Page 47

At least, he thought he did. But then what?

Hot water rains down on me. Stronger than any spray I ever stood beneath on Moondust Farm, I let it pummel my muscles in the hope it’ll wake me up and focus my mind on where I need it to be.

But Oscar is stubborn.

Irrepressible.

Steady as the earth, and yet…

I don’t know what he wants from me. Sometimes it feels like he yearns to throw me down and turn me inside out. Other times, it’s the opposite, and he flips between the two in the time it takes me to snatch a breath. Not that I mind. But it doesn’t fit a man who seems to know himself as well as Oscar does. Like, he has to know the feral streak I see in him is there, right? The dominant energy that has him gripping me hard enough to make my pulse jump as his broad body crowds mine?

But what about the version of Oscar who drags me over him? Who falls pliant to my touch and wraps his legs around me? Soft around the edges and yet still so much man in my arms? A man who so clearly needs to let go of life for a while. Decisions. Responsibility. Strip it all back to instinct and sensation until he forgets how to think.

I’m good at that. I know I am. And I like it, from the top or the bottom, I don’t care. Maybe it’s a power trip, I don’t know. What I do know is I’ve never wanted a man to pin me the way Oscar does when his mood flips. When rough hunger blazes in those cinnamon eyes and my whole body lights up in answer. I know that I want it from him as much as every other filthy fantasy passing through my mind and the only brighter image is one I’ve already lived.

He held me.

Like it was everything and nothing all at once.

Like I was.

The water goes cold. Or maybe remembering Oscar’s arms around me makes my skin and bones so warm the shower doesn’t stand a chance. Either way, I turn it off and step out, and realise I’ve been in the bathroom long enough to miss a vehicle rolling onto my property. A familiar vehicle that draws both love and exasperation from the well where I keep my emotions.

It’s another hot day, the morning sun already winning the battle against the stiff breeze blowing in from the ocean. Sunshine suits my dad. It’s his entire personality, even when he’s quiet about it. Even when his youngest child stomps out of his ramshackle house and bites his head off. “What are you doing here?”

Iggy smiles. “Saving you the bother of your mother.”

“She’s here too?”

“No. Finch distracted her.”

“From what?”

“From worrying about you, Po. It’s a lot that you’ve taken on here and she knows what it takes to man a farm that fights back.”

I can’t remember my dad’s voice. Just how it used to make me feel.

Calm.

Safe.

Because he never lies—because he’s nothing like Dav Bosanko.

My gaze strays to the top field. I see Dav on the brow of the incline, dragging dead scrub into a pile. So far so good.

I turn back to my dad. He’s spotted Dav too, but he asks me nothing about him, which tells me Folk got there first, and I’m annoyed all over again. When is my life going to be my own?

Iggy’s driven the family van from Norfolk. I’m unsurprised to find the John Deere tractor I told them I didn’t need towed behind it, along with a bed and a mattress stowed in the back.

The sheets from my old bedroom are washed and folded in a bag on the front seat. “If I let these in the house will she leave me alone?”

Iggy shakes his head. “Unlikely, but it’s a start. And sleeping on the floor is no fun, eh?”

I have no argument there. Because I haven’t slept, and I’d rather my dad think it’s because I’m uncomfortable than I’m too hung up on a local fisherman to shut my damn mind off.

We build the bed on the floorboards I sanded and varnished a month ago. I still need to paint the walls, even the one with a giant hole in, but it can wait. Everything can once Iggy’s sent a photo to Jekka. I have a farm to run. Produce to harvest and a lead at a market in the next town over.

So much produce.