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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 slickers must return to the Outback to face a new challenge: claiming their brides….
This month, it’s sexy lawyer Mitch Tyler’s turn!
The Outback Marriage Ransom (#2391)
The Outback Wedding Takeover (#2403)
The Outback Bridal Rescue (#2427)
Emma Darcy is the award-winning Australian author of over eighty novels for Harlequin Presents®.
Her intensely emotional stories have gripped readers around the world. She’s sold nearly 60 million copies of her books worldwide and has 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 care of a shrewd mentor, Patrick Maguire, the boys’ lives became set on different paths as they learned how their individual strengths—their passions—can 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 who 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 Wedding Takeover
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
PROLOGUE
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.
‘Wish I had my camera,’ Ric Donato murmured.
Mitch Tyler frowned over the other boy’s words. Apparently the stark visual impact of the place didn’t intimidate Ric. But then the guy had been copped joyriding in a stolen Porsche. He probably got off on wide-open spaces, while Mitch had always been happiest with a book in his hands. No local library here to tap into.
‘The middle of nowhere,’ he muttered dispiritedly. ‘I’m beginning to think I made the wrong choice.’
‘Nah,’ Johnny Ellis drawled. ‘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.
‘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. And Johnny had it right, Mitch thought. Six months working on a sheep station had to be better than a year in a juvenile jail.
It was half the time, for a start, and there were only two other guys with him, not a horde of criminals who would have established a pecking order. Mitch hated bullies with a passion. He’d learnt how to look after himself. No-one touched him anymore. But he sure didn’t want to be incarcerated with a mob of power pushers.
He hoped the owner of this place wasn’t some kind of little Hitler, exploiting the justice system to get a free labour force. Mitch decided he’d work out for himself what was fair and challenge anything that wasn’t.
What had the judge said at the sentencing? Something about getting back to ground values. A program that would teach them what real life was about. Wouldn’t teach him a damned thing about real life, Mitch had thought at the time. He’d majored in real life, ever since his father had walked out on his crippled wife, leaving him and his sister to look after their mother. The lion’s share of that had fallen to Jenny, who’d only been eleven years old to his eight when their father had deserted them. Not that he’d been much help anyway, getting drunk every night, drowning his sorrows instead of facing up to them. A coward. That was what his father had been. A contemptible coward.
But not as contemptible as the guy who’d date-raped Jenny.
At least Mitch had had the satisfaction of facing that bastard with what he’d done.
There she’d been, all excited about being invited to a swish party, finally getting into a bit of social life, and to be treated like a disposable piece of meat…
He was glad he’d given that piece of slime a beating he’d remember for a long time. It might be primitive justice, and against the law, but better than letting him get away with it, no justice at all. Jenny had been too traumatised to press charges against him. The silver-spoon heir to a fortune would probably have got off anyway, with his mega-wealthy family having the power and influence to get anything excused.
Mitch felt no remorse over what he’d done. None whatsoever. Though he was sorry he wouldn’t be at home to help for the next six months.
The plane taxied back to where a man—the owner?—was waiting beside a four-wheel drive Land Rover. Big man—broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, craggy weathered face, iron-grey hair. Had to be over fifty but still looking tough and formidable. Not someone to buck in a hurry, Mitch decided, though size didn’t automatically command his respect.
‘John