Maggie clenched her fists at her hips and cocked her head to Isabella. Max cleared his throat. “And you, Isabella Martenson, are the hottest bride Wirra Station has seen in a good long while.” He reached for Isabella’s hand and kissed the back of it, which made Isabella laugh.
When he released her hand, and planted a quick kiss on Maggie’s cheek, he straightened and fastened the button on his jacket. “You ready to go? The groom’s pacing a track in the grass over there by The Woolshed, he’s so desperate to see you.”
“Wait, wait. One last burst of hairspray,” Elsa announced as she lifted a can and pressed the nozzle quickly. “And done.” She stepped back to admire her work. Isabella’s loose curls, pinned back over her ears to reveal her slender neck, looked perfect and natural. Elsa smiled with a great sense of self-satisfaction.
“Then I guess I’m ready,” Isabella announced.
Maggie slipped an arm through Max’s and shared a look with him. “There’s one last thing, Iz.”
“What’s that?” she asked her best friend.
“Max and I wondered if you’d like us to escort you over to The Woolshed. It’s not so much giving you away as sharing our best friend with your new family.”
“Oh, Maggie.” Isabella couldn’t find any words to explain how much their offer meant. She watched her friend’s face, expectant, questioning.
“You don’t like the idea?” Maggie asked, leaning in, her hand on Isabella’s arm. “We don’t have to if you think it’s a little old-fashioned.”
“Totally up to you,” Max nodded. “Your choice entirely.”
Isabella planted a splayed hand over her heart and tried not to cry. “Yes.”
*
When the chatter all around him became silence, when the only sound was the rustle of a late summer breeze in the eucalypts above, Harry spun on his heel.
And suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“Oh gosh, look at her. She looks so happy.” Tess was by his side, nudging him with an elbow.
Then Everett leaned in from the other side. “You did good, Harry. You did good.”
Amy pushed herself between him and Tess. “We love her, Harry.”
And then he felt his father’s large hand on his shoulder, squeezing softly. Harry looked over his shoulder. Charles Harrison lowered his eyes, nodded and stepped back, and that was all Harry needed. He knew that look. He wished his mother was here today, too. She would have loved Belle.
Belle. His wife, was coming towards him, to marry him a second time. Him. Was he the luckiest damn man on the planet, or what? The sun sparkled on her ivory dress, which flowed around her feet like ripples on a stream, and as she got nearer, she laughed out loud with Maggie and Max, and that sound of her laughter became his favourite music right then and there.
And then she was right there next to him, so happy and beautiful, and she reached for his hand and smiled up at him. He leaned down to kiss her cheek and her skin was soft as velvet and her perfume was roses and she was his life now. How his life had turned on a dime during the past year. A new wife, a new business and a new country. How could he have known that a weekend in Vegas would bring him here, to the happiest day of his life?
“Hey, Harry,” she said breathlessly.
“Hey, Belle,” he replied when he could find the words.
“You ready?”
“Ready.”
Isabella looked past Harry as her friend Callen, the marriage celebrant who’d filled in for her when she was ill a couple weeks before, stepped forward.
“Welcome everyone to this ceremony confirming the love of Isabella and Harry,” he started and then there was applause and cheers and Isabella tried to pay attention to it all, to Callen’s mellifluous voice and his carefully chosen words, but all she could hear was her breathing in her ears and the steady beat of her heart in her chest. All she could see was Harry and their future, laid out before them like a present wrapped in their love, full of mystery and choices and compromises and all that was possible between two people.
She’d always been in Callen’s place, standing back at a distance, officiating. It had always been safe, a position from which to witness but never truly feel, to be an impartial observer, the keeper of the paperwork and the guardian of officialdom. But today, she was on the other side of the leather folder. And she let herself experience everything a bride should on her wedding day: feelings of love and hope so strong, and a confidence in the decision to step into the world alongside the person you love. There was almost no way to describe how it felt to her.
But she was going to give it a try.
“Isabella?” Callen nodded in her direction. “You wanted to say something to Harry?”
Oh, how she did, and she gripped his hands tighter, looked deeper into his eyes and felt a sense of calm settle over her. A year ago, she’d woken up married, panicked, filled with a primal urge to flee. Today, Isabella knew who she was. She could be open to the love he was offering, a love she had never thought she’d deserved. She took a deep breath. “My heart was forever changed the day you …”
The words she’d written about him suddenly weren’t enough. And they weren’t the truth. Harry hadn’t swept her off her feet. They’d stumbled, fallen, done something foolish and impetuous. They’d made a mess of that first chance, her especially. But now she really knew him, it was different. She was finally able to open herself up to fully loving someone, to the trust a marriage required. She’d finally been able to share with him the truth of who she was and what had shaped her.
Harry’s smile became a question as she paused in the middle of a sentence he knew so well. But he waited; waited for her to centre herself, to find the precious words to show him how much she loved him.
And for that, she loved him even more.
Isabella cleared her throat. She hoped he liked these new words just as much. “My heart was forever changed the day I chose you. The day you chose me. Let’s love each other, Harry.”
“Belle,” Harry started. He stopped, looked down at his shoes, swallowed. When his eyes met hers, they were shining. “Loving you has been the easiest thing I’ll ever do in my life. Although you did make me work for it.” And when Harry laughed, Isabella joined in and laughter rippled through their family and friends.
Harry took a step closer and the happy sounds ceased. When he spoke it felt to Isabella as if they were the only ones sharing this moment, under the wide and blue Australian sky.
“Let’s challenge each other, Belle. Comfort each other. Let’s be kind and generous and willing to open our hearts to each other every day.”
“What a wonderful idea,” she replied.
And Callen must have asked for the I dos, and she and Harry must have said them, but Isabella wasn’t sure she remembered anything after that except for Harry’s kiss, and her elation at having been found, at having been chosen by this wonderful man, and at having chosen him.
Then there were more kisses and hugs from all those who loved them, and when the official paperwork had been signed – Callen had insisted on that being done properly – Harry took her hand and they stood together silently, for just a moment, to take this all in, to remember everything about this wonderful day.
As the guests moved off to The Woolshed to ready themselves for dinner, Harry leaned in and kissed her softly.
“Wife,” he said.
“Husband,” she whispered. And then remembered. “Wait a minute. Your name. Your real name. You never told me your deep, dark secret.”
He kissed her again and she felt him smile against her lips. “I’ll tell you later when we’re naked.”
And then, on a bough of the lemon-scented gum above them, two kookaburras began to sing. Isabella and Harry looked up and the koo-koo-koo-kah-kah-kah echoed across the rolling lawns of Wirra Station, their laughing, trilling, cooing call the best wedding song ever.
Isabella glanced around. They were all here. Maggie, Max, Elsa, Serenity, everyone she knew in Wirralong and all H
arry’s family from so far away.
All she’d ever wanted was a home filled with love.
And she’d found it at last.
The End
The Outback Bride Series
Book 1: Maggie’s Run by Kelly Hunter
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Book 2: Belle’s Secret by Victoria Purman
View the entire series here!
Book 3: Elsa’s Stand by Cathryn Hein
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Book 4: Holly’s Heart by Fiona McArthur
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Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from
Elsa’s Stand
Cathryn Hein
Book 3 in the Outback Brides Series
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The claustrophobic outback heat and swirling red dust suited Jack Hargreaves’s mood. Ratters had hit his neighbour last night. Snuck in while Dimitry was off visiting his lady friend in Lightning Ridge, a woman no one was supposed to know about but everyone did. Dimitry had arrived home in the morning to find his claim raided, the promising opal seam he’d just caught a glimpse of hacked out. Gone forever, along with its potential, perhaps making someone else a fortune. It could have been useless rock. It could have been riches. Now he’d never know.
That was the thing about opal mining, especially around the Ridge where a black opal run could turn a man into a millionaire overnight: it was a game built on potential.
Jack gripped the steering wheel, resisting the urge to turn around. Rumour had it there were a couple of new blokes doing the thieving, perhaps a gang. One ratter you at least had a chance against. A gang, nope. Whoever it was, they’d want to watch themselves. Bush retribution could be savage, as the last ratter who’d been caught discovered. Jack wondered if the bloke’s fingers had been worth the price.
He turned off the unsealed and unnamed goat track onto a wider gravel road that would eventually lead him to the Castlereagh Highway and Lightning Ridge. The track was one of many that criss-crossed the rocky, barren landscape and hid a secret population that most of the world, most of Australia for that matter, had no idea existed.
Jack hated leaving his claim, especially after last night, but he needed supplies and ratters tended to raid at night rather than by day. And it was time for his fortnightly call to his mum. In all the years he’d been gone from Wirralong he’d only ever missed one call home, and that was because he was in hospital nursing a concussion and severely broken nose after a brawl. Not one of his making, but back then he’d been naive and yet to learn the world operated in shades of grey instead of black and white, and had allowed himself to be dragged into it. He smiled wryly. Funny, that had been about ratters too.
He hoped his mum was okay. She’d sounded a bit off during their last talk. Her breathing a touch laboured, and she’d had to pause now and then to swallow and cough. At the time, Jack had put it down to excitement and the annoying spring cold Kate had admitted to but dismissed as inconsequential. She’d made a find. Only small, but a find all the same.
The admission had made Jack’s heart lurch. Although the story had been around for years, he’d never believed in Strathroy’s legendary sapphires, but his mum did. It had become her obsession, an obsession that, several times over the years, threatened to morph into mania. Today’s phone call would reveal whether it had.
He glanced at his mobile phone secured in the holder he’d fitted to the car’s dashboard. Another seventy or so kilometres before he’d have reception. Coverage was crap out here for normal phones. Many used satellite but Jack had never bothered. He only ever really talked to his mum, or occasionally his brother, Jesse. The rest, like his bank and broker, he contacted rarely and then by email.
The kilometres passed with their usual monotony. Kangaroos and emus in the vast paddocks, their outlines blurred by heat haze, the occasional wedge-tailed eagle feasting on roo or wild pig roadkill. Rusted car wrecks from miners who’d miscalculated their sobriety or speed, or been too lost in their dreams of riches to keep a look out.
Fifteen kilometres from town Jack’s phone sparked to life. He made a bemused hmph noise as it pinged and pinged, indicating multiple messages. Someone was desperate. Either that or his number had been fed into a scammer’s auto-dialler, programmed to call until someone picked up.
Except the pings kept coming. And coming.
At the Lighting Ridge welcome sign, where travellers were encouraged to turn off and enjoy the town’s unique attractions, five kilometres away, he pulled over.
Jack thumbed through the alerts, a mix of missed calls, voicemails and text messages. Dozens of them. More. From his cousin Anne, Jesse, Angus McNamara.
Jesus … one from his dad.
The very first was from his mum, left just the day after he’d last spoken to her. He inhaled an unsteady breath and dialled his voicemail.
You have forty-three new messages.
Christ on a bicycle.
‘Oh, Jackie-Jackie. I know you never believed, but it’s true. It’s really true. I found them.’ She laughed, a young girly sound that automatically made him smile. ‘In the most ridiculous of places, of course.’
The sapphires. It had to be. After a lifetime of fossicking, of obsession, she’d found the lode.
‘It was pure accident, too. I just happened to be … Oh … Oh, that felt odd.’
Jack frowned at the long pause, at the asthmatic breaths.
‘Never mind.’ She coughed and cleared her throat a few times, but her breathing remained short. ‘That’s better. I need to head into town now. See Angus. Make preparations.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I reburied them, put the site back how it was. Can’t trust anyone around here.’ She brightened again. ‘Promise I’ll tell you all about it when we talk next. Love you!’
The message ended and was followed by instructions on whether to save, delete, call back. Jack called back but the farm phone rang out. He tried again. Still nothing. He checked the time. She should have been there, waiting for him. She was always there.
Jack’s own breath was sharpening, each inhalation painful as it rubbed against his dry throat. He switched to the next message.
Jesse’s cracked voice had his heart pounding.
‘Jack, bro … call me. As soon as you can.’
More messages followed. Ten or so, all hang-ups. Finally, his brother’s voice filled his ear again. Steadier this time, but hollow.
‘Shit. I don’t want to do this.’ A sniff. ‘It’s Mum. She … she’s gone.’
Gone? What did he mean ‘gone’?
‘Collapsed out the front of McNamara’s. Ambulance came straight away but there was nothing they could do. Her heart … I’m sorry.’
Jack listened to the following messages with a kind of numbness. His dad calling to say he was sorry and that he was there if Jack needed, which he wouldn’t. Angus McNamara offering his condolences and services, the solicitor’s tone genuinely thick with grief. Jack’s cousin Anne, her first few messages sympathetic before frustration at his lack of communication kicked in, and she morphed into stridency about funeral arrangements and wills.
Then Jesse again. Steely. Angry. As if this was Jack’s fault.
‘Get your arse down to Wirralong now. That frigging Anne is trying to take over.’
And a final coldly articulated message from Anne.
‘Given your lack of contact, I’ve taken charge of arrangements. Kate’s funeral service will take place at Memory House at eleven o’clock on the twentieth. I trust you’ll check your phone in time to make it.’
He called Anne.
‘It’s Jack.’
‘Jack,’ she said stiffly. ‘My condolences.’
Condolences? Like she gave a shit for his feelings.
‘I assume we’ll see you at the funeral?’
‘Postpone it.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. The notice has already gone out.’
‘Place another one.’
‘No.’
Jack’s menacing gro
wl would have made his red heeler, Daisy, proud.
Anne was too puffed up with righteousness to care. ‘Someone had to do something. Your mother has been dead thirteen days. Thirteen! And not a peep out of you. Not a phone call or message, just silence. I even left a message with the police up there.’
She may well have done, but the Local Area Command covered an area the size of a European country and the cops had better things to do than run a messenger service. Finding a miner on his claim wasn’t easy either. They could be tunnelled anywhere.
‘As for your brother and father …’ She made a tutting noise. ‘Someone had to take responsibility.’
The phone’s hard edges dug into Jack’s palm as his grip tightened. Jack’s jaw was flexed so tightly he had to chew each word out. ‘You had no right.’
‘As the only family member here, I had every right. I’ve made the arrangements. It’s up to you whether you turn up or not.’
Jack stared through the windscreen, calculating. It was after lunch on the nineteenth. He had less than a day to pack up camp, secure his claim, and drive twelve-hundred kilometres south to home.
Doable. Just.
He hung up without a farewell and chucked the phone on the passenger seat. Then he slammed the car into gear and, in a spray of gravel and curses, skidded back onto the highway.
Find out what happens next…
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More by Victoria Purman
The Millionaire Malones
Book 1: The Millionaire
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Book 2: The CEO
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Book 3: The Rebel
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