Page 4 of Cinderella and the Outback Billionaire

Ari had no idea.

She cut the engine on her ute that might never start again after driving through this hellscape, but that was a problem for later. She had dust-free air here inside the cab, safe haven.

She could die out there.

Someone else was out there and whether they were already dead was anyone’s guess, but, if they were still alive, they wouldn’t last long unless they took shelter. That or someone got them to shelter. Meaning her.

What a thought.

She took a nylon strap meant for securing cargo rather than people and wrapped one end around her waist. She put her sunglasses on and wrapped a scarf around her head and mourned the lack of scuba-diving goggles because she could have used them too. Ari left the safety of the ute, hunched against the wind and the bite of dust against the bare skin of her ankles and hands. She tied the other end of the cord around her waist to the bull bar. The cord extended thirty metres at most and if she couldn’t find anyone before that nylon stretched taut, she’d try again from a different direction.

‘Fight,’ she muttered from beneath the scarf now plastered to her head. ‘I can feel you.’ She truly could, another miracle, no matter the how or the why. ‘I’m goddamn coming for you. Don’t you give up on me now.’

CHAPTER TWO

HE COULD BREATHE. The sound of fabric snapped all around him and he couldn’t see a thing, but he could breathe and he wasn’t alone.

‘Who’s there?’ His voice sounded thick to his ears and the pain in his head threatened to drag him under, but he got the words out somehow.

‘He speaks.’ That voice held a faint edge of hysteria, but he’d never been so grateful for the company. ‘Listen.’ Her voice held compelling urgency. ‘Was there anyone else in the helicopter with you?’

‘No.’

The woman exhaled noisily. ‘That’s good. That’s real good.’

‘Where are we?’ He still couldn’t make his tongue work.

‘In a tent next to your crashed helicopter. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to move you so I brought the tent to you. There’s a dust storm. It’s bad in here but it’s worse out there.’

‘I can’t see.’

‘It’s dark. It’s the dust.’

‘No. I can’t see.’

Silence.

‘Say something!’ he demanded, reaching out towards the voice and clutching onto warm skin. An arm above the elbow, bare dusty skin, warm and alive. ‘I can’t see.’ He felt a hand thread through his, calming him, grounding him.

‘Pretty sure you hit your head,’ she offered quietly.

Talk about stating the obvious. But he wasn’t alone and he was still breathing and maybe he should start being grateful for small mercies. ‘You’ll stay?’ It was vitally important that the pretty, panicked voice didn’t go away.

‘Yeah. Not going anywhere right now. It’s brutal out there.’

‘I can’t see.’ The blackness, the sheer absence, overwhelmed him.

‘I hear you.’ She brought his hand to her lips, their fingers still entwined, and her lips felt pillow soft and warm against his skin and he focussed on that above all else. ‘I’ve found you.’ And almost in a whisper, ‘I just can’t help you.’

He was clocking out again, consciousness fading beneath the agonising pain of...everything. ‘Stay.’ He was begging, and he knew it was a lot to ask but he didn’t want to die alone.

‘I don’t think you’re dying. Your pulse is pretty strong, yeah.’ Raggedy raspy sandpaper voice chock full of dirt but so beautiful. Was she a mind-reader? How did she know his thoughts?

‘You’re talking out loud,’ she said next, dry as dust, and he laughed, or tried to, but darkness ate at his consciousness moments later and he realised that any laughter, any movement, was a really bad idea.

‘I’m not... I can’t...’

‘You’re talking and you’re alive,’ she murmured. ‘We can work with that.’

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