Perri had come here to Coorain, in the Dead Heart of Australia's Outback, to work. She was here with her uncle's anthropological team to study the customs and legends of the aborigines -- not to teeter on the brink of disaster with a man like Gray Faulkner, the cattle baron and Boss of Coorain.

For disaster it would be, Perri knew. Certainly there was no denying that she had fallen in love with him, more or less on sight; to some extent, she knew, Gray was attracted by her. But it was no use pretending that it amounted to anything more than a passing physical attraction. Perri didn't fit into the Outback way of life at all.

If and when Gray wanted a wife, he would surely choose Kim Talbot, who was so clearly being groomed for the position . .