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“Chloe seems to think that being a cook here automatically confers on me the position of your girlfriend.”
To Bea’s annoyance, Chase looked amused, rather than embarrassed.
“And you’re basing all your assumptions on the word of a five-year-old?”
Bea’s lips tightened. She hated the way Chase always made her feel stupid. “Is it true?”
“That you’re my girlfriend?” Chase lifted a mocking eyebrow. “Don’t you think you’d know if you were?”
“It might be such a horrible thought that I’ve blocked it out,” snapped Bea, but to her fury, he only laughed. And that made him look disconcertingly attractive, which made her even crosser.
Jessica Hart had a haphazard career before she began writing to finance a degree in history. Her experience ranged from waitress, theater production assistant and outback cook to newsdesk secretary, expedition P.A. and English teacher, and she has worked in countries as different as France and Indonesia, Australia and Cameroon. She now lives in the north of England, where her hobbies are limited to eating and drinking and traveling when she can, preferably to places where she’ll find good food or desert or tropical rain.
If you’d like to find out more about Jessica Hart, you can visit her Web site www.jessicahart.co.uk
Books by Jessica Hart
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®
3638—BABY AT BUSHMAN’S CREEK*
3646—WEDDING AT WAVERLEY CREEK*
3654—A BRIDE FOR BARRA CREEK*
3688—ASSIGNMENT: BABY
3701—INHERITED: TWINS!
3713—THE HONEYMOON PRIZE
The Wedding Challenge
Jessica Hart
MILLS & BOON
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
‘GO AND work in the outback?’ Bea stared blankly at her friend. ‘Why would we want to do that?’
‘Why?’ Emily echoed, equally uncomprehending. ‘How can you even ask that, Bea? Everybody wants to work in the outback. It’s beautiful!’
‘It’s not beautiful, it’s brown.’
‘It’s full of hunky men riding around in hats and dusty boots.’
‘It’s full of flies,’ said Bea, unimpressed.
‘Don’t be like that, Bea.’ Emily abandoned her customers and pulled out a chair so that she could sit down opposite her friend. ‘This is the chance of a lifetime! I’ve always wanted to go and work on a cattle station.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘Because it’s different and romantic and wonderful,’ enthused Emily, gesticulating wildly. ‘Besides,’ she went on, clearly grasping at straws by now, ‘it’s part of my heritage.’
Bea goggled at her. To her certain knowledge, Emily had been born and brought up in London, about as far from the outback as you could get. ‘Since when?’
‘My mother’s Australian,’ said Emily loftily.
‘From Melbourne. It’s not exactly the red heart of Australia, is it?’
‘Well, her mother grew up on a cattle station,’ Emily conceded with an edge of defiance.
‘My grandmother grew up in Leamington Spa, but it doesn’t mean I want to go and work there!’
‘Leamington Spa isn’t chock-a-block with men who know how to throw a lasso and wrestle bulls to the ground single-handed, though, is it? Real men, Bea, not like this lot here!’
Emily glanced disparagingly around the bar where she was a waitress. She was wearing a long, white apron, and ignoring customers on nearby tables who were trying to catch her eye.
Bea followed her friend’s gaze. It was a Sunday night, and the bar was buzzing, packed with young people enjoying the end of another great Sydney weekend. As far as Bea could see, every single man there seemed to be tall, broad-shouldered and eminently fanciable. That’s if you weren’t still recovering
