The Party Dare. Anne Oliver

more along the lines of your next adventure.’ Her blue-eyed matchmaking gaze winked back at him.

      He leaned back and studied his glass. ‘We seem to be talking at cross purposes again.’

      ‘What happened with that pretty little brunette you sent fifty red roses to then escorted to the theatre last month? Aisha, wasn’t it?’

      Ah, Aisha. Perfectly lovely, perfectly amenable. Or so he’d thought until she’d expected him to pay the cancellation fees for the overseas honeymoon she’d booked in anticipation of his marriage proposal.

      Sunny and his love interests were very separate aspects of his life, except that she’d caught him ordering the roses. ‘You know me.’ He broke open his bread roll. ‘Short-term casual all the way.’

      ‘You’re right, I do know you. And it’s just sad.’ She pointed an accusatory finger at him then shrugged and sighed rather dramatically. ‘Okay, so you’re looking for ways to make your next million.’

      ‘Accumulating wealth.’ He drank deeply then tilted his glass towards her. ‘I thrive on the challenge.’

      She grinned, picked up her spoon. ‘I love a challenge too. Swimming in the Australia Day Big Swim on Sydney Harbour, for instance.’

      Leo set his glass down and blinked at her while she tucked into her meal. ‘Are you serious?’

      ‘I’ve put my name on the list for swimmers with disabilities,’ she said around a mouthful of fish. ‘January’s nine months away. Plenty of time for you to agree to be my swim buddy.’

      ‘We’ll need to have that conversation at some point,’ he growled and got stuck into his own meal. But of course he’d agree—what was more, she knew it.

      She tolerated her scars and deformity without a whisper of complaint or self-pity. Her wish to live independently was her choice, not his.

      ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, reading his mind.

      ‘Mum would’ve been proud of you.’

      ‘She’d have been proud of us.’ Spoon halfway to her mouth, Sunny eyeballed him. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Don’t.’

      Sunny’s pain was physical and would last a lifetime. Leo’s anguish was deep and every bit as enduring. Guilt. Regret. His memories of the night twelve years ago when their lives had changed forever was as stark and real and terrifying as if it had happened yesterday.

      He’d saved his sister but had been too late to pull their bruised and battered mother from their burning home. If his father hadn’t goaded him into swinging that punch earlier in the evening, maybe the monster wouldn’t have come back later and torched the place. The only justice was that he’d also died in the blaze.

      ‘I wish she could have been here to see me perform in Sydney,’ Sunny was saying. ‘She’d always wanted to attend a concert at the Opera House.’

      ‘I’ll be there,’ he said, pushing the past away and raising his glass to her.

      ‘I’m counting on it. It’s my last gig with the gang before I join Hope Strings. Three weeks, don’t forget.’

      ‘I won’t,’ he promised.

      How could he forget? He only had to oversee the renovations, secure his own rental accommodation in Hobart and check out the environmental practices of a new client on the east coast of Tasmania in addition to his existing workload.

      And to top it off there was the nosy neighbour with the attitude.

      He tossed back the last drop of wine and set his glass on the table with a decisive plunk. He absolutely, positively, without a doubt, didn’t have time for a distraction like Breanna Black.

       TWO

      One week later on Saturday afternoon, with Eve’s Naturally closed for the rest of weekend, Brie made her way to East Wind’s back door trailing her small plant trolley. She and Carol had exchanged keys years ago for those times when either of them were away. Before she handed her key to the agent Monday morning, she’d made arrangements to reclaim several dozen

      potted herbs and flowers she’d given Carol over the years. She’d intended collecting them during the week but had been working insane hours and they’d slipped her mind.

      Taking a last look down the driveway to make sure Mr Hamilton of the husky voice hadn’t decided to turn up in the last two minutes, she deactivated the alarm and let herself in. Not that she expected him—apparently he wasn’t able to collect the keys until Tuesday. Carol hadn’t elaborated and Brie was thrilled with herself for not asking for more details.

      The glass-walled atrium formed a semicircular structure at the back of the home; soothing and familiar scents greeted her as she crossed its old brick floor. The sun’s warmth on nutrient-rich, damp soil. Basil. Oregano, mint and lemongrass. ‘Hello, my little treasures.’ She trailed her fingers over a variegated thyme. ‘I’ve come to take you home.’

      Positioning the trolley near the workbench, she collected the smaller pots, and to keep the more delicate plants going until she had time to deal with them tomorrow, she filled a spray bottle and began misting them.

      She caressed the thick leaves of a large aloe vera in an elegant waist-high blue pot. ‘You’re going to be a challenge to lift, aren’t you, my pretty? Maybe I should ask our friendly as a frozen fish neighbour for help.’

      Huffing out a breath, she plugged her ear buds into the smartphone in the hip pocket of her jeans, switched on her favourite playlist. ‘He’d have to acknowledge I’m alive first.’ In time with her music, she shot off three hard squirts at a struggling coriander. ‘And I sure as heck am not going to be first to acknowledge him.’

      He’d barely given her the time of day. As if she’d been invisible.

      Story of her life.

      Well, not quite. She knew she stood out in a crowd now, thanks to her late growth spurt at the age of fifteen. She’d had years to practise how to garner attention—and she’d learned well. Even if it hadn’t always been attention garnered for the right reasons and had landed her in trouble more often than she cared to remember. Her rebellious years.

      These days she didn’t have to work hard for that attention. Except from people like Leo Hamilton. And why did that irk her?

      ‘I’m very much alive, Mr Big, Bad and Built,’ she told an overgrown cactus with delusions of its own importance. ‘And I’m going to make it my business to show you I do exist.’

      Aiming her bottle at it, she squeezed the trigger. Hard. Seemed she wasn’t done with rebellion yet.

      * * *

      Arms crossed beside a potted kumquat tree, Leo leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and watched with some amusement while his new neighbour drowned the arid-loving cactus and his reputation as a usually well-mannered guy. With those bits of plastic in her ears, he wondered if she even knew she was voicing her opinions aloud. Yeah—she existed all too clearly and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, his body responded, the tension tightening with every squeeze of her slender fingers on that trigger bottle.

      He wasn’t hiding but he was counting on her not seeing him just yet—he hadn’t witnessed anything as fascinating as Breanna Black making herself at home in his atrium since his pubescent self had ogled the naked female form for the first time.

      He’d wandered around the back of the house with some landscaping ideas on paper to find the door open. He was ticked off that she still had the key George had mentioned and, worse, she was still using it. Obviously she had the security code as well. He intended familiarising her with the concept of privacy...soon. Right now he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had the sexiest backside, especially when she wiggled it as she was doing now in time to music only