That shuddering sigh, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what that was.
“That doing something makes you feel less hopeless,” I replied. “But that empowerment comes at a cost. You feel completely responsible for everything. Every death, everything and everyone that’s hurting, that’s on you to fix.”
“That.”
She nodded sharply. I’d been balls deep in this woman more times than I could count and yet this was the moment when I felt like we truly connected. When I stared at her, when she stared at me, it was like something recognised the other on a soul level.
“You can’t protect all the wildlife in Australia,” I replied softly. “Any more than I can stop the damn weather from heating up, but…” I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze, glad when she squeezed right back. “The animals you do help, the ones you get water to or to the vet’s, you’ve given them the best chance of survival, and that has to count for something.”
With a sigh, she nestled herself into my chest.
“My mom always says don’t set yourself on fire to keep the world warm.” Her muffled words felt like they were spoken directly into my heart, but that organ was struggling to process them. “I need to remember that.”
Well, Mackenzie was one step ahead of me. That was a lesson I still needed to learn.
After the heat wave was over.
I stayed with her for some time, watching my girl sleep. My eyes couldn’t help but track the way the moon cast shadows across her face, detect the sounds of her soft, measured breaths. But when I knew she was deeply asleep, I slipped out of the bed and padded down the hallway. My laptop was sitting on the dining table, the budget spreadsheet taunting me from the moment I booted up the machine.
Because maybe Dad would get his wish.
How the hell did I get here? Financial model after model laid out on the screen, but none of them would help us long term. Selling off sheep and cattle now would fix our cash flow and reduce our feed burden, but every other broke farmer would be doing the same thing in the hope of getting some return on their animals. That would be forcing prices down, meaning we wouldn’t get much money for them.
The heat had come at the wrong time, so we’d lose a bunch of crops. That would mean that come harvest time, prices would be higher, but how much wheat would we actually have to sell? If the weather had just held. If the rains had come when they were supposed to. Shame was like a prize fighter, sucker punching me in the gut, but I couldn’t allow it to drop me to my knees. Had to keep on fighting, keep on going, because there was no way?—
“Hey…” My head jerked up and I must’ve looked guilty as hell, hunched over the computer, then blinking, wide eyed at Mackenzie. “Everything OK? I’m not… interrupting anything, am I?”
“Interrupting…?” I shook my head. Fuck, she thought I was looking at porn. God, how I wish that was the case, because hiding my search history would be a whole lot easier than this. “No, I was just working on the budget.”
“Ditching me for spreadsheets, not nubile babes,” she said, coming closer. Hopefully she didn’t notice the way my body stiffened as she looked over my shoulder at the screen. “Never been so glad to see Excel on a laptop.”
I didn’t like the way her eyes scanned the columns. Some part of me wanted to hide it all away.
The evidence of my failure.
We were going to lose the farm if I couldn’t find a bloody way forward, and no matter how I racked my brain, I couldn’t seem to come up with a solution.
“Sleep,” I said firmly, shutting the laptop down. “You can’t save wild animals on only a couple of hours of sleep.”
“And you can’t bring the stock in and stop from killing your brothers if you don’t get some rest either.”
We were at a stalemate, I realised, as I stared into her eyes, so why was I smiling? Because Mum told me I’d find someone like this one day. Charlie called me on my shit all the time, but I could ignore my sister when it suited me.
Not Mackenzie.
“If you wanted to get me into bed,” I said, “you don’t have to pretend it’s for my brothers’ sake.” My fingers sank into her hair, wanting, needing to touch her. It was an urge I could barely suppress during the day, but at night? Control abandoned me, leaving me at the mercy of my instincts. “Is there something you need, Mackenzie?”
Her breath sucked in, her lips parted, and for just a moment, I thought she’d be the one to say it. Turn what throbbed between us into words, making it all the more concrete as a result. Instead, she smiled and pressed her lips against my palm.
“Sleep,” she replied. “We both need to rest.”
“We will.” Taking her hand, I pulled her down the hallway and not just because the idea of lying next to her was irresistible. Every step we took away my computer allowed me to focus on what was before me, not the dire future I would have to face. “Afterwards.”
Falling into bed, falling into her, watching Mackenzie’s every response as I touched her gave me something more than just her pleasure. I could do this, please one person, and that was enough to allow me a moment of relief. Thrusting deeper, harder, trying to crawl up inside her, because right now? Mackenzie was a soft place to land, and I needed that so damn much.
So did she.
The way she clung to me, her nails marking my flesh felt so fucking right. I wanted to wear each one with pride, knowing that under my shirt, my girl had claimed me. That drove me onwards, prolonging her pleasure until finally Mackenzie begged me to come, needing me to join her as she burned.
