Harry

Car mechanics always had the knack of putting me in a shitty mood, and Newquay’s finest was turning out to be epic at it.

“Bad news,” he said. “The parts came in, but they’re the wrong size. We ordered some more, but they won’t be here till Monday.”

“You couldn’t have told me that on the voicemail you left this morning?”

“I did ask you to call me back,” the mechanic retorted mildly.

And the fact that he had a point pissed me off even more. Monday. Brilliant. I didn’t particularly need my car, but hiking to and from the garage was something I could’ve done without today, and the fact that I’d abandoned Joe on the couch again for absolutely nothing frustrated the hell out of me.

I trudged back to the farm, pointlessly hoping that Joe had got up in my absence, done everything he needed to do, and returned to the couch. Today was typically British and grey, like summer was something that happened somewhere else, and curling up on Joe’s beat-up sofa, snatching a few hours’ sleep in between keeping the promise I’d made him would be a dream come true.

Fantasising about just how I would keep that promise kept me company on the three-mile walk, even when it began to rain and the dirt tracks leading to the farm became instant rivers of mud. The call to be wherever Joe was seemed so strong, I half expected him to be waiting for me on the doorstep, but of course he wasn’t. The house was empty, and a cursory glance around the yard found it deserted too.

Deflated and wishing like a bitch that I’d called the garage back before assuming their half-cocked mumbled message meant my car was ready, I drifted to the kitchen. Sal’s absence at lunchtime was obvious by the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Sighing, I turned the taps on and looked around for a sponge. In the yard, a horse called out. A shudder passed through me, like someone had walked over my grave. I glanced out of the kitchen window, but there was still no one about.

Idiot.

I needed a nap, but my bed was still stacked with tack, and kipping on Joe’s sacred couch while he wasn’t around seemed all kinds of weird. Yawning, I settled for finishing the washing up and boiling the kettle. Coffee was on the list of things I rarely allowed myself, but if I had any hope of getting through the rest of the day, I needed it.

It took me a while to remember how I drank coffee, and the farm had every type under the sun squirrelled away in the cupboards. In the end, I picked the cheap brand that reminded me of my father, because by then, the two hours’ sleep I’d caught on the couch had become inadequate enough to turn me into a masochist.

I was on my way to look in on the sick ponies when Toby burst into the yard, covered in mud, his face twisted in panic.

“Harry!”

I grabbed his arm to stop him barrelling into the tack room door. “Whoa. Where’s the fire?”

“It’s Joe,” Toby gasped out. “Shadow kicked him. He can’t get up. I—”

“Where?”

“Top field.”

I took off running with Toby a heartbeat behind me. Dread laced every step. I knew jack about horses, but danger had always lurked around Shadow, even when Joe rode him so beautifully. This is bad. My heart knew it even before the top field came into view.

We reached the gate. Shadow was standing on the crest of the hill, storm clouds gathering in the sky behind him. He stamped his hooves and tossed his head, blowing like an angry dragon. He bent his neck and nosed at the crumpled body on the ground beneath him.

But Joe didn’t move.

I grabbed Toby and pushed him towards the other gate. “Quick. Do something to distract that horse. I need to get Joe out of there.”

“You can’t.” Panic reared in Toby again. “Shadow’s guarding him. He’ll barge you.”

“Just do it. Where did Joe get kicked? His neck? His chest? His spine?”

Toby shook his head. “I didn’t see.”

Fear clenched my heart. If the impact of Shadow’s hooves had injured Joe’s spine or neck, I wouldn’t be able to move him. And what if he was bleeding? Or worse? Fuck. I needed to get to him, and fast.

I pushed Toby again. “Go.”

He ran off, sprinting to the other gate until he reached the trees and swung himself up like I’d taught him a week ago. He called Shadow’s name and shook the branches. Fruit began to tumble to the ground. Shadow turned his head, casting his baleful glare in Toby’s direction. For a long moment, he didn’t move a sleek muscle, and horror spiked in my chest. If I couldn’t get him away from Joe, a vet would have to come, and—

A lighter voice sounded in the field. Emma’s call was like tinkling bells, and Shadow ambled away like a soft summer breeze.

I took my chance and hurdled the gate, skidding across the wet grass until I got to Joe. He was moving—thank God—and trying to get up, but his arms wouldn’t hold him. “Easy.” I caught him. “Where are you hurt?”

“Stomach,” Joe gritted out, rigid with pain. “Motherfucker stamped on my guts.”

“Can you walk? I need to get you out of this field.”

“I—” Joe’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Joe . . . Joe. Come on, mate. Stay with me.”

He didn’t respond, and as I wiped the dirt from his face, the blue tinge to his lips scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew the human body like the back of my hand, and whatever was going on inside his body was sending him into shock.

I scooped him up and carried him to the gate. Toby was waiting, a phone clutched in his hand. He crouched beside me as I lay Joe on the path.

“Emma called an ambulance,” he said. “Her and George are trying to get Shadow into his stable. Is Joe okay?”

No.

“I don’t know, kiddo.” I took Joe’s pulse. It was strong, but his breathing was raspy, and as I pushed his T-shirt up, the hoof print on his abdomen was horrifying. “Get a blanket. We need to keep him warm.”

Toby darted away and came back with a horse rug. I laid it over Joe and held him against me to keep him off the damp ground. “Where’s the ambulance coming from?”

“There’s an ambulance station in town,” Toby said. “But you won’t hear them coming. They know since Josef died not to come up here with sirens.”

Joe’s grandfather had died three years ago. The likelihood of an ambulance crew remaining constant enough to recall instructions like that struck me impossible, but twelve minutes later, a fast-response car crept up the lane. No sirens.

By then, Joe was shivering, his skin grey, and fading in and out of consciousness. I called his name over and over, but he was too out of it to hold my gaze.

The paramedic took one look at him and called for backup. A second emergency vehicle arrived as silently as the first.

“Blunt force trauma,” the lead paramedic said. “We need to get him to Treliske ASAP.”

It took everything I had to let them lift Joe from my arms, even though I saw shades of my own brother in each of them. Joe’s hand fell limply from mine and I scrambled out of the way, but his agonised groan when they rolled him onto his back cut me to the bone.

Toby trembled beside me. I put my arm around him, hoping my terror wouldn’t seep into him and upset him more. I couldn’t articulate what Joe meant to me—I’d yet to make sense of it—but he was Toby’s hero, the farm’s fearless leader, and Toby’s tears said it all.

The lead paramedic stuck his head out of the ambulance. “We need to go. Who’s coming with him?”

No one was stopping me getting in that ambulance. Later, I’d perhaps reason that Emma had been nowhere to be seen, Sal was away, and Toby too young, but right then—right now—none of that mattered. “Me. I’m coming with him.”

I got in the ambulance and we sped away from the farm. Joe was sick before we hit the main road, and the drive to Truro was one I couldn’t describe. Three times his blood pressure bottomed out, and when we reached the hospital, he’d deteriorated so badly that he was whisked away to Resus.

A nurse directed me to a waiting area. I prowled the plastic rows of seats like a caged animal. Was this how Shadow felt in his stable? I’d watched Joe wrestle him up to the top field more times than I cared to admit and always enjoyed the moment Shadow gained his freedom, galloping away up the hill, his dark mane flying behind him. But as my incarceration stretched on and on with no news, those moments seemed like another world.

Two hours in, I lost my shit. I flagged a nurse down and asked her about Joe. “He was kicked by a horse,” I said when her face showed no recognition.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll get someone to talk to you.”

Twenty-minutes later, a doctor who appeared barely out of his teens came to find me.

“Are you a relative?”

Nope. “Yes.”

The doctor nodded, perhaps too busy to care at this point. I knew how hospitals worked. “We’ve done a scan of Joe’s head, and there’s no significant injury there—a mild concussion, perhaps, but we’re more worried about his abdomen at this stage. We’ll be taking him for an ultrasound shortly to check for any ruptures or tears.”

“Internal bleeding?”

“Yes. It’s a concern with any blunt-force injury.”

“Is he conscious?”

“In and out, but that’s to be expected. We’ve stabilised him with fluids and oxygen, and we’re monitoring his BP. After the ultrasound, we’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with, but for now, it’s a watch-and-wait situation.”

I nodded, understanding more than I wanted to. “Can I sit with him?”

“Of course. Come with me.” The doctor walked me to the alarmed doors at the end of the corridor. He buzzed us through. “Don’t expect much sense from him. He’s pretty groggy, and we’ve given him morphine and anti-emetics. Come and find me if you think he needs more.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

But the doctor was already gone—reminding me that NHS hospitals were nothing like the fictional emergency departments on Sky Atlantic—and I was left to track down Joe by myself.

I found him on a bed in the RESUS department. A nurse was monitoring him and the bed next door. I caught her eye. “Am I in your way if I stand here?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Let me know if he wakes up.”

That didn’t seem likely. Joe was on his back, his face deathly pale and lined with pain, but there was no sign of him being awake. Oxygen tubes snaked into his nose and his arm was hooked up to an IV. I read the label on the bag, but it didn’t mean much to me. My medical knowledge was limited to rehabilitation, and I was so far out of my depth right now that I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Joe’s hand seemed a good place to start. I took it and turned it over, checking for injury beneath the dirt ground into his skin, before I twined my fingers with his and squeezed, hoping for a reaction. But there was none. I touched his cheek, gently brushing away some dried mud, and squeezed his hand a little harder. “All right, mate. I’m here. You’re not on your own.”

Whether he heard me or not, I had no idea.

They took him for an ultrasound a little while later. Waiting in an empty space freaked me out, so I stepped outside to respond to the increasingly panicked messages I was getting from the farm. I called Emma. She answered on the first ring, breathless, her voice tight.

“He’s okay at the moment,” I said quickly, even though it was far from true. “They weren’t sure if he’d hit his head, so they did some tests, and he’s fine in that respect.”

“But?”

I tilted my face to the sky and gazed at the stars, tracking an airplane as it passed Orion’s Belt. “He took a nasty kick to his abdomen. The doctors are worried that it’s damaged him internally. They’ve taken him for an ultrasound to find out.”

Emma sucked in a breath. “What does that even mean? I thought he might have broken his ribs again—internal damage . . . shit, Harry. How serious is that?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out after the ultrasound. Have you called your mum?”

“I’ve left her a message. She doesn’t get a signal at her brother’s house, and there was no one in when I called.”

“Okay. What about Shadow? Did you get him calmed down?”

“I got him in his stable, but I might have to get the vet back out if he doesn’t stop booting his door. And he’s still got that huge splinter in his leg. I can’t get near him to take it out.”

The splinter was news to me, but the amped-up stress lacing Emma’s every word was horribly familiar. “Is George still with you? And Toby? Who’s watching the ponies?”

“George is. He’s moved them to the tack room so they’re closer to the house and put the donkey’s in the foaling stable, but he was up all night in the paddock, so I’ll have to send him home soon. And I can’t let Toby stay. He’s not old enough to work overnight.”

As I processed the dizzying influx of information, I found it hard to believe that George or Toby would leave the farm—or Emma—in an hour of need. But the fact remained that Joe worked so much it would take three pairs of hands to replace him. “Is there anyone else you can call for help? Friends? Neighbours?”

Emma blew out a breath. “There’s only one person I can call, but Joe will go ballistic. I’ll just have to manage.”

“I’ll help you.”

“You’re not going to leave my brother, Harry. I don’t know what’s going on between you, but I’m pretty sure I won’t see you until we know he’s okay.”

She wasn’t wrong. “I’m going to go back in. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

“Okay. Harry, I—”

“Don’t. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just take care of the horses so he’s got one less thing to worry about.”

There wasn’t much else to say. Even if I wasn’t bound to Joe by the inexplicable cord between us, the farm couldn’t manage without Emma right now. We said goodbye and I started to drift back inside, but my phone rang before I got to the doors. I expected to hear Emma’s voice again and didn’t even look at the screen. “What is it?”

“Nice to speak to you too,” Rhys said dryly. “Didn’t wake you up, did I? It’s only eight o’clock.”

“No—fuck. I can’t talk right now.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’m at Trelisk hospital with the bloke I’m renting my room from. He got kicked by a horse.”

“Shit. How bad?”

“I don’t know. They took him for an ultrasound.”

“An ultrasound of what?”

“His abdomen.”

“Probably liver or spleen then.”

He sounded so matter-of-fact that I wanted to reach through the phone and punch him. “How bad is that?”

“Trauma to any organ is serious, bro. Even if it’s non-penetrative.”

“Non-penetrative? You mean like bruising?”

“Yes. Bruising is still bleeding. It’s worse for older people—”

“Joe’s not old. He’s twenty-eight.”

“Then he’s got a good chance of recovery if they can figure out what the injury is. They can do all sorts surgically these days.

I shuddered, unable to face the prospect of Joe going under the knife. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

Rhys hummed his agreement, and I was glad he couldn’t see me. While we’d talked, I’d leaned on a damp wall, so my clothes were now as soaked as my shoes. My legs were splattered with mud, and I didn’t want to contemplate what my face looked like. “Anyway,” I said, “I’d better see if he’s back from the ultrasound.”

“Fair enough. Are you okay?”

“Why are you asking me that? I’m not the one who got booted by a horse.”

“No, but you’re my brother, and I can tell you’re stressing the fuck out. You’re a healer—you don’t do blood and guts like me.”

It was true. Rhys and I had both fallen into the world of caregiving by accident, but our fields were vastly different. He didn’t have the patience for my work, and I didn’t have the stomach for his. “I’m okay, I’m just . . . fuck, I’m just worried about Joe, man. We’re—uh—friends.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“Don’t start that shit,” I snapped. “I’m not you.”

“Whoa.” Rhys chuckled, though any humour he may have been trying for washed over me. “There goes my attempt to cheer you up. Go back in and get things squared away. I’m working tonight, so I’ll be up. Call if you need me, yeah?”

I agreed and hung up, already feeling guilty for growling at him, and went back inside to find a flurry of activity at Joe’s bedside. “You’re moving him? Where to?”

“AAU,” the young doctor said. “The scan didn’t show any ruptures, but there’s some significant bruising around the spleen that we’d like to keep an eye on.”

Bruising is still bleeding. I nodded slowly. “How long do you need to monitor him?”

“Overnight on the AAU. They’ll give him fluids and pain relief. Then he’ll likely be admitted to a ward for a few days.”

“What about recovery time?”

“Long-term?” The doctor shrugged. “If the bruising doesn’t manifest as something more serious, we’re probably looking at a month or so for a full recovery. They’ll tell you more when he gets to a ward, but I’d imagine he’ll be out of action for at least a couple of weeks.”

My heart sank. The tentative prognosis was as positive as I could’ve hoped for, but how was the farm going to cope without Joe for the best part of a month? The stables were bursting at the seams and there was no denying that Joe was the muscle around the place—

Cold fingers closed around mine, cutting my brain off mid-flail. I looked down, and Joe was awake, his bloodshot eyes fixed on me. Panic forgotten, my world narrowed to him.

I rubbed his hand, trying to warm him up. “Hey, you. How you doing down there?”

Joe shook his head, and the doctor took over, asking Joe questions he couldn’t seem to answer, and explaining what was about to happen. I held onto Joe’s hand as long as I could, but eventually, a porter came to move his bed to the AAU department, and I was left behind to update Joe’s personal information. I was halfway through the form when I realised that the only thing I knew about him was his name, address, and the faint map of freckles on the back of his neck.

It took a while to catch up with Joe in AAU, and by then, he was asleep again. I sat with him until the early hours of the morning, but around two, when nothing significant had changed, another friendly nurse kicked me out.

I took a cab back to the farm. Emma was waiting for me in the yard. “Oh god, Harry. I’ve been so worried. Is he okay?”

“As okay as he can be. He hasn’t been awake much, but that’s a good thing, apparently.”

Emma shuddered. “He’s been kicked before—we all have—but never like this. What the hell happened?”

“I honestly don’t know. Toby didn’t see it either, so I guess we’ll have to wait for Joe to tell us.”

“You didn’t speak to him?”

“He’s out of it at the moment. The drugs are doing their job.” Thank God. The brief moments Joe had been awake had been agonising for him. The nurses said he was better off asleep, and I believed them. “Where’s Shadow?”

“In his stable.”

“Is he calm?”

Emma nodded, her gaze sliding guiltily from mine.

I caught her arm. “What is it? Is he hurt?”

“No . . . actually, he’s doing much better.”

I was missing something, and despite the hold Joe had on my heart, it was none of my business, but I tightened my grip on Emma all the same. “Just tell me. No point hiding bad news, mate.”

“My dad’s here.”

“Oh.” I glanced around automatically, searching for the familiar face of a man I’d never seen. “Is that a good thing? Joe hasn’t told me—uh—much about him.”

Emma sighed. “I can tell by your face that he’s told you everything that matters, but I had no choice, Harry. I can’t handle Shadow on my own at the best of times, and we’ve got all these sick ponies to take care of too—”

I held up my hand to slow the flood of words falling from Emma as her anxiety peaked. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“I need to explain it to someone. Mum can’t get back until lunchtime tomorrow, and I know she’ll go straight to the hospital. Perhaps Dad will be gone by then, but even if he is, I feel like I need to tell someone so it isn’t a bad dream.”

I tugged Emma into a loose embrace. “I get it. Sorry, I’ve got daddy issues of my own, so I’m a bit shit when people try to talk to me about theirs.”

“You’re not shit at anything, Harry. We’d be lost without you right now.”

I had nothing. Just held Emma until the tack room door opened and an older version of Joe emerged into the yard. He stared at me for a moment and then Emma. And then he plucked a hip flask from his pocket and took a sip.

“Just a drop,” he said. “Keep me going till morning.”

I didn’t know what to say as he sloped off to the feed shed. I’d gleaned enough from my short time on the farm to know that he’d brought trouble to the farm over and over again, but who was I to say that he shouldn’t be here now? “What’s his name again?”

“What?”

“Your dad. What’s his name?”

“Jonah. I know, I know…Josef, Jonah, Joe. We’re an original bunch.”

I tried for a smile. Failed.

“Look,” Emma said quietly, “I can’t expect him not to drink at all, but he’s promised he’ll stay sensible till Joe gets back.”

I shook my head. “Emma, Joe’s not coming home for a few days, and even when he does, he won’t be fit to work for at least a few weeks. If your dad can’t keep it together for longer than one night, you’re going to have to think of something else.”

Easy for you to say. The accusation was clear in Emma’s tired face, but she didn’t say it. “Let’s get through tonight,” she said. “Dad won’t come in the house, and George is sleeping at the bungalow to keep an eye on things and help me. If Toby pulls some extra hours, the girls too, maybe it will be enough.”

I hoped so, for their sake, because Whisper Farm was the end of the road for most of the horses here. If Emma couldn’t find a way to care for them while Joe recovered, some of them would have to be destroyed.

With a heavy heart, I made Emma promise that she’d go to bed when George got up and then retreated into the house to try and claim some sleep of my own. But Joe’s couch felt like a bed of nails without him, and I managed nothing more than a fitful doze.

It was still dark when I got up and peeped out the window, smiling in spite of myself as Emma kept her promise and swapped places with George.

The smile faded when Jonah appeared in the yard a few minutes later, and I couldn’t make sense of how the sight of him made me feel. He was clearly nothing like the only father I’d ever known, but he’d hurt his family multiple times just the same. Did that make him as bad as mine? Better? Worse?

I was still puzzling it over sometime later when the landline in the living room rang. My hand hovered over the receiver. What if it was a horse rescue? The farm had no capacity to take any more horses—and no Joe to coordinate a rescue—but was it my place to refuse?

It wasn’t, but I picked up the phone anyway. Whoever it was deserved a straight answer. “Hello? Whisper Farm.”

“Good morning. Could I speak with Harry, please?”

I frowned. The chipper female voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Erm . . . this is Harry.”

“Hello, Harry. Sorry to disturb you so early. I’m Dawn, one of the AAU nurses at Truro hospital. I’ve been looking after Joe this morning.”

My hand gripped the phone hard enough for it to creak. “Is he okay?”

“He’s a little agitated,” the nurse said. “I think it might be helpful if someone could come to the hospital and sit with him. Are you able to do that?”

“Of course.” I started for the door before I remembered that the landline phone was connected to the wall. “I’ll be there in half an hour. Tell him I’m coming.”

I dropped the phone and blurred around the room collecting the T-shirt, socks, and shoes that I’d discarded earlier in an effort to convince my brain that it was time for sleep. Outside in the yard, I got all the way to the gate before I remembered that my car was still in the garage.

Fuck! I dashed back to the house and searched the kitchen for the keys to Joe’s van, the horsebox, even the battered motorbike that George tinkered with from time to time—anything with wheels. Anxiety gripped me so entirely that I didn’t notice Jonah watching me until I barrelled right into him. “You’re not supposed to be in the house.”

It came out fiercer than I’d intended. Jonah stepped back, his gaze mild. “I ain’t coming in. Just poked my head around the door to see what’s got you all fired up. Something wrong?”

“I’m looking for the keys to Joe’s van. The hospital called and asked me to go back.”

Nothing changed in Jonah’s expression—not even a flicker of concern as he inclined his head to the dresser by the door. I followed his direction to a bowl, with half a dozen sets of keys in, and recognised Joe’s van keys immediately.

I grabbed them. “Thanks.”

“No worries. You going to be okay driving on these wet roads?”

“I’ll be fine. What are you going to do?”

“Get back to work, I suppose, lad.”

Jonah took another step back, allowing me to barge around him and shut the front door behind me, locking it. I jogged across the yard, feeling Jonah’s eyes tracking me. I was in the van, the keys jammed in the ignition, when he called out.

I wound the window down. “What?”

“Tell the boy the horse is fine.”

“Which horse?”

But Jonah was already walking away.