Three
To say nothing really happened in Wessex would normally be to speak the truth. However, something pretty big had been brewing for the last twelve months, and it was due to hit town in exactly one week: the wedding of the century.
It might not be a celebrity or royal wedding, but did involve Wessex royalty—Bel’s cousin, Larkin. In most families, being the cousin of royalty would make you royalty too, but not in this case. Due to her failure to make something of herself, Bel was the embarrassing black sheep who her aunt and uncle didn’t talk about. So when Larkin had asked her to be a bridesmaid, it had not sat well with Aunt Lois which, of course, was the only silver lining in Bel accepting.
Lois was the only daughter of the district’s wealthiest grazier family, the Ramseys, pioneers in the region with ties back to the original settling families.
Bel’s family, the Buckleys, were from a more modest mixed-crop farming background; their land was primarily run by her grandparents and their two sons: her father, Robert, and her uncle, Stanley. That is, until her father had met her mother and decided to move to South Australia. Meanwhile, Uncle Stan had set his sights on the local heiress, Lois Ramsey, along with pretty much every other eligible bachelor in the state. When her wealthy father suddenly took ill and passed away, leaving the enormous estate to his only child, the competition grew fiercer.
Sadly for Bel’s family, when Stanley threw everything at his pursuit of his future bride, it was literallyeverything.Behind his parents’ backs, he ran up enormous debts, using the family property as collateral, and almost sent them into bankruptcy. Luckily, Stan’s gamble paid off and he won the hand of the fair Lois and they were promptly married. Stan managed to pay back his parents and save the family farm, but it was too late. His triumph had come at a cost to his elderly parents’ health, and they eventually sold the farm and moved into town for a quieter life. Of course, all that had been covered up. The only reason Bel knew about it was because when she’d been nursing Gran, who had suffered dementia, she’d started talking about it when she mistook Bel for Vera, Gran’s younger sister.
Gran had been Bel’s world, having taken her in after Bel’s parents had died in a car accident when she’d been ten years old. It had been a horrible time in her young life—losing her parents and being torn away from friends and everything she loved to move to another state, surrounded by people she didn’t know. Her grandparents had been a refuge from the harsh new world.
Her uncle and aunt had offered to pay for her to go away to the boarding school Larkin attended, but thankfully Gran had stepped in and decided she needed nurturing and a home more than an elite school. So instead she’d gone to Wessex Primary School, which was where she’d met Emma. The two had instantly bonded and been pretty near inseparable ever since.
Larkin had to be the most spoiled person she’d ever met, but despite having had everything she’d ever wanted handed to her on a silver platter, Bel had always thought her cousin must have been the loneliest kid in the world. Her parents had hounded her day and night about her appearance and grades and behaviour. It had been relentless, and Bel had often felt sorry for her. She’d never once seen her aunt cuddle Larkin, and, if it wasn’t for Gran, she doubted her cousin would have known what affection was.
Bel and Larkin were chalk and cheese, with nothing in common other than a surname and a handful of DNA, yet, for all their differences, they had grown up to be surprisingly close.
Larkin was tall and willowy, as graceful as a feline, with long, silky blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was always impeccably made-up and spent a fortune on creating her flawless beauty, looking like she’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine on any given day.
Bel, on the other hand, usually looked like she’d stepped out of a month-long hibernation, complete with bed hair. Long, plain and mud-brown, her locks had an annoying kink that meant they were neither curly nor straight, and she couldn’t quite remember the last time she’d been to a proper hairdresser. She usually trimmed her fringe herself whenever it got in her eyes, much to her cousin’s dismay. She’d missed out on her cousin’s baby blue eyes too, instead ending up with brown ones, and not even a pretty chocolate brown or coffee brown, but a weird, light orange-brown. She’d worn glasses since she was eight and hated them, but had never bothered trying contacts despite Larkin’s encouraging her to since high school. She wasn’t sure why she’d always resisted Larkin’s attempts to ‘fix’ her appearance. Maybe because she didn’t want to be compared to her beautiful cousin. There was no way she could ever compete. Bel preferred to stay out of the spotlight and do her own thing, and she’d been allowed to do that, until she was pushed into this whole bridesmaid debacle.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Bel had said when Larkin had rung her twelve months earlier to tell her she was going to be in the wedding party.
‘Of course I’m serious.’
‘But … why? You’ve got plenty of people you can ask.’Beautiful, stylish, A-list friends.
‘You’re my cousin, Bel. Please? I love my friends to death, but none of them know me like you do. I need you there with me on the day.’
Her cousin’s words had caught her off guard and Bel had felt her resolve weaken. ‘What does your mother say about it?’
‘This ismywedding,’ Larkin said firmly.
So … Aunt Lois does not approve.
It was going to be the biggest wedding the district had seen in years. Aunt Lois would be out to impress the city guests after her daughter had managed to snag the most eligible bachelor of Sydney’s social set. There was a lot at stake here, and already Lois’s headstrong daughter had messed up all her well-laid plans by insisting the wedding be held at the estate.
A grand, somewhat imposing homestead with a rich cultural heritage, Glentoberon was nothing to sneeze at, but it had been beginning to show signs of its age after a few decades of mismanagement paired with a handful of natural disasters and the odd bad season. As a result, Larkin’s parents had spent a not-so-small fortune giving the entire place a facelift.
Now, suddenly, the wedding was here, and Bel had to work out how she was going to get through the whole ordeal. She could not wait for it to be over so life could go back to normal.
With a quick glance at the general store’s clock, Bel pulled out her book and decided she could fit in one more chapter before the afternoon school pick-up rush descended. What she needed in order to forget about all the upcoming stress was some Jax Lexington. Book three, set in Las Vegas, was always a favourite.
In the heart of Las Vegas, where the neon lights dance across the night sky and the air thrums with excitement, Jax strides, his piercing blue eyes gleaming beneath the glitz of the Strip.
With each confident step, Jax commands attention, his chiselled jawline cutting a striking figure against the backdrop of the bustling casinos and dazzling marquees.
Though the city pulses with energ y, Jax moves with a calm assurance, his every movement calculated and precise. He is a man of action, unafraid to take risks in pursuit of justice and honour.
As he navigates the casino layout, the unrelenting poker machine tunes trilling in the background, Jax’s mind—always one step ahead, his keen intellect and street-smart instincts honed by years of clandestine operations—remains on alert. A woman dressed in a red, slinky silk evening gown smiles seductively at him. Despite the dangers that lurk in the shadows, there is always room for a little excitement.
In a city where fortunes are won and lost on the roll of a dice, Jax remains a steadfast beacon of strength and resolve—a hero for whom no challenge is too great, and no danger too daunting.
As the lights of Las Vegas twinkle in the background, there’s no doubt that his next adventure is just beginning.
The tinkle of bells sounded and Bel inwardly groaned, reading faster to squeeze in the last paragraph before she had to serve whoever had the audacity to interrupt her and Jax. But when she finally looked up everything around her ceased to exist. It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room. All she could do was stare at this magnificent specimen of manhood.
