A Girl's Guide to the Outback

by Jessica Kate

  A pinball of fear pinged around her consciousness. Or maybe he’ll confirm that I was the problem all along.

  Thirty yards.

  She gritted her teeth and kicked a bottle cap into the street. Stuff Sam and his opinions. All she’d ever done was give Wildfire the best she had to offer: her brain and determination. If he had a problem with that, then she didn’t give a flying purple baboon. And if she’d spent the week after he left tearfully watching every sci-fi series in her collection, then that was just a coincidence.

  Five yards.

  Time for Prayer of Desperation #23. Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God.

  The pickup truck crunched to a halt on the loose gravel scattered at the roadside, and a familiar figure stepped out of the vehicle. Kimberly squinted. The darkness and intensity of the headlights as he crossed in front of the vehicle obscured his expression.

  Time slowed as he paused in front of her and the yellow light finally illuminated him. Him, his moleskin pants, and the cotton shirt that flexed over his folded arms. He could’ve passed for Hugh Jackman’s younger brother in the movie Australia. Her breath left her in a rush.

  She’d managed to convince herself in the last six months that, taking into account his irritating personality, she would no longer find the disarray of his hair endearing, his open expression trustworthy, or his ready smile comforting.

  She’d been an idiot.

  And if that triple threat wasn’t enough—“Welcome to Australia.”

  Oh, that voice. A shiver danced between Kimberly’s shoulder blades. It was enough to make a girl throw her passport into the Pacific.

  “Thanks.” She squeaked the word out and tugged her suitcase off the bench. It slammed into the back of her leg, the plastic wheel catching her ankle bone. She bit back a yelp and hefted it up, eyeing the height of the truck.

  “I’ll take it.” Sam plucked the case from her hands and easily swung it into the truck bed. “Hope you don’t mind it getting dusty in the back of the ute.”

  Kimberly looked at the vehicle. “Ute?”

  “The truck. Aussies call them utes.”

  “Oh.”

  So far it appeared she was only capable of one syllable at a time. She squinted at the side of the truck—of the ute—and attempted an entire sentence. “Do all utes have landscape paintings on the sides of them?” Hard to tell in the dark, but there seemed to at least be a tree, a lake, and a cow depicted across the side of the vehicle.

  Sam crossed back to the driver’s side. “My dad was a bit of an artist, and he didn’t believe his canvas had to be restricted to an actual canvas.”

  Kimberly processed the information as she climbed into the truck. She’d known that the man Sam called Dad was actually his American-born stepfather. The artist bit was new info.

  She jiggled her knee as Sam fired up the engine and pulled onto the road—the left side of the road. She gripped the door handle.

  “Does it freak you out, sitting on the other side?” Sam’s question held a hint of laughter.

  “Nope.”

  “Liar.”

  She acquiesced with a small grin. “How do you swap back and forth? Driving must be terrifying at first.”

  “The first road I drove on in the US was a fourteen-lane highway in LA. I learned fast. But out here”—he gestured with one hand as they reached the edge of town—“the only things you really need to guard against are kangaroos and falling asleep.”

  “Legit? Kangaroos?” She sat up straighter and scanned the roadside.

  “Yup. There’s old mate from last week.” Sam pointed.

  She’d known him long enough to realize the term old mate could refer to almost anyone, from a weird-looking spider in his desk drawer to a head of state on the television. She followed his gesture to the unrecognizable lump at the Welcome to Burradoo sign.

  “Oh.” She deflated.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll see live ones too.”

  She sat back in her seat and relaxed for the first time since touching down in the southern hemisphere. “Thanks for coming to get me in the middle of the night.”

  “What’s a two a.m. wake-up among friends?”

  Friends. Kimberly smiled and rummaged in her handbag for her notebook and its list of Awkward Silence Busters. A little something she’d prepared on the plane, given her less-than-mediocre conversation skills and desperate need to make this work.

  At least things were looking good so far. It had been two whole minutes, and not only had she sensed no hint of unpleasantness, but Sam had—for the first time ever—called her his friend. Maybe a different hemisphere did make a difference. Maybe Sam was open to working with her.

  Maybe she did have a hope.

  * * *

  Sam rubbed a hand through his hair and eyed Kimberly’s dozing form as they zoomed along the dark highway. The radio droned on and on, tonight’s topic something about the developmental benefits of teaching young children nursery rhymes. He’d bet the nursery rhyme never said the three little pigs offered to drive the big bad wolf to their home in a 1993 Toyota Hilux and let it stay a month.

  Maybe those pigs were smarter than he was. Or at least smarter than Jules. He’d warned his sister this was a bad idea of wolflike proportions. At the time, she’d rolled her eyes and turned up the volume on her episode of The Ranch. So now his nemesis lay as relaxed as a cat in the passenger seat beside him, somehow smelling of some fruity girl deodorant and not a day in an airplane. About to “Kim” all over his perfect Kim-less refuge.

  No amount of delightful scent could compensate for that.

  He’d managed to keep up a friendly facade for the first few minutes until jet lag won out and Kimberly dozed off. Now his smile melted away faster than a rainbow Paddle Pop ice cream on Christmas Day.

  Kimberly wouldn’t know the first thing about a farm, especially an Aussie one. She wouldn’t know that if a cow’s nose looked purple it indicated poisoning or how to make an electrolyte solution for a sick calf or a thousand other things. So what on earth was she doing here?

  He blasted the air-conditioning on his face. Staying awake during the forty-minute drive was always a challenge, and the heat rising on his neck did nothing to improve his mood.

  Kimberly opened her eyes and stretched, her simple gray T-shirt tugging against her form. She looked even better in casual clothes than the office attire he used to see her in.

  He focused on the endless white lines on the road and told his brain to shut up.

  Paper crinkled as she fiddled with a notebook in her lap. “I was really glad you contacted me about this.” Her tone warm as honey, she actually sounded sincere.

  Sam pressed his lips together to stop the response that leapt to his tongue and gave a noncommittal shrug. He didn’t buy the line about looking forward to an “authentic Australian experience.” If she wanted an Aussie holiday, she’d go to the Opera House and Bondi Beach, just like all the other tourists. No, this “holiday” was about more than six weeks of his time. She probably wanted to talk him into a permanent return. And poke her nose into his family business while she was at it.

  No sirree.

  “Your sister sounds great. I can’t wait to meet her. I’ve already been going over some of the financial information she sent me.”

  Sam tightened his grip on the steering wheel, lumps of dried mud rubbing between his fingertips and the plastic. Farm vehicles didn’t exactly stay pristine.

  “And if you want me to look at anything else while—”

  “Look, let’s drop the act. This was Jules’s idea, and we both know I warned her against it.” The words burst out with more energy than necessary.

  Kimberly stilled.

  He cringed as the silence stretched but fought the urge to backpedal. Silence was Kim’s favorite method of destroying her opponent. No way would he succumb.

  Again, that is.

  “Message received.” The warmth drained from her voice, leaving the professional
detachment he knew so well. Now he was talking to the real Kimberly.

  “I’m just saying, I know you never stop at ‘helping’ with one issue. You’ll want to reengineer everything.” He made an effort to soften his voice and thus the next words. “But if you want my help talking my sister into some scheme of yours, don’t count on it.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Her stiff posture shouted, “Jerk.”

  Great. As usual, she’d overreacted. But he needed to set expectations.

  Silence was better than all the responses that formed on his tongue, and it appeared to also be Kimberly’s retaliation of choice. And yet over the next twenty-five kilometers her rigid posture wilted into the seat and her breathing evened out. By the time Sam pulled up at the house, the breaths bordered on soft snores. He snickered to himself and exited, taking a moment to survey the house with fresh eyes. The wooden structure built by his great-grandfather rested on stumps high enough to allow floodwaters to pass below. Its cream paint and maroon accents stood as evidence of Dad’s meticulous attitude toward home maintenance, just as the sagging third step testified to Jules’s lack of time to spare. Built in the traditional Queenslander style, the home had a wide veranda that’d been enclosed sometime in the 1960s and a corrugated-iron roof that accentuated the sound of possum footsteps at night. A feature Kimberly would discover soon enough.

  He moved to the tray of the ute. She’d probably wake when he dragged her suitcase down.

  But when he pulled her door open for her, she was still out cold. Sam paused for a moment. She looked younger in her sleep. Kimberly awake projected nothing but confidence and professionalism. But relaxed in the passenger seat, her perpetual frown smoothed out and her aura of invulnerability melted away.

  Which one was the real Kimberly?

  Her notebook tumbled from her lap to the dust at his feet. He picked it up, and a word caught his eye. Jules.

  He stared at the page of neat handwriting for a moment, curious, but with his dyslexia, decoding the letters on a full night’s sleep and in daylight would be a chore. With tired eyes and moonlight? Impossible.

  Plus it was snooping.

  “Hey.”

  He jerked his gaze up. Kimberly, still blinking sleep from her eyes, pulled her notebook out of his hands. Sam cleared his throat. “It fell out. We’re here.”

  Kimberly glanced down at the notebook and shifted in the seat, her expression embarrassed. “I get tongue-tied when I’m nervous. It helps to write down things I want to say.” She pushed past him, scooped up her suitcase, and headed toward the house.

  Sam stared after her. That’s what the notebook had held—conversation prompts? And Kimberly got nervous? The woman was the epitome of poise. And she had a killer stare that, combined with those long pauses before she answered something, was great at making you feel really stupid. As if he needed any more help in feeling stupid.

  But had she just been tongue-tied?

  He jogged a couple of steps to catch up with her, tugging the suitcase from her hands and sweeping a palm toward the stairs. “After you.” As he trudged up the steps behind her, she paused and cooed at Meg, their cattle dog. Everything about her posture softened.

  Maybe she really—no. Nuh-uh. He shook off his stupor. They had years of history. He knew Kimberly Foster, and she wasn’t welcome here.

  Chapter 8

  “I found her!”

  The shout pierced Kimberly’s consciousness and dragged her from a dark, calm place. Awareness came in at a trickle. She hadn’t been able to sleep. After Sam had pointed her to a spare room and mumbled something about getting the cows in for milking, she’d been too worked up over their argument to rest. Each time she closed her eyes, her overtired mind tossed out accusing questions she couldn’t answer.

  Why did I ever think things would be different? What am I doing on the other side of the world? What will I do if I fail?

  I’m definitely going to fail.

  So she’d pulled on workout shorts and an old Star Wars T-shirt, sneaked out of the house, and found that adorable cattle dog she’d seen on her way in.

  Now, an ache radiated from her neck. Something soft, warm, and furry shifted beneath her hand. She must’ve dozed off patting the dog. A fly buzzed near her open mouth, and she snapped it shut, cracked her eyelids open, and encountered the smiling face of Julia Payton.

  “Hey there, Kimalicious. Nice to finally meet you.”

  It was like staring at the daughter of Crocodile Dundee. Wide green eyes looked back at her from beneath a battered hat. A braid the color of straw draped over the sleeve of Jules’s loose work shirt, and the belt on her denim shorts held a pocketknife less impressive than Mick Dundee’s but probably far more practical. She gripped crutches beneath each arm. Kimberly’s gaze traveled down to a scuffed-up cast, now more a dusty shade of brown than white.

  Jules rapped on the plaster. “Trading this bad boy in tomorrow for a moon boot. Just think how much mischief I’ll get into when Sam’s not looking.”

  Kimberly snickered and sat up straighter. What had been digging into her back? She took in the detached garage she’d fallen asleep in. Dirt floor. A stack of various tires behind her. Approximately nine million cobwebs. She jerked away from the tires as Crocodile Hunter episodes featuring nasty arachnids sprang to mind.

  Jules stuck out a hand and, despite the crutches, managed to pull Kimberly to her feet. Kimberly flexed her hand, crushed from Jules’s grip, and tried to shake off the fogginess of sleep. “Hey—”

  Jules held up a hand, then turned, put her fingers in her mouth, and let loose a brain-exploding whistle. Kimberly clapped her hands over her ears, wincing, and the corner of Jules’s mouth twitched. “Sorry. Sam’s just over at the yards looking for you, and I don’t think he heard me shout.”

  Kimberly lowered her hands. “Looking for me?”

  “You left your bedroom door open. We could see you weren’t in bed. And we couldn’t find you anywhere. I must’ve missed this spot in my first check.”

  Heat rushed up Kimberly’s neck and pooled in her cheeks. “Oh. Sorry. I just came out to pat the dog and must’ve dozed off.”

  “Or fallen into a mild coma.” Jules grinned. “We’ve been shouting your name for forty minutes.”

  Kill me now. Kimberly rubbed her forehead. Not the first impression she’d wanted to make. “Sorry. Jet lag.”

  “Not a problem. Welcome to Yarra Plains, aka absolute paradise.” Jules gestured to the farm around them with a wide sweep of her arm.

  Kimberly took in her surroundings properly. The house yard was surrounded with dusty tracks that led to fields on the east side, where a row of trees lined the farm a mile away. Maybe a river? On the other side sat a series of tin sheds—one of them, she assumed, the dairy. Not a barn in sight, and no other man-made structures for as far as she could see.

  Kimberly sucked in a deep breath of fresh country air—and wrinkled her nose. Ick. The breeze carried the smell of the dairy. Still, there was something amaz—

  A fly dive-bombed down her windpipe.

  Kimberly coughed like she was trying to expel a lung. Gross. No choice but to swallow it down. She grimaced and straightened just as Sam stomped around the corner, his moleskins now filthy and an extra button on his work shirt undone.

  “Where have you been hiding?” His frown flickered into amusement for a brief moment when his gaze landed on her Moods of Darth Vader T-shirt.

  Jules waved her brother off with a crutch. “She fell asleep patting the dog. No need to get your knickers in a knot.” She glanced at Kimberly. “I’m off to shift the dry cows.” She moved toward the four-wheeler parked in the garage.

  Kimberly eyed Sam. He took the bait in an instant. “Like heck you are. No motorbikes with a broken foot.”

  Jules rolled her eyes so hard Kimberly had to choke back a laugh. “It’s a four-wheeler, not a two.”

  “Can’t change gears with that foot.” Sam pointed to the foot pedal on the lef
t side of the bike.

  “You’re such an old woman. I’ll just reach down and use my hand.”

  “Is that how the front bars got bent? You were leaning down to change gears when you hit that post?”

  Jules winced. “Kim can drive me. You wanna come?”

  Have a chance to prove herself helpful and spend time with Sam’s firecracker sister who probably had juicy dirt on him? “Of course.” Kimberly sent her sweetest smile to Sam. “We’ve got it covered.”

  “Do you know how to drive that?”

  “Would I offer if I didn’t . . . ?”

  He narrowed his eyes and turned away.

  Kimberly muttered the remainder of the sentence low enough that only Jules could hear it. “. . . have every confidence that Jules can either teach me or drive awesomely with a broken leg?”

  Jules snorted out a laugh. “Good enough for me. Let’s get moving.”

  Twenty minutes later, Kimberly was chasing cows around a field and had learned the basics of four-wheelers, the Queensland Maroons rugby league team’s glorious history, and the fact that Jules Payton was her new favorite person in the world.

  “. . . and that unfortunately placed leech is the reason why Sam really, really hates swimming in dams.” Jules snickered at her own story and then tapped Kimberly’s arm. “This is where I hop off.”

  Kimberly stopped the four-wheeler and seized the chance to survey the landscape again, keeping one eye out for snakes. Every person she’d told about this trip had warned her about Australia’s proliferation of poisonous animals, and Jules had pointed out a deadly brown snake slithering from the track as they drove here.

  But the scenery was just too distracting to keep her eyes in the grass. Was the sky this wide and blue back home? “Why?”

  Jules pointed up ahead at a dam. “We call that dam the ‘turkey’s nest’ because the walls are built up instead of digging the dam down in the ground. At least three sides are. The fourth’s a natural rise. Use that one to get up on top of the others and chase that cow out.” A single beast stood atop the dirt wall of the turkey’s nest between the water and the fence that ran along the edge of the wall. “My weight”—Jules hopped off the metal bars she’d been perched on at the rear of the bike—“will stuff up your balance when you drive up the slope.”