Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) by Amy Andrews Read Free Book Online

lively chatter. The meal sped by as Lacey found out all about the school and the choir and about a new boy called Billy who was apparently insufferable because he beat her in the spelling bee and that was simply unforgivable .
    Didn’t he know that she was the smartest kid in the class? And what was the point of boys anyway?
    JJ winked at Lacey, but Lacey kept a very straight face as she commiserated with her niece about how terrible boys were while pointing out that her father and uncles were boys so perhaps they weren’t all terrible.
    She refrained from telling Connie that she would see the point of boys before too much longer and how much fun that was going to be. She suspected Ethan and Jarrod and Marcus were perfectly fine with her not seeing the point in boys. Forever probably.
    Lucky Connie had her. And now she’d be around to provide a little balance again.
    As soon as lunch was done Connie asked to be excused so she could go play with some friends down the street, which left the adults to enjoy each other’s company and some topics that weren’t suitable for younger ears. They caught Lacey up on stories of the town and the district and what the latest scandal was, because there was always some scandal or other keeping everyone titillated.
    Lacey revelled in it all, wanting to know everything, lapping up this happy family moment before the shit hit the fan. Everyone was just so relaxed and she’d missed this.
    Sure she came home during college breaks, but it was different. Knowing she was always going back again had lent such a temporary air to it all. Like the town’s goings-on were separate to her. But not today. Today was the day she came back home to stay, and what was happening in Jumbuck Springs was part of the fabric of her life again.
    Finally, the conversation swung around to her as Lacey knew it would.
    “What about you Lace? How’s design school? You won one of those fancy fashion awards yet?” Marcus teased.
    Lacey knew this was her opening. She glanced at Coop. His hand was resting on the back of her chair and she felt the sudden soothing stroke of his fingers between her shoulder blades.
    “Actually, I kinda wanted to talk about that.”

Chapter Four
    ‡
    “S o not just a surprise drop in, then?” Marcus said.
    Coop’s fingers kept up their steady caress. “My bags are in the car. I’m not going back.”
    Ethan folded his arms. “The hell you aren’t.”
    “Lacey.” Jarrod shook his head gently at her, patience personified. “We go through this every time you come home.”
    “And every time you go back to Brisbane,” Marcus chimed in, clearly unconcerned about Lacey’s latest attempt to return to Jumbuck Springs.
    “Yes,” she acknowledged. “Because every time you throw our dead mother at me like a missile and I give in. But not this time.”
    Ethan cocked an eyebrow at Coop. “You encouraged this?”
    Lacey frowned as Coop’s caress halted. What the hell? “No,” she jumped in. “He didn’t.”
    “He has your bags in his car doesn’t he?”
    Lacey opened her mouth to defend Coop again but he got in before her. “Maybe it’s time you all listened to what your sister wants.”
    “She wants college,” Ethan said. “She always wanted college. She wants her own fashion label for which she needs college. College that our mother, who raised four kids on a widow’s pension, paid into a fund so Lacey could go off and do this and it’s her last year and she’s not quitting now.”
    “I’m not quitting,” Lacey said, keeping calm in the face of opposition instead of flying off the handle into girly hysterics. That hadn’t gotten her anywhere in the past and she had to remember that her brothers felt a huge responsibility towards her. She’d been two when her father died and they’d all stepped up to be the good, exemplary male role models their mother had demanded they be for her.
    It was hard for them to accept that she was all grown up.
    “I’m going to defer