# Her Outback Protector

Margaret Way

At first sight, Alexandra Kingston looked too young to have inherited the running of Moondai cattle station.Overseer Daniel Carson knew she would most likely need all the support he could give her. Daniel combined strength with gentleness – a heady mix for a woman who had learned the hard way how to fight her own battles.Alexandra's small frame belied her inner strength, but she couldn't deny that having Daniel close by her side made her feel both protected…and desired.

Dear Reader,

It is with much pleasure that I welcome you to my four-book miniseries, MEN OF THE OUTBACK. The setting moves from my usual stamping ground, my own state of Queensland, to the Northern Territory, which is arguably the most colorful and exciting part of the continent. It comprises what we call the Top End and the Red Center—two extreme climatic and geographical divisions, which is what makes the Territory so fascinating. It has the tropical, World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park, with crocodiles and water buffalo to the Top, and in the Center the desert, the “Dead Heart”—not actually dead at all, only lying dormant until the rains transform it into the greatest garden on earth.

The pervading theme of the series is family. Family offers endless opportunities for its members to hurt and be hurt, to love and support, or bitterly condemn. What sort of family we grew up in reverberates for the rest of our lives. One thing is certain: at the end of the day, blood binds.

I invite you, dear reader, to explore the lives of my families. My warmest best wishes to you all.


Men of the Outback

THE CATTLEMAN, Superromance #1328

THE CATTLE BARON’S BRIDE, Harlequin Romance #3891

HER OUTBACK PROTECTOR, Harlequin Romance #3895

Look out for Cecile’s story, coming soon from

Harlequin Superromance: THE HORSEMAN #1363

## She was full of surprises, Daniel thought in some amazement.

So much for the immature girl without a scrap of make-up! What he saw in front of him was a dead-sexy little buttercup blonde. She was wearing a swishy blue dress that doubled the impact of her violet eyes. He hadn’t expected this transformation. He was so astounded he had trouble hiding it.

“Have a problem with the way I look, Daniel?” she asked sweetly, pleased at his readable reaction.

“No, ma’am.” He half shrugged. “You look different, that’s all.” Daniel studied her face. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m sick with nerves, if you must know.”

“I promise I’ll lay down my life for you.” He said it lightly. Then it struck him. He had just said something that he actually meant.

## Her Outback Protector. Margaret Way


## MILLS & BOON

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Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family on weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions, and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

## Praise for Margaret Way

The Australian Tycoon’s Proposal

“Margaret Way delivers the latest in a long series of vividly written, dramatic stories.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

Outback Surrender

“The characters are so real and compelling that you can’t help but be drawn into their lives…”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

Outback Bridegroom

“…compelling…overflows with emotion and passion and pain.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

## CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

## CHAPTER ONE

Darwin Airport

The Northern Territory

Australia

INSIDE the domestic terminal Daniel surveyed the swirling crowd. A full head and shoulders over most people he had an excellent view over the sea of bobbing heads. He was confident he’d spot the girl, technically his boss. There were tourists galore. Most were probably headed for the World Heritage listed great national park, Kakadu, but many of the faces in the crowd were familiar; Territorians returning from a stint in the big coastal cities of the eastern seaboard; business, pleasure, maybe both. Striding along to the check-in counter, where his charge had agreed to be, a booklet on the Northern Territory in hand, he constantly exchanged waves and friendly calls. He was a familiar figure himself after nearly six years of working for Rigby Kingston, a pioneer cattleman recently deceased. His allotted chore for the day was picking up Kingston’s long estranged granddaughter, Alexandra, and ferrying her back to the station.

She could have flown to Alice Springs. That would have been a lot closer to Moondai. It was a bit of a haul from Darwin in the tropical Top End of the Territory to Moondai in the Red Centre but he’d managed to kill two birds with the one stone, dropping his leading hand off at RDH, the Royal Darwin Hospital, for a deferred minor op and picking up the girl who had made the long trip from Brisbane. But surely even a city girl would appreciate the magnificent spectacle of great stretches of the Top End under water? That was what she was going to see. Vast swathes of floodplains teeming with nomadic water birds; chains of billabongs floating armadas of exquisite multicoloured waterlilies; the western fringe of Kakadu, the North, East and West Alligator Rivers snaking through the jungle. That stupendous panorama, especially the endless vistas of waterlilies and the thundering waterfalls of the Wet were to him as much an enduring image of the Top End as were the crocodiles.

They were into March now. The Wet, the Gunemeleng as the aboriginals called it, was all but over. Two cyclones had threatened the tropical North, one extremely dangerous. It had put Darwin, destroyed in Cyclone Tracy in 1974, on high alert. Mercifully cyclone Ingrid had taken herself off into the Timor Sea, but not before dumping torrential rain over the coast and the hinterland. That same deluge, more than they had seen in decades, had brought life-giving water to the Red Centre. The Finke, the oldest river on earth, ninety-nine per cent of the time dry, was now flowing bank to bank. These days it thrilled him to fly over it rejoicing in all the waterfalls that ran off the ochre coloured rock faces into serene green gullies.

Born in tropical North Queensland not far from the mighty Daintree rain forest he had become used to the desert environment. It was very, very special. Maybe the girl would think so, too. After all she had been born on Moondai and spent enough years there to remember it.

“Dan!” A voice boomed.

A passenger off the Brisbane-Darwin flight, a big affable looking man, pushing sixty with keen blue eyes threw out an arm. It was Bill Morrissey, a well respected member of the Northern Territory Administration.

“How are you, sir?” Respect and liking showed in Daniel’s face.

They shook hands. “Hot and tired.” Morrissey wiped his forehead with a spotless white handkerchief. “What brings you into Darwin?”

No harm in telling him. “I’m here to pick up Alexandra Kingston and deliver her to her family.”

“Lordy!” Morrissey put a hand to his fast thinning hair as though to check it was still there. “Wouldn’t like to be that poor child! Not with those relatives. Rigby’s will would have totally alienated his son and grandson and let’s not forget the second wife, Elsa. I have to see it as an angry man’s last response. Rigby cut his family out of the main game even when it’s a fact of life dynasties die out without sons to take over. Daughters tend to walk off with some guy out of the family field.”

“True,” Daniel acknowledged, having witnessed that scenario first-hand. “But in all fairness to Mr. Kingston, Lloyd and Berne aren’t cut out to be cattlemen. Maybe Mr. Kingston made demands on them they simply couldn’t cope with, but they have no taste for the job on their own admission.”

“Well, they could never be carbon copies of him,” Morrissey replied. “A lot of rich families produce at least a couple of offspring who have no head for big business. Now the girl’s father, Trevor, was shaping up to be a chip off the old block. Tragedy he was killed. It happens in our way of life. You’re still going to be around, though, aren’t you, Dan? Can’t see how they could possibly do without you. You might be young, but you’re up there with the best.”

Daniel heard the sincerity in the older man’s voice. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir. I’m committed to one year at least under the terms of Mr. Kingston’s will.”

Morrissey clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Trust Rigby to ensure the transition would be smooth. With you at the helm, or guiding the girl into getting a professional manager they might be able to get by. How old are you now, son? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

“Twenty-eight.” Sometimes it seemed to Daniel he had to be at least double that age, he had seen so much of life.

“Do you have any idea how well regarded you are?”

Daniel gave his very appealing, crooked grin. “If I am I’m very glad. I’ve worked hard.”

“That you have!” Morrissey agreed, knowing the full story.

“Rigby certainly thought so and we all know how demanding he was.”

“He wasn’t loved, that’s for sure!” Daniel agreed wryly, “but I always found him fair enough and willing to listen. One of the things that made him so successful I guess. He never had a closed mind, even for a relative newcomer to the game like me. Besides I’ve learned to love the Territory. It’s my home now.”

“And the Territory needs young men like you,” Morrissey said, comfortable with the mantle of mentor. “Young men of brains and vision. You’ve got both.” He thrust out his hand for a final shake. “Best go now. Can’t keep the chauffeur waiting. When you’re next in Darwin come and see me. When your twelve months are up I guarantee I’ll find you something to suit your talents.”

“Might hold you to that, sir.” Daniel grinned.

Morrissey began to move away, then paused, looking back.

“By the way, Joel Moreland has expressed a desire to meet you. Not for the first time I might add. The Big Man’s heard about you. Now he wants to take a good look at you. You could be in luck, there, my boy. Moreland is a Territory icon. I’ll set it up for lunch. Just the three of us.”

“That’s great!” Daniel was surprised and deeply flattered. It never hurt to have friends in high places he thought as he strode off. Joel Moreland was known in the Territory as the man with the Midas touch. Not one of his many ventures stretching back forty years and more had failed. Not that the man with the Midas touch hadn’t known his own tragedy. Moreland’s son and heir, Jared, had been killed in a freak accident at an Alice Springs rodeo well over twenty years before. Apparently he had put his own life on the line to save a cavorting teenager from a maddened bullock. The Grim Reaper no more spared the lives of those rolling in money than he did the poor.

Well he knew all about being poor but strangely he’d never developed any lasting complexes about it. He was a fighter. He’d spent much of his childhood fighting for the honour of his pretty little mother and the good name some callous guy had stripped from her without looking back. People didn’t label the illegitimate bastards any more. It was politically incorrect. When he was a kid growing up in a small, redneck Queensland town, they didn’t give a fig about that.

From very humble beginnings he had made something of himself. He’d had help. Everyone needs a little help. Even the strongest couldn’t do it on their own. A Channel Country cattleman called Harry Cunningham had given him and his mother that helping hand when they were so down on their luck he’d been filled with fear his vulnerable mother would resort to taking her own life. Harry Cunningham had been their saviour, the man behind his education.

“You’ve got to have an education, Dan. You’re smart as they come, but education is everything. Get it. Then you can pay me back.”

Well he had paid Harry back, reviving the fortunes of Harry’s run-down station only to have Harry’s daughter, his only child, sell the valuable property within a month. Some sons-in-law proved themselves to be eminently capable as substitute sons but as Bill Morrissey had pointed out this particular daughter had married a city slicker who had shied away violently from the prospect of taking on a cattle station. Far easier to take the money and run.

It was Harry’s glowing recommendations that had come to the ears of his late employer, Rigby Kingston. That’s what had gained him a job on Moondai, rising to the rank of overseer. It was he Rigby Kingston had looked to. Not his remaining son, Lloyd, or Lloyd’s son, Bernard. It wasn’t often a man bypassed the males of his family to leave the bulk of his estate to a granddaughter, moreover one who had been banished. What was his reasoning? Did Kingston secretly want his heirs to fail? Having been robbed of his favourite son, Trevor, the girl’s father, the rest could go to hell? Rigby Kingston had been a very curious man. Yet tyrannical old Kingston had left him, Daniel Carson, a nobody, however dramatically he had risen, a handy little nest egg of $250,000, on top of his salary, on the proviso he remain on Moondai as overseer for a period of twelve months after Kingston’s demise.

It was all so damned bizarre!

It didn’t take him a minute more to spot the Kingston heiress. All five feet two of her. Her slight figure, standing brolga-like on one leg, was a few feet from the check-in counter, booklet on the Territory in hand. He didn’t know what he had been expecting. An ultra smooth city girl in expensive designer gear. There were plenty of them about. It surely wasn’t this! A cute little teenager—okay she was twenty, nearly twenty-one, but what the heck, she didn’t look a day over sixteen and she was showing at least five or six inches of baby smooth skin between the end of her T-shirt and the top of her tight jeans. He took in the delicate coltish limbs, jeans sinking on nonexistent hips, the T-shirt blue with a silver logo on the front of her delicate breasts, gentle little rises beneath the clingy fabric. She shifted one hand in her hip pocket, apparently searching for something but as he closed in on her she raised her cropped head and literally jumped.

What the hell! He wasn’t such a dangerous looking character, was he? Maybe his hair was overly long. It was very thick and it grew at a helluva rate and there weren’t too many hairdressers around Moondai. He had lived with his image so long he couldn’t really tell how he presented. Perhaps seen through those saucer eyes staring at him he looked a touch wild; eyes that were so big and radiant a blue they dwarfed her other small features. Except maybe the mouth. Not a trace of lipstick so far as he could see, but then makeup was a mystery to him, but beautifully shaped. He had a notion he was staring back, but she was such a surprise packet.

Obviously she didn’t agree with the notion that a woman’s hair was her crowning glory, either. Hers was cut to within an inch of its life. Buttercup-yellow, curling in the humid heat into a cap of pretty petals. A few escaped onto her forehead. What was the definition of sexy for God’s sake? Against all the odds Miss Alexandra Kingston, looking like she wasn’t all that long out of school, fell into that category.

He collected himself enough to tip a jaunty forefinger to the brim of his black akubra. It felt like he towered over her all the more so because he was wearing high heeled riding boots. He scrutinised her shoes, soft moccasin kind of thing. “Ms Kingston?” he asked, trying to keep all trace of dryness out of his voice and not succeeding all that well.

“Sandra, please.” She cleared a husky throat. “No one calls me Ms Kingston.” Her hand rose defensively to her neat little skull as though to check on an unfamiliar hair style.

Probably just cut it, he thought. Unceremoniously with a pair of nail scissors like an expression of rebellion.

“I am an employee,” he pointed out.

“Hey.” She shrugged. “I said you can call me Sandra.”

“How very egalitarian. Dan Carson.” He introduced himself. “I’m your overseer on Moondai and your chauffeur for the day. I’m here to transport you to the station.”

“Transport?”

He saw her gulp. “Now why make it sound like you’re going on a road train?” he chided gently. Road trains that transported anything from great numbers of cattle to petrol were an awesome sight on Outback roads.

“I was worried about the word, transport,” she said smartly.

Her voice all of a sudden had an unexpected bite to it, an adultness that had him re-evaluating her. “Set your mind at rest. We go by helicopter,” he told her. Could there be a trace of hostility in those bluer than blue eyes? “I had to drop my leading hand into RDH for a minor op so it was convenient to pick you up and bring you home.”

“How kind.” The expressive voice turned sweetly acid.

“Only Moondai’s no home of mine, Mr. Carson.”

“Please—Daniel.” He dipped his head. “I’m not in my element with Mr. Carson.”

“Great! I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out.”

So it was antagonism.

“Actually I thought Christian names might be beneath you.” She was desperate to cover up the fact she felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. Daniel Carson, her overseer, was a marvellous looking guy with Action and Adventure emblazoned all over him. He’d make the perfect hero in some epic movie, she thought. Dark, swashbuckling good looks, splendid body, commanding height. The aura was mesmerising, but his manner was definitely nonthreatening.

“Nothing so old-fashioned,” he mocked gently, looking towards the luggage carousel. It was ringed by passengers all staring fixedly towards the chute as though willpower alone would cause the luggage to start tumbling through. Every last one appeared to be in a desperate hurry to be somewhere else.

“The baggage hasn’t started to arrive as yet,” he commented, unnecessarily, just making conversation. “How many pieces do you have?’

“Just the one,” she murmured, so overloaded by his presence, she transferred her attention to the milling crowd. Multiracial. Multilingual. English predominated; a variety of accents, Aussie, Pommie, New Zealander, American. Lots of backpackers. A group of handsome Germans, speaking their own language, which she had studied for four years at high school; Italian, Greek, Scandinavian, ethnic groups from all over the South-East Asia region.

As the gateway into Australia, Darwin, named in honour of Charles Darwin, the famous British naturalist, was a real melting pot; a far more cosmopolitan city than her home base, Brisbane. In fact it had the feel and even the smell of Asia. Hot, my God, how hot and such humid air! Almost equatorial but somehow vibrant, the scent of jasmine, joss sticks, spices; beautiful golden skinned Asian girls, dead straight shining hair sliding down their backs, strolling by in little bra tops with tiny shorts, a trio of older Asian women wearing gorgeous silk tunics over trousers.

She saw her overseer, Dan Carson, pause to smile at an attractive flight attendant who came over all giggly and flushing. Who could blame her, Sandra thought, wanting to put an instant stop to it. “Hi, Dan!”

“Hi, Abby!” His eyes eventually moved back to Sandra’s small censorious face. Mentally he began to rearrange his first impressions. Young she might be, but she was as sharp as a tack. “You believe in travelling light?”

“Surely it’s one of the great virtues,” she told him loftily, shocked by that irrational flash of jealousy. Where in the world had that come from?

He digested this by compressing his quirky mouth. “Not especially in women. They generally travel with mountains of luggage.”

“You’d know, would you?” Another haughty look as like a replay, two more attendants smiled and wiggled their fingers at him while he grinned back, saluting them with a forefinger to the broad brim of his hat already tipped rakishly over his eyes. Not only her overseer but a playboy of sorts though there was something almost mischievous in those grins.

“I’d say so.” He turned back to her.

He used that flashing, faintly crooked white smile like a sex aid she thought looking on him sternly. “Well I’m not staying long.”

“How totally unexpected.” He couldn’t keep the mockery out of a baritone that flowed like molasses. “Seeing you’ve inherited the station and all.”

Sandra’s eyes glowed the blue of a gas flame. “So what are you saying, that’s amazing?”

He shrugged. “No more than if you said you’d climbed the Matterhorn on your own. Still, I’m sure your grandfather had his reasons.”

She gave a cracked laugh. “He did. He hated me. Now he’s gone he wants Moondai to go to wrack and ruin. Then again, my grandfather never could miss an opportunity to cheat the family out of their expectations. How did he come to hire you?” She met his eyes squarely, not bothering to conceal the challenge. “Surely there’s Uncle Lloyd and cousin Bernie to take charge?”

“Both of whom prefer a different lifestyle,” he returned blandly. “No, actually the job got dumped on me.”

“You don’t sound as though you expect to lose it any time soon?” she cut in.

Pretty perceptive! “Now this is the tricky bit,” he explained. “Under the terms of your grandfather’s will I can’t check out for at least twelve months.”

“What?” She rammed both hands into her jeans pockets. Her waist was so tiny he knew he could span it with his two hands.

“You didn’t know about it?” The way she tossed her head reminded him of a high stepping filly.

“My mind went blank after the first few minutes of hearing the will read.”

“Pays to listen,” he commented briefly. “Ah, the baggage is starting to come through. Let’s go.” He grabbed hold of her soft leather hold-all and slung it over his shoulder. “You can point out which suitcase is yours when it arrives. Or is it a backpack?”

“It’s a designer case,” she said flatly.

“Sweet Lord!” Try as he might he couldn’t prevent a laugh.

“Envious?”

“Not at all.”

“You’ll be happy to know it’s not mine,” she said waspishly. “A friend of mine lent it to me.”

“That surely means your friend likes you?” he asked, amused by their disproportionate heights. She was a tiny little thing. He could fit her into his back pocket.

“He loves me.” She stared straight ahead, almost trotting to keep up with him and his long, long legs.

“Loves you?” he repeated, as though amazed she was ready for romantic love. “Would this friend be your fiancé?”

“He’s gay,” she said quite patiently, considering how she felt. Outside, all mock toughness and tart banter. Inside, a throbbing bundle of nerves.

Daniel took up a position beside the carousel as the throng miraculously parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses.

“He’s nearly eighty,” she continued, trying to keep her attention on the circling luggage when she felt like flopping in a heap. It had been a long, long trip from Brisbane. Another one faced her. She was terrified of light aircraft and helicopters. With good reason. “He has his Abyssinian cat, Sheba, and he has me. We’re neighbours and good friends.”

“So where do you live?” he asked mock politely, lifting a hand to acknowledge yet another enthusiastic wave from the far side of the luggage carousel.

All these women trying to communicate with her overseer, instead of getting on with their business. Sandra fumed. She didn’t feel in the least good humoured about it. An attractive redhead this time, who seemed to have peeled off most of her clothes in favour of coolness. It was irritating all this outrageous flirtation.

“You don’t need to know,” she told him severely. “But I’m desperately missing my flat already.”

“Like the older man do you?” he asked, rather amused by her huffiness. It was fair to say she didn’t look like a considerable heiress. She didn’t dress like one, either. She was definitely not friendly when he was long used to easy smiles from women.

“The older the better,” she said with emphasis. “You seem awfully young to be overseer of a big station?” She eyed him critically. He radiated such energy it needed to be channelled.

“I grew up fast,” he answered bluntly. “I had a very rough childhood.”

“That’s hard to believe.” He really was absurdly good-looking. Hunk was the word. Stunning if you liked the cocky macho male always ready for the next conquest. “You look like you were born to the sound of hundreds of champagne corks popping…already astride your own pony by the time you were two.”

He smiled grimly. “You’re way off.” He watched the expensive suitcase tumble out onto the conveyor belt, getting exactly the same treatment as the most humble label.

“So there’s a story?” Why wouldn’t there be? He looked anything but dull.

“Isn’t there always? You’ve got one.” He pinned her with a glance and a rather elegantly raised eyebrow.

“Haven’t I just.” There was a forlornness in her eyes before the covers came down.

He hefted her heavy suitcase like it was a bundle of goose down. “Listen, how are you feeling?” he asked, noticing she had suddenly lost colour.

“Quite awful since you ask!”

Such a tart response but he didn’t hold it against her. “Did you have anything to eat on the plane?”

Dammit if he didn’t have a dimple in one cheek. “A big steak,” she answered in the same sarcastic vein. “Actually I had an orange juice. Plane food lacks subtlety don’t you think? Besides, I hate planes. I thought I might throw up. I didn’t really want to precipitate a crisis.”

He pondered for half a second. “Why don’t we grab something to eat now?” he suggested. “There are a couple of places to grab coffee and a sandwich. Come to think of it I’m hungry, too.”

She didn’t bother to argue. He was used to taking charge as well. He didn’t even consult her about what she wanted but saw her seated then walked over to the counter to order.

Two waitresses, one with a terrible hair day, sped towards him so quickly, the younger one, scowling darkly, was forced to fall back to avoid being muscled aside. No matter where you were good-looking guys managed to get served first, Sandra thought disgustedly.

Macho Man returned a few minutes later with a laden tray. “This might help you feel better,” he said, obviously trying to jolly her up.

“Thank you.” She tried to fix a smile on her face, but she was feeling too grim.

He placed a frothy cappuccino with a good crema in front of her, a plate of sandwiches and a couple of tempting little pastries. “We can share. There’s ham and whole grain mustard or chicken and avocado.”

“I don’t really care.”

He rolled his eyes. “Eat up,” he scolded, exactly like a big brother. “You’re not anorexic are you?” He surveyed her with glinting eyes. “Not as I understand it, anorexics admit to it.”

“I eat plenty,” she said coolly, beginning to tuck away.

“Pleased to hear it.” He pushed the plate of sandwiches closer to her. “What did you do to your hair, if it’s not a rude question? Obviously it’s by your own hand, not a day at the hairdressers?”

To his consternation her huge beautiful eyes turned into overflowing blue lagoons.

It made him feel really bad. “Look, I’m sorry,” he apologised hastily, remorse written all across his strongly hewn features. “You have a right to wear your hair any way you choose. It actually looks kinda cute and it must be cool?”

She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes and took a gulp of air. This big macho guy looked so contrite she had an urge to tell him. A spur of the moment thing when she’d barely been able to speak of it. “A little friend of mine died recently of leukaemia,” she said, her expression a mix of grief and tenderness. “She was only seven. When she lost all her beautiful curly hair, I cut mine off to be supportive. Afterwards the two of us laughed and cried ourselves silly at how we looked.”

He glanced away, his throat tight. “Now that’s the saddest story in the world, Alexandra.”

“You just want to die yourself.”

“I know.”

The sympathy and understanding in his voice soothed her.

“But your little friend wouldn’t want that,” he continued.

“She’d want you to go on and make something of your life. Maybe you even owe it to her. What was her name?”

“Nicole.” She swallowed hard, determined not to break down. She could never ever go through something so heartbreaking again. “Everyone called her Nikki.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded sad and respectful.

She liked him for that. It was oddly comforting considering he was a perfect stranger. “The death of a child has to be one of the worst things in life,” he mused. “The death of a child, a parent, a beloved spouse.”

A sentiment Sandra shared entirely. She nodded, for the first time allowing herself to stare into his eyes. He had the most striking colouring there was. Light eyes, darn near silver, fringed by long, thick, jet-black lashes any woman would die for. Jet-black rather wildly curling hair to match. It kicked up in waves on the nape. Strong arched brows, gleaming dark copper skin, straight nose, beautifully structured chin and jaw. For all the polished gleam of health on his skin she knew his beard would rasp. She could almost feel it, unable to control the little shudder that ran down her spine. He was the sort of guy who looked like he could handle himself anywhere, which she supposed would add to his attractiveness to women. A real plus for her, however, was that he could be kind. Kindness was much more important than drop dead good looks.

“I know what loss is all about,” he said, after a moment of silence, absently stirring three teaspoons of raw sugar into his coffee. “There are stages one after the other. You have to learn to slam down barriers.”

“Is that what you did?” Her voice quickened with interest, even as she removed the sugar. Obviously he had a sweet tooth and too much sugar wasn’t good for his health.

“Had to,” he said. “Grief can drain all the life out of you when our job is to go on. So how old are you anyway?” He tried a more bantering tone to ease the rather painful tension. “My first thought was about sixteen,” he said, not altogether joking.

“Try again.” She bit into another sandwich. They were good. Plenty of filling on fresh multigrain bread.

“Okay I know you’re twenty.” He concentrated on her intriguing face with her hair now all fluffed up.

“Nearly twenty-one.” She picked up another sandwich. “Or I will be in six months time when I inherit. If I’m still alive, that is. Once I’m on Moondai and at the mercy of my relatives who knows?”

He set his cup down so sharply, a few heads turned to see if he’d cracked the saucer. “You can’t be serious?”

“Dead serious,” she confirmed. “My mother and I left Moondai when I was ten, nearly eleven. She was a basket case. I went into a frenzy of bad behaviour that lasted for years. I was chucked out of two schools but that’s another story. We left not long after my dad, Trevor, was killed. Do you know how he was killed?”

“I’d like you to tell me.” Obviously she had to talk to someone about it. Like him, she appeared to have much bottled up.

“He crashed in the Cessna.”

He sat staring at her. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Her great eyes glittered. “Did your informant tell you the Cessna was sabotaged?”

“Dear oh dear!” He shook his head in sad disbelief.

“Don’t dear oh dear me!” she cried emotionally.

Clearly her beliefs were tearing her to pieces. “Sandra, let it go,” he advised quietly. “There was an inquiry. The wreckage would have been gone over by experts. There was no question of foul play. Who would want to do such a thing anyway?”

She took a deep gulp of her coffee. It was too hot. It burnt her mouth. She swore softly. “You may think you’re smart—you may even be smart—I’m sure you have to be to run Moondai, but that was a damned silly question, Daniel Carson. Who was the person with the most to gain?”

He looked at her sharply. “God, you don’t think very highly of your uncle, do you?”

“Do you?”

“My job is to run the station, not criticise your family.”

Tension was all over her. “So we’re on different sides?”

“Do we have to be?” He looked into her eyes. A man could dive into those sparkling blue lagoons and come out refreshed.

“I don’t want Moondai,” she said, shaking her shorn head.

“So who are you going to pass it on to, me?” He tried a smile.

She sighed deeply. “I’d just as soon leave it to a total stranger as my family.”

“That includes cousin Berne?”

She put both elbows on the table. “He was a dreadful kid,” she announced, her eyes darkening with bad memories. “He was always giving me Chinese burns but I never did let him see me cry. Worse, he used to kick my cat, Olly. We had to leave her behind which was terrible. As for me, I could look after myself and I could run fast. I bet he’s no better now than I remember?”

“You’ll have to see for yourself, Alexandra.” He kept his tone deliberately neutral.

“I won’t have one single friend inside that house,” she said then shut up abruptly, biting her lip.

He didn’t like that idea. “I work for you, Sandra,” he told her, underscoring work. “If you need someone you can trust you should consider me.”

She continued to nibble on her full bottom lip, something he found very distracting. “I certainly won’t have anyone else. I wasn’t going to offload my troubles onto you, not this early anyway, but I’m a mite scared of my folks.”

He was shocked. “But, Sandra, no one is going to harm you.” Even as he said it, his mind stirred with anxiety. The Kingstons were a weird lot, but surely not homicidal. Then again Rigby Kingston had left an estate worth roughly sixty million. The girl stood between it and them. Not a comfortable position to be in.

Frustrated by his attitude, Sandra dredged up an old Outback expression. “What would you know, you big galah!”

He choked back a laugh. “Hey, mind who you’re calling names!”

“Sorry. Galah is not the word for you. You’re more an eagle. But surely you realise they must have been shocked out of their minds by the will. Uncle Lloyd would have fully expected to inherit. He wouldn’t want to work the place. He’d sell it. Bernie would go along with that. Bernie disliked anything to do with station work. You must know that, too. Where do you live?” she asked abruptly.

“I have the overseer’s bungalow.”

“Roy Sommerville, what happened to him? He was the overseer when we left.”

“Died a couple of years back of lung cancer. He was of the generation that chain smoked from dawn to dark.”

“Poor old Roy! He was nice to me.”

“Anyone would be nice to you.” His response was involuntary.

She grimaced. “I don’t recall Uncle Lloyd ever bouncing me on his knee. His ex-wife, Aunty Jilly, used to dodge me and my mother all the time. No wonder that marriage didn’t work out. Bernie was always so darn nasty. Now they must all think I’m the worst thing that ever happened.”

He couldn’t deny that. “What was your grandfather like with you?” he asked, really wanting to know. “Any fond memories?”

“Hello, we’re talking Rigby Kingston here!” she chortled.

“The most rambunctious old son of a bitch to ride out of the Red Centre.”

He shook his head. “When you’d melt any man’s heart.” A major paradox here when Kingston had left her his fortune.

“I don’t want to melt men’s hearts,” she exploded, the blood flowing into her cheeks. “It’s all smiles and kisses one day. Rude shocks the next. I don’t like men at all. They don’t bring out the best in me.”

He held back a sigh. “I think you must have had some bad experiences.”

“You can say that again! But to get back to my dear old grandpop who remembered me at the end, I do recall a few pats on the head. A tweak of the curls before he was out the front door. I didn’t bother him anyway. He was happy enough when my dad was alive. After that, he turned into the Grandad from Hell. He seemed to put the blame for what happened to my dad on my mother.”

“How could she have been responsible?” he asked, puzzled.

“Uncle Lloyd blew the whistle on a little affair she had in Sydney,” she told him bleakly. “Mum used to go away a lot and leave Dad and me at Moondai. Uncle Lloyd said she was really wild, but then he was a great one for airing everyone else’s dirty linen.” She broke off, staring at him accusingly.

“You must have heard all this?”

Why pretend he hadn’t when an unbelievable number of people had made it their business to fill him in on Pamela Kingston’s alleged exploits? Lloyd Kingston wasn’t the only one who liked airing the world’s dirty linen. Apparently Sandra’s mother had been famous for being not only radiantly beautiful but something of a two-timing Jezebel. There had even been gossip about who Alexandra’s father really was. Alexandra didn’t look a bit like a Kingston which now that he had seen her Dan had to concede. The Kingstons were dark haired, dark eyed, tall people with no sense of humour. Pamela had routinely been labelled as an absentee wife and mother who spent half her time in Sydney and Melbourne living it up and getting her photo in all the glossy magazines. Dan knew she had remarried eighteen months after her first husband’s death. Wedding number two was no fairy tale, either. It too had gone on the rocks. Pamela was currently married to her third husband, a merchant banker with whom she had a young son. It seemed Sandra had moved out fairly early. He wondered exactly when? Not yet twenty-one the combative little Ms Sandra Kingston gave the strong impression she had looked after herself for some time. And possibly after her mother, the basket case. Hell, he knew as much about female depression and the various forms it took as the illustrious Dr. Freud.

“All right, what are you thinking about?” Sandra cut into Dan’s pondering.

“I was wondering when you left home?”

At the question put so probingly she began to move the salt and pepper shakers around like chess pieces. “To be perfectly honest, from which you might deduce I’m given to telling lies—I’m not—I’ve never really had a home.”

“You and me both,” he confessed, laconically.

Instantly she was diverted from her own sombre thoughts.

“So there’s more?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, all attention.

“If you think I’m about to share my life story with you, Ms Kingston, I’m not!”

She shook her head. “Is that a hint I’m communicating too much?” she asked tartly, slumping back in her chair.

“Not at all. It strikes me you’ve spent a lot of time alone?”

She sighed theatrically, then stole one of his sandwiches.

“That’s what happens when your mother has had three husbands.”

“One of them was your dad,” he pointed out.

She nearly choked she was so quick to retort. “That son of a bitch Lloyd challenged that at least a dozen times before I was ten.’”

The muscles along his jaw tightened. He knew all about labels. “He’s not a very nice person,” he said shortly.

“He’s a bully,” she said. “And I’m going to prove that. He really really upset my mother. I know she wasn’t the woman to exercise caution but don’t you think she would have been completely insane to try to put one across my dad let alone my fearsome old grandpop. My dad always knew I was his little girl. He used to call me ‘my little possum.’ He told me every day he loved me. I think he was the only person in the entire world who did. Then he went off and left me. I was so sad and so angry. My mum and I needed him. It’s awful to be on your own.” She dug her pretty white teeth into her nether lip again, dragging them across the cushiony surface, colouring it rosy.

“So a man does come in handy?” he asked.

She looked into his eyes and he saw the sorrow behind the prickly front. “A dad is really important.”

Hadn’t he faced that all his life? Even a bastard of a dad.

“Getting killed was the very last thing your dad wanted, Sandra. Unfortunately death is the one appointment none of us can break. I’m sure your mother loves you. Your grandfather too in his own way.”

“God that’s corny!” Now she fixed him with a contemptuous glare. “In his own way. What a cop-out!”

“He made you his heiress,” he pointed out reasonably. “Do people who hate you actually leave you a fortune? I don’t think so. Your grandfather bypassed his son, your uncle, and his only grandson who is older than you by three years.”

“I can count,” she said shortly, hungrily polishing off another one of his sandwiches. “I actually got to go to university. I was a famous swot.”

“Head never out of a book?”

“Something like that.” She shrugged, picking away a piece of rocket. “In a locked room. My stepfather, Jeremy Linklatter, IV, developed a few little unlawful ideas about me.”

He who thought himself unshockable was shocked to the core.

“You can’t trust anyone these days,” she said in a world-weary fashion. “Certainly not men. There should be a Protection Scheme for female stepchildren.”

“Hell!” he breathed, hoping it wasn’t going to get worse.

“He didn’t touch you?”

Her expression showed her detestation of stepfather Jeremy. “Not the bad stuff.” How was she confiding all this to a stranger when she had never spoken about it at all? There was just something about this Daniel Carson.

“Thank God for that!” He released a pent-up sigh. “The guy must have crawled out from under a rock. So when did you leave home?”

She shrugged, licking a little bit of avocado off her fingertip. “I went to boarding school. Then I went on to uni and had on campus accommodation. It proved a lot safer than being at home.”

“Did your mother know what was going on?” Surely not. That would have been criminal.

She sighed. “My mother only sees what she wants to see. She can’t help it. It’s the way she’s made. Besides, Jem was pretty adept at picking his moments. I was always on high alert. Occasionally he got in an awful messy kiss or a grope. Once I pinched his face so hard he cried out. Then I took to carrying a weapon on my person.”

He could picture it. “Don’t tell me. A stun gun?”

“Close. A needle with a tranquillizer in it.”

“You’re joking!” That was totally unexpected. And dangerous.

“All right, I am. But I was desperate. I took to carrying my dad’s Swiss Army knife. You know what that is?’

“Of course I know what it is,” he said, frowning hard at the very idea of her needing to carry such a thing as a weapon. “I have one, like millions of other guys. It’s a miniature tool box.”

“You don’t have one like mine. It’s a collector’s item,” she boasted. “An original 1891 version.”

“Really? I’d like to see it.”

She laughed. “And I’d enjoy showing it to you only I couldn’t bring it on the plane.”

“I wish I could meet up with this Jem,” he said grimly.

“No need to feel sorry for me.” She tilted her chin.

“Nothing catastrophic happened. He’s such a maggot. He just had all these urges. Men are like that.”

“Indeed they’re not,” he rapped back. “Evil men give the rest of us ordinary decent guys a bad name. It’s utterly unfair. There’s something utterly disgusting about a predator.”

“That’s why I like my gay friends,” she announced, wiping her hands daintily on a paper napkin before brushing back the damp curls at her temple.

“How long was your hair?” he asked, his eyes following the movement of her small, pretty hands.

“That’s a funny question, Daniel Carson.”

He gave his dimpled, lopsided smile. “Oh, I dunno. I’m trying to visualise you as the girl you were.”

“If you must know, I had a great mop of hair. A lot of people thought it was lovely. Say, those sandwiches were good. I think I must have been starving. I might even have another one of those little pastries. Oh, it’s yours!” she observed belatedly.

“Take it,” he urged. “You’re the one paying.”

“What?”

“Just a little joke,” he said. “My shout this time.”

“Which reminds me,” she said in quite a different voice.

“I want you up at the house.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You can’t mean living there?”

“I can mean and I do mean.” She sat back, fiddling with her thumbs.

“Just forget about it,” he answered flatly.

“Might I remind you, Daniel, I’m the boss. I want you about two steps up the hallway from me. I don’t know you very well, but I’d find having a great big guy like you around—especially one with a Swiss Army knife—reassuring.”

He frowned direly. “Sandra, your fears are groundless.”

“Sez you!” she responded hotly, sitting up straight. “Do you know how many people get killed over money?”

“There could only be one in a million who don’t finish up in jail,” he told her in a stern voice.

“A few more than that filter through,” she struck back.

He studied the flare-up of colour in her cheeks. “Listen, Ms Kingston, if you’re under the impression your family would agree to that, you’re very much mistaken. Both your uncle and your cousin would see me gone only neither of them can do my job. It was your grandfather who hired me. It was your grandfather who gave me so much authority. As you can imagine your uncle and your cousin bitterly resented that fact, even if they didn’t want to take over the reins. After twelve months I’ll have no alternative but to quit.”

“You won’t quit while I need you,” she told him imperiously. “And you will shift your gear up into the house, if you’d be so kind. I may have been only ten when we were kicked out but I do remember it was so big you needed a bus to get around it.”

“Just leave it for the time being, won’t you?” he asked in his most reasonable voice. “See how the family reacts.”

“In that case, Daniel, you better be present,” she said. “So where did you come from anyway? Are you a Territorian?”

“I am now, but I come from all over.”

“You’re worse than I am,” she sighed. “Could you be a bit more specific?”

“Maybe not today.”

She looked at him searchingly. “So what about a compromise? Where precisely did you learn to manage a cattle station. You’re what?” Her blue eyes ranged over him.

“You want me to produce a birth certificate? I’m twenty-eight, okay?”

“Most overseers aren’t off the ground by then,” she observed, impressed.

“Then I must be the eighth wonder of the world. As it happened, I learned from the best. My mother and I lived like gypsies moving around Outback Queensland until we came to rest in the Channel Country when I was about eleven. A station owner there, a Harry Cunningham, offered her the job of housekeeper after his wife died and there we stayed until he died some years back. His daughter sold the station almost immediately after. Something that must have the old man still swivelling in his grave. But such is life!”

There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but the first was easy. “So where is your mother now?”

His handsome face instantly turned to granite. “I’m like you, Alexandra. I’m an orphan.”

“I’m sorry.” She saw clearly he had no more dealt with the loss of his mother than she had the loss of her father. Orphans. Hadn’t her mother been lost to her the day she married that rich, worthless scumbag, Jem?

“Not as sorry as I am,” he said.

“What happened to her?” She spoke as gently as she could, fearing she was about to be rebuffed.

“I think we’ll just leave it,” he said.

## CHAPTER TWO

HE TOOK her on a journey that filled her with fascination. The landscape beneath them was so vast, so timeless in character Sandra found herself awestruck. The first hellish minutes, just as she expected, had been taken up with fighting down her fears. She would never be cured of them. Not just of helicopters. In a chopper one couldn’t look out on a fixed wing, causing not only in her, but in many people the sickening sensation the aircraft might simply drop out of the sky. She feared all aircraft. She’d been battling that particular phobia since she was a child and the family Cessna had taken a nosedive into the McDonnell ranges, not far from Moondai, with her father strapped into the pilot’s seat. That was the start of it.

He did it, Sandy. Your uncle Lloyd. He caused it to happen. He’d know how. He was always jealous of your father. He couldn’t let him inherit.

Some words are scorched into the memory as were some scenes, like her mother sobbing out accusations…

He did it, Sandy. He couldn’t let your father inherit.

So where did that leave her, her grandfather’s heiress, all these years later? No way was she sitting pretty. Just like her father she was a target. But unlike her trusting father she had learned the hard way to always be on red alert. It helped too to have backup. Small wonder she’d decided, very sensibly, to shift her overseer into the homestead for a time. Daniel Carson had an aura that made a woman feel safe. She suspected there was more than a hint of Sir Galahad about him. She even liked the way he stared down at her from his towering height, though occasionally it had made her feel like toppling backwards.

He was an excellent pilot. He was handling the helicopter with such confidence and skill she was actually approaching a state of euphoria, where she believed nothing bad could possibly happen. Phobias were only there to be licked! The ride was so smooth! She gave herself up fully to the pleasure and excitement of the flight.

The immensity, the primeval nature and the remoteness of the landscape, lit by the brilliance of a tropical sun left an indelible imprint on the mind. This was a land unchanged in aeons. It appeared far more splendid than she remembered as a child. Of course there was no better way to see it than from a helicopter with its three-dimensional visual effects. She felt as free as a bird, wheeling, skimming, darting across the glorious cobalt sky.

Great inundated flood plains glittered below them. She stared out eagerly. Rivers extended wall to wall in numerous spectacular gorges. Such places were inaccessible in the Wet. They could only be seen as she was seeing them, from the air. A foaming white waterfall was coming up on the right. It crashed over the towering stone escarpment, throwing up a white haze like a great curtain. In contrast, the walls of the canyon glowed like a furnace, a throbbing orange-red streaked with bands of iridescent yellow and pink. Millions of litres of water were being delivered into the turbulent stream below, although the rains had abated some weeks back.

Gradually as the inundated land began to settle there would be an abundant harvest. The animals and the birds would begin to breed. Wildflowers would open out, going to work to form a prolific ground cover over the warm, receptive earth. All the varieties of palms and pandanus would put out new fronds. The golden and crimson grevilleas would bloom, the hibiscus and gardenia would spread their scent and colour across a background of lush greens. Mere words couldn’t prepare a visitor to the Top End for the sight. Suddenly after years in the city, Sandra felt the tremendous pull of the great living Outback. The Outback had fashioned her. She had been happily content as a child. Maybe she could be again?

Beneath her mile after mile of lagoons filled to the brim with beautiful waterlilies swept by. She knew the species: the sacred lily of Buddha, the red lotus, the pink and the white and the cream, and the giant blue waterlily with flowers that grew a foot across. The master of the waterways was down there, too. One could never forget that. The powerful salt water crocodile. She shuddered at the very thought. Moondai in the Red Centre was a long way from the crocs though according to the magnificent aboriginal rock drawings on the station they had inhabited the fabled inland sea of prehistory.

Daniel turned his handsome head to smile at her with a real depth of pleasure in his eyes. She smiled back, both of them in perfect accord; both captive to the space, the vast distances, the sunlight and the colours, the incomparable beauty of nature. Here was the very spirit of the bush. The air was so clear, it was like liquid crystal. By now, Sandra was so enthralled she’d completely forgotten how initially she had wanted to turn back. She felt happily content to fly with Daniel, an almost telepathic communication between them. It struck her he was really her kind of person. One knew these things right away.

It dawned on her very gradually their air speed was slowing. Steamy heat was rising from the waterlogged soil.

“Everything okay?” She turned to him, an alarmed croak in her voice.

His profile was set in stone. “We’re losing power. Sit tight.”

Instantly Sandra jerked back in her seat. Panic surged through her chest, near driving the breath from her lungs. All illusions of safety were abruptly shattered. Her worst nightmares appeared to be coming true. They were in trouble. Didn’t trouble follow her around? The helicopter was losing power and altitude. She craned her head. Beneath them lay a forest of paperbarks with their slender trunks standing in who knows how many feet of water. At least she could swim. She thought of the crocs. Their bodies would provide a nice feed. Troubled though her life had been she felt a sharp nostalgia for it. She wanted a future!

Okay, time to pray. What was the point, a dissenting little voice said. Her most fervent prayers hadn’t saved Nikki from a tragically early death. She would pray all the same. She couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of God. Maybe her time was up? Hers and Daniel Carson’s. Maybe that was why he didn’t feel like a stranger? They were going to die together.

She was suddenly indignant. There had been enough trouble in her life. She deserved a break. She couldn’t submit to her fate without paying strict attention to their plight. Not that she could do anything, basically, but try to help Daniel spot a place to set the chopper down.

Sandra stared fixedly at the magnificent landscape beneath them that had abruptly turned hostile. Daniel would have no other option but to force land.

Tell him something he doesn’t know.

But where? The vast terrain was covered in glittering swamps with a canopy of trees growing so close together if they were monkeys they could scamper across it. She even had a fevered thought if the worst came to the worst, they could bail out, land in the water then if they were lucky spring up a tree with a prehistoric monster snapping at their heels.

If there was one thing Daniel had learned it was to stay cool under pressure. Even immense pressure like this. They were a few kilometres into a big, flooded paperbark swamp. The manifold pressure had dropped off and he was losing power and RPM. Air speed was declining as well. He knew the girl was only too aware of it and the consequent danger, though he was so focused on what he was doing he dared not turn his head to look at her or even speak.

Seventy knots to sixty and bleeding off fast. No matter how he wished otherwise he had Alexandra Kingston with him. A girl whose father had been killed in a plane crash.

He couldn’t lose another second. He used his radio to report a mayday, giving his bearings. What could be causing this failure? He scanned the control panel which was going haywire. Something was screwing the system. The helicopter was regularly serviced as a matter of course. Only he flew it. And Berne.

He stared down, the muscles of his face rigid. There were huge paperbarks all around them fringed on the outer perimeter by pandanus.

Fifty knots.

God almighty! Was this the way it was going to end? A life span limited to a few decades? What a bloody mess. Adrenaline kicked in, flushing through his system. He was a good pilot, wasn’t he? A very good pilot. Now was not the time to be modest. He was lucky as well, which was almost as good. He had the girl with him and she deserved a life. They had to survive. He had to land the chopper safely even if he clipped the rotors which was a strong probability. He could sense the girl beside him was sitting rigid with fear, but she wasn’t screaming. Thank God for that! Many would be yelling their heads off at this point, when they were on the brink of a crash. She was, in fact, pointing frantically to a pocket handkerchief-sized clearing at the same time he spotted it coming up.

He lined the chopper up. The clearing was shaped like a playing field with its boundaries set at one end by a stand of pandanus, at the other by four paperbarks, their foliage iridescent in the sunlight.

Hell he almost loved her. She was far from stupid and she had kept her head. He had to applaud that.

Okay. It was now or never!

The swamp was rising to meet them with crocs in it for sure. Didn’t you just love them? He had to judge the tips of the branches of the trees by centimetres. He could feel the tremendous rush of adrenaline through his body, even the thrill of extreme danger. Paradoxically it gave him a weird feeling of excitement as well as fear; a buoyancy he had experienced before in tight situations.

Ten metres above the water, the surface was quivering and shimmering like a sea of sequins, then it churned into waves by the strong down draught. He couldn’t run the chopper on in case the skids got hooked onto the arched root system of the trees. If that happened, the chopper would flip over. A rotor tip only had to clip those trees. He could hear a hissing sound clearly. The clearing seemed to be lit up, preternaturally brilliant. It could signal the end but he took it as a good omen. He hovered, shutting everything out of his mind but the need to set the machine down safely. The will to survive transcended fear…all the blades were at the same pitch…

That’s it. Hold it still. Praise the Lord!

At the last moment, Sandra shut her eyes, her small hands clenched into fists. Death was always waiting in the wings. She didn’t want to see it coming. If she was going to die she was going to die. There was not much anyone could do about fate. But if anyone could save the situation this guy might. Sweat was pouring off her yet her blood was running ice. They could drop like a stone. The chopper would be hurled around like a piece of debris before it went up in flames… It only needed one false move.

Though she waited in limbo for the moment of impact and probable annihilation, the chopper seemed to come down in ultra slow motion as the rotor blades set up a whirlwind. The machine didn’t hit the water, rather it seemed to Sandra’s bemused mind it came down as lightly as a brolga on its tippy toes. She felt the skids sink and held her breath in case the probing skids got caught up in the trees’ root systems and tossed the fragile aircraft around like a child’s toy. Dread paralysed her limbs. This was a nightmare!

Only slowly, so slowly, the skids settled on the swamp bed.

She couldn’t believe it!

Sandra’s eyes flew open. The chopper was bobbing on the surface of the swamp, the body surrounded by streams of bubbles. There was a gurgle of water somewhere but they were stable.

Eureka!

The aircraft gave a groan that was almost human. Daniel killed the engine. The beating rotors, main and tail, gradually stopped their thundering.

All was still.

Sandra couldn’t even turn to face him. Whole moments passed while her racing heartbeats slowed to normal. Then she turned to him whooping triumphantly, unaware her face was milk-white with shock. “Carson, you have to be the coolest cat on the planet!”

“Supernatural!” he agreed wryly, tasting blood on his bottom lip.

They hit an exultant high-five.

“Which reminds me, you idiot! You could have killed us.”

“I look on it more as a truly great save.” Daniel stared at the control panel. “The person I should really kill is whoever’s been tinkering with the chopper.”

“What are you saying?” She heard the shrill note in her voice.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Daniel backed off, removing his earphones and unbuckling his seat belt. “I have to get out and take a look. You stay here.”

The very idea made her break out in a sweat. “You didn’t think I was just going to jump in? There must be crocs in there.”

He shook his head almost casually. “The water around us isn’t deep. It’s already begun to subside. Nevertheless we could become waterlogged even supposing I can fix whatever problem we have. The good thing is we’re not far out of Darwin. Air Rescue will scramble another chopper in no time. I’ll send you back with them. You’ll have to be winched up. I’ll stay with the chopper until we can get it airborne.”

“So who’s going to pinch it around here?” She resorted to sarcasm, not wanting to let him out of her sight. “The crocs? And don’t tell me they’re not lurking out there in among the reeds because I happen to know differently. I was born in the Territory, remember?”

“The desert, sweetheart,” he jeered, not even aware in the stress of the moment he had called her that. “The Red Centre is completely different to the Top End. Desert and tropics, both in the Territory. Moondai might as well be a million miles away from the crocs.”

“And I couldn’t be happier about that,” she retorted. “But shouldn’t you stay put? You could come to a grim and gruesome end. I think I’d hate that.”

He merely shrugged. “You don’t happen to know how to handle a rifle?” He sounded extremely doubtful.

Sandra snorted. “Do I ever! My dad taught me how to handle a gun. I’m sure I remember. It’s like learning to ride a horse.”

Daniel studied her in amazement. “He must have started you off early?”

“Because I wanted to learn,” she replied tartly. “Bernie could shoot. I had to be able to shoot too in case he planned a little accident. Grandpop used to think becoming a good shot was character building. So what do you want me to do?’

He frowned. “I’m going to make a full circuit of the chopper. It’s a miracle we didn’t sustain any damage to the main rotor. We’re centimetres from the trees. What I want you to do, if you feel up to it, is cover me just in case we have a nosey visitor. Just don’t shoot me, okay? Want to have a run through first?’

She unbuckled her belt and stood up though her legs were still wobbly. “Might be an idea. Where’s the rifle?”

He moved to collect it from where it was stashed, broke it open to load it, snapped the action shut, then passed it to her. “Think you know what you’re doing?”

“I’d prefer a dirty great cannon,” she muttered, making her own checks and feeling it all coming back. “But I do know which end of this thing shoots.” She swung up the rifle and took aim through the chopper’s reinforced forward windshield. “If there really is a croc out there where do I shoot him? Right between the eyes? They’ve got tiny brains haven’t they?”

“I’ve never had the pleasure of finding out. Just don’t miss or it will come right after me.”

“Then me.” She slicked stray tendrils off her forehead.

“I’m ready if you are.”

“Then let’s do it!’ he said.

He plunged straight down into the water which only a week before would have been over his head. “Fuselage appears to be unscathed,” he called to her eventually, his eyes scanning the waxed, glinting sides. “I want to check the shafts of the tail rotor. Keep your eyes peeled for ripples in the water.”

“Struth, what’s with you? Of course I will. We’re dinner otherwise. They’re there. I know they’re there.”

“Yeah? Well I’m the guy in the water.” Daniel moved about near soundlessly in the swamp stirring up the mud on the bed so the shining water turned dark and murky. Sandra followed him from one side of the helicopter to the other, her keen young eyes focused on the surface.

“Skids are in a web of roots and vegetation,” he yelled to her. “That’s the danger. They’ll have to be cleared.”

“I bet there are leeches in there?” Her voice was level, her face pale but resolute.

“Too right. The little buggers are stuck to my legs.”

“Oh how vile! You can’t do anything, can you?” she called.

His voice came back to her sounding perfectly in control.

“I’m going to use my old faithful Swiss Army knife. I have to clear that vegetation. Just cover me.”

She watched him plunge beneath the muddied waters coming up with coils of vines and gnarled roots that he tossed away across the swamp.

Only now could she smell the stomach-turning odour of mud and rotting vegetation. “Finish soon, Daniel,” she begged him. Her whole body was vibrating with tension and the rifle felt very heavy.

“Doing my best!” he grunted and plunged again.

A brilliant sun burned down on the small clearing, the paperbarks and pandanus standing all around like sentinels. Sandra had never felt so exposed in her life.

Hurry, hurry, Daniel.

She saw his sodden dark head decorated with trails of luminescent green slime emerge at the very moment she spotted thirty feet beyond him an arrowhead of ripples across the stagnant surface of the swamp. Then at the apex of the triangle nostrils and behind that twin blackish bulges about twenty-two to twenty-three centimetres apart.

Eyes, that glinted gold!

She was so panicked for a moment she felt she might pass out. It was coming at surprising speed for such a great cumbersome creature. It was surging towards the challenger in its territory ready to dismember it limb from limb and stash the feast for a week later.

Horror was as sharp as a drill. “Get out!” she yelled. “Daniel, get out. It’s a croc.”

His lean, muscular body shot out of the water, his strong arms lunging at the body of the helicopter towards the open cockpit, hauling himself up.

Sandra took aim down the sights of the handsome bolt action rifle which had been fitted with a small telescope to make distant targets appear closer. Her whole face was pinched tight with control while she waited for the precise moment the giant reptile’s brain, situated midway between the eyes, would be dead centre in her range. God help them if the action jammed!

Now!

She held her nerve. Her finger that had been holding steady on the trigger, squeezed… The butt plate kicked back into her shoulder as the firing pin struck the rear end of the cartridge.

The noise was deafening in the torrid, preternatural quiet of the swamp.

“I’ve killed it. I think I’ve killed it.” Her voice was ragged. There were runnels of sweat running down her face. “Did I?” she called to him for confirmation, “or did I just nick it?” Now the crisis was over she was shivering. “I should have had an M16.”

“Sorry, they belong to the armed forces.” Swamp water was streaming off him, as he stood within the chopper, his boots oozing mud. Leeches were feasting off him. “No worries, you got him all right,” he assured her. “Didn’t you see his yellow belly as he rolled?”

“Hell I’m good!” she congratulated herself. “I hope he’s not just playing dead? Maybe he wants both of us to think so until it’s time to make a leap into the cabin.”

He shook his head. “What do you want, a tooth for a trophy? You got him, Sandra. Good and proper. I would never have guessed you could shoot so well. You turned into Annie Oakley right before my eyes.”

She staggered away to sit down. “Who’s Annie Oakley anyway? One of your girlfriends?”

He moved to the edge of the doorway, beginning to remove the brown and black leeches with the help of his Swiss Army knife. “Hell, Ms Kingston, none of my girlfriends can shoot like you. You could give a lot of guys lessons. Annie Oakley, for your information, was a famous American markswoman. Supposedly Buffalo Bill’s girlfriend though I believe she married someone else.”

“Maybe it was a sore point she could shoot better. Uugh!” she shuddered, watching him remove the bloodsuckers with no show of revulsion. “How’s this for adventure? What are you going to do to top it?”

A lock of wet raven hair flopped over one eye. He tossed his head to dislodge it. “I could carry you on my shoulders across the swamp?”

“No thanks.”

“Changed your mind about going back with me?”

She hugged herself, rocking back and forth. “What do you reckon went wrong?”

“Too early to say.” One leg was clear.

“You seemed pretty sure it was tinkering before?”

He kept silent, concentrating on the sickening task to hand.

“Do you mind answering?”

“Maybe I was a little too quick off the mark back there. The chopper will be checked out. Accidents happen all the time.”

“There’s nothing Uncle Lloyd and Bernie would like more than to see me dead,” she said.

And I’d be a bonus, Daniel thought.