She tried hard not to think about the better use that her team could be putting all that driving time to—three hours in the morning and three in the evening. But, unless Grant McMurtrie planned to relent on his determination to sell Leo’s farm, there was no real option. They needed to increase the number of field days and they just couldn’t afford the kind of trailer-based accommodation infrastructure that went with remote postings.
It was bad enough fretting about the twenty-thousand-dollar TDR still fitted to the back of Stella, who was missing. It would eventually fall off the seal as her fur grew out, but for Kate’s project it would be a significant financial blow if it wasn’t recovered. Plus it carried a month’s worth of crucial data.
The most useful thing she could do to try and put the brakes on her madly spinning world was to stay down here overnight, mitigate all that time lost to travelling. She had a tent but last night she’d had no energy to erect it. She’d sat awake, long after her team mates had gone home, staring out at the glittering sky and watching the reflection of the stars shift on the ocean surface. Exhausted and discouraged, she’d curled up in the cramped back seat of her ute. She’d knocked off a whole report chapter—freehand, on her lap—before falling asleep, chilled and miserable, in her sleeping bag.
Now she stumbled back up over the edge of the cliff where she’d found a private spot to relieve her bladder after a long night in the car.
‘Tell me you didn’t sleep on the beach.’
She leaped clean off the ground at the unexpected voice, deep and close. She was more conscious than ever of her smelly seal-clothes, extra rumpled after a night squished up in her car. And the fact he’d just busted her peeing, albeit out of view.
‘Grant.’ Her hands went to her loose hair, blowing in the ever-present wind, before she could stop them. She scanned the desolate coastal paddocks until she spotted his truck in the far distance over near the sheep’s water supply. ‘What are you doing out here so early?’
‘I wanted to check the drinkers before it got too blustery. I saw your ute.’ He glared into the tiny extra-cab of the ute. ‘Did you sleep here, Kate?’
‘I was just too tired to drive last night.’
He narrowed his eyes and really studied her. ‘You look terrible.’
Again her hands twitched to attend to her shabbiness. He, of course, looked every bit the fresh-from-the-shower Aussie farmer, even though she knew he wasn’t. Clothes, it appeared, really did maketh the man. Every time she saw him those shoulders seemed to get wider. ‘We have so much to try and finish. Every minute counts.’
His lips thinned. ‘Where’s your team?’
‘I’m only bringing half of them; the other half are in the lab rushing the samples through.’ She could hear the tension in her own voice and smiled brightly. ‘But we’re getting there. It’s all good.’
He pulled his hat down harder over his eyes against the rising morning sun. ‘No, it’s not. Not if you’re wearing yourself out and sleeping in your car.’
Frustration hissed out of her. ‘Sadly, my budget doesn’t really run to portable labs and campers. I’m just working with the parameters I’ve got.’
‘Would that help? A lab down here?’
‘Talking in hypotheticals sure won’t.’
He stared at her steadily.
‘Fine. Yes, it would help. We would run the samples during the hottest part of the day and move our contact hours to morning and late afternoon. I could get my whole team back down.’
Grant looked out to sea for moments and then brought his clear green eyes back to hers. ‘What sort of a building do you need? Does it have to be hospital-grade?’
Her heart-rate picked up. Was he serious? Was Grant McMurtrie offering to help her? He was built near enough to a gift-horse. ‘No. Just dry, lockable and pest-free. As long as the equipment can be sterile we can work anywhere with power.’
‘How about my garage? It needs a good clean-out but I’m not using it.’
Grant drove a top-of-the-range Jeep Wrangler and it sat out weathering most days. ‘You need that for your car.’
His eyes darkened. ‘No. It’s not … suitable.’
She stared at him. ‘It’s a garage.’ Of course it’s suitable.
‘Do you want it or not?’
Kate’s breath whooshed out of her. ‘Why would you do that? You want us gone.’
His gaze was steady. ‘Despite what you believe, I’m not completely heartless. I grew up with these seals and don’t want to see them persecuted any more than you do. The way I figure it, you can’t get a complete year’s worth of data no matter what happens, so me making your daily tasks more comfortable isn’t going to hurt me, particularly.’
He was right. Volume made all the difference in the world to her, to the validity of her research. But depressingly little difference to him or to the Commission, who were holding out for something more persuasive.
‘What if you’re wrong?’
‘I wouldn’t be offering if I thought there was a chance of that.’
The smug confidence should have infuriated her. But all it did was remind her how much she was drawn to a capable man, with a good mind.
His eyes softened. ‘And I don’t like seeing you hurt yourself. Have you even had a day off since I last saw you?’
And a kind heart, as it turned out.
Kate shuffled. She didn’t want to think well of the man whose self-interest was sending her life into chaos. ‘The clock’s ticking. I’ll have nothing but time off when it’s all over.’
He frowned, knowing full well he was the cause of the rush. ‘You’re welcome to my garage, Kate. Make the best of it that you can.’
Relief hung, suspended and pendulous, waiting for her mind to make a decision. She briefly tossed around the idea of declining, maintaining a high moral ground. But practicality won out; she was nothing if not practical.
The relief released its iron grip as soon as she had the thought and whooshed in a free-fall through her body. ‘Thank you, Grant. That will really help.’ She chewed her lip.
He saw it. ‘What?’
In for a penny … ‘Would it be okay if I set up a camp in one of your sheltered paddocks? With the lab here it would make more sense for me to stay, too. My team can bring things in and out as I need them. Most of them have families to get home to.’
‘You don’t?’
Kate kicked herself mentally for opening the door to that line of enquiry. Gentle warmth flamed up her throat and the contrast between it and the arctic breeze sent a blizzard of tiny lumps prickling down her flesh. ‘Only my Aunt Nancy,’ she hedged. ‘And I don’t really see her all that often these days.’
Mad old Aunt Nancy. She’d got Kate to adulthood after her parents’ accident, but only barely, and mostly by luck. It had been more a case of reverse parenting in the end. Still, Nancy had provided food and shelter and access to a decent school after Kate had lost everything. She’d done the rest herself, miles from the town and countryside she’d loved so much. It had been the beginning of a lifetime trend. She didn’t like to leave anything to chance. Chance had a way of turning around and biting you.
‘Your parents?’ His words were casual enough, but his gaze was intense.
How had they got here? She shook her head knowing there was no way to not answer such a direct question. But her chest still