bit of white? That’s her.’
‘Your goat?’ He glanced towards the goat’s hiding place.
‘Yes. I bought her to be my personal pet. Her name is Amalthea.’ Tiffany watched the goat watch them, and thought about the many un-pet-like things Amalthea had done so far. ‘To date it’s been a rocky relationship.’
‘Amalthea?’ After a moment, he gave an almost reluctant smile. ‘Ah, yes. That’s the goat goddess who purportedly sustained Zeus with milk. I take it she acts like a goddess, too?’
Tiffany grimaced. ‘She has come across as somewhat goddessy at times. Yes.’
A sulphur-crested cockatoo flew out of the branches of a eucalypt tree. It would have made a good ‘In Flight’ picture, but Tiffany had no time to think about photography right now. She turned back to face Jack.
He began to inch quietly to the right. ‘You go left. We’ll encourage the goat towards the gate. The first one of us near enough can open it to let her through.’
It took a bit of running. Tiffany uttered more than one stifled curse, while Jack seemed to welcome the physical activity. Eventually they got Amalthea back where she should be.
They stood there then, Tiffany and Jack, in front of the gate, facing each other. His body formed a half-cradle for hers, blocked her in against the gate, and she wanted to close the distance between them and have more than a friendly hug.
Did he realise how close they were? What if he knew his closeness still affected her in a way he didn’t welcome?
‘You could stay for dinner. It’s nearly that time now.’ Only after she’d issued the invitation did her thoughts go back to the last time she had invited him to her cottage for a meal.
Heat climbed into her cheeks and she hurried on. ‘I’ve got Mexican rice left over in the fridge, or I could meet you somewhere else if you’d rather. You could invite your mother along, or we could just visit for a while now.’
‘Tiff.’ His hand closed over hers. Regret seemed to fill his eyes for a moment, before he let go and looked away. Then he straightened away from her completely, and she let out her breath in slow increments so he wouldn’t notice she’d been holding it.
Jack’s head tilted to the side. ‘There’s someone coming up the road towards your place.’
Tiffany heard only the pounding of her heart and the cacophony of regret and uncertainty. The sudden wail of a siren, when it came, made her jump. ‘That’s—it’s turned in at the farm gate. They must have run the siren to warn us they were here. It sounded like an ambulance.’
‘We need to see what’s wrong.’ Jack started to stride back towards the footbridge. ‘My Jeep’s parked behind the peppercorn trees. Let’s go.’
When she didn’t immediately follow, instead stood rooted to the spot as she tried to make it add up—ambulance, farm, someone hurt—Jack turned back. ‘You said it’s you and Ron. Would he still be here this late?’
‘It’s possible. He stayed to finish the hoof trimming so I could check the water troughs. We had some delays today that put us behind, and then I had to retrieve goats. I haven’t heard him drive away.’ She murmured the words, and as she did so injury scenarios began to play through her mind.
Quickly, she gathered the tools she’d used to try to fix the fence where the goats had got through, and hurried after Jack.
Once they were in his Jeep he swung the wheel and covered the distance to the farm gateway as quickly as possible. The Jeep barrelled up the lane.
Her breath came in sharp puffs, from a combination of concern and the effect of being near him. Nerves and confusion added to the mix.
The ambulance idled outside her parents’ empty house. The home was being painted, but with the painter gone there was no one to give directions. When Jack pulled alongside, the officers were about to get out of the vehicle.
Tiffany leaned her head out of the Jeep. ‘It has to be Ron. He must have called from the phone in the shed.’ She pointed. ‘We’ll follow you there.’
It took seconds only to arrive at the shed. Tiffany scrambled out of the Jeep. ‘Ron? Ron! Where are you? What’s happened?’
She hurried inside. Ron lay on the floor of the shed, his face ashen, one leg bent at an odd angle.
‘We’re here, Ron. It’ll be all right.’ Jack’s reassurance came from right behind her, and his hand came to rest on her shoulder.
Tiffany registered the warm feeling of his touch and tried not to press back into it. ‘What happened, Ron? I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you.’
‘I’d finished with the last of the goats and let them out of the holding pen. I was about to go home for the day.’ Ron gritted the words out as the ambulance officers crouched to attend to him.
He cast one puzzled glance towards Jack. ‘I knocked a hoof pick down and slipped on the dratted thing. Came down hard and sort of twisted as I landed. I think I’ve broken my leg.’
After a swift examination, the ambulance officers concurred. Tiffany stood still as they questioned Ron, checked vitals, and quickly prepared him for the short journey to the ambulance. With a part of her mind she registered Jack still behind her, his touch a warm feeling of reassurance at her back as the ambulance officers loaded Ron so they could stretcher him to the ambulance.
She should focus on the friendly experience of Jack’s touch, not the shimmery other feeling that coursed through her.
‘Will you ring Denise for me, Tiff?’ Ron gritted the question through clenched teeth.
His wife would need to know. Tiffany hurried forward to answer him, touched his arm with careful fingers. If it also offered an excuse for her to shift away from the temptation of Jack’s touch, she refused to think about that fact.
Nor would she dwell on the bereft feeling she had now they were separated. ‘I’ll ring Denise straight away, Ron. Then I’ll follow the ambulance in and make sure everything is okay for you.’
‘No need. You should finish your visit with Jack. Didn’t know he was back here…’ Ron’s voice wavered as the ambulance officers took him outside and loaded him into the back of the vehicle. His eyelids fluttered down.
‘We need to get him into town.’ One of the officers climbed in with Ron. The other closed them in and moved towards the front of the vehicle.
‘Yes, of course.’ Tiffany nodded and stepped back, and the ambulance drove off.
‘They’ll look after him.’ Jack offered the assurance from beside her. ‘And Denise will be there for him. But if you want to go in, we can.’
‘No. That’s okay. I think he’d rather not make too much of a fuss of this, but I’d better phone Denise and tell her the ambulance is on its way to town.’ She hurried into the shed and picked the phone up off the floor. ‘Ron must have knocked the phone down to use it.’
When she would have dialled the number, Jack laid his hand over hers. ‘Tell Denise I’ll be here to help you until your parents get back. Once Ron’s well enough to think about it, he’ll need to know that.’
‘What? Mum and Dad aren’t due back for ten days.’ She started to shake her head. ‘I can’t possibly ask—’
‘Then don’t.’ He squeezed her hand and let go. ‘Don’t ask, because I’ve already made up my mind. Let me help you—spend the time with you. It will solve your staffing problem and give me what I want at the same time—a chance to spend enough time with you to really renew our friendship.’
‘It’s not that simple, Jack. You know—’
‘I know my friend needs some help. Why wouldn’t I give it to her?’ His jaw jutted out, signalled his determination. ‘I’m