Lilian Darcy - The Australian's Desire - Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son - Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For

Did she want to be slapped around, as her mother had been?

Of course she didn’t. But there were times when she’d be drawn into a relationship with someone … well, someone her stepfather might have thought a mate. Someone who treated her as she’d learned to expect. She hated that, and it never lasted but, still, at least she knew where she stood.

So she’d never fall in love with a good man?

That thought slammed home, alarming her. She’d been sitting a mite too close to Alistair and now she edged away. He turned and looked at her and he smiled.

He had a killer smile.

He was still holding her hand.

Alistair was one of the Dresden china ones, she told herself, feeling suddenly breathless. She knew from past experience that such men couldn’t make her happy. She’d make them unhappy.

So stop smiling now!

Look at the bride and groom. That was why she was here. Not to think about Alistair-Good-Looking Carmichael.

And not to cry.

Pull your hand away, stupid, she told herself, but she didn’t.

The bride and groom were making their vows, softly but with all the sincerity in the world. Mike was smiling at his bride, making Georgie feel …

Squirmy.

‘Soppy,’ she whispered, sounding as dumb as she’d felt for her tears, and Alistair grinned.

‘Yeah, real Romeo-and-Juliet stuff. Bring on the violins.’

‘They’re happy though,’ Georgie whispered, giving them their due.

‘But we know this love bit’s dangerous.’

She frowned, thrown off balance. ‘Do we?’

‘Of course. You need to decide with your head.’ The priest was talking about the sanctity of marriage, but way back here they could whisper without fear of being overheard. The sound of the wind whistling around the old church was almost overwhelming, so bride and groom and priest needed the microphone to be heard.

‘Decide what with your head?’ Georgie asked.

‘Your life partner, of course,’ he told her, warming to his theme. ‘You and I are doctors. Scientists, if you like. We know the heart’s nothing but a bit of blood-filled muscle. If it fails you might even replace it with a transplant.’ He motioned to the bride and groom. ‘So where do you think these two would be if their hearts were transplanted? Unless there’s a fair bit of cool, calculated thought in the equation, then the marriage is doomed.’

‘Hush.’ But there was no need to hush. No one could hear.

But she needed to hush him. What was he saying—that she should choose one of the gentle ones? The guys her head told her were suitable, but her heart abandoned as they pushed the wrong buttons.

‘So what do you—?’

‘Hush,’ she said again, becoming so flustered she wasn’t sure what she was thinking. Concentrate on the wedding, she told herself. This was an overblown Greek wedding. The church was full of apricot and white tizz. The bride and groom were surrounded by a sea of apricot and white attendants.

It was over-the-top ridiculous.

It was lovely.

He was still holding her hand.

The head and not the heart?

Yeah, well, that was where she’d been in trouble in the past. The Croc Creek doctors’ house was always full to bursting with medics from around the world. Doctors used this place as a base where they could put their skills to use in a way that was invaluable to the remote peoples of Northern Australia. Doctors came here to help. Or sometimes they came just to escape.

Like her ?

Yeah, but she wasn’t thinking about herself, she decided hastily. She was talking about potential lovers. So there were plenty available.

No one else seemed to feel a lack, she thought dourly, looking ahead at Mike and Emily. Maybe it was only her who’d never seemed to fit.

They were kneeling for the blessing. There was no need to say hush. Georgie blinked back more stupid tears.

It was only because she was weak, she told herself fiercely. It was because she was worried about Max. It was because her face hurt.

Alistair’s hold on her hand strengthened. She gave a feeble tug but he didn’t release it.

She didn’t pull again. She sniffed and kept listening.

Then there was a break as someone played a Greek love song, with the volume on full to drown out the sound of the rising wind. Georgie didn’t understand all that much Greek but the way all the old ladies in the church sighed and smiled, she guessed it had to be something soppy.

And then came the moment they’d all been waiting for.

‘I now pronounce you man and wife.’

They rose as the priest gave his final blessing. The groom lifted Emily’s veil and kissed her, oh, so tenderly.

It was just lovely. She was feeling … weird.

‘Very romantic,’ Alistair whispered dryly.

‘Be quiet,’ Georgie said for a final time, and to her fury she felt tears start to well again.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alistair said, and he sounded startled.

‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ Georgie whispered.

‘No,’ he said, and squeezed the hand he shouldn’t be holding. The hand she shouldn’t be letting him hold. ‘There’s not.’ He looked down at her in concern as she swiped angrily at her eyes with his handkerchief. ‘We’ll find him, Georg.’

But she hadn’t been thinking about Max. Her eyes flew upward to Alistair’s. And something … connected?

Their gazes held. He was comforting her, she told herself furiously, but she didn’t quite believe it. For this wasn’t a look of comfort and the confusion she felt was mirrored in his eyes.

She tugged her hand away with a faint gasp and turned her attention resolutely back to the bride and groom. They were being hugged by their respective families in the front pews.

A slate came loose from the roof above their heads. It crashed down—the sound tracking its progress on the steep gabled roof above their heads. She winced. Alistair tried to take her hand again but she wasn’t having any of it.

She gripped her hands very firmly together and kept her attention solely on the bridal party. The Trumpet Voluntary rang out—played by Charles. His splinter skill. The trumpet’s call was pure and true, almost primaeval against the backdrop of the storm, and once more Georgie found herself blinking back tears as the bridal party swept by them on their way out of the church.

But then, as the doors swung open and the wind blasted in, the bridal party stopped in its tracks.

Another slate crashed down.

The surge to leave the church abruptly ended.

‘We might rethink the exit,’ the priest announced in a voice he had to raise. Having left the technology of microphones to lead the couple out of church, he now had to raise his voice above the sound of the wind.

‘This has to be a cyclone,’ Alistair said, and Georgie blinked and bought herself back to earth. Earth calling Georgie … What the hell was she about, crying at weddings? She was losing her mind.

She didn’t cry. She never cried. Crying was for wimps.

Alistair’s dumb handkerchief was a soggy mess.

‘We’re still copping the edges,’ she managed, hauling herself together with a massive effort. ‘Despite what Dora’s waters are saying, it’s still only category three. Strong but not disastrous.’ She winced as a particularly violent gust blasted past the church, loosening another couple of slates. ‘Harry says the biggest problem is flooding inland. It’s the end of the rainy season and the country’s waterlogged as it is. We’ll have landslips.’

‘As long as that’s all we have.’

‘Scared?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, and he grinned. ‘This wind is really terrifying for a man with a toupee.’

She choked. It was lucky the combination of wind and trumpet was overpowering because her splutter of laughter would ordinarily have been heard throughout the church.