And then it struck him far harder than any of her words. I’m the husband substitute, he realised in shock. She’s fighting her battle with Mack through me because he won’t talk to her. No wonder he’s lying low, poor bastard. She’d annihilate him.

The next moment a mixing spatula glanced off his ear. It hurt. Really hurt.

‘Stop that, you mad fucking cow!’

‘Don’t you dare speak to my sister like that!’ roared a regal voice from the door.

Small, fierce and unafraid of violence, Pax’s saviour stormed inside and almost upended Luca with a sharp elbow as she marched past.

Sobbing, the redhead rushed into her arms. ‘Make him go away, Lisp!’

‘Gladly.’ Luca held up his arms and backed out of the feed room.

All in all, it wasn’t his greatest first day in a job.

On the yard, the stallions were screaming at each other again.

Blood beating through his arteries like club music, he went to check on them, but the nervous energy coursing off him made Beck fly to the back of his stable to stare fearfully at him, huge black eyes awaiting punishment. Luca stepped away, finding it impossible to calm down. He knew he should go back and apologise – the woman was obviously in bits. He could hear the little deerhound puppy howling in the stables cottage.

She also had a young dog she was lousy at looking after.

As Luca went to let Knott out, the stud’s phone started ringing again, that plaintive shrill bell that he was already learning to hate. He expected Pax to sprint past him to answer it, but it rang on and on as he opened the door and the puppy burst out to cavort around him. Through the gloom he could see the hall was full of chewed paper, several puddles and a small poo neatly deposited on a shoebox lid. The phone was still ringing and the paper trail led on into the small kitchen. Luca plucked up the phone receiver, longing to drop it straight back down again, but aware that it appeared to be the only line of communication and it could be an emergency – Ronnie in crisis, or Pax’s son taken ill… He held it to his mouth.

‘Yes?’

‘Is Pax there?’ Deep, dull Scottish voice.

‘I can go and see.’ He didn’t relish the prospect.

‘Wait! Who are you?’

‘Luca. Is this Mack?’

There was a long silence.

‘I’ll go and see if I can find her, shall I?’ he asked, starting to wonder if the man at the other end had hung up, watching Pax’s puppy trotting towards him, crumpled paper in mouth.

‘No,’ Mack said tightly. ‘Just give me a moment.’

Luca unravelled some of the tightly curled phone cord, an elaborate dance that led him back almost to the hallway again. He could see the puppy’s path of destruction, which had started with a low dresser shelf of several shoeboxes, some still neatly stacked, two upended, neat A5 sheets fanned around the largest one.