Chapter One

Five hundred thousand acres cost a lot of money. Money Samantha Singleton didn't have. According to the bank manager, money she couldn't borrow unless she somehow struck oil. Pulling her ute over to the side of the dust track that passed for a road, Sam gave herself time for the luxury of a good cry. Not a loud wailing cry, the silent stinging type that burnt her eyes with confusion and bitterness. Sometimes things just weren't fair. She knew that, she'd lived on the land long enough to know. But being betrayed by her own family was just too much.

Still, it was early days yet, it was definitely far too soon for waving a white flag, far too early in the day to give up altogether. Maybe as time passed, more positive prospects would … appear on the horizon. In the bush things could change in the blink of an eye. One good rain, one blinding flash of light, one bright idea and whole landscapes, whole lives changed shape. Plenty of time for a miracle yet.

It was ten o'clock in the morning and the temperature was already in the high thirties, by midday it would be anywhere between forty and forty-five degrees Celsius. Hot temperatures suited the outrage banked in the depths of her soul. Sam inhaled the dry, heated air through her nose. Feeling the dust clinging to her face, muddying her tears, she searched for calm in the scenery that always provided her escape.

Yellow-gold grasses glimmered and shook in the light. Red earth kissing a jacaranda blue sky invaded her soul with every breath, every time she took the care to pay attention. Trees and shrubs shone silver and white rather than green and brown, shocking the sensibilities of city folk but continually endearing themselves to locals for their ability to thrive in adversity.

Cattle moved in quiet convoys until a calf lost its mother and bellowed to be saved. And the horses, well, what horseman worth his salt wouldn't die to own a horse bred out here? Strong, clever, fast and devoted, she'd choose a horse over a human any day of the week. If every other farmer left the land, she'd stay anyway. Just for the horses.

Blistering air burnt the anger from her lungs and the tears from her cheeks. She wouldn't cry anymore. She would fix this, just the same as she always fixed everything else. She would sell her soul before she left this country.

All she had to do now was come up with a plan. Or a filthy rich relative, either would be good.

Her first thought had been to convince her parents to stay. But that would have been cruel. Selling up was best for them; unlike Samantha, they had never really fit out here, so despite her heart's reaction, she couldn't really begrudge them the decision. Where Sam had developed a rugged indifference to the trials of farm life, her parents were gentle by nature. They had somehow been convinced that life on the land was every Australian's dream. Certain that living the legend would be a dream, they made their move. After all, considering the tax benefits and government subsidies farmers received, it couldn't be that hard to make a living, right? WRONG!

Oblivious to her parents' struggles, Samantha had flourished like a weed in the barren environs, spending her days roaming at will around the farm and property.” Her mother, however, wilted quickly in the baking heat. Where Sam had listened to the old station hands, learning how to smell rain, days ahead of its arrival and watch the animals for clues about the health of soil, George Singleton, Sam's father, showed little affinity for the land.

Contrary to popular belief, an attachment to the land was not inherent in all Australians. Understanding the way this harsh country worked was not a matter of talent, it was a matter of work, knowledge and observation. Unlike her parents, Sam had all these things in spades. She could bend her back or turn her hand to anything. Every day she learnt something new from her unorthodox teachers, either about the land itself or the stock on it. Every day she sweated, swore and struggled with animals big enough to frighten most full grown men . Every day she'd learnt something from the animals too. That's how she'd turned the farm around. With a little luck, a lot of work and plenty of guts.

Frustration returned at the thought of someone else benefiting from all her efforts. Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her shirt, Sam climbed back into the superheated tin can otherwise known as her car. Ever present in her glove box, Panadol beckoned; Sam swallowed two without benefit of water. Her head always hurt after a good crying jag.

Sniffing back tears, she started the engine and pulled back onto the road. Spumes of red dirt shot out behind the car while heat haze rose like demons in front. She would not cry. She would do what she'd always done. She'd pull off the impossible. This time for herself.

Rory McKenna was out of his element. Not something that happened to him often, certainly not in an office. His return to Australia amid tremendous fanfare had created more publicity than he could ever have imagined possible. Some of the fuss was related to his latest venture, which he did not mind; in fact the positive press was well appreciated by both he and his team.

A great deal more fuss, however, was being made over him , his single status, his financial status, his familial status and probably the status of his status. Just yesterday he'd been shown an article in Australian Woman magazine listing him as one of Australia 's ten ‘sexiest singletons'. The media whirl did not take him off guard. Even being away for five years, deliberately choosing to go places where no one knew his name and fewer still cared about his family, he hadn't forgotten the game. Even though he'd never really understood the interest the press took in his life, he'd been the centre of attention often enough by now, that they rarely surprised him. What did catch him unawares was the state of the room in which he currently stood.

Rory had spent the last five years ‘learning his trade' overseas. From ranches in Montana to properties in Texas , he'd ranged the States and then moved on to studs in England , Europe and eventually the Middle East . He'd wanted to learn the farming business from the ground up, and he would never have been able to do that in Australia , where his family would have interfered. They may not have done it intentionally but they would have done it nonetheless.

It was his move away that had earned him enough kudos in the farming and business communities to lift his current proposal into the media spotlight. Now all he had to do was make it work. Bring the dream to reality. The pressure of a make or break deal, sat on the bridge of his nose like a lead weight, getting heavier by the hour. Feeling displaced in a workroom didn't help either his self-confidence or his headache.

In all his five years abroad, indeed in all his years alive, he had not seen a farm office as well organised, as technological or as up to date as this. He also noted that there was not a single trace of dust within the air-conditioned room, not something to be taken for granted when you considered the environment in which the house and office stood.

“This is a fantastic office you have,” Rory complimented the older couple who had spent the last hour or so showing him around the farm The Singletons did not seem particularly suited to the harsh climate of western Queensland . Small, pale eyed and relatively mousy they were not the epitome of the robust farming family they were not the epitome of the robust farming family he knew damn well had the only chance of surviving the lifestyle they'd chosen.' Rather than thriving on the challenge as many farmers were wont to do, this pair seemed… tired.

“Sam insisted on internet banking. The nearest branch of any kind is the post office an hours' drive away.”

Rory presumed that the ‘town' they referred to was Galabi. Consisting of two pubs, a hotel, a post office, single bank office, store, saddlery, Galabi was as far from being a town as he was from being a ‘sexy singleton'. That article still annoyed him. Anyone with half a brain would know that for a man, working on isolated farms with mostly male colleagues generally excluded any kind of sexiness at all, and almost enforced singledom. Not a situation that made him happy. Perhaps that's why the magazine rating had annoyed him so much, it had been a glaring reminder of what he'd missed in his determination to succeed. The first lesson his father had taught him about economics was the concept of ‘opportunity cost', for every opportunity taken, another was lost. The bigger the prize the greater the cost. His prize was huge, billions of dollars awaiting harvest, the cost had been his private life. He didn't have one, hadn't for some time. Some days he wondered where a different choice might have led, considered the path he'd left untravelled. Then he would remember the second lesson his father had taught him. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Brushing away irritation at the article and his melancholy mood as just more headache enhancers, he returned his thoughts to the nearby town. If anybody had ever proposed a night on the town, they'd have been in for a quiet night in Galabi. Painting the town red might have taken a little over two hours. The town's shortcomings as a business centre forced farmers to create their own solutions.

Rarely were problems solved so well as this.

While the Singleton's were awed by the wonder of internet banking, Rory thought the most impressive system in the office by far was the computerised feeding and watering controls and monitors At a glance, anyone could ascertain the feed or water levels in any of the outlying troughs. Malfunctions in the feeding systems could be spotted quickly and attended to as necessary. The ingenious system saved farm hands regular three or four day round trips to check. Such trips had been a matter of course in the past, as any troughs left empty for more than a day meant the death of valuable stock. Now the hands could be put to more productive use. The system might well be the only one of its kind in the whole country. Rory was totally impressed.

“Oh yes, and we forgot to show you the ‘cool green' room. We grow all our own fresh fruit and vegetables because what's available in the shops is disgusting. Normally we wouldn't have a cat's chance in a kennel of growing vegetables out here, it's too hot and everything bolts to seed. Sam came up with the idea of faking the right environment for the plants so we can encourage them to grow. We grow enough for everyone on the place. All the hands love it.”

“What about the energy required to keep it cool?” Rory dug for flaws in the seemingly infallible farmhand Sam.

“It's all solar. Doesn't cost a penny now and was well worth the initial set up cost. Sam figured it all out before we even started building, so the whole building was designed to be energy efficient. The walls are hay you know, cemented over and all. Lots of insulation in the walls so there's minimal energy required to keep it cool.”

This Sam guy was starting to sound more and more intriguing and slightly irritating in his perfection, Rory thought, very like someone he should have managing his property. It was certainly something to consider. “Is there anything else I should know about this Sam?” Originally he had been going to ask this couple to stay on for the next six months to manage the place and train replacements, but from the sound of it, the only person he needed was Sam.

“Well…” George Singleton rocked onto his boot heels, swapping surreptitious glances with his wife. “Sam does all the AI for the horses and the cows.” Rory raised eyebrows. It was not often that a regular farmhand was even interested in artificial insemination, much less actually practising it. Usually AI was left to a vet or someone with some expertise in the area.

“We've had great success breeding for drought tolerance in the cattle, but Sam's real passion is the horses. We've bred a wonderful line of young horses specifically for endurance events. An Arab sheikh bought the last three as green broke two-year-olds, although nothing Sam trains is ever really ‘green'.” Mr. Singleton finished his list of Sam's virtues.

“I'm really going to have to meet this Sam character,” Rory decided out loud. “Perhaps I could convince him to stay.”

Patricia Singleton's mouth opened as if to say something, but her husband nudged her into self-conscious silence. George Singleton continued to show him around the office while Rory thanked his lucky stars that they had not traipsed him back outside the blessedly cool house to the inferno beyond. In his time overseas he had forgotten the feel of the heat out here.

Last time he'd been this hot there'd been a woman involved.