The Outback Bridal Rescue. Emma Darcy
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Marriage is their mission!
From bad boys—to powerful, passionate protectors! Three tycoons from the Outback rescue their brides-to-be….
Meet Ric, Mitch and Johnny—once rebellious teenagers, they survived the Outback to become best friends and formidable tycoons. Now these sexy city hotshots must return to the Outback to face a new challenge: claiming their brides….
This month, it’s sexy billionaire Johnny Ellis’s turn
• The Outback Marriage Ransom
• The Outback Wedding Takeover
• The Outback Bridal Rescue
Emma Darcy is the award-winning Australian author of almost ninety novels for Harlequin Presents®.
Her intensely emotional stories have gripped readers around the globe.
She’s sold nearly 60 million books worldwide and won enthusiastic praise.
“Emma Darcy delivers a spicy love story…a fiery conflict and a hot sensuality.”
—Romantic Times
Dear Reader,
To me, there has always been something immensely intriguing about bad boys who’ve made good. With every possible disadvantage in their background, what was it that lifted them beyond it, that gave them the driving force to achieve, to soar to the heights of their chosen fields, becoming much more than survivors…shining stars?
In OUTBACK KNIGHTS, I’ve explored the lives of three city boys who ended up in juvenile court and were sent to an Outback sheep station to work through their sentences. There, at Gundamurra, isolated from the influences that had overwhelmed them in the past, and under the supervision and caring of a shrewd mentor, Patrick Maguire, the boys’ lives became set on different paths as they learned how their individual strengths—their passions—could be used constructively instead of destructively.
But the big unanswered need is love. Even at the top it’s lonely.
And it seemed to me beautifully fitting that as these boys had been rescued, so should they—as men—rescue the women who will give them love. I think there are times when all of us want to be rescued—to be cared for, protected, understood, made to feel safe. It’s not that we can’t manage independently, but, oh, for a knight in shining armor that will fight and slay our dragons with a passionate intensity that makes us melt!
Here they are—Ric Donato, Mitch Tyler and Johnny Ellis: OUTBACK KNIGHTS!
With love,
The Outback Bridal Rescue
Emma Darcy
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PROLOGUE
Johnny Ellis
First Day at Gundamurra
THE plane was heading down to a red dirt airstrip. Apart from the cluster of buildings that marked the sheep station of Gundamurra, there was no other habitation in sight between here and the horizon—a huge empty landscape dotted with scrubby trees.
It made Johnny think of the old country ballads about meeting and overcoming incredible hardships in places such as this. And here he was, facing the reality of it for a while. Easy enough to see why the music for those ballads was always slow. Nothing fast going on down there.
‘Wish I had my camera,’ Ric Donato murmured.
The remark piqued Johnny’s curiosity. Apparently the stark visual impact of the place didn’t intimidate Ric, though like Johnny, he’d lived all his life in the city. It seemed odd that a thieving street-kid was into photography. On the other hand, the camera comment might simply be playing it cool, making a point of not letting any fear of what was waiting for them show.
Ric looked like he’d been bred from the Italian mafia, black curly hair, olive skin, dark eyes that flashed with what Johnny thought of as dangerous intensity, but if Ric Donato had come from that kind of family, some smart lawyer would have got him off the charge of stealing a car and he wouldn’t be on this plane with Johnny and Mitch.
‘The middle of nowhere,’ Mitch Tyler muttered dispiritedly, his eyes fixed on the same scene. ‘I’m beginning to think I made the wrong choice.’
More gloom than cool from his other companion, Johnny thought, but then unlike himself and Ric, Mitch had a real family—mother and sister—and family couldn’t visit him way out here. But choosing a year in a juvenile jail rather than the alternative sentence of six months working on a sheep station…
‘Nah,’ Johnny drawled with deep inner conviction. ‘Anything’s better than being locked up. At least we can breathe out here.’
‘What? Dust?’ Mitch mocked.
The plane landed, kicking up a cloud of it.
Johnny didn’t care about a bit of dust. It was infinitely preferable to confinement. He hoped Mitch Tyler wasn’t going to be a complete grouch for the next six months. Or a mean one, blowing up at any little aggravation. The guy had been convicted of assault. It might be true he’d only beat up on the man who’d date-raped his sister, but Johnny suspected that Mitch was wired towards fighting.
He had biting blue eyes, dark hair, a strong-boned face that somehow commanded respect. His build was lean though he had very muscular arms, and Johnny felt he might well be capable of powerful violence. Living in close quarters with him could be tricky if he didn’t lighten up.
‘Welcome to the great Australian Outback,’ the cop escorting them said derisively. ‘And just remember…if you three city smart arses want to survive, there’s nowhere to run.’
All three of them ignored him. They were sixteen. Regardless of what life threw at them, they were going to survive. Besides, running would be stupid. Better to do the six months and feel free to get on with their lives, having served what the law court considered justice for their crimes.
Not that Johnny felt guilty of doing anything bad. He wasn’t a drug dealer. He’d simply been doing a favour for the guys in the band, getting them a stash of marijuana to smoke after their gig at the club. They’d given him the money for it and the cops had caught him handing it over to the real dealer.
Impossible to explain he’d got the money from the musos. That would be dobbing them in and the word would go around the pop music tracks that he couldn’t be trusted. Keeping mum and taking the fall was his best move. It was a big favour that