Ellie squeezes back into me. Having her cuddled up to me in bed has helped with the bitter sting of loneliness that finds me during the night, my mind wandering back to the night that Maverick spent in my bed.
Should have been our bed now.
I was so hoping he would have called it ours.
“Come on, girly, let’s get up, I’ve got to get into the office today. I think I’ve done enough hiding don’t you?” I say to my daughter as I rub my nose against hers, causing a beautiful childish giggle to leave her mouth.
The purest sound sometimes in this cold shitty world.
****
Sitting back in my office chair, I open up my laptop and head straight towards my emails; forty-seven to be exact, unopened, from God knows who.
Clicking onto the email from one of our many customers, reordering their yearly supply of beef, I hear the door to my office swing open and bang on the external wood, my head snaps automatically in the direction.
Colter stomps in, cowboy boots hard against the floor and hard against the atmosphere that’s now been created by his presence.
I watch him as he stomps over towards my mini fridge, take out my bottle of whiskey alongside a glass. I keep my structure still as he makes enough noise to wake somebody from the dead and finally sits in the chair opposite mine.
I stay silent, as he pours himself a glass, refusing to look away from him; yet he’s decided to refuse to look at me.
“You okay, honeybee?” I snicker at his hated nickname I gave him years ago, but my brother doesn’t look up from his glass.
“Colt? Can I do anything foryou?” I ask him again, urging him to speak to me.
He swirls the liquor around in his glass, looking at it with such concentration, I almost think it’s about to start moving on his own.
“You’ve stolen my hiding spot,” he finally answers me, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“Sorry,” I shrug at him, grin forming at his ridiculous notion. This is my office after all.
Deciding to let him come to me, I divert my eyes back to my laptop and begin tapping away at the keyboard, finally doing some much needed work after playing hooky all week; well, more like drowning in my own shit.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you in here,” he offers me and I stop typing to give him my full attention.
“No?” I question.
“No.” he confirms.
Man of many words my brother.
The atmosphere between us becoming tighter as the minutes etch on, the topic of conversation at the tip of my tongue. My eyes drift in between my laptop screen and my brother, who has drunk his glass of whiskey and poured another.
“Colt?” I question but before the conversation leaves my mouth my brother shuts me down. “I haven’t spoken to him,” this time his eyes finally meet mine.
“I wasn’t going to-” I start but realise there’s no hope in trying to fight my brother on this.
“Why haven’t you? He’s been here, right?” I double throw out the questions as I watch his annoyance show.
“Mabel,” he says, almost higher than a whisper and as if on autopilot I close my mouth and get ready to listen to him. “I haven’t seen him, I placed him on barn duty,” he says, grip tight around his glass, I nod back at his admission.
“Sucks to be him,” I joke, throwing my brother a wink that causes an almost smirk from his stern look, which causes my smile to become a little brighter.
Just like he always knows how to make it.
“I’m sorry,” I offer to him, causing his eyes to lock sharply onto mine and the annoyance growing more in his frown lines.
“The fuck you got the be sorry for?” he scoffs and I shrug, not quite knowing what to say to him.
