Unconditional: A Coming of Age Romance Novel (Always) Read online

  Unconditional

  Always, Book One

  Cherie M Hudson

  Unconditional

  Always, Book One

  Cherie M Hudson

  Published by 5x5 Publishing

  Copyright 2014. Cherie M Hudson.

  Cover by Valerie Tibbs

  Editing by Heidi Moore

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  www.CherieMHudson.com

  Dedication

  For my dad and my brother, who both have Parkinson’s disease and refuse to let it get them down. And for my mum and sister-in-law. Who love and support my dad and brother unconditionally through the good times and the bad.

  Table of Contents

  The Arrival

  On Campus

  The Argument about Copulating Koalas

  Naked Men in Cafes

  Say Cheese

  When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Shaky

  Insta-Fame Sucks

  Unexpected Changes

  Four Days and Counting. Damn it.

  Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees.

  Shakes Be Damned

  Life Is Good

  The Royal Family, Photographs and Getting the Fuck out of Dodge—AKA Australia

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  The Arrival

  Australia was not what I was expecting. Sure, I was only in the airport, but still, where were the kangaroos? The koalas? Where were the hot guys walking around in Speedos? Where were the Tim Tams? Didn’t those delicious chocolate cookies fall from the sky over here? I’m sure I’d read that somewhere? Or maybe I’d dreamt it.

  I must admit, the second I’d learned I’d won my college’s scholarship to study Environment Studies abroad—and by abroad, I mean a gazillion miles away from Plenty, Ohio, my hometown and the only world I’d ever known—I’d been experiencing weird dreams about Australia.

  In one, I was dating a kangaroo that sounded like Chris Hemsworth. I remember waking in the morning stroking my pillow with the words “You had me at g’day,” whispering through my head. Curse you, Mom and your Tom Cruise movie marathons.

  In another dream, a shark called Bruce kept trying to take a bath with me.

  See what I mean? Weird dreams. I chalked them up to nerves. Winning the scholarship, partly funded by Plenty’s only college, partly funded by the University of Sydney, was a double-edged sword.

  On one razor-sharp side there was the awesomeness of winning the scholarship in the first place. Mind you, winning makes it sound like luck had something to do with it, which it didn’t. Hard work, long hours studying, zero time socializing, movies missed, days and days researching, so many days I sometimes forgot what the sun looked like. That’s what earned me the scholarship. That and my passion for the environment.

  I’m what my folks call a tree-hugging greenie. Well, my mom calls me that. My dad—who had grown up in Australia and moved to the U.S. when he met Mom during a vacation to LA—has been dead for over three years now. Killed when a drunk driver ran off the road and struck him and our dog as they were jogging.

  I was a tree-hugging greenie wrapped up in the unassuming guise of a twenty-two-year-old hometown girl who still has bangs and wears pigtails on the weekend. Who still eats peanut butter straight from the jar and loves watching Sleepy Hollow and Glee when she’s not studying environmental degradation and its impact on wildlife the world over.

  On the other even sharper side of the damn blade was the fact I had to fly over a gazillion miles to Australia. Did I mention I’d never been outside of Plenty? I did mention a drunk driver killed my dad and my dog only a few years ago, right? Leaving my mom a widow?

  Did I mention my mom suffers from Parkinson’s disease?

  Did I mention I do as well?

  No on the last two, huh? Sorry about that.

  Yeah, I’m a shaker. But I’ve got it under control. Good meds, meditation, tai chi and did I mention good meds? Add them together and I’m okay. Mom, however, isn’t. And with me being on the other side of the world, who’s going to help her up when she falls down? Which she does. Often.

  She told me to go, that’s why I’m here. She demanded I go. But being this far away from her… God, I don’t even…

  Sorry. Didn’t mean to get maudlin. Long and short of it, Mom has Parkinson’s. She’s alone and I’m here because I’ve never seen her so proud. How could I not go?

  But now that I’m here—and I’m excited to be, I really am—where are the kangaroos? I mean, I know I haven’t even made it out of the airport yet, but you’d think there would be kangaroos at least? Even a stuffed one on a pedestal or something. That’s what the country sells itself as, right? The Outback, hot guys in those little bathing suits, beer, beaches and kangaroos? Where were they?

  And more to the point, where was my passport? Oh my God, where was my passport? I was about to go through Australian customs in about twenty seconds and I couldn’t find my passport. It was in my bag on the plane. So where was it now?

  “Next.”

  I started at the deep, authoritarian command. Shot the man behind the counter a few steps in front of me a harried look.

  I shook my head.

  He raised his eyebrows, raised his hand and waved his fingers at me. In a come-here gesture.

  I swallowed. Suddenly aware my fingers were shaking, I clenched my fist. Was it nerves? Or—

  “Miss?”

  The customs official was now frowning my way. A prickling pressure at the back of my neck told me my fellow travelers were glaring at me. Why wouldn’t they be? I’d be glaring too at the idiot who was rooted to the spot and holding up traffic in the line that allowed you to enter the country you’d just flown over nineteen hours to get into.

  I swallowed again. Cleared my throat. Squeezed my fist—crap, I really was shaking—and stepped forward.

  The man behind the counter gave me an expectant look. “Passport?”

  During the nineteen-hour flight over, I’d passed the time by imagining my first few moments in Australia. In my admittedly sleep-deprived fantasy, the customs official who granted me access would sound like the kangaroo I dated in my dreams. Yes, I will admit now, I have a thing for Chris Hemsworth. But how could you not? Have you looked at him? Is there a sexier, hotter guy on the planet? No, I don’t think so. He would smile at me and tell me I looked amazing after such a long flight.

  I didn’t, by the way. My hair was flat and greasy, my eyes were scratchy and puffy and I’d managed to spill most of the coffee the flight attendant had poured for me somewhere over the Pacific Ocean somewhere around three a.m. all over my shirt. Or maybe it had been two p.m? Who the hell knew? Helpful tip if you’re planning on any long-haul flights, don’t wear a white T-shirt, no matter how cute you think you look in it. It’s a bad idea.

  So, going back to my mid-flight fantasy…I’m greeted by a super-hot customs official who tells me I look amazing, just as a camera crew from one of those travel shows they make in just about every country with electricity r
uns over and asks me if I mind being interviewed about being an American college student in Australia. Added to that, they also inform me Chris Hemsworth is in the airport and wonder if I’d like to meet him. He’s researching a role in a movie about the plight of the dingo in the Outback and has read my paper about the environment and native animals online and wants to talk about it with me.

  In that fantasy, I had my passport.

  In reality, I had no idea where it was.

  God, how could I lose it between the plane and—

  “Passport, miss?”

  I gave the official, who didn’t appear inclined to say anything to me that sounded like, “you look amazing”, a wobbly smile.

  Do they arrest you in Australia for trying to enter the country without a passport? I suspect so. I opened my mouth. A sound that may or may not have been a strangled squeak emitted from my throat.

  The official’s frown deepened. I couldn’t help but notice his right hand slipped under the counter.

  “I’ve lost my passport,” I said, although I think I may have mouthed it. For some reason, my voice had disappeared. Maybe it was with my errant passport? Perhaps both were on their way to Paris?

  The man behind the glass leaned forward. A little. “Please repeat that, miss.”

  “I’ve lost my passport,” I said. Again. Louder this time. With less silent asphyxiation.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Since you boarded?”

  I nodded.

  “What flight?”

  My mind went blank. Oh God, I was doing a woeful job of representing the USA at this point in time. “Err,” I said. “Big plane. Had a…a kangaroo on the tail.”

  The man’s forehead furrowed. “A Qantas plane?”

  Relief flooded through me and I nodded, looking, I’m sure, like an unhinged bobble-head. “That’s it. Qantas.”

  “So you’ve just deboarded a Qantas flight from…”

  His silence told me I was meant to supply the answer. “Plenty,” I gushed. “I mean Dallas.”

  I scrunched up my face. Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes. I ached for Mom so badly my heart felt like it was being torn out of my chest. What the hell was I doing here? Where was my brain?

  “I’m sorry.” I scrubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands—right first, then left. My vision went that special kind of blurry that only ever happens when you put way too much pressure on your eyeballs, and I blinked. I needed to get a grip. Or a passport. A passport would be nice.

  I wondered for a stupidly surreal moment if the traveler behind me would let me borrow hers. Only until I actually got into Australia. Then she could have it—

  “Are you Maci Rowling?”

  A deep male voice with an obvious Australian accent caressed my tired, overwrought mind and I jerked my head to the left, my heart pounding fast.

  An elderly gent who had to be at least ninety in the shade was standing at my elbow, holding what looked to be an American passport in one hand. In his other, he held a cane. Truth be told, it was the cane doing most of the holding, keeping the gentleman vertical.

  I looked at him.

  “I found it on the floor in the line a sec ago,” he said, a friendly smile on his wrinkled face. “Think it might be yours.”

  He was old and feeble and wobbly and holding a passport.

  And if he knew my name, it meant it was my passport.

  What else could I do?

  I threw myself against his frail body in a massive hug.

  Knocking him to the ground.

  Three hours later, I was allowed into Australia.

  It’s insane how long it takes to apologize copiously to the elderly gentleman you’ve just wounded in your enthusiasm to thank him for finding your passport. Who knew it would be so easy to knock an eighty-two-year-old to the floor with a hug? I didn’t help my hug was pretty…enthusiastic. Of course, after the poor old guy was taken away in a wheelchair, I then took part in a serious discussion about senior-citizen care with the airport police, one of them who seriously looked like Russell Crowe. If Russell Crowe was fat. And older. And a woman. And by take part I mean I continued to apologize for my physically intense gratitude. And after that I was the rather mute member of an even more serious discussion about passport safety from the same humorless officials.

  Yay.

  Finally, with the public humiliation and authoritarian lectures over and done with, I was allowed into the country.

  Only to wait at the luggage carousel, watching it go round and round until I was the only one left, with no sign of my luggage on the conveyor belt.

  Thirty minutes later, I accepted the fact my luggage—stuffed full of my clothes, including my Victoria’s Secret bra and panties I’d saved for freaking months to buy just for this trip—wasn’t going to appear through the clear flappy-plastic opening in the wall.

  Yay. Again.

  I made my way to the service counter only to be informed the airline had no clue where my suitcase currently was.

  “I’m very sorry,” the cheery attendant behind the counter said, beaming up at me, alert, awake and wearing un-coffee-stained clothes. “We shall contact you as soon as we locate it. Welcome to Australia.”

  Welcome to Australia? Yeah, right.

  Suffice to say, I wanted to go home.

  There and then.

  Badly.

  So badly I actually pivoted on my heel to head back toward the customs counters. And then I stopped when I realized I was being silly.

  Okay, confession time. I’m not exactly emotionally…stable. I mean, I’m not insane or anything. In fact, I’m quite intelligent and at times grounded—Mom’s word, not mine. But more often than not, I’m impulsive. I’m also sensitive, self-conscious, uncertain and…well, to put it bluntly—broken.

  It happens. When you spend almost ten years of your life watching your mother slowly being devoured by a disease with no known cure, a disease that robs her of her ability to smile, and know that’s all ahead of you, it messes with your head. When you’ve read everything you can about a disease that takes from you the ability to move normally, to cut your own food, button your own buttons, talk at a normal volume, have normal bowel movements—hell, have any kind of normal movement, even something as simple as blinking and swallowing—and know one day that disease is going to do all those things to you, you get a little screwed up.

  That’s what Parkinson’s disease does to you. It screws you. Messes with you.

  That’s what it’s done to my family, at least.

  I had to tell people she wasn’t drunk at my father’s funeral, that it was just her muscles refusing to allow her to walk without staggering about because her brain is betraying her. That messed with me.

  It was bad enough for me to learn my mom had Parkinson’s when I was twelve. Try being told when you’re twenty-one you have the same disease.

  Twenty-one. The epitome of early onset Parkinson’s, that’s me. I’ve been living with it for a year now, and it’s not getting easier. Twenty-two was not meant to be like this, I can tell you. It was meant to be living large, partying, meeting new people…not new doctors and specialists and medical-insurance representatives.

  Jesus, I sound miserable, don’t I?

  I’m not. Honest. I try to laugh about it though. I tell Mom I’m racing her to complete neural shut-down. Whoever gets there first wins. And what does the winner get?

  A complete loss of dignity and—

  Holy shit, sorry. I truly didn’t mean to go there. It’s a bleak place, my self-pity, and I hate it. Let’s try not to go there again, okay?

  I forced myself to turn back around, hitch my carry-on bag—containing a spare set of panties, thank freaking God—farther up my shoulder, stride through the last stage of customs and out through the Sydney International Airport arrival gates.

  I had no food to declare.

  No insects, reptiles, items made of wood or animal body parts.

  I passed over my declarations card to the smi
ling lady collecting them and, a few steps later, was in the terminal surrounded by excited people waiting for their loved ones to arrive.

  It was then I realized I needed to pee.

  I hadn’t peed since somewhere over Hawaii.

  Oh boy, did I need to pee.

  And the second I acknowledged I needed to pee, the more I needed to go.

  Searching frantically for the restroom sign, I spied what I thought was the ladies’ room and ran for it, head down, fist gripping the strap of my bag as if it were a lifeline to bladder relief.

  So of course, when I slammed into something rock-solid but warm and firm as well, the first thing I thought was I was going to pee myself. Not, argh, I’ve just run into someone and I need to apologize.

  I stumbled back a step, flinging the poor woman in my way a harried glance. And froze when that harried glance found not a poor woman, but a tall, broad-shouldered, stunningly hot—no, change that—stupefyingly hot, gorgeous guy with shaggy dark-brown hair hanging over equally dark-brown eyes so intense and beautiful and sexy and—

  He wrapped strong fingers around my upper arms and steadied me before I could fall completely on my ass.

  “Hey, I think you’re heading into the wrong loo.”

  I gazed up at him and didn’t say a word. I’d like to blame sleep-deprivation and jet lag for my ridiculous silence, but that wasn’t the case.

  The guy holding my arms, keeping me upright, was stunning. Gorgeous. Hot. Like a brown-haired, brown-eyed version of Chris Hemsworth. Only sexier.

  I didn’t think that was even possible, but there you go. It is. And he was.

  Sexy, tall with a crooked grin that made my heart skip a beat and a goddamn divine body, all muscular and sculpted and perfectly proportioned, wrapped up tight in a snug white T-shirt and snugger faded jeans.

  And he had an Australian accent.

  Oh boy.

  I gaped at him. My heart thumped in my throat. My belly knotted.

  He chuckled and even that sounded sexy. Oh shit, he was so yummy. Wow.