Against All Odds (Outback Hearts) Read online

  His bionic leg couldn’t sense temperature, but he could’ve sworn a chill ran up his thigh. He straightened and smiled as casually as he could while racing to come up with a way to find out more about this him without coming across like a crazy stalker.

  Her eyes burned a hole straight through his skull while she readjusted the hem of her scarf and nuzzled the ends like a cat in heat. “He gave me this scarf as a thank-you.”

  He unclenched his jaw and could have sworn something cracked. “It’s beautiful, he has very good taste.” The arsehole. “He’s a lucky man to have a friend like you.”

  The words tasted like acid as he spat them out while her expression transformed from wonder to something looking way too much like lovestruck joy. He clenched his jaw and shoved himself against the window. His mother had always told him he’d know when the right woman came along. He hadn’t believed her at the time, but at least he now knew what to look out for. A fierce, brave, and tough woman with a mouth and mind as captivating as her spirit.

  While he brooded and gnawed the inside of his cheek, she continued to gaze at him and play with the ends of her scarf. The longer she stared the more he felt like a hog-tied Austin Powers lying at the feet of Dr. Evil while the supervillain stroked Mr. Bigglesworth.

  After an eternity of silence, she released the ends of her scarf, half turned, and rested her head back against her seat to gloat. “He wanted to get me a cape, but his mom thought I’d prefer the scarf.”

  Jesus, the guy probably had a model train village set up in his mum’s basement. As his mind fired off insults and curses, the cold, hard truth hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut. His cape-wearing days were far behind him. And he’d been twelve the last time he’d played with toy trains. But he was thirty years old, owned only the things jammed into his duffle, and was on his way back to his mother’s house where he fully intended to live out the rest of his days. At least he didn’t have to rely on his mother to pick out his gifts…he had his sisters for that.

  He swallowed the bile oozing up his throat and nodded. “Good choice.”

  She grinned and returned his nod. “Yeah, he’s the bravest, most gentle, caring, and handsome man I know.”

  Sitting next to her was going to be hard enough, but even the first-class menu wasn’t going to make up for having to listen to her moon over her guy friend. He’d locked his jaw so tightly smiling was impossible, so he nodded as enthusiastically as he could and reached for the in-flight magazine he’d already skimmed through.

  She sighed and cradled her hands against her heart. “Andy’s going to be a real heartbreaker when he reaches puberty.”

  Chapter Six

  Abi loaded another forkful of seared kingfish into her mouth and savored the succulent deliciousness dirty dancing over her tongue. She had no idea who Qantas’s first-class foodie Neil Perry was, but damn, the man could cook. She sighed and waved a hand over her neighbor’s tray table. “How’s the chicken?”

  Ryder glared at her and stabbed his fork into the Middle Eastern tagine in front of him.

  And she’d thought her kids were black-belt sulkers. Compared to her students, the decorated war hero slouching beside her was the Bruce Lee of brooders. So she’d strung him along. Was it her fault he was stupid enough to believe she’d set off on a solo adventure halfway around the world if she had a man warming her bed at night? So she’d laughed hysterically and teased him mercilessly when he’d finally figured out how old her other man was. Should she apologize for having a sense of humor?

  She bit back a curse before sliding her fork under a precious morsel of kingfish. Cupping a hand beneath her fork, she brought the fish to his mouth. “You’re moodier than my fourth graders.”

  He eyed her suspiciously before engulfing the mouthful. She wrenched her hand free while she still had fingers and fought the urge to stab him. She should’ve been dining on guilt served up with a generous side salad of shame but she just felt too damned good. Served him right for his crocodile story. “You planning on talking to me anytime soon?”

  He chomped down on the fish she’d fed him and swallowed. “You planning on giving back the dinner I ordered?”

  So she’d reprised her role of the desperately lonely fiancée in front of the stewardess and coerced him into swapping meals. Was it her fault the kingfish he’d ordered had looked and smelled so much better than her honey-and-lemon-infused chicken and couscous tagine? She circled her fork over what was left of his meal. “C’mon, you can’t tell me you’re not enjoying the chicken.”

  He growled something about stubborn, manipulating women before ripping apart his flatbread and resuming his attack on his dinner.

  The poor man had been stuck in the Middle East on and off for the last ten years and was probably so sick of tagines, hummus, falafel, and baba ghanoush he’d kill for Aussie seafood. But as soon as the first morsel of kingfish had made love to her taste buds her guilt had taken a backseat to the pure, unadulterated culinary porn inside her mouth.

  She swallowed and nudged him with her elbow. “Tell you what, you stop sulking like a big baby, and I’ll let you pick the movie.”

  He raised an eyebrow and maneuvered the mouthful he’d been chewing into his cheek. “What makes you think I want to watch a movie?”

  His face looked like he’d eaten a chicken’s beak but at least he was talking.

  “It’s what young engaged couples in love do.”

  She had absolutely no freaking idea what young engaged couples in love did, but she adored movies. And who knew, she may even be able to cuddle up to him and take the next step in her master plan to murder her virginity.

  He eyed her while he swallowed before drowning another hunk of flatbread in the tagine’s gravy and shoveling the soggy mass into his mouth.

  She shrugged. “Or I could let it slip to one of the members of your stewardess fan club that the valiant, honorable”—she cupped her cheeks and fluttered her eyelids—“and oh-so-dreamy Sergeant Harper lied through his teeth just to scam a free dinner.”

  He cursed and jabbed his fork at her. “For the evil, conniving harpy beside him.”

  She shrugged. “Who just happened to save you from thirteen hours of answering endless questions and being guest of honor in first class.”

  His glare faltered ever so slightly before he dropped his head and sighed.

  Ryder Harper, Sergeant in the Australian Army, Victoria and Distinguished Service Cross recipient, was a wuss, a monstrously huge, muscle-bound wuss, but a wuss all the same.

  And for the next dozen or so hours he was hers.

  She turned back to her plate and pretended to ignore him chewing down on his meal with all the enthusiasm of a man eating cardboard. She had no doubt the meal she’d stuck him with was delicious. The terracotta tagine sitting on his tray table had been filled with a chicken, vegetable, and couscous concoction that was as colorful and exotic as a Middle Eastern bazaar and smelled even better. Cumin, cardamom, turmeric, and a dozen other aromas she couldn’t identify still drifted her way, but no matter how good his dinner was, it wasn’t his kingfish and he wasn’t letting her forget that.

  He shoved her with his elbow. “Touch my dessert and the wedding’s off.”

  She returned his scowl and had to suppress the sudden urge to grab his T-shirt and wrench him in for another kiss, right on his sullen Middle Eastern–flavored mouth. Was it her? Was it him? Or was it this weird mix of electricity and peace enveloping her? Who the hell knew? The only thing she was sure of was she’d never met anyone who made her feel so completely safe and so utterly terrified all at the same time.

  He drained his soda before nodding to her seat pouch. “You going to make up for stealing my dinner by showing me what’s scribbled in that notebook?”

  The half-can of Coke looked like a thimble in his paw, but that wasn’t why a little bit more of her heart melted. Instead of soda, he should’ve been savoring the fifteen-year-old single malt whiskey he’d been eyeing when she’d grudgi
ngly ordered her own Coke. But he’d casually closed the novel-length first-class drinks menu and ordered the same as she had with nothing more than a glance her way. She’d tried to get him to order the whiskey by reprising her role of the nauseatingly pouty fiancée, but for once he’d held his ground. He’d made up some lame-ass story about how he’d never developed the taste for alcohol, which even the smitten stewardess figured was bullshit. The man could have starred in a Jack Daniel’s commercial, and if he didn’t drink, they’d have not only thrown him out of the army but probably shredded his Aussie passport as well. He hadn’t even asked her why she’d ignored the mile-long list of exotic beers, wines, spirits, and cocktails. He’d simply thanked the wide-eyed stewardess and continued his quest to discover the secrets hidden in her little pink book.

  It was like he’d somehow known how hard it would’ve been for her to explain. Alcohol was like supercharged ecstasy for Doris and could very well give the little bitch enough of a high to throw the rave party she’d been threatening for the last twelve months. Her Coke was bad enough. If Doc Martinez discovered she’d indulged in a caffeine-laden soda, her overprotective surgeon would tear her a new one.

  He must’ve taken her silence as a green light because his arm floated across her tray table like a bronzed battleship. She grabbed his wrist. “Nice try, Sarge. You going to tell your fiancée about the family she’s marrying into?”

  Her fingers looked so tiny and insignificant against the backdrop of his arm, but he stopped his advance. “You going to tell me what you were writing down?”

  There was no way in hell he was seeing inside her notebook, but he didn’t have to know that. And maybe she could come up with a distraction while she poked around his private life. “You first.”

  She wasn’t moving that arm anywhere it didn’t want to go, and for a split second she feared he’d call her on her half-truth. But with a look that confirmed he was far from convinced, he allowed her to plonk his hand back onto the armrest. Instead of answering her he stared down at her hand as if he were counting the hairs on her arm that seemed to stand to attention whenever she touched him. There were a few other things standing to attention but thankfully they were hidden behind layers of very sensible and comfortable underwear that she now wished were a little less practical and a lot more slutty.

  He obviously cherished his privacy, otherwise he’d be sipping fifteen-year-old scotch in first class instead of slumming it in economy. But it wasn’t just curiosity or her desperation to distract him from her notebook that had her prying into his life. It was a crazy, illogical, possessive need deep inside her to learn more about the gentle warrior who’d captivated her while setting flame to her insides.

  “Do you want the good, the bad, or the ugly?”

  He didn’t meet her gaze, but his words carried a weight that pressed on her chest and twisted her insides. “All three.”

  He slowly raised his head. “The beginning’s not pretty.”

  She nodded despite the chill that had quenched her libido. She was a sucker for happy endings. It’d been the only thing that had kept her going all these years, but she knew better than anyone that it was how people dealt with hardship that defined them. And the shadows darkening his features confirmed he’d conquered his fair share.

  Anxiety, pain, anger, bone-deep sadness, the emotions flashed across his eyes but his face remained a blank mask. “If you googled deadbeat bogans, you’d come up with images of the woman who gave birth to me and the man who impregnated her. The only intelligent and unselfish thing they ever did was to have only one kid.”

  His words slammed into her, cold, emotionless, and hard, but he didn’t give her a chance to regain her balance. “He was murdered in a prison brawl the day before my seventh birthday.” His laughter froze her. “That was the only present he ever gave me.”

  Her fingers unconsciously clenched around his forearm, but he didn’t seem to notice. “She surrendered to addiction the year I started grade four.”

  Abi had practically been an adult when her and Olivia’s perfect lives had ended. His had never begun. Breath leaked out of him with each growled word, but he didn’t inhale. It was like he was trying to cleanse himself of a disease. “I came home from school and found her on the couch, covered in empty pill bottles. I called the ambulance but it was too late.”

  Memories of her fourth graders shouting and laughing as they raced around the playground drifted through her mind; tiny, innocent, and helpless eight- and nine-year-olds with smiles consuming their faces. Had he ever smiled when he’d been a kid?

  He blurred before her as tears dribbled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.” Her words were so inadequate, so pathetic, but the guilt of forcing him to share this part of him hurt almost as much as watching him relive the nightmare.

  With an intimate tenderness that tore her chest open even wider, he cradled her chin in his hand and dabbed away her tears with his thumb. “Harden up, princess, the good part’s coming.” His smile dimmed. “Sort of.”

  She sniffed and leaned into his palm. She should’ve been comforting him, but the further she sank into his hand the more the tension constricting his muscles eased and the wider his cheeky grin grew.

  “After I wandered through the system for a few months, Child Protection Services spat me out into the Queensland desert a million miles away from everything I’d known.” His smile grew as he traced circles on her cheek and she mirrored them on his arm. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw my foster parents. One giant white man and one tiny brown woman standing in front of the biggest house I’d ever seen smack bang in the middle of nowhere.” He shook his head. “It still feels like a dream.” His thumb stilled on her face as the last of the darkness evaporated from his eyes. “I guess it was.”

  “I had no idea what love was but Naya and Phillip Harper sort of…” He paused and shrugged. “Fit together, like two parts of the same puzzle.”

  She stiffened as she replayed his words in her head. Like two parts of the same puzzle. He dropped his hand and leaned back to study her, but she waved his concerns away. “Keep going, it’s getting good.”

  He sank back against the armrest and absently dropped his hand over hers. “I was so busy taking everything in it took me a few seconds to notice the two small brown faces staring at me from behind their legs. In a day I went from having no one to being part of a family of five that grew to eight over the next year.”

  She was still trying to figure out whether he’d meant to hold her hand or if he’d simply gotten caught up in his memories when he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and didn’t let go. “I wish I could tell you it was all sunshine and rainbows, but those first few years were hell. One cultured, straight-laced British aristocrat, one feisty, headstrong Aboriginal elder, a pair of wayward Aboriginal twins, one redheaded fireball, one Vietnamese angel, and a couple of Aussie street kids, all living under the one corrugated iron roof in the middle of freaking nowhere. It wasn’t the Brady Bunch that’s for sure.” He flashed her a guilty smile. “The fact I was an angry little shit didn’t help.”

  She half turned, leaned her head against her seat, and allowed herself to be carried away on the warmth and joy pouring out of him. His face lit up and his hands danced above their tray tables as he regaled her with one story after another about his brand-new family and their adventures in their magical outback kingdom. It had taken her a while to get him going, but now that he was moving there was no stopping him. He cursed and teased his parents and siblings almost as much as he praised and bragged about them, but buried beneath each insult was a love she knew all too well. The link he shared with his patchwork family was the same bone-deep connection she had with Olivia, and it was something only people who’d survived life’s lows appreciated.

  The excitement and energy in his voice drained away as he rested his forearms on his tray table and swallowed hard. “We lost Dad when I was thirteen.”

  And just like that the happiness she’d been
floating on evaporated into the stale cabin air and left her plummeting back down into her seat.

  “The truck he was using to wrangle some stray cattle rolled and crushed him.”

  She grabbed his hand and squeezed it against her chest. He turned and grinned, but his smile didn’t reach his glistening eyes. “I thought I was pretty tough by then, but that hurt like a bitch.” He blinked and drew in a shuddering breath. “What hurt most was the desolation in Mum’s eyes. Christ, she loved him.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “The years following his death were worse than my miserable childhood. They were also harder than anything the army threw at me because the misery didn’t just affect me. The grief and pain hurt the people I loved most in the world, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

  She hiccupped in her pathetic attempt to muffle her blubbering and dropped her cheek onto his shoulder as she hugged his hand tighter to her chest. “I’m ready for my happy ending now.”

  He chuckled and dropped his head onto hers before dragging in a deep breath and clearing his throat. “Mum had always been as tough as rusted barbed wire, but when Dad died it was almost like he’d transferred his energy and power into her. She battled an ignorant and racist government who tried stealing her rightful inheritance and the children she’d adopted. She fought greedy and corrupt landowners attempting to bully and swindle her land and business out from under her. And she went to war on a culture who refused to believe an Aboriginal widow and a tribe of feral kids could run a cattle station in the middle of the Aussie outback.”

  She looked up to find him grinning down at her and shaking his head. “They were wrong.”

  There were so many more things she wanted to know about him—his amazing family, the incredible home he was returning to—but it was impossible to string two words together while his warm breath caressed her cheek and neck. “But…how?”

  He eased away and eyed her for a long time before poking her nose. “Nice try. Your turn.” He slid his gaze to her seat pocket and raised an eyebrow. “What’s in the book, sweetheart?”