Page 154 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

Harper’s stomach lurched. A ‘roo?Kangaroo?

She struggled with her seat belt then pushed open her door and tumbled out, dirt puffing up around her wrists in tiny clouds as her hands hit the road. Damn, her head swam.

“Nope.” The cowboy’s voice came from the front of the ute. “It’s gone. Must have only clipped the bugger.”

Harper pushed herself to her feet, massaging her neck where the seat belt had rubbed against it. Moving to where Ronnie stood scratching the back of his head, she turned her attention to the front of the ute. “Holy crap!”

Ronnie chuckled. “Yeah, they’ll do some damage, the big reds. I’m guessin’ that’s what we hit.”

Harper gaped at the twisted bull bar and crumpled right fender. “It got away? The truck looks like that and it got away? How bigisa big red?” She swung around to stare at him, her stomach rolling. “Is it going to be okay?”

Ronnie took off his hat, swiped at his forehead with his arm and returned his hat to his head. “It’s nowhere around, which means it’s fine. I’ll let one of the hands know when we get back to Farpoint to come take a look, just in case.”

Harper’s stomach rolled some more. “In case what?”

The cowboy shrugged. “In case it hasn’t got as far as we think and needs to be put down.”

“Oh God.”

“Welcome to the Outback, miss. Let’s go. Mrs. Sullivan is waitin’ for you and she’ll have my arse if I take too long gettin’ you there.”

He turned and climbed back into the driver’s seat, giving her an expectant look from behind the wheel.

Harper ran a slow inspection over the arid, flat terrain surrounding them; red dirt, a few ash-gray eucalyptus trees, red dirt, some kind of spiky straw grass and red dirt. Not a kangaroo to be seen.

She frowned, unable to comprehend it. What kind of animal got up and bounced away from being hit by a goddamn pickup? Sorry,ute? What kind of animals did they breed in this part of the world?

Big ones, apparently.

With one last futile scan for a wounded kangaroo ofanycolor, she made her way back to the passenger seat.

“Wrong side, miss.” Ronnie looked up at her from behind the steering wheel.

Biting back a sigh, Harper stomped her way from the right side of the ute to the left, yanked open the door and dropped into the seat, choking on the cloud of dust that billowed up around her the second her butt hit the vinyl. This wassonot what she had expected when booking her flight.

Welcome to Oz, Harper Kirsten Shaw. Are you ready to live in Opposite Land?

* * *

Keith Munroe climbed down from his horse, wiped his hands on his arse and fixed his hat. He was hot, sweaty, stinky and in a bad mood. Not good for the beginning of the weekend.

“I’m going to bloody well thump the shit out of Big Mac when he gets back here.”

Marc Thompson climbed down from his own horse, a young stallion called Kilowatt. “Why? ’Cause you were stupid enough to believe him when he told you a cow was stuck in the old eastern-side billabong? Or becausehecollected the American instead of us?”

Keith snorted, giving Whippet a pat on her neck before walking her into the stable. “Both. But mainly the first. Bloody bastard.”

“Yeah, well, he pulled the wool over my eyes too.” Marc followed, leading Kilowatt into his pen. The stallion snorted, nudging Marc in the shoulder before giving Whippet a baleful glare.

Settling Whippet in her pen, Keith began to hose her down. “You think Big Mac sent us off on a wild goose chase to get back at us for the YouTube clip?”

Marc raised his head from Kilowatt’s saddle. “Yeah, reckon so. You think he’s going to develop a sense of humor one of these days?”

Keith stroked Whippet’s neck. “Nope. Although this one, I kinda understand. There’s not many blokes who want footage on the ’net for the whole world to see of them singing the national anthem while pissed as a fart, wearing nothing but an Australian flag around their shoulders. He might have a point this time.”

Marc’s face—deeply tanned by a lifetime working in the Outback sun—twisted into a mask of mock dismay. “Oi, there’s footage of me doing the exact same thing and you don’t seemepitching a fit about it, do you?”

Keith rolled his eyes as he hung up Whippet’s bridle. “That’s because you were the one who uploaded it, dickhead. And, unlike Ronnie, you’re hung like a bloody horse.”