Bella's Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

and school holidays staying with Aunty Maggie, and roaming the surrounding hills with Patty, had given Bella a sense of place and home at both Tindarra and Narree.
    Will went on: ‘Macca and I wanted to have a look at a few properties up around Isa while we were there, to see something different. Was good to get away for a bit. We’re on our way home now and thought we’d look you two up.’
    Come to think of it, Bella vaguely remembered Patty saying something about her brother being away for a while. She’d thought he was in the Territory, though, and hadn’t realised her cousin was with him.
    ‘It was quicker coming home through Charters Towers, rather than going down the coast. So here we are. Scenery’s a whole lot better too.’ His grin was wicked. His eyes caressing her body without touching, burning without flame, making her flush with heat.

    Will wasn’t sure when or how that pigtailed, skinny runt of a kid had turned into this luscious, sexy creature standing before him. Tumbling ringlets of white-gold peeked from beneath the broad-brimmed hat. A cleavage so well rounded, sweaty and sweet, a man would have to be a priest not to want to bury his head in it. Legs so long, slim and well formed, they could have wrapped around his waist two times over – well, nearly.
    And the face.

    Tanned snubby nose, high-boned lightly freckled cheeks and blue eyes that flicked and fluttered with so much wantonness. He was in meltdown. And that was just her appearance.
    Watching the confident and compassionate way she handled herself with that poor couple in the middle of the road. Will was sure glad it wasn’t him trying to help in that situation. He wouldn’t have known what to do or say.
    If anyone had told him ten minutes ago it was possible to be suddenly and utterly bewitched by a woman, he’d have said they were an idiot. Now he felt like the idiot – a besotted idiot.
    But then there was her friendship with his sister to consider. In fact the Vermaelon and O’Hara families had been friends for three generations. They even had a mutual relative in Aunty Maggie, Bella’s aunt who’d married Will’s uncle, if anyone could work out that convoluted connection. And getting on the wrong side of Maggie wasn’t an option. Not to Will’s mind anyway. Maybe he should just turn and walk away.
    So many thoughts swirled through his brain as he took in the girl in front of him. His senses were aroused. His blood was stirred. Testosterone was pumping and Will was smitten with lust.
    ‘So are you coming or are you going to stand there all afternoon?’ Bella was getting into the boys’ four-wheel drive.
    ‘Oh yeah. Coming.’
    Bella watched as Will moved to the driver’s side and jumped in, dragging his cream felt hat from his head and tossing it behind the seat.
    Turning, she looked out the passenger-side window. She was exhausted.

    Maybe it was the drama of the afternoon. By profession she was an agricultural officer who advised people on landcare. She certainly wasn’t a medical guru who was used to keeping people alive.
    Maybe it was meeting the man beside her – someone she’d known all her life without really knowing him at all.
    Perhaps. But she wasn’t going to admit that to anyone, least of all herself. Fun, fun, fun in the sun was her motto for this year. She didn’t need emotional complications. Unfortunately her body had other ideas. Every nerve ending was buzzing. She breathed in his scent, felt his warmth. The transparent thread of attraction between them seemed to have somehow metamorphosed into a solid rope. Sharing the same airspace in the ute made her feelings seem so much stronger, louder, clearer. Again Bella mentally shook herself. Too old, too serious, too close, too much. Think of something else, she told herself firmly.
    She trained her eyes out the window. A lonely ribbon of dirt unravelled across the plains in front of them. As the ute followed the track back towards the stockmen’s