Falling Again for the Animal Whisperer

by Becky Wicks

  Jodie tilted her chin, meeting his eyes dead on. ‘I don’t know why you’re suddenly so concerned about my happiness, Cole.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, keeping his emotions in check and his voice level. ‘I know you want to sell because of me, because of our history.’

  ‘Can you blame me?’

  He sighed sharply through his nose. ‘No. But Casper wanted us to do something together when he put Everleigh in our hands. Maybe the rescue centre was it, we were always on the same page about that.’

  Jodie’s voice was indignant. ‘I thought we were on the same page about a lot of things, Cole. Turned out I was wrong.’

  He opened his mouth to counter her, but what could he say? It was sounding more and more like he’d tainted her whole view of Everleigh when he’d broken things off. She’d loved it because she’d loved him, and now...she despised him.

  Jodie pulled the door open, sending a flood of light into the cabin and releasing a pent-up, eager Ziggy, who bolted for the Land Rover. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she muttered in annoyance, following his dog. ‘Let’s just get through this. We should go. The sun’s coming up.’

  * * *

  ‘It’s either a blocked saliva gland or she’s got some kind of infection,’ Cole said. ‘I think it’s an infection.’

  ‘I trust your instincts by now, Crawford.’ Liam Grainger still had the same pot belly and ruddy cheeks Jodie had known before. He was standing with his arms folded behind the wooden fence, observing Cole in action. ‘I have to say it sure is nice to see you two together again. How long are you sticking around Everleigh, Jodie?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Jodie told him. ‘I have some business to care of at the estate.’ She glanced at Cole. ‘We have some business to take care of.’

  The bleating of the sheep and other lambs was a symphony all around them. Jodie was still wrestling to keep her mind on the situation at hand, and not on their heated words back at the cabin, or the photo of Cole’s beautiful ex-girlfriend riding the elephant with him in Sri Lanka. Maybe that’s what had riled her up, more than the terms of Casper’s will or Cole’s expectations of her after all this time.

  Every time they talked about anything remotely involving the past, they ended up having some kind of disagreement. Of course he was a big factor in her wanting to leave and sell her share of Everleigh...he wasn’t about to guilt her into keeping it just to stop someone else moving in on his precious rescue centre plans.

  But seeing that photo framed on the wall had made her feel quite nauseous. And the dig he’d made when she’d let on her surprise at their elephant: ‘It was too soon for a baby.’

  That had been unexpected.

  If he was jealous in any way of her relationship with Ethan, he only had himself to blame, she thought angrily, watching him now. He looked impossibly handsome with the sun on his face, carrying a cute lamb into an empty pen. Damn him.

  ‘Ziggy, give that bag to Jodie, buddy.’ Cole held a gloved hand out, motioning for the bag Ziggy was still holding in his teeth.

  To Jodie’s surprise, the dog let go of the bag right at her feet. Jodie let herself into the pen with it, losing her boots in the muck and hay almost instantly.

  Cole positioned the tiny lamb’s head between his steady thighs to hold her in place. The little thing had been bleating and writhing in the hay in fear when they’d first arrived, but he’d managed to calm her significantly.

  The syringe didn’t look pretty when he pulled it out. ‘It’s filled with infection,’ Jodie observed, crouching down in the hay and straw and locating a set of scalpels from Cole’s bag. She already knew he’d have to put a nick in the swelling to release the rest of the fluid.

  Liam Grainger watched them intently from the fence, petting Ziggy from time to time. ‘So, why did you stay away so long, Jodie? This place was always more interesting when you two were running around together.’

  ‘I run a private veterinary practice in Edinburgh now,’ she told him, holding up a gleaming ‘Everleigh’ engraved scalpel.

  ‘And you have a husband and a daughter,’ Liam said, as though he was only just remembering. ‘I guess life gets in the way, huh?’

  ‘Actually, Mr Grainger, I’m not married any more,’ she replied with a tight smile.

  Liam wriggled his eyebrows mischievously. ‘Is that so? Did you tell her you’re single too, Crawford? How long’s it been now? We keep telling him he needs to find himself a good woman. The man can’t cook to save his life.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be looking to Jodie to cook for me, Liam,’ Cole said dryly. ‘Scalpel, please.’

  Jodie handed it over, noting the curve of a smile on his lips at his joke—not that it was a joke. She was absolutely awful at cooking. But even the familiar holes in the elbows of Liam’s jumper and the fabric that was struggling to contain his ample girth wasn’t causing her as much amusement as it should have been. She had a feeling Cole knew she’d been bitten by the green-eyed monster too, over seeing that photo of his ex. She couldn’t un-see it now.

  Diyana was clearly from Sri Lanka herself. She had a stunning veil of wavy jet-black hair the same shade as Cole’s. Her bright pink sari and wide, warm, infectious smile hinted at a woman who loved life. Cole had looked magnificent sitting on the elephant behind her, his muscled arms wrapped tightly around her waist in a linen shirt she’d never seen him wear on any English farm. He’d been in a different world with Diyana. Had he loved her?

  ‘Jodie, the alcohol, please?’ Cole prompted now, looking up from the lamb’s swollen cheek. Jodie was already unscrewing the lid from the plastic container. ‘You want to do it?’ he asked her.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, maintaining her professional stance as best she could. She was somewhat surprised at how she was working on autopilot alongside him. Cole seemed to be calming the jittery lamb with his usual skill and inexplicable aplomb as she took the moment of stillness to douse the fresh wound around the incision and prep another syringe from the bag with a painkiller.

  Why hadn’t Diyana come back to Everleigh with him? Maybe she wouldn’t have liked his cabin as much as Cole did, or as much as she herself did, she mused as they worked. Maybe the piles of papers and jackets and computer parts she’d seen about the place would have driven the poor woman mad.

  In spite of his calm and cool demeanour Cole had always lived in organised chaos. The mess had always been refreshing to her as she’d been growing up. Her mother had kept a clean and tidy home in Greenwich, and Jodie had never been allowed to leave anything lying around. At Everleigh, as long as the animals were fed and happy, Casper and Cole didn’t care how many dishes were in the farmhouse sink or how many jackets were lying around off their hooks.

  Back then, when their friendship had morphed into love, she’d never dreamed she’d ever see Cole Crawford with another woman. But, then, she hadn’t exactly pictured herself married with a child at nineteen either.

  Emmie seemed to like Cole a lot, and Jodie had no doubt her daughter would love coming to Everleigh more often. Frowning into her scarf, she realised she was using her daughter and Ethan as an excuse for keeping away, and for selling up, when she and Cole both knew she was only reluctant to be here because of him. He’d said it himself.

  ‘She’ll be fine without the antibiotics, Liam,’ Cole said now, standing up tall and allowing the lamb to wriggle free. ‘She’s much more comfortable now the fluid is all out. See how she’s bouncing around? She’ll be eating again before you know it, you can’t keep creatures like this down.’

  Cole opened the gate and let Jodie exit the stall first. As he went about packing the equipment up, Jodie watched the little lamb cross on wobbly legs to the corner of the stall, where a fresh batch of straw was tied to the wooden fencing.

  As it began munching on the hay with renewed interest, Jodie shook her head at Liam without Cole seeing. She would always be amazed at th
e way animals seemed to respond to his quiet handling, and how well he could predict and relate to them. She’d met a lot of great vets in her time but, God, all their personal issues aside, the depths of Cole were as sexy as hell.

  She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t hear Cole’s phone buzz, but the next thing she knew he was touching a hand to her shoulder. ‘Jodie, someone needs our help. Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  COLE GLANCED AT Jodie’s profile in the sunshine as he took the side road by the old stone chapel. She was scanning the fields from the passenger seat. Her hair was falling in wisps from her ponytail around her face, and her rosy cheeks were flushed from the cold. He’d always liked her best without make-up.

  It was strange to have her with him out on call, but thankfully the tension had eased somewhat since they’d locked horns earlier. Someone had called to say they’d seen an injured stray dog wandering along an A-road.

  It was almost seven-thirty a.m. The sky was a clear blue for the first time in days.

  ‘There she is,’ Jodie cried suddenly, making him hit the brakes. Ziggy started barking instantly from his demoted position in the back seat.

  ‘I see her,’ he said, pulling over quickly and making his sunglasses slide across the dashboard. Jodie caught them expertly and jumped from the car. The stray was limping awkwardly, tongue lolling out, seemingly disoriented. ‘Stay here, boy,’ Cole said to Ziggy before he could follow them. ‘And be quiet. We don’t want to scare our patient.’

  Jodie was beside him on the ground in seconds. ‘A husky mix, I guess,’ she said as they drew closer. The creature had started to snarl. ‘Look at those eyes.’

  ‘Almost as blue as yours,’ he noted out loud.

  ‘So you think you can charm me like your horses,’ she chided, though she was fighting a smile. ‘She’s really scared, poor thing. We need to get closer.’

  The sun was streaming down now, blinding on the snow. It cast a bright spotlight on the dog’s injuries as it whimpered and shivered. The blood on her left back leg was a sinister sight against the shrill morning song of the little egrets in the trees.

  ‘Looks like she was hit by a car.’ Jodie went to creep closer with him, but in seconds the creature seemed possessed, growling and snarling even more, baring its teeth. She stepped back quickly, just as Cole forged ahead. He held both hands to the ground at his sides, stayed still and quiet, asserting his dominance, making it clear he wasn’t moving. ‘We’re not going to hurt you,’ he crooned.

  It was a stand-off for a good few minutes. Cole felt Jodie’s eyes on him the whole time, but eventually the dog got to its belly in the snow and let out a deep sigh before starting to whimper.

  ‘She’s letting us approach her,’ he said, signalling to Jodie. ‘Let’s get her to the car.’

  Cole scooped the dog up gently in his arms and carried her to the back of the Land Rover. Jodie rushed ahead to pull the boot open, and as he laid the scruffy stray in the back he knew Jodie had noticed the same thing he just had.

  ‘I think she’s...’

  ‘Look at her, all swollen under here,’ Jodie interjected, before he could finish. ‘She has puppies around here somewhere.’ She pulled on gloves and rummaged for the stethoscope in his bag, then ran a check, trailing gentle hands along the dog’s blood-soaked fur. ‘No sounds of trauma or fluid,’ she told him, visibly relieved. ‘But we’ll need to run some X-rays back at West Bow... I mean Everleigh.’

  ‘Lock her in the crate while I check for the pups,’ Cole told her, not missing her slip of the tongue. She had Edinburgh on the brain. He didn’t suppose that would change anytime soon, but he’d realised earlier that he would have to start making her stay more enjoyable. He didn’t want the bad blood between them to deny her this time at Everleigh, or a say in its future, and he didn’t want Emmie to miss out either. Emmie loved Everleigh already, he could see it in her eyes—exactly the same dusky blue as Jodie’s.

  Sweeping snow-covered branches aside, keeping an eye out for wriggling puppies, he heard Jodie back by the vehicle, talking to the dog. She was calmer now, at least. She always was around the animals, like him. He was glad they were working together now. Their love for animals surpassed any of their personal rubbish, and he was thankful for that at least.

  ‘Puppies! Here, pups. Where are you? We’re looking for you.’ He approached a ditch with a trickle of a stream running through it.

  To his relief, the tiny whimper of a puppy caught his ear on the breeze and led him to a drainpipe. Crouching low in the dirt and slush, he pulled out his phone and shone the flashlight inside. Junk food wrappers tussled with the wind but behind them...

  ‘Three puppies,’ he confirmed aloud, just as Jodie reached him. Her hand landed absently on his back over his jacket as they peered inside the tiny space together. ‘We have to get them out, they’re still suckling.’ The flashlight revealed their scruffy bodies, writhing around, trying to escape his light. ‘No chance of crawling in there, though.’

  ‘We need to lure them out with food.’ Jodie’s eyes narrowed, then lit up. ‘I saw some biscuits in the car!’

  She was back on her feet and sprinting back to the Land Rover before Cole could even feel embarrassed about the open packet of oatmeal cookies he’d left in the door.

  She came back with them and he grimaced, jamming his phone back in his pocket. ‘What can I say? A man gets hungry on the road.’ He crumbled bits of the biscuits at the entrance to the drainpipe, annoyed he’d run out of the dog treats he usually kept in the car, and together they stood back, waiting.

  ‘A man like you needs real food,’ Jodie told him, fixing her eyes on the drainpipe entrance.

  ‘Like your curry?’ He wrinkled his nose into the middle distance, smirking.

  ‘Hey!’ She swiped at him, but again her annoyance was pretend and he dodged her, chuckling. They both knew Jodie had always been a terrible cook. She’d tried to make him a curry once. Instead of adding two teaspoons of curry powder she’d added two tablespoons.

  ‘To be fair, you struggled through that masala most valiantly,’ she said.

  ‘I only needed about three litres of water to help.’

  Jodie rolled her eyes. She’d wanted to treat him. She’d banned the staff from the kitchen and danced around in cowboy boots and cut-off denim shorts, dropping kisses on his lips between spilling rice and spices and French wine all over the place.

  He still had a photo from that night, stashed away in a box. It was of both of them hunched over the bad curry, pulling faces.

  He remembered another photo now. Casper had one framed of the two of them with Mustang. He’d hung it on the wall as a surprise when the cabin was finished, but Cole had taken it down again. He hadn’t harboured any emotional attachment to Diyana after breaking things off with her, but the photos of Jodie had always made him miss her unbearably. He’d found a whole stash of them once—he couldn’t even remember where he’d put them now.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, resisting the sudden ill-advised urge to put an arm around her. He knew she had her guard up around him, even when it looked like she was letting it down. She was well within her rights to be cautious, he supposed, but he should probably seize the opportunity to talk while she wasn’t spitting fire.

  ‘So, it seems like you’re still pretty close with Ethan,’ he said, testing. He was itching to ask what had gone wrong with the marriage.

  Jodie just sighed. ‘He’s the father of my child. We still care about each other a lot. In fact, I’d say we’re pretty good friends.’

  He took his hands from his pockets at exactly the same time as she brushed the hem of her jacket and their fingers touched.

  A flashback came into his mind. Chesil Beach. They’d been ‘friends’ then but he’d held her hand for the first time, and she hadn’t let go for a good ten minutes. He must have been twelve, maybe
thirteen. He’d been in love with her even then, but she’d had no clue. He’d hardly shown it as he’d been too caught up inside his head, figuring out how to keep her and everyone he loved away from his father’s angry mouth and fists.

  A squeal.

  ‘They’re coming out!’ Jodie dropped to her haunches. Cole signalled for her to wait behind him while he stepped towards the pipe and scooped the tiny puppies up, one by one.

  ‘They’re so little! They don’t look hurt.’ Jodie stepped close, her boots next to his as she took them in her arms. For a moment their eyes met over the fuzzy bundles and they shared a smile that made him want to close the gap and kiss her, for old times’ sake.

  She would probably slap him if he did, he thought in vague amusement as she carried the squealing trio to the car. He swiped up a blanket from the back seat while Ziggy tried his best to reclaim the passenger seat.

  ‘Keep them in the front with you,’ he said, flinging open the passenger door for Jodie and shooing Ziggy back. ‘Their mother knows they’re safe with us.’

  ‘You saved their lives,’ Jodie told him breathlessly, sliding into the seat, bundling up the pups in the blanket and holding them close to her chest.

  Cole leaned across from outside and pulled her seat belt across under the puppies. ‘My biscuits saved their lives.’

  ‘I’m serious, Cole. They would have died if we’d left without them. You calmed the mother down enough to let us examine her.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said.

  She cocked her head. ‘Because dogs need you more than elephants?’

  ‘I guess so.’ He paused, clicking the seat belt into place, stopping himself an inch from her lips again. He watched her blue eyes rake over his mouth for just a split second and wondered if she’d been thinking the same—about all the passion they’d once poured into their kisses. All the sparks and sexual tension between them had made for some pretty hot times around Everleigh once he’d finally worked up the courage to kiss her.