A Roll in the Hay, стр. 17
Her blouse was silk, expensive, and that creamy colour that only seemed to happen above a certain price range. It crushed a little under her heavy wax jacket, but it was too brisk outside still for anything less.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, extending a hand to the vet.
The tall, bearded man in his fifties shook it with enough force to dislocate an elbow.
Susannah wrung her fingers free as quickly as she could. At least he had the rough skin of someone who actually worked for a living.
“No bother, lass. Bit of a drive for our practice, but it sounds like you’ll be needing someone here full-time, eh? That should make it worth our while.”
“That might be necessary in the future, yes.” Susannah kept her tone light, but she could already tell this man hadn’t read the detailed briefing she’d had Finn send out for firms to quote on. “I’d like to start with the current commitments, though. If you’d like to follow me?”
The entire walk down to the stables, Susannah endured a torrent of mansplaining about everything from how the hedges were trimmed to the type of gravel that made up the paths.
“Right,” she finally interrupted as they got to the stables, “we can start with my own horse. This is Billie Jean.”
It was hard not to be proud of the striking chestnut, just under sixteen hands high. Billie Jean whinnied softly at the sight of Susannah by the stable door.
“That’s quite a choice of name,” the vet remarked. “Women are so inventive about these things, but I’m more of a traditionalist.”
“My late husband named her. She was a wedding gift to welcome me to my new home. Jimmy was quite the tennis fan. Almost went professional as a young man.”
“Ah. Right. May I…?”
He didn’t wait for the okay before opening the door and stepping into her stall.
Billie Jean huffed at the intrusion, so Susannah gave her a reassuring stroke down her long muzzle. Clearly neither of them was very impressed so far.
“She’s had a tough life, this one. Her legs look a bit overworked,” Mr Vet called from somewhere near the back. Susannah had already forgotten his name.
“She was a racer,” she replied. “She has a light load here, though, plenty of gentle exercise.”
“Don’t like the look of these fetlocks,” he continued, stroking various parts of the horse without waiting to see how she reacted to each one. “Have you thought about her lifespan?”
Susannah patted Billie Jean more forcefully, resisting the urge to hug the big girl. “She’s been perfectly fit since she came here. Listen, perhaps we should move on to the others? There are four horses stabled here for now, with room for at least a dozen more. Unless you’re ready to just write them off now?”
“No, I can inspect them. But thoroughbreds come with their own complications; I’m sure you know that. I know you probably left the care and maintenance to the stable hands growing up, but you’ll have picked up some bits along the way.”
Susannah gave him a tight smile as he reappeared, slapping Billie Jean on the flank as if she were a second-hand car he was trying to sell. There was little doubt that this working relationship would be unbearable, but the trouble with a big country estate was that it was only near to so many places, and only a few of those had large veterinary practices.
“Okay, let me show you McEnroe,” Susannah said. “And for the record, I did grow up riding, but my parents always had me take care of my own horses too. We didn’t just defer to the staff.”
He shot her a smug look that said anyone with staff wouldn’t know the first thing about mucking out horses, and Susannah was tempted to grab a pitchfork and start tossing some hay around on principle. Did people really think a title meant she’d never lifted her hand to an honest day’s work?
The rest of their conversation was downhill from there, but mercifully short. Mr Vet seemed unshakeably confident that he had the estate’s business as he got back into his truck.
Susannah ran her hands over her hair in frustration before heading back into the house.
“Well?” Finn said as soon as Susannah entered the home office. “Does that solve all your problems?”
“I think it’s our only choice, but I’m going to sleep on it another night.”
“But you said—”
“And now I’m saying I want to sleep on it. There are other priorities, Finn. Get me a chef and enough farmhands to handle the work we already have.” Susannah started to build into a ranted to-do list.
Finn grabbed a tablet and started typing.
Susannah caught herself, and took a deep, deep breath. “Sorry. I know you’re on top of it. That man, though… I want to believe we can do better than a patronising old git.” Susannah threw her hands up in despair as she collapsed into her desk chair.
“You know what I’m going to suggest, but I don’t want you taking my head off, so it can wait until tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Finn. I’ll be in a better mood then.”
Finn stopped on the way out of the office. “Sure about that?”
“Well, no. But I live in hope.” Susannah waved Finn off and turned back to the next problem in the stack.
“Morning!” Margo called out from the staff room. She held a mug of something that smelled herbal and yucky, and a sticky bun the size of her head. Beyond greeting Tess, she seemed engrossed in a couple of newspapers spread out across the table. “Glad you decided not to hate me, by the way.”
“You look like you’re tracking down a murderer in an old-fashioned cop show.” Tess, holding her travel mug of piping-hot coffee, took a seat. It was a nice space to hang out in—some kind of storage room converted into a spacious