Wedding at Wangaree Valley. Margaret Way

>Guy Radcliffe was a real heartbreaker. Alana started to wonder if she’d dreamed he had proposed marriage just a few days ago.

      If it wasn’t a dream, what was she supposed to say? I love you very, very much, Guy, but no. She had always suffered from the sin of pride. He hadn’t said a single word about loving her. Instead he had come up with a serious proposal. An arrangement; a business deal. He was, after all, a high-profile businessman, a master of strategy.

      She had just about accepted he wanted her. Those kisses didn’t lie. Did he count on falling in love with her eventually? Or had he seen too much of love destroying lives? She had known Guy Radcliffe all her life. Now he had asked her to marry him. Not only that, he was waiting on a response from her…

      Margaret Way, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatorium- trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing, initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining al fresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, so she finds the laid-back village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over 100 books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

       BARONS OF THE OUTBACK

       Rich, rugged…and ready to marry!

      In the searing heat of Wangaree Valley,

       where the rainbow colours of the birds and flowers

      mix with the invigorating smell of the native eucalypts,

      sheep barons Guy Radcliffe and Linc Mastermann

      work hard to be at the very top of their game.

      They are men of the earth, strong and powerful!

      Their wealth and success means Guy and Linc

      are two of Australia’s most eligible bachelors—

      and now they’re looking for brides!

      Available now, read all about gorgeous Guy in: WEDDING AT WANGAREE VALLEY

      Coming next month, Linc’s story in: BRIDE AT BRIAR’S RIDGE

      WEDDING AT WANGAREE VALLEY

      BY

      MARGARET WAY

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      CHAPTER ONE

      ALANA awoke before the birds. She had long since made it her habit. This was the time when the Valley was possessed of a special magic. Misty shades and depths cloaked the land, sliding down the ravines between the sentinel hills, only to vanish with the first slants of the rising sun. Occasionally a lone kookaburra beat her to it, but she managed her pre-dawn awakening pretty much every day of her life, even on Sunday, and Sunday was her well- deserved day of rest. She didn’t need the hysterical wake-up call of the kookaburras or the ecstatic screech of flocks of cockatoos to rouse her. Her body clock was set. Besides, there was such beauty in the stillness, a wonderful quietude of the heart, that reached out and folded her in its soft arms.

      Barefooted, she padded out onto the verandah, her spirits lifting as she was swept by cool little breezes. They whipped at her thin nightdress, moulding it against her body like petals sheathed a rose. She arched her back and stretched her arms, something sensual in her actions. The palest green mist hung over the densely treed hills, and the sky above was a transparent grey that was washed with pastel bands of yellow and amethyst along the horizon.

      One twinkling star still blossomed, diamond- white with the faintest pink halo.

      She had a wonderful unobstructed view over the Valley from the upper verandah. At all times of the day it presented a picture postcard of this part of rural Australia that was well beyond the precincts of the great Desert Heart. The garden beneath her was overflowing with colour: hibiscus, oleander, frangipani, giant bouginvillaea bushes in hot pink, purple and white. They spilled over arbours and walls and even climbed trees in their bid to reach the sun; close by, a rich diversity of nectar bearing native shrubs brought in parrots and brilliantly plumaged little lorikeets in their legions. It made a wild paradise of a garden that was now sadly neglected and in many places running rampant. The garden was huge by any standards. There simply wasn’t the time.

      Briar’s Ridge was the centre of her life, but nowadays the homestead was hurting badly. Still, the Valley was the most desirable place on earth to live. This was where she was rooted. This was the place she had run wild as a child. She loved the fragrance of the eucalypts that dominated the high ridges, filling her lungs with their astonishing freshness. She felt she could even gargle on it, it had such antiseptic power. The eucalypts could be counted upon to flood the landscape with their marvellous aromatic scents and, when in flower, an amazing range of pods and blossom. Reluctantly she lifted her hands off the balustrade. It was so beautiful, a still dreaming world, but already the sky was lightening. Better get going.

      Another day, another battle for survival. Over the past three years the farm had been going downhill, despite all their back-breaking hard work. Of course there was the drought. The man on the land was always fighting drought, but her father’s decline into a grief-stricken, booze-fuelled lethargy was the crux of the matter. Inside she was torn by her suspicions over Guy Radcliffe—the man she privately dubbed Lord and Master of the Valley—who had been giving her father a helping hand. It was all done on the quiet, of course. That was Guy’s way. Nevertheless, the thought oppressed her. Her feelings towards Guy— though she had known him all her life—were so strangely ambivalent they filled her with confusion; a confusion she was always at great pains to hide.

      Guy Radcliffe, as Master of Wangaree, one of the nation’s great historic sheep stations, was without a doubt the richest and most successful man in a highly prosperous region, and he was a well-known philanthropist. It was equally well known that he liked to keep his many dealings with his adoring subjects strictly under wraps. Dispensing largesse and a helping hand was a Radcliffe tradition, as befitting the Valley’s leading family since the earliest days of settlement. Guy’s ancestors had pioneered Wangaree Valley. For more than a century their wealth had ridden on the sheep’s back. Then, with the downturn in the wool industry, the Radcliffes had been among the first of the sheep barons to diversify. These days Radcliffe Wine Estates had been added to the family portfolio. In a few short years it was already at the forefront of viticulture, with Guy as company chairman and brilliant CEO.

      There wasn’t much Guy couldn’t do. He was The Man. No argument. Not only did he oversee the