When Only Diamonds Will Do

‘LADY—are you mad?’

A complete stranger said this as he got out of his car. He was breathing heavily.

There was dust swirling around them, dust raised when the stranger, in response to her signal for help, had almost driven his car into a large tree. He’d only corrected the situation at the last moment. The car was a late model gun-metal luxury four-wheel drive.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘My name is Kimberley Theron and I’m in a dreadful hurry but the thing is I appear to have run out of petrol. Would you be able to help?’

‘Kimberley Theron?’ the man she was addressing repeated.

‘You may have heard of…well, not me so much but the name?’ She looked at him searchingly, and her eyes suddenly widened.

Talk about tall, dark and handsome—no, not handsome; that was too bland a way to put it—rugged and interesting said it much better, she decided. He looked to be in his middle thirties. He was tanned with wide shoulders and an admirable physique beneath cargo pants and a grey sweatshirt. He had dark eyes and short dark hair.

‘Kimberley Theron,’ he repeated and studied her comprehensively from top to toe, then her silver convertible, its cream leather upholstery now coated with dust. ‘Well, Miss Theron, has no one—’ he folded his arms across his chest ‘—ever told you that dancing into the road pulling up your skirt and exposing your legs could cause…chaos?’

‘Actually—’ she paused for a moment and screwed up her forehead ‘—no one ever thought to mention that!’ She looked down at her legs, now demurely clothed beneath her denim skirt. She looked up and her sapphire-blue eyes were laughing. ‘I am sorry,’ she said contritely, however. ‘But I guess there is a funny side to it. I really couldn’t think of any other way to make sure you stopped.’

He didn’t look amused. He swore beneath his breath instead and looked around. It was a country road with lion-coloured paddocks running along either side of it. There was no sign of any habitation in either direction; there was absolutely no sign of any traffic. The sun was beating down.

He said, ‘I can’t siphon off any fuel for you because I run on diesel; you don’t. Where are you going?’

‘Bunbury. Are you—You are going in the right direction. Is there any chance I could get a lift with you?’

The stranger looked Kimberley Theron up and down again. Early twenties, he guessed, and she was stunning, with red-gold hair, those sapphire eyes, a good figure, not to mention, he thought dryly, sensational legs.

There was also an innate liveliness to her you couldn’t mistake, even if she had just about caused you to collide with a very big tree.

There was more, though. Behind the liveliness and whimsical humour lurked a…what was it?…an unshakeable conviction that she was no mere mortal—she was a Theron! And, consequently, begging a lift from a complete stranger posed no hazards.

He grimaced. ‘All right, but are you just going to leave it here?’ He gestured to her car.

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Here’s the other thing, my phone has run out of battery. Would you have a mobile on you? And, if so, could I borrow it to call home and get them to come and pick the car up? I would pay for the call, naturally. And, naturally, I would pay for the petrol to get to Bunbury.’

‘You don’t have to—’

‘I insist,’ she told him with an imperious little toss of her head.

He looked at her then shrugged and pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. Moments later he was treated to a one-sided Theron to Theron conversation.

‘Hello, Mum, it’s Kim. Darling, be an angel …’

And there followed all the details of Kim Theron’s predicament, plus the indication that she wasn’t completely impractical as she gave a short but accurate description of his car, including the registration number. Then she ended the call and handed his phone back to him with a rueful expression.

‘Sorry, I hope you didn’t mind me giving my mother some details about you, but she’s a worrier.’

He looked at her ironically.

‘And that explains that, so I don’t have to feel completely stupid!’ she went on. ‘My mother borrowed my car and neglected to replace the petrol she used. I didn’t even think to check the gauge because I was in such a rush.’

‘Why are you in such a rush?’ he enquired.

‘Can I tell you as we go along?’

He hesitated briefly, then gestured for her to get in.

‘My friend Penny,’ she said, settling herself into the passenger seat and doing up her seat belt, ‘one of my best friends, is pregnant and the baby is—was due in a fortnight but she’s gone into labour this morning. Her mother’s in Melbourne—other side of the continent—her husband’s driving a barge out from Port Hedland. She has no one else and it’s her first baby.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Did it cross your mind, once you’d phoned home, to wait for one of your family to come and rescue you?’

She shook her head. ‘Saldanha, where I live, I mean, is half an hour’s drive the other way and by the time they’d organized things—’ she gestured expressively ‘—I could have lost hours.’ She turned to him. ‘Do you mind doing this?’

He changed gear to negotiate a sharp bend and wondered what she’d say if he told her that the last person he’d wanted to meet was a member of the Theron family of Saldanha and Balthazar …

‘I was going to Bunbury anyway,’ he said.

Kim watched him for a long moment, then, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Reith.’

‘That’s unusual. What is it? Welsh?’

‘No idea.’ He shrugged.

‘How strange,’ Kim murmured.

He flicked her another ironic little glance. ‘I suppose you know exactly where your name comes from?’

‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ she said gravely, although her eyes were sparkling. ‘I was named after a diamond mine.’

‘That’s—’ he paused ‘—curiously appropriate.’

‘What does that mean?’ Kim queried.

‘You look like a diamond kind of girl.’

‘I’m so glad you didn’t say I look like the kind of girl whose best friends are diamonds,’ she responded and tossed her red-gold hair. But she went on, apparently not seriously offended, ‘Want to know which diamond mine?’

‘Let me guess. The Kimberley mine in South Africa.’

‘Got it in one! You are clever…er…Reith. Not a lot of people—in Australia—know about Kimberley in South Africa although, of course, a lot of them know about the Kimberley area up north, also associated with diamonds.’

He said nothing.

‘May I borrow your phone again?’ she requested then. ‘I could ring the hospital and find out how things are going.’

Things were going apace at the hospital and Kim was blinking rapidly as she ended the call. ‘I’ll be lucky to get there in time!’

‘Hold on,’ he recommended.