Page 1 of Stockman's Sandstorm

One

Present Day

‘What sort of country is this?’ Harper Jamison stamped her foot in the red dust, gripping her phone. With no reception she couldn’t call for a car service, she couldn’t even google for instructions, and she couldn’t find a simple how-to instruction card in the car’s boot. She may as well have landed on the barren planet of Mars.

‘Augh.’ She kicked at the flat tyre that had stranded her in the middle of freaking nowhere. A land where sand and sediment had cemented together to create the scorched surface too close to the sun. With pockets of red dirt, scattered clusters of crumbly coffee rock, and towering ant mounds of dry mud, it was depressing for someone who’d never had an interest in the great outdoors.

Topping it off was an ocean of blue from a sky so big she felt like she was drowning under the smog-free atmosphere.

Only a single red dirt road ran down the middle of this whole lot of nothingness, making her feel like she was the only person to have survived a global apocalypse.

The scary thing was, this wasn’t climate change, this was just the outback on a good day.

But now her foot hurt from kicking the dumb tyre, and there was some irritating dust inside her heels. But Harper Jamison refused to surrender. Not with her family name, and who she worked for. There was no such thing as surrender—even if she was screwed.

Again, Harper raised her smartphone to the colossal sky, hoping to find some sort of mobile signal in this godforsaken dust bowl. Surely there had to be a satellite up there spying on her.

Sadly, no signal bars. Above her there was nothing but that sky.

Sighing, she used the back of her hand to wipe at the sweat beading on her forehead. She hated sweating. Hated being hot. Hated dirt in the shoes that were giving her blisters, because her favourite pair of shoes had been destroyed.

Determined, she dragged out all the tools she could find and laid them out neatly on a car mat she’d placed on the red, powdery dirt. She was clueless as to what tool went with what, let alone their names, or their purpose, but she had a brain that solved problems. She would figure it out.

She picked up a solid steel contraption, searching for a clue. A set of serial numbers ran down the side along with the word Jack.

Well, that was a start.

Harper knew a jack and a spare tyre were required, but what tool took the wheel off the car?

Removing her black suit jacket, she tossed it on the back seat where her suitcase rested. She clipped her hair into a tight bun, undid the top button of her white business shirt, and rolled up the cuffs of her sleeves, as she approached the boot of her car where the spare tyre lay taunting her.

Her tiny fingers gripped the fancy rim, but it was a struggle to pull it free from the tyre well. Determined, she gritted her teeth and dragged it out where it bounced with a thud in the dirt and rolled away from her.

‘Hey. Come back!’ She ran after it just as another vehicle approached, leading a trail of red dust to spread like a dusty firestorm across the sky.

She caught the runaway tyre, but the fear of being trapped in no-man’s-land had her skin breaking out in goose pimples. Licking the gritty dust from her lips, she’d never felt more exposed in her life, with only a bunch of towering ant mounds to hide behind.

You’d think all her years of training, and the years of living under a constant level-four terrorism threat, would count for something, but here she went and did this to herself. Silly girl.

Those AFP Specialist Protective Service guys would roll their eyes if they could see her now. But, then again, if they were here, they’d gallantly change the tyre, while she kept working inside the air-conditioned car, well away from the burning sun.

But this trip had nothing to do with her job. And this wasn’t a foreign country. Even though this was her first trip to the Northern Territory, it was nice to be back home in Australia.

The crusty white Hilux ute rolled to a stop, allowing its trail of dust to wash over her like a mini sandstorm. The dust was in her sinuses and the grit was in her teeth, with a fine layer spread across her skin like sandpaper. It was awful.

But that wasn’t her biggest concern—it was the type of vehicle that sent a shiver of fear washing over her. It was the same style the villains drove in those vintage outback horror movies that forced you to never leave suburbia again.

Harper let the tyre drop with a heavy thud, stepping back from the ute as her heart hammered in her chest.

The engine coughed as if it was about to stall, and the window wound down to reveal a smiling, tanned, and gloriously beautiful cowboy.

Harper rubbed her eyes. She had to be hallucinating. Whatever her fearful, primal brain had been expecting it wasn’t a man in a wide-brimmed hat that came with an even wider smile.

‘Are you going walkabout with that tyre?’

‘I’m what?’ Harper struggled to pick up the tyre. ‘Aw, come on.’ Her white shirt was now smeared with black tyre marks and red dirt, even some of the dust was now rubbing inside her bra as if she’d nosedived to bathe in the dust.

The driver’s door of the ute creaked open.

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