Christmas at the Second Chance Chocolate Shop. Kellie Hailes

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СКАЧАТЬ one.’ She brought the palms of her gloved hands together and rubbed them back and forth. ‘Right, first things first. Your first job is to grab a dry wipe, a fresh one for each cow, and clean their teats, starting at the head of the line.’

      ‘Um, what?’ Ritchie took a step back, his heart skipping a beat. ‘You want me to touch those? Nope. Not going to happen.’

      Serena gave an exasperated huff. ‘Fine. Don’t. It’s no skin off my nose. But don’t expect a comfortable stay here. You told Mum you’d help, going back on that promise won’t end well.’

      Damn it. Did she have to act so casual? Like she didn’t care one way or the other. Oh, that’s right. She didn’t. Ritchie stared at the teats dangling before him. He could do this. He had to. ‘Fine. I wipe the teats clean. Then what?’

      ‘Then you check to make sure they’re healthy. If the udder seems swollen, hot or tender, or if the cow has recently recovered from mastitis, then you forestrip and check the milk.’

      ‘Forestrip? You want me to get naked and check the milk?’ Ritchie’s stomach curdled in suspicion. Was Serena having him on?

      ‘Bloody hell, Ritchie. That’s gross. Unhygienic too. No, it means you milk the cow a little. This girl’s fine, but I’ll show you how just in case you need to do it.’ She took a teat between her hands and manipulated it so milk shot forth into the bowl she was holding underneath.

      Acidic liquid burned its way up his gullet. What the hell was he doing here? Offering to do this? He didn’t know how to milk a cow. He wasn’t interested in touching teats.

      ‘Now you do it.’ Serena stepped aside. ‘It’s not hard. Just wrap your thumb and forefinger up round the base, then gently squeeze it, but don’t dick around, make it quick.’

      ‘You don’t expect me to do that.’ Ritchie eyed the bowl Serena was holding out to him. ‘I mean, isn’t it a bit… intrusive.’

      Serena paused and closed her eyes with a small shake of her head. ‘This isn’t going to work. You don’t want to do it. And even if you did, Mum can’t leave you up here alone. If there is something wrong with one of the girls you’re not going to know. What the hell was she thinking taking you up on your offer?’

      ‘Probably hoping it’ll send me home. Get me out of her hair. Out of your lives for good.’ Ritchie eyed the teats. ‘Shows she doesn’t know how determined I am. Move over, I’m going to have a go.’

      Serena stepped to the side with a flourish of hand. ‘She’s all yours. Just remember, grip and squeeze. Gentle and quick. That’s the key to it.’

      Ritchie took a deep breath, closed his hand around the teat and did as he was told, jumping as the cow bellowed.

      ‘She senses your nervousness. Pretend she’s your guitar. Pretend you’re an expert. Pretend…’

      ‘Yeah, yeah, I get it. Fake it ‘til I make it.’ Taking a big, calming breath in, he gripped and squeezed. And just like that a squirt streamed into the cup, and another, and another. Ritchie laughed. ‘It’s working! I’m a natural! That’ll show your mother.’

      ‘She’ll be furious.’ Serena grinned as she indicated for him to stop. ‘More so when I tell her she’ll have to supervise you to ensure the herd’s health is up to scratch. I won’t have time. Hell, I don’t have time. I shouldn’t even be here.’

      ‘Maybe that’s part of why she so readily agreed to let me help out.’ Ritchie mused. ‘Maybe she thought you’d feel obliged to help me out, make sure things didn’t go wrong. Maybe she hoped it would make you see sense. See that this is the place you’re meant to be. If that makes sense.’

      Serena acted as if he hadn’t spoken as she unhooked the cups set next to the cow. ‘Now after you’ve wiped and checked the cow over, you attach the cluster.’ She demonstrated how then nodded at the line. ‘You do it for the rest of the girls.’

      Ritchie took a fresh dry wipe from the dispenser, moved to the next cow, cleaned off the teats, then attached the cups. ‘Was our life together really that bad, Serena? Did you really hate it that much?’

      Serena forced herself to meet Ritchie’s eyes. It would be so easy to lie, to say yes, it really was that bad. And while she didn’t want Ritchie here, she also didn’t want to hurt him further. ‘No. Not at all. So much of what we shared was great. Amazing, actually. How many girls from a small village in the middle of nowhere get to lounge about in five-star hotels, walk down red carpets wearing dresses that haven’t even hit the stores, travel the world, visit places they’ve only ever read about…’

      ‘Remember that time we holidayed in Bora Bora?’ Ritchie’s eyes twinkled as he prepared another cow for milking. ‘Days spent bathing on the deck of our overwater bungalow. Nights spent making love…’

      Serena knew what was coming next. The funniest, craziest and possibly most embarrassing moment of her life. One they’d laughed about for years after, usually while snuggled up on the outdoor loveseat at their Malibu home, the waves beyond crashing onto the golden sand.

      ‘I can see by those rosy cheeks of yours, Serena, that you haven’t forgotten. You dared me to go skinny dipping in the ocean, so we did.’

      Serena met Ritchie’s gaze. Held it. She could go down memory lane one last time if it meant proving her point. ‘And then you challenged me to a swimming race. First to stop would have to give the other a full body massage each night for the rest of the holiday’

      ‘And we swam and swam to what felt like the end of the horizon, then realised we were too tired to swim back.’ Ritchie inched closer to her. ‘Thank God that fishing charter passed by, or we would have been fish food.’

      Serena forced herself to turn away, to not engage. To keep the moment light, to stop it turning intimate. ‘Which I still think would have been preferable to being hauled out of the water naked as the day I was born in front of a boat load of tourists.’

      ‘We gave them the ultimate holiday story. A goggle at our goodies felt like a fair trade for them saving our lives.’ Ritchie turned back towards the cows and began cleaning and cupping the last in line for milking.

      ‘It was a good time, Ritchie. There’s no denying that.’ And it had been good. One of many amazing moments they’d shared. But moments didn’t change a person’s personality.

      ‘It was a great time. But a decade of great times wasn’t enough to keep us together…’

      ‘That’s because my leaving had nothing to do with the lack of good times.’ Serena gritted her teeth. It was time to be as straight up as she could. Her decision to leave Ritchie had been of the snap variety, but the events that had led her there had been a long time coming. ‘My leaving had to do with me finding my way, finding myself. When we first met I was a girl looking for adventure, excitement, passion. All the things I believed I’d never find in Rabbits Leap. Despite Mum’s belief that I was born to be a farmer I knew that wasn’t the case. I like cows, but I’m not passionate about them. Anyway, I’d promised my parents I’d return home after my education was over, but in my heart I knew I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to be happy. Yet with every passing month at university I could see that fate closing in around me.’

      Ritchie’s head jerked back. ‘Are you saying you used me to ensure you didn’t have to return СКАЧАТЬ