She struggled, as well, and Alex was suddenly back with him. The mare rose, as unsteady as her daughter, but finally with their help she was upright.
She turned and nosed her daughter. The foal whinnied in response, and started magically to nose underneath her.
Alex smiled and smiled. She guided the foal to the teat and then stood back.
‘I think we might just have won,’ she whispered, and Jack might have been struggling to hide his emotions but Alex surely wasn’t. Tears were tracking down her cheeks and he felt an almost irresistible urge to wipe them for her.
He watched her. He watched the foal and the sensations were indescribable. The urge to hug this woman, to lift her and spin her in triumph, to share this amazing feeling …
It had to be suppressed—of course it did—but nothing had ever been harder.
So she wiped her tears herself, swiping her bathrobe sleeve over her face, sniffing, smiling through tears, then started to clear away the stained straw. Moving on. Being sensible.
More sensible than him.
‘She’ll need to be kept quiet for weeks,’ she said, trying to sound brusque rather than emotional—but not succeeding. ‘This isn’t like a human caesarean—all her innards are bearing down on those stitches. The foal will need exercise, though. It’s imperative to allow her to run and frolic, so it’ll be hand-walking the mare every day while her baby has her runs.’
She’d started loading her gear back into her bag. ‘That’s more work for you,’ she said, still brusque. Not looking at him. ‘A lot of extra work. You might need to think about finding extra help. Seeing as you’ve sacked me.’
She might not be looking at him, but he was looking at her. She was wearing a bloodstained and filthy bathrobe. Her hair was flying every which way.
He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
Which was the sort of thing he needed to stop thinking if he was offering her a job.
He was offering her a job. He had no choice. He’d treated her appallingly and she’d replied by saving his mare and foal.
‘The indoor bathroom drain only blocked last week,’ he told her before he could let prudence, sense, anything, hold sway. ‘I can pay priority rates and arrange a plumber to come this morning. We should have an operating bathroom by dusk. For now, though … The boiler in the outside laundry is full of hot water. I can cart water into the bath so you can get yourself clean.’
She stilled and stared at him. ‘Hot water?’ she whispered, as if he was offering the Holy Grail.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re offering me a bath?’
‘And a job.’
‘Forget jobs, just give me a bath,’ she said, breathing deeply. She straightened and looked at him full-on, as if reading his face for truth. ‘A great big, hot, gorgeous bath? I’ll cart the water myself if I must.’
‘No more carting for you tonight,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’ve done enough. About this job …’
‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about anything you like, as long as the bath comes first.’
She headed for her bath. The ancient claw-foot tub was huge and it took a while to fill but she beamed the whole time he filled it. He made sure she had everything she needed, then headed back out to the stables.
He watched over his mare and foal and thought about what had just happened.
He’d arrived here after Sophie’s death thinking he had a manager and a stablehand. The stablehand had been yet one more instance of his manager’s fraudulent accounting. So had the costs he’d billed Jack for, for the upkeep of the buildings. Seemingly his grandfather hadn’t worried about infrastructure for years and his crook of a manager had made things worse. The horses had been cared for, the cattle had kept the grass down, but nothing else had been done to the place at all. Jack was therefore faced with no help and no place fit to house anyone to help him.
When Cedric Patterson’s letter came he’d been pushed to the limit. Cedric’s offer had been for a farmhand and a vet, rolled into one.
The manager’s residence was uninhabitable and he didn’t have time to fix it. But could he put a young man into the main house? A wide-eyed student, who needed experience to get a job elsewhere? Who’d shrugged off his assurance that this place was rough as if it was nothing? Such a kid might well take the job. Such a kid might not intrude too much on his life.
He’d mulled over the letter for a couple of days before replying but it had been too tempting to resist. Now it was even more tempting. Alex was some vet.
So, he’d offered her the job. If she accepted, the decision was made.
Which meant living with her for six months.
He didn’t want to live with anyone for six months, but he sat on a hay bale and watched mare and foal slowly recover from their ordeal, and he thought of Alex’s skill and speed, and he knew this was a gift he couldn’t knock back.
He thought of how he’d felt, watching her over the kitchen table. Remembering Sophie. Remembering pain. Those last few months as Sophie had spiralled into depression so great nothing could touch her were still raw and dreadful.
Alex had nothing to do with Sophie, he told himself harshly. All he had to do was stay aloof.
All he had to do was not to care. That was his promise to himself. Never to care again.
But she was lovely. And clever and skilled.
And gorgeous.
‘Cut it out,’ he growled, and his mare stirred in alarm. Her foal, however, kept right on drinking.
‘See, that’s what I need to be,’ he told his beautiful mare. ‘Single-minded, like your baby. I’m here to produce the best stockhorses in Australia and I’m interested in nothing else.’
Liar. He was very, very interested in the woman he’d just shown into the bathroom. He’d watched her face light when she’d seen the steaming bathtub of hot water and he’d wanted … he’d wanted …
It didn’t matter what he wanted, he thought. He knew what he had to do.
He’d offered her a job. This stud needed her.
That was all it was. An employer/employee relationship, starting now.
If she stayed.
He shouldn’t want her to stay—but he did.
Would she stay?
Did it matter?
She lay back in the vast, old-fashioned bathtub and let the hot water soothe her soul. Nothing mattered but this hot water.
And the fact that she’d saved a mare and foal. It was what she was trained to do and the outcome was deeply satisfying.
And
