High-Stakes Bride

Dear Reader,

High-Stakes Bride was always going to be a ranch story, because Carter Rawlings—the sixth and final member of my Down Under SAS team—has a strong link with the land. When I planned the book, the solution to who would finally tame my most elusive bachelor yet was simple—Dani Marlow, the girl next door. What I didn’t understand until I began writing was how deep the secret of Dani’s past went and just how wide-ranging the repercussions would prove to be. Dani turned out to be a headstrong, complex heroine, a fitting match for Carter, a seasoned assault specialist who is faced with the biggest challenge of his life: keeping Dani safe.

Enjoy!

Fiona Brand

ISBN: 9781408946428

High-Stakes Bride

© Fiona Brand 2006

First Published in Great Britain in 2006

Harlequin (UK) Limited

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, including without limitation xerography, photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the prior consent of the publisher, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

FIONA BRAND

has always wanted to write. After working eight years for the New Zealand Forest Service as a clerk, she decided she could spend at least that much time trying to get a romance novel published. Luckily, it only took five years, not eight. Fiona lives in a subtropical fishing and diving paradise called the Bay of Islands with her two children.

Contents

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Coming Next Month

Prologue

Twenty-two years ago, Dawson, New Zealand

Eight-year-old Dani Marlow’s eyes flicked open in the dark. Icy moonlight filtered through the thin drapes pulled across her window, turning the pink quilt on her bed a frosted grey and bleaching the floorboards silver.

The sound that had woken her came again. Not the skeletal scrape of the clump of small trees that grew outside her window, or the ancient creaking of the oak that shaded most of the front lawn, but the sharp clink of metal against metal.

Breath suspended in her throat, she lay rigid, eyes fixed on the cracked plaster of the ceiling as she strained to listen. Time passed. The wind strengthened, the cold palpable as it rattled branches and whispered through desiccated leaves. Slowly, the tension ebbed from her limbs, her lids drooped and she began the warm drift back into sleep.

Glass shattered, the sound as explosive as a gunshot, jackknifing her out of bed. Bare feet hit the icy cold of the floor and, for a terrifying moment, Dani lost the sense of where she was—and when.

Light flooded through the gap where her bedroom door stood ajar, momentarily blinding her. Blankly, she registered footsteps, the crash of overturned furniture. A dull thud followed by an anguished cry shocked her out of her immobility.

Heart pounding, she wrenched her wardrobe door wide and fumbled through layers of clothing, fighting the frantic urge to burrow into the musty storage space and hide. She hadn’t been dreaming, what was happening was real. He was here—now. Somehow he had found them again, and this time he had gotten inside the house. She didn’t understand why or how it happened, just that no matter where they moved to, sooner or later, it did.

For a frantic moment she couldn’t find what she was looking for, then her fingers closed on the stick she kept there. The wood was smooth where she’d peeled the bark away, and as heavy as a baseball bat. She had made it three months ago at the last place they had lived, when a neighbour had seen a man watching their flat and reported him to the police. They had managed to get away when the police cruiser had arrived and frightened him off. The time before they hadn’t been so lucky. Susan had ended up in hospital with cracked ribs and a concussion, and Dani had gone into care.

Stomach tight, Dani edged along the narrow hall and halted in the doorway to the kitchen. A silver shape arrowed through the air. She ducked as the kettle hit the wall, spraying water. Simultaneously a loud bang was followed by a burst of blue light as the electrical mains above her head blew, plunging the house into darkness. Soaked and shivering, blinking to clear the flash of the explosion and adjust to the much dimmer moonlight pouring through the kitchen window, Dani struggled to make sense of the black shadow grappling with her mother.

Susan Marlow, clearly visible in a long pale nightgown, struck out, knocking the shadow back and abruptly the scene made sense. The shadow was a man dressed all in black, his hands, his face—every part of him blanked out—except for a narrow strip where his eyes glittered.

He swung, his arm a blur. Susan crumpled and, with a fierce cry, Dani launched herself. The stick arced down, crashing into the only part of him she could see, his eyes. The jarring force of the blow numbed her fingers and sent the stick spinning. A split second later she was flung through the air, for a timeless moment tumbling….

When Dani came to she lay sprawled at an angle, half under the kitchen table. Pain throbbed at the back of her head as she dragged herself into a sitting position and clung to a table leg for support.

He was at the sink. He had taken off what she now realized was a balaclava and was washing his face. As he turned, the glow from a flashlight uplit a broad chest and powerful shoulders, dark hair cut close against his skull, and a face that was nightmarishly distorted. Blood streamed from a swollen, misshapen nose and a livid cut below one eye where the flesh had peeled open revealing the glistening white of bone—the effect like something out of a horror movie.

Clutching his face to stem the flow of blood, he stumbled into the tiny lounge, the flashlight beam flickering over broken furniture and shards of glass as he stepped through the window he’d smashed to get into the house and merged with the night.

Dani huddled by the kitchen table, spine jammed against the wall. Freezing cold filtered through her pajamas, spreading like liquid ice as she stared through the wreckage of their home, gaze fastened on the empty rectangle of pure black where the window frame was pushed up.

Long seconds ticked by, and slowly, minute-by-minute, the extent of her victory settled in, steadying her. For the first time she’d had the courage to hit out, and she had hurt him—enough that he’d had to leave. When she was certain he wasn’t coming back, she crawled over to Susan and her heart almost stopped. Susan was white and still, and for a terrifying moment she was certain she was dead.

Frantically, she clutched at her shoulder and shook. Susan’s head lolled, her eyes flickered and relief shuddered through Dani.

Forcing herself to her feet, she limped to the kitchen counter, reached high and grabbed the first aid box. Setting the container beside Susan, she pried off the lid, found the cotton wool and disinfectant and began dabbing at the split on Susan’s lip and the grazes on her jaw and temple. Susan flinched, but didn’t wake up.

Panic gripped Dani as she fetched a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, wrapped them in a tea towel and set the makeshift icepack against the side of Susan’s face. She should call an ambulance, but Susan had said not to call anyone because if the welfare people got to hear what was happening, they’d take her away—this time maybe for good. The same went for the police. As badly as they needed help, they didn’t need what came with it. According to Susan the paper trail left them too exposed, and he was clever. It was one of the ways he used to find them.

Stoically, Dani continued cleaning away the blood then set about making up a bed up on the floor. She didn’t know how long it would be before Susan woke up, but, in the freezing cold of a South Island winter, she had to be kept warm. Shivering, her stomach tight with fear, Dani lay under the pile of quilts with Susan, waiting for her to wake up.

Blankly, she stared at the open window.

The glass was gone, so closing it was a waste of time, but she should have pulled the curtains to help stop the cold air pouring into the house. It wasn’t snowing or sleeting, but there would be a frost; ice already glittered on the sill. Shuddering, she wrenched her gaze free. She hadn’t wanted to go near the window because somehow the magnetic black space was part of him.

With an effort of will, she forced herself to concentrate on Susan. Her breathing sounded better, although it still had a catch as if even sleeping, she was hurting.

Dani moved closer, shielding Susan from the window and the freezing stream of cold air, misery condensing into a piercing ache.

They would be all right. They just had to move again.

And this time they would disappear.

Chapter 1

Four years later, Jackson’s Ridge, New Zealand

The noonday sun burned into the darkly tanned skin of twelve-year-old Carter Rawlings’s shoulders as he slid down the steep scrub-covered hill just below his parents’ house. Grabbing the gnarled branch of a pohutukawa tree, he swung and launched off a platform of black rock that jutted out from the bank, the tip of one of the ancient lava flows that had made its mark on Jackson’s Bay and a string of other beaches stretching along the east coast of the North Island.

Wincing at the heat pouring off the sand, he loped down the beach to check out the new kid who had just moved next door.

A pair of gulls wheeled above, shrieked and swooped low, beady eyes hopeful. Carter slowed to a walk as his feet sank into the cool damp sand that delineated the high-tide mark. Keeping his gaze fixed on the thin body of the boy, he searched the pockets of his shorts. “Sorry guys, no food today.”

Normally he remembered to grab a slice of bread for the gulls, but today it had been all he was capable of to sit at the table once his chores were done and bolt down a sandwich before being excused. The new kid was the first exciting thing that had happened all summer. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but in Jackson’s Ridge, a tiny coastal settlement that had flat-lined long before he was born, a new neighbour ranked right up there with the apocalypse.

The surf-casting rod the boy was holding flicked back, then forward. Silvery nylon filament shot out across the waves. Bait and sinker hit the surface of the water just beyond the break line and sank.

Great cast. Perfect. The kid had done it like a pro, except, Carter now realized, the boy, Dani, who had moved in the previous evening, wasn’t a “he.”

She had red hair scraped into a long plait over one shoulder and a blue T-shirt plastered against her skinny torso. Her faded cut-offs were soaked and she’d lost one of her sneakers in the tide. He caught the glint of a tiny gold stud in one lobe. A tomboy, maybe, but definitely not a boy.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Hi.”

For an answer she stepped into the water foaming just inches from her feet and waded in until the water eddied around her knees. Her rod dipped as she wound in slack line; a few seconds later it shivered as something nibbled at the bait. She moved forward another step, playing the fish.

Automatically, Carter studied the swell. The waves came in in sets. Jackson’s Bay was sheltered so it wasn’t usually a problem, but every now and then a big one arrived. “Careful. There’s a rip just there, sometimes it—”

Water surged, she staggered. A second wave followed, forming a sloppy breaker, and with a yelp she went down, the rod flipping into the surf.

Carter lunged, turning side-on to the wave as his fingers latched onto her arm. The water went slack then almost instantly surged back out to sea, the pull dragging the sand from beneath his feet.

“Let go.” Staggering upright she wrenched free, dashed water from her eyes then dove into the next wave and came up with the rod.

Cool. Carter wiped salt water from his face as he watched her wind in the line. She hadn’t needed his help. “I guess your name’s Danielle.”

Her dark gaze was dismissive as she strode, dripping, from the water.

Carter didn’t let it get to him. He had never met a girl yet who could resist him, let alone one who hardly knew he existed. He was used to girls noticing him: he had killer blue eyes.

Shrugging, he trailed after her as she followed a line of scuffed footprints to a battered tackle box and a beach towel. With cursory movements she examined the chewed bait dangling from the hook and flipped the lock on the reel. His gaze fixed on the set of her jaw and the fine sprinkling of freckles across her nose.

Time for phase two. “Is Danielle your name?”

A lean tanned hand slapped the lid of the tackle box closed. “Get lost.”

Bemused, Carter watched as she snatched up the tackle box and towel, strode across the sand and took the rocky path up to the Galbraith house.

She was tall for a girl—although nowhere near as tall as he was—with a lean lanky build and a face that would have been a knockout if she hadn’t been scowling. According to his mother she was the same age as he was, which meant she’d be in his class at school.

Not Danielle, Dani.

He shrugged. The conversation hadn’t exactly been riveting, but…

He grinned as he strolled back home.

She liked him. He could tell.

“He’s a pain.” Dani ignored her mother’s frown as she propped her ancient fishing rod against the side of the house, removed the ragged shred of bait and tossed it to a hungry gull.

Jaw set, she stared at the distant view of the horizon, and the hazy line where sea met sky, her heart still pounding from the embarrassing near-death experience followed by the hike up the hill.

She had been that close to landing the fish. If what’s-his-name Rawlings hadn’t come along she would have caught it—guaranteed.

Susan sent her a warning glance. “His name’s Carter and he’s your next-door neighbour.”

For how long? “That doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

Dani wrung out her still-dripping plait, toed off her remaining sneaker and strode to her new room to change. When she was dressed, she grimaced at the pile of wet things in the laundry basket. She had lost a sneaker. Her mother had been too preoccupied to notice that detail, but when she did, she would go crazy. Susan had been out of work for the past three months, ever since her last job as a counter assistant at one of the town-and-country stores in Mason had dissolved after the business had merged with a larger firm. In theory they couldn’t afford to eat—let alone spend money on shoes.

Dani stared at the unfamiliar bedroom; the pretty bed with its white-and-green patterned quilt, the elegant lines of the dressers and the needlework sampler on the wall. Not for the first time the strangeness of moving into someone else’s home, of being surrounded with someone else’s things, hit her. She’d been used to bare rooms and minimal furniture—all of it impersonal and second-hand—of keeping clothing and possessions sparse and relationships nonexistent, so that if they had to pick up and leave in a hurry they wouldn’t lose too much. For four years the isolation of that existence had worked—until they’d landed in Mason and Susan had met Galbraith.

After years of staying on the move and never putting down roots there was no way she could like the permanence that was building here—no matter how much either of them craved it. This life—the settled-in comfort and the homeliness—just didn’t fit with the tactics that had kept them safe.

Dani trailed, barefooted, back to the kitchen, eyeing a line-up of gloomy oil paintings in the hallway and taking care not to touch any of the highly polished furniture or the pretty ornaments placed on dainty occasional tables.

Everything about the Galbraith house radiated family and permanence—from the slightly battered antiques to the family photos depicting grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins: generation upon generation of Galbraiths—so many of them that every time she looked around she felt exactly as she had when she’d lost her footing and been swept into the surf—off balance and floundering.

Eyeing the crystal chandelier that hung from the ornately molded ceiling in the dining room, she stepped into the kitchen. Her mother was placing a large bowl filled with apples in the centre of the table—one of the many little touches Susan Marlow did to make a room look just so, whether they were living in a crummy little one-bedroom flat or a caravan.

Dani glanced around the high airy room with its antique dressers and air of fading elegance. Or on an impressive homestead sited on a large sheep and cattle station.

She could see why her mother had been bowled over by Robert Galbraith and the Rawlings family next door—and why she liked it here. Who wouldn’t? As people went, they had it all: nice homes, acres of land, and their own private beach that was so mesmerizingly beautiful she had just wanted to stand there and stare.

Her mother finished setting the lunch table and stood back to admire the gleam of porcelain and old silver. She lifted a brow. “Carter’s a nice-looking boy. I think you do like him.”

Fierceness welled up in Dani. “I don’t.”

Boyfriends weren’t on her agenda—they couldn’t be. She’d seen the way girls at school mooned after them, and the way Susan had changed. If she were going to depend on anyone, it would be herself. From what she’d seen, falling in love was nothing but trouble.

The bark of dogs and the sound of footsteps on the veranda heralded Robert Galbraith’s arrival. Seconds later, he appeared in the kitchen doorway, tall and broad-shouldered, with a kind of blunt, weathered handsomeness that seemed to go hand-in-hand with the rugged contours of Galbraith Station.

Warily, Dani watched as her mother’s face lit up, and noted Galbraith’s corresponding expression. Her mother was an attractive woman, not beautiful exactly, but tall and striking, and today she looked a lot younger than thirty-five. She might not have a million dollars, but with her hair piled on top of her head and the simple but elegant clothes she was wearing, she looked it.

Galbraith set his hat on a small dresser just inside the door. Dani’s head snapped around, almost giving her whiplash as she instinctively avoided witnessing the kiss. A count to ten later, she risked a look.

Ten seconds hadn’t been long enough.

The meal stretched on interminably. Dani ate bites of her sandwich, helped down by sips of water while she observed Robert Galbraith, reluctantly fascinated. He was a new phenomenon in her life—the only man she had ever known Susan to date—and now they were living with him.

Abruptly, a nightmare image of the shadowy man cleaning up at the sink after he’d broken into their cottage made her stomach clench. She hadn’t told Susan she had seen his face, or that she had injured him. They had simply packed and run, leaving everything but the necessities behind and driving through the night.

Dani transferred her attention to Susan, her gaze fiercely protective. There was no question; they would have to leave, and the sooner the better. The risk Susan was taking was unacceptable. In every attack she had always been the focus. The only time Dani had been hurt had been when she had finally gotten up the courage to run at him and he had swatted her away like a fly.

When Galbraith finally left the lunch table, Dani began clearing dishes. As she piled plates and cutlery in the sink, the words erupted out of her. “We’re making a big mistake.”

Susan’s expression turned sharp. “For the first time in years I’m making the right choice. He’s asked me to marry him.”

Dani froze in the act of turning a tap. “Does he know?”

“No.” Susan scraped leftover food scraps into the compost bucket under the sink. “And don’t look like that, missy.”

Dani clamped her jaw and retrieved the empty salad bowl from the table. She stared at the fragile porcelain. It was so fine and translucent she could see the shadow of her fingers through it. “We’re not safe here.”

That was an understatement. They were sitting ducks. After years of lying low, of Susan working for cash under the table—even forgoing welfare payments because that would pinpoint where they were—of never forming relationships, let alone dating, the abrupt turnaround was stunning. A marriage meant legal paperwork and bank accounts. The paper trail would point a huge neon arrow in their direction.

Susan snatched the bowl and rinsed it. “Yes. We are.” The bowl hit the draining board with a clatter. Susan’s fingers gripped the edge of the bench, her face abruptly white.

Dani stared at her mother, heart pounding. Susan was tall and lean and strong. She’d worked all sorts of jobs from legal secretary to shop assistant to picking fruit. They might be poor, but she had always prided herself on having the constitution of an ox. Apart from the occasional sniffle, neither of them was ever sick. “What’s wrong?”

Susan straightened. “I’m pregnant.”

Dani stared at her mother. Of all the answers she might have expected, that hadn’t ever been one of them. Suddenly the move and the way her mother was behaving began to make sense. “Does Galbraith know?”

“His name’s Robert. And no, not yet. I’ve only just realized myself.”

The expression on her mother’s face made Dani feel even sicker. Dani’s father had left before she’d been born, the only remnant of that brief relationship a name on her birth certificate. The concept that Galbraith would willingly take on not only a wife but two children—one of them not his own—was staggering.

Her mother retrieved the salad bowl, examined it for cracks and rinsed it. “Don’t worry, we’ll manage—one way or another.”

“What if he finds out?”

Susan’s jaw tightened. “I don’t want to hear you mention him again—it’s finished. He hasn’t found us for four years. He won’t find us now.”