Page 44 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

Joe passed Dylan halfway across the field. Neither man acknowledged the other. Dylan only had eyes for Monet. And her dad…well, he only had eyes for…

Annie took a deep breath as he approached.

She raised her hand in an awkward wave. “Hi, Dad.”

“Don’t you ‘Hi Dad’ me, Annabel Louise Prince.”

“Annabel?” Hunter’s voice mumbled next to her.

She shot his a warning glance. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Who areyou?” Her father directed his question to Hunter.

Hunter bristled at the hostility in her dad’s tone then seemed to recall what had brought him here. Given his impassioned speech in the bedroom, it was clear Hunter was siding with her father on the topic of her ill-advised trip to Oz.

Hunter stuck out his hand. “Hunter Sullivan. My family owns Farpoint Creek cattle station.”

Joe reluctantly accepted Hunter’s handshake. “Joe Prince. I assume you’re the jackass who invited my daughter to travel all the way to Australia.”

Annie tried to restrain her grin. “Um, no, Dad.” She pointed over her father’s shoulder toward Dylan. “He’s the jackass.”

Joe turned to look at the man he’d ignored. Dylan and Monet were talking, their heads close together. There was no mistaking the intimacy of the moment.

“Him? But I thought he and Monet?—”

“Dylan and I crossed wires. He wasn’t inviting me to Australia. He’d actually planned to come visit me in New York. Our flights sort of overlapped and I ended up in Sydney while he was in America.”

“Christ, Annie.”

“Hunter was still at the airport. He’d dropped Dylan off for his flight. He brought me back here.”

“Why didn’t you turn around and come home?”

She gave him a guilty grin. “I sort of finagled my way into the vacation time by promising to write a four-part series on an Australian cattle station for the magazine. Hunter was nice enough to let me shadow him.”

“Nice, huh?” Her father’s gaze drifted to her neck and she fought hard not to raise her hand to cover the red mark there. Then he looked at Hunter, studying his face long and hard.

Hunter didn’t cower under her father’s intimidating glance. Instead, he raised the stakes on the silent game they were playing. He reached to take her hand and squeezed it. “I’ll go wait in the ute while you and your dad sort this out. Mr. Prince, you’re welcome to stay at the homestead with Annie and me if you’d like.”

He leaned in and placed a quick but extremely proprietary kiss on her cheek. He was making a statement. He and Annie may not have known each other two weeks ago, but they knew each other now.

Hunter turned and walked back to the truck.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Annie wished she knew the answer to that question. “I could ask you the same question, Dad. Why are you here?”

“You missed Thanksgiving.”

His response caught her off-guard and slightly irritated her. He knew she’d been upset about her sisters’ plans for the holiday. “That’s not a problem. I’ll just catch a repeat of it on E sometime.” It was a catty response she regretted the moment it left her lips. “Dad. I’m sorry. I?—”

“No, Annie. You’re right. We sort of made a mockery of the tradition, didn’t we? Inviting in the cameras. Adding a bit of arguing to ramp up the drama.”

“You argued?” For all her family’s faults, they actually got along pretty well. While her sisters annoyed her with their exploits, they generally respected her desire to remain out of the limelight. True fights between them were few and far between.

Her dad’s face suddenly looked sheepish. “The director said it would make the episode more interesting. Once we got rolling, we got a bit carried away.”

“What did you argue about?”