Page 19 of A Stable Daddy

But I digress.

Still chuckling, I shake my head. It’s not every day you meet a bloke’s bloke like Rob only to discover that he has a weakness for classic Australian preschool entertainment. “Your animals areall named after Play School toys,” I inform Dusty, only for him to appear more confused.

“Play School?” he asks. “Like…preschool?”

“The TV show,” Jim tells him. “It’s been on the ABC since the seventies or something.” He smirks, and, as an aside, adds, “I had a crush on Noni Hazelhurst as a kid.”

“I always said you had good taste,” Rob snarks.

“None of these words are making any sense,” Dusty’s complaint makes me feel old.

“To you and me both,” Oscar agrees, but he sounds amused. “I feel like Google will be our friend later.”

“Or right now.” Dusty whips his phone from his pocket and taps at the screen. He screws up his face as he stares at his screen, and the very song I recalled only moments ago starts playing through the tinny speaker.

“That’s what passes for kids TV in this country?” Oscar asks, sounding horrified. “I didn’t think things were that dire here. I mean, cartoons have been a thing for a long while. Disney…Hanna Barbera…” The look he casts me is full of exaggerated concern and he gestures at Dusty’s phone. “You didn’t have to live this way, darlin’.”

Down the table, Rob bursts into guffaws. “You wash that mouth of yours out with soap, Ozzy. Play School’s iconic. It raised generations of kids.”

“My own included,” I nod in agreement, then blink as the table around me falls silent.

“You’ve got kids?” Oscar asks gently. His tone is unreadable.

I feel myself flush. “Maddy —Maddox, my…my late husband— did. They were already almost in their teens by the time Maddy and I got together, but I think of them as my own, yeah.”

Even now, they both check in with me every couple of weeks to make sure I’m taking care of myself. Neither of them werehappy with me when I told them I was moving across the country, but they understood that I needed to start fresh again.

Thinking fondly of them, I continue to talk into the surprised silence. “Makayla,Mak, is thirty now, and Trev’s twenty-eight.” It’s at this moment I realise just how close they are in age to Oscar. “They’re great kids. She’s a paediatrician in Toowoomba, and he’s a lawyer in Brissie. Criminal law.”

As I talk, I can’t help but wonder…will they be disgusted if Oscar and I become a thing? And, God, will he think it’s weird that I’ve got step kids his age?

A dim stirring of memory settles my nerves a little. Ididoriginally tell him that I was old enough to be his dad, and he was okay with that.

More than okay, my brain says helpfully.He’s into older men.

But then maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Yeah, he’s shown interest in me today, but that doesn’t mean he wants anything between us to become serious or ongoing. He might just want to let off a little steam. God knows he earned it the night he rescued me. I was the one who got off back then, not him.

“You sound so proud of ’em,” Oscar says softly. I turn my head to find him smiling. “I bet they’re great people. They sure sound smart, at least. But then, you’re a vet, so…” he trails off, shrugging.

“Maddy was, too. He was an equine specialist, actually.” I grin at Dusty. “That’s how I knew so much about how to help Jemima without seeing her. Maddy was obsessed with horses. Some of that rubbed off on me.”

After over a year grieving him, it feels liberating to be able to talk about my late husband without crying. To feel the fond exasperation thrumming through my veins when I think aboutjust how horse-crazy he was. Not that I was any different after I started working with him.

“Is that why you’re a country vet?” Oscar asks, pulling my attention back in his direction. He’s got his head cocked to the side and genuine curiosity in his eyes.

I tilt my own head from side to side. “Eh…kind of? I tried my hand at returning to suburban practice back in Brissie, but I missed the rural life. Maddy and I had our own practice just outside of Townsville. His enthusiasm for working with horses was infectious, y’know? I’d been content with cats and dogs until I met him. Then, suddenly, I was almost as obsessed with livestock as he was. After he died, I sold the practice and moved to Brisbane…” I trail off with a shrug. “A year of that was enough for me to realise that I really missed working out in the country. When the practice in Denham went up for sale, it felt like I’d be getting the best of both worlds. I see a lot of domestic pets as well as livestock nowadays.”

Somewhere in the middle of my rambled answer, Oscar placed his hand on my back. Now, he rubs soothingly, then squeezes my shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss, darlin’. You sound happy when you talk about him. About Maddy.”

“I was happy.Wewere happy.” I smile back at him, grateful that he doesn’t seem irritated or put-out to hear me talk about my dead husband.

“How’d he die?” Dusty asks, and Jim groans.

“Mate, you can’t just ask that.”

“Why?” Dusty pouts, then sits back and stretches his arms out at his sides, gesturing to the table at large. “We were all thinking it.”

Sure enough, everyone seems to be following my tale of woe with rapt attention. Don’t they get streaming services out this way? Surely my depressing story isn’t that entertaining.

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