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Scarlet Harlot Publishing™
Erotic Romance
Copyright © 2014 by Amarinda Jones
First E-book Publication: April 2014
Editor:Bethany Brookes
Cover design by Amarinda Jones
All cover art and logo copyright © 2014 by Amarinda Jones
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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Dumb at Heart
© Amarinda Jones
Chapter One
“You’re a fool.”
Cass Kelly blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, tell me something I don’t know.” She
unlocked the passenger side door and pushed it open.
“What you’re doing is crazy.”
“Probably.”
“So you’re just going to run off to the back of beyond to do what? Find yourself?
Search for the meaning of life? Ponder man’s inhumanity to man?”
“All that, and probably get quite sunburnt.” Cass looked down into her handbag.
The zipper was busted so it was easy to see the contents. Money? Check. Plane ticket?
Scrunched, but visible. Directions to the back of beyond? Yep.
“It’s plain crazy.”
Cass grinned. Yeah, it was, but crazy worked for her. “Look at me, Lorelle. Have
I ever done anything sensible in all the time you have known me?”
“Well—nope.” Her friend sighed and reached out to tug on a lock of Cass’s red
hair. “Just be careful.”
“Of course I will.” I’m flying off in a tiny plane to a place I have never seen to
work with people I don’t know, who live miles from civilization, where snakes and
feral pigs will probably eat me alive, that is if I do not burn to a crisp under a sun
that can rip your hide off. Careful? Pfft.
Lorelle shook her head. “Uh-huh. I’m not sure who I should be more concerned
for. You, or the population of Mundabucka. ”
It was one photo of Wade Moore in the Cairns Post, that had Cass Kelly packing
her bags and heading for the airport. “Lying, cheating swine.” Once she thought she
had loved him. But that was before she saw him and her—Louise Samuels, heir to the
Samuels yacht company—grinning mockingly up from the page of the newspaper.
They had just gotten engaged. Funny thing was Cass had a vague thought, despite the
three months dry spell in sex between them, she and Wade would one day announce
their marriage. A not funny thing was Cass had realized too late that an heiress beat a
receptionist hands down when it came to the marriage stakes. Cass knew Wade was
ambitious but to get hooked up with a horsey faced dame with the inherited Samuels
wart under her nose, that in no way could ever be called a beauty spot despite what
was written in the article, she hadn’t seen coming. She also hadn’t seen coming the
fact that she would get really drunk on hearing about said engagement and then sit at
her computer tapping away at an online advertisement to be placed in the Cairns Post
congratulating the—quote—“small balled prick with penis length issues on his
engagement to Flicka. If there is a God, may their kids look nothing like them. Eat
dirt and die, yours sincerely, Mary Poppins.” On reflection it was probably a bad
thing to do. Probably, but it felt good as was throwing herself at the first online job
she saw after posting her tribute to Wade. But then, Cass wanted to get out of Cairns
for a bit. While she loved the Far North Queensland tropical city, she knew she had to
get out and clear her head and de-Wade-ify.
Two hours later, standing at the local airport at Mundabucka with a suitcase in
one hand and two cackling caged chooks in the other, Cass looked around her. Behind
her was a rusted-in-parts, corrugated tin shack that served as arrival and departures for
the overly optimistically named Mundabucka International Airport. In front of her
was dry, red dirt as far as the eye could see. And the heat? Suffocating. Unlike Cairns
it was a dry heat that sucked all the moisture out of a body. Cass felt the sweat
dripping down between her breasts and clinging to the short floral sundress she was
wearing.
She put both the suitcase and chooks on the ground and re-scraped her hair up
into a haphazard bun on top of her head. “Frig, it’s hot.” Cass looked around her.
Other than the squinty-eyed airport controller, who introduced himself as Phil, there
was no one. She was supposed to be met by someone called Evan. Phil smiled when
she told him this.
“Evan’s a creature of whim. He gets the call of the wild and takes off just like
that.” He snapped his fingers.
Cass was impressed as not only was Phil missing two front teeth but also three
fingers on his left hand and two on his right. He explained this as a ‘run-in with a
pissed off wild pig.’
She looked down at the caged chickens. “Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a brilliant
idea but it’s not my worst.” They cackled loudly. “Oh, shut up. I know what I’m
doing—kinda.” Cass muttered under her breath and looked around her once more.
There was loads of nothing for miles. “Where the hell is he?”
“Who?” came a voice from behind her.
Cass spun around in surprise. “Where did you come from?” She asked as she
surveyed the tall, lanky man with broad shoulders that most men would kill for. She
looked into the bluest
eyes she had ever seen and saw only amusement. Men.
Amusement. Not happening.
“You’d be the city chick here to work at McNally’s Hotel.”
City chick? “I’m Cass Kelly and undoubtedly you’d be the creature of whim,
Phil was telling me about.”
The dark haired man smiled. “That’d be me.” Evan Bates at your service.” He
looked down at the caged chooks. “You brought chooks.” That made his smile wider.
Cass picked up the cage. “You’re quick.”
Evan scratched his head. “You know, when Jo and Flo said you were bringing
them I thought the old girls had lost their minds.”
“Do you have a problem with chickens?” They were her pets. She couldn’t leave
them to fend for themselves when she went bush. They were like family. Sort of.
He shrugged. “Nope. We like chickens here—preferably deep fried.”
“You fry my chickens and I will fry your ass.”
Evan arched one eyebrow. “That could be fun.” His gaze then traveled down her
body, lingering on her breasts, before moving down to her thong clad feet and back up
to her eyes. “What’re their names?”
“How do you know I named them?” She had but that wasn’t the point. Do I look
that obvious?
“You brought them all the way to the middle of nowhere. They have to be
important to you.”
The chooks were quiet as they watched him. Cass squared her shoulders. “Mitzi
and Bert.”
“Bert?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Bert is a boy’s name. This chook is a female,” he pointed out as he reached for
her bag.
“So?” Cass knew her tone was defensive but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with
a smart ass man.
Still smiling at her, he responded, “Nothing. So, one bag only?”
“I travel light.” She had left everything she owned at Lorelle’s place. Not that
‘everything’ was much. It was an old television, a purple cane chair, a sofa bed and an
oversized panda she won at the Cairns show when she was twelve and was reluctant
to get rid of.
“Most women travel with all sorts of crap.”
“I’m not most women.”
Again, he looked her up and down. “Nope, you’re different all right.”
She wanted to ask what he meant by that but decided against it. She had a feeling
the answer would be complicated and right now she needed easy and simple. “How
far’s McNally’s?”
“It’s in the middle of town so that’d make it about five kilometers from here.”
“Great. Let’s go.” She desperately wanted a shower. “Where’s your car?”
“Horse.”
“Horse?”
“Yeah, I rode here.”
“Well, how am I supposed to get to McNally’s?”
“On the back of my horse.”
What the? She hadn’t ridden a horse in her life and wasn’t about to now. “What
about my stuff?”
“Phil will drive over later with it.”
Cass placed the chicken cage on the ground. “Fine, I’ll go into town with Phil.”
“No worries. He goes off shift in six hours.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Six hours?”
“Yep, he’s stationed here in case of emergencies.”
Cass looked around at the vast expanse of nothingness. “Like what? Aliens
landing?”
“Maybe,” Evan chuckled and placed her suitcase on the ground. “So Cass, it’s up
to you. Sit on your ass out here and sweat a lot or come into town with me.”
She pursed her lips. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”
He picked up her bag again. “Not much to it. Climb on, scoot close up to me and
hold on.”
Cass licked her lips in thought. Hold on to him. In the heat. Hmmm.
“I don’t bite much,” he grinned at her.
Chapter Two
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So you put your hand in the wrong place. It’s only a big deal if you make it
one.”
“It’s wasn’t big at all.”
“Oh, it is. Bigger than you expected.”
He was right. Damn man. Damn hands. After some embarrassing attempts to
climb onto the back of Evan’s horse, which included the fingerless Phil
unsuccessfully trying to shove her up and then her several pathetic attempts to stand
on the chair he brought for her and the not so encouraging ‘swing your leg over, girl,’
Cass had finally gotten up behind Evan on his horse.
“Where do I put my hands?”
“Anywhere you like.”
She assessed the back of the broad shoulders and lean waist presented to her.
“Cass?”
“Yeah?”
“’Ever been with a man?”
She blushed wildly. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just take hold of me and stop acting like a scared virgin.”
“I am not.” She reached out towards his waist. It was then that the horse, aptly
named ‘Dodgy’ decided to buck wildly. This had her grabbing Evan low around the
waist, her hands sliding down over his crotch. The fullness she found there surprised
her more than the bucking horse. It took her a couple of beats to let go.
Cass looked down at him. “How do I get off?”
“Swing one leg over and slide off.”
Yeah right. Easy for you to say. “What if—”
“I will catch you.”
“But—”
“City chicks,” he mumbled under his breath before holding out his arms to her. “I
have lifted heifers out of the mud and pulled bogged tractors out of paddocks.
Catching you will be no different.”
Heifer or a tractor. Charming comparisons. “Have you ever been with a woman?” Yeah, she was overweight. What woman worth her salt didn’t have boobs,
hips and an ass?
“What do you think?” He dropped his arms.
“Probably not a real one.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because no woman in her right mind would have sex with someone who likens
her to a farm animal or a piece of farm machinery.”
Evan smiled at that. “Fine. You’re a misty, blue feather floating in a summer
breeze. When your body touches mine it will be like the lightest caress of baby’s
breath and I will sigh because it’ll feel like heaven’s kiss when you touch me.” He
raised his arms once more. “Now slide the fuck down before I yank you down and
you fall in a heap with your skirt over your head.”
For a moment, she wanted to smile but Cass didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. She had endured enough of smart ass males. “Fine. You break your back
catching me and it’s your fault.” She lifted one leg over, held her breath and dropped
down.
He caught her easily. “Not quite a misty blue feather but then I never did like the
lightweight types.”
Cass’s breasts were mashed up against his chest. Her heart was beating madly as
she savored the heated muscle against hers. “You married?” She asked breathlessly,
moving her lips closer to his as her hands rose up to flatten against his chest.
“Nope,” Evan’s mouth moved towards hers.
“Figures,” she said, giving a hard shove back from him.
Evan Bates smiled at that. Damn. This one I like. When Jo and Flo, the couple
who ran McNally’s, asked him to pick up t
he new girl, Evan hadn’t anticipated Cass
Kelly. The redhead was everything he liked in a woman. Generously curved and
mouthy. Maybe other men didn’t care for a full-figured woman with attitude but Evan
did. He liked his women to be women. Skin and bones prissy city girls were not his
style. Finding Cass at the airport had been a surprise.
“Why are you smiling?”
“You’re cute when you’re mad.” He tied the horse up against a nearby post.
She stamped her foot in response. “I’m not mad. I’m hot.”
Yeah, she was. His eyes dropped down to her breasts. The thin summer fabric
was sticking to them in the heat. It was an area he would enjoy exploring.
“What?” She snapped.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, my ass.”
Yeah, I want to look at that too. Evan watched as she looked around her. What
would she think of Mundabucka? There wasn’t much to it. Like a lot of outback
towns, its fortunes had been linked with the busts and booms of the mining industry.
Currently they were riding the crest of new found mineral deposits that had brought
big money into the town. Not that you would know it. The main street still looked the
same as it always did. Bitumen with a wonky white stripe painted down the middle by
Phil, who not only was the airport controller but the handyman for the town council.
Along with his other shortcomings, his eyesight wasn’t the best so anything he painted was always off kilter. Not that anyone much cared in Mundabucka. It was a
peaceful town with one hotel, one pub, a high steepled church, sundry stores, an old
railway museum with the most ornate doors and a police station, that at one time or
the other, had seen pretty much all the sixty-seven, permanent inhabitants pass through its doors either to sleep it off or to bail someone out.
“Where’s McNally’s?” Cass asked, looking around her.
“At the end of the street.” It was a Federation style, cream colored, two storey,
timber building bedecked with the original, fancy lace wrought ironwork front verandah, popular at the start of the last century. Evan watched as she turned from
him and started walking. “It’s the other end of the street.” He grinned as he saw her
back stiffen. Yeah, she’s gonna be fun.
Cass swung around and marched past him. A waft of the perfume washed over
Evan. When they had been riding into town, that scent had tantalized him. It was
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