Page 101 of Stockman's Sandstorm

She nodded.

‘Damn.’ He ran fingers through his hair. ‘I can’t seem to win.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been slack. Work. The boy. Everything …’ He sipped the coffee rich and black, and carefully left Mason sleeping. ‘Ryder’s offered to give me my money back to get out of the partnership.’

‘But you love mustering and this place.’

‘I’ve been slack.’

‘So change.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘If you want to change, change. Set an alarm, so you don’t sleep in. Go to bed earlier, stop playing games all night.’

Games. Ha. He’d played with her to the brink of exhaustion, and he would have kept going if he hadn’t volunteered to check on Mason. ‘Talk about a bit of tough love before breakfast, Harper.’

‘Don’t look at me for sympathy, when I’m not exactly playing my A-game, either.’ She walked out in a huff.

He followed her, swiping a pair of jeans and T-shirt from his room.

‘I’m not looking for sympathy,’ he said, sliding into his jeans in the large living room with the boxes pushed against the wall, it only held a few dog beds, a beanbag, and lots of toys. ‘And don’t ask me what I want, because everyone else has been asking the same thing.’ Did he do the wrong thing with Harper last night? Yet, it had felt so right. Where were his boots?

‘Don’t worry, I’ve been asking that same question about myself.’

‘What do you mean?’ He slid on his T-shirt and froze. Was she going to give him the sorry this won’t work out speech?

‘Sitting here, in this house, alone, trying to find something to do, when normally I never have time for myself, I really struggled.’

‘So, what did you do, besides rearrange the house and organise stuff?’

‘I tried to cook a meal. And that flopped. And—and …’ She screwed up her nose.

‘What? Spit it out.’ Please don’t dump me.

‘I read that letter from the government. The one you said you’d show me. It accidentally fell out of the pile of paperwork when I was clearing the table.’

‘How much coffee have you had?’ She was powering through her words. But he found some socks and his boots.

‘One. It’s cold.’

‘You’re the only person I know who drinks cold coffee.’ He sipped his coffee, which was nice and hot. Then slid on his socks and boots and stamped the soles against the floor like normal. ‘Suppose I’d better get out there. We’re fixing the drafting yards.’

‘So, you’re just going to pretend it’s all normal, then?’

‘Well, my brothers won’t kick me out, although Ryder wanted to fire me.’

‘I’m talking about us.’

‘Oh.’ That woke him up. ‘I want to take you out.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I’m not sure about the details yet, but I want this. You and me, I want us.’ Hell, yeah.

But Harper crossed her arms over her chest. ‘First, we need to talk. There are things we need to discuss.’ She seemed adamant about it.

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