Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1)
An Outback Heat Romance
Book 1
Amy Andrews
Some Girls Do
Copyright © 2015 Amy Andrews
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-943963-16-4
To Australian bush poet Banjo Patterson and 70’s pop group Racey – polar opposites but part of my musical heritage nonetheless.
Dear Reader,
G’day to all my readers and welcome to Outback Heat and the small country town of Jumbuck Springs.
For those of you who don’t know, jumbuck is a colloquial term for a sheep here in Australia. Anyone familiar with the song Waltzing Matilda will know it all started because of a thirsty jolly jumbuck! So, naturally, Jumbuck Springs is set in sheep territory. It’s also set in a valley bordered by Australia’s largest mountain range known as The Great Dividing Range (original right?), a massive geographical feature that runs down almost all of our east coast. Placing my fictitious town near mountains enabled me to have rock pools and springs and hence the name Jumbuck Springs was born. Having lived in outback towns, I loved creating my own and populating it with the kind of rugged, no-nonsense, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people so prevalent in communities dependent on the land and the vagaries of nature for their livelihood. Of course, it’s only a couple of hours drive to the big smoke so expect some city lights too!
Outback Heat features the Weston family. Three older brothers who all work in the emergency services – policeman, fireman, paramedic – and little sister Lacey who’s set to take the fashion world by storm. Some Girls Do is Lacey’s story. Lacey’s kinda lost and messed up in the big city and yearning for home. Her brothers are determined she see her studies through but Lacey’s desperate to come home and will try anything, including dragging her oldest brother’s BFF, Coop, into a crazy, impulsive scheme. But Lacey and Coop have history…
Doncha just love it when there’s history? :)
I hope you fall in love with Jumbuck Springs and root for Lacey and Coop as they work towards their HEA. Next up is Jarrod and Selena followed by Marcus and Juanita and finally Ethan and JJ. As the series title suggests, things get kinda hot in Jumbuck Springs for all the couples so sit back, put on some flame proof undies and enjoy!
Love,
Amy
‡
C
ooper Grainger watched
the leggy brunette press a Corona bottle to her lips and wished he was her beer. She downed a hearty mouthful, swiped her tongue across her lips, then laughed at something a guy in her group said as she passed the bottle to him before bending over the pool table.
A little frown knitted her brows together as she concentrated on her shot. A lock of her dark hair—a wild, wavy tangle cascading down her back—fell forward over her shoulder, kissing the bright green felt. His gaze dropped to the press of her breasts against the constraint of her tank top and that enticing little v formed at her cleavage.
He’d always been a sucker for that v.
The whack of a ball dragged his eyes back to the action. He watched as the white ploughed into the nine, which smacked into the five, which sailed with a resounding thunk into the pocket. He almost groaned out loud. A woman who turned beer drinking into an erotic spectator sport, had a cleavage that wouldn’t quit
and
knew how to shoot a combo.
He’d died and gone to heaven.
Suddenly her eyes lifted from the table and she was staring right at him. He paused mid-swallow as their gazes locked over the rim of his frosty beer glass. For long seconds she just looked and his gaze was drawn to the large golden hoop earring swinging from her lobe. Then a small smile curved her mouth into a plush little crescent.
Coop blinked and in that fraction of a second she was gone, handing the cue on to the guy with her beer, laughing again as the group congratulated her on her shot. Her gypsy hair swung against her tank top, which scooped low enough at the back to reveal several notches of her spine.
One of the guys slid his hand on her hip and Coop watched as she easily detached from him with a laugh and a playful swat. Then suddenly she was glancing over her shoulder, seeking his gaze again. She locked and held for a long moment and something primal made him think of his clean white sheets and dirty, sexy ways of messing them up.
Mystery woman looked away and he breathed again. But the images refused to leave his head as anticipation buzzed through his system.
He knew where this night was heading.
He hadn’t come to hook up but after a significant leave of absence his libido had roared back to life and he was suddenly thankful Ethan had sent him that box of condoms for his birthday—his friend’s way of telling him he needed to get laid already.
Ethan always had been an all-knowing son of a bitch.
By the time her group relinquished the pool table, he’d finished his second beer and had a hard-on that he doubted ten boxes of condoms could service. He shifted uncomfortably on the stool and his eyes followed the swing of hips, encased in skin-tight denim, and the swish of hair across the bar room. She turned down the corridor that led to the ladies room; just before disappearing she tossed him a look with another of those knowing little smiles.
Cooper knew that look. Knew he could get up off his stool and follow her and within minutes they’d be making out in a toilet cubicle or the alley out the back. But even at this short acquaintance he knew he wanted more from her than some quick fuck against the wall of a bathroom stall or prickly bricks biting into her back as they went for it all clothed and quiet outside.
He wanted her stretched out naked on his bed. He wanted to hear her pant, moan, cry out. He wanted her long and slow.
He wanted her loud. He wanted all night.
It
had
been a long time, after all.
Cooper kept an eye on the corridor anticipating the moment she appeared again. What her next move be. Would she wait for him to go to her? Or would she be as bold as her gaze and seek him out?
The chair moved beside him but he paid it no heed until he heard, “Would you think me terribly forward if I bought you a drink?”
Cooper pulse leapt as his head slowly swivelled towards the light teasing tone. His breath caught a little as his mystery woman loomed up close and personal. A shaggy fringe hung over her forehead, lead to artfully kohled eyes. Great cheekbones, cute nose and a wet glossy mouth that he knew was going to taste as good as it looked.
He grinned at her. “I like forward.”
She smiled. “Well then you’re going to love me.”
From his vantage point he noticed that her smile hadn’t quite reached her eyes, that there was a glimpse of misery lurking in the molasses depths. He recognised a little bit of himself in her unhappiness.
“Takes all the guess work out of it,” he said, dragging his mind back to the conversation.
“Oh?” she said, an elegantly arched brow kicking up, drawing attention to her eyes again, the glimpse gone. “I wasn’t being clear enough already?”
Cooper flicked a brief glance at her mouth. “Oh no,” he smiled, “you were being clear.”
“Is that a problem?”
He shook his head. He’d known where this was heading from the second their eyes had met, and his dick had always appreciated the direct approach. “Nope.”
She smiled then and held out her hand. “Tracey.”
“Cooper,” he said, sliding his hand along hers. “Coop to my friends.”
She kept her hand in his and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Does your friendship come with benefits, Cooper?”
“It does tonight.”
She smiled and it reached right inside his underpants and stroked. “Well in that case, it’s nice to meet you,
Coop.
”
He released her hand and turned to the bar tender. “A Corona for the lady,” he said.
“Where’d you get this?” she asked raising her fingers to the thickened horizontal scar down low on his windpipe. His skin burned beneath the light brush.
Coop forced himself to keep smiling. She wasn’t the first person to ask, she wouldn’t be the last. “Knife fight.”
She grinned, clearly not believing him. “Intriguing.” The bartender placed her beer down and she raised the bottle and tapped it on the edge of his glass. “To friends with benefits.”
Bottle to her mouth, she smiled at him as she took a sip of her beer and he tried to guess her age. The cop in him had already pegged her for mid-twenties, but sometimes you just had to come out and ask. “How old are you?”
* * *
“Twenty-four.” Lacey didn’t
hesitate. She just came right out with it as if she actually
was
that age. Instead of five years younger.
One look at the compelling, sad blue eyes across the bar and she’d known he’d never contemplate a one-night stand with a nineteen year old. He had that look of brooding honour, the same look her older brothers usually wore during their
this-is-for-your-own-good
conversations.