Fiona Brand - High-Stakes Bride

He was wearing a suit. Her stomach dropped. He wasn’t a real estate agent, his car was too clean and he didn’t have any advertising slapped on his number plate. That meant he had to be with one of the stock and station agents—or the bank.

As soon as she caught a whiff of the subtle expensive cologne he was wearing, she crossed off the stock and station agencies.

“Ms. Marlow?”

“That’s right.”

She didn’t miss the quick, male once-over he gave her. Even in a small place like Jackson’s Ridge, she had gotten used to that look long before she’d turned sixteen. Deliberately, she turned her head so he caught the scar on the right side of her jaw, the narrow slash courtesy of the accident. She generally found that took some of the icing off the cake. She might look a certain way, but that didn’t mean she was.

He introduced himself as Roger Wells, the new branch manager of Jackson’s Ridge’s only bank and slipped a business card from his wallet. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

Dani tucked the card in her jeans pocket and tried not to notice how grubby her fingers were despite the wipe with the rag. Machine oil took no prisoners. “It’s been a lot nicer in the past.”

Galbraith used to be a showplace, with a six-bedroom homestead and extensive gardens. Now the house was in need of a coat of paint and repairs to the roof and verandas, and the gardens needed a lot more care and energy than she could expend.

He shoved both hands in his pants pockets, going for the casual GQ look and achieving it. “I just took a drive down to the beach. The views are really something.”

Dani’s spine tightened. She hadn’t heard a vehicle until just now, which wasn’t surprising, because the Dinosaur made so much noise, but even so she should have heard him sooner. That meant he must have driven down one of the stock roads at the far end of the farm, turned onto the beach road then back up onto the plateau via another stock road, bypassing most of the driveway to the house. Lately she’d heard more than the usual traffic along the beach road, and some of it at night. Despite the fact that it was trespassing, normally she didn’t worry about the unauthorised access, because occasionally locals liked to surf-cast off the beach, but with the syndicate people sniffing around, she was extra wary. “Jackson’s Bay is beautiful.”

Even that was a mild understatement: it was spectacular—lonely and a little wild—a long, smooth crescent that curved into the distance and took a big bite out of the local coastline. Lately, owing to the syndicate’s interest in Jackson’s Ridge, she’d been inundated with more than the usual amount of real estate agents, all wanting her and David to sell. “So what can I do for you, Mr. Wells?” As open and pleasant as Wells seemed, it was after six, the sun was setting, and she wasn’t inclined to trust him.

White teeth gleamed. “This is just a quick call to introduce myself and let you know it’s business as usual with the bank. I like to take a personal interest in my clients.”

She just bet he did. Maybe she was being oversensitive, there was nothing in the statement to take offence at, but Roger Wells was a stark change from Harold Buckley, the previous manager. Mr. Buckley had been with the bank for as long as Dani could remember, and she’d liked him. In all those years, he had never once bothered to take a drive out to Galbraith, let alone take an uninvited tour of the property. If there was any business to be done, it had always been completed in his office during business hours.

Wells made a few bland observations about the severity of the drought and the state of the economy—nothing that Dani hadn’t tortured herself with a thousand times over already—then finally got to what really interested him, Galbraith’s stock numbers.

Setting her jaw, Dani reeled off the figures. A year ago that many head of cattle would have represented a slim, but comfortable return, but with the price of beef falling to a ten-year low, her profit margin was gone and Wells knew it. “Is there a problem with the bank financing farm mortgages? I hear Tom Stoddard’s looking at selling up.”

The blunt tactic didn’t net a return. “The bank’s commitment to farmers hasn’t changed.”

Dani kept her face expressionless. She’d seen the ad on T.V.—something about the “friendly bank.” From what she’d heard, lately, the Jackson’s Ridge bank was as friendly as a rottweiler. They had squeezed Tom so tight his options were gone.

After a few more uncomfortable pleasantries, Wells climbed back into his car and drove away. Dani watched the plume of dust until it dissipated, any appetite she’d had gone. As bland and pleasant as Wells had been, he represented trouble. He might have been on her land uninvited, but technically he owned more of Galbraith Station than either she or her brother did.

The following afternoon, after taking a trip into town to buy groceries, Dani strolled down to the waterfront and met Becca McKay at Jackson’s Ridge’s only café.

Becca was the same age as Dani—a tanned, willowy blonde who’d spent most of her life travelling. Five years ago she had landed in Jackson’s Ridge for a summer and waited tables for Nola, until she’d been swept off her feet by one of the coast’s pastoral barons.

The marriage had caught everyone in Jackson’s Ridge cold. John McKay was twelve years older than Becca and a widower. To compound matters, Becca’s boss, Nola, just happened to be one of John’s sisters. Nola had had an amiable relationship with Becca until John had started turning up as a regular customer. Since then, she hadn’t been able to hide her disapproval of the age difference, or her opinion that the marriage was doomed to failure—despite the fact that John and Becca now had two children, with a third on the way.

Becca chose a table outside under a shade sail and shot her a meaningful look. “I heard Carter’s back.”

Dani pulled out a chair, sat down and braced herself. She and Becca had been friends for years, but they had differing opinions about Carter. Despite Carter’s reputation for being cool and elusive, Becca was certain he was prime husband material—for the right woman. “How did you find out?”

Becca draped a colourful fringed bag that matched the orange and pink stripes of her tank top over the back of her chair. “John had a face-to-face in the supermarket. Carter reached for a bottle of hot sauce—he was getting ketchup for the kids. How typical is that?”

Dani couldn’t help thinking that when it came to John McKay it was very typical. He was a devoted husband and father and made no bones about the fact that his wife and children came first. “Be warned. Carter Rawlings is not my favourite topic.”

“Then you’re on your own, because the whole town’s humming. Word is out that he’s got to pop the question this time.”

Dani studied the laminated menu. “He did make a proposition last time he was back, but it was more along the lines of a suggestion that it would be more convenient all around if I moved in with him. I don’t recall that a ring was part of the deal.”

Dani poured two glasses of water from the carafe on the table. There had been no moonlight, no bended knee, just pure practicality. She took a sip of water and tried to forget the moment. Carter had been on his way out the door, his bags packed, his orders and passport on his bedside table, with that cool, distant look in his gaze. As always, the exit was practiced and slick. Dani didn’t like to dwell on how many women had been put through the exact same routine. Even in Jackson’s Ridge Carter had a certain reputation, and he hadn’t earned it by being caught up in emotion. She shrugged. “I wasn’t interested. The way I saw it, it was all about convenience. His.”