under her breath as she entered the stable. Brandon was unsure if she was talking to him or the horse.
The vet, a rather solid looking man called Steve arrived soon after. He enquired where Teddy was. Apparently Teddy was the stable manager and was visiting his mum who had taken ill. Steve asked for a progress report and listened intently to what Sophia said. He seemed to put great weight to her words. The next hour or so just kind of happened in a blur of trying to help a horse give birth. Brandon was amazed at how the horse seemed to listen and understand what Sophia was saying. The mare pushed when asked and rested when told. Eventually, a beautiful baby boy arrived and once it was established that mother and baby were fine. Sophia herded both Brandon and the vet out of the stable. Steve turned to Brandon and said “This is why I find working with Sophia so interesting. She has some rather unorthodox ways about her”
Brandon raised a questioning eyebrow at them both. Sophia just laughed as she closed the stable door. She felt she needed to give an explanation to Brandon so she turned to him. It hit her like a great weight, this man was really rather nice, he had helped out with no complaints and had done everything that was asked of him and more, when clearly he was not a horsy person yet he helped re-position, roll and hold a very fat lady weighing considerably more than half a ton. How nice of him. Oh, an explanation. “You see most people get in and rub down the foal, show him where to get a feed and generally intervene, which in the wild, is all a mothers task. It bonds mare and foal. Here we let her take her time to get to know her baby. After all she is ultimately responsible for her little man’s welfare.”
“Oh” that was all he could say as he leaned over the stable door and watched as Mother checked over her baby boy. What an amazing experience to have been a part of and now there was a shiny new foal. How fascinating, thought Brandon as he looked on. They waited for the foal to find his feet. Watched as Mum washed him down and waited for him to find his way around. Apparently it was all going to plan because Sophia turned to Steve and asked him if he was coming inside for something to eat and drink. To which he said he would love to. Sophia moved towards Brandon to explain that it had become a bit of a tradition between them to partake in a celebratory drink upon a successful arrival. Brandon thought this was a hint for him to leave. As Sophia moved towards the house she turned back towards him and said “Don’t look so dejected, I’m sure Agnes has prepared you a three course meal. Come on, you’re invited too and we will look in on Grace later” For some reason this made Brandon quite excited at spending more time with the Lady Sophia. So much so that he had to stop himself from skipping his way into the house. Now that would have been just plain embarrassing.
Chapter Six
Sophia walked through the staff entrance, took off her boots and watched as both men did the same. She then turned to open a door and tripped over one of her boots taking a very unladylike stumble into Brandon’s waiting arms. She quickly recovered herself and started to walk down the long winding hall full of doorways. Good god, how embarrassing, Sophia thought as she put a hand to her forehead. Now she was falling into his arms. Was there no end to the way she could embarrass herself with this particular man. And if she thought that the hand touching yesterday had sent an electric jolt through her system then the touch of her two hands slamming into a solid wall of muscle, nearly gave her a heart attack.
Following Sophia down a hallway that had numerous doors Brandon was trying very hard to control his heart rate. Sophia literally fell into his arms, it was so unexpected and if he didn’t know a little bit about her he might have thought she had done so on purpose. Now all he had to do was get the blood to stop running into places it shouldn’t be heading towards and slow his heart rate