The Mighty Quinns: Teague

The Mighty Quinns: Teague

Kate Hoffmann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Copyright

KATE HOFFMANN has been writing for fifteen years and has published nearly sixty books. When she isn’t writing, she is involved in various musical and theatrical activities in her small Wisconsin community. She enjoys sleeping late, drinking coffee and eating bonbons. She lives with her two cats, Tally and Chloe, and her computer, which shall remain nameless.

To Dr Greg B, DVM, for his insights

on equine veterinary medicine.

And for taking such good care of

Chloe and Tally!

Prologue

Queensland, Australia—August 1996

TEAGUE QUINN STRETCHED his arms over his head and closed his eyes against the sun, the warm rays heating the big rock beneath him. The wind rustled in the dry brush. The sounds of the outback were so familiar they were almost like music to him.

He’d managed to escape the house before anyone noticed he was gone, saddling his horse and riding out in a cloud of dust, the shoe box tucked under his arm. When he wasn’t working the stock with his father and brothers, he was tending to some other job his mother had conjured out of thin air. He wondered what it might be like to live a normal life, in a grand house in Brisbane, where daily chores didn’t exist.

There’d be girls and parties and school and sports—all the things fourteen-year-old boys were supposed to enjoy. Teague sighed. Most boys his age didn’t like school, but real classrooms with real teachers, chemistry and biology and physics and math, these were things he’d never experienced.

Instead, Teague was stuck on a cattle station in Queensland, with his parents, his two brothers and a rowdy bunch of jackaroos. Classes took place at the kitchen table, him and his brothers gathered around the radio listening to School of the Air. The closest town, Bilbarra, had a library and a small school, but that was a two-hour drive, much too far to make it practical day to day. Some of the kids on the more profitable stations were sent away to boarding school, but Kerry Creek wasn’t exactly swimming in cash. Though the Quinn family wasn’t poor, they weren’t in the big bickies, either.

Teague heard the sound of hoofbeats and pushed up on his elbows, scanning the approach to the big rock and cursing to himself. Would he ever be able to get away from his brothers, or would they be following him around the rest of his life?

When he didn’t see a rider coming from the direction of the homestead, he glanced over his shoulder and watched as a horse galloped full bore from the opposite direction, its rider hunched low in the saddle. Scrambling to his feet, Teague stood on the rock, ready to defend his territory against the interloper.

The boy drew his horse to a stop, the animal breathing heavily. From beneath the brim of a battered stockman’s hat, he stared at Teague, a grim expression on his face. He wasn’t very big, Teague mused, sizing up his chances if it came down to a fistfight.

But then suddenly, the boy smiled. “Did I scare you?” In one smooth motion, he brushed his hat from his head and a tumble of wavy blond hair revealed not a boy, but a girl. His breath caught in his throat as he stared into her pale blue eyes. Teague swallowed hard. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

“I scared the piss out of you, didn’t I? You should see your face. You’re as pale as a ghost.”

Teague scowled, embarrassed that she’d noticed his reaction. “Nick off. I wasn’t scared. Why would I be scared of a mite like you? You couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding.”

She slid off her horse. “Oh, yeah. Well, you’re so stupid, you couldn’t tell your arse from a hole in the ground.”

Teague opened his mouth, shocked to hear that kind of language from a girl. But then, he really had no experience talking to girls. With no sisters, he wasn’t sure how girls were supposed to talk. On the telly, they always seemed to act so proper and prissy. This girl was acting more like his brothers.

She hitched her hands on her waist and stared up at him. “Well, are you going to give me a hand up or are you going to be mingy about the view?”

Teague studied her for a long moment. There wasn’t much to fear from her. She was at least a head shorter than him and a few stone lighter. Though, in a verbal sparring match, she’d probably slice him into dinner for the dingoes. He reluctantly held out his hand and pulled her up beside him.

She scrambled to her feet and took a good look around. A frown wrinkled her brow, then she plopped down and sighed deeply.

“You don’t like the view?”

She shook her head. “I thought I might be able to see the ocean.”

Teague laughed, but when he saw the hurt in her eyes, he realized the depth of her disappointment. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he sat down beside her. “You can’t see the ocean from anywhere on this station. Even if you get up to the highest point. It’s too far away.”

She cursed beneath her breath before turning away from him. “I used to live near the ocean. I could see the water every day. I wish I could see it again.”

A long silence grew between them. “That must have been nice,” he finally ventured.

“It was better than living out here. Everything is so…dusty. And there are flies everywhere.”

“Yeah, but you don’t get to ride horses in the city,” Teague offered, surprised to find himself defending the outback. “Or keep cattle. Or have a lot of dogs. And you don’t see lizards and ’roos like you do here.”

“You like animals?” she asked, her disappointment forgotten as suddenly as it had appeared.

Teague nodded. “Last month I found a bird with a broken wing. And I healed it.” He pointed to the box beside him. “I’m going to let it go today.”

“Can I see?” she asked, bending over the box.

Teague picked the box up, said a silent prayer, then lifted the lid. The sparrow immediately took flight and the girl clapped her hands as it flew into the distance. He felt his cheeks warm. “Maybe it healed itself. It’s only a sparrow, but I kept it alive until it could fly again. I find hurt animals all the time and I know how to make them well again.” He paused. “I like doing that.”

A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “All right, there is one good thing about living on Wallaroo.”

Teague swallowed hard, wondering if she’d just paid him a compliment. Then her words sank in. “You live on Wallaroo?” He hadn’t even considered the possibility. But now that he thought about it, this was the girl his parents had had been talking about. “You’re Hayley Fraser, then.”

She seemed surprised he knew her name. “Maybe,” she replied.

He’d heard the story by way of eavesdropping. Hayley’s parents had been killed in an auto wreck when she was eight years old. She’d been moved from foster home to foster home, until her grandfather had finally agreed to take her. According to Teague’s mum, old man Fraser hadn’t been on speaking terms with his only child since Jake Fraser had run away from home at age eighteen. And now, his poor granddaughter was forced to live with a cold, unfeeling man who’d never wanted her on Wallaroo in the first place.

Teague’s mum had insisted that Wallaroo was no place for a troubled young girl to grow up, without any women on the station at all, and with only rowdy men to serve as an example. Yet there was nothing anyone could do for her. Except him, Teague mused.

“You ride pretty good,” he said. “Who taught you?”

“I taught myself. It doesn’t take much skill. You hop on the horse and hang on.”

“You know your granddad and my father are enemies. They hate each other.”

Hayley blinked as she glanced over at him. “No surprise. Harry hates everyone, including me.”

“You call him Harry?”

She shrugged. “That’s his name.”

Teague felt an odd lurch in his stomach as his eyes met hers. She had the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen. His gaze drifted down to her mouth and suddenly, he found himself wondering what it might be like to kiss such a bold and brave girl.

“It’s because of that land right over there,” Teague said, pointing toward the horizon. “It belongs to Kerry Creek, but Har—your grandfather thinks it belongs to him. Every few years old man Fraser goes to court and tries to take it back, but he always loses.”

“Why does he keep trying?”

“He says that my great-grandfather gave it to his father. It’s part of the Quinn homestead, so I don’t know why any Quinn would ever give it away. I think your grandfather might be a bit batty.”

Hayley turned and looked in the direction that he was pointing, apparently unfazed by his opinion of her grandfather. “Who’d care about that land? There’s nothing on it.”

“Water,” he said, leaning closer and drawing a deep breath. She even smelled good, he mused. He reached up and touched her hair, curious to see if it was as soft as it looked, but Hayley jumped, turning to him with a suspicious expression.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Teague said. “You had a bug in your hair. I picked it out.”

She sighed softly. “I better get home. He’ll wonder where I am. I have to get supper ready.”

Teague slid off the rock, dropping lightly to his feet. Then he held his hands up and Hayley nimbly jumped down. His hands rested on her waist as Teague took in the details of her face, trying to memorize them all before she disappeared.

Hayley quickly stepped away from him, as if shocked by his touch. “Maybe I’ll see you again,” she murmured, looking uneasy.

“Maybe. I’m here a lot. I guess if you came out tomorrow night after supper, you might see me.”

“Maybe I would.” She glanced up at him through thick lashes and smiled hesitantly. Then she gave him a little wave and ran to her horse. Teague held his breath as she hitched her foot in the stirrup and swung her leg over the saddle. “So what’s your name?” she asked as she wove the reins through her fingers.

“Teague,” he said. “Teague Quinn.”

She set her hat on her head, pushing it down low over her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Teague Quinn.” With that, Hayley wheeled the horse around and a moment later, she was riding back in the direction from which she’d come.

“Shit,” he muttered. Now he knew exactly what his mother had been talking about when she’d insisted that someday he’d meet a girl who would knock him off his feet.

“Hayley Fraser.” He liked saying her name. It sounded new and exciting. Someday, he was going to marry that girl.

1

THE DUST FROM the dirt road billowed out behind Teague’s Range Rover. He glanced at the speedometer, then decided the suspension could take a bit more abuse. Adding pressure to the accelerator, he fixed his gaze down the rutted road.

He’d finished his rounds and had just landed on the Kerry Creek airstrip when the phone call had come in. Doc Daley was in the midst of a tricky C-section on Lanie Pittman’s bulldog at the Bilbarra surgery, and needed him to cover the call. It was only after Teague asked for details that he realized his services might not be welcomed. The request had come from Wallaroo Station.

The Frasers and the Quinns had been at it for as long as he could remember, their feud igniting over a piece of disputed land—land that contained the best water bore on either station.

In the outback, water was as good as gold and it was worth fighting for. Cattle and horses couldn’t survive without it, and without cattle or horses the family station wasn’t worth a zack. Teague wasn’t sure how or why the land was in dispute after all these years, only that the fight never seemed to end. His grandfather had fought the Frasers, as had his father, and now, his older brother, Callum.

But all that would have to be forgotten now that he was venturing into enemy territory. He had come to help an animal in distress. And if old man Fraser refused his help, well, he’d give it anyway.

As Teague navigated the rough road, his thoughts spun back nearly ten years, to the last time he’d visited Wallaroo. He felt a stab of regret at the memory, a vivid image of Hayley Fraser burned into his brain.

It had been the most difficult day of his life. He’d been heading off into a brand-new world—university in Perth, hundreds of miles from the girl he loved. She’d promised to join him the moment she turned eighteen. They’d both get part-time jobs and they’d attend school together. He hadn’t known that it was the last time he’d ever see her.

For weeks afterward, his letters had gone unanswered. Every time he rang her, he ended up in an argument with her grandfather, who refused to call her to the phone. And when he finally returned during his term break, Hayley was gone.

Even now, his memories of her always spun back to the girl she’d been at seventeen and not the woman she’d become. That woman on the telly wasn’t really Hayley, at least not the Hayley he knew.

The runaway teenager with the honey-blond hair and the pale blue eyes had ended up in Sydney. According to the press, she’d been “discovered” working at a T-shirt shop near Bondi Beach. A month later, she’d debuted as a scheming teenage vixen on one of Australia’s newest nighttime soap operas. And seven years later, she was the star of one of the most popular programs on Aussie television.

He’d thought about calling her plenty of times when he’d visited Sydney. He’d been curious, wondering if there would be any attraction left between them. Probably not, considering she’d dated some of Australia’s most famous bachelors—two or three footballers, a pro tennis player, a couple of rock stars and more actors than he cared to count. No, she probably hadn’t thought of Teague in years.

As he approached the homestead, Teague was stunned at the condition of the house. Harry Fraser used to take great pride in the station, but it was clear that his attitude had changed. Teague watched as a stooped figure rose from a chair on the ramshackle porch, dressed in a stained work shirt and dirty jeans. The old man’s thick white hair stood on end. Teague’s breath caught as he noticed the rifle in Harry’s hand.

“Shit,” he muttered, pulling the Range Rover to a stop. Drawing a deep breath, he opened the window. His reflexes were good and the SUV was fast, but Harry Fraser had been a crack shot in his day. “Put the gun down, Mr. Fraser.”

Harry squinted. “Who is that? State your name or get off my property.”

“I’m the vet you sent for,” Teague said, slowly realizing that Harry couldn’t make him out. His eyesight was clearly failing and they hadn’t spoken in so many years there was no way Harry would recognize his voice. “Doc Daley sent me. He’s in the middle of a surgery and couldn’t get away. I’m…new.”

Harry lowered the rifle, then shuffled back to his chair. “She’s in the stable,” he said, pointing feebly in the direction of one of the crumbling sheds. “It’s colic. There isn’t much to do, I reckon.” He waved the gun at him. “I’m not payin’ you if the horse dies. Got that?”

They’d discuss the fee later, after Harry had been disarmed and Teague had a chance to examine the patient. He steered the Range Rover toward the smallest of the old sheds, remembering that it used to serve as the stables on Wallaroo. Besides that old shack on the border between Wallaroo and Kerry Creek, the stables had been one of their favorite meeting places, a spot where he and Hayley had spent many clandestine hours exploring the wonders of each other’s bodies.

Teague pulled the truck to a stop at the wide shed door, then grabbed his bag and hopped out. The shed was in worse condition than the house. “Hullo!” he shouted, wondering if there were any station hands about.

To his surprise, a female voice replied. “Back here. Last stall.”

He strode through the empty stable, each stall filled with moldering straw. A rat scurried in front of him and he stopped and watched as it wriggled through a hole in the wall. While the rodent startled him, it was nothing compared to the shock he felt when he stepped inside the stall.

Hayley Fraser knelt beside a horse lying on a fresh bed of straw. She was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, the toes of her boots peaking out beneath the ragged hems of her pant legs. They stared at each other for a long time, neither one of them able to speak. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Teague thought, his mind racing. He’d always imagined they’d meet on a busy street or in a restaurant.

Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, she blinked and pointed to the horse. “It’s Molly,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’m pretty sure she has colic. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t get her up.”

Teague stepped past Hayley and bent down next to the animal. The mare was covered with sweat and her nostrils were flared. He stepped aside as the horse rolled, a sign that Hayley’s diagnosis was probably right. Teague stood and reached into the feed bin, grabbing a handful of grain and sniffing it. “Moldy,” he said, turning to Hayley.

“I got here last night,” she explained, peering into the grain bin. “When I came in this morning she was like this.”

“She might have an impaction. How long has she been down?”

“I don’t know,” Hayley said. “I found her like this at ten this morning.”

Teague drew a deep breath. Colic in horses was tricky to treat. It could either be cured in a matter of hours or it could kill the horse. “We need to get her up. I’ll give her some pain medication, then we’ll dose her with mineral oil and see if that helps.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Hayley asked. “What about surgery?”

Teague shook his head. “I can’t do surgery here. And the nearest equine surgical facility is at the university in Brisbane.”

“I don’t care what it costs,” she said, a desperate edge to her voice. “I don’t care if I need to charter a jet to fly her there. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

He chuckled softly at the notion of putting the horse on a jet. “We’ll cross that fence when we come to it,” Teague murmured. “Help me get her up.”

It took them a full ten minutes of tugging and prodding and slapping and shouting before Molly struggled to her feet, her eyes wild and her flanks trembling. The moment she got up, she made another move to go down and Teague shouted to distract her, slapping her on the chest and pushing her out of the stall.

He handed the lead to Hayley. “Keep her walking, don’t let her go down again. I’ve got to fetch some supplies.”

Teague ran toward the stable door, then glanced over his shoulder to see Hayley struggling with the mare. Thank God they had this to focus on, he mused. It was difficult enough seeing her again without demanding answers to his questions and explanations for her behavior.

He opened up the tailgate on the Range Rover and searched through the plastic bins until he found a bag of IV fluid, which he shoved in his jacket pocket. He took a vial of Banamine from the case of medication. Then he grabbed the rest of the supplies he needed—a hypodermic, IV tubing, a nasogastric tube and a jug of mineral oil—and put everything into a wooden crate. When he got back to the stable, he saw Hayley kneeling on the dirty concrete floor with Molly lying beside her.

She looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I couldn’t stop her. She just went down.”

Teague set the crate on a nearby bale of straw, then gently helped Hayley to her feet. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen Hayley cry. Not a single tear, not even when she’d fallen from her horse or scraped her knee. He’d never thought much about it until now, but it must have taken a great deal of strength to control her emotions for so long.

“Don’t worry,” he said, giving her hands a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll get her up.”

Then he brushed the pale hair from her eyes, his thumbs damp from her tears. It had been so long since he’d touched her, so many years since he’d looked into those eyes. But it seemed like only yesterday. All the old feelings were bubbling up inside him. His instinct to protect her had kicked in the moment he looked into her eyes and he found himself more worried about Hayley than the horse.

Teague didn’t bother to think about the consequences before kissing her. It was the right thing to do, a way to soothe her fears and stop her tears. He bent closer and touched his lips to hers, gently exploring with his tongue until she opened beneath the assault.

Cupping her face in his hands, he molded her mouth to his, stunned by the flood of desire racing through him. They were teenagers again, the two of them caught up in a heady mix of hormones they couldn’t control and emotions they didn’t understand.

He drew back and smiled. “Better?” Hayley nodded mutely and Teague looked down at the horse. “Then let’s get to work.”

It was as if the kiss had focused their thoughts and strengthened their bond. Though he wanted to kiss her again, he had professional duties to dispatch first. And saving Molly was more important than indulging in desire. They managed to get the horse on her feet again and pushed her up against a wall to keep her still as Teague inserted the IV catheter into her neck. Drawing out a measure of the painkiller, he injected it into the IV bag.

“There. She should start feeling a little better. Once she does, we’ll dose her with mineral oil. If it’s an impaction, that should help.”

They walked back and forth, the length of the stable, both of them holding on to Molly’s halter. At each turn, he took the time to glance over at her, letting his gaze linger.

Without all the slinky clothes and the fancy makeup and hair, she didn’t look anything like a television star. She looked exactly like the fresh-faced girl he used to kiss and touch, the first girl he’d ever had sex with and the last girl he’d ever loved. Teague clenched his free hand into a fist, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her again.

“So you got home yesterday,” he said.

Hayley nodded, continuing to stare straight ahead. He could read the wariness in her expression. If she was feeling half of what he was, then her heart was probably pounding and her mind spinning with the aftereffects of the kiss they’d shared.

“I’ve seen you on telly. You’ve become quite a good actress.” This brought a smile, a step in the right direction, Teague thought. “I heard you won some award?”

“A Logie award. And I didn’t win. I’ve been nominated three times. Haven’t won yet.”

“That’s good, though, right? Nominated is good. Better than not being nominated.”

“It’s a soap opera,” she said. “It’s not like I’m doing Shakespeare with the Royal Queensland.”