Whether he heard me or not, I had no idea.
They took him for an ultrasound a little while later. Waiting in an empty space freaked me out, so I stepped outside to respond to the increasingly panicked messages I was getting from the farm. I called Emma. She answered on the first ring, breathless, her voice tight.
“He’s okay at the moment,” I said quickly, even though it was far from true. “They weren’t sure if he’d hit his head, so they did some tests, and he’s fine in that respect.”
“But?”
I tilted my face to the sky and gazed at the stars, tracking an airplane as it passed Orion’s Belt. “He took a nasty kick to his abdomen. The doctors are worried that it’s damaged him internally. They’ve taken him for an ultrasound to find out.”
Emma sucked in a breath. “What does that even mean? I thought he might have broken his ribs again—internal damage . . . shit, Harry. How serious is that?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out after the ultrasound. Have you called your mum?”
“I’ve left her a message. She doesn’t get a signal at her brother’s house, and there was no one in when I called.”
“Okay. What about Shadow? Did you get him calmed down?”
“I got him in his stable, but I might have to get the vet back out if he doesn’t stop booting his door. And he’s still got that huge splinter in his leg. I can’t get near him to take it out.”
The splinter was news to me, but the amped-up stress lacing Emma’s every word was horribly familiar. “Is George still with you? And Toby? Who’s watching the ponies?”
“George is. He’s moved them to the tack room so they’re closer to the house and put the donkey’s in the foaling stable, but he was up all night in the paddock, so I’ll have to send him home soon. And I can’t let Toby stay. He’s not old enough to work overnight.”
As I processed the dizzying influx of information, I found it hard to believe that George or Toby would leave the farm—or Emma—in an hour of need. But the fact remained that Joe worked so much it would take three pairs of hands to replace him. “Is there anyone else you can call for help? Friends? Neighbours?”
Emma blew out a breath. “There’s only one person I can call, but Joe will go ballistic. I’ll just have to manage.”
“I’ll help you.”
“You’re not going to leave my brother, Harry. I don’t know what’s going on between you, but I’m pretty sure I won’t see you until we know he’s okay.”
She wasn’t wrong. “I’m going to go back in. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“Okay. Harry, I—”
“Don’t. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just take care of the horses so he’s got one less thing to worry about.”
There wasn’t much else to say. Even if I wasn’t bound to Joe by the inexplicable cord between us, the farm couldn’t manage without Emma right now. We said goodbye and I started to drift back inside, but my phone rang before I got to the doors. I expected to hear Emma’s voice again and didn’t even look at the screen. “What is it?”
“Nice to speak to you too,” Rhys said dryly. “Didn’t wake you up, did I? It’s only eight o’clock.”
“No—fuck. I can’t talk right now.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I’m at Trelisk hospital with the bloke I’m renting my room from. He got kicked by a horse.”
“Shit. How bad?”
“I don’t know. They took him for an ultrasound.”
“An ultrasound of what?”
“His abdomen.”
“Probably liver or spleen then.”
He sounded so matter-of-fact that I wanted to reach through the phone and punch him. “How bad is that?”
“Trauma to any organ is serious, bro. Even if it’s non-penetrative.”
“Non-penetrative? You mean like bruising?”
“Yes. Bruising is still bleeding. It’s worse for older people—”
“Joe’s not old. He’s twenty-eight.”
“Then he’s got a good chance of recovery if they can figure out what the injury is. They can do all sorts surgically these days.
I shuddered, unable to face the prospect of Joe going under the knife. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Rhys hummed his agreement, and I was glad he couldn’t see me. While we’d talked, I’d leaned on a damp wall, so my clothes were now as soaked as my shoes. My legs were splattered with mud, and I didn’t want to contemplate what my face looked like. “Anyway,” I said, “I’d better see if he’s back from the ultrasound.”
“Fair enough. Are you okay?”
“Why are you asking me that? I’m not the one who got booted by a horse.”
“No, but you’re my brother, and I can tell you’re stressing the fuck out. You’re a healer—you don’t do blood and guts like me.”
It was true. Rhys and I had both fallen into the world of caregiving by accident, but our fields were vastly different. He didn’t have the patience for my work, and I didn’t have the stomach for his. “I’m okay, I’m just . . . fuck, I’m just worried about Joe, man. We’re—uh—friends.”
“Friends with benefits?”
“Don’t start that shit,” I snapped. “I’m not you.”
“Whoa.” Rhys chuckled, though any humour he may have been trying for washed over me. “There goes my attempt to cheer you up. Go back in and get things squared away. I’m working tonight, so I’ll be up. Call if you need me, yeah?”
I agreed and hung up, already feeling guilty for growling at him, and went back inside to find a flurry of activity at Joe’s bedside. “You’re moving him? Where to?”
“AAU,” the young doctor said. “The scan didn’t show any ruptures, but there’s some significant bruising around the spleen that we’d like to keep an eye on.”
Bruising is still bleeding. I nodded slowly. “How long do you need to monitor him?”
“Overnight on the AAU. They’ll give him fluids and pain relief. Then he’ll likely be admitted to a ward for a few days.”
“What about recovery time?”
“Long-term?” The doctor shrugged. “If the bruising doesn’t manifest as something more serious, we’re probably looking at a month or so for a full recovery. They’ll tell you more when he gets to a ward, but I’d imagine he’ll be out of action for at least a couple of weeks.”
My heart sank. The tentative prognosis was as positive as I could’ve hoped for, but how was the farm going to cope without Joe for the best part of a month? The stables were bursting at the seams and there was no denying that Joe was the muscle around the place—
Cold fingers closed around mine, cutting my brain off mid-flail. I looked down, and Joe was awake, his bloodshot eyes fixed on me. Panic forgotten, my world narrowed to him.
I rubbed his hand, trying to warm him up. “Hey, you. How you doing down there?”
Joe shook his head, and the doctor took over, asking Joe questions he couldn’t seem to answer, and explaining what was about to happen. I held onto Joe’s hand as long as I could, but eventually, a porter came to move his bed to the AAU department, and I was left behind to update Joe’s personal information. I was halfway through the form when I realised that the only thing I knew about him was his name, address, and the faint map of freckles on the back of his neck.
It took a while to catch up with Joe in AAU, and by then, he was asleep again. I sat with him until the early hours of the morning, but around two, when nothing significant had changed, another friendly nurse kicked me out.
I took a cab back to the farm. Emma was waiting for me in the yard. “Oh god, Harry. I’ve been so worried. Is he okay?”
“As okay as he can be. He hasn’t been awake much, but that’s a good thing, apparently.”
Emma shuddered. “He’s been kicked before—we all have—but never like this. What the hell happened?”
“I honestly don’t know. Toby didn’t see it either, so I guess we’ll have to wait for
Joe to tell us.”
“You didn’t speak to him?”
“He’s out of it at the moment. The drugs are doing their job.” Thank God. The brief moments Joe had been awake had been agonising for him. The nurses said he was better off asleep, and I believed them. “Where’s Shadow?”
“In his stable.”
“Is he calm?”
Emma nodded, her gaze sliding guiltily from mine.
I caught her arm. “What is it? Is he hurt?”
“No . . . actually, he’s doing much better.”
I was missing something, and despite the hold Joe had on my heart, it was none of my business, but I tightened my grip on Emma all the same. “Just tell me. No point hiding bad news, mate.”
“My dad’s here.”
“Oh.” I glanced around automatically, searching for the familiar face of a man I’d never seen. “Is that a good thing? Joe hasn’t told me—uh—much about him.”
Emma sighed. “I can tell by your face that he’s told you everything that matters, but I had no choice, Harry. I can’t handle Shadow on my own at the best of times, and we’ve got all these sick ponies to take care of too—”
I held up my hand to slow the flood of words falling from Emma as her anxiety peaked. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
“I need to explain it to someone. Mum can’t get back until lunchtime tomorrow, and I know she’ll go straight to the hospital. Perhaps Dad will be gone by then, but even if he is, I feel like I need to tell someone so it isn’t a bad dream.”
I tugged Emma into a loose embrace. “I get it. Sorry, I’ve got daddy issues of my own, so I’m a bit shit when people try to talk to me about theirs.”
“You’re not shit at anything, Harry. We’d be lost without you right now.”
I had nothing. Just held Emma until the tack room door opened and an older version of Joe emerged into the yard. He stared at me for a moment and then Emma. And then he plucked a hip flask from his pocket and took a sip.
“Just a drop,” he said. “Keep me going till morning.”
I didn’t know what to say as he sloped off to the feed shed. I’d gleaned enough from my short time on the farm to know that he’d brought trouble to the farm over and over again, but who was I to say that he shouldn’t be here now? “What’s his name again?”
“What?”
“Your dad. What’s his name?”
“Jonah. I know, I know…Josef, Jonah, Joe. We’re an original bunch.”
I tried for a smile. Failed.
“Look,” Emma said quietly, “I can’t expect him not to drink at all, but he’s promised he’ll stay sensible till Joe gets back.”
I shook my head. “Emma, Joe’s not coming home for a few days, and even when he does, he won’t be fit to work for at least a few weeks. If your dad can’t keep it together for longer than one night, you’re going to have to think of something else.”
Easy for you to say. The accusation was clear in Emma’s tired face, but she didn’t say it. “Let’s get through tonight,” she said. “Dad won’t come in the house, and George is sleeping at the bungalow to keep an eye on things and help me. If Toby pulls some extra hours, the girls too, maybe it will be enough.”
I hoped so, for their sake, because Whisper Farm was the end of the road for most of the horses here. If Emma couldn’t find a way to care for them while Joe recovered, some of them would have to be destroyed.
With a heavy heart, I made Emma promise that she’d go to bed when George got up and then retreated into the house to try and claim some sleep of my own. But Joe’s couch felt like a bed of nails without him, and I managed nothing more than a fitful doze.
It was still dark when I got up and peeped out the window, smiling in spite of myself as Emma kept her promise and swapped places with George.
The smile faded when Jonah appeared in the yard a few minutes later, and I couldn’t make sense of how the sight of him made me feel. He was clearly nothing like the only father I’d ever known, but he’d hurt his family multiple times just the same. Did that make him as bad as mine? Better? Worse?
I was still puzzling it over sometime later when the landline in the living room rang. My hand hovered over the receiver. What if it was a horse rescue? The farm had no capacity to take any more horses—and no Joe to coordinate a rescue—but was it my place to refuse?
It wasn’t, but I picked up the phone anyway. Whoever it was deserved a straight answer. “Hello? Whisper Farm.”
“Good morning. Could I speak with Harry, please?”
I frowned. The chipper female voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Erm . . . this is Harry.”
“Hello, Harry. Sorry to disturb you so early. I’m Dawn, one of the AAU nurses at Truro hospital. I’ve been looking after Joe this morning.”
My hand gripped the phone hard enough for it to creak. “Is he okay?”
“He’s a little agitated,” the nurse said. “I think it might be helpful if someone could come to the hospital and sit with him. Are you able to do that?”
“Of course.” I started for the door before I remembered that the landline phone was connected to the wall. “I’ll be there in half an hour. Tell him I’m coming.”
I dropped the phone and blurred around the room collecting the T-shirt, socks, and shoes that I’d discarded earlier in an effort to convince my brain that it was time for sleep. Outside in the yard, I got all the way to the gate before I remembered that my car was still in the garage.
Fuck! I dashed back to the house and searched the kitchen for the keys to Joe’s van, the horsebox, even the battered motorbike that George tinkered with from time to time—anything with wheels. Anxiety gripped me so entirely that I didn’t notice Jonah watching me until I barrelled right into him. “You’re not supposed to be in the house.”
It came out fiercer than I’d intended. Jonah stepped back, his gaze mild. “I ain’t coming in. Just poked my head around the door to see what’s got you all fired up. Something wrong?”
“I’m looking for the keys to Joe’s van. The hospital called and asked me to go back.”
Nothing changed in Jonah’s expression—not even a flicker of concern as he inclined his head to the dresser by the door. I followed his direction to a bowl, with half a dozen sets of keys in, and recognised Joe’s van keys immediately.
I grabbed them. “Thanks.”
“No worries. You going to be okay driving on these wet roads?”
“I’ll be fine. What are you going to do?”
“Get back to work, I suppose, lad.”
Jonah took another step back, allowing me to barge around him and shut the front door behind me, locking it. I jogged across the yard, feeling Jonah’s eyes tracking me. I was in the van, the keys jammed in the ignition, when he called out.
I wound the window down. “What?”
“Tell the boy the horse is fine.”
“Which horse?”
But Jonah was already walking away.
Chapter Eleven
Joe
It was like I’d been hit by a bus, and then the bus kept coming, driving over my abdomen again and again, crushing my insides. Squeezing them. Twisting them. And then clobbering me around the head with a hammer for good measure.
I’d always been shit at staying put when I was hurt. The nurses kept telling me to lie down, to rest and wait for the doctor to come back and give me more tramadol—whatever the hell that was. But I couldn’t stay still. It hurt too much. Besides, however badly Shadow had fucked me, I couldn’t blame him. He was wild—always had been—and I had to get back to him before someone else did something stupid . . . like walk into his field with a phone in their pocket.
For the hundredth time, I curled my arms beneath me and tried to push myself up.
For the hundred-and-first time, the butcher in my belly kept me down.
Someone touched my shoulder—a nurse. “Come on now, sweetie. You need to lie down and rest. You’re going to hurt yoursel
f more if you don’t keep still.”
I shrugged her off. Her hands were light but felt like spikes against my heated skin. My head swam and I gasped for breath, despite the tubes blasting arctic air up my nose. The panic that had consumed me when I’d come round amped up a notch. I’d been kicked by horses before—even knocked out by them—but I’d never felt pain like this. I was dying, I was sure of it.
Dramatic? Possibly, but it hurt so fucking much.
I curled up on the bed again, cringing against waves of cramp-wreaked havoc in my gut that spread through my torso and shoulders. Jesus-fucking-Christ. The doctor had warned me that it would get worse before it got better, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. I buried my head in my arms and longed for Harry. The time between Shadow kicking me and waking up in this damn, fucking bed was a blur, but Harry had been with me for a while, I was sure of it, and I craved his touch now more than I ever had. Harry, I need you.
Sometime later, gentle hands cupped my face, stroked my cheek, and rubbed the back of my neck. The sound that escaped me in response was piteous, but I didn’t care. Harry was inexplicably perched on the edge of the bed from hell, and nothing else mattered. My battered body was instantly drawn to him, seeking out his warmth like it could soothe every ache and pain. I collided with his muscular thigh and fumbled for any part of him that I could reach. He smelled like the farm, of horses and hay. He smelled like home. “Harry?”
“It’s me. Easy, mate. I’m here.”
“Harry—I can’t—it hurts so much.”
“I know.” Harry found my hand and squeezed, then he spoke over me to someone else. “Is he up to date with his pain relief?”
“Yes,” the familiar nurse said. “He can’t have any more until the consultant has seen him again.”
“When will that be?”
“Within the hour.”
Horror coursed through me. I couldn’t handle another fucking minute of this, let alone an hour. I started to squirm again, but Harry held me still, his grip on me absolute.
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