Eternal Brand Read Free

instead. You’re ogling him, Emily! Brand’s friend and a virtual stranger! It was hard not to though. Jet Durante had the looks of a Hollywood movie star, and more than his fair share of easy charm.
    â€œIt was my grandfather’s. My mother gave it to me the first time I went overseas. It’s supposed to protect me.” At her expectant look, he elucidated. “I’m a photographer. Wildlife, mostly. I go where the animals are.”
    â€œYou mean like Africa?”
    Jet nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “Among other places.”
    â€œWhere? Tell me.” At the surprised hike of his dark brows, Emily blushed. “I’ve never actually been out of Australia. Pretty sad for a thirty-year-old woman, huh?”
    â€œNot everyone gets the chance to travel. I’ve been lucky.” He smiled, not making her feel parochial for her lack of worldly experience. “Let’s see, besides Africa I’ve spent some time in Alaska photographing the brown bears during salmon season. I traveled down the Amazon and got shots of so many species I won’t list them now. And I just got back from Borneo where I spent a month photographing the orangutans.”
    â€œGosh. That all sounds so exciting.”
    â€œIt can be. It can also be tedious. A lot of waiting around for that perfect shot.”
    Emily nodded, easily able to imagine Jet huddled in the bushes, patiently waiting for a bear cub to emerge from its den and then springing into action the second it did. He had an aura of contained energy about him that gave the sense he could handle whatever life threw his way.
    â€œSo how do you know Brand?” Emily couldn’t fathom how Brand had met a globe-trotting wildlife photographer.
    â€œI’ve known him since we were both fifteen. My parents have an orchard down near Picton, a ways west of Sydney. They also keep some animals. Brand…he stayed with them a while.”
    â€œHe said he was from down that way.” But he hadn’t told her much else. Brand had been very close-lipped when it came to talking about his past. Emily had no idea where his family was, or if he even had family. Now, here was Jet, someone who’d known him in the times that Brand wouldn’t talk about. The temptation to ask questions was irresistible. “You say he stayed with your parents? Why?”
    Jet looked at her steadily. Emily sensed him assessing her, working out how little she knew about the man she lived with. Her cheeks heated with discomfiture.
    â€œYou should ask Brand sometime,” Jet eventually said. “Right now, I’d rather talk about how you met him.”
    Conversation was a welcome reprieve from the awkward silence that had settled over them. “He came knocking on my door one day, asking to see the horses. Not to ride them, just to see them.”
    â€œDid you think that was odd?”
    â€œA bit, I suppose. But he looked so…” Emily searched for a word that wouldn’t make Brand sound unbalanced. Desperate? Needy? Vulnerable? She discarded them all and simply said, “Lost. I thought the horses might help him find his way, so I said he could visit with Daisy for a while. She’s my favorite stock horse. The next day he came back, and I said if he wanted to ride Daisy, he had to clean my gutters.”
    Jet grinned. “I see you’re no pushover.”
    â€œNope. I had quite a few jobs I had trouble getting to myself, and by the end of the day, he’d done more than his fair share. I offered to pay him in money, not just horse visiting time. He refused the money.”
    Emily recalled walking into the stables at the end of the day and finding Brand with his head buried in Daisy’s neck, his hands gently stroking her flesh. When Daisy had whinnied softly and given her head a shake, Brand had smiled, and something inside Emily’s chest had tugged so hard she could barely breathe.
    â€œSo what did you