Six Australian Heroes. Margaret Way
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not a horse, it’s that blasted she-devil of Christy’s impersonating one—she’s got out somehow.’
‘Poppy! But how?’ Rhiannon stopped abruptly as a chorus of barks rent the air.
‘She’s the ultimate escape artist and the dogs are chasing her. They’re all having a fine game, no doubt,’ Lee said grimly.
‘But what about the stable lad and Christy and Cliff? Wouldn’t they—?’
‘The stable lad goes home at night, the dogs are supposed to be patrolling the place and Cliff and Christy go to the club every Saturday night. It’s the night they run chess and Scrabble competitions.’ He got out and slammed the car door and started to whistle.
Two highly excited dogs, the ones she’d seen that morning, streaked through the night towards him, grinning all over their faces.
‘Sit,’ he commanded.
They obliged smartly.
‘You’re safe, Rhiannon,’ Lee called. ‘They’re trained not to attack. OK, guys,’ he added to the dogs, ‘heel! We’ll get you shut up then—Rhiannon, would you mind giving me a hand? Poppy can also be the ultimate vandal when she sets her mind to it. She can actually turn on taps with her teeth.’
‘Certainly.’ Rhiannon stepped out of the car. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s in the vegetable garden as we speak.’
‘Whow! Having turned on a few taps, on the way,’ he cursed as he stepped into a large puddle that shouldn’t have been there. ‘I don’t know why I put up with this blasted horse!’
‘Because you’re rather fond of Christy?’ Rhiannon suggested with a smile.
They discovered how Poppy had got out when they reached the stables. She’d kicked a hole in the lower half of her stall door and somehow scrambled through.
‘You have to give her some marks for sheer ingenuity,’ Rhiannon laughed, although Lee was swearing as he locked up the dogs.
‘OK, let’s arm ourselves.’ He took down two leads and a headstall from hooks on the wall and gathered two biscuits of lucerne hay from the feed room.
As Rhiannon had predicted, they found Poppy in the vegetable garden—where she’d turned on another tap thereby creating something of a quagmire—expertly digging up carrots.
‘Oh, poor Cliff,’ Rhiannon breathed as she summed up the devastation in the moonlight.
‘It might just prompt him to consider getting his daughter a decent, well-mannered horse,’ Lee said caustically. ‘Let’s back her into that corner.’ He pointed. ‘I don’t think she can get through that hedge. Oh, Poppy,’ he called in dulcet, singsong tones as he advanced with his lucerne, ‘if you know what’s good for you, you old witch, you’ll come quietly!’
Poppy had other ideas, but with two experienced horsemen in front of her and a thick, scratchy hedge behind her, she was finally cornered, although Lee caught his shirt in the hedge, ripping it severely and finally abandoning it on a wicked thorn.
Neither of them said a word as they marched the pony back to the stables, nor as Lee put her into the sand-roll and closed the metal door on her, but it wasn’t a silent time. The dogs were barking; the other horses were all stirred up.
They checked them out individually and mixed some small feeds to settle them all down.
Then they stood in the middle of the stable yard and eyed each other.
Rhiannon was the first to crack. ‘Talk about a snow man—you look like a mud man!’ she gurgled. ‘It’s in your hair, all over your chest, everywhere.’
‘I know that,’ he countered. ‘And talk about a mud maiden—you look as if you’ve gone through some bizarre tribal ritual. There’s only one thing to do.’ He shrugged. ‘What does a little more water matter anyway?’
He reached for the stable hose, turned it on and sprayed himself from head to toe.
‘Your turn now!’
She couldn’t stop laughing long enough to tell him not to—and it was the only sensible thing to do anyway, so she accepted her hosing down.
But something changed between them, an awareness grew between them out of nowhere.
She was struck by the beautiful proportions of his upper body, clean and slick now. She could only drink in the width of his sleekly muscled shoulders, his taut diaphragm, his lean waist and the mat of dark hair disappearing into the waistband of his trousers.
‘You look like a siren,’ he said huskily, causing her to look up guiltily.
‘A well-dressed one.’ She glanced down at herself and bit her lip. Her top was moulded to her breasts, her nipples clearly outlined, so were her thighs.
‘Maybe not so well-dressed,’ he murmured.
Her eyes flew to his. ‘No, I mean—’
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Luscious and very lovely.’
She started to colour. His eyes glinted wickedly.
Rhiannon clenched her fists. She battled to control the tremors that were starting to run through her as that dark blue gaze of his swept her body again—it was almost as if there was an electric current running between them.
The moonlit stable yard with its puddles of water, the sounds of munching, now contented horses, all had a surreal quality and for a blinding moment she wished she were young and refreshingly open again. So that she could reach that open, honest plane with Lee Richardson.
If he made one step forward, she thought, she’d be lost. She’d be vulnerable to all those fantasies about him she’d thought, wrongly, she’d banished.
She’d be as helpless—no!
‘I think it might be timely to remember,’ she said with an effort, ‘that basically, I’m the housekeeper here on a job. Goodnight.’
She swung on her heel and squelched through the yard towards the kitchen door.
Lee made no attempt to follow her, although he stared after her with a muscle flickering in his jaw.
She saw little of him the next morning and was grateful for all the work she had to do towards the party—it was one way of keeping her thoughts on other things at bay. It hadn’t been an easy night.
Not only that, but there was also a devastated Cliff to counsel and a subdued Christy to handle.
‘One more incident like that and she has to go,’ Christy told her tearfully. ‘Not only is Lee mad but so’s my father. She trampled his prize begonias and his vegetable garden is wrecked.’
‘I know,’ Rhiannon said ruefully.
‘Actually, I’ve never seen Lee in such a bad mood,’ Christy confided.
Rhiannon paused and grimaced inwardly. ‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if they get over it, both Lee and your dad. But in the meantime it would be a good idea to be firmer with Poppy, Christy. Don’t let her get away with murder. If I had more time I’d help you. Maybe after the party I’ll be able to sort something out.’
Christy went away looking happier.
But Rhiannon still had the girl on her mind when she did bump into Lee and it led to a tense little encounter.
She was sorting cutlery and wrapping each knife and fork in a linen napkin on the dining-room sideboard when he walked through the room on his way to the kitchen.
‘Ah. Basically the housekeeper,’ he said sardonically, coming to a stop beside her.
She flicked him a quick glance and went on wrapping cutlery. ‘Good afternoon.’
‘How is