Against All Odds (Outback Hearts) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Discover more Entangled Select Contemporary titles… Saison For Love

  By the Book

  Leave the Lights On

  Without Words

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jezz de Silva. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Tera Cuskaden

  Cover design by Fiona Jayde

  Cover art from iStock and Romance Novel Covers

  ISBN 978-1-64063-201-1

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition September 2017

  Chapter One

  She shouldn’t be driving—it was stupid, immature, irresponsible, and selfish—but what had following the rules gotten her? If this was the last time wind whipped her face while she gripped the steering wheel, she was freaking celebrating the occasion. And the paranoid, overprotective doctors who kiboshed her license could go to hell.

  Abi nudged her glasses up her nose, tucked the fluttering tails of her shocking pink scarf behind her neck, and aimed the candy-apple-red hood of her ’67 Chevy Camaro at LAX.

  “Hey, that was the day parking entrance.” Her kid sister spun around and hitched a thumb at the ramp they’d rumbled past.

  Abi shrugged. There was no way in hell she was risking a scene in an airport full of strangers. Breaking down in her own classroom while hugging her kids and colleagues good-bye had been mortifying enough. “If you think I rebuilt this automotive masterpiece to leave it in an airport parking lot, you’re out of your ditzy blonde mind.”

  “You’re such a chickenshit.” Olivia burst out laughing. “Afraid everyone will find out you’re abandoning your baby sister to fly halfway around the world?”

  “Like I could wait for you to finish residency.” Abi cursed. “And you’re the one who convinced me to go.”

  “I didn’t think you’d actually listen to me.”

  Her almost-doctor kid sister was still pouting like one of Abi’s fourth graders when she pulled into the international drop-off area. Abi kept the fire-breathing heart of her pride and joy beating as she whipped off her seat belt and yanked on the door handle, but she wasn’t quick enough.

  Olivia latched on to her forearm and wrenched her back into her seat. “Calm the hell down. Shut off your fossil fuel–guzzling dinosaur. And close the damned door.”

  Deep down, Abi had known a quick getaway would be impossible, but she didn’t have to surrender without a fight. She glared at her sister while slowly closing the driver’s door.

  An unnatural silence filled the cabin before Olivia rummaged inside the Hermes-knockoff handbag they’d shared for God knew how long and withdrew a pair of tiny bottles.

  Abi swatted away the painkillers. “I told you I’m not taking those damned things. She doesn’t hurt that bad.”

  Olivia grabbed Abi’s hand. “Yeah, that’s why she won’t let you sleep and I catch you grimacing and rubbing your temples when you think I’m not looking.”

  Abi stared down at the bottles Olivia had shoved into her palm, then back up at the woman she’d spent most of her adolescence looking after. Now the guardian had become the patient. The concern dragging on her sister’s features had Abi nodding despite the fact she was throwing the damned things in the trash the minute she entered the airport.

  Olivia leaned closer. “Doris isn’t like the others, she’s a real bitch.”

  No shit.

  Olivia blew out a breath and tightened her grip. “Promise me you’re not going to throw them away as soon as you get in the airport.”

  So much for Plan freaking A. “All right, all right. Jesus, I preferred you without the diploma.”

  Olivia watched Abi tuck the pills into her backpack before diving back into her handbag and pulling out a paperback-sized package.

  Abi studied the fully aroused nude men decorating the parcel Olivia held out and wondered if she’d need to wash her hands after opening it. “This isn’t another vibrator, is it?”

  Olivia cocked an eyebrow. “Why, you wear out your current silicone boyfriend?”

  Abi stink-eyed her sister. “Gerard’s safely tucked away where only the most dedicated TSA staff will find him.”

  Olivia chuckled and tapped the parcel. “Wrapped it myself.”

  “Really.” Abi appreciated the talent before tearing open the wrapping to find what could only be described as Elton John’s little black book. The shocking pink cover was encrusted with enough rhinestones and glitter to be seen from space. “Great, I’ll be the only adult on the plane with a coloring book.”

  “And pen.” Olivia pointed to the book’s spine.

  The decorations had been so bedazzling Abi had missed the pen sticking out from the notebook’s binding. She slid the pen free and flipped it on its end. The blond slab of beefcake posing inside the clear plastic tube lost his boxers and revealed the full extent of his talents.

  Olivia chuckled. “I call him Chris. You may refer to him as Mr. Hemsworth.”

  The tiny figurine submerged in the clear fluid looked nothing like Chris Hemsworth. But the thought of Thor dropping his boxers and revealing his mythical hammer purely for her entertainment was enough to have her upending the pen and tilting her head back to study the strip show through the reading portion of her multifocals.

  “While researching everything that could kill you down under, I was horrified to discover not all Aussie blokes look like Chris. So if you have doubts whether a guy’s wild-thing worthy, compare him with the pen.”

  Abi studied Mr. Hemsworth as he grinned back through the plastic. She didn’t want the God of Thunder. All she wanted was a nice, normal guy who saw past the scarf and scars.

  “I took the liberty of starting your list.” The conspiratorial glee in Olivia’s voice stiffened Abi’s shoulders. She redressed Mr. Hemsworth and slowly opened the cover.

  Written across the front page in huge glittery letters were the words, Things to do before I die. She trailed her fingers over the embossed silver ink and blinked away the moisture flooding her eyes. What would she have done without her ferociously protective kid sister? How would O
livia cope if she…

  Abi cursed herself and shook away the visions that had kept her awake for months. “Subtle and very compassionate.”

  “Very funny. Turn the damn page. I want to make sure you understand my orders.”

  “Orders?”

  Olivia held up one finger. “Just one. I’ll let you fill in the rest of your bucket list.” Her sister’s smile faded as she lowered her hand. “Time for patience and subtlety’s over, kiddo.”

  Her sister possessed the delicacy of a sledgehammer, but as usual an undeniable truth hid beneath Olivia’s words. Abi’s empty stomach clenched as she turned the page to find pornographic stick figures humping around the words, HAVE SEX.

  Olivia laid her hand on Abi’s leg. “Forget the operation, forget the odds, and forget what the doctors say. What the hell do we know? Find a cute, gentle, caring guy, and shag him until you can’t walk properly.”

  Forget? Forgetting was impossible, but she’d become an expert at pretending everything was okay. And what better way to escape reality than to disappear into the Aussie outback?

  Olivia slapped Abi’s knee. “And what the hell have you got to lose? You’re probably going to get dragged to your death by a crocodile, have the flesh melted off your face by a creepy crawly, or get bitten clean in half by a huge virgin-eating shark long before you die on the operating table.”

  Abi couldn’t help laughing. “I’ll be gone a few weeks, a month tops. I think I’ll make it back.”

  Olivia huffed. “Big city elementary school teacher like you, you’ll be lucky to last the week down there. Hell, even that cute, furry platypus thing kills people.”

  Olivia squeezed Abi’s thigh. “Forget about being the responsible parent, I’m all grown up. For once in your life do exactly what you want with as many hunky men as you want to do it with.” Her sister lowered her voice to a whisper. “Don’t listen to your head, you overthink everything. Just go with your gut.”

  Abi couldn’t figure out what surprised her more, the wisdom dribbling from the pouty red lips of her man-eating, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-way-too-skimpy-panties sister, or that for the first time in her life she completely agreed with Olivia. She ran her fingers over the words printed across the page. It sounded so simple.

  Olivia nudged her. “C’mon, Abs, your sass lights up the room. You’re smart, funny, and—”

  “Look like the bride of Frankenstein.”

  “Well, who the hell told you to shave your whole damned head for the biopsy?”

  Abi glared at her sister. There was only one thing worse than being completely bald, and that was having a donut-sized hunk of hair missing. Either way, she wasn’t winning any beauty pageants. In just over a month her locks were history anyway, and a lack of hair would be the least of her problems.

  Olivia muttered a string of foul obscenities that blended into one long expletive. “How many times have we been over this? It’s time to stop hiding away and get in the game.”

  Abi picked at the hem of the faded T-shirt she’d thrown on over her favorite blue jeans. She wasn’t hiding…was she?

  Olivia ground out another curse before clearing her throat. “Please tell me you packed the wig?”

  She nodded slowly. She had to admit she’d looked pretty damned good in the store. But it must have been the lighting or a funky mirror because as soon as she slid the wig on at home she’d gone from stunning shampoo model to balding used-car salesman. “I hate that freaking thing.”

  Olivia leaned forward and studied her. “What’s really going on, Abs?”

  Abi nibbled her bottom lip and played with the ends of her scarf. “I don’t want to trick a guy into sleeping with me only to have him freak out when he finds out. I want it to be perfect.”

  Olivia shook her head and captured Abi’s hand. “It’s never perfect, you know that. It’s nothing like the movies. First-time sex is awkward, messy, and uncomfortable. After it’s over you’ll wonder what the hell all the fuss was about, but it gets better the more you do it. You just have to get off the sidelines and into the game.”

  She’d heard the words before, said them to herself over and over again as she’d lain alone in bed staring into the darkness. “It’s—it’s just I might not get another chance.”

  “Bullshit.” Olivia grabbed Abi’s shoulders and shook her. “Put on the wig, squeeze your heaving bosom into that slutty black dress, and slip on those come-fuck-me heels we chose. Head to the swankiest hotel you can find and sit that incredible ass of yours down at the bar. Grab the first Thor look-alike who offers to buy you a drink, drag him up to your hotel room, and do the wild thing all over him. If you still have the energy to worry about your wig, kiss him good-bye and get the hell out of there.”

  If sex were as bad as Olivia wanted her to believe, there’d be no way in hell her sister would keep going back for more. “What’s it like?” She shrugged. “I mean, when it’s done right?”

  She’d asked the question a dozen times and each time Olivia had waved her off with a wisecrack. It was like her kid sister was protecting her from the pain of knowing what she was missing.

  “When it’s done right, with someone you connect with, with someone whose body molds to yours like you’re two parts of the same puzzle, it’s…amazing.” Olivia slowly shook her head. “Just plain amazing.”

  “W-where does love fit into it?”

  Olivia chuckled, a soft, heartbreaking chuckle that had Abi’s throat cramping. “No idea, I’ve only made it to the amazing part.” Olivia shrugged and smiled. “You can tell me when you find out.”

  They’d had front-row seats to a love affair that had lasted more than two decades and was probably still going on somewhere in the heavens. Maybe that was why they hadn’t found their perfect matches. No man had ever come close to their dad and his magical ability to always put a sparkle in their mom’s eyes. Abi had no idea what loving a man felt like, but if it were anything like what she felt for the woman staring back at her through glistening eyes, she prayed she’d get the chance to find out. “I love you.”

  Olivia sniffed and cleared her throat. “So you should, I’m freaking adorable.”

  A sea of humanity stretched out before Abi as she wiped the evidence of her sister’s good-bye from her face, cleaned her lenses, and stared at the endless lines clogging LAX’s international departure terminal as the Camaro rumbled away. Either she’d missed the earthquake warning, or everyone in L.A. was getting out of town before another Kardashian reality show dropped.

  She zeroed in on the red kangaroo glowing above Qantas’s check-in desk and pulled into the melee behind a woman who could have passed as Beyoncé’s body double. Not only was the goddess blessed with a Photoshopped ass and legs but she also brandished a pair of breasts that should have been classed as dangerous luggage. The woman’s blade-thin stilettos tapped out a military-precise cadence as the crowd parted like the Red Sea before the rhinestone-encrusted cell phone and platinum-cased tablet computer she held like the Ten Commandments.

  Abi chuckled and followed in the wake of the woman’s perfume, which was a heady concoction of sophistication, poise, and sex as alluring and intoxicating as her skintight black jeans and ivory blouse. She’d never be considered a sex kitten, but at least she’d be comfortable, and when faced with a seven-thousand-odd-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean, comfort was hella sexy.

  She slipped out from behind the temptress and took her place at the end of the line snaking toward the economy check-in desk. Despite the chaos swirling around her, she couldn’t tear her gaze from the woman sashaying toward the first-class check-in.

  The solitary males in the throng of people surrounding her stared at the seductress with openmouthed admiration, while the men with partners ignored their wives’ and girlfriends’ murderous glares to sneak clumsy glances at her. It seemed the woman had cast a spell over every man within a thirty-yard radius…except one lone predator.

  He stood like a massive granite monolith rising out of a s
ea of charcoal and navy-blue sports coats at the front of the first-class check-in desk. A forest of unruly burnt-blond hair poked out from beneath the tattered brim of a dust- and sweat-stained cowboy hat to brush the collar of a faded black T-shirt. The man could’ve just ridden in from the prairie, tied his horse outside the automatic doors, and strode into the airport. The only thing missing was a lasso curled around his massive shoulder and a piece of straw hanging from the corner of his stubbled mouth. Even standing completely still, he looked like a magnificent male lion stalking a herd of Hugo Boss–clad wildebeests, yet he somehow made the businessmen and millionaires lining up beside him look out of place.

  She was pretty sure he hadn’t missed the Photoshopped goddess’s arrival—he looked like the type of man who didn’t miss a thing—but instead of unleashing his predatory gaze on the female perfection posing behind him, he watched a young Polynesian woman struggling to restrain a screaming toddler while dragging her luggage farther along the economy line beside him.

  A lump formed in Abi’s throat as she took in the new mother’s exhausted features, disheveled hair, and wrinkled clothes. She remembered that look, had seen it in the mirror staring back at her far too many times when she’d had no idea how she was going to build a life for Olivia and her. The young mother was the polar opposite of the woman capturing all the other herbivores’ attention yet the lion’s gaze never shifted.

  With an excited screech that cut through the ambient chaos like a chainsaw, the toddler broke free of her mother’s grasp and waddled under the seat belt barrier fencing in the economy passengers. Sensing freedom, the little girl unleashed a rebel yell and sped toward the throng of people, trolleys, and golf carts choking the airport’s main thoroughfare. A pink teddy bear, a backpack, and a freezer-sized suitcase sprawled across the floor as the mother scrambled over the barrier and stumbled after her daughter.

  Abi pushed through the stunned and oblivious passengers surrounding her toward the child, but by the time she’d escaped her own line, the cowboy had vaulted the gold sashes insulating first class from the real world and waded through the crowd after the toddler. He moved with an unhurried grace at complete odds with his bulk and caught the escapee before the mother had even cleared the check-in area. The toddler’s delighted screams drowned out what the man said, but the little girl’s beaming smile confirmed she wasn’t the least bit upset at being captured. Abi couldn’t blame her. The girl couldn’t have been more than two, but she’d already developed some damned fine taste.