Page 17 of Whispers of Sweetwater

Why would she want a man like him, a broken man, who wooed a girl on a bet?

Gazing out at the sun-drenched horizon, he slowed Duchess to a canter, then eased her into a gentle walk as they approached the far paddock near the creek line – an area he hadn’t planned to check this morning but had been meaning to since the storms the previous week. A few of the fences had taken a hit, and this stretch bordered one of the newer grazing zones. As they rounded the bend beneath a tall grove of river gums, a flash of movement caught his eye. Sudden and sharp. Duchess shifted beneath him, ears pinning forwards.

A chestnut gelding was down.

Hayden was off his horse in an instant. It was Diesel, the old cutting horse who’d been semi-retired but still thought he was five years younger. As he quickly approached him, his words low, soothing, cautious, the gelding thrashed his hind legs in the long grass, snorting and wild-eyed. Foam flecked his mouth, and a dark sheen of sweat coated his flank.

‘Easy, mate … easy,’ he murmured, crouching carefully beside him.

But one glance at Diesel’s distended belly and the spasming of his back legs told him all he needed to know.

Colic.

Damn it.

Serious, and fast-moving by the looks of it.

His heart thumping, he quickened his steps back to Duchess as he fumbled for his phone, already reaching for the halter tied to her saddle. After racing back to his horsey mate, his fingers worked automatically as he secured Diesel’s head and gently pinned him, trying to calm the frantic movements. The gelding’s breathing was laboured, every exhale a groan.

He didn’t hesitate.

He called her.

‘Come on, come on,’ Hayden muttered as the line rang.

‘Hayden?’ Brianna’s voice came through, breathy, alert.

‘It’s my horse, Diesel,’ he said without preamble. ‘South paddock. He’s down bad. Colic. I think it’s torsion, maybe even twisted gut. I need you, Bri.’

‘Shit, Hayden, I’m on my way,’ she said instantly. ‘Keep him still if you can. Don’t walk him, just keep him from thrashing.’

‘I know,’ he replied, but the sound of her voice already steadied something in him. ‘I’ve got water at the trough. I reckon he went down less than ten minutes ago.’

‘Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen, hopefully less.’

‘Thanks, see you soon.’ He hung up, stuffing the phone into the back pocket of his jeans as he repositioned himself beside Diesel, kneeling carefully in the grass.

The gelding flinched again, legs kicking out wildly, but Hayden held firm, murmuring low reassurances even as adrenaline surged through him. And underneath the worry, something else hummed. Something akin to relief. Because when it mattered, when things hit the fan, he’d called Brianna. Not because of any stupid dare. But because she was the one person he trusted to show up, calm under pressure, smart as hell, and sharper than any vet he’d known. She was already part of this place.

And maybe, just maybe, part of something else too.

* * *

The back end of her Hilux momentarily losing traction, Brianna gripped the steering wheel as she turned off the main road and onto the gravel drive leading to Sweetwater Acres. The early-morning sun filtered through the windscreen, casting streaks of gold across her dash. Dust billowed in her wake, catching in the side mirrors like a shimmering veil. She didn’t need the GPS anymore. Her hands knew the turns. Her eyes recognised the subtle rise and fall of the land, the way the light shifted through the paperbarks as the valley opened wide. But it was more than just muscle memory that drove her now. It was instinct – and concern. Hayden’s voice had sounded controlled, but tense. Too calm for someone not worried. The fact that he’d called her, no hesitation, just I need you, had pulled her out the door before she’d even finished her coffee.

Still, her mind couldn’t help drifting back to the night before.

The laughter. The shared food. The flicker of something that felt dangerously close to intimacy. And that moment at her front gate, the stillness of it. The unspoken something that had passed between them before she stepped out of the passenger door and away. She hadn’t let herself read too much into it. She couldn’t afford to. But when she’d closed the door behind her, leaning against it with a half-laugh, half-sigh, she’d known the truth. Hayden Pierce was trouble. The kind of trouble her heart had no business inviting in.

And yet … here she was.

But where else would she be when work called? She was a vet.

That was that.

With steely determination, she pulled up near where Hayden had explained he was then killed the engine. The air was cool and laced with the faint tang of native trees and horses. She was already moving before the dust settled, grabbing her vet kit from the passenger seat and slamming the door behind her. She spotted Hayden immediately. Down by the southern paddock, crouched beside a collapsed chestnut, his hat tossed on the ground nearby and his hair tousled by the wind. Duchess stood tethered a few metres away, watching everything with twitching ears and wary eyes. Brianna jogged down the slope towards them, her boots thudding lightly against the ground. As she approached, Hayden looked up. And for just a second, despite the urgency of the moment, something passed between them again, something unspoken but understood.

‘You weren’t wrong,’ she said, already crouching beside Diesel. ‘He’s in a bad way.’