Page 5

Sitting in the passenger seat of Stone’s ute as it rattled over the road’s dusty corrugations, Romy gripped the fragile cargo to her chest. It was the only thing stopping her from completely losing her schtick. She’d just quit her job.

She’d quit her job.

She had no job .

All the while Stone steered them down a red dirt road, behind the tiny outback town of Elsie Creek.

‘Can you imagine the nerve of him, trying to fire me.’

‘You quit first. I’m a witness.’ Stone casually rested one wrist on top of the steering wheel while leaning his elbow against the driver’s door. Considering where they’d been, he smelled good, too.

Yet her dilemma was clawing up her tight chest. ‘But Julian can ruin me. My reputation as a documentary filmmaker will be toast.’

‘I don’t see how. Julian brought you here on false pretences.’

‘But…’ She wriggled in her seat.

His hazel eyes dropped to the cooler in her lap. ‘Careful. Don’t roll them babies.’

‘I won’t. It’s like holding one of my mum’s cakes in her homemade cake boxes. Touch the sides and the icing gets squished, leaving me to wear guilt for a week.’

‘Birthday cakes?’

‘Anniversaries, christenings, family stuff.’

‘As a baker?’

‘No. It’s her hobby. Mum works with Dad in the shop.’

‘Cake shop?’

‘No.’ Again, she sat higher. ‘My parents own a picture-framing store.’ She expected the guy to be bored, but he seemed genuinely interested.

‘For pictures.’ He tossed a thumb back at her camera cases.

‘My family does high-end framing for museums, artists, photographers, and specific galleries and museum exhibitions.’ Her parents had a great reputation that she was about to tarnish as the daughter who got fired by her director.

‘That’d be handy for your line of work.’

She sighed, hugging the cooler in her lap. ‘Getting to meet all these famous photographers and artists, to see their amazing works while helping my parents, helped me find what I liked.’

‘Which is?’

‘Nature’s landscapes. Like today, seeing that crocodile lift her eyes so slowly, she was like this stealth submarine spying on you. It was priceless.’

Stone frowned at her. ‘Are you saying you saw that croc before I did?’

‘I didn’t know what I was seeing until you told me. She was right there, and I didn’t even see her, when I was staring straight at the water that didn’t even ripple around her. It looked like a log to me.’

‘They do that.’

‘It was brilliant.’ She smiled so widely her cheeks ached. ‘I can’t wait to go back out there?’

‘Aren’t you going to tell someone where you are? We’re about to get out of phone range.’

That’s when reality hit her.

She was sitting in the passenger seat of a dust-covered ute, with a guy she’d just met a few hours ago, while babysitting his wild crocodile eggs on her lap.

She’d never felt more adventurous than in this moment—especially when she was clueless as to where she was going, or who Stone was.

Sure, she’d been on plenty of adventures, but they came with strict itineraries because time was money in her industry. Yet, this was completely unscripted. And she was loving every second.

‘Just shoot a text to someone.’ Stone wasn’t being rude about it either. He was being practical.

‘You’re right.’ She dragged out her phone. With her arms resting on the lid of the cooler like a desk, she tapped out a text message:

Hey Mum,

I’m in Elsie Creek, running away with the crocodile wrangler. I had to quit that doco job coz the director was a dick.

‘You can’t send that to your mother. She might have one of them motherly panic attacks.’

‘Are you reading my text?’ Romy slapped her phone to her chest. ‘Do you normally read over people’s shoulders?’

Stone’s confident grin said it all. ‘I was seated next to this lady on a plane once, and I told her to slow down on her smut book.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Took her a while to register what I’d said to her. But she was good about it. She was reading the second in the series and handed me the first book she had in her bag. Juicy stuff.’

‘You read smut?’ She arched her eyebrows at the masculine crocodile wrangler.

‘It killed time on the plane. And when I shouted her a few vodkas, she gave me this list of the best smut books to read.’

‘What for?’

‘Training. Fun. Something to talk about.’

‘You’re a flirt, aren’t you?’ It was easy to picture someone like Stone swaggering up to some poor, unsuspecting female in the airport, which would be a second home to a pilot.

Of course, he’d give that cheeky smile, his white teeth showing off his deep tan, along with that mischievous twinkle in his striking hazel eyes.

Then, he’d effortlessly drop it into the conversation that he was a crocodile wrangler, while showing off his crocodile boots, he’d have the women drooling to learn his story.

Although Romy wasn’t drooling, she did want to know Stone’s story.

‘I bet you use your job to attract the women.’

‘Well, hell, I am a full-time sweetheart and part-time crocodile wrangler.’

That line was so well rehearsed and cheesy, she had to laugh.

She then retyped her text to her mother. ‘Do you have a business name, Stone?’

‘Nope. But you can give your mother my full name. Stone Kipp. K-I-P-P. And tell her I’m not only devilishly handsome, I’m also nice to the ladies, both wild and domesticated.’

Oh, brother. The laugh escaped her as she struggled to tap out a text:

Hi Mum.

I met a cheeky chopper pilot, who is more of an overpriced tour guide who helped me quit my job. Now I’m going to see a crocodile hatchery outside of Elsie Creek.

‘That’s good.’ He nodded at her, leaning closer, his musky cologne divine. ‘Just tell her you’ll be back in range by sunset. Which is around seven-ish this time of year. You’ll need to adjust for time zones, as we don’t do daylight savings in the Territory.’

‘Do you mind?’ Again, she held her phone to her chest. ‘Don’t you have any boundaries?’

Stone casually shrugged. ‘You climbed onto my front seat, not me.’

The ute was a rather small space. At least the air conditioner worked a treat. But there was no privacy, not with the cooler on her lap, but it was enough to finish her text:

I’ll explain my adventure when I get in range around seven. Xx.

She held up her phone. ‘Does this text meet with your approval?’

Stone’s confident grin grew as he read the message, then focused back on the dirt road. ‘I’m guessing that you’re used to people telling you what to do?’

Romy pressed send for her message. ‘In my job I’m always dealing with directors and producers who have a particular vision of what they want. So, yeah, I guess I am.’ They had the money and were paying for her service. But now she was jobless—even if it still felt like she was working.

Yet, she had rebelled enough to backchat a director, which was a big hard no in her field, and then quit.

What had she been thinking? After having spent years making her way through the filmmakers’ minefields to gain her own accomplishments and experience—she felt like she was limping away, with her professional reputation turning into dust.

‘What are you going to do now?’

Romy shrugged, staring out the window. ‘I brought the drones to film a documentary. Didn’t plan much beyond that.’

‘Well, lucky for you, crocs don’t care about employment cheques. You could still point a lens at something toothy.’

She shook her head. ‘Julian was on a deadline for a grant submission to help with filming and distribution costs. He had ten days to submit his work.’

‘Don’t you mean your work?’

Her brow ruffled at the guy.

‘You were the one doing the filming, you were there in the mud with me, ignoring the mosquitos and midges.’

‘They’ve never bothered me before. Not when there’s all this…

’ She pointed at the fence lines running on either side of the dusty road.

White cattle grazed on one side, as rows of mango trees stood on the other, with intermittent towers of mud made by ants adding an astonishing touch to this unique region.

To think, not even twenty minutes away stood a thick tropical jungle that was home to the man-eating crocodile. ‘This place is amazing.’

Stone gave a simple nod. No smart-arse comeback. Just a nod, as if he knew.

Well, he did live here, and the way he spoke about the mother crocodile’s welfare showed he cared, too.

‘Even though Julian flew you in to film a documentary, you must have done some research.’

‘I’ve never had to do it before. I just follow the director’s vision.

’ Boy, didn’t she blow that. ‘I only learned about this job two days ago, when Julian’s last cameraman pulled out.

He’d scored a great gig in South America.

’ While Romy thought this was her chance to prove herself on the meatier jobs.

How wrong had she been.

She sighed, leaning her head against the window. ‘I did a quick search about the Territory on the plane trip.’

‘So, really, you didn’t know what you were up against?’ He glanced at her like she was someone who easily got into trouble for lack of foresight.

‘I’m not a danger magnet.’

‘Did I say you were?’

‘Look, as the film crew, we get told what to do. We get itineraries slapped into our hands at the airports when we land, then whisked away to our first filming destination. Hey, where are we going?’ She laughed at the idiocy of her situation.

‘Sorry, I’m usually following someone else’s script.

’ But she wasn’t going to waste this opportunity of accompanying Stone to the crocodile farm.

‘I kind of got that bit.’ He gave her another side glance. It was hot. And so was his rugged profile that was tanned, fit, and studious. It was an unusual combination. But then again, Stone was her first crocodile wrangler.

‘We’re going to Saltscale Farm. The Rowntrees own it.’

‘And you’ll sell these eggs to them?’ She gently patted the cooler’s lid.

Stone nodded. ‘They’ll incubate them until they hatch, then check over their quality and sort them into areas.’

‘For handbags.’ She shook her head.