The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

19

‘Horseriding?’

Vera’s voice cracked on the last syllable, and she tried again. ‘Josh, I know I said whatever, but the thing is, I can’t ride a horse.’

He glanced over at her, took his hand off the wheel to shift gears. ‘Nothing to it. Ironbark Station does trail rides and farm stays over the summer season, so they’ve plenty of horses that are used to beginners.’

Crap.

His hand reached over and gave hers a squeeze, before she pulled her hand away and tucked it under her leg.

‘It’ll be fun. Trust me.’

That was the second time he’d told her to trust him. She wanted to roll her eyes and be cynical and think yeah, like I’d trust any guy ever again. But trustworthiness shone out of Josh Cody the way lemon scent steamed out of a fresh-cooked souffle.

She chewed her lip for a moment. Maybe she should just tell him now about her problems. About why she was a bad bet. She could get the difficult part of the day out of the way, they could do a U-turn and head back to Hanrahan, and she could save herself a humiliating ordeal strapped to the back of a huge scary beast. ‘This horse place. It must be a way out of town?’

She’d need at least twenty minutes to let spill the last twelve months’ worth of her woes. She should have launched straight into it the second she climbed into Josh’s truck, not allowed herself to be distracted by creeks burbling through the dappled shade of gum trees, tracts of wildflowers, the easy chitchat about the rocky, grass-stippled countryside Josh had regaled her with.

‘Nearly there. See those weatherboard buildings on the rise?’

She looked to where Josh was pointing. A cluster of neat grey and white barns—stables, she supposed, filled with plunging, sharphooved beasts—clung to a green swathe of pasture in the crook of towering mountain peaks.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘How lovely.’ How absolutely, freaking scary!

‘Yeah,’ he said, and swung his wheel so the truck left the bitumen and headed up a steep gravel track to where an iron gate barred the way forward. Above it, strung between posts, swung an old timber sign: IRONBARK STATION.

‘Nineteen twenty-three,’ she murmured, reading the date burned into the wood.

Josh followed her eyes to the sign. ‘Mmm. There’s been a Krauss here since just after the First World War, bar a few years there where the family were interned during the next war. Being German wasn’t so popular in the forties, no matter how long your family had lived here. Horse breeding’s where the Krausses started, but they own a lot of land in town, too. I went to school with Tom. Be right back,’ he said, and left the truck to open the gate.

Vera sat in the truck, watching him. She realised she was in no hurry to spread her bad news and bring their day together to an end. Was it the peace of the mountains? The satisfying thrill of seeing her business blossom over the past two months? Whatever it was, her vow to stay rigidly alone was starting to lose its appeal.

‘I think you’ve met Mrs LaBrooy,’ said Josh, once he was back in the truck, the gate secure behind them, the mountain scenery again flashing by.

‘Maybe.’ She’d met hundreds of people since The Billy Button Café had opened its doors.

‘She’s the Krauss’s housekeeper. She’s worked out here since I was in nappies. Longer, probably.’

What an image: Josh as a sturdy toddler following a dog around in a dusty paddock. ‘Mrs LaBrooy,’ she murmured. ‘Wears colours almost as wild as Marigold’s? Drinks her coffee with milk, and she’s partial to butterscotch sourdough donuts?’

‘That’s her.’

‘We should have stopped by the café and brought her a box of them.’

Josh glanced over at her. ‘Next time,’ he said, and gave her a wink.

She turned away. There wasn’t going to be a next time, not when she revealed the truth. Josh was building a life for himself and she wasn’t about to be part of ruining that. She scrabbled around for a more neutral topic. ‘Why are we here, anyway? Besides the horseriding?’

‘Tom asked me to come out and see his prize mare. She’s in foal, and she’s been off her feed.’

‘Oh. Is he worried?’

Josh pulled the truck up next to a dilapidated tractor and hauled on the handbrake. ‘Let’s go find out.’

The barn was warm inside, shafts of sun sliding in from high doors in the gables at either end. Shreds of hay spun in the air, and from everywhere came the unmistakable smell of horse. Brown ones, black ones, patchy ones—horse heads popped over stall doors and watched their progress as they made their way down the central aisle, snuffled at them.

‘They seem curious.’ And freakily large.

‘Horses are intelligent. And they love people.’ Josh stopped to run a hand up the muzzle of a coal-black horse with a white flash between his ears. ‘Soldier? Is that you, old buddy?’

The horse whickered in response.

‘I used to ride out here with Tom back in the day. I can’t believe this old guy’s still here. He must be getting on for twenty-five.’

A low voice came from the shadows at the far end of the aisle. ‘Soldier and Bruno are in a competition to see who’s going to outlast who. My money’s on Soldier.’

‘Tom. So, where’s this prize horse you’ve been bragging about?’ Josh leaned in close to Vera, spoke low into her ear. ‘Old Mr Krauss has multiple sclerosis. He’s not doing too well.’

Tom walked up to them, ignored Josh and gave her the not-so-subtle once-over with hard eyes. He seemed as unlike Josh as a man could be: all hard edges and suspicion, where Josh read like a sun-filled open book. ‘You must be Vera.’

She held out her hand, nearly winced when he closed it in a vice-like grip. ‘I must be.’

He turned away and headed to the far end of the barn. ‘Buttercup’s down here. I’d be glad of your opinion, Josh.’

The mare at the centre of all this fuss was standing in a large clean stall, her head drooping to the floor. Her fur—Did horses have fur? Or was it hair?—was a deep red. Beautiful, in fact. The other remarkable thing about her was her size.

‘She’s enormous,’ she said, staying out in the aisle when the two men let themselves in the stall. There was no way she was getting into that confined space with such a gigantic animal.

‘Thoroughbred,’ Tom said.

Josh gave her a smile. ‘What Tom’s trying to say is she’s a racehorse. The other horses in here are workhorses, and they’re built for endurance, not speed, so they’re short and stocky. Buttercup here is something else entirely.’

He turned away to the horse, ran his hands over her sides, down her legs to her hooves. ‘She’s beautiful, Tom. I can see why you think she’s special. How long have you had her?’

‘Not long. She was already in foal when she arrived.’

‘I’ll take some blood, check there’s nothing sinister going on.’ He swung his hand down under the horse’s bulging belly and smiled. ‘Foal’s kicking like a champion, Tom.’

Tom grunted. ‘I’ll save my cigar for after the birth.’

Josh stood up and the horse butted her muzzle into his shoulder. ‘You mind if I call her previous owner? Maybe she’s missing someone. Her old groom, her old stablemate perhaps. These thoroughbreds aren’t called high maintenance for nothing.’

‘That’s a great idea.’ Tom pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped its screen. ‘I’ve sent the number to you. Flick Taylor, she’s English, and as stroppy as she is successful, but she cares about her horses. If she’s got any ideas, she’ll share them.’

‘Great. I’ll take the blood samples then they’ll need to go in the fridge while we ride. You still okay with lending us two of your trail horses?’

Tom nodded. ‘Bridget will saddle them up for you. Make sure you call into the house on your way home, though. Mrs LaBrooy got wind you were headed this way, and she’s had ovens burning ever since.’

‘Will do. You ready, Vera?’

She was as ready as she’d ever be. Which wasn’t saying much, as just standing in a stable with a four-foot timber wall between her and a horse was making her nerves fray. She tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach and followed Josh out of the barn.

Peace. That’s not what she’d expected to find on the back of a horse on a steep trail ride through the upper slopes of the mountain the locals called Old Regret. But undeniably, she felt more at peace in this moment than she had since—well—as long as she could recall.

The late morning sky was so blue and deep it shimmered to purple behind distant mountain peaks. Leaves crunched under hooves, horse-breath huffed into the crisp air … her senses felt alive, carried along on the lush scents of the long native grasses.

How had she not known such beauty existed?

Josh rode up beside her, looking romance-novel perfect in his checked shirt and battered akubra. ‘Glad you came?’

She flashed him a smile. ‘So glad.’

‘There’s a waterhole not far from here that should be running with all the early snowmelt we’ve had—maybe ten minutes further—and the track takes us past a grove of wild lavender. I wouldn’t mind picking some for Buttercup.’

‘You give flowers to horses?’ Odd, but sweet.

He winked. ‘Whatever works. Lavender is a proven relaxant, and horses have an excellent sense of smell. We hang a bunch in Buttercup’s stall, who’s to say it won’t help her settle down?’

Hmm. Perhaps she could pick a sprig for herself.

‘Only, the track’s a little steep. You up for it?’

She rested a hand on Calypso’s neck. ‘You hear that, my sweet? Josh has doubts about our trail-riding skills.’

The little horse the stablehand had saddled for her was not the plunging, frothing, rearing stallion she’d envisaged the whole drive out here to Ironbark Station. Instead, she was a black-and-white pony with kind eyes and a broad back who could have carried a toddler safely through these mountain trails.

Josh looked down at her feet in their ratty sneakers. ‘It’s not Calypso I’m worried about.’

Was he worried on her behalf? God, how sweet that sounded. But Josh was that kind of guy. All the more reason why she had to nip this … whatever this was … in the bud before he got caught up in the worries she had ahead of her.

‘Lead on, Cody.’

The rocky cliffside, when they reached it, had a deep cleft worn into the rock and a waterhole had formed from the run-off seeping down its mossy face. It was, she thought, just shy of heaven. Valleys spread out below them, and to the north-east shimmered Lake Jindabyne, cool and blue in the morning stillness. The river which gave the westerly mountain range its name shone silver in the wide grassed plains, and Hanrahan’s church spire could be seen to the south on the ridge above Lake Bogong. The old, restored paddle-steamer was puttering along the lake, perhaps on its first run of the season.

‘It’s deep enough to swim. Tempted?’ Josh quizzed her as he helped her down from the horse.

She brought her gaze away from the view and dipped a hand into the water. An icy spear shot up her arm and jangled in her brain, worse than nails on a chalkboard. ‘Not if I was on fire.’

Josh’s fingers stilled on his saddle pack. ‘You know,’ he said, shooting his eyes sideways at her, ‘a guy could take that as a challenge.’

A challenge? Surely he wasn’t going to throw her in?

‘My watch isn’t waterproof. My hair will go frizzy. Maybe I can’t swim.’ She forced herself to stop gabbling.

He smiled. ‘I threw Hannah in here once, years ago, when we were teenagers. She put a striped legless lizard in my bed a few days later as revenge.’

Holy hell. She’d barely met Hannah, but made a mental note to never, ever, ever tick her off.

Josh pulled a rug from his saddle pack, followed by a battered thermos, and spread the rug out over a wide granite slab. ‘Shimmy over,’ he said, and sat down, his legs, like hers, dangling over the edge of the waterhole. He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear … lingered a second or two before he turned his attention to the thermos.

Oh boy. Was that a move? It sure felt like a move. Not that she’d been on the receiving end of enough of them to have formed a database of what did and did not constitute a declaration of man-woman interest.

Fingers skimming hair. Picnic rug. Isolated location with running water, romantic mossy melodies playing just a few feet away … surely that had to be a move. She turned her face to look at him and froze. Oh yes. His eyes were sending out incoming kiss signals.

There was no way this could happen. No way, nuh-uh. It wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t fair to her, but since when had the world been fair to her? The one thing she absolutely should not do was lean a little closer to the big, caring, hot-as-sin guy sharing the mountain air with her.

But the thin stand of gum trees was whispering a different message in the spring breeze, as was the gurgling of the melting snow. She and Josh might have been the only two people in the world. And if they were … if everything else that stopped her living, stopped her having choices, stopped her reaching out and taking what she needed … if all of that was no longer there, then what was stopping her?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

She leaned a little closer, reached up to slide her fingers into the tangle of hair at his collar. How long had it been since she’d shared herself this way? She had known women—friends, colleagues—who’d thought nothing of flirting with guy after guy in as little time as it took for a loaf of bread to go stale.

Not her. There was something … vulnerable … about resting your skin on someone else’s. Your mouth. Hearing, seeing, feeling them so close your heart spoke to their heart, your breaths fused.

Yeah … when she got that close to someone, she liked to be sure she wanted to be there.

And she sure wanted to be as close to Josh Cody as the laws of clothing and friction allowed.

She slid a hand up the rough denim at his hip, furrowed in with her fingers until she’d found the hot skin of his side. Muscle shifted over his ribs as she spread her hand over his heart. Then she pressed her lips to his.

There it was. There was no truer moment than this. His lips were on hers and she wound herself around him, wanting to press herself into that steady, beating warmth.

Strength. Heat. Kindness. They were such ordinary words when you said them one by one—but not to her. Not when you’d lost hope in ever feeling surrounded by them again.

She could drown in Josh’s heat and drown happy.