Page 13 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

No walls. Just stars.

No other people breathing, snoring or weeping. He’d swapped those sounds for the thrumming of riverbank insects going about their business.

This place. Photo number sixty-two of the eighty-eight photos Bridie had sent to him over the years—he’d memorised each one before carefully handing them back across the desk to be put with the rest of the belongings he’d been stripped of.

She had no idea how much her photos had meant to him, those monthly reminders of who he was and where he belonged.

He’d had no idea how closely they might have documented her steps these past years. From the safety of her back door to the edge of the veranda. From the old Hills Hoist hung with freshly washed clothes to the edge of the house paddock and the windmill and water trough. Such familiar things, each one set just that little bit further from her homestead.

He wasn’t the only one to have lost years of freedom because of the actions of a thwarted madman—he knew that now.

In his absence, she’d built him up to be someone he wasn’t, but he’d done exactly the same to her. They needed to move past that if they wanted to be business and land conservation partners. He’d agreed to that, heaven help him. Same way he’d agreed to be her fiancé for the next three months. He who had no business whatsoever being around someone so delicate and beautiful. Someone who could unravel him just by looking in his direction. Someone who could make him forget where he was with the touch of her hand.

He missed intimacy so much and she was right there...ready to forgive him anything. Thinking of him as some kind of hero—and what a joke that was, even if thinking of himself as a hero had made his incarceration that much easier to bear. Protector of the innocent, no matter the cost. Honourable to the end. A man of his word.

A good man.

Until tonight, when he’d ripped that myth apart.

Forcing an unwanted engagement on Bridie. Lying about it to his brother and her father and everyone else in order to save face and belatedly offer Bridie what protection he could. Pledging to buy Conrad land under false pretences. Wanting to take Bridie’s sweet, parting kiss and turn it into an inferno.

Not exactly a good man any more, was he?

‘Don’t do anything rash. Avoid split-second decisions.’

‘Give yourself time to adjust.’

‘Give others the benefit of the doubt.’

He’d done none of that and Bridie had paid the price with an engagement she couldn’t possibly want. He’d allowed Bridie to protect him when he’d fallen apart, and that couldn’t happen again. He needed to undo all the tics he’d learned in prison and figure out who he was and who he wanted to be, and above all keep his desire for Bridie’s touch to himself and not take advantage of her goodwill and sweet nature and sense of obligation.

Pull yourself together, Judah, don’t be a disgrace.

Be a better man.

Rather than be ashamed.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHERE’VE YOU BEEN?’

Judah halted at the question his brother threw at him from his position behind the kitchen counter. A large cooktop and a couple of ovens lined the wall behind his brother, with a cool room at one end and a regular fridge at the other. Odd, how such a seemingly innocent question might grate on a man who’d been forced to account for every minute of his day for such a long time. Or maybe not so odd at all.

‘Because I made a heap of breakfast for the guys before they left and I saved you some. So what’ll it be?’ his brother continued, oblivious to Judah’s scowl. ‘The works? Bacon, sausages, tomato, scrambled eggs, toast. Or there’s the veggo option of bruschetta. I didn’t make that one. Nico’s training to be a chef.’

‘And Nico is...?’

‘A friend from school. Trent Nicholson. Good man.’

He should probably stop thinking of his brother and all his friends as boys. He should also stop being so quick to take offence. Soon would be good. Making some kind of decision about what to eat for breakfast would be good too. Any time now, slowpoke, you can do it. He doubted the prison psych’s advice to take his time when making decisions applied to something as simple as food choice. ‘I’ll take the second one.’

‘Coffee too?’

‘You’re speaking my language.’

Reid beamed and set about getting the fancy machine to produce liquid heaven, and Judah finally forgave him that very first ‘where’ve you been?’. ‘You said your friends have already gone?’ The city caterers were still around, he’d seen them on his way in, but they too were scheduled to leave by lunchtime. Solitude again.

‘Yeah. Couple of them could have stayed on, but I didn’t know how you’d feel about that. You were pretty clear about wanting everyone gone by this morning.’

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