by Holly Ford
‘No, you can’t. Carr and I will take care of dinner. You’re going to sit around and look decorative.’
Cally teetered around the room again. ‘I’ll never make it downstairs.’
‘Just hold onto the banister,’ Lizzie grinned.
‘Lizzie …’
‘What?’
‘Are you … are you sure I don’t look a bit silly?’
‘Does Valentina look silly?’
Of course not. Valentina looked amazing. ‘No.’
‘Then neither do you.’ Lizzie rummaged in her handbag. ‘Here.’ Deftly, she swept a brush-full of bronzer across Cally’s collarbones. ‘Now you’re perfect.’
Cally smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’
‘Shall we go downstairs?’
‘I think I should do a bit more practice in these shoes first.’
Lizzie gave her a stern stare. ‘You can have ten minutes. If you’re not down by then, I’m going to come and get you, okay?’
‘Okay.’
After nine minutes of circling her bedroom, Cally’s confidence was growing. Stomach taut, head high, she picked her way down the hall to the landing. Right. Now for the tricky part. Clinging to the banister, she started down the stairs. God, one wrong move and she’d be minus an ankle. Nearing the bottom of the second flight, she paused to reposition a strap.
She straightened to find Ash at the base of the stairs staring up at her. Cally started to smile. But at the expression on Ash’s face, her smile fled. As his eyes moved over her, he looked … Well, there was no other word for it, really: horrified. Or maybe there was: disgusted. Cally tried to breathe around the lump in her throat. So she did look stupid, and ridiculous, and no doubt desperate and pathetic as well. A wombat dressed as Valentina — what was sadder than that? Oh God, oh God, she couldn’t cry now, not with all this crap on her face. There’d be a landslide.
Without a word, Ash turned on his heel and strode back down the hall, disappearing into the kitchen.
Vision blurring, Cally put her heel to the final step. A hand caught her as her ankle turned. She blinked. Luke. She hadn’t noticed him there. God, he looked even angrier than Ash. Was her outfit really that offensive?
Even as she thought it, Luke’s eyes softened into a heart-stopping smile. ‘You look amazing,’ he said, the smile spreading to the rest of his face. ‘Absolutely stunning.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes’ — he held her eyes — ‘you do.’
Cally braced herself against his forearm as he helped her off the stairs. ‘Look at me,’ she said bitterly, letting go. ‘I can’t even walk.’
‘I am looking at you,’ he grinned. ‘Here, take my arm. You don’t have to go far.’
Hesitantly, she slipped her arm through his. Stealing a glance at Luke’s face, Cally discovered she didn’t have to look up nearly as far. It was quite a different feeling, being up here. She rather liked it, she decided, as they inched their way across the hall.
‘There we go.’ Luke steadied her as she sank into the safety of the sitting room sofa.
He headed for the sideboard. ‘You look like a girl in need of a scotch.’
Cally frowned. ‘I don’t drink scotch.’
‘Now’s a good time to start.’ Pouring two good measures, he brought them over and sat beside her.
Cally peered doubtfully into her glass. ‘I don’t think I should drink in these heels.’ The lump in her throat rose again. ‘I don’t think I should do anything in them. I should just go and get changed.’
‘No, don’t.’ Luke’s voice was gentle but firm. ‘Stay here. Drink your scotch. You’ve only got to get from here to the dining room and back. Stick next to me. I’ll help you.’
Cally woke up thirsty. She really shouldn’t have had that last scotch. Switching her bedside light on, she checked her phone and her water glass. It was a quarter past two, and the glass was empty. She pulled yesterday’s jumper on over the T-shirt it had seemed wiser to start wearing to bed again, picked up her glass, and headed across the hall.
In the bathroom, she filled her glass, drank it, and filled it again. Slipping out, she pulled the door to behind her as quietly as she could, trying not to wake anyone by rattling the handle. As she turned, Ash’s door began to open. Cally froze.
Valentina walked out, tightening a thigh-grazing black satin robe across her breasts and tying its cord. Seeing Cally, she stopped short.
‘Tina, wait.’ Ash appeared in the doorway, buttoning his jeans. Across the hall, his eyes met Cally’s. For a second, no one moved.
‘Cally.’ A look of desperation entered Ash’s eyes. ‘This isn’t … I—’
‘Did we disturb you?’ Coldly, Valentina stared Cally down.
‘No.’ Water glass clutched to her chest, Cally fled into her room.
Leaning her back against the closed door, she sank to the floor, put the glass down, and hugged her knees. Maybe she should have run the other way. She really felt like she could vomit.
She listened to Valentina’s door shut. God, how could it hurt this much to lose a guy you’d never even had? Not … not quite, anyway. Cally knuckled the tears from her eyes, but she couldn’t quite erase the image of Ash, his beautiful body half-naked in the doorway. And with it came all the other images she had been working so hard to suppress: Ash’s mouth on hers, Ash’s hands on her body, his shoulders under her fingers, his hips between her thighs. And now, now that he had better things to do, she might as well have ceased to exist. He couldn’t even look at her. He didn’t want to look at her.
Suddenly, Cally very much wanted to be anywhere in the world but Glencairn Station. She levered herself up off the floor, starting to shiver. Crawling back into bed, she spotted a lump under her pillow. Cally pulled Doug out and wrapped her arms around him.
The next morning, depositing a freshly folded stack of laundry in his room, Cally noticed a shape in the shadows under Ash’s bed.
‘Doug?’ She leaned down, tapping her fingers on the carpet to tempt the cat out. Instead, her hand met something silky. With a growing feeling of horror, she pulled out a black satin slip. Ugh. Cally felt like throwing up again. God, she needed to get out of here. Out of Ash’s room, Ash’s house … Ash’s life. No doubt he’d been wishing her gone ever since Valentina had arrived. What could she be but an embarrassment to him, now that his girlfriend was here? Kicking Valentina’s slip back under the bed, Cally walked out into the hall.
She heard a small shriek from Valentina’s room, followed by a yowl and a thud. Doug shot out, ears back. Behind him, Valentina’s door was closed with some force. Cally picked the cat up. Doug stared up at her with a wounded expression in his big yellow eyes.
Cally nodded. ‘I know how you feel.’
Taking Doug with her, she went back downstairs. The kitchen was still deserted. Carr had been down and made coffee, and Ash’s ute was gone, but nobody else — apart from Valentina, it seemed — was up yet. She looked at the clock on the wall. Ash should be back from feeding out soon, and Cally had no desire to be there when he got in. She went out to the porch, pulled her gumboots on, and headed off to the vegetable garden.
Digging carrots a few minutes later, she paused, her foot on the spade, listening to Ash’s ute chug up on the other side of the garden’s sheltering brick wall, before she sank the spade into the ground with greater vigour. She came out of the garden gate in time to see Ash and Valentina, dressed for her morning ride, exit the homestead’s front door. Quickly, Cally ducked back behind the wall. The ute’s doors slammed. She waited, picking mud out of her boots with an old bean stake, until she heard Ash drive away.
Having given Ash and Valentina an hour to get out of the stables, she decided she’d take the carrot tops down to Sarge and Pooch. A walk might help to clear her head. And besides, it had been a whole week since she’d seen the horses.
Down on the track, her boots crunched over drifts of yesterday’s hail lying unmelted in the shadows of the tussocks. A long, low mist sat over the Wi
ndscleugh, but the sky above it was a dazzling blue. Cally looked around at the hills that had, these past few months, come to seem so much like home.
They’re not your home, she told herself firmly. What was she even doing here? She needed to get a real job. One with prospects, one that used her brain. Data analysis, or risk assessment. Something that didn’t involve gumboots. She had to get her CV back out there and actually take the next role she was offered. It didn’t matter what it was. Any normal, nine-to-five office job with a computer and a water cooler and a snack-vending machine and no Ash Fergusson, ever again … Cally swallowed the rising lump in her throat.
She looked at the snow-covered hills again, their shadows the same blue as the sky, Black Peak glinting in the distance. She should still work out the season, though, shouldn’t she? Just this one?
She’d told Carr she would. He’d been so kind to her, he and Lizzie. She shouldn’t leave him in the lurch. Especially when she had a feeling she was only just beginning to be useful. If she left … If she left, she’d never see Carr and Lizzie again, either. Or Doug, or Pooch, or Sarge, or lovely, sensitive Windy, who was so—
Who was right there, tied up beside the mounting block. Shit. Cally bit her lip. She had been so busy thinking, she hadn’t been looking ahead. Ash and Valentina were still saddling up. She’d miscalculated. Badly. She looked around for a place to hide, but there was nowhere.
‘That horse,’ she heard Valentina say, following Ash into the tack room, ‘is making a fool of you.’
Windy shifted, looking rattled. Cally picked up her pace, hoping she might be able to get behind the stables before Ash and Valentina came out. Seeing her, Windy whickered.
‘Shh.’ Cally rubbed the side of his nose. ‘Have you been running away from Ash again?’ she whispered. ‘Good for you.’
‘He needs a firm hand. Someone to show him who is the boss. That is all.’ Windy’s ears flattened at the sound of Valentina’s voice as it drifted out of the tack room. ‘Give him to me today. I will teach him some manners.’
Windy tossed his head.
‘It’s okay,’ Cally told him. ‘He won’t let her do that.’
Would he? He seemed to let her do everything else … In the tack room, Ash remained silent.
‘Do you have a crop?’ she heard Valentina demand.
Cally looked at Windy. No way. Valentina wasn’t going to hurt him as well. And she couldn’t ride him, she just couldn’t … Jesus, she’d already taken everything else. She couldn’t take Windy, too. Unclipping the lead rope from the halter under Windy’s bridle, Cally swung up into the saddle, her heart beating fast.
‘What do you think you are doing?’
As Windy danced sideways, Cally saw Valentina in the doorway of the tack room, an expression of angry disbelief on her face.
‘Cally! Jesus!’ Pushing past Valentina, Ash lowered his voice with what appeared to be an effort. ‘Get down from there. Now. Before you get hurt.’
Hurt? He wanted to talk about hurt? It was a bit late in the day for that now. Cally felt a white-hot flash of fury. Fuck him. She touched her heels to Windy’s flanks. Windy shot sideways another three steps. Cally struggled to keep her seat — Ash’s stirrups were so long for her they were virtually useless.
‘Cally!’
Desperately, she gripped hard with her knees. Windy lunged forward obligingly, rocketing into full gallop up the track into the hills. Cally clung to him, his long mane flying around her. God, he was magnificent. And — and somehow, she was still on his back. She leaned forward a little further.
As they rounded the first bend in the track, her heart lurched into her mouth at the sight of the gate. Shit. They were going so fast. Could she stop him? But before she had even begun to summon the courage to try to lean back from his neck, Windy slowed and turned, loping the fenceline as it climbed the ridge. At the crest of the slope, he jittered down to a walk, following the narrow line of a sheep trail through a stand of scrub towards the base of the gully. It was a way she had never been before, but, having had no destination in mind, Cally left the reins loose and let Windy follow his nose. Once on the narrow tussock flat, he stopped, turning his head towards her boot as if to check she was still there.
Cally let go of the reins and leaned forward, lying flat against his beautiful mane, to hug his sweat-flecked neck. ‘Thank you.’
Feeling suddenly shaky, she slid down, her knees buckling slightly as her boots landed in the tussock. She looked around. It was certainly a sheltered spot. Turning back to the horse, she rubbed his ears. ‘Now what?’ she said aloud.
Whickering softly, Windy nosed her jacket. Cally couldn’t help but smile. Of course. Shaking her head, she took the forgotten bag of carrot tops from her pocket and slipped off Windy’s bridle.
Four hours later, having tacked Windy down, turned him out, and got up her courage at last, Cally slunk back into the homestead. God, she had some explaining to do. At the very least. And at most … Well, perhaps the question of whether she should stay at Glencairn had been decided for her by now.
She was relieved to see that Ash’s ute wasn’t there. Happily, the kitchen, too, was empty. But as she made her way down the hall, the door of Carr’s office opened.
‘Cally,’ Carr frowned. ‘Could you come in for a minute, please? I need to talk to you.’
Oh God. Standing on the rug in front of his enormous mahogany desk, Cally willed her voice — and her knees — not to tremble. ‘Am I fired?’ she asked, as he closed the door.
‘Fired?’ Carr’s frown deepened. ‘No, of course not. Why would you be fired?’
‘I thought … I thought maybe …’ She stumbled to a halt. ‘Ash hasn’t said anything to you?’
‘I haven’t seen Ash since seven o’clock this morning.’ Carr sighed with something like impatience. ‘And he didn’t have much to say then.’ Taking his seat behind the desk, he looked up at her, seeming surprised to see her still standing there. ‘Cally, sit down.’
She did as she was told.
‘Look, Lizzie and I have been talking,’ he began carefully. ‘I know this last week’s been tough. Valentina is a lot to handle.’
Cally stared at him.
‘We thought … Well, she’s only here for a few more days. How about you take a bit of a break? You could stay with Lizzie at the vineyard.’
‘I … That’s really kind, but …’ she stammered, shame and gratitude rising in equal measure. So it was that obvious, then? How humiliating to have such a crush on the boss’s son that you couldn’t do your job. ‘But— Well, if you don’t mind, I think I’d rather just go home.’
‘Sure.’ Carr’s voice was kind.
Cally struggled to pull herself together. The concern in his eyes was making it almost impossible not to cry.
‘Just for a few days,’ he reminded her, gently.
‘Yeah.’ Getting to her feet, she headed for the door.
‘Cally.’
She paused, head down, her hand on the doorknob.
‘Don’t give up on him yet,’ Carr said gruffly. ‘Sometimes it can take a man a while to see what’s under his nose.’
Seriously? As her shock faded, Cally’s anger flared again. Christ, she was sick of people lying to her because they thought it was kind. Turning, she looked him straight in the face. ‘How long did it take you to notice Lizzie?’
There was a pause.
‘Lizzie catches the eye,’ Carr admitted. ‘But that’s not what’s special about her.’ He frowned. ‘Not any more.’
Yeah, that’s what she thought. With a brief nod to Carr, Cally left the office.
She needed to call her mother and tell her she was coming home. And she supposed she’d better find Lizzie and tell her, too. Was that her voice in the sitting room? Cally opened the door. Instead of Lizzie, she saw Luke in the chair in the corner, and kneeling in front of him— Cally stopped in surprise, trying to comprehend what was going on. It was Valentina. Luke was holding her by both wrists, but
as Cally watched, Valentina’s hands escaped his grasp, running down his chest and over his thighs before she — oh my God, was she actually going to—?
‘Valentina, stop.’ Luke, an expression of horror flaring over his face, shifted back in his chair. ‘You don’t want to do this.’
‘I do want to do this,’ she said, in a very low voice. ‘And so do you. You cannot say you have not been thinking about it.’
Cally took a hurried step backwards.
‘Cally!’ Luke looked up as a floorboard creaked. She’d never heard anyone sound so pleased to see her before in her life.
‘Hello.’ Pushing the door open further, she walked into the room.
Gracefully, Valentina rose to her feet and, without so much as a glance at Cally, swept out. Cally listened as Valentina’s heels mounted the stairs.
Luke leaned forward, rubbing his hands over his face.
‘Well.’ Getting up, he shrugged his shoulders, walked to the window and stood staring out at the lawn. ‘I guess that’s it, then.’
‘That’s what?’ Not really knowing what to do next, Cally crossed the floor to stand beside him.
‘The end of Ella and me.’
‘Because …’ she hesitated, confused. ‘Because Valentina came onto you?’
‘Nobody’s going to believe I had nothing to do with it.’
‘I believe it.’
‘That’s because,’ Luke gave her the ghost of a grin, ‘you don’t know me very well.’
‘I know what I saw,’ she said gently.
‘Jesus.’ Luke rubbed his face again. ‘Ella will think I did it to get at Ash. She already thinks I’m jealous of him.’
Jealous of Ash? Cally couldn’t see why Luke would be jealous of anyone. ‘Are you?’ she asked.
‘Ash is a good guy,’ Luke sighed. ‘A nice guy.’
Hmm. Cally wasn’t so sure. ‘You’re not nice?’
‘I’m trouble.’ He gave her a look of defeat. ‘As you saw.’
‘What I saw,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘was you trying to get away from a beautiful girl. I’m not sure how many guys would have been doing that. Under the, you know, circumstances.’
