Page 103 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
He almost flashed his quarter grin. ‘You’re asking a retired naval officer if he knows how to light a flare?’
She shrugged. ‘How am I to know what you can and can’t do? You can’t catch a girl who’s falling off a horse.’ Bitchy, sure. But crossing that creek in snowmelt conditions entitled a girl to the odd vicious swipe.
Tom headed out into the rain.
Alone again, Hannah stripped off her soaking gloves to start work on the buckles of Skipjack’s saddle. The saddle was saturated and would weigh a ton. Her horse needed drying, then walking until his temperature stabilised, and he needed a torrent of grateful words from her for keeping her safe through that hideous journey up the mountain, and then he needed a treat of hot, mashed-up bran.
‘You’re my hero, Skip,’ she said and rested her hand against the thudding of his heart. ‘Not that idiot Krauss. Did you see how he let me fall to the floor? Huh?’
Her horse whinnied and stamped his foot, and she moved her tired arms over him with a scrap of blanket. ‘I know, makes no sense to me either.’
CHAPTER
38
Tom lit the flare with wet hands then held it high so the red glare soared above the treeline. She’d fallen to the floor. Actually fallen, because the son of the old man she’d risked her life for in a hard ride up the mountain hadn’t caught her. Instead, his stance had just … buckled. From cold? Or because his shrapnel had shifted? That was the shitty question he didn’t have time to consider.
An answering flare from down the mountain shone a green glow through the mist.Message received.He tossed the flare into a puddle and headed for the house. They had oxygen, so that was one disaster averted. The next step was to make sure Hannah and her horse didn’t suffer from exposure.
By the time he returned to the stables, Skipjack was tucked into a stall, mowing through a feedbag, a blanket draped over his back. Rake marks from the brushing Hannah had given him still furrowed his coat. Hannah was wrapped in a blanket and stood looking over the stall door at Buttercup, who was in her last month and moody as all hell.
A bit like him, now he came to think about it.
The big mare was snoozing and her heavy breathing was loud enough to be heard over the roar of the rain.
‘The fire’s on up at the house.’
She turned to him and her face was pale. ‘Listen, Krauss, I almost don’t need a fire. You know why?’
Huh. This was one of those rhetorical questions that it was best not to answer. He did anyway. ‘Why?’
‘Because I haveragefilling my veins. You blow me off, you decide I’m not good enough for whatever life plan you have for yourself, but suddenly it’s okay for you to stay warm and dry and cosy while I riskmylife to getyourfather some oxygen?’
Josh hadn’t told her.
Which was good, because Tom’s worry was for him to shoulder, not Hannah, but bad, because now she thought he was even more of a louse than before.
‘My riding’s not up to it.’ It was a pathetic excuse and she knew it.
‘I don’t get you at all, Tom. I don’t understand what makes you tick.’
‘I’m sorry. I wish I could be … more.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, and like that, her anger disappeared. In its place was resignation, which cut twice as deep. ‘So do I.’
‘Will you come inside? Mrs L wants to make sure you’re okay.’
‘In a minute.’ She turned back to Buttercup. ‘She’s carrying heavy.’
‘Josh said that, too.’
‘How’s her appetite?’
He liked this version of Hannah the best, with her dirty overalls, her soaked boots covered in horse manure and a plaid bandanna keeping her hair from her eyes. This was the Hannah he found it hard to say no to. The perfumed, dressed-up version was like meeting a person he didn’t quite know.
‘She took a bite out of one of the stable hands this morning.’
‘She may not make it to term. You should rig a camera in here and she should be checked every six hours. When she goes into labour, she’s going to need help getting that great heffalump out. Josh’s help.’
