Taming The Brooding Cattleman

by Marion Lennox

  Equal partners?

  This farm needed massive work, but from the moment Alex slipped dreamily from Jack’s bed and donned her work clothes, she no longer felt this was a job. She felt like this farm was part of her and she’d do everything in her power to make it wonderful.

  Jack valued her as a vet. He’d been reluctant to let her share the heavy work but now she was insisting.

  If he was heading down the paddock with the chainsaw, she was there, too. And somehow, this new thing that was between them gave her the power to insist.

  ‘If you chop your leg off, you’ll need a vet,’ she growled, and he grinned.

  ‘Do you know which way human feet get sewed back on?’

  ‘I have instant surgery techniques on the internet on my phone,’ she said with dignity. ‘I’ll manage.’

  So she went with him and his time for being alone was over.

  If he’d hated it she would have backed off. That first day as they worked side by side she caught him glancing at her, over and over, as if trying to work up strength to tell her to go. Head back to the house and find her own projects.

  But every time she saw that look she’d bounce somehow, make him laugh, make him smile, demand he help her with what she was doing.

  He’d relax again—sort of. She knew he wasn’t totally relaxed about this new intimacy. She knew he expected it to shatter, but for now they’d work together, and at night they fell into bed again, together. Partners in every sense of the word.

  Oliver was giving her joy, too. Jack put him back on Cracker, who was so quiet he’d almost forgotten what it was like to turn on a dime. Not completely, though. Oliver needed to be trained to manage him as a stockhorse, and Alex watched Jack help with wonder.

  It was as if he’d shed a skin—or a suit of armour more like. This dark, solitary male was suddenly solitary no longer. She watched him care, she watched him smile and laugh. Occasionally she could see tension. She knew the shadows were there—the armour had been put aside but not thrown away—but she thought, between them, she and Oliver could fight any armour.

  In five months?

  No. She wasn’t going there. Anything could happen in five months. For now, her life was wonderful.

  * * *

  Two weeks later they took delivery of the new windows that made the farm-worker’s cottage watertight. Jack could now set it up as a cosy residence. Alex could move in. She could be the independent employee Jack had wanted.

  She didn’t. Instead, because Alex was in the main house, because the cottage was free, it meant the arrival of Cooper Barratt, an elderly, wiry horseman with hands of magic. This was the man Jack had sought to turn Wararra back into a training stable as well as a stud.

  Cooper arrived with his two dogs and his lopsided grin and his lopsided deference. He called Jack ‘Jack’—he might be an employee but he deemed himself an equal—but he called Alex ‘Missus’ and nothing Alex could say would budge him.

  ‘I see the way Jack looks at you,’ he said, and grinned. ‘If he’s the boss, you’re the missus. You tell me it ain’t true.’

  He treated her with more respect than he did Jack and it made her squirm.

  ‘It’s me who should be sleeping in the worker’s cottage,’ she told Jack, and he grinned and hugged her.

  ‘Then we’d have to put Cooper in the big house and the employer/employee relationship would be totally messed up.’

  ‘It’s messed up now.’ She was lying in his arms, holding him tight, feeling like she had everything she wanted in the world.

  ‘Nothing’s messed up,’ Jack told her, kissing her hair, her nose, behind her ear—and then moving on to more intimate places. Places that made her gasp with pleasure. ‘For now, things are perfect.’

  ‘For now?’ Hard to voice a doubt when he was doing...what he was doing.

  ‘I can’t think of tomorrow, my love,’ he said huskily into the night. ‘I can’t think of anything past right now.’

  * * *

  Only he could think.

  He woke in the small hours, as he often did, and it was then that the doubts crept in. Alex was curved against his body. She felt wonderful, magic, an extension of himself. She felt perfect.

  But perfection didn’t last. He cared for her so much, and that in itself was terrifying.

  Where were they heading?

  Marriage?

  There was a thought to take his breath away.

  Cooper called her ‘Missus.’ ‘Missus’ was the Australian vernacular for the boss’s wife. It was a term of respect. It was a term of acknowledgement of what was happening—what had happened.

  They were a couple.

  If anything happened to her...

  His mind closed hard against the thought, and as if she could sense it, she stirred and turned so she was sleepily facing him. Winding her arms around his neck. Kissing him softly.

  ‘Problem?’

  See, that was the problem. She had him figured. Every time he held back, she sensed it. Every time he worried, she took his worry to her, shared it, forced him to say it out loud.

  How could he tell her that the worry was that he cared too much?

  How could he take this one last step—abandon fear and step forward with Alex in his arms?

  How could he not?

  ‘I’m worrying about resowing the top pasture before the end of autumn,’ he managed, and she chuckled and held him closer.

  ‘Liar. You’ve already ordered the seed. The forecast is for a gentle autumn. You’ve figured where we can keep the horses until it regenerates.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘You’re worried about we,’ she said softly.

  ‘Alex...’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said soundly. ‘You’ll spoil things. For now, for right this moment, we’re perfect. For now we have each other in our arms, and we fit like two halves of a whole. I’m not asking or expecting any more of you than that, Jack Connor. For now I’m loving you, and I’m wanting you, but I’m not holding you. My future’s in the States, so stop worrying about it.’

  ‘And if I asked that your future could be here?’

  She stilled in his arms, but then she looked up at his troubled face and she shook her head.

  ‘You don’t want that,’ she whispered. ‘Not now, at least, and maybe not ever. I’m watching your face and I’m not seeing commitment. I’m seeing something akin to fear. Well, you can quit it with the fear. I come with no strings, Jack Connor, and I’m not letting you attach any. For now, we have now. That’s all.’

  * * *

  Afterward he drifted back to sleep again and it was Alex who lay awake and stared into the night.

  He’d almost asked her to stay.

  Did she want him to?

  Yes. Her head screamed that she was a fool for shushing him, for stopping him asking her to commit. For there was a part of Alex that wanted to commit more than anything in the world.

  So what was stopping her taking and holding?

  Strangely, it was the thought of her father. Of the letter Ellie had sent her, the letter that lay in the bottom of her suitcase explaining all.

  Explaining that her parents’ marriage had been built not on the mutual passion she’d always assumed but on reservations, where things weren’t quite right, where honesty wasn’t first and foremost.

  She’d spent a lifetime trying to figure what was wrong with her family. Now she knew, and with that knowledge came the certainty that she didn’t want that sort of relationship for herself.

  Jack was starting to love her, she thought, but he was loving her despite his reservations. Despite his vows not to care.

  As her father had loved her mother despite the fact that she was carrying another man’s twins.

  Despite...
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  It was a mean little word, and it stayed with her.

  She wanted Jack. She knew that now; there was no despite in her language. She’d love him and hold him and care for him and she’d hope, with every ounce of her being.

  But she would not let him commit to her despite... She wasn’t going there. A cold, hard coil of common sense stayed with her.

  Her plan had always been to work hard here and then return to the States and find the job of her dreams. Instead she’d found the man of her dreams right where she was.

  So yes, if things worked out, if she was sure Jack could love her, then she’d change her plans in a heartbeat—how could she not?—but she’d watched what despite had done to Matt, had done to Ellie.

  She would not love this man despite.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WERARRA was blossoming. Autumn crept in, bringing lush pasture, a tinge of cool to the mountain breeze, an added energy to the horses in their care.

  With three full-time workers the place was starting to look as it should. Tentatively Jack opened it to buyers. Until now he’d transported sale horses to Albury. Now, with Werarra’s reputation growing, with good yards, a showplace that almost matched the website, horsemen from around the country and overseas were welcomed.

  He could sell more horses than he could ever supply, Alex thought, but every horse leaving the property was perfect. He insisted on nothing less. So did Cooper, deeply approving of his boss’s standards. And so did Alex. She cared for the horses in her charge with passion and she knew when she left this place it wouldn’t just be Jack she missed with all her heart.

  And so did Oliver.

  Every moment he wasn’t in school he was here, following Jack wherever he went.

  Alex had expected him to adore Cracker, the horse Jack had decreed was his to care for, and he did, but a higher adoration was reserved for Jack.

  He was mates with Alex, he respected Cooper and he liked Cooper’s dogs. He loved Cracker, but he lived for Jack.

  Cooper might be training a recently broken colt. Alex might be treating an older mare with problematic teeth—a procedure that took strength and skill. But if Jack was doing something as mundane as filling up potholes in the driveway, that was the most riveting thing Oliver could dream of to watch, and he did.

  ‘I don’t know what to do about it,’ Jack said, the night of the pothole filling, and Alex grinned.

  ‘Embrace it? He’s doing no harm.’

  ‘It can’t last.’

  ‘Why not? You’re going nowhere. He’ll grow out of hero worship.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jack said roughly, and she knew it still worried him.

  He cared, Alex thought. He cared, despite...

  There was that word again.

  ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow,’ she said into the stillness. ‘How about we give ourselves a day off?’

  ‘A day off.’ He said it like it was another language.

  ‘I’ve never been up to the far ridge,’ she said. ‘I was talking to Oliver about it. He says there’s a waterfall. His dad took him there once. Do you know it?’

  He did. She could see it in his face, but she could also see caution.

  ‘It’s five miles,’ he said. ‘You and me.’

  ‘And Oliver,’ she said hurriedly, because there was that despite thing again. She and Jack were working side by side, they were sleeping in each other’s arms, yet to spend leisure time together seemed another thing entirely. Every night after dinner, Jack disappeared to his study. Alex read or watched television or wrote home. They came together when it was time to sleep, but she knew the thought of further intimacy was yet another step that left him feeling exposed.

  She didn’t want him exposed. She ached for him to feel that with her he was safe, that with her the terrible loneliness and responsibility he’d faced as a child and young man was over, but she’d do it one step at a time.

  A picnic.

  With Oliver to diffuse the strangeness of it.

  ‘I know you have more potholes to fill,’ she teased gently. ‘And I know Oliver’s aching to watch you fill them. But all my charges are in fine health, we have no buyers due, Cooper’s more than able to hold the fort and I can make sandwiches.’

  ‘Really?’ His dark eyes suddenly flashed a twinkle. ‘What score sandwiches?’

  ‘Ten if I’d had some notice,’ she said, and grinned. ‘But because we’re picnicking on a whim, they might only be about seven. But my brother tells me my bacon sandwiches are ten even if they look wobbly. What do you say, Jack? Can we take a day and have fun?’

  ‘I should—’

  ‘There are always “shoulds”,’ she said gently. ‘But I really want to see the waterfall. Oliver’s offered to take me himself but I don’t trust him not to lose us both.’

  That was a low blow. Five miles of bushland, they could well get lost and Jack knew it.

  ‘You can’t go on your own,’ he growled.

  ‘Well, then. Potholes or picnics, what’s it to be, Jack Connor?’

  And he agreed.

  Despite...

  * * *

  Saturday morning. As usual, Oliver arrived before eight and from the moment she broke the news of the impending picnic and saw the glow of undiluted joy on his face, Alex knew it’d be a day to remember.

  They rang Brenda to ask permission, but in truth Brenda didn’t care. She was accustomed to Oliver spending most of his time on the farm, and Alex thought it was a relief to the woman.

  Brenda was doing the ‘right thing’ by Oliver, but her heart wasn’t in it. She’d been saddled with the boy, and she was caring for him despite...

  Don’t think of that word today.

  They saddled the horses. They packed the saddlebags with Alex’s sandwiches, with fruit, drinks and swimming gear, and they set off.

  Cooper came out of the stables to wave them off.

  ‘You look a beaut little family,’ he said, and Alex saw Jack’s expression change. He had his face under control in an instant, but she’d seen.

  A family. He didn’t do family.

  Would four months be long enough to change something so intrinsic within him?

  She refused to worry today.

  She’d have a great time today...despite misgivings.

  * * *

  There was no way they would have found the waterfall without Jack. Indeed, she would have been lost within ten minutes of leaving the property boundary, she conceded. The bushland here was wild and mountainous. Werarra bordered a national park and there civilisation ended.

  The horses nosed their way single file along vague tracks made by wombats or kangaroos. Amazingly they seemed to know where they were going—they needed to because Jack put Alex in front on Rocky, Oliver was in the middle on Cracker, and Jack and Maestro followed at the rear. Keeping watch.

  Every now and then, Jack would call a direction, veer left, slow here, ware low branches, but mostly they rode in silence.

  Oliver seemed as awed as she was by the bushland, Alex thought, and knew his father hadn’t brought him here often. Indeed, the more she learned of Oliver the more she wondered that his father had done anything for him at all.

  He looked a bit small for the horse he was on. His freckled face was intent, his hands gripping the reins tight but not tugging on Cracker’s mouth; he was consciously, fiercely, giving his horse his head.

  He was a great little kid, Alex thought, and wondered at the deal that had given him a father who walked out on him, and only Brenda, who did her best.

  Life wasn’t fair. She glanced behind her once again to check him, and Jack was behind him, so she sort of checked on Jack at the same time.

  Man and boy—and she knew instinctively that they’d shared harsh backgrounds.

&
nbsp; If she was here with Matt right now, he wouldn’t be talking either, she thought. Her big brother had been raised with a father who resented him. It had made him turn inward, become a loner.

  She had two loners on her hands right now.

  The cure?

  ‘I spy,’ she said, and got two groans for answer.

  ‘Something beginning with H,’ she said, doggedly determined, and Oliver gave an oversize, theatrical sigh.

  ‘Horse.’

  ‘Hey, you’re a natural,’ she said, and grinned. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘M,’ Oliver ventured.

  ‘Mountain,’ Jack ventured, and Oliver beamed like Oliver himself had guessed and won.

  ‘Cool. Your turn.’

  ‘V,’ Jack said, and Alex turned and met his gaze and he grinned at her and her heart did this crazy sort of backflip with pike.

  Oliver caught the look and stared at Alex, screwed up his nose and yelled, ‘Vet!’

  Cracker startled, but Jack was right there, grasping his reins, settling him, grinning at the small boy as if this was part of the game.

  ‘Too good, mate. And here’s the waterfall.’

  Here it was. The creek had been widening as they rode—every time the ‘track’ neared it, it seemed wider and deeper. Now, one more bend in the track brought them to what the sound of rushing water had been announcing for some time.

  It was the most magical place. It had Alex drawing in her reins and drawing in her breath.

  ‘Take that, Manhattan Girl,’ Jack said softly, riding up beside her. He must know there was nothing in New York that could possibly compare to this place.

  The waterfall wasn’t one steep drop, but rather half a dozen tumbles, from rocky plateau to rocky plateau. Vast boulders seemed scattered like marbles, with great mossy banks littered between. A cave beckoned mysteriously behind the water. ‘Sophie and I camped in there once,’ Jack said, and Alex glanced at him with wonder.

  It was the first time she’d heard him talk of his sister with pleasure.

  Maybe it was this place, she thought, for how could anyone be unhappy here? Here one could climb or swim or explore the cave or sleep—or simply stay on horseback and look, like she was doing now—but Rocky was already tugging downward to graze on the lush river grasses and Oliver was tumbling from Cracker to explore and Jack was looking at her quizzically as if she really might be comparing the streets of New York to here.