October

Wanted: Outback Wife

by

Ally Blake

Come October city meets country in the fourth book in THE BRIDES OF BELLA LUCIA series, Ally Blake's "Wanted: Outback Wife". Londoner Jodie Simpson needs to land an Australian husband - and quick. But can she and her friends pull this off with only six weeks until her working visa runs out?

Can they ever! Suddenly this shy British girl finds herself with a line up of assorted males willing to be the other half of her two year marriage deal. Who should she pick? Her neighbour Scott who has a penchant for mesh shirts, Barnaby the visual merchandiser whose favourite gay bar is just around the corner from her apartment, or the funeral director with the gravity defying Adams apple?

Of course, even though he lives in the Outback, miles from her beloved Melbourne, has more brothers and sisters than she has family in the whole world, and makes her feel that he would rather her two-year project took a lifetime, there is always Heath Jameson...


FROM ALLY

I am a city girl. Give me freeways, football stadiums, and fresh food delis on every corner and I am in heaven. As such, my books are often set in my fabulous hometown: the dynamic, glorious, and graceful city of Melbourne.

So when my heroine, Jodie Simpson, the looming "Day She Has To Go Back Home" to London at the end of her working holiday visa getting closer and closer on the calendar, I had no problem understanding she would go to all lengths to stay in sunny Melbourne! Including marrying a man in a month...

But being Australian, I also have a soft spot for the Outback. Think wide open spaces, golden kangaroo grass swaying in hot arid breezes, tall thin ghost gums creating eerie shadows on the red earth. Stunning stuff.

So there was nothing for it but to make the one man with whom born and bred city girl Jodie could take the biggest trip of her life a man of the Outback. So enteres Heath, a strapping, charming, entirely too likeable cattle farmer. And can I just take a moment here to say, "Sigh..."

I had such a ball writing for this mini-series, and feel utterly blessed for being able to add my little bit of Australian sunshine to the story of the Valentine family.

REVIEW - ROMANTIC TIMES

Desperate to remain in Australia and avoid the family drama awaiting her in England, jewelry maker Jodie Simpson is willing to do anything. Finding an Aussie husband for the period necessary to obtain citizenship seems a little extreme -- but with no other options in sight, Jodie ends up wed to rancher Heath Jameson. But what's in it for Heath? The possibility of having a real wife eventually, perhaps? Ally Blake continues the Brides of Bella Lucia with Wanted: Outback Wife (4 stars), as she affectionately mocks the "marriage of convenience" convention while utilizing it effectively. This is good fun, and Heath's a treat on many levels.


HOW THE STORIES LINK!

Jodie Simpson is Louise Valentine's half sister! For Louise story, see "The Valentine Bride" by Liz Fielding in February 2007.


EXCERPT...

ON A BALMY Saturday night, Jodie angled her beloved twenty-year-old car, aptly nicknamed Rusty, into an empty car park in a side street off Flinders. She threw a handful of coins into the parking meter as she spied a gap in Saturday night traffic cruising the length of the grand old train station. She hitched her black sparkly halter an inch higher and tugged her tight jeans an inch lower and ran as fast as her borrowed high heels would carry her.

She was late, as an hour before she could still have been found sitting back on the couch with Louise in her pyjama bottoms, Chelsea Football Club jersey and slippers, as she wasn’t entirely planning on turning up that night.

Over the past two weeks, Jodie had met twelve different guys that she and Mandy had chosen from the responses to her website. An actor, a vet, and a guy who sold mobile phone contracts door-to-door. And she would have put every cent she owned on the fact that most had come for a good time not a long time.

What was she doing interviewing husband prospects? Really? When Jodie reached the safety of the footpath, she closed her eyes and visualised waving goodbye to Mandy and Lisa, getting on the jumbo plane, landing in Heathrow, catching the tube, knocking on the front door of the tiny welfare funded flat she had shared with her mother for twenty-five years... No, if she was to have any sort of life, she had to stay the course.

Jodie pushed open the heavy carved door nestled into the underbelly of the train station and she rushed down the carpeted steps.

Lisa, the maitre d’ at the popular restaurant, grimaced as she came into view. “Another minute and I would have given away your table.”

“Likely I would have thanked you if you had,” Jodie muttered. “Is he here yet?”

Lisa shook her head. “But Mandy is prowling in your corner. Go settle her before she frightens away my customers.”

Jodie gave her a quick pat on the arm before skimming through the tables to the private table for two in the corner. When she saw Mandy sitting in a chair, her stiletto tapping nervously against the floor, she was halfway torn between staying or making a run for it to the ladies room and squeezing out the tiny window and dropping atop the dumpster a floor below.

“Nice of you to show,” Mandy said as Jodie slipped quickly into the cool seat across her.

Jodie took a steadying gulp of Mandy’s red wine before grabbing a bread roll and shoving nibble sized bites into her nervous mouth. “Yeah, well, it didn’t help that just as I was leaving Scott came over to propose to me.”

“Scott?” Mandy said, her face paling. “Across the hall, Scott? Predilection for leather pants and mesh shirts, Scott? Not quite sure where his right eye is looking, Scott?”

Jodie nodded along with Mandy’s every query. “Somehow he had found your darling website. His exact words were: So how about it? You and me - matrimonial bliss?”

“Please tell me you said no.”

Jodie nodded. But in that brief split second, she had actually considered his offer. He lived across the hall, so she wouldn’t have to move far. He had a thing for her which had been obvious since the day she had moved into the building, so he would do anything to help her out in her plight. But the very fact that he had a thing for her ruled him out even if his goofy oddness did not. It wouldn’t be fair.

If she was going to do this thing, she had to do it right. No romantic connections. No complications from the start. The last thing she wanted was for it all to end in tears and broken promises. She’d lived through enough of that from a distance when her father had walked out when she was thirteen, so living it up close and personal was not on her agenda.

She had thanked him for his kind offer, but declined. Though compared to her other dates that week he wasn’t the bottom of the totem pole.

“He had settled in to watch Beach Street when I left so I had to leave poor Lou behind. I don’t trust him not to sneak into my room and try to steal a pair of my underpants again.”

“Right. Good point.”

“So who’s the lucky contestant tonight?” Jodie asked on a sigh.

“First up we have Heath...” Mandy flipped through her colour-coded sheets clipped in a neat folder. “Heath Jameson. The Farmer.”

Jodie winced. A farmer for goodness’ sake! The fact that he didn’t send an email in the form of a dirty limerick or attach a photo of himself in Speedos put him in the maybe pile. But the thought of moving to a farm for two years was uninspiring to say the least. She was a city girl, born and bred. She loved the seasons in Melbourne, the food, the culture, the window shopping, the architecture and the friends she had made there. But most of all she liked herself in Melbourne.

But a farm? In the Outback? She pictured a barn with a leaking tin roof. A wood burning fireplace with old copper pots the likes of which she had seen in old western movies. A mangy work dog sleeping on the end of the double bed which had lumps and bumps worn into it by past generations. And wouldn’t she have to get one of those hats with corks hanging all around it to ward off flies?

“Ready?” Mandy asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Excellent. After this one, there’s two more tonight.”

Two more? She let out a long groan. Suddenly, despite the living distance from the city she loved, so long as the guy was a gentleman and said yes, she decided she would marry him then and there. So long as she could stop all this dreadful dating and see a way to a future down under.

Mandy slipped away into the crowd and Jodie was left flickering glances towards the bar. Which one would farm boy turn out to be? The guy in all black flicking lint off his double-breasted jacket? Unlikely. The balding blonde in the plaid shirt and jeans picking crumbs out of his teeth with his butter knife? Oh please no.

Jodie couldn’t help checking her teeth for sesame seeds in the reflection of her bread knife when the front door swished open letting in a flush of warm night air and with it, a man.

A man with a to die for tan, the likes of which Jodie had only ever seen on school friends just back from the Greek Islands, subconsciously pushing his wind-mussed, dark blonde hair somewhat into place. A man with the kind of highlights David Beckham would pay a fortune for. A man in an untucked white shirt over dark denim who gave a friendly half smile as he caught Lisa’s eye at the door.

Jodie knew the second he was hers.

Lisa tossed her long blonde hair as she turned and with a little finger wave beckoned the man to follow. And follow he did with a lean, long-legged, stride.

“Not bad,” Lisa mouthed as she neared.

As he came closer Jodie saw that this man was just the way she imagined Australian guys ought to be - permanent creases at the corners of his eyes from too much smiling or too much sun, a strong jaw covered in sexy stubble as though he had shaved many hours before, and eyes so blue they made her heart ache.

But she wasn’t in this game for heart ache. This was to be a purely heart free and ache free endeavour.

Jodie scrunched her toes in her high-heeled sandals to force the blood away from her burning cheeks to other parts of her body. The whole blushing English rose thing could be pretty on some girls, but with her auburn hair she felt like a big red blotchy tomato. And the more she panicked about it the more she blushed.

Suddenly the ladies room, the tiny window and the dumpster seemed unreservedly the right choice.

“Can I get you a drink?” Lisa asked as they reached the table.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice a rich resonant bass. “A beer would be great.”

Lisa gave him a beaming smile, turned it into a frown for Jodie, then spun on her heel and left. Jodie managed to drag herself to her feet on wobbly knees that almost gave way.

Her companion leaned over and offered her a large, long fingered hand to shake. “Good evening, Jodie. I’m Heath Jameson. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”


Available in September from Harlequin Romance and Mills & Boon Tender Romance