 
# Some Girls Do

An Outback Heat Romance  
Book 1

Amy Andrews

Some Girls Do

Copyright © 2015 Amy Andrews

Smashwords Edition

The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-943963-16-4

## Dedication

_To Australian bush poet Banjo Patterson and 70's pop group Racey  – polar opposites but part of my musical heritage nonetheless._

## Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Dear Reader

_Chapter One_

_Chapter Two_

_Chapter Three_

_Chapter Four_

_Chapter Five_

_Chapter Six_

_Chapter Seven_

_Chapter Eight_

_Chapter Nine_

_Chapter Ten_

_Chapter Eleven_

_Chapter Twelve_

_Chapter Thirteen_

_Chapter Fourteen_

Excerpt from Some Girls Don't

Outback Heat

About the Author
Dear Reader,

G'day to all my readers and welcome to Outback Heat and the small country town of Jumbuck Springs.

For those of you who don't know, jumbuck is a colloquial term for a sheep here in Australia. Anyone familiar with the song Waltzing Matilda will know it all started because of a thirsty jolly jumbuck! So, naturally, Jumbuck Springs is set in sheep territory. It's also set in a valley bordered by Australia's largest mountain range known as The Great Dividing Range (original right?), a massive geographical feature that runs down almost all of our east coast. Placing my fictitious town near mountains enabled me to have rock pools and springs and hence the name Jumbuck Springs was born. Having lived in outback towns, I loved creating my own and populating it with the kind of rugged, no-nonsense, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people so prevalent in communities dependent on the land and the vagaries of nature for their livelihood. Of course, it's only a couple of hours drive to the big smoke so expect some city lights too!

Outback Heat features the Weston family. Three older brothers who all work in the emergency services – policeman, fireman, paramedic – and little sister Lacey who's set to take the fashion world by storm. Some Girls Do is Lacey's story. Lacey's kinda lost and messed up in the big city and yearning for home. Her brothers are determined she see her studies through but Lacey's desperate to come home and will try anything, including dragging her oldest brother's BFF, Coop, into a crazy, impulsive scheme. But Lacey and Coop have history...

Doncha just love it when there's history? :)

I hope you fall in love with Jumbuck Springs and root for Lacey and Coop as they work towards their HEA. Next up is Jarrod and Selena followed by Marcus and Juanita and finally Ethan and JJ. As the series title suggests, things get kinda hot in Jumbuck Springs for all the couples so sit back, put on some flame proof undies and enjoy!

Love,

Amy

## Chapter One

 ‡

Cooper Grainger watched the leggy brunette press a Corona bottle to her lips and wished he was her beer. She downed a hearty mouthful, swiped her tongue across her lips, then laughed at something a guy in her group said as she passed the bottle to him before bending over the pool table.

A little frown knitted her brows together as she concentrated on her shot. A lock of her dark hair—a wild, wavy tangle cascading down her back—fell forward over her shoulder, kissing the bright green felt. His gaze dropped to the press of her breasts against the constraint of her tank top and that enticing little v formed at her cleavage.

He'd always been a sucker for that v.

The whack of a ball dragged his eyes back to the action. He watched as the white ploughed into the nine, which smacked into the five, which sailed with a resounding thunk into the pocket. He almost groaned out loud. A woman who turned beer drinking into an erotic spectator sport, had a cleavage that wouldn't quit _and_ knew how to shoot a combo.

He'd died and gone to heaven.

Suddenly her eyes lifted from the table and she was staring right at him. He paused mid-swallow as their gazes locked over the rim of his frosty beer glass. For long seconds she just looked and his gaze was drawn to the large golden hoop earring swinging from her lobe. Then a small smile curved her mouth into a plush little crescent.

Coop blinked and in that fraction of a second she was gone, handing the cue on to the guy with her beer, laughing again as the group congratulated her on her shot. Her gypsy hair swung against her tank top, which scooped low enough at the back to reveal several notches of her spine.

One of the guys slid his hand on her hip and Coop watched as she easily detached from him with a laugh and a playful swat. Then suddenly she was glancing over her shoulder, seeking his gaze again. She locked and held for a long moment and something primal made him think of his clean white sheets and dirty, sexy ways of messing them up.

Mystery woman looked away and he breathed again. But the images refused to leave his head as anticipation buzzed through his system.

He knew where this night was heading.

He hadn't come to hook up but after a significant leave of absence his libido had roared back to life and he was suddenly thankful Ethan had sent him that box of condoms for his birthday—his friend's way of telling him he needed to get laid already.

Ethan always had been an all-knowing son of a bitch.

By the time her group relinquished the pool table, he'd finished his second beer and had a hard-on that he doubted ten boxes of condoms could service. He shifted uncomfortably on the stool and his eyes followed the swing of hips, encased in skin-tight denim, and the swish of hair across the bar room. She turned down the corridor that led to the ladies room; just before disappearing she tossed him a look with another of those knowing little smiles.

Cooper knew that look. Knew he could get up off his stool and follow her and within minutes they'd be making out in a toilet cubicle or the alley out the back. But even at this short acquaintance he knew he wanted more from her than some quick fuck against the wall of a bathroom stall or prickly bricks biting into her back as they went for it all clothed and quiet outside.

He wanted her stretched out naked on his bed. He wanted to hear her pant, moan, cry out. He wanted her long and slow.

He wanted her loud. He wanted all night.

It _had_ been a long time, after all.

Cooper kept an eye on the corridor anticipating the moment she appeared again. What her next move be. Would she wait for him to go to her? Or would she be as bold as her gaze and seek him out?

The chair moved beside him but he paid it no heed until he heard, "Would you think me terribly forward if I bought you a drink?"

Cooper pulse leapt as his head slowly swivelled towards the light teasing tone. His breath caught a little as his mystery woman loomed up close and personal. A shaggy fringe hung over her forehead, lead to artfully kohled eyes. Great cheekbones, cute nose and a wet glossy mouth that he knew was going to taste as good as it looked.

He grinned at her. "I like forward."

She smiled. "Well then you're going to love me."

From his vantage point he noticed that her smile hadn't quite reached her eyes, that there was a glimpse of misery lurking in the molasses depths. He recognised a little bit of himself in her unhappiness.

"Takes all the guess work out of it," he said, dragging his mind back to the conversation.

"Oh?" she said, an elegantly arched brow kicking up, drawing attention to her eyes again, the glimpse gone. "I wasn't being clear enough already?"

Cooper flicked a brief glance at her mouth. "Oh no," he smiled, "you were being clear."

"Is that a problem?"

He shook his head. He'd known where this was heading from the second their eyes had met, and his dick had always appreciated the direct approach. "Nope."

She smiled then and held out her hand. "Tracey."

"Cooper," he said, sliding his hand along hers. "Coop to my friends."

She kept her hand in his and regarded him with narrowed eyes. "Does your friendship come with benefits, Cooper?"

"It does tonight."

She smiled and it reached right inside his underpants and stroked. "Well in that case, it's nice to meet you, _Coop._ "

He released her hand and turned to the bar tender. "A Corona for the lady," he said.

"Where'd you get this?" she asked raising her fingers to the thickened horizontal scar down low on his windpipe. His skin burned beneath the light brush.

Coop forced himself to keep smiling. She wasn't the first person to ask, she wouldn't be the last. "Knife fight."

She grinned, clearly not believing him. "Intriguing." The bartender placed her beer down and she raised the bottle and tapped it on the edge of his glass. "To friends with benefits."

Bottle to her mouth, she smiled at him as she took a sip of her beer and he tried to guess her age. The cop in him had already pegged her for mid-twenties, but sometimes you just had to come out and ask. "How old are you?"

 *     *     *

"Twenty-four." Lacey didn't hesitate. She just came right out with it as if she actually _was_ that age. Instead of five years younger.

One look at the compelling, sad blue eyes across the bar and she'd known he'd never contemplate a one-night stand with a nineteen year old. He had that look of brooding honour, the same look her older brothers usually wore during their _this-is-for-your-own-good_ conversations.

It was just a tiny white lie, right? Well, another one. Sort of ... Her real name _was_ Tracey. It was on her birth certificate for crying out loud. Was it her fault she'd never been called that? And tonight _Lacey_ reminded her of all the things she tried desperately not to think about.

_Cute_ little Lacey the peppy younger sister.

_Bright_ little Lacey the smart little cookie.

_Poor_ little Lacey the grieving, hormonal teenager, freaking her brothers out.

Tonight, with this very grown-up man, she wanted to be someone else. She didn't want to be little Lacey anything.

And besides, they both knew the score here—what did a little truth bending matter? She was over the age of consent and hardly some blushing virgin.

Lacey didn't ask him his age—she figured it started with a three—because there was just something about the man that drew her. Besides his broad shoulders, blond hair and crooked nose. Something sad and broken in his light blue eyes and _that_ she could relate to.

She took another swallow of her beer, conscious of those eyes fixed on the bob of her throat. "So what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she asked.

He raised his gaze to her face and laughed. "I think that's my line."

Lacey shrugged. "Told you I was forward. And besides, if you don't mind me saying, you're kind of sucking at the pick-up lines."

"You want a line?" His mouth quirked up at one side. "How about this? You have impressive ball skills."

Lacey hadn't been expecting something so blatant and she was stunned for a moment before she laughed. "Play your cards right and I'll give you a personal demonstration."

He laughed too and it vibrated through her belly with all the subtlety, finesse and potency of a jackhammer. Lacey squirmed against the stool as heat flooded her abdomen.

She'd _never_ been this hot for a guy.

"Seriously," he said, sobering and his intense blue gaze caught and held hers. "Where'd you learn to shoot a combo?"

The laughter from earlier dried up from the inside out. She shrugged. "A girl with brothers learns a lot of useless things. How to hook a worm and gut a fish ... how to make cricket stumps out of just about anything ... how to skip stones ... light a fire ..."

How to _never ever_ cry lest they get that stricken helpless look and _send you away_.

"I imagine a girl with brothers would also learn not to let some guy pick her up in a bar," he murmured.

Hell yeah, she'd learned that one too. It'd been drummed into her—by Ethan particularly—just before he'd driven her two hundred kilometres from the only home she'd ever known to the college they'd insisted she still attend, despite her overwhelming grief.

But they couldn't have it both ways. They couldn't send her away and expect her to still live by their rules.

"Hey," he said as he pushed a stray lock of hair off her forehead with his index finger. "Where'd you go?"

Lacey blinked as his blue eyes searched hers, frightened he could see everything—her hurt, her pain, the nagging homesickness that never seemed to go away.

_No_.

She would not think about home tonight. Quickly, she tipped her head back and drained her beer in three swallows. "You want to get out of here?"

Lacey could tell Coop was deciding whether or not to push her further on the subject. When he, too, drained his beer Lacey she almost sagged in relief. "My place is three blocks away."

She smiled at him. "Perfect."

 *     *     *

He was ushering her through the entrance doors to his apartment complex ten minutes later. Lacey had no recollection of the trip. Not with his hand in the small of her back, his thumb stroking a lazy pattern through her shirt, streaking heat like a fork of lightning up her spine.

He pushed the lift button and Lacey glanced at him. The urge to kiss him pulsed inside her.

"If you keep looking at me like that," he said, his voice full of gravel, his gaze firmly fixed on her mouth, "we're not going to make to the apartment."

Lacey's gut clenched as the rumble in his tone abraded the hairs at the back of her neck, rubbed like sandpaper against her nipples and tingled between her thighs. It was only the ding of the lift that saved them from making out on the parquetry floor.

But the second the doors closed and they were alone, he was pushing her against the wall and she was grabbing his shirt and nothing could have stopped her from accepting the full-frontal assault of his mouth as it slammed hot and hard onto hers.

Lacey moaned as his fingers tangled in her hair and his tongue tangoed with hers. He groaned against her mouth and her belly tightened.

_Crap, if the man screwed like he kissed she was a goner_.

The lift dinged again and Lacey whimpered as Coop dragged his lips away and pressed his forehead to hers. Their heavy breathing filled the lift as the door slid open. "Don't plan on getting any sleep tonight."

 *     *     *

A week later Coop was back at the bar. He told himself he wasn't there for her, that he was meeting Ethan. But since the woman who'd rocked his world for long sweaty hours last Friday night had done a Cinderella on him and disappeared before morning, he was determined to track her down.

And it wasn't just the sex. The shadows in her eyes had spoken to him in a way that only a man with shadows of his own understood.

Ethan arrived and they clapped each other on the back as they embraced. When Coop had taken off on his country-wide trek over a year ago he hadn't figured he'd miss his best bud as much as he had.

"It's good to have you back, man," Ethan said as they settled in a booth.

"Couldn't leave Dad in the lurch," Coop shrugged. "And it was probably time anyway."

Coop had healed a lot physically and mentally while he'd been away, but he'd needed that little push to bring him back into the fold. He still wasn't sure he'd have come back had his father's heart not decided to turn dicky.

Drifting had started to look more and more attractive.

"How'd his op, go?" Ethan asked.

"Good. Few days yet 'til they release him. Mum wants him to take a few months off."

"And the garage?"

"I'll look after it while he's away."

Ethan shook his head. "You're wasting your talent. You could get into private security or become one of those fancy PIs."

Coop suppressed a snort at Ethan's grin. Chasing after loan defaulters and cheating husbands? No way. "Tinkering around car engines _is_ my talent. My mother reckons I was under a car the second I could crawl."

"Well your timing couldn't be more perfect."

Coop watched as his friend's face grew serious—its default position. Ethan hadn't changed much from the solemn recruit he'd met when they'd both been at the academy. A little older now—hell, at thirty-two they both were—but Ethan _looked_ it.

He was still the reserved, serious guy he'd always been. The guy who'd had the responsibility of being the man of the house thrust on his shoulders at fifteen when his father, the local police chief, had been killed on the job. And even more thrust on him when he'd become a father himself at the age of twenty-one and given up his dream of a becoming a homicide detective to go back to Jumbuck Springs and do the right thing by Delia and his kid.

"We've been worried about Lace and I feel so much better knowing that you're in the same town." Ethan took a long pull of his beer. "We didn't handle it ... her, very well. After Mum ... She was inconsolable, crying all the time ... I think she resents us for making her come here. But she always wanted to go to design college and Mum ..."

He paused, raked a hand through his hair. "She made us promise. So we ... didn't take no for an answer."

Coop could see the internal thinking of a grieving teenage girl were as much a mystery to Ethan as they were to him. "What makes you think she's resentful?"

"She got drunk at the pub when she was home over the Christmas break. Messy drunk. Made a complete fool of herself."

Coop laughed. "That's it? She got drunk? She's a college kid. They're put on this earth to drink and make fools of themselves."

"But she's ..."

"Your sister."

Ethan shot him a defeated look. "Yes. What if she's ...doing that here? Going out and getting hammered every weekend. What if she's indulging in _other_ risk-taking activities?"

"C'mon man, credit her with more sense," Coop assured. "She's a Weston. She's probably just letting her hair down a little. It's only been a year."

Coop remembered that time well. He'd been due to travel to Elizabeth Weston's funeral but had, rather inconveniently, gotten himself shot. "Give her some time."

That's what he'd needed—longer than he'd ever imagined.

"Yeah, I know." Ethan nodded. "Still, I feel better now you're back. I know you'll look out for her."

If it had been anyone else but Ethan, Coop would have told him to hire a babysitter. But they'd had each other's backs since they'd been partnered together as newly minted police officers, and cops didn't let their partners down—present or past. "Of course I will."

"Thanks man." Ethan shot him a grateful smile. "So you get laid yet or not?"

Coop laughed. "Actually, I did. Last weekend." Even just admitting it set his heart pounding.

"Well hallelujah and praise the Lord. I was worried you were becoming a born-again virgin."

Coop snorted. "Like you get any more action."

"Yeah." He sighed. "Dating in a small town is like living in a freaking fishbowl. Easier to just not. So ... you seeing this woman now?"

Coop shrugged. "I'd like to. I ..." he hesitated. "I _really_ like her. I think she might be the one."

Ethan choked on his mouthful of beer. "Jesus, she must have been good. The sex has fried your brain."

Coop laughed. Maybe it _was_ a big call on such short acquaintance but the thought of being with one woman forever wasn't something that scared Coop, unlike a lot of guys he knew. He'd always figured one day he'd find someone and have the kind of relationship his parents did.

"Here she is," Ethan announced as he waved at someone approaching from behind and stood. Coop took a couple of fortifying mouthfuls and followed suit.

There was an instant, a flash, as Ethan pulled away from embracing his sister where the hair on the back of Coop's neck prickled with the same eerie perception he'd had that night he'd walked into the local seven-eleven store after his shift had finished and known something wasn't right. And then he was looking down into _Tracey's_ face.

A jolt slammed into his gut as if he'd been hit with fifty thousand volts from a taser. _Ethan's_ service-issue taser if he ever found out that Coop had slept with his little sister.

"Lace, I'd like you to meet Coop, my old partner," Ethan said, oblivious to the cataclysmic turn of events.

Until seconds ago the worst thing that had happened to Coop was being shot by an armed robber. But this was _epically_ worse. He'd not only fucked his best friend's sister six ways to Sunday but she was nineteen years old.

Nine- _freaking-_ teen.

In a strange out-of-body way Coop took her in. Gone was the make-up, the big hoop earrings, the form-fitting tank top and the skin-tight jeans. She was in loose, pastel, three-quarter pants and a cute little blouse that buttoned right up to the collar. Gone too was the wild gypsy hair, transformed into a high, girl-next-door ponytail.

She _looked_ nineteen.

Even the look of stricken mortification, the flush of embarrassment and the silent entreaty in molasses eyes reminded him of a teenage girl about to be grounded.

_Holy mother of God_. He was going to hell.

Lacey recovered first, shrinking internally from the shock of seeing the man she hadn't been able to stop thinking about all week. "Oh h-hi."

She stuck out her hand, silently begging Coop to do the same, to keep it together. She'd been annoyed to receive Ethan's summons. She'd only been back in Brisbane just over a week and the last thing she'd wanted to do was play the adoring little sister when she was still so angry with _all_ her brothers for not letting her stay.

But that was nothing in comparison to the pickle she found herself in now.

Finally he took her hand and Lacey's pulse leapt at the contact. She was reminded of how his hand had slid into hers at this very bar a week ago.

Of what had happened after.

"Nice to meet you, _Lacey_ ," he said, his face tight, his blue eyes glacial.

"Sit, sit," Ethan urged and she automatically folded herself into the bench seat. "Can I get you a Coke or something?"

"I'll have a Corona," she said, hyperaware of Coop all tense and brooding opposite her.

"Lace ..."

"Damn it, Ethan, I'm nineteen years old. I don't want a bloody Coke. I want a beer."

Ethan turned to Coop. "Tell her beer is evil."

Coop shrugged. "Your sister's right. She's nineteen. Get her a damn beer."

Ethan shook his head. "You're supposed to be on my side," he grumbled as he ambled off to the bar.

Lacey felt Coop's glare right down to her toes. "You're _nineteen_?"

She shrugged. Nothing she could say would make up for her lie. "Would you have slept with me if you'd known?"

Coop recoiled as if she'd struck him. "Of course not!"

"Well then, wouldn't _that_ have been a tragedy?"

He raked his hand through his hair. "Oh God," he groaned, "I'm going to hell. And do you know how?" he demanded. "Your brother is, _quite rightly_ , going to kill me and, then, when he personally drags my sorry ass to the fiery depth of eternal damnation, he's going to kill me all over again."

Lacey blinked. And they said women were prone to flights of fancy. "Don't be dramatic."

If anything his eyes grew even cooler as he leaned in. "Guys _do not_ sleep with their friends' sisters. Especially if they're _nineteen_."

Lacey shivered at the low certainty in his voice as he dropped his forehead in his palms and cradled it. "Fuck ... what have I done?"

Lacey glanced over at the bar. Ethan was still waiting to place his order, his back to them. She reached across the table, placed her hand on his arm. "Coop."

He recoiled from her. "Don't touch me."

Stung by his rejection, Lacey withdrew her hand as he speared her to the seat with a hostile gaze. "For God's sake, what are you doing picking up strangers in bars, going back to their places?" he demanded, his voice low. "I _know_ Ethan taught you better than that."

Lacey bristled. She had a hard time reconciling this distant, angry man with the easy lover who had made her come her brains out all night. She already had three older men in her life telling her what to do—applying some sexist double standard where men got to drink and screw around but women had to be virtuous and sit on a freaking shandy all night.

Well fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

"But it's okay for you to pick up a stranger in a bar?"

"I'm thirty-two years old, _Lacey_ and a ..."

"A what?" she demanded as Coop left his sentence hanging. "A guy?"

"Yes," he shot back. "A _guy_. So shoot me for being some sexist Neanderthal prick, but I can handle myself."

Lacey snorted at his assumption. "If you think a girl with three brothers can't handle herself then you're delusional."

"Well _that_ brother," Coop pointed towards the bar, "doesn't think so because _I've_ just been tasked with looking out for you."

Lacey blinked at the revelation and turned to shoot daggers at her brother. "I don't need you looking out for me." She saw Ethan striding towards them and glanced at Coop. "You're not going to do something honourable like tell him about us, are you?"

The look on his face would have been comical had the situation not been so serious. "Do I _look_ like I took a crazy pill today?" he hissed as Ethan strode the last three strides to the table.

"You're deep in conversation over here," Ethan said as he sat placing her drink down. "Pleased you're getting along. I've asked Coop to keep a bit of an eye on you now he's back in town.

"Yeah," Lacey said, lips tight. "So I hear." She took three long swallows of her beer.

Ethan looked from one to the other. "She's pissed right?" he said to Coop.

"Oh, yeah."

"I don't _need_ a babysitter _or_ a bodyguard." _Especially not this one._

"We'll all feel a lot better knowing that Coop is here for you to call on if you need him," Ethan said in his calm, cop voice that Lacey hated with a passion. He held out his hand.

"Give me your phone."

Lacey shook her head mutinously. "No."

"You do know I'm going to text you a dozen times a day with Coop's number, right? It's going to be much easier if I just put it in your contacts now."

Lacey didn't doubt her brother's determination for a moment. "What makes you think I won't delete it the second I leave here?"

"Because Coop's a mechanic and as that ancient Mini of yours breaks down with alarming regularity you're going to need him more than you know. Unless you can suddenly afford the cost of repairs on your meagre salary?"

She doubted Ethan would be so gung-ho if she knew Coop had already done a little tinkering under her hood, but he was right—her Sunday shift at the café barely covered her living expenses.

"Fine." She passed her phone over.

 *     *     *

Coop dictated his details as Lacey glared at her brother and Ethan punched them into her phone. "I have to go," she said when Ethan handed it back.

"You only just got here," Ethan protested.

"I told you I couldn't stay long."

Ethan moved out of the booth and Coop got to his feet, good manners overriding the antipathy burning in his gut. She held out her hand to him, her gaze not quite reaching his. "Nice meeting you."

Coop gave a perfunctory shake and let go. "Likewise."

"Now remember," an oblivious Ethan continued as he gave his sister a quick hug, "Coop's your man if you need anything. _Anything._ Right, Coop?" he said, clapping his friend on the back.

Coop tried not to think about the broad parameters of _anything_. Keeping his distance was probably the best thing all round. Because whatever had happened between them last week could _never ever_ be repeated.

Just his luck. The best time of his life was with a woman so completely off limits she may as well have been a nun.

"Right," he said forcing a smile as he realised Ethan was still waiting for confirmation.

And then, _thankfully_ , she was gone. But the lingering knowledge of his transgression wasn't.

He'd slept with his best friend's sister.

_So going to hell._

## Chapter Two

 ‡

_Two and half years later  ..._

Coop woke with a start, disorientated for a moment, a strange sense of foreboding sitting tight in his chest. Had the dream woken him again? But as the layers of deep sleep fell away a noise intruded and he realised someone was knocking at his door. He frowned, glancing at the luminous face of his bed-side clock.

Two-thirty.

What the? Who in hell would be knocking on his door in the middle of the night? He got up and found his trackpants, pulling them up over his bare ass as he strode out of his room through the darkness of his apartment to his door.

It had better not be the party crowd four doors down who got loaded most Friday nights and were fond of practical jokes.

He checked the peephole, his uncharitable thoughts screeching to a halt as a soaking wet and dishevelled Lacey stood there blinking back at him.

" _Fuck._ " He pressed his forehead against the door.

He should have guessed it was her. Despite her protestations that day with Ethan about not needing him, it wasn't the first time she'd disturbed him at ungodly hours of the night. Although it had been a good couple of months since he'd heard from her at all apart from his weekly _are you okay_ duty text.

He'd learned with Lacey that no news was good news.

His pulse spiked as he tore the door open. "Lacey. Jesus!" She was dripping on his doormat, her clothes soaked, her filmy shirt plastered to her breasts and belly, her hair hanging in straggly dripping strips around her head, droplets of water clinging to eyelashes and running down her face and bare arms.

"What the hell? Are you okay?"

Had she walked here in the rain? In the middle of the night?

Then he noticed blood at her temple and a hot fist lodged itself high and hard against his diaphragm. "Crap." He reached for her. "You're bleeding," he said, his fingers probing the area. "What happened, are you hurt?" A sudden sick feeling assailed him. "Did someone hurt you?" he demanded.

He'd _kill_ whoever did this to her.

"N-no. Nothing like that."

A surge of relief ran hot through Coop's veins as he ran his hands over her shoulders, down her chest and ribs, across her belly, up her back. Where was the blood coming from? "Tell me where you're injured."

"J-j-just my h-hand," she said raising the violently trembling body part to reveal a slowly oozing cut.

It was then that he noticed her teeth were chattering, her lips were practically blue and goosebumps the size of confetti covered her arms.

"You're bloody freezing," he muttered as he yanked her inside and hustled her into the warmth of his temperature-controlled apartment. He left her standing in the living room while he went to get towels.

When he arrived back he threw one around her shoulders and rubbed it up and down her arms to try and warm her.

"I'm s-s-sorry," she said looking at him through spiky eyelashes as he rubbed. "I d-don't know how I g-got here."

And then she promptly burst into tears. Or maybe she'd been crying all along and he hadn't been able to tell from her state of general drippiness.

Coop sighed, reluctant to do what any other human being would—hug her. He'd spent the last two-and-a-half years avoiding any kind of physical closeness with her. But he couldn't hold out against such wretchedness. Resigned to his fate, he pulled her into him.

"Jesus, you're _freezing_ ," he said, as she settled like a block of freaking ice against his naked chest, his nipples responding to the contact.

"Why don't you have a jacket?" he asked.

"I d-d-did," she sobbed.

"Okay, okay. Shh, shh," he murmured, just holding her, transferring his body heat to her as she huddled in the cocoon formed by the thick fluffy towel and his chest.

He wasn't sure how long she cried, but he was also damp by the time her weeping settled to the odd hiccupy sob. "You okay now?" he murmured.

She nodded. "Sorry."

Coop pulled back slightly so he could look into the two pools of molasses that had sucked him in from day one. "Why don't you go and have a warm shower? Then I'll fix your hand."

She nodded and Coop knew something was most definitely up. Lacey wasn't this docile—especially with him. Begrudgingly thankful and generally antagonistic seemed to be her two states of being where he was concerned. Unless he counted tipsy and flirty; but he tried not to think about those few occasions.

Never _, ever_ had she been so submissive, like the will to take even another step had been sucked right out of her.

"Come on," he said leading her down the hallway, grabbing two more towels from his supply and striding into the bathroom. When she just stood looking at the shower cubicle like she'd never seen one before, he reached in and turned on the taps. A plume of steam rose quickly from the pounding spray.

"Get in," he said. "I'll bring you some dry clothes."

She didn't say or do anything, just stared at the steam billowing out, as if showering was a completely foreign concept. He left quickly hoping she'd figure it out because there was no way in hell he was stripping her out of her wet clothes. It was bad enough he could see right through her blouse to the bra beneath.

When Coop returned with a T-shirt and boxers, which would no doubt be hopelessly big, the door was pulled to and when he cracked it open to place the clothes just inside, he noticed a pile of sodden garments discarded on the floor.

He left her to it, heading for the kitchen where he made two mugs of coffee—lots of sugar in hers—and wandered over to the windows with his cup, looking down at the city. The streets were wet, the falling rain caught in the arc of light emitted by the street lamp and bouncing in puddles. It looked cold, wet and miserable.

Not weather to be out in.

Frigid fingers wrapped around his heart as he thought about Lacey wandering around out there tonight. He knew she'd behaved recklessly from time to time over the two-plus years since Ethan had charged him with her wellbeing. He'd been the one she'd called to get her out of whatever jam she happened to be in at the time. But this ...

_What the hell was she thinking?_

 *     *     *

Lacey stood quietly at the entrance to the living room, watching Coop's back. He'd pulled a T-shirt on and she couldn't help but feel disappointed. Not because of the eye candy, although she knew intimately how tasty that was, but because he seemed less imposing without one. Even with his muscles—which she had to admit were pretty damn imposing—on full display, he just seemed less stuffy, less the ex-cop when he wasn't fully dressed.

More a flesh-and-blood man who was capable of understanding human failings.

She had been such an idiot and somehow that seemed easier to admit to a man in nothing but trackpants.

Sometimes she wished she could erase the last two-and-a-half years and start over with him again. Not have slept with him. Not have been his best friend's little sister. Not have been such a brat in the intervening years. Just been his friend like she'd always craved but had lacked the finesse to carry off.

"Got one of those for me?" she asked.

Coop turned and the grim look on his face told her what she already knew—he wasn't going to just let her crash on his couch for the night, like he'd done other times, without some explanation.

"Kitchen bench," he said as he walked towards her.

Lacey turned to her left, conscious as she walked of the precarious hold his loose cotton boxer briefs had on her hips. She'd rolled the waist band a couple of times but they seemed determined to slip. She wished now as she tried to walk and maintain her dignity that she hadn't bothered—Coop's shirt practically came to her knees anyway.

She picked up the mug in her uninjured hand and took a fortifying sip. Sweet and milky.

"Let me fix your hand," he said from somewhere beyond her shoulder and she turned to find him sitting on the couch.

Lacey complied, conscious of her underwear situation and the kiss of warm air on her shoulder as Coop's big shirt slipped when she sat opposite him. His gaze brushed and lingered on the exposed flesh, their history large between them.

"It's fine now," she said, her voice husky as he briskly took her hand. "It's stopped bleeding and it's not very deep."

He nodded as he inspected the now bloodless gash, stark white and as wrinkled as the rest of her hand from exposure to so much water. "I'll just cover it," he said.

Lacey didn't move as he extracted a bandaid from a small first-aid kit and applied it. "How'd it happen?" he asked.

Lacey contemplated telling him a lie. But it was late and she was tired of playing games. Hadn't she just been played for the biggest fool on the planet? "I threw a bottle at the lousy, lying scumbag's head," she said, her voice steady now. "Then I felt bad about the mess I made and went to clean it up, but I was crying so hard I couldn't see all that well and I—"

"Cut yourself," he said finishing her sentence.

Lacey nodded. "Yes."

He curled her fingers into her palm. "Okay," he said as she withdrew her hand. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

Lacey looked down at her hand. The beginning. Where was that exactly? Was it Jeremy? Or had the seeds of it all been planted a long time before, taking root in the deep well of sadness she'd never been able to fully shake?

"I've been seeing a guy for the last two months ... one of my lecturers—"

"Isn't that against the law?" he interrupted.

Coop's hand, fingers splayed against his bent knee, was in her direct line of sight and Lacey could see the knuckles go white. And if that wasn't clue enough then the contempt in his voice was enough to tell her what he thought of Jeremy.

"No."

The angle of his jaw clenched. "Well it's sure as shit unethical."

Lacey nodded. She had to concede that one. "But for the first time since I've moved to Brisbane I've felt ... happy. He made me happy."

"But now he's a lousy, lying scumbag?"

Lacey shut her eyes against the harshness in Coop's tone, the erectness of his frame. He wasn't going to give her an inch. Another wave of emotion rose in her chest but she bit back the tears. "I found out tonight that he's married. With two teenage children."

Coop blinked. "You've been seeing a guy who's _married?_ "

"Oh go to hell, Cooper!" she snapped, her eyes flashing open. What the hell did he take her for? "Jeremy _told_ me he was _divorced_. Should I have run a background check?" she asked, her voice loaded with sarcasm.

"Yes!" he snapped back. "Maybe."

"How was I supposed to know?" she demanded. "He told me I was special; that he'd never met anyone like me before ..." Lacey stopped as the tears gathered again, afraid she'd break down if she didn't take a breath.

"That's what they all say, Lacey," Coop said and she could have tripped over the exasperation in his voice.

She nodded, bowing her head. She was the worst kind of fool. So sad and desperate she was suckered in by the first man who had called her special.

"Are you in love with him?"

She shook her head. She wasn't sure she even knew how to love a man. There'd been guys, she'd had fun, but none of them seemed to be able to reach inside her. "No. But he was the first guy I really _liked_. I could talk to, you know?"

So many of the guys she knew didn't talk about anything of any consequence, anything outside their own narrow existence. Jeremy had talked like a man of the world.

Coop sighed. "How'd you find out?"

Lacey was encouraged by the sigh. She peeked up to find his gaze a little warmer now. "She turned up on his doorstep tonight as a _surprise_. She lives in Sydney, apparently. Jeremy splits his time between the design college here and the one in Sydney."

Coop shook his head. "Well that's just perfect for him, isn't it?"

Lacey nodded, her nose sniffling as the pressure of tears built again. "I suppose."

"How _old_ is this ... Jeremy."

It didn't even occur to Lacey to lie but she did drop her gaze, knowing how sensitive Coop was to age gaps. "Thirty-eight."

She could feel his disapproval bouncing off her downcast head. "Jesus, Lace ..." he rubbed his hands through his hair and she looked up in time for their gazes to meet and lock. "You have a daddy complex a mile wide, you know that right?"

Lacey opened her mouth to deny his attempts at amateur psychology but something stopped her. Maybe he was right. Maybe she _had_ been sub-consciously seeking out a father figure all along. Maybe that had been why she'd felt so instantly attracted to Coop.

"So, what happened then?" he asked eventually, the silence stretched to the limit between them. "After the wife turned up?"

"There was a lot of yelling and crying from both of us. I threw the bottle at him and then she told me to go, ' _just go_ ,' she said and she looked at me like ... like I was this home wrecker. Like I was beneath contempt. So I did. I just walked out."

"Why didn't you ring? I would have come and picked you up."

Lacey shook her head. "I didn't have my phone. I walked out without my bag and my jacket, I just ... left. I couldn't stand being there for another second. I was crying and shaking, in total shock. I had no idea where I was going or anything. I don't even think I realised it was raining or how cold it was until you dragged me inside just now."

Just thinking about the confrontation made Lacey want to cry all over again. "I feel like such an idiot," she said, feeling desperately fragile and craving the warmth of his arms around her but determined not to ask.

"Well it's over now, right?" he said, his voice gruff.

Lacey nodded but the finality of it all was depressing as hell. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, but it was growing bigger, choking her.

"I don't know what to do now," she said on a sob.

"No," Coop said, his voice brooking no argument as he wagged his finger in her face. "You do not cry over lousy, cheating scumbags, okay? Just no."

Lacey squeezed her eyes shut and nodded, his words bolstering her.

"Unless there's something more you're not telling me?"

He grasped her chin lightly between his thumb and forefinger and her lids fluttered open. She shook her head. "Nothing."

"Okay." His eyes searched her face for a bit longer but he seemed satisfied with her denial. "Now, you are going to bed, you are going to sleep. You're exhausted. And in the morning you can decide the rest. Okay?"

Lacey nodded. "Okay."

"Good." He helped her up and accompanied her into his bedroom. "I can sleep on the lounge, Coop," she protested as he pulled the sheets back. "It's not like I haven't done it before."

"Yeah well, the other times were self-inflicted and deserved the heinous torture of my awful couch. This one wasn't, so I'm being nice." He fluffed his pillow. "In," he ordered.

Lacey didn't protest. She sank onto the mattress and snuggled into the sheets. The aroma of Coop surrounded her and the urge to cry again at his kindness and the warm, solid familiarity of him gripped her throat hard.

"Night," he said as he turned to leave.

"Night," she returned, her eyes burning, her throat aching from holding back the well of emotion.

 *     *     *

Coop was still wide awake twenty minutes later when the sound of a soft sob floated towards him. What the hell? He'd thought she was asleep. He rolled over on the world's most uncomfortable couch trying to ignore it, but her crying yanked hard at invisible strings.

There were a helluva lot of tears for a guy she didn't even love. He sat up, swinging his feet onto the floor, his head in his hands, a battle waging on the inside.

Go to her. _Don't go to her._

Coop hauled his shirt off over his head, hot and bothered in the artificially warm environment, tossing it aside as he flopped back down annoyed at himself for his weakness and indecision. But a few minutes later he couldn't ignore it any longer. Lacey may have been a major pain in his butt but she was hurting and it didn't seem right to ignore that.

He wouldn't ignore an animal whimpering in pain, would he? He sure as shit couldn't ignore his best friend's sister alone and hurting not ten metres and a wall away.

And what Ethan didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Coop rose from the lounge, threw his shirt back on and stalked to his bedroom with determined strides, lecturing himself as he drew closer. He was an adult man in control of his body _and_ his impulses. She was a mess. _She was sobbing over another man for fuck's sake_. A lying, cheating scumbag who didn't deserve a single bloody tear.

Although he suspected Lacey was crying over a lot more than some lousy prick that had done her wrong. The death of ideals was often harder to bear.

He paused momentarily in his open doorway. He could just make out her outline on his bed with his night vision. Her back was to him, his spare pillow over her head, an arm anchoring it in place. He hesitated briefly again before letting compassion win out over common sense.

"Don't cry, Lacey," he murmured as he stopped beside the bed.

She pulled the pillow away and looked up at him with a wet face and swollen eyes and he wished, not for the first time, he had some superpower that allowed him to go back in time and fix bad shit before it happened.

They both could have done with a bit of that.

"I'm sorry," she said looking at him like her entire world had ended and it grabbed a big handful of his gut and squeezed hard.

He sighed. "Move over."

Thankfully she didn't question him or his motives, just wriggled over enough to admit him. Coop pulled back the covers and lay down beside her, putting out his arm in silent invitation. He braced himself as she took it, rolling on her side, moving closer, her head making a pillow out of his shoulder, her breasts and belly and thighs smooshing up against his side, her toes brushing his ankle, her upper hand sliding onto his ribs.

He didn't dare breathe as she settled against him, but his heart thudded like a gong in his chest and his body burned in carnal recognition. When she seemed comfortable he curled his arm up, his hand coming to rest on her bare shoulder. He swallowed as his palm prickled with heat and awareness.

"I—"

"Shh," he interrupted. He didn't want to lay here in the night and talk as if they shared a bed on a regular basis. He just wanted to get through this night with his sanity intact. "Go to sleep," he murmured.

"Th-thank you," she whispered on a hiccupy sob.

Coop stared at the ceiling as her body grew heavy and relaxed against his.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

Snuggled up in bed with a woman who should come with a flashing neon warning sign.

_Danger, danger, danger._

A woman whose body he knew intimately. Who he'd spent probably one of the most amazing nights of his life with. Who came to him in dreams so erotic, so vivid, he woke from them calling her name.

Who was his best friend's sister.

Who he could _never ever_ have.

Coop sighed, resigning himself to a night of staring at the ceiling. _After all, he wasn't any stranger to those_. But holding her close, all warm and pliant, the patter of rain on the high window above them and her soapy aroma winding around his senses, he knew he needed more than the ceiling to distract him from the slow burn of heat licking through his veins.

So he turned his mind to everything that had pissed him off about her since their first acquaintance—including her disappearing act. Cataloguing her litany of sins and pitting them against the slow simmer of lust invading every cell in his body helped. Even if he did understand why she'd been such a pain in the ass.

He understood she was pissed at the world. Pissed that her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Pissed that her mother had fought for two long, _awful_ years then lost the battle anyway. Pissed that her brothers had insisted she leave home so soon after. That she'd been appointed a _babysitter_. That she'd had to ask him for help.

He got it.

But it was time she grew up. Crap happened to people—he knew that better than anyone. And you were allowed to be sad about it and you most definitely were allowed to be pissed about it. But at some point, you had to get your shit together.

It was time for Lacey to get her shit together. And if he had to threaten her with getting her brothers involved he would.

It was that or putting her over his knee and spanking her. And he wasn't entirely sure if that would be a hardship.

For either of them.

## Chapter Three

 ‡

Lacey cracked open her bleary eyes to tiny slits, taking in an expanse of T-shirt covered chest, her hand resting on ribs exactly where she'd left it, and weak light filtering into the room. Her eyeballs felt swollen twice their size and like they'd been rolled in dirt. Her lashes were practically glued together and she shut them again, cringing at her naivety, as the events of last night returned.

Jeremy. Jeremy's _wife_. Yelling and tears and her cut hand. The rain. The cold.

And Cooper.

Calm. Patient. And always there for her.

Coming here last night had been the right thing to do. Even if she hadn't given any conscious thought to it. Coop seemed to be her true north when she was in trouble, and her internal compass had taken over.

She just wished she hadn't screwed up so badly—again. These last few years had seen her lurching from one disastrous relationship to another. Looking for God knew what.

Something. _Anything._

Anything to soothe the hard ball of grief that sat like a boulder in her gut.

Distraction. Diversion. Absorption.

But she chose too quickly, too unwisely; some would say too recklessly. Guys who wanted to party because they could. Because they were young and free. Like her.

And she'd had some good times. But still the sadness persisted.

And then Jeremy had come along and she'd felt ... _settled_. He was so different from the others. Tall and slender with wire-rimmed glasses, good looking in a scholarly kind of way. He'd given her something different. The partying stopped. She concentrated on her studies. She cooked for him. He cooked for her. They talked about world events and travel and politics. She'd _relished_ being part of a couple. Being with someone who thought she was special.

Maybe Coop was right. Maybe she did have a daddy complex. Maybe she _had been_ looking for someone to take care of her, because that's what all the men in her life had done until they'd pushed her out of the nest to fend for herself.

Lacey shut her eyes. _Gawd._ She sounded _pathetic_ and she hated herself. She felt stupid and it had to stop. If she wanted to be treated seriously by her brothers, to be _listened_ to, then she had to start showing them she could get her shit together.

She had to take control of her life, direct it, instead of letting it sweep her along.

And it had to start now. Today.

With Coop.

The white cotton of his shirt was soft against her cheek, the muscle pillowing her head was warm and solid, and the slow, steady thump of his heart beneath her ear was reassuring. He smelled like laundry detergent and whatever deodorant he used. Something unremarkable, knowing Coop. He didn't believe in fancy cologne or high-price aftershave.

No metrosexual trappings for him.

She glanced at the hard line of his jaw, covered with light stubble, then on to the ridge of his cheekbone and higher still to the pale white scar that started behind his ear and arced all the way to his temple, courtesy of a ricocheting bullet. It stood out easily through the blond spikes of his buzz cut.

Lacey felt sick just thinking about that scar and how close Coop had come to death. Surprisingly not from the head wound but from the second bullet that had hit him in the chest; it had taken a team of surgeons thirteen hours to fix that wound.

It made her want to cling to him even more. Her fingers itched to trace it. Her mouth tingled to kiss it better. Even though it had been healed for years now and she was _turning over a new leaf._

Now. Today. This moment.

It took every inch of Lacey's willpower to roll away from him, but she did. Turning on her side, turning her back on temptation, putting the devil behind her.

The last thing she expected was him to follow her over. But he did. His warm hand sliding over her belly as he pulled her in close to him, his lips at her neck, his thighs spooning hers.

_His giant erection pressing into the cheeks of her ass._

Lacey's breath caught in her throat and her heart thumped in her chest as she shut her eyes tight. _Un-freaking-believable_. She had to choose _this_ moment to turn over a new leaf? With the devil _really_ behind her?

Was he asleep?

She cracked open an eyelid. His breathing was deep and even, puffing warm air onto her neck, and his body felt slack against hers, his arm weighing a tonne.

Great ... What now? Lie here trying to resist temptation, trying not to shift or move no matter how badly she wanted to rub herself against him. Or get the hell out of bed?

She looked down at the dead weight of his arm. Maybe she could lift it up without waking him? Slip out of bed.

Her pulse quickening, Lacey slid her hand onto his forearm, lifting it slightly, but he stirred and she froze. He mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, "Lacey," and kissed her neck.

Her heart leapt at the warm press of his mouth and she turned her head to check he was _actually_ asleep. Whiskers tickled her lips and nose as the nearby pound of his pulse pushed against his throat. The smell of his soap swamped her senses.

He stirred again, his eyes fluttering open, staring at her. "Lacey?" His voice was groggy, disorientated and as deep and rough as a vat of hard liquor.

She held her breath, her stomach doing somersaults as his gaze roamed over her face.

" _Lacey."_

It was a groan this time, full and throaty, as his hand slid up her neck and tunnelled into her hair, his mouth seeking hers, latching on, angling his head and sucking her right in, plundering her mouth with a greed he wasn't bothering to check.

Lacey moaned, turning in his arms as his kiss sizzled through every one of her erogenous zones on a surge of hot lust, her pledge to start over temporarily lost in the heady carnal pull. Nothing else mattered beyond his mouth and the frantic beat of her heart.

But soon, as the desire swirled out of control, it wasn't enough and she slid her hand down. All the way down to the low-riding waistband of his trackpants and beyond, sliding inside to grasp all that steely hardness.

 *     *     *

Coop gasped as his cock bucked in Lacey's hand. A surge of molten heat set fire to muscles deep inside his belly, thighs and buttocks at the same time an icy-cold streak rippled through his chest and clamped tight around his heart.

_Christ_. What the fuck were they doing?

His hand stilled in her hair as he tore his mouth away. Her eyes fluttered open, looking at him in confusion as they both breathed hard.

"Coop?"

He shook his head as he dragged her hand out of his pants. Nothing south of his navel was happy with the outcome.

Not too many parts north of it were either.

"Sorry," he said, his voice sounding thick and strange. "Not doing this, Lacey."

He didn't know what the hell had happened but none of it changed the facts. She was still too young. Still _too_ Ethan's little sister. He'd messed up once with her already. He wasn't doing it again no matter how fucking incredible her hand felt on his cock.

"Yes ... sorry, you're right, of course." She stared at him for a beat or two more before falling back onto the mattress.

"Don't" he said, "I was the one who sleep groped you. It was my fault."

"Yes but ... I promised myself I wouldn't screw up like this again. That I'd be ... strong."

Coop sighed at the sadness and defeat in her voice. "What do you _want_ , Lacey?"

She didn't answer for a long time. "I want to go _home_."

He rolled his head to face her, his gaze eating up her perfect profile. A tear rolled out and trekked down the side of her face and he couldn't bear it.

"Okay. I'll take you."

 *     *     *

It was midday when they passed the giant sign in the shape of a woolly jumbuck, welcoming them to _sheep country_ , and bubbles of excitement fizzed in Lacey's veins. Five more minutes. _Almost home._

They'd been driving west for two hours now and in that time the landscape had slowly leached to brown as they'd left behind the greenness of the coastal fringe and the blue-green hills of the Great Dividing Range. Dry stubbly paddocks, with scraggy-looking sheep huddling in the shadows of occasional gum trees, heralded their arrival into the district.

The winter sun blazing down from the vast cloudless arc of blue overhead wasn't a very forgiving light. It hit the ground, emphasising every parched crack and fissure.

They needed rain.

Coop slowed his FJ Holden ute—the one he'd painstakingly restored to its former glory—as they entered the town limits and quickly navigated to the Weston house, pulling up outside.

Lacey looked at the house she'd lived in for eighteen years. It was one of many of its ilk in the small township of Jumbuck Springs. Built early in the last century, it was big and rambling, resting on stumps with a bullnose veranda that wrapped around the house, and a steeply pitched, tin roof.

Unlike many it had been well maintained, the paintwork fresh, the roof gleaming, the stairs sturdy. The front door was open as usual, although the screen door was firmly closed, and Lacey could see right down the central hallway to the back door that was open at the far end.

Pressure bloomed in her chest as a sense of coming home almost overwhelmed her.

"Are you sure about this?" Coop asked.

Lacey nodded. She'd never been surer of anything. She should have been stronger with her brothers earlier, made them see what _she_ wanted. Jumbuck Springs was home, _this house_ was her home and she was coming back whether they liked it or not.

Coop had helped her pack up her dorm room and everything was in the back of the FJ.

She was here to stay.

Lacey disembarked, determined to start her new life now she'd decided. The midday sun was warm on her skin and she pushed up the sleeves of her shirt. Winter only came at night to Jumbuck Springs.

"Shall I bring your stuff in?"

Lacey shook her head. "Not yet. Probably should say hello first."

Several vehicles were parked in the front yard. Ethan's sturdy, police four-wheel drive sat in the driveway. Behind it was Jarrod's ancient dual cab. Marcus's flashy electric blue ute with its distinctive _coach_ numberplate was parked under the shade of the old poinciana tree.

"Looks like the gang's all here," Lacey murmured as they made their way side by side down the cement path that led directly to the broad sweep of six stairs.

Coop nodded. "Nervous?"

She glanced at him. He was looking his usual assured self in a pair of worn jeans and a navy T-shirt that hugged his biceps, chest and belly. The butterflies in her stomach quit flapping their wings. Anything seemed possible with him here.

"Promise me you'll back me up," she said. "That you'll be on my side.

"Lacey." He gave her the kind of look that told her he didn't want to get involved in family matters. But it was too late. He was involved. Ethan had involved him whether Coop liked it or not.

"They'll railroad me if they can and you know it. They'll start talking about Mum and guilt me into it the way they always do and I _need_ to come home again, Coop. Not forever. But for now. Please?"

He sighed. "Fine, I promise."

"Thank you," she smiled. "And hey, just think what it'll mean for you with me back home again. You won't be called on to get me out of any more jams. Your responsibility will be absolved. No more pain-in-the-ass Lacey stuff to deal with."

He shook his head. "I didn't mind."

"Well now I know you're lying, but thanks anyway."

She didn't deserve his graciousness but she'd take it right now, along with anything else that bolstered her for the confrontation she knew was to come.

They mounted the steps and walked straight inside—no need to knock at the Weston's house—down the hallway, past bedrooms and the bathroom and lounge room and into the kitchen where the hallway terminated. Everyone was sitting around a huge dining table groaning with food.

Connie, Ethan's almost-thirteen-year-old daughter, was the first to spot them. "Lacey," she squealed, pushing her chair back along the floorboards with a noisy scrape and practically levitating across to her, her pigtails flying as she flung her arms around Lacey's waist.

Technically, Lacey was Connie's aunt, but she'd been eight when Connie was born and Lacey had always just been Lacey.

"Hey," Ethan said, standing with a delighted smile, striding over to welcome them too. "Look at you little sister. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Can't a girl come home for lunch as a surprise every now and then?" Lacey smiled and tried not to feel guilty at her delaying tactics—there was plenty of time to get into it and it felt good to be hugged by her big brother. At six-four he was a good foot taller than her and a couple inches taller than Coop, who he greeted with equal enthusiasm.

Jarrod and Marcus were next. Jarrod, with his ginger hair inherited from their mother, was pleased to see her in that usual quiet, reserved way of his, which totally belied the adage about the tempestuous nature of redheads. Marcus, ever the larrikin, tugged on her ponytail then wrapped her up in a big bear hug until her feet left the floor. He swung her around, much to Connie's delight. "Good to see ya, Lace."

When he finally put her down, Lacey smiled at JJ, who was waiting patiently for her turn. "Hey JJ," Lacey said, "I didn't see your car."

Jemima Jane Ericson was one of Ethan's closest pals. She'd been in Ethan's year at school and had grown up on the same street. The three Weston boys and JJ had been a little gang of four, inseparable as kids. For as long as Lacey could remember, JJ had just always been there. Like a big sister to Lacey in many ways, and a surrogate mother to Connie whose own mother had been largely absent from her life.

"I walked from the pub."

"Slow day?" JJ owned and ran The Stockman, one of two pubs in Jumbuck Springs. The pub had been in the family for several generations; her parents had handed the reins to her when they'd retired to the golden beaches of Noosa a few years ago.

"The staffcan handle it for a few hours."

"Well come on then," Ethan said, "Grab a plate and pull up a chair, plenty of roast lamb for everyone."

Lacey didn't need to be told twice. She was ravenous, having skipped breakfast due to nerves, and the Sunday lamb roast was a tradition in the Weston household. Her mother had cooked one every Sunday, almost right up 'til the end, and the remaining Westons had kept the tradition alive.

These days it was Connie and one of the Weston men who cooked it, depending on who was around. With a police officer, a fireman and a paramedic in the family, work often dictated their lives. Lacey was lucky to have struck a rare Sunday when they were all home.

Or potentially _un_ lucky ...

But it was good sitting at the table with her family again, talking and laughing. Connie led the conversation as she usually did with her lively chatter. The meal sped by as Lacey found out all about the school and the choir and about a new boy called Billy who was apparently _insufferable_ because he beat her in the spelling bee and that was simply _unforgivable_.

Didn't he know that _she_ was the smartest kid in the class? And what was the point of boys anyway?

JJ winked at Lacey, but Lacey kept a very straight face as she commiserated with her niece about how terrible boys were while pointing out that her father and uncles were boys so perhaps they weren't _all_ terrible.

She refrained from telling Connie that she _would_ see the point of boys before too much longer and how much fun that was going to be. She suspected Ethan _and_ Jarrod and Marcus were perfectly fine with her not seeing the point in boys. Forever probably.

Lucky Connie had her. And now she'd be around to provide a little balance again.

As soon as lunch was done Connie asked to be excused so she could go play with some friends down the street, which left the adults to enjoy each other's company and some topics that weren't suitable for younger ears. They caught Lacey up on stories of the town and the district and what the latest scandal was, because there was always some scandal or other keeping everyone titillated.

Lacey revelled in it all, wanting to know everything, lapping up this happy family moment before the shit hit the fan. Everyone was just so relaxed and she'd _missed_ this.

Sure she came home during college breaks, but it was different. Knowing she was always going back again had lent such a temporary air to it all. Like the town's goings-on were separate to her. But not today. Today was the day she came back home to stay, and what was happening in Jumbuck Springs was part of the fabric of her life again.

Finally, the conversation swung around to her as Lacey knew it would.

"What about you Lace? How's design school? You won one of those fancy fashion awards yet?" Marcus teased.

Lacey knew this was her opening. She glanced at Coop. His hand was resting on the back of her chair and she felt the sudden soothing stroke of his fingers between her shoulder blades.

"Actually, I kinda wanted to talk about that."

## Chapter Four

 ‡

"So not just a surprise drop in, then?" Marcus said.

Coop's fingers kept up their steady caress. "My bags are in the car. I'm not going back."

Ethan folded his arms. "The hell you aren't."

"Lacey." Jarrod shook his head gently at her, patience personified. "We go through this every time you come home."

"And every time you go back to Brisbane," Marcus chimed in, clearly unconcerned about Lacey's latest attempt to return to Jumbuck Springs.

"Yes," she acknowledged. "Because every time you throw our dead mother at me like a missile and I give in. But not this time."

Ethan cocked an eyebrow at Coop. "You encouraged this?"

Lacey frowned as Coop's caress halted. What the hell? "No," she jumped in. "He didn't."

"He has your bags in his car doesn't he?"

Lacey opened her mouth to defend Coop again but he got in before her. "Maybe it's time you all listened to what your sister wants."

"She wants college," Ethan said. "She _always_ wanted college. She wants her own fashion label for which she _needs_ college. College that our mother, who raised four kids on a _widow's_ pension, paid into a _fund_ so Lacey could go off and do this and it's her last year and she's not quitting now."

"I'm not quitting," Lacey said, keeping calm in the face of opposition instead of flying off the handle into girly hysterics. That hadn't gotten her anywhere in the past and she had to remember that her brothers felt a huge responsibility towards her. She'd been two when her father died and they'd all stepped up to be the good, exemplary male role models their mother had demanded they be for her.

It was hard for them to accept that she was all grown up.

"I'm going to defer for the rest of this year and next year and recommence the following year."

"No."

Ethan's voice brooked no argument. Lacey took a breath. "You can't stop me." She was so proud of how calmly it came out.

"You wanna bet?" Marcus said.

Lacey sighed. "What are you going to do, Marcus? Are you going to physically stay with me twenty-four-seven and drag me to every class?"

"No, but Coop will," he said.

Lacey glanced at Coop who looked like he'd rather take another bullet to the chest. Coop caught in the middle of all her crap again. "He's not my damn babysitter," Lacey snapped, her patience just about run out, "And he's not at your beck and call. He has his own life."

"Lacey," Jarrod said, "we promised Mum you'd go to college. That you'd finish. On her _deathbed_. You know that. She knew how much you wanted to go to that college and she knew you'd refuse to go after she died, so she made each of us promise _out loud_ that you'd see it through."

God, here it came. The deathbed guilt trip. She remembered it well, her mother sending her out of the room that last day so she could talk to her sons. She understood the effect that had on her brothers. _She did_. And she understood why her mother had done it, but she'd been wrong and Lacey wasn't going to let her brothers emotionally blackmail her anymore.

_Do it for Mum  ... Mum wanted this ... Mum believed in you ... Mum was so proud of you._

"None of you asked me what _I_ wanted."

"You wanted _this,_ " Ethan said, exasperated.

Tears stung Lacey's eyes. "Not right after my _mother_ had died, I didn't," she implored, looking at her brothers, trying to make them see. "I wanted time with my family and people who knew and loved me. Who knew and loved _her_. I wanted to be here in this place that _she_ loved _so_ much. Where every street holds a memory."

A tear escaped and trekked down her cheek and she dashed it away, angry at herself for getting upset. She promised herself she wouldn't do this, she wouldn't cry.

"Where people would know what I'd been through and would stop and ask me how I was doing and hug me and tell me a story about my _mother_. Tell me how great she was and how much they missed her. Missed her like _I_ did. I just needed time to grieve amongst people who understood, who loved Mum too. I needed my _brothers_."

All Lacey's old anger and unresolved grief bubbled to the surface and lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her.

"Oh quit it, Lace ..." Marcus said, squirming in his chair. "You know we're shit at that kind of thing."

As a paramedic, Marcus was exceptionally good at _that kind of thing_ but when it came to his emotional needs, to his family's ... not so much.

"Mum warned us you'd ask for time," Jarrod said. "But she was worried you wouldn't go at all if you didn't go straight away. She didn't want us to be swayed."

"Well she was wrong," Lacey muttered feeling shitty and disrespectful to be talking this way about her much-adored mother who'd known her daughter so well and had only had her best interests at heart.

But Elizabeth Weston _had_ got it wrong.

" _Of course_ I would have gone. I just wanted to grieve first. I just needed a year. Was that really too much to ask for? I needed that year to be sad but none of you would listen."

"Okay fine," Ethan said, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "We're sorry, okay. We're sorry we let you down when you needed us to be there for you. We thought we were doing the right thing."

Ethan's apology was unexpected but she believed him. She believed that he and Marcus and Jarrod had done what they thought was right even if they had been completely one-eyed about it. "But, there's nothing we can do about that now, is there?"

"Yes there is," Lacey said gently. "I'm coming back home and you could all be happy for me."

"Lacey," Jarrod placated again. "Surely it can wait another six months?"

"No. I'm done. I feel like ..." Lacey thought about how much she'd screwed up these last few years. How she'd felt like she didn't belong or wasn't connected to anything. Not her studies or her friends or any of the guys she'd been with, apart from recently with Jeremy.

And Coop. Of course.

She knew she couldn't keep going on like this. She needed an anchor. Jumbuck Springs was her anchor.

"I feel like I'm falling apart. I need to get my head right."

"Jarrod's right, you have six months and then you're done," Marcus said. "You can _get your head right_ then. It doesn't make any sense to quit now."

Lacey gritted her teeth. _She wasn't quitting_. "It makes perfect sense to me."

Ethan shook his head in that chief-of-police-head-of-the-family way he had as he set his jaw. _Uh oh_. "The only way you're coming home is if you've graduated, you're dying or you're pregnant."

Lacey gaped at her older brother. He _had_ to be kidding.

The serious set to his face told her he wasn't. She'd forgotten how damn infuriatingly stubborn the man could be. Particularly about this promise he'd made to their mother. She glanced at Marcus and Jarrod, who seemed equally determined.

Her brain scrambled as rage spiked her pulse and flared her nostrils. Her promise to be calm disappearing in a haze of red. How freaking _dare_ they dictate to her!

_Screw_ them.

This was the twenty-first century for fuck's sake. But Ethan _had_ given her an out and it served them all right that she was going to take it and to hell with the consequences.

"Okay ... fine ..." she said, her heart tripping as the lie formed remarkably easily in her head. "I wasn't going to tell you this just yet, because I know how much you'll freak out but ..." she glanced at her hands, she couldn't look at them while she lied. "I _am_ pregnant."

Coop's eyes widened in her peripheral vision as a chair crashed to the floor. " _What?_ " Marcus gaped, full of big brother indignation.

Lacey switched from Coop's alarmed gaze to JJ's. The other woman had been quiet, well used to Weston family disputes playing out over the dinner table, but she narrowed her eyes slightly. Her searching stare lasered straight into Lacey's brain and she looked away from its intensity to face her brothers.

All three of them were gaping at her, a variety of emotions flitting across their shocked faces. Disbelief from Jarrod. Affront from Marcus. White-knuckled anger from Ethan.

Panic surfaced. _Crap!_ She should take it back. She should take it back right now. She could do that. She could walk this back before any more damage was done.

"Lacey ... no ..." Jarrod muttered, clearly gutted by her revelation as he ran a hand through his wavy red-gold hair.

Guilt bit hard at her conscience. Jarrod's disappointment was difficult to take. As a kid it was Jarrod she'd always sought out for good, considered, non-judgemental advice. He'd been her confidant. Ethan had been the one she'd always sought to impress, and she'd been Marcus's little buckaroo going to footy games with him and up for any of his daring adventures; but Jarrod had been her touchstone.

Lacey couldn't bear him looking at her like she'd betrayed him somehow and she opened her mouth to retract.

"Since when the fuck have you been having sex?"

It was Lacey's turn to gape as Marcus's angry interjection stopped dead any retraction she was about to make. Was he freaking serious? Did Marcus actually think she was going to stay a bloody virgin forever?

She wasn't his little buckaroo anymore.

She stood, damned if she was going to let him tower over her. "Jesus. I'm _twenty-one_ , Marcus."

This was her fault. She'd let them dictate her life too long, happy to be the apple of their collective eyes. To know her big brothers had her back, that they loved and supported her unconditionally.

And this ... _infantilising_ was the flipside.

"I drink and I say _fuck_ and I stay out late on a school night and I've smoked a joint and skipped classes and flunked an exam or two and yes ... I've had sex. Lots of sex."

Stunned silence followed. Obviously none of her brothers knew what to say to any of her revelations. She glanced at Coop who was also looking at her like she'd lost her mind.

"How far along?" Jarrod asked quietly.

"Just," Lacey muttered, thinking on her feet, answering on autopilot as she dragged her gaze off Coop to look at her brother.

"Who's the father?" Ethan asked, standing now too.

Lacey blinked. "What?" Trust Ethan to cut straight to the point. "Does it matter?"

"Oh hell yeah," Marcus said, glaring at her.

"Why? What are you going to do? Beat him up?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of castration," he said and looked like he could perform said castration with his bare hands right this moment.

"You can't be serious?" she gasped.

" _Who?_ " Ethan insisted.

"None of your goddamn business," she snapped.

"Lacey ..." Jarrod's voice was full of reproach as he also got to his feet. "This is serious."

Lacey swallowed. "You think I don't know that?"

"He has certain responsibilities," Jarrod said, calm and collected.

"What? You're going to force him to marry me?"

Marcus nodded. "You bet."

"Of for fuck's sake," Lacey snapped, switching attention to Marcus. "This isn't Victorian England. My honour hasn't been besmirched, and you're all acting like Neanderthals."

"It's something to consider," Ethan said, his face tight.

It was true Lacey hadn't thought any of this through when she opened her mouth and blatantly lied but she'd have never thought her brothers could act like such _cavemen_. This was taking their whole over-protective thing too far.

"You're joking right?"

"You think it's _easy_ being a single parent, Lacey?"

Lacey swallowed as Ethan's face went from tight to grim. If anyone knew about the hardships and pitfalls of being a single parent it was Ethan.

"There's financial support issues," Jarrod pointed out, "and all kinds of forward planning. If you're going to do this then we all need to sit down with the father and have an adult conversation with him about how this is going to work. We need to know that you'll be taken care of."

"I can take care of myself," she insisted.

"Getting _pregnant_ is you taking care of yourself?" Ethan demanded.

Marcus folded his arms. "Quit holding out on us, Lace and spill."

Lacey held her ground. She'd forgotten how formidable her brothers could be when they stood together. She glanced at JJ whose gaze clearly said _your bed_.

"For God's sake, Lacey," Ethan said shoving a hand through his hair. "You can't waltz in here and calmly tell us you're pregnant and not expect us to want to know about the man who's going to be in this kid's life, in _our lives_ , for the rest of time. You want our support? Then you'd better start answering some questions."

All three men were looking at her with implacable expressions as they waited for her to answer.

Lacey bowed her head as she quickly sorted through her fake-baby-daddy options. Not Jeremy. Yes he was a total shit but she had no intention of embroiling him in this debacle. So, some made-up guy that she could be vague about? That could work.

She glanced at Coop, feeling completely overwhelmed by all the testosterone in the room. Their gazes locked. His seemed to say w _ell this a fine mess you've gotten yourself into this time_ and she couldn't have agreed more.

But she could also feel his support, sitting beside her like this, the only bastion of testosterone in the room still in her corner, and that gave her strength. Resolve to tell her bonehead brothers to back off.

"I'm not answering your questions," she said, eyeing each one in turn, "like I'm on ... trial. How about, as my brothers, you just support me _regardless_. I'm pretty damn sure Mum would have wanted you to do that."

 *     *     *

Coop glanced around at the unhappy little gathering as a fraught silence descended. It seemed like none of the Weston brothers liked being called on their bullshit or having their mother used against them for a change. Still, he didn't understand why Lacey didn't just admit she'd been impulsive and retract her statement?

Unless ... he glanced at her as the same sense of foreboding he'd felt last night when he'd woken to her knock returned. What if she _was_ pregnant? Was that the real reason she'd been in such a state last night? He thought back to when she'd said she couldn't stomach breakfast in a whole new light.

Had she been crying so hard last night because she _was_ pregnant to that lying, cheating scumbag?

_Crap._ He needed to talk to her. To get to the bottom of this.

To get to Jeremy before Marcus got out his shotgun.

_Crap. Crap. Crap._

"Who is it?" Ethan asked again, his voice low and ominous and Coop knew none of them were going to stop badgering her until she confessed.

The scraping of a chair against the floor boards was loud in the tense silence. Coop was surprised to find it was his, that he was on his feet, that every head had swivelled in his direction.

"It's me," Coop heard himself say as he slid his hand onto Lacey's waist. "I'm the father."

There was stunned silence as Lacey tensed in his hold. "Coop," she murmured, "no ..."

He squeezed her hip reassuringly. Sure, he'd acted on impulse but the last thing he needed was for Lacey to mess it up. It was about to get messy enough. But if she really was pregnant to that Jeremy prick then Coop knew he was a far better option right now. At least until he could get to the bottom of it all.

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?" Ethan demanded, his voice an ominous growl as his eyes shot daggers in Coop's direction. "You've been _sleeping_ with my little sister?"

Lacey shifted in his hold but Coop kept a firm hand on her waist. "I'm sorry man, it just happened."

And at least that was the truth.

Ethan shook his head. "I asked you," he yelled, stabbing the table with his index finger as Lacey tensed, "to look out for her."

"Ethan," JJ said, also now standing, placing a hand on his arm again.

But Ethan shook her off and stalked towards him, and Coop braced for what he knew was to come. He let go of Lacey and met Ethan half way. "You think because someone shot you in the head that I'm not going to punch you in the face?" Ethan demanded.

"Nope," Coop admitted. "I don't think that at all." In fact he expected it.

"Ethan," Jarrod said, a warning in his voice as he and Marcus moved to avert what was coming.

"It's not a good look, Eth, for the chief of police to be punching people in the face," Marcus said as he and Jarrod each put a restraining hand on Ethan's shoulders.

"He's right Ethan," JJ murmured.

"Of course I am," Marcus nodded. "But there's absolutely no reason why I can't."

Coop stood his ground as Marcus pulled back his fist. When it landed on his jaw the crack wiped out the noise of Lacey's horrified gasp.

His head snapped back and Coop went down.

## Chapter Five

 ‡

Pain exploded along Coop's jaw and stars swam behind his closed eyes as he hit the floorboards.

Lacey's horrified, " _Marcus!"_ floated down to him, then she was on her knees beside him, one hand on his chest, the other on his forehead. "Coop? _Coop!_ Are you okay? Can you open your eyes?"

Coop wasn't sure. He was struggling to remember his own name at the moment. " _Coop!_ "

The urgency in her voice yanked at his gut and he concentrated really hard on prising open his eyelids. And there was her beautiful face, all concerned and tear stained, hovering over the top of his, her ponytail falling forward over her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispered through her tears, kissing his forehead and his cheeks and mouth. Briefly, ever so briefly, but still pretty damn cataclysmic to his system.

It had almost been worth it just for that.

_Bloody hell._ He must have hit his head as well. He had to be concussed to be thinking such ridiculous thoughts about chaste kisses in front of her family. Her _pissed off_ family. Especially compared to this morning's deep, wet, hungry kisses with a side of cock fondling.

"Marcus!" Lacey's head turned as she looked up at her brother, the tip of her ponytail brushing her face. "You ... _Neanderthal._ What the hell?"

"It's fine, Lacey," Coop said, his head clearing as he gently fingered his jaw. "I deserved it."

"Damn straight you did, asshole," Ethan said glowering down at him. Coop took a little comfort from the fact Marcus was nursing his hand.

"Okay, okay," JJ said, her face appearing over the top of him too as she elbowed Ethan aside. "Show's over. Can you get up?"

JJ was matter-of-fact. Clearly she'd dealt with a lot of fights in her role as publican. Coop grunted. "Yes." Even though he wasn't really sure he could.

Lacey fussed around trying to help. Jarrod offered a hand, which he ignored. He raised himself up on his elbow and shut his eyes against a momentary greying of his vision.

"C'mon man, don't be stupid," Jarrod said, grasping Coop's forearm.

Coop knocked it aside and with supreme effort he stood. His vision greyed again for a moment as he finally stood upright, leaning heavily against Lacey, who just happened to be beside him. She was warm and soft and sweet and smelled like his soap and shampoo.

And his shirt.

He thought about this morning again. Her mouth. Her hand.

Things stirred. He clamped down on them. It was completely inappropriate to be thinking of such things in this situation.

Maybe he really was concussed.

He opened his eyes to find Ethan still glowering, Marcus looking pissed and Jarrod eyeing him carefully before reaching into the nearby freezer for a packet of frozen peas and handing them over.

"Thanks," Coop said, taking the bag and applying it to his throbbing jaw.

"Was there some particular reason you were just sitting there and saying nothing instead of having the balls to come right out and tell us when you first got here?" Ethan demanded.

Coop had to admit that was a fair question that he didn't really have a good answer to when he'd impulsively backed Lacey up, but that was okay because she was one step ahead of him.

" _I_ begged him not to," Lacey said, standing in front of him trying to protect him from her brothers. "I wanted to handle it my way and have a nice family meal before we got into the ... unpleasantries."

Marcus snorted. "Unpleasantries? Well now isn't that a nice euphemism for knocked up."

"Hey!" Lacey said and Coop couldn't stand the little tremor of hurt he could hear in it.

"That's enough," he growled.

He'd been prepared to take the punch but he was done taking any more Weston brother shit. "We get it, you're pissed. And you're right, I shouldn't have let Lacey talk me out of manning up and coming straight out with it. But being insulting isn't going to solve anything."

"She's _thirteen years_ younger than you," Ethan yelled. "I _trusted_ you with her."

"Oh for God's sake," Lacey snapped. "Stop acting like I was some innocent in all this. He didn't seduce me. _I_ seduced him. I can be pretty damn persuasive when I want to be you know."

Coop cringed as Ethan, Marcus and Jarrod looked like they needed a can of industrial strength brain bleach.

"Come on, man," Coop said, looking at the guy who had been his best friend for close to sixteen years. It hurt to talk but the frozen peas had at least started to numb the pain in his jaw. "You know I'm going to support her."

" _Fucking A_ you are," Marcus said. "You're going to marry her."

Coop nodded without hesitation. He hadn't expected anything less from the Weston brothers and it wasn't like any of it was real anyway. "Of course I will."

Lacey swivelled her head to look at him, her expression stunned. For the first time since they'd met he'd actually managed to shock her. Considering she'd been shocking him for a couple of years now it was probably about time.

"What? No!" She turned back to glare at Marcus. " _No._ You hear me?" She stepped away from him and Coop supressed the urge to haul her back by his side. "Everyone just settle down now." She looked at each of her brother's in turn. "Nobody's marrying anybody. This isn't the freaking Wild West. You can all just put away your shotguns."

Coop looked at the mutinous expressions on the faces of the Weston brothers. Even Jarrod who had seemed the least aggressive was clearly measuring him up and finding him wanting right now. There was only one thing that was going to satisfy them. As far as they were concerned he'd knocked up their sister and that made him responsible.

Even though he hadn't.

But _they_ didn't know that. So for now he was going to have to keep up the pretence and do what he would have done if this baby really was his. The thought of it hit him suddenly in the chest.

A baby. With Lacey.

Worse things had happened to him.

"They're right Lacey," Coop said, his jaw completely numb now from the cold. "It's the honourable thing to do."

She turned to face him. Her eyes telling him in no uncertain terms that they'd all lost their minds. "We will talk about this later. _Privately_."

Well she had that right at least. She'd be explaining why the hell she felt the need to keep the most important part of her breakdown last night to herself. If he'd known, they could have already dealt with it prior to coming here today and saved a lot of this aggravation.

"Well I don't know where," Ethan said, his voice hard, "because Coop's sure as shit not welcome in this house anymore."

"What?" Lacey spluttered. "Don't be ridiculous."

Ethan folded his arms. "I don't trust him around you."

Coop took a deep breath and reminded himself that Ethan had just been dealt a huge whammy that he clearly didn't know how to deal with and he didn't mean what he'd just said. Because Ethan had always had Coop's back. And Coop his.

Which was precisely how he came to be here in the middle of this predicament today.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Ethan," she yelled. "He can't get me any more pregnant. This is my house too and if he's not welcome here, then I'm not staying either."

"That's fine by me," Ethan snapped.

Coop glanced at JJ, who appeared unconcerned by the raging argument. She seemed happy to just wait it out like she knew it would eventually run out of steam. Coop hoped so but right now it looked like Ethan was determined to be difficult, so he said the one thing he knew would goad Ethan into changing his mind. "Don't worry, Lacey. I'll take you back to Brisbane with me."

"The hell you will," Ethan said, "you're not taking her anywhere and if you think you're going to skip out on her by going back to Brisbane then you can think again. You got her in this state? You're going to be here with her every step of the way, _mate_."

"Old man Campbell at the auto-repair shop reckons his wife's been bitching about taking their caravan away for a holiday for the last ten years," Jarrod said. "Reckon he'd be happy to go if we vouched for Coop."

Marcus nodded. "Perfect," then pulled out his cell and dialled a number, his eyes never leaving Coop's face. "Alec, its Marcus Weston. I've found you a mechanic who can cover for you while you and your lovely wife take that holiday." There was silence for a moment before Marcus said, "Oh, Coop can do it ASAP, Alec."

The phone was handed over to Coop. Alec Campbell's delight was evident and Coop found himself agreeing to cover for the man for two weeks. He set up a meeting with him tomorrow before handing the phone back to Marcus.

It appeared, regardless of how the Lacey situation played out, he was stuck doing a spot of auto repair in Jumbuck Springs for the immediate future. Apparently this was going to score Alec major bonus points with the wife.

So now the state of the Campbell's marriage also depended on him.

Luckily he owned his own business and could take off at the drop of a hat.

"You can have one of the rooms at the pub until ... other arrangements can be made," JJ said, finally entering the fray.

"And I'll go with you," Lacey announced.

Coop schooled himself to not show the alarm that slid through his system at Lacey's announcement. Living with her was not high on his must-do list. The degree of temptation alone—pregnant or not—was enough to bring him out in a sweat.

But it would all be moot soon enough. It was a ... storm in a teacup. They'd all look back on this in years to come and laugh.

Probably ...

If the Weston brothers didn't take him out in the middle of the night, murder him, then bury him deep in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range.

Marcus folded his arms. "No way."

Lacey stepped back until she was by his side, her hip and her thigh rubbing his. Coop's belly stirred at the close contact. "I go where he goes," she said staring her brother down.

"I thought you wanted to come home?" Jarrod murmured.

She shrugged. "I'm in Jumbuck Springs. That's enough for now."

Ethan shook his head. "We should have spoilt you less and spanked you more as a kid."

"Okey dokey," JJ said. "I really don't think anything more is being gained here. I'm going to take Lacey and Coop back to the pub and get them settled and then when _everyone,"_ she looked at the three Weston brothers, "has calmed down a little, you can all have a civilised discussion."

Coop nodded. It suited him just fine. The situation was ridiculously tense and he needed to get Lacey alone.

"Thank you, JJ," Lacey said. "At least someone around here is acting their age."

JJ folded her arms in a way Coop suspected few people messed with. "Don't think spanking you hasn't crossed my mind either." Her voice was tinder dry, like the landscape they'd passed on the way into Jumbuck Springs. She pointed to the doorway. "Let's go."

A contrite Lacey did exactly as she was told, not bothering with the usual effusive goodbyes. She was smart enough to know there weren't going to be any of those today.

Coop lagged behind, glancing at Ethan. His friend was shocked and angry. But was the prospect of his best friend and his sister really _that_ repugnant? Ethan knew the kind of man Coop was. He ought to know that he'd treat Lacey with respect.

There were a lot worse guys out there.

"Is it really that bad, Ethan? Me and Lacey? Am I that fucking _un_ worthy?"

Ethan rubbed his hand over his jaw in defeat. "Shit man ... you were supposed to be looking out for her."

Yeah ... Coop nodded. Ethan had him there.

He turned and followed JJ and Lacey out the door.

 *     *     *

It was another twenty minutes before he was able to get Lacey alone. JJ rode back to the pub with them and during which only very awkward small talk was made. They were careful not to rehash any of what had just transpired, steering clear of the elephant in the car.

Lacey ran into two people in the bar that she knew and introductions were made, delaying them further. It took a full ten minutes to extricate themselves from that and then JJ was all brisk and businesslike as she showed them to their room, prattling on about poor occupancy rates and giving them the large family room at the back.

The Stockman was typical of all pubs in country towns—a big, old, two-storey monstrosity. Pub downstairs, accommodation upstairs. A huge veranda ran the entire length of the upstairs façade. An overhanging tin roof provided shade, while intricate iron lace work on the railing provided a touch of fancy to an otherwise very functional looking building.

By the time Coop and Lacey had emptied her stuff from his car, including her precious sewing machine, and dumped it in their room—number five—they were finally alone. He kicked the door shut after him, placing her two suitcases on the single bed, avoiding the double altogether.

The room was spacious. Along with the two beds there was an open kitchen area with a round table and four chairs. The middle of the room had been fashioned into a lounge area with use of a big three-seater couch that probably doubled as a pull-out bed and a coffee table facing the reasonably modern television hanging on the wall. A large bathroom opened out behind him.

It wasn't five star but it was clean and well appointed. He'd stayed in worse places on his travels. It'd do for two weeks.

Lacey had taken her ponytail out and her dark hair hung in long loose waves around her face and shoulders as she stood in the kitchen, pouring hot water into two mugs. It was all glossy and shiny and he was constantly amazed at how it transformed her.

Goodbye Lacey the little sister.

Hello _Tracey_ the woman.

He remembered how good it felt brushing his chest and shoulders and sliding through his fingers. How silky it had been as he'd twisted his hands in it when she'd gone down on him that first night. How it had smelled like flowers as he'd buried his face in it as he'd drifted off to sleep.

Her hair gave him a hard-on for Christ sakes.

For a crazy moment he even let himself think about living with her here in this room, her hair always down, her clothes always off.

He cleared his throat as much for his benefit as for hers. "Well now," he said, raising an eyebrow as he shoved his hands on his hips. "This is all a bit of a mess, isn't it?"

The throb in his jaw was a solid reminder of just how much. Had she really thought through the implications of having a baby with a man who had another family?

Her shoulders sagged as she raised her gaze to meet his. "I'm so sorry, Coop. I shouldn't have just blurted that out, but they just made me so angry."

Coop didn't doubt it. Lacey was easily riled but she could definitely have handled the bombshell better. "Why on earth didn't you tell me you were pregnant before we went in there?"

How on earth did she even let it _happen_ in the first place? In this day and age of cheap and accessible contraception? But that was a question for later. And kind of moot anyway.

"I could have at least been prepared. _I_ could have gone and seen Jeremy with you and we could have had all this stuff ironed out before coming here today. This whole thing could have been approached much differently. Much _better_."

Lacey frowned. "Oh no. I don't—"

"Oh come on, Lacey, you don't think it could have been handled better?"

"Coop I—"

"It's fine though," he said. "I'm sure we can undo some of the damage. We just need a plan."

Coop was big on plans. As a cop he'd been used to planning operations down to the last contingency. And, in his thriving car restoration business, a comprehensive plan of attack was needed for every vehicle.

She picked up the mugs and brought them over to where he stood. "Take a breath, Coop. I'm not pregnant." She passed him his drink. "I lied."

In retrospect Coop shouldn't have been surprised. She had, after all, lied to him in a fairly significant way from the very beginning and had played fast and loose with the truth on and off over the time he'd known her. But somehow he still was.

Lying about her age paled into comparison to lying about being pregnant.

A surge of relief warred with the urge to strangle her and he counted off three breaths before he spoke. "What. The. Ever-loving. Fuck?"

"I know," she sighed, sitting on the nearby three-seater couch. "I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry." She looked up at him. "I didn't plan on faking a pregnancy, really I didn't, but then Ethan laid down those stupid conditions and I thought well screw them, serve them right if I was pregnant and then suddenly it seemed like a good solution and it just tumbled out and then everyone stopped talking about me leaving and it was already out there and ..."

Her voice trailed off as her eyes pleaded with him to understand how what had seemed like a good idea at the time had turned into something bigger than the Great Dividing Range. And he did understand Lacey and her impulsive ways. But this? He'd stepped up for her because he'd genuinely believed she _was_ pregnant.

"I backed you up," he said, his grip tightening on his mug. "Marcus _punched_ me."

"I never asked you to do that, Coop."

True. That had all been on him. "You asked me to be on your side."

"Not by becoming the _fake_ father to my _fake_ baby!"

Coop snorted, his anger simmering. Her gratitude was overwhelming. "Oh and how do you think your thirty-eight-year-old, married-with-two-kids lover was going to go over with your brothers? Believe me, I was the lesser of those two evils."

"Except I'm not pregnant," she snapped.

"Yeah. But I didn't _know_ that did I?" he said, teeth gritted.

"How was I supposed to know you were going to support my crazy?"

The simmer hit a boil as Coop stared down at her. " _Really_?" he yelled. "You have to ask that? When haven't I supported you, Lacey? When haven't I had your back?"

 *     *     *

Lacey blinked as Coop's bitter words rained down on her like a shower of hot sparks. He _had_ supported her every time she'd asked him to. Unfailingly. Him jumping into the fire with her should hardly have been surprising.

She took a breath. After all, he'd just been reacting to her reaction. Neither of them had put a whole lot of thought into it but Coop had gone above and beyond as usual.

"You're right, I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't even thank you." She lifted her hand and slipped it into his. "Thank you. What you did was ... amazing. It was above and beyond and I'm sorry that my lie put you in such an awkward position with Ethan."

He got that brooding look she often saw on his face when he was in the middle of pulling her out of a scrape. Like he was trying to assess her sincerity. Or her need to be spanked.

Or kissed.

He let go of her hand as he sat beside her with a resigned sigh a moment or two later. There was a cushion's distance between them but the usual wild ovarian flutter that kicked in whenever he was near did its thing.

"I have to say, I'm relieved you're not pregnant," he said.

Lacey smiled for the first time since she'd dropped her bombshell at lunch. "Same here."

He sipped his coffee and didn't say anything for a while, but Lacey knew what he was doing. She could practically hear the cogs turning in his brain as he mulled through _her_ problem.

"Okay," he said eventually. "So, this isn't _that_ bad. We can walk this back. We can go over there later tonight ... the morning's probably better actually ... and just tell them the truth. Trust me, the fact that you're _not_ pregnant will go a long way towards helping your brothers forget all about the collective heart attack you gave them today."

Lacey nodded. It all made perfect sense. She could still walk it back.

Except she didn't want to.

It was underhanded and she knew it but being _here_ was all that mattered right now. Despite the tumult of the day, she already felt easier in her bones. And she'd take that however it came.

"I don't want to," she said, dropping it into the silence, bracing for the immediate reaction.

Coop swivelled is head in her direction, his brows drawn together. "What?"

"If I take the pregnancy out of the mix it leaves me right back at the beginning, Coop, and I'm not having the college slash deathbed–promise-to-Mum fight again. I'm where I want to be now and I'm not giving that up. I know it's dishonest but I just don't care."

"Lacey ..." Coop shook his head. "This is crazy. You think they're pissed at you now? How much worse is it going to be when they find out the truth? How long do you think you can fake it for?"

"Not for long, obviously. And I will tell them ... in a bit. I just want to find myself a job and somewhere to live. Prove to them that I can look after myself and don't need their permission to run my own life."

"And how long's that going to take?"

She shrugged. Jumbuck Springs was a small town with the same kind of youth unemployment rates as a lot of small towns. But she was a Weston and that opened doors. "Maybe a month or so?"

He put his mug on the nearby ancient wooden coffee table. He didn't bang it but the controlled way he did it spoke volumes about his state. "A month?" He shook his head "That's not fair to them, Lacey. And it's not fair to me. I'm already having to put my life on hold for two weeks to fill in for Alec Campbell because of this crazy situation and now you want me to hang around for another two?"

Lacey frowned. _What the_? "I'm not asking you to do that."

"Don't be naïve. You know your brothers have certain expectations."

"My brothers are being _Neanderthals_. This isn't Victorian England. We don't duel anymore or have women being sold into marriage by their male relatives. I'm perfectly capable of handling this debacle by myself. You've already done enough."

He shook his head a look of indignation crossing his features. "To hell with that. While you're carrying _my_ fake baby I'm doing the honourable thing and standing by you. I've already disappointed your brothers enough by _knocking you up_ in the first place. I can't just leave you here to deal with it on your own because as far as they're concerned this is real and they'll see it as me shirking my responsibilities. And I am _not_ a shirker."

No. Coop was definitely not a shirker. "We'll work it out somehow," Lacey assured. "I'll tell them that you're really busy at work so you'll travel back and forth when you can and that you're ... paying money into my account and ... have already started a college fund. Or something."

He shook his head. "No. It's all or nothing, Lacey. It's what your family expects. Damn it, it's what _I_ would expect of myself if this whole fucked-up situation was actually _real._ "

"Yes, but it _isn't_ real, is it?"

"As long as your family thinks it's real then you better believe it _is_ real. _Very_ real."

"Well then I guess you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren't you?"

If Coop thought she was going to cave in because of this then he clearly didn't know anything about her. She wasn't backing down—not now she'd come this far.

"And what if _I_ tell them the truth?" he asked.

Lacey's breath hitched. "You wouldn't."

Coop stood and stalked to the other side of the room. "You have no idea what I'm capable of right now." He shoved his hands on his hips as he looked down at her, his brooding face on again. Was he thinking about dobbing on her?

Or was he thinking _spank or kiss?_

"I just need a little time to establish myself back here again, that's all."

He pursed his lips and Lacey thought he was going to refuse. "You have two weeks. Until Alec gets back."

Cool relief flushed through her system. She'd like longer but considering he was offering to be her fake baby daddy for _any_ length of time, she'd be wise to quit while she was ahead. She stood, wanting to fling herself into his arms but he didn't look in the mood to celebrate. She ground her feet into the clean but worn carpet.

"Are you going to be able to get away from the business for two weeks?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "If you really cared about that, you wouldn't have put me in this position in the first place."

Lacey deserved that. But that didn't mean it didn't hit her like a tyre wrench to the chest. She did care about Coop. A lot more than she let herself ever think about. She took a step towards him but stopped when he stiffened.

"Coop ... I really do appreciate everything you've done for me."

He nodded, but tension radiated from every line of his body. "I'll drive back to Brisbane in the morning and sort a few things out at work."

Lacey dared a smile. "Thank you."

"Two weeks," he reiterated.

She nodded. "Two weeks."

A lot could happen in two weeks, right?

## Chapter Six

 ‡

Coop's jaw was killing him when he woke to the first trickle of light pushing into the room through the high windows that sat above the kitchen. His fingers gently probed the slight swelling from the outside as his tongue ran along the inside. He should probably take something for it.

But he wouldn't.

He didn't believe in popping pills. He'd rarely taken anything for the terrible headaches that had plagued him for those first few months after his injury and occasionally still did. They made him tired and woozy and he felt tired enough after precious little sleep last night.

He lifted his head and looked down at himself, wincing as his jaw protested the movement. He was still laying on top of the bed covers, his clothes from yesterday staring back at him. He'd finally fallen asleep in them, sans shoes, at around two am.

He looked at his watch. Six o'clock.

_Christ, he was tired._

He eased back down onto the pillow then rolled his head to the side to look at Lacey. She lay on her back on the far side of the double bed, her head turned away from him, hair splayed over the pillows and sheets and her torso, the blankets pushed down to her waist. It might be winter outside but it was toasty inside and her flannelette pajamas no doubt added to the heat in the bed.

He shut his eyes and turned his head away on an inward groan. Do _not_ put heat and bed and Lacey in the same sentence.

_This is going to be your view every morning for the next two weeks, buddy. Get used to it._

He almost wished she _was_ pregnant for a moment. Maybe that would be the kind of cold bucket of water he needed to stop the wave of heat currently washing through his balls.

Carrying another man's baby—unsexy and aggravating as hell.

He swung himself off the narrow single mattress, which had been remarkably comfortable. _It_ hadn't been the thing keeping him awake all night. It was the other mattress and its occupant that had been responsible for that.

Coop slipped his feet into his shoes and did them up. He'd kill for a shower and some caffeine to wake him up properly, but he planned on leaving with as little disruption as possible for Lacey. She'd insisted last night that he wake her before he left but there was a difference between a gentle nudge and a whispered good-bye to clomping around the place for twenty minutes.

He walked over to the coffee table, scooping up his wallet, car keys and his room key then walked back to her bed. Standing at the end, he contemplated leaving without the nudge she'd asked for. Leaving a note maybe?

Her breathing was deep and rhythmic and even though he couldn't really see her face she looked peaceful. So peaceful he was tempted to crawl in beside her, wrap himself around her and go back to sleep.

Why she even wanted to be woken he had no idea. It wasn't like they were a real couple. Why he'd agreed was also a mystery, although he suspected it was something to do with the fact she'd been curled up in her bed looking at him through sleepy lashes.

_Come on, man_. Just do it already and get the hell out.

Coop stalked around to her side of the bed. He stood looking down at her for long moments. Her face was just peeping out from the fan of her hair and her hand rested low on her belly.

And he wanted her.

"Lacey?" he whispered. She didn't answer so he crouched beside the bed, his hand on the mattress and tried again. "Lacey?"

"Mmm ..." her eyelids fluttered open briefly before shutting again.

"I'm leaving now," he said, still whispering. It seemed appropriate in the low light. "I'll be back later on this afternoon."

"K," she half mumbled, half sighed, her lips curling up in a little half smile. "Drive safe."

Coop swallowed. "I'll lock you in."

"Mmm," she said again, rolling onto her side, her eyes still closed as her hand bumped against his, her mouth now dangerously close.

His gaze dropped to her lips. Soft and slack in sleep. So near, so tempting. He wanted to lean forward and kiss her on that mouth, wake her up properly. Wake her up _good_.

He wanted it _so_ damn bad.

If this had been real, if they'd been _really l_ iving together, if his baby had been _really_ growing inside her, he could. He could just lean forward and kiss her. Push her hair back over her shoulder, run his fingers down her arm, onto her hip, her thigh. He could whisper how much he wanted her. How hard he was for her right now. How he wanted to be inside her.

Coop shut his eyes against the fire in his loins and the devil riding him hard. He had to be strong. Absence had always been the key to keeping this rampant attraction in check and now that was gone.

He needed to be stronger than ever before.

He stood. Took a breath and a step back. Took another breath and turned away. Headed for the door.

Did not look back.

Did not stop until he was leaning heavily against his car sucking in the frigid morning air down on the street.

_Fuck._ Only fourteen more mornings to get through ...

 *     *     *

The day flew by in Brisbane. His parents were surprised at the suddenness of it all but understood when Coop explained that Jumbuck Springs needed a temporary mechanic and he'd volunteered. They'd accepted his story and his mother had pulled out a huge container of pumpkin soup from the freezer to take with him.

He felt bad about lying to them, but his old man had long since recovered from his heart problems and the booming restoration part of the business, which Coop had started two years ago, would be fine in the capable hands of his second-in-charge. Gav was brilliant at his job and more than happy to step up when Coop asked him.

He stopped in at his apartment to pack some clothes. It didn't take long. With a population of two thousand, Jumbuck Springs was hardly party central so he didn't need anything fancy to wear and fancy wasn't really his thing anyway. He threw in a bunch of jeans, a variety of shirts, a couple of hoodies to ward off the nippy mornings and nights and three pairs of work trousers and shirts.

On the way out of his room he opened his bedside table drawer to grab the true crime novel he'd been reading. There were going to be a lot of long nights with Lacey in that hotel room so anything that held his attention was worth packing. He stopped dead as a barely touched box of condoms stared back at him.

Temptation stalked him as he'd stood there and thought about sliding into Lacey. Kissing her mouth while he did so. Swallowing her throaty _yes_. Feeling her ankles locking around his butt.

He took a deep breath and shut the drawer.

Next stop was Lacey's dorm to pick up her phone and bag. She'd rung him to let him know that Jeremy had delivered them to the dorm. He passed her Mini in the car park and made a mental note to get it transported to Jumbuck Springs. He doubted Lacey was going to need it, which gave him the perfect opportunity to finally do something with it.

The idea of a project appealed to him. It would be win/win. She'd get a restored working beauty and he'd have something to do, to take up his time, to distract him. Even if he was going to spend a lot of that time thinking about spreading her out on the hood of her newly renovated car and greasing her nipples.

He drove back into town around four and headed straight for Campbell's Auto-repairs. It was similar to what his father's place had been like before Coop had modernised a lot of the equipment. Two petrol pumps sat out front. A shop where spare parts, car care products and junk food could be bought was attached to the main garage area where a huge workshop area was secured behind two large roller doors.

Alec Campbell greeted him like a long-lost son and gave him a quick rundown on the business. They arranged for Coop to come in for a few hours tomorrow to see how things were done, then Alec would leave on Wednesday. Alec was keen to chat and Coop let the man ramble about the glory days before computers ran cars—anything to delay seeing Lacey again with that box of condoms still weighing on his mind.

It was five before Coop ventured down into the main bar area of The Stockman looking for Lacey, who wasn't in their room. With her phone in his possession he had no way of contacting her, but he figured JJ would know.

"Here he is!"

Coop was surprised to find Lacey behind the bar with JJ. She was in jeans and a V-necked T-shirt, sporting that high ponytail of hers again. The one that made her look too young to be serving behind a bar.

Or shacked up with him.

"Oh. Hi. That was fast," he said. Maybe this whole thing could be resolved much sooner than two weeks?

"It's just temporary," she said. "Covering for one of JJ's part-timers who's broken an ankle."

Or maybe not. "I didn't know you could pull a beer?"

"She can't," a guy in an ancient hat further down the bar said, raising his glass to inspect the rather large head atop the amber liquid.

"Hey," JJ said. "She's new, cut her some slack."

Lacey grinned at him and Coop was glad there was a stool nearby because he couldn't remember when he'd ever seen such a glow to her.

Sure, the night she'd lied about her age and seduced him, she'd been all smiles. But even back then he'd been aware of a brittleness to her smiles. Now though, her eyes shone.

"You wanna beer?"

"Don't do it man," hat guy muttered.

Coop laughed. "Sure, I'm game."

Lacey's eyes sparkled as she grabbed a glass and held it under the tap. The head was still large but what she lacked in skill she made up for with enthusiasm. JJ winced slightly when she saw it and apologised. Coop shrugged, picked it up and drank it.

There were worse things in life than a beer with too much head.

"So, how'd it go in Brissy?" Lacey asked.

"Fine," he nodded, licking the froth off his upper lip. "Your phone is upstairs on charge."

"Thank God, I'm having Facebook withdrawal," she said. He rolled his eyes and she beamed at him. "What'd you tell your folks?"

"That my mechanical skills were required in Jumbuck Springs."

Lacey laughed. "I bet that's not something you thought you'd ever say."

"Ah, no." But then he'd done and said a lot of things since meeting Lacey he'd never thought he would. "How'd you go today? Get everything sorted with college?"

"Yes, I spoke with the dean at length about deferring. He was very understanding. He directed me to an online form to fill out, which is all sorted now."

"You have been busy."

"I needed to lock that stuff down so there aren't any fall-back avenues for me."

He nodded. "And have you seen any of your brothers today?"

She shook her head, her smile dimming a little. "Not yet."

"Correction," JJ said as she brushed past with a drink order, tipping her chin towards the door.

They both turned to watch Ethan stride in, a rather sombre-looking Connie by his side. Still in his navy police fatigues, he nodded at JJ and his sister and scowled at Coop.

Coop's jaw twinged.

"Hey Connie," Lacey frowned as Ethan boosted Connie up onto a stool. "What's up?"

"Looks like whatever it is calls for one of these," JJ said, plonking a red lemonade down on the bar.

Connie gave JJ a small smile as she ran her fingers up and down the frosty glass. "Mum was supposed to come to the Octopus's Garden parade at school on Wednesday. She was bringing me a mermaid costume all the way from Sydney, but she can't come now."

JJ's mouth tightened as Connie smiled stoically at them like it didn't really matter. Ethan looked pretty damn grim too as he patted his daughter's shoulder reassuringly. "She really did want to come, sweetie. But you know how Mum's job can be."

He smiled at his daughter, but Coop could tell the bullshit excuse he'd fed Connie had cost his friend dearly. Ethan hadn't said much about his ex, Delia, over the years but it was clear that he'd do anything to protect his daughter from being hurt. Even from her own mother.

"She missed the fete last month, too."

"I know," Ethan said. "It was a shame she got caught up like that, but you know what? I bet Lacey could whip you up a mermaid costume on her sewing machine that would make a _real_ mermaid jealous."

"Mermaids aren't real," Connie said with an I'm-not-a-child-anymore eye roll.

Lacey laughed and her eyes went from shining to luminescent and something in Coop's chest went _thunk._ "Real, fake, legend? Who cares? The most important thing is that your Dad's right and you know how much I hate admitting that, right?"

Connie nodded. "Right."

"I can make you a totally awesome, _completely_ kickass mermaid costume. Oops, sorry," she said putting a hand over her mouth. "Kick bottom."

Connie giggled and JJ pressed her lips together as Ethan rolled his eyes. "Right," JJ said, that's settled. "Take your drink and find a booth. Here—" she reached under the bar and pulled out a spiral notebook, ripping a few pages out of it and handing it to Lacey, along with a pen, "show Connie what you've got."

Connie slipped off the seat looking more like her old self now. "C'mon Dad," she tugged his hand.

"I take it that happens a lot?" Coop asked JJ as Lacey made her way around the bar and Connie and Ethan headed towards the booths.

"Delia?"

"Yes."

Her mouth tightened again. "You could say that."

"You joining us, Coop?"

Coop looked over his shoulder to find Lacey sitting at the booth, patting the empty space beside her. He glanced opposite to Ethan who looked like he'd rather eat nails than share a booth with Coop. Frankly, so would Coop. Sitting so close to Lacey was something he'd avoided for a long time. But he was supposed to be playing a role here.

He was supposed to be her lover.

"Duty calls," JJ murmured.

Coop looked back at her. He got the distinct impression that she wasn't buying their story at all, but that wasn't a conversation he wanted to have.

He raised his beer to her then headed across the room.

 *     *     *

Half-an-hour and three pieces of paper later Lacey was satisfied with the mermaid costume sketch. Connie was thrilled. They'd also talked about fabrics and colours and Lacey had jotted down some notes beside the final sketch. There was only tomorrow to get the costume done so there was no time for experimentation, which was the way Lacey usually rolled. Thank goodness Hoff's Haberdashery had survived the test of time and was still doing business in the age of the internet.

She supposed this wasn't quite the designing her mother had in mind when she'd been saving up for Lacey's college fund. Nor had it been Lacey's plan. But she felt more connected to this piece of work for Connie than anything she'd conjured up thus far at design school. She felt more fulfilled in this half hour seeing the excitement in her niece's face than she had in three-and-a-half-years.

Lacey forced herself to concentrate on that, because if she didn't her brain slid to other things. Like how close she was to Coop in a booth that wasn't exactly spacious. How good it felt to have his arm occasionally brush hers. And the intense heat radiating from his thigh, crossing the narrow gap to hers, melting her quads like gelatine.

"Okay," Lacey said dragging her attention back to Connie. "I just need to take your measurements and I can run this up tomorrow. Dad can drop you in for a try-on after school."

Connie gave an excited little wiggle on her seat, clearly thrilled by the happy ending she hadn't been expecting. "Can I get another drink Dad, so I can toast Lacey? _Please_?"

Ethan cocked an eyebrow. "A toast?"

"Billy says that's how people celebrate things."

"Oh does he now?"

"I thought Billy was insufferable?" Lacey asked with a smile.

Connie shrugged and her cheeks turned pink. "Sometimes he's not."

"One more," Ethan said. "But that's it. Lacey still has to measure you and I'm sure you've got homework."

Connie wriggled out of the booth and they watched her practically skipping away. "Thanks Lace," Ethan said, "Really. I appreciate it."

Lacey knew she should just shut up and take the compliment but she couldn't resist a little dig. "Handy having me home isn't it?"

He grunted. "We would have cobbled something together without you."

Lacey could just imagine. "Marcus's clamshell bikini top he wears to fancy dress parties won't fit Connie." Not to mention how trashy that would look compared to a subtle-but-glorious Lacey Weston original.

"We'd have figured it out."

The way he avoided her eyes told Lacey that it _had_ crossed Ethan's mind. "Can I stop by the house tomorrow morning and pick up a few things? There's some funky buttons that'll look cool on the outfit and there's probably some fabric from my stash there I can use."

Ethan gave her a don't-be-daft look. "Of course you can," he said, exasperation colouring his voice. "Why don't you just do it there? Your old machine's still in your room. Save you hauling everything here and Connie can try it on when she gets home from school."

Lacey's family had bought her a top-of-the-range sewing machine for her eighteenth birthday to replace the one her mother had given her when she'd turned twelve. It was true she wouldn't need anything fancy for this job and it made sense to run it up back home where she'd have easier access to Connie, but she wasn't ready to make nice with her brother just yet.

"Here's fine," she said.

Ethan gave a tense nod. "Suit yourself." He looked at the tabletop for a moment before returning his attention to Lacey. "I didn't ask yesterday ... are you well? Have you set up an appointment with Doc Janson?"

Lacey screwed up her face. "What for? To tell me what I already know?"

Even if she had been pregnant she wouldn't be seeing Doc Janson. He was a lovely old gent who'd been the family doctor forever and had been a constant support during their mother's two-year battle with cancer, but Lacey wasn't comfortable taking any female stuff to the man who had previously only given her her shots and, once in a blue moon, looked down her throat.

"For ... tests and general pregnancy ... stuff," Ethan said vaguely.

"Thanks. I think I'll stick with someone who trained this century." He had to be at least ninety by now, surely?

"She needs to see a doctor," Ethan said, ignoring her and talking directly to Coop.

"I'll make sure she sets it up," Coop said.

A spiral of rage catapulted through Lacey's system. _I'll make sure she sets it up?_ Like he was her freaking keeper or something. Both of them talking about her like she was a child. Like she wasn't even here?

Lacey opened her mouth to tell both of them to shove it, but Connie chose that moment to return with her drink and Lacey forced a smile onto her face.

It almost killed her.

 *     *     *

Later that night after a bowl of Coop's mother's delicious soup Lacey was in a better mood. She'd done a shop at the local supermarket today so there was food in the cupboards, but not having to cook was always decadent. Coop had buttered up a stack of hot toast to go with it and Lacey had devoured three slices.

In fact, curled up on the couch now in her pajamas with a cup of hot chocolate, watching _Masterchef_ on the TV, Lacey felt positively mellow. Coop was at the other end of the couch reading a book. It seemed like he was far away down there. And not just physically.

She watched him out the corner of her eye every now and then as he read an absolutely huge hardback. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles and his T-shirt sat snug against his abs. His concentration on the book was absolute.

_Lucky book._

The show ended and Coop was still reading. Lacey rolled her head to look at him. "You know you can read books on your phone now, right?"

"So I hear," he said, not looking up.

"I've got about ten on my phone at the moment."

"I like paper." His gaze remained steadfastly fixed on his book. "Guess I'm just old-fashioned like that."

If he was trying to remind her of their age difference, he'd succeeded. But the truth was it didn't matter to Lacey. It hadn't mattered to her the night she'd picked him up in a bar and it didn't matter to her now.

"Each to their own," she shrugged.

"Mmm."

Lacey contemplated yanking her top off to get Coop to look at her. Was this the way it was going to be? Was a little conversation too much to ask? Was there anything wrong with making the best out of a bad situation?

She was up for making the best of it in _every_ way possible.

"There's also Kindles," she said, goaded by his continuing concentration. "They're supposed to be brilliant too."

Coop sighed and finally looked at her. "Yes." He shut the book, put it on the coffee table and stood.

"Where're you going?" she asked as her gaze followed him around the couch. "Hitting the sack already?"

"Shower."

His answer was curt, but it didn't really matter as Lacey's brain went into overdrive. Thinking about Coop in the shower. Thinking about _doing_ Coop in the shower.

It didn't bode well for the next two weeks that she was already thinking about turning their fake situation into something a little more real. But the truth was there wasn't one way she _hadn't_ fantasied about doing Coop— _about Coop doing her_ —over the years. They'd had chemistry right from the start. She'd been hot for him right from the start.

Weren't little sisters supposed to develop crushes on friends of their brothers?

Lacey wasn't sure she had it in her to keep this two weeks platonic. The sound of the shower running did not help. Could she take listening to that shower run for the next two weeks and know he was naked in there and not just strip off and get in with him? Something wild and wanton pulsed between her legs. That's what impulsive Lacey would do.

But she was supposed to be proving to him she wasn't a screw-up ...

Lacey sighed, shoving a fist between her legs and pressing in hard to relieve the ache.

Being a grown-up sucked.

 *     *     *

Two hours later Lacey was lying in her double bed, her back turned to Coop, pretending to be asleep while he sat up in his bed against the headboard and continued to read. The room was quiet and dark except for the glow of Coop's bedside lamp. He was wearing a white T-shirt that stretched very nicely over his shoulders. Beneath the sheets were a pair of Nike sports shorts. They fell to just above his knee and were loose but made from some kind of polyester that tended towards a build-up of static.

She'd been able to see the outline of his thighs and other parts of his anatomy as he'd walked out of the shower. It had been most distracting and nigh on impossible not to cop a perve. She'd managed—but only just.

Going to bed had seemed like a good idea. Pregnant women were tired, weren't they?

But here she was, still awake, trying to ignore the sinful little whisper in her head.

_Get into bed with him._

But that's what a screw-up would do. It was impulsive and not well thought out. And egocentric. And Coop had made his feelings on them becoming _involved_ very clear, even as late as yesterday morning when he'd pulled her hand out of his pants.

So she wouldn't do that. No matter how much the whisper yammered at the back of her brain.

But maybe she could take a different approach. What would a _grown-up_ do? They'd be honest about it. Talk about it openly. Logically and methodically lay their cards on the table. They'd discuss the pros and cons. They'd make a reasoned argument.

_Right_. For deciding on whether to start a family or buy a house, sure. Probably not for fucking each other's brains out while they were pretending to live together.

But Lacey was desperate enough to try. Who knew? Maybe he'd respect her for a mature approach. Maybe she could sway him with reasoned arguments.

Lacey rolled on her side to face him. She watched him for long moments. The muscles in his forearms seemed to tense, the warm, yellow light from the lamp accentuating their form, bathing them in splendour, the blond hairs almost golden.

Did he know she was awake?

"Coop?"

"Mmm."

He didn't start, he didn't look at her, he didn't shift his attention from the book. It was slightly dismaying and a lesser woman would have been discouraged, but not Lacey. Her pulse kicked up a notch or two as she prepared to make her argument.

"I'd like to talk to you."

"Mmm."

Lacey ploughed on. "Do you think you could put that book down for a moment?"

He waited a beat or two before looking at her. "Can't this wait 'til morning?"

"No."

He sighed, but placed the open book face down on his lap. "What?"

Lacey bent her arm and propped her head up on her palm. "I've been thinking about our ... situation."

"Oh?"

It came out sounding nonchalant enough but the lamp picked up the clench of Coop's jaw and Lacey was enormously encouraged. "It seems kinda silly to me that we're in separate beds when we've already slept together once before and both had a good time."

His jaw clenched again. "You do, huh?"

She nodded. "It seems dumb not to at least ... enjoy ourselves while we're stuck here with each other."

"Lacey ..." He shifted a little so he was facing her. "I should never have slept with you all those years ago. I'm _thirteen_ years older than you _and_ your brother's best friend. He asked me to look out for you. Just because I don't have a sister it doesn't mean that I don't get that guys have a very strict code where their sisters are concerned. I _broke the code_ , Lacey and I am not going to compound that by repeating what happened just because of our _situation_."

Lacey nodded. This was good. They were having a _discussion_. And she understood that he felt guilty over what had happened that night they'd first met. But it didn't seem logical that this kind of bro code stood up in their situation. She was supposed to be pregnant with his child for crying out loud.

"Okay. I understand where you're coming from. All I'm saying is that we're in this room together for the next two weeks and I'm pretty sure everyone who knows about this, _including_ Ethan by the way, thinks we're having sex. So ... why not ...? You have to know I'm attracted to you and, correct me if I'm wrong but I think you're still attracted to me."

"Just because attraction exists it doesn't have to be acted upon, Lacey."

She was encouraged by Coop not denying the attraction. Confirming it in fact. "Sure. But if it's not hurting anyone and it's a mutual thing then does it really matter?"

He shook his head. "It matters to me. It's a little thing called personal integrity, okay?" He said it in such a way that left Lacey in no doubt he didn't consider it to be a topic within her realm of understanding. "I'd like to be able to look your brother in the eye and know I didn't take advantage of this situation."

Lacey had to admire Coop's resolve. Ethan could truly not have picked a better guy to look out for her. "Okay, fine," she sighed, backing off, her personal integrity calling upon her to leave his intact. "Just so you know though, I don't mind you taking advantage of the situation."

"Duly noted," he said then shifted back into his prior position, picked up his book and started reading again.

Lacey collapsed back on her pillow. It was going to be a _long_ two weeks.

## Chapter Seven

 ‡

Lacey was pleased the next morning when Coop was the same Coop he'd always been, as if her proposition last night hadn't even happened. She supposed he was used to that. It was almost like his default position with her. And it was probably for the best anyway. He clearly didn't want to rehash it and the fact that he wasn't in a bad mood over it was probably a sign that she shouldn't rehash it either.

He ran her home after breakfast. Ordinarily she would have walked. The Weston family home was about a ten-minute stroll from the pub—nowhere was very far from anywhere in Jumbuck Springs. But there was going to be quite a bit of stuff to bring back, so a car was handy.

"Thanks for doing this," she said as they pulled up outside her house.

"No worries."

"You think we could take a trip to Brisbane on the weekend and I can drive my car back?"

"Sure. But I think Mum and Dad are coming up on Thursday. Dad wouldn't mind driving it here. He can get the spare key from my apartment."

Lacey had scoffed when Coop had gotten a spare key made after the first time he'd come out to her when she'd locked the keys in her car. But given that she'd done it two more times, and lost her key at a party on another occasion, it had turned out to be quite fortuitous.

"That'd be great," she said. Lacey wasn't keen on leaving town so soon, even if it was only for half a day. As far as she was concerned _residency_ was nine-tenths of the law. "They won't mind?"

Coop shook his head. "Nah. They'd be happy to."

"They're good people, your parents," she said, undoing her seatbelt.

"Yeah," he grinned. "I think I'll keep them."

Lacey exited the car and Coop followed. "Morning, Mrs Durrum," she called and waved to their eighty-year-old neighbour who was at the front gate checking her letterbox.

The Durrums had lived next door for fifty years. Edna had been a widow for the last thirty. Selena, Mrs Durrum's granddaughter, who she'd raised singlehandedly until Selena had left Jumbuck Springs for the big smoke to study journalism, had been Jarrod's girlfriend all through high school.

"Morning, Lacey dear, so nice to see you back. You here to stay?"

"Yes," Lacey smiled. "I am." It still felt surreal to say it. Lacey figured the more people who knew the better.

Mrs Durrum bestowed a satisfied smile her way. "That's good news."

"Yes, it is," Lacey agreed. "How's Selena?"

"She's fine, lovey. Busy, busy, of course but she writes every week without fail."

Lacey kept the smile firmly in place. Selena hadn't been back to town since she'd left and although Mrs Durrum never said it, Lacey knew her heart ached.

"That's nice," Lacey murmured.

The old lady didn't linger over the subject. "Drop in and see me sometime."

"I will Mrs Durrum, thank you."

The old lady gave a little wave as Coop pushed the gate open for Lacey. "I've been thinking about your car," he said.

"Oh yes?"

"It's an unreliable, forty-year-old, broken down money pit—"

"Hey," Lacey protested as her foot landed on the path.

"But I could turn it into a classic beauty that purrs like a kitten." Lacey concentrated really hard on not thinking about how much she wished he would make _her_ purr like a kitten. "And will start first time every time."

Lacey was a huge admirer of Coop's car restoration business and how he'd gone on to build a new life in a completely different direction after his devastating injuries, but there was no way she could afford the kind of prices he charged. Even at mates rates it just wasn't in her budget. She opened her mouth to politely decline, but he jumped in ahead of her.

"Just think about it," he said. "You don't really need a car to get around Jumbuck Springs so it won't matter if it's off the road for a few weeks and it'll give me a project to work on while I'm here. Campbell's isn't exactly busy. I can work on it in-between times and the weekends. I might not be able to get it done before I leave but I could finish it off back home."

"Coop ... Thank you, really, but I can't afford you."

"It's on the house."

Lacey shook her head vehemently. "No." That was a step too far. She'd spent the last few years taking advantage of him and she totally would have last night if he'd been up for it. But this? His work? His livelihood?

"You forget." She stopped on the bottom step. "I know what you charge."

"Honestly, you'd be doing me a favour," he said.

"Oh really?" Lacey raised an eyebrow. "How'd you figure that?"

"I'm trying to get over the perception that the business, that car restoration, is just a bloke thing. We do a lot of stuff for guys and that's great but in doing so we ignore another potential market. Gav and I have been talking about attracting a female clientele for a while now. We just need the right job. I think the Mini would be perfect. I'd do it up then use it in all our advertising to show that we do more than muscle cars."

He looked sincere enough, but Lacey wasn't sure it wasn't some elaborate story. "You're serious? You're not just making it up on the spot because you're sick of being my personal roadside assistance?"

That had happened a bit too often. She'd probably interrupted his workday about a dozen times in all. Him coming to her rescue all sweaty and greasy straight from an engine.

_Do not think about Coop all greasy and sweaty_.

"I'm serious. I honestly don't know why I didn't think of your pile of junk before. I can turn her into one sweet ride. She'll look gorgeous. She's exactly what we need."

"Okay," she shrugged. She didn't care about gorgeous so much, but having a more reliable car would definitely be a bonus. And being able to pay Coop back for all his help with her car was a bonus. "Knock yourself out."

"You won't regret it," he assured.

Lacey nodded. "I don't doubt it."

No-one was home when they entered the house and they were in and out quickly. When they got back to The Stockman, Coop helped Lacey upstairs with all the stuff, then went off to see Alec Campbell. After he left, Lacey looked around at the garbage bags full of fabric and her two large, plastic tackle boxes that she'd used for all kinds of sewing bits and bobs.

She opened the lid of the first one and pulled out the top drawer; an array of buttons stared back at her from the different compartments. Collecting buttons had been a hobby since she'd first started making her own clothes from the age of twelve. Not that she'd made anything for herself since moving to Brisbane. Clothes were plentiful and cheap in the big city compared to a small country town, and convenience had won out.

She opened the next drawer, which boasted reels of cotton, and the next stuffed full of different types of ribbon. She fingered the nearest one—a plush crimson velvet she'd used on a dress she'd made to go to a cousin's wedding. A sense of home rose like a tide inside her and she sank to the bed as it overwhelmed her. Even with _home_ a ten-minute walk away, Lacey knew this was where she belonged.

Amongst her stuff and her family and her town.

Her tribe.

Jumbuck Springs was where she belonged.

She spent the next hour going through all the bags of fabric, finding some scraps and some really funky buttons that would be perfect for the bodice of Connie's costume, but not finding exactly what she wanted for the mermaid tail. There were a couple of fabrics that were satisfactory, but Lacey Weston didn't do satisfactory. Not without hunting down every avenue first anyway.

She decided to pop into the haberdashery and see if Mrs Hoff had exactly what she was looking for. But first she drew up a paper pattern to Connie's measurements. She used the dining table as her work surface, drawing and cutting the pattern with the ease and efficiency of someone used to tackling much more complex projects. Once she was done with that she set up her sewing machine and took a moment to admire her ordered, tidy workspace. In a couple of hours it would look entirely different.

Satisfied with her progress, Lacey headed out. It was another beautiful winter's day. The sky was an endless blue, unmarred by clouds, and it had already warmed up after the chilly night.

Hoff's was on the other side of the main street and hadn't changed in all the years Lacey had known it. It was dark and cosy, crammed with fabric rolls and smelling of mothballs and old lace. It was surprising to see it had survived, given the decline in home sewing and the advent of online shopping.

Mrs Hoff greeted her like a long-lost daughter. She'd been good friends with Elizabeth Weston, and her three daughters, long since gone from the town, had been at school with Lacey's brothers. Tears pricked the backs of Lacey's eyes as Mrs Hoff hugged her and exclaimed, "I heard you were back."

Lacey wasn't surprised. The gossip mill in a small town always worked overtime and Jumbuck Springs wasn't any different. The news about little Lacey Weston _shacking up_ with a _man_ at The Stockman was bound to get tongues wagging.

"I've missed you so much, my girl."

Lacey had been one of the haberdashery's best customers and she knew Mrs Hoff well. The older woman had often kept fabric or buttons or unusual ribbon aside for Lacey because she'd known how much Lacey liked that kind of thing.

Mrs Hoff pulled out of the embrace and grasped both of Lacey's cheeks between her palms. "And looking more and more like your mother every day."

Lacey swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. People often said that she looked like her mother. It was hard for Lacey to see given their difference in colouring. Jarrod with his red hair and pale complexion looked like her mother. Lacey took after Marcus and Ethan. But she liked hearing it anyway and hugged Mrs Hoff just for saying it.

"Now. You're here for some fabric, yes? Just like old times? What can I get for you?"

Lacey explained what she wanted and Mrs Hoff beamed and clicked her fingers and took her to the exact material. It was an aquamarine colour with sequins on it that gave it a disco ball feel but also had the advantage of looking remarkably like scales. But Lacey didn't stop there, she added some poly stuffing to puff out the tail properly and spent an enjoyable half hour in the shop just rummaging around like old times.

She bought a couple of metres of varying fabrics to add to her collection, because that's what Lacey did, and drooled over a new supply of curtain material in lace that was so exquisite it seemed a shame to hang it at a window.

She refrained from taking a sample of that too. But only just.

"Don't be a stranger," Mrs Hoff called out as she headed towards the exit.

"Absolutely not," Lacey assured, practically dancing on sunshine she was so happy.

A fabric store was Lacey's happy place and Mrs Hoff's was spectacular. Like a lolly shop. With less calories.

Lacey was just about to step off the footpath when she heard her name being called. She turned her head to find a girl she'd gone to school with, Caroline Duncan, waving at her.

"Oh hey, Caro," Lacey smiled and they hugged.

"You're back?"

"Yes," Lacey grinned. "I'm back."

"Things not work out for you in Bris-Vegas?"

There was no malice in the question but Lacey could tell there was a whole lot of curiosity and that Caroline had obviously heard the gossip. "No, it's all fine. I've just deferred for a year or two. I was homesick. What about you?" she asked, getting in before any other questions could be lobbed at her. "What are you doing these days?"

Caroline took the bait. "I'm getting married next weekend."

"That's great," Lacey said. Caroline was from one of the wealthier grazier families in the district. Her father, Ross, had also been involved in federal politics a few years back and had been awarded some high honour by the Queen around the time Elizabeth Weston had died. "Congratulations. Anthony's the groom?"

She nodded. "High school sweethearts."

Lacey nodded politely. She wasn't going to mention how Anthony had been Danielle Gordon's boyfriend until he'd dumped her for Caroline. Caroline and Danielle had been best friends and it had caused a huge ruckus at school. Danielle had been heartbroken and done some crazy stalker stuff for a while, including spray painting _whore lover_ down the side of Anthony's flashy green ute.

_Always_ a scandal in Jumbuck Springs.

They chatted for another five minutes before Caroline had to run off, and Lacey headed back to the pub to start work on Connie's costume.

It felt good to be sitting at the machine, a tape measure draped around her neck, dressmaker chalk staining her fingers, a pin cushion wristband firmly in place, working on a project that actually excited her. The rhythmic sound of needle going through fabric was immensely satisfying as the outfit came together.

Lacey loved the feeling of creation and control, of being in the driver's seat. Taking pieces of fabric and turning them into something functional but also beautiful was not only a joy but a privilege.

It was art and she was an artist.

Keeping busy at the machine also didn't allow her much headspace for Coop. Concentrating on what she was doing meant she wasn't thinking about their first time together or two mornings ago or him naked in the shower.

Or how he'd knocked her back last night. And the mess she'd gotten him in.

But two hours later, just as Lacey was putting the finishing touches to the costume, the door swung open and Coop walked in. Sweat shone on his brow, his hands were dirty and he had a smudge of grease on his neck and a couple more on the front of his T-shirt, about belly button level, which drew her attention.

Her throat went dry just looking at him.

He was so different from any of the men she'd been with since leaving Jumbuck Springs. Most of the guys she'd met at design school—if they weren't gay—were exceedingly fashion conscious. Coop was neither, and clearly didn't give one fuck about clothes, how he looked in them and how they could accentuate him. Lacey knew from old that Coop wore clothes for warmth and modesty only.

But still he managed to look hotter than a dozen male models.

Her ovaries jettisoned some super-charged oestrogen.

"Oh ... sorry." He stopped halfway in the room. "I didn't realise you'd be here. I thought you'd be helping JJ in the bar. I'm," he looked down at himself, "dirty. I need a shower."

Yes he was. And yes he did. Lacey just managed not to offer to wash his back. "Okay."

He glanced at the table. "You've finished?" he said, strolling closer.

She dragged her eyes off his neck. "Yes. I might need to make a few adjustments when Connie tries it on, but yeah ..." she held it up, "What do you think?"

The bodice was similar to a man's waistcoat and made from different strips of yellow and silver fabric that she'd sewn together in a patchwork pattern. Pearl clamshell-shaped buttons fastened it together at the front. The shimmery aquamarine tail was a fitted affair that fell right to the floor before kicking up at the side into a perfect fluke.

Lacey was particularly fond of the crown she'd fashioned for Connie out of silver lamé, and some pipe cleaners.

"Well ... I'm not sure what the criteria is for this kind of thing, it's really not my field of expertise."

Lacey grinned at his very male perplexity. He was wearing his field of expertise on his neck and mighty distracting it was too.

"Umm, it's very ... sparkly?"

"Excellent," she laughed, "it's supposed to be."

He laughed too and it was so good to hear the low gravelly rumble. He never laughed much around her. God knew she hadn't given him a whole lot to laugh about these last couple of days.

Their gazes met. "Well, you passed with flying colours."

Her eyes locked with his. "Thank you. See, I can do something right."

He nodded but his smile slowly faded and she kicked herself for ruining the mood. "I've got to ..." He looked down at himself again, pulled his T-shirt off his stomach a little.

"Yes, of course. Shower. I'm just going to ... help JJ at the bar for a bit."

Because anything was preferable to sitting in the room listening to him shower _again,_ fighting the temptation to join him.

 *     *     *

Coop had arranged for his parents to come straight to his work on Thursday morning. Alec had cleared his schedule as much as possible for the first couple of days to give Coop a chance to settle in, so there wasn't a lot of work on. He could certainly spend a few hours with his parents.

They were earlier than he'd expected but he'd already cleared a space for Lacey's car so he directed his father straight into it. He degreased his hands then hugged his mum and shook hands and half hugged his dad. Grainger men weren't big on public displays of affection but there was nothing awkward about their exchanges.

Lacey was right, his parents were good people and he liked spending time with them. His relationship with his dad in particular had strengthened dramatically after the heart attack, when Coop had gone to help him out at the shop. Maybe his shooting and his dad's heart had been the universe's great plan to cement their relationship?

"Bit girly for you this one, isn't it?" his father teased.

Coop laughed. "That's exactly why we want it."

"Well I can't wait to see what you do with it," his mother said.

Coop locked up and walked them the two hundred metres down the main street to the pub. The street was wide, with a strip of central parking down the middle splitting the main drag into a divided road. Cars baked under the winter sun as the locals went about their business. Every ten metres there was a big old poinciana tree providing some shade for the vehicles, but those spots went quickly.

He'd planned on taking his parents to lunch at the pub when they arrived, but as he now had a few hours to kill he figured he'd take them for a drive out to the springs in the foothills. They were supposed to be spectacular and his mother loved playing tourist.

But first she wanted to do her motherly duty and check out his living arrangements. He knew she worried about him more since his near-fatal injuries. It may have been almost four years since it happened, but those memories were still ingrained in her. In both of them. Coop knew his father had been just as gutted by the shooting as she had.

He just hoped that Lacey had done as he'd asked and cleared up all outward signs of co-habitation before she'd left this morning. They'd decided there was no point in getting his family embroiled in the subterfuge as well. He'd tidied up as much as he could before he'd gone to work, but with her still in bed there were some things he hadn't been able to do.

He did _not_ expect to hear his mother say, "Good morning, Lacey," as she walked into the room ahead of him. Why had he ever introduced them in the first place? Or that Lacey would be standing in the kitchen in nothing but a towel, another wrapped around her head, eating a piece of toast.

She looked at him with startled eyes. "Oh ... hi ... Mrs Grainger."

"Oh," Coop said also, his brain temporarily flatlining, his father backed up behind him. _Fuck._ Why was she still here?

In a fucking _towel_?

"You're still here?"

"JJ rang to say she didn't need me until later and I didn't think you'd be back 'til twelve."

"Sorry," his mother apologised. "We left earlier than we thought we would."

Coop watched as his mother looked at the unmade double bed that looked like fifteen cats had chased their way around it all night, then at the pristine single bed that he'd made up this morning with military precision.

"Oh, don't apologise, please. I was just going to get dressed and go so I'll ..." she placed her half eaten slice of toast on the plate, "just do that and get out of your hair."

Lacey grabbed some clothes off the end of the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

His mother turned to face him. "Anything you feel you need to tell us?" she asked, a small smile playing on her mouth.

Coop sighed. _What a bloody mess_. "Cuppa first?" Although beer was suddenly more tempting.

His mother nodded. "Yes please."

By the time he'd set all three of them up with a hot drink Lacey was stepping out of the bathroom. He winced when he saw she'd chosen to wear her hair in that high ponytail. With no make-up and bare feet she looked every one of her paltry twenty-one years.

Lacey smiled nervously at him, then at his parents, as she crossed the room and shoved her feet into some shoes. "Well, I'm off now," she said to the wall opposite as she scooped her bag off the coffee table then turned to face them sitting at the dining table. "It was nice seeing you both again."

"Likewise," his mother said smiling. "Why don't you join us for lunch, dear?"

Her gaze shifted to him and Coop shrugged a little. It was already out of hand now, lunch wouldn't hurt. But she didn't look comforted by his assurance as her gaze darted back to his mother.

"Thanks for the offer, Mrs Grainger, but I have ..." she glanced at Coop again, "to go to work. Are you eating at the pub?"

"Oh yes, Cooper tells us they have great meals."

Lacey nodded. "JJ's menu is the best. The lamb shanks are delicious."

"There'd be something wrong if you couldn't get good lamb around these parts," his dad joked. "Reckon I saw a thousand of the little buggers on the way in."

Lacey laughed, but it sounded brittle to Coop's ears. "Anyway ... I guess I'll see you guys when you come in for lunch."

"That would be lovely," his mother said with a smile.

Not that Lacey probably noticed in her haste to get to the door. It would have been funny if it had been happening to someone else.

As soon as the door clicked shut two sets of eyes swivelled to him. He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm kinda helping Lacey out with something."

"As well as being a fill-in mechanic?" his father frowned.

"Yes."

His parents exchanged looks. "That worked out well then?" his mother said.

Coop wanted to try and keep the lying to a minimum. After all, the best way to pull off a convincing lie was to keep it as close to the truth as possible, right? "The Lacey thing came first."

Two sets of eyes gazed back at him in that patient, unblinking, expectant way he knew so well. "It's ... complicated." No way was he telling them the real situation.

His father put his mug on the table. "I like Lacey. I think you like Lacey, too. Maybe a little more than is wise?"

Coop blinked at his father's observation. What the hell did he mean by that? He liked her just fine. Except when she was driving him nuts. Which was often. But not since they'd arrived in Jumbuck Springs. In just a few days he could see the change in her. She was less ...

Less frenetic, less needy, less self-destructive.

More centred, more relaxed, more mellow. Like she didn't have any kind of a point to prove anymore.

Like she was home.

Nowhere had that been more evident than Connie's mermaid costume. It had been an absolute hit with everyone and to say Lacey had been thrilled was a massive understatement. She'd been ecstatic and agreed to do the costumes for the local high school play.

Of course, there was more than one way to drive an adult male nuts. Flashes of long, silky smooth thigh. Bright pink toenails peeking out from under the covers. That tape measure slung around her neck had been strangely erotic. Shaking her booty to whatever song was piping into her ear buds. Sexy bras on the bathroom doorknob.

"You need to be careful there, son," his father continued, dragging Coop's head out of Lacey's bra. "She's young and you don't want to mess up your friendship with Ethan."

Oh it was _way_ too late for that. Hopefully he'd be able to repair it again when the truth came out. "I know," he nodded. "It's okay. It's not what it seems. Really."

"Okay then," his father nodded and picked up his mug.

His mother didn't look so convinced. "You know you can talk to us, right?"

Coop smiled and reached across and squeezed his mother's hand. "I know." But this was not something she'd understand. "It's fine. Don't worry."

He squeezed again and withdrew his hand. Now if only he could convince himself ...

## Chapter Eight

 ‡

Lacey texted Coop when he still wasn't home by five that afternoon, to discover he was at the auto shop making a start on her car. She'd been nervous ever since accidentally bumping into his parents this morning in nothing but a towel.

_What must they think?_

It wasn't like she could have even pretended she was just dropping something off or doing his cleaning or some other such excuse when she'd obviously been fresh from the shower. She supposed another woman may have been able to come up with a plausible excuse but, frankly, her brain had gone completely blank at being sprung practically naked in Coop's room by his parents.

Coop had said they wouldn't be here until lunch time, so still being in the room at ten was hardly unreasonable. If only he'd texted her to let her know they were on their way. But then he'd thought she was going to be gone by nine so ... a comedy of errors.

Resulting in egg on her face.

She'd been stuck out the back helping in the kitchen when they'd all arrived for lunch and hadn't been able to gauge the situation between Coop and his parents. So she was dying to talk to Coop about what had transpired after she'd left.

Another hour passed without Coop returning and Lacey couldn't wait any longer to find out what had gone down. She grabbed a hoodie, shoved her feet into some shoes and headed to the auto shop.

It was dark outside and already chilly as Lacey stepped out of the pub. Ignoring the light spilling out onto the pavement, the murmur of voices and the clink of glasses, she walked briskly in the other direction towards the auto shop.

The two extra-wide roller doors that made up most of the façade of Alec Campbell's business were down. She tried the front door, which led into the shop area but it was shut. She knew he was in there though because she could hear some music and see a light on in the work area through the shop window, so she made her way around to the back door.

It opened when Lacey turned the knob, and she entered. The air inside was warm and stuffy, surprising given the large concrete space. It was obviously holding the heat of the day well. Diesel fumes, oil and the faint smell of old rubber tickled her nose and contributed to the airless state. Low music, all scratchy like a radio not properly tuned in, sounded weak and tinny amidst the sturdy mechanical surroundings.

It seemed like a workplace where heavy metal or hard core rock should be thumping.

A car up on a hoist directly ahead of her blocked her view and she didn't see Coop until she walked around it and located him crouched down _sans shirt_ , one knee on the ground, next to what appeared to be a car engine. _Her_ car engine, judging by the gaping hole in the front of her Mini where the hood usually sat. Except there was no hood either. In fact the entire car was one big hole—no engine, no doors, no wheels, no seats or internal fittings whatsoever—just an empty shell on blocks, all its parts stripped out and placed in a pile on the floor.

It would have been a very sad sight indeed had Lacey been properly able to comprehend it. The fact that Coop was shirtless, however, made any kind of comprehension impossible. All Lacey was capable of was staring at the broad acres of his back and praying she didn't do something stupid like try and lick him.

A light sheen of sweat at his hairline and in the small of his back caught the light belting down from the overhead lamps, as did the play of muscles beneath his skin as he fiddled with some whoosie-what. Her gaze drifted to the streak of grease on his left flank and her belly looped the loop.

There was just something so damn male about a man doing something with his hands. Something mechanical. Something sweaty. And dirty.

Watching Coop in his natural environment was seriously turning her on.

Coop looked up from his handiwork abruptly and startled her. "Oh hey," he said.

Lacey wondered if he'd been able to sense the sudden heavy fog of pheromones clogging the air, or the thick ooze of lust emanating from her every pore. Or maybe she'd let out some kind of primal whimper without even knowing it. Either way he was standing, wiping his hands on a clean-looking rag and bringing all his lovely muscles up to her eye level.

Otherwise known as _licking_ level.

She frowned and ground the balls of her feet into the concrete not trusting her impulsive nature one iota. He looked at her warily as he shoved the rag into his pocket, half of it hanging out. "Are you okay?"

She nodded vigorously. Maybe a little too vigorously, but it was something to do other than ogle the very distracting sheen of sweat on his pecs and the hollow of his throat or the smudge of grease streaking his flat, smooth belly.

She liked that he didn't have any hair marring her view. That she could easily see the definition of his muscles beneath the taut stretch of his skin. But that streak of grease was just way too tempting.

"You've been busy I see," she said forcing herself to make casual conversation when all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around his waist, bury her nose in his chest and _sniff_ him. She headed in the opposite direction instead, making a show of walking around her stripped car.

"I figured I might as well get a head start."

She poked her head into the empty shell. "Poor baby," she murmured.

He chuckled and a wave of goosebumps prickled over Lacey's skin. "Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind. Just think what she'll look like after I'm done coaxing her back to full bloom. I'll be gentle with her I promise."

Lacey gripped the metal tight as she thought about how Coop could coax her to full bloom. Right here, right now. On the concrete floor with the grease and the diesel fumes, or in the grimy shell of her car.

It sure as hell wouldn't take weeks and there would be no need to be gentle.

God knew she could do with hard and fast right now. Something wild and furious to burn off the edge of desperation building inside her with every second she spent in his company, their unorthodox past lying large and mostly suppressed between.

"I'm going to get Gav to source me some wicked mags. Have you thought about what colour you'd like her to be?"

Lacey straightened and looked at him over the roof of the car. Man, he was really into this. She was practically melting from the inside out and he was thinking about wheels and duco. It was enough to make a woman feel about as attractive as tyre rubber. Enough to make a woman want to do something about that.

Like stripping herself naked and draping herself on the hood.

Oh, that's right, there was no hood.

"Pink?"

He shot her a horrified look, as she knew he would. "What? Don't want a pretty pink thing amongst all those muscle cars on your website?"

His eyebrows drew together. "You seriously want pink?"

Lacey laughed at the distaste on his face. "No, just trying to get a rise." Because clearly nothing else on him was rising. "Maybe something yellow." He frowned some more. "Ish?"

"How do you feel about an electric red?"

"How about electric purple?"

"Shall I get you some fluffy dice to go with it?" he said with a grimace.

"What about a rainbow down the side?"

He winced this time and Lacey smiled at his barely contained horror. "What about British racing car green? That's very classy."

"I don't know," she sighed, as she wandered around the other side, deciding to put him out of his masculine misery. "Do I have to decide this right now? Isn't there some kind of a paint guide I could look at?" She squeezed past the innards of her car that were taking up a large patch of concrete to one side.

"Yeah, there's some stuff online." He moved away as she neared, standing at the front of the car near the headlight. Or where it would have been had it not also been on the ground. "I've also got this design program where you can look at different colours on your car on the computer first. I can log on remotely and we can look at it."

"Sounds like a plan," Lacey said, drawing to a halt just outside where she could feasibly reach him with her hands. She congratulated herself on her control. "What did your parents say after I left?"

He held her gaze for a beat or two then glanced down at his hands. He pulled the rag out of his pocket and rubbed absently at some grease he missed. "They said they hoped I knew what I was doing."

"And you said?"

He looked at her. "I said it was complicated."

"I'm sorry if it caused a problem for you. I really am."

He shrugged. "It'll be fine. Which is exactly what I told them."

_Fine?_

Complicated she got, but nothing about sharing a hotel room with Coop felt fine. Being back in Jumbuck Springs felt fine. Going to Mrs Hoff's and to school with Connie and running into Caroline all felt fine. More than fine.

But being behind closed doors with Coop? Nope.

That felt ... loaded. Combustible. Like the tinder dry landscape surrounding Jumbuck Springs—just one spark and _poof_!

Lacey's gaze drifted to his hands and their continual motion with the grease rag, clearly habitual, rubbing at nothing now. His belly on the other hand ...

Her eyes lifted a little to take in the tautness of the sling of muscle she could see above the waistband of his low-riding Levis. Smooth and flat, the tempting streak of black grease slashed across from the slope at his hip to just above the button of his fly.

She let her gaze wander higher over the more defined muscles of his upper abdomen to the scar that ran down the centre of his chest. It was white and faded now, innocuous looking if a person didn't know the story behind it.

Her eyes lifted again. Over the other faded scar from his tracheostomy— _so many scars_ —up the ridged strength of his throat, over his square jaw and sensual mouth, all the way to lock with the blue of his eyes, their gazes meshing.

He was watching her, the rag still absently working at his hands. She was aware of the thick bound of his carotid in his neck and the expansion of his chest as he breathed, his pecs expanding and his ribs flaring, then everything deflating again.

Slow and steady. In and out.

While her heart raced like a train, her breath more like that of a frightened animal.

"You always work with your shirt off?" Her voice was husky in a silence barely punctuated by the scratchy music playing from a battered-looking radio on the nearby workbench.

"No." He looked down at himself then back at her. "I hadn't planned on starting this, I wasn't dressed for it, but then I thought I'd do the basics and one thing lead to another and before I knew it I was in the engine. You have no idea how many shirts I've ruined with grease stains because I always think it's going to be okay and then of course it's not."

He stopped talking for a moment and looked uncomfortable like he knew he was babbling. "Anyway ... it was hot. Pulling a car apart is hot work so ..."

So he'd pulled his shirt off.

"You could have pulled the garage doors up, let in some air."

He shook his head. "People in this town are mighty chatty."

Lacey laughed. That was so true. Apart from the pub, Alec Campbell's had always been the centre for male congress in Jumbuck Springs.

Plus he _was_ shacked up with little Lacey Weston.

"Sorry." His hands stilled finally and he looked around as if trying to locate his shirt. "I wasn't expecting company."

Like she was complaining. Coop with no shirt and low-rider jeans, all sweaty and greasy, was pretty damn easy on the eye.

"You missed some," she said, reaching out to grab the rag from him. She half expected him to resist but it slipped from his hands and before she knew it she'd taken a step forward and was rubbing the soft cloth along the streak of grease.

His abdominal muscles jumped beneath her touch then twitched with each swipe. Lacey watched them, unable to drag her gaze from the hypnotic undulations. Lucky for her, grease was stubborn so she got to rub a lot, her strokes getting surer and firmer, disappointed when the streak finally disappeared but continuing the caress anyway, brushing the cloth lower, hooked on the dance of his muscles and the rough burr of his breathing.

Or was it hers?

Her fingertip brushed the waistband of his Levis and his hand suddenly clamped down over hers. She looked up at him. He didn't say anything for a moment but his eyes were brimful with the kind of tension she'd felt in his muscles.

"I think it's gone now."

His voice tumbled over her like water on river stones. Lacey held his gaze for another beat or two before pulling her hand away and surrendering the cloth. Her pulse whooshed slow and muffled through her ears and her gaze dropped as she tried to catch a breath she didn't know she'd lost. The scar bisecting his sternum, thin and white, stared back at her and before she could stop herself she was bringing her hands up to his chest, one laid over the steady thud of his heart, the other tracing the scar with her fingertips.

She was close enough, tuned in to his body enough, to hear the catch in his breath.

"Lacey."

"You could have died," she murmured, her fingers continuing their caress, reading his scar—his skin—like braille.

"I didn't."

She glanced up into his eyes, the incredible blue that had struck her right from that very first night still holding her in thrall. "Ethan said it was close. That you nearly died."

"Ethan likes to embellish," he rumbled.

Lacey gave a half smile. They both knew her brother wouldn't know embellishment if it came up and bit him on the ass. "Were you scared?"

Coop frowned. "When he shot me? Or after."

"Both."

"I didn't really have time to be scared when he shot me. It all happened so fast. And then after that all I really remember is the pain."

Lacey couldn't bear the thought of that. Coop lying on the ground in pain and bleeding because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her hand moved up to touch the horizontal scar transecting low on his trachea. His throat bobbed beneath her fingertips. "So you weren't scared?"

"Yes." The vibration of his voice buzzed the whorls of her fingertips. "In the hospital when I woke up and couldn't seem to move or remember anything because of all the drugs they'd given me."

She raised her eyes from his throat. "That must have been awful," she whispered.

"Not something I ever want to repeat."

Lacey gaze drifted to Coop's mouth. He was a man of few words. King of the understatement. "What would I have done without you these past couple of years?" she whispered.

"I'm sure Ethan would have found you someone else to torture."

It took Lacey a second or two to comprehend the words, busy as she was watching them form on his mouth. She gave a half smile as they sank in, raising her hand to touch those lips.

She expected him to flinch or to rear back. He didn't.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, her gaze lifting to his, her voice tremulous as she traced the contours of his mouth.

He drew in an unsteady breath, his palm sliding to cup her cheek as the blue of his eyes burned into the brown of hers. "It's fine." The space around them shrunk down to just the two of them, the air thicker and heavier, pressing in on them.

His gaze dropped to her mouth and Lacey knew he was going to kiss her. _Yes_. Dear God, _yes._ Her heart banged against her ribs and throbbed at her pulse points, her fingers fell from his lips, giving him permission, inviting him in, asking him for it.

But it had to come from him this time. She _wanted_ it to come from him. _Needed_ it to. Wanting to kiss him was a default position for her. It was a given. But if it came from him? If he initiated it, it would be something else. Something more. A confirmation of the mutual attraction he'd denied for so long. A sign that he still wanted her.

No matter how crazy.

His head moved slowly towards hers, almost imperceptibly, and Lacey's pulse trebled, the muscle fibres in her belly tangling and twisting hard. She didn't move. She daren't even breathe lest he change his mind. She could feel his breath warm on her face, see the dilation of his pupils.

And then he halted, his gaze roaming over her face, searching her eyes for who knew what. Whatever it was he didn't find it, instead shutting his eyes and pressing his forehead against hers with a groan that seemed to come from his boots and plucked those muscle fibres deep inside her to an unbearable tautness.

"I can't do this, Lacey," he muttered, his forehead lifting, his hand slipping from her cheek, his body backing up a step or two.

_What?_ Lacey blinked and placed her hand on the car frame for support. _What had just happened?_ He wanted her. Did he think she didn't know that? "No matter how much you want to?"

He shook his head. " _Because_ of how much I want to."

Lacey took heart at his words and ignored his closed face. He _did_ want her. "I'm twenty-one, Coop. I'm well above the age of consent and old enough to know my own mind."

He swore under his breath, glaring at her. "It doesn't matter if you're a hundred and one. You will always be my best friend's little sister. You'll always be off limits, Lacey."

The thought was so bleak she didn't even want to think about it. She knew his parents and others found his honourable streak commendable, but right now Lacey wanted to strangle him with it.

"You should go," he said, tucking the cloth back in his pocket again and snagging his shirt off the end of the workbench. "Go ahead and eat without me." He shoved his arms into it. "I'm going to be a while yet."

And with that he turned back to her engine on the floor.

Stung by his dismissal, Lacey didn't even have the fortitude to argue.

 *     *     *

The restoration job on her car came to define their days over the next week. Coop went off to work before Lacey was awake most mornings and when he shut up shop for the day he started on her car, often not getting in until nine or ten at night, dog-tired and utterly sexy in his greasy way. Sometimes he ate, sometimes he didn't. Then he showered, hit the sack and they started all over again the next morning.

Their conversations, when he was around long enough to have them with her, usually revolved around car stuff—progress updates or decisions on paint and upholstery. Lacey went for black leather seats with an ochre stitching and trim and for the duco chose a candy apple red base paint and a shimmer gold pearl for over the top to produce a metallic ochre look that threw hints of either red or orange from its pearlescent hide, depending where the sun hit it.

Occasionally he asked Lacey about her job hunt or the pub or about the costumes for the high school musical, but essentially they passed like ships in the night. Coop was clearly getting through their forced cohabitation with the minimum amount of conversation. Or at least the minimum amount of opportunity to find himself in the sort of clinch they'd ended up in on Thursday evening.

Which was fine by Lacey. A girl could only be knocked back so many times before she started to doubt herself as a woman. And she was much too happy at being home to let any negativity ruin her high.

But it seemed like JJ wasn't above prodding that particular sore spot, as Lacey found out the following Thursday afternoon during the lull before the evening crowd wandered in for some liquid socialising.

"How are things with you and Coop?"

JJ was the same height as Lacey but had a loose kind of lankiness to her limbs and a lack of female airs and graces that had her labelled as a tomboy from her very early years. Of course, hanging with the Weston brothers hadn't helped.

"Great," Lacey lied, plastering a big old smile on her face. As long as they didn't get close enough to touch and stuck to safe subjects like paint and leather they were just _dandy_.

She tried not to think about the fact that Alec Campbell was due back on Wednesday. Six more days.

"He's being very ... attentive."

"Oh?" JJ said as she wiped the wooden bar surface down with a wet cloth. "I don't see him around very much?"

"He's working hard on restoring my Mini at the moment. He wants to get it done as quickly as possible so I have wheels. For ... appointments and stuff."

"Yeah I guess," JJ agreed. "I just would have thought two new lovebirds ..."

Lacey frowned. Where was she going with this? "What?"

"Well ... I didn't think he'd let you out of his sight. I thought he'd be keeping you very," she lowered her voice, " _busy_ , if you know what I mean."

Lacey almost snorted—if only!

"He seems quite besotted, Lace."

_Besotted?_ Lacey blinked. Had JJ been drinking? "Well, the ... morning sickness is kinda putting a stop to all that," she fobbed.

"Really?" JJ arched an eyebrow. "I was only just saying to Jarrod yesterday how remarkably healthy you always look considering how early it is in the pregnancy."

JJ was looking at her expectantly. As if she was waiting for her to confess or something. But confessing to _JJ_ was the last thing Lacey was doing. Everyone would know the truth soon enough. "It's more a night-time sickness thing. He might as well be at the shop than be listening to me throwing up in the toilet all night."

Lacey was surprised how easily the fabrication slipped off her tongue—one in a long line since this subterfuge had begun. No doubt she was cursing herself to the worst case of morning sickness ever known to womankind when she did eventually decide to have a baby.

Karma was a bitch like that.

"Ah. I see," JJ said, not looking very convinced at all.

One of the regulars came up to the bar and JJ poured him a tap beer without having to be asked. Lacey was grateful for the reprieve. She had a feeling this was an interrogation of sorts and she wasn't sure how long she could hold out against JJ's deceptively friendly, big-sister technique of questioning.

Lacey was waiting for her when JJ came back. "You know," she said. "I always thought you and Ethan would get together one day?"

Anyone who hadn't known JJ forever might have missed the tiny little nerve leaping just under JJ's eye but Lacey didn't.

"Nah," she dismissed with a flick of her hair and a quick easy smile. One that said _that old chestnut_. But the nerve continued to pulse. "We're mates. Just mates. You know that."

Hmm. Interesting. It had been a desperate question. One meant to force a retreat, or at least guarantee a change in the subject, but JJ's response was interesting ... or the jumping nerve was anyway.

Lacey regarded JJ seriously. "Haven't you ... ever been tempted to cross that line?"

God knew they'd had plenty of opportunity. And it wasn't like the whole town wouldn't have thrown them a massive party. Jumbuck Springs had been banking on them getting together since they played on the same under sevens touch footy team and continually tried to best each other.

And then high school had happened and Delia had come along.

JJ shook her head emphatically this time and the nerve stopped its frantic pulsing. "Nah. Our friendship is way too important to mess with."

Lacey could relate to that. Wasn't that the same with her and Coop? But then they hadn't been friends first, had they? They'd been lovers. They'd put the cart before the horse well and truly. Maybe they weren't destined to be friends either. Maybe it was lovers or nothing.

And Coop wasn't entertaining the first option.

"Ethan's friendship means more to me than some romantic entanglement that would never work out."

"Why wouldn't it work?" Lacey frowned. It seemed to her that her brother and JJ were like two peas in a pod.

JJ rolled her eyes. "Because he's still in love with Delia."

Lacey blinked at such a preposterous statement. Her brother had washed his hands of his troublesome ex a long time ago. In a romantic sense anyway. He still had to deal with her as the mother of his daughter. " _What_? That's crazy. He's done with her."

JJ looked sad as she shook her head. "He _says_ he's done with her and yet after all this time he hasn't found anyone to move on with? Please. It's been years since their divorce, Lacey. And it's not for a lack of women trying. Every single woman in the district, and their mothers, have tried it on at one stage or other. Your brother is a very eligible, very attractive guy."

"Oh," Lacey smiled, "so you _have_ noticed."

That earned her another eye roll. "I'm not blind. Just not interested. I've already had one disastrous relationship complete with messy divorce. That's enough for me."

"Maybe it's the same for him? Nothing to do with still being in love with Delia?"

JJ gave a sad little shake of her head like Lacey didn't have a clue. And maybe she didn't. Ethan was thirteen years older than her. There was probably a lot of things she didn't know about him that JJ, his best buddy, did.

Would she and Coop still be friends twenty or thirty years down the track?

For some reason the thought was depressing as hell.

## Chapter Nine

 ‡

Coop almost hit his head on the underside of Lacey's Mini as a thundering knock landed on the back door of the shop later that evening. Since Lacey's unannounced visit here last week he'd taken to locking it after business hours had ended and he prayed to God it wasn't her again.

But at least he had coveralls on this time.

"Coop? You in there?"

Ethan? Coop rolled out from under the Mini where he'd been tinkering with the engine. It had gone back in this morning after the paint job yesterday but was still requiring some adjusting. "Coming," he yelled, vaulting to his feet.

What the hell did Ethan want?

Coop wiped his greasy hands on his coveralls and strode over to the door, flipping the deadlock. Ethan stood there in his navy uniform, complete with big black boots, looking his usual serious self, one hand shoved on his hip, the other behind his back.

"Ethan," Coop nodded warily.

"My spy network told me I'd find you here," he said.

"They were right."

Coop knew that all good cops had a network of people they relied on for information. In the city they were called snitches, informants. In a town the size of Jumbuck Springs they were called the grapevine. Or the bush telegraph.

Ethan looked at him for long moments. Coop held his gaze and stood his ground. He got it, Ethan was pissed at him. But what was done was done. He wasn't going to spend the rest of his life apologising to his friend for something he wasn't even guilty of.

Although, of course, he was partially guilty ...

Ethan pulled a sixpack of beers from behind his back. "Truce?"

A wave of relief flooded Coop's body but he wasn't about to get too excited. Truce was still a long way from where they'd been prior to Lacey's rash announcement. Coop stood back and Ethan brushed past him, setting the sixpack on the workbench and pulling two out.

He handed one to Coop, which he took and cracked the lid. "Cheers," he said tentatively, holding his bottle up to Ethan.

"Cheers," Ethan replied tapping his beer against Coop's before taking a big swallow. Coop took one too.

"I hear there's been a spate of breakdowns in the district," Ethan said. "All the ladies wanting to check out the hot new mechanic."

Coop gave a half laugh. He had done a lot more roadside assistance than Alec Campbell had led him to believe was likely.

"This Lacey's?" Ethan asked gruffly as he turned to the Mini before an awkward silence could build between them.

"Yep."

"She said you were restoring it so you could use it for promotional purposes to attract more female clientele. That true?"

Coop shrugged. "We've been looking for a project to increase our demographic for a while," he said carefully.

"And you were sick of her shit box breaking down all the time, and her stubborn devotion to it, so you decided to kill two birds with one stone?"

Coop smiled grudgingly. "There was that."

They took a slow tour around the car, talking about the project as they drank their beers. All the internal fit was still to come. Gav was overseeing the custom upholstery of the seats and had managed to find a wood grain finish dashboard. Coop doubted it would arrive before he left but he could fit it back in Brisbane.

By the time they got back to the start again things felt less awkward. It wasn't exactly like old times between them but it was better than it had been since the great baby daddy admission.

Ethan leaned against the workbench and downed the rest of his beer in two swallows. He cracked another one from the pack offering it to Coop, which he declined.

Ethan took a swig out of the fresh bottle then looked at Coop. "Sorry about Marcus hitting you."

Coop rubbed his hand over his jaw. The swelling was gone but the odd twinge remained. "Forget it. I probably would have done the same thing if the positions had been reversed."

"Jarrod thinks if we'd listened to her and what she wanted instead of railroading her into going, and guilting her into staying, we mightn't be in this mess. Do you think that's true?"

Coop felt about as low as a snake's belly carrying on this subterfuge with Ethan, who was obviously still having a hard time with the situation.

He shrugged. "You were just doing what you thought was right."

"We promised Mum," Ethan said, eyes bleak.

"I know," Coop nodded.

"That day ... that she died ..." Ethan looked at his beer label. "It was like she wouldn't let herself go until we all promised. She was so frail and wasted and in pain but she grabbed my hand so hard I thought she was going to break it. She looked me right in the eye and told me Lacey's education was my responsibility now."

Coop didn't say anything. What could he say? Promising someone you loved was solemn enough, but a deathbed promise was a whole other level.

"I didn't think she was _that_ unhappy." Ethan picked at the label. "Sure, she was always a bit emotional when it came to going back to school after breaks, but I just put it down to missing Mum and ... girl stuff ... hormones and late onset teenage rebellion."

Coop guessed they were easy conclusions to jump to when you were a guy who was dealing with his own grief as well as his daughter's, while still being a single father and the chief of police of a small town. But from where Coop stood he'd have classified Lacey's unhappiness as profound.

Lacey's entire world had been tilted on its axis at a young age. Coop knew what that felt like. Ethan did too but sometimes it was easier to see standing on the outside.

"But _you,"_ Ethan looked up from the label, "knew how unhappy she was, right? Why didn't you tell me?"

There was no accusation in Ethan's voice. Just weariness.

"I didn't realise I was supposed to report on her to you. You asked me to look out for her, Ethan. Not spy on her. Do you think she would have rung me when her car broke down or at three am when there were no taxis and she was too pissed to drive home if I'd run to you over every little thing she did?"

"C'mon man," Ethan growled. "I didn't want you to spy on her. I just thought you might have said something."

"Would you have listened? You were all pretty fucking pig-headed about her going to design college. You forget I know what you're like when you get an idea in that thick head of yours."

Ethan puffed up his chest and looked like he was about to argue but let it all out in one noisy breath instead, raking his fingers through his hair. "You're right. We screwed up big time ... I just ..." He looked at Coop in that direct no-bullshit way of his. "Tell me you love her. That she isn't just some notch on your belt that's looking more and more like a noose and you regret ever getting involved with her."

The question took Coop completely unawares. For starters, he and Ethan _did not_ talk about _love_. They talked about the job and cars and sport and what was going on with the weather. Occasionally they talked about getting laid.

But love?

Coop didn't even know if Ethan had ever loved Delia—he'd never asked. He'd assumed his friend did because that girl had had Ethan firmly by the balls from the beginning. But Coop had never asked. Because they were _guys_ and guys just did not talk about that stuff.

Not to each other. Not the guys he knew anyway.

And then there was the other thing. The big thing. Punching him slow but hard right between the eyes. _He did love her._ It was so freaking obvious to him now. It was there in the grip around his heart, the hitch in his breath and the cramp in his gut. It glowed like a crashed meteor inside him and created about as much havoc.

_Holy fucking crap._

She'd given him hell from the day he'd met her. She'd lied to him, used him, discarded him. She'd been inconvenient and inconsiderate. She'd challenged and disobeyed him. And she'd cramped his style something dreadful. He'd spent a good part of their acquaintance wanting to put her over his knee and spank her.

And none of that mattered because somewhere in the middle of all that he'd fallen in love with her.

In love with Lacey Weston. His best friend's sister.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense. Love seldom did, right? Some people didn't get to choose. Sometimes it just happened. And the heart wanted what the heart wanted.

Ethan frowned at his continued silence. "Christ, Coop ..." He shut his eyes briefly before piercing Coop with a look. "Please tell me you're not having casual sex with my sister."

Coop shook his head, shaking himself out of the strange inertia that seemed to have afflicted him. _How could he have been so blind?_ All these years she'd been firmly under his skin not just because she was an annoying pain in the ass.

If only this made things better. Instead of worse.

"No, I'm not," he said, finding his voice finally. "And I do ... love her."

It felt foreign to be telling Ethan something so personal. _And new_. Something he'd rather keep to himself. But it was a fair enough question given the circumstances and deserved an honest answer.

"I'm sorry, man. I didn't plan to. I didn't plan any of this. It just ... happened and I wish it hadn't but ... I'd do anything for her. You have to know that."

Even pretend to be the father of her fake baby.

Ethan nodded, although the answer didn't really seem to be much comfort to him. "Anything? Would you let her go if that's what she needed? If something happened and there was suddenly no baby and she wanted to go back to college or go on a working holiday overseas or ... work in Antarctica. What happens if she has her fill of you and playing happy families with a baby and wants out of this one-horse town?"

Coop raised an eyebrow at the bitterness in Ethan's tone. He wasn't entirely sure they were still talking about Lacey. "Are we talking about your sister still, Ethan, or Delia?"

Ethan pursed his lips at the enquiry and glared at Coop. "Answer the damn question. Do you love her enough to let her go?"

Coop didn't know how to answer that. It wasn't like loving Lacey made a difference to their situation. They were living a lie. It was a total mess.

Loving Lacey complicated the hell out of it.

"Are you _asking_ me to let her go? Is that what this is, Ethan?" Because Coop knew with sudden clarity that he couldn't. Only Lacey could ask him to do that.

"No, damn it," he growled. "I'm just ... curious."

"Is this some kind of if-you-love-something-set-it-free bullshit?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"If _she_ asked me to? Yes." But the thought sat heavy in Coop's gut. Despite the futility of loving her, leaving her would be harder.

_Crap._ He was going to be emotional Swiss cheese at the end of all this.

_Next week._ Alec was back on Wednesday.

Ethan looked at him for long moments then nodded slowly as if he was satisfied with the answer. He placed his barely touched beer on the workbench beside him. "Looks like you're family now," he said. "Better come to Sunday lunch this week."

 *     *     *

Later that night, Lacey woke with a start. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest as she looked around the room, disorientated for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the dark, her ears straining to hear whatever it was that had woken her.

Nothing seemed out of place. Coop was asleep lying on his back. The kitchen windows were shut; so was the door to the room and the bathroom door, and the television was off.

She glanced at the clock—two-thirty. She shut her eyes again, her pulse settling as sleep pulled her in from the edges.

But the noise came again before she was fully under. Lacey turned her head to the right, from the direction it was coming to find Coop muttering to himself, clearly agitated, his head rocking from side to side, his face screwed up, his eyes shut.

He cried out then, shouted something she couldn't comprehend. It shot straight through Lacey like a hot bullet. Without thinking twice she kicked off her covers and was at his side in a matter of moments.

"Coop?" she whispered, kneeling beside his bed, placing her hand on his bicep, her palm sliding against his warm skin as her fingers breached the sleeve of his T-shirt. He settled at her touch but didn't wake and Lacey let her gaze roam over his face for a moment or two now her eyes had adjusted.

There was a little crease between his brows still, and his mouth was fixed in a line rather than curved and slack like it usually was when he slept. The dark blond highlights in his stubble caught the glow emitted from the digital clock on the bedside and her fingers itched to trace along his jaw and smooth down his throat.

The glow also lit up the slope of his cheek and the stark white line of the scar on his scalp visible through the spikes of his buzz cut. Was that what he'd been dreaming about? The night that had ended in that scar?

How did he _not_ dream about it?

Hell, she'd dreamed about it from time to time. Disjointed, garbled imaginings, rattly breathing and blood that woke her with a pounding heart.

Lacey pushed it from her mind. Forced herself to stand, remove her hand before the delicious pull of his generic man-brand deodorant and the vague smell of coconut that came from his bar of soap in the shower overcame her sense. He was settled and wouldn't appreciate waking to find her looming over him.

Not if his increasingly distant behaviour was anything to go by.

His bicep tensed as she turned to go and he groaned, this time all low and painful, his hands sliding onto either side of his head, cradling it, the beds of his fingernails whitening as his grip tightened.

Was it a bad dream? Or some kind of headache? She vaguely remembered he got those occasionally.

"Coop?" she whispered, lowering herself to the side of the bed.

But he didn't seem to hear her. He just screwed his eyes shut tight, his fingers looking like they were trying to burrow beneath his scalp, his biceps and forearms bulging with tension.

It looked like it hurt.

"Coop," she whispered again, putting her hands on his forearms and tugging gently. She expected resistance but his hands fell away easily. The pained look stayed.

"Shh," she said, raising one hand to his forehead. "It's okay."

She used her thumb to iron out the lines furrowing his brow in long soothing strokes until they were gone and the scrunched skin around his eyes had relaxed. She dropped her hand back to his bicep and watched him again. His eyes quickly puckered, the pained frown returning, another soft groan escaping.

"Shh," Lacey repeated, placing her hand flat against his chest directly over where his heart beat a rapid tattoo. "I've got you." She leaned forward and dropped a string of light kisses along his brow this time, and one on each eye, nuzzling across to his temple and murmuring, "I've got you."

She shut her eyes as his spiky hair brushed her nose and she inhaled the clean, soapy smell of him.

So very Coop.

Lacey supposed this should feel awkward. But it didn't. It felt good to be able to comfort him for once, to help him out of a spot. There was no denying how he'd relaxed beneath her touch.

In a moment like this, Lacey could almost believe they were a couple.

She lifted her head after a while and looked down at him again. Had he gone back into a deep sleep? His eyes fluttered open and her pulse tripped. _Nope._

"Lacey?" His voice was a gravelly whisper, his gaze unfocused behind eyelids at half-mast.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Head hurts."

"What can I do? Do you take something for it?"

"Nothing," he muttered, his eyes shutting, his hand sliding up to rub a temple. "It'll go away."

But she couldn't bear to watch him like this. "Here, let me try something," she said, half rising then pulling back his covers and sliding into the single bed beside him.

"Lacey?" His sounded more conscious now. His frown was back.

"Shh, its fine," she said, rolling on her side, propping herself up slightly on his pillows then urging the back of his head against her chest with her hands, cradling it gently between her breasts as her fingers speared into his hair and massaged his scalp, one at the front, one at the side.

"Lacey ..." If it was supposed to be a protest it was a weak one. It was more groan than warning.

"Shh," she said, closing her eyes as she concentrated on supplying a steady, even pressure. "Go to sleep."

And he appeared to do just that, his head growing steadily heavier against her as sleep finally claimed him. She took the opportunity to snuggle in closer to his side, seeking his body heat as an antidote to her uncovered arms and shoulders, as she kept up the massage. At some point though, she too drifted off, her arms falling to his shoulders, her chin resting on top of his head.

 *     *     *

Lacey was still thinking about falling asleep in Coop's bed the next afternoon as she pulled beers at The Stockman. It had been a strange interlude. Nice but strange. Also depressingly platonic considering they'd been in bed together.

Everything about their relationship was depressingly platonic.

Ethan entered the bar, striding towards her in his police fatigues. "Hey," she greeted.

"Why aren't you answering your phone?" he asked with absolutely no preamble "I've been trying to ring you."

Lacey frowned, her phone was upstairs on charge. "Everything okay?" A sudden sense of alarm descended. "Is Coop—"

"He's fine." Ethan assured briskly. Clearly he was in a hurry. "There's just a police matter I think you might be able to help with."

Lacey's eyes widened. " _Just_ a police matter?"

She'd only ever had one brush with the law and it was something she never wanted repeated. Being thrown in those holding cells after that protest had scared the bejesus out of her. She'd never been so pleased to see Coop in all her life than she had that day. And the way he'd sorted it so not only was she released but released without anything on her record had been utterly masterful.

If they'd had any kind of continuing casual relationship she would have jumped him in his car on the way home for sure.

Ethan glanced at JJ. "Can you spare her? This might take a while."

JJ looked from Ethan to Lacey then back to Ethan again. "Sure," she shrugged.

"What's wrong, Ethan?" Lacey asked as she whipped off her apron.

"There's no time," he said impatiently. "Come on, I'll tell you on the way."

 *     *     *

Fifteen minutes later Lacey was standing in the living room of a grand old homestead at a sheep property just outside Jumbuck Springs, staring at what she could only describe as wedding dress confetti. A distraught Caroline Duncan was being comforted by her fiancé and mother while a massive white marquee was being constructed on the sweeping lawns outside, and her father ranted at Ethan about a national women's magazine coming in the morning and locking Danielle Gordon up and throwing away the key.

It seemed Danielle still wasn't over her best friend stealing her boyfriend back in high school and had decided to exact revenge on the six-thousand-dollar Parisian wedding dress the day before the wedding.

Lacey couldn't blame Caroline for being hysterical. To see such an exquisite dressed hacked to pieces was a travesty.

"What am I going to do?" Caro wailed to no-one in particular.

Her father, Ross, broke away from Ethan to hug his daughter. "We'll go to Brisbane. Buy one off the rack."

Caroline shook her head. "We won't get there in time. It's already three o'clock."

"We'll ring ahead. I can see if the Patterson's are using their chopper."

"It still won't be enough time and I wanted _my_ dress." Caroline looked at the pile of hacked up satin and lace on the floor and her face crumpled. "My beautiful dress."

Ethan strode over to Lacey. "Well?" he said, half turning his back, his voice low. "Can you fix it?"

Lacey almost choked on her own spit as she gawped at him. What the fuck? "Are you _crazy,_ " she whispered, also turning slightly away from Caroline and her parents.

Only a man could look at a huge mound of shredded wedding dress and think _yeah, that can be fixed_. Lacey might never have had a ring on her finger but like a lot of little girls she knew exactly what she wanted for her wedding dress and had done ever since she'd been nine years old.

A wedding dress was sacred to a bride.

Even if Lacey _could_ magic something up it was never going to be the same for Caroline.

"C'mon. You're good at this stuff. Look at Connie's mermaid outfit you made from those strips of different material."

Dear Lord, he'd taken leave of his senses. "Just what a bride wants," she muttered, "A patchwork wedding dress."

He shrugged. "Connie loved it."

"Connie's not even thirteen. And _not_ a bride."

"Exactly. Caroline needs you even more."

"Caroline needs a freaking fairy godmother."

"I could get a hold of a pumpkin for you."

Lacey narrowed her eyes at him, finding nothing remotely funny, but he looked deadly serious too. More than that, he was looking at her with complete confidence. Like he had absolute faith that she could perform a miracle with this dress.

All the old familiar feelings of wanting to please her older brother, needing his approval, rushed to her head.

His belief in her was still her Achilles heel. Maybe if she could pull this off he'd stop doubting that coming back home was a good move.

Lacey looked at the ruins of the dress then at a sobbing, red-faced Caroline. There wouldn't be time to make a new wedding dress from scratch, not to a Parisian design standard anyway, but maybe something _could_ be salvaged. It depended on a lot of things, but the fact that Caroline didn't have a lot of choices if she wanted to walk down the aisle in any kind of a wedding dress tomorrow couldn't be escaped.

She glanced at Ethan. "Maybe."

He grinned at her. "Atta girl."

Lacey rolled her eyes. _Men._ She sank to her knees and sifted through the massacred fabric. Handkerchief-sized pieces of satin, lace and beaded organza was about all that was left of it. The bodice was reasonably intact although the sleeves and the corset style lacing at the back had been ripped out and a huge diamond shaped hole cut in the middle panel.

The sleeves and lacing were easy fixed. The hole ... she could figure something out. If she had a bodice then half the job was done already. She had plenty of material hoarded away that could be used and Mrs Hoff's was still open.

"What are you doing?" Caroline asked, glancing over, rubbing at her splotchy face.

"I think I maybe could ... make another dress out of all of this."

Maybe. _Somehow._

"What?" she sniffled. "How?"

"Hey, design school, remember?" Lacey teased because if she was going to get Caroline on board with this then she needed to be positive as well. "I can do this sort of thing in my sleep."

"But ... it's in tatters."

"And the journo and photographer from _Stylish Woman_ are arriving at eight o'clock tomorrow morning," Ross said.

Lacey looked at the remains around her. She didn't need to be reminded what kind of a feat it would be if she could pull it off in time. "Yes. But the bodice is salvageable ... Have you got a picture of what the dress ..." Lacey stopped herself before she said, _used to look like_. "How it was when you bought it?"

Caroline nodded, pulling her phone out of her back pocket and scrolling through it for a bit then handing it over. "There's a couple more further on," she said. "It had this gorgeous bustle."

Lacey looked at the five pictures taken from different angles. It was a _gorgeous_ dress. Quite form fitting and modern from the front, covered in intricately beaded organza with an old fashion Bo Peep style bustle at the back, falling into a short fishtail train.

Lacey loved the bustle too. She loved how it added old-world charm to a very modern style.

"Well ... I'm not going to be able to give you that but ..." An idea came to her then and she looked down at the pile of scrap around her. She picked a piece up and fingered it.

"Okay ... how about this. Have you ever heard of a handkerchief bustle?" Caroline shook her head. "Have you got a computer? Or an iPad."

Caroline grabbed her iPad off the nearby coffee table and handed it over too. "Sit down next to me," Lacey said, a surge of excitement fluttering in her belly.

Lacey quickly surfed to her Pinterest page, where she had thousands of wedding dress pictures she'd collected during the last few years in college. She found what she was looking for immediately.

"This bustle is made out of hundreds of colourful handkerchiefs all attached at one end and fluttering free at the other. And you just keep layering them in until they form this flouncy kind of bustle."

Lacey shoved the iPad at Caroline and picked up a few pieces of the shredded fabric. "Most of these are about handkerchief size." She showed Caroline how she'd sew them so they would flutter free. "I could mix all the different scraps—"

Caroline winced but Lacey kept going, her creative juices in full flight.

"—in together, so they look like they were designed to be that way. And I could bring it right down to the ground and fishtail it out just like the original. It's not going to be a Bo Peep bustle but it'll be unique."

Caroline sniffled again but picked up a piece of fabric and flapped it in front of her. "What about the skirt?"

"Yeah. I'll have to run you up a new one of those."

"Hang on," Mrs Duncan interrupted. "What about granny's gown?"

Lacey lifted an eyebrow at Caroline but her mother was rushing out of the room and back again in under a minute with a long garment bag. "It was my grandmother's," she said unzipping it. "My mother wore it and I wore it. Unfortunately Caroline being a foot taller than all of us couldn't but we could use the skirt maybe?"

The dress was exquisite. Plain and simple as most were during the rationing of the war years. The bodice was high-necked and long-sleeved with buttons going all the way up the arms, and the skirt was reasonably full. The white satin was in perfect condition.

"Mum, no," Caroline said starting to cry all over again. "We can't rip up great granny's dress. It's a family heirloom."

"Rubbish. Of course we can," Mrs Duncan dismissed with a quick wave of her hand. "I would have loved for you to be able to wear it but I had to go and marry a man who was six foot five with size thirteen feet." She smiled at her husband lovingly. "At least this way you _can_ wear it. I insist." Mrs Duncan turned to Lacey. "Would it help?"

"It would save us _hours_ ," Lacey admitted even though, like Caroline she was loathe to destroy something so beautiful. But her design mind was already working overtime as she inspected it. "We could put some lace over if you like? So it's at least similar to the skirt of your Parisian one? What do you say? I can't give you your old dress back, not in the time I have, but I can give you a new one using as much of the old as possible? And you'll still get a bustle that I reckon will be the talk of the district for a long time to come."

Caroline looked at her mother, then at her fiancé, then back at Lacey. "But ... can you get it done in time?"

Lacey had _no_ idea. Not that she was about to say that. "It'll take me all night, but I reckon I can."

"Okay then," she nodded with a sniffle. "Yes ... please. Thank you."

Lacey smiled and gave Caroline a quick hug. "Okay, let's get this show on the road."

"What do you need?" Ethan asked.

"Caroline and I are going to Hoff's, so can you grab my sewing machine from The Stockman. And the three sewing boxes. And tell Coop I won't be home tonight."

He nodded. "On it. Anything else?"

"Maybe some little elves along with that pumpkin?"

He laughed and saluted. "I'll see what I can do."

## Chapter Ten

 ‡

At nine Saturday morning Lacey sewed the last stitch on the final adjustment to Caroline's dress. The whole room—three bridesmaids, a make-up lady, a hairdresser, two relieved mothers, a worried father, Mrs Hoff and the photographer and journalist from _Stylish Woman_ —broke into applause.

She was exhausted but utterly elated.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Caroline said hugging her hard. "I can't believe we've gone from a pile of shredded material to this thing of beauty. I think I love it more than my Parisian one."

Lacey smiled, touched by the compliment. It _was_ beautiful. The handkerchief bustle was nothing short of a work of art. The skirt looked amazing with an overlay of gorgeous lace that Lacey had admired that first day amongst Mrs Hoff's curtain materials and the addition of hundreds of hand sewn crystal beads. The bodice now sported a diamond cut-out in each panel featuring more lace and artfully bordered by exquisite brocade that Lacey had found amongst her stash of ribbon.

"I couldn't have managed it without Mrs Hoff."

While Lacey had made two dresses into one and slaved over the bustle for long hours, Mrs Hoff had helped with the seamstress work—the measuring and the cutting, the hems and seams, and had done all the beading to the skirt. There was no way Lacey had time to sew on over three hundred beads, but Mrs Hoff had revelled in it, creating the perfect balance of clusters to complement the lace design.

"Well go on. Get into it. I'm going home to bed."

"But you're going to come back for the wedding this arvo, right?" Mrs Duncan insisted. She'd been insisting for hours now and Lacey was finally too tired to turn her down. Besides, who didn't love a wedding?

"Yes, you must, dear," Mrs Hoff, who was already on the guest list, pressed.

"Wouldn't miss it," Lacey said, summoning a smile.

"And bring that sexy man of yours," Caroline said. "I hear he's a hottie."

"Oh yes," her mother agreed. "Even I've heard he's quite the spunk."

Lacey wondered if delirium had set in or if she'd just heard prim-and-proper Esther Duncan call Coop a _spunk_. "I'll see what I can do," she said. "He's not that social, though, so no promises."

Lacey almost laughed at her understatement. Coop would probably rather stick himself in the eye with a hot poker than attend a Jumbuck Springs wedding, but if she was going then her _boyfriend_ was going too. They still had a façade to maintain after all.

He wasn't at the hotel when Mrs Hoff dropped her off. He'd be at the garage—of course. The damn man might as well take his mattress down there and be done with it.

She shot off a quick text before crawling into bed.

Dress fixed. Wedding at 3. We're going. Be home by 2.

Lacey supposed she should have given him some kind of choice but she was too tired to cajole and, as she fell headfirst into sleep, she hoped that he'd take it as a fait accompli.

 *     *     *

At nine o'clock that night, Coop was well and truly over the wedding. When he'd arrived home at two to tell her he didn't think he should go, she'd looked at him from the bed with big sleepy eyes and said, "But they're expecting me to show off my boyfriend."

So here he was, the son of a sheep farmer seated on one side of him, talking about an old farm ute he was wanting to do up, and Lacey in a red swirly dress on the other, taking full advantage of their fake relationship to touch him every opportunity she got. She'd even stolen two not very chaste kisses.

He was so freaking turned on he doubted his discussion about reconditioned motor parts was remotely coherent.

"Oh, I love this song," Lacey announced suddenly. "Dance?"

And then she was dragging him up to the raised wooden dance floor again. It sat to the right of the bridal table and was lit by pretty paper lanterns that gave the voluminous white marquee an added bridal feel.

Lacey pulled him into the middle of the dancers, pressing her body against his, snuggling her head into his shoulder and swaying to the low, sexy tune. With her skyscraper heels their hips were reasonably aligned and his dick felt every single sway. He wanted to grab her ass and hold her tight against him to stop the sheer erotic torture.

But then she'd know how aroused he was. If she hadn't already figured that out from their previous half dozen dances.

"Relax," she teased suddenly, looking up at him. "You're so tense. Is it really such a hardship to dance with me?"

Her eyes sparkled out from the fringe of long sooty lashes and her hair swung all long and loose over her shoulders, exactly the way it had been the night they'd first met.

A hardship? _Hardly._ "I'm sure I'll survive it." It wouldn't pay to give her any indication of just how easy it was to hold her.

"But you're not enjoying the wedding, right?"

"I'm enjoying how you're enjoying it," he said.

And that was the truth. Lacey had been in her element, fielding a barrage of compliments on the wedding dress—which was stunning considering the photos Ethan had shown him yesterday. She'd smiled for pictures taken with the bride by the magazine photographer and laughed with old school and family friends.

In fact she'd chatted with just about everyone at the wedding, obviously happy and comfortable and loving their company. And it was clear that they loved her too, these people. That they were _her_ people.

_And she was theirs_.

She'd been dazzling. Gone was the sad girl that he'd seen lurking one too many times. He'd loved watching her like this.

Hell, he could look at her like this all damn day.

An enthusiastic couple jostled past them, elbowing Coop even closer to Lacey. His cock rejoiced and Coop was relieved when the song started to fade out.

"Another?" she asked as the dancing hit a lull before the next song.

"Lacey ..." Coop hoped there was more foreboding than plea in his voice because if he had to do one more duty dance with her he was going to pass out from lack of cerebral blood flow. It wouldn't be so bad if she'd chosen rock songs and kept her distance, but she'd favoured slow, sexy ballads and had shamelessly invaded his space, taking advantage of their fake coupledom.

She sighed dramatically as the music started again but took pity on him with a smile. "Okay, fine. We'll go. But on one condition."

Oh no. Coop did not want to be backed into a wall. Nor did he want to rain on her parade. She was having a good time, there was no need for her to leave. "You can stay."

She shook her head, her hair swishing, suddenly serious. "I leave with the one who brought me."

He rolled his eyes at her old-fashioned response. Lacey was a strange mix of small-town values and big-city vice. "What's the condition?"

"We stop at the garage so I can see my car."

Coop almost kissed her. The scenarios in his head had been way dirtier than that. "Deal," he said, taking her elbow and walking her off the dance floor.

 *     *     *

Fifteen minutes later they were pulling up outside the auto shop. Coop was relieved to have some distance between them and not be under such close scrutiny from half the district. He was also pleased to be in _his_ environment. Being around Lacey, particularly in that dress, left him daunted and uncertain. Being in a garage—on his turf—gave him the semblance of control he needed to deal with her.

And her dress.

"You forgot your hat," she said, passing it to him as he opened her door for her.

Lacey had made him pull up at the Stock and Feed shop on the way to the wedding, insisting he buy an Akubra. Coop had been worried about his lack of formal clothing for the wedding but Lacey had assured him that most of the men would be dressed in their fanciest Wranglers, best boots and their best hats reserved for special occasions only.

She hadn't taken no for an answer and he'd walked out with a hat.

He'd felt silly wearing it to start with—Coop was more a baseball cap kinda guy. But with ninety per cent of the male wedding guests decked out in fancy Akubras, he'd soon forgotten he was even wearing it.

"I haven't been wearing it since we sat down to eat."

"I know."

"It's night time."

"I know." She smiled as she slipped out of the car, the skirt of her dress fluttering around her knees. "But it suits you."

Coop put it on her and adjusted it to a jaunty angle. She tipped her head back and looked at him from under the brim.

Damn it. Big mistake.

A woman really had no business looking that good in a man's hat.

She looked like a cowgirl. In a red floaty dress and six-inch heels. About a dozen images of being ridden by her in that hat and those heels, her long gypsy locks rippling down her back, crowded his mind.

So _not_ helpful.

"It suits you better," he said, forcing a calmness into his voice and his actions he didn't feel as he shut her door.

She nodded absently as she rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. "Bloody hell," she said. "It's going to be a cold one tonight."

If Coop had been in possession of a jacket he'd have given it to her, but he wasn't. And he was damned if he was going to put his arm around her shoulders and loan her some of his body heat. Not in that dress. "I believe I mentioned something about bringing a coat."

She grinned at him, clearly not perturbed by the unsuitability of her outfit. "Fashion is pain," she quipped.

Coop rolled his eyes. So she'd prefer to freeze her nipples off and look good? Although that line of thought wasn't good given she was high-beaming the hell out of him. "Come on, then. Let's get you out of the cold."

Before he did something really crazy like offering to warm her cold nipples with his hot tongue.

"Now remember, it's a work in progress," he said, hyperaware of her behind him, of the tap of her heels on the concrete path as they headed around the back. "There's still all the interior work to do but the paintwork is done and the engine is in. The wheels are on, but the mags I've ordered won't be in 'til next week."

Coop concentrated on pushing the key into the lock of the back door instead of thinking about Lacey, and her nipples, waiting behind him for entry into the relative warmth of the garage. The door gave and he reached in to flick on the light switch before stepping aside to allow her to precede him.

"Oh," she said on a half groan as she entered. "That's better."

Coop followed her in. It wasn't exactly warm but it was an improvement from outside. He shut the door against the creep of cold air already pushing in as she walked ahead, disappearing momentarily, blocked from his view by a car up on the hoist. "Just be careful," he said. "Wouldn't want you to get grease all over your dress."

She might have to take it off. Not good for the state of her nipples. He might have to help her with them after all.

"Oh _Cooper_!"

She came back into view, her hands over her mouth as she stood a foot away from her car and took in the work that had been done. She dropped her hands as she turned slightly to look at him. "It's ..." She shook her head and looked back at the car. "It's _a_ —mazing."

Cooper always got a kick out this moment. But with Lacey it was extra special. He loved his job, but _her_ car had been different. He hadn't realised just how much a labour of love it was until her obvious pleasure washed over him like a physical force, stroking all the right paces.

His pride and honour. His ego and libido. His heart. His soul.

"You like it?"

"Oh like is far too mild a word," she said, running her hand over the highly polished duco of the hood. She looked up at him. "I freaking _love_ it."

Their eyes locked and Coop's breath hitched, cutting off somewhere around throat level as he fell a little more in love with her, standing there in her red dress and cowboy hat, her eyes shining with excitement and gratitude.

"You're the best," she said, launching herself at him for a quick yet cataclysmic hug before pulling away again and heading back to her car. She trailed her fingers over the paintwork of the roof as she slowly circumnavigated it. "The paint looks awesome," she enthused.

Coop had to admit it did look great. The light shining down on it refracted a fiery red-orange luminosity. Out in the sunshine the effect would be even more dazzling.

She reached the front again and tapped the hood. "You said the engine was in, yeah?"

Coop nodded, taking two strides until he was standing beside her. Ignoring the brush of her arm, he reached under the lip of the hood with his fingers, feeling for the lever and released the latch. She stepped back slightly as he pulled up the hood to reveal the gleaming engine he'd painstakingly pulled apart, cleaned, reconditioned then put back together again.

"I have no idea what's what in there," she said bending over it, inspecting the engine like she was seeing it for the first time, "but it looks beautiful too."

Coop chuckled. "Beautiful on the inside and out." _Just like her._

She grinned then straightened, obviously done looking at the mechanics. Coop felt that smile right down to his toes and a lot of places in between as he shut the hood, pushing down hard on the lip so it clicked shut properly, before stepping out of her gravitational pull.

"I don't know what to say, Coop," Lacey said as she turned and rested her butt on the hood of the car.

"Leave it for the end result," he said, waving away her search for compliments. "Once the inside is done and the doors and mags are on whatever you say now will be completely inadequate."

She quirked an eyebrow, a smile playing on her mouth. "Oh really?"

He nodded. "Absolutely. They may have to invent new words just for it."

She laughed and Coop wanted nothing more than to lay her back on the hood and test out the durability of the paintwork and the damn Akubra. He shoved his hands in his pockets to stop himself reaching for her.

"I like a man who's confident. It's sexy." She used her hands to boost herself onto the hood properly, her feet dangling for a second before she placed her heels wide apart on the bumper he'd polished until it shone just this morning. Her skirt slipped down her thighs a little, the hem of the floaty fabric drooping into the space between her legs, protecting her modesty.

But only just.

He followed the path of her flattened palms as she caressed the gleaming duco either side of her. Coop understood the need to touch. The smooth-as-glass paintwork was irresistibly tactile. His own palms itched to touch too.

But _not_ the paint.

He wanted to step right between those bare knees and glide his palms down those smooth thighs and hitch her close. Coop swallowed at the image and forced himself to look at her face. Not at her provocatively spaced legs or the way the slippery fabric was very slowly inching down those thighs.

She looked up from the hood, their gazes meshing as she leaned forward at her hips, propped an elbow on her knee and tipped back the brim of her Akubra.

Now _that_ was sexy.

"I've been thinking," she said as she looked at him with a gaze so direct it hit him straight below the belt. With predictable results. "About ways to thank you."

"No need." He swallowed against a throat as dry as dirt. "Free advertising ... the website, remember?"

She looked at him for long moments before easing herself back onto her bent elbows. Her hem slid down her thighs a little more as she regarded him from under the brim. "I was thinking about something a little different."

So was Coop. _Bad_ different. "Instead of what we talked about? You welching on the deal?"

He had to keep this businesslike or he was doomed. Lacey had already pushed him to the edge of his sanity at the wedding today. Touching him, kissing him, holding his hand, looking at him with flirty eyes, making him laugh. Charming him with her perfect rendition of besotted girlfriend, killing him with every rub of her body as they'd danced.

The strands of his resistance were threadbare.

She shook her head real slow, her gaze searing into his. "As well as."

Coop kept his hands jammed in his pockets. "Lacey."

She dropped her head on an angle. "You think I don't know that you're hard for me right now?"

Her gaze zeroed in on the zipper of his jeans. His erection stiffened further, clearly appreciating the recognition.

It was such a freaking narcissist.

"You think," she continued, returning her gaze to his face, "I don't know you were hard for me on the dance floor? You think _I_ wouldn't have a hard-on for _you_ right now if it was anatomically possible?"

All the oxygen in the garage seemed to evaporate as Coop dragged in a heavy breath. "I think if you had a cock we wouldn't be having this conversation."

She ignored his attempt at deflection. "We're both consenting adults and I've lain in that bed next to yours for almost two weeks now and wanted to join you _every single night_. Haven't you?"

Coop was hard _and_ throbbing now as he thought about her wanting him as much as he'd wanted her. He should just lie. Prior to his confession to Ethan he probably would have. But he couldn't lie to the woman he loved. Not about how much he wanted her.

Even if it was only going to inflame the situation.

He tightened his hands into fists in his pockets. "Yes."

She nodded nice and slow, her gaze boring into his. "What the hell are we doing, Coop? You want me. I want you."

Coop almost groaned out loud. His cock felt like it was about to burst out of its skin and if only she'd said _I love you_ he'd have walked right between those legs and given it to her. But she didn't. And this would be over in a few days and he wasn't sure he could go back to his old life in Brisbane after being in Lacey's bed again. Because if they had sex right now it wouldn't just be a one-off and they both knew it.

Not while they were living in each other's pockets.

They'd go from the hood to the hotel and she'd be lucky if he let her out of the goddamn room for days.

"I'm really trying to do the right thing here, Lacey."

"I know. And I'm a terrible person for trying to get you to change your mind. But it just seems so incredibly stupid when this is what we both want."

Coop's gaze flicked down to mid-thigh where hem met skin then back up again. _Jesus he wanted to put his mouth there_. "Please don't ask me to do this, Lacey."

"I'm not asking." She slid her feet wider, the skirt falling further down her thighs, her fingers gathering it from her hips aiding the inexorable slide. "I'm offering."

Coop watched on helplessly, his fists clenching and unclenching, as the skirt revealed more and more of her legs until it had fallen down as far as it could go and he was staring at acres of bared thighs and a red lace triangle held on by what looked like two sides made of dental floss.

His pulse pounded through his head and surged through his cock with a rhythmic imperative. Do it. Hit that. Take her.

Desire blurred all his common sense and love got lost in a sea of lust. Or maybe it just made it more acute? Hell if he knew when he was seconds away from busting out of his shirt—and his underwear—like the freaking Hulk.

The air grew heavier between them.

"Please, Coop?"

Her voice was low and soft with a note of yearning, but it wasn't that which undid him, it was when she held out a hand to him that Coop's resistance snapped with a ping that could probably be measured on the Richter scale.

God- _fucking_ -damn her!

He stormed towards her, angry at himself for his weakness where she was concerned and angry at her for being able to exploit it so damn well.

In two paces he'd stepped between those legs, grabbed her hips and dragged her forward until she was jammed tight against the hard bulge between his legs. "Is this what you want?" he demanded, his heart beating like a jungle drum through his head now.

"God yes," she groaned, her hands grabbing for his biceps, her eyes closing as he ground against her.

His hands disappeared beneath the ruched fabric of her skirt, found the insubstantial sides of her underwear and yanked hard, the fabric giving easily. He tugged on what remained of the lace and tore it off her, throwing it over his shoulder. He yanked his zip down, the noise ricocheting loudly as it cut through the charged atmosphere.

"You want me to _fuck_ you on the hood of your car in your cowgirl hat like some cheesy porn film?"

"Yes," she hissed, a touch of defiance flashing in her eyes. She wasn't ashamed. Nor did it look like she was going to apologise for wanting what she wanted.

Her calves locked around the backs of his legs and her chest rose and fell in a completely discordant rhythm.

_Fuck, he wanted her_.

Coop freed his aching cock and she looked at it like she wanted to devour it. " _Yes_?" he demanded again, their combined breathing a vortex as loud as a hurricane in the heated space between them.

"Yes," she muttered, her gaze returning to his face as she reached for him greedily, grasping him firmly, guiding him hungrily towards her, her eyes never leaving his. "Now."

And he didn't stop to consider his options or the consequences or think about his honour or the fact he wasn't wearing a condom, because her hand was on him and then all her heat and wet met the unbearable tautness of cock and his hands were reaching for her hips, tilting her for that perfect thrust and her eyes were goading him, daring him and he loved her _so fucking much_ he held her gaze and entered her in a single push.

She cried out and Coop groaned as her slick velvety tightness surrounded him. Their breathing rasped into the air. "More?" he demanded.

"Yes," she gasped, digging her fingernails into his biceps now.

He shoved into her again, her head rocking back, the Akubra falling off. Her hair swung around her head and shoulders with the momentum. "Like that?" he growled, his gaze boring into her.

 *     *     *

"Yes." Lacey fought the urge to shut her eyes and just revel in the pleasure drowning her body. "Just like that."

Coop was inside her. It felt good. And _he'd made the first move_.

He didn't say anything then. Neither of them did. Nor did they kiss. He just looked at her as he thrust harder and harder inside her as if he was trying to punish her for his loss of control. Or himself. Or maybe both of them.

But Lacey revelled in every stroke. Lifted her hips off the hood and met every single one, daring him with her eyes to go harder, higher, deeper, faster. Refusing to feel shame or embarrassment. Welcoming him into her body, remembering the rhythm and the feel and the stroke of him. Granting him pleasure. Showering him in acceptance. Fighting the tension cranking up inside her that begged for a release she refused to allow before he was ready too.

And it didn't take him long. Lacey could feel the tremble in his biceps and hear the ragged edge to his breath as days and days of torment and a night of teasing hurtled them head first into pleasure.

"Fuck," Coop groaned, glaring at her. "I'm going to come."

And that was all Lacey needed. "Me too," she gasped then let it all go, let it unspool, pressing her forehead into his bicep as the waves rippled and spun and churned and he cried out her name and she clung to his arms, holding on tight, letting it all wash over her.

 *     *     *

At some stage Coop collapsed against her, his forehead resting in the notch between shoulder and neck, the metal of the hood pressing into her lower back.

They were both still joined, still _breathing_ hard when he pulled back slightly and looked down at her. "I hope you're satisfied?"

He looked pissed. And tense. And she couldn't blame him. But no man should be so riled after such an amazing orgasm. It was time to fix that. "I'm sorry," she panted, her voice not much more than a whisper as she righted herself, invading the space he'd carved out between them. And then she kissed him, soft and slow.

He resisted at first but Lacey persisted, stroking her mouth across his in long tender sweeps, teasing him with a hint of tongue, her hands circling his neck as she sighed and shifted and pressed against him, using every ounce of herself to coax his lips to play.

He surrendered on a groan, his hands sliding around to the small of her back, his palms spreading over the dimples there as his mouth opened and joined the sweet tango.

If it was possible, Lacey's heart beat even faster than before as he kissed her slow and deep. It was so sweet Lacey wanted to cry. She moaned as it went on and on, his hands tightening around her back.

"Thank you," she whispered against his mouth, gentling the kiss after long drugging moments, and pulling back a little.

He shook his head, those blue pools of his reflecting his disquiet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have ... taken you like that."

Lacey shook her head. "It was amazing," she said. "It was _exactly_ how I wanted it."

He frowned. "You want it like that?"

"That time? Sure." She smiled at him. "But next time? How about you take me home to bed and you can call the shots."

Lacey half expected him to protest. To retreat. To try and wind back time and be all platonic again. Instead he picked up his hat off the hood, jammed it on his head and said, "Yes ma'am."

## Chapter Eleven

 ‡

The next two days were about as close to bliss as Lacey had ever been. Or had been for a long time, anyway. Back in the days before her mother had been diagnosed with cancer, she'd been safe and secure in her home and the knowledge that her three older brothers adored her. She could roam around Jumbuck Springs, where everyone knew her.

She'd wallowed in the bliss of those truly carefree days, ignorant to the harsh realities of life. Unlike her mother and brothers, whose bliss had been well and truly shattered when Don Weston, her father, had been the victim of a hit-and-run accident while on duty. Lacey had been so small—barely two—that she didn't remember her father or the dreadful turmoil of that time. In fact the family, the town, had taken great care to shelter her from it.

So there'd been no bad memories to spoil Lacey's bliss. Until her mother got cancer.

Five years ago—over three since her death—that's how long it had been since Lacey had felt this kind of happy. And it was all because of Coop.

Spending long hours burning up the sheets with him, waking up beside him, laughing with him over toast and coffee in the morning, and snuggling on the couch with him at night, had all wormed under her skin and she knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye in just a few short days.

Especially as Coop had let go of all his usual boundaries where she was concerned and opened to her completely. He laughed and told her stories about his childhood and his business; things about Ethan and him on the beat as new recruits; and more personal things about the night he was shot.

They'd slipped into an easy kind of intimacy as if they'd always been a couple, and it was addictive.

And the sex. _Lordy, Lordy, Lordy_ , the sex. He was ruining her for all other men.

The alarm went off at six on Tuesday morning and Lacey, lying on her belly, groaned. "I hate that damn thing."

A hand slid onto her bare ass as a pair of lips brushed her shoulder blade. "If you didn't keep me up all night I wouldn't need to set it."

Lacey ignored the not very convincing complaint as the hot, hard length of Coop's erection pressed into her side right near her hand. She reached for it, filling her palm, wrapping her fingers around the impressive girth. She didn't know how it was even ready again considering he'd almost blown her head off with three stellar performances last night, the last one only three hours ago.

Maybe it was because they both knew their days were numbered.

It was his turn to groan as she squeezed him hard and she stole a peek at him through strands of her hair, the ecstasy etched on his face tightening an ever-present knot in her chest.

Things had been perfect, but she was conscious of time running out. Best to make the most of it now. "I've got a place you can put that," she murmured.

Coop chuckled, the vibrations tickling her skin as he pushed her hair off her back and pressed a string of kisses from one shoulder to another. "I was hoping you might."

Goosebumps broke out on Lacey's skin wherever his lips trailed. "You want the long version or the short version?"

"I think," he said, rolling over top of her in one easy move, his dick sliding from her grasp as he straddled her legs, a knee planted either side of her thighs, "I'll take the long." His erection dragged along the cleft of her buttocks as he kissed the side of her neck and Lacey moaned, pushing her rear into the thick, delicious glide. "There are certain advantages to living only a five-minute walk to work after all," he muttered.

"Gotta love small-town life," Lacey panted, arching her back as his cock changed direction, ploughing through her slick folds, rubbing back and forth, taunting her.

"Amen," Coop muttered as Lacey reached for the condom stash in the bedside drawer.

When his phone rang Lacey almost cried. She wasn't that far off coming just from the heavy glide of his dick. His hips jerked to a stop. "Leave it," she groaned but he was reaching for it anyway.

"It's Alec," he said.

Alec Campbell? Why would he be ringing when he would be seeing Coop later this afternoon when they got back to town?

She whimpered as Coop rolled off her onto his back and took the call. His hand found her butt again though, his fingers stroking up and down the globes of her ass, mollifying her somewhat. It wasn't exactly the same but it still felt pretty damn good.

Lacey's eyes closed in appreciation. She was almost certain she drooled on the sheets as she vaguely took in the one-sided conversation that lasted less than a minute.

"What the hell did he want?" she asked as the phone clattered onto the bedside table.

"He wants to take another week." Lacey's eyes flew open. "He says I can just put up a back-in-a-week sign if I can't extend, but he asked me if I could."

Considering Lacey had been half way to La La Land less than a minute ago, she was suddenly very focused. She rolled up on her side, displacing his hand from her ass but completely aware of his gaze on the fall of her breasts.

"What did you say?"

"I said yes."

Lacey lost her breath for a moment. "Oh."

His eyes trekked back up to her face. "The man hasn't had a holiday in a decade. It seemed selfish to say no. And I haven't ..." he ogled her breasts briefly again, "quite finished your car yet. It would be a shame to leave before that."

Lacey smiled. Right, _that_ would be the shame about him leaving tomorrow ...

"So ... we're not telling my brothers about the fake pregnancy just yet then?"

He grimaced at the mention. "We should," he said, his voice gravelly.

Lacey nodded, but she could see his conflict. See he wanted to give this up about as much as she did, and if her brothers knew the truth there'd be no need for them to keep cohabiting. She squirmed across the short distance between them, her thigh sliding over the top of his, her torso smooshing up against his side, the heavy fall of her hair fanning out across his chest. "Another week wouldn't hurt, would it?"

He slid one hand onto her ass again, the other into her hair. "I can't think when I'm near you," he muttered, bringing a long wavy lock to his nose and inhaling.

Lacey slid her thigh over his hips and, in one easy move, straddled him, his stiffening cock sitting right between her legs. She looked down at him for a long time. His eyes were unfathomable and she wanted nothing more than to get so lost in them she'd never find her way out.

"Make love to me," she whispered.

She hadn't ever said that before, but there was something deeper in this moment than just fucking. For a long beat he didn't say or do anything. Then he snaked his hand up her body to the back of her neck and pulled her down to him.

 *     *     *

Later that afternoon, Lacey walked into Jumbuck Springs primary school and headed to Connie's grade seven class to pick her up. Ethan had been called to an emergency on one of the outlying properties and had rung JJ to fetch Connie. He usually did the drop off and pick up—one of the advantages of being the police chief in a small town—but when things cropped up, JJ was his plan B.

Lacey had offered to go in JJ's stead. She hadn't seen as much of her niece as she'd thought she would, given her initial plan to be living at home had bombed so spectacularly, and she planned on making up for that. She'd take Connie to Mo's for an ice-cream sundae, and maybe to Mrs Hoff's to pick out some material for a dress or shorts or whatever Connie might like.

Connie's eyes lit up and she waved excitedly as she spotted Lacey waiting for her just outside the classroom. The bell went a minute later and Connie was the first one out the door.

"Lacey," she grinned, throwing her arms around Lacey's waist.

"Hey," Lacey smiled, hugging back. "Dad had a thing out of town so you got me. Wanna go get some ice-cream?"

Connie looked at her like that was probably the dumbest question ever asked in the history of dumb questions. "Is the Pope Catholic?"

Lacey laughed. Uncle Marcus had a lot to answer for!

Connie's teacher, Julia Munro, approached as Connie was collecting her bag from the nearby racks. Lacey had met her during the Octopus's Garden Parade and liked her. She was only a year older than Lacey, but had come all the way from Cairns to Jumbuck Springs to score her first-ever teaching job. She had one of the prettiest faces Lacey had ever seen. She looked angelic. And Connie adored her.

"I heard all about your spectacular wedding save on the weekend," Julia said.

"Oh yes," Lacey laughed. Word had certainly gotten around. Everywhere she went people were talking about it. "It was a bit of a challenge."

"A miracle, I heard."

Lacey blushed. "I guess those years at design school paid off."

"I was wondering if you were interested in making a gown for me? For the B&S ball in two weeks' time?"

Bachelor and Spinster balls were a huge part of outback life and the highlight of the calendar for those singles in the district. They were wild affairs for the hard-working men and women of the bush, who rarely got to let their hair down and do some dancing and romancing.

"It's impossible to find something that fits me properly," Julia continued, sliding hands over her Rubenesque hips, "and buying off the internet is just as frustrating. Those sizing charts always get it wrong. I thought you might be able to design a one-off that doesn't make me look like I'm wearing a giant Santa sack. I'll pay you, of course."

Having studied the fashion industry for the last three-plus years, Lacey knew how little good stuff was being designed for plus-sized women. "Okay ... sure ... have you got something in mind?"

Julia nodded. "Yeah, sort of."

"All right. How about you come to The Stockman later this afternoon and we'll go from there?"

"Thank you," Julia said, pressing her hand to her ample chest as she gave a relieved sigh. "You're a life saver."

"Ready," Connie said, interrupting the conversation as she bumped into Lacey while trying to walk, watch an aeroplane overhead and shrug into her backpack at the same time.

Lacey laughed and helped her. "Okay. Let's go to Mo's."

"See you Miss Munro," Connie said, smiling at her teacher.

Julia smiled. "See you tomorrow, Connie. And I'll see you," she added, looking at Lacey, "about four-thirty?"

Lacey nodded, already looking forward to it. Already formulating patterns and an idea for a brand new business in her head.

 *     *     *

By Thursday afternoon Lacey had created a gorgeous Betty Boop-inspired outfit in leopard print for Julia and, thanks to Caroline's mother, had done an interview for the popular district newspaper about the Great Wedding Dress Rescue. The article came out on Friday and by the end of the day she had orders for three other Lacey Weston one-offs for B&S customers.

Lacey was excited and thrilled at the response. So much of the time at college she'd felt restricted by convention, but here she had free rein with her clients to deliver the product _they_ wanted.

And make money out of it!

Coop had also put the finishing touches on her car that day so the pair of them had celebrated long into the night with a marathon mattress session. There was an edge of desperation about it as they feasted on each other's bodies. They both knew their time was almost up but neither wanted to mention it.

Lacey wasn't sure how that was all going to go down and she didn't want to think about it. She figured she'd face it when Alec was back, and until then she'd just hold onto Coop and revel in their intimacy and his body as he was revelling in hers. Keep the bliss alive for as long as possible.

Because it sure as hell wasn't going to be the same around here without Coop.

In the end, though, it all went down in a way Lacey had never imagined and it all started with _Stylish Woman_ hitting the shelves on Monday morning.

 *     *     *

Mrs Durrum was one of the first people through the doors of the pub, looking more like sixteen than eighty, brandishing the magazine with a great big smile. "You're famous, Lacey. _Famous_! I always knew you would be one day, my dear girl. You and Selena both."

Lacey blinked. "What are you talking about, Mrs Durrum?"

Selena had just been promoted to regional reporter with channel four, her face often gracing the six o'clock news. She was the most famous person that had ever hailed from Jumbuck Springs.

Lacey prepared a shandy for the over-excited woman and implored her to sit down. The way she was bouncing from foot to foot Lacey was worried she was going to break a hip.

"Here," Mrs Durrum said slapping the magazine face down on the bar as she sat. "Page ten. I've marked it already."

Lacey glanced at JJ who shrugged. She picked it up, noticing for the first time it was _Stylish Woman_. "Oh," she smiled, glancing at Mrs Durrum. "Is it Caroline's wedding?"

"Yes." Mrs Durrum nodded vigorously as she sucked beer and lemonade through her straw. "There's _six_ pages!"

Lacey turned to the dog-eared page and smiled. Caroline looked simply breathtaking. And the wedding dress ... well, it looked spectacular even if she did say so herself. The handkerchief bustle looked particularly stunning, although no doubt the professional photography helped.

" _Lacey_ ," JJ said in something akin to a reverential whisper. "It's beautiful."

"You're along further," Mrs Durrum said, apparently impatient to get to the reason for her visit.

Lacey looked at the older woman with startled eyes. "Me?"

"There's a section about how you rescued the dress."

Lacey frowned. _What the?_ She flicked quickly through the array of gorgeous pics and sure enough there was the picture the photographer had taken of her and Caroline after the ceremony and another of the dress as it lay in ruins on the floor. A couple of brief paragraphs followed, telling how one Lacey Weston, 'sister of Jumbuck Spring police chief, and design student' had come to the rescue.

"Famous, I tell you!" Mrs Durrum beamed.

Lacey laughed. She'd have to go and buy herself a copy and include it in her portfolio for when she was out there in the highly competitive field of fashion trying to get a job.

 *     *     *

And that was how the rest of the day panned out. Phone calls and texts from around the district, and people dropping into the pub to congratulate her. By the end of the day she was a minor celebrity in Jumbuck Springs and everyone wanted to shake her hand.

"Best day's takings we've had in a long time," JJ grinned when the well-wishers seemed to trickle to a stop around mid-afternoon. "You'll have to get famous more often."

Coop was equally thrilled for her, buying a bottle of champagne from JJ on his way up to the room and insisting they toast to her success before throwing her on the bed and tipping dribbles of it all over her body, thoroughly removing it with his tongue as he went. It was cold and sticky and ran _everywhere_.

But Lacey suffered through Coop's exceedingly diligent attempts to chase every last drop. As she did the next morning when he decided it was his duty to remove any sticky residue in the shower. Lacey did not object as he took his sweet time lathering up her body. Nor did she object when water had sluiced off the last of the soap and he sank to his knees and put his mouth to where she was already hot and slick and needy.

He ripped an orgasm from her so quickly and so absolutely she could barely stay upright in the aftermath.

He smiled at her as she lolled against the tiles, half out of it, panting for air. "I'll put the jug on," he murmured, kissing her mouth and leaving her to recover.

Lacey vaguely heard her mobile ringing a minute later as she stood under the spray.

"Lacey," Coop said, entering the bathroom, her phone in his hand. "Some chick called Anouska Dali says you'll want to take her call."

Lacey frowned. Anouska Dali? The only Anouska she knew was Anouska Dahl, one of the hottest new designers on the Australian fashion scene. And she didn't exactly _know_ her. Just _of_ her.

Lacey's senses obviously still had her in a fog as she asked the question anyway. "Anouska Dahl?"

"Could be," Coop nodded.

_What the?_ Lacey reached for the taps and shut them off. _Anouska Dahl_ was ringing her? Coop held up a towel and she stepped into it, quickly wrapping it around her body and securing it.

She took the phone as Coop handed her another towel for her hair. Lacey dried with one hand while she held the phone with the other. "Ms Dahl?" she said, her voice tremulous as she walked out of the bathroom.

She could smell coffee and toast and Coop's deodorant as a husky female voice said, "Please call me Anouska."

Lacey blinked. "O-kay?"

"I've seen _Stylish Woman_ this morning and spent about an hour trying to get your phone number. Caroline Duncan gave it to me in the end. I hope you don't mind, but I just had to ring and tell you what an absolutely amazing job you did on that dress."

Lacey's heart pounded. Anouska _freaking_ Dahl was ringing to compliment _her_. Did she mind? Hell to the no. She glanced at Coop who was busying himself in the kitchen wearing nothing but a towel. "Oh ... thank you. I'm ... honoured. You're one of my favourite designers."

There was a low husky laugh in Lacey's ear. "I was hoping you might say something like that, because I'd like you to come and work for me."

Lacey's pulse picked up as she took advantage of the proximity of the table and sat down. _What the fuck?_ She absently watched Coop's naked back and the way the towel sat low on his hips as the offer sank in. "You want _me_ to ... come and work for _you_?"

Back before her mother had died, working for one of the top Aussie designers had been part of Lacey's big plan to one day have her own label.

Coop turned. Whether it was because of the squeak in her voice or the content of the conversation, Lacey wasn't sure.

"Yes. Here in Melbourne. As soon as you can get here. I'm doing a steampunk-inspired collection I think you'll be perfect for."

Anouska Dahl wanted Lacey to move to Melbourne and work for her? "But ... I'm just a student. I haven't even finished my degree."

Another husky laughed filled her ear. "I don't care about that. There's nothing a degree can teach someone who can make a bustle like you did overnight out of a pile of ripped fabric."

"Oh." Lacey wasn't sure her brothers would agree but if Anouska Dahl said so then who was she to argue?

Coop was watching her closely now, his face neutral.

"Look, I know it's a lot to spring on you and it'd be a big move, but I think we could do great things together. So how about I offer you a month's trial to start with and I give you a couple of days to get over your shock," there was a hint of humour in Anouska's voice like she knew exactly how this proposition had thrown Lacey for a loop, "and you think about it and you get back to me at this number by tomorrow night. How does that sound?"

Lacey couldn't believe this was happening to her and she knew she was crazy not to say yes right away but this proposition was far beyond any of her wildest dreams.

Her gaze meshed with Coop's. It had been an unbelievable few weeks.

"Lacey?" Anouska's voice dragged her back to the conversation. "Are you still there?"

"Yes. Sorry. Yes ... thank you. I'm very flattered and I _will_ think about it and get back to you."

"That's great," Anouska said and Lacey was struck by how genuinely pleased she sounded. "I hope you say yes. You truly won't regret it."

And then she was gone and Lacey was left to stare at the phone in disbelief.

"What was that all about?" Coop asked, crossing his feet at the ankles and his arms across his chest.

"I just got offered a job by one of the top fashion designers in the country. She wants me there as soon as possible for a month's trial."

"There?"

Lacey nodded. "She wants me to move to Melbourne."

## Chapter Twelve

 ‡

"So what's to think about?"

Lacey's head spun a little more at Coop's unhesitating reply. His facial expression hadn't altered from frustratingly neutral, he hadn't paused for even a beat. "What?"

"This is the opportunity of a lifetime, isn't it?"

That was putting it mildly. Only a few of the students in her course would ever get this kind of break. "Yes."

"So ... do it." He strode towards the table and sat opposite her. "It's a brilliant offer. She picked _you_ , Lacey." He smiled and it almost reached his eyes. "Ring her right back and tell her yes."

Lacey wished it was that black and white, but so many things were churning around her head.

How could she leave Jumbuck Springs again after being back for such a short time and especially after the lengths she'd gone to to stay? How could she stamp her foot and insist she needed to be back, then turn around in such a short time and take off again?

How could she expect her brothers to take her seriously if she changed her mind so quickly?

And where would it leave her and Coop?

Their relationship had never been better. Even in a short period of time it was deeper, more meaningful. She didn't feel like some kind of duty to him anymore. Like a cross to bear or just some kid sister of his best friend. She felt like an adult. Like an equal.

Like a _woman_.

Like maybe there could be a lot more between them.

But here he was telling her calmly to leave. As if what had happened between them these last weeks had meant nothing to him. In fact, was there even relief in those unfathomable blue eyes?

"I don't think it's that simple, Coop. I fought hard to come back to Jumbuck Springs. I lied to my family. They think I'm _pregnant_ for Pete's sake. How can I expect them to ever take me seriously if I'm going to turn around and change my mind again?"

"I'm guessing your brothers will forgive you any flightiness when you tell them you're not pregnant."

Lacey had to concede that point. Although she expected them to be pretty pissed off over her lie for a while. Not that she could blame them. "Yes but ... these last couple of weeks ... they've been _so good_ , Coop. I've felt more like _me_ , more centred, more grounded than I have in years and that's all down to being back home in Jumbuck Springs."

"I know." Coop reached across the table and covered her hands in his and Lacey's heart gave a painful squeeze. "But these kind of things don't come round every day. And oftentimes they come at completely inconvenient moments, because that's life. But it's what a person does with such an opportunity that defines them. This could be a defining moment for you, Lacey. Of _course_ you have to go. It's time to set the record straight with your brothers and grab hold of this with both hands."

She looked down at their hands, at how good they looked together. He sounded so calm and so practical, so very _Coop_ , while she felt all at sea. He was her anchor while she once again floundered.

If she grabbed this with both hands she'd be going down a path that would take her away from all this—Jumbuck Springs, her family, Coop—for a very long time. Maybe forever. The fashion business was hell on personal lives—many long, long hours in a dog-eat-dog industry trying to make a name and then maybe not succeeding at all.

And she was being offered a shortcut.

Once upon a time she'd wanted that. It seemed like a million years ago.

Maybe what she wanted now was a little closer to home? Maybe it was okay to change her mind?

She glanced at Coop. "What about—" The words stuck in Lacey's throat. It was suddenly dry as the toast that had popped long minutes ago. "Us?"

Suddenly it seemed like the most important question. Did she really want to be that far away from _Coop_? Not Jumbuck Springs or her family or her roots. But Coop.

Lacey was close enough to see the tightening at the angle of Coop's jaw before he abruptly withdrew his hands. Not satisfied with that he got up from the table and headed towards the kitchen. "There's no us, Lacey. We were a cover story and it was only ever temporary." He poured the boiling water from the jug into two coffee mugs, his back to her. "I have my business, _my life_ , to get back to and now you have this amazing chance."

His words cut into her like barbs as he made a show of adding milk and stirring in the sugar, the clanging of the spoon the only noise in the room.

He needed to get back to _his_ life. There was no _us._ They'd been _temporary._

And she knew that, she did. But she hadn't expected to feel this conflicted about saying goodbye. Or that it would feel this bad. Their closeness these last weeks had turned the simple, easily defined emotions she usually felt about Coop—gratitude, resentment and attraction—into something much more complex.

Much richer. Much harder to define.

He picked up the mugs and carried them over to the table, putting hers in front of her before reclaiming his seat. He stared into his coffee and Lacey was struck by how distant he looked after a week of intimacy. It was hard to believe not fifteen minutes ago he'd been on his knees in the shower making her come with his tongue.

"I'm so proud of you," Coop said, finally looking at her, his face serious, the sincerity in his voice and his gaze obvious. "Your brothers will be too. And no doubt your mother is also wherever she may be."

Lacey felt absurdly like crying. Elizabeth Weston would be beyond thrilled at this development. She'd be packing Lacey's bags for her.

"I know you have what it takes to succeed because you've shown me right from the beginning that you'll do whatever it takes to achieve your goals."

He gave her a ghost of a smile then, which broke her heart. She remembered laying eyes on him that very first time and how she'd been determined to sleep with him.

"So don't let any of us down, okay?" He reached for her discarded phone and pushed it towards her. "Make the call."

Lacey looked at it. The part of her who'd wanted to be a fashion designer since she was six years old urged her to pick it up and say yes but she felt ... torn. She wasn't six years old anymore.

Life wasn't that simple anymore.

Her mother was dead. And Coop was a complication her six-year-old self could never have imagined. Hell, her twenty-one-year-old self was struggling to come to grips with him.

"It's perfect timing," Coop pushed. "Alec is back in a couple of days. It's all falling into place. Ring Anouska then let's go and confess all to your brothers. When that's done you can book a flight. Then we'll pack up and head to Brisbane. You could be on your way to Melbourne tomorrow."

Lacey's head swam just thinking about all those things in combination. She'd easily slipped back into 'bush time' and suddenly her life was about to hit warp speed.

Coop was clearly a man on a mission. He obviously wanted his life back _very_ much, which was fair enough considering how much she'd asked of him, how long his life had been on hold.

It was purely practical. Their time together had served its purpose. His rush to have this over with shouldn't hurt.

But it did.

"Okay." Coop was right. This was a defining moment. It wasn't as if offers like this grew on trees. Time to put on her big-girl pants and, no matter how much it hurt, she needed to let Coop get on with his life. She owed him that.

But she needed to square things away at home first.

 *     *     *

Lacey and Coop caught all three of her brothers at home early that evening. Jarrod was coming down the front steps on his way to Mrs Durrum's to replace some blown bulbs. Ethan was sitting in the lounge room with Connie watching the television. Marcus was having a coffee and reading the newspaper before heading to the footy ground to coach his under-twelve kid's team.

"Uh oh," Marcus said as Ethan, who had left Connie in front of the TV, and Jarrod sat at the table with him. He glanced at Lacey and Coop who remained standing. "This doesn't look good."

"It's fine, I just have some news," Lacey assured.

"You're splitting up aren't you?" Ethan demanded.

Lacey blinked. Coop had told her he and Ethan had buried the hatchet but it didn't look like it as Ethan crossed his arms and glared.

"Or is something wrong with the baby?" asked Jarrod.

"Nah." Marcus shook his head before Lacey could get a word in. He eyed her speculatively. "You're having twins?"

" _No!_ " Lacey blanched. One baby per fake pregnancy was more than enough. "Definitely not. Jesus, you three ..." She shook her head. "Will you just let me get it out?"

All three of her brothers looked at her with impatience and she leaned into the solid support of Coop as he slipped his hand around her waist. "I'm actually ... not pregnant."

Jarrod stood, a frown crinkling his brow. "You had a miscarriage?"

Lacey shook her head. "No. I was ... never pregnant. I ... lied."

There were a few seconds of stunned silence. "You _lied_?" Ethan's jaw tightened so hard Lacey thought it might shatter.

"Yes, I'm sorry all right?" she said hurrying to explain. "But I was already upset because I'd just split up with a lying, cheating scumbag the day before and everyone was trying to tell me what to do and you were yelling and insisting I go back to college and then you made up those stupid reasons for me staying and I was so bloody _angry_ I just grabbed one of them and ran with it before I could think it properly through."

"What the hell for?" Jarrod asked, clearly exasperated.

"I don't know ... it was irrational and impulsive but everyone immediately stopped talking about me going back to college. And then I panicked and was about to backpedal but then Coop stood up and said the baby was his and Marcus hit him, and I ... couldn't go back."

Ethan frowned at Coop. "Why did you cover for her like that?"

"I didn't—"

"Don't blame him," Lacey said, cutting Coop off as she rose to his defence. Coop's support had helped secure her these past weeks and she would be forever in his debt. "It wasn't his fault."

"I'm _not_ blaming him," Ethan said. "I'm just gobsmacked he'd go along with such a harebrained scheme."

"Well A, because at the time I thought she _was_ pregnant," Coop said. "And B, it was a knee-jerk reaction to you all pressuring her. You guys were coming on pretty strong and she was looking lost and you all needed to back the hell off. And, trust me, I was a much better daddy candidate than the lying, cheating scumbag who I figured _was_ the father. It was only supposed to be until I could get her alone and we could figure things out."

"So you _knew_ straight after there was no baby."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you say something then?" Marcus demanded.

"Because you guys press-ganged him by arranging a job for him," Lacey snapped. "And I talked him into keeping the charade going. I wanted to spend time here without constantly being pressured by you all to go back and I knew me being pregnant was the perfect cover."

She glanced up at Coop. "It's not Coop's fault. He was just looking out for me." She looked at her brother. "Like you asked him to do, Ethan. Like he always has."

His hand tightened at Lacey's waist and she felt it all the way around her heart.

The same tension that had been in the kitchen that day after Coop's confession filled the space between the two friends. There was some kind of underlying thing between them that Lacey didn't know about, but she didn't want Ethan to take this out on Coop.

"I really _am_ sorry," Lacey said. "I felt backed into a corner and I acted impulsively and it was wrong of me."

Ethan let out a pent-up breath and shoved a hand through his hair. "Jesus, Lacey, you know you scared about a decade off our lives that day."

Lacey cringed. She was going to need to do some major sucking up for a while. "I know and I'm sorry."

"So, to reiterate," Jarrod said, sinking down into his chair, "you're not pregnant."

"Correct."

"Well ... all's well that ends well," Marcus said, clearly ready to shrug off their collective fright now Lacey wasn't _knocked up_.

"Yes," Lacey agreed. "Actually, very well. I have more news."

Lacey and Coop sat as she broke the news. Her brothers were absolutely thrilled for her considering they'd never heard of Anouska Dahl. They asked a heap of questions she didn't have the answers for just yet, but they agreed whole-heartedly with Coop that she should pack her things and get the first flight to Melbourne.

When she expressed concerns about leaving Jumbuck Springs again so soon after coming back, they quickly overrode them with tales of trams and Aussie Rules games at the MCG and shoe shopping.

Her concerns about leaving Coop she kept to herself. Coop wanted to get on with his life. So should she.

She'd expected at least one of her brothers to ask about how this fitted in with finishing college but none of them did. They appeared to be genuinely excited about the incredible opportunity and Lacey finally felt like all four of them were in sync with the direction of her life. She didn't need her brothers' approval or permission but it felt better when she had it.

 *     *     *

Coop looked at his watch half an hour later as Lacey disappeared into the lounge to chat with Connie about going to Melbourne and he was left with Ethan. Marcus and Jarrod had not long left with goodbye hugs for their sister, making her promise she'd be home for Christmas and assuring her they'd visit her during the footy finals season in return.

Ethan regarded him seriously and Coop braced himself. He'd known this was coming. "So you lied to me that day at the garage. About loving her?"

Coop hadn't lied then and he wasn't about to lie now. He loved Lacey and the thought of her leaving for Melbourne, for a glamorous life he couldn't possibly compete with, was like a knife in his heart. But he wasn't going to stand in the way of this opportunity.

"No. I've loved Lacey since the day I first met her."

Ethan frowned. "I bloody hope not," he growled. "She was nineteen when you first met."

It was time for Coop to fess up, so that Ethan understood just how much Coop loved his sister. "Do you remember me telling you that day that I'd met a woman and I thought she was the one?"

"Sure," he nodded. "The drought breaker."

"It was Lacey."

Ethan looked confused for a moment or two. "I don't understand. You seem to be telling me that you _slept_ with my sister when she was _nineteen_."

Coop wondered whether Ethan might punch him in the face this time and bugger the whole chief of police thing. "That's exactly what I'm telling you. I met her in a bar. That bar actually. The week before. She told me her name was Tracey and she was twenty-four."

Ethan shut his eyes. " _Jesus_."

"Yes. You can imagine my surprise when I realised." Ethan opened his eyes and nodded. To his credit he seemed to understand Coop's nightmare. "But there's been nothing like that between us while I've been looking out for her in Brisbane."

Apart from the odd drunken come-on, anyway. And those had _not_ been initiated by him.

"And here? _Shacked up_ with my sister at the pub?"

Coop had told Lacey he'd wanted to be able to look Ethan in the eye and tell him he hadn't taken advantage of their situation but he couldn't. He dropped his gaze to his clasped hands. "It was ... complicated."

"Yeah. I bet."

Coop glanced up. Ethan's demeanour was conciliatory even if the words held a hefty dose of sarcasm.

"It's only since being here with her day in, day out, that I've given myself permission to face the truth. In fact it was you asking me whether I loved her that made me see it. I'd been trying not to feel anything for her for so long, I'd completely hidden from the truth. I love her very much, Ethan."

"Have you told her?"

Coop shook his head. "Nope."

"Why not?"

"I'm setting her free, remember? You asked me if I loved her enough to set her free, and I do. She has to go to Melbourne and be the person she always wanted to be. And she needs to do that without anything anchoring her here. I'm not going to hold her back." He absently rubbed his hand over the scars on his head. "I understand the regret of thwarted ambition all too well."

"Yeah," Ethan said. "So do I."

Neither of them said anything for long moments. "Well then ..." Coop stood. "I guess we'd better go. There's a lot to do to get her to Melbourne tomorrow."

Ethan stood also. "Thank you," he said, holding out his hand. "For putting Lacey first. I know I'm not being much of a friend but she's my sister, man. She'll always come first."

Coop reached across and shook Ethan's hand. "She'll always come first for me too."

## Chapter Thirteen

 ‡

Lacey looked out at the cold, grey weather, the misty rain making crazy patterns on the big floor-to-ceiling windows. Blurry people on the street below scurried around under umbrellas, all rugged up in their grey and black clothes so familiar now that a splash of colour in a scarf or a beret became endlessly fascinating.

The colours were different back home. A big blue sky that never quit and a landscape dominated by the relentless beat of the sun's rays gilding everything in stark relief. From the forest green of the mountains, to the vibrant yellow puffs of wattle, to the ever-changing brown and green patchwork of paddocks, life in Jumbuck Springs was like a Monet painting.

The rain was different back home too. None of this drizzly shit. It either poured or it didn't rain for months. Drought or flood. And at the moment, it had been dry for a very long time. They could certainly do with some of this rain, even if it was more of the annoying misty variety than the good soaking stuff.

Melbourne in winter had been a true culture shock for Lacey. This area of Richmond in particular. On the trendy edge of grungy, in transition from industrial to residential, there was nothing like this big converted warehouse space back home. Except for maybe the shearing sheds on the outlying properties.

The vibe was hip and upcoming. Nothing back home was hip and upcoming. This space was perfect for Anouska Dahl the trendiest new fashion designer on the block. The cavernous open space allowed for many hands to make light work and Anouska made the most of it, the work space a continual hive of activity.

Anouska had been a challenging taskmaster and Lacey had never worked so hard in her life. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week as they geared up for the big fashion show in a little over two months. Lacey hadn't minded at all. She'd been put to work designing a range of bustles for Anouska's steampunk-inspired collection and she'd learned more in three weeks with Anouska than she'd learned in three years at college.

It had been exhausting but also deeply satisfying. Plus it had kept her mind off what she'd left behind.

_Coop_.

The muffled ding from a tram on the street below, as it pulled into its stop, dragged her thoughts back from the emotional edge. Lacey loved the trams. For a kid from the country it was still a bit of a novelty and she'd ridden them the last three weeks to work. It also couldn't be beaten for convenience, especially with her car still in Brisbane.

And ... she was back to Coop again.

He'd been texting quite a bit since he'd dropped her at Brisbane airport. Funny things. Pictures of engines with witty captions and ridiculous road signs. Nothing personal. But they'd made her laugh. Hell she'd even joined in, sending him her own pics with funny captions. Mainly about the weather. And some risqué mannequin poses that Drew, one of Anouska's apprentice pattern cutters, liked to experiment with every morning.

Coop seemed to appreciate them, and Lacey figured the texting was his way of getting things back to _normal_ between them. A sign that he was getting on with his life. On the one hand she'd appreciated it, but late at night, when she finally crawled into bed in a heap, she couldn't deny that she missed him and wondered if he was lying in bed missing her too.

Not if his texts were anything to go by ...

"Hey Lacey, some mail for you."

Lacey looked around to find Anouska approaching with a small padded bag. Anouska was a six-foot blonde who always wore killer heels. She was only five years older than Lacey but oozed style and confidence.

"Thanks." It was unusual for the boss to be handing out the mail so Lacey figured there was more coming.

Anouska leaned her hip against the edge of Lacey's high design desk. She tipped her chin in the direction of the design Lacey was working on. "That's coming along."

Lacey nodded. "Yes. I just can't get it quite right though. There's something missing I haven't been able to figure out yet.

Anouska pulled up a chair beside Lacey and they chatted about it, sketching a half a dozen different things back and forth as they nutted out the problem and clicked around on Lacey's desktop computer looking at similar designs. Anouska smiled as Lacey declared herself still not satisfied fifteen minutes later. Anouska was a perfectionist and Lacey had learned early she expected nothing less from her team.

She put down her pencil. "You'll solve it, I have no doubt."

Lacey was flattered. "I hope so."

"You will," she said. "You've got a very good eye and an almost psychic connection to whatever design you're working on. That's a gift."

"Thanks." Lacey smiled at the praise.

"How are things going? You only have a week left on your trial. I'm hoping you'd like to stay on."

Lacey hesitation was only for a nanosecond but she could tell that Anouska had seen it. "I get the impression you're not _really_ happy here, Lacey."

"No ..." Of course she was happy. Everything was falling into place for her. The last thing Lacey wanted was to be seen as an ingrate. Not when she'd been given a marvellous opportunity. "No, sorry, it's not that. It's just Melbourne is ..."

What could she say that didn't sound insulting or immature?

"Different from home?"

Lacey nodded in relief when Anouska didn't appear to have taken offence. "Yes."

"And you miss home."

Yes she did. But not as much as she missed Coop. It was insane to feel this way. It had only been three weeks for crying out loud.

"Or maybe _someone_ at home?" Anouska guessed.

"No." Lacey shook her head. "There's no-one."

Anouska studied her face for a few long hard beats. "You're really good, Lacey Weston. _Really._ I think I can teach you a lot. I _know_ you can teach me a lot. But it's gotta be what you _really_ want. Life's too short."

Lacey nodded. "It is what I want," she said emphatically.

It was time to stop moping about Coop. They'd been a brief bit of insanity and he was moving on with his impersonal texts of car engines. And so should she. "I would love to come and work for you permanently. Please. If you'll have me."

"Of course." Anouska grinned and patted her hand. "Of course."

Someone called for Anouska. She grimaced and apologised and walked a few feet over to the next desk where one of the other designers wanted to ask her something, leaving Lacey looking at the small padded post bag with a bulge in the middle. She noticed it was Coop's handwriting and her pulse picked up as she tore it open at the end. A small zip-lock bag fell out of the parcel and inside it were what looked like fabric clothing labels.

Lacey turned the bag over to inspect the rectangular labels more closely. She gasped as she read what they said in exquisite silver thread.

_A Lacey Weston Original_.

She pulled one out of the bag and ran her finger over it. The font had a country western feel to it while still being feminine. It was so beautiful, so _thoughtful,_ so personal, Lacey's heart just about burst out of her chest.

" _Oh Coop_ ," she whispered as emotion burned hot in her gut and prickled at the backs of her eyes. God, she was going to cry, right here at work in front of everyone.

What the hell was wrong with her?

With a shaking hand Lacey quickly clicked the mouse twice, navigating straight to Coop's business page, which she'd bookmarked when she'd first arrived and had visited every day just to look at his picture and read his bio. His face came up on the screen, looking more like a criminal with his scar and shaved head rather than the stand-up guy he was, the ex-cop-cum-mechanic.

It took her a few moments to realise the website header had been changed and Lacey blinked when she saw her mini in all its gleaming burnt-orange pride up there, front and centre, sparkling in the sunshine. A 'click here' tab was positioned just to the side of her sexy new car and she clicked on it.

A page came up with a dozen pictures of her beautiful car's journey from pile of junk to lovingly restored. By Coop. The page header read _Latest Labour of Love_ and kicked Lacey hard in the vicinity of her heart.

_Love._ Her car was a labour of love for him?

Was that a purely mechanical, rev-head point of view or was there some subtext behind the header?

Tears welled in her eyes as the truth stormed naked and full frontal into her consciousness. In her hand she held his labels, something so beautiful and personal from Coop she wanted to cry, while on screen his _labour of love_ stared back at her and her heart kept growing and expanding, pushing against the confines of her ribs until it felt big enough to tear her chest right open. Big enough to eclipse the sun.

Big enough to make her realise the truth. Well ... _fuck me dead_ as Marcus would say. This wasn't infatuation or lust or gratitude or even friendship she felt for Coop.

She loved him.

And it was as plain as the grey old day outside those windows. _She loved him_. She loved him so much she could die from it right here and now and it would still have been worth the nanosecond of awareness before she expired. All these years when she'd been so irritated by him and yet so aware of him, in ways she had never been able to explain or hadn't ever wanted to think about. It hadn't been because she'd disliked or resented him but because she _hadn'_ t.

Simply put, he'd gotten under her skin, burning and itching, prickling at her very soul; she'd never been able to fully dismiss him from her mind.

Lacey sucked in deep breaths as it hit her with cyclonic force. _She was in love with Cooper Grainger._

And she didn't know what to do about it because she was fairly certain she was still the pain in his side— _or ass_ —that she'd always been. Ethan's bratty little sister who had lied and seduced him and given him merry hell ever since.

Sure, he'd had a good time with her, but now he was finally rid of her ...

Her being in love with him was probably the last thing the man wanted. He probably never wanted to see her ever again. For God's sake he'd packed her up, paid for her airfare and driven her to the goddamn airport. Nothing said good-bye-forever like a guy who bought you a ticket to a place two thousand kilometres away!

But she knew with sudden clarity she couldn't do this. Being in Melbourne with Anouska Dahl was a huge privilege and a learning experience she'd never get anywhere else, but it wasn't for her. She needed to see Coop. Talk to him.

And even if he sent her away and broke her heart, she still wasn't made for Melbourne or any place that could experience four seasons in a day.

She was a country girl. A big-sky girl. A Jumbuck Springs girl. And she'd go back there and design original one-offs for rich country women and their daughters and build her name one gown at a time through the bush telegraph. And have an absolute ball doing it. Because they were her people and that was her calling in life—individual designs for people she loved and had a true affinity for—and if she had nothing else, she had Coop's labels to inspire her and give her the courage and fortitude she was going to need to be a success.

Tears blurred her vision so much Lacey could barely see the screen. The colours of her gorgeous car ran like a smudged watercolour before her eyes, like looking at the streetscape through the rain-splattered windows. Her hands shook and her breath thinned until it made her dizzy.

_She had to go_.

She had to go home. She had to go to Coop. Whether it worked out or it didn't, she didn't want to live her life without having given it her best shot.

She had to try and win Coop.

She stood and spun, her chair pushing back at a crazy angle, not thinking about her next move, just possessed with the sudden urgent need to flee. She didn't know the hows but she did know the whys. She loved Coop. And nothing else mattered at this moment.

Anouska looked up from where she'd been chatting as Lacey's seat toppled over and crashed on the floor. Everyone did. Anouska's gaze, calm and assessing, locked with hers, wild and frantic. Lacey could only hope that her boss would see and understand her desperation.

"Go," Anouska said.

Lacey's breath tumbled out on a noisy whoosh as she sent Anouska a wobbly smile. Then she picked up her bag and left without looking back. Melbourne had been great, but her heart didn't belong here.

It belonged with Coop.

 *     *     *

Lacey had to buy a business class ticket to get on the next available flight to Brisbane. It was hideously expensive but she didn't hesitate as she hurried to her temporary digs, packed her bag and went straight to the airport.

Four hours later she was touching down in Brisbane. Just looking out the window to see the sun shining on the runway lifted her spirits. When she stepped out on the stairs to walk across the tarmac and the pleasant winter heat warmed her shoulders, her spirits lifted a little higher.

Whatever happened with Coop, this was where she belonged. Sometimes it took leaving to find out where you fit. Going to college had taught her that and she should have listened and learned from that experience, should have known there truly was no place like home.

Lacey got a taxi from the airport to her old dorm where she was welcomed with open arms by her ex-roomie. She wanted to change into something with a little wow factor and dump her bag before heading to see Coop at work. She knew he found her attractive and she had absolutely no qualms about exploiting that to her advantage.

All was fair in love and war, and Lacey was declaring _love_.

Stripping out of her winter clothes she quickly threw on a pair of denim cut-off shorts with frayed edges that managed to cover all the crucial bits, just. Why she thought she was ever going to wear them in Melbourne she had _no_ idea but Lacey was pleased she'd packed them because they were perfect for her purposes today.

She was going to Coop's garage, so channelling Daisy Duke was a must and the shorts were a start.

She didn't have a cute little button-up gingham shirt she could tie in a knot at her navel, but she did have a tight T-shirt that sat snuggly against her breasts and a pair of strappy heels, and she slipped them on to complete the picture. She pulled her hair down and fluffed it and poked her big gold hoop earrings into place.

Lacey was satisfied with the overall affect as she inspected herself in the vanity mirror. If Coop rejected her she'd be devastated—even the thought froze her heart—but it wouldn't be because she didn't look damn good.

She ordered another cab on her phone app then added some lip gloss to her mouth, smacking her lips together and pouting at the mirror for effect and to allay the hard ball of nerves tightening in her gut. Everything rested on this next meeting and she wanted to throw up she was so nervous.

Would he be surprised to see her? Happy? He'd never been that happy about her being at his work the few times she'd been there in the past.

Maybe she should at least forewarn him? Coop wasn't really a guy who liked surprises. And she didn't really want to get off on the wrong foot. Maybe she should let him know she was in town?

Hint that it was because of him?

A devilish idea rose in her as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Maybe she should remind him of what he'd been missing?

Aware the cab was going to be here any second, Lacey quickly shed her shirt and bra and grabbed her phone for a sexy selfie. It was cool in the tiled bathroom and her nipples responded accordingly as she held the phone out and up high, snapping a picture of her face and breasts.

Her hands shook as she attached the picture to a text and her fingers trembled as they flew over the keypad, deleting several attempts at something sexy and pithy. She settled on Coming for you xxx. Then she hit send before she could change her mind.

A horn tooted while she was slipping back into her clothes.

_The taxi._

This was it. She'd be at Coop's in fifteen minutes. "Good luck," she told her fully dressed reflection then vacated the dorm.

 *     *     *

Coop stared at the text of a half-naked Lacey for a full minute when it pinged onto his phone. He was standing in a garage in a filthy work shirt, an oily mix of sweat and grease in every body groove, with six other guys all joking around as they worked under hoods or beneath cars, and he had a hard-on the size of Australia.

_What the fuck?_

He hadn't heard the chime to indicate her text landing on his phone over the loud rock music pumping all around them, but he'd felt the vibration through his pocket. He'd opened it eagerly, like he always did, greedy for any connection with her, including the depressingly asexual. Seeing her pictures of rainy Melbourne through windows had left him hungry for more. Not even the weirdly posed mannequin shots had filled the hunger.

But this one? This one filled it and, embarrassingly large erection or not, he couldn't stop looking at it. He remembered what those naked breasts looked like in real life, what they felt like, what they _tasted_ like.

He remembered how he couldn't get enough of them.

"Coop!" Gav bellowed over the music. "Can you get me some light under here? It's so bloody dirty I can't make out what's what."

Startled out of the southerly direction of his thoughts, Coop quickly shoved his phone back in his pocket and cleared his throat as he strode over to Gav. He passed down a light source as Gav rolled out from under the car on a board and grabbed it.

"Thanks," Gav grunted, as he rolled back under again.

But Coop didn't hear him. He was too busy wondering what the hell Lacey meant by 'coming for you'. Was she coming home? And if so, when? Did she mean in a week when her trial period was up, or sooner? Or did that phrase mean something else entirely different? Something a whole hell of a lot dirtier?

Was she literally _coming_ for him? With her shirt off like that? Was she ... touching herself? And would she send him pictures of that too?

A thought that was really not helping the state of his cock.

He looked at his watch. Four o'clock. He couldn't wait for everyone to get the hell out in an hour so he could look at the picture some more. Because he sure as shit wasn't doing it with all the guys around.

He'd look. That was all. He wouldn't touch. Her or himself. And he sure as hell wouldn't reply. He'd just pretend he hadn't gotten that one.

Something hard cracked against Coop's ankle and he looked down as Gav said, " _Coop!_ " with complete exasperation as he lay on his back staring up at him.

"What?" Coop growled. Rubbing an ankle that had copped a belt from a wrench.

"You haven't heard a word I've just said," he accused. "What the fuck is up with you lately? You're either working all the hours God gave you or you're staring into space like a freaking teenage girl."

Coop wasn't about to tell Gav what was up. Psychologically or _physically_. But clearly he needed to get his shit together. "What did you want?" Coop asked, ignoring his 2IC's question.

But Gav's attention had wandered elsewhere. Something over by the doors had snagged it. "Is that Lacey?" he frowned.

## Chapter Fourteen

 ‡

Lacey?

Her _I'm coming for you_ whispered into Coop's ear as the hairs on the back of his neck rose and he slowly glanced her way. In his peripheral vision, as his head swivelled, Coop could see a couple of the guys who'd been joking around had stopped doing what they were doing and were also looking— _gaping_ —at the open garage doors.

And there she was in the tightest T-shirt and the tiniest pair of shorts he'd ever seen, her heels doing amazing things for her calves. She looked like a dark-haired Jessica Simpson doing Daisy Duke and he was pretty sure every guy here was hoping she'd come to wash some cars in that get-up.

His erection went from hard to granite.

But more than that, his heart filled up with the enormity of his feelings for her. If he'd ever doubted in the last few weeks that he loved her it had been completely dispelled right in this moment. Absence had definitely made the heart grow fonder and his feelings for her flushed deep and sure through his system.

He loved her so much it hurt.

"Lacey?"

"Hey," she said with a bold little smile, but he could see she was nervous as she took in all the guys who'd suddenly downed tools.

One of them closest to the workbench cut the music abruptly and there was silence except for the mad crash of Coop's heart in his chest.

"Okay," he said, looking around at his transfixed workers, wiping his hands on the clean rag from his back pocket. "Show's over. Go home. I'll clean up. You all get an early mark."

None of them moved and Coop's irritation bloomed. He wanted to blind every one of them for just looking at her. She looked so freaking hot and he wanted to sweep her up and take her away from them so only he could look at her.

"I said enough," Coop snapped in the voice he rarely used, but everyone knew it meant the boss was pissed. "Anyone still left here in thirty seconds need not come back tomorrow."

They moved. Reluctantly, but they did, shuffling off in the direction of the change rooms out the back, looking behind them curiously at both Coop and Lacey.

All apart from Gav who rolled up onto his feet and grinned at Lacey as he sauntered towards her. "How you doing, Lace? I hear you've moved to—"

"You too, Gav," Coop interrupted, his tone steely.

Gav winked at Lacey before turning slightly to face Coop, a grin on his face. "Or what? You going to sack me too?"

Coop dropped his head from side to side, stretching out tense neck muscles. "You gonna make me?"

Gav threw back his head and laughed, before also heading for the change rooms. "See you round, Lace," he said, nodding politely.

And then there was just him and her. And it took all Coop's willpower to stay exactly where he was. He shoved his hands in his pockets aware of his still very much erect cock.

"What are you doing here, Lacey?"

Her mouth was glossy and he watched it as she said, "I told you. I'm coming for you."

Coop's pulse picked up a little more. He didn't know what that meant, but by the way she was looking at him and the way she was dressed he hoped it was something dirty. God knew if she'd come all the way from Melbourne just to ravish him there was no way he'd be able to resist.

He'd missed her too damn much.

The remote door opener for the garage doors was in his pocket; he clicked it and the doors started to close. Whatever was about to happen between them he didn't want it broadcast to the busy roadway that ran in front of the garage.

"What does that mean?" he asked as she took two steps closer to give the doors clearance. His gaze fell to her legs and the way the denim sat snug high on her thighs.

"It means I got these today." She held up the zip-lock bag of labels he'd sent her three days ago. She took another two steps closer. "They're very beautiful. Thank you."

Coop shrugged. "I just saw them online and ... I thought of you."

She nodded. "I cried when I saw them."

He frowned. He hadn't sent her them to make her cry. "You did?"

"Yes. I was just so ... touched." Her heels clicked on the concrete floor as she covered another two steps. "And then I went to your website and I saw the mini up there and she looks so gorgeous and I saw that header, labour of love, and I cried some more."

"Lacey." He didn't know what to say to that. It hadn't been his intention. But the car _had_ been a labour of love for him. An old car in drastic need of love and attention done for the woman he loved. "I didn't mean for it to make you cry."

"I know."

Another two steps put her in touching distance and Coop doubted the wisdom of being so near. He could see the outline of her bra beneath the thinness of her T-shirt fabric and if she knew how much he wanted to tear the damn thing off her she'd take a step back.

"But it did," she said. "And do you know why?"

"Because you're missing your car? And probably home too. You're missing Jumbuck Springs."

"Yes," she admitted, the sudden huskiness in her voice scraping along nerve endings deep in his belly. "I am. But I'm missing you more."

She stepped closer again and slid her hands onto his chest and Coop swallowed. _She was missing him?_ "Lacey ..." her hands felt _good_ on him. They felt right. She smelled good, so good it was intoxicating, so good he could barely think straight.

"Have you missed me, too?" she whispered, her gaze fixed on his mouth.

Oh God. He'd missed her so damn much he'd barely been able to think about anything else. Work had been his salvation, giving him something else to concentrate on, and he'd grabbed it with both hands. Gav had been right about that—he'd been working punishing hours.

But he'd missed her because he loved her. They were coming from two entirely different places. He knew for his own sanity he should say no but her perfume was filling his head, blurring his senses. Her mouth was so near and he wanted to kiss her so damn bad.

"Yes."

 *     *     *

"Oh thank God," Lacey muttered, almost sagging against him in relief. For a moment there she was sure he was going to say no, and she didn't think she was brave enough to keep going in the face of a rejection. She snuggled in close to him, pleased that her heels brought their mouths closer, and pressed her lips to his.

His groan was almost instantaneous as his mouth opened and his tongue stroked along hers. His hands slid into her hair and cradled her face. Lacey clung to his shoulders as the kiss careened out of control, sucking up every last urgent morsel of it, her nipples tingling, a hot ache throbbing between her legs.

He dragged his mouth away, air chugging in and out of his lungs. "My office," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her after him into a tiny room, with car parts on the chair and the top of the filing cabinet and the cluttered desk. It smelled like engine oil and petrol. He crowded her back against the door, closing it with the weight of their combined bodies, as he put a hand to either side of her head and trapped her there.

"God," he groaned as he kissed her mouth then trailed his lips to her neck, nuzzling there. "I've dreamed about doing this. Every damn night."

Lacey's eyes rolled back in her head as goosebumps prickled her flesh, sweeping down her arms and tightening her nipples. A hot hand found the hem of her T-shirt and pushed under; she gasped as her belly clenched then went into free fall.

"It's a helluva long way to come for a booty call," he muttered, pressing hot kisses to the pulse beating frantically in her neck, "but I just don't care. I need you so bad right now I can barely stop myself from ripping your clothes off."

Lacey's insides clenched deliciously at the proposition even as her brain rejected his words. _A booty call?_ Is that what he thought this was? She stilled as his tongue lapped at the hollow in the base of her throat.

"No Coop," she said, pushing against his arms. "Wait."

He lifted his head, his normally crystal blue eyes were cloudy with confusion and a healthy dose of lust. "What?" he panted.

"I'm not here for this," she said. "Or not _just_ for this anyway."

He straightened a little, his hand slipped out from under her shirt. "You're not?"

"No."

"Then ... why?"

If it hadn't been so serious it might have been comical. A clearly lust-affected Coop trying to drag his brain back from the passion that had been spiralling between them.

"I came to tell you I love you."

Her statement took a second or two to set in. Lacey watched his face as it slowly dawned. From confusion to clarity to wariness as he dropped his hands to his sides and took a step back. "You do?"

Lacey didn't know if his withdrawing from her was a good or a bad thing. But she wasn't backing out now. "Yes. I think I've probably been in love with you since that first night, but I only realised today when I opened that packet and saw those labels."

"Oh." He ran a hand through his hair, smudging some grease along his forehead.

_Oh?_ That didn't sound very good.

"Look, I know you think that I'm too young and flighty, and God knows I've done everything to prove those two things over and over. For so long after Mum died and I moved to Brisbane I was desperately looking for love, but it was so damn elusive and I was so worried I didn't know _how_ to love anymore, that grief had tripped some switch or something. But I was wrong. Because I do know what it feels like to love, I was just afraid to _really_ let myself go there. But I'm not afraid anymore. If you don't love me back then it will be heartbreaking and awful, but I'm not going to stop loving you, Coop. Not now I know how."

"Lacey—"

"No." She shook her head, deliberately interrupting him. He looked like he was going to tell her she didn't know what she was talking about, or rehash all the reasons why he'd fought a physical relationship with her, but she didn't want to hear any of that.

If he didn't love her that was one thing. But if he didn't think it was _wise_ to love her that was another thing entirely.

"I know I'm a lot younger than you, Coop, and you think I should be playing with boys my own age and I haven't seen a whole lot of the world and I'm crazy to pass up on the opportunity to work with Anouska. And I know my brothers will find it hard to wrap their heads around. But I don't care about any of those things. I'm not a child. I'm an adult. _A woman_. And I'm not going to let anyone tell me what to do or where to live or who to love. Or not love. I love you, Coop, I love you so much I want to weep and yell it from the rooftops all at once and I want to be with you and if you don't then that's fine. Well, it's shitty, but it's fine ... I guess I'll get over it one day but—"

His mouth cut her off. It came down hard and urgent and hot and sucked her words and her breath and her sense away. It pinned her head to the door and her heart to his and turned her into a moaning, clinging, crazy woman, wild for the taste of his mouth and the thrust of his tongue.

"You love me?" he said, panting hard when he finally pulled back, his forehead pressed to hers.

Lacey nodded, because she wasn't sure she even had a voice after that kiss.

"Oh God." He pressed a slow sweet kiss to her mouth this time, her heart aching with the beauty of it. "I love you too," he said breaking off the kiss. "I love you so much it almost killed me to let you go."

Lacey frowned even as her heart gave a giddy leap. "Why did you?"

"Because you had an amazing opportunity given to you and I promised Ethan I loved you enough to let you go. So when the time came ... I did. I had to, Lacey."

"Hang on," she said, looking into his eyes. "You told my brother you loved me before you told me?"

He chuckled and it was such a husky, sexy noise it stroked along all her good places. "Yes."

"I bet he _loved_ that."

Another chuckle. "I think he was just relieved I wasn't screwing his little sister for recreation."

"Oh, I do believe that's what we were doing for a while there."

"No," he shook his head and it was so emphatic Lacey's heart skipped a little beat. "It was _never_ what I was doing."

And he kissed her again. Lacey opened to him, accepting the delicious heat of his mouth and the play of his tongue and the stroke of his hand under her shirt, hooking her leg around his waist, revelling in the hard bulge between his legs, rubbing herself against him until they were both panting hard.

"God," he groaned, dragging his mouth off hers. "If we don't stop I'm going to do you against this door."

Lacey ran her hand along the thick bulge of his cock. "That's fine by me."

The harsh suck of his breath was like music to her ears but he groaned, "Wait," and reached down for her hand, dragging it up to rest in his, right over the heavy thud of his heart.

"You are going back to Melbourne, right?"

Lacey shook her head. "No. I'm not. I'm going home to Jumbuck Springs and I'm going to build a client base of country women who I'll design one-off gowns for and I'm going to grow it into a successful local business and you and I can go back and forth between there and here because I never want to be too far away from you ever again."

"But Lacey ..." He brushed her hair back over her shoulder. "That's giving up a huge opportunity that you may really regret one day. Making any business succeed is tough, and Jumbuck Springs isn't exactly a thriving metropolis."

"In the last three weeks I've had a dozen phone calls from women in the district all wanting me to make them gowns. Two were wedding dresses. I can do this, Coop. I'll never be Anouska Dahl—"

"But that's what you wanted to be," he interrupted. "A famous fashion designer."

"Yes. When I was _six_. But I'm older now. And more realistic. Ambitions change. I'm happy to settle for being the best damn fashion designer in Jumbuck Springs."

"You're happy to settle? Are you sure about that? If you stick with Anouska, famous is still possible."

"Oh come on, Coop," she teased, "haven't you heard? Everyone dies famous in a small town."

He didn't smile. "If this is about us you know we can work around it. I can fly to Melbourne some weekends. You can fly here some others." His arms tightened around her. "We can make it work. _I'll_ make it work."

Lacey shook her head. "No. I don't want that. I don't want rushed weekends and continual goodbyes. I want to be with _you_. I want to be here."

"I just don't want you to wake up in a decade and regret your choices."

"And I want you to stop treating me like I'm some kid who doesn't know her own mind. Have I _ever_ struck you as someone who doesn't know her own mind?"

He smiled. "No. Never."

Lacey smiled back. "Good, then stop arguing with me, tell me you love me again, tell me that you want to marry me and have _real_ babies with me one day and then do me against this damn door already."

He chuckled this time and Lacey knew she was never going to tire of hearing that noise. "I do love you and I do want to marry you and have lots of _real_ babies with you one day. I love you, Lacey Weston. I've loved you since you ruthlessly slept with me the night we first met."

Lacey's chest felt too small to contain the bloom of emotions all struggling for top billing. She ran a hand through his hair, her fingers tracing the scar on his scalp, feeling sick that he might never have been in her life and she might never have known this kind of love, but lucky and grateful that he was and she did.

She pulled on his neck and their lips met in a slow, deep kiss that touched her heart and branded her with his love. This was the beginning of forever and Lacey was never letting him go.

"Now," he said pulling away slightly, dropping his head to the side as he looked at her, his hands finding the hem of her shirt again. "About that selfie ..."

Then in one quick move he ripped the T-shirt right up the middle until it was hanging in two limp parts by her arms. Lacey gasped at the unexpectedness, then laughed as he eyed her breasts. "Would you like me to recreate it?" she asked cocking an eyebrow.

"I think it's the least you can do considering the huge hard-on you gave me when I opened it."

Lacey smiled, thankful she'd decided to wear her bra that opened at the front. She popped the clasp and Coop's eyes widened. He grinned down at her as he slid his hands around her waist and onto her butt. His clothes were dirty and his fingers were all greasy but she didn't care. She could smell his deodorant over the earthier smells of his workplace and the fact he worked with his hands only turned her on more.

He could make her dirty any day. "Hold on to me, baby," he growled, hiking her up. "This door is about to get a work-out."

Lacey locked her ankles around him and grabbed his shoulders.

She was _never_ letting him go.
Enjoy an excerpt from the book 2 of the Outback Heat series

Some Girls Don't

Amy Andrews

Copyright© 2015

Selena Durrum stared at the guy up a ladder wearing not much more than a low-slung tool belt and a healthy sheen of sweat and remembered why she'd hightailed it out of Jumbuck Springs fifteen years ago and never looked back. The man she'd given her virginity to could still bring her out in a hot flush.

Another woman may have blamed it on the October sun belting down on her bare shoulders, but not Selena. She _owned_ her hormonal crazy where Jarrod Weston was concerned. After all, the guy had been muddling her senses for as long as she could remember and, it seemed, even at the grand age of thirty-two, he still had the knack.

She took a deep breath. _Keep your shit together, Selena._ Three days. That was all. Just three days and she'd be gone again.

_You can do this._

He reached for the hammer in his tool belt, his attention riveted to the guttering, or the eave or whatever it was he was fixing on her grandmother's roof. _Her_ attention was riveted to the width of his shoulders and the slabs of muscle slung between. The span of his ribs, the furrow of his spine and the dimples in his lower back were just as compelling.

She knew the contours of that back intimately. Well, maybe not _that_ back exactly. Jarrod had always had a muscularity befitting his big-boned physique—nice biceps and shoulders—something she'd been able to hold on to as he'd loomed over her in those snatched, secret moments. But at seventeen there'd still been room for growth in his big frame.

He clearly wasn't seventeen any longer.

All these years later he was most definitely a man. Everything had broadened. Strengthened. Thickened. His frame had filled out with layer upon layer of gloriously solid muscle.

She was, without a doubt looking at a man's back now.

And, unfortunately, it was between her and the front door.

Selena took another deep breath and clutched at the warm metal of the gatepost. _She could do this_.

The gate squeaked as she pushed it open and his head swivelled instantly, his gaze sweeping over her as her foot landed on the front path. She faltered as they stared at each other for long moments and she thanked God for her sunglasses.

"Selena."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't a greeting. Just a calm statement of fact. His eyes didn't widen even the slightest in surprise. Or shock. Selena supposed her grandmother had already told him she'd changed her mind about attending the school centenary celebrations.

Selena felt far from calm. Her heart crashed in her chest as foolishly as it always had when he'd looked at her so intensely. She'd been so in love with this guy, she'd barely been able to think of anything else.

She may have only been a teenager, but her feelings had been very grown up.

And here they were again. Granted, they'd both moved on, matured emotionally from those crazy hormone-addled feelings, but the physical attraction was definitely still there.

Selena swallowed. "Jarrod."

He slowly stowed the hammer back in his tool belt and descended the ladder. Selena watched him, helpless to look away as muscles all up and down his body shifted and moved in ways she found even more enticing at the age of thirty-two than she had at seventeen.

He walked a few paces towards her showing off the solid pillows of his pecs, the rhythmic bunch of his biceps and the sturdy strength of his compact abs. His skin, still as pale as she remembered – the curse of a red-head –, pulled taut across all that expanse, shrink wrapping him up in an enticing package. He still had no hair on his chest but there was a thin reddish-brown trail heading south from his belly button.

The trail was new. She'd have definitely remembered _that_.

The red-gold of his hair where it grew long and almost curly on top caught the sun in the same fascinating way it always had. The face scruff was also new. A sexy patchwork of red and gold with the occasional streak of grey. More than a three-day growth, less than a beard. Soft more than scratchy she'd bet ...

He stopped and shoved his hands on his hips, his fingers fanning out over his abdomen. "You look good," he said.

Selena almost laughed. Jarrod always had been one for understatement. She looked more than good. Her ash-blonde hair shone like a shampoo commercial, her cute yellow sundress bared her tanned shoulders and knees and clung to her waist and breasts. Her make-up was perfect and she had on her favourite leopard-skin slingbacks.

She looked _damn_ good and they both knew it.

She hadn't been gone so long that she couldn't see he was still attracted to her. He looked the way he always had when he'd wanted to haul her into his arms but propriety had demanded he didn't. Jaw tight, gaze fixed firmly on her mouth, his fingers drumming impatiently on his hip bones.

Except there was a fascinating maturity to his barely leashed self-control today. The frustrated teenager had become a potent man, the consequences of his very _adult_ control snapping given much more scope now neither of them were seventeen. It was wildly thrilling, and she needed to _stop going there right now_.

"You should be wearing a shirt." For her sanity and his skin cancer risk.

He gave a dismissive shrug. "I'm just about done anyway."

"Is something wrong with the roof?" She put money into her grandmother's account every week to cover _all_ her expenses, including any contractors she needed to get in to maintain the ageing house.

"Just some guttering come loose."

"She should have rung a repair guy."

"I don't mind helping your grandmother out around the house."

His tone was firm and brooked no argument. Of course he didn't mind. That was the kind of guy Jarrod was.

"Let me pay you," she said, turning slightly to forage in her handbag for her purse.

"I don't charge _eighty-two-year-old neighbours_ to knock in a few nails."

Selena shivered at the low, ominous note in his voice. His jaw was tense again, his sea-green eyes stormy. She'd insulted him. She took her hand out of her bag. "Okay." She cleared her throat. "Thank you."

"How have you been?" he asked after a beat or two, so damn distant and polite now.

"Fine."

"I see you on the news every now and then. You're doing well for yourself."

"Yes. It's been a crazy couple of years, a lot of travelling, but I'm next in line for the anchor spot."

It had taken Selena twelve years' hard work at Channel Four to be next in line for that chair.

He nodded. "That's great. I know how much you always wanted it."

Selena ignored the lack of celebration in his tone. She'd always been honest about her ambitions, and she was damned if she was going to apologise for them or the choices she'd made. "And you?"

"Can't complain," he said. "Doing what I love. Playing with fire and water and big shiny red engines."

"Getting kitty cats out of trees?"

Normally she would have said that with a teasing tone. Normally he would have smiled, acknowledging their private joke. He did, but it was only a fleeting lift of his mouth.

"Living the dream," he murmured.

Selena remembered when Jarrod used to smile a lot. When he used to smile at _her_ a lot. One of his _hey baby_ smiles could warm her at a hundred paces. Or that secret wicked smile of his that had never left her in any doubt as to _exactly_ what he was thinking.

"It's pretty dry at the moment." The farm paddocks she'd passed on the outskirts had looked bare, the ground nothing but dust and stubble. The sheep that grazed them looking grey and scraggly. "I noticed the extreme fire danger sign on the way in."

"Yes. The days are already stinking hot, and we're not even in summer yet. A lot of the creeks are dry because we haven't had any good rain for a couple of years, which adds to the hazardous conditions. The whole area is like a tinder box."

Selena didn't doubt it. She could already feel her skin starting to tighten from the heat in the air. It made her itch for her very expensive moisturiser.

"You are careful, aren't you?"

Jarrod becoming a fireman had always scared the crap out of her. He'd volunteered with the rural fire service at sixteen and thinking about all the potential risks had driven her mad. One of the good things about being far away was not _knowing w_ hen he was out there putting his life on the line.

He'd always teased her about her worries. Not this time, his quick "Of course," dismissing her concern. Like fighting a fire was nothing.

"I was so sorry to hear about your mother," Selena said, after an awkward pause.

Jarrod nodded. "Thank you."

Of all the things she'd missed while she'd been away, Selena felt most guilty about that. About not being here to support Jarrod during what must have been a truly heinous time in his life. Like she had been when his father, the Jumbuck Springs police chief, had been run down and killed on the job when Jarrod had been thirteen.

But the opportunity to work on the regional news team had arisen at the same time, and she'd feared how much a twice-broken Jarrod would dent her dedication to her career.

"I'm sorry I didn't get back for the funeral."

He shrugged. "It's fine."

Of course it wasn't fine, but she wasn't going to pick at that scab.

_Three days_.

More awkward silence followed as Jarrod continued to drum his fingers. They were standing a few metres apart on the path, but she could feel every thud of his fingers on her own belly.

She should go in to her grandmother, but she couldn't move her feet. Maybe it was her destiny to endure this excruciatingly awkward reunion with the first man she'd ever loved. Maybe this was the price of coming back.

Best to get it over with.

"It was good of you to agree to be the guest speaker at the dinner dance tomorrow night."

It was Selena's turn to shrug. "They asked, I accepted."

"I heard you knocked them back."

She had. But then her grandmother had asked her to reconsider, and she hadn't been able to say no to that. Grandy had never asked her to come back. Not once. She'd raised Selena to be career orientated and had not only understood Selena's need to leave but had urged her to do so. She'd been Selena's most ardent fan and her absolute rock.

She couldn't say no to Grandy.

"I changed my mind."

"Yeah ... I heard that too. I was surprised."

Selena could pretend that she didn't know what he was talking about, or she could address the subtext head on. "It was time."

"Oh?"

"Grandy's getting older."

"She's eighty-two. She's been getting older for a while, Selena."

If he meant to make her feel guilty he succeeded. "I see her twice a year, Jarrod."

Every Easter and Christmas Selena paid for a ten-day holiday for them both. Grandy caught the bus into Brisbane and they jetted off somewhere. They'd been all up and down the east coast as well as to New Zealand, Bali and Fiji.

"Yeah, I know."

Selena didn't feel particularly mollified. She wondered how often he and her grandmother talked about her while Jarrod was _helping her out around the house_. The thought of it needled. "I hear you were engaged last year but broke it off after a few months?"

"Yes."

If her prying annoyed him he didn't let it show. "I'm sorry. Grandy said she was lovely. A nurse at the hospital?"

He gave a brisk nod. "It was for the best."

Selena wondered _why_ it was for the best. Even years after leaving him her heart had cramped up when Grandy had told her of his engagement, and she was ashamed to admit part of her had been glad when she'd heard of its demise. She _did_ want Jarrod to be happy—more than any other man she'd ever met, he deserved it.

But part of her would always think of him as hers.

"What about you?" he asked. "Anyone special?"

Selena nodded. "There's someone. From the station ... a producer. He lives in Brisbane."

It was a lie, but Selena needed the subterfuge. The Weston brothers all had an honourable streak a mile wide. She knew Jarrod would never cross the fidelity line. Not for anyone.

_Not even her._

She was counting on it. Because despite the years and the temporary nature of her visit, Jarrod Weston still ticked all her boxes, and she didn't trust herself anywhere near that damn line.

"Selena? Is that you?"

Selena dragged her eyes away from the lock they had on Jarrod's and peered over his shoulder at her grandmother standing at the top of the six stairs she knew so well, beaming at her, her arms open.

"Jarrod," Agatha Durrum reprimanded good-naturedly, as Selena brushed past him and headed towards her grandmother, "why didn't you tell me my girl was here?"

"Sorry Mrs D." Jarrod turned to face her. "We were just catching up."

Selena took the stairs two at a time and hugged her grandmother hard. She looked thinner, her hair whiter, her shoulders a little more stooped and Selena eased her hold a little.

"Goodness," her grandmother said. "Now that's a hug."

Selena smiled as she pulled away. "I missed you."

Her grandmother lifted an age-spotted hand and gently rubbed Selena's cheek. "And I you. Now ... let's get you inside for a cuppa, and you can catch me up on all your gossip." She turned sharp eyes in Jarrod's direction. "You too, Jarrod. I took a batch of jam drops out of the oven half an hour ago. I know they're your favourites. Your mum's were better, but mine are still pretty good."

Elizabeth Weston's jam drops had been known to make big, tough shearers weep. She'd been the best cook in the district—nobody in Jumbuck Springs disputed that.

Selena was hyperaware of Jarrod's solid muscularity as he stood shirtless on their path. But more than that she was aware of the brooding look in his stormy eyes and a sense of unfinished business between them.

_Please say no_.

Or at least put on a goddamn shirt.

"Sorry, Mrs D. I've just got a couple more nails to put in, then I've got to get cleaned up and head to the firehouse for a while."

Her grandmother tsked. "You work too hard, Jarrod."

He shrugged, his huge shoulders shifting like mountains. "Keeps me out of mischief." He glanced at Selena. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Jarrod's giving us a lift," Grandy said.

_Fabulous._ "Oh, great, thanks." She kept her features neutral and hoped he didn't still have that dual cab ute they'd made out in too many times to count. "And thanks for helping with the roof."

"Anything for Mrs D. I _really_ don't mind."

He was annoyed again but Selena figured that was preferable to whatever the hell had been going on before. She turned towards the door and followed her grandmother into the house.

 *     *     *

Marcus Weston was sitting at the kitchen table doing something on the laptop when Jarrod stormed in fifteen minutes later and made a beeline for the fridge. He pulled out a beer. "Want one?" he asked his brother.

Marcus lifted an eyebrow. "It's not even eleven."

"Suit yourself." Considering Marcus could drink his weight in beer at the pub after the footy most weekends he could shove his judgement.

It was bloody hot out there. In more ways than one.

Jarrod shut the fridge, twisted the top off his beer, threw the cap in the sink then downed half before striding over to the table and sitting opposite his brother.

Marcus frowned. "What's up?"

Jarrod took two more mouthfuls of his beer. "Selena's home."

" _Oh  ..."_

"Yes."

Marcus grinned in the face of Jarrod's obvious displeasure. "Damn."

"Yes."

"I didn't think she was doing the school thing?"

"She changed her mind, apparently."

"She look as hot as she does on the tellie?"

Jarrod stared morosely at the level of his beer. " _Ohhh,_ yeah."

Hot didn't even come close. Fifteen years had transformed her pretty, blonde, small-town looks into a sleek, city sophistication. Beautiful. Refined. Confident.

Damn it. Why was confidence such a turn on?

Marcus whistled. "She always was one fine-looking chick."

"Marcus." Jarrod's blood pressure rose a few notches at his brother's continued reference to his high school sweetheart's hotness. His smug little leer raised it another couple. "Shut the fuck up."

His brother chuckled. "So ... what are you going to _do_ about her being in town?"

"Nothing."

Another chuckle. "Nothing? It's over?"

"Absolutely." There was no point getting into all that again. Not even for a weekend. Selena, he'd learned to his detriment, was like his own personal crack.

"Just like that?"

Jarrod rolled his eyes. "Hardly. She's been gone for fifteen years."

"Right, so you wouldn't mind if I had a go then?"

Jarrod's blood pressure spiked into stroke range. "You lay one single finger on her and I will beat you to a fucking pulp."

Marcus threw back his head and laughed, clearly unperturbed by Jarrod's threat of violence. "So ... not over her then."

He was. He just didn't want his brother touching her. Or anyone he knew, really. Anyone who lived in Jumbuck Springs. The entire fucking district, come to think of it. He especially didn't want her boyfriend _the producer_ touching her either.

_Crap._

"Don't you have work to be doing?" he snapped at Marcus, downing the rest of his beer before heading back to the fridge for another.

"So the plan is just to sit and get pissed all day thinking about the one that got away?"

"Fuck you," Jarrod muttered, amusing Marcus even further.

A particularly potent mix of ancient feelings and current frustrations brewed in his gut with the beer. It wasn't good for rational thinking. It sure as shit wasn't good for talking to his idiot, Casanova brother. He wouldn't understand a long-term relationship if it bit him on the ass.

He grabbed a beer and stormed out of the kitchen, the sound of Marcus's laughter following him down the hallway.

Find out what happens next in Some Girls Don't

_Get now!_
_You won't want to miss A my Andrew's new series..._

Outback Heat

If you enjoyed **Some Girls Do** , you'll love the other Outback Heat stories!

**Book 1: Some Girls Do**

**Book 2: Some Girls Don't**

**Book 3: Some Guys Need a Lot of Lovin'**

**Book 4: Some Girls Lie**

## About the Author

Multi-award winning and USA Today bestselling author **Amy Andrews** is an Aussie who has written fifty romances from novellas to category to single-title in both the traditional and digital markets for a variety of publishers. Her first love is steamy contemporary romance that makes her readers tingle, laugh and sigh. At the age of 16, she met a guy she instantly knew she was going to marry. She just smiles when people tell her insta-love books are unrealistic because she did marry that man and, twenty odd years later, they're still living out their happily ever after. Amy works part-time as a PICU nurse and spent six years on the national executive of Romance Writers of Australia where she organized two national conferences and undertook a two year term as president. She loves good books, fab food, great wine and frequent travel – preferably all four together. She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes it was the hillsides of Tuscany.

**More from Amy:**

Visit her website at AmyAndrews.com.au

Join her mailing list

Follow her on Facebook and Twitter@AmyAndrewsBooks

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