Outback Bride (Harlequin Romance #431)

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Synopsis

Caroline "Copper" Copley arrives at the outback cattle station of Birraminda with a business proposition for its owner, Matthew "Mal" Standish, who she's shocked to discover is a man with whom she'd had a steamy weekend affair seven years earlier. She'd never forgotten him, so she's disheartened that he doesn't seem to remember her. He's also not particularly amenable to listening to her proposal to use his station as a home base to run luxury outback camping trips for tourists, because he's too worried about needing a new housekeeper to clean house and look after his four-year-old daughter. Copper makes him a deal that she'll be his housekeeper until the agency in Brisbane sends a new one if he'll give her an hour of his time. But when she presents her idea, he makes a counteroffer: She can use his property for her camping tours if she'll marry him and stay for three years to give his daughter more stability in her life. Head over heels for the man who captured her heart years ago, Copper agrees, but when Matthew can't seem to love her back and views her through the lens of the ex-wife who left him, their marriage may be over before it's even started.

Review

Outback Bride is the first book in Jessica Hart's Love in Australia (aka Outback Brides) series. Representing the travel business that she runs with her father, Copper arrives at a remote cattle station in the Australian outback, hoping to cut a deal to use Birraminda as a home base to run luxury outback camping trips. She's shocked to discover that the owner of the property is none other than Mal, a man with whom she'd shared a steamy weekend in Turkey during a Mediterranean holiday seven years ago. Mal doesn't seem to recognize Copper and thinks that she's a new housekeeper sent from the agency in Brisbane. When she sets him straight, he tries to brush her off, insulting the whole luxury camp plan as a crackpot idea. Not wanting to let her father down, Copper cuts Mal a deal: She'll stay on, keeping house for him and looking after his four-year-old daughter until the real housekeeper arrives in exchange for an hour of his time to listen to her proposal. After she sets his household to rights, Mal realizes that his daughter needs more stability than the housekeepers who only stay for a short time, either because they can't hack life in the outback or because his flirtatious younger brother seduces them, then breaks their hearts, driving them away. He makes Copper a deal of his own: If she'll marry him and stay for at least three years, she can use his property all she wants for her camping trips. Still harboring feelings for Mal from their long-ago tryst, Copper reluctantly agrees, thinking that she'll get the business deal she needs and that maybe in three years time, Mal will come to love her back. But things don't go smoothly for the newlyweds when Mal's experiences with his first wife start to cloud their relationship and he comes to resent Copper's focus on her business.

Copper was recently involved with someone, but he broke it off in favor of dating another woman in their friends group. It was an amicable split, so Copper wasn't too broken up about it, realizing that they were probably better off as just friends. Since then, she's poured all her energy into the travel business she runs with her father, but after her father's recent heart attack, it's up to her to step up and complete the deal with Birraminda for their luxury outback camping expeditions. She's shocked to discover that the cattle station's owner is none other than Mal, the guy she's never quite forgotten from their holiday affair. When he doesn't seem to recognize her, she decides not to say anything, but deep down she's rather hurt, feeling that perhaps that weekend didn't mean as much to him as it did to her. Instead, Copper focuses on the deal and is willing to do almost anything she has to, to secure it for her father. However, cleaning house and childcare are one thing, but when Mal proposes marriage, she's a little surprised, especially since he's practically blackmailing her. Still, she doesn't want to disappoint her recovering father, and she does have feelings for Mal, so she agrees. She'd hoped that things might one day be like they were between them so long ago, so she isn't quite prepared for feeling unappreciated by Mal who seems to think that she's too focused on her business. Copper was an okay heroine. I like that she was a businesswoman determined to see her idea come to fruition, and I like how sweet and accepting she is toward Mal's daughter. But I felt like she put up with Mal's jerk behavior a little too long before taking action. I also wasn't thrilled about her not being honest regarding her feelings for him.

Mal is a single father who's dedicated to running the outback cattle station passed down to him by his father. Mal does have fond memories of his weekend with Copper, and although circumstances kind of conspired to keep them apart, I think perhaps he could have fought a little harder to find her again. In any case, he met someone else and they got married and had a child. His wife was a businesswoman and a city girl, though, who wasn't cut out for outback life and paid more attention to her business than she did to him. She eventually left him, taking his daughter with her. Then she died, leaving him a single dad to a child who barely knew him. He's been getting along okay for the past two years, but most of the housekeepers the agency sends out don't last long, and Mal wishes he could provide his daughter with a more stable life. He thinks the only way to do that is to marry, but after being burned by his ex, he has no interest in falling in love again. He sees Copper as a perfect candidate, someone he likes and who needs something in return, so he makes his proposal. But once they're wed, the specter of his wife's focus on business raises it's ugly head, making Mal think that Copper is just like her. I really didn't care much for Mal as the hero. Not only does he also withhold his feelings and the knowledge that he remembers Copper, but after they're married, he says some pretty hurtful things to her that made him come off as a jerk and a chauvinist. I'll admit that he was nice to her sometimes and he does give her a heartfelt apology during the final chapter, which improved my opinion of him somewhat. Still, I just never fell for Mal the way I like to fall for my romance heroes. Nearly the entire story is told from Copper's POV, though, so I'm not sure if I'd have felt differently if I'd had his perspective, too.

I pretty much had an up and down relationship with Outback Bride. It starts off very slow-paced, with virtually no romance during the first half of the book. Both Copper and Mal refuse to say that they recognize one another and still harbor feelings from their long-ago weekend together. So that part is mostly taken up by Copper doing free labor for Mal in order to persuade him to look more closely at her business proposal and her trying to get him on board with it. Once they both admit to knowing one another, things took a slightly more romantic turn, but both are still afraid to admit that they're in love. Then after they're married, Mal constantly blows hot and cold. One minute, he's sweet and loving, the next he's being a jealous ass over Copper sharing some things in common with his brother, or riding her hard about spending so much time on her business like she's not doing anything for him when she's working her butt off. The last bit made me want to jump into the story and smack him. After that, Copper decided she'd finally had enough, and a part of me was kind of cheering "good riddance" to Mal. But of course, he does eventually realize his mistake and come after her, offering up a nice apology, leading to an HEA. Some of the things he'd previously said to her, though, were so mean-spirited that I wasn't 100% convinced that he'd changed and it would actually work for the long-haul. Because of that, Outback Bride was merely an okay read. I'm giving it three stars for the parts that were romantic and for Copper's interactions with Mal's daughter, which were nice. Even though this one wasn't a winner, there are still four more books in the series, one of which is on my TBR pile, so at some point, I'll probably give the author another chance to wow me. I'm not sure, though, what, if any, connections there are between the books besides all of them taking place in the Australian outback, because none of the main characters in the remaining books were introduced in this one.

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Jessica Hart

Themes

Babies & Children
Reunion Stories