‘Your farm...’
‘My farm’s in England. Just. Right, what’s first? Will the dogs be downstairs waiting to be let out?’
‘Grandma has a doggie door. She closed it when she had Flossie but since Flossie left...’
‘I doubt if Flossie’s thinking of leaving,’ he said gently and leaned over Charlie to pat her.
And as if to deny his words Flossie struggled to her feet—well, three of her feet—and staggered across the bed towards him.
He scooped her into his arms and held her, smiling down at her.
‘I’m thinking this girl’s great,’ he told Charlie. ‘I suspect we don’t even need the vet. But I also suspect there’ll be a need for a nature call.’
‘The yard outside the kitchen’s enclosed,’ Charlie told him. ‘I’ll be down in a moment. You won’t let her out, will you?’
‘I’ll stay with her the whole time,’ he said and then his smile turned to Charlie, a smile that almost had her heart doing back flips. Where did a man ever learn to smile like that?
‘Take your time getting dressed, Charlie,’ he said gently. ‘I suspect you could do with a morning’s break from responsibility. I’ll check your charges and the damage outside.’ He stooped and touched her face, a mere brush of finger against cheek. Why did that make her feel...as if she didn’t know how she was feeling? ‘You need help,’ he told her. ‘A morning might be all I can give, then I’ll give it willingly.’
* * *
She took him at his word. She stood under the shower and tried to allow the hot water to calm her.
It sort of did. For some reason the appalling mess of the last weeks had receded. Someone was helping. What was more, she was trusting him. He was presently feeding the cows, collecting eggs and letting the hens out for the day, doing everything a farmer would know how to do.
But why was she trusting? How did she know who he was? Had the mess her grandmother had got herself into taught her nothing?
Oh, for heaven’s sake, what was he going to do? Steal her eggs and run? There was little else left in the place to steal.
Everything was sold. All that was left was the valueless. A sad little cow and her bag-of-bones calf. Chooks that were almost past laying. Seven assorted dogs.
Her grandmother’s jewellery box was empty. The shelves had long been stripped of anything saleable. Even the gorgeous old lounge suite, faded but beautiful, had been carted off to the auction rooms.
For the last few weeks Charlie had been consumed by an anger so deep, so vast it had threatened to overwhelm her. She hadn’t been able to put it aside for a moment.
But now, with the hot water streaming over her naked body, her anger had been overlaid. She was suddenly thinking of a guy called Bryn with a lazy smile and gentle hands.
A man who’d held her in sleep.
A man who was getting on a plane tonight and she’d never see again.
Which was why she was getting out of the shower right now because standing under the hot water fantasising about the man was dangerous indeed—and besides, she was missing out on being...with him.
Or not. It was only because she needed to cook breakfast, she told herself as she tried to rub sense into herself with the threadbare towel. She had things to do. Sensible things.
She wasn’t hurrying because Bryn was downstairs.
Liar.
* * *
Breakfast seemed top of the agenda but there was a problem. She came downstairs just as Bryn came through the kitchen door from outside, and she could read problem on his face.
‘What?’ she said with trepidation. ‘Flossie...’
‘Flossie’s fine,’ he said hurriedly. ‘She’s hopping on three legs but she lined up for her kibble with the rest of them. She even put a bit of pressure on her pad when she thought she was being beaten to the feed bowls.’
‘You’ve fed them.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ There was that smile again. ‘I hope that’s okay with you. I assumed that industrial drum of kibble by the back door was for them.’
‘I’m not reduced to eating kibble myself,’ she joked but it didn’t come out as she’d meant it to. It came out sounding needy. But Bryn’s smile had faded. He looked preoccupied. ‘There’s something else?’
‘You have a cow in a bog,’ he told her. ‘The creek’s a quagmire but she’s obviously tried to reach it. I have no idea how she’s worked herself into such a mess. Luckily her calf had the sense not to join her. The calf was standing on the bank making her displeasure at her mother’s idiocy known to the world, but that’s made things worse. The cow’s desperate to reach her and has dug herself deeper. I’ve put the calf in the shed, so now we have one stuck cow to deal with. Do you have a tractor?’
‘Um...no.’
‘A neighbour with a tractor?’
She gazed out of the window at the debris scattered across the paddocks. Last night’s storm had been appalling. Every local farmer would be out assessing damage to their own properties. Besides, Jock next door had been scathing of Grandma’s cow and calf.
‘Not even the knacker’s ’ll want them,’ he’d told her when she’d tentatively asked if he could take them on. ‘You can’t take ’em back to your city apartment? The best thing to do is take ’em down to the back of the gully and shoot ’em. Tell you what,’ he’d said in a spirit of neighbourliness because this was at Grandma’s funeral and he was trying to be helpful. ‘I’ll do it for you if you like.’
She didn’t like, and now...to ask if he’d abandon assessing damage on his place and spend the morning saving a cow...
Bryn was waiting for an answer. Did she have neighbours who’d help?
‘No,’ she said a bit too abruptly and got a sharp look in return.
‘They’re not helpful?’
‘They’ll be busy. And they don’t think much of Cordelia.’
‘Cordelia?’
‘Cordelia,’ she repeated. ‘Her calf’s Violet. And don’t ask. I have no idea how Grandma chose names.’
‘Then I guess Cordelia needs to be dug out,’ he said as if it was no big deal. He sounded almost cheerful. ‘I might need some help. Can you show me where your spades are kept? And I’ll need rope and planking...’
I might need some help...
See her gobsmacked.
Did he know how sweet those words sounded? For the last three weeks they’d been thrashing themselves around her head. I might need some help... She did need help. And now this man was assuming a bogged cow—her bogged cow—was his responsibility and he was asking for her help.
Did he know how close she was to bursting into tears on his chest?
Oh, my.
‘But coffee first and toast,’ he told her. ‘She’s in trouble but she’s not going anywhere. If she was dumb enough to try and get to the creek to drink when all she had to do overnight was open her mouth and swallow, then she can wait until we fuel up. Toast and coffee and let’s go.’
* * *
Charlie wasn’t a farmer. Actually, neither was her grandmother. This