Page 60 of Outback Reunion

Yep—this was going down as the best night of her life, and if the grin on his face was anything to go by, he felt exactly the same.

Gabi knew that some people never experienced this kind of other-worldly connection with another person, so instead of focusing on the fact that their time together was but a moment, she decided to celebrate the fact that she had.

‘Thank you,’ Mark whispered into her hair as he held her close. ‘That was amazing.’

‘Thankyou,’ she echoed. ‘Although I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk tomorrow, never mind perform.’

He smirked smugly. ‘You want something to eat? Sex always makes me hungry.’

Gabi laughed. ‘Are you going to cook for me?’ She hadn’t thought it was possible for this night to get better.

‘Sure. If you want me to. Do you like chocolate cake?’

‘Who doesn’t like chocolate cake?’

‘Only psychopaths,’ he said with that toe-curling grin.

‘But doesn’t it take a while to make?’

‘Not the way I do it,’ he replied.

At that moment, that weird looking dog of his started whining from her crate on the verandah.

He chuckled. ‘Looks like our peace is over. I’ll let her out for a bit while we eat and then hopefully, she’ll go peacefully into her crate again for the night.’

Five minutes later, after they were both freshened up—Gabi had pulled her dress back over her head, but not bothered with her underwear, and Mark had put on his shorts—they let the dog inside and headed into the kitchen, the cute little mutt jumping in and out of their legs like a lunatic.

‘I’d like to say she’ll calm down in a moment,’ Mark said, ‘but I’m not a liar.’

She smiled as she bent down to pat her. ‘Hello, little one. What’s your name?’

‘Rookie,’ he said, grabbing two mugs out of a cupboard and placing them on the bench. ‘Rookie means a new player to the team in footy and I thought it would suit her as I was hoping she’d work with me on the farm, joining in with Dad’s dogs. More fool me. The sheep just laugh at her when I try to train her and she’s not into being told what to do at all.’

‘She does seem a weird choice for a sheepdog,’ Gabi admitted as Rookie finally stopped jumping and rolled over for a tummy rub.

Mark started collecting ingredients from the pantry. ‘She’s only about eighteen months old so I thought maybe she wasn’t too old to train but... sometimes I think I should have left her on the side of the road.’

‘You found her on the side of the road?’

He nodded as he took the milk out of the fridge. ‘Just out of town on the Brand Highway on my way to physio. She was darting back and forth across the road. It’s a miracle she hadn’t been hit. I meant to hand her over to the authorities to try and find the owner, but by the time we got to Geraldton, we’d kinda bonded.’

Gabi laughed as Rookie nipped playfully at her feet.

‘So instead, I took her to the vet to check for a microchip and when there wasn’t one, I bought her a collar and gave her a name. I’ve been regretting it ever since.’

‘Shh... she might hear you. Daddy doesn’t mean it, sweetheart.’ Mark clearly had a kind heart, and this story only made her like him more.

He glared at her. ‘Daddy? No. Just no. And I do mean it. That mongrel is a pain in my arse.’

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, gesturing to where he was spooning flour, sugar and cocoa into each of the mugs.

‘I’m making mug cakes.’ He added milk and a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t had one before?’

She shook her head. ‘There’s not really much room for baking in the caravan.’

‘But you have a microwave, right?’

‘Yes.’

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