An accolade indeed, coming from David, but it came too late. Caitlin steeled her heart against responding to him.
The phone rang.
David automatically picked it up. Slowly and deliberately, Caitlin signed her resignation.
‘It’s for you,’ he said, holding the receiver out to her.
She put down the pen, picked up the page and walked back to her desk. He stood on the other side of it, waiting for her. His face carried an interrogation mark. He looked puzzled. He frowned at the roses and expensive toiletries.
Caitlin took the phone and handed him the page containing her resignation. He didn’t lower his gaze to read it. His eyes quizzed hers, trying to understand what was going on. She ignored him.
‘Caitlin Ross speaking.’
‘Caitlin, this is your father.’
Her attention was immediately arrested. Her father sounded distressed. Her heart went out to him. What misery could he have endured to make him snap at such a time, on the very day he should have been celebrating thirty years of marriage with the woman he had once loved?
‘Oh, Dad...’ She didn’t know what else to say. Somehow those two words summed up her feelings.
‘I’m sorry, Caitlin. I have bad news for you.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she said gently. She had to listen to both sides, act as the peace-maker, help find a reconciliation between them if one could be found.
‘It’s Dobbin, Caitlin. He’s been terribly, severely injured.’
‘Oh, no!’ A wail of deep distress. Her pony. Her friend and confidante since she was eleven years old. In many ways that horse had filled gaps in her life more than any human being. ‘How?’ she cried. ‘What happened?’
A defeated sigh. ‘He panicked during the thunderstorm last night. He became entangled in a barbed wire fence.’
Her heart contracted painfully. Barbed wire could rip a horse to shreds. A tremor of premonition ran through her, making her feel weak and shaky. She reached for her chair, pulled it towards her, sat down. ‘Is he...?’ She had to know. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to face the worst. ‘How...how badly is he torn?’
‘I’m sorry, Caitlin.’ Her father’s voice was sad and wistful. He knew how much the old pony meant to her. ‘We couldn’t let him suffer. We had to put him down.’
She could not strangle the wail of protest at the futilities of life. It welled from deep inside her and found utterance on her lips. Her chest heaved once, twice, three times. The burgeoning grief could not be suppressed. It was too much to bear...the death of her hopes for David’s love, the death of her parents’ marriage, and now the very real death of her beloved old pony. She hadn’t even been there to nurse his head, stroke him once more, say goodbye...
Tears formed in large droplets and gathered pace as they streamed down her cheeks. She slumped forward, propped her elbow on the desk, and covered her face with her hand as she wept.
This had to be the most wretched day of her life.
‘Caitlin?’ Her father’s voice, pained and anxious.
‘Caitlin?’ David’s voice, oddly strained for him.
She struggled to regain control of herself, control of the situation. There were things she had to do. ‘Dad, where are you?’ she choked out. ‘I need...to see you...talk to you.’
She dropped her hand, her fingers scrambling blindly for a pen to write down whatever address he gave her. David’s gold pen was pressed into her hand, a notepad placed in front of her.
‘I’m at a pub. Don’t feel like going home, Caitlin,’ her father said flatly.
‘What pub, Dad?’
‘The Last Retreat. It’s down the Yarramalong Road.’
It took Caitlin three attempts before she had it correctly written down. Slowly she replaced the phone, set the pen aside, peeled off the note page, pushed herself to her feet and set a course for the coatstand where she’d hung her shoulder-bag.
She was waylaid by a broad chest and arms that gently cradled her against it. ‘What’s happened, Caitlin?’
She stared at David’s throat. She had never heard it produce words that sounded more sympathetic and sincere. Once she had craved for them. Even now, she had a craven wish to lean on the warmth and strength his body seemed to promise. She needed loving very badly. But David Hartley wouldn’t give that to her. Not the kind of loving she needed. It seemed almost funny that her tears had moved him as nothing else had. Maybe she should have wept more often.