He could go back to the farm, he thought. He still knew about horses.
Did he know enough?
Did it matter? Maybe not.
Decision made.
Maybe he’d make a go of it. Maybe he wouldn’t, but he’d do it alone and he wouldn’t care.
Sophie was dead and he never had to care again.
CHAPTER ONE
ALEX Patterson was having doubts. Serious doubts.
On paper the journey had sounded okay. Manhattan to L.A. L.A. to Sydney. Sydney to Albury. Albury to Werarra.
Yeah, well, maybe it hadn’t sounded okay, but she’d read it fast and she hadn’t thought about it. A few hours before she’d reached Sydney she was tired. Now, after three hours driving through pelting rain, she was just plain wrecked. She wanted a long, hot bath, a long, deep sleep and nothing more.
Surely Jack Connor wouldn’t expect her to start work until Monday, she thought. And where was this place?
The child she’d seen on the road a way back had told her it was just around the bend. The boy had looked scrawny, underfed, neglected, and she’d looked at him and her doubts had magnified. She’d expected a wealthy neighbourhood—horse studs making serious money. The child looked destitute.
Werarra Stud must be better. Surely it was. Its stockhorses were known throughout the world. The website showed a long, gracious homestead in the lush heart of Australia’s Snowy Mountains. She’d imagined huge bedrooms, gracious furnishings, a job her friends would envy.
‘Werarra.’ She saw the sign. She turned into the driveway—and she hit the brakes.
Uh-oh.
That was pretty much all she was capable of thinking. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.
The website showed an historic photograph of a fabulous homestead built early last century. It might have been fabulous then, but it wasn’t fabulous now.
No one had painted it for years. No one had fixed the roof, mended sagging veranda posts, done anything but board up windows as they broke.
It looked totally, absolutely derelict.
The cottage the child had come from had looked bad. This looked worse.
There was a light on somewhere round the back. A black SUV was parked to the side. There was no other sign of life.
It was pouring. She was so tired she wasn’t seeing straight. It was thirty miles back to the nearest town and she wasn’t all that sure Wombat Siding was big enough to provide a hotel.
She stared at the house in horror, and then she let her head droop onto the steering wheel.
She would not weep.
A thump on her driver’s side window made her jump almost into the middle of next week.
Oh, my …
She needed to get a grip. Now.
You can cope with this, Alex Patterson, she told herself. You’ve told everyone back home you’re tough, so prove it. You’re not the spoilt baby everyone treats you as.
But this was … this was …
Another thump. She raised her head and looked out.
The figure outside the car was looming over the car window like a great black spectre. Rain-soaked and vast, it was blocking her entire door.
She squeaked. Maybe she even gibbered.
Then the figure moved back a bit from the car window, letting light in, and she came back to earth.
A man. A great, warrior-size guy. He was wearing a huge, black, waterproof coat, and vast boots.
The guy’s face was dark, his thick black hair slicked to his forehead in the rain. He had weather-worn skin, stubble so thick it was close to a beard, and dark, brooding eyes spaced wide and deep.
He was waiting for her to open the car door.
If she opened it, she’d get wet.
If she opened it, she’d have to face what was outside.
He opened it for her, with a force that made her gasp. The rain lashed in and she cringed.
‘You’re lost?’ The guy’s voice was deep and growly, but not unfriendly. ‘You need directions?’
If only she was, she thought. If only …
‘Mr. Connor?’ she managed, trying not to stutter. ‘Jack Connor?’
‘Yes?’ There was sudden incredulity in his voice, as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘I’m Alex Patterson,’ she told him. ‘Your new vet.’
There were silences and silences in Alex’s life. The silences as her mother disapproved—as she inevitably did—of what Alex was wearing, what she was doing. The silences after her father and brother’s fights. Family conflicts meant Alex had been brought up with silences. It didn’t mean she was used to them.
She’d come all the way to Australia to escape some of those silences, yet here she was, facing the daddy of them all.
This was like the silence between lightning and thunder—one look at this man’s face and she knew the thunder was on its way.
When finally he spoke, though, his voice was icy calm.
‘Alexander Patterson.’
‘Yes.’ Don’t sound defensive, she thought. What was this guy’s problem?
‘Alex Patterson, son of Cedric Patterson, Cedric, the guy who went to school with my grandfather.’
She put a silence of her own in here.
Son of …
Okay, she saw the problem.
She’d trusted her father.
She thought of her mother’s words. ‘Alex, your father is ill. You need to double-check everything….’
‘Dad’s okay. You’re dramatising. There’s nothing wrong with him.’ She’d yelled it back at her mother, but even as she’d yelled it, she knew she was denying what was real. Alzheimer’s was a vast, black hole, sucking her dad right in.
She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She still didn’t.
She’d trusted her father.
And anyway, what was the big deal? Man, woman, whatever. She was here as a vet. ‘You thought I was male?’ she managed, and watched the face before her grow even darker.
‘I was told you were a guy. His son.’
‘That’s my dad for you,’ she said, striving for lightness. ‘A son is what he hoped for, but you’d think after twenty-five years he could figure the difference.’ Deep breath. ‘Do you think you could, I don’t know, invite me in or something? I hate to mention it when the fact that I’m female seems to be such an issue, but an even bigger deal is that it’s raining, I’m not wearing waterproofs and it’s wet.’
‘You can’t stay here.’
This was bad, she thought, and it was getting worse.
But her dad’s fault or not, this was a situation she had to face, and she might as well face it now.
‘Well, maybe you should have told me that before I left New York,’ she snapped, and she hauled herself out of the car. She was already wet. She might as well be soaked, and her temper, volatile at the best of times, was heading for the stratosphere. ‘Maybe now I don’t have a choice.’
Deep