Mustang Man And Me

SV Brown

Description

Maria Lawson's family farm will never be the same now the Shadow horses have taken up residence. Her neighbours, the Sandford family, have also changed her life, while their late son's best friend only complicates matters. Handsome, charismatic, wealthy and well known, he's brought his own brand of trouble from the outset.Has Maria lost her mind in becoming his wife? She must draw on all her courage to ride the roller coaster of emotions, doubt and jealousy, intrigue and unexpected danger that ensues. Can her love for him survive? Will it save her marriage and even their lives?

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781398457997
• Langue: English

Extrait

Mustang Man And Me
SV Brown
Austin Macauley Publishers
2022-11-30
Mustang Man And Me About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40
About the Author
SV Brown resides in New Zealand. This is her second book.
Dedication
To my dear Dad, thank you for your devotion, kindness, generosity and wisdom. I shall never forget what you’ve done.
Copyright Information ©
SV Brown 2022
The right of SV Brown to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398457980 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398457997 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
I appreciate those who created the iconic Ford car and naming it after a wild horse, the Mustang.
Chapter 1
Time passes, generations come and go but the way people live in this world of ours hasn’t altered for decades. I, Maria Jean, am one of those people.
At one of the most frustrating, challenging and exciting phases of my life, I changed my surname from Lawson to Von Meeren and surprised even myself, doing it.
Bernard Ranolf Von Meeren and I had a rather interesting on and off relationship for a couple of years. During one of our off times, I found myself saying things I normally wouldn’t have said; he had a way of making me do things I normally wouldn’t have done either.
At the time, he was chasing me around a workshop/garage at the motorsport racetrack. I’d managed to evade him, was hiding behind my own car and yelling at him across the roof. Don’t ask me how it happened but we got onto the subject of marriage. I wasn’t very encouraging, told him that I pitied the poor woman who ever had the misfortune to wed him and said she had to be either mad, desperate or both. Inevitably, the situation went from off to on and we ended up doing things at his apartment a short while later. Some months after, I became the poor, mad and desperate woman. Bernard never let me forget what I had said on the subject.
We were married at his vineyard restaurant, The Wine Rack. It was closed to the public for the day; the wedding was kept suitably private and it wasn’t a large affair. I was thankful that Bernard had agreed to family and close friends only. Having his circle of acquaintances, the rich and famous plus the paparazzi there would have been too much.
My sister Anna and Mum had their job cut out finding something suitable for me to wear. I wasn’t a fan of lace or frills, refused to wear white, didn’t want anything specially made for me and baulked at the idea of needing fittings. They found a simple silk dress off the rack in shades of pewter and Anna said it matched my grey eyes. The ankle-length skirt draped softly from the hips and I liked that part of it. The top half wasn’t as likable; fitted snugly and showed way too much boob, not that I had much in the department but it kind of pushed them up and out. I had a feeling Bernard wouldn’t be complaining.
He wore a silver shirt, black pants and looked drop dead gorgeous. Karl Sandford, his best man, wore the same and Anna my bridesmaid looked stunning in shades of purple. We both had our hair swept up loosely with a small comb of flowers. Mum cried when she saw me walk in on Dad’s arm and the look on Bernard’s face when I reached him made my breath catch. His eyes did their usual slow up and down from my head to my toes and inevitably paused at my boobs. No complaints that I could see.
The huge sliding windows of the restaurant lounge stood open to the ocean and the weather couldn’t have been better. It was magical, a day full of love, laughter and fun. Karl had us in fits with hilarious stories about Bernard’s past antics and Leon, his brother, added some eyebrow-raising anecdotes of his own. I had a feeling that their late older half-brother Jason would have been laughing heartily with us.
Raucous cheering and more mirth followed Bernard and I as we drove away in his beautifully festooned car; streamers and balloons bobbing with tin cans clattering behind the Mustang. I waved at his parents Odette and Frederik watching down their noses and wondered what they really thought about it all. Bernard’s past lady friends had been tolerated, him deciding to marry must have been a shock and his choice of wife even more so. I wasn’t quite the aristocratic daughter-in-law they’d imagined for certain.
We went to Austria, Bernard’s parents’ birthplace, for our honeymoon and I was fascinated by the historic centuries-old stone buildings, the lovely parks and huge ancient trees. The scenery too was vast and awe inspiring with spectacular mountains, huge forests and rivers. We hired a BMW sedan to get around in; for me driving on the other side of the road took some getting used to but Bernard had no problem with it and drove most of the time. We didn’t stay with any of his relations and associates, opting instead to make our own accommodation arrangements outside of the main cities in towns and villages with their smaller intimate hotels.
We had no complaints about the beds. Getting out of them in the mornings for breakfast was difficult however, no thanks to Bernard.
I met Bernard’s cousin, Frank, and didn’t like him. He had the same stature, black hair and eyes as Bernard, but that’s where the similarities ended. He may have been good-looking once, but his sallow puffy face with its drawn together brows and grim tight-lipped mouth had changed that. Coupled with a flaccid body, heavy paunch and stooped shoulders, I found him both off-putting and vaguely repulsive. His bitter and aloof manner chilled me.
He lived alone in a huge castle-like mansion belonging to the Von Meeren Estate. It reminded me of something out of a horror movie, austere and imposing. Set against a back-drop of old forest at the foothills of a mountain range the stone walls were grey and shadowed with turreted towers at each of its four wings. There was even a chapel and a cemetery. The expansive garden was beautifully kept by several hired gardeners, almost too immaculate for my likely; the flowering bushes trimmed to perfection and the lawns like carpet. There was also a resident housekeeper, several cleaning and kitchen staff and a cook. The estate had once been huge, but now the property grounds covered only a few hectares.
Frank’s third marriage was on the rocks. His soon to be ex-wife was half his age and had at first been satisfied with his money and lifestyle. It hadn’t been enough in the end and she began to make demands about having children even though she knew Frank was unable to father them. Bernard understood his cousin’s dilemma and felt sorry for him.
I would never forget finding out about the Von Meeren family’s hereditary woes for the first time; it wasn’t so much the information that shocked me but how I found out.
Bernard had been in the tabloids then which wasn’t unusual but this time a woman was implicating him as the father of her child and wanted compensation. She, of course, had been lying and was known to have tried the same stunt before on another man, but I believed the gossip and confronted Bernard with angry accusations. He told me none too bluntly about his inability to father children and even suggested I contact his doctor to verify it. At that point, we parted ways and it appeared our relationship was well and truly over until his subsequent involvement in a race car crash which killed one of his friends brought us back together. I found out several times since that he could be very forgiving of my insecurities.
“Is us not having kids an issue?” he asked me before we married.
“No, it’s not,” I assured him. “To be honest, I don’t think I’m especially maternal.”
“Are you sure?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You dote on your niece and nephew.”
“Yes,” I nodded ruefully. “I adore them because they belong to my sister.”
“You can give them back, you mean,” he laughed.
“Exactly.” I returned the laughter. “You know me, give me cute baby animals anytime. More my thing.”
After our visit to Frank’s, Bernard spoke for the first time in depth about the family flaw, as he called it. Each generation had dwindled over the decades, he told me, he and Frank were last in line and neither of them was able to produce offspring. It had been tested and proven by a genetic/fertility test they’d both been subjected to. Bernard had been seventeen at the time.
“I didn’t give a shit.” His lips twisted. “At that age, you don’t really care.”
“And now?”
“My parents worry about it more than I ever would. Some things you can’t change. But Frank has never accepted it, he’s a frustrated man who blames everyone else.”
“Can’t he adopt?”
“The Von Meeren f