High-Stakes Bride

Four years later, Jackson's Ridge, New Zealand

The noonday sun burned into the darkly tanned skin of twelve-year-old Carter Rawlings's shoulders as he slid down the steep scrub-covered hill just below his parents'house. Grabbing the gnarled branch of a pohutukawa tree, he swung and launched off a platform of black rock that jutted out from the bank, the tip of one of the ancient lava flows that had made its mark on Jackson's Bay and a string of other beaches stretching along the east coast of the North Island.

Wincing at the heat pouring off the sand, he loped down the beach to check out the new kid who had just moved next door.

A pair of gulls wheeled above, shrieked and swooped low, beady eyes hopeful. Carter slowed to a walk as his feet sank into the cool damp sand that delineated the high-tide mark. Keeping his gaze fixed on the thin body of the boy, he searched the pockets of his shorts. "Sorry guys, no food today."

Normally he remembered to grab a slice of bread for the gulls, but today it had been all he was capable of to sit at the table once his chores were done and bolt down a sandwich before being excused. The new kid ... read full excerpt from: High-Stakes Bride ebook