High-Stakes Bride. Fiona Brand

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СКАЧАТЬ fastened the lid of the toolbox with fingers that were abruptly clumsy. The loss of her adoptive aunt, Ellen Galbraith, still cut deep. Ellen had helped her through one of the toughest times in her life, when Susan and Robert had both been killed in a car accident; it had broken her heart to let her go. “She had a heart condition.”

      One that had manifested almost overnight, but must have been brewing for years. Ellen had had a bad case of the flu and had simply never gotten well. Confused by the symptoms, but suspicious, their local GP had run a series of tests, but by the time Ellen had been diagnosed as suffering from heart failure, massive damage had been done. She’d had a bypass operation, which had briefly improved her condition, but four months after the initial diagnosis, she had caught another bout of flu and slipped away in her sleep just hours later.

      Clamping her jaw against the ache at the back of her throat, Dani gripped the worn steering wheel, and swung up into the Dinosaur’s seat. “I’ve got to go.”

      He stepped toward the tractor, as if he was going to detain her, the motion faintly awkward.

      Dani stared, arrested by the uncharacteristic clumsiness. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

      His gaze jerked to hers, and there was nothing lazy, intimate or even remotely friendly in the contact. For a moment she had the uncomfortable sensation she was looking at a complete stranger. “A gunshot wound.”

      For a blank moment she didn’t know what to say or how to react. Carter was in the Special Air Service. It was hard to miss that fact when his high-risk, high-adrenaline career had destroyed their relationship. But coming face-to-face with the reality of a gunshot wound was shocking.

      She stared at his broad back as he limped to his truck, studying the way he moved, the kinks in his posture that told her Carter was fresh out of rehab and still healing. Ever since Carter had gone into the military she had worried about the danger—whether they were involved or not, Carter’s well-being mattered. “When?”

      “Four months ago.”

      Her stomach tightened. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Two months ago she’d heard, courtesy of Nola McKay—the owner of Nola’s Café—that Carter hadn’t just been away on an extended tour of duty, he had been missing in action. The news, delivered with a latte and the rider that he had been rescued, had shocked her, but still disconnected and numb with the grief of Ellen’s death, it had taken her another week before she’d gotten up the energy to do a search on the Internet. Eventually she had found a report that a soldier was missing in action in Borneo. The wording had been brief and clinical and hadn’t included any details. Like the high-security classification on Carter’s career, the report closed more doors than it opened.

      She wished the fact that Carter had been shot didn’t affect her, but it did. The past year had been hard, and it had changed her. She knew she’d gotten quieter and more withdrawn, but, unlike Carter, she still couldn’t lay claim to being either cold or detached.

      Carter eased into the driver’s seat and she remembered his opening line—the reason he had stopped and spoken to her at all: she was blocking his driveway.

      Letting out a breath, she turned the key. The tractor motor turned over, coughed then caught, the rumble loud enough to preclude conversation.

      Relief loosened off the tension in the pit of her stomach. Gunshot wound or not, Carter was on his own. If he wanted female company, there were plenty of women in town who would be only too pleased to soothe his hurts and massage his sore muscles; women who were younger, prettier and a whole lot more fun than she ever planned on being.

      She released the clutch. “There is a rule,” she just had to keep reminding herself. “Three strikes, and you’re out.”

      Chapter 3

      Carter watched the retreating dust cloud, eased his leg into a more comfortable position and slammed his door closed.

      The message screen of his cell phone glowed. Two missed calls and a message. The missed calls were both from his mother. Ever since he’d gotten back into the country both of his parents, who had retired to a popular resort town further up the coast a couple of years ago, had kept in daily contact. The fact that he had been taken prisoner had shaken them. The gunshot wound came a close second, but not by much. Despite his assurances, they insisted on keeping in close touch.

      The text message was from Gabriel West, a longtime friend, ex–SAS sniper and leader of the private team that had flown into Borneo to rescue him.

      Carter read the message and pressed Delete. Lately West had been abnormally solicitous and curious about what he was up to—and with whom. Along with everything else that had gone wrong lately, Carter was beginning to feel like he was being watched over by an overlarge hen.

      Turning the key in the ignition, he manoeuvred the truck off the verge and into the entrance of his drive, barely noticing the weed-infested borders, or the fact that one of the smaller farm sheds had lost its roof in the last big storm.

      He had to wonder just what he’d let slip when he’d been semi-conscious in the hospital. West was more than curious. Now he wanted to visit.

      It was a fact that he did feel different. He still hadn’t figured out exactly what had changed except that for months he’d felt unsettled—in the psychologist’s jargon, “disengaged.” Even when he’d finally been declared fit enough to resume light duties—translate that as pushing paper in an office—he’d felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. The psychologist had diagnosed post-traumatic shock syndrome—maybe even an early mid-life crisis.

      Carter frowned as he slowed for a bend. He liked things cut-and-dried, the idea that he was suffering from something as woolly and amorphous as some kind of mental and emotional breakdown ticked him off.

      It was a fact that the months spent in captivity hadn’t been a picnic. From beginning to end, what had happened had been a prime example of bad timing and bad luck.

      The assignment to escort an Indonesian government official to the small village of Tengai hadn’t been high-risk, or even particularly interesting. Carter had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two rival rebel factions had chosen that particular village to clash. When the shooting started, Carter had kept to task and protected the official, but when they had finally made it out of the building, their transport and backup were gone.

      If they’d stayed inside and kept out of sight, in all probability they would have been in the clear, but one of the village children had been cut up by a ricochet and Carter had started to treat him. Two of the rebels who were still holed up in the village had accosted Carter at gunpoint, ignored the government official and demanded Carter leave with them.

      They didn’t want to kidnap a bureaucrat. What they needed was a trained medic.

      After stripping the official of his suit, his watch and all of his cash, the men had herded Carter into the jungle, his weaponry, communications equipment and medical kit confiscated along with his boots.

      Apart from the restricted diet—crazily enough, stolen army rations—and the hours spent kicking his heels under armed guard, nothing horrific had happened. He had been too useful. He’d treated two of the rebels for gunshot wounds, delivered a baby and dealt with a minor outbreak of dysentery. When he’d finally managed to slip away at night, four months after capture, all he’d had were his clothes, a knife he’d managed to steal and the remnants of his medical СКАЧАТЬ