at the speedometer, then decided the suspension could take a bit more abuse. Adding pressure to the accelerator, he fixed his gaze down the rutted road.
He’d finished his rounds and had just landed on the Kerry Creek airstrip when the phone call had come in. Doc Daley was in the midst of a tricky C-section on Lanie Pittman’s bulldog at the Bilbarra surgery, and needed him to cover the call. It was only after Teague asked for details that he realized his services might not be welcomed. The request had come from Wallaroo Station.
The Frasers and the Quinns had been at it for as long as he could remember, their feud igniting over a piece of disputed land—land that contained the best water bore on either station.
In the outback, water was as good as gold and it was worth fighting for. Cattle and horses couldn’t survive without it, and without cattle or horses the family station wasn’t worth a zack. Teague wasn’t sure how or why the land was in dispute after all these years, only that the fight never seemed to end. His grandfather had fought the Frasers, as had his father, and now, his older brother, Callum.
But all that would have to be forgotten now that he was venturing into enemy territory. He had come to help an animal in distress. And if old man Fraser refused his help, well, he’d give it anyway.
As Teague navigated the rough road, his thoughts spun back nearly ten years, to the last time he’d visited Wallaroo. He felt a stab of regret at the memory, a vivid image of Hayley Fraser burned into his brain.
It had been the most difficult day of his life. He’d been heading off into a brand-new world—university in Perth, hundreds of miles from the girl he loved. She’d promised to join him the moment she turned eighteen. They’d both get part-time jobs and they’d attend school together. He hadn’t known that it was the last time he’d ever see her.
For weeks afterward, his letters had gone unanswered. Every time he rang her, he ended up in an argument with her grandfather, who refused to call her to the phone. And when he finally returned during his term break, Hayley was gone.
Even now, his memories of her always spun back to the girl she’d been at seventeen and not the woman she’d become. That woman on the telly wasn’t really Hayley, at least not the Hayley he knew.
The runaway teenager with the honey-blond hair and the pale blue eyes had ended up in Sydney. According to the press, she’d been “discovered” working at a T-shirt shop near Bondi Beach. A month later, she’d debuted as a scheming teenage vixen on one of Australia’s newest nighttime soap operas. And seven years later, she was the star of one of the most popular programs on Aussie television.
He’d thought about calling her plenty of times when he’d visited Sydney. He’d been curious, wondering if there would be any attraction left between them. Probably not, considering she’d dated some of Australia’s most famous bachelors—two or three footballers, a pro tennis player, a couple of rock stars and more actors than he cared to count. No, she probably hadn’t thought of Teague in years.
As he approached the homestead, Teague was stunned at the condition of the house. Harry Fraser used to take great pride in the station, but it was clear that his attitude had changed. Teague watched as a stooped figure rose from a chair on the ramshackle porch, dressed in a stained work shirt and dirty jeans. The old man’s thick white hair stood on end. Teague’s breath caught as he noticed the rifle in Harry’s hand.
“Shit,” he muttered, pulling the Range Rover to a stop. Drawing a deep breath, he opened the window. His reflexes were good and the SUV was fast, but Harry Fraser had been a crack shot in his day. “Put the gun down, Mr. Fraser.”
Harry squinted. “Who is that? State your name or get off my property.”
“I’m the vet you sent for,” Teague said, slowly realizing that Harry couldn’t make him out. His eyesight was clearly failing and they hadn’t spoken in so many years there was no way Harry would recognize his voice. “Doc Daley sent me. He’s in the middle of a surgery and couldn’t get away. I’m…new.”
Harry lowered the rifle, then shuffled back to his chair. “She’s in the stable,” he said, pointing feebly in the direction of one of the crumbling sheds. “It’s colic. There isn’t much to do, I reckon.” He waved the gun at him. “I’m not payin’ you if the horse dies. Got that?”
They’d discuss the fee later, after Harry had been disarmed and Teague had a chance to examine the patient. He steered the Range Rover toward the smallest of the old sheds, remembering that it used to serve as the stables on Wallaroo. Besides that old shack on the border between Wallaroo and Kerry Creek, the stables had been one of their favorite meeting places, a spot where he and Hayley had spent many clandestine hours exploring the wonders of each other’s bodies.
Teague pulled the truck to a stop at the wide shed door, then grabbed his bag and hopped out. The shed was in worse condition than the house. “Hullo!” he shouted, wondering if there were any station hands about.
To his surprise, a female voice replied. “Back here. Last stall.”
He strode through the empty stable, each stall filled with moldering straw. A rat scurried in front of him and he stopped and watched as it wriggled through a hole in the wall. While the rodent startled him, it was nothing compared to the shock he felt when he stepped inside the stall.
Hayley Fraser knelt beside a horse lying on a fresh bed of straw. She was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, the toes of her boots peaking out beneath the ragged hems of her pant legs. They stared at each other for a long time, neither one of them able to speak. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Teague thought, his mind racing. He’d always imagined they’d meet on a busy street or in a restaurant.
Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, she blinked and pointed to the horse. “It’s Molly,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’m pretty sure she has colic. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t get her up.”
Teague stepped past Hayley and bent down next to the animal. The mare was covered with sweat and her nostrils were flared. He stepped aside as the horse rolled, a sign that Hayley’s diagnosis was probably right. Teague stood and reached into the feed bin, grabbing a handful of grain and sniffing it. “Moldy,” he said, turning to Hayley.
“I got here last night,” she explained, peering into the grain bin. “When I came in this morning she was like this.”
“She might have an impaction. How long has she been down?”
“I don’t know,” Hayley said. “I found her like this at ten this morning.”
Teague drew a deep breath. Colic in horses was tricky to treat. It could either be cured in a matter of hours or it could kill the horse. “We need to get her up. I’ll give her some pain medication, then we’ll dose her with mineral oil and see if that helps.”
“What if it doesn’t?” Hayley asked. “What about surgery?”
Teague shook his head. “I can’t do surgery here. And the nearest equine surgical facility is at the university in Brisbane.”
“I don’t care what it costs,” she said, a desperate edge to her voice. “I don’t care if I need to charter a jet to fly her there. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
He chuckled softly at the notion of putting the horse on a jet. “We’ll cross that fence when we come to it,” Teague murmured. “Help me get her up.”
It
