Welcome to Sutton Station: One of the world’s largest working farms in the middle of Australia – where if the animals and heat don’t kill you first, your heart just might. Charlie Sutton runs Sutton Station the only way he knows how; the way his father did before him. Determined to keep his head down and his heart in check, Charlie swears the red dirt that surrounds him – isolates him – runs through his veins. American agronomy student Travis Craig arrives at Sutton Station to see how farmers make a living from one of the harshest environments on earth. But it’s not the barren, brutal and totally beautiful landscapes that capture him so completely, it’s the man with the red dirt heart. Please note: This book is set in Australia, using Australian English and lingo.

Up until Travis arrived on his doorstep, Charlie had lived a very solitary life. He had surrounded himself with isolation; a couple million acres of red dirt, scorching sun and loneliness. Six months on, winter has settled over the desert, and Charlie has the life he never dreamed possible. But living and working together, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, for six months straight starts to take its toll. Charlie is a stubborn, stubborn man, who tends to have more conversations in his head than what comes out his mouth, whereas Travis has no problem saying what’s on his mind. And even as they both struggle to communicate, struggle to make sense of need versus want, Charlie can see that he’s pushing Travis away - yet seems helpless to stop it. When it all boils down to whether Travis should stay or go, maybe the decision won’t be theirs to make.

Life for Charlie Sutton has never been better, or busier. With Travis now a permanent fixture of Sutton Station, a permanent fixture at Charlie’s side, Charlie’s convinced he couldn’t do anything on his ever-growing to-do list without him. He can run a multimillion dollar cattle business, finish his degree, try and further the local beef industry, deal with staff issues, Ma’s failing health, and an attention-demanding wombat. He can even deal with an unexpected visitor and some shattering news. He can deal with it all, as long as he has Travis. But what happens when he doesn’t? Red Dirt Heart 3 is the story of Charlie Sutton finally realising he can be the man Travis Craig deserves, even if he doesn’t have Travis. It’s a story of love, family, holding on, letting go and coming home.

Travis had been here at Sutton Station for just over a year. We were technically engaged, not that we’d told anyone. He was happy just knowin’ I’d said yes, and I had some head-clearin’ stuff to work through. Knowing I was good enough for Trav was one thing, but knowing if I was good enough to be a husband and father was somethin’ else entirely. Life at Sutton Station had never been better. Business was strong, Trudy and Bacon’s little baby, Gracie, was a few weeks old now and as cute as a button, Ma’s health was good, and my relationship with Laura and Sam was in a pretty good place. And Travis? Well, life with him was still all kinds of perfect. But, to Travis’s dismay, Christmas at the Station was just another day. Another day of getting up before the sun, feeding animals, fixin’ what needed fixin’, and checking water troughs all while tryin’ to keep out of the blistering heat. And this year weren’t much different. Only that it was Travis’s first Sutton Station Christmas. The fact we didn’t go all out with decorations and celebrations baffled him, and if I was bein’ truthful, it disappointed him too. Which was why I had to make it a special kind of Christmas… NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This book uses Australian English spelling and grammar. There will be words like brumbies (wild horses) Macca’s (McDonald’s) and a serious lack of g’s on most ing words. There are also run-on hyphenated sentences. It’s just how Charlie speaks. TIMELINE ACKNOWLEDGMENT: (beware of spoilers for book 4 below!) Anyone familiar with the Red Dirt Heart series, will know it spans the seasons. In RDH1 when Travis arrives, it’s summer, RDH2 is autumn/winter, RDH3 is spring and RDH4, being Trav’s pov, is back to summer and spans another year. Christmas in Australia is in summer, so according to the actual timeline of the series, Travis’ first Christmas falls between RDH3 and RDH4, though it is not mentioned. So, like a small snippet of something that didn’t technically happen, this Christmas story is of Travis’ first Christmas at Sutton Station, therefore falls between books 3 and 4. They’re not married, there’s no Milly. A small reminder of where the storyline was up to… Travis has asked Charlie to marry him, but they’ve not told anyone yet. Trudy and Bacon have just had their first baby, Gracie, and Nugget still steals every scene he’s in.

Moving from a Texas ranch to an Australian Outback station was a life changing decision for Travis Craig. Though it wasn’t really a decision at all. Something in his bones told him to go, though he had no clue as to why. Until he met Sutton Station’s owner, Charlie. Loving Charlie shouldn’t have been easy. The man was stubborn, and riddled with crippling self-doubt. No, it shouldn’t have been easy at all. Yet somehow, falling in love with Charlie was the easiest thing in the world. Loving him was easy. Living with him, teaching him how to love in return and, more importantly, how to love himself, was not. But Travis knew all along it’d be worth it. He knew the man with the red dirt heart was destined to be his. Just like he knew the red dirt that surrounded him was where he was supposed to be. In the final installment of the Red Dirt Series, we see Charlie through Travis’ eyes. We see how much he’s grown and how much he loves. We go back to Texas with them, and we see Charlie get everything he truly thought he never deserved. Red Dirt Heart 4 is Travis’ story. And this is the story of not just one red dirt heart, but two.

When Charlie Sutton’s neighbour Greg is notified by the Queensland government that they intend to run a pipeline through his property, Charlie vows to help him fight it. Then Travis remembers seeing butterflies at the creek near their joining fence line - the same butterflies they couldn’t find in any Australian butterfly book. Hopeful this might be their only chance to stop the development, they seek the help of a specialist. Lawson Brighton-Gale receives an email request to identify a butterfly in the Outback, only to discover it’s not an Australian butterfly at all. But that’s not all he discovers. The name on the request is familiar to Jack. An old friend from his university days, who also happened to be his old friend with benefits, Charlie Sutton. Years ago, two out-of-towners met at the University of Sydney. Both studying environmental sciences, both hundreds of miles from home, and both finding their worlds open to new experiences, they fell into bed together. Meeting again after all this time, in front of Lawson and Travis, won’t be awkward at all, right? Lawson and Jack’s trip to Sutton Station certainly doesn’t go to plan, and what they take back to Tasmania isn’t just butterflies, but a cocoon of possibilities. A Red Dirt Heart and Imago crossover ~ The story of when red dirt and butterflies collide. \*18,000 words