Before by Nicola Marsh Read Free Book Online Page A

thumb at the small cooler near the kitchen door. “Help yourself to a drink.”
    “I’m fine, thanks.” He sat next to me on the dusty top step and braced his elbows on his knees. “How long have you worked here?”
    “About four months.”
    “It’s an amazing country.” Reid’s gaze swept the panorama before us. The red dusty road, the paddocks, the mountains in the distance. “I envy you.”
    That’d be a first. Not many blokes of his caliber would envy a drifter cook with no ties to anyone or any place.
    “From what I hear, LA would be a buzz compared to this place.”
    He nodded. “LA’s great, but I grew up in a small town about an hour out of Vegas and I kind of miss the landscape.” He pointed to the heat shimmering across the horizon. “See that? When I was a kid I used to think that magic happened at the end of the earth.”
    “And now?”
    “Now I have to work my ass off to make anything happen let alone magic, I know it’s a crock of shit.”
    I laughed, surprised by his candor. “Tell me about it. You don’t get anywhere without working your arse off.”
    He grinned. “I love how you Aussies say arse for ass.”
    “And I love how you Yanks say cookie for biscuit, jelly for jam, and drop scone for pikelet.”
    “Touché.” Reid cocked his thumb and forefinger and fired at me. “That’s another thing I like. Your bluntness.” He pointed at my slouching against a wooden post. “You’re all so laid back.”
    Bet Reid wouldn’t say that if he knew how frigging tense I was because of his sister.
    “It’s the heat,” I said. “Hard to muster up the energy to do much of anything at the end of a long day.”
    Unless Jess came by my shack at dusk again…then I’d be raring to go.
    “Know the feeling,” Reid muttered, sounding less than impressed. “I put in long hours at the campaign office. Not much time for anything after that.”
    “So you don’t have time to cruise Melrose and attend Hollywood premiers?”
    He snorted. “You’ve been watching too much cable. I work. That’s it.”
    “Doesn’t sound like you enjoy it much?”
    “I do but…” He swiped a hand over his face. “I’ve wanted to be in the senate for as long as I can remember. A governor toured my home town when I was about fourteen and I’ve wanted to make a difference ever since.”
    I sensed a major ‘but’ coming.
    “I like the thought of having enough power to evoke changes but the long hours and lack of social life for a guy my age is a killer.”
    Ah, so that’s what the Yank’s problem was. He needed to get laid.
    I knew the feeling.
    “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-three.” Reid winced. “Listen to me, sounding like a sad ass. What about you?”
    “What about me?”
    Reid jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the kitchen. “You planning on cooking here for the rest of your life?”
    “Nah. This is just a stop gap.”
    “Until?”
    Until I figured out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. But a guy who had no qualifications and had spent the last four years moving around had limited options.
    “Until I decide where I want to live and what I want to do.” It was the closest thing to the truth and more than I could’ve imagined sharing with a guy I’d met a week ago.
    But there was something about Reid Harper that encouraged me to let my guard down. He was one of the good guys. And despite our massive socio-economic differences, I could’ve imagined us being mates.
    “What’s to decide?” He pinned me with a speculative stare. “Jess tells me you’ve prepared all the meals since we’ve been here and they’re fucking fantastic.”
    I didn’t know whether to be happy or appalled Jess had been talking about me with her brother. But the very fact he was sitting here making idle chatter meant she hadn’t told him everything about me.
    “Thanks.” I shrugged. “But it’s something I do to earn a living, not a lifelong ambition.”
    Reid’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve never