‘Okay.’
She turned to him and gave him a flat-eyed stare. ‘You can’t cop out on her the way you copped out tonight on your dad. Do you understand me, Tom? She can’t tell you what she needs, so you’d better make damn sure she’s got someone here who can help her.’
Fuck. ‘I won’t let my horse down.’
‘Good. What, are you just going to stand there? I’m dead on my feet. Let’s go. I hope your hot water system’s not out in the storm, because I need a bath to warm up.’
‘It’s fine. Power’s not out yet, and if it goes down, we have a backup generator. Come on, it’s still pouring out there, I’ll hold an umbrella over you. There’s curry on the stove.’
Mrs LaBrooy met them at the front steps, still crying, but now there was a smile as well as worry on her face.
‘Hannah Cody, bless you, my sweet. You come on in now and I’ll take you to a guest room. I’ve put towels on the heated rack and there’s a bathrobe of mine and some thick socks.’
‘Thanks, Mrs LaBrooy.’
‘Tom, go ahead and get the bath water running. Hannah, you give me those wet clothes you’re wearing, and I’ll get them washed and dried for you.’
He led the way to the back of the house to the spare room beside his. A lamp was on, a fluffy pink bathrobe lay over a chair and the bed looked as though Mrs L had spent the last half hour plumping up its pillows.
‘Boots first,’ said Mrs L, and Hannah sat on the stool by the dresser and yanked off her boots.
Tom walked into the bathroom and turned the taps on, letting his hand run under the flow of water until he was sure the temperature was just a couple of degrees short of scalding. The voices from the next room filtered into him over the sound of rushing water.
‘I’m so sorry to have dragged you out into this weather, Hannah. I should never have let the oxygen supply get so low, and Bruno, I’m so worried about him. He’s got his heart set on this campdraft. He feels it’s going to be—how did he describe it?—his last ride, and I have a horrid suspicion that once it’s done he’s going to cock up his toes. He’s so determined. If he decides he’s done, he just won’t wake up and that will be that. What will I do then? I just couldn’t bear it if …’
He heard Hannah’s voice murmuring to the housekeeper. She’d know what to say to ease Mrs L’s mind. Unlike him. He had no idea what he would say to Hannah once the housekeeper had taken herself off to bed and it was just him and the woman he was trying his darnedest to let go.
He headed back into the bedroom just as Mrs L was attempting to wrestle Hannah out of her wet shirt. His eyes met Hannah’s and the blush across her cheeks sent an arrow of regret through him.
‘I think I can take it from here, Mrs LaBrooy,’ Hannah said, holding the front of her shirt together.
Tom gestured behind him. ‘Bath will be full in a minute. See you in the front room when you’re done.’ He gathered up the blanket, rain jacket and boots currently forming a pool on the floorboards. ‘Take your time.’
He followed Mrs L out of the room, concentrating on his gait. He wasn’t going to limp, not now. Instead, he was going to think about what he’d just overheard the housekeeper say to Hannah. Bruno’s last ride. Not literally—that day was long gone. But the campdraft meant a lot to his dad and sure, he and Lynette had had their heads together, but maybe it was time to think bigger.
They could turn it into an occasion that the locals of Hanrahan would talk about for years. Have a band, get a dance floor set up on the home paddock. Hell, get a track set up across the paddock that an electric wheelchair could navigate, lay on kegs from the pub. Party lights and portaloos and pigs on the spit, and he could invite some of the old campdrafting champions to stay in the house for the weekend. Let the old legends tell their stories by the fire.
Bruno would love a chance to dust off his hat.
The sight of Hannah in the housekeeper’s fluffy bathrobe when she found him half an hour later was quite something. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘The human marshmallow walks amongst us.’
Hannah frowned at him. ‘Don’t think for a minute that we are friends and you can joke with me. I rode up here for Bruno, not for you. And because Josh guilt-tripped me into it.’
He gestured to the tray he’d set on the card table near the fire, where a covered plate waited and a glass of merlot shimmered in the firelight. ‘Shout at me after you’ve eaten something.’
She sniffed. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’
He let her settle into a chair, then sat in the one opposite.
She ate a forkful of curry then coughed. ‘Holy moly.’
‘What?’
‘How much chilli is in this?’
He shrugged. ‘A bit, I guess. When you grow up with a Sri Lankan housekeeper as your adopted mother like I did, you don’t even notice chilli anymore.’
Hannah lifted her water glass and took a sip before returning to the curry. She finished the bowl, scraping the spoon around until she’d eaten every last scrap, then set it down on her tray.
