Read Online High Stakes Bride by Fiona Brand - Free Book Online Page B

eased forward.
    Deliberately, Dani stepped in front, blocking him. “You don’t know where the cattle are.”
    Carter spun the wheel and drove around her. “The north-east paddocks. I had a look last night.”
    â€œDid you get any sleep?”
    The sarcastic sting made him grin. “About as much as you, darlin’.”
    Dani’s teeth ground together. She had forgotten how much he loved a fight. “You don’t have the right to do this.”
    Dust rolled around her as Carter headed out of the yard. “Oh very good, Dani, very mature and in control.”
    Next time she would go for a big hit, like issuing him with a trespass notice. That should really make him tremble. The only problem was that Carter and the local policeman, Pete Murdoch, weren’t just major buddies, they were related—even if it was only by marriage to an aunt. Murdoch would probably sooner see her behind bars than upset his nephew.
    Â 
    An hour later, Dani manoeuvred the farm’s four-wheel drive across an almost-dry riverbed and parked beside a pump house that was silvered with age and crusted with dried lichen. Carter feeding and shifting the cattle meant she had more time to carry out her regular system of checks on the water holes and the pumps that fed the troughs. Most of the troughs were low and one she’d driven past had actually gone dry, which was a bad sign.
    As soon as she swung out of the truck she could hear the hum of the pump. The system was set up so that when the water fell to a certain level, the pump activated. She’d checked the previous day and the water level had been fine, but in this heat, moisture evaporated so fast it didn’t take long for water levels to drop. The pump had probably been going all night trying to fill the dry trough. Since the pump appeared to still be working, the fact that no water was getting through meant that the intake pipe was no longer underwater. Stomach tight, she picked her way across rocks bleached a pale grey in the intense, dry heat and located the end of the pipe, which was out of the water and guzzling air.
    If she didn’t get water flowing through the pipes fast the pump would overheat and burn out, which would be a disaster. She couldn’t afford the hundreds of dollars a new pump would cost, and if she couldn’t get the system up and running, she would have to buy water in.
    Frowning, she checked the lay of the pipe. Normally it ran in a straight line from the pump shed and was anchored in the deepest part of the river. Somehow, it had moved several metres, or—cancel that—it had been moved.
    There had been no torrential flood of water through the riverbed to throw the pipe out, and no animals in this particular paddock since the last time she checked the pump just two days ago. For the pipe to have shifted position meant someone had deliberately pulled it out of the river, leaving the pump to burn out and her cattle to go thirsty.
    Removing her boots and socks, she rolled up the legs of her jeans and stepped into the trickling flow, dragging the length of alkathene. When it was stretched to its limit, she pushed the pipe into the deepest part of the pool and fastened it in place with a couple of heavy rocks. Wading deeper into the water, she held her hand over the end of the pipe to check the suction, which was halting. The pump was operating, but air had gotten through the system and it had lost pressure.
    Stepping out of the water, Dani wiped her hands down her jeans and grabbed the bike pump that was kept in the toolbox in the back of the truck. Minutes later, sweat dripping, she unscrewed the bike pump from the nozzle on the pump, flicked the pump switch back on and prayed. Water spat and gurgled; seconds later the high-pitched whine settled down to a hum. If the pump was damaged, she couldn’t tell.
    Letting out a breath, Dani checked the suction of the pipe in the water then pulled on her socks and