Wanted: Outback Wife by Ally Blake

Author:Ally Blake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

THERE was no way Heath was going to chase Jodie inside while his hands were full with a restless stallion. So he took her words at face value, grabbed his Akubra hat, leapt up into the saddle, tapped his heels into Essie’s side and galloped out into the wide-open planes of the Run.

A good while later he slowed to a walk as his thoughts were anywhere but on the feel of the horse beneath him. They were tending back to the homestead, to the fact that he would have a woman waiting for him there. Though she was hardly waiting for him—more than a dozen burly soccer players would be keeping her occupied.

He didn’t blame Jodie for running from him so suddenly to watch a game of football. If he’d had the choice of being right where he was, or being at a match in London, the big smoke would have won in a heartbeat. Well, okay, maybe not that easily. Atop his favourite steed, the midday sun consuming all shadows, and the muted red earth stretching as far as the eye could see, this moment was pretty spectacular.

But all he had ever wished for was the choice. With four siblings still in their teens, and three of those still in school, on the day his parents had died, there had been no alternative. He’d had to give up his life, so that they could have theirs.

If he had stayed in the city on the design end of stadiums, high-rise buildings, new parks and the current redevelopment of the city’s docklands, and left his family to their own devices, would every one of them have earned a university degree? Without his backing would every one of them now own their own home? Would he and Marissa have stayed together, and as such would he and Cameron have remained close? Would they be on better terms now? Would Marissa be alive today?

No. He and Marissa had been friendly, but their relationship had been on the decline even before his parents’ deaths. They had both used the distance as an excuse, but even if he had stayed on in the city they would never have lasted. And, worse, Cameron would have missed out on the past five years with the woman he loved.

The world had turned the way it had for a reason. He had stayed on at the Run, turning it from a comfortable homestead into a grand success, and his whole family had benefited. If Marissa’s sudden passing had taught him anything, it was that his choices were his alone, and there was nothing to be gained by waiting for his life to happen.

The world turned, but if you didn’t reach out and grab your opportunities by the scruff of the neck they would pass you by. Living on instinct and treating time like something to be grabbed, not something to be endured, he had met and married Jodie.

So why, rather than feeling as if his life was finally

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