Page 53 of Stockman's Stormcloud

‘Ditto.’ He grinned at her. ‘I always said I might like you, if you didn’t scare me.’

‘But you’re attracted to Sophie. The heat between you two could melt a titanic sized iceberg.’

He didn’t want that.

‘Stop that.’ She pointed her finger in his face.

He slapped it away. ‘You stop that.’

‘I have an excuse for being the way I am. I watched my father murder my mother, then came out here where life hasn’t exactly been roses for me, buddy. Losing my son, watching those contractors strip this station of everyone’s hard work, to then face off against those bullies standing over Charlie. And your neighbour does not play fair.’ Again, she pointed at him. ‘But you, Dex, you choose to get your face punched up repeatedly. You picked one of the worst paddocks on the station to claim as your own, as if setting yourself up to fail. And you live in a tent, inside your house when you could’ve cleaned it up in no time—’

‘I was fixing other stuff.’

‘Because you don’t see your worth, so you don’t see the point of doing something good for yourself.’

‘I’m not listening to this.’ He flicked off the tap and went to walk away.

‘Oooh, I must have hit a nerve for you to walk away when you fight for everything, just like me.’ She got in his face, he couldn’t get past her.

‘Move, Bree.’

‘No. Who was she?’

‘Stop it.’

‘No. Not until you tell me.’

‘It wasn’t her—it was…’ He dropped his head, heaving for air. ‘Her son.’ He rubbed at his forehead, wishing he could forget. ‘Like you, I lost a son. He wasn’t mine, but I would’ve gladly taken him on as mine.’ He leaned his back against the wall, defeated, desperate for his lungs to work. ‘Cricket was a small boy when I first met his mother, Rach.’

Bree stepped back, thankfully, giving him space to breathe. ‘How long were you with her?’

‘Almost two years, before she went into rehab. Rach was my first and only love. At first, I didn’t know she was a junkie. Not until she began stealing from me to pay for her habit, that I learned my lesson about junkies, to know they lie all day every day to get their fix. When I finally faced the fact I couldn’t help her, I called it quits and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Except two days later she dumps Cricket on me…’

He heaved past the pain, finally taking that first decent breath in over a week. It was so much deeper than the one when they’d set the crocodile trap, this was a normal-sized breath that somehow allowed the pressure to ease around his lungs. He inhaled deeper, and held it, counting down the seconds.One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven!

Bree must have been counting as well, giving him awell-donenod. ‘How long did you take care of Cricket for?’

‘One year, seven months and thirteen days.’ He missed that kid so much. Some days his heart burned so hard it made him hate the world. And then when his nephew Mason showed up, it dragged up all sorts of gunk from his time with Cricket that he took it out on the nanny. He never did apologise to Harper for being such an arsehole to her whenshe’d first arrived.

‘Go on,’ urged Bree. ‘So you took care of this boy?’

Dex didn’t want to say more, but he knew the redhead wasn’t going to let up either. ‘I was there on Cricket’s first day of school, did school lunches, learned how to do laundry, worked out the best times to avoid the crowds for school pick-ups. I even sat and watched those dumb school plays, while avoiding the other kids’ mothers, just because Cricket was in them.’

Breathe, brother.

‘I’d take him to all his cricket practices, and I’d stay all day watching his matches. Then we’d sit on the couch watching cricket together on weekends if we weren’t out exploring.’

‘What happened?’

He ripped off the stupid nose tubing, to again roughly scrub his hand over his face as if to get rid of the emotions swirling inside him, forgetting his ribs, because heartbreak cut so much deeper.

‘Dex?’ Of course, the redhead would push for an answer.

‘Rach showed up with her new husband, someone she met in rehab, and took Cricket, and refused to tell me where they were going. And that,’ he said squarely to Bree, ‘is what broke me.’

It had shattered his flipping soul.

‘I loved that boy like a son. But what made it worse was knowing his mother wouldn’t stay clean for long. Rach was going to put that poor kid through a life of misery, and I couldn’t do a damned thing about it.’

---