Page 5

He shoved one bottle under his muscled arm, cracked the other bottle’s lid and passed it to her.

His eyes caught the light. They were true amber, a warm coppery hue she’d never seen before, enhanced by stubby, thick eyelashes.

They were the perfect complement to his olive skin.

He looked like… Damn, who did he look like?

Right, a Caucasian version of the hero in one of her favourite K-dramas, Crash Landing on You .

Stoic, implacable, unreadable… distant.

The cold bottle of water slipped from her grip. Trying to catch it, she smacked it instead, dousing her face and chest with water. Actually, that felt rather nice.

Eden ran her hand down her face and tried to wipe the water away, but her eyes kept streaming. And her top lip was growing fatter by the second.

‘I think I am…’ she replied, reaching out to steady herself by gripping his strong forearm. She didn’t feel well. Something was badly wrong…

‘Here, wipe your face,’ he shoved a rough fabric into her hands. ‘It’s clean, I promise.’

Eden didn’t know what else to do, so she ran the horse blanket over her face. She hauled in some air, but as she breathed out, her chest tightened and contracted. There was no dismissing her symptoms now. This was bad.

‘Help,’ she wheezed before her knees buckled.

She was pretty sure that the sexy polo player had had more than a few women fall at his feet– looking like that, how could he not?– but none, she was certain, because they were about to slide into anaphylactic shock.

* * *

‘Hey, my name is Mick. I’m a GP, and you’re having an allergic reaction.’

Eden’s eyes fluttered open and she stared into the rich green eyes of a Priyanka Chopra lookalike. It was the woman from earlier, and she looked older than she’d first thought, in her early thirties perhaps.

Patting the ground next to her, Eden realised she was sitting on a shady patch of grass just outside the stable, protected from the sun by the thick foliage of an old oak tree.

Two EMTs in yellow vests stood behind her, their expressions concerned.

Right, she must look a fright. Glancing down at her red-welt-covered legs and arms she winced.

Then forced herself to look back at Mick. ‘My face?’

‘It’s everywhere. Face, torso, limbs, back.’

Shit . A red face to go with her pale red hair, fabulous. The only good thing is that the guy from earlier– Number Three, Jed, the Big and Sexy polo player– wasn’t looming over her anymore.

‘I rifled through your purse to get your name, and to see if you had any meds in it. By the way, I’ve given you an antihistamine injection, quite a strong one, and it should kick in soon,’ Mick told her. ‘And you and I need to talk about your obsession with Hyun Bin.’

Eden blinked, off guard. ‘What?’

Mick held her phone to her face, it opened and up popped the face of the gorgeous K-drama star. Oh, God, how would she explain this? Few people understood her obsession with K-dramas, and no one but her looked at her phone. ‘ Um… ’

‘I mean Hyun Bin is super sexy, but Daniel Henney as al’Lan Mandragoran is my guy-at-night fantasy. Also, Hyun Bin is married.’

Sadly.

Mick recognised K-drama stars and watched her favourite fantasy series? Would she marry her?

‘We’ll talk hot guys and about how incredible When the Phone Rings was?—’

Oh, man! ‘The twists, the turns!’

‘—later,’ Mick continued, her expression now serious. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

Eden nodded, her mind slowly clicking into gear. ‘My eyes started watering as soon as I got here. It got worse the longer I stayed in the stable. The hives erupted after I patted the horse.’

Mick held her wrist before looking up at the hovering EMTs. ‘Her throat isn’t closing, and her pulse is normal. Youguys can go back to the field.’ When they moved off, Mick shifted back, wrapping her arms around her bent legs.

Eden couldn’t help it and reached under the hem of her dress to scratch her thigh, but Mick grabbed her hand before she could make contact. ‘Scratching will make it worse, just breathe through it, okay?’

Easier said than done.

She recalled the world turning wavy and remembered it going black. She rubbed the back of her head, wincing at the ridge of a welt forming there. ‘I don’t feel like I hit my head.’

‘You didn’t, Jed caught you before you hit the deck,’ Mick told her. ‘He called me, and I came up from the big house. You should start to feel better soon.’

‘I feel like a walking nerve end,’ Eden muttered. ‘And so embarrassed.’

‘No need,’ Mick replied, her brisk manner a complete contrast to her grubby shirt and ragged denim shorts. ‘So, I’m pretty sure you are allergic to horses.’

‘I am?’

‘You haven’t felt like this before around horses?’

Eden winced. ‘I’ve never met a horse before or been in a stable.’ She sighed at Mick’s raised eyebrows. ‘I’m a city girl, and horse-riding lessons weren’t in the budget. Or even on the radar.’

‘Ah.’ Mick’s eyes darted over Eden’s face. ‘You’re still pale and your eyelids are drooping.’

Eden nodded. They felt concrete heavy. ‘I’m so tired.’

‘That’s a side effect of the antihistamine,’ Mick said, standing up dusting off her shorts. ‘How did you get to Elmsleigh? Did you drive?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, you’re not going to be able to drive anytime soon, because you’re basically drunk on meds. Can you call someone to drive you home?’

Eden looked at her hands and then shook her head.

She had friends, but no one close enough to drive ninety minutes to pick up her sorry self.

And her mum, well, she wasn’t available, in any way, anymore.

Even if she was, she’d say that Eden was an adult now, and it wasn’t her job to pull her out of tight spots.

Eden thought that she knew what it was like to feel lonely, but at this moment, far from home and feeling woozy, the depth of her isolation was a mental slap.

Just sometimes, not often, the acute, almost physical ache for a connection was debilitating.

She closed her eyes and blinked away her tears.

Feeling unknown, invisible and disconnected sucked.

‘Right,’ Mick briskly stated, ‘Let’s go with Plan B.’

‘What’s Plan B?’ Eden asked, taking the hand Mick held out and allowing her to help her to her feet.

She liked Mick and wondered what it would be like to have her as a friend.

At the Bancroft Foundation, she’d had co-workers but she’d kept her distance.

Probably a good thing now. At some point, when the police finished their investigation, they’d probably lose their jobs because of her.

No! Crap . Why did she keep blaming herself?

She wasn’t the one who misappropriated funds for expensive cars, luxurious trips and to pay for renovations on their house, who stole money meant for various charities, including Hope Harbour, her favourite: a house for kids, run by four single mums, who supplied emergency protective care to vulnerable children.

She’d lived with children like that; she’d witnessed their pain and seen them trembling in fear.

The women who took them in, who made them feel safe, deserved, at the very least, financial support.

That was why she’d originally brought Hope Harbour, by then on its knees, to Vince and Tara’s notice and persuaded them to ask their rich patrons to save the house from being disbanded.

When she discovered the embezzlement, Eden had selfishly prayed that Vince and Tara had kept their sticky fingers off their funds.

But no, if anything, they stole a higher percentage from Hope Harbour than they did from other charities. After she’d tallied up the total amount– more than thirty thousand pounds over two years– and stopped crying, she’d gone to the police.

Eden pulled her scattered thoughts back to a still-serious Mick.

‘You’re going to feel a little weird’— roger that— ‘and you’re going to feel sleepy for a while. And that means you need a place to sleep. I would take you back to my place, but I have two kids under the age of six. Mm, Justin is away and Jed is playing polo.’

Mick wrapped her arm around Eden’s waist and steered her toward the big house. ‘You also need to be away from horses, and anyone who has had contact with horses. So that means staying in the big house.’

Eden pointed to the house in front of them. ‘There?’

‘There,’ Mick firmly stated. ‘Troyden is a sweetheart and won’t mind you sleeping in one of the guest rooms until you feel better.’

Eden shook her head. ‘I don’t think… I can’t…’ She wasn’t ready to step into his world, not like this, not looking like a zombie with a contagious disease, and so sleepy she could barely form sentences.

‘Eden, all you need to do right now is to walk to the house and up one flight of stairs,’ Mick told her, in what Eden recognised as a ‘Scary Mummy, don’t test me’ voice. It had been her mum’s default setting.

She didn’t want to. Walk, that is. Sleep she could do, right here and right now.

Eden felt a warm, big hand on her back and turned too fast, her feet half left the ground as her body went one way and her balance the other.

She caught a glimpse of a wide chest covered in a white shirt, and a strong tanned neck, before being swept off her feet by a solid arm under her legs and another around her back.

‘I’ll carry her back to the house, Mick.

’ His voice, deep and delicious, rumbled through her, and Eden, exhausted, rested her cheek against his pec as every muscle in her body lengthened and stretched.

Maybe it was the medication, maybe it was him, but she instantly relaxed. Was this what safety felt like?

She liked it. She shouldn’t, but she did.

‘Dammit, Jed, you can’t!’ Mick half-yelled.

Jed’s grip tightened. ‘Why not?’

‘You are covered in horse dander and hair,’ Mick retorted.