He shrugged. “Not really. Holding two nags up for ten miles is a bitch on your shoulders.”
I could believe it and made a note to check him over before we called it a night. But it soon became clear Joe had no intention of going to bed any time before sunrise. “I can’t leave them in the yard by themselves all night. Someone’s got to watch them.”
The emaciated ponies had laid themselves down by now, collapsing in the first clean bedding they’d likely ever seen. Joe was hand-feeding one of them bran mash. Lacking any better ideas, I grabbed a fistful and held it out to the other one.
“You don’t have to do that.” Joe wasn’t looking at me. “You’ve done enough already.”
I manoeuvred myself to sit next to the pony, mirroring Joe’s position with my back to the side of the box. “Just tell me what to do, and we’ll get it done.”
He didn’t argue, and a companionable silence settled over us. George checked in from time to time, taking a break from his own watch over the other four ponies, but no one said much until Emma brought tea and toast to us at dawn.
I was half-asleep by then. Joe shook me gently. “Go to bed.”
“Hmm?” I blinked rapidly.
“Bed,” Joe repeated. “Dex is on his way to pick Gerrard and Lily up. As soon as they’re gone, I’ll get these two set up.”
Gerrard and Lily were the farm’s hardiest horses—it made sense they’d be the ones to go—but my heart hurt all the same. It wasn’t right that any of these horses were suffering, and it wasn’t right that I snoozed in bed when Joe was still working.
I shook my head. “I’ll stay till they’re settled. Kind of attached to them now.”
Joe frowned, and I braced myself for an argument, but he simply handed me a cup of sugary tea and went back to tending his sick pony.
I drank my tea, barely thinking about the tooth-rotting sugar content, and considered the mare I’d nursed through the night. I’d assumed she was old when I’d first seen her, but George—the farm’s expert on such matters—thought she was juvenile... barely two.
“Hard life ages God’s creatures.”
Was he right?
I chanced a glance at Joe’s face as he muttered nonsense to his sick pony and had to disagree. His eyes, haunted and wise, were older than his years, but his face was young. And that broke my heart all over again.
* * *
Joe’s friend Dex arrived around eight.
“You’d better go inside,” Joe said when we heard another horsebox rumbling up the lane.
“Why?”
“Dex don’t like strangers, especially big, brawny ones. Go on. I’ll explain after.”
At this point, I was too tired to do anything but exactly what he said. I went inside and drifted upstairs, my bed calling to me despite my best intentions to stay awake until Joe called it a day.
Balls.The entire tack room was stacked up on my bed. Somehow, in all the excitement, I’d forgotten about that. Admitting defeat, I got in the shower. The tiny bathroom window looked out over the yard, and I watched as a newer, shinier horsebox than Joe’s pulled up.
I expected someone equally shiny to get out, but a slight, dark-haired man jumped down from the driver’s seat and gave Joe a friendly hug, before climbing straight into the box with the sick ponies.
Joe followed him, and they were in there long enough for me to wash my entire body. The hot water was starting to fade when they finally emerged, and I caught sight of Dex’s face.Christ.He was stunning, all wide eyes and high cheekbones. Joe and Emma had spoken of him as though he was far older than them—a kind uncle who helped them out—but Dex didn’t look much older than Joe.
I got out of the shower and peeped through the window some more as Dex went around the yard to greet the horses that hadn’t been turned out into the fields. He stood with Tauna and Carric for a long time, his arms around Tauna, his face turned into Carric’s neck. For some reason, I felt like crying and forced myself to finally turn away.
He left a little while later, taking Gerrard and Lily with him and the random goat who’d taken up residence in the yard. “He’s not going to cook the goat in the restaurant, is he?”
Joe whirled around from where he’d been leaning on the gate. “How’d you know he has a restaurant?”
“Emma told me on my first night when she introduced me to the horses.”
“Damn, that girl and her mouth.”
