Like Jack was doing with Oliver?
Like he was doing with Alex.
‘I’m carrying the flashlight,’ Alex said. ‘Plus I’m wearing a hat. I might not believe in drop bears but I do believe you have pythons.’
‘That’ll hug you to death in seconds,’ he said in a voice of dire warning.
‘Just lucky I’m not huggable,’ she retorted. ‘And I know exactly what your nonvenomous pythons can and can’t do. With hat and flashlight I’m fine. If you show me where to go I could go by myself.’
‘Huggable or not, you need an escort,’ Jack said, and then added, almost to himself, ‘I care at least that much.’
* * *
They walked silently through the bushland, along the rippling creek, through country that looked weirdly different at night.
If Jack hadn’t accompanied her she wouldn’t have ventured far, she thought. Not that she was afraid of phantom drop bears and pythons, but it was dark and there were rustlings in the undergrowth and the moon wasn’t bright enough to show the way.
But Jack had suggested it.
And Jack was with her.
She was shining her flashlight on the path ahead. Jack was walking behind and close. Like a big cat, he didn’t need a flashlight.
She was suddenly absurdly aware of an urge to drop back, to take his hand and let him lead her through the night.
Which was crazy. She didn’t want him to.
Did she?
She shouldn’t. This guy was her boss, a solitary farmer with so many shadows in his past he’d never get through them.
But tonight he’d cared. He’d fed her his casserole and he’d listened to her story.
He could have told her she was being dumb, that having two siblings who were now only half-siblings was no big deal. But he hadn’t mocked her. Instead he’d stood back with eyes that were warm with sympathy and understanding, and he was here now, aware that she couldn’t simply go to bed after news like this, that she needed to walk it out, to take time to come to terms with it, to take in the night.
The path was growing nearer to the creek. A line of rocks ran across as a mini-ford and suddenly Jack was grasping her hand, tugging her back.
‘Wait,’ he said softly, and he dug into his pocket and unfolded paper. Another pocket produced tape.
Cellophane. Red. ‘What the...?’
‘My grandma showed me this trick just before she died,’ he told her. ‘Grandpa was away at the horse sales and she brought Sophie and me down here.’
He fastened the cellophane over the flashlight. Instead of a piercing yellow beam, they now had a diffuse red glow.
‘You need to be quiet,’ he said softly. ‘Look right into the middle of the creek, where the rocks form protection for the tiny night feeders.’
He held the flashlight and he took her hand in his again, leading her out onto the rocks.
The rocks were steady. There was no need for him to hold her but he wasn’t letting her go.
And she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t. This night...the sound of the rippling creek...Jack—the combination was doing something to her insides.
The aching pain of an hour ago was fading to unimportant. There was only here, only now, only where Jack was taking her.
He led her right into the middle of the stream, then squatted on his haunches, tugging her down with him.
‘Watch,’ he whispered, and directed the flashlight into the water.
She looked and saw crystal-clear water running over smooth pebbles. The light was attracting insects, tiny moths and bugs.
There were traces of weed in the water. She watched on and saw the flash of silver, fish, no bigger than her thumbnail.
The more she looked, the more she saw. A whole universe was beneath the flashlight.
‘Wait,’ Jack breathed, and she waited, silent as the night, content to do what Jack told her, content to let this moment take however long Jack decreed it should take.
‘This is the best place,’ Jack whispered. ‘If we’re patient...’
And then he paused.
A platypus.
By the light of the flashlight she could see it clearly. It was little more than twelve inches long, covered with streamlined fur. What looked like a duck’s bill was an elongated snout covered with soft, leathery skin. Its webbed feet looked weirdly incongruous.
It swam with its eyes closed, sensing its food rather than seeing, sweeping a yabby from the rocky bottom, snaffling a fish, almost surfacing to catch one of the moths that had fallen from the glow of Jack’s light.
She’d seen one once, in a zoo, but here, seeing this wild, weird creature in its own habitat, the sensation was indescribable.
She couldn’t believe she was here, in this place. With this man. Unconsciously—or almost unconsciously—her hand slipped back into Jack’s and held.
She needed his hand to steady her. Or maybe...maybe she just needed his hand.
‘He’s a hungry little guy,’ Jack said, seemingly unaware of her hand in his, but holding her with a warmth that was doing something to her insides. ‘He needs to eat at least a third of his body weight every day.’
‘I wonder if he likes chicken cacciatore?’ she managed, and he grinned.
‘Nicely stewed. Should I ask?’
‘That’s my breakfast you’re offering,’ she retorted, and went back to watching.
The little creature seemed oblivious to their presence. Maybe he thought the flashlight was the moon. Maybe he didn’t see it at all. For whatever reason he grazed on, surfacing every now and then, heading to the bank to digest what he’d found, then returning to the hunt.
Her legs were beginning to cramp but she didn’t want it to end.
‘If we stay here much longer we’ll need to call for a crane,’ Jack said at last. ‘My legs are going to sleep. Mind, yours are a lot younger than mine. You want to stand and tug me up?’
She grinned and did, and he stood too fast, and he was too close.
Or not close enough.
The night closed around them. The stillness turned to intimacy. The intimacy to need.
But yet...
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ Jack said into the silence, and her world stilled.
‘How could you hurt me?’
‘I don’t do...close.’
‘Then you’d better move away,’ she managed. ‘For we seem to be very close.’
‘I should.’
‘I guess...so should I.’
Neither moved.
She wanted, more than anything she’d ever wanted, to take his face in her hands, to draw him to her and to kiss him. But he was still and silent. His face was grim, and she thought, There’s a war going on in here.
She’d taken one kiss. She’d been given one kiss. She’d made light of it, but if she went any further...
If she kissed him now, she’d end up in his bed. She knew that with the last shards of common sense that seemed left to her.
Was that what she wanted?
Maybe it was, she conceded—but she wanted more.
This was more than physical, but he didn’t want it to be more. He had scars she had no hope of healing, hurts she had no hope of reaching.
If she let him take her to his bed, it’d make things worse. She was here for five months. This job was important to her.
If what was between her and her boss exploded, then she’d be gone and what hope then?
What hope of reaching him if she risked that?
Her thoughts were tumbling crazily through her head as she looked up at him, as he gazed down at her in the moonlight, as the platypus continued grazing in the water at their feet.
He wanted her. She could see it in his eyes. His entire body was
stiff with wanting.
But he was holding back. Knowing that to kiss her...
‘Can I tell Oliver he can ride a horse tomorrow?’ she said, and her voice came out crooked, desperate. Not how she wanted to sound at all.
Why had she asked that?
Because he needed to care, she thought. If he didn’t care...
All or nothing? Start with Oliver.
‘No.’ He moved back from her, almost imperceptibly, but she noticed.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the boy needs a father,’ he said, so harshly that she faltered and the creature in the water beneath their feet slipped silently into the darkness and disappeared. He glanced down and winced. ‘See what you’ve done? It may not eat again tonight now that I’ve frightened it.’
‘You’ve frightened me, too,’ she retorted.
‘You’re not frightened. You’re pushy.’
‘Yes,’ she conceded. ‘You should be getting used to it.’
‘Believe it or not, I am,’ he said grimly. ‘But I’m not about to let you talk me into something that’d be so disastrous.’
‘What’s disastrous about letting Oliver ride?’
‘How could I not let him continue riding when you go home?’
‘Would you need to?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and raked his hair. ‘Yes, I would. Of course I would. Hell, Alex—’
‘It’s not,’ she said, working on staying calm. ‘It’s not hell at all. It’s giving one little boy pleasure by letting him ride.’
‘You and I know it’s more than that,’ he snapped. ‘You said yourself, Brenda’s not his real mother and she’s not acting like it. He’s desperate for real parenting. When his father finally comes to his senses—’
‘Is that likely to happen?’
‘It has to happen.’
‘He never talks about his dad. He talks about you.’
‘And how’s that supposed to make me feel?’
‘Wanted.’
‘I do not wish to be wanted.’ It was almost an explosion. ‘I wish to be left alone. I don’t want a kid hanging on my heels. I don’t want a kid worrying about me, missing me if I go to Sydney to the sales, always needing me. I don’t want to be worrying about him.’
‘And there’s the crux of it,’ Alex said shortly. ‘That’s what my dad never did with the twins. He never once let them close enough to worry about them. He did what he had to do.’ She hesitated. ‘Okay. The twins were short-changed but maybe something’s better than nothing. Maybe you could let Oliver care for Cracker and take him home. He could ride at his place. You could pay Brenda for the feed and care. Hope Brenda does the worrying.’
‘You don’t leave a kid alone with a stockhorse, old or not,’ he snapped.
‘So buy him another.’ She took a deep breath. ‘A safe, kid mount. I’ll buy him another, only it’ll have to seem like it comes from you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Oliver doesn’t care about me,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘If you knew the pleasure it’d give Oliver to have you hand him a horse, keep an eye on him, teach him as he ought to be taught...’
‘I do not want that kind of commitment.’
‘Coward,’ she said, and stepped from the rocks and slipped and ended up knee-deep in the stream.
She didn’t swear. She simply stood with the clear creek water rippling around her legs, cooling her as she needed to be cooled.
Jack held out a hand to help her out. She ignored it. She glared at him and stepped back onto the rocks and squelched to the bank. ‘I’m going home,’ she said, grabbing the flashlight and ripping off the cellophane. Platypus watching was over. He could stay in the dark, alone. ‘Don’t come with me. I need to vent spleen.’
‘Don’t get lost.’
‘What would you care if I did?’ she snapped. ‘What would you care if everyone got lost?’
* * *
He didn’t follow her. Instead he stayed where he was, not moving, not thinking, simply trying to quiet his mind.
In a while the platypus came back. So much for his accusation that it’d stop feeding tonight. It wasn’t afraid. Without the flashlight he couldn’t see into the water but he could see it when it surfaced, to breathe, to digest the food it had gathered in its pouch.
A solitary creature.
Or not. This might be a female, desperate to eat to store fat and burrow to breed.
‘Don’t do it,’ he told it—or her—and winced at his own stupidity. The world had to breed.
People had to care—just not him.
But he did care, he thought, growing angry. He’d sorted Brenda’s problems. He’d allowed Oliver to help. The kid was now safe and fed, with a woman who’d do the right thing by him. Until his father came back.
And if his father didn’t return?
The thought was bleak.
It was nothing to do with him.
Alex’s fierce prodding made it everything to do with him.
Alex had to butt out. Alex was nothing to do with him either.
He must not care.
CHAPTER NINE
HOW to keep a working relationship after a night like that? He’d thought he couldn’t, but Alex rose the next morning determinedly busy, demanding to see medical records of each individual horse, deciding they needed a more proactive method of vaccinations, planning a database that would include every detail of every horse from planned conception on.
When it rained she worked on her database. When it was fine she worked outside, either hands-on with the horses or on her woodwork projects.
She was pleasant to him. She asked for orders and tried to sound deferential. She smiled when he smiled. They did the dumb scoring thing at each meal but the pleasure had gone out of it.
The boundaries had been set. It was for the best, but he didn’t have to like it.
He wanted it to end, and yet he didn’t.
Oliver still came over after school and walked Sancha.
Alex always chatted to the kid but Jack stayed clear. He heard them laughing, he called himself an idiot for not joining them, but years of training, years of solitude, couldn’t and wouldn’t be erased.
And then of course came the day Alex decreed Sancha was recovered enough to be let free.
‘She’ll stay in the home paddock for a couple more weeks,’ she told Jack. ‘But there’s no need for Oliver to walk her any more.’ She hesitated. ‘It’ll break his heart.’
‘You don’t break your heart after a month of walking a mare,’ he snapped. A month of caring? It took far longer than that.
‘The horses are important to him.’
‘Let him keep on walking her, then,’ he said roughly, and she shook her head.
‘Sancha’s restive now and Oliver’s no fool. I’ll tell him tonight. It’s a shame we haven’t any other recuperating mares to keep him on. Mind, he tells me he’s ridden horses since he was a toddler. You could use him to exercise—’
‘No!’
‘Fine, then,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ll tell him. Did anyone ever tell you you’re mean?’
‘I tell myself,’ he said grimly. ‘And it doesn’t change a thing.’
* * *
She told Oliver that night. He meant to stay away but he just sort of happened to be on the veranda. He watched the kid’s shoulders slump. He watched Alex’s shoulders slump.
The kid walked away, looking like the world had crashed down around him. He reached the home paddock gate and turned and yelled.
‘I will get a horse. I will, I will. Someone will let me!’
He closed his eyes, Oliver’s pain searing within, as tight in his chest as it must be in the child’s.
Why not give in to
it?
Maybe caring wasn’t a choice. Maybe it was already there, like it or not.
Dear God, he didn’t want it.
The choice staring at him was invidious. Have nothing more to do with him. Trust Brenda to take care of her own kid, or trust Brian to come back and claim him.
That path seemed mean and small. It was mean and small.
The alternative?
You couldn’t just give yourself a little bit, he thought savagely. He’d heard the despair. He’d seen the aching emptiness in Oliver’s eyes.
But he’d tried to fill it for Sophie and he’d failed. To try again...
What cost if he failed again? Unthinkable.
Alex wandered back to the house and stared at him with judgement. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Satisfied?’
‘Don’t.’
And suddenly she softened.
‘It’s tearing you in two, isn’t it?’
‘Nothing’s tearing me in two.’
‘You want to help but you can’t.’
‘If I want psychological assessment, I won’t go to a vet.’
‘I’m a human first, Jack. Talking might help.’
‘Nothing helps,’ he said savagely. ‘Things were fine before you came.’
‘You want me to leave?’
‘Yes!’ And then he hauled himself together. This was irrational. All he had to do was get his emotions under control, get his head back together and put things back on an employer/employee basis.
‘No,’ he corrected himself. ‘Of course I don’t. You’re a fine vet and a great worker. I can even lean on the veranda rail without falling off.’
‘I aim to please,’ she said, striving for lightness, but it didn’t come out lightly at all.
‘You aim to get your own way,’ he growled, but he managed a smile at the end of it.
‘I do,’ she admitted. ‘I worry myself sick over Oliver.’
‘If it’s any consolation so do I,’ he told her. ‘I’ll keep an eye on the kid when you’re gone.’
‘From a distance. That’s big of you.’
‘Doing it any other way will make it worse. He needs to forge a bond with Brenda. If I step in, then she doesn’t need to.’
Taming The Brooding Cattleman Page 11