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The last mounting nut for the light won’t play ball. I wrench the spanner around and it slips off. Out of patience, I lift the spanner to smack it, but the distinct sensation of someone behind me derails my temper.

I spin around. Search the darkness and spot the lone figure crossing the yard. The tall lone figure, broad and masculine, muscles contained in a linen shirt, salt-washed ripped jeans, and sand-scuffed boots.

Oscar.

He’s on me before I can make peace with what I’m seeing—what I’m feeling—as my pulse kicks up a gear and giddy anticipation hits my veins.

Big hands grip my hips, tugging me away from the tractor. One slides to my face and Oscar kisses me like he owns me, bruising my lips before he pulls back with a sigh and a rueful smile.

“No more work, Po. Come inside and show me how you are feeling tonight.”

We don’t fuck.

But as frustration and fatigue become something far better, we do pretty much everything else. Then we fall asleep together and I feel something settle in me before I wake up the next morning. A feeling that lasts long after Oscar’s gone.

In my limbs.

In my blood.

In my throat that’s razed and sore from being louder in bed than I’ve ever been aware of before.

Oscar is a fast learner.

And he was already satanically good with his mouth. As days become weeks, and we spend almost every night he doesn’t have Aras in my bed, I lose my voice entirely.

At least, I think I do. It’s hard to tell. All I really know beyond that Oscar sells every berry and leaf of surplus produce I give him, is that my throat hurts from the rough sounds ripping from it when he makes me come.

With his hands and his mouth.

With the magic finger dance I teach him as moonlight streams through the crater in my bedroom wall.

I’m still not over that happening; that I wanted it to. And I should be. I learned a long time ago how I want Oscar—and how he wants me—is fluid. Changeable. Unlike the weather, which is currently supplying the hottest, driest summer Porth Luck has known in years. Or so Dav keeps telling me on the rare occasions I manage to pin him down. He’s been avoiding me for days and it’s obvious it’s because he’s noticed Oscar is around so much.

Obvious until a lone bike rolls into my yard one day and my labourer disappears in a puff of pipe smoke.

I shake my head and make my way down from the top field. By the time I get there, Folk is off his bike and inspecting the new front door I fitted last night while Oscar was at sea. “You don’t like the colour?”

He turns, sidestepping the blazing midday sun, holding my gaze for a beat. “I like green. Are you feeling okay?”

“Erm…think so. Why?”

“You sound like you have the flu.”

Damn. My throat. I swallow and point at the ever-present smoke curdling the air from the neighbouring farm. A reasonable explanation for whatever my voice is doing. And with anyone else I’m related to, it’d probably work. Folk, though…there’s a reason his friends call him a man who knows things, and right now, he knows I’m not telling him the truth.

Which instantly annoys me. “You’re staring.”

“Am I?”

“I’m deaf, not blind.”

Folk’s lips twitch, as though he’s fighting a smile. I hate that too, so I stomp away from him and shoulder my way into the barn to retrieve oil for the tractor. My tractor—Edna. I still haven’t used the one Iggy towed from Norfolk.

Of course Folk follows me, catching my shoulder before I get too far.

We can talk like this, he signs.

I roll my eyes. “Don’t start with that.”