Page 88 of Going Solo

The cow shuffled her rear end around to the side, swung her head out of the window, and walked away. Cole shut the windows and tottered across the bed towards me on his knees.

“Shall I make coffee?” he said, reaching his arms out to wrap me up in a hug. “Or do you have something else you need besides caffeine?”

My hand found his chest, stopping him in his tracks. “Not until you’ve had a shower.”

Twenty minutes later, I was wandering around Cole’s kitchen in someone else’s terry bathrobe, fighting with the Nespresso machine, when Cole wandered in, still towelling water out of his hair. He wore nothing but old torn jeans, steam still rising from his skin.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, pulling me into him and planting a kiss on my lips. “Are you ready for the invasion?”

“Invasion?”

Two tiny raven-haired children burst into the kitchen, screaming for their Uncle Cole. A minute later—as Cole stomped around the kitchen pretending to be a giant, with one niece wrapped around his leg and the other around his arm, to squeals of delight—the front door opened again and their mother, a petite Filipina woman, stumbled in.

“Sorry, Cole,” she said, out of breath. “I told them not until ten o’clock because Uncle Cole is sleeping. One minute they were hypnotised by Peppa Pig, the next the little fuckers had made a bid for freed—” She noticed me and stopped mid-sentence, wide-eyed. “Fuck me with a banister brush, it really is you. Fiona said you were here, but I didn’t belie?—”

“Juney, this is Toby,” Cole said, still stomping around with children dripping off him. “Tobes, this is my sister-in-law, June. Tully’s wife. And these brave, giant-slaying Lilliputians are Althea”—he shook his arm—“and Andrea”—he shook his leg. The children squealed and giggled.

June threw her arms around me. “You took your bloody time, but we’re glad to finally have you here.” Then she squeezed me tight and whispered in my ear, so Cole couldn’t hear. “He is a very gentle boy, and he’s been through a lot. If you hurt him, I will gut you like a pig. If you try to hide, I will track you down. I will find you. I will stop at nothing. Nowhere will be safe. Are we clear?”

I choked on my reply. “Clear.”

“Good boy.” She patted my back and released me, smiling like shewasn’ta trained assassin.

“Coffee?” I offered.

Over the course of the day, I met Cole’s brother, Tully, and his dad, Andy. After June, I hadn’t been sure what to expect. These people must have hated me for years, thinking I’d betrayed Cole’s confidence and leaked our texts. But their welcome was warm and unconditional. I felt not only like I was being adopted into the family, but like they already considered me a part of it.

At lunch, June made a stack of cold sandwiches, Tully and Andy came in from the fields, and everyone sat around the table, catching up on everyone’s news. Andy had been asked to stand for the district council. June had been co-opted onto the committee of the twins’ playgroup. Tully was having trouble fixing “the big windmill” and had to go into town for parts. Cole listened intently to all of it and, when June asked him how the tour was going, volunteered a summary as casual as if she’d asked him how his studies were going. I waited for Cole to tell his family the producers had located his birth mother, but he said nothing. I exchanged glances with him, mouthing the word “WebFlix,” but Cole shook his head.

Cole offered to help Tully fix the windmill, so when he came back from town, we went with him to the dam. It was a glorious, sunny afternoon. Cole was in his element—shoes off, stripped to the waist, climbing up and down the tower, shouting instructions back and forth to Tully. I lay in the long grass, wishing my phone had reception and sneaking photos of the world’s sexiest windmill mechanic. When the windmill was finally fixed and the tether released to let the blades turn, the water started pumping, and the brothers high-fived like teenage boys.

“You coming?” Tully asked, when the tools were packed up in the truck.

“I think we’ll hang here for a bit,” Cole said. “Might have a swim.”

Tully’s eyebrows went up. “No shagging in the water. Some of us have to drink that.”

Cole laughed. I blushed. As he took off, Tully shouted back: “Don’t forget you’re on dairy duty this afternoon. Bring the girls up with you for five o’clock.”

“The girls?” I said as the truck kicked up dust. “Aren’t the twins a bit young to?—”

“The cows,” Cole said.

* * *

We lay back in the grass, exhausted, our bodies tangled up in each other, naked as the day we were born. Insects hopped, flitted, and buzzed around us. The breeze tickled our skin, drying the stickiness that was slicked across our stomachs. I gently ran my fingers through Cole’s hair, brushing it back behind his ear.

“Why didn’t you tell everyone you’ve found your birth mum?” I asked.

Cole sighed and nodded towards the water. “We should rinse off.”

Clearly, I wasn’t getting an answer.

Cole stood, the sun shining on the magnificent nakedness of his taut, lean muscles. He held out a hand for me.

“Come on. Wash with me.”

“I thought Tully said?—”

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