Some Girls Don't (Outback Heat Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

the frame for just that purpose.
    The bottles clinked as she approached and he turned his head to look at her. “It’s just me,” Selena said. “I come bearing gifts.” She held out a beer to him. He took it and cracked the lid, also relieving her of the plate. “Do you mind if I sit a while?”
    He shook his head and indicated the chair next to him.
    Selena sat. They used to do this a lot, sit on the back veranda and just talk. Sometimes, when his mother wasn’t home they’d make out on these damn squatter’s chairs. How they both hadn’t ended up flat on their asses she had no idea.
    They didn’t say anything for long moments. Just sucked on their beers and looked out over a Jumbuck Springs night. The view from the veranda hadn’t changed in all these years and Selena’s gaze ate it up.
    Kilometres of low scrubby bush that looked brown and brittle even under the soft blanket of night. Stretching all the way to the foothills of the Great Dividing Range where the land gradually rose then buckled into the dark mountainous shapes that loomed in the distance. The occasional ghostly trunk of a giant gum tree broke up the eternal flatness of the landscape.
    The stars were out, bright pricks of light, far shinier here, away from the neon glow of the city. The cicadas were also out, trilling as one, setting the rhythm of the bush, almost deafening in the warm, still night.
    Selena took a deep breath, letting the aroma of earth and eucalyptus fill her up, take her back. No traffic. No people. No rush. No story to file. No mad dash to the next place.
    Just her and Jarrod alone again on his back veranda.
    “I can’t believe all three of you Weston boys are still living at home,” she said, breaking the silence as she stretched her legs out too.
    She was conscious of the brief flicker of his eyes as he checked out her legs before he turned his attention back to the view with a shrug. “We’ve come and gone a bit. Marcus was away for about eight years. But with the three of us here there’s always someone home with Connie.”
    “She’s a lucky girl.”
    Another shrug. “She’s a good kid.”
    “I don’t understand what Ethan ever saw in Delia.”
    Jarrod snorted. “Oh please. Delia was stacked, blonde and easy.”
    Selena almost choked on her mouthful of beer. “That’s not a very nice thing to imply about your chief of police.”
    A ghost of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “She adored him. She was pretty. She hung on his every word.” He took a draw of his beer. “Men are simple creatures, really.”
    Selena didn’t know if that was a not-very-well-veiled shot at her. Would he have preferred her to be the adoring, clingy type? She wanted to call bullshit on that. She sure as shit would have called him on it back in the day.
    But she didn’t want to open a can of worms.
    Three days .
    Just three days. Two, really, considering this one was almost over.
    “He was in love with her, Jarrod. I was there too.”
    “Yeah. He loved her.” He glanced at her. “But that’s not always enough, is it?”
    The barb struck her in the centre of her chest.
    Three days.
    Three. Days.
    Selena took a deep breath. “Grandy tells me Lacey has become a bit of a local celebrity?”
    “Yes.” He turned his face back to the view and she studied his profile. His strong jaw was visible beneath the layers of scruff on his face. “She’s started her own fashion label right here on the main street. Went into business with Mrs Hoff. They’re doing a roaring trade. She’s engaged to Cooper, an old cop friend of Ethan’s.”
    Selena frowned, trying to figure out how old Lacey would be now. She’d been about six when Selena had left town in the dead of night. “She’s a bit young to be getting married isn’t she?”
    “Not every woman sees marriage as an impediment, Selena.”
    The derision in his tone could have felled a gum tree. One of those big bastards maintaining a ghostly vigil in the surrounding bush.