Excerpt of The Millionaire's Marriage Claim by Lindsay Armstrong

JOANNE LUCAS steered her grey Range Rover over

the appalling road and shook her head.

Sure, she hadn't expected the drive to a sheep station somewhere south of Charleville in outback Queensland to be a picnic. But the road had been quite good until she'd turned off onto the station track, and it was far worse than anything she'd anticipated. It was also quite a bit further than she'd expected to drive, and the chill dusk of a winter's evening was drawing in.

She scanned the horizon for some sign of habitation but there was none. This was serious sheep country, the Murweh shire — she knew from the research she'd done it carried approximately eight hundred thousand head of them! There were also cattle stations in the area so you expected it to be wide open and isolated.

On the other hand, her destination, Kin Can station, had quite a reputation. So did its owners, the Hastings family, for wealth and excellence in the wool they bred.

How come they couldn't afford to put in a decent road to the homestead, then? And how on earth did the wool trucks cope with it?

Come to think of it, if she hadn't had her wits about her, she would have missed the small, nearly illegible Kin Can sign on a gate — another surprise because she'd been led to believe the station was well sign-posted.

Do they actively discourage visitors? she asked herself, then slammed on the brakes as she topped a rise to see a man standing in the middle of the track aiming a gun at her.

Do they ever! It flashed through her mind, followed immediately by — So what to do now?

Any decision was taken out of her hands as the man loped forward and wrenched her door open before she could lock it. Not only that, he slung the gun over his shoulder and manhandled her out onto the road.

"Now look here," she began, "this is insane and —" 'What's your name?" he barked at her as he backed her up against the bonnet.

"Jo…Joanne, b-but people call me Jo," she stammered.

"Just as I thought, although I was expecting a Joe — of the masculine variety — but perhaps they thought you could seduce me and keep doing it until they tracked me down."

He paused and a flash of ironic amusement lit his intensely blue eyes as he looked her up and down then murmured, "On the other hand, you don't look that feminine, Jo, so I'll go with my first scenario."

Jo, who had gasped several times as he'd spoken, lost her temper and stamped heavily on his toe with the heel of her booted foot.

He didn't even flinch. "Steel toecaps, darlin'," he drawled. "So it gets your goat up to be called unfeminine?"

Jo breathed heavily but a small portion of her mind conceded that, yes, it had — which was just about as insane as the whole mad situation. Nor could she resist a glance downwards, although she did resist the urge to tell this crazy person that most women would look unfeminine in creased cargo pants, a bulky anorak and a knitted beanie that concealed her hair.

She did quell the sneaky little voice in her head that reminded her some men found her height and straight shoulders unfeminine anyway…

"Look here, whoever you are," she began, "I'm expected up at the homestead so —"

"I'll bet you are, Jo," he rasped, "but we're going a different way. Let's just see what you're packing first." He started to pat her down like a policeman.

"Packing?" It came out in a strangled way edged with outrage as she tried to evade his hands. "Will you stop touching me? I'm not packing anything."

"Take 'em off, then," he ordered as his hands reached her waist.

Jo gaped at him. "Take what off?" 'Your strides, lady." 'I most certainly will not — are you out of your mind?"

"OK! Turn round and lean over the bonnet so I can search for hip holsters, thigh holsters or wherever women carry their concealed weapons."

Jo stared at him in the fading daylight and wondered if she was the one going mad or — was this a nightmare? But the substance of her nightmare was anything but dream-like.

He was tall, taller than she was, with good shoulders. In a navy jumper and torn, dirty jeans, he looked to be extremely fit in a lean, rangy way. His thick black hair was short and ruffled and his jaw was covered with black stubble. Then there were those furious blue eyes that gave every indication of a man not to be trifled with.

But why? How? What? she wondered wildly. Some modern day bushranger on the loose? Surely not!

It's not unheard of, she corrected herself immediately, but why would he have been expecting any kind of a 'Joe'?

"Make up your mind," her tormentor ordered. "We haven't got all day."

With trembling fingers, Jo unzipped her anorak and started to lower her cargo pants. Then she got angry again and pulled the anorak off and flung it over the bonnet. She ripped her boots off and stepped out of her pants. "You may look but don't you dare lay a finger on me again," she ground out, her grey eyes flashing magnificently.

The man grimaced and raised his eyebrows. "Well, well!" His gaze dwelt on her figure beneath a fitted, fine-knit blue jumper and pale blue cotton briefs, and drifted down her long legs.

"Just goes to show you shouldn't make snap judgements," he said with humour, looking back into her eyes, "since it would be fair to say that in other circumstances you'd be welcome to seduce me, love." The humour left his eyes. "Turn around."

If she'd been angry before, Jo was boiling now, but caution had the upper hand. She turned and lifted her arms to shoulder height. "Satisfied?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Yep." She stiffened as she felt his fingers on her waist and the elastic of her briefs pinged against her skin. "Good old Bonds Cottontails, I do believe," he added. "OK, get dressed, then we're going for a drive."

Jo pulled on her cargo pants. "A drive? How far?" 'Right into —" He paused. "Why?"

She hesitated, unsure whether to confess that she'd somehow underestimated the distance to Kin Can homestead, and another of her concerns had been that she'd run out of petrol…

"Come on, Jo —" he unslung the gun menacingly ' — talk!"

"I don't have much petrol left."

He swore. "Bloody women!" 'I believe there's a pump at the house so —" 'Told you that, did they? Well, it's not going to be of any use to me. Get in and switch on so I can see how low the tank is."

Jo swallowed and finished dressing as quickly as she could. And when she switched the motor on and the petrol gauge was revealed — bordering the red — he swore again, even more murderously, then, "No spare tanks?"

"No." 'What are you? One of their molls press-ganged into providing back-up?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Jo cried. "None of this makes any sense."

"Oh, yes, it does, sweetheart," he replied insolently, then rubbed his jaw with a sudden tinge of weariness. It didn't last long, that first faint sign of weakness, however. "Plan B, then," he said grimly.

* * * Ten minutes later, Jo was steering her vehicle over another diabolical track, but this time following her captor's directions.

She'd had no opportunity to escape, as he'd made it quite clear he would shoot her down if she made any attempt to run away. Her request to be told what was going on had received a 'don't act all innocent with me, lady' response.

And he'd quashed, with an impatient wave of his hand and virtually unheard, her solitary attempt to explain who she was, why she was on Kin Can station and her conviction that he was making a terrible mistake.

He'd also searched the vehicle before they'd set off, then glanced at her with a considering frown.

So she drove with a set mouth and her heart hammering; he wouldn't allow her to use the headlights and the light was almost gone.

"There," he said, pointing to a darker shadow on the landscape. "Pull into the shed on the other side."

At first Jo thought it was only a clump of towering gum trees, then she discerned the outline of two buildings. "What is it?"

"Boundary riders hut," he replied tersely as she nosed the vehicle into an old shed.

"Is it…is this where you live?" He laughed scornfully. "Who are you trying to kid, Jo?"

She sucked in a breath. "I'm not trying to kid anyone! I have no idea what's going on or who on earth you are! What's your name?"

He glanced at her mockingly. "For the purpose of maintaining your charade, why don't you choose one? Tom, Dick or Harry will do." 'I have a better idea," she spat at him. "Mr Hitler is particularly appropriate for what I think of you!"

"So the lady has claws," he said softly, with an appreciative gleam in his blue eyes, and switched on the inside light.

"You better believe it."

Their gazes clashed. It was an angry, defiant moment for Jo, but there was also fear lurking beneath it. Fear and something else — a certain amount of confusion. He might act like a bushranger or a boundary rider gone berserk, but he sounded like neither.

What he said was undoubtedly inflammatory and insulting — let alone the incomprehensibility of it all — but the voice was educated and cultured with the kind of accent that a wealthy, old-money family and a private school steeped in tradition would imbue.

Then there was his navy-blue jumper. If she was any judge, it would have cost a small fortune, being made of especially soft, fine new wool — although they were on a sheep station that specialized in fine new wool, weren't they?

But most perplexing of all was the frisson tiptoeing along her nerve ends in the form of an awareness of him stealing over her. If you discounted his stubbly jaw and his eyes that could be murderous, he was well proportioned, excellently co-ordinated and rather devastatingly good- looking…

"What?"

She blinked at his question. "N-nothing." 'Or — thinking of changing sides?" he suggested. "Believe me, Jo, you'd be well advised to. Being my moll would have infinite advantages over —" 'Stop it!" She put her hands over her ears. "I'm no one's moll and have no intention of becoming one!"

"No?" He said it consideringly with his gaze roaming over her narrowly. "You could have fooled me a moment ago."

Jo bit her lip and was furious with herself. He laughed softly. "You're not much good at this, are you?"

"If I had any idea what you're talking about —" She broke off as he moved impatiently. "Enough! Let's get inside. We'll take all your gear." 'What for?" 'So I can go through it with a fine-tooth comb." He clicked off the overhead light and jumped out.

She had no choice but to follow suit. The shed had doors and he pushed them closed and latched them, so unless you knew to look, there was no sign of her car. Then he gestured for her to precede him into the hut.