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  With a secret grin at him, Josie tried to twist away. ‘Don’t do that with the child here,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m coming to get you and I’m going to gobble you all up until you disappear.’ Brianna’s voice was loud and she hurtled towards them.

  Josie and Russell pretended to start to run away, then suddenly turned and ran back to Brianna. ‘We’re going to get you!’ Russell cried, sweeping her up in his arms, before giving her a big hug and kiss on the cheek.

  Brianna squealed in delight and Josie laughed.

  Russell looked at the two loves of his life and reflected that, really, everything couldn’t be more perfect.

  ‘You’re the one I’ve been looking for,’ said Russell as he caught the last lamb and put it in the cradle.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Josie said, over Brianna’s crying. She squeezed the marker into the ear of the lamb, then shoved the needle into its cheek and swung the cradle around. ‘Bri, darling, can you stop crying just for a moment?’

  Her pleading only made Brianna cry harder.

  ‘She’s cold and needs to go home,’ Russell said, climbing over the fence and going to the pram. Unclipping the straps, he scooped Brianna up and she rewarded him by arching her back and letting out another howl.

  ‘I know.’ Josie put the last ear tag in, placed a rubber ring around the testicles and swung the cradle so the lamb fell onto the ground. It jumped up and shook its head, trying to get rid of the extra weight it wasn’t used to, then sprang forward towards the mob with a loud bleat.

  ‘Not much longer.’ Russell patted Brianna’s back and jiggled up and down, trying to pacify her. ‘God, you’ve got a good set of lungs, kiddo.’

  Josie picked up her bag and wheeled the pram over to the ute. ‘I’m outta here!’ she said with a grin. ‘You’ll be okay to get these out?’

  ‘I’ve got Peppy the wonder dog,’ he answered, handing Brianna over to Josie. ‘Look at her.’ He pointed to the dog under the ute, who was watching every movement. ‘She’s just waiting for me to give the word.’

  ‘At least she’s quiet!’ Josie had managed to get Brianna to stop crying and maneuvered her into the car seat. ‘This one will be asleep before we make the front gate, I reckon.’ She kissed Brianna’s forehead and handed her a toy puppy before closing the door.

  ‘You going to be okay?’ Russell asked as he leaned in, making sure the ute was out of gear as she started the engine and turned on the heater.

  Josie rested her head tiredly against his shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine. Check the ewes, go home, start the fire and get this one into a bath. That’s my list of jobs.’

  ‘Don’t forget to lock the doors. I know the travellers are gone, but I’ll feel better if I know you’re locked inside. And I’ll grab those few mallee roots I picked up this morning so you can start the fire. They’re still wet so make sure you give them a good dosing with diesel.’ He picked up an armful and threw them in the back of her ute. ‘Hopefully, if they burn for long enough, they’ll catch alight. I meant to get wood yesterday before it rained, but I got caught up with that heifer who was calving.’

  Josie smiled coyly and looked up at him from under her lashes. He could almost guess what she was about to say.

  ‘It’ll be warmer in bed, cuddled up to me.’

  Yep, he’d nearly been right. With a glance over at Brianna, he lowered his voice. ‘I thought you were going to say, “It’ll be warmer in bed, without any clothes on, cuddled up to me.”’ A cold night with rain hitting the tin roof was the perfect ambiance for love-making. Rain and thoughts of Josie turned him on.

  ‘That’s what you were wishing I was going to say! Anyway, if I’m going to check these ewes, I’d better get going. See you at home.’

  ‘See you, babe.’ He gave her a tap on her bum as she walked away.

  Russell threw the spanner into the back of the ute, gave Peppy a pat and sighed loudly before stretching his back. He was tired, but probably not as tired as Josie was feeling tonight. Walking around the trailer he tugged at the ropes to make sure the cradle was tied on tightly, then got into his ute and started it.

  The chilly sea mist was sweeping up from the coast and beginning to settle on his shoulders. It was time to get out of the cold to the warmth of the heater. He hoped Josie had managed to get the fire going with the few mallee roots he’d sent back home with her. Tonight was definitely a fire night. Perhaps they could lie in front of the flames like they used to, before Brianna was born. Imagining Josie’s body in the amber light gave him twirls of desire. Once he got home, he decided, he would take care of the cooking so Josie could put her feet up. He would spoil her; remind her she was appreciated and loved.

  The old, rusty ute rattled to life and a blast of cold air came from the vent. He swore and flicked it up so the air wasn’t blowing on him until it warmed.

  The moonlight bathed the landscape in an eerie white light and he could see the shadows of the trees lengthening across the paddocks. The wind, which had picked up, tossed their leaves and bent their branches towards the ground.

  He decided to head back to the swamp and make sure the hippies hadn’t returned, just to be on the safe side. It was a horrible night for camping out anyway, so he was confident they wouldn’t be there.

  As he arrived at the swamp, he swung the ute in a wide arc, so the lights would pick up any vehicle or person, but to his relief the area was empty. He stopped and took out his torch from the glovebox, then walked around the area, flashing it from side to side. He was still curious as to why they’d turned up at his swamp and how they’d known about it.

  A shiver ran through him and he glanced around. The moon slid behind a cloud, plunging the night into blackness. There was a low moan from behind him and, with his heart thumping, Russell turned very slowly, flashing the torch in front of him.

  Nothing.

  Without moving anything but his hand, he moved the torch’s beam around. There was still nothing.

  The low moan sounded again and he realised it was the wind blowing around the hollow steel pipe he’d belted into the swamp to act as an anchor for their yabby nets.

  He let out a breath in relief. ‘You idiot,’ he said to himself, then, without stopping to think any more, he put his head down and ran back towards the ute. Giving Peppy another pat as he climbed in, he started the engine and swung it towards home.

  As he drove, he tried to work out what looked different about the dark landscape. There was something which didn’t look quite right. He frowned as his eyes rested on where the lights from the house should be. The area was dark.

  Josie and Brianna should have been home a couple of hours ago.

  Pressing his foot down on the accelerator he encouraged the Land Rover a little faster.

  Reaching the shed, which was doubling as their house, Russell looked at the dark outline of the building, a slight feeling of apprehension trickled through him. It looked cold and abandoned. Josie would usually have the generator going and the lights would be shining through the gaps in the tin. The aroma of dinner cooking would carry him inside.

  Not tonight.

  He climbed out of the ute and slammed the door, listening to the dogs as they set off a round of barking. A wet nose touched his hand and he jumped. Looking down he saw his old retired dog, Tully, at his heel.

  ‘Hey, why aren’t you on the chain?’ Another little ping of anxiety and he sniffed the air. No wood-fire smoke. It was dark; the dogs should have been fed, the chooks put away and Josie, sitting at the kitchen table, feeding Brianna.

  Tully whined and ran a couple of steps forward, before looking back at him.

  The barking stopped and silence stretched out across the cold night. Russell took a couple of deep breaths and watched the white fog come from his mouth, then reached into the back to grab his thermos and esky, and started to walk up the path, looking through the windows as he went.

  A thin, piercing scream broke the silence and the dogs set off another round of barkin
g.

  Russell stopped, not sure what the noise was, then realised it was Brianna. It wasn’t her normal cry though. The high wail sounded desperate, distressed even, like she’d been crying for some time.

  He dropped everything he was holding and ran into the darkness of the house.

  Russell threw the door open into Brianna’s room and it connected with his daughter’s head. Another fresh round of screaming started as a terrible stench hit him.

  ‘Oh, Bri, I’m sorry darling.’ Damn the generator not being on. He reached out to where he thought he’d seen her fall and connected with a hot, sweaty head. ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ he said in a soothing manner. ‘It’s okay, Daddy’s here.’ He ran his large, work-hardened hand over her soft head. His fingers touched something soft and warm. ‘Wha—?’ Not able to turn the lights on, he raised his fingers to his nose and then recoiled. Brianna was covered in shit.

  ‘Josie?’ he called, picking Brianna up and wrapping her in the towel that was hanging over the end of the bed. He wanted to hold her away from him, get her clean. But he couldn’t yet. Where was Josie? Why wasn’t she here?

  ‘Josie?’ He became more panicked as he searched each room. Running outside, holding a still sobbing Brianna, he called her name and listened to it reverberate around the edge of the rock. ‘Shush, sweetie,’ he said to Brianna. ‘Josie!’ he raised his voice and yelled.

  There was no answer. No sign of her in the shed, no sign in the chook pen.

  Realising he couldn’t leave Brianna in the state she was in, he ran to the generator and started the engine, before running back into the house. He dumped her unceremoniously into the laundry tub and started to sponge at her.

  ‘It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay,’ he told her, trying to calm her hysterical crying. ‘What’s happened. Do you know where Mummy is?’

  Her wailing began to calm. ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ she cried over and over.

  ‘It’s okay.’ What else could he say? He didn’t know if it was going to be alright, but he had to try and settle her somehow.

  He washed her quickly, before putting her into clean clothes and handing her a warm bottle of milk. Brianna fell on it and started to suck, finding comfort in the action. ‘Come on,’ he said, trying to quell the rising dread in his stomach, ‘let’s go and find Mummy.’ He helped her into the ute, clipped her into the car seat and drove off, car lights cutting through the dark in search of Josie.

  Russell looked for her all over the farm: in the lambing ewe paddock, all the places she would normally go. With each passing minute, his fear became stronger and the overwhelming urge to scream, cry and beat something crept up and up.

  Everywhere he went, she wasn’t there.

  Two hours later, he drove to his neighbour’s place, roused them from their beds and pleaded to use the phone. He dialled the number for the police.

  ‘Hello, Merriwell Bay Police station?’ a man’s voice answered.

  Could it have been the hippies? Would have they taken Josie? Russell asked himself.

  ‘Hello?’ the male voice said again. ‘Merriwell Bay Police station. Do you need help?’

  ‘My wife,’ Russell sobbed. ‘My wife, she’s gone.’

  COMING IN NOVEMBER 2018

  Suddenly One Summer

  When Brianna Donahue was three years old, her mother mysteriously disappeared while farming in Merriwell Bay, Western Australia. Her body has never been found. Brianna works the same land with her father Russell, while almost single-handedly raising her two children as her husband Caleb works as a fly-in fly-out criminal lawyer in Perth.

  One scorching summer’s morning, her son Trent goes missing and, while frantically searching for him, Brianna must come to terms with the fact that her marriage has large cracks in it.

  Over two thousand kilometres away in South Australia, Detective Dave Burrows receives a phone call reporting stolen sheep from an elderly farmer. When he and his partner Jack arrive at the farm, it’s clear that Guy has early signs of dementia. Following a conversation with his wife Kim, Dave becomes intrigued with Guy’s family history. Was there a sister, or was there not? No one seems to know.

  So how will Dave’s investigation impact Brianna’s world? While battling the threat of bushfires back in Merriwell Bay, Brianna is faced with challenges that test her relationships with those she loves most. Suspenseful and incendiary, Suddenly One Summer is an intriguing and heartfelt story of the unlikely connections of life on the land.

  ISBN 9781760293956

  eISBN 9781760639853

  Prologue

  The woman put a shaky hand to her head. She gasped as a searing pain shot through her and she felt something warm and sticky beneath her fingers.

  Fear made her whimper.

  Where was she? It was pitch black. There wasn’t any light filtering in from anywhere and the darkness was suffocating. She couldn’t hear a sound. Creeping her fingers along the floor, she felt only dirt and stones.

  ‘Hello?’ she whispered. ‘Hello?’

  Nothing.

  Her breath came in short, sharp puffs.

  A sudden scrabbling made her jam her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. There was a loud squeaking—angry and sharp—then more scrabbling.

  Recognition filtered through. A mouse? A rat? She remembered the sound, but not where she’d heard it.

  Panic rushed through her, making her hot and sweaty. Somehow she knew something was very wrong.

  How had she got here? Why did her head hurt so much? Her fingers clawed at the dirt, scraping at it, hoping the act of connecting with soil would jolt a memory. Nothing.

  ‘Think,’ she said to herself. ‘Think.’ But as she muttered the words, she realised she didn’t even know her own name.

  She wondered how long she’d been asleep, but when she woke there was enough light for her to see a rat at her sleeve, sniffing her curiously.

  Her squeal echoed around the building and the rodent scurried away.

  She moved her head—the pain was intense—and tried to take in her surroundings. She was sure she’d never been here before. But there was also a strange sense of recognition. The fear from last night returned. Where was she?

  ‘Just get up,’ she told herself. If she could get outside, surely she’d work out where she was.

  She tried to stand up but the pain was so bad she vomited onto the dirt and slumped back down.

  Eventually she dragged herself over to the wall and leaned against it, exhausted from the effort.

  Door. She needed to find the door.

  There, in the corner.

  It took what felt like a superhuman effort to get to it, the pain burning through her whole body but, after what seemed an eternity, she reached the door and pressed down on the handle.

  It stayed closed.

  ‘No!’

  She leaned her body against it and shoved as hard as she could. The door gave way and she tumbled out onto rich, green grass and looked up at a landscape she didn’t recognise.

  Chapter 1

  Brianna Donahue let out a loud cry as she stepped on a stray piece of Lego. She toppled to one side and grabbed a chair to steady herself. The chair fell and she tumbled on top of it, her phone falling from her hand.

  ‘Bugger!’ she swore quietly, hoping the noise wouldn’t have woken the boys. ‘Far out!’ She sat on the floor for a moment, holding her bare foot and massaging the sore area with her thumb. What a way to start her birthday.

  Surely Caleb could have checked that the boys had picked up every little piece. He’d been supervising the clean-up last night. For the first time in months.

  Squeezing her eyes shut against the frustration, she imagined Caleb driving towards the Merriwell Bay airport in the pre-dawn light. He was returning to work after the Christmas break, having managed to score another two weeks into January as holidays.

  Normally she would have got up and made him breakfast. Talked about the next few days, what was ahead for both of them. His cour
t cases, her jobs on the farm. But not this morning. She’d been too tired, and although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, she was sick of hearing about a career and life she couldn’t relate to. It felt like months since she and Caleb had had a conversation that didn’t involve the kids, or farming, or the law.

  Brianna glanced towards the west and imagined the spotlights of his flash four-wheel drive illuminating the pre-dawn dark. The long streaks of white picking up any stray kangaroos. Caleb had bought the top-of-the-range LandCruiser without telling her, turning up in it one day with a large smile on his face. Brianna could tell he was delighted with it and thought she should be too, but a niggling voice inside her asked why he hadn’t talked to her about it first. That was what husbands and wives did, wasn’t it? Talked through important decisions, made them together.

  Sighing, she dragged her thoughts back to the day at hand.

  There was a catastrophic fire danger warning out. The media had been reporting it for the last thirty-six hours, whipping everyone into a frenzy of fear and expectation.

  With the pain in her foot subsiding, Brianna got up off the floor, pulling the chair with her. Casting around, she saw her phone, picked it up and switched on the torch. If she turned the lounge-room light on, it would filter into the kids’ bedroom and wake them. She needed peace to organise her thoughts for the day ahead.

  In the kitchen she flicked on the radio and the morning show crackled to life. The announcer was interviewing a stock agent about a bull sale that had been held the previous day. Still ten minutes before the news and weather. Biting her lip, she tapped at the weather app on her phone, hoping that the forecast had changed. A drop in wind speed or temperature would make her feel a lot more relaxed.

  It took an age before the app finally connected and updated. Like everyone out here, she was frustrated by the slow speed of the internet. Scanning the screen she felt a rush of anxiety. The forecast had worsened overnight.

  Summer was supposed to be dry. And hot. That was just summer in Australia. But there had been good rainfall during the growing season and, as a result, there was a large volume of dry material still in the paddocks. Which made great fuel for fires. Add to that northerly winds of over fifty kilometres an hour and a temperature of forty-three degrees and everyone started to get jumpy.