Scandalous Secrets. Michelle Douglas

two hours tops to reach Malley’s, but it was already four in the afternoon and the road ahead looked like an obstacle course.

      ‘If worst comes to worst we can sleep in the car,’ she told Samson. ‘And we’re getting used to worst, right?’

      Samson whined again but Penny didn’t. The time for whining was over.

      ‘Malley’s Corner, here I come,’ she muttered. ‘Floods or not, I’m never turning back.’

      * * *

      Matt Fraser was a man in control. He didn’t depend on luck. Early in life, luck had played him a sour hand and he hadn’t trusted in it since.

      When he was twelve, Matt’s mother had taken a job as a farmer’s housekeeper. For Matt, who’d spent his young life tugged from one emotional disaster to another, the farm had seemed heaven and farming had been his life ever since. With only one—admittedly major—hiccup to impede his progress he’d done spectacularly well, but here was another hiccup and it was a big one. He was staring out from his veranda at his massive shearing shed. It was set up for a five a.m. start. His team of crack shearers was ready but his planning had let him down.

      He needed to break the news soon, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

      Hiring gun shearers was half the trick to success in this business. Over the years Matt had worked hard to make sure he had everything in place to attract the best, and he’d succeeded.

      But this afternoon’s phone call had floored him.

      ‘Sorry, Matt, can’t do. The water’s already cut the Innawarra Track to your north and they’re saying the floodwaters will cut you off from the south by tomorrow. You want to hire me a helicopter? It’s the only alternative.’

      A helicopter would cut into his profits from the wool clip but that wouldn’t bother him. It was keeping his shearers happy that was the problem. No matter whose fault it was, an unhappy shed meant he’d slip down the shearers’ roster next year. He’d be stuck with a winter shear rather than the spring shears that kept his flocks in such great shape.

      So he needed a chopper, but there were none for hire. The flooding up north had all available helicopters either hauling idiots out of floodwater or, more mundanely, dropping feed to stranded stock.

      He should go and tell them now, he thought.

      He’d cop a riot.

      He had to tell them some time.

      Dinner was easy. They had to provide their own. It was only at first smoko tomorrow that the proverbial would hit the fan.

      ‘They might as well sleep in ignorance,’ he muttered and headed out the back of the sheds to find his horse. Nugget didn’t care about shearing and shearing shed politics. His two kelpies, Reg and Bluey, flew out from under the house the moment they heard the clink of his riding gear. They didn’t care either.

      And, for the moment, neither did Matt.

      ‘Courage to change the things that can be changed, strength to accept those things that can’t be changed and the wisdom to know the difference...’ It was a good mantra. He couldn’t hire a chopper. Shearing would be a surly, ill-tempered disaster but it was tomorrow’s worry.

      For now he led Nugget out of the home paddock and whistled the dogs to follow.

      He might be in trouble but for now he had every intention of forgetting about it.

      * * *

      She was in so much trouble.

      ‘You’d think if there were stones at the bottom of one creek there’d be stones at the bottom of every creek.’ She was standing on the far side of the second creek crossing. Samson was still in the car.

      Her car was in the middle of the creek.

      It wasn’t deep. She’d checked. Once more she’d climbed out of the car and waded through, and it was no deeper than the last.

      What she hadn’t figured was that the bottom of this section of the creek was soft, loose sand. Sand that sucked a girl’s tyres down.

      Was it her imagination or was the water rising?

      She’d checked the important things a girl should know before coming out here—like telephone reception. It was lousy so she’d spent serious money fitting herself out with a satellite phone, but who could she ring? Her father? Dad, come and get me out of a river. He’d swear at her, tell her she was useless and tell his assistant to organize a chopper to bring her home.

      That assistant would probably be Brett.

      She’d rather burn in hell.

      So who? Her friends?

      They’d think it was a blast, a joke to be bruited all over the Internet. Penelope Hindmarsh-Firth, indulged daughter of a billionaire, stuck in the outback in her new pink car. A broken engagement. A scandal. Her first ever decision to revolt.

      There wasn’t one she would trust not to sell the story to the media.

      Her new employer?

      She’d tried to sound competent in her phone interview. Maybe it would come to that, but he’d need to come by truck and no truck could reach her by dark.

      Aargh.

      Samson was watching from the car, whimpering as the water definitely rose.

      ‘Okay,’ she said wearily. ‘I didn’t much like this car anyway. We have lots of supplies. I have half a kitchen worth of cooking gear and specialist ingredients in those boxes. Let’s get everything unloaded, including you. If no one comes before the car goes under I guess we’re camping here while my father’s engagement gift floats down the river.’

      * * *

      There was a car in the middle of the creek.

      A pink car. A tiny sports car. Cute.

      Wet. Getting closer to being swept away by the minute.

      Of all the dumb...

      There was a woman heaving boxes from some sort of luggage rack she’d rigged onto the back. She was hauling them to safety.

      A little dog was watching from the riverbank, yapping with anxiety.

      Matt reined to a halt and stared incredulously. Reg and Bluey stopped too, quivering with shock, and then hurled themselves down towards what Matt thought must surely be a hallucination. A poodle? They’d never seen such a thing.

      The woman in the water turned and saw the two dogs, then ran, trying to launch herself between the killer dogs and her pooch.

      She was little and blonde, and her curls twisted to her shoulders. She was wearing a short denim skirt, a bright pink blouse and oversized pink earrings. She was nicely curved—very nicely curved.

      Her sunglasses were propped on her head. She looked as if she was dressed for sipping Chardonnay at some beachside café.

      She reached the bank, slipped in the soft sand and her crate fell out of her hands.

      A teapot fell out and rolled into the water.

      ‘Samson!’ She hauled herself to her feet, yelling to her poodle, but Reg and Bluey had reached their target.

      Matt was too stunned to call them off, but there was no need. His dogs weren’t vicious. This small mutt must look like a lone sheep, needing to be returned to the flock. Rounding up stray sheep was what his dogs did best.

      But Matt could almost see what they were thinking as they reached the white bit of fluff, skidded to a halt and started the universal sniffing of both ends. It looks like a sheep but...what...?

      He grinned. The troubles of the day took a back seat for the moment and he nudged Nugget forward.

      There wasn’t a thing he could do about his shearing problems. What he needed was distraction, and this looked just what the