Nikki Logan - Once a Rebel...

‘Superb debut. 4.5 Stars.’

—RT Book Reviews on Lights, Camera … Kiss the Boss!

‘Now, here is an Australian writer who manages both to tell a good story and to capture Australia well. I had fun from start to finish. Nikki Logan will be one to watch.’

—www.goodreads.com on

Lights, Camera … Kiss the Boss!

‘This story has well defined and soundly motivated characters as well as a heart-wrenching conflict.’

—RT Book Reviews on Their Newborn Gift

NIKKI LOGANlives next to a string of protected wetlands in Western Australia, with her long-suffering partner and a menagerie of furred, feathered and scaly mates. She studied film and theatre at university, and worked for years in advertising and film distribution before finally settling down in the wildlife industry. Her romance with nature goes way back, and she considers her life charmed, given she works with wildlife by day and writes fiction by night—the perfect way to combine her two loves. Nikki believes that the passion and risk of falling in love are perfectly mirrored in the danger and beauty of wild places. Every romance she writes contains an element of nature, and if readers catch a waft of rich earth or the spray of wild ocean between the pages she knows her job is done.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Tracy Scarparolo.

And to Dan, the best office-mate and friend a girl could have.

Cover

Praise for Nikki Logan Praise for Nikki Logan ‘Superb debut. 4.5 Stars.’ —RT Book Reviews on Lights, Camera … Kiss the Boss! ‘Now, here is an Australian writer who manages both to tell a good story and to capture Australia well. I had fun from start to finish. Nikki Logan will be one to watch.’ —www.goodreads.com on Lights, Camera … Kiss the Boss! ‘This story has well defined and soundly motivated characters as well as a heart-wrenching conflict.’ —RT Book Reviews on Their Newborn Gift

About Nikki Logan About Nikki Logan NIKKI LOGAN lives next to a string of protected wetlands in Western Australia, with her long-suffering partner and a menagerie of furred, feathered and scaly mates. She studied film and theatre at university, and worked for years in advertising and film distribution before finally settling down in the wildlife industry. Her romance with nature goes way back, and she considers her life charmed, given she works with wildlife by day and writes fiction by night—the perfect way to combine her two loves. Nikki believes that the passion and risk of falling in love are perfectly mirrored in the danger and beauty of wild places. Every romance she writes contains an element of nature, and if readers catch a waft of rich earth or the spray of wild ocean between the pages she knows her job is done.

Title Page Once A Rebel… Nikki Logan www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication For Tracy Scarparolo. And to Dan, the best office-mate and friend a girl could have.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

www.remembermrsmarr.com

Front row seats for a Beethoven symphony

Bungee jump in New Zealand

Run a marathon

Ride like The Man from Snowy River

Hunt for a dinosaur fossil

Commune with the penguins in Antarctica

Float in a Hot Air Balloon

Climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Take a gondola ride in Venice

Climb Everest

Abseil down a cliff face

Be transported by a touch

Get up close and personal with dolphins

Take a cruise

Hold my grandchild

www.rem—

SHIRLEY keyed the first letters of the web address into her browser before it auto-completed the rest. She visited enough that it knew exactly where she wanted to go.

www.remembermrsmarr.com

The simple site opened and she spent the first moments—as she always did—staring at the face of her mother, captured forever in time in a delighted, head-thrown-back kind of joy. Exactly as she would have wanted people to see her. Exactly as her students did see her. And exactly how Shirley chose to remember her now, with the benefit of distance.

Clicking through to the list she knew was on the next page only disappointed.

Still nothing in the first column—the one headed ‘HT.’

After all this time.

Hayden Tennant had been her mother’s all-time favourite student. He’d been the one—hurt and grieving—to suggest the tribute website in the first place. So that they could each do the items on her mother’s bucket list. All the life experiences an unlicensed drunk-driver had robbed her of.

Hayden had pledged.

He’d vowed in that gorgeous, thick, grief-filled voice.

Yet every single square next to every single item on www.remembermrsmarr.com was empty where Hayden’s initials should have been.

Today was an extra sucky day to be staring at the list and finding it empty. Because today was ten years since Carol-Anne Marr had taken her last breath. How many weeks had passed before he’d forgotten all about it? Or was it days? Hours? Did he think no one would notice? Did he think his teacher’s only daughter wouldn’t be watching? Shirley tapped her purple fingernails on the keyboard and enjoyed the sound of the slick keys under them.

Come on, Hayden. You’ve had a decade.

Something.

Anything.

Swimming with dolphins. Climbing the Harbour Bridge. Running a marathon. Even she’d done that one, back before she’d got boobs. Back when her schedule had been able to tolerate training for eight straight hours. It had taken her eighteen months to train up and get old enough to qualify, but then she’d placed in the middle of the under-sixteens category and held her medal to the heavens as she lurched across the finish line.

And then she’d never run again.

If I can tick that one off, surely you can, Tennant.

Hayden, with his long, fast legs. His intense focus. His rigid determination. He wouldn’t even need to train, he’d just will himself to last the entire forty-two kilometres.

She’d hoped for a while that he was honouring her mother privately, keeping his own list the way she herself was.

But the truth had finally dawned.

All that angst, all that sorrow and despair at her funeral; all of that was simply the emotion of the moment. Like a performance piece. Terribly dramatic and intense. Terribly Hayden. None of it had been genuine. Amazing, really, that he was still forking out the cash annually to maintain the domain name.

She cocked her head.

The domain …

It took her just a few minutes to track down the site registration details and a few more for a contact number for the company it was registered to. Molon Labe Enterprises. That had to be him. He’d had a thing for Spartans the entire time she’d known him.