Falling For Jack

‘My mom doesn’t want me,’ she said bleakly. ‘My grandma did, but she’s dead. I have to live with my father now.’

Oh.

‘I see.’ Bryony looked doubtfully at Jack, her heart sinking.

Jack. This must be the father, then, in the ‘I have to live with my father...’ There was definitely a resemblance. The eyes were the same. And the firmness of the set mouth.

“This is your daddy?’

‘My mom says Jack’s my father.’ The child’s voice said she didn’t believe a word of such a stupid statement. Maddy gave an uncompromising wriggle in Jack’s arms. ‘I want to get down.’ She was set on the ground by a silent Jack, and she stared up at Bryony with interest. Her father was discarded. ‘Where’s your bad dog gone to now?’

‘I don’t know.’ Bryony hesitated. There were things going on here she didn’t understand in the least, but maybe they weren’t her business. ‘I guess I’d better go find him.’

Should she, though? What were her priorities here? Bryony looked dubiously over at the stands. One sheep was right up at the top of the seating, trying to figure whether jumping down into the Haunted House was worth the risk. That was the only sheep in sight. Heaven knew where the rest were. ‘Maybe I’d best help catch the sheep first.’

‘At the risk of giving offence, Miss Lester,’ Jack told her dryly, ‘you’d be more help just catching your dog. Jessica and I will round up the sheep. You concentrate on getting your dog under control.’

‘Harry could help find them!’

‘And then he’d keep chasing them.’ Jack shoved his wide hat down further over his eyes, forming a barrier of shadow. ‘They’d end up in Queensland. Just find your dog and keep him out of trouble. That’s all I ask.’ He held out his hand to his daughter. ‘Come on, Maddy.’

Maddy considered Jack’s hand and shook her head, firmly. Instead, to Bryony’s surprise, she reached out and tucked her hand into Bryony’s.

‘I’ll help Bryony find Harry.’

‘Maddy...’ Jack’s voice took on a tone of exasperation, and the child froze, and cringed, looking up at Jack as if she expected to be struck.

‘Hell!’ Jack swore, and then he knelt so his eyes were level with the child’s. He sighed as the fear in the child’s eyes didn’t fade a bit. ‘It’s okay, Maddy.’ His voice softened, but there was defeat in his tone. ‘You go hunt for bad dogs with Miss Lester.’ He looked up at Bryony. ‘Can I trust you to bring her back here when you’ve found him?’

‘Of course.’ Bryony glared. Jack Morgan might look like an absolute hunk, but there was no denying his temper—or that Maddy was afraid of him. Jack saw the thought, for Bryony didn’t attempt to hide it and this man was astute. He flinched.

‘I don’t hurt her,’ he said, and there was pain behind his words. ‘I never have and I never would. I promise you. Things aren’t what they seem.’

Bryony looked into his eyes—and believed him.

‘Yeah, well...’

Who knew what was happening here? Certainly not Bryony. She nicked her hair back from her face and tried for nonchalance. ‘We’ll leave you to your sheep, then, Mr Morgan,’ she managed. ‘Let’s go find Harry, Maddy Morgan.’

CHAPTER TWO

THEY found Harry fifteen minutes later and Harry was neck-deep in trouble. Or rather he was neck-deep in dung.

The cattle pavilions were the last place they searched. Bryony nosed her way through the cows, Maddy clinging to her side, and there was Harry rolling with canine delight in a pile of fresh manure.

The dog looked up as he saw Bryony. Bryony! Source of dog food, toast and electric blankets. He struggled to his feet, cocked a mucky eyebrow at his mistress, quivered all over from nose to stump—and launched himself at her with love. Straight into her arms. It was the only trick Bryony had been able to teach him—to fly straight up into her arms. He trusted her absolutely to grasp him and not to let him fall as he jumped.

So Bryony had no choice. She grasped as expected and Harry wagged himself all over in her arms. Green dung dripped straight down the front of her cream sweater and further, onto her white leggings.

Bryony stood on the concrete floor of the cattle pavilion, thinking longingly of goldfish as pets and wondering whether schnauzers made good goldfish food.

‘He is a bad dog!’ By her side, Maddy was breathless in horrified awe.

‘He certainly is.’ Bryony took a deep breath—then decided she didn’t need to breathe again for a while. Harry looked adoringly up through his bushy eyebrows and wagged his stump of a tail. It was too much. Around them there was shocked silence as the cattlemen saw what Harry had done, but Bryony’s mouth was curving into a grin she couldn’t contain. She either laughed here or she sat down amid the dung and howled. So she laughed and, with relief, the cattlemen laughed with her.

‘Can I give you a hose down, miss?’ one of them asked her—semi-serious—and Bryony thought, Why not? She held her dog before her as the farmer directed his hose full blast. After all, it would serve Harry right and it couldn’t make the mess worse. Could it?

It could. The dung had soaked in too far to be rinsed off by a spray with cold water. Now, instead of being almost dry and manured, she was soaking wet and manured. The dung mixed with the water and soaked right in to her skin. Now she was smelly and sodden, and Harry was even soggier.

‘I guess it’s just not my day,’ she told the wide-eyed Maddy and the almost pop-eyed cattlemen. ‘Some days you just shouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and this is one of them.’

‘Bryony!’

Uh-oh...

Bryony turned cautiously to find her friend, Myrna McPherson, watching her from the pavilion door. Myrna had her six-week-old twins inside a pushchair; Peter, aged five, was clinging to one side of the babies and Fiona, aged six, was holding the other side of the pushchair handle. All of them were gazing at Bryony as if she’d taken leave of her senses.

‘Hi...’ Bryony faltered, and started to laugh again.

Myrna didn’t laugh. She regarded her friend with resigned horror, as if Bryony had done something dreadful, but what did she expect? This was Bryony, after all.

There are sheep loose all over the fairground,’ Myrna said carefully, ignoring Bryony’s laughter. ‘Someone said a little grey dog was chasing them. Would that be Harry, then?’

‘Hmm.’ Bryony stopped chuckling and met her friend’s look with a guilty smile. ‘It might be.’

‘I see.’ Myrna rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t think you could have held on to him?’

‘I got distracted.’ Bryony didn’t say with what, or with whom, and by the look in Myrna’s eyes she didn’t need to. Myrna was a very good friend.

Now she was focusing on something other than the disgusting Bryony and her even more disgusting dog. She’d spotted the child at Bryony’s side and she smiled a welcome.

‘Hi, Maddy.’

‘H-hi.’ Maddy’s thumb came up and wedged into her mouth, and she backed imperceptibly behind Bryony.

Bryony could feel the fear. She frowned, feeling as protective as a mother hen. A sodden, smelly mother hen.

‘Do you two know each other?’ Bryony asked, looking from Maddy to Myrna.

‘Maddy’s in the same class as Fiona at school.’ Myrna gave her small daughter a gentle push forward. ‘Say hi to Maddy, Fiona.’

Maddy dived completely behind Bryony, and Myrna’s eyes widened.

She looked at Bryony, her eyes asking a question, and Bryony gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. Don’t push it.

Myrna was anything but stupid; she got the message loud and clear. She put a restraining hand on Fiona’s shoulder, stopping her daughter from walking forward.

‘On second thoughts, go no further, Fi,’ she ordered. ‘Bryony stinks.’

Bryony glared. ‘Gee, thanks.’

‘What are friends for if they can’t give each other gentle hints about body odour? You weren’t thinking of going home in my car, were you?’ They’d come together, packed like sardines in Myrna’s small Fiat—four children, two adults and one dog.

‘Well, yes...’

‘Well, no.’ Myrna screwed up her nose in distaste. ‘I’d have to sell the car if I let you near it, or your stink would mingle with the petrol fumes and blow us all up. Heaven knows what that chemical combination is.’

‘But...’

‘We were squashed before,’ Myrna said definitely. ‘And now...Bryony, that dog is definitely not coming in my car—and neither are you!’

‘Myrna...’ Bryony stared helplessly at her friend. ‘You have to.’

‘No, I don’t.’ There was a twinkle behind Myrna’s eyes that said she was enjoying herself. ‘I’ll send Ian back for you with the truck.’

Ian was Myrna’s husband, and Bryony was torn between laughter and dismay.

‘Myrna...Ian’s busy. Don’t you dare.’

‘Ian’s sowing barley this afternoon.’ Myrna gave Bryony her sweetest best-friend smile. ‘But he’ll be finished about six and I’ll send him to fetch you then. I don’t see what else you can do. The local taxi sure won’t take you.’ She screwed up her nose some more and looked around to where the farmer with the hose was spraying dung from the concrete floor. ‘At least you’re among your own kind here among the cows. I’ll tell Ian just to follow his nose when he comes to find you, shall I?’

‘Myrna, you rat...’ Bryony took a hasty, laughing step forward and discovered Maddy was clinging to her leggings, tightly, dung and all. Myrna’s eyes widened still further, but she made no comment.

‘Come on, children,’ Myrna told her troop, grinning widely and turning her pushchair with the air of a woman with purpose. ‘Let’s get out of here. Aunty Bryony has finally gone too far—and I don’t want to stick around to see the consequences. I can see from here that they’ll be far from pretty.’

With a last, mischievous chuckle, Myrna swept from the pavilion, leaving Bryony with Harry—and Maddy—until six o’clock... Two more hours. Oh, great. Two hours of wandering round the fairground looking and smelling like a pile of dung.

‘Won’t she take you home?’ Maddy was still tucked safely in behind her, and her hand still clung.

‘No. She won’t.’ Bryony sank down on a hay bale with Harry in her arms, and Maddy sat sympathetically beside her. ‘Do you know what a fair-weather friend is, Maddy?’

‘No.’

‘That.’ Bryony gestured to the departing Myrna’s back. ‘She’s a great example. I come halfway around the world to rescue her business and she doesn’t let me in her car because I smell a little.’

‘You smell a lot,’ Maddy said truthfully.

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Jack’ll take you home.’

Now that was a thought. Why hadn’t that occurred to her? Bryony cringed inwardly at the prospect.

‘I’ll just bet your D—I’ll bet your Jack drives a lovely new car with cream leather seats.’

‘Sometimes he does, but today he’s driving a truck. A big one, with little houses built on the back for the dogs.’

‘Well, that’s a possibility. Maybe I could use a dog house.’ Bryony grinned down at Maddy and, to her delight, the child smiled back.

‘Silly. You could sit up front with us. I’ll go ask.’

Before Bryony could stop her, the child had slipped away and was racing nimbly around assorted cows and out of the pavilion door. She disappeared. Oh, help... Bryony rose, with Harry. Now what should she do?

Myrna had said Bryony was among her own kind here, and she was, up to a point. The pavilion was full of magnificently groomed cows and bulls and calves, and everything had the faint odour of dung. Here, if Bryony sat quietly on her hay bale and waited for Myrna’s husband, she’d attract not much more than the odd disgusted glance.

But...

But she’d promised Jack she’d deliver Maddy back to the dog-trial ground. Maddy was now on her own, and the trial ground was on the other side of the fairground. So there was nothing for it but to tuck Harry more firmly under the arm of her disgusting sweater and take off after her.

‘Maddy, wait for me. Maddy...’

Bryony’s boots weren’t meant for running and Harry, although small, weighed a ton. Maddy beat her by a country mile. By the time Bryony puffed her way into the trial ground, Jack Morgan was listening to his daughter’s tale with an expression on his face that told Bryony he was trying to conceal anger that she was alone. Bryony could tell at a glance that he was furious.

‘I don’t understand,’ he was saying. The trial ground was deserted and, as Bryony reached the stands, she could hear every word. Then Jack looked across and saw her.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Nice of you to join Maddy.’ It was sarcasm at its most pointed.

‘She ran ahead.’ Bryony tried to glare, but it was hard to puff and glare all at the same time. She stopped where she was—twenty feet away—and concentrated on her glare-puff technique. Then she checked out Jack’s disdainful glance and figured she didn’t have to be there at all. She’d seen Maddy back. Even if she had to puff a bit more to leave, it was worth it. This man thought she was a cross between a caterpillar and a maw-worm.

‘I’ll see you later, Maddy,’ she called between puffs. ‘Maybe at the next dog show. Thanks for helping me find Harry.’

‘Don’t you dare be at the next dog show,’ Jack growled, and even Maddy looked dismayed. But she grabbed her father’s arm and pulled.

‘No!’ Her voice was urgent. ‘I told you. We have to take Bryony home because she smells.’

She did smell, too. Jack remembered. She smelled really good.

‘Honey...’

‘The bad dog got cow muck all over her and then a man sprayed her with the hose and now she and Harry smell so bad that Fiona’s mummy won’t take her in the car. Bryony has to sit with the cows until someone comes with a truck, and that won’t be for ages and we have a truck.’

Jack stared down at his little daughter. Then, slowly, his eyes moved again to Bryony, and he registered what Maddy had been trying to tell him.

Bryony’s hair was sodden. Her white clothes were stained green and disgusting. The dog in her arms was even worse. If he’d tried for the rest of his life to think of a suitable punishment for this woman, he couldn’t have come up with a better one than this. She was foul.

Or maybe...maybe not quite. Bryony was mired and wet and out of breath, but she stood, her chin tilting with defiance and her green eyes flashing—and Jack thought suddenly that he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Or more ridiculous.

‘She says she can go in one of the dog houses on the back of the truck, but she can come in the front of the truck with us, can’t she, Jack?’

Jack’s shoulders shook.

‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ Bryony said carefully.

‘Why not?’ Jack’s eyes twinkled with pure Machiavellian enjoyment ‘You appear to have met your just deserts.’

‘Thank you.’ Bryony spun on her heel.

‘Miss Lester.’

Bryony ignored him. She stalked away, boots squelching water, and three seconds later was stopped by a large hand on her shoulder. She wheeled around and discovered Jack’s wicked laughter directed straight down at her.

‘Whew,’ he said. ‘I can see Fiona’s mother’s point of view.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, with as much dignity as a lady with an armload of manured dog could muster. It didn’t help that Harry was wriggling fiercely, trying to get down to greet Jessica.

‘Will this help?’

Jack produced a collar and lead from his pocket—Harry’s. When Harry had slipped his collar, Bryony had dropped it as she’d tried to grab him back.

‘Someone found it in the grandstand and gave it to me.’ Ignoring the smell, Jack reached out and fastened the collar around Harry’s neck. Harry raised his eyebrows, wriggled his backside, and looked eagerly down at Jessica, still standing obediently at Jack’s side.

‘Your taste in women might be impeccable, but your choice of aftershave leaves something to be desired,’ Jack told him as he lowered Harry onto the ground with a ruffle behind his disreputable ears. The two dogs greeted each other with joy. Harry’s choice of aftershave obviously suited Jessica down to the ground. Jack wasn’t looking. He was looking at Bryony.

‘Can we drive Bryony home?’ Maddy’s voice was urgent and entreating.

Jack frowned.

‘Why?’

Blunt and to the point. Bryony couldn’t think of a single reason why he should.

‘Because I like Bryony,’ Maddy said stubbornly. ‘And it’s not her fault Harry’s bad.’

‘He’s not trained.’

‘You could help train him,’ Maddy said eagerly, but even Bryony thought that was going a bit too far.

‘Thanks, Maddy,’ she told the child. ‘But I’ll just go back to my cows and wait for Ian.’

Jack hesitated. ‘Ian who?’

‘McPherson.’

Jack’s face cleared. For some reason, the thought of Bryony meeting a man he knew as safely married eased a tension he’d hardly been aware was building.

‘Ian McPherson’s sowing crop this afternoon,’ he told her. ‘I passed him on the way here.’

‘I know,’ Bryony said politely. ‘But when he finishes he’ll come and get me.’

‘He won’t finish until dusk.’

‘Then I’ll wait until dusk.’

Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, barely lifting his hat as he did.

The knot of tension tightened again. There was something about Bryony Lester that told him he should pick up Maddy and Jessica and leave now, have nothing more to do with her.

But Maddy was tugging his hand with an urgency he’d never seen in the child before.

‘I like Bryony,’ she’d said.

Well, he didn’t like Bryony. A more useless, ornamental, smelly... She had great eyes. He didn’t like women’s eyes. He liked Bryony’s. She had great legs. Ditto. Her hair was fabulous! Oh, brother...

‘Come on,’ he growled. ‘I’ll take you home.’

Bryony bit her lip. As an invitation it lacked some polish. She should refuse.

But she was wet and she stank—maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to be hosed down. Despite her run, she was now feeling just a bit cold, and promising to get colder.

‘The offer’s good for two minutes,’ Jack said, seeing her look of reluctance. ‘We’re going home now. Take it or leave it.’

She didn’t want to stay here for two more hours. Even if Jack Morgan was an arrogant toad he was a really good-looking arrogant toad. With a great smile... When he could be bothered to produce it. And he loved Maddy; even a fool could see that. So he couldn’t be all bad. She managed a smile herself.

‘Thank you,’ she said submissively. ‘I’d like to go home. Harry and I will sit on the back so the wind takes our smell backward.’

‘No. I want you to sit in the front with me,’ Maddy said stubbornly. ‘We don’t mind the smell—do we, Jack?’

‘We might.’ Jack’s tone was cautious. ‘In fact...’

‘When we found that sick lamb last week I nursed it all the way back to the house in the front of the truck and it smelled horrid,’ Maddy said hastily. ‘You put it in the stove and it smelled all the time until it was warm enough to go back to its mother. My lamb was nice—but Bryony’s better.’

She had a point there. Jack looked hard at Bryony and gave himself a swift mental shake. Get a hold on yourself here, boy! Get this over with. Fast.

‘My truck’s behind the grandstand,’ he said bluntly, then he called his dog, took Maddy by the hand and strode off towards it, as if he couldn’t care less whether Bryony followed or not. Which was about as far from the truth as it was possible to get.

The ensuing drive was tense, to say the least. At Maddy’s insistence, Bryony sat inside the cab, but she was acutely aware that she smelled, that she was soaking the upholstery and that Jack Morgan thought she was some sort of bad joke low life.

Which, all in all, managed to put a stop to Bryony’s normally cheerful chat.

The two dogs stayed in their enclosures on the truck tray and, by the end of the ride, Bryony would almost have preferred to be back there with them.

She gave brief directions to her cottage on the outskirts of town, then huddled herself and her aroma in the corner and concentrated fiercely on not moving. Every time she did, a fresh wave of dung wafted over the cabin. Jack had both windows down as far as they’d go, but even Maddy was looking uncomfortable by the time they pulled up. Bryony was out of the cabin door practically before the truck had ceased moving.

‘Thank you very much for the ride,’ she told them, managing another smile. They seemed to be getting harder. ‘I’ll just get Harry off the back...’

And then she stopped. Jack had carefully placed Jessica in one enclosure and Harry in another. Now they were lying in the one enclosure, side by side, and the pong wafted out from both of them. Jack jumped down from the cabin to help release Harry—and when he saw the dogs his jaw dropped a foot.

‘What...?’ he said, and his tone was back to being dangerous. ‘Who...?’

‘It wasn’t me!’ Bryony’s voice was practically a yelp. ‘They were in separate enclosures when I saw them last, I swear.’

‘It was me.’

Maddy had hardly talked all the way home, answering Bryony’s questions in monosyllables. Now she climbed carefully down from the cabin. She addressed Jack in an ‘I cut down the cherry tree so pack me off to the colonies on bread and water’ tone that made Bryony cringe. ‘I did it while that man came over to talk to you after you’d put the dogs up,’ she continued. ‘Bryony was looking at you and no one was looking at the dogs and Jessica looked lonely.’

Jack closed his eyes, defeated. He would have liked to yell at Bryony, but he had to admit this wasn’t her fault and he couldn’t yell at Maddy. He could still be annoyed.

‘Well, that’s the end of Jess sleeping on your bed tonight, young lady. She’ll smell almost as bad as Harry. We’ll bathe her in the morning.’

Maddy’s face fell, and Bryony had the sudden feeling that, for Maddy, maybe the colonies on bread and water were preferable to a night in bed without a dog.

‘Hey, you can bathe her tonight,’ she volunteered.

‘She takes hours to dry,’ Jack snapped.

‘So use a hairdryer.’

Maddy and Jack both stared at Bryony as if she were talking a foreign language.

‘A hairdryer?’ Bryony looked from one to the other and frowned. ‘You know—a neat little electric gadget that blows hot air on wet heads?’

Maddy looked doubtfully up at Jack. ‘I don’t think we have one of those—do we?’

‘We don’t.’

Bryony sighed.

Escape wasn’t easy.

‘Well, I have two,’ she confessed. ‘You’d better come in and we’ll bathe Jess here. But I get first go at the hot water.’

‘Two...?’

‘Two hairdryers.’

Jack stared. ‘Why on earth do you have two hairdryers?’

‘In case you haven’t noticed, I have rather an oversupply of hair.’ Bryony grinned. ‘I hold the hairdryers one on each side of my ears and my hair flies straight up like something out of Star Wars. It’s a great sensation, and a lot quicker than using one.’

Jack had a sudden mental image of Bryony—fresh out of the shower—naked and glowing, with a hairdryer in each hand, red hair flying upward. He felt dizzy.

‘I don’t know...’ His voice came from a long way away.

‘Oh, stop quibbling. My dog has made your dog smell, so I’ll fix it.’ Bryony leaped lightly up onto the truck tray, released the dogs from their cage, then jumped down again and grabbed Maddy by the hand.

‘Come on in,’ she said cordially. ‘If you give me ten minutes while I wash myself, then I’ll wash both dogs and send you home with a sweet-smelling Jess and a clear conscience. It’s the least I can do—and I always do the least I can do.’

She and Maddy marched forth, dogs following adoringly behind, and this time it was Jack who was left to follow, whether he liked it or not.

Bryony left the dogs outside and Jack and Maddy in her sitting room while she showered. By the time she emerged, Jack was starting to wonder just what sort of madhouse he’d got himself into.

Bryony’s cottage was like no other he’d ever seen. From the outside it was ordinary enough, though the two vast ceramic elephant legs—one on either side of the entrance—were a fair indication of what was to come.