The CEO's Outback Gal

The CEO’s Outback Gal SUSAN HORSNELL USA Today Bestselling Author Contents Copyright © 2023 by Disclaimer Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Epilogue About the Author Author Links The CEO’s Outback Gal Copyright © 2023 by USA Today Bestselling Author - Susan Horsnell The right of Susan Horsnell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed, or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon, or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, or mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental. Edited: Redline Editing Edited: Robyn Corcoran Proofread: Leanne Rogers Disclaimer This story is set in Sydney Australia and written in Australian English. Some town names are factual. The characters are completely fictional and any resemblance to anyone past or present is purely coincidental. Chapter One ELIZABETH Harmony Homestead Taylors Creek Station Far North-Western Australia A knock sounded on the wooden frame of my bedroom door as I finished checking the dresser drawers to ensure I wasn’t leaving anything important behind. Two suitcases were already packed, locked, and in one corner of the bedroom. I would miss my home—a two-story weatherboard Queenslander built in the late 1800s, painted white with a verandah around all four sides. The tops of every window were stained glass in different intricate patterns common to the era. It was situated amongst a grove of coolabah trees on a sprawling cattle station near the small town of Taylors Creek. The place I had called home for all of my twenty-four years was in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia and around twenty-two thousand square kilometres. It was one of the largest in Australia and straddled the Western Australian/Northern Territory borders. Dad had inherited the property in the west from his father and added to it over the years by buying land in the territory. Being in the top end, with a coastline border to the north, the property was mostly dry and parched with sandhills and occasionally it was lush and green with deep water mangroves that were a haven for all kinds of water birds, fish, and other critters. Taylors Creek, from where the town got its name, was a tributary of the Hudson River, and crocodiles were part of life—saltwater, but more commonly, freshwater. Both were equally dangerous and to be avoided. A watering hole at the bluff, free of the prehistoric monsters, had been the favoured swimming hole of my twin brothers and me. Mathew and Lucas, my burly brothers, were ten years older than me; I'd been a welcome surprise. They doted on their little sister, and I had spent many a hot day performing aerial gymnastics while being tossed between the pair. I loved my brothers dearly and had missed them terribly when they had been away at university in Perth for four years, only visiting for a short time each Christmas. Being isolated as we were, made it a major exercise to come home if not staying for a considerable time. They got to stay for two months at Christmas, and I waited anxiously all year for their return. For a nine-year-old, the age I had been when they'd first left, it seemed they were gone for an eternity. After securing their degrees in Farm and Station Management, they returned to help Dad run the place. I'd grown into a young woman by then, something they both struggled to accept, and both of my brothers became over-protective to the point I often felt trapped in a vice. The property owned by the family business—Flynn Pastoral Holdings, employed eleven staff and was so remote they all lived on the station. Our foreman, Jake, his wife, and two kids lived in a cute 19th Century cottage. The staff cook, cleaner, and a couple of the married stockmen also had their own cottages. Those men and women who were single, ‘youngsters’ dad called them, although two men were in their thirties, lived in dongers, which could get pretty rowdy on birthdays and special occasions, but no one dared drink enough to be hungover the next day. Working around cattle needed our focused attention to keep everyone safe, but we could still have a damn good time. There were twelve dongers in all, with four bathrooms, a large living area/games room, a well-stocked kitchen for snacks, and a dining room. Rooms and bathrooms were cleaned daily, and a cook was provided for the main meals. Despite Dad's warnings that there wasn't to be any 'funny business,' he was old-fashioned that way, there was one serious relationship I knew of, but the rest of us were all just good friends. I enjoyed joining them now and again and had never been hit on; no one dared to proposition the boss's daughter. It baffled me why people, mostly aged in their twenties, were happy to spend years on an isolated station where there was next to no chance of them meeting their significant other. I think Mum had hoped my brothers would have met, and become serious with, someone at uni as she had with Dad, but when they'd returned, it was as two very committed single men. Or so it seemed. Taylors Creek, our nearest town, was thirty kilometres from the station along a dusty 4WD track. It consisted of a small supermarket for emergency supplies and a post office that doubled as the local newsagency where some purchased lotto tickets, hoping a win would see them leaving the place far behind in their rear-vision mirror. There was also a