If you’re looking for a solid, clean, story set in the Australian Outback that appeals to YA and adults alike, you should try out My Indecision’s Flame by J.S. Ririe, a popular author of many clean romances and adventure novels.
“An engaging Young Adult adventure/romance.” ~Alicia Addara, author
Before her marriage to Ben, an American, Brylee Hawkins returns to her home in the Australian Outback so that she can confront her father, whom she blames for the death of her mother, where she learns the secrets of her past that she never knew, and her father’s new family.
Will Brylee find peace amidst the betrayals? Can she survive the truth?
Readers will revel in Brylee’s journey, the vivid landscape of the Australian Outback, and the quest to hold on to her values, both part of her character and her faith. There are many books in this series that we will be adding to the B&P Books’ collection.
READ IT TODAY: https://amzn.to/499oReX
EXCERPT: Chapter One
“I’m going home! I’m going home!” The words pounded in my ears as each second in the sky brought me closer to the land and family I had not been a part of for over five years. I knew why I had to go. Scores had to be settled and hearts healed before I could move forward into the future I so much wanted, but I wasn’t sure I could summon the inner courage or the strength to do it on my own. I had spent too much time running, hiding, hating, and avoiding anything that had to do with my past.
Forcing myself to go back to the place where I’d lost everything was harder than leaving, but anger and youth can be a deadly combination—even for a girl who had never been any place on her own before deciding to run away. Now, the past I had tried so hard to forget was coming back, and I wished I could find a way off the plane before it landed. I had thought of little but my reunion with my father and Uncle Ned for three months. Months I had prayed would pass rapidly, but whose passing made it even more evident that I could hide my secret no longer.
It wasn’t some awful secret that would bring any shame, and it was what had prompted this trip in the first place. But I still wasn’t sure that my estranged family would ever forgive me for what I had done. If my mother were still alive, I could have talked to her about how drastically my life had changed. She would have understood why I had run away, and why I had ended up following my heart instead of my head. But she was dead, and with her passing, a part of me had died as well. I had stood over her grave and cursed God for taking away the only person who had ever understood the real me, I had kept so carefully hidden from others—the girl with unspoken dreams too big to capture, and a heart that desired truth more than anything else in the world.
“Oh, mother,” I thought as I watched the white clouds mingle with the blue of the sky outside my airplane window and wishing I could be floating on one of them, leisurely and without purpose. “I understand now why you were taken away from me, and I’m not angry at God anymore. He’s brought us back together in a most unusual way and someday . . .”
“Miss,” the flight attendant was passing down the aisle. “Would you fasten your seatbelt? We’ll be landing in Sydney in a few minutes.”
I smiled as she hovered in the aisle to make sure I followed her instructions. She was pretty and confident, and I wondered if she always knew what to say and do. My own hard-earned confidence was rapidly draining now that I was so close to home.
Unexpected chills suddenly rippled down my arms and legs, even though it was warm enough in the plane. I watched the woman next to me try to stuff an inordinate amount of possessions into her handbag. She’d been knitting and talking the entire way. Fortunately, it had been to the person on the other side. I had kept my eyes on the plane’s window, much too focused on self-preservation for idle conversation. I steeled myself against the 100-degree-plus temperatures and humidity that would hit the moment I stepped out of the terminal.
I hadn’t told anyone I was coming home and wasn’t the least bit sure if I would be welcomed with open arms and a home-cooked meal like the prodigal son in the Bible. I had walked away from my father and hadn’t looked back. I hadn’t even considered his pain when he came home and found me gone. I had just packed my suitcase and walked out the door while he was away from home, checking on his herds of sheep and cattle, along with the miles of fences that were supposed to keep them safe from their only natural predator—the wild dingo.
I knew what I had done was wrong, but my own pain had stripped all sense of humanity and compassion from me, and I had lashed out at the only person I knew I could hurt. I blamed my father for ruining my life and getting my mother killed so she would not be there to see me graduate from school, get married and raise a family. I’d left him a horrid note telling him how much I hated him and that I never wanted to see him again—emphasizing the fact that I hoped he would rot in that place designated for the most vile and reprehensible sinners.
After less than adequate thought, I had scraped together what money I could and bought a one-way plane ticket to Los Angeles, California. Visiting the land of promise with its glamorous movie stars and musicians was something I’d always thought of doing, but it wasn’t a panacea to my problems. So before my limited amount of money ran out, I found a place to live and a job waiting tables. Eventually, I enrolled at UCLA, where I graduated with a degree in business management. My life had been busy, but I stayed mainly to myself, nursing each pain and betrayal until I met a family that changed everything.
I looked down at the ring on the third finger of my left hand and thought about Ben. He was the one who’d encouraged me to make peace with my past before we were married, and he had helped me understand the importance of family even when they’d hurt me beyond belief. I had fought him on the idea of going home for months, but finally realized that I could never be happy in a new life while the old one was still causing me so much pain. I had grown up, and I’d changed, but what if I hadn’t changed enough to accept the people who had once meant everything to me?
And what would I say when I saw my father? “Hi, Dad, it’s your daughter. The one who’s been gone for five years and who didn’t let you know where she was because she was too angry. And by the way, I’ve joined a church where you’re not supposed to smoke or drink or cuss or commit adultery or do any of the things our family is so famous for. And I’m going to get married, but you can’t be there because your standards are so far beneath the ones I have now adopted as my own.”
That rendition of facts sounded both cold and cruel. Here I was, a member of a church that preached tolerance, understanding and love for all mankind, but I couldn’t forgive my own father for the part he had played in my mother’s death and the total destruction of the only life I had ever known.
“Ben, I can’t do this,” I thought as tears formed in my eyes and slid silently down my cheeks. I brushed them away with the back of my hand, hoping the lady who was still sitting next to me didn’t notice, ask questions or offer sympathy. I was having enough trouble trying to decide what I was going to say to the man I’d deserted—the man who had helped give me life. How could I ask for his forgiveness when I had yet to forgive myself?
The plane was starting its descent. I looked out the small window at the gleaming skyscrapers of the business district that towered above the wharf’s side buildings of an earlier era—and an era of growth and expansion before Australia became a largely urban nation. I saw the world-famous opera house with its uniquely shaped roof, and the Harbour Bridge with hundreds of cars traveling its six-lane highways. It was hard to believe that less than two million people lived outside the cities of Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Darwin, and the city of diverse populations I called home, Sydney.
It wasn’t actually my hometown, although I had spent four years there while going to school. I didn’t even live in a town. I lived on a homestead miles into the Australian Outback, where the endless horizon, dusty, red clay soil, rolling sand dunes, gibber plains and stunning nature were impossible to describe to anyone who had not seen them.
Ben had tried to understand how lonely and yet how fascinating the Outback was with its strange indigenous animals: kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, poisonous snakes and spiders, lizards, and even camels. Along with its scorching sun that dried up the rain, leaving little water available for any living creature, and its shimmering mirages at the edge of the horizon that had led thousands of men to their deaths as they went searching for diamonds, silver and gold. But that was understandable since he had spent almost his entire life in Southern California among millions of people, where every convenience imaginable was available. Life in an unforgiving, inhospitable part of God’s creations was as foreign to him as being in a family that wanted to be together forever was to me.
Throughout the entire flight, I had tried to concentrate on the fact that since he had never seen Australia, I couldn’t possibly expect him to comprehend the harshness of the kind of life I had lived until being sent to boarding school as a teenager. Still, I wished he had felt it important enough to come with me so he could see with his own eyes just how impossible my given task had become.
I was terrified even thinking about seeing my father again. I needed Ben’s arm around me for strength as I reentered my past. I had come to rely on him so completely. He was my knight-in-shining armor, my voice of reason, and my permanent touch with the reality I had come to believe in. I missed him dreadfully and didn’t know how I would garner the courage to step off the plane. I just wanted to go home to the life he promised. Confrontations were abhorrent to me, and the next few days would be filled with them.
Without giving it much thought, I closed my eyes in silent prayer as the plane touched down, and was soon feeling the pull of the brakes press against my body with such force I had to grab onto the armrest for support. I was home and had no idea what my reception would be. Even mentally reversing roles with my father hadn’t helped. I had never really known him. He was a hard-working, hard-drinking man of few words, and my mother had always served as a buffer between us.
The plane taxied to a stop, and I was suddenly hit with a thought that had not been considered before. What if something had happened to my father or to Uncle Ned and his family? If they were not where I had left them, they might never know why I had run away, or that I had finally come home to make amends. I wanted my family of origin to have a happy ending, but that hardly seemed possible now.
The ranch was over 300 miles from Sydney. By air, it took little more than an hour to get to the closest town that had been given the name of Edna by some of the earliest settlers. Traveling by vehicle would take 6 or 7 hours, depending on traffic and the condition of the roads. The last 40 miles—once I was back on Hawkins’ property—was little more than a dirt-packed trail, unless major construction had taken place during my absence.
I had brought very little with me since there was no way of knowing exactly how long I would be staying. My return flight was scheduled for two weeks from today, but if no one in my family was glad to see me after the way I had left… I chewed down on my bottom lip. I had come too far to turn back now, and just being here had to count for something. Regardless of what might happen, I had promised Ben that I would try to repair our broken relationship so the two of us could move forward with our wedding. Making peace with my past had seemed like a reasonable request when given, but Ben had no idea how totally dysfunctional my family was.
At first, I had been angry with him for sending me into the unknown by myself, but during the long hours I had spent in the air, I’d finally accepted that he had been right. My past wasn’t his problem. It was mine to resolve. If things worked out, he would join me. If not, I would go back to him alone.
It was as hot and sultry as anticipated when I left the air terminal, and I had to inhale deeply to force the moist air further into my lungs, where it would make breathing easier. I had forgotten how heavy the air in Sydney was. Maybe I should have waited until winter to come, but that would have meant postponing our wedding for another six months. I didn’t want that. I loved Ben and wanted to be his wife.
I set my watch to ten in the morning before walking to the rental lot where the jeep I had reserved before leaving America was supposed to be waiting for me. My dark hair was matted to my forehead, sweat was glistening on my neck, and the knot that had been in my stomach during the flight from Hawaii had now settled in my throat. I wanted to turn around and rush back to Ben, but I was half a world away and in a few hours, I would be too far into the outback to get cell phone reception.
I signed the paperwork before driving the Jeep Cherokee off the lot, and then heading towards the outskirts of the city. I was grateful that while streets might change direction or disappear completely, famous landmarks rarely would. I rolled down the windows and drove along the beach. There were hundreds of people sunbathing near the water’s edge with the usual cans of light beer in their hands. It was the country’s national drink, and I remembered holidays with my own friends on these same beaches with our Styrofoam containers holding enough beer for everyone to feel a buzz. Nothing had seemed wrong about drinking neck oil and staying out all night back then. I had become quite worldly until learning the truth, and that truth had led me to Ben.
Before getting on the freeway and heading north, I pulled into a McDonald’s and ordered a chicken sandwich, fries and a soda. Breakfast had been served on the plane two time zones earlier, and I was hungry. While waiting for my order to be delivered by a cute girl on roller skates, I placed an overseas call.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said when Ben answered. The tears were forming again, and I bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling. “I can’t believe how much I miss you, and it hasn’t even been a full day since I left.”
“I miss you too, but this isn’t forever,” he said. “How was your flight?”
“Uneventful!”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?”
“I guess so. I just wish you were here. You make me feel like I can do anything.”
“You give me too much credit, Bry. You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met, and you know why this has to be done alone. If we were together, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for any heart-to-hearts. We would be off sightseeing and having fun. This is the time for you to reconnect with your family in a positive way.”
“I hope you’re right,” I replied as the waitress brought my order. “Can you hold on a minute? My food’s here.”
I thanked her and then picked up my cell again. “I’m sorry for sounding so childish, Ben, but I’m scared. It’s not like I’m coming home after a brief absence. What I did and the things I wrote were unconscionable.”
“You were a child who had just lost her mother in a tragic accident with no explanations as to how it happened. Regardless of the way you left, your father will be thrilled to see you again. That’s just the way it is with parents.”
“Maybe with your parents,” I responded, trying to swallow a sip of my soda. “What if he isn’t there? Something could easily have happened to him during my absence. The outback isn’t exactly a safe place to live. And even if he is there, he always drank too much, and we never had a real discussion about anything. What if I just make everything worse?”
“He can’t hurt you again unless you allow him to, Brylee. Quit borrowing trouble! He’ll be there, and everything will be fine.”
“I wish I could be sure of that, but there are no guarantees in this life, except for the proverbial death and taxes.”
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