Falling Again for the Animal Whisperer

by Becky Wicks

  ‘I told you, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re so stubborn.’

  ‘Pot, kettle, black.’

  They were waiting for her car. Her bags were all packed up outside, and he had no idea when he’d see her next. All he knew was that she’d be out there thinking about John Kowara and what he’d done...and how he hadn’t been there to protect her. It would hit her eventually, when she got home.

  ‘I want you to press charges,’ he said firmly.

  ‘This again?’

  ‘You don’t want to because it’s not very nice to think about, but people like that need to get what’s coming to them, Jodie. What if he hurts someone else?’

  She pulled her hands away. ‘What’s wrong with you, Cole? Is this to cover Everleigh’s reputation, because you think I’m still going to sell my half?’

  ‘I don’t care about that, I care about you!’ Infuriated, he pulled the envelope from his jeans pocket. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you.’

  Blaze grunted behind them, sending dust clouds into the rafters. Cole knew he was picking up on his mood. He urged Jodie out of the pen by her hand, and shoved the letter into her other palm, ignoring the pounding in his chest, the foreboding feeling creeping like a freezing river around his body.

  ‘I saw this before, with the photos, by your medicine box.’ Jodie turned the envelope around in her hands, studying the red wax seal.

  ‘Read it,’ he ordered her. ‘Maybe then you’ll see why you need to press charges.’

  * * *

  Jodie’s heart was like a leaden weight in her chest. She could barely finish the letter through the tears in her eyes. It was true, Cole had been coming to get her, and Casper had stopped him, but that wasn’t it.

  I told myself when I broke up with you that I was doing the right thing. I thought I was saving you from worrying about me, or getting yourself involved in any of my family’s mess...

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she cried, looking up at him. The sun was streaming onto his hair and the wisps of grass and hay stuck to his jacket but it was like looking at a stranger now. Her fingers were trembling around the piece of paper.

  ‘All those years I thought we’d told each other everything, I thought you’d let me in. But all the time you were keeping secrets, lying to me about how you got all those injuries. You were suffering all that alone, Cole? You didn’t even trust me to try and help you?’

  Cole’s eyes widened then narrowed. He stepped towards her but she held up her hands to stop him.

  ‘Jodie, I didn’t let anyone try and help me. I thought I was protecting you.’

  ‘You were the one who needed protection, Cole! He ruined us...and you just let him!’

  She was so incensed she almost fell over her bag at her feet. The cab was coming to take her to the airport, and it couldn’t arrive fast enough. The thought of how things could have been so different if he’d just opened up to her was suddenly all too much. ‘You should have let me make up my own mind whether I needed you to protect me.’

  ‘I knew you’d have gone to him, tried to defend me!’

  ‘Damn right I would. I’d have done something, because I loved you so much.’

  She could hardly think about what she’d read, or the fact that she was only just learning this now. Cole looked like a restless rescue horse with nowhere left to run.

  ‘I understand you didn’t want to see me hurt but you hurt me, Cole, more than your father or Kowara ever could. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get over us? You let me think you didn’t love me! You would’ve rather lost me...us...your education...your whole life, Cole, than confide in me so I could help you make a call to put your father back in prison where he belonged.’

  The cab was pulling up. It was just like twelve years ago, she realised, when she’d driven off after a monumental row. But surely that day could have been prevented if he’d just told her the truth back then. ‘I need to process this,’ she said, and this time her voice came out as a croak. Part of her knew she was being unfair, but she couldn’t help how she felt: sick with the knowledge of what he’d suffered at his father’s hands but devastated that he’d kept such corrosive secrets from her for so long. Secrets that had ruined their relationship.

  Cole’s cheeks were pinched. He looked pale and angry. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in, but you must see now why you have to press charges, Jodie.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Because you didn’t, back when it mattered. Your father died before he could face any justice for what he did to you, and us! But what I do now won’t change that, Cole.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you can do it for Emmie.’

  She flinched. ‘Emmie? Emmie will never come back here now and neither will I.’

  She pressed a hand against her mouth to stem the sobs the second his face broke into a dark scowl. He wasn’t seeing anything from her perspective, even now. She could tell. He was still stewing over his own cage of secrets. Would he even have told her if she hadn’t been attacked by Kowara? Love couldn’t flourish where there was no trust.

  ‘You’re impossible, Cole.’ She grabbed her bags, threw them into the back seat of the car.

  ‘Airport,’ she told the driver. And this time she didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  One week later

  ‘PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS,’ Ethan offered, sliding onto the leather chair opposite the sofa and putting his feet up on the coffee table.

  ‘Does Saskia let you do that?’ Jodie quipped from the posh leather couch and Ethan pulled a face then removed his trainers. Jodie laughed. She was at Ethan’s new place, waiting for Saskia to bring Emmie back from a shopping trip. Jodie had made restaurant reservations for herself and Emmie close by, but she wasn’t really in the mood.

  ‘I don’t know if my thoughts are worth a penny right now,’ she said miserably.

  Ethan pulled a mock frown. ‘Are we still feeling mortified for flying off the handle at Cole?’

  She groaned. ‘OK, yes, I know I was way too hard on him, considering what he went through.’

  She’d done a lot of reading on domestic violence in the last few days, and had discovered the hold abusers often had on their victims. He’d kept all that inside whilst caring for others, pouring out his compassion without measure yet never knowing how to ask for it himself, not even from her—not until he’d asked her to press charges against Kowara. Cole must have felt he’d had no choice but to let her go back then, and she’d just screamed at him selfishly for ruining their plans.

  ‘Have you pressed charges against that guy yet?’ Ethan eyed her sideways, just as Jodie’s heart went haywire. He’d struck at the heart of the matter, as usual.

  ‘I know I should,’ she replied with a sigh, rummaging in her bag to find her ringing phone. It wasn’t Cole. But, then, it never was. The two of them seemed to have reached a stalemate of sorts since she’d left Everleigh.

  ‘It’s getting to you, Jodie. Or maybe it’s Cole, hmm? You told him you wouldn’t ever go back there but you know you want to. You obviously still care about him.’

  She stared at her manicure, wishing Ethan didn’t know her so well. She’d told him everything. The two of them had never had any secrets. Sometimes she wished they were in love, instead of just being co-parents and best friends. She told him so and he smirked.

  ‘You know, Emmie doesn’t stop talking about that place.’ He reached for her hand. ‘I can’t imagine why, but sometimes I think she’d rather be there than here, even with my giant plasma screen TV! Did you see my organised T-shirt drawer, by the way?’

  She laughed again. He was being sarcastic, but Saskia’s living room was catalogue perfect, and Jodie couldn’t help imagining what she’d do if a lamb or chicken waddled across it like it might at Everleigh. She’d got used to the buzz and muck and mayhem of Dorset life yet again, and everywhere else felt too qu
iet now.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to take Emmie away from you, Ethan,’ she told him. ‘We raised her together, we went through all that nonsense our parents dished out together. We promised to always live close by, put her through school, college together...’

  Ethan tutted. ‘You wouldn’t be moving her to Mars, Jodie. Besides, I quite like the thought of a little riding holiday in Dorset myself every now and then. Do you think Saskia will let me go?’

  ‘If you keep putting your nasty feet on her coffee table I should think she’ll pack your bags for you.’ Jodie smiled. Ethan squeezed her fingers in solidarity. She should have known he would be fine with whatever decision she made about Everleigh: he was a good man.

  It had been Cole as much as Ethan and Emmie’s tight bond here that had been holding her back in her head. She’d created enough barriers herself to protect her own heart, and the more days that passed without him now, the more she regretted overreacting to his letter.

  The security footage had been pretty shocking, she’d seen when she’d summoned the courage to watch it. It felt like she’d been watching someone else, not herself. Cole’s fury at Kowara and then at her for not pressing charges had been a direct result of the pain he still harboured inside from his father doing the same thing to him. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being hurt...all those cuts and bruises he’d tried to cover up.

  The thought of how she’d left him flooded her with guilt all over again. She knew she should press charges for Cole as much as for herself and Emmie—and for the Cole she’d used to know, who’d lived in anticipation of his father’s despicable, violent whims...

  She should do it for Cole and for everyone else who’d ever been attacked or abused or violated like that. He had lied to her for so long only because he’d been afraid.

  ‘When will you see Cole next?’ Ethan asked in interest, but his phone was ringing now. Ethan answered, and the look on his face made her gasp.

  ‘He’s sick? How sick?’

  ‘Who?’ she mouthed, but Ethan was already grabbing both their jackets on the way to the door.

  * * *

  Cole hadn’t been planning to go to The Ship Inn for the three-hundred-year anniversary party, but he thought it would be a good way to answer some of the questions the locals had been choosing to call him.

  The recent media interest about the dolphin had got people talking, but at the party all people seemed to be interested in was him and Jodie.

  It still made his fists curl to picture that guy’s hands on her. The thought of her experiencing even the slightest bit of what he’d felt when his father had been loaded on the drink still made his blood run cold, but he could hardly blame her for reacting to his letter the way she had. He’d lied to her repeatedly, he’d shut her out and he hadn’t given her the opportunity to try and help him. She was right, he’d been the one to ruin them in the end, not his father.

  * * *

  It was almost midnight when he got home. He pulled off his jacket and greeted Ziggy at the door, and spotted the photo of them in its frame, sticking out from under the bench. He should have put it up before. He’d built the cabin for her after all. He’d built everything around Jodie since he was eleven years old.

  Dropping to the bench, he dusted the frame off, studying her expression in the picture, the youthful Mustang who’d been so much like Blaze. They both looked so young. He had no excuses for not hanging this picture up now, he thought...unless she really wasn’t coming back.

  It killed him how his own secrets from the past had messed up the future. And the sex...that was where they’d always talked without words. Damn, he missed that. Damn, that whisky was making him feel sad. He picked up his phone where he’d left it on the couch.

  Three missed calls from Emmie?

  Shaking off the alcohol that Liam Grainger had forced on him, he dialled into the voicemail.

  ‘Cole, Cole, it’s me, Emmie. I’m sorry for calling you but I didn’t think my mum would want to. It’s Saxon, my horse, he’s sick. We’re at the farm with him...we don’t know if he’s going to make it. Can you help me, please? You’re the only one I can think of who might save him.’

  He crossed to the messy desk. Swiping the papers and cables aside, he located the laptop and searched for a flight.

  ‘Dammit,’ he cursed aloud at the screen. Just when he really needed to go to Edinburgh, there were no flights he could take before two p.m. the next day.

  According to the rest of the message, Saxon had been refusing food and walking unsteadily, and now had diarrhoea at sporadic intervals, as well as excessive urination and chronic fatigue. It sounded like some kind of poison but the vet on the premises couldn’t identify it.

  He only hoped he could, but he would have to get there fast. The overall prognosis for ionophore toxicity in horses was poor to grave... Jodie would know that as well as he did.

  With Ziggy on his heels, he pulled down a bag from the closet, catching sight of his face in the bedroom mirror by the dresser.

  Shaking his head at himself, he dragged a hand across his chin and witnessed himself coming full circle. It was twelve years overdue, but it was about time he got on that train to Edinburgh.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘COLE!’ JODIE’S HANDS came up over her mouth as she met him halfway across the forecourt. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I hope I’m not too late.’

  Cole dropped the backpack at his feet and crossed the last foot between them. He was wearing his plaid jacket and the jeans he always wore in spite of having twenty pairs. The sight of him so out of context was surreal, but suddenly it hit her... Emmie must have called him.

  ‘She didn’t tell you I was coming, huh?’

  His broad shoulders seemed to hold the weight of the world until he put his arms around her and sighed deeply into her hair. She felt it too, as if something lifted inside her as he held her face in her hands. ‘I missed your eyes,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘I missed yours too. Cole, I am so, so sorry. I totally overreacted to your letter.’

  ‘I deserved it. I know I should have told you everything way sooner. I was being selfish, not wanting to lose you again.’

  ‘Well, I was being selfish too, only thinking about how I felt. You had to do what you had to do to protect me and your mum, and so did I when I married Ethan. We always wanted Emmie, Cole, and I don’t regret making that decision. As for you and me...can we please start over?’

  He still loved her very deeply, she could see it in his gaze. If it had been anyone else, the intensity would have made her look away, but he held her eyes like magnets, then drew her close to his chest and kissed her. For a moment as she sank into him she almost forgot why he’d come.

  ‘Emmie,’ she cried, breaking away from the kiss at the same time he released her. He slung his backpack quickly onto one shoulder over his jacket and took her hand.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  In the stables Jodie watched with wet eyes as her daughter clung to Cole’s middle, in tears. ‘Thank you, Cole. Thank you for coming here. Can you help him?’

  ‘Let’s see, shall we?’ he said, putting a steady hand to the top of her head and throwing Jodie a look of mild surprise.

  It crossed Jodie’s mind that maybe Cole didn’t know what an impression he had left on Emmie during the brief time she’d spent at Everleigh. Her daughter was overcome with gratitude that he’d come all the way here.

  The gelding was looking very poorly indeed and secretly Jodie feared the worst. They’d all been up all night, watching him deteriorate.

  ‘The vet just left to get breakfast with Ethan, while he’s resting,’ she told Cole, watching him crouch at Saxon’s side. She hoped and prayed Cole would be able to reach Saxon in a different way. She’d seen him do it a hundred times with other horses, but this was different. This was Emmie’s horse. If anything
happened to Saxon, her little girl would be devastated.

  * * *

  Outside in the sunlight he accepted two coffees from a kindly woman in overalls and took one to Jodie, who was by the stables, tapping something on her phone. Saxon was now on his feet. Cole had managed to get him to stand, albeit weakly, and Emmie was over the moon.

  ‘Ethan sends his thanks to you for you coming,’ Jodie said, pushing her phone back into her pocket and dashing her hand through unkempt hair—just the way he liked it. ‘You might have saved Saxon’s life.’

  ‘Tell him he’s most welcome,’ Cole replied. ‘I’m just glad I could help.’

  It transpired that poor Saxon had eaten something from the yard that had been left for the chickens. Cole had been able to tell from his stance, the way he had been pressing his belly to the ground. He’d calmed him enough to allow them to give him a second full flush and on close inspection they’d located a chicken feed container spilling into an open paddock. Luckily no other horses had tucked in.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll be able to ride him any time soon. I’m sorry,’ he said to Jodie in private, sipping the coffee.

  ‘He’ll need electrocardiograms and ultrasounds to monitor his heart. It’s pricy stuff, and it could take time for Saxon to heal properly.’

  Jodie looked determined to bring Saxon back to full health through sheer force of will. He tossed both their cups into a bin and tilted her chin up. ‘Everleigh’s insurance will cover it, it’s tied into the inheritance. I can arrange for Saxon to come back with me, where I can keep a proper eye on him. We can watch him round the clock until he’s out of danger. You can come down whenever you’re ready.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said, swiping at her eyes. The Scottish sun was high in the sky now, and behind her the craggy mountains looked like a movie set.