped that his parents were still in town and his mother flitted around him like a mother hen. But she was fine with that. Nicholas loved her and they had plenty of time to work something out.
She placed her crutches in the back of her car, and hopped into the driver’s side. She’d never been so glad to have an automatic car. Nicholas slid in next to her and she headed towards his place.
“Want to go for a drive?” he asked. “We could go up to the lookout over the beach.”
“Sure.” She changed directions and headed for the lookout. When she pulled up and turned off the engine, Nicholas said, “I spoke to my father today.”
Her heart skipped a beat. He’d been dreading that. “And?”
“I told him I wanted to finish this development, but then I was going to resign, find something else.”
“How did he react?”
“Better than I expected. Mum’s been talking to him.” He sighed. “Can you handle marrying someone who might be unemployed soon?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Marry?”
He reached into his pocket, wincing as he did so, and pulled out a gold ring, with a small clear diamond set into the band. “I want you in my life forever Mai. The thought I could have lost you, you could have died …” He swallowed. “You’ve shown me how much fun life can be, taught me to live again and I can’t imagine my new life without you in it.”
She stared at him, joy and love running through her. He wanted to spend his life with her. “Yes,” she said, holding out her hand so he could slip the ring on her finger. “Absolutely yes.”
“I didn’t want to get you a ring which would get dough stuck in it when you were kneading,” he said. “But we can change it if you don’t like it.”
The fact he’d thought of it made her love him even more. “It’s perfect.”
She kissed him, his taste warming all of the places inside her which had still been sad.
While it had hurt to lose her bakery and all of her possessions, they weren’t what truly mattered.
Family and friends mattered.
Nicholas mattered.
They would rebuild.
And they would build a life together.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed the book. It would be super awesome if you could leave a review wherever you bought it, because I love to hear what you thought of the story (yes, even if you didn’t like it!)
If you’ve only just discovered the Blackbridge Series, make sure you check out Hannah’s story in Nothing to Fear. Fleur’s story is next in Nothing to Hide.
If you’d like to check out some of my other series, you can get the first books for free by joining my reader group.
Nothing To Hide
The Blackbridge Series #3
Native orchids aren’t the only thing under threat…
Park Ranger Will Travers is the new outsider in the small, tight-knit community of Blackbridge. But as a loner at heart, the only thing he needs is his work, and right now that means protecting the endangered orchids at the local motocross club. He just has to go up against the gorgeous club president who leaves him lost for words and tripping over his own tongue.
Fleur Lockhart has no desire to be responsible for the extinction of a species, but while Will might be tall, dark and handsome, he’s also abrupt and sullen. Then someone starts dumping illegal waste and vandalising the track, and Will and Fleur are forced to work together to discover who is responsible.
As the bond between them grows, the attacks escalate, getting more and more deadly, and Fleur appears to be the target. Will they find the culprit before more than orchids are crushed to death?
Continue reading for a sneak peek at the first chapter...
Buy Nothing to Hide
Chapter 1
Will’s muscles tightened as he stepped from the white Parks and Wildlife Services four-wheel drive. The high-pitched whine of the motorbike engine set his teeth on edge, and the sharp smell of two-stroke fuel irritated his nose. Why the council had agreed to let a motocross track be built on the edge of the national park, he didn’t know.
This was the last place Will wanted to be. He wasn’t good with confrontations and the chance that the motocross rider tearing around the track would care about the endangered orchids he’d found, or his proposal was slim. The conversation would end up in a shouting match — no not a match, that meant he had to take part. Will would be shouted at while trying to convince the other person to at least listen to him. That’s how it usually went.
But the orchids were important, and he wouldn’t let this biker stop him from saving them. This was the perfect opportunity to discover who was in charge. He hadn’t expected the gates to be open, or for someone to be riding around on a fifty-year-old motorbike.
He crossed his arms and leaned on the chest-high metal fence that separated the track from the spectator area. The rider wore a dirt-bike helmet, but little else in terms of safety gear — blue jeans, black boots, and a loose blue T-shirt. Sure, it was thirty-two degrees in the shade today, but safety was important, especially on bikes. If he fell off, he’d have a hell of a gravel rash. The bike disappeared as the track twisted away from the spectator area and was hidden by bush, but its whine still polluted the air.
Will took stock of the facility. To his left was a clearly marked pit area, though the bays were cobbled together out of sheet metal and recycled posts and looked like they would blow over in a strong breeze. A white Hyundai with a small trailer was parked in front of one of the bays. Behind him, towards the entrance gates sat a clubhouse — a large, deep green corrugated metal building, with its door open. It had a verandah of sorts, nothing more than a concrete slab and a couple of wooden posts that extended the roof a few metres. The whole building had to be a sweat box in summer.
The roar of the bike grew louder again.
The rider took the final corner and barrelled towards the finish line. Will stood straight and raised a hand to get his attention.
The bike didn’t slow.
Will coughed as the dust kicked up by the bike floated over him. The rider hadn’t seen him or didn’t care.
Maybe someone was in the clubhouse.
The heat inside hit him like a wave and he grimaced. It was the type of heat he was used to back home in Goldwyer which was two thousand kilometres north of the small coastal town of Blackbridge, Western Australia. No one was inside, but another door to the right was closed. “Anyone here?” His voice echoed.
Mismatched chairs and tables were stacked along one wall and on the other were kitchen facilities — a sink and oven, deep fryers, a couple of fridges and a kettle. Everything was second-hand and ancient, much like his own furniture.
An engine stuttered outside, and Will turned to the door as the rider pulled up outside the clubhouse.
Nerves prickled his skin.
This was it. He’d rehearsed his speech. He would simply outline the situation clearly and hope to get through the conversation without being called a tree-hugging hippy or worse.
The rider killed the engine and dismounted, and then leaned the bike against one of the wooden poles. He took off his helmet.
Correction — her helmet.
Fleur Lockhart.
Every thought, every prepared sentence was wiped from Will’s mind. He took in her flushed cheeks, neat brown braid, and sparkling blue eyes. She pushed wayward strands of hair from her damp forehead as she smiled at him. “Hey, Will. What can I help you with?”
How could he have mistaken her for a man? The blue T-shirt clung to her small breasts, defining her lean figure and those denim jeans hugged her legs like Hardenbergia on a tree. Wow.
“Will?”
Crap, he was staring at her like a love-struck idiot.
He swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the president of the motocross club,” Fleur said. “I had to get a few things ready for our busy bee this weekend and thought I’d squeeze in a ride while I was here.”
The president. Of course she was.
She tilted her head. “Can I help you with something?”
His mouth was drier than Goldwyer in summer. “Ah, yeah, the orchids.” Damn it. Could he sound more like an idiot? This was not going to plan.
Her lips lifted. “Orchids?”
He cleared his throat and tapped his thigh. “I, uh, discovered some endangered orchids on the fence line between the national park and the track.” And unfortunately they were more track side than park side.
Fleur frowned. “Do you want permission to dig them up?”
Will shook his head. This was the tricky part. “They’re critically endangered because they’re difficult to propagate. We need to protect any areas where we find them.”
“Can you show me?”
He moved towards the track and Fleur fell in beside him, her stride matching his, the only sounds the scuff of their boots on the dirt and the distant tweet of a wren. She was so close, and despite the fact she’d been racing around the track, she smelled like roses. His fingers brushed her soft hand and he snatched his hand back, rather than hold on to hers like he longed to. The urge was absolutely ridiculous. He barely knew her, had met her that one time in hospital when they’d both visited Mai and Nicholas who were recovering from the bush fire a few weeks back.
He didn’t believe in love at first sight, but that one meeting had definitely hit him in the chest. He hadn’t built up the nerve to ask her out. How could he? He’d not seen her since. No way would he waltz up to her front door, or into the emergency room where she worked and ask her out.
The very idea was nightmare-worthy.
He’d say the wrong thing, or she’d laugh at him for even daring to think she might be interested in him.
“Did the bush fire cause much damage to infrastructure in the park?” Fleur’s voice was loud in the silence.
“Some.” He could do better than that. If he ever did ask her out, his usual one-word answers weren’t going to cut it. “A couple of picnic areas burned down. We’re going to need to replace tables and signage.”
“Is that something you do?”
He nodded. “A few trees will need to be lopped as well.”
“Must be a lot of work.”
“Not really.” He didn’t mind the work, it kept him out of the office and away from people, just the way he liked it.
As they crossed the track and strode into the ankle-high grasses on the other side, the tension in his shoulders lessened. This was his element. Snakes were unlikely with the vibrations Fleur had been making with the motorbike, but he kept a sharp eye out anyway. When the boundary fence came into view he put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait.” Her skin was warm, and he snatched his hand back. Heat rushed to his cheeks and he avoided meeting her gaze, instead scanning the ground for the tell-tale thin leaves and the damp hollow he’d seen from the park.
There they were, five plants scattered over an area of about two square metres, almost indistinguishable amongst the grass. He moved closer, watching where he placed his feet to make sure he didn’t accidentally squash one.
He squatted down and examined the orchid, its yellow flower almost spent. It could be the Tall Donkey Orchid. He pulled out his phone and took a couple of photos to send to the service’s botanist.
“What is it?”
He startled at Fleur’s voice and almost fell forward on to the plant. Swearing, he landed hard on a sharp stone, his wrist twisting at an awkward angle.
“Are you all right?” The thud of her footsteps was loud.
“Stay there!” he growled, pushing himself back to his feet, and grimacing at the throb in his wrist.
Fleur scowled.
Crap. He’d snapped at her. “Sorry, I’m fine.” He gently rotated his hand, wincing a little at the tenderness, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
“Let me take a look. I’m a nurse.” She moved forward again.
“Not here!” Damn it, she could squash a plant. “Over on the track.” He shooed her away.
Fleur turned, her movements stiff, her posture straight.
Way to go, Will, you sure know how to impress the ladies. “Ah, the orchids are difficult to spot.” He followed her.
Fleur’s hands were confident as they examined his wrist, her white skin a direct contrast to his own brown tones, and he gritted his teeth at the pleasure her touch sent through him.
“I don’t think it’s sprained, but keep it elevated for a bit just in case.”
“It’s fine.” Still he placed his hand on the opposite shoulder.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Thank you.” He needed to get away from her before he said or did anything else stupid. “Can I document the orchid population?”
Her nod was sharp. “Go right ahead. It’s the off-season, so not many people are using the track. You shouldn’t have anyone disturb you.”
The first good news of the day. “Thanks. I’ll fence off the area. I don’t want a bike to runoff and squash them.”
“Wait a second.” She held up a hand. “What kind of area are you talking about?”
“About four metres, just to be sure — from the track to the boundary fence.” He could picture it in his mind already. “I can do it today. I’ve got the hessian in the back of my car.”
She shook her head. “We’re not allowed any structures within three metres of the track. It’s not safe.”
Damn it. He was so close to getting what he needed. “You said it’s the off-season.”
She bit her bottom lip. “We’re having a busy bee here this weekend and the only way we get people to turn up is to promise them a chance of tuning their bikes.”
Fleur couldn’t seriously think that letting some bikers use the track was more important than saving an endangered species. She’d seemed so nice. “Rerout
e the track.”
“We can’t. We don’t have the equipment or manpower.” She scanned the area. “Mark it out for me.”
Will carefully paced out the area he wanted to enclose.
“It’s on the outside of a corner so it’s easy for the guys to overshoot here if they haven’t slowed enough. I’m surprised no one has squashed the orchids yet.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“Still,” she continued, “the regulations allow us to build a tyre wall in front of permanent structures like trees, so we could do that in front of your fence.”
“You’re agreeing to it?”
“Yeah. I’ll build the wall myself on the weekend, if you do the enclosure before then. Some of the guys might not appreciate the significance of the plants.”
His lips twitched at her wry response.
“I can give you a hand setting up now if you want.”
Maybe she’d forgiven him for yelling at her. This was a chance to get to know Fleur. His heart thumped in his chest. “That would be great.”
A familiar shrill short bird call had him scanning the surrounding trees until he found an adult black cockatoo sitting on the branches of a gum tree. Nearby was a hollow and a chick, some of its feathers still fluffy, stood at its entrance. He touched Fleur’s arm and pointed. “Look at that.”
She grinned. “It’s so cute.”
“It’s a Carnaby Cockatoo. They’re endangered because they need hollows like that to nest in. A mating pair will generally go back to the same nest year after year.” He’d have to check his records as to whether this nest had been documented.
The chick flapped its wings, testing them out, and the adult sat on a branch to its left encouraging it. This could be its first outing from the nest. “Come on, little mate. You can do it.” The chick chirped at its parent and after fluttering its wings another couple of times, it launched itself from the nest and made an awkward flight to the branch. Will let out a breath. “He made it.” He turned to find Fleur watching him, not the bird. Crap. Had he done something stupid?
Nothing to Gain Page 26
