‘I don’t want him getting attached to this place.’
‘He already is attached,’ Alex retorted. ‘You know he’s had a rough deal. Brenda’s not his mum—she’s his stepmum. She’s kind to him but it’s not like he’s her own and he knows it. His dad’s disappeared. His mum’s occupied with his two half-sisters. Thanks to you he has enough to eat and he’s safe but he needs more.’
‘If Brenda needs more help—’
‘Brenda doesn’t need more help,’ she said, exasperated. ‘But she’s talking of moving back to the city to be with her sister. It’s breaking Oliver’s heart.’
‘Kids are tough,’ he said, thinking they have to be.
‘When your mum walked out on you,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Did the horses help?’
‘This is not about me.’
‘It’s not,’ she said evenly. ‘It’s about a little boy who needs your help. Are you afraid he’ll depend on you like Sophie?’
Whoa. How had she got there? She was supposed to be a vet, not a shrink.
‘This is nothing to do with you, and you need to be careful yourself. You’ll return to the States. If you build a relationship, where will he be then?’
‘With you.’
‘You just said his mother’s taking him to the city.’
‘She’s not his mother.’
‘All the more reason not to get involved, then,’ he snapped. ‘He needs to build a relationship with her. You’re not suggesting I should adopt the kid, let him live here?’
‘No, but—’
‘Then it’s kinder to put boundaries in place now.’
Silence.
They were sitting quietly at the rear of the stables, waiting for the mare to drop her foal. Maybe Alex had thought this was a good time to bring up Oliver, he thought grimly—when he was distracted enough to agree.
He wasn’t agreeing to anything. Especially not to a freckle-faced, needy kid who could just as easily self-destruct.
He hadn’t been able to make a blind bit of difference with Sophie. What did Alex think he could achieve with anyone else?
The mare gave one last, mighty contraction and the foal slithered out onto the hay. Unlike Sancha’s, this was a fast, trouble-free birth. Alex checked the tiny muzzle, made sure there were no breathing problems and stepped back. The least human intervention while they bonded, the better.
Job done, they slipped out of the stall and stood looking down at mare and foal across the stable door. One tiny, gangly foal, learning his new act of balancing on legs that looked crazily inadequate, his mother, gently nuzzling, helping her baby find his feet.
It never ceased to feel amazing, Jack thought. He loved this part of the job, and having Alex here took the tension away, knowing he had a vet on hand.
He had her for another five months. After that he’d find decent help. Men who respected his boundaries.
Instead of one slip of a girl who worked like two men.
Who tried to shove one waif of a kid into his care.
‘Is she okay?’ The wavering voice came from behind them. Oliver. Or course it was Oliver, here to take Sancha for her evening walk. But he was asking the question of Alex. He cast Jack just the one, nervous glance. Respectful. Hopeful.
Scared.
The thought made Jack feel a bit ill, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He knew he’d only make things worse.
‘Alex can introduce you to our new foal,’ he said brusquely. ‘I have work to do.’
‘A long way away,’ Alex said dryly.
He didn’t bother to answer. He left them to it, woman and child admiring one new foal.
He walked away, down to the area he was fencing, which just happened to be at the far boundary of the property.
She had no right to ask him for any more favours, he told himself. Oliver was fine.
But Brenda wasn’t his mother. He’d seen the kid’s expression when he’d gone to see her in the days after Brian left. The boy had seemed terrified as well as bereft.
Terrified he’d be alone?
He wasn’t alone. He had Brenda. And he had Alex, who was putting her heart where it wasn’t wanted.
Only it might be wanted. With Oliver?
She was going back to the States.
Steer clear, he told himself. Stick to your horses, and don’t care.
He couldn’t care. Caring was the way of nightmares.
* * *
Oliver walked Sancha and then Alex drove him home. He’d walk, but this way he could spend more time with Sancha, more time on the farm he so obviously loved.
He was always quiet on the way home, his small face growing stoic.
His stoicism was doing something to Alex’s insides.
When she was a teenager her dad had taken her with him on a business trip to South-East Asia. She’d loved the experience, the food, the culture, but she’d been appalled at the poverty.
On her last day there she’d found a dog. It was half-grown, starved, pathetic. She’d fed it satay sticks from a hawker stall and demanded her father organise to take it home.
‘We can’t do that,’ he’d said gently, citing disease, quarantine, so many problems for an animal that was half-dead. ‘Don’t feed it any more, Alex. You’re prolonging the agony.’
She hadn’t been able to walk away. She’d moved heaven and earth but she still hadn’t been able to bring him home. Finally she’d insisted they find a veterinary clinic and have him put down.
And Oliver?
She couldn’t take him home either. Oliver wasn’t starving.
But he was starved of affection. She’d seen Brenda’s sparse greeting as he returned home—‘You’re late, your dinner’s in the oven’—and she’d thought, Push Jack some more?
He was already pushed to the limit. He was relaxing in her company. They were enjoying their cooking competitions. He was almost having fun.
‘I have five more months,’ she said out loud. ‘Maybe by then I’ll make him relax enough to fight for Oliver.’
But if Oliver reminded him of Sophie...?
‘I should be a shrink,’ she told herself. ‘But then, I’m not so sure a shrink could get past those barriers either.’
She pulled to a halt in front of Werarra, taking a moment to admire her handiwork, the steady new veranda rails, the patched and painted window frames. Jack had cleared the weeds from along the front and remnants of an ancient garden were creeping through again. The place was beginning to look as it should.
Five more months... Too little time.
‘You shouldn’t be thinking that,’ she told herself. ‘You should be missing your family.’
She headed into the kitchen where Jack was attempting chicken cacciatore. It smelled fabulous.
He was wearing an apron. His grandmother’s. A flowery apron over jeans and T-shirt.
It should look ridiculous.
It looked so sexy it made her toes curl.
He pointed to the mantelpiece. ‘Mail,’ he said.
That distracted her. Mail. Real mail? Not email. Who’d be sending her a real letter?
She picked it up and felt a weird sense of foreboding. It was a crisp, linen-weave envelope, old-fashioned. The kind of paper she knew her sister Ellie had a passion for.
Ellie’s writing.
Ellie emailed her when she needed to communicate, so what was this letter about?
‘This won’t be done for fifteen minutes,’ Jack said grimly. ‘Or more. I seem to have a heap more cacciatore than chicken. Unless you want soup, you have time to read your letter in private.’
And then he glanced at her face, and his brows snapped down in concern. Maybe he saw her apprehension.
‘I’ll rea
d it on the veranda,’ she said.
‘Take your time.’ Jack met her gaze for a long moment and then returned deliberately to his casserole. Giving her space. ‘It’s thin soup at that.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE didn’t come in after a quarter of an hour. The casserole was less soupy—almost edible.
After half an hour the casserole was perfect but she still didn’t appear.
He removed his apron, set the casserole to the side of the stove and went to find her.
She hadn’t gone far. She was sitting on the edge of the veranda, holding her letter in her hand, staring sightlessly across the paddocks to the mountains beyond.
She looked shocked and defeated.
He sat down beside her without saying a word. Just sat.
‘If it’s really bad news people telephone,’ he said gently. ‘Usually. But this...what’s so bad that it can only be told by snail mail?’
‘My family,’ she whispered, and he waited.
He knew so little about her, he thought as he waited. Her father had Alzheimer’s. That was an appalling disease, but she’d known about it before she left. What was this?
‘Your mum?’ he asked.
She didn’t say anything.
‘You want me to bring your casserole out here?’ he asked gently. He wouldn’t push. Heaven knew he was the last to invade someone’s privacy.
But he wanted to. The look on her face... He couldn’t bear it.
‘Or would you like to talk about it?’ he heard himself say.
There was a long, long silence. The dusk was falling, the last hint of crimson sunset fading behind the distant mountains. The smell of his grandmother’s roses, freed at last from their matt of weeds, pervaded the warm evening air. A flock of cockatoos was settling to roost in the massive gums behind the house, their squabbling for position making a weird evening symphony.
If this was bad news there were worse places to receive it, he thought. Worse places to come to terms with what was in her hand.
Would she tell him?
Did it matter?
But suddenly it did.
Maybe it was a Dear John letter. Did she have a boyfriend back home? He’d assumed not. The kiss...
She’d returned his kiss with a passion that said she was heart-whole. The look on her face now said she was anything but.
‘It’s ancient history,’ she said into the stillness. ‘It’s nothing. But it’s everything.’
She stopped and he thought, Don’t push. She needed time.
He went inside and served two helpings of his casserole, carrying them outside. Maybe he should eat inside and let her be, but something about her face had him not wanting to leave her alone; had him believing his presence might even help.
If she’d had to receive bad news, he was suddenly absurdly glad that she was here, in this place. This night. The stillness. The sound of the cockatoos. This farm had become his solace. It had its own form of healing.
She lay her letter aside and ate her casserole. The news can’t have been too appalling, he thought. She was still hungry.
She cleared her plate and managed a smile. ‘Eight,’ she decreed.
‘Eight?’ he demanded, mock offended. ‘That was a ten worth of effort.’
‘The chicken’s a bit stewed,’ she said. ‘It’s shredded. Maria cooks cacciatore. I don’t think it’s supposed to be boiled for hours.’
‘That was deliberate,’ he said. ‘You look upset and distracted. I was being considerate. I didn’t want you choking while chewing.’
She smiled, but absently.
Ask.
Why?
He didn’t seem to have a choice. The look on her face...
He was involved, like it or not.
‘Would it help to tell me why you’re looking upset and distracted?’ he said gently, wondering at himself. He didn’t get involved in employees’ lives. He didn’t care.
Right now, though, he found himself caring a lot.
But she didn’t answer.
He carried the plates inside. Washed up. Thought about leaving her to it.
He couldn’t. He walked back outside and sat and watched the moon rise over the valley.
He sat on the far side of the veranda steps to her. He was giving her space, but still he stayed.
A man and a woman...waiting?
‘There was always something wrong in my family,’ she said at last, and it was as if the words were a sigh. A long, drawn-out acceptance of sadness. ‘There was always something. This...’ She lifted the letter and waved it blindly towards him. ‘It’s from my sister. It explains so much.’ She took a ragged breath and then corrected herself. ‘But maybe...maybe she’s not my sister,’ she added. ‘My...half-sister?’
‘You want to explain?’
She stared down at the letter. It was too dark now to read it—he hadn’t turned on the veranda lights and he didn’t intend to. The moonlight created the illusion of privacy, a space where maybe she could talk. For a moment he thought she wouldn’t, but then she sighed again and rose and stared out over the valley.
‘My mother married twice,’ she said. ‘Fenella—my mom—had what she described as a disastrous first marriage and she found peace and security with my dad. My dad’s great. He adores me. He adores my sister, Charlotte. But the twins... Ellie and Matt are older than us and he should love them to bits, but instead...he’s kind, like Brenda’s kind to Oliver. Like he does the best he can but it’s not real. And now I know why.’
‘You said half-sister.’
‘It seems my mom was pregnant when she married.’ She gave a half laugh. ‘Actually we knew that—Ellie discovered birth and marriage certificates long ago. We’ve teased Mom about it, and she always laughed and said she and Dad were blindsided—couldn’t keep their hands off each other. But now, what Ellie’s found out... It seems Mom was pregnant from her first marriage. Mom lied. Matt and Ellie aren’t Dad’s kids at all.’
Silence.
‘I guess...that happens,’ he said at last, softly, cautiously, and she nodded.
‘No big deal?’
‘I can imagine it’s a huge deal for your family, and especially for the twins.’
‘I’m not sure how they’ll react,’ she said. ‘Knowing there was a reason my dad didn’t care.’
‘But it sounds like he did care.’
‘No,’ she said strongly, almost violently. ‘Caring’s when you give your heart. Dad never did that for the twins. He did all the right things, like Brenda’s doing for Oliver. Like you’re doing for Oliver. You’re doing what you need to do, what Oliver needs for survival, but you’re not giving your heart. You know, when I think back to all those years, to Dad calling us Charlie and Alex rather than Charlotte and Alexandra, making it clear he was aching for a boy because he didn’t want Matt to succeed him—being nice to Ellie but not playing with her, not hugging her like he did Charlie and me... It breaks my heart and now I know why. I want to go home and punch him. How could he have taken the twins in when he didn’t have room in his heart for them? And now he has Alzheimer’s and I still love him to bits, but the hurt he’s given Matt and Ellie... What a lie for them to carry. And you know what? Their real father’s dead. After all this time, they can’t do anything. My mom and dad robbed them.’
He didn’t move.
There were accusations against him in all this, he thought. The way he was treating Oliver...
That was hardly fair.
But this wasn’t about him, though. It was about Alex.
‘But you know what?’ she asked, sniffing almost defiantly. ‘In all this, Ellie’s written to say she’s fallen in love. She’s met the man of her dreams and he sounds awesome. He’s some sheriff in Larkville, Texas, where her real da
d came from. So she’s happy. That leaves only Matt...’ She sniffed again.
‘You love your brother.’
‘Like you loved Sophie, I bet,’ she said. ‘Even if he’s only my half-brother.’
‘Use the house phone if you want to call him.’
‘I will.’ She sighed. ‘In a while. Not now. I need to get my voice in order first.’
‘You want to go for a walk along the creek?’
‘It’s too rough,’ she said, sounding surprised.
‘There’s a track on the far side. I have a decent flashlight. We might even spot a platypus, and I promise to keep you safe from drop bears.’
‘Drop bears?’
‘Weird Australian marsupial,’ he said. ‘They cling high in the branches and drop at the first sign of life below. You’re walking along and thump, there’s a drop bear covering your head. Their claws are so long they usually need surgical removal. It’s quite a business, carting drop bear victims to hospital with drop bear attached. It’d be easier to shoot the drop bear but they’re heavily protected. If it’s a choice between an American vet or an Aussie drop bear, the drop bear wins every time.’
She stared at him, her mouth open. And then slowly, the strain on her face disappeared and was replaced with a grin.
‘You’re joshing me.’
‘Why, yes,’ he said, grinning right back. ‘Yes, I am.’
She giggled, and it felt good. More, it felt great. To take the strain from her eyes...
To someone with practically no family—okay, no family at all—it was hard for Jack to get his head around Alex being appalled to find two of her siblings had different fathers. He was pretty sure he and Sophie had different fathers, but he’d never bothered to ask or find out. It simply wasn’t important.
With Alex, though, there was a goodly part of her that was a protected child of a wealthy American family. Up until now her world was black and white. Parents didn’t lie. People were supposed to care. She couldn’t see that caring had its own consequences, its own costs.
He thought about her family from her dad’s point of view. The twins weren’t his. Maybe he’d thought one day their real dad would make a claim. He may well have only been protecting himself.
Taming The Brooding Cattleman Page 10