Authors: Amarinda Jones
DumbAtHeart.epub
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Erotic Romance
Copyright © 2014 by Amarinda Jones
First E-book Publication: April 2014
Editor:Bethany Brookes
Cover design by Amarinda Jones
All cover art and logo copyright © 2014 by Amarinda Jones
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PUBLISHER
Scarlet Harlot Publishing™
Dumb at Heart
© Amarinda Jones
“You’re a fool.”
Cass Kelly blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, tell me something I don’t know.” She
unlocked the passenger side door and pushed it open.
“What you’re doing is crazy.”
“Probably.”
“So you’re just going to run off to the back of beyond to do what? Find yourself?
Search for the meaning of life? Ponder man’s inhumanity to man?”
“All that, and probably get quite sunburnt.” Cass looked down into her handbag.
The zipper was busted so it was easy to see the contents. Money? Check. Plane ticket?
Scrunched, but visible. Directions to the back of beyond? Yep.
“It’s plain crazy.”
Cass grinned. Yeah, it was, but crazy worked for her. “Look at me, Lorelle. Have
I ever done anything sensible in all the time you have known me?”
“Well—nope.” Her friend sighed and reached out to tug on a lock of Cass’s red
hair. “Just be careful.”
“Of course I will.”
I’m flying off in a tiny plane to a place I have never seen to
work with people I don’t know, who live miles from civilization, where snakes and
feral pigs will probably eat me alive, that is if I do not burn to a crisp under a sun
that can rip your hide off. Careful? Pfft.
Lorelle shook her head. “Uh-huh. I’m not sure who I should be more concerned
for. You, or the population of Mundabucka. ”
It was one photo of Wade Moore in the
Cairns Post
, that had Cass Kelly packing
her bags and heading for the airport. “Lying, cheating swine.” Once she thought she
had loved him. But that was before she saw him and
her
—Louise Samuels, heir to the
Samuels yacht company—grinning mockingly up from the page of the newspaper.
They had just gotten engaged. Funny thing was Cass had a vague thought, despite the
three months dry spell in sex between them, she and Wade would one day announce
their marriage. A not funny thing was Cass had realized too late that an heiress beat a
receptionist hands down when it came to the marriage stakes. Cass knew Wade was
ambitious but to get hooked up with a horsey faced dame with the inherited Samuels
wart under her nose, that in no way could ever be called a beauty spot despite what
was written in the article, she hadn’t seen coming. She also hadn’t seen coming the
fact that she would get really drunk on hearing about said engagement and then sit at
her computer tapping away at an online advertisement to be placed in the
Cairns Post
congratulating the—quote—“small balled prick with penis length issues on his
engagement to Flicka. If there is a God, may their kids look nothing like them. Eat
dirt and die, yours sincerely, Mary Poppins.” On reflection it was probably a bad
thing to do. Probably, but it felt good as was throwing herself at the first online job
she saw after posting her tribute to Wade. But then, Cass wanted to get out of Cairns
for a bit. While she loved the Far North Queensland tropical city, she knew she had to
get out and clear her head and de-Wade-ify.
Two hours later, standing at the local airport at Mundabucka with a suitcase in
one hand and two cackling caged chooks in the other, Cass looked around her. Behind
her was a rusted-in-parts, corrugated tin shack that served as arrival and departures for
the overly optimistically named Mundabucka International Airport. In front of her
was dry, red dirt as far as the eye could see. And the heat? Suffocating. Unlike Cairns
it was a dry heat that sucked all the moisture out of a body. Cass felt the sweat
dripping down between her breasts and clinging to the short floral sundress she was
wearing.
She put both the suitcase and chooks on the ground and re-scraped her hair up
into a haphazard bun on top of her head. “Frig, it’s hot.” Cass looked around her.
Other than the squinty-eyed airport controller, who introduced himself as Phil, there
was no one. She was supposed to be met by someone called Evan. Phil smiled when
she told him this.
“Evan’s a creature of whim. He gets the call of the wild and takes off just like
that.” He snapped his fingers.
Cass was impressed as not only was Phil missing two front teeth but also three
fingers on his left hand and two on his right. He explained this as a ‘run-in with a
pissed off wild pig.’
She looked down at the caged chickens. “Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a brilliant
idea but it’s not my worst.” They cackled loudly. “Oh, shut up. I know what I’m
doing—kinda.” Cass muttered under her breath and looked around her once more.
There was loads of nothing for miles. “Where the hell is he?”
“Who?” came a voice from behind her.
Cass spun around in surprise. “Where did you come from?” She asked as she
surveyed the tall, lanky man with broad shoulders that most men would kill for. She
looked into the bluest eyes she had ever seen and saw only amusement. Men.
Amusement. Not happening.
“You’d be the city chick here to work at McNally’s Hotel.”
City chick?
“I’m Cass Kelly and undoubtedly you’d be the creature of whim,
Phil was telling me about.”
The dark haired man smiled. “That’d be me.” Evan Bates at your service.” He
looked down at the caged chooks. “You brought chooks.” That made his smile wider.
Cass picked up the cage. “You’re quick.”
Evan scratched his head. “You know, when Jo and Flo said you were bringing
them I thought the old girls had lost their minds.”
“Do you have a problem with chickens?” They were her pets. She couldn’t leave
them to fend for themselves when she went bush. They were like family. Sort of.
He shrugged. “Nope. We like chickens here—preferably deep fried.”
“You fry my chickens and I will fry your ass.”
Evan arched one eyebrow. “That could be fun.” His gaze then traveled down her
body, lingering on her breasts, before moving down to her thong clad feet and back up
to her eyes. “What’re their names?”
“How do you know I named them?” She had but that wasn’t the point.
Do I look
that obvious?
“You brought them all the way to the middle of nowhere. They have to be
important to you.”
The chooks were quiet as they watched him. Cass squared her shoulders. “Mitzi
and Bert.”
“Bert?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Bert is a boy’s name. This chook is a female,” he pointed out as he reached for
her bag.
“So?” Cass knew her tone was defensive but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with
a smart ass man.
Still smiling at her, he responded, “Nothing. So, one bag only?”
“I travel light.” She had left everything she owned at Lorelle’s place. Not that
‘everything’ was much. It was an old television, a purple cane chair, a sofa bed and an
oversized panda she won at the Cairns show when she was twelve and was reluctant
to get rid of.
“Most women travel with all sorts of crap.”
“I’m not most women.”
Again, he looked her up and down. “Nope, you’re different all right.”
She wanted to ask what he meant by that but decided against it. She had a feeling
the answer would be complicated and right now she needed easy and simple. “How
far’s McNally’s?”
“It’s in the middle of town so that’d make it about five kilometers from here.”
“Great. Let’s go.” She desperately wanted a shower. “Where’s your car?”
“Horse.”
“Horse?”
“Yeah, I rode here.”
“Well, how am I supposed to get to McNally’s?”
“On the back of my horse.”
What the?
She hadn’t ridden a horse in her life and wasn’t about to now. “What
about my stuff?”
“Phil will drive over later with it.”
Cass placed the chicken cage on the ground. “Fine, I’ll go into town with Phil.”
“No worries. He goes off shift in six hours.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Six hours?”
“Yep, he’s stationed here in case of emergencies.”
Cass looked around at the vast expanse of nothingness. “Like what? Aliens
landing?”
“Maybe,” Evan chuckled and placed her suitcase on the ground. “So Cass, it’s up
to you. Sit on your ass out here and sweat a lot or come into town with me.”
She pursed her lips. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”
He picked up her bag again. “Not much to it. Climb on, scoot close up to me and
hold on.”
Cass licked her lips in thought.
Hold on to him. In the heat. Hmmm.
“I don’t bite much,” he grinned at her.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So you put your hand in the wrong place. It’s only a big deal if you make it
one.”
“It’s wasn’t
big
at all.”
“Oh, it is. Bigger than you expected.”
He was right.
Damn man. Damn hands
. After some embarrassing attempts to
climb onto the back of Evan’s horse, which included the fingerless Phil
unsuccessfully trying to shove her up and then her several pathetic attempts to stand
on the chair he brought for her and the not so encouraging ‘swing your leg over, girl,’
Cass had finally gotten up behind Evan on his horse.
“Where do I put my hands?”
“Anywhere you like.”