A Groom For The Taking: The Wedding Date

‘Thanks.’

In the quiet of the great open space, Hannah wondered if the time was right, for the first time, to ask about his family. She had no idea if his parents were alive or dead. Missionaries or UFO-chasers. Or the King and Queen of some small European country populated by only the most beautiful people. Or if he spent Sunday lunch with them every weekend.

But at the last second she baulked, unsure how far to press the quiet moment. Instead she just said, ‘Mum’s been married again. Twice to date.’

Promising to love and honour each of them with as much supposed vim as she had their lovely father. Each and every time clearly nothing more than a pretty lie. It was why Hannah would never make another person such a promise unless she really meant it. Unless she knew she would be assured of the same level of commitment right back. The idea of doing anything else made her feel physically ill.

She looked to where her mother was now drumming up help in the shape of goodness knew who.

She felt Bradley turn away to watch Virginia. Moth to a flame. Then he said, ‘Your mother …’

Hannah stiffened, preparing for the thing she’d heard a million times before. Your mum’s so glamorous. And Elyse is like a little doll. While you are … different.

‘She’s …’ Bradley paused again. ‘I do believe that dress of hers is the place ruffles come to die.’

Hannah laughed so unexpectedly, so effusively, so delightedly, it fast turned into a cough.

Bradley gave her a thump on the back. It only made her cough all the harder. And feel absolutely certain that her earlier fantasies of Bradley doing anything out of a deeply buried sense of human-being-like protection were just that. Fantasies. The likes of which she needed this long weekend without him in order to stamp out.

Once she’d caught her breath, she said, ‘Virginia does like her ruffles. As well as her pink fluffy cardigans and cocktails with umbrellas in them.’

The rhinestones went without saying, but the crease in his cheek told her he’d heard her all the same.

She smiled. She couldn’t help herself.

Then, as though he too felt the strange familiarity building between then, he frowned and looked away, up at the clear crisp sky. He sniffed in a trail of ice-cold air and thrust his hands into his pockets. Shutting her out.

And there she was, feeling like a satellite to his moon. If that wasn’t reason enough to put an end to her impossible crush, she didn’t know what was.

‘The day is moving on and we’re standing still. Time to get a move on. I’ll drop you at your resort and then be on my way.’

‘Resort?’ Hannah could all but hear her exclamation bouncing off the band of clouds hovering above the hills in the distance.

Bradley didn’t even flinch. ‘Spencer’s itinerary has me starting at Cradle Mountain. I studied his route, and it actually makes good sense. As does giving you a lift, since you clearly need one.’

Hannah snapped her mouth shut. If she’d been in charge of setting his itinerary she would have said the same. But she was on holiday. Out of the loop. And, yes, she was in need of a ride.

She threw her hands in the air and headed for the terminal.

He followed, his long legs catching up with her in two short strides.

She swallowed down the lick of envy at the happy tone in his voice. ‘This car that Spencer hired had better be something big and solid. The roads on this island can get mighty windy.’

‘It’s a black roadster. Soft-top.’ His large hands waved slowly through the air, as though he was tracing its curves in his mind.

Never before had Hannah felt so jealous of a machine.

‘Are you kidding me? Seems to me he’s passed on his drooling habits.’

A gentle kind of laughter tickled her ears.

She walked faster. But with his long, strong legs the blackguard kept up without any effort at all.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_9b97a2aa-9de6-50f4-80c0-e2e04ac95168)

‘ARE we there yet?’ Hannah muttered, stretching as much of herself as she could in the confined space of the ridiculous sports car Spencer had blithely allowed their valuable boss to zoom around in. She’d be having a talk with him when they got home!

‘Turn left in eight hundred metres,’ said the deep Australian drawl of the GPS.

‘Ken,’ she said, ‘you are, as ever, my hero.’

‘Who on earth is Ken?’ Bradley asked, uttering his first words in nearly two hours. His mind was undoubtedly focussed on the embarrassment of gorgeous scenery they’d passed from Launceston to the mountain.

‘Ken’s the GPS guy.’

‘You’ve named him?’ he asked.

‘His mother named him. I just chose his voice when you were busy pretending to check the car for prior damage while actually drooling over the chassis. I’m certain you would have preferred Swedish Una, or British Catherine, but it seemed only fair that, since you and my mother have railroaded me over and over again today, I got my way about one tiny part of my holiday.’

‘Your way is Ken?’

‘Don’t you use that tone when you talk about Ken. I’ll have you know I have him to thank for getting me out of many an oncoming tram disaster when I first moved to Melbourne.’

He glanced her way, giving her nothing more than a glimpse of her reflection in his sunglasses. ‘So your idea of the perfect man is one with a good sense of direction?’

‘I have no idea what my idea of the perfect man is. I’ve yet to meet one who even came close.’

She watched Bradley from the corner of her eye, waiting for his reaction to her jibe. He just lifted his hand from the windowsill and ran it across his mouth.

She fluffed her poncho till it settled like a blanket across her knees and said, ‘Though Ken is reliable. And smart. And always available. And he cares about what I want.’

‘Turn left. Then you have reached your destination,’ Ken said, proving himself yet again.

Before she even felt the words coming Hannah added, ‘And, boy, does he have the sexiest voice on the planet.’

Bradley’s hand stopped short. Mid-chinstroke. It slowly lowered to the steering wheel. ‘And there I was thinking he sounds a bit like me.’

He moved the car down a gear. Slowed. Then turned from the road onto a long, gumtree-lined drive. Hannah stared demurely ahead and said, ‘Nah.’

But the truth was that Ken’s deep, sexy Australian drawl reminded her so much of Bradley’s she’d often found herself turning her GPS on even when driving home on the rainy days she drove her little car to work rather than take a tram. She’d told herself it was the comfort of feeling as if there was someone else in the car when driving dark streets at night.

She’d lied.

And then, appearing from between a mass of grey-green flora sprinkled in glittering melting white snow, there was the Gatehouse. A grand façade dotted with hundreds of windows, dozens of chimneys and fantasy turrets. It was like something out of a fairytale, rising magnificent and fantastical out of the Australian scrub.

‘If this is the Gatehouse,’ Bradley said, slowing to a stop so that the sports car rumbled throatily beneath them, ‘what’s behind the gate?’

Hannah placed a hand on his arm, doing her best to ignore the frisson scooting through her at even the simplest of contacts, and pointed to their left. Between two turrets there was a glimpse of the reason a chalet-style hotel could exist in such a remote place.