A Choice of Fate

by Jezz de Silva

  He’d never dreaded flicking on his phone even during his only time off for the year. Satisfying his clients had always brought him more peace than annoyance. No matter how many hours he’d sweated his arse off in the saddle or how many mouthfuls of dust he’d swallowed, he’d always found the energy to serve the people who entrusted him with their companies and financial future. Only this muster was different, this holiday more special, and he’d been doing his damnedest not to stare at the reason all night.

  A hand thudded onto his shoulder and almost knocked his iPhone off the veranda and into the same dirt he’d been staring at for the last ten minutes. Ryder emerged from the shadows like a ghost and balanced a Heineken on the railing in front of him. “You do know the best man’s responsible for making sure the buck has a good time?”

  Jarrah jammed his phone into his pocket and glared up at a lovestruck buck who couldn’t get much happier. “I think you’re good, Sarge.”

  Ryder leaned on the railing beside him and scanned the remaining revelers. The combined hens’ and bucks’ night had been about as wild as a chess tournament on Valium, and it’d been exactly what Abi and Ryder had wanted. No strippers, apart from one tipsy member of the Country Women’s League who’d ensured her fellow gossip girls had something to discuss for the rest of the year. No drunken pranks that could’ve gotten someone killed if they’d tried sneaking up on Ryder or, even worse, Abi. And no cheesy games or speeches. The night had purely been about friends and family getting together and blowing the nonexistent roof off the courtyard.

  Despite most of the crowd having to be up before dawn to squeeze in some mustering before the wedding reception tomorrow night, they’d had little trouble clearing the tables of food, emptying the fridges of booze, and kicking up dust on the dirt dance floor.

  Ryder nudged him and raised his bottle. “I’m worried about you, big brother. That glamorous job of yours is going to kill you one day.”

  Jarrah chuckled and touched his bottle to Ryder’s. “This from a man who’s been shot six times, had his leg blown off, and spent the last ten years dodging bullets and IEDs while crawling through the Middle East’s top tourist destinations.”

  “At least I made it back here before it was too late. You’re still trying to escape.” Ryder studied him over his bottle as he brought it to his lips.

  If his brother hadn’t been so right, Jarrah might’ve been justified in punching the smart-arse in the gut. All he could do was mutter a curse and drown his sorrows.

  Ryder had been destined for the military. From the time the three Harper boys had been old enough to think about the future, there’d only been one place the ogre was headed. But unlike his war-hero brother, Jarrah hadn’t even known where he was escaping to, let alone why. He was just desperate to see if the grass was actually greener on the other side of the desert. Brisbane University and its scholarship program had seemed as good a place as any to figure out whether the big city legends were true.

  Jarrah lowered his bottle and nodded to the auburn-haired fireball belting out a horrendous ballad with Kira, Maddie, and Jeddah providing equally painful backup vocals. “Any second thoughts?”

  Ryder’s grin confirmed what Jarrah and everyone else who’d seen Abi and him together had known from the very beginning. Destiny and the universe had conspired to bring them together. It was the only way to explain how an elementary school teacher from L.A. and a soldier from a tiny one kangaroo town in the middle of the Aussie Outback could’ve found each other.

  Jarrah groaned and backhanded Ryder but happiness and a healthy dose of jealousy robbed the blow of any real venom. “What’s it feel like?”

  Ryder continued gazing at his girl while taking a long sip from his beer and swallowing. “Everything suddenly makes sense.” Ryder shrugged. “I’m guessing it’s because nothing else matters. Where you live, what you do, how powerful you are, how much money you have, whether you live or die.” His brother paused and turned to him. “Nothing matters because there’s only her.”

  A week ago, Jarrah would’ve told his brother to book a CAT scan to locate the shrapnel still lodged in his brain. All he could do now was slowly nod and take a sip from the beer he no longer tasted.

  Olivia’s laughter rippled through the girls’ encore as she clapped and cheered from her perch atop one of the tables alongside his mother, Ethan, and most of the single men still conscious and able to stand. There was no way he should’ve heard her among the caterwauling, but her voice had him searching her out like a trained Labrador.

  He’d made the mistake of touching her earlier in the night and had been doing his damnedest not to even look at her since, because whatever remained of his self-control was fading almost as quickly as his desire for privacy. But keeping his hands off her while every eligible bachelor within a two-hundred-kilometer radius had a crack at her was driving him nuts. She didn’t belong to him. Hell, they hadn’t even had a chance to really discuss what, if anything, they had going on, yet that did little to calm the caveman lurking inside him.

  “You figured out what you’re going to do about her?”

  Ryder’s words hit him like a slow-motion punch to the face. Jarrah snapped around only to find his brother calmly sipping his beer and taking in the festivities.

  He turned back to the crowd as his mind scrambled for balance, but it was too late. If Ryder hadn’t known something was going on between Olivia and him, he sure as hell knew now. Because only a freaking idiot with half his mind concentrating on not stalking the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about and the other half focusing on what he was hoping to do to her when they were finally alone could’ve fallen for such a simple trap.

  Jarrah sighed and shook his head. “No fucking idea.”

  It was almost a relief to hear the words dribble from his mouth. He loved each and every member of his crazy family with everything he had. However, the only person who’d have the faintest idea of what he was going through would be his brother. Instead of offering a supportive slap on the back or sage words of wisdom, his idiot brother almost choked to death laughing.

  Jarrah pounded on Ryder’s back under the pretense of saving the arsehole’s life before his brother shrugged him off. With each passing second, the humor drained from Ryder’s face while his eyes speared straight into Jarrah’s. “She’s special.”

  No fucking shit. She was the most special woman he’d ever met. Any idiot who’d met her would’ve figured that out. Jarrah cursed and nodded. “Is this where you warn me not to hurt her because you’ll rip my arms off and beat me to death with them?”

  Ryder chuckled and shook his head. “She can take care of herself. I’m more worried about my moron big brother fucking up the chance of a lifetime by worrying about shit that doesn’t matter and overthinking everything.”

  Jarrah met Ryder’s raised eyebrow with one of his own, and that was where his counterassault stalled. The only way he’d been able to stop thinking about getting Olivia naked had been to run through plan after plan of how he and the woman currently screeching into the night could be together without it ending in flames. Giving up, he turned back to the crowd and drained his beer in a pathetic attempt to escape his brother’s gaze.

  Ryder reached over and pried the empty beer out of his hand before patting his shoulder. “And if you hurt her I’ll rip off your arms and beat you to death with them.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You planning on telling me who’s responsible for that smile? Or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

  Olivia flinched and forced the grin from her face. She lowered her finger from where she’d been absently tracing spirals on the window she’d been daydreaming through and faced her big sister. “What smile?”

  As far as comebacks went it wasn’t her best. And in regard to deflections, it was downright pitiful. But the instant Olivia had stopped thinking about the wedding or getting her sister ready, the stupid grin that never seemed far away spread across her face and memories
of a certain cowboy melted parts of her anatomy and turned her once-agile brain to mush.

  Abi eyed her from the edge of the single bed in the spare room Naya had set up as wedding mission control. Her sister leaned back in all her bridal finery as if she hadn’t a care in the world and wasn’t about to marry the man of her dreams in a little under half an hour. “The smile you’ve done a shit job of hiding for days.”

  The chaos generated by a teary-eyed mother-in-law cum marriage officiant, three excited stockwomen bridesmaids, and an irritatingly calm bride teasing and laughing with one another while getting ready had distracted the nervous maid of honor. With Naya on her way to the Wishing Tree with the Harper boys, and Kira, Maddie, and Jeddah less-than-subtly giving the Williams girls some alone time before they all left, Olivia found herself trapped with the one person who knew her better than she knew herself. “I’m just happy to see my big sister marrying the man she loves.”

  “Bullshit.” Abi narrowed her gaze and jabbed a finger at her. “I’ve seen that same dreamy smile on my best man’s smug face when he thought no one was looking.”

  Christ, Olivia hoped so. If he wasn’t smiling after what they’d done to each other out in the desert, on the back of the ute on their way into the desert, up against the tree on their way to the ute, and in his feed-shed bachelor pad, she was losing her touch. Olivia caught the smile spreading across her face and turned it into a scowl. “And you’re an expert on smiles all of a sudden?”

  The satisfied grin Abi flashed her confirmed her big sister knew pretty much all there was to know about smiles. It was the smile of a woman who’d found her perfect partner, someone who not only completed her world but also rocked the crap out of it on a regular basis.

  Abi sighed and leaned forward. “I’ve cut you some slack because I love you both.” Abi chuckled and waved a hand to her bridesmaids waiting on the veranda outside the window. “Plus, I didn’t want Huey, Dewey, and Louie wrecking whatever the hell’s going on between you. But we all know how patient I am, and it’s my wedding day, so out with it, before I fire your ass and promote one of the Outback Charlie’s Angels to be my maid of honor.”

  She’d known Abi would eventually find out. It’d been hard enough to hide the last Oreo from her sister when they’d been kids. If she was honest with herself, she was surprised it’d taken her meddling big sister this long to corner her.

  Olivia picked up the shocking-pink cane leaning against the desk and ran her fingers over the scratched and dented coating. The walking aid Abi had turned into a weapon was the last visible reminder of how close Olivia had come to losing the woman who’d sacrificed her adolescence to care for her, who’d postponed her own happiness for hers, who’d fought to give her everything she’d wanted. She drew in a ragged breath and blinked back the moisture glazing her eyes. “A year ago I was giving you sex advice.”

  “Sex.” The word had never bothered her before. She loved sex. Gentle sex, hard sex, clean sex, dirty sex, shower sex, gurney sex, floor sex. She considered herself an expert in the art of getting freaky, yet stripping down what she and Jarrah had shared over the last couple of nights to just sex knotted her stomach.

  “The student has become the master.” Abi’s horrendous Darth Vader impersonation had her chuckling softly. The smile fell from her sister’s face the instant their gazes locked.

  Abi’s mouth fell open, and her eyes widened as she leaned forward. “It’s more than just sexy times, isn’t it?”

  Before Olivia even had a chance to deny it, Abi squealed like a Belieber and charged her. With her hands still clutching the cane trapped between them, all Olivia could do was stand helplessly by while Abi alternated between tackling her and shoving her away to gush. With each hug and teary-eyed gaze the same reality that’d been shadowing Olivia’s own giddy happiness crept across her sister’s features.

  Abi frowned and shoved her away but kept hold of her shoulders. “Please tell me you know what you’re doing. Please tell me you’re focusing that huge brain of yours on the career you’ve worked your ass off for and not on the ass you’re currently focusing on.”

  For the first time in her life, Olivia could honestly say she had absolutely no freaking idea what she was doing. She fixed a bored look on her face before winking. “For Christ’s sake relax. Nothing’s happening. And I’m not some desperately lonely spinster who’s stupid enough to fall for some random guy she met on vacation.” She raised an eyebrow. “Like a certain future bride I know.”

  Abi rolled her eyes before jabbing a finger at her, yet didn’t say a word, because she didn’t have to; the warning in her glare said it all. It was the same look Abi had used when teenage-rebel Olivia had proclaimed she was leaving school to work full time and when new-adult Olivia had stated she was dropping out of med school to help pay the bills.

  The longer Olivia stared at her sister’s unwavering finger, the flimsier her rebuttal sounded. She’d had friends, she’d had lovers, she’d had lovers who’d become friends. She’d never had a friend who’d turned into a lover. And holy mother of God what a lover he’d turned into.

  “Cut the big sister act. This is your special day.” Olivia straightened and forced a chuckle before jabbing Abi in the stomach with the cane. “Now, for once in your life you’re going to shut up and listen to me.” She stabbed Abi again, partly because it helped ease her own nerves but mostly for revenge. “Stop sticking your nose into my business, finish getting dressed, and let’s get this show on the road.”

  Abi stood her ground, which only got her another jab in the gut with the cane.

  “Move it, cripple. There’s a huge doting idiot sweating his ass off in the desert waiting for you.”

  The mere mention of her future husband had Abi’s face exploding into a smile that incinerated the cloud hanging over them. Her sister raised that ominous finger again and narrowed her gaze. “I’m watching you.”

  Yeah, right. One look at her groom in his fancy stockman outfit, and there’d only be one thing occupying her sister’s mind, yet that did little to ease Olivia’s concerns. Abi or not, she had to keep an eye on herself before her damned friend slash lover, slash whatever the hell he was dragged her deeper into this fairy tale and she lost sight of the real world.

  Abi nodded slowly and mumbled another warning before returning to the bed to add the finishing touches to her own fancy stockwoman outfit. With each confident step her sister took, the anxiety coiled around Olivia surrendered to excitement. A little over a year ago Abi was fighting for her life. Now her sister must’ve been close to the happiest woman on the planet and about to embark on the greatest adventure of her life.

  Olivia smiled down at the cane her sister no longer needed and rested it on the desk she’d been leaning against. “You’re not even a little nervous?”

  Abi grinned the same damned grin that’d been glued to her face for more than a year. Shaking her head, Abi tugged on Naya’s scuffed work boots, which she planned to walk down the aisle with, or up the dirt track in this case.

  “Not even a little?”

  “Nope.” Abi readjusted the sleeves of her completely un-bridelike cotton button down before pushing off the bed and smoothing her jeans.

  Abi’s jeans would serve as the bride’s something blue while Naya’s hundred-year-old boots provided the something borrowed. Their father’s Camaro, washed, polished, and transformed into the bridal carriage, complete with rope ribbons on the hood and old boots and hats tied to the bumper, covered the something old. And the hat Abi nestled over her auburn bob ticked off the something new.

  The Akubra was far from new. Ryder had bought it for her more than a year ago, but considering how much trouble Olivia and the Harper girls had had with convincing the bride to do anything remotely bridelike, Olivia considered it a win. The complete disregard Abi had for tradition would’ve only had their feminist hippie mother smiling even wider and crying even harder as she hugged their father and watched on from the heavens.

  Oli
via blinked back the moisture pooling in her eyes and cleared her throat. “You sure you’re okay with not having a fancy ceremony or foofy white dress?” She jutted her chin toward the horde of ferociously protective bridesmaids waiting outside. “Because if you have any second thoughts, we’ll shut this whole thing down until you’re ready.”

  Abi waved her away. “For Christ’s sake, stop worrying. It’s going to be perfect.”

  Olivia lowered her hand and blew out the breath she’d been holding. After twenty-nine years of being a hardheaded pain in the ass, her big sister had finally mellowed. Who would’ve thought that all it took was for Abi to spend the rest of her life in the middle of a desert with a man who loved her more than anything else in the world.

  Abi’s smile slowly dimmed as she sighed and shook her head. “Mom and Dad would’ve loved this.”

  They’d done a great job pretending the two spiritual elephants in the room hadn’t been watching over every single second of the preparations. Yet as the whispered words escaped Abi’s mouth, the grief more than a decade of life still hadn’t extinguished enveloped them. Without saying a word, they fell into each other’s arms. The only thing missing from this perfect day was their completely imperfect left-wing mother and gear-head father, who just happened to be the most perfect parents children could wish for and the perfect example of what love should be.

  Olivia sniffed and peered through her tears at the only family she had left. As she gently dabbed away the tears from Abi’s cheeks and brushed the fringe clear of her sister’s glistening eyes, she knew Abi had not only found a man who’d die before hurting her but her sister had also joined a family that loved her almost as much as her groom, the very same family who’d already worked its way under Olivia’s skin and into her heart.