Falling Again for the Animal Whisperer

by Becky Wicks

  “Jodie, your uncle left you fifty percent.”

  Her hand froze. “What does he want me to do with half of Everleigh?”

  Cole shrugged. “Work on it with me?”

  “With you?” The idea was preposterous. “Cole, we haven’t even spoken in the last twelve years. I can’t work here with you. I’ll have to sell my half.”

  “I know we have history.” He sounded almost regretful now, and she felt sick again just remembering how many nights she’d cried herself to sleep waiting for the call from him that never came. “We’ve both done things that hurt the other...”

  “What did I do to hurt you, exactly?” Jodie was genuinely baffled. Cole said nothing, his mouth becoming a thin line. It dawned on her what he meant.

  “Do you mean getting married and having a baby? Did I hurt you by moving on with my life?” she said incredulously. “I’m definitely selling my share,” she reiterated.

  He ran a hand across his chin. “I thought you’d say that. But Casper had it written into the will that you can’t sell your half for a year.”

  “What?”

  Dear Reader,

  Who knew that from the time I started writing this story to the time I wrote “The End,” the world would have changed so irrevocably and completely? None of us could have foreseen the pandemic that kept us all locked up, but how lucky we are that books are always here to keep us company, whether we’re reading them or writing them. Cole and Jodie’s dramas kept me sane in troubled times and made me get out of bed in the mornings during lockdown...even if I might’ve stayed in my pajamas. I hope you’re all surrounded by love out there, and may you find even more in these pages!

  Becky xxx

  Falling Again for the Animal Whisperer

  Becky Wicks

  Born in the UK, Becky Wicks has suffered interminable wanderlust from an early age. She’s lived and worked all over the world, from London to Dubai, Sydney, Bali, NYC and Amsterdam. She’s written for the likes of GQ, Hello!, Fabulous and Time Out, and has written a host of YA romance, plus three travel memoirs—Burqalicious, Balilicious and Latinalicious (HarperCollins, Australia). Now she blends travel with romance for Harlequin and loves every minute! Tweet her @bex_wicks and subscribe at beckywicks.com.

  Books by Becky Wicks

  Harlequin Medical Romance

  Tempted by Her Hot-Shot Doc

  From Doctor to Daddy

  Enticed by Her Island Billionaire

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  To all the medical staff out there who have worked even more tirelessly and selflessly during the COVID-19 outbreak. Sending you thanks and love.

  Praise for Becky Wicks

  “Absolutely entertaining, fast-paced and a story I couldn’t put down.... Overall, Ms. Wicks has delivered a wonderful read in this book where the chemistry between this couple was strong; the romance was delightful and special.”

  —Harlequin Junkie on From Doctor to Daddy

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EXCERPT FROM RESCUING THE PARAMEDIC’S HEART BY EMILY FORBES

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘TEMPERATURE, RESPIRATION—BOTH PERFECT. This is exactly the news we want this morning, little one.’ Jodie Everleigh set their four-legged patient as straight as she could on the table in front of them. Marlow was a lot wrigglier than he had been when his owner had brought him in yesterday, which was a good sign.

  The poor little Labrador puppy had been in the West Bow Vet Hospital overnight on a drip, thanks to vomiting inexplicably on his owner’s kitchen floor for four days.

  ‘He’s finally eating well too,’ her partner Aileen told her, easing into the exam room with two cups of coffee.

  Jodie took her caffeine fix, black as usual, and watched as Aileen ruffled the pup’s soft golden fur around his ears, prompting him to try and lick her face from the table.

  ‘Did I tell you how grateful I am that you’re as good at knowing when I need coffee as you are with the animals?’ she told her, noting the rain start up again over Edinburgh’s glum-looking streets out the window. Aileen gave her the thumbs up over the puppy and Jodie smiled, stifling a yawn. They’d built this practice together from the ground up, and their staff had become her second family.

  ‘If he keeps his breakfast down without any vomiting, we might get to send him home this afternoon,’ she said, checking the schedule quickly on the iPad on the wall. ‘I’ll check on our kitten Simba back there. Mark will be in at noon, so he’ll do the dog booster vaccinations and...’

  ‘Anika can do the rabbit nail clip if you have to pick Emmie up from the stables,’ Aileen finished.

  ‘She might have to,’ Jodie replied, thinking back in slight dismay to this morning’s argument with her daughter Emmie. She’d promised to go riding with her but she’d been so busy she’d forgotten, and Emmie had run to her father, citing her a bad mother. She knew Emmie didn’t mean it. She was just an impassioned pre-teen whose body was changing as fast as her opinion on who was the better parent.

  Ethan probably had been, lately, she mused. Her ex-husband had a new girlfriend, Saskia, who seemed to have boundless energy as well as a love of horses. While Jodie was happy for her ex-husband, it didn’t escape her how she herself seemed to live for work and not much else lately—but what was she supposed to do? She was a single mother, and she’d worked damn hard to provide Emmie and herself with the life they both loved here.

  Jodie’s phone buzzed. Her father. ‘Hey, Dad, sorry I’ve not called this week. I’ve been swamped—’

  ‘Jodie, I’m afraid it’s not good news. Are you sitting down?’

  ‘Oh, God, what?’ She dropped heavily to the swivel chair behind the desk and braced herself. ‘It’s not Mum, is it?’

  Her dad sounded frazzled, tired. ‘Mum’s fine. It’s my brother...your uncle Casper.’

  ‘Casper?’

  ‘He died last night, Jodie. He had a heart attack on the estate at Everleigh...’ Her father trailed off, seemingly trying to compose himself. Her heart was thudding suddenly, like that of a rabbit kicking its way through her ribcage. Uncle Casper was dead?

  Her palm turned sweaty around the phone. She hadn’t seen Casper in years, not since her wedding, but he’d been a staple in her life all through her childhood. She’d pretty much grown up on his estate around his veterinary practice and horses in Dorset. ‘Dad, I’m so sorry,’ she managed.

  ‘The funeral is on Friday. Cole called me with the news.’

  Her head was spinning harder now, making it hard to breathe. ‘Cole Crawford called you?’

  She felt glued to her swivel seat. ‘He didn’t call me,’ she found herself saying, and then wondered why she was surprised. Why the hell would Cole Crawford call her? He hadn’t called her in twelve years, not since he’d announced, right before they’d been due to leave for Edinburgh, together, that he wouldn’t be joining her t
here.

  Her father relayed the funeral details and she only half heard them.

  Already the memories were flooding her brain like tidal waves—her funny, witty, wealthy, horse-mad uncle Casper was dead, and Cole, her first love, her first everything, had called her father with the news, which meant he was probably still working at Casper’s estate.

  She hung up, thoughts reeling.

  She could still see Cole’s face as clear as day. The way it had changed from that of an eleven-year-old boy to a nineteen-year-old man over endless long summers in Dorset. She’d lived for them, the same way he’d seemed to live only for Casper’s horses when they’d first met. His compassion for the animals had rubbed off on her and led her to where she was today.

  She could see the look in Cole’s brown, soulful eyes at fifteen years old, kissing her for the first time. Sixteen years old, telling her he loved her. And then...nineteen years old, telling her he wouldn’t be going to Edinburgh with her, to vet school, like they’d planned. Before that moment, when he’d destroyed all their future plans together, she’d assumed she’d met the love of her life.

  She’d begged to know what had happened, why he was changing his mind about vet school, and Edinburgh, and her. She’d never got any answers.

  The last thing she wanted to do, she realised, was see Cole Crawford again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE RAIN WAS sheeting down in hard diagonal slashes as Cole steered the Land Rover down the single-track country road. The puddles reared up around the wheels, sending vertical mudslides up the sides, right up to the windows. February in Dorset was always like this but the daffodils were poking their heads up already.

  ‘Spring’s here, somewhere,’ he muttered to Ziggy, eyes on the road. ‘We have to see how this one goes without Casper, huh?’

  His faithful Border collie and respected veterinary assistant lolled his tongue out on the passenger seat beside him. Ziggy had been travelling these roads, doing the house calls with him, ever since he was a pup. Cole was grateful for his company today.

  He’d kept himself to himself and the animals more than usual, he supposed, since Casper’s death. He still didn’t know if he’d processed it. Casper’s heart had simply given up, right there on the spot. He’d been seventy-two years old and fighting fit, or so everyone had thought.

  ‘You never know when it’s coming,’ he said out loud over the steering wheel. Ziggy looked at him blankly. And then, out of nowhere, Jodie was back in his mind.

  He’d been getting these ‘hits’ of her since he’d called her father with the news. He knew they’d both be at the funeral and the thought of seeing her face up close, twelve years after he’d broken things off with her, wasn’t sitting too well at all. Not that she didn’t have a beautiful face...but the last time he’d seen it she’d been crushed and furious. She’d looked at him like he was ripping her heart out from her chest with a meat hook and later the absence of her had left him feeling just as hollow.

  Jodie.

  He’d be saying her name again a lot in a matter of days, talking to her face to face, looking straight into those eyes. All the shades of blue, warm like the ocean in summer. They’d been like anchors to him once. They’d probably be as cold as ice now, he thought wryly, considering how he’d left things. They’d been through so much. He’d been through more than she knew without her...although he was sure getting married and having a kid had kept her more than busy.

  Life had been tough for him before Jodie had entered his life in a riot of city girl attitude, aged eleven, the same as him. His parents’ berry farm, Thistles, was struggling back then and he’d known things were very wrong even before his father had been locked away for tax evasion. Most fathers didn’t welcome their sons home at the end of the day with a bottle of whisky and two fists to use on a kid’s face. He’d never told anyone. The guy had been a waste of space right up to the day he’d died, six months after he’d got out of jail. Jodie had been gone by then, pregnant, on the verge of getting married.

  Ziggy barked as he swerved to avoid a pothole and he hit the gas harder. ‘I’ve got it, buddy.’

  The cow was waiting in agony at Rob Briar’s dairy farm; this rain wouldn’t stop him hurrying, but images of Jodie were coming thick and fast, threatening to break his focus. The photo of her in the wedding dress had killed him—some posh politician’s son had swept her off her high-heeled feet. It was his own fault he’d lost her, but pregnant and married after six months of college? Crazy.

  He could still hear Casper telling him the news. ‘Jodie’s pregnant. She met a Scotsman up there, it seems pretty serious. She’s going to marry him.’

  She’d always been his. Even when he’d broken things off for her own safety, he’d stupidly assumed she’d be his again when he’d figured out how to handle things at home, or at least created a safe environment to bring her back to. He’d used to love the way Jodie Everleigh took him by surprise, but a wedding and a baby at nineteen...he’d never expected that.

  Twelve years earlier

  ‘So, are you excited, Cole? It’s going to be an adventure. Did you see the rooms are all ready for us in Waverleigh House? It’s the best student house in Edinburgh.’

  Jodie went on and on, babbling excitedly the way she did, and Cole felt the ball of angst fill his stomach like a lead balloon.

  She was about to leave Everleigh again. They were sitting on the hay bales outside the stables, waiting for her car. In minutes it would pull up on the gravel and take her to the train station, and he still hadn’t been able to tell her what had happened.

  He’d been putting his news off all weekend. How could he crush her by telling her he couldn’t come to Edinburgh, or university, because of his father? She didn’t even know how violent the man really was; he’d been locked up for the last four and a half years, the whole time they’d been an item.

  She knew he was serving time for tax evasion, but no one knew about the physical abuse he and his mother had endured before that.

  Jodie was still talking, one leg draped over his lap in her jeans, resting against his shoulder. Their fingers were laced together. He’d never said it, he wasn’t so great with words, but he didn’t think he’d ever fit with anyone the way he fitted with Jodie.

  Suddenly, she was frowning at him, trying to read him. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve been weird all weekend.’

  ‘Jodie.’…He swallowed, extracting himself from her and pulling his knees up to his chest. Her bags were at their feet. Everleigh’s driveway was still empty but the sky was darkening above them, almost like the heavens were preparing for his fate. He drew a long breath, rammed his hands in his hair. ‘I’m not coming with you to Edinburgh. I’m sorry.’

  Jodie laughed. ‘Very funny. As if you could live without me...’ She leaned in to kiss him again but he turned his face away.

  He said nothing, racking his brain as to how to explain it without sounding weak and pathetic. He knew he should have stood up to his father’s violence years ago, but when they’d locked him up, he’d been so relieved to finally be free of him that he’d lost himself in Jodie, finally.

  He hadn’t thought about when he’d be released, or that he might get out early and come home even angrier than before. He hadn’t predicted his own mother would welcome him back so eagerly either, but she’d always been even weaker around the man than him.

  ‘Cole?’ The colour had drained from Jodie’s face. She blinked at him. ‘You’re serious. You’re not coming?’

  ‘I can’t, Jodie.’

  She pursed her lips, stepped back and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them quickly, flustered. ‘Why? Cole, you already have a place. I thought we were doing this together. I know it’s all a big change but, come on, it’s the Royal School of Veterinary Studies, it’s the best. And we can come back down here whenever we want for the weekends and holidays...’

  When
his father would be waiting to mess them both up. ‘No. Listen to me, Jodie, it’s not the right time.’

  Cole had already been accused of turning his father back to drink. Funny, that. There had been no alcohol in the house when he’d come home from prison via the pub, steaming drunk.

  Now there were beer cans all over the living room and Cole had spent the whole weekend hiding the bruise on his right thigh from Jodie. It had throbbed for hours after the TV had crashed into him, then shattered on the floor tiles. Luckily his mother had been out. All Cole had done was explain that his place in Edinburgh was set in stone, and he was leaving with Jodie at the end of the month.

  His father had been quick to stomp on his plans as much as the broken television: ‘I need you here around the farm. How dare you think you can just leave without earning your keep?’ He’d already pulled the funding reserved for his studies. His callous actions made Cole’s teeth start to grind all over again.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jodie’s blue eyes were imploring. He should just tell her.

  But he’d already been over this with himself. If he told Jodie, she would storm over to his house and confront his father, and he couldn’t put her in the line of fire like that. She might also ask her rich dad or Casper to help, which of course they would, and his father would go crazy if anyone tried to pull him away from here now.

  Jodie had no clue the abuse people suffered whenever his dad got angry. He’d never told anyone.

  ‘Tell anyone and I’ll kill you,’ his dad would rage, seconds after landing a punch on him, or throwing him against a wall, or sending a bottle flying at his head from across the kitchen. The TV was nothing, he’d done worse than that before over the years. What if he struck out at Jodie now he was home? The thought made him go cold.

  ‘Maybe I’ll defer a year, I don’t know,’ he said now. In the distance a horse let out a whinny.