Page 16 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

‘Or maybe she won’t be into that at all,’ Judah warned. ‘But you could ask.’

Reid nodded. ‘Or you could.’

‘Silent partner, remember?’

‘Not so silent now though, are you?’

‘Set a business up to serve a need and it’ll grow. And, yeah.’ He’d been thinking about conservation management plans for years and he liked where his brother’s head was at. ‘Maybe not so silent after all.’

Bridie couldn’t quite comprehend what her father was saying. Possibly because he was saying very little.

‘I’m heading off for a while.’ That had been his first sentence, swiftly followed by, ‘Don’t expect me back any time soon.’

‘But where are you going?’ She followed him out to his twin cab as he tossed an old-fashioned suitcase in the back. The vehicle was old enough to need new shock absorbers and back brakes and probably a couple of tyres. Serviceable enough when driving around the ten thousand or so square miles they called Devil’s Kiss, but beyond that he was pushing his luck.

‘But where are you going?’ she asked again when he didn’t respond.

‘Might go and see your aunt for a while.’

‘In the Kimberleys?’ Because that was where Aunt Beth lived, and as well as needing a reliable vehicle to get there, even a one-way trip was likely to take days. Her father had never once left her here alone for days. ‘Is she sick?’

He shrugged, squirrelly and unable to meet her gaze.

‘Are you sick?’ Although, if he was, surely he’d be heading east for medical care rather than west.

‘No. I just need to get away from here for a while. Maybe a long while.’

And then he pulled her close, kissed her cheek, muttered, ‘Take care of yourself, love,’ and was gone in a cloud of dust that would linger for half an hour before settling.

She stood alone, hands on hips, in front of the white wooden homestead, a few carefully tended gum trees flanking it, and watched him go with a sinking feeling she hadn’t felt in years.

Not as if he were leaving her unprotected.

She was a perfectly healthy twenty-three-year-old, born and raised on Devil’s Kiss remote cattle station and perfectly comfortable around spiders, snakes, reptiles, feral pigs and uncivilised bulls. She knew every bit of this land and the people on it.

Curtis and his elderly partner, Maria, lived in the station-hand house—retired now and living rent free in exchange for the safety of their company and a few odd jobs here and there.

Jake and Cobb were salaried cattlemen and they and their wives and children lived in newer cottages further north and closer to town. She could call on them at any time if anything that she couldn’t do needed doing.

She had Gert for three days every fortnight, and Gert even had a room in the house. It wasn’t as if Bridie was being abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

Shucking her boots at the door—because why undo all of Gert’s hard work?—she stepped into the kitchen area of the grand old homestead that glittered like a shimmery jewel in a desert of burnt umber. It was a one-storey house, not nearly as big as the Blake place, but similarly Victorian flavoured. It had a corrugated-iron roof and wraparound verandas framed by elaborate wrought-iron lacework. Stone walls kept the inside of the house reasonably cool and the windows and abundance of French doors leading onto the verandas let in light, but not sunshine, and that too helped to keep the scorching heat at bay. Nothing ever kept the dust out.

Gert looked up as Bridie entered, the screen door clicking shut behind her. ‘All good?’

‘Hard to say. Dad just lit out for parts unknown like his tail was on fire. And I don’t know when he’ll return. I don’t understand. He seemed fine last night. Even after the engagement announcement.’

‘About that...’ Gert had been at the ball. ‘Bit of a surprise.’

‘Mm. More of a business arrangement than anything else.’

‘Will we be seeing him here today?’

‘Judah?’ She had no idea when she’d be seeing him again. ‘Er...not that I know of. Deals to cut, guests to farewell, that kind of thing.’ She assumed...

‘You should see if he wants to come over. I’m making ginger snaps.’

‘I don’t share your ginger snaps with just anyone.’

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