Part 1 (1/2)
Dating the Rebel Tyc.o.o.n.
by ALLY BLAKE
Dear Reader,
Did you know that this year is Harlequin's sixtieth birthday? Well, it is!
Thinking about it takes me back to the much-loved dog-eared favorites my grandmother kept in boxes galore under her spare bed. I can still smell the old paper, see the creased, faded covers of books read and reread by a true fan and remember opening book after book to check if I had read the story before. And then came a new opening line, a new first time a heroine saw her hero and an old familiar rush of antic.i.p.ation, delight and warmth.
To tell you the truth, not much has changed! Okay, so maybe a little. The Harlequin books I read now I have picked up in bookstores, not from under my grandmother's bed. Many of them are now written by wonderful, wise, warm women I consider friends. And I am absolutely honored to be a writer of Harlequin romance novels myself. But in the reading, that old familiar feeling that sneaks up when I sink into a story has never gone away.
The very idea that, out there in the world, a reader might pick up one of my books, read the first line and settle in, knowing that she will be in for a fun, flirtatious, moving, sigh-filled ride amazes me every day.
So thanks, Harlequin, for letting me be a part of your world, then and now. Happy birthday and many happy returns!
Ally.
Having once been a professional cheerleader, Ally Blake Ally Blake has a motto: ”Smile and the world smiles with you.” One way to make Ally smile is by sending her on holidays-especially to locations that inspire her writing. New York and Italy are by far her favorite destinations. Other things that make her smile are the gracious city of Melbourne, the gritty Collingwood football team and her gorgeous husband, Mark. has a motto: ”Smile and the world smiles with you.” One way to make Ally smile is by sending her on holidays-especially to locations that inspire her writing. New York and Italy are by far her favorite destinations. Other things that make her smile are the gracious city of Melbourne, the gritty Collingwood football team and her gorgeous husband, Mark.
Reading romance novels was a smile-worthy pursuit from long back, so with such valuable preparation already behind her she wrote and sold her first book. Her career as a writer also gives her a perfectly reasonable excuse to indulge in her stationery addiction. That alone is enough to keep her grinning every day!
Ally would love for you to visit her at her Web site, .
Ally also writes for Harlequin Presents!
To my baby Boo.
You own my heart, you crack me up, you dazzle me daily, and it is my absolute privilege watching you become you.
Love Mum x.x.x
CHAPTER ONE
CAMERON Kelly opened the heavy side-door of the random building, shut it smartly behind him and became enveloped in darkness. The kind of inky darkness that would make even the bravest boy imagine monsters under the bed. Kelly opened the heavy side-door of the random building, shut it smartly behind him and became enveloped in darkness. The kind of inky darkness that would make even the bravest boy imagine monsters under the bed.
It was some years since Cameron had been a boy, longer still since he'd realised people didn't always tell the truth. When he'd found out his two older brothers had made the monsters up.
The small window between himself and the Brisbane winter suns.h.i.+ne outside revealed the coast was clear, and he let his forehead rest on the cold gla.s.s with a sheepish thunk thunk.
Of all the people he could have seen-many miles from where a man such as he ought to have been while commerce and industry raged on in the city beyond-it had to have been his younger sister Meg, downing take-away coffee and gabbing with her girlfriends.
If Meg had seen him wandering the suburban Botanical Gardens, pondering lily pads and cacti rather than neck-deep in blueprints and permits and funding for multi-million-dollar skysc.r.a.pers, she would not have let him be until he'd told her why.
So he, a grown man-a man of means, and most of the time sense-was hiding. Because the truth would only hurt her. And, even though he'd long since been cast as the black sheep of the Kelly clan, hurting those he cared about was the last thing he would ever intentionally do.
He held his watch up to the parcel of light, saw it was nearly nine and grimaced.
Hamish and Bruce, respectively his architect and his project manager, would have been at the CK Square site for more than an hour waiting for him to approve the final plans for the fifty-fourth floor. This close to the end of a very long job, if they hadn't throttled one another by now then he would be very lucky.
He made to open the door to leave, remembered Meg-the one person whose leg he'd never been able to pull, even with two adept older brothers to show him how-and was overtaken by a stronger compulsion than the desire to play intermediary between two grown men. His hand dropped.
Let the boys think he was making a grand entrance when he finally got there. It'd give them something to agree upon for once. He could live with people thinking he had an ego the size of Queensland. He was a Kelly, after all; impressions of grandeur came with the name.
'We're closed,' a voice echoed somewhere behind him.
He spun on his heel, hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Though he hadn't boxed since his last year at St Grellans, in a flash his fists were raised, his fingers wrapped so tight around his thumbs they creaked. Lactic acid burned in his arms. It seemed fresh air, suns.h.i.+ne and tiptoeing through the tulips weren't the catharsis for an uneasy mind that they were cracked up to be.
He peered around the huge empty s.p.a.ce and couldn't see a thing past the end of his nose, bar a square of pink burned into his retina from the bright light of the window.
'I'm desperately sorry,' the voice said. 'I seem to have given you a little fright.'
Unquestionably female, it was, husky, sweet, mellow tones drifting to him through the darkness with a surprisingly vivid dash of sarcasm, considering she had no idea who she was dealing with.
'You didn't frighten me,' he insisted.
'Then how about you put down your dukes before you knock yourself out?'
Cameron, surprised to find his fists were still raised, unclenched all over, letting his hands fall to his sides before shucking his blazer back onto his shoulders.
'Now, I love an eager patron as much as the next gal,' the mocking voice said. 'But the show doesn't start for another half-hour. Best you wait outside.'
The show? Cameron's eyes had become more used to the light, or lack thereof. He could make out a b.u.mpy outline on the horizon, rows of seats decked out auditorium-style. They tipped backwards slightly so that an audience could look upwards without getting neck strain, as the show that went on in this place didn't happen on stage but in the ma.s.sive domed sky above.
He'd stumbled into the planetarium.
Wow. He hadn't been in the place since he was a kid. It seemed the plastic bucket seats and industrial carpet sc.r.a.ping beneath his shoes hadn't changed.
He craned his neck back as far as it would go, trying to make out the shape and form of the roof. The structural engineer in him wondered about the support mechanisms for the high ceiling, while the vestiges of the young boy who'd once upon a time believed in monsters under the bed simply marvelled at the deep, dark, infinite black.
Finally, thankfully, one thing or another managed to shake loose a measure of the foreboding that ruminating over rhododendrons had not.
He kept looking up as he said, 'I'll wait, if it's alright by you.'
'Actually, it's not.'
'Why not?'