steps, glancing over her shoulder to find him staring at her backside. She reached for the door of the truck, but he rested his hand on hers. “That’s the driver’s side, sweetheart,” he said.
“Sorry,” Payton murmured, the heat from his touch sending a tingle up her arm. He followed her around to the passenger side and helped her in, resting his hand on the small of her back as she climbed up into her seat.
When he slid in behind the wheel, he looked over at her. “Where to?”
“I—I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“You’re giving up your life of crime?” His dark brow arched. “You must have somewhere to go. Everyone is going somewhere.”
“Not me,” Payton said. “Since I’m out of cash, I can’t afford to go anywhere. I need to find a job.”
He nodded, then grinned. “All right. Well, I think I know a place that might need some help. As long as you’re willing to work hard. What can you do?”
“Anything.”
“The local brothel likes to hire talented girls. I could take you over there.”
She laughed softly when she saw the smile curling his lips. He had a way of speaking, his accent broad and his voice deep, that made it hard to tell when he was teasing. “Very funny.”
“You think I’m kidding? Bilbarra has a legal house of ill repute. And it stays quite busy since women are in short supply in the outback. You could make a decent wage if you were so inclined.”
“I’m better with horses than I am with men,” Payton said.
“Horses? Well, that sounds promising.” He turned the SUV around and headed out of town on the dusty main street. As they drove, the landscape became dry and desolate, an endless vista of…nothing. This was the outback, Payton mused. And she was driving right into the middle of it with a complete stranger. “Where are we going?”
“To my place,” he said.
She swallowed hard. So much for acting on instinct. “Your—your place?” Had she just made the biggest mistake of her life? He could drive them out into the middle of nowhere, chain her up and keep her as his sex slave for years and no one would ever know. But then Angus had seen them leave together and if Angus trusted this man with her safety, maybe she could, too. The idea of serving as Brody’s sex slave rolled around in her mind for a moment before she shook herself. The thought was intriguing. In truth, any thought that involved Brody’s naked body seemed to stick in her head.
“It’s my family’s place,” he explained. “We have a cattle station and we raise horses, too.”
“Horses!” she cried. “I’m good with horses. I can groom them and muck out the stalls and feed them….”
“Good,” he said. “Then I’m sure we’ll have a spot for you.” He reached above the visor and pulled out a CD, then popped it into the player in the dash.
Payton watched the countryside pass as they bumped along the dirt roads. Compared to the beautiful scenery on the coast with its lush greenery and ocean views, the outback was a harsh and unforgiving environment. Only occasionally did she see signs of human habitation—a distant house or a windmill on the horizon.
When she wasn’t staring out the window, Payton attempted a careful study of the man beside her. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, humming along with the AC/DC songs as he navigated around bumps and potholes.
After an hour of bouncing over rutted roads, the orange juice Payton had gulped down for breakfast had worked its way through her body. “Will it be much farther?” she asked.
“Another half hour,” he said.
“Is there a gas station coming up? Maybe a convenience store? Anyplace with a ladies’ room?”
Brody pulled the truck to a stop, then pointed out the window. “There’s a nice little shrub over there. For privacy.” He shrugged. “There isn’t a ladies’ room between here and the station.”
Reluctantly, Payton opened the door. “Don’t watch,” she said.
“I won’t. And if a giant lizard comes wandering by, you just scoot back to the truck flat out.”
Payton closed the door. “I can wait.”
“The road only gets bumpier,” he warned. “I’ll keep an eye peeled. If I see anything approaching, I’ll hit the horn.”
Payton hopped out of the truck and walked gingerly through the scrub to the closest bush. It looked more like tumbleweed than a living plant, but it provided enough cover for her modesty.
She was a long way from home, a long way from marble bathrooms with gold-plated fixtures and expensive French towels. But for the first time in her life, she was in charge of her own destiny. She no longer had to please her parents, or anyone else for that matter. And though she didn’t know where she’d be tomorrow or what she’d doing next week, Payton didn’t care. Right now, life was one big adventure. And her traveling companion made the adventure a whole lot more interesting.
BRODY LEANED BACK against the front fender of the Land Rover as he stared out at the horizon, taking a long drink from a bottle of water he’d pulled from the Esky in the backseat. He’d been living in the civilized part of Oz for so long that he’d forgotten just how desolate the outback was.
He and his mother had left when he was fourteen. And though he’d returned for his school holidays, he was always anxious to leave again. Now, here he was, back where he started.
He heard footsteps in the gravel at the edge of the road and he turned around as Payton approached, bracing his elbows on the hood of the SUV. “Feel better?”
“Much,” she said. She turned slowly, taking in the view. “It’s beautiful in a rugged, bleak kind of way. You can breathe out here. The air is so clean.”
“Yeah, we have plenty of clean air in Queensland. And we’re a big producer of dust. Mozzies and blowies, too.” She gave him an odd look. “Mosquitoes and blow flies.” He offered her the bottle of water. “And where do you come from?”
She took a long drink of water, then smiled. “The East Coast. Connecticut.”
“Is that near New York?”
She nodded. “Yes. Very near. My father works in Manhattan. I went to college at Columbia.”
“So you’re smart, then?” Smart and beautiful. A deadly combination and one he hadn’t really appreciated until now. He’d never considered a brilliant mind an important part of sexual attraction. But as much as he wanted to touch her and kiss her, he also wanted to talk to her. Who was this woman? What was she doing here with him?
“I did my master’s thesis on the history of anatomical study in seventeenth-century Dutch artists. I’m not sure how smart that makes me.” She glanced around. “Especially out here. Unless you have an art museum filled with the works of Vermeer and Rembrandt.”
“We do,” he teased. “It’s right behind the stables. Doesn’t get a lot of visitors, though.” Brody drank the last of the water. “So how does a sheila like you end up skint in a place like Bilbarra?”
“Skint?”
“No money.”
“Broke,” she said. “Flat broke. Probably because I didn’t have a lot to start with.” She paused. “I’m just a poor grad student trying to see a bit of the world.”
“There’s not a lot to see in the outback,” he said.
“You don’t think the scenery out here is spectacular?” Payton asked, pointing to a low range of hills in the distance. “It’s