Girl lying on road. Fergus’s training was asserting itself. In an emergency he’d been taught to take in the whole situation before doing anything.
Make sure there’s no surrounding danger before moving into help mode.
On top of the ridge stood a ewe, bleating helplessly. She was staring down at them as if they were enemies—as if she’d like to ram them.
Did sheep ram anyone?
The girl obviously wasn’t worried about ramming sheep, so maybe he shouldn’t either. But maybe continuing to lie in the middle of the road wasn’t such a great idea.
‘I could have hit you,’ he said. Then, as she didn’t answer, anxiety gave way to anger. ‘I could have run you over. Are you out of your mind?’
‘No one drives fast on this track unless they’re lunatics,’ she muttered, still clutching the lamb’s ear. ‘Sane drivers always slow down at cattle grids.’
That pretty much put him in his place.
‘Do you intend to stand there whinging about where I should or shouldn’t lie, or are you going to help me?’ the woman demanded, and he decided maybe he should do something.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Squeeze your arm through the bars and catch the other ear.’
‘Right.’ Maybe that was easier said than done. The woman was finely built, which was why she’d been able to reach the lamb. It’d be a harder call for someone heavier. Someone with a thicker arm. Like him. ‘Then what?’ he said cautiously.
‘I can’t get my other arm into position. If I release this ear, he’ll bolt to the other side of the pit and it’ll take me ages to catch him again. If you can grab his other ear and pull him up for a moment, I reckon I can reach further down and get him by the scruff of the neck.’
‘And pull him out?’
She sighed. ‘That’s the idea, Einstein.’
‘There’s no need—’
‘To be rude. No,’ she agreed. ‘Neither is there any need for me to rescue this stupid lamb. It’s not even my lamb. But I just walked out to catch some bucolic air and I heard him bleating. It’s taken ages to catch him and he’ll die if I leave him. I’ve been in the one spot for half an hour waiting for the footy to finish so someone would come along this damned road—and the iron’s digging into my face—so can we cut it out with the niceties and grab the stupid ear?’
‘Right,’ he said, and rolled up his sleeves.
It was even harder than he’d thought. He had muscles, built from years of gym work at his well-equipped city hospital, and those muscles didn’t help now. Up to his elbow was easy but then he had to shove hard and it hurt, and even then he could only just touch.
‘Jump!’ the woman yelled, and he and the lamb both jumped—which gave him access to an extra inch of ear. He got a hold.
They were now lying sprawled over the cattle grid with a lamb’s ear each. Neat, Fergus thought, and turned to grin at her.
She wasn’t grinning. She was pressed hard against him, her body warm against his, and she was concentrating solely on sheep.
‘Let go and you’re dead meat,’ she muttered. ‘On the count of three, we pull our ears up.’
‘We’ll break its neck.’
‘I only want to pull him up a couple of inches or so, in a nice smooth pull—no jerking—and then I’ll grab his neck. If I try and pull by one ear, I’ll break his neck. Ready, set… Now!’
What happened to the one, two, three? But he was ready and he’d gone beyond arguing. He tugged the lamb upward, she grabbed—and somehow she had a handful of wool at the back of the little creature’s neck.
Then she had more orders.
‘Shove your hand under its belly,’ she gasped, as she tugged the creature higher, and he did and thirty seconds later they had a shivery, skinny, still damply newborn lamb rising out of the pit into the late afternoon sun.
‘Oh, hooray,’ the woman whispered. She struggled to her feet, cradling the lamb against her, and for the first time Fergus managed to get a proper look at her.
She was in her late twenties, he thought, deciding she wasn’t a whole lot younger than his thirty-four years. She was five feet four or five, dressed in ancient jeans and an even more ancient windcheater. Her tousled curls were blowing everywhere. Freckles were smattered over a pert and pretty nose. She was liberally mud-spattered, but somehow the mud didn’t matter. She was patting the lamb, but her clear brown eyes were assessing him with a candour that made him feel disconcerted.
She was some package.
‘You’re not a local,’ she said, and he realised she’d been doing the same assessment as him.
‘I’m the local doctor.’
She’d been trying to stop the lamb from struggling as she ran her hands expertly over its body. She was doing an assessment for damage, he thought, but now her hand stopped in mid-stroke.
‘The local doctor’s dead.’
‘Old Doc Beaverstock died five years ago,’ he agreed. ‘The people who run the hospital seem to think they need a replacement. That’s me. Speaking of which, can you tell me—?’
‘You’re working here?’
‘As of yesterday, yes.’
Her eyes closed and when they opened again he saw a wash of pain. And something more. Relief?
‘Oh, thank God,’ she said. Then she set the lamb onto its feet and let it go.
The place where they were standing was deserted. To the west lay lush paddocks any self-respecting sheep would think were sheep paradise. To the west was the ewe. To the east was the cattle pit and dense bushland leading down to a lake formed by an ancient volcano.
West or east?
Some actions were no-brainers. The lamb turned and ducked through the woman’s legs, straight for the cattle pit.
‘Stop,’ she screamed, and not for nothing had Fergus played rugby for his university. He took a flying tackle and caught the creature by a back hoof as it hit the first rail.
Face down in the mud he lay, holding onto the leg for dear life.
‘Oh, well done.’ She was laughing, kneeling in the mud beside him, gathering the lamb back into her arms again, and he thought suddenly, She smells nice. Which was ridiculous. In truth, she smelt of lamb and mud with the odd spot of manure thrown in. How could she smell nice?
‘Don’t let him go again,’ he said weakly, wiping mud from his face as he shoved himself into a sitting position. He’d hit the ground hard and he was struggling to get his breath.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She rose and grinned
