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THE LARKVILLE LEGACY

A secret letter… two families changed for ever

Welcome to the small town of Larkville, Texas, where the Calhoun family has been ranching for generations.

Meanwhile, in New York, the Patterson family rules America’s highest echelons of society.

Both families are totally unprepared for the news that they are linked by a shocking secret.

For hidden on the Calhoun ranch is a letter that’s been lying unopened and unread—until now!

Meet the two families in all eight books of this brand-new series:

THE COWBOY COMES HOME

by Patricia Thayer

SLOW DANCE WITH THE SHERIFF

by Nikki Logan

TAMING THE BROODING CATTLEMAN

by Marion Lennox

THE RANCHER’S UNEXPECTED FAMILY

by Myrna Mackenzie

HIS LARKVILLE CINDERELLA

by Melissa McClone

THE SECRET THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

by Lucy Gordon

THE SOLDIER’S SWEETHEART

by Soraya Lane

THE BILLIONAIRE’S BABY SOS

by Susan Meier

“Now, let me inside the house, show me where I can eat and sleep, and get out of my life.”

She’d meant to stay icy. She’d meant to stay dignified. So much for intentions.

Her last words were almost hysterical—a yell into the silence. No matter. Who cared what he thought? She flicked the trunk lever and stalked round to fetch her suitcase. Her foot hit a rain-filled pothole, she tripped and lurched—and the arrogant toe-rag caught her and held her.

It was like being held in a vice. His hands held her with no room for argument. She was steadied, held still, propelled out of the puddle and set back.

His hands held her arms a moment longer, making sure she was stable.

She looked up, straight into his face.

She saw power, strength and anger. But more. She saw pure, raw beauty.

It was as much as she could do not to gasp.

Lean, harsh, aquiline. Heathcliff, she thought, and Mr Darcy, and every smouldering cattleman she’d ever lusted after in the movies all rolled into one. The strength of him. The sheer, raw sexiness.

He released her and she thought maybe she should lean against the car for a bit.

It was just as well this place was a total disaster; this job was a total disaster. Staying anywhere near this guy would do her head in.

About the Author

MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, Marion writes for Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ and Mills & Boon® Cherish™. (She used a different name for each category for a while—readers looking for her past romance titles should search for author Trisha David, as well). She’s now had more than seventy-five romance novels accepted for publication.

In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured what’s important and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate.

Preferably all at the same time!

Taming the
Brooding
Cattleman
Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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PROLOGUE

HE’D failed.

Jack Connor stood at his sister’s graveside and accepted how badly he’d broken his promise to his mother.

‘Take care of your sister.’

He’d been eight years old when his mother walked away. Sophie had been six.

What followed was a bleak, hard childhood, cramming schoolwork into his grandfather’s demands for farm labour, and caring for his sister in the times between. Finally he’d escaped his grandfather’s tyranny to the luxury of wages. From there he’d built a company from nothing. He’d had no choice. He’d been desperate for funds to provide the professional care Sophie so desperately needed.

It hadn’t worked. Even though he’d made money, the care had come too late. For all that time he’d watched his sister self-destruct.

Sophie’s social worker had come to the funeral. Nice of her. Her presence meant there’d been a whole three people in attendance. She’d looked into his grim face and she’d tried to ease his pain.

‘This was not your fault, Jack. Your mother wounded your sister when she walked out, but the ultimate responsibility was Sophie’s.’

But he stared down at the grave and knew she was wrong. Sophie was dead and the ultimate responsibility was Jack’s. He hadn’t been enough.

What now?

Return to Sydney, to his IT company, to riches that had bought him nothing?

He stared down at the rain-soaked roses he’d laid on his sister’s grave, and a memory wafted back. Sophie at his grandfather’s farm, on one of the occasions his grandfather had been so blind drunk they weren’t afraid of him. Sophie in what was left of his grandmother’s rose garden. Sophie pressing roses into storybooks. ‘We’ll keep them for ever.’

Suddenly he found himself thinking of horses he hadn’t seen for years. His grandfather’s horses, his friends from childhood. They’d asked for nothing but food, shelter and exercise. When he’d been with the horses, he’d almost been happy.

The farm was his now. His grandfather had died a year ago, but the demands of Sophie’s increased illness meant he hadn’t had time to go there. He guessed it’d be rundown. Even the brief legal contact he’d made had him sensing the manager his grandfather had employed was less than honest, but the bloodlines of his grandfather’s stockhorses should still be intact. Remnants of the farm’s awesome reputation remained.

Could he bring it back to its former glory?

Decision time.

He stared down at the rain-washed grave, his thoughts bleak as death.

If he was his grandfather, he thought, he’d hit something. Someone.

He wasn’t his grandfather.

But he didn’t want to return to Sydney, to a staff who treated him as he treated them, with remote courtesy.

The company would keep going without him.

He stood and he stared at his sister’s grave for a long, long time.

What?

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 breath, she thought. Say it like it is.

‘I,’ she said, in tones that matched his for iciness and more, ‘am at the end of a very long rope that stretches all the way back to New York. It’s taken me three days to get here, give or take a day that seems to have disappeared in the process. I applied for a job here in good faith. I sent every piece of documentation you demanded. I accepted a work visa for six months on the strength of a job with a horse stud that looks—’ she glanced witheringly at the house ‘—to be non-existent. And now you have the nerve to tell me you don’t want me. I don’t want you either, but I seem to be stuck with you, with this dump, with this place, at least until the rain stops and I’ve eaten and I’ve slept for twenty-four hours. Then, believe me, you won’t see me for dust. Or mud. Now let me inside the house, show me where I can eat and sleep, and get out of my life.’

She’d meant to stay icy. She’d meant to stay dignified. So much for intentions.

Her last words were almost hysterical—a yell into the silence. No matter. Who cared what he thought? She flicked the trunk lever and stalked round to fetch her suitcase. Her foot hit a rain-filled pothole, she tripped and lurched—and the arrogant toerag caught her and held her.

It was like being held in a vice. His hands held her with no room for argument. She was steadied, held still, propelled out of the puddle and set back.

His hands held her arms a moment longer, making sure she was stable.

She looked up, straight into his face.

She saw power, strength and anger. But more.

She saw pure, raw beauty.

It was as much as she could do not to gasp.

Lean, harsh, aquiline. Heathcliff, she thought, and Mr Darcy, and every smouldering cattleman she’d ever lusted after in the movies, all rolled into one. The strength of him. The sheer, raw sexiness.

He released her and she thought maybe she should lean against the car for a bit.

It was just as well this place was a total disaster; this job was a total disaster. Staying anywhere near this guy would do her head in.

Her head was already done in. She was close to swaying.

Focus on your anger, she told herself. And practicalities. Get your gear out of the car. He’s going to think you’re a real New York princess if you expect him to do it for you.

But he was already doing it, grabbing her cute, pink suitcase (gift from her mother), glancing at it with loathing, slamming the trunk closed and turning to march toward the house.

‘Park the car when it stops raining,’ he snapped over his shoulder. ‘It’ll be fine where it is for the night.’

She was supposed to follow him? Into the Addams Family nightmare?

A flash of lightning lit the sky and she thought it needed only that.

Thunder boomed after it.

Jack had reached the rickety steps and was striding up to the veranda without looking back.

He had her suitcase.

She whimpered. There was no help for it, she whimpered.

Her family thought she was a helpless baby. If they could see her now, they’d be proven right. That’s exactly how she felt. She wanted, more than anything, to be back in Manhattan, lying in her gorgeous peach bedroom, with Maria about to bring her hot chocolate.

Where was her maid when she needed her most? Half a world away.

More lightning. Oh, my …

Jack was disappearing round the side of the veranda. Her suitcase was disappearing with him.

She had no choice. She took a deep breath and scuttled after him.

He showed her to the bedroom and left her to it. Headed to his makeshift study and hauled open his computer. Grabbed the original letter.

Could he sack a worker just because she was female?

Surely he could if she’d taken the job under false pretences, he thought, reading the first letter he’d received.

My son, Alexander, is looking for experience on an Australian horse stud. Alex is a qualified veterinarian and is also willing to take on general farm work. The level of pay would not be a problem; what Alex mostly wants is experience.

My son.

He flicked through the emails, printing them out. After Cedric’s first letter he’d corresponded directly with Alex. Her. There was no mention of what sex she was in her emails, he conceded. They’d been polite, businesslike, and they hadn’t referred to her sex at all.

Yes, I understand the living conditions may be rougher than I’m accustomed to, but I’d appreciate even a tough job. My aim is to work on horse studs in the States, but getting that first job after vet school is difficult. If I do a decent job for you, it may well give me the edge over other graduates.

He’d expected a fresh-faced kid straight out of vet school, possibly not understanding just how tough it was out here, but ready to make a few sacrifices in order to get the job. Despite the conditions, Werarra produced horses with an international reputation. This would be a good career step.

He’d never have employed a woman.

He hadn’t wanted to employ anyone, but sense had decreed he had no choice. This place had deteriorated to the point of being a ruin. The horses took all his attention. The house was derelict and the manager’s cottage even more so. Brian, the guy who’d managed the place for his grandfather, preferred to live a half a mile down the road on the second of the farm’s holdings. Jack had expected him to keep on working, but the moment Jack arrived he’d lit out, abandoning his wife and kids, disappearing without trace.

The letter from Cedric Patterson, addressed to Jack Connor, had come when he was overwhelmed. Despite his misgivings he’d thought, a vet … plus someone who could help with the heavy manual work like getting the fences back in order … The manager’s house was unlivable, but maybe a kid could cope with sharing the big house with him.

He’d written back to Cedric explaining that the Jack he was writing to, the Jack he’d gone to school with, was dead. Cedric had visited Werarra, had stayed here, when he and his grandfather were young men, when his grandmother was alive and making the place a home. The house had deteriorated, he’d told him. There were no separate living quarters, but if Alex was happy to do it tough …

Alex himself … herself … had emailed back saying tough was fine.

What now? He didn’t even have a working bathroom. Asking a guy to use the outhouse was a stretch, but a woman?

He could fix the bathroom. Maybe. But not tonight.

And he still didn’t want a woman. The women in his life had caused him nothing but grief and anguish. To have another, sharing his house, sharing his life …

Stop it with the dramatisation, he told himself harshly. She wouldn’t want to stay even if he wanted her to. She obviously had a romantic view of what an outback Australian horse stud would be. One look at the outside privy and she’d run.

He didn’t blame her.

Meanwhile …

Meanwhile he needed to feed her. He hurled sausages into the pan, sliced onions as if he could get rid of his anger on the chopping board, tossed them on top of the sausages and fumed. At himself more than her. He shouldn’t have tried to employ anyone until he had this place decent, but a woman?

She took one look at the outside privy and wanted to die.

There was an inside bathroom, but … ‘Plumbing’s blocked,’ Jack had said curtly, as he showed her her bedroom. ‘Tree roots. Use the outhouse. There’s a torch.’

The outhouse was fifty yards from the back door. A massive, overgrown rose almost hid it from view, and she had to make her way through a tunnel of vine to reach it.

A couple of hefty beef cattle were hanging their heads over the fence, dripping water in the rain, looking at her as if she was an alien.

That’s how she felt. Alien.

She locked the outhouse door, and something scrabbled over the outhouse’s tin roof. What?

She wanted to go home.

‘You’re a big girl,’ she told herself, out loud so whatever it was on the roof would get the picture. ‘You need to get in there, front Jack Sexist Connor, find something to eat, get some sleep and then find a way out of this mess.’

The rain had eased for a minute, which was why she’d taken the chance and run out here. It started again, sheeting in under the door.

‘I want to go home,’ she wailed, and the thing on the roof stilled and listened.

And didn’t answer.

He was cooking sausages. Eight fat sausages, Wombat Siding butcher’s finest. He cooked mashed potato and boiled up some frozen peas to go with them.

He set the table with two knives, two forks, a ketchup bottle and two mugs. What more could a man want?

A woman might want more, he conceded, but she wasn’t getting more.

What did he know about what a woman would want? A woman who was supposed to be a man.

She pushed open the door, and his thoughts stopped dead.

She’d been wearing black pants and a tailored wool jacket when she arrived. Her hair had been twisted into a knot. She’d been wearing red ankle boots, with old-fashioned buttons. She’d looked straight out of New York.

Now …

He’d left a pitcher and basin in her bedroom and she’d obviously made use of it. She’d washed—the tendrils of blond curls around her face were damp—and her face was shiny clean with no hint of make-up. She was wearing jeans and an oversize sweater. Her curls hung free to her shoulders.

She was wearing thick, pink socks.

The résumé she’d sent said she was twenty-five years old. Right now she looked about sixteen. Pretty. Really pretty. Also … scared?

Daniel in the lion’s den.

Or woman in Werarra.

Same thing, only he wasn’t a lion. But she couldn’t stay here.

‘Sit down and wrap yourself round something to eat,’ he said roughly, trying to hold to anger.

‘Thank you.’ She sidled into a chair on the far side of the table to him, still looking scared.

‘Three sausages?’

‘One.’

‘Suit yourself.’ He put one sausage onto a chipped plate, added a pile of mash and a heap of peas and put it in front of her. He ladled himself more.

He sat and started eating.

She sat and stared at her plate.

‘What?’ he said.

‘I didn’t lie,’ she said in a small voice.

‘I have the documentation,’ he said, pointing to the pile of papers he’d left on the end of the table. ‘My son. That would be a male.’

‘Nothing in any of my emails to you said I was a guy.’

‘They didn’t have to. I already knew. Your father’s letter. The visa application. My son, the letter said. Plus Alexander. It’s a guy’s name.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and shoved her plate back. ‘It is.’

‘So?’

‘My father doesn’t get on with my older brother.’ She was speaking calmly, in a strangely dull voice, like she’d reached some point and gone past. ‘I’ve never figured why, but there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it. I have two older sisters, and by the time I arrived Dad was desperate for a male heir other than Matt. He was sure I’d be the longed-for son. He planned on calling me Alexander, after his dad, only of course I ended up being Alexandra. So Dad filled in the birth certificate. Maybe he’d had a few drinks. Maybe it was just a slip, or maybe it was anger that I wasn’t what he wanted. I don’t know, but officially I’m Alexander. My family calls me Alexandra but on official stuff, I need to use Dad’s spelling.’ She tilted her chin and tried to glare at him. ‘So … does it matter?’

‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘It does. Your father said you were his son. I want to know why he lied.’

‘He made a mistake.’

‘Fathers don’t make that sort of mistake.’

‘They do if they always wanted their daughter to be a boy,’ she said dully. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. ‘They do if they have Alzheimer’s.’

Silence.

Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. The word hung. She hadn’t wanted to say it, he thought. Admitting your dad was ill … It hurt, he thought. It hurt a lot.

Anger faded. He felt … cruel. Like he’d damaged something.

‘So why does it matter?’ she demanded, hauling herself together with a visible effort. ‘What have you got against women?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I applied for jobs after graduating,’ she said. ‘I want horse work. To work with horses, not ponies, not pets. You try and get a job on a horse ranch when you’re twenty-five and blonde and cute.’

And she said the word cute with such loathing he almost smiled.

‘I can imagine …’

‘No, you can’t,’ she snapped. ‘You’re six feet tall, built like a tank and you’re male. You know nothing at all about what it’s like to want to handle yourself with horses. This job … six months at Werarra Stud … is supposed to give me credibility with the ranchers back home, but you’re just the same as every redneck cowboy know-all who ever told me I can’t do it because I’m a girl.’

‘So you’re prepared to put up with an outhouse for six months?’ he demanded, bemused.

‘Not if it comes with an arrogant, chauvinistic oaf of an employer. And not if I have to eat grease.’ And she shoved her plate across the table at him with force.

He caught it. He piled the sausage and mash absently onto his plate. He thought cute was a really good description.

Don’t go there. This was a mistake he had to get rid of. He did not want to think any woman was cute.

‘So you’ll go home tomorrow,’ he said, and she looked around and he thought if she had another plateful she might just possibly throw it at him.

‘Why should I? I didn’t lie about this job. You did.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Liar.’

‘I told you it’d be rough.’

‘I assumed you meant no shops. Living in the outback. The house … On the website it looks gorgeous.’

‘That picture was taken eighty years ago. Romantic old homestead.’

‘It’s false advertising.’

‘I’m not advertising my house,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m advertising my horses. I wanted the website to show a sense of history, that Werarra workhorses are part of what this country is.’

‘Show the picture of your outhouse, then,’ she snapped. ‘Very historic.’

‘You’ll starve if you don’t eat.’

‘I couldn’t eat sausages if you paid me.’

‘Don’t tell me—you’re vegan.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then why …’

‘Because I’ve travelled for three days straight,’ she snapped. ‘Because I’m jet-lagged and overtired and overwrought. Because if you must know, my stomach is tied in knots and I’d like a dainty cucumber sandwich and a cup of weak tea with honey. Not a half-ton of grease. But if I have to go to bed with nothing, I will.’ She shoved back her chair and stood. ‘Good night.’

‘Alex …’

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Sit down.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘You don’t want sausages,’ he said and sighed, and opened the oven door of the great, old-fashioned fire stove that took up half the kitchen wall. He shoved his plate in there. ‘I’ll keep mine hot while I make you something you can eat.’

‘Cucumber sandwiches?’

He had to smile. She sounded almost hopeful.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I clean forgot cucumber on my shopping list. But sit down, shut up, and we’ll see if we can find an alternative.’

She sat.

She looked up at him, half distrustful, half hopeful, and he felt something inside him twist.

Sophie, bleak as death, stirring her food with disinterest. ‘I can’t eat, Jack….’

Sophie.

Do not think this woman is cute. Do not think this woman is anything other than a mistake you need to get rid of.

But for tonight … Yeah, she was needy. The explanation for the mix-up … it had hurt her to tell him about her dad; he could see that it hurt. And she was right, it shouldn’t matter that she was a woman.

It wasn’t her fault that it did. That the thought of a woman sitting on the far side of the table, a woman who even looked a little like Sophie, stirred something inside him that hurt. A lot.

She wasn’t saying anything. He poured boiling water over a tea bag, and ladled in honey. He handed her the mug and watched her cradle it as if she needed its comfort.

The stove was putting out gentle warmth. This room was the only place in the house that bore the least semblance to cosy.

She didn’t look cosy. She looked way out of her depth.

He was being cruel. If she was leaving in the morning, it wouldn’t hurt to look after her.

He eyed her silently for a moment while she cradled her mug and stared at the battered wood of the ancient kitchen table.

It wouldn’t hurt.

She was so spaced, so disoriented, that if she’d crashed down on the surface of the table she wouldn’t be surprised. She felt light-headed, weird. When had she last eaten? On the plane this morning? Last night? When was last night and this morning? They were one and the same thing.

She wasn’t making sense, even to herself. She should make herself stand up, head back to her allotted bedroom and go to sleep. And then get out of here.

Instead she cradled her mug of hot tea and stared at the worn surface of the table and did nothing.

She wasn’t all that sure her legs would let her do anything else.

Jack was at the stove. He had his back to her. She wasn’t sure what he was doing and she didn’t care.

She’d wanted this so badly….

Why?

Veterinary Science hadn’t been a problem for her. She’d dreamed of taking care of horses since she was a child. She’d put her head down and worked, and she’d succeeded.

Getting a job, though, was a sight harder. Horse medicine was hard, physically tough. The guys in college who were good at it were those who came from farms, who were built tough and big, who knew how to handle themselves. But she’d done it. She’d trained in equestrian care, she’d proved she could do what the guys did; she used brains instead of brawn, got fast at avoiding flying hooves, learned a bit of horse whispering.

It worked until she hit the real world, the world of employment, when no rancher wanted a five-feet-four-inch, willow-thin, blonde, twenty-five-year-old girl vet.

Like this guy didn’t want her.

Her dad had organised this job for her. She’d been humiliated that she’d had to sink to using family connections, and now it seemed even family connections weren’t enough.

What now?

Go back to New York? Find herself a nice little job caring for Manhattan pets? Her mother would be delighted.

Her dad?

He loved that she was a vet. He loved it that she wanted to treat horses.

He’d have loved it better if she was a son.

‘Let’s see if this suits you better,’ Jack said, and slid another plate in front of her.

She looked—and looked again.

No sausages. Instead she was facing a small, fine china plate, with a piece of thin, golden toast, cut into four neat triangles. On the side was one perfectly rounded, perfectly poached egg.

She stared down at the egg and it was as much as she could do not to burst into tears.

‘You’re beat,’ he said gently. ‘Eat that and get to bed. Things will look better in the morning.’

She looked up at him, stunned by this gesture. This plate … it was like invalid cooking, designed to appeal to someone with the most jaded appetite. Where had this man …?

‘Don’t mind me, but I’m going back to my sausages,’ he said, and hauled them out of the oven and did just that.

She’d thought she was too upset to eat, that she’d gone past hunger. He stayed silent, concentrating on his own meal. Left to herself, she managed to clean her plate.

He made her a second mug of tea. She finished that, too. She wasn’t feeling strong enough to speak, to argue, to think about the situation she was in. She’d sleep, she thought. Then … then …

‘There’s not a lot I can’t do that a guy can do,’ she said, not very coherently but it was the best she could manage at the end of the meal.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t want to stay here.’

‘Neither would any male vet I trained with.’

He nodded. ‘I shouldn’t have let anyone come.’

‘You need me, why?’

‘I don’t need you.’

‘Right,’ she said, and rose. ‘I guess that’s it, then. Maybe I should say thank-you for the egg but I won’t. I’ve just paid the airfare to come halfway round the world for a job that doesn’t exist. Compared to that … well, it does seem an egg is pretty lousy wages.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE bedroom was a faded approximation to her dreams. It had once been beautiful, large and gracious, with gorgeous flowered wallpaper, rich, tasselled drapes, a high ceiling, wide windows and a bed wide enough to fit three of her. It still was beautiful—sort of. She could ignore the faded wallpaper, the shredded drapes. For despite the air of neglect and decay, her bed was made up with clean, crisp linen. The mattress and pillows were surprisingly soft. Magically soft.

Soft enough that despite her emotional upheaval, despite the fact that it was barely seven o’clock, she was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

But reality didn’t go away. She woke up with a jolt in the small hours, and remembered where she was, and remembered her life was pretty much over.

Okay, maybe she was exaggerating, she decided, as she stared bleakly into the darkness. She had the money to have a holiday. She could go back to Sydney, do some sightseeing, head back to New York and tell everyone she’d been conned.

Her friends had been derisive when she’d told them what she was doing. ‘You? On an outback station? Man-of-all-work as well as vet for stockhorses? Get real, Alex, you’re too blonde.’

The teasing had been good-natured but she’d heard the serious incredulity behind it. No one would be surprised when she came home.

And then what? Her thoughts were growing bleaker. If this low-life cowboy kicked her off this farm …

He didn’t have to kick her off. There was no way she’d stay here, with this ramshackle house, without a bathroom, with his chauvinistic attitudes.

Bleak-R-Us.

The silence was deafening. She was used to city sounds, city lights filtering through the drapes. Here, there was nothing.

If there was nothing, she had to leave.

Okay. She could do what her mother wanted, she thought. Concede defeat. Get a job caring for New York’s pampered pooches. Her mother had all sorts of contacts who could get her such a job. Unlike her dad, who’d loved the idea of her working with horses, and who’d used the only contact he had. Which just happened to be forty years out of date.

And for a son, not for a daughter.

Her thoughts were all over the place, but suddenly she was back with her dad. Why did it make a difference? She’d never been able to figure why her dad wasn’t happy with the son he had; why he’d been desperate to have another.

Like she couldn’t figure why it was so important to Jack Connor that she was male.

He’d cooked her an egg.

It was a small thing. In the face of his boorish behaviour it was inconsequential, yet somehow it made a difference.

He was used to invalid cookery, she thought. Maria had made meals like that for her when she was ill. The fact that Jack had done it …

It meant nothing. One egg does not a silk purse make. He was still, very much, a sow’s ear. A sow’s ear she’d be seeing the last of tomorrow morning. Or this morning.

She checked her watch: 3:00 a.m. Four hours before she could stalk away from this place and never come back.

Admit defeat?

Yes, she told her pillow. Yes, because she had no choice.

She rolled over in bed and saw a flicker of light behind the curtains.

Jack, heading for the outhouse?

The outhouse was on the other side of the house.

Someone was out there.

So what? She shoved her pillow over her head and tried to sleep.

It was midday in Manhattan. She was wide awake.

The light.

Ignore it. Go to sleep.

Her legs were twitchy. She’d spent too long on too many planes.

So what? Go to sleep.

Or what?

Sancha was one of the stud’s prize mares. This was her second foaling. He hadn’t expected trouble.

At two-thirty he’d known things were happening but the signs were normal. He’d checked the foal had a nice healthy heartbeat. He’d brought in thick fresh straw, then sat back and waited. Foaling was normally explosively fast. Horses usually delivered within half an hour.

She didn’t.

She was in trouble.

So was the foal. The presentation was all wrong. The heartbeat was becoming erratic.

He need a vet. Now.

He had one in the house. But …

He wasn’t all that sure he trusted her credentials. Besides, he’d sacked her. He could hardly ask her to help.

But if he didn’t … it’d take an hour to get the local vet here and that heartbeat meant he didn’t have an hour.

He swallowed his pride and thought, Thank heaven he’d made the girl an egg.

She hauled on her fleecy bathrobe and headed out to the veranda. Just to see. Just because staying in bed was unbearable. She could see lightning in the distance but the storm was past. It had stopped raining. The air felt cool and crisp and clean. She needed cool air to clear her head.

She walked out the back door, and barrelled straight into Jack.

He caught her, steadied her, but it took a moment longer for her breath to steady. He was so big…. It was the middle of the night. This place was creepy.

He was big.

‘Are you really a vet?’ he demanded, and she stiffened and hauled away.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ve a mare with dystocia. She’s been labouring for at least an hour and nothing’s happened. I can’t get the presentation right—there are hooves everywhere. I’ll lose her.’

‘My vet bag’s in the car,’ she snapped. ‘Get it and show me where she is.’

She was cute, blonde, female. She was wearing a pink, fuzzy bathrobe.

She was a veterinarian.

From the time she entered the stables, her entire attention was on the mare. He was there only to answer curt questions she snapped at him as she examined her.

‘How long since you found her? Was she distressed then? Has she foaled before?’

‘With no problem. I’m sure it’s the presentation. I can’t fix it.’

She hauled off her bathrobe, shoved her arm in the bucket of soapy water and performed a fast double-check. She didn’t trust him.

Why should she?

The mare was deeply distressed. She’d been moving round, agitated, lying, rolling, standing again. Alex moved with her as she examined her, not putting herself at risk but doing what had to be done, fast.

Her examination was swift, and so was her conclusion.

‘After an hour’s labour, there’s no way we’ll get it out naturally from the position it’s in and it’s too risky to try and manoeuvre it. The alternative’s a caesarean, but I’d need help and I’d need equipment.’

‘I have equipment and I can help,’ he said steadily, but he was thinking, Did he have enough? And … to do a caesarean, here? He knew the drill. What they needed was an equipped surgery, sterile environs, equipment and drugs to make this possible. Even the thought of moving the mare and holding her seemed impossible. If he had another strong guy …

He had a petite blonde, in a cute bathrobe.

But she hadn’t seemed to notice that she was totally unsuited for the job at hand. She was checking the beams overhead.

‘Are you squeamish?’

What, him? ‘No,’ he snapped, revolted.

‘I’d need ropes and more water. I’d need decent lights. I’d need warmed blankets—get a heater out here, anything. Just more of it. What sort of equipment are you talking?’

‘I hope we have everything you need,’ he told her, and led her swiftly out to the storeroom at the back of the stables.

The Wombat Siding vet had equipped the store. With over a hundred horses, the vet was out here often, so he’d set up a base here. Three hours back to fetch equipment wasn’t possible so he’d built a base here.

And Alex’s eyes lit at the sight of the stuff he had. She didn’t hesitate. She started hauling out equipment and handing it to him.

‘So far, so good,’ she said curtly. ‘With this gear it might just be possible. You realise I’m only aiming to save the mare. You know foal survival under these conditions is barely ten percent.’

‘I know that.’

‘You won’t faint?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve seen tougher cowboys than you faint, but you faint and your mare dies. Simple as that. I can’t do it alone.’

‘I’m with you every step of the way.’

She stared at him long and hard, and then gave a brisk nod, as if he’d passed some unseen test.

‘Right,’ she snapped. ‘Let’s do it.’

It was hard, it was risky.

She was skilled.

She whispered to the mare. Administered the anaesthetic. Guided her down.

Together they rolled her into position, and he was stunned at the strength of her. She didn’t appear to notice how much strength it took.

With the mare unconscious she set up a drip. She’d teamed with Jack to rope the mare into position, using the beams above, but Jack still needed to support her. He was told to supervise the ventilator delivering oxygen plus the drip administering electrolytes and fluids.

She delivered curt instructions and he followed. This was her call.

There was no choice. If she wasn’t here, he’d lose the mare. Simple as that.

She was a vet.

She was wearing a pink bathrobe. She’d tugged her hair back with a piece of hay twine. She shouldn’t look professional.

She looked totally professional.

She was clipping the hair from the mare’s abdomen, fast, sure, then doing a speedy sterile prep. Checking instruments. Looking to him for reassurance.

‘Ready?’

‘I’m ready,’ he said, and wondered if he was.

He had to be.

He watched, awed, as she made a foot-long incision in the midline of the abdomen, then made an incision into the uterus giving access to the foal.

‘Say your prayers,’ she said, and hauled out a tiny hoof, and then another.

This was a big mare. The foal was small, but compared to this young woman … For her to lift it free …

He made a move to help her.

‘Watch that oxygen,’ she snapped. ‘Leave this to me. It’s mare first, foal second.’

He understood. Emergency caesareans in horses rarely meant a live foal. They were all about saving the life of the mare.

If the airway he was monitoring blocked, they’d lose the mare, so he could only watch as she lifted the foal free. She staggered a little under the weight, but he knew enough now not to offer to help. She steadied, checked, put her face against its nuzzle, then carried it across to the bed of straw where he’d laid blankets. He’d started a blow heater, directing it to the blankets, to make it warm.

Just in case …

Maybe there was a case.

He kept doing what he was doing, but he had space to watch as she swiftly cleared its nose, inserted the endotracheal tube he’d hardly noticed she’d set up, started oxygen, then returned briskly to the mare. All in the space of seconds. She couldn’t leave the mare for any longer.

The foal was totally limp. But …

‘There’s a chance,’ she said, returning fast to the job at hand. There was no time, no manpower, to care for the foal more than she’d done.

She had to stitch the wound closed. He had to stay where he was, supporting the mare, keeping the airway clear.

But he watched the foal out of the corner of his eye. Saw faint movement.

The mare shifted, an involuntary, unconscious shudder.

‘Watch her,’ Alex ordered. ‘You want to risk both?’

No. He went back to what he was doing. Making sure she was steady. Making sure she lived.

Alex went back to stitching.

He watched her blond, bent head and he felt awed. He thought back to the sausages and outhouse and felt … stupid.

And cruel.

This woman had come halfway round the world so she could have a chance to do what she was doing brilliantly. And he’d begrudged her an egg.

There was no time for taking this further now, though. With the stitching closed, she removed the ropes. He helped her shove fresh straw under the mare’s side, then manoeuvred her into lateral recumbency, on her side.

The foal …

‘Watch her,’ she said again, more mildly this time, and she left him to the mare and stooped back over the foal.

‘We still have him,’ she said, in a voice that said it mattered. Her voice held surprise and a little awe. She checked more thoroughly and he saw the foal stir and shift. ‘Her,’ Alex corrected herself, and there was no concealing the emotion she felt. ‘Let’s get the birth certificate right on this one.’

A filly. Out of Sancha.

If he got a live mare and foal out of this night … He couldn’t describe the feeling.

But it wasn’t certain yet. She was setting up an IV line, then using more blankets to towel the foal. It … she … was still limp.

Everything had to go right with a foaling. Foals didn’t survive premature delivery. They seldom survived caesareans. To get a good outcome …

Please …

Sancha stirred under his hands, whinnied, lifted her head.

‘Hey.’ He laid his head on her head, the way he used to do as a kid, the way his grandfather had taught him. His grandfather was a cruel drunk, mean to everything and everyone but his horses, but Jack had watched him and learned, and the skills were there when he needed them. ‘There’s no need to get up,’ he whispered to her. ‘Your baby’s in good hands.’

She was.

They watched and waited. There seemed nothing of the Manhattan princess about Alex right now. She had all the time in the world, all the patience.

Jack whispered to his mare, watched his foal—and watched this woman who’d transformed before his eyes.

Finally the foal started to struggle, starting to search for her feet. Alex helped her up, a wobbly tangle of spindly legs and huge head, and Jack felt … felt …

Like a horseman shouldn’t feel. He didn’t get emotional.

He didn’t care?

The foal whinnied and the mare responded. She struggled, as well, and Alex was suddenly back with him. The mare rose, as unsteady as her daughter, but finally with their help she was upright.

She turned and nosed her daughter. The foal whinnied in response, and started magically to nose underneath her.

Alex smiled and smiled. She guided the foal to the teat and then stood back.

‘I think we might just have won,’ she whispered, and Jack might have been struggling to hide his emotions but Alex surely wasn’t. Tears were tracking down her cheeks and he felt an almost irresistible urge to wipe them for her.

He watched her. He watched the foal and the sensations were indescribable. The urge to hug this woman, to lift her and spin her in triumph, to share this amazing feeling …

It had to be suppressed—of course it did—but nothing had ever been harder.

So she wiped her tears herself, swiping her bathrobe sleeve over her face, sniffing, smiling through tears, then started to clear away the stained straw. Moving on. Being sensible.

More sensible than him.

‘She’ll need to be kept quiet for weeks,’ she said, trying to sound brusque rather than emotional—but not succeeding. ‘This isn’t like a human caesarean—all her innards are bearing down on those stitches. The foal will need exercise, though. It’s imperative to allow her to run and frolic, so it’ll be hand-walking the mare every day while her baby has her runs.’

She’d started loading her gear back into her bag. ‘That’s more work for you,’ she said, still brusque. Not looking at him. ‘A lot of extra work. You might need to think about finding extra help. Seeing as you’ve sacked me.’

She might not be looking at him, but he was looking at her. She was wearing a bloodstained and filthy bathrobe. Her hair was flying every which way.

He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

Which was the sort of thing he needed to stop thinking if he was offering her a job.

He was offering her a job. He had no choice. He’d treated her appallingly and she’d replied by saving his mare and foal.

‘The indoor bathroom drain only blocked last week,’ he told her before he could let prudence, sense, anything, hold sway. ‘I can pay priority rates and arrange a plumber to come this morning. We should have an operating bathroom by dusk. For now, though … The boiler in the outside laundry is full of hot water. I can cart water into the bath so you can get yourself clean.’

She stilled and stared at him. ‘Hot water?’ she whispered, as if he was offering the Holy Grail.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re offering me a bath?’

‘And a job.’

‘Forget jobs, just give me a bath,’ she said, breathing deeply. She straightened and looked at him full-on, as if reading his face for truth. ‘A great big, hot, gorgeous bath? I’ll cart the water myself if I must.’

‘No more carting for you tonight,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’ve done enough. About this job …’

‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about anything you like, as long as the bath comes first.’

She headed for her bath. The ancient claw-foot tub was huge and it took a while to fill but she beamed the whole time he filled it. He made sure she had everything she needed, then headed back out to the stables.

He watched over his mare and foal and thought about what had just happened.

He’d arrived here after Sophie’s death thinking he had a manager and a stablehand. The stablehand had been yet one more instance of his manager’s fraudulent accounting. So had the costs he’d billed Jack for, for the upkeep of the buildings. Seemingly his grandfather hadn’t worried about infrastructure for years and his crook of a manager had made things worse. The horses had been cared for, the cattle had kept the grass down, but nothing else had been done to the place at all. Jack was therefore faced with no help and no place fit to house anyone to help him.

When Cedric Patterson’s letter came he’d been pushed to the limit. Cedric’s offer had been for a farmhand and a vet, rolled into one.

The manager’s residence was uninhabitable and he didn’t have time to fix it. But could he put a young man into the main house? A wide-eyed student, who needed experience to get a job elsewhere? Who’d shrugged off his assurance that this place was rough as if it was nothing? Such a kid might well take the job. Such a kid might not intrude too much on his life.

He’d mulled over the letter for a couple of days before replying but it had been too tempting to resist. Now it was even more tempting. Alex was some vet.

So, he’d offered her the job. If she accepted, the decision was made.

Which meant living with her for six months.

He didn’t want to live with anyone for six months, but he sat on a hay bale and watched mare and foal slowly recover from their ordeal, and he thought of Alex’s skill and speed, and he knew this was a gift he couldn’t knock back.

He thought of how he’d felt, watching her over the kitchen table. Remembering Sophie. Remembering pain. Those last few months as Sophie had spiralled into depression so great nothing could touch her were still raw and dreadful.

Alex had nothing to do with Sophie, he told himself harshly. All he had to do was stay aloof.

All he had to do was not to care. That was his promise to himself. Never to care again.

But she was lovely. And clever and skilled.

And gorgeous.

‘Cut it out,’ he growled, and his mare stirred in alarm. Her foal, however, kept right on drinking.

‘See, that’s what I need to be,’ he told his beautiful mare. ‘Single-minded, like your baby. I’m here to produce the best stockhorses in Australia and I’m interested in nothing else.’

Liar. He was very, very interested in the woman he’d just shown into the bathroom. He’d watched her face light when she’d seen the steaming bathtub of hot water and he’d wanted … he’d wanted …

It didn’t matter what he wanted, he thought. He knew what he had to do.

He’d offered her a job. This stud needed her.

That was all it was. An employer/employee relationship, starting now.

If she stayed.

He shouldn’t want her to stay—but he did.

Would she stay?

Did it matter?

She lay back in the vast, old-fashioned bathtub and let the hot water soothe her soul. Nothing mattered but this hot water.

And the fact that she’d saved a mare and foal. It was what she was trained to do and the outcome was deeply satisfying.

And the fact that Jack Connor had offered her a job?

She shouldn’t take it. He was an arrogant, chauvinistic toad, she told herself. And this place was a dump.

Except … it wasn’t. The stables were brilliant. The equipment Jack had, not just medical stuff but every single horse fitting, was first-class. He’d poured money into the stables, into the horses, rather than the house.

She could forgive a lot of a man who put his animals’ needs before his own.

And he’d fix the bathroom. He’d promised. She could have a bath like this every night.

She wouldn’t have to go home and do her mother’s bidding.

She could stay … with Jack?

Maybe she needed a bit of cold water in this bath.

Whoa. That was exactly the sort of thing she didn’t need to be thinking. Jack Connor was an arrogant man. The fact that he was drop-dead sexy, the fact that he’d smiled down at the foal and his smile made her toes curl …

Neither of those things could be allowed to matter.

Or both of those things should make her run a mile.

She shouldn’t stay.

She poked one pink toe out of the water and surveyed it with care. She’d had her toenails painted before she left New York.

What was she thinking, getting her toenails painted to come here?

‘Not to impress Jack Connor, that’s for sure,’ she told herself. ‘If I stay here it’ll be hobnail boots for the duration.’

Good. That was what she was here for. She was not here to impress Jack Connor.

She’d saved his mare and foal. She’d made that grim face break into a smile.

He’d made her an egg.

‘You’re a fool, Alex Patterson,’ she told herself. ‘Your father thinks of you as a boy. If you’re going to stay here, you need to think of yourself as one, too. No interest in a very sexy guy.’

No?

No.

But her toe was still out of the water.

The toe was a symbol. Most of Alex Patterson was one very sensible vet. There was a tiny bit, though, that refused to be sensible.

There was a tiny bit remembering that smile.

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