Chapter 18
Eighteen
The first road train’s plume of dust that rose to greet the dawn was the giveaway, with the second one coming from the opposite direction. It had Finn muttering a low command into the radio. ‘Up and at ‘em, team.’
It was time.
Taryn crouched by her workbag and dragged out what her dad called the Kevlar’s kiss. Her armour.
Not your standard-issue ballistic beast like the one Finn was sliding on.
Hers was custom-made, lightweight, and reinforced in all the right places.
She wasn’t sure if it came from her mother’s old military unit, sourced off-grid—or from her father’s world of classified procurements and black-budget favours.
Either way, it was a gift from two parents who believed in safety through preparation, and who had the contacts to provide it.
She slipped it on, the weight settling more like a memory.
The holster came next. Sleek. Balanced. Also a gift for her side-arm, that she clipped into place—a Sig Sauer P320, just like the one her Uncle Ray, a Lieutenant Colonel in the SAS, had taught her to field strip blindfolded at fifteen.
‘Most kids got fairy bread and pool parties,’ she muttered. ‘I got babysitters who ran toy box threat assessments and intel rundowns on my closet layout, like we were breaching top-secret clearances that came with sniper drills and ten ways to disarm a teddy bear using a pen.’
Behind her, she could feel Finn watching.
‘Figures…’ Finn just gave her that look. The quiet one.
She squeezed back her smile.
‘Remind me not to tick you off with a ballpoint lying around.’ Giving her a slow nod, as if a little impressed.
Nah. This was Finn. The man with the emotions of a granite boulder, chiselled to block out anything like surprise.
Although, he’d been just as surprised as she was at that kiss.
Nope, not gonna go there.
She clipped her badge to the front of her vest. Not the lanyard.
Not the ID card. Her actual federal police badge, that she rarely flashed around these days, but it had made her parents so proud at graduation.
Where, for once, her mum hadn’t worn the uniform that commanded attention, and her father was just a nerd in glasses. Just parents from the burbs.
Taryn snapped the vest shut. If she was in—she was all in.
And she was not thinking about that kiss.
The one that left a heat simmering low in her belly, as a sweet-tasting static skated across her tongue. A kiss that was so dangerous and oh so deliciously wrong, it lingered under her skin, like a secret she wasn’t ready to admit.
Nope. She was definitely not thinking about that kiss.
Focus, Hayes.
Nothing killed a moment like a full-blown tactical op and the mental monologue of David Attenborough in her head: And here, we observe the elusive Northern Territory Stock Squad’s bossy male in his natural environment.
Note the careful way he moves—silent, focused, dangerous.
See how he secures the rear of his troopy, his posture radiating pure alpha-cop energy.
And how these creatures are solitary by nature, deeply territorial, and known to grunt when irritated as a substitute for most words in the English language.
She smirked.
Finn glanced back over his shoulder. ‘I can feel the sass vibrating off you from thirty paces, like a heatwave, Fed.’
She arched a brow. ‘What? Are you suddenly an alien with mind-reading powers now?’
‘Nope. Just been around long enough to spot trouble when it’s smirking in my direction.’ He slammed the troopy’s rear door shut.
‘Touché,’ she muttered, grabbing her workbag with the Gaps File tucked in next to her laptop, and climbed into the passenger seat.
The troopy made a slow descent to avoid stirring the dust on the hill and warn the incoming trucks they were there.
In position, it idled behind a low ridge, its engine a hum beneath the brisk morning breeze.
Taryn gripped the tablet she shared with Finn, watching the drone feed stabilise from ghostly shapes into high-def clarity against dawn’s dusty haze. ‘Stunning vision.’
Two road trains on a lonely dirt road, a kilometre away from Billycan Corner. One road train was pulling in. The other already parked and waiting.
The incoming roadtrain, which Finn called a triple, was a massive truck dragging three trailers. Each tall trailer held two decks of cattle, and altogether, it carried over a hundred head—maybe more.
It stopped, the driver jumped out to unhitch the back trailer, then drove forward to get into position.
They were only switching the back trailer.
Fast. And efficient.
Dust curled around the massive tyres like red smoke as the rear trailer clicked into place behind the big rig. Too quick for paperwork to be checked and signed. And too big a deal to be a simple oversight.
The location didn’t help, either. A simple dirt road that Google couldn’t find, but it was now on Finn’s map.
A road that led to a sunbaked four-way dirt crossroad made of old shortcuts, surrounded by scrub and dry hills.
It was the perfect place for things to fall off the back of a truck, with no one around to ask questions.
Inside the troopy, the air was thick with dust, tension… and Finn.
Taryn tried not to notice the way his broad shoulders bunched beneath that worn shirt, or how his muscles flexed as he leaned over the steering wheel.
It only made her follow the ink etched down his corded forearms, all the way to the tattoos gift-wrapping his strong capable hands.
It was so distractingly hot, yet so wrong…
in the best possible way, that it was both impossible and unforgettable.
Even the way he frowned had no right being that attractive.
Come on, Hayes. You’re here to investigate misconduct by this guy, not mentally undress him.
She shifted in her seat.
This was not the time. Never would be a better time. Blaming the thrill of the sting that made her blood rise.
Which was kind of ironic, really… Here she was, sent to shut them down, and now shoulder to shoulder with the man she was meant to report on. Getting a buzz from his killer coffee and getting flashbacks from that kiss, that she was never going to mention again. Ever.
But it wasn’t just him getting under her skin. It was the realisation that she was starting to bend her own rules, just to keep playing whatever complex game they’d built between them. All under the neat excuse of justice.
Somewhere along the line, her professional audit had slipped into the personal side of things. There the emotional columns weren’t balancing, and she was starting to lose track of which rules were his—and which ones she’d quietly rewritten for him, just to see where this arrest would take them.
Romy’s voice came over the comms: ‘Target confirmed. Trailer swap in progress. Illegal transfer caught on camera. And I even remembered the time stamps, this time.’ Romy gave a slight giggle, as if enjoying the game.
On-screen, both drivers had jumped out and moved fast between the trucks and trailers, as if they’d done it a dozen times.
Taryn nodded at the small screen. ‘All I see is a simple trailer shuffle. Hardly seems like an arrest-worthy offence.’
‘You really think they’re playing musical road trains for fun?’ grumbled Finn.
‘Hey, we both know I’m a city-bred Fed. So this is your chance to enlighten me.’
‘Okay… If there’s no weighbridge, no inspector, or paperwork?
Then it’s not legal.’ He pointed at the tablet’s screen.
‘Out here, cattle are currency. You swap a B-double on a backroad with no one watching, and it’s a duffer’s dream.
Doesn’t matter if they’re branded—without a paper trail, it’s like they never changed hands. ’
He nodded at the screen. ‘That trailer alone could be worth a quarter of a million, if it’s prime stock.
And they’re looking at over fourteen years, minimum, if we catch ’em moving it like this.
More if the paperwork’s forged. And if they’re repeat offenders…
well, you know the drill.’ He nodded at her shiny Federal police badge.
Didn’t that smug little look of his have some kick to it. Not only had it been a while since she’d been on a sting like this, but she was behaving like a rookie.
Come on, I know the drill.
She shifted in the passenger seat, the bulk of her Kevlar vest digging into her ribs. So, it had been a while since she’d worn one of these. And it’d been longer since she’d watched a crime unfold in real time, instead of dissecting it from behind a desk scouring spreadsheets.
Here there were no heels, skirt and blazer that made up the suit. And no neck-swinging, laminated lanyard.
Just boots, dust, and a front-row seat to a cattle theft sting, beside a man who smelled like coffee and vengeance and intoxicatingly him.
No, not him—this.
She used to love this part, the exciting minutes before the take-down. The hand on her gun holster, as the door was getting kicked down.
As a kid, she’d spent hours training to tactically breach her toy cupboard, rescuing Barbie from yet another hostage situation, orchestrated by her plush warlord teddy. Her military babysitters were tough taskmasters with their drills—but her parents had been so proud.
Just your average suburban household, where dinnertime conversation meant decoding missions they legally weren’t allowed to discuss, in between conspiracy theories shared with the same enthusiasm as who spotted a sale at the supermarket.
No wonder she could follow the tangled threads of Finn’s Gaps File without flinching. And no wonder she wasn’t scared, riding shotgun with the outback’s grumpiest beefcake.
She wasn’t new to this. She’d just been wearing the wrong shoes.
Finn gripped the radio’s mic. ‘Stone, track the single-trailer truck, once it rolls, to see where it goes. Stay out of view. The rest of us will take the triple. Romy, I’ll need your drone on us for the bust, and on comms.’