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Eighteen years as an officer in the military—a female officer—didn’t win her as many friends as her non-commissioned counterparts. She’d watched them form bonds with their diggers she’d known she could never have.
To maintain the chain of command, she’d held herself apart from those under her care. Because that’s what they were, hers to care for. To keep safe. If that meant sacrificing her social life, then so be it.
It was a small price to pay.
But she wasn’t an officer now. She had no one left to care for.
With that final depressing thought, she turned on her heel, swiped the heat pack off the deck, and strode back inside. Her body coursed with energy and sticky emotions she’d rather ignore, and sitting around pining for a man who was never going to see her as anything but a friend had never been her style.
After a quick shower, Mia pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed her keys, and did what she’d failed to do the night before.
She went home.
Chapter Six
Mia pulled into the driveway of Someday and cut the engine. The old house looked so different in the light of day and not at all like the impenetrable monolith it had felt like the night before.
Built in the typical Queenslander style of its day, the weatherboard box stood tall and proud on thick timber stumps with a wide veranda wrapped around it on all four sides, sash windows, and an old tin roof that could amplify the noise of a simple rainstorm until it sounded like the whole world was crashing down around you.
The old white paint was flaking off everything, and the gutters drooped to the point of being useless. The veranda railing was broken in several places and gone completely from the front stairs, and the gravel driveway and garden paths were so riddled with weeds it was hard to pick them out against the grass surrounding them.
Leaning forwards, she rested her forearms on the top of the steering wheel and stared at the yard. The grass was long and lush and in desperate need of a mow, and the pink and purple bougainvillea were in full flower, adding a splash of colour to the verdant landscape in front of her.
When she opened the door and stepped out of the car, the rich scent of sun-warmed frangipanis and gardenias hit her like a truck; even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have stopped the smile that spread across her face.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, sucking down the wondrous smells of her childhood, of clean air and damp earth and sunshine.
For the first time since she’d arrived in town, all the tension ebbed out of her and she felt the peace that only comes from going home. Home to a place she knew she belonged. Her earlier admission that she’d had nowhere else to go exposed itself for the lie it was. She had plenty of places she could go if she chose to, but none that lived in her blood, in her heart as much as Someday.
Certainly none that afforded her a challenge she actually looked forward to.
She hadn’t felt like that in the longest time—excited, eager—and she knew then, truly knew she’d made the right decision by discharging. The timing fit.
And it felt good knowing she was going to help people.
Shefelt good.
At least she did until a sleek black car with a realtor sign stuck on the side of it pulled up in front of the house.
Mia narrowed her gaze behind her sunglasses and assumed her best “Don’t fuck with me” face as she watched a man in a slim-fit suit exit the car and stride towards her like his dick was leading the charge.
“What the hell does this guy want?” she muttered under her breath.
“Good morning,” he called out, his tanned face almost split in half by the most disingenuous smile Mia had ever seen in her life. And she’d been forced to dine with several politicians throughout the course of her career, so the bar was set pretty high in that arena.
“Hello,” she replied, keeping her tone on the icy side of neutral. “Are you lost?”
As he walked closer, the man extended his hand, but Mia didn’t shake it. Rather she stood there with her arms folded across her chest and stared at him until he dropped his arm to his side. One of the advantages to being almost six feet tall was that men of a similar height tended to find her intimidating and didn’t push their luck.
Unlike the outrageously tall Oliver Bennett, who’d easily and unapologetically thrown her to the ground and tickled her like he had when they were in school.
But now probably wasn’t the best time to be thinking about that. Actually, there was no good time to think about Ollie pinning her down and touching her everywhere after declaring her the Queen of Friendsville.
That path led nowhere good.
“Not lost, no. I’m Greg Wheeler from Wheeler Realty. Are you the owner of this property?”
One brow hitched above her sunglasses. “Why?”
