Marion Lennox - Taming the Brooding Cattleman

It was like being held in a vice. His hands held her with no room for argument. She was steadied, held still, propelled out of the puddle and set back.

His hands held her arms a moment longer, making sure she was stable.

She looked up, straight into his face.

She saw power, strength and anger. But more.

She saw pure, raw beauty.

It was as much as she could do not to gasp.

Lean, harsh, aquiline. Heathcliff, she thought, and Mr Darcy, and every smouldering cattleman she’d ever lusted after in the movies, all rolled into one. The strength of him. The sheer, raw sexiness.

He released her and she thought maybe she should lean against the car for a bit.

It was just as well this place was a total disaster; this job was a total disaster. Staying anywhere near this guy would do her head in.

Her head was already done in. She was close to swaying.

Focus on your anger, she told herself. And practicalities. Get your gear out of the car. He’s going to think you’re a real New York princess if you expect him to do it for you.

But he was already doing it, grabbing her cute, pink suitcase (gift from her mother), glancing at it with loathing, slamming the trunk closed and turning to march toward the house.

‘Park the car when it stops raining,’ he snapped over his shoulder. ‘It’ll be fine where it is for the night.’

She was supposed to follow him? Into the Addams Family nightmare?

A flash of lightning lit the sky and she thought it needed only that.

Thunder boomed after it.

Jack had reached the rickety steps and was striding up to the veranda without looking back.

He had her suitcase.

She whimpered. There was no help for it, she whimpered.

Her family thought she was a helpless baby. If they could see her now, they’d be proven right. That’s exactly how she felt. She wanted, more than anything, to be back in Manhattan, lying in her gorgeous peach bedroom, with Maria about to bring her hot chocolate.

Where was her maid when she needed her most? Half a world away.

More lightning. Oh, my …

Jack was disappearing round the side of the veranda. Her suitcase was disappearing with him.

She had no choice. She took a deep breath and scuttled after him.

He showed her to the bedroom and left her to it. Headed to his makeshift study and hauled open his computer. Grabbed the original letter.

Could he sack a worker just because she was female?

Surely he could if she’d taken the job under false pretences, he thought, reading the first letter he’d received.

My son, Alexander, is looking for experience on an Australian horse stud. Alex is a qualified veterinarian and is also willing to take on general farm work. The level of pay would not be a problem; what Alex mostly wants is experience.

My son.

He flicked through the emails, printing them out. After Cedric’s first letter he’d corresponded directly with Alex. Her. There was no mention of what sex she was in her emails, he conceded. They’d been polite, businesslike, and they hadn’t referred to her sex at all.

Yes, I understand the living conditions may be rougher than I’m accustomed to, but I’d appreciate even a tough job. My aim is to work on horse studs in the States, but getting that first job after vet school is difficult. If I do a decent job for you, it may well give me the edge over other graduates.

He’d expected a fresh-faced kid straight out of vet school, possibly not understanding just how tough it was out here, but ready to make a few sacrifices in order to get the job. Despite the conditions, Werarra produced horses with an international reputation. This would be a good career step.

He’d never have employed a woman.

He hadn’t wanted to employ anyone, but sense had decreed he had no choice. This place had deteriorated to the point of being a ruin. The horses took all his attention. The house was derelict and the manager’s cottage even more so. Brian, the guy who’d managed the place for his grandfather, preferred to live a half a mile down the road on the second of the farm’s holdings. Jack had expected him to keep on working, but the moment Jack arrived he’d lit out, abandoning his wife and kids, disappearing without trace.

The letter from Cedric Patterson, addressed to Jack Connor, had come when he was overwhelmed. Despite his misgivings he’d thought, a vet … plus someone who could help with the heavy manual work like getting the fences back in order … The manager’s house was unlivable, but maybe a kid could cope with sharing the big house with him.

He’d written back to Cedric explaining that the Jack he was writing to, the Jack he’d gone to school with, was dead. Cedric had visited Werarra, had stayed here, when he and his grandfather were young men, when his grandmother was alive and making the place a home. The house had deteriorated, he’d told him. There were no separate living quarters, but if Alex was happy to do it tough …

Alex himself … herself … had emailed back saying tough was fine.

What now? He didn’t even have a working bathroom. Asking a guy to use the outhouse was a stretch, but a woman ?

He could fix the bathroom. Maybe. But not tonight.

And he still didn’t want a woman. The women in his life had caused him nothing but grief and anguish. To have another, sharing his house, sharing his life …

Stop it with the dramatisation, he told himself harshly. She wouldn’t want to stay even if he wanted her to. She obviously had a romantic view of what an outback Australian horse stud would be. One look at the outside privy and she’d run.

He didn’t blame her.

Meanwhile …

Meanwhile he needed to feed her. He hurled sausages into the pan, sliced onions as if he could get rid of his anger on the chopping board, tossed them on top of the sausages and fumed. At himself more than her. He shouldn’t have tried to employ anyone until he had this place decent, but a woman ?

She took one look at the outside privy and wanted to die.

There was an inside bathroom, but … ‘Plumbing’s blocked,’ Jack had said curtly, as he showed her her bedroom. ‘Tree roots. Use the outhouse. There’s a torch.’

The outhouse was fifty yards from the back door. A massive, overgrown rose almost hid it from view, and she had to make her way through a tunnel of vine to reach it.

A couple of hefty beef cattle were hanging their heads over the fence, dripping water in the rain, looking at her as if she was an alien.

That’s how she felt. Alien.

She locked the outhouse door, and something scrabbled over the outhouse’s tin roof. What?

She wanted to go home.

‘You’re a big girl,’ she told herself, out loud so whatever it was on the roof would get the picture. ‘You need to get in there, front Jack Sexist Connor, find something to eat, get some sleep and then find a way out of this mess.’

The rain had eased for a minute, which was why she’d taken the chance and run out here. It started again, sheeting in under the door.

‘I want to go home,’ she wailed, and the thing on the roof stilled and listened.

And didn’t answer.

He was cooking sausages. Eight fat sausages, Wombat Siding butcher’s finest. He cooked mashed potato and boiled up some frozen peas to go with them.

He set the table with two knives, two forks, a ketchup bottle and two mugs. What more could a man want?

A woman might want more, he conceded, but she wasn’t getting more.

What did he know about what a woman would want? A woman who was supposed to be a man.

She pushed open the door, and his thoughts stopped dead.

She’d been wearing black pants and a tailored wool jacket when she arrived. Her hair had been twisted into a knot. She’d been wearing red ankle boots, with old-fashioned buttons. She’d looked straight out of New York.