Taming The Brooding Cattleman

by Marion Lennox

  He should never have loved her.

  He had to learn all over again what it was to be alone. He had to let her have a life with someone who cared.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHAT followed was a week of silence. A week where Alex worked solidly on, intent on her tasks, doing what needed to be doing, seemingly enjoying the horses, seemingly enjoying her increasing friendship with Cooper and the dogs, being pleasant and distant to him.

  If he didn’t know her well he could almost think there was nothing wrong, but he knew this woman now. He saw the tension lines around her eyes, the flash of pain, quickly disguised, when he appeared. The strain in her voice whenever she spoke to him.

  A lesser woman would quit, he thought, but this was Alex. She was here to earn her stripes as a vet on a horse stud, and a little thing like falling in love and being rejected by the owner wasn’t about to stand in her way.

  Heartbroken? Maybe, but she wasn’t showing the world, and she wasn’t showing him. She was making it possible for him to get on with his life without her.

  Except he still had to watch her. He still had to see her.

  He still had to see the way the horses responded to her and feel a searing, aching need deep in his gut.

  That had to be put aside.

  That was put aside.

  Until the day Oliver disappeared.

  * * *

  The first they knew of it was a phone call just after dark.

  They’d worked solidly all day—Alex working with Cooper with the yearlings, Jack working on the outbuildings, making a new roof secure. They were working fast. The weather was oppressively humid, dark clouds thickening through the day. The mother and father of all storms was in the offing and they knew it.

  Cooper retired as he always did as soon as the work of the day was done to his solitude in the workman’s cottage. Alex cooked but there were no points given any more. She retired to her bedroom but when the phone went in the hall she couldn’t help but hear.

  Jack’s voice was curt and sounded concerned.

  ‘No, he hasn’t been here all day. We haven’t seen him all week. Brenda, it’s dark and with this storm, even if he had been here, I’d have sent him home long before this.’

  There was a long silence while Jack listened, and then a terse demand.

  ‘So you haven’t seen him since seven this morning?’

  She was suddenly out in the passage, pressing against the wall, listening. Watching Jack’s face darken with anger. And worry.

  ‘You could have told me... Okay, never mind. Does he have any money? Could he be trying to reach his dad?’

  She could hear Brenda now, shrill in defensiveness. And, to give the woman her due, worry.

  ‘Okay.’ Jack was raking his hair, looking out through the porch window to the darkness of the storm beyond. ‘If Cracker’s missing... Does he have mates in town?’

  Alex could hear Brenda’s silence. It was like a great gaping void.

  No mates. No family. Alex’s heart seemed to freeze. One little boy and a night when no one should be out.

  ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ Jack said heavily, and replaced the receiver. He turned and at the look on his face had her reaching out in an automatic need for contact—and then, somehow, she drew back.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Brenda’s sister has decided they should buy a house they can share,’ he said, his voice bleak as death. ‘She’s found one, in Brisbane. All of them are moving in. Brenda’s sister and her four kids. Brenda and her two girls. But not Oliver. There’s not room. Brenda’s made an appointment with social welfare in Sydney next Monday. She told Oliver this morning—nicely, she said—that he couldn’t keep living with her. She told him she’d find him some nice foster parents—and now he’s gone.’

  * * *

  She drove with him—how could she not? The wind was strengthening by the minute, the rain a deluge. Somewhere out there was a child.

  Brenda was standing on the veranda, looking distraught. She was staring out into the gathering storm as if she could find him simply by staring.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said before they could say a word. ‘I can’t keep him. The house has only got two kids’ rooms and I can’t make my girls share. It wouldn’t be right. But we have to find him. The social services said they’ll find a foster home.’

  ‘What does he have with him?’ Jack said, cutting across her defensiveness. ‘We think he’s on Cracker. Anything else?’

  ‘I think he took his father’s camping gear. I checked. Not the tent, but the sleeping bag. And there’s stuff from the grocery cupboard missing. I’ll kill him. Of all the stupid—’

  ‘Let’s find him first,’ Jack snapped. ‘Have you called the police?’

  ‘Why would I call the police?’

  Because a child’s missing, Alex thought. A child, with this storm coming.

  Jack stayed silent, his face rigid, staring at Brenda. Then...

  ‘He’ll be at the waterfall,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s my guess. If he took camping equipment... He’ll be intending to use the cave.’

  Alex’s heart seemed to still. She thought back to that last day together. Oliver, diving through the waterfall, exploring the cave. Figuring how he could get in without getting wet. Totally fascinated.

  The day they were there, though, there’d been little recent rain. Now, the rain was one continuous sheet.

  ‘If he tries to stay in there when the rain comes—’ Jack broke off with an oath and headed back into the rain to the car. ‘Stay with Brenda,’ he growled over his shoulder. ‘Tell the police.’

  ‘Brenda can tell the police,’ Alex snapped. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  * * *

  They collected the horses and rode. There was no other way to get there.

  The wind was rising and the horses edged together as though taking comfort from each other. They couldn’t ride fast; they were picking their way, making sure each horse had the time to test the ground before setting its weight over a rabbit hole or wombat burrow.

  No car could get up here. It was horses or nothing.

  Somewhere up here was a child who no one wanted.

  Jack was feeling gutted. The horses shouldn’t be out in this. Alex shouldn’t be out in this. How to make her go back?

  He knew her well enough now to know he couldn’t.

  ‘I’m taking him back to the States when we find him,’ Alex said into the night, and it was like a vow. ‘Somehow... There’s no way he’s being left with foster parents.’

  Her statement left him winded. Speechless.

  She couldn’t mean it.

  ‘Foster parents can be great,’ he managed, and she flashed him a look of pure anger.

  ‘But they don’t already love him. There’s no guarantee they ever will. My family will help me. I can do it.’

  ‘You came out here to get the qualifications to get a job on a ranch as an equine veterinarian. How will having an eleven-year-old child fit in with that?’

  ‘It won’t,’ she said tightly, trying to control rage. ‘But I’ve fallen in love. It’s changed things.’

  ‘With Oliver?’

  ‘Who else do you think I mean?’

  ‘Alex...’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ she said, even more tightly. ‘If I have to get a job in the city here—get myself a resident’s permit—then I will, but if I can get him home it’ll be better. The Ma
nhattan apartment’s huge. Our maid, Maria, will love him to bits. I can do small-animal work and involve him. He’ll like it. Somehow I’ll get the right migration permissions. I can make it work.’

  To say he was gobsmacked was an understatement. She was totally, absolutely serious. She’d change career, change direction, change her life, for a child she’d met less than two months before.

  Whereas he...

  He was too cowardly to take that first step.

  He was afraid of doing harm.

  He was afraid of not succeeding.

  ‘That’s some generous gesture,’ he said at last, and he heard her breath draw in on a hiss.

  ‘Gesture?’

  ‘I only meant—’

  ‘Gesture,’ she spat, and Rocky lurched forward, startled. Jack had the reins in an instant.

  ‘Let me go,’ Alex said stiffly, collecting herself. ‘I’m fine. But this is no gesture. You think I’d play with a child’s life? I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve even talked to my brother about it. Matt thinks the migration and custody issues might be prohibitive and while Oliver was safe with Brenda I accepted that, but now...’

  ‘So this isn’t an off-the-cuff decision?’

  ‘Amazingly, it isn’t,’ she managed. ‘I can care with my head as well as my heart, Jack Connor. So let’s find him and get things moving.’ She paused. ‘The cave...the water—is it very dangerous?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said because there was nothing else to say. The rain had increased sometime during that extraordinary conversation, sheeting down as sleet as well as rain. ‘If the river builds... But we can go no faster than we are now.’

  ‘We can if we concentrate,’ she muttered. ‘We can if we only think of one hoof after another—and nothing else.’

  * * *

  It took them a long time to reach the waterfall, much longer than when they’d set off for the picnic, when there’d been bright sunshine and no rain. But they couldn’t push too hard. A lame horse here meant stopping altogether. So Alex rode grimly on, every nerve straining for risk to her horse, for risk to the little boy ahead.

  In the past few weeks she’d formed a bond with Oliver that had grown beyond explaining.

  Or maybe she could explain it. He reminded her of Matt, her adored big brother. She remembered Matt at Oliver’s age, standing before her father, condemned by some minor misdemeanour, stoic. She’d adored her big brother as she’d adored her father and their conflict tore her in two. Matt wrenched at her heartstrings before she even knew such things existed.

  And now another little boy, even more needful, was doing the same.

  She would help. In that appalling ride her mind settled. She’d already spoken to Matt, sounded him out about helping. He’d been negative—‘The thing’s crazy, Alex’—but she knew in the end that he’d help.

  She could depend on Matt, whereas the man by her side...

  She wanted, with all her heart, to depend on Jack.

  He’d help tonight. He’d do what he had to do, but he’d go no further. To ask him to commit?

  She couldn’t. She’d pushed as hard as she could. From here on, she’d cope with this alone.

  Something flew at them through the dark and sleet, a disoriented bat, something. Rocky shied and Jack’s hands were on her reins, holding, settling.

  He was with her, and yet not with her.

  Jack...

  Oliver. Think of Oliver.

  Oliver had to be all that mattered. Jack couldn’t love her, but Oliver...she’d love Oliver regardless.

  * * *

  And in the end they found him, quite easily, quite simply. Loneliness, desolation aside, Oliver was one sensible little boy. He’d left the cave when the water started sheeting, but he hadn’t thought of going home. Home? Back to Brenda, who didn’t want him. He had no options. They found him huddled on the bank of a river that was widening to a roaring torrent, soaked to the skin, holding Cracker’s reins and simply waiting for what happened next.

  Or expecting that nothing would.

  The lightning was now almost one continuous sheet. They could see Oliver’s silhouette against the riverbank. They could see his heaving shoulders, but as they approached there wasn’t a sound. Even in despair, Oliver’s sobs were silent.

  Jack saw him, and Alex spotted him almost in the same instant. She was off her horse. Rocky’s reins were thrust into Jack’s hands and Alex was crouched beside him, tugging him to her, enfolding him to her in the age-old way a woman comforted a child she loved.

  Loved.

  Who could doubt it, the way she held him. Jack knew, looking at them both, that this was surely what he was seeing.

  He had to see to the horses. When Alex reached him, Oliver had released Cracker’s reins. All the horses were edgy with the thunder and lightning. He gathered them together, led them under the slight shelter of the cliff face so they were away from the frightening rush of water—thankfully at the foot of this waterfall there was little risk of lightning strike—and then he returned.

  They were still entwined. Woman and child.

  She cared with all her heart.

  And so did he. He watched and things were twisting inside.

  Or maybe not twisting. Maybe they were unravelling. A dark and bitter knot was being untied, let free.

  His mother’s words came back to him...

  Take care of your sister.

  He’d been eight years old.

  It was like clearing mists. As he watched Oliver cling to Alex as if he’d been drowning, he thought, I was three years younger than Oliver is now.

  And then he thought, How can a child do anything but fail when given such a task?

  And the bitter sense of failure turned to something else. Something it should have been all along.

  It turned to anger at a mother who could have made such a demand. It turned to anger at a grandfather who took it as read that Sophie was Jack’s responsibility.

  How could you have asked the impossible of me?

  ‘I was eight years old,’ he said to himself, and then he looked at what was before him and he said what had to be said.

  ‘I couldn’t do it then, but I can do it now.’

  And then he walked across to the riverbank, to the crouched figures huddled in the driving rain. He hauled off his great sou’wester and he covered them all. And then, because his makeshift tent was tiny, because they had to be close and because he wanted to be close more than anything else in the world, he tugged them to him.

  Both of them.

  And they turned and melted into him, just like that. He held them against him. He felt their hearts beating against him. He felt Oliver’s sobs subside and he felt Alex’s breath against his face.

  He felt her hold him as he was holding her, with Oliver sandwiched between them, and he felt a promise being made. The promise felt good. It felt right.

  No matter the storm, here was home.

  Here was caring.

  Here was love.

  * * *

  Jack put Oliver before him, on Maestro, while Alex led Cracker. They didn’t take him back to Brenda. They took him to Werarra. Home.

  The little boy was past speech, past questions, past anything but clinging to Jack as he carried him into the house.

  He was eleven years old but tonight he seemed so much younger.

  The Wombat Siding cop was there, with Cooper. They’d been about to organise a wider search.


  Jack watched Cooper’s face break into a vast grin as he saw Oliver. He watched Cooper’s dogs make a fuss of the little boy and he thought, Cooper was another he’d end up caring for.

  For Cooper was already doing his share of caring.

  And finally, finally, he was starting to get it. The load he’d been given as a child had been too great, but the concept was wonderful. You cared, and you were cared for right back.

  Cooper disappeared to see to the horses, looking a bit embarrassed at the emotion. The cop left, relieved, and Jack thought there was another example of caring. Country cops... It was what they did.

  Jack phoned Brenda, and heard her relief that Oliver was found, and heard even more relief that he’d like him to stay at Werarra for the night.

  He had to stay at Werarra, for Jack knew a decision had been made.

  Alex had Oliver in a hot bath before the phone call was ended. She washed him and teased him and made him smile a little, then towelled him dry, while Jack found a huge T-shirt for him to wear to bed.

  In the end she even had the bedraggled little boy giggling at the sight of himself in the mirror. It wasn’t a very loud giggle, but it sounded fine to Jack.

  ‘He can sleep in my bed,’ Alex said, and Jack shook his head.

  ‘Let’s put him in ours. Oliver, can you cope with sleeping between the pair of us?’

  And Alex met his gaze over Oliver’s head and something happened to her face.

  Something wonderful.

  So they tucked him into Jack’s big bed and Jack sat on the end of the bed and watched as Alex cradled him and told him people loved him and nothing bad would happen and she thought she might buy him a puppy.

  A puppy.

  She’d take that on, too, he thought.

  Nothing had been said. Nothing had been promised between them. What she was saying to Oliver now stood as a sole promise.

  She’d keep that promise, he thought. She’d take a small boy back to Manhattan. She’d face down immigration and social services. She’d cope with quarantine and caring for a child and his puppy in New York. Alone.