Harry’scar.
Harry and Sal got out, laughing like they’d known each other twenty-four years, not hours. Emma appeared at my shoulder and peered out of the window with me.
“That’s cute,” she said. “I think she has a crush on him.”
I elbowed her in the ribs. “Not funny.”
“I wasn’t being funny. Mum deserves a bit of jam in her life. Why can’t she have a toy boy?”
I suppressed a growl as Sal and Harry came inside carrying boxes of weird green shit that looked suspiciously like cabbage.
“Kale,” Sal said when she caught my bemusement. “Harry said it’s good for us.”
I switched my glare to him, but he wasn’t looking at me, his attention snatched away by one of the farm’s semi-feral cats. “Don’t be nice to them,” I snapped. “We’ll have them all in the house then.”
Harry stopped petting the cat like he’d been burned.
Emma thumped my arm. “Right. Like you don’t sleep every night on the couch with a dozen of them. Besides, they keep the rats away.”
Harry finally met my gaze. “You sleep on the couch? Why?”
They were all staring at me, even Sal who’d given up on this conversation with me years ago. And Harry aside, theyknewthe answer, which should’ve made what I had to say easy.
But it didn’t. I could ignore Mum and Emma for the rest of my life, but Harry’s earnest gaze cut right through me. He didn’t know why I’d slept on the couch every night since I’d moved back into the house five years ago, but he knew—somehow—how it made mefeel.
Really? Telepathic now, are you?
But I was right. Every instinct that hadn’t burned away in a life of disappointed cynicism sensed it down to the bone. And it infuriated me.Who the fuck does he think he is?
Irrational rage was a Carter trait and it flowed through my veins, bubbling out of me in moments when it was least helpful. Like now. I dropped my bowl on the table, splashing the damn-fucking-cat, and picked up the van keys. “It’s not fucking rocket science that I don’t want to sleep in a dead bloke’s bed. I’m going into town to get that head collar fixed. Don’t call me unless someone else dies.”
I stomped out of the kitchen and out to my van. It was low on diesel, but for once, there was money in the accounts—Harry’smoney—to fund a trip to the petrol station. The irony wasn’t lost on me as I crunched the gearbox and rumbled out of the yard, and the faint shame crawling in my belly only irritated me more. The nervous horses in their stalls kept me from tearing off with screeching tyres, but I did it in my head.
It took a mile and a half for me to pull my head out of my arse, which wasn’t bad as Carter tantrums went. My grandma would throw things at Grandpa for days when he got on the wrong side of her. I wasn’t that bad—these days, at least—anddamnif I didn’t feel bad for growling at Harry.
I turned into town, avoiding eye contact with the bazillion out-of-town V-Dub drivers clogging up the roads. I told myself it was because tourists got on my tits, but truthfully, I was jealous. It had been a long time since I’d last chucked a sleeping bag in my van and headed to the beach without a care in the world, save where to buy bangers for the barbecue. My teenage dreams were long dead, and seeing yuppies from the city playing at a life that should’ve been mine pissed me off.
Filling the tank felt like sin, but I did it anyway. Who knew when the money would next be there? My phone rang when I got back in the van—it was the farm. I toyed with not answering, given the conditions I’d set out about calling me before I’d flounced off, but responsibility haunted me. “What?”
“Elaine just called,” Sal said. “Dad’s asleep in the street again.”
“So?”
“So she wants someone to go and get him before opening hours.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Joe.”
Only my mum could lecture me with a single word. I put the phone on speaker and started the van. “What? You think I should peel him off the pavement and bring him home for lunch?”
“No. But I do think it’s better if one of us does it rather than the police. We’ve had enough dealings with them this week, don’t you think?”
I’d seen both sides of the rozzers this week, but I took her point. They’d only bring him back to the farm anyway if I didn’t get there first.
“I’d go myself,” Sal said when I didn’t answer. “But you have the van.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” I was done with my mum dealing withhisshit. “Besides, I need to talk to him about Dicky McGee.”
