Little Girl Lost
Page 26
Janet’s first short story, The Last Dragon, was published in 2002. Since then she has published numerous short stories, one of which won the Elizabeth Goudge Award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Her novel, Flight to Coorah Creek, won the 2015 Aspen Gold Reader’s Choice Award and was a finalist for the Romance Writers of Australia’s Romantic Book of The Year Ruby Award.
Follow Janet on:
Twitter
Facebook
Blog
More Choc Lit
From Janet Gover
Flight to Coorah Creek
Book 1 in the Coorah Creek series
Winner of 2015 Aspen Gold Award
What happens when you can fly, but you just can’t hide?
Only Jessica Pearson knows the truth when the press portray her as the woman who betrayed her lover to escape prosecution. But will her new job flying an outback air ambulance help her sleep at night or atone for a lost life?
Doctor Adam Gilmore touches the lives of his patients, but his own scars mean he can never let a woman touch his heart.
Runaway Ellen Parkes wants to build a safe future for her two children. Without a man – not even one as gentle as Jack North.
In Coorah Creek, a town on the edge of nowhere, you’re judged by what you do, not what people say about you. But when the harshest judge is the one you see in the mirror, there’s nowhere left to hide.
Find out more and purchase in the Kindle store:
Kindle UK
Kindle US
Kindle Australia
Kindle Canada
The Wild One
Book 2 in the Coorah Creek series
Can four wounded souls find love?
Iraq war veteran Dan Mitchell once disobeyed an order – and it nearly destroyed him. Now a national park ranger in the Australian outback, he’s faced with another order he is unwilling to obey …
Photographer Rachel Quinn seeks out beauty in unlikely places. Her work comforted Dan in his darkest days. But Quinn knows darkness too – and Dan soon realises she needs his help as much as he needs hers.
Carrie Bryant was a talented jockey until a racing accident broke her nerve. Now Dan and Quinn need her expertise, but can she face her fear? And could horse breeder, Justin Fraser, a man fighting to save his own heritage, be the one to help put that fear to rest?
Sometimes, the wounds you can’t see are the hardest to heal …
Find out more and purchase in the Kindle store:
Kindle UK
Kindle US
Kindle Australia
Kindle Canada
Christmas at Coorah Creek
Book 3 in the Coorah Creek series
What if you don’t want to be home for Christmas?
Spending Christmas away from home is one thing but English nurse Katie Brooks is spending hers in Coorah Creek; a small town in the Australian outback.
Katie was certain leaving London was the right decision, but her new job in the outback is more challenging than she could have ever imagined.
Scott Collins rescued Katie on her first day in Coorah Creek and has been a source of comfort ever since. But Scott no longer calls the town home – it’s too full of bad memories and he doesn’t plan on sticking around for long.
Scott needs to leave. Katie needs to stay. They have until Christmas to decide their future …
Read a preview here.
Find out more and purchase in the Kindle store:
Kindle UK
Kindle US
Kindle Australia
Kindle Canada
Bring Me Sunshine
Sometimes, you’ve just got to take the plunge …
When marine biologist, Jenny Payne, agrees to spend Christmas working on the Cape Adare cruise ship to escape a disastrous love affair, she envisions a few weeks of sunny climes, cocktails and bronzed men …
What she gets is an Antarctic expedition, extreme weather, and a couple of close shaves with death. And then there’s her fellow passengers; Vera, the eccentric, elderly crime writer and Lian, a young runaway in pursuit of forbidden love …
There’s also Kit Walker; the mysterious and handsome man who is renting the most luxurious cabin on the ship, but who nobody ever sees.
As the expedition progresses, Jenny finds herself becoming increasingly obsessed with the enigmatic Kit and the secrets he hides. Will she crack the code before the return journey or is she bound for another disappointment?
Find out more and purchase in the Kindle store:
Kindle UK
Kindle US
Kindle Australia
Kindle Canada
Introducing Choc Lit
We’re an independent publisher creating
a delicious selection of fiction.
Where heroes are like chocolate – irresistible!
Quality stories with a romance at the heart.
See our selection here:
www.choc-lit.com
We’d love to hear how you enjoyed Little Girl Lost. Please visit www.choc-lit.com and give your feedback or leave a review where you purchased this eBook.
Choc Lit novels are selected by genuine readers like yourself. We only publish stories our Choc Lit Tasting Panel want to see in print. Our reviews and awards speak for themselves.
Could you be a Star Selector and join our Tasting Panel?
Would you like to play a role in choosing which novels we decide to publish? Do you enjoy reading romance novels? Then you could be perfect for our Choc Lit Tasting Panel.
Visit here for more details …
Keep in touch:
Sign up for our monthly newsletter Choc Lit Spread for all the latest news and offers: www.spread.choc-lit.com. Follow us on Twitter: @ChocLituk and Facebook: Choc Lit.
Read a preview of Christmas at Coorah Creek next …
Preview
Christmas at Coorah Creek
by Janet Gover
CHAPTER ONE
In the middle of nowhere, Katie Brooks’ car exploded.
At least that’s how it felt as thick steam burst out from under the bonnet. Suddenly Katie was driving blind at high speed as the steam enveloped the front of her car. She lifted her foot from the accelerator and reached for the windscreen wipers. That only made things worse. The dust on her windscreen turned to mud and was smeared in a messy rust-coloured arc across the glass. Cursing, Katie turned the steering wheel and let the vehicle roll slowly to a stop on the side of the road. She got out and took a step back to look at the car she had owned for a little less than forty-eight hours. She didn’t know much about cars, but she didn’t need to know much to be certain that the blue Holden Commodore wasn’t going anywhere in the near future.
‘That’ll teach me to buy a twenty year old car,’ Katie muttered under her breath. ‘So much for an “Australian classic”. That’s the last time I listen to a used car salesman.’
She took a deep breath and slowly turned in a circle.
She was standing in the middle of the longest stretch of straight flat road she had ever encountered. The thin grey line extended to the horizon in either direction, without so much as a building or another car in sight. In fact, she hadn’t seen another human being for what seemed like hours. The only living thing she’d spotted was a kangaroo hopping across the road about a hundred miles back. So much space and so few people! Would she ever get used to it?
The geyser pouring from underneath her bonnet was beginning to ease. She opened the door and walked to the front of the car, reaching inside to feel for the catch. Very carefully she raised the bonnet, releasing another cloud of steam that quickly dissipated. She stared at her engine for a few seconds, before admitting it was a waste of time. She had no idea what to do. If she was going to get out of here, it wasn’t going to be in the Commodore.
She swung her leg to kick the offending vehicle, but at the last minute, pulled the blow. In her open-toed flat sandals, the kick was likely to hurt her foot more than the car.
She walked into the middle of the road and looked back the way she had come. Nothing. She looked in the direction she’d been heading. Somewhere out there was a small town called Coorah Creek. She did remember seeing a sign a while ago, but had no idea how far she still needed to go. And all the road signs were in kilometres, not miles. So even if she knew how many kilometres, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d know how far that really was.
As she stood gazing down the road, bits from her reading leaped into the forefront of her mind. The bits about people dying of thirst when their cars broke down. And the bits about poisonous snakes and spiders. There probably weren’t any man-eating crocodiles here, a million miles … kilometres … from the coast. But weren’t the wild pigs dangerous too? Suddenly a whole less sure of herself, Katie leaned back against the car.
‘Ow!’ She leaped forward as the hot metal burned her thighs through the thin cotton of her skirt.
That was another thing. It was hot here. Really, really hot! Her car’s on-again-off-again air-conditioning had barely been worth the name. And now she was standing in the blazing sun in an area desperately low on trees. She wandered along the road a short distance, looking for a tree big enough to give her a spot of shade. Nothing. She turned her face to the sky – a brilliant arc of totally cloudless blue. She could already feel her pale English skin starting to burn.
‘Well,’ she said to the vast empty spaces, ‘I left cold, grey, miserable London feeling burnt out by my job and that I’d lost my way. Now here I am, lost in the middle of nowhere and about to get really burned.’
The frustration building inside her suddenly exploded into a burst of laughter, but she was aware of the undertone of hysteria.
Returning to the car, she opened the rear door and rummaged around in the bags strewn over the back seat. Somewhere in there was a hat. And some sunscreen. Sweat was dripping from her forehead by the time she found them. She stepped back from the car and began slathering the white cream over her nose and cheeks.
‘So now what do I do?’ she wondered out loud. ‘Do I wait with the car like it said in the books? Or do I start walking?’
The only answer was the distant haunting caw of a crow.
Surely someone would come along soon.
She reached for her handbag, and retrieved her mobile phone. Squinting against the bright sunlight, she looked at it with little hope. She’d already discovered that large parts of Australia did not have mobile coverage. Either that or her phone was rubbish, which was also entirely possible.
Grimacing in disgust, she tossed the phone back onto the front seat.
Just a couple of weeks ago, she’d been wrapped in a heavy wool coat, fighting her way through crowds of shoppers in Oxford Street and admiring the best Christmas lights in London. She had cursed those crowds and their armloads of parcels and bags blocking her way. Right now she would give anything to see a few of them walking towards her. She would even offer to carry those parcels for them.
Once more she looked in both directions along the road. Nothing but the distant heat haze shimmering across the grey tarmac. It looked like water, or …
Water.
She was suddenly dying of thirst.
Katie turned back to her car. She wasn’t a total idiot. She’d bought water at the last petrol station.
Ah-ha!
She held the plastic bottle aloft in triumphant. But her joy was short lived. There was only about an inch of liquid left in the bottom. She removed the lid but hesitated. Should she drink it now or wait. Surely she wouldn’t be here long? Would she?
Defiantly she drank the last of the water. There! It was done. Now someone had to find her.
She looked down at her arms, trying to see if the skin was already turning pink. It felt as if it should be. For the first time, she felt a real twinge of fear. As a nurse, she knew about the effects of sunstroke and dehydration. But what could she do? There wasn’t any shade.
Maybe she could make her own.
She opened her suitcase and eventually found a long, light cotton skirt. She squinted up to judge the angle of the sun then opened both car doors. She tried to spread the skirt over them to form a tent. It didn’t work. The patch of shade created wouldn’t have sheltered a mouse. Even that little bit of effort had raised a sweat, and she could feel her energy being drained away by the relentless heat.
She looked at the skirt in her hands. It had been a gift from her sister, and she was quite fond of it. But she was also quite fond of being alive. If another car didn’t come along for a couple of hours – and that seemed entirely possible – she was in real trouble.
She gripped the skirt firmly and tugged at the side seam. It took a lot of effort, but finally she heard the stitches tear. When she opened the skirt out, she had quite a large piece of fabric to work with. Enough to make some sort of tent. She spread the material between two open car doors, using the windows to hold the edges. After a few minutes work, and a lot more sweat, she had created a small patch of shade between the two doors, under the tented fabric.
Before she sat down, she scrabbled around some more in her suitcase, and emerged with a woolly cardigan – a garment she was unlikely to need in the near future. She put the cardigan down in the small patch of shade. That would give her bum some respite from the rough gravel on the side of the road. Then she lowered herself into her makeshift sun-shelter.
It wasn’t cool. Far from it. The heat radiating from the metal of the car was intense, but at least she wasn’t in the full blazing sun.
She wriggled about a bit. Trying to get comfortable – or at least less uncomfortable. She tried to stay focused, listening for the sound of an approaching engine. But all she could hear was that damn crow. It was starting to get on her nerves.
She glanced at her watch. How long had she already been here?
Her head was starting to spin and her eyelids fluttered.
No! She had to stay awake.
She shook her head, wishing she still had some water left. Wishing she had never hopped on that plane in London. She had really messed up. Again. The wrong career, and now the wrong place to pursue that career.
Her life wasn’t exactly going as she had hoped. If only …
She felt her eyelids starting to close. She took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. It already felt like she’d been stranded for hours. She glanced down at her watch again. Time was moving at a snail’s pace.
She must not fall asleep!
CHAPTER TWO
It had to be the most boring stretch of road in the world – this road that led to Coorah Creek. This road that was taking him back after so many years. It was long and straight and flat with no turnings or side roads. Scott Collins wondered if maybe there was a metaphor in that.
He wriggled his fingers on the wheel to relieve the stiffness and the boredom. He’d never thought he’d see this part of the country again. And certainly not of his own volition. But times change. People change. He was coming back to Coorah Creek and he had no idea what was waiting for him there.
He reached out to pick up the water bottle from the centre console. His air-conditioning was going full bore, but he could still feel the sun beating down on his car. He was looking forward to getting away from the relentless heat. And the dull burnt colours. And the rain that thundered so hard on a tin roof that you couldn’t hear yourself think. His future was full of lush green places, where rain fell in gentle refreshing showers. He might even get his first white Christmas, if things went well. That could be fun. He’d never seen snow.
At least he would be in a place where there were no memories to haunt him.
But if he was going to escape those memories, the
re was something he had to do first. He had to return to Coorah Creek.
Somewhere ahead of him, the sun flashed off metal, pulling Scott’s attention back to the long straight road. It was easy – and very dangerous – to lose concentration like that. He strained to see through the shimmering heat haze in the distance. There was a dark shape – a car – on the side of the road up ahead.
Scott immediately lifted his foot from the accelerator. He’d been away from the outback for more than eight years, but some lessons are never forgotten. In the outback, you never drove past a stranded car without stopping to see if the driver needed help. Out here, a broken down car could cost someone their life.
Scott pulled off the road a few yards behind the blue Commodore. He registered its make with a smile. The car was a classic, but getting on in years. He wasn’t surprised that it was stuck way out here. Now, where was the driver?
That’s when he noticed the fabric stretched between the two open doors. Someone had tried to construct a shelter. He strode quickly forward when he saw a girl apparently unconscious lying half in and half out of that makeshift shelter. He swiftly knelt beside her and reached out a hand to touch her face where the skin was already red. She looked so young and so terribly vulnerable.
‘What the …’ With a jerk the girl suddenly sat up, her eyes staring wildly around her.
‘Hey. It’s all right.’ Scott sat back on his heels to give the girl some breathing room.
She ran her hand over her face. Slowly her eyes came to focus on him. ‘Oh.’