Page 8 of Outback Hearts

As they walked back with their wood, Alex came over to their camp.

‘Thought you girls might like to share a fire,’ he said. ‘No point in burning wood separately.’

‘That’d be lovely, thank you,’ Amelia said. She liked Alex immediately—there was something reassuring about his presence, calm and competent.

They built the fire together, Alex showing them how to arrange the wood for maximum heat and minimum smoke. Soon they had a cheerful blaze going, and they dragged their chairs into a circle around it.

‘So, what brings three young ladies out to this part of the world?’ Alex asked, settling into his chair with a contented sigh.

‘Gap year,’ Sophie explained. ‘I’m about to start uni and decided to see a bit of Australia beforehand.’

‘We met up in Airlie Beach about a month ago,’ Jill added. ‘I was supposed to be travelling with my best mate, but she bailed to go back to her boyfriend. These two had just lost their travel companion too, so we joined forces.’

‘Best decision we ever made,’ Sophie said. ‘Though I have had to learn that you can’t pat the kangaroos like they’re puppies.’

‘They looked so cute!’ Amelia protested.

‘They’ve got claws like razors and legs like pile-drivers,’ Jill said. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to get too close.’

Alex chuckled. ‘Learning the hard way, are you?’

‘Something like that,’ Amelia admitted. ‘But we love it. It’s very different from home.’

As the light faded and the stars began to appear—more stars than Amelia had ever imagined existed—they cooked sausages and beans over the fire and talked about their travels. Alex told them stories of his decades on the road, the places he’d seen, the changes he’d witnessed. Jill spoke about growing up in the suburbs, her newly completed management degree, and her complicated feelings about whether to pursue a corporate career in the city or something more meaningful.

‘And what about you, Amelia?’ Alex asked. ‘What are your plans after this adventure?’

‘I’ve been accepted into architecture at Hull University.’ Amelia nodded, though privately she felt less certain than she appeared. She’d always been the planner. This whole trip had been wildly out of character for her, but that was precisely why she’d said yes when Jill had suggested joining forces in Airlie Beach. She wanted to be spontaneous, adventurous, the kind looking for a job in a tiny outback town. Like sleeping in a van next to a derelict pub. Like maybe, possibly, if she ever got the courage, texting Dylan to let him know they’d made it to Garnet Creek safely.

She pushed that thought away and pulled her jacket tighter. The temperature had dropped dramatically with the sun, the desert cold settling in around them.

‘We should probably head to bed soon,’ Jill said, checking her phone. ‘You’ve got to be at the shop at eight tomorrow, Sophie.’

‘I still can’t believe that,’ Sophie said. ‘We pull into town, and I get hired on the spot. That’s mad. Everyone is so trusting.’

‘That’s small-town Australia,’ Alex said. ‘Everyone helps everyone, especially when they’re short-handed. You girls are lucky you came through when you did.’

As they dampened the fire and said goodnight to Alex, Amelia looked up at the old pub looming against the star-filled sky. Something about this place felt special, though she couldn’t explain why. It was a ruin, another campground on the way to somewhere else.

But as she climbed into the back of the van and settled onto her mattress, listening to Jill and Sophie’s quiet breathing in the vast silence of the outback beyond their thin metal walls, she had the strangest feeling that this wasn’t just a stop on their journey.

It felt like the beginning of something.

Chapter Two

Garnet Creek Campground

The fire crackled and popped, sending sparks spiralling up into the vast darkness. Amelia pulled her fleece tighter around her shoulders and gazed up at the stars. She’d never seen anything like it—the Milky Way stretched across the sky like someone had spilled diamonds across black velvet, so bright and dense it almost didn’t look real.

‘First time seeing the outback sky?’ Alex asked, following her gaze.

‘Am I that obvious?’ Amelia laughed.

‘You’ve got that look,’ he said kindly. ‘I remember the first time I really saw it, away from all the city lights. Must’ve been 1968, near Birdsville, just after we got married. Changed my life, that trip. Never stopped travelling since.’

‘Almost sixty years,’ Sophie said, awed. ‘That’s incredible. Where haven’t you been?’

Alex chuckled and poked at the fire with a stick, sending up another shower of sparks. ‘Well, now, that’s a shorter list than where I have been. But I keep coming back to certain places. The Daintree rainforest up in Far North Queensland—that’s something special. All that green, the humidity, the ancient feel of it. Completely different from this.’ He gestured at the dry landscape around them.