Taming The Brooding Cattleman

by Marion Lennox

  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 the fact that Jack Connor had offered her a job?

  She shouldn’t take it. He was an arrogant, chauvinistic toad, she told herself. And this place was a dump.

  Except...it wasn’t. The stables were brilliant. The equipment Jack had, not just medical stuff but every single horse fitting, was first-class. He’d poured money into the stables, into the horses, rather than the house.

  She could forgive a lot of a man who put his animals’ needs before his own.

  And he’d fix the bathroom. He’d promised. She could have a bath like this every night.

  She wouldn’t have to go home and do her mother’s bidding.

  She could stay...with Jack?

  Maybe she needed a bit of cold water in this bath.

  Whoa. That was exactly the sort of thing she didn’t need to be thinking. Jack Connor was an arrogant man. The fact that he was drop-dead sexy, the fact that he’d smiled down at the foal and his smile made her toes curl...

  Neither of those things could be allowed to matter.

  Or both of those things should make her run a mile.

  She shouldn’t stay.

  She poked one pink toe out of the water and surveyed it with care. She’d had her toenails painted before she left New York.

  What was she thinking, getting her toenails painted to come here?

  ‘Not to impress Jack Connor, that’s for sure,’ she told herself. ‘If I stay here it’ll be hobnail boots for the duration.’

  Good. That was what she was here for. She was not here to impress Jack Connor.

  She’d saved his mare and foal. She’d made that grim face break into a smile.

  He’d made her an egg.

  ‘You’re a fool, Alex Patterson,’ she told herself. ‘Your father thinks of you as a boy. If you’re going to stay here, you need to think of yourself as one, too. No interest in a very sexy guy.’

  No?

  No.

  But her toe was still out of the water.

  The toe was a symbol. Most of Alex Patterson was one very sensible vet. There was a tiny bit, though, that refused to be sensible.

  There was a tiny bit remembering that smile.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE woke and it was eleven o’clock and someone was thumping outside her bedroom window.

  Someones. Male voices.

  She double-checked her clock—surely she hadn’t slept so long. Her head didn’t have a clue what time it was. Eleven in the morning—that’d make it...nine at night in Manhattan. She should be just going to bed.

  She was wide awake. She crept over to the drapes and pushed one aside, a little bit. Expecting to see Jack.

  A van was parked right by her bedroom window. Wombat Siding Plumbing, it said on this side. She could see three guys with s
hovels. Bathroom menders.

  Jack might just be a man of his word, she thought, and grinned.

  Where was he?

  Did it matter? The sun was shining. The day was washed clean and delicious. Her bathroom was being prepared. How was her mare?

  It took her all of two minutes to dress. She felt weirdly light-headed, tingling with the lighthearted feeling that this might work, that contrary to first impressions, here might be a veterinarian job she could get her teeth into.

  And she’d be working beside a guy called Jack.

  He wasn’t in the kitchen. Instead she found a note.

  Sorry, but you’ll still need to use the outhouse this morning. Plumbing is promised by tonight. Help yourself to breakfast and go back to sleep. You deserve it. I’m working down the back paddock but am checking Sancha and her foal every couple of hours. They look great. Thank you.

  There was nothing in that note to get excited about. Nothing to make this lighthearted frisson even more...tingly.

  Except it did.

  Go back to bed?

  She’d thought she wanted to sleep until Monday. She was wrong.

  Two pieces of toast and two mugs of strong coffee later—another plus, Jack obviously knew decent coffee—she headed out to the stables.

  As promised, Sancha and her foal looked wonderful. The mare was a deep, dark bay, with white forelock and legs. Her foal was a mirror image. They looked supremely content. Sancha tolerated her checking her handiwork and she found no problem.

  ‘I’ll take you for a wee walk round the home paddock this afternoon,’ she promised her. ‘No exercise for you for a while but your baby needs it.’

  Where was Jack?

  She tuned out the sounds of the plumbers and listened. From below the house came the sounds of a chainsaw. Jack was working?

  She should leave him to it.

  Pigs might fly.

  She headed towards the sound, following the creek just below the house. It really was the most stunning property, she thought. It had been cleared sympathetically, with massive river red gums still dotted across the landscape. A few hefty beef cattle grazed peacefully under the trees. They’d be used to keep the grass down, she thought, a necessity with such rich pasture. The country was gently undulating, with the high mountain peaks of the Snowies forming a magnificent backdrop. Last night’s rain had washed the place clean, and every bird in the country seemed to be squawking its pleasure.

  The Australian High Country. The internet had told her it’d be beautiful, and this time the web hadn’t lied.

  She rounded a bend in the creek—and saw something even more beautiful.

  Jack. Stripped to his waist. Hauling logs clear from an ancient, long-dead tree, ready for cutting.

  She stopped, stunned to breathlessness. She’d never seen a body so...ripped.

  If she was a different sort of girl she might indulge in a maidenly swoon, she thought, and fought to recover.

  He lifted his head and saw her—and he stilled.

  ‘You’re supposed to be sleeping.’

  ‘I came here to work.’

  ‘No more mares are foaling right now.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that,’ she said, and ventured a smile. Seeing if it’d work.

  It didn’t. He looked...disconcerted, she thought. As though he didn’t know where to pigeonhole her.

  As though he’d like her pigeonhole to be somewhere else.

  She glanced around and saw a pile of chopped logs, neatly stacked on a trailer. There was an even bigger pile of non-stacked timber beside it.

  She metaphorically spat on her hands, lifted a log and set it on the trailer.

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  She heaved a second log onto the tractor and lifted another. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s not your—’

  ‘Job? Yes, it is. The agreement was I’d work as a vet and handyman.’

  ‘Handyman,’ he said, with something akin to loathing.

  ‘Do we need to go there again?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘There you go, then,’ she said, and smiled and kept on stacking.

  * * *

  How was a man supposed to work with a woman like this beside him?

  He’d used the tractor to haul a dead tree out of the creek. Chopped, it’d provide a year’s heating. The fire stove was nearly out. This needed doing.

  Not with Alex.

  She didn’t know the rules. She was heaving timber as if she was his mate, rather than...

  Rather than what? He was being a chauvinist. Hadn’t he learned his lesson last night?

  But the logs were far too heavy for a woman. Her hands...

  She didn’t want to be treated as a woman, he told himself. Her hands were her business.

  No.

  ‘If you were a guy, I’d still be saying put gloves on,’ he growled. ‘There’s a heap up in the stables. Find your size and don’t come back again until you have them on.’

  ‘I don’t need—’

  ‘I’m your employer,’ he snapped. ‘I get to pay employee insurance. Gloves or you don’t work.’

  She straightened and stared at him. That stare might work on some, he thought, but it wasn’t working on him.

  ‘Your choice,’ he said, and turned his chainsaw back on.

  She glowered, then stomped up to the stables to fetch some gloves. And then came back and kept right on working.

  * * *

  They worked solidly for two hours, and Jack was totally disconcerted. He started chopping the logs a little smaller, to make it easier for her to stack, but he’d expected after half an hour she’d have long quitted.

  She hadn’t. She didn’t.

  He worked on. She piled the trailer high. He had to stop to take it up to the house and empty it. She followed the truck and trailer to the house and helped heave wood into the woodshed. Then, as he checked again on Sancha and the foal, without being asked, she took the tractor and headed back to the river to start on the next load.

  Either she was stronger than she looked, or she was pig stubborn. He couldn’t tell unless he could see her hands. He couldn’t see her hands because she kept the gloves on. She worked with a steady rhythm he found disconcerting.

  She was from New York. She shouldn’t be able to heave wood almost as easily as he did.

  She did.

  Finally the second trailer was full.

  Lunch.

  He’d slapped a bit of beef into bread to make sandwiches to bring with him. He’d brought down beer.

  There wasn’t enough to go round, and it was time she stopped.

  ‘There’s heaps of food in the kitchen,’ he told her. ‘You’ve done a decent day’s work. Head back up and get some rest.’

  She shook her head. She’d been carrying a sweater when she arrived. She’d laid it aside at the edge of the clearing. She went to it now, and retrieved a parcel from under it.

  A water bottle and a packet of sandwiches. Neater than the ones he’d made.

  ‘How did you know...?’

  ‘You left the sandwich bread and the cutting board on the sink,’ she said. ‘It didn’t take Einstein to figure sandwiches had been made. I figured if you were avoiding plumbers, I would, too.’

  ‘I’m not avoiding plumbers.’

  ‘Avoiding me, then? You want to tell me what you have against women?’ She bit into her sandwich, making it
a casual question. Like it didn’t matter.

  ‘I don’t have anything against women. I just assumed you couldn’t be up to the job.’

  ‘And now you find I am,’ she said, and looked at him and beamed—like he’d just given her the best of compliments

  She was teasing him?

  He smiled back. He had no choice in the face of that beam. ‘More than up to the job,’ he admitted. ‘You made your full six months’ wages last night. You can go home happy.’

  ‘If I want to go home.’

  ‘You want to stay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and had a bit more sandwich. ‘I have a reputation to make. Six months’ hard work and a reference from Werarra at the end of it should see me set for a decent job back home. Mind, please don’t update your website while I apply for jobs. This place is known internationally as a major stud. Seeing your outhouse would do your reputation no end of harm.’

  ‘It’s not the outhouse buyers are interested in. It’s the horses.’

  ‘Which is why you don’t care for anything but?’

  It was a question. She was waiting for an answer.

  This was none of her business, he told himself. He didn’t need to tell her anything.

  But she was happily munching sandwiches she’d made herself. She’d worked hard all morning. She’d worked hard last night.

  She’d come halfway round the world to take an appalling job.

  ‘Werarra horses are some of the best stockhorses in the world,’ he said, trying to keep emotion out of what he needed to tell her. ‘Maybe they’re the best. Since my grandmother died, my grandfather hasn’t cared for anything but the horses, but he has cared for them.’

  ‘My brother checked this place out for me on the internet,’ she said conversationally. ‘He says your grandpa died last year but the place has been run by a manager. You’re the owner but you’ve not been near the place. You’ve been heading an IT company.’