Page 3 of Cinderella and the Outback Billionaire

Ari Cohen looked behind her at the wall of rapidly approaching dust and scowled. It had come up out of nowhere and was heading straight for her, and that meant breaking camp and getting as much of her stuff into the cabin of her battered old ute as fast as she could. Once that was done, she needed to find rocks to choc around the tyres and after that it wouldn’t hurt to tie the vehicle down using rope and metre-long steel fence stakes hammered into the sandy ground as far as they would go. Only then would she feel safe while riding out the storm from inside the cabin of her ute.

She’d weathered dust storms before, ever since she was a kid, but she’d never seen a red wall of doom like this one before. A snappy wind whipped at her chestnut-coloured hair and blew the edges of her tent into the air as she collapsed it and quickly rolled it up, poles and all, and shoved it into the back seat of the twin cab. Her little gas cooking burner went in next as she grumbled about the ‘too little, too late’ nature of weather forecasts in general and the undisputed fact that no one really cared what kind of weather events happened out here in the middle of nowhere.

Not as if anyone actually lived out here except for the super-rich Blake brothers, who likely owned big chunks of Mars as well by now.

Ari was throwing tie-down ropes over her ute when first she saw the silver and black blob in the sky that turned out to be what looked like a muster helicopter—a tiny thing with a bulbous nose and slender rotors and next to no seating room.

If whoever was flying that thing thought they had any chance at all of outrunning the dust roiling towards them at what felt like a million miles an hour, they were sadly mistaken.

‘Land, you maniac!’ she yelled even though they’d never hear her. It felt good to say it. No one could ever say she hadn’t told them.

Her heart caught in her chest as the helicopter lifted straight up and then arced to the right, as if flung about by the hand of capricious winds. She didn’t want to be witness to tragedy. All she wanted to do was crawl inside the safety of her vehicle and ride out the storm as best she could, but she couldn’t look away from the fight in the sky—helicopter against the elements, and how was man supposed to win against those odds? What fool thought they could? ‘Come down!’

It was as if someone had heard her wish, because the little aircraft spun, tilted and headed for earth and— Oh, no.

‘Not like that!’

No! Oh, hell no!

So much for rocks under wheels and big load tie-downs. When that little buzz box landed, it was going to land hard, and there was no one else around but her to go and see what—if anything—could be rescued.

She wasn’t a doctor, nurse or medic of any kind. She’d never belonged to the SES or the military.

Driving towards disaster was so not her thing. But...

And why was there always a but?

She’d been born and bred out here on the edge of the desert and she knew what happened out here when there was no help on hand. This wasn’t a forgiving land.

And whoever was in that blasted helicopter was going to need a hand.

She could curse with the best of them, and let loose as she started the engine. Who was to say her ute wouldn’t be picked up and slammed down by wind that had slipped its leash? But she gunned the engine anyway and set out north, her hands loose around the steering wheel on account of the soft dirt that would send wheels one way or another, no point trying to resist that sway.

She could still see the way ahead. Still see the helicopter battling capricious winds. Not down yet but getting ever lower in the sky.

‘Fight,’ she willed whoever was up there flying that thing.

Win.

For all his years of flying, Reid had never known weather like this. Any sense of superiority or confidence bestowed on him by humankind had long since left his brain. Getting the small craft on the ground was all that mattered now. Dying had to be factored into calculations. The efficiency of engines mattered nothing in the face of nature’s reckoning.

He’d long since lost sight of the ground. None of his instruments worked.

He didn’t know which way was up, and helicopters couldn’t glide towards the ground and count on gravity to be their friend. Helicopters were the buzzy bees, the frantic winged. When something went wrong they plummeted.

And still he fought. Tried to feel which way was up, which way was down so he could edge ever lower. Easy. Easy, sweetie, as he fought the air and the dust that flung them this way and that with careless abandon.

This couldn’t be the end.

It couldn’t.

If he lived, he would definitely prioritise sex over flying. Make a solemn effort to give it all he had. ‘I promise.’

If he lived...

It was a miracle Ari even found the crash site, given the red dust blasting what was left of the paint from her vehicle. Never again would she screw up her nose at miracles, because there it was in front of her, the little helicopter of many scattered pieces, nose down and tail up and its rotors heaven only knew where. There was no one in the wrecked remains. No one she could see.

Where might a person land if they’d been flung somewhere?

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