High Stakes Bride Read Free Page A

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?”
    â€œHis 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.”
    â€œWhat 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.”
    The snort of a horse drew Dani’s attention. She stared at the scene unfolding in the paddock immediately adjacent to the house.
    Carter was outside with Galbraith and two tall bay horses. She watched as Carter swung smoothly into the saddle. Dust plumed from restless hooves as the animals paced out of an open stock gate, hard-packed muscle rippling beneath satiny skin. Two dogs trotted alongside, tongues lolling. Dani blinked, spellbound. The scene was idyllic—like everything on Galbraith—and, like the endless rhythm of the sea dragging the sand from beneath her feet, it was steadily undermining her resolve. She was used to cutting ties, the idea of holding on made her dizzy.
    Dazed, Dani realized that, like Susan, she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay so badly it hurt.
    Susan tugged at her plait. “You just wait, you’ll change your mind about boys one day.”
    For a heartthrob like Carter Rawlings? She’d rather live in a soap opera.
    She might be young, but ever since she was six years old and he had broken into their house for the first time, she had known that men spelled more trouble than she ever wanted to take.
    In her limited experience, if you could lose them you were lucky.

Chapter 2
    Present day, Jackson’s Ridge, New Zealand
    T he sun was high, the air rippling with heat, the breeze hot and dry as it rustled through native manuka trees and flipped a strand of hair loose from Dani Marlow’s plait. As she slid from the seat of her tractor, she noted the direction of the breeze—a southerly—not the drought-breaking northerly she and every other farmer on the East Coast needed. They’d had a dry year, followed by an even drier summer, and the disastrous weather had desiccated the soil, killed most of the grass and undermined Galbraith Station’s already shaky financial position.
    Properties all up and down the coast were selling at rock-bottom prices, and the sharks were queuing—most notably a fancy out-of-town syndicate that, rumor had it, was determined to turn the small farming community of Jackson’s Ridge into an upmarket golf course and beach resort.
    The Barclays, who owned a block just up the coast, were contemplating selling after a fire burnt down their barn and decimated their maize crop. Another neighbour, old Mr. Stoddard, had rung just last night to let her know that instead of the extension on his mortgage he’d requested, the bank had sent him a letter advising him that his interest rate was going up. He was hanging on, but at seventy years of age, he had better things to do than watch his cows die of thirst and fight a bank that no longer had any confidence in his ability to service his loan.
    Dust whirled, peppering Dani’s eyes as she crouched down to