Chapter 29
Twenty-nine
One month later—Canberra
The smell of bacon was the first betrayal.
Taryn had barely gotten the pan sizzling before her stomach flipped like it was having a bar fight in a tin can—and then she was sprinting.
The bathroom tiles were freezing against her knees. Her hair stuck to her cheeks. And she hated every second of it, hugging that toilet bowl as the waves of nausea washed over her.
But she loved bacon. Loved it like a comfort blanket.
And this? This wasn’t just a dodgy flu brewing.
This was different.
It took her all day to build the courage to dare get an answer. Finding a chemist well away from work, so she wouldn’t risk bumping into anyone she knew.
She had meant to take the damn thing home. But now, as she sat back, flushing the taste of bile, she glared at the test sitting on the edge of the sink.
Even if her body felt off in that subtle, traitorous way that she ignored until it screamed enough for her to stop dancing with denial. Blaming it on jet lag from her quick trips to Melbourne and Adelaide to catch up on her other cases. Work stress. Weather changes. Too much chilli with her tacos.
But now?
Now, the test stared back with clear blue lines…
Pregnant.
This was one of those moments where you wished you’d stayed in bed. Pulled the covers over your head and waited for a different version of reality to load. One without complications, or kisses from a man who looked at you like you were worth staying for.
But that was a month ago.
She dropped her head back against the cabinet and groaned. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’
Her parents would have a joint aneurysm. Not because she was pregnant—but because she hadn’t cleared it with them first.
Her mother would treat it like an intel leak and demand a mission briefing, to assess, contain, deploy. There’d be a tactical support unit on standby, matching onesies in every size by lunchtime, and a baby-proofing protocol drafted with an airlift plan ready to go.
Her father, meanwhile, would sit in silence, pretending not to be terrified, while quietly running background checks on every male in the Northern Territory, cross-referencing satellite footage, and ordering a discreet sweep of Finn’s federal file.
And the worst part?
She loved them for it. Because beneath the code names and contingency plans, they’d always shown up—every time it counted.
Taryn hadn’t exactly planned for motherhood. Not like this.
She’d always figured it’d be a choice she’d make one day, on her own terms, when the world felt safe enough, or if she ever felt soft enough to let her guard down.
Not to complain, but she did not want to relive the kind of childhood she grew up with briefings and protocols, and being babysat by lieutenants sucking up to her parents, teaching her gun drills. She wanted something slower. Warmer.
Like summers with Meghan. And that pantry full of canned peaches and the smell of eucalyptus trees and grass.
A place where shadows slowly danced across the back porch from dawn to dusk, where the backyard firepit became the place to share secrets and marshmallows.
That’s what Taryn had tucked away in the corner of her mind.
If ever. Maybe. Someday.
Yet, it always came back to Meghan. Her cousin. Her reason for everything, and her focus on this job.
Taryn hadn’t stepped foot in Elsie Creek for career advancement. She’d gone there for Meghan. For answers about a young woman who’d started asking the right questions and ended up dead for it.
And so far?
The investigation had only raised more questions.
Everlight’s trail had gone cold, files had vanished, testimonies were redacted, its digital footprint swept clean. Officially, it was dead.
Unofficially?
She didn’t buy it.
SW Rural Contracting had seemed like the thread to pull. Everyone thought it was Sawyer Dixby’s company, and then Samuel Ward’s. The paperwork even pointed that way. But when she dug deeper, it was owned by another shell company…
Temp Roicks Pty Ltd.
A rural contractor for fencing and mustering jobs. Legit enough on paper. But it also owned the same quarry where Two-bob Bob had been babysitting the airstrip and the so-called office.
Whoever was behind it wasn’t just smart. They were buried under layers of companies, paper-thin identities, with just the right level of misdirection.
But she was close. Taryn could feel it. They were all connected to each other, fake companies, stacked like a ladder—each one owning the next. Every time she dug deeper, another company name surfaced:
Merc Topski
Spick Metro Ltd
Priscom Tek
Corp Stimek
M.T. Spiker Co
Spertick Nominees
E. Mockstrip & Co
Plus a dozen more.
And at the very top of the food chain sat Stokemir PC Inc. An offshore entity, posing as an international parent company. No records. No office, or even registered owners. Just a name in the finest of fine print that you’d miss if you blinked.
And she’d blinked a few times, missing it completely, until the other day.
Taryn was just waiting on confirmation about that offshore company to see where the next breadcrumb would lead her. Hoping for that same someone who’d helped bury Meghan.
After burying the pregnancy test deep in the waste bin, she forced herself back to her office, dropping behind her desk, and opening the folder on her desktop.
Her office smelled like paper and jasmine, thanks to the scented candle she never lit, but luckily it didn’t make her heave.
How she missed being able to open a window, to not hear congested traffic and screaming sirens, or people talking about nothing in their all-important rush to and from work.
Hard to believe it had only been six weeks since she’d first landed at Elsie Creek Airport—which wasn’t really an airport at all, just a sunbaked airstrip run by a grey-haired grump named Mickey.
For their last encounter, he’d given her a proper serve, grumbling about bloody tourists and how the town wasn’t some sightseeing stopover, all while chucking her bag into the belly of the mail plane with a grunt.
As the propellers spun to life, Tanisha waved at her from the back fence of the police station, which Taryn had dared to cross to catch her plane. No way was she going to walk the long way around again.
As for the rest of the Stock Squad, they were on the job, especially Finn, keeping up the pretence that Taryn was still their enemy and wasn’t seen near her in public. Even though she’d been staying at his house for days.
She’d expected the radio silence when she left.
They’d agreed on it during those last three days spent side by side in Finn’s house, sleeping together, trading theories, maps, and whispered truths.
Anything more would’ve risked everything: her report, her position, and the covert work she was doing—not just for Finn, but for Meghan.
If one person let slip that she’d been sleeping with the supposed enemy, the stock smugglers would bury their trail before the ink on her report dried, and the integrity of her work would be void. Goodbye promotion.
When she’d reached her hotel room in Darwin, at the start of her trek back to Canberra, she’d found a burner phone in the lining of her bag, along with a note in Finn’s handwriting that simply said Only use in emergencies.
She recognised it as standard operating procedure, especially in offices like hers, where informants couldn’t afford to be traced. A trick her boss, and her father, had taught her. But she’d never needed a burner before. Not until Finn.
Even then, they didn’t talk. They didn’t call. But every few days, without fail, the screen would light up with a single message: Still breathing? All in the simple style of Finn.
And every time, it punched her square in the chest.
Only for her to stare at the screen like a teenager, agonising over a reply that was smart but casual, guarded but warm. Because under all the strategy, the silence, the cloak-and-dagger subterfuge, they were still them. And she missed him more with every message.
But now she might possibly, accidentally, phantomly—be pregnant.
What was she supposed to do?
Admit to herself that her boobs had turned into hypersensitive traitors, protesting against her bras that were suddenly a smaller cup size? That she might be growing a brooding Finn clone, while the real one was out there playing enemies-to-lovers in reverse?
Come on. She’d done her research on Dr Google’s web of wisdom, spurred on by a double dose of late-night panic attacks, to conclude that she couldn’t be knocked up.
Not when she’d always been particular about her contraception.
Every time. Only for her body to have the audacity to hit the fertile on-switch and turn her ovaries into supercharged babymakers. Just. Like. That?!
There’s no way she was even close to being ready to think about how he’d react—not when she was still trying to convince herself the whole thing was a false alarm brought on by stress, bad lighting, and one too many cheese toasties.
And that her suddenly developed aversion to bacon, which made her want to cuddle the toilet bowl, was perfectly normal.
Denial was a perfectly valid coping strategy.
And right now, it was the only thing keeping her focused on the job, especially when there were so many others counting on her.
Finn and his team were still fighting to keep their squad alive, chasing cattle thieves through the outback’s dust. Her family was still grieving for Meghan and needed some justice that no one else seemed willing to give them.
And the poor townsfolk of Elsie Creek, who depended on the integrity of those stockyards, didn’t even know they were being played by someone they trusted.
Taryn’s department was trusting her to be impartial, thorough, and professional—even if she was strictly hypothetically, absolutely denial-fuelled, completely unconfirmed, half in love with the man she’d been sent to audit.
Taryn didn’t have the luxury of spiralling.
Not now.