Free High Stakes Bride by Fiona Brand

boots and began walking the pipeline, checking for leakages. With the intense ultraviolet light in New Zealand, plastic didn’t last long out in the open. Most of the line was buried to protect it, but it was exposed in places. If there was any damage, it usually occurred around the troughs where the pipe was out of the ground and being walked on by cows.
    With relief she saw the first trough was filling. When it had reached capacity, water would automatically feed on to the next trough, and so on.
    Flickering movement at the edge of her vision drew her attention away from the steady flow of water. A vague, indefinable tension filled her as she examined the dense grove of ancient puriri trees that marked the boundary.
    A hawk launched from a high branch, wheeling overhead, and she shook her head. She was becoming neurotic—seeing shadows where none existed. Someone had tampered with her water system—she hesitated to use the word sabotage, because it had probably just been a kid’s prank. School had been out for weeks now, although there was no family within close range that had children old enough to pull a prank like that. The Barclays were the closest, their boundary butted up against the southern end of Galbraith, but their house was several miles away. It wasn’t likely their children would wander this far, or have the strength to dislodge the rocks that had held the pipeline in place.
    Still tense, she examined the ridge of hills visible from the high pasture and the reason for her tension finally registered. She could smell smoke, and now she could see it, drifting along in the wind, coming from the direction of Tom Stoddard’s farm.
    Gaze fixed on the smoke, her stomach tight, she began walking toward it, keeping the blue-grey column in sight until she entered the grove of trees.
    Dried leaves crackled underfoot, the sound explosive in the quiet grove. Beneath the canopy of trees the air was close and aromatic, the light dim. Massive trunks thrust upward out of drifts of leaves, branches thick with epiphytes and dripping with creepers, but despite the dense, enclosing foliage the smell of smoke was still strong.
    Quickening her step, she hurried through the grove, wishing she had taken the time to go back and get her truck. It wasn’t like Tom to burn rubbish at this time of year. He was an ex-member of the local Fire Service and normally ultra safety conscious. With grass and trees like tinder and the fire risk on extreme, he knew better than anyone that all fires were banned.
    When she emerged from the trees her heart squeezed tight and she broke into run. It wasn’t a rubbish fire, it was Tom’s house.
    Breath shoving in and out of her lungs, she climbed a fence, stumbled through a ditch then ducked low to get under an electric fence, careful to avoid the live wire. As she straightened she checked her jeans pocket for the cell phone she usually carried for emergencies. Her jaw clenched when she came up empty. Because she’d been in and out of the creek, she’d left her phone in the truck.
    Dried seed heads and stalks whipped around her legs as she ran, impeding her. As she got closer she realized the house itself wasn’t ablaze, but almost everything else was. The old stables at the rear were a pyre and smoke poured from the barn and garage. Adrenaline pumping, she unfastened a gate, pushed it wide and ran into the gravelled area in front of Tom’s outbuildings. His truck was missing, which meant he was either out on the farm or in town.
    Cutting across a small square of lawn, she tried the front door of Tom’s cottage, which was locked. Seconds later she’d tried every other door and window; every one was locked tight enough to resist a siege.
    Frustrated, she peered through the glass panel of the kitchen door. She could see the phone sitting on the kitchen counter.
    Dani cast around, looking for something to break the glass. Grabbing one of the rocks that