‘We need to get deep enough to lay planking so she can haul herself up,’ Bryn told her. ‘But if you’re getting blisters...’
‘I’m not getting blisters.’ She wasn’t, but she was aware that as shovellers went she came a very poor second to the man beside her. He looked as if he’d shovelled a thousand cows out of bogs in his lifetime. His spade work was steady, methodical, effective, and he could load his shovel with twice as much sludge as she could.
He really was a farmer.
She was so lucky to have him here this morning. What good fairy had decreed he be the one to hit Flossie...and bring her home...and stay...?
Even hitting Flossie... Flossie must have been wandering for weeks. Sure, she’d been hit by a car, but this morning she was putting weight on her back leg, and if she still looked good when they got back to the house Charlie might not even have to pay for vet bills.
Magic.
Well, sort of magic. There were lots of things about her situation that weren’t magic, but right now, steadily shovelling, she could put the worries of the world aside and soak in the moment.
Soak was right. Her gum boots weren’t exactly effective. She was wet and filthy. And Bryn... Somewhere under the mud were his feet. They’d put the planks under their feet as they dug but it didn’t help much. The mud was insidious.
He didn’t appear to notice. A farmer born and bred.
‘So your cows,’ she said cautiously—she really would like to know more about him. ‘Intelligent, are they?’
‘You have to believe it,’ he told her. ‘Mensa candidates all.’
‘Right.’
‘You think I’m joking? My top ladies... I can call them by name.’
‘How many ladies do you have?’
‘Enough to keep me busy,’ he said enigmatically and that smile returned again. ‘More than you. It’s hard to make a living with two cows. So how about you? Can you make a living interior designing from here?’
‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘I need to get back to Melbourne. Just as soon as I find homes for all these guys.’
He paused and looked at Cordelia, who’d finally stopped struggling and now appeared to be bored. Then he glanced back at the assorted dog pack, gambolling in the sunshine. Misbegotten? Maybe that was too strong a word for it, but these dogs hadn’t been chosen for their cute appeal.
‘And what happens if you don’t find them homes?’ he asked, gently now because maybe he knew there were nerves he was touching.
‘I have no idea,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t see them in a one-bedroom studio in Melbourne. Even if I could, I suspect my landlord would take a dim view.’
‘Especially of Cordelia,’ he agreed. ‘Though we could wash her and spruce her up a bit. Maybe tie a few interior-design ribbons on her horns and set her up as a conversation piece.’
She didn’t smile, she just kept on digging as the grey descended again. What were her options? They were down to practically zero.
Maybe it would have been a kindness to invite her neighbour over with his rifle.
‘So tell me,’ she said, desperate to change the subject. She was digging again, concentrating fiercely. ‘Why are you in Australia? What put you on the road outside Grandma’s place last night? I know you were heading for the plane but why were you here in the first place?’
‘Family business.’ That was curt. The smile had gone from his eyes.
‘You said...your uncle? A death?’ she queried, and she thought she shouldn’t go there but anything to distract her from the thoughts of rifles and long-term outcomes.
‘Not a death.’ He paused in his digging. ‘Let’s shift these planks back a bit. I’m thinking if we take a bit out from where we are now we can slope the planks down to her. She could possibly struggle out now but she’d have nowhere to go.’
They messed around a bit, shifting planks, doing busy work while Bryn’s face stayed grim.
There was stuff going on in this guy’s life, too. Rifle kind of stuff?
‘It’s okay,’ he said at last. ‘No, it wasn’t a death, though it could have been. My uncle’s been in trouble. I’ve done all I can to help.’
‘Financial trouble?’
‘You could say that.’
‘There aren’t many farmers around here who aren’t,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘The last drought—’
‘He’s not a farmer,’ he said, curtly, cutting the conversation with a tone that said it was going no further. He had his planks adjusted and dug silently for a while. Charlie had paused. Not because her hands hurt, although her hands actually did hurt, but because Bryn was digging carefully now, forming a slope, and she needed to figure what was happening. He was making what was essentially a ramp.
And he didn’t want to talk about his uncle.
Fair enough. It wasn’t her business. And besides, they were getting to the pointy end of this rescue business.
Bryn stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. Cordelia looked up at them with bovine lack of interest, as if the ramp Bryn was making had nothing to do with her. Talk about dumb...
‘Maybe she’s cold,’ he said, generously.
‘Maybe she’s thick,’ Charlie responded. ‘If I was her I’d see the ramp and be hauling myself up.’
‘It’s lucky she’s not. She might sink again. Let’s get these planks in position so she has something solid to grip.’
‘And then you’ll make her move how?’
‘Pull,’ he said solidly. ‘One thing I’ve learned in thirty-five years of farm life is how to get dumb beasts to do what you need them to do. The only exception is my stupid uncle.’
And then there was silence as he roped the cow, as he checked the planks again, as he put Charlie at the far end of the rope and took a grip himself. It was seemingly a tug of war, with Cordelia on one team and Charlie and Bryn on the other.
But it felt okay, Charlie thought, as she gripped the rope in two hands and prepared to pull. For Bryn was behind her.
She was...a team.
‘Count of three, pull,’ Bryn ordered. ‘One, two, three...’
And they pulled. Cordelia gave a vast, indignant bellow as if she’d decided she was quite comfortable in the mud and wouldn’t mind staying there. But their grip was relentless, and finally she gave into the strain around her neck—and a leg squelched up from the mud and onto the planking.
‘Harder,’ Bryn said from behind her and she gave one last heave—and Cordelia was up on the planks, heaving herself forward, then staring wildly towards the barn where the calf was bellowing. And two seconds later they were being shoved off the planks as a desperate, mud-coated cow was off and galloping towards her calf.
Charlie tumbled backwards. Bryn wheeled and caught her but overbalanced himself. Quick as lightning Bryn rolled sideways, lifting her high and rolling until she was off the mud and onto grass.
She was choking on laughter, lit with triumph. Bryn was holding her. The sun was on her face, but her face was coated with mud.
As was Bryn’s. He was laughing, too, his dark eyes twinkling down at her. They were a muddy tumble of triumphant bodies and it seemed entirely appropriate that Bryn’s arms stayed around her and held her, that laughter enveloped them, that Charlie twisted in his arms so she could see his face, so she could share his laughter.
And somehow, someway, for some ridiculous reason, it seemed entirely appropriate that Bryn should place his mud-smeared hands on either side of her mud-smeared face—and that he should kiss her.
A kiss... Here... Now... Of all the inappropriate things to do.
But it wasn’t inappropriate.
Why?
Was this the culmination of weeks of shock, of grief, of stress, of hopelessness and, finally last night, of fear?
And sleeping in this man’s arms?
Or was it simply wanting him?
&
nbsp; For she wanted him and there was no doubting it. As her mouth met his, it was as if every nerve ending knew where it wanted to be centred and it was right here.
His kiss started tender, started as a question, but that question was answered with a definite yes. Her kiss back was the response he needed. The kiss turned strong, commanding, even possessive, and that was fine. No, it was more than fine, because right now she wanted to be...possessed? Maybe. For the last weeks she’d been spinning out of control, in some sort of crazy, non-predictable vortex. But right now her world had stilled, had centred, and it was centred on this man.
On this moment.
On the heat of his mouth.
She felt as if she were melting. The strength of him, the sureness...
He was a farmer and he felt like it, a man of the land, a man who knew how to get a frightened cow from a bog, a man who knew what a woman wanted.
She wanted him.
Which was crazy.
They were lying full length on the lush, storm-wet spring grass. The morning sun had little strength in it yet but she wasn’t cold. Bryn was her heat source. He was her centre. He felt, he tasted, he held, like a man who could lift her out of the misery of the last few weeks.
In truth, he already had.
He was a stranger and he had a plane to catch back to England. This moment must be transient. But she was holding his face in her hands to deepen the kiss, holding as if she had the right to keep holding. She could forget everything else in the joy and the triumph of this moment—and who could blame her?
The kiss deepened and deepened again. If they’d been in the comfort of a bedroom instead of a soggy piece of turf, with water soaking fast through their clothes, then who knew what would have happened?
Or if Bryn hadn’t had control because Charlie surely didn’t...
But he did and, after a glorious few minutes of blocking out the world, the cold and wet finally permeated. Sense prevailed, and finally, reluctantly, they drew apart.
To laughter of course, because that was what this man seemed all about.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was quite a morning. Is that the way you always thank your farm hands for services rendered?’
If they look—and feel—like you, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She wanted this moment to stretch on for ever.
But Bryn was rising, holding out his hands, tugging her up after him. She rose a little too fast, so she was tugged close, breast against chest, and when he put her back a little she wanted to protest.
But he was being sensible and so must she.
‘We need to check Cordelia,’ he said and there was a reluctance in his voice that told her that maybe he was feeling the same as she was. As if the last thing she wanted was to move away from this spot and check a muddy cow. ‘We need to let her into the shed to join her calf. And then we need to dry off.’
Sensible. Right.
‘I hope you have a change of clothes in the car,’ she said and was proud of how steady her voice sounded.
‘Cow first. We’re not going to all that trouble to have her die of hypothermia. Let’s get her in the shed with...what did you call her calf?’
‘Violet.’
‘Of course. How could I have forgotten Violet?’ He smiled down at her, and with the back of his hand he traced a line down her muddy cheek. And it was quite possibly the sexiest, most amazing sensation she’d ever experienced. Every nerve in her body seemed to swerve, point, arrow itself to his touch. She wanted...she wanted...
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was a grown woman, and no matter what she wanted, she couldn’t have. She had a cow to dry. Reality to face.
‘Right,’ she said, and with enormous difficulty she turned away and started trudging towards the outbuildings. Cordelia had already reached them and was bellowing her indignation at not being able to reach her calf. On the other side of the door Violet was bellowing in response. Charlie’s problems slammed back.
What on earth could she do with two cows?
She was going to dry them, that was what, and then she’d do what came next, one step after another, for as long as she could. While this guy left and headed back to the UK. While the world turned as it always did, without noticing that one tiny speck seemed to have fallen off.
Now she was being melodramatic. She needed to get a grip. She squelched doggedly on but her foot landed on the edge of a wombat burrow and she slipped.
Bryn’s hand came out and caught her and held, fast. And she let her hand stay.
Of course she did.
She needed to face reality—but not quite yet.
CHAPTER THREE
IT SEEMED BRYN knew exactly how to clean a filthy cow, which was just as well because Charlie had no clue. She’d have fussed about hot water—which wasn’t exactly possible in a tumbledown barn, and Cordelia wasn’t exactly small enough to take into the house and pop into the bath.
But Bryn simply hosed the worst of the mud from her—‘Left on it’ll cake and leave her cold.’ And then found a bunch of rags. He handed some to Charlie and took more himself.
‘We rub,’ he told her. ‘It’ll warm us up as well as Cordelia. She is cold. We dry her, we feed her well and then we keep her in the shed with her calf until we’re sure she’s recovered. If we leave her like this she may well go down, and if she drops it’ll be hard to get her up again. We’ve dodged one vet visit with Flossie. Let’s not risk another.’
So despite her wanting to head into the house and a warm bath herself, she stood on the opposite side of a cow to Bryn and she rubbed and rubbed, and Bryn rubbed and rubbed...and it was more of the same, she thought. He...this whole situation...this man...made something happen to her body...to her mind?
Bryn’s words kept playing in her head. We. We dry her. We feed her well.
We was a magical word. It made her feel shivery but not from cold.
How long since she’d been part of we?
The calf was nudging around them, heading for Cordelia’s teats, backing out and checking them out and then darting under again. She was a strange-looking calf, still a bit bony from a malnourished start, but nosey and pushy and...fun? She had one huge white eye in an otherwise black face, which made her look like some sort of bovine pirate. She kept trying to shove Bryn out of the way as she tried to access her mother’s teats and Bryn did his best to accommodate—but Violet was still pushy. She kept popping up from the teats to check on Charlie, and the sight of her pirate eye under Bryn’s arm made Charlie want to chuckle.
Bryn was so good. His affection for the calf seemed immediate. He obviously loved animals.
The sight of him was doing something to Charlie that she didn’t understand. Right now she didn’t want to understand. She just wanted it not to end. She was still wet but the rubbing not only warmed her, but was somehow...mesmeric?
Bryn was talking in soothing tones to Cordelia. Cow talk? In Welsh?
‘You’re thinking she understands?’ she asked.
‘All cows know Welsh. It’s international cow language.’
It was a very silly answer but she liked it. She went back to rubbing, insensibly happy at the ridiculousness of it.
‘So why the trouble?’ Bryn asked, gently, and it was like being pulled back into the real world but this was Bryn asking. He was leaving soon and somehow it didn’t seem wrong that he should ask. But still, she didn’t want to emerge from her happy place.
‘Trouble?’
‘I can see it on your face,’ he said. The laughter had gone, but the gentleness remained. ‘Trouble apart from your grandma’s death.’
‘I...’
‘You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want.’
‘I guess.’ She shrugged and rubbed for a bit more and then thought, Why not?
‘It’s just... This is Gran
dma’s farmlet, but it’s mortgaged. Heavily mortgaged, for more than it’s worth. There’s no money. The bank’s repossessing. They’ve given me another month, which considering the size of the debt is good of them, but after that, I need to be gone.’
‘And you live in Melbourne.’
‘I’m supposed to live in Melbourne, but if you can tell me what I should do with seven decrepit dogs, a dumb cow and calf, and chooks that are way past point of lay...’
‘There are animal refuges.’
‘There are,’ she told him. ‘And I’ve talked to them and they’ve told me frankly what chances my dogs, Grandma’s dogs, have. The people running them are fantastic but they run on the smell of an oily rag and right now they’re in trouble. The government’s just made puppy farming illegal, with huge penalties. All the dodgy backyard operators are dumping their breeding stock before the new penalties come in, and there are so many dogs needing rehoming they can’t cope. They’ve said they’ll keep Grandma’s dogs for a month and do their best to find them homes but they’re not hopeful. None of my...none of Grandma’s dogs are what you’d call cute. So after a month...’
She paused and rubbed Cordelia a bit more and struggled to continue. Forcing herself to think of the other animals. ‘And a cow and calf like this? Scrawny, mixed breed, neither dairy nor beef? I might be able to find a place for the chooks, but the cows and the dogs...’ She shook her head. ‘Somewhere up there Grandma’s breaking her heart and so am I.’
‘Hey,’ he said and her hand, which had been rubbing with a fierceness that was almost desperate, was suddenly grasped and held. ‘There are solutions. There must be.’
‘You tell me what they are, then,’ she said and tugged her hand away because a woman could only indulge in fantasy for so long and the time for fantasy was over. ‘Are we done here? Let’s go find your gear from the car, get cleaned up and get ourselves ready to face the day.’ And then she shook her head. ‘Or not. There’s no need for you to face anything. I’ll cut a hole in the fencing along the dry part of the boundary and you’ll be right to go.’
‘I won’t be,’ he said, almost apologetically.
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