Amy Andrews - Australian Escape

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Her Hottest Summer Yet Her Hottest Summer Yet Ally Blake

About the Author In her previous life Australian author ALLY BLAKE was at times a cheerleader, a maths tutor, a dental assistant and a shop assistant. In this life she is a bestselling, multi-award-winning novelist who has been published in over twenty languages with more than two million books sold worldwide. She married her gorgeous husband in Las Vegas – no Elvis in sight, though Tony Curtis did put in a special appearance – and now Ally and her family, including three rambunctious toddlers, share a property in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, with kookaburras, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and the occasional creepy-crawly. When not writing, she makes coffees that never get drunk, eats too many M&Ms, attempts yoga, devours The West Wing reruns, reads every spare minute she can and barracks ardently for the Collingwood Magpies footy team. You can find out more at her website, www.allyblake.com

Dedication This one is for all the long hot Australian summers of my life; for all the memories and possibility they hold . With an extra dollop of love for Amy Andrews; one of my favourite writers and a sublime woman to boot .

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

The Heat of the Night

About the Author

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

EPILOGUE

Road Trip with the Eligible Bachelor

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

Her Hottest Summer Yet

Ally Blake

In her previous life Australian author ALLY BLAKEwas at times a cheerleader, a maths tutor, a dental assistant and a shop assistant. In this life she is a bestselling, multi-award-winning novelist who has been published in over twenty languages with more than two million books sold worldwide.

She married her gorgeous husband in Las Vegas – no Elvis in sight, though Tony Curtis did put in a special appearance – and now Ally and her family, including three rambunctious toddlers, share a property in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, with kookaburras, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and the occasional creepy-crawly. When not writing, she makes coffees that never get drunk, eats too many M&Ms, attempts yoga, devours The West Wing reruns, reads every spare minute she can and barracks ardently for the Collingwood Magpies footy team.

You can find out more at her website, www.allyblake.com

This one is for all the long hot Australian summers of my life; for all the memories and possibility they hold .

With an extra dollop of love for Amy Andrews; one of my favourite writers and a sublime woman to boot .

ONE

Avery Shaw barely noticed the salty breeze whipping pale blonde hair across her face and fluttering the diaphanous layers of her dress against her legs. She was blissfully deep in a whirlpool of warm, hazy, happy memories as she stood on the sandy footpath and beamed up at the facade of the Tropicana Nights Resort.

She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the shimmering Australian summer sun, and breathed the place in. It was bigger than she remembered, and more striking. Like some great white colonial palace, uprooted out of another era and transplanted to the pretty beach strip that was Crescent Cove. The garden now teetered on the wild side, and its facade was more than a little shabby around the edges. But ten years did that to a place.

Things changed. She was hardly the naive sixteen-year-old with the knobbly knees she’d been the summer she was last there. Back when all that mattered was friends, and fun, and—

A loud whoosh and rattle behind her tugged Avery back to the present. She glanced down the curving sidewalk to see a group of skinny brown-skinned boys in board shorts hurtling across the road on their skateboards before running down the beach and straight into the sparkling blue water of the Pacific.

And sometimes, she thought with a pleasant tightening in her lungs, things don’t change much at all.

Lungs full to bursting with the taste of salt and sea and expectation, Avery and her Vuitton luggage set bumped merrily up the wide front steps and into the lobby. Huge faux marble columns held up the two-storey ceiling. Below sat cushy lounge chairs, colossal rugs, and potted palms dotted a floor made of the most beautiful swirling mosaic tiles in a million sandy tones. And by the archway leading to the restaurant beyond sat an old-fashioned noticeboard shouting out: Two-For-One Main Courses at the Capricorn Café For Any Guests Sporting an Eye Patch!

She laughed, the sound bouncing about in the empty space. For the lobby was empty, which for a beach resort at the height of summer seemed odd. But everyone was probably at the pool. Or having siestas in their rooms. And considering the hustle and bustle Avery had left behind in Manhattan, it was a relief.

Deeper inside the colossal entrance, reception loomed by way of a long sandstone desk with waves carved into the side. Behind said desk stood a young woman with deep red hair pulled back into a long sleek ponytail, her name tag sporting the Tropicana Nights logo slightly askew on the jacket of the faded yellow and blue Hawaiian print dress, which might well have been worn in the seventies.

“Ahoy, there!” sing-songed the woman—whose name tag read Isis—front teeth overlapping endearingly. Then, seeing Avery’s gaze light upon the stuffed parrot wiggling on her shoulder, Isis gave the thing a scratch under the chin. “It’s Pirates and Parrots theme at the resort this week.”

“Of course it is,” Avery said, the eye patch now making more sense. “I’m Avery Shaw. Claudia Davis is expecting me.”

“Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum... The American!”

“That I am!” The girl’s pep was infectious, jet lag or no.

“Claude has been beside herself all morning, making me check the Qantas website hourly to make sure you arrived safe and sound.”

“That’s my girl,” Avery said, feeling better and better about her last-minute decision to fly across the world, to the only person in her world who’d understand why.

Tap-tap-tap went Isis’s long aqua fingernails on the keyboard. “Now, Claude could be...anywhere. Things have been slightly crazy around here since her parents choofed off.”