A Choice of Fate Page 7

  She’d lost count of the times Abi and Ryder had spoken about the Wishing Tree and its dreamtime voodoo. Life, way too many years of college, and endless emergency room shifts had turned her into an even bigger cynic than her big sister. Love and the Aussie heat had fried Abi’s brain and turned her sister into a believer, which left Olivia as the only remaining skeptic in the extended Harper clan. Despite what Abi believed, a magical tree that supposedly foretold the future hadn’t brought Ryder and her big sister together. Their love affair had been a product of blind luck, mule-headed stubbornness, and an insane bond that was as powerful as it was sickeningly sweet.

  “You decided on your wish yet?”

  She huffed. “Please don’t tell me you believe in magic trees.”

  He hitched an eyebrow. “C’mon, Doc, there must be something you’re wishing for.”

  She had no right to wish for anything. The most important person in her world was healthy and happy. She’d finally finished residency and was a month away from starting her dream career. After a lifetime of hard work, she had everything she’d ever dreamed of and the freedom to do whatever the hell she wanted. “Doesn’t the tree decide your wish?”

  His laughter filled the cabin as he shoved her. “So you do believe in magic, you muggle.”

  She cursed and shoved him back. “There’s no such thing as magic freaking trees.”

  Jarrah studied her for a long moment before slowly raising an eyebrow. “We all need a little magic in our lives.”

  She rolled her eyes before tightening her grip on the steering wheel and mashing the accelerator. She knew all about the magic he referred to. Hell, she’d created a fair bit of magic herself in her day.

  With each mile, the Wishing Tree grew larger until it dominated the horizon. Standing as tall as it was wide, its branches covered the barren desert like a huge living umbrella. The bone-white trunk and emerald canopy were at such odds with the surrounding crimson rock and faded green weeds that it looked like the sole survivor of a drought that had lasted an eternity. It wasn’t magic, but, damn, it was impressive.

  Her curiosity almost had her pulling off for a closer look. She steeled herself and guided the Camaro along the dirt road snaking between the huge rock formations jutting out of the surrounding rubble like the bones of a giant dinosaur.

  She glanced at Jarrah, who’d done a pretty good job of pretending not to look at her. “You’re not going to try to get me to stop?”

  “Hell no. Your sister would kill me.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “She’s got something special planned for your wish.”

  She groaned and slapped him only to have the back of her hand thud into his chest. She’d backhanded the occasional rock-hard chest in her day, but they’d belonged to the college jocks she’d tested the waters with in med school. The men she’d dated since she’d grown up hadn’t had the time, energy, or motivation to maintain superhero physiques along with successful careers. Yet the smug asshole grinning at her seemed to have overcome that issue. A fact she was growing more and more aware of every time she made the mistake of touching him. She fought the urge to slap him again, purely for research purposes, and shifted her attention back to the road rising up a crest ahead.

  The gasp escaping her had nothing to do with wishing trees or the man sitting beside her and everything to do with the landscape unfolding before her.

  Abi had put her to sleep going on and on about the cattle station where she planned to spend the rest of her life. Even the terabytes of photos and video Olivia had suffered through hadn’t done Wingarra justice.

  Chapter Seven

  Olivia closed her mouth and lifted off the accelerator as the destination of her odyssey materialized through the heat haze like an oasis in an endless crimson ocean.

  “I’ll never get tired of that look.” Jarrah chuckled and pointed at her from the passenger seat.

  She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the explosion of life that had no right to exist in the wasteland surrounding them. “But—how?”

  “Magic.”

  He reared away and held up his hands in surrender when she glared at him.

  “Maybe not quite magic. But it’s pretty close.” He lowered his arms and nodded out the windshield. “The station’s located on top of the northeastern edge of the Great Artesian Basin. The world’s largest freshwater aquifer. The springs drew my mother’s people here forty-thousand years ago, and it’s what gave Wingarra its name.”

  A cluster of huge eucalypts rose like ancient warriors protecting the precious water glistening beneath them. They weren’t as big as the Wishing Tree, yet they were still pretty freaking impressive. “It’s amaz…” She allowed the word to trail off while shaking her head. Amazing didn’t come close to describing the miracle stretching out before her.

  “You’re looking at the basin’s largest pond.”

  She glanced at him and nodded before returning her gaze to the landscape. “I can see why Carter Industries has such a hard-on for Wingarra.”

  He huffed. “The water’s nothing compared to the minerals buried beneath us.”

  Even his cheeky grin couldn’t conceal the anger simmering beneath his smile. But just as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished and left her staring at his profile.

  The closer they got to the giant pond and the life it supported, the larger everything grew until Wingarra Station dominated the view. A sprawling white farmhouse complete with wraparound veranda sat on the pond’s bank. Like the ancient castle she was, the Big House, as Ryder called it, was surrounded by a village of wooden buildings, corrugated iron sheds, RVs, caravans, and trucks that fanned out around a huge courtyard choked with people, dogs, horses, and what looked terrifyingly like an emu.

  “I guess they’re expecting us.”

  His casual tone did little to ease the tightness in her chest. He’d prepared her for the spectacle that was the dry-season muster. However, there was no way she could’ve imagined the circus awaiting her. And there were still a few days to go before the actual work began.

  The Camaro grumbled as she idled through a pair of rusted steel gates and pulled up in the courtyard amid dozens of hooting, whistling, and waving strangers. Black, brown, tanned, white—the faces shielded by the cowboy hats were as different as the bodies hidden beneath the jeans, T-shirts, and cotton button downs. Man, woman, girl, boy, the only things their welcoming committee had in common were their weathered ruggedness and the pure unadulterated joy of their welcome, which vibrated through the Camaro’s sheet metal and into the cabin.

  Jarrah squeezed her thigh. “You ready?”

  She shook her head and searched the settling dust for a familiar face.

  “Too late.”

  She turned to find him studying her with a mixture of amusement and sympathy. While the world outside erupted into chaos, his eyes once again locked with hers, and everything quieted except the heart thudding inside her chest. Without shifting his gaze from hers, he closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Welcome to Wingarra, Place of Magical Water.”

  The warmth of the soft brown lips she’d caught herself admiring far too often lingered as he eased away and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Ready now?”

  She shook her head again and leaned forward.

  Instead of kissing her this time around, he narrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. “Nice try, princess.”

  Completely ignoring her curse and the accompanying stink eye, he shoved open the passenger door and charged into the melee.

  A chorus of g’days, curses, and unintelligible insults accompanied her exit from the Camaro as a wave of cowboy hats, boots, and denim engulfed Jarrah. She eased out from behind the protection of the driver’s door and skirted the pack surrounding the Camaro just as a pair of choked screams cut through the mayhem.

  The crowd silenced and turned in unison to watch her silver-haired, mahogany-skinned future mother-in-law escort a slightly less lily-white and longer-haired
version of her big sister out of the Big House and down the veranda’s steps.

  Olivia clutched a hand to her mouth to stifle her own scream and took in the stockwoman limping toward her under Naya’s watchful gaze. The last of her lingering doubts about whether Abi had made the right decision evaporated in the shafts of evening sunshine penetrating the eucalypt canopy above them. Her sister had not only found the man of her dreams, she’d also found the family they both longed for.

  Abi flung the pink cane she’d been forced to use while her cancer-free brain rewired itself at Ryder before stumbling toward her. Olivia charged across the courtyard and tackled her big sister just as the first tear dribbled down her cheek. Hats tumbled into the dust swirling at their feet as they shoved apart to look at each other before screaming and embracing again.

  Abi broke away and held her at arms’ length. “Dr. Williams.”

  Olivia caught her sister’s arms to make sure Abi stayed upright and nodded. “Mrs. Harper.”

  Abi hugged her again before sliding an arm around her waist and presenting her to the crowd gathered before them. “Shut up, you pack of bogans. I’d like to introduce my sister, Dr. Olivia Williams.”

  Abi may as well have carried a damned sign broadcasting to the world that her kid sister was a doctor. The only thing stopping Olivia from cursing out loud was that Abi’s name belonged right there beside hers on the diploma. Without her sister’s endless sacrifices, there was no way in hell she’d have made it through college, let alone med school and residency.

  A united “g’day, Doc” erupted from the horde as if they’d practiced her welcome. Olivia sucked in a deep breath and answered with her best “g’day” only to draw a chorus of curses and playful insults from her audience.

  “Hey you.” An all-too-familiar hunk of beefcake squeezed in between them. With one arm bracing Abi, her future brother-in-law wrapped his other arm around her and scooped her up into a hug.

  Even with dust congealing across her forehead and sweat soaking through her T-shirt, she couldn’t resist one of his hugs. “Hey you.”

  He pecked her forehead and crushed her rib cage. “You okay?”

  His whispered question had her tightening her hold. After sharing every adventure, setting her big sister free had been the hardest thing Olivia had ever done. She gazed up at the warrior who’d gone from terrifying stranger to awkward houseguest to friend and on to become the big brother she’d always wanted in just over a year.

  He’d ignored her protests and driven her to the hospital when she’d worked nights. He’d renovated the tired old apartment she’d shared with Abi for more than a decade. He’d cooked and cleaned. He’d put a serious dent in her nocturnal adventures by scaring the shit out of every poor man she’d dated. And he’d cared for the most precious thing in her world better than she could ever have dreamed. Stretching up onto her toes, she pecked his jaw before punching his stomach. “What did I tell you about worrying about me?”

  Ryder didn’t even have the decency to flinch as he studied her. Abi’s elbow to his ribs only had him sighing and rolling his eyes.

  Abi jabbed him again. “For Christ’s sake, cut that out. The locals are already starting to talk.”

  Ryder groaned before releasing her. “I still think they nicked something while they were poking around inside her head.”

  Considering the medical triathlon Abi had put her oncologist and surgical team through, a few lingering communication issues between her sister’s brain and the left side of her body were nothing. As Abi’s mind had rewired itself, her big sister had gone from wheelchair to walking frame, to crutches, and down to a cane with all the good humor of a wolverine with a toothache.

  Olivia patted Ryder’s shoulder. “Welcome to my world.”

  Ryder’s chuckle earned him another poke from Abi, this time with the tip of her cane, before she jammed it into the dust and turned on the crowd. “Where the hell’s that sleazy lawyer?”

  “Right here, you crippled pain in the arse.”

  The crowd slowly parted to reveal Jarrah leaning against the Camaro.

  Olivia hoped her surprise wedding present had caused her sister’s sudden onset Tourette syndrome instead of the brain surgery. Abi alternated between cursing and stumbling toward the Camaro under the watchful eye of her fiancé bodyguard.

  “I-I can’t—how…” Abi caressed the Camaro’s bulging front fender with a trembling hand before swatting at the tears trickling down her cheeks.

  Olivia draped an arm over her sister’s shoulders. “There was no way in hell I was having my sister arriving at her wedding in that piece of British crap you stole from Jarrah.”

  “But, how did you—I mean…” Abi gave up trying to speak and sank into her embrace.

  Olivia could probably count the times her sister had been speechless on one hand. Which made the effort of shipping the Camaro across the Pacific worth it. “This also ticks off your something old. We just need something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”

  Ryder looked almost as stunned as Abi as he gawked at the Camaro.

  She slapped his butt and nodded to her luggage in the backseat. “Don’t worry, big guy. I got you that gorgeous gravy boat you were drooling over.”

  Abi sniffed and turned to Jarrah, who was trapped in Naya’s arms. “Is this why you handed over the Aston’s keys so easily?”

  “Like you gave me a freaking choice.” Jarrah laid a gentle hand on the Camaro’s roof. “I’ll swap you?”

  Abi snorted. “Like hell. You’ll be lucky if I let you wash it.”

  “Too late, my precious.” Jarrah’s evil grin had Abi almost falling on her ass in her haste to glare at Olivia.

  Something a lot warmer than the evening heat flooded Olivia as she exchanged a conspiratorial smile with Jarrah and shrugged. “I had to at least let him drive it. He’s my lawyer after all.”

  Chapter Eight

  The genuine, ridgy-didge, Aussie roast dinner laid out before Olivia was raucous and about as delicious as it was perfect. The rag-tag army of stockwomen, stockmen, stockkids, stockdogs, and Bruce, the lecherous emu who’d persisted in nipping her butt, had retreated to the dry-season village set up in Wingarra’s outbuildings for their own pre-muster festivities. Yet the Harpers’ rustic kitchen cum dining room cum boardroom cum watering hole felt no less crowded. Eight immature adults jostled to get at the slow-cooked beef and pork, duck-fat roasted vegetables, home-baked bread fresh from the wood-fired oven, and a deli’s worth of sides, sauces, and gravies.

  Olivia rested her cutlery on her plate and reveled in the joy while sipping the merlot that Jarrah had poured for her. Her hosts hadn’t relented until her plate overflowed, and now that their attention had turned to their own bottomless appetites, she finally felt safe enough to sneak a peek at the family she’d gotten to know so well over the last year.

  Skype was amazing, yet there were some things even high-speed broadband couldn’t convey. Like how appropriate the indigenous names Naya and her husband had given their adoptive kids the day they’d officially joined the Harper clan were. Aragung, the Shield, for Ryder was a no brainer. The man would fight the devil to protect the people he cared for. Alkira, the Margani people’s word for sunshine, was also a gimme. Light and happiness shone from Kira’s stunning Asian features whenever the baby Harper smiled, which was pretty much all the time. Kala was another freebie for Madison. Outback Barbie as Abi liked to call her, whenever Maddie couldn’t hear, simply was fire, from the tips of her flaming-red hair, to the scuffed toes of the work boots she used to kick her mustering crew’s asses. Maddie was about as gentle and forgiving as lava and twice as lethal. Yet there was just something about Wingarra’s grumpy cattle boss and resident ball-breaker Olivia admired. After spending more than a decade battling a male-dominated profession where women were automatically assumed to be nurses, Olivia could only imagine what a young woman surrounded by some of the toughest conditions and men in the world would’ve had to overcome to ru
n a successful cattle operation.

  Olivia took a bite from the slab of bread Jarrah had troweled a heart attack’s worth of butter over and slid onto her plate and looked up to find Jeddah’s all-seeing gaze shifting between Jarrah and her. Olivia swallowed and hoped the delicious carbs and fat would settle the childish butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She returned Jeddah’s grin and was relieved to receive one in return before the oldest Harper girl waded into the argument Maddie and Kira were having with the boys about why women made better riders.

  Olivia felt the same respect and kinship with Jeddah as she did with Madison. And the more she got to know Wingarra’s business manager the more appropriate Jeddah’s indigenous name became. Bakana, the Peacemaker, pretty much summed up Jarrah’s female doppelganger. The only differences between them were a chromosome, an Aston Martin, a penthouse, and how they displayed their confidence. Where Jarrah’s was like a tsunami that leveled everything in its path, Jeddah’s was as subtle and unstoppable as the rising tide. And to complete the package, Jeddah’s ethereal beauty was only exceeded by her innate ability to control proceedings with just a lift of an eyebrow or soft-spoken word.

  Olivia washed down the bread and the surviving butterflies with another sip of wine and shifted her gaze to the other side of the table. Ethan launched a scrunched-up napkin at Kira after having his butt well and truly kicked in their debate. Olivia would’ve never guessed Ethan’s indigenous name in a million years. Even after meeting the youngest Harper male in the flesh, she still found it hard to believe he was named Wundurra, the Warrior. Standing a little shorter than Jarrah and with the build of a running back, he was nowhere near a ninety-pound weakling, yet he wasn’t exactly big, either. With his gentle demeanor and adorable wire-frame glasses he looked more like an accountant than a warrior. The only giveaway something dangerous lurked beneath his sweet smile was the intricate murals tattooed into his arms, the faded scars marking his sun-bronzed features, and an inexplicable power that seemed to radiate from him whenever he looked her way.