Alysa Dyess-Judd mumbled something grumpily under her breath as she pulled into the driveway of Hell’s Gate Outstation, a small speck on the Australian outback.  She’d gone into town to get supplies, and traffic had been, in a word, hellacious.  Alysa despised the city, but somehow she was ALWAYS the one who had to go into town to get supplies. 

            The entire back of her Range-Rover was full of groceries, brand new tack, first-aid supplies, medications, toiletries, work clothes, you name it, and it was in the back of that Range-Rover.  She unloaded most of it at the main station, and then drove out to her small range-house, longing for a shower.  She groaned inwardly as she unloaded her personal supplies, and took them into the kitchen of the low-slung house.

            It was styled a lot like the ranch-houses back home in the U.S. Alysa had thought at first, with one exception. It was a whole lot smaller.  There was a kitchen, a bedroom, a living room, and a bath. That was the long and short of it, literally. It was rustic, weathered hardwoods, and outstation equipment. A large, graceful Doberman greeted her with a joyous bark, bounding over to lick her ears.

            Alysa, Ali for short, chuckled fondly at her dog Loki, before kicking off her boots. “Hey Loki, buddy, did you miss me honey?” Ali laughed heartily as she playfully tussled with the Doberman in the kitchen. “All right, Loki, I have to take a shower now. I was in that nasty city all day long; I need to wash it out of my hair. I promise I’ll play with you as soon as I get out.” 

            Loki looked at her dolefully, and loped over to the couch, lying across it as if Ali were the pet, and he the master. Ali glared at him, and he slunk down, going to his own rug, as his mistress disappeared into the bathroom. Ali sighed as she peeled her dust-caked t-shirt and jeans off, grimacing at how sweaty they were. Hell, I didn’t sweat this much back home in Texas… She was glad that Texas had prepared her for the outback, though. She knew she wouldn’t have been able to stand it if she’d come from somewhere like Boston or Maine. She grinned at herself in the old dirty mirror, her tan much darker now than it had been when she’d arrived a year ago. 

            Gray-green eyes twinkled with mischief as a pixyish grin dominated her gentle mouth. Straight white teeth that were mainly due to years of orthodontic work clenched a little behind the smile as she heard a familiar truck pull up into her driveway. Ethan, your timing really sucks. Ali growled mentally as she turned the shower on to luke-warm water, spraying full blast. She shrugged to herself as she stepped under the spray, thinking that if it was important, Ethan would just have to wait.  The city had made her royally grumpy, and she was going to have her shower in peace before she even thought about doing anything else.  She scrubbed down with rose-scented soap, and then washed her hair-the one thing she really valued about her physical appearance-and conditioned it carefully. 

            When she’d left the States for Australia her hair had been chopped off in a pixyish –teenage -phase-style. Since she’d come to Hell’s Gate she’d let her golden-brown hair grow out to about mid-back length, and took great pride in how immaculate and soft she kept it. Her hair was always braided back carefully when she was working, and she conditioned it religiously. It was something of a rite of passage for her. The short choppy hair had been a signal of her teenage stupidity, which had still been intact at the age of twenty, when she left her ‘husband’ –if you could call him that- in the States, and come to Australia. Since then she had done a lot of growing up, as well as growing her hair out, so it was a symbol of sorts for her. 

            Ali toweled dry vigorously and combed her hair, braiding it back severely since she was somewhat angry with Ethan for showing up unannounced.  She cringed when she realized that she only had her cutoffs and her faded air force t-shirt. God knows I don’t want Ethan seeing me in this getup, but oh well. Bugger it; it’s better than me running around in the raw to go get different clothes. She snatched open the door with a decidedly perturbed snap, and stepped into the hall. Ethan, Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome himself, was leaning arrogantly against her kitchen counter.  His jet-black hair fell across his forehead in a rakish sort of way, and brown eyes attempted to pin her to the wall.  

            It didn’t work. Only one man had ever been able to stop Ali with a simple look. That was her husband, Robert Judd, the husband that no one here knew about. The husband whose ring she never wore...the husband that she was going to work up the courage to send divorce papers to one of these days. Ethan smiled at her, “Hey there, gorgeous. I heard you went into town to get supplies today.” He grinned at her, trying to ignore the fact that she was cross with him for just showing up out of nowhere as he often did.

            Alysa frowned, “Yeah, so? What’s up Ethan?”

            “My lovely sister-in-law, Katherine –you know, your best friend and the closest thing you have to a sister- she wants you to go to a party with her tonight, since you have two month’s leave starting tonight.”

            “How is it that my best friend remembers when I’m going to go on leave and I don’t?” Ali grinned momentarily, before looking back at Ethan. “What kind of party are Greg and Kit trying to drag me to now?” She joked laughingly, poking fun at Ethan’s older brother and his wife, who was her very best friend.

            “Damned if I know. It’s like you’re trying to work yourself to death, Ali.” Ethan grumbled. 

            “You might just be right, Ethan. Go get Kit and bring her over here so she can tell me what she’s gotten me into this time, and we can go through my closet and see if I’ve got anything suitable here. If not then she and I will just have to take my Range-Rover back into town and go shopping before the party tonight.”

            Ethan nodded, though he didn’t appreciate getting ordered around by Alysa, but she was cute while she was at it, so he let it slide. She was only 5’3” to his 6’2”, but he thought she was gorgeous. She was just right, thin in a muscular type of way, with ample curves to make up for it. He had a hard time keeping his eyes off her wonderfully shaped breasts, and cute little just-barely-there behind. Her hips were a little narrow, but it didn’t matter too much, she carried it off well. She also had arms that were as muscular as his own, from a year and a few months of hard work at Hell’s Gate.

            He knew she could hold her own in a fight if she ever needed to, and it attracted him to her all the more. She had no qualms about throwing around punches when things got out of hand in pubs, or on the outstation, and she loved wrestling with the guys. For a woman, she had a pretty good record of only ever losing once, and that was to a man nearly three times her size that swung her through a window by her ponytail. He’d been promptly fired after that incident, and Ali got her revenge before he left, too. He’d ridden off the outstation in an ambulance with two black eyes and a severe concussion from Ali pushing the man off her porch, after blacking both his eyes, and he’d just happened to land the wrong way with his head crashing through the roof of Loki’s dog house.

            Ali was only rough like that when she had to be, though. Really she was a sweet young woman who preferred not to have confrontations. Ethan thought that it was good she could take care of herself in a stitch, though. He laughed to himself as he drove to his brother’s house to get Kit and take her over to Ali’s…house, if you could call it that. He failed to understand why she insisted on living in that place when he’d offered to let her move into the bigger station-house closer in to the main work station on Hells’ Gate. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’ll never understand that crazy little American woman…

            He grinned at his sister-in-law, Katherine, as he jumped out of his ramshackle pick-up truck. “She’s considering it.” He explained shortly as his older brother Greg stepped out of the house. 

            “Good to hear it, Ethan. She’s been trying to work herself into the ground, I swear. It’ll be good for her to have a girl’s night out with her wonderful best friend, who happens to be my dead-sexy wife.” Greg smiled broadly as he pulled his wife of two months into a kiss that was definitely not meant for company to see. Ethan’s ears burned crimson as Kit playfully gave her husband a shove.

            “You’re embarrassing your little brother, Greg.” She laughed playfully as she punched her husband on the shoulder.

 Greg laughed heartily as he popped his wife squarely on the rear. “Grab your things and get going, love. Ali needs contact with another woman every once in a while, what working with jackasses like Little Brother all the time.” 

Ethan glared haughtily at Greg, before going back to his usual bored expression while he waited on his sister-in-law to get all of her things into his truck so he could take her to see Ali. 

Greg, who was tall and lanky, with dark shaggy-brown hair, and warm brown eyes waved his wife off. She was gorgeous, finely structured with all the right things in all the right places, and the most beautiful midnight black hair he’d ever seen. He thought he could probably drown in her blue-grey eyes, too. He hated to admit he was head-over-heels madly in love with his adorable little bride. 

Kit grinned at Ethan, whom she’d managed to thoroughly embarrass. “Come on, Little Brother, you’re a big boy, don’t get so embarrassed around me and Greg.”

Ethan frowned, “Hey, look, I’m just not too keen on watching my brother stick his tongue down your throat all the time. You’re married, so keep it private already.”

“All right, attitude. What’s your bloody problem? Ali stick a boot up your ass for showing up unannounced, as usual?”