High Stakes Bride Read Free Page B

check the underside of the tractor. It didn’t take a diesel mechanic to diagnose what was wrong with the ancient Ferguson—affectionately labeled the Dinosaur. The oil sump was leaking.
    Muttering beneath her breath, she straightened and walked to the small trailer coupled to the rear of the tractor and extracted a new bolt with its accompanying nut and washer from the “breakdown” toolbox. Shoving the wisp of hair behind her ear, she grabbed a wrench, a socket and a rag streaked with oil from the last breakdown, crawled beneath the Dinosaur and turned on her back.
    For the third time in a month the same bolt had worked loose, jolted out by the bone-shaking ruts and potholes of Galbraith Station’s fast-disintegrating stock roads. Each time she’d gone into town and bought a slightly larger bolt, the metal of the sump, warped with constant flexing and worn thin by extreme age, had disintegrated enough that the bolt had shaken loose. The sump itself was about to expire, but because the tractor was so old, obtaining another part would be close to impossible. She had two options: get an engineer to manufacture a part, which would cost a small fortune, or buy a new tractor, which would cost more money than she could raise this year—or the next.
    Oil slid down the backs of her hands and her wrists as she pushed the sump back into place and lined up the bolt holes. With a deft movement, she slipped the bolt through and held it in place as she awkwardly reached around the solid-steel chassis to slide the washer and the nut onto the shaft of the bolt, straining until the thread caught and the nut wound smoothly on.
    Clamping the wrench around the nut to hold it still, she began the delicate process of tightening the bolt, a quarter turn at a time with the socket in the confined space, careful not to stress the tired metal by screwing the bolt in too tightly. Long seconds later, arms aching, she loosened off the wrench and the socket, set the tools down in the dust and simply lay in the shadows beneath the tractor, the tautness of her muscles turning to liquid as she let herself go boneless.
    She was hot, sweaty and tired, and every part of her ached. The summer had been the driest on record, and she’d been up since before dawn moving stock and checking water troughs. When she’d finished her morning round, she’d showered, changed and opened her physiotherapy practice, which occupied the old shearers’ quarters. Her last appointment had been at three, after which she’d started loading hay onto the trailer and feeding out.
    Even moving the cattle every day, rotating them from field to field, and grazing what was known as the “long acre”—the roadside grass—didn’t allow her paddocks time to recover. Without rain, the grass couldn’t grow, and there simply wasn’t enough feed. She was already using her winter supply; when that was gone she would have to either start buying in feed she couldn’t afford, or sell the entire herd, including the breeding cows.
    She’d done the figures for selling early, and they weren’t good. The cattle would be underweight, and the market would be low. The worst-case scenario was that she wouldn’t make enough to cover the balloon payment that was due on the mortgage. If that happened, her half-brother, David, would lose the farm and his home.
    The drought had already done its damage, and every day it continued the damage increased. Now, regardless of when it rained, they had already sustained a loss; it was only the magnitude of the loss that was in question.
    Letting out a breath, she let her lids drift closed. She wouldn’t sleep, but she was tired enough that the iron-hard dirt felt as soft as a feather bed. Slowly, inner tension seeped away, and her breathing evened out.
    Â 
    A small sound disturbed the silence. Liquid trickled down her arm. Her lids flickered.
    Oil.
    The Dinosaur was still