High-Stakes Bride. Fiona Brand

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СКАЧАТЬ changed and opened her physiotherapy practice, which occupied the old shearers’ quarters. Her last appointment had been at three, after which she’d started loading hay onto the trailer and feeding out.

      Even moving the cattle every day, rotating them from field to field, and grazing what was known as the “long acre”—the roadside grass—didn’t allow her paddocks time to recover. Without rain, the grass couldn’t grow, and there simply wasn’t enough feed. She was already using her winter supply; when that was gone she would have to either start buying in feed she couldn’t afford, or sell the entire herd, including the breeding cows.

      She’d done the figures for selling early, and they weren’t good. The cattle would be underweight, and the market would be low. The worst-case scenario was that she wouldn’t make enough to cover the balloon payment that was due on the mortgage. If that happened, her half-brother, David, would lose the farm and his home.

      The drought had already done its damage, and every day it continued the damage increased. Now, regardless of when it rained, they had already sustained a loss; it was only the magnitude of the loss that was in question.

      Letting out a breath, she let her lids drift closed. She wouldn’t sleep, but she was tired enough that the iron-hard dirt felt as soft as a feather bed. Slowly, inner tension seeped away, and her breathing evened out.

      

      A small sound disturbed the silence. Liquid trickled down her arm. Her lids flickered.

      Oil.

      The Dinosaur was still leaking, this time from somewhere else, which meant the sump and the bolt could be side issues.

      “Oh yeah, you’re going to die on me soon,” she muttered sleepily. “Just not yet.”

      Give me a couple more weeks, then it won’t matter.

      “If this rust heap is terminal,” a low male voice murmured, “it better not be in my driveway.”

      Dani’s heart jolted in her chest. She hadn’t heard a vehicle, but that wasn’t surprising. The rising wind hitting the tall line of poplar trees along the roadside was loud enough to muffle most sounds and, despite her resolve, she had fallen asleep. If she’d been fully conscious there was no way her closest neighbour, Carter Rawlings, would have sneaked up on her.

      Grabbing the tools, she crawled out from beneath the Dinosaur and blinked into the afternoon sun. Of course he would be standing with the sun at his back, putting her at even more of a disadvantage—as if she wasn’t utterly disadvantaged anyway in faded jeans and a T-shirt, leather boots that were crusted with dirt, and her hair scraped back in a plait.

      Rising to her feet, Dani studied her neighbour and ex-ex-ex-boyfriend who, evidently, had finally decided to return to Jackson’s Ridge after yet another extended absence.

      “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Commitment, himself.” And if he said, “Hi, honey, I’m home,” she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions. “Looking good, Carter.”

      It was a sad fact that he was drop-dead gorgeous: tall and muscled with sun-bleached hair, a solid, nicely moulded jaw and those killer blue eyes.

      Deftly, she stepped around him and replaced her tools in their box. “Long time no see.”

      And wasn’t that just typical? The Rawlings family had lived next door to the Galbraiths forever, but Carter had always been too restless to stay in Jackson’s Ridge. Despite being neighbours for eighteen years, the time Dani had actually spent with Carter had been little. When Carter had turned thirteen he had gone away to boarding school. From boarding school, he had gone directly into the army, then the Special Air Service. From that point on he had become even more elusive, only returning home for brief stints to visit his parents when he had leave. And lately, over the past six years, depending on the state of their relationship, to visit her.

      “I’ve been busy.”

      “Evidently.” Almost a whole year busy. But for the first time since they’d started dating six years ago she’d had the luxury of not worrying about exactly what he was doing, and how dangerous it was. As far as Dani was concerned it had been a productive year.

      “I rang.”

      Dani wiped her hands on the rag and tossed it in the back of the trailer. “I got your messages.”

      “You didn’t reply.”

      She cocked her head to one side and took a second look. Whatever Carter had been up to since he’d last climbed out of her bed and walked out the door hadn’t detracted any from his appeal. Despite her detachment, her stomach did a funny little flip-flop. Her jaw tightened. She had been burned by Carter Rawlings a total of three times. As far as she was concerned, that was two times too many. The fact that the masochistic streak that kept her making the same mistake over and over was still in existence didn’t make her happy. She was thirty, supposedly intelligent and independent. As far as she was concerned she had been inoculated three times. Somewhere there had to be a rule about that, and she wasn’t about to break it.

      She snapped the toolbox closed and fastened the lid. “I didn’t see any point. We broke up.”

      He muttered something short and sharp beneath his breath. “Why isn’t Bill fixing the tractor?”

      Dani wedged the oilcan between the toolbox and the side of the trailer so it wouldn’t shift when she negotiated the rutted drive to the house. The last thing she needed was to lose a can of oil. As inexpensive as it was, replacing it would blow her budget for the week, and with the mortgage falling due in a fortnight she was literally counting every cent. In theory she couldn’t afford to eat. “I had to let Bill go two months ago. There’s a recession, or hadn’t you noticed?”

      Maybe not. By the shiny glint of his brand-new four-wheel drive, she deduced that drought, recession and bottomed-out stock prices or not, Carter was doing all right.

      “I’ve noticed.” He jerked his head toward the tractor. “Why didn’t you give Geoff a call?”

      Geoff was the diesel mechanic based in town. He serviced most of the farm equipment locally. “Geoff costs forty dollars an hour. Fifty-five on a call-out.”

      Carter walked around the Dinosaur. Distracted, Dani noted the stiffness of his movements.

      “You’re telling me you’ve been fixing the tractor yourself?”

      And the farm bike and the truck. If she lost the farm, she could probably open up in competition with Geoff’s Diesels and make some real money.

      Dani made a production of looking around. “Can’t see anyone else. Must have been me.”

      Carter’s stare was cold and disorientingly direct. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

      Never again. “What’s the matter? You got issues with women fixing machines?”

      He stared at the tractor, then glanced back at Dani. “Yes.”

      The word was bitten out, clipped and cold, as if he had every right to an opinion. An involuntary shiver worked its way down her spine. She’d been angry at Carter for months—no, cancel that—years, and in all that time, she’d never imagined that he could be angry with her.

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