with honey. Not a half-ton of grease. But if I have to go to bed with nothing, I will.’ She shoved back her chair and stood. ‘Good night.’
‘Alex …’
‘What?’ she snapped.
‘Sit down.’
‘I don’t want—’
‘You don’t want sausages,’ he said and sighed, and opened the oven door of the great, old-fashioned fire stove that took up half the kitchen wall. He shoved his plate in there. ‘I’ll keep mine hot while I make you something you can eat.’
‘Cucumber sandwiches?’
He had to smile. She sounded almost hopeful.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I clean forgot cucumber on my shopping list. But sit down, shut up, and we’ll see if we can find an alternative.’
She sat.
She looked up at him, half distrustful, half hopeful, and he felt something inside him twist.
Sophie, bleak as death, stirring her food with disinterest. ‘I can’t eat, Jack….’
Sophie.
Do not think this woman is cute. Do not think this woman is anything other than a mistake you need to get rid of.
But for tonight … Yeah, she was needy. The explanation for the mix-up … it had hurt her to tell him about her dad; he could see that it hurt. And she was right, it shouldn’t matter that she was a woman.
It wasn’t her fault that it did. That the thought of a woman sitting on the far side of the table, a woman who even looked a little like Sophie, stirred something inside him that hurt. A lot.
She wasn’t saying anything. He poured boiling water over a tea bag, and ladled in honey. He handed her the mug and watched her cradle it as if she needed its comfort.
The stove was putting out gentle warmth. This room was the only place in the house that bore the least semblance to cosy.
She didn’t look cosy. She looked way out of her depth.
He was being cruel. If she was leaving in the morning, it wouldn’t hurt to look after her.
He eyed her silently for a moment while she cradled her mug and stared at the battered wood of the ancient kitchen table.
It wouldn’t hurt.
She was so spaced, so disoriented, that if she’d crashed down on the surface of the table she wouldn’t be surprised. She felt light-headed, weird. When had she last eaten? On the plane this morning? Last night? When was last night and this morning? They were one and the same thing.
She wasn’t making sense, even to herself. She should make herself stand up, head back to her allotted bedroom and go to sleep. And then get out of here.
Instead she cradled her mug of hot tea and stared at the worn surface of the table and did nothing.
She wasn’t all that sure her legs would let her do anything else.
Jack was at the stove. He had his back to her. She wasn’t sure what he was doing and she didn’t care.
She’d wanted this so badly….
Why?
Veterinary Science hadn’t been a problem for her. She’d dreamed of taking care of horses since she was a child. She’d put her head down and worked, and she’d succeeded.
Getting a job, though, was a sight harder. Horse medicine was hard, physically tough. The guys in college who were good at it were those who came from farms, who were built tough and big, who knew how to handle themselves. But she’d done it. She’d trained in equestrian care, she’d proved she could do what the guys did; she used brains instead of brawn, got fast at avoiding flying hooves, learned a bit of horse whispering.
It worked until she hit the real world, the world of employment, when no rancher wanted a five-feet-four-inch, willow-thin, blonde, twenty-five-year-old girl vet.
Like this guy didn’t want her.
Her dad had organised this job for her. She’d been humiliated that she’d had to sink to using family connections, and now it seemed even family connections weren’t enough.
What now?
Go back to New York? Find herself a nice little job caring for Manhattan pets? Her mother would be delighted.
Her dad?
He loved that she was a vet. He loved it that she wanted to treat horses.
He’d have loved it better if she was a son.
‘Let’s see if this suits you better,’ Jack said, and slid another plate in front of her.
She looked—and looked again.
No sausages. Instead she was facing a small, fine china plate, with a piece of thin, golden toast, cut into four neat triangles. On the side was one perfectly rounded, perfectly poached egg.
She stared down at the egg and it was as much as she could do not to burst into tears.
‘You’re beat,’ he said gently. ‘Eat that and get to bed. Things will look better in the morning.’
She looked up at him, stunned by this gesture. This plate … it was like invalid cooking, designed to appeal to someone with the most jaded appetite. Where had this man …?
‘Don’t mind me, but I’m going back to my sausages,’ he said, and hauled them out of the oven and did just that.
She’d thought she was too upset to eat, that she’d gone past hunger. He stayed silent, concentrating on his own meal. Left to herself, she managed to clean her plate.
He made her a second mug of tea. She finished that, too. She wasn’t feeling strong enough to speak, to argue, to think about the situation she was in. She’d sleep, she thought. Then … then …
‘There’s not a lot I can’t do that a guy can do,’ she said, not very coherently but it was the best she could manage at the end of the meal.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t want to stay here.’
‘Neither would any male vet I trained with.’
He nodded. ‘I shouldn’t have let anyone come.’
‘You need me, why?’
‘I don’t need you.’
‘Right,’ she said, and rose. ‘I guess that’s it, then. Maybe I should say thank-you for the egg but I won’t. I’ve just paid the airfare to come halfway round the world for a job that doesn’t exist. Compared to that … well, it does seem an egg is pretty lousy wages.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE bedroom was a faded approximation to her dreams. It had once been beautiful, large and gracious, with gorgeous flowered wallpaper, rich, tasselled drapes, a high ceiling, wide windows and a bed wide enough to fit three of her. It still was beautiful—sort of. She could ignore the faded wallpaper, the shredded drapes. For despite the air of neglect and decay, her bed was made up with clean, crisp linen. The mattress and pillows were surprisingly soft. Magically soft.
Soft enough that despite her emotional upheaval, despite the fact that it was barely seven o’clock, she was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
But reality didn’t go away. She woke up with a jolt in the small hours, and remembered where she was, and remembered her life was pretty much over.
Okay, maybe she was exaggerating, she decided, as she stared bleakly into the darkness. She had the money to have a holiday. She could go back to Sydney, do some sightseeing, head back to New York and tell everyone she’d been conned.
Her friends had been derisive when she’d told them what she