Free Southern Star: Destiny Romance by JC Grey Page B

Queensland tended to be quite peaceable, but sleazebags might think she was fair game after the newspaper article.
    With that in mind and Paddy trotting at her heels after breakfast the next morning, she went hunting for Gramps’ old rifle in the hope that if she found it, it would be in better condition than the car. Much to her parents’ annoyance, Gramps had actually taught her how to shoot when she’d been about twelve, and she’d been an okay shot. Her social-climbing parents hadn’t thought shooting an appropriate skill for a pre-teen girl, but Gramps had been tickled pink.
    Putting on the dog. That’s what he’d always said when his daughter-in-law, Blaze’s mother, Diana, had insisted her name be pronounced Dee-arna. Usually, his complaint had been grumbled below his breath, accompanied by a roll of the eyes if Diana wasn’t looking.
    Blaze hadn’t understood at the time, but neither Gram nor Gramps had approved of their salesman son, Elliot, or his marriage to Diana. Both had had big ideas but little interest in living within their means. Nothing had been too good for Elliot, whether they could afford it or not, and Blaze had been his little princess. Ultimately, though, their illusory world of success had cost them their entire remaining family – first Gram and Gramps, sidelined for being too comfortably provincial, and then Blaze, when she rebelled against being forced to fit a mould of their making.
    Shaking off the oppressive thoughts of days long gone, Blaze stood in the corner of the barn that had served as Gramps’ shed. Objects hung from hooks of every shape and size: hammers, power tools, a saw, a shovel. No gun. She supposed she could always bash any creeps over the head with a hammer or shovel, but she’d prefer not to get that close. The work bench held dozens of tiny drawers, filled with nails and screws, bolts and coils of wire. She even found a stack of bullets, but the drawers were too small for the rifle itself. It definitely wasn’t in the house, so Gramps must have got rid of it. Unless . . . Blaze swivelled around. The only other thing in the barn was the car. She popped the boot and bingo!
    The chamber was empty, but she wasn’t planning to actually shoot anyone. Hadn’t she read somewhere that often victims trying to defend themselves with a gun had their guns seized by their attacker, who would then use it against them? No, she only wanted it as a deterrent. Remembering her grandfather’s instructions, she checked the action, which seemed smooth enough even after this time, and took it back to the house, where she hid it in the study between the door and filing cabinet.
    Macauley Black might want to think twice about bursting into her house next time, even though the front door was so pathetic it almost invited breaking and entering. To give him his due, he had seemed genuinely concerned about that Pete guy, and it was a definite point in his favour that he hadn’t asked her whether what the newspaper had written was true. Of course that could be just because he’d assumed it was, or most likely, he didn’t care one way or another.
    The article had been mortifying, a sensationalist exposé woven around Rick Beatty’s malicious month-old claims and a shadowy, jerky amateur movie of a woman’s body writhing as she was pleasured by a series of men. Blaze loathed having no control over what people said or thought about her, and it made her sick to her stomach to wonder what people like Stella and the girl at the market, Marianne, were thinking of her now. If this was the price of fame, maybe it was too high.
    Blaze brooded some more, taking out her mood on a piece of dough that was to be her first attempt at homemade bread, from a recipe in one of Gram’s vintage cookbooks. By the time she set it aside to rise, she was in a feistier mood. The media might have had their say, but that didn’t mean she had to sit here and take it without response, even though it might be