He shook his head, smirking to himself.Bloody town.Elsie Creek did something to a person.It took in the rough, the worn-out, the ones with nowhere else to go, and gave them something like a home in the dust.
Sure, it had its fair share of sticky beakers and serial gossipers, but it also had something rarer—real rural spirit.The kind where everyone knew everyone but still gave you space.And when things went belly up, you wouldn’t find a faster helping hand in the country.
Finn would never say it, but this town was different.Special.
This nowhere postcode?It was his—for now, at least.
The road out of town may be long, flat, and empty with a heated shimmering haze that met clear skies.But out here, there were no office doors to hide behind.No spin.No distractions in a land that remembered.And for those who didn’t respect it, the outback had a way of biting you back.
He rolled the window down, letting the hot wind whip through.It didn’t cool anything, but it cleared his head.
Taryn Hayes.
She was sharp.He’d give her that.She talked like she had the weight of the law behind her.And probably did.But she didn’t know this place or the people.She had no clue what the squad had already sacrificed just to be here.
He’d let her poke around, but he didn’t owe her any explanations, and he had no desire to be anywhere near her.
What sucked was that he had to.Didn’t mean he had to be nice about it.
Finn didn’t trust in justice anymore.Results drove him now, because if he wanted the Stock Squad to be permanent, he had to prove it mattered.And now he had to convince a stranger in a suit that this rough patch of country, and the people guarding it, were worth the fight.
That was the mission.
When Drew had first mentioned the audit, it hadn’t sat right.‘Just part of the process of making it permanent.Every government department gets audited,’ he’d said.
But it was what Drewdidn’t saythat Finn heard louder.And that was the Fed, currently taking up space in his office, had the power to shut them down.For good!
With the town fading behind him, Finn turned right, crossed the railway tracks, and hit the red dirt roads that made up most of the Territory.To his left, a small church sat on the hill, its graveyard tucked beside it, the place the locals always saidhad the best view of the outback.
He turned again, using the back roads to the stockyards back lots where the sheds sat half-hidden in the dried long-grass.The old ag yard was mostly abandoned now, just rusty fencing wire and busted drums baking in the sun.
Lydia, the stockyard’s manager, chose this place.She wasn’t comfortable being seen with Finn in the office anymore.Not now they were investigating her husband, GradyRedGalloway—the Stock Agent.
Finn parked behind a stack of empty lick tubs and killed the engine.He peered around.No one was in sight.
Good.
He ducked through the side gate, his boots crunching quietly on the gravel.The back shed’s dented door was halfway open.
Inside, the air was stale and thick with grease and old hay, but the temperature had dropped considerably.
Lydia sat on an upturned milk crate, clipboard in hand, sunglasses perched on the brim of her stockman’s hat.Calm on the surface, and worried like hell underneath.
Young Brodie leaned against a ride-on mower, arms folded, cap pulled low over his eyes.His jeans had more patches than denim, and the soles of his boots looked ready to part ways with the rest.But he had that lean, hungry look—like he’d do whatever it took just to be counted, and to do the right thing.
Finn recognised that in Brodie.Not just the attitude, but the weight behind the kid’s actions, reminding him of a younger version of himself—before life got complicated.Long before he’d learned that sometimes the people you trusted most were the ones who left the deepest scars.
‘Sorry I’m late.Had company,’ Finn muttered as he stepped into the shed.‘The Fed’s landed.’
‘Aren’t you a fed, too?’Brodie brows lifted.
A fair question.One Finn still hadn’t made peace with—not with his criminal record.
Lydia looked up, calm as ever.‘I heard you’re being audited?’
‘Yeah.My first one.’Happy anniversary to the Stock Squad.Well, since he’d set up shop in this town and started tapping on some shoulders to create a unique team.
‘I get audited all the time from different departments.All I do is give them a coffee, bring in a camping table and chair for their desk, and show them the files.’
