In Touch (Play On #1) (23 page)
Read In Touch (Play On #1) Online
Authors: Cd Brennan
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Having traveled and lived all over the world, Cd Brennan now enjoys reliving her glory days by writing about them. Feisty heroines with wanderlust or sexy rugby heroes who breathe passion for more than just the sport.
Aussie/Yankee twined, Cd is now settled in Michigan with a rugby player of her own and two wee sons who are
still
adapting to the snow. A full-time editor and mum, her and her hubby still dream of starting up a buffalo farm. And maybe some chickens and pigs, too. She loves rugby, traveling, and all things from the 80s.
Doesn’t watch TV so don’t chat to her about that, but she loves to hear from readers about anything else! Perhaps some cooking suggestions? She’s desperate in the kitchen! Find her on loads of your favorite places.
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Check out Cd Brennan’s first book of her Love Where You Roam series.
Watershed
She left home to find herself...and found love along the way.
Maggie isn't looking for love on her backpacking trip through Australia. She's got enough man troubles back in Ireland. Australia is her escape, a place of adventure where she can create memories to last a lifetime.
But some memories won't be left behind.
Gray is ready to quit hiring backpackers to help with the work on his remote Queensland cattle station when Maggie turns up. She's just passing through, but the connection they forge during the long nights herding cattle won't be so easily cast aside.
CONTENT WARNING: A strong-willed Irish heroine, a stubborn Australian hero, and oceans of difference to bridge for love.
Maggie
Maggie swatted the flies away from her face. The late afternoon heat was intense, sweat spots forming on her tank top. Her feet were dusty from pacing the side of the road in her flip-flops, and she’d left her big sun hat on the bus, long gone, and no sign of Josephine. For that matter, a single car hadn’t passed for the twenty minutes she’d been waiting.
Her fair skin burned under the hot Australian sun. Although she had layered on the sunscreen, her skin hadn’t seen this much exposure in the twenty-six years of her life. She reconsidered sheltering under a small clump of bush off the side of the road. Getting to the shade meant digging her trainers from her backpack, and that meant spilling the guts of her belongings onto the side of the Capricorn Highway to find them. It exhausted her thinking about it.
She raised her hand, shielding her eyes from the light, squinting in the direction she imagined Josephine would come. She was somewhere west of Emerald. What would she do if Josephine didn’t turn up? She didn’t even have any water left.
Heat simmered over the black bitumen. The terrain was completely different than what she’d known in Ireland, where there was an amorphous quality to the landscape. Green fields flowed into green trees, fitting against the gray buildings and sky. Here, everything was so--defined. There was the sky and the land and the one tree in the middle of a paddock a person couldn’t help but notice.
Now everything looked a dull brown, not how Georgina had described it. Maggie did recognize, however, the gum trees she had raved about.
“The bush is a beautiful place, not many see it that way. They aren’t looking at it right. The gum trees--that’s the eucalyptus, you know--set a wonderful fabric to the land with their leaves full of texture and their white bark contrasting against the red soil.” Georgina had become animated, waving her hand in front of her like she was painting a picture. “And when it rains, everything turns green in front of your eyes and the rain powers the rivers along beds that were moments before nothing more than rock and weed.”
Maggie agreed on the rock and weed. It was everywhere. Long grasses bordered the road and scattered over the land. There were plenty of short, scrub-like bushes, and the cone-shaped statues of red dirt that speckled the canvas must be termite mounds.
Sweat from her forehead settled in the corner of her eye and stung.
Feckin’ great.
She swiveled around to look the other direction and caught a glint of metal off the sun.
Someone was coming! Her stomach lurched. As it approached, she watched the mirage change to an old beatup white truck with a metal tray in the back. It had a black snorkel and a large radio antenna on the bull bar.
Please, Mary, let it be Josephine.
What if Georgina hadn’t been able to ring her daughter? What if they didn’t stop? What if they did and the person in the truck was some nutter like the guy in
Wolf Creek
?
Why had she even watched that movie before she came to Australia? She hadn’t been able to sleep for four days after she’d seen the horror flick about a remote bushman who helped lost or stranded tourists by towing them back to his camp in the middle of nowhere, only to drug their drinking water and have his way with them. So. Very. Disturbing.
Maggie half raised her arm to wave the driver down, but the vehicle had started slowing. She walked toward the truck as it came to a stop. A dog in the back lunged at its chain and barked as she cautiously approached the window.
“No worries, she’s friendly,” she heard.
She leaned into the window. Not a fat balding bushman, thank jaysus, but her breath caught.
Instead, the most handsomely rugged man looked back at her. His mussed hair was light brown with natural highlights any girl in Ireland would envy. A strong jaw defined a weathered face with deep lines webbed around golden-brown eyes, as if he spent much of his time laughing.
Strong, slender fingers played with the hat on the seat next to him. Even the man’s thumb joints were perfect. He wore faded jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, cuffed to the elbows. If they traveled well, Maggie reckoned this was Australia’s best export. She’d heard stories from the other girls on the bus tour about these country men, built strong and fine. Knew how to fix a truck, muster cattle and make a fancy dinner over a camp stove. Supposedly, real gentleman.
Unfortunately, he wore a scowl that darkened his lovely features. Was he scowling at her? What the hell for? Maybe she looked worse than she felt.
Suddenly, blood rushed to her head and she grabbed the door to keep her balance. She tried to speak but everything went black.
Watershed
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