‘Do you think Sawyer’s erratic driving was to kill time, to meet up with someone?’Porter asked Craig.
‘It’d make sense of his patterns.’
‘Can we see any footprints?Maybe they dumped the quad, and he got away.’The thought burned, as he scoured around the shrubs, checking the undergrowth, the gaps between rocks, widening his circle over coarse rubble.
Porter went back ten metres or so, then followed the quad bike’s trail, which disappeared over the crumbly soils.The stones and gravel were disturbed enough to show Sawyer must have gunned the bike, up the small rise…
Given the new set of tracks, from that mystery ute, where it had stopped in the centre, would that have been enough for Sawyer to suddenly divert?
That’s when he saw it, just on the other side, shaded by the saltbush.A strange shift in the bulldust.Too flat.Too smooth.Like glass.
‘Over here.’He dropped to one knee and brushed some of the fine powder filling a cracked wedge that ran deep like a pit filled with bulldust.
Craig crouched beside him.‘You think his quad’s in here?It’d make sense if he flew over that rise, then had to divert from hitting that ute—’
‘Which means he’s here.’Porter voice was filled with urgency.
Together, they scraped deeper, revealing a punctured tyre.Then the handlebars.And then… a hand.
No pulse.
‘Did he get a puncture, lose control, and get pinned by his bike and drowned,’ Craig said grimly.
‘Possible.’But to Porter—it wasn’t that simple.Those extra set of tracks, belonging to that unknown ute, showed it had driven directly across the quad’s path.Did it stop to help or…
Porter stared out across Dixby Downs, the country sprawling from horizon to horizon beneath a sky as old as time.The sun sank lower, ending a chapter of its own story.This land—she’d seen men like Sawyer before.Men who killed to claim her and tried to carve her up for profit.
But the land kept her own score, and she’d outlast them all.That’s the thing Porter had learned from living out here: this country, this ancient land, she could be your greatest ally or your worst enemy—and today, the outback had claimed the missing overseer for good…
Forty
The police station’s back door creaked open, and Porter stepped through.Dust still clung to his overalls, his boots heavier than they should’ve been, feeling like he’d been chewed up by the country and spat out for good measure.
In a sense, he had.
His overalls were streaked in dirt, the sunburn a killer, and his movements were stiff with exhaustion.The bump on the back of his head was a constant dull throb he kept on ignoring—because he was upright and still breathing.Hell, yeah.
His plan was to knock out some paperwork, drink half a pot of stale coffee, file his preliminary report for the Stock Squad to take over, before crashing for the next two days.He’d done enough overtime to earn it.
But she was there.
Amara.
Perched on the bench near the lockers, her sore foot propped up, with the bandage peeking out from under the cuff of her coveralls, and a set of crutches leaning on the nearby wall.
Even though she looked as dog-tired as he felt, she was still the best thing he’d seen all afternoon.Even with the ballgown gone, Cinderella had nothing on this woman.
She was his whole damn reason to search the scorched earth for any man who’d dared to lay a hand on her.And he’d do it again—in a heartbeat.
Sawyer had got off easy.
‘Are you waiting for a taxi that doesn’t exist?’he asked her.
‘I’ve been waiting for a ride home and you’re all I’ve got.’Those cushion pillows of pleasure, those illegal lips of her, tugged sideways into a grin.
Whoa—she grinned.
He rubbed his eyes as he dropped his car keys into the tray near the sign-on sheet, and leaned against the wall, arms crossed.‘Are you okay?’
