by Becky Wicks
Time seemed to stop before he spoke. ‘We always did make a pretty good rescue team, you and I.’
Jodie pulled her eyes away. ‘That was then, Cole.’ Her tone was a warning to him not to dredge up the past any more, not to remind either of them how he’d ruined it. ‘Things are different now.’
* * *
Three days later, Jodie was watching from the fence as Blaze was cantering the length of the manège, kicking up dust and showering the new yellow daffodils around the periphery with dirt. He bared his yellowed teeth in vain protest every time Cole cracked the training whip to make him change direction.
In the space of just a few days Blaze’s wounds had healed exponentially and his temperament around Cole was drastically improved. There was still a long way to go. Whenever anyone besides Cole got too close, the stallion did not respond as well.
She was deep in thought when Aileen called.
‘Jodie? How’s it all going at Everleigh?’
‘It’s eventful,’ she said, unable to take her eyes off Cole.
‘We’re still waiting for this meeting to be rescheduled. Hopefully it will happen by the end of the week. Is everything OK there?’
‘The usual excitement,’ Aileen answered. ‘We’re all thinking of you.’
Cole cracked the whip loudly behind Blaze. Ziggy barked in excitement and the stallion let out an anxious whinny. ‘Maybe it’s not as exciting here as there. What’s happening?’
‘Cole’s in a training session with our...his...rescue,’ she said, catching Cole’s glance over the fence. He was wearing his stetson today. She knew he was probably wearing it ironically, for her sake. Casper had bought him one like it years ago at a horse show in Missouri and he’d worn it everywhere...even the bedroom. Once she’d worn it in the shower, behind the candles, because Cole had said her cowgirl silhouette in the low light was sexy. It took a week to dry.
She flushed at the memories and the slip of her tongue, calling Blaze their rescue. Already she was somewhat a partner in Blaze’s recovery and treatments. Together she and Cole had given shots and medicines and soothing words to heal his burns, and she’d also been in with the clients. But then it had always been all hands on deck at Everleigh.
He’d been right when he’d said they’d always been on the same page about the rescue centre, and Everleigh in general. It was a special place, a unique place. Everyone knew it. There was so much room to grow.
But every time she looked at Cole, or he dared so much as hint at a flirtation with her, she felt an overriding need to escape in case he burned her again somehow. He was the only one with the power to do that. Just being around him and all his mysteries felt like walking the rim of an active volcano.
‘Cole, huh?’ Aileen sounded interested and Jodie realised with a frown that she was still looking at him, dreaming. ‘The head vet and animal whisperer?’
‘He doesn’t like being called a whisperer, he’s a behavioural therapist, but yes.’
‘So, what’s it like to be back there?’ Aileen asked now. ‘Is Emmie OK? Missing her friends yet?’
Jodie stopped two metres from the kennels. ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she answered slowly. ‘She’s made a new friend here. She gets to ride most days. She hasn’t had a temper tantrum yet, actually...’
‘Sounds like the country air is what you both needed,’ Aileen chirped, right as Jodie heard the familiar tinkle of the doorbell in the background. ‘Oh, I have to go. See you soon!’
Aileen hung up.
Jodie turned her face up to the greying sky. Why had she been letting herself get so frazzled in Edinburgh lately? Not even taking time out to ride with Emmie as much as she used to.
She hadn’t had a real holiday in years. Not that this was a holiday by any stretch of the imagination, but all the tension with Cole aside she couldn’t deny that the fresh country air was exactly what she’d been craving, without even realising it. Maybe it was the same for Emmie.
‘Mum?’ Emmie appeared to have noticed her now. She let herself into the kennel, scooping up a puppy from the clean concrete floor as it tried to escape, and a bespectacled Toby scrambled to his feet with a giant sheet of paper.
‘Can we put this sign up?’ he asked her. Jodie scanned the sign they’d made most creatively by taping four pieces of A4 paper together.
‘Oh, it’s...’ she started, but she couldn’t quite finish.
They’d drawn the words out in giant blue and green letters with marker pens and stick-on gold stars. It was impressive work. But her heart was beating so fast at what they’d written that she thought she might need to sit down.
CHAPTER NINE
‘EMMIE AND TOBY’S Canine Rescue Centre, huh?’ Cole pulled his stetson into a deep dive against the splattering of rain. So much for the nicer weather. The air had held a soft-edged glimmer of spring, but it was threatening to turn into a downpour again now.
Jodie crossed her arms beside him. They were both observing the sign the kids had strung up with string across the kennel bars before Evie had called them in to lunch.
‘Doesn’t it remind you of something?’ she prompted, putting a hand down to pet Ziggy’s soft head.
‘It’s almost word for word what we wrote on our sign, isn’t it?’
‘Exactly. They even used the same colours! Don’t you think that’s strange?’
Cole looked up as a bigger raindrop landed with a plop on the rim of his hat. ‘Strange,’ he agreed.
It was all very strange around here lately. He never quite knew what mood he’d find Jodie in. One minute she was letting him in, the next she was closed off and cool.
Ordering Ziggy to stay outside, he let himself into the kennel and checked on their husky-cross patient. The puppies were snuggled close, suckling. ‘They’re doing fine, just like Mama,’ he said to Jodie.
‘The kids are obsessed with them. Just like we were obsessed with whatever dogs we kept in here. Remember the Westie, Deefer?’
He laughed under his breath, scooped up a puppy, checked its ears. Deefer had followed them home one summer from outside the Crow and Bell pub. Jodie had called him Dee-fer-Dog.
‘Wasn’t there a tabby, too? You called him called Cee-fer-Cat. I always did appreciate your unique ability for naming stray animals.’
‘Emmie has more of an imagination than me.’ She smiled. ‘Did she tell you what she named this lot? Starchild, Archibald and Lucy-Fur. I can’t even remember which one is which.’
Cole chuckled, which seemed to make Jodie laugh too, albeit behind her hair so he wouldn’t see. ‘She can make up all the names she wants,’ he said in a flush of affection, just as a rumble of thunder pierced the sky and made the dogs’ ears prick up. ‘We’ve got more pups coming soon. We’ll have a puppy overload this spring at this rate. Let’s take these guys into the house before the storm hits.’
Jodie was quiet as they left the kennel with the puppies in their arms. Was she thinking how she and Emmie might not even get to see the new litter arrive, if they left Everleigh before the weekend? She seemed to be keeping her guard up around him just as much as ever but perhaps she was reluctant to discuss anything about the will, or Casper’s plans for her here, until she’d spoken to Ethan. He couldn’t help feeling annoyed that his name came up so often. But, then, she’d seemed just as irked by that photo of Diyana.
‘It’s nice, how you’ve taken Toby under your wing,’ Jodie said, as they neared the source of the hot soup and toasted cheese sandwiches they could smell, blowing to them on the wind from the main house kitchen. ‘Is that because Casper did the same for you?’
‘I never really thought about it that way,’ he said, truthfully. ‘Toby’s dad doesn’t seem to want much to do with him.’
‘You didn’t spend much time with your father either, did you? Before he was locked up, I mean? You were always at Everleigh. At least you were whe
never I was here.’
‘Maybe I just liked it more here,’ he said quickly, but Jodie was studying him quizzically again.
‘I was thinking before about how you never asked me to come back to your home.’
The depth of her stare made him uncomfortable.
His face must have darkened, thinking about the fists that had beaten him blue and thrown him across the living room, every time he’d gone home dirty, or late, or with an expression his father thought was rude or accusing. He’d taken it on the chin, literally, but he’d had to, or else his father would have hurt someone else instead. Like his mother, or Jodie. He couldn’t imagine now, as an adult, that he would have carried out his threats, but as a child he’d had such a hold on Cole he’d been forced to take him seriously.
‘And now here you are. You never left Dorset,’ Jodie said, taking the wooden steps up to the main house porch. ‘Apart from when you went out to Sri Lanka.’
‘And college. I wouldn’t have stuck it out if it hadn’t been for Casper landing me the scholarship. I won’t lie, that was tough, being stuck in all those soulless rooms.’
‘I bet,’ she said. ‘Especially for someone like you.’
He nodded, grateful for the change of subject. He wasn’t going to say it because who knew, it might have been the same if he’d gone to Edinburgh but he’d struggled in London, away from the horses, and Dorset. In classes all they’d seemed to do was link the minutiae of anatomy and physiology to how they might one day use it in practice. He’d found it hard to see why most of it was important at the time, all the biochemical pathways, the laws and legislations of the vet world. Casper had known better. The qualifications had taken him around the world. Cole’s other skills had made him his fortune.
Cole nudged the farmhouse door open and put down the two puppies he was holding. Emmie ran over and picked them up instantly as Ziggy slipped inside and shook his wet coat, making her squeal.
Toby took the other pup from Jodie. ‘Don’t feed them anything bad,’ Cole told him. ‘We’ll be back in a second. Gotta get these muddy boots off or we’ll be in trouble.’ He winked at them and closed the door again.
‘Casper would have done anything for you, Cole,’ Jodie continued thoughtfully. ‘He knew you were an investment, too, in Everleigh’s future.’
Cole murmured noncommittally and dropped to the bench outside the door. He hadn’t told her his own net worth—he loathed discussing anything to do with finances. Growing up at home after the strawberry crops had failed, the topic had caused nothing but arguments between his parents. It was the reason his dad had turned to whisky. Then violence.
He was sure it would come up in the meeting with the solicitor anyway—the comfortable sums that had amounted in his bank account since people had started seeking out his skills. He’d ploughed a lot of it into wildlife rehabilitation projects and funding research projects globally, and he had still more to invest in the rescue centre when the time came, but whatever happened with the estate it was safe to say his own future was more than secure. He’d made sure of that.
‘This isn’t just about the money, Jodie,’ he said firmly, shaking off a boot, realising she was looking at him for a reply of some kind. ‘I would never sell my share of this place, you know that.’
She looked up from where she was untying her laces. ‘And you still think I have no reason to either?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
He saw the start of an argument in her eyes, but she turned to the floor, as if thinking better of it. He took off the stetson. It was dotted with water...like the day Jodie had stepped out of the shower with it on and it had taken a week for the leather bits to dry. She probably didn’t even remember that...or maybe she did. He’d seen the way she’d looked at him earlier outside with Blaze.
Jodie was quiet for a moment. ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’
‘I feel like you’re going to anyway.’
‘Why didn’t Diyana come back here with you from Sri Lanka?’
‘She didn’t come back here with me because I didn’t ask her to.’ He scraped the mud roughly from his boots across the wiry mats beneath the bench. Jodie said nothing, but he could feel the way she’d tensed up beside him.
‘You’re jealous,’ he asserted.
‘Don’t be absurd. I’m not jealous, Cole.’ Her voice was hoity-toity and he arched an eyebrow at her in amusement. She huffed and dropped to the seat beside him. ‘OK, you win. Maybe I felt a little spark of jealousy just then...’
‘Just a little one?’
‘Considering our history, and the way you left things, I thought you’d be happy here with your horses, but you look so happy in that photo with her.’ She paused, looked into the rain. ‘The one in your kitchen with your elephant.’
‘You looked pretty happy in your wedding photos, too,’ he countered. ‘And we’d only just broken up.’
Jodie closed her eyes. ‘You didn’t want me, Cole. You made that very clear.’
He couldn’t stop himself now. ‘You got pregnant, Jodie, six months after we ended things.’
‘After you ended things, you mean.’ Her voice was level, measured, but he could sense her simmering. Something made him push her.
‘You slept with another guy. And then you married him.’
She stood and faced him. ‘Was I supposed to call you up and ask for permission? What is this about, Cole? You told me you didn’t love me, so why did you care?’
‘No, I didn’t. I never said I didn’t love you.’
‘Not in so many words but...’ She paused, like she was only just considering she might have heard things he hadn’t said as well as things he had. ‘Anyway,’ she huffed, ‘both Ethan and I were totally drunk the night the accident happened...’
‘Accident?’ Cole gripped the bench hard beneath him as he processed this new information. ‘Your pregnancy was an accident?’
‘Of course it was, Cole,’ she snapped. ‘I was nineteen.’
She sat back down again heavily with a sigh. Thunder rumbled in the distance. ‘Ethan was my good friend, my flatmate. He took the place in the flat share that you were supposed to take, actually. My parents wanted me to abort the baby, obviously, you know what they’re like. But I couldn’t do it.’
‘So you married him?’
‘Yes, but...it was more complicated than that.’
‘What do you mean?’
She huffed. ‘I don’t want to talk about this with you.’
Cole sucked in a breath and let it out into the mounting storm. He felt his shoulders tense as her fingers started drumming on the bench beside him. So she hadn’t loved the guy? She’d married a man she hadn’t loved? Why?
He turned on the bench, took her face in his hands and brought his forehead to hers. Heat surged through him and made him hold her tighter. ‘Jodie. It’s me asking you this. Why did you marry Ethan if he was only a friend...if you’d just made a mistake? You were nineteen years old, you had everything ahead of you.’
‘I told you before, we made it work.’
Her eyes had clouded over. She raised her hands over his, then back to his open jacket. Maybe they had made it work somehow. She had graduated after all, but if Cole had gone to her sooner, instead of appeasing his useless, abusive father or listening to Casper advocating caution once his father had died, she might not have married Ethan. She might have married him...
The smell of cheese toasties was so damn good but suddenly he’d lost his appetite. She was breathing hot and sharp against him, her fingers fisting and unfisting on his jacket. ‘Jodie?’
She seemed to wrestle with her emotions and he could almost feel her walls crumbling down before she pulled away from him and composed herself. Emmie was still giggling at something in the kitchen.
‘I’m not going to do this with you, Cole,’ she hissed in a whisp
er, breaking free and making for the farmhouse door. ‘How can you ask me to explain my life’s decisions after you broke us and then did nothing to fix it? This is getting us nowhere.’
* * *
‘So I set up the new account. Dacey had to approve it because technically we’re too young to have social media...but you’re on—see?’ Emmie passed the iPad to Cole over the kitchen island and Jodie watched his eyes widen over his bowl of tomato soup.
‘I’ve posted four photos so far,’ Emmie said. ‘One of the kennel with our new sign, and one of each puppy. Lucy-Fur has the most likes, so we’ll use the same hashtags again for the next post. It’s really trial and error, you know? We have to figure out which hashtags are more popular with people looking for rescue animals.’
‘Either way,’ Toby added, ‘we think we’ll have homes for them all by the end of next week.’
‘All three puppies? Without anyone coming to see them?’ Cole looked impressed, and maybe a little awed; it wasn’t a look Jodie was used to seeing on Cole Crawford’s face. She realised his toastie was untouched. She could tell his mind was elsewhere, churning over the information she’d just shared about Ethan, no doubt, but he was doing his best to seem normal.
‘People can still come and see them.’ Toby put one of the puppies down on the counter top and let it sniff around their plates. ‘This just helps us weed out the most suitable owners, so we can send them a personal invite.’
‘I see.’ Cole took a tiny spoonful of soup and moved his bowl away from the puppy’s snuffling nose.
Jodie was grateful for the kids easing the tension after what had happened outside. She wanted to blame it on the storm but she knew better—there was so much about their past together that neither of them had been expecting to still rattle them, and the explosions were getting to be a regular thing.
