Storms Over Blackpeak (9 page)

Chapter
SEVEN

‘Shoulders back!’ Ash yelled, Cally’s lunge rein in hand. ‘Keep straight! Watch the diagonal and move with the horse! Head up! Use your stomach muscles, not your spine.’

Cally gritted her teeth. She’d had enough. It was all very well for Ash to decide she was ready to move on to a livelier horse, but her new mount, Sarge, wasn’t a Quarter Horse like Pooch. The way he moved was completely different. Sarge had an actual trot, and Cally couldn’t learn to rise to it at all. She could feel how uncomfortable it was for the horse with her bouncing around like a load of ill-tied luggage up there, but for the life of her she couldn’t find Sarge’s rhythm. Thrown forward again, she steadied herself on the pommel of her saddle.

‘Ride with your body, not your hands,’ Ash shouted, for the umpteenth time, from the centre of the circle. ‘Use your knees.’

Sarge slowed to a walk. Clearly he’d had enough, too. Cally eyed the muddy ground below. Could she just get off and go home? Looking up at the lowering snow-line, she began counting to ten.

‘Kick him on,’ Ash demanded. ‘Come on, Cally, you can do this!’

No, she bloody
couldn’t
. Cally felt a stab of rage. It was just like being back in high school PE. She’d been mad to think that she could learn to ride.

‘Get up,’ Ash ordered Sarge.

As the horse lumbered back into his trot, Cally reached instinctively for the pommel again.

‘Jesus, Cally, you reach for that saddle one more time and I’ll tie your hands behind your back, I swear!’

Don’t cry, she ordered herself, don’t cry, don’t you dare. She sensed Ash take a deep breath.

‘Actually, why don’t we try it that way,’ he said, in a kinder tone.

What? Cally looked at him in alarm.

‘Hands behind your back,’ he instructed her firmly. ‘It’s a good exercise.’

But … she’d never stay on …

‘Go on.’ Ash’s tone brooked no argument. ‘That’s it. Hold onto one wrist with the other hand. Shoulders back. Good. You ready?’

It wasn’t really a question. She nodded dubiously.

‘Get up,’ Ash told Sarge, again.

Cally felt a moment of pure terror as the horse lurched forward. She was going to fall off, for sure. But — somehow she was still in the saddle. God, this was totally nuts. The next stride caught her off-guard again.

‘Stay with him,’ Ash urged. ‘That’s it. Watch his shoulder coming through.’

Jesus, it was a long way down. Ahead, a puddle of last night’s rain glinted in a sudden shaft of sun. Cally felt Sarge tense. Oh God, oh God! She let out a scream as the horse gathered himself and—

The ground hit Cally hard on the back, jarring every bone in her body. She lay there, eyes closed, fighting to replace the air knocked out of her diaphragm. It didn’t seem keen to return.

‘Christ!’ She opened her eyes to see Ash’s face just above her. ‘Cally, are you okay?’

She nodded, still unable to catch her breath.

Ash’s arms closed around her, pressing her against his chest as he lifted her out of the mud and into a sitting position. ‘God, I’m so sorry.’

He looked, Cally thought through her daze, unusually pale.

‘I just thought … I … you were doing so well …’

Well
? She hadn’t been doing
well
. What the fuck was he talking about? She stared at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated desperately. ‘I’m …’ Ash’s hand stroked her hair. ‘Cally, I’m …’ His tawny eyes, full of concern, roamed over her face. Removing his other hand from her shoulder, he brushed something from her cheekbone. ‘I …’

Jesus, why was he looking at her like that — just how much of a baby did he think she was? Cally frowned. And why was he still holding onto her? Suddenly acutely aware of how very close he was, she looked away. ‘I’m fine,’ she said shortly, getting her breath at last. ‘I can get up by myself.’

Slowly, Ash released her, sitting back on his heels in the mud. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have pushed you.’

No, he fucking well shouldn’t. ‘It was my fault.’ Cally wiped her mud-covered hands on her jeans. ‘I shouldn’t have listened to you.’

She looked around, re-establishing her bearings. A few metres away, Sarge, still trailing the lunge rein, stood watching them guiltily from dry ground. Slowly, Cally scrambled up to her feet, ignoring Ash’s helping hand. ‘Why did he do that?’ she asked.

‘He’s got a thing about water.’ Ash sighed heavily. ‘I’d forgotten.’

‘But he’d already been through that puddle a million times today.’

‘Yeah.’ He sighed again. ‘But that time it was shiny.’

‘You can’t trot through shiny water?’ Cally looked back at Ash, unable to help the beginnings of a smile.

‘You have to jump,’ he smiled tentatively. ‘Apparently.’

‘Are all the horses around here crazy?’

‘A little bit,’ Ash nodded, appearing to give it some thought.

Cally stared down at the mud. Locating her hairclip, she picked it up, wiped it off on her sweatshirt, and put it back in her hair. At least, she thought, peering behind her as she tried to brush the worst of the mud from the back of her jeans, she wasn’t wearing one of Lizzie’s jumpers.

She looked up to find Ash watching her with an odd expression on his face. ‘You want me to take you back to the homestead?’ he asked gently.

Cally frowned, considering, then sighed. ‘Aren’t I supposed to get back on?’

The next morning, over a basket of washing, Cally considered her swollen middle finger. As war wounds went, it wasn’t much to show.

‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ Ash demanded, from the laundry doorway.

‘Nothing.’ Cally shook her head.

He glared at her. ‘Let me see.’

Wow — he
could
look just like his father. She let him take her wrist, his hand travelling over hers as he turned her palm to the light.

‘Your finger’s sprained.’

Yes. She knew that.

Very gently, Ash ran his thumb and forefinger down the distorted line of the joints. ‘We should tape that,’ he said, a note she hadn’t heard before in his voice.

Or had she? Cally thought back to the previous day. Minus the mud and the shock, she was left with the memory of his arms around her, his hands moving over her shoulder blades, the feel of his shirt — of his chest — against her cheek … He’d started to say something. Why, why,
why
had she interrupted? Cally willed herself to look up at him now.

‘Cally? You in there?’

Her eyes flew up at the sound of Carr’s voice.

‘I’m heading up—’ Carr recoiled in the doorway as if he’d run into some kind of invisible field of resistance. He held Cally’s gaze. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked, a slight furrow in his forehead.

‘Cally’s sprained a finger.’ Ash extended her hand in evidence.

Carr didn’t look at it. ‘There’s tape in the drawer,’ he said evenly.

Letting go of Cally’s hand, Ash moved off. She heard a drawer open behind her.

‘I’m heading up to the Rockburn block,’ Carr began again. ‘I won’t be back for lunch.’ He nodded to Cally. ‘Just wanted to let you know.’

She nodded back. Carr walked off, and Cally heard the porch door shut. Silently, she let out her breath.

‘Come on.’ Ash walked past her with a roll of Elastoplast. ‘Come through to the kitchen, there’s more room in there.’

Cally started to pick up the laundry basket.

‘Here, I’ll take that.’ Ash scooped it out of her hands.

‘Sit down,’ he ordered in the kitchen, dumping the laundry basket on the table and rattling around in the drawers for a pair of scissors.

Cally did as she was told.

Ash pulled out the chair beside her. Commandeering her hand again, he wound the tape around her middle and ring fingers. Watching him work, Cally began to feel more and more stupid. She’d been kidding herself — again. He was being nice, that was all. He wasn’t interested in her. Ash was just … a nice guy.

He was also, she reminded herself, her boss. Or her boss’s son, anyway. Which was arguably worse. God, was he even single? For all she knew, he was engaged to some high country heiress with a castle of her own.

‘That should do it,’ he decided. Putting her hand down on the table, he cut off the end of the tape.

‘Thanks.’ Cally got up and, for lack of anything better to do, began to fold the laundry.

There was a silence.

‘Will you be here,’ she asked, striving for a casual tone, ‘for lunch?’ She risked a quick look at him.

Ash seemed reminded of something. ‘No,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ve got to shift the rams.’

He paused. ‘I think that’s one for the bin.’

Cally glanced down at the checked shirt she was folding. There were holes under both arms, and one sleeve had ripped almost completely away.

‘You don’t want it?’ she asked, smoothing the old fabric out a bit more.

‘Just chuck it away.’

‘Would you like me to pack you some lunch?’

‘No thanks. I’m all packed up.’

Ash lingered in the doorway.

‘See you tonight,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ He turned away.

Cally listened to him pull on his boots in the porch. There was a rustle of oilskin and the slide of a pack. The door opened and closed. Outside, on the third attempt, the ute’s motor chugged into life and the old truck rattled away.

She looked at his torn shirt laid out on the table. Picking it up, she walked to the rubbish bin and opened the lid. For a moment she stood looking down at the mess of coffee grounds, teabags and chop bones. She couldn’t bear to throw it in there. It still had some life in it, surely. On impulse, she pressed it to her face. The old brushed cotton was warm and very soft. The feel of it took her straight back to yesterday, when Ash had been under it — or, rather, one just like it.

Cally carried the shirt back to the table and folded it. Unable to think what to do with it next, she added it to the pile of her own clothes and finished folding the rest of the laundry.

Carr must have been down to pick up the mail; there was a rural supplies catalogue on the table along with the usual junk. She picked it up. It was the closest thing she’d seen to a shop in nearly three weeks. Not that she had ever been much of a shopper, but still … Cally flicked past pages of things she was only just beginning to be able to guess the purposes of, to the clothing at the back. Some of the stuff
actually looked pretty good. And it wasn’t that expensive.

She took the laundry upstairs, distributing Ash’s and Carr’s to their rooms. In her own bedroom, she dug out her phone and checked her bank account. Wow. Seriously? When you had absolutely nothing to spend them on, wages really mounted up.

Back in the kitchen, she stoked up the range with the last logs of wood and went out, crunching across the frost that had lain in the shadows of the house for several days now, to fetch another load.

That night, walking into her bedroom, Cally shivered in spite of the heater in the room. According to Carr, the temperature was supposed to get down to minus ten before morning. Her coldest night at Glencairn so far. She shivered again. At the foot of her bed, she discovered Doug asleep on top of her neatly folded laundry.

‘Hey.’ Turfing him off the pile, she brushed at the cat hair plastered over the T-shirt that passed for her nightie. ‘I needed that.’

God, he’d got bits of spider’s web and — ugh, who knew what — all over it too. ‘Been mouse-hunting, have we?’ she asked him, picking up the T-shirt between thumb and forefinger and depositing it on floor.

Well, she certainly didn’t fancy sleeping naked tonight. What else could she wear? Flicking through the pile, her eyes fell on Ash’s shirt.

She hurried out of her clothes, slipped it on, and rolled up the sleeves. Perfect. Okay, it was a little draughty around the torn shoulder, but the rest of it still felt a whole lot warmer than her tatty old T-shirt. Wrapping the shirt closer to her, Cally climbed under the covers and closed her eyes.

On Friday afternoon, Lizzie’s Land Rover pulled up outside the homestead at the usual hour. In Carr’s absence, Cally headed out to greet her, glancing up at the shadowed snow on the hills as she did so. The sun had long since left the valley, and the air was heavy with cold. As Lizzie got out, Cally looked enviously at her long wool coat.

‘Can I give you a hand to carry something in?’ she asked.

‘Here.’ Lizzie reached into the cab to pull a large package from the passenger seat. ‘I picked up the mail on my way in,’ she said, handing it to Cally. ‘That one looks exciting.’

They both glanced up as the sound of a helicopter began to grow in the sky.

‘Carr’s been out dropping some hunters off,’ Cally explained.

Together they stood and watched it crest the ridge, navigation lights glowing.

‘I just love the sound of a helicopter,’ Lizzie said softly, ‘don’t you?’

Well, it was certainly loud. But with Carr having flown two Mountain Rescue call-outs and an Indian film crew last week, Cally was starting to get used to it. When Carr had first pulled a helicopter out of his shed, she’d had to pick her jaw up off the floor. No wonder he didn’t care what car he drove. As glamorous modes of transport went, a helicopter beat a Bentley hands down.