Husbands Of The Outback: Genni's Dilemma / Charlotte's Choice

Two tough, powerful men no woman can resist…

MARGARET WAY—Genni’s Dilemma

Genni has loved cattleman Blaine Courtland since childhood—so why is she about to marry another man…and will Blaine really let her?

“With climactic scenes, dramatic imagery and bold characters, Margaret Way makes the Outback come alive.”

—Romantic Times

BARBARA HANNAY—Charlotte’s Choice

Lady Charlotte Bellamy is torn between love and duty: to please her family, she must accept a marriage of convenience, but her heart longs for rugged rancher Matt Lockhart….

“Barbara Hannay’s debut offers a pleasing premise with engaging characters, wonderful tension and good pacing.”

—Romantic Times

Margaret Way is a true legend in the world of romance writers and readers. She has been published for almost thirty years and is renowned for her strong, passionate characters and her wonderfully lyrical and evocative descriptions of Australia. She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay in the state of Queensland. She delights in bringing her country alive for readers. Prior to beginning her writing career, Margaret had a musical one—she was a pianist, teacher, singing coach and accompanist. She still plays the piano seriously; she also collects art and antiques and is devoted to her garden.

MASTER OF MARAMBA by Margaret Way (#3671)

Barbara Hannay was born in Sydney, educated in Brisbane and has spent most of her adult life living in tropical north Queensland, where she and her husband have raised four children. While she has enjoyed many happy times camping and canoeing in the bush, she also delights in an urban lifestyle—chamber music, contemporary dance, movies and dining out. An English teacher, she has always loved writing, and now, by having her stories published, she is living her most cherished fantasy.

OUTBACK WITH THE BOSS by Barbara Hannay (#3670)

Husbands of the Outback

Genni’s Dilemma

Margaret Way

Charlotte’s Choice

Barbara Hannay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

GENNI’S DILEMMA

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHARLOTTE’S CHOICE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

Dear Reader,

It’s with greatest pleasure I join Barbara Hannay in this special novel—Husbands of the Outback. It’s a nice touch to team us together. Barbara is at the start of her career. I’ve been blessed with thirty wonderful years writing for Harlequin®. I’ve carved out a rewarding and thoroughly enjoyable career in the process, giving pleasure and comfort to many thousands of women all around the world. Could anyone ask for more?

Although I’ve written many books with different settings, my Outback stories are the ones my readership tell me they love best. Writing can be a solitary business, so it’s lovely to get feedback from loyal fans. Through all my travels around my own great island continent, Australia, washed as it is by glorious blue oceans, it’s the cloudless cobalt skies that speak directly to my heart. The great open, silent immensity of it! I stand in awe of the rugged grandeur, the starkly beautiful and dramatic landscapes. One has to see the beating Dead Heart then experience the wilderness after rain as the endless mirage-haunted plains are woven with wildflowers.

I want to share my feelings of utter bliss with you, my fascination with the great Inland, so absolutely, so distinctively Australian. The same with our Outback man. He’s a unique breed. Full of strength and tremendous energy. The quintessential rugged male who still manages to exhibit an almost “old-worldly” gentleness and courtesy. Wonderful stories have been written about the pioneers of Outback Australia, inspirational and enthralling. I want to tell you the mighty Outback man hasn’t disappeared. He’s still out there for the rest of us to be proud of.

CHAPTER ONE

The Wedding Eve

GENEVIEVE stood outside her mother’s bedroom door bracing herself for the inevitable confrontation and, she guessed, copious tears. Angel was perfectly capable of it. Generally believed saccharine-sweet, no one knew better than Angel how to make a lot of people uncomfortable. She could turn it on. And off. At the flip of a coin.

Genevieve didn’t know if she could stand it, feeling as bad as she did. After a month of agonizing about this soon-to-be-taken trip to the altar, she had lost weight to the point she was looking more spindly than slim; she had a permanent headache; she was sick to her stomach and trying to smile through it; her emotions so barely under control it hurt.

About to tap on the door and await entrée into her mother’s opulent bedroom that stopped just short of mirrors on the ceiling, Genevieve suddenly remembered with a great sense of relief Angel was going out to dinner with Toby Slocombe. She marvelled she could have forgotten, but then her brain was firing on less than four cylinders.

Toby was one of the high rollers around Sydney Town, recently divorced from his long-suffering wife of thirty years. For once Angel hadn’t been involved having just come out of a rather unsettling experience with a toy-boy a little older than her daughter. So tonight no tears to spoil the mascara. No tears to stain Angel’s ravishing little heart-shaped face. Even so she wouldn’t take it without a bit of light screaming and the usual attempt to talk Genevieve down. Genevieve felt she could just about endure that. Angel’s soft breathy voice raised a few decibels arguing nonstop. No one was home except Genevieve’s beloved Emmy, their long-time housekeeper, baby-sitter, nanny, confidante, social secretary-assistant, referee, who had been more of a mother to Genevieve than Angel the perennial beauty and social butterfly had ever been.

This is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, Genevieve thought, avoiding all self-pity. Indeed she felt very isolated and quite guilty, tempted to do a runner. Please God help me through this, she prayed as she rapped on her mother’s door, the great emerald-cut diamond on her left hand winking and blinking heavy enough to anchor a harbour ferry.

“Come!” her mother’s voice trilled.

It was the sort of response one might expect from a celebrated prima donna, not a mother, Genevieve thought. Not a “Come in” much less “Yes, darling.” Emmy, after all, was watching one of her favourite TV shows, not surprisingly, “The Nanny,” and could not be disturbed. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry Genevieve opened the door, her eyes filled with the sight of her mother half falling out of a long sequinned evening dress in a heavenly shade of jacaranda that must have cost as much as the piece of antique furniture Genevieve was about to bump into.

“Lordy, Sweet Mamma,” she said, amazed like everyone else by her mother’s youthful appearance and all-out glamour.

Angel, the picture of seduction, threw out her slender arms and made a full turn. “Like it?”

“What there is of it, yes,” Genevieve agreed slowly. “It’s beautiful. Exquisite.”

“I’d let you wear it only you’re too tall,” Angel instantly responded, smoothing the filmy fabric over her hips.

“I’m not that tall,” Genevieve said. “Anyway, you’ve never lent me anything.”

Angel sprayed herself with another whiff of gorgeous perfume. “Genni, sweetheart, you’ve never wanted for anything. I know you’re beautiful, though I looked twice as good when I was your age, but you have your poor father’s height. And that olive skin.” Angel turned to survey her own flawless strawberries-and-cream complexion.

“Most people think my skin is great,” Genevieve answered casually enough. She always took her mother’s little put-downs with no offence. “Unlike you, I take a tan and it goes very well with my hair.”

“Our hair,” Angel corrected, touching her heavy white-gold naturally wavy locks. In her mid-forties, an age Angel kept quite secret even from her doctor, Angel wore her hair short, brushed up and away from her exceedingly youthful, marvellously pretty face. Genevieve wore hers long, sheets of it, falling to her shoulder blades. Sometimes she had it straightened but it inevitably went back into its waving skeins.

The two of them were very much alike despite the fact Angel was petite and Genevieve stood 5'8" in her stockinged feet with long, light limbs. Most people thought Genevieve was twice as beautiful as her mother and as a member of the Courtland family it was expected she would have brains, something her mother either didn’t have or concealed. Not that it affected Angel’s great ongoing success with men. In fact it might well have contributed to it.

“Genni, do you know what you’re doing?” Angel broke sharply into her daughter’s reverie.

“Nope, what am I doing?” Genevieve asked.

“You’re handling that precious piece of Sevres so carelessly you might drop it. Please put it down.”

“Sorry, Mamma.”

“Darling, haven’t I asked you not to call me that?”

Genevieve laughed, trying to cloak a lifetime’s despair. “You’re one tough lady, Angel. Do you know that? You asked me not to call you Mamma when I was barely ten years old. Not all that long after Daddy died.” It was cruel. Genevieve still thought it was cruel but she had never been one to start, in her own words, “a ruckus.” Not being able to call her mother Mummy or Mum had not only been harrowing, it had somehow affected their relationship. Underneath it all Genevieve felt terrible sorrow her mother wasn’t the complete woman.

In fact Angel was moaning now. “Oh, don’t start that again.” She always did at any mention of her late first husband, Genevieve’s father, Stephen Courtland. Angel had divorced Stephan when Genevieve was seven. Eighteen months later he had been tragically killed in a shooting accident on Jubilee. Jubilee was the Courtland flagship, the desert fortress and ancestral home. The Courtlands controlled a cattle empire that cut a huge swathe through the giant state of Queensland. Blaine was the current custodian of the flame. Blaine Courtland, Genevieve’s kissin’ cousin, prince among men.

At thirty-one, handsome as the devil and just as arrogant, he was a much respected man in a tough man’s world. Blaine had been the hero of Genevieve’s childhood and early adolescence. Eight whole years separated them but they were light years away in substance and maturity.

The little girl Blaine had always called by a string of endearments: flower face, Violetta—because of her eyes—sweetness, cherub, little pal, even pumpkin—she remembered all of them—overnight turned into that silly little idiot Genni who was prepared to waste her perfectly good brain trying to emulate her fool of a mother. Blaine pulled no punches about Angel. He actually called her Jinx to her face. A lot of it stemmed from the fact the Courtland family collectively believed Stephen Courtland’s “accident” had been no accident at all. Everyone knew Stephen had been devastated when Angel walked out on him, taking his adored only child. A serious depression had followed.

“Angel, can I talk to you?” Genevieve asked, picking up her courage.

“I don’t really have time to talk now, darling,” Angel said, hunting up her exquisite evening purse, popping in a fragile lace-edged hanky. “Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty sleep? It’s going to be a wonderful day tomorrow. I’m so proud of you landing Colin.”

Genevieve received a mind picture of Blaine so searing it hurt her head. “I think I’ll pass on Colin,” she blurted abruptly.

“You’ll what?” Angel’s blue-violet eyes started so far from her head she looked like an adorable bug.

“I can’t go through with it, Mamma…Angel. I feel terrible about it, I know it’s what you want. What you’ve done everything in your considerable power to bring about, but I don’t love Colin. I never did. I was going through with marrying him to spite Blaine. I can see that now.”

Angel sat down heavily in a cream damask armchair, her tiny face blanching. “I’m not hearing this. I’m not!” she wailed. “What has this got to do with Blaine? You surely can’t believe he’ll be pleased about this. He’s paid for the whole blasted thing.”

She was betrayed. In that moment humiliation left her bereft. “He what?” Her desperation was almost total.

“Oh, don’t play the fool. It doesn’t work with me,” Angel scolded with some contempt. “You surely didn’t think I was going to outlay a small fortune. The Courtlands have a mountain of money. Blaine can well afford a lavish wedding for three hundred. A drop in the ocean to him. But it would leave a big dint in my bank balance.”

“My God!” Genevieve could have howled with the pain. “You let me believe you were handling all this, Mother. Yes, Mother. You are my mother, aren’t you? My father, God rest his soul, left you very well off. He loved you, the poor deluded man. He loved me. There has to be money, Mother. Look around this God-awful bedroom, this mansion of a house. Look at that dress you’ve got on. The diamonds in your ears and around your neck.”

“Will you please stop making a commotion?” Angel wrung her hands. “I have to look after myself, Genevieve. I have many more years left to me.”

“I thought you were working your head off to land Toby Slocombe?” Genevieve fired.

“Don’t you dare scream at me, you ungrateful little wretch.” Angel was furious and showed it. “How can you possibly let me down? Let Colin down? I don’t dare think of the consequences.”

“No.” Genevieve shook her head violently, in agony. “Because you expected me to help out once I got my hands on the Garrett money. You know Colin’s father is universally detested.”

“I happen to know he approves of you,” Angel said, tight-lipped with anger. “He’s thrilled Colin has finally found someone who will be a good steadying influence on him.”

“You’ve played us all like puppets,” Genevieve said, recognizing it was true. “You might give some people the impression you’re an airhead but you always get what you want, don’t you, Mother?”

Angel had the grace to flush. “I don’t know what’s got into you, Genevieve. You haven’t been the same since you got back from Jubilee. Of course it’s Blaine. He’s always so goddam polite, but I know he hates me. They all do. They blame me for Stephen. As though I was there when he tripped over that bloody fence. They’re a revolting family. So uppity. The landed elite. Yet Blaine’s own mother ran off. Dear Crystelle. Don’t let him fool you. Blaine hates women.”

Genevieve brushed a long ash-gold tendril from her face. “He was kindness itself to me.”

“You mean when you were a little kid,” Angel scoffed, jealous of Blaine’s affection for her daughter to this day.

“A little fatherless kid. I loved Blaine with all my heart,” Genevieve admitted, frightened somehow by the depth of her own emotion.

Angel gave a hard laugh. “Well, that’s all gone by the board. You two have had a very difficult relationship for years now. The arrogance of the man! He has always interfered. You’d think he was your guardian, not me. Remember the time I wanted you to be a model. You could have been right up there at the top. An international career. You had everything going for you, but no, Blaine insisted you go on to university.”

“I was a straight-A student, Angel,” Genevieve reminded her. “I didn’t want to be a model.”

That struck Angel as irrelevant. “It’s the best career a beautiful girl could possibly have. Such an exciting, glamorous life.”

“So you say. It wasn’t for me.”

Angel’s pretty mouth puckered. “So working at the State Art Gallery is better?”

“I have a Fine Arts Degree. I’m quite a good artist myself. I’m learning all the time. I’m regarded as a valuable addition to the team. All of this fades into the background now, Angel, I can’t go through with this marriage.”

That struck Angel as shocking. She burst into faintly hysterical laughter. “Not a chance you’re getting out of it,” she cried loudly. “Blaine will drag you down the aisle if he has to. Don’t forget there’s the honour of the Courtland name at stake.”

Genevieve’s violet eyes burned. “I’m only a cousin, Angel. Third cousin. I don’t really count.”

“Don’t be so sure of that, my girl.” Angel began to fiercely swing an evening-sandalled foot. “This would be the most appalling breach of social etiquette. It’s unthinkable.”

“Except if I go through with it I’ll be making the most hideous mistake of my life,” Genevieve said in a voice thin with despair. “Please listen to me, Angel. I feel so alone. Shaking inside.”

But Angel was furious with her. “Who the devil are you, Genevieve?” she shouted. “Who are you really? You’re certain of it? Why now. Why didn’t you just leave it until tomorrow morning? Climb out the bathroom window. I know you’ve seen that movie with Julia Roberts. Jumping on horses. You’ve got cold feet. All brides have cold feet. A little surprise for you, darling. You simply cannot let any of us down. You’re emotionally fragile, like your father.”

At that Genevieve’s violet eyes flashed into brilliant life. “Damn you, Mamma,” she said. “Damn you for leaving my father in the first place. Isn’t it enough that he’s dead? You’re going to defame him?”

“Now just hang on a minute,” Angel hissed. “I’m not defaming anyone. I’m saying it the way it is. You started something. Finish it. You’re going to go through with this marriage, Genevieve. Colin Garrett is a catch most girls would kill for. He’s attractive, he’s rich—or he will be, he always makes the best-dressed list, he’s more ‘in’ than ‘out’ in all the glossies. He’s ideal. I just love the way he kisses my fingertips every time he sees me. Bellisima, Angelina! he always says.”

“Why don’t you just tell him to shut up?” Genevieve continued angrily. “His mother won’t be unhappy. I know in my heart she doesn’t think we’re suited. I think she thinks I might desert her darling boy sometime in the future. Like you deserted Daddy.” Her voice quivered pathetically.

Angel tilted her head back, staring at the elaborately decorated plaster ceiling. “I didn’t desert your father, Genevieve. I just moved out. I’ve never met a man so needy in my whole life. I found his love for me suffocating, his insistence on a ‘home life’. The three of us doing things together. God, how dreary! Possessiveness can be pretty awful.”

Angel stood up in a torment. “You’ve upset me, Genevieve,” she said. “What a lousy thing to do. I accept you’re uptight. It’s certainly not unheard of. I strongly advise you have a glass of warm milk and go to bed. When you wake up in the morning you’ll feel entirely different.” She turned to face her daughter, who somehow looked fourteen years old. “Now, Toby will be here shortly. I don’t want to hear any more of this. I can’t deal with it. I don’t know either why you can’t stand the idea of Blaine’s paying for it all?”

“That’s because you’re a sponger, Mamma. You’re good at it.” Genevieve lifted her head, pinning her mother’s gaze. “But I’m going to hold it against you forever.”

“Are you?” Angel exploded, sweet voice rasping. “How dare you speak to me like this, Genevieve, you sanctimonious little twit. Blaine and I have been working together for years. He’s a very complex character, is your hero. He hasn’t approved of anything you’ve done these last couple of years yet he’s more than happy to pick up all your bills.

“Oh, yes, darling, don’t look so shocked. It might have been my deepest darkest secret, but Blaine has helped out a lot. Why not? He really did think you were a great little kid and he’s notoriously difficult to please. And you’re a Courtland. That’s a huge thing in your favour. Blaine was happy to keep you in the appropriate manner.”

Genevieve felt like a hand was squeezing her heart. “You asked him?”

Incredibly Angel became almost jovial. “Not at all. He just did it. You were the entrancing little ‘honey chile’. But I expect by now he’ll be happy to let someone else shoulder the burden.”

A deep vivid rose stained Genevieve’s golden skin. She looked up, her eyes as dark as the ocean, aware as she had never been before in her life deep inside her mother some odd malice moved. “Don’t say any more, Angel,” she begged. She, too, stood up, straightening her shoulders. “With any sort of luck after tomorrow we mightn’t have to see one another again.”

Angel heard the finality in her daughter’s voice. “Dear, oh, dear, what a silly thing to say,” she gushed. “I love you, Genni. I’m very proud of you.” She swept forward to pat her daughter’s face, wondering why when she was so pretty herself she always felt jealous of Genni’s hair, her eyes, her mouth, the radiant smile never much in evidence these days, the lovely teeth. God she even wished she was taller, then she wouldn’t have to diet so rigorously.

“The last thing in the world I want is for you to be unhappy, Genni,” she said tremulously, ready to shed a few tears. “Trust me, darling, you’re suffering from prenuptial nerves. It’s normal, not a catastrophe. Colin is so nice. Such fun, and he’ll be drowning in money. I’ve been responsible for you for so long you should feel some responsibility for me. I know tomorrow you’re going to make us all very proud. It’s my dream, honey.”

After her mother had left in a flurry of breathless giggles, hanging on to Toby Slocombe’s arm, Genevieve went in search of Emmy. Emmy was still sitting in front of the television in the small room off the library, watching an old movie, a half-eaten box of Belgium chocolates Genevieve had bought for her on her lap, short plump legs resting on an ottoman.

“Hello, darling girl.” Emmy looked up to smile; her pleasure diminishing as she saw the anguish in Genevieve’s expression. “Going to watch this with me?”

Despite herself Genevieve was amused. “God, Em, you must have seen this movie a hundred times?” She recognised Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. North by Northwest.

“Better than the ones they make these days,” Emmy snorted. “Wasn’t he just the handsomest man?”

“He surely was,” Genevieve agreed. “Bisexual, I gather?”

“That’s just talk.” Em snatched up another chocolate. “He was a real man. Anyway, what’s wrong with you? You look like you need a stiff drink when you should be looking blissfully happy.”

Genevieve sat down, gripping her hands. “That’s just it, Em. I’m not happy.”

A pause, then Emmy said, “I was wonderin’ when you were going to realise it.” She used the remote control to switch off the television. “Want to talk about it?”

“I just tried talking to Angel,” Genevieve muttered abruptly.

“I imagine that didn’t go too well. It’s a damn shame the way your mother has been pressuring you to marry Colin.”

Genevieve shook her white-gold head, her hair caught back in a single thickly braided rope. “Don’t blame Angel, Em. I did it myself.” Genevieve lifted her beautiful eyes. “What do you really think of Colin, Em?”

Put on the spot Emmy finally owned up. “I’m with Blaine,” she said, not wishing to add she thought Colin Garrett nowhere near good enough for her darling Genni. Such a good girl. A lovely girl. Never given an ounce of trouble. Emmy would have found another position years ago only for Genni.