High Stakes Bride

Dear Reader,

High-Stakes Bride
was always going to be a ranch story, because Carter Rawlings—the sixth and final member of my Down Under SAS team—has a strong link with the land. When I planned the book, the solution to who would finally tame my most elusive bachelor yet was simple—Dani Marlow, the girl next door. What I didn't understand until I began writing was how deep the secret of Dani's past went and just how wide-ranging the repercussions would prove to be. Dani turned out to be a headstrong, complex heroine, a fitting match for Carter, a seasoned assault specialist who is faced with the biggest challenge of his life: keeping Dani safe.

Enjoy!

Fiona Brand

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Coming Next Month

Twenty-two years ago, Dawson, New Zealand

E
ight-year-old Dani Marlow's eyes flicked open in the dark. Icy moonlight filtered through the thin drapes pulled across her window, turning the pink quilt on her bed a frosted grey and bleaching the floorboards silver.

The sound that had woken her came again. Not the skeletal scrape of the clump of small trees that grew outside her window, or the ancient creaking of the oak that shaded most of the front lawn, but the sharp clink of metal against metal.

Breath suspended in her throat, she lay rigid, eyes fixed on the cracked plaster of the ceiling as she strained to listen. Time passed. The wind strengthened, the cold palpable as it rattled branches and whispered through desiccated leaves. Slowly, the tension ebbed from her limbs, her lids drooped and she began the warm drift back into sleep.

Glass shattered, the sound as explosive as a gunshot, jackknifing her out of bed. Bare feet hit the icy cold of the floor and, for a terrifying moment, Dani lost the sense of where she was—and
when.

Light flooded through the gap where her bedroom door stood ajar, momentarily blinding her. Blankly, she registered footsteps, the crash of overturned furniture. A dull thud followed by an anguished cry shocked her out of her immobility.

Heart pounding, she wrenched her wardrobe door wide and fumbled through layers of clothing, fighting the frantic urge to burrow into the musty storage space and hide. She hadn't been dreaming, what was happening was real.
He
was here—
now.
Somehow he had found them again, and this time he had gotten inside the house. She didn't understand why or how it happened, just that no matter where they moved to, sooner or later, it did.

For a frantic moment she couldn't find what she was looking for, then her fingers closed on the stick she kept there. The wood was smooth where she'd peeled the bark away, and as heavy as a baseball bat. She had made it three months ago at the last place they had lived, when a neighbour had seen a man watching their flat and reported him to the police. They had managed to get away when the police cruiser had arrived and frightened him off. The time before they hadn't been so lucky. Susan had ended up in hospital with cracked ribs and a concussion, and Dani had gone into care.

Stomach tight, Dani edged along the narrow hall and halted in the doorway to the kitchen. A silver shape arrowed through the air. She ducked as the kettle hit the wall, spraying water. Simultaneously a loud bang was followed by a burst of blue light as the electrical mains above her head blew, plunging the house into darkness. Soaked and shivering, blinking to clear the flash of the explosion and adjust to the much dimmer moonlight pouring through the kitchen window, Dani struggled to make sense of the black shadow grappling with her mother.

Susan Marlow, clearly visible in a long pale nightgown, struck out, knocking the shadow back and abruptly the scene made sense. The shadow was a man dressed all in black, his hands, his face—every part of him blanked out—except for a narrow strip where his eyes glittered.

He swung, his arm a blur. Susan crumpled and, with a fierce cry, Dani launched herself. The stick arced down, crashing into the only part of him she could see, his eyes. The jarring force of the blow numbed her fingers and sent the stick spinning. A split second later she was flung through the air, for a timeless moment tumbling….

When Dani came to she lay sprawled at an angle, half under the kitchen table. Pain throbbed at the back of her head as she dragged herself into a sitting position and clung to a table leg for support.

He was at the sink. He had taken off what she now realized was a balaclava and was washing his face. As he turned, the glow from a flashlight uplit a broad chest and powerful shoulders, dark hair cut close against his skull, and a face that was nightmarishly distorted. Blood streamed from a swollen, misshapen nose and a livid cut below one eye where the flesh had peeled open revealing the glistening white of bone—the effect like something out of a horror movie.

Clutching his face to stem the flow of blood, he stumbled into the tiny lounge, the flashlight beam flickering over broken furniture and shards of glass as he stepped through the window he'd smashed to get into the house and merged with the night.

Dani huddled by the kitchen table, spine jammed against the wall. Freezing cold filtered through her pajamas, spreading like liquid ice as she stared through the wreckage of their home, gaze fastened on the empty rectangle of pure black where the window frame was pushed up.

Long seconds ticked by, and slowly, minute-by-minute, the extent of her victory settled in, steadying her. For the first time she'd had the courage to hit out, and she had hurt him—enough that he'd had to leave. When she was certain he wasn't coming back, she crawled over to Susan and her heart almost stopped. Susan was white and still, and for a terrifying moment she was certain she was dead.

Frantically, she clutched at her shoulder and shook. Susan's head lolled, her eyes flickered and relief shuddered through Dani.

Forcing herself to her feet, she limped to the kitchen counter, reached high and grabbed the first aid box. Setting the container beside Susan, she pried off the lid, found the cotton wool and disinfectant and began dabbing at the split on Susan's lip and the grazes on her jaw and temple. Susan flinched, but didn't wake up.

Panic gripped Dani as she fetched a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, wrapped them in a tea towel and set the makeshift icepack against the side of Susan's face. She should call an ambulance, but Susan had said not to call
anyone
because if the welfare people got to hear what was happening, they'd take her away—this time maybe for good. The same went for the police. As badly as they needed help, they didn't need what came with it. According to Susan the paper trail left them too exposed, and
he
was clever. It was one of the ways he used to find them.

Stoically, Dani continued cleaning away the blood then set about making up a bed up on the floor. She didn't know how long it would be before Susan woke up, but, in the freezing cold of a South Island winter, she had to be kept warm. Shivering, her stomach tight with fear, Dani lay under the pile of quilts with Susan, waiting for her to wake up.

Blankly, she stared at the open window.

The glass was gone, so closing it was a waste of time, but she should have pulled the curtains to help stop the cold air pouring into the house. It wasn't snowing or sleeting, but there would be a frost; ice already glittered on the sill. Shuddering, she wrenched her gaze free. She hadn't wanted to go near the window because somehow the magnetic black space was part of
him.

With an effort of will, she forced herself to concentrate on Susan. Her breathing sounded better, although it still had a catch as if even sleeping, she was hurting.

Dani moved closer, shielding Susan from the window and the freezing stream of cold air, misery condensing into a piercing ache.

They would be all right. They just had to move again.

And this time they
would
disappear.