Proof.
It was worthy of that dorky dance.Because she had a stack of witnesses who could testify that Commissioner Andrew Bannon was in Elsie Creek, shaking hands with the Stock Squad, using a jet booked by an illegal company.
Taryn also had enough paperwork to recognise Drew’s assistant’s signature, who probably had no idea what his boss was up to.
It was so typical of a career bureaucrat like Drew to not get his hands dirty, letting other people collect parcels and pilfer livestock.
But she needed to play this right, and deliver all this news straight to the Stock Squad without tipping off a single soul.
Its why stealth had been paramount these past two days, using her two-day travel time as Taryn’s excuse to vanish off-grid from Canberra like a departmental ninja.
Instead, she drove straight to her parents house.
There, it’d been a two-day tag-team with her father at her side, as they rifled through files, shell companies, financial reports and falsified permits.
Honestly?It was the best daddy-daughter bonding time they’d had in years.Nothing saidI love you Dad, like co-authoring a take-down of federal-level corruption over coffee, and some criminally good cookies, to build the bones of a genuine case.
And when her mum came home and spotted the manic gleam in both their eyes, she cracked open the emergency champagne and practically demanded a victory speech.
Taryn gave them one—just not the one she’d planned.
Mid-toast, mid-sobbing ugly cry, she blurted out:I’m pregnant.
Her mum froze mid-pour, corked the bottle, and set it aside without a word while her dad pulled her into a hug and handed her a box of tissues.Both offering to support her.Whatever she chose.
As a kid, moving all the time, she didn’t have close friends.She’d only had her parents.When her mum offered nappy-changing duties and full coverage of school holidays, then her dad promised summer beach trips, awkwardly muttering something about building sandcastles and learning to surf, it had her blubbering about how scared she was, and all the stuff they never really got to do with her—all the things she’d secretly wished for as a kid but never said aloud.
But now, she got it.
They hadn’t been absent to be cruel.They were working their arses off, not just to provide her with a good education, but the best damn life lessons a kid could absorb.And honestly, what kid gets to see three presidents, a sultan or two, and the Queen before she’s had her braces removed?
They hadn’t just worked for their careers.They loved their jobs.And Taryn knew that, because she loved her job, too.
Well, at least, she used to…
After sitting back in Canberra this past month, buried in policy, while dodging office politics, water-cooler gossip, and second-guessing her life choices, it had her wondering.
But these last two days—working with her dad, building something real, getting justice for her family and for the Stock Squad, it reminded her that this work could make a difference.
She understood now what Finn was doing.What it cost him, and why he kept going.And she was going to do her best to help him, too.
She just didn’t quite know how to tell him about the other part yet.BecauseHey Finn, quick sidebar—you knocked up the auditor and here’s my PowerPoint presentationprobably wasn’t the most professional way to start a debrief.
Honestly, if she could write it on a sticky note and slap it to his troopy’s dash, then run, she would.Which might suit someone like Finn Wilde.The most emotionally repressed man north of Alice Springs.You know, classic romance vibes.
Which was wild, considering she first came to Elsie Creek with a five-step plan for dismantling the Stock Squad—and somehow ended up emotionally free-falling for one of its most damaged members.
She had a plan for confronting Finn about the job.She had bullet points, strategy, and a tight little speech in her audit folder.
But this other thing?
She was absolutely, terrifyingly, winging it.
And she hated winging it.
Taryn shook her head like she could physically rattle the feelings loose.She straightened her jacket, mentally filing her baby-daddy dilemma underpanic later.
Because right now?Drew Bannon was on top of the pile, to finally give her cousin the justice she deserved.
