Page 130 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

Rhys smiled for the first time.

“Let’s go get our girl.”

Chapter66

Katie

“Hello, darling.” Nanna walked out of the house, arms outstretched, with Pa coming in close behind. Bronson was all excited until he saw two strange people. His tail wagged cautiously as he pressed into my leg. She gave me a hug, then pulled back to look down at him. “And who do we have here?”

“Bronson,” I replied.

“He looks like a Bronson,” Pa said, sizing him up. “That’s one solid dog. How are you, love?”

It was his hug that cracked the thin veneer of normality I wore like a mask on the drive down here.

“I…” My throat worked as I tried to answer them, I really did. “I…”

“Come inside and have a cup of tea,” Nan said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and steering me towards the house. “A bowl of water for the dog, Larry.”

“Maybe a nice big bone?” Pa looked Bronson over speculatively. “We’ve got those big shin bones left over from that size of beef.” At his kind voice, Bronson seemed to come out of his shell. He stepped forward with a big doggy smile, and Pa grinned along with him. “Yeah, I think you’d like that a lot.”

“So, tell your old nan what’s been going on,” my grandmother said once we got inside the house. Her messing around in the kitchen, finding mugs and tea bags, had a comforting familiarity about it all. “I hear a lot about your sister’s antics. Who knew you could make a living exercising in front of a camera? Though Jane Fonda seemed to make a pretty penny doing just that.” Once the kettle was boiling, she looked squarely at me. “What about you, love?”

“Still working at the vets.” I looked at my phone and saw some missed calls from my boss. “Though maybe not for much longer. I walked out on my shift.”

“But you had a good reason, right?” she prompted gently.

“Maybe…”

I sucked in a breath, wrapping my hands around the mug once the tea was poured, the warmth bleeding through the ceramic, thawing out my too cold hands. That was when I told her everything that had happened. I didn’t even leave out the polycule. It was like a boil being lanced. All the poison had been building up for some time, and now it was oozing everywhere.

“Always were one for the animals.” Pa had returned and was sipping his own tea. “Thought you might become a vet one day.”

“Didn’t get the grades,” I replied with a wince.

“Well, there’s more than one way to work with animals. Vets, that’s an important job, for sure,” Nan added. “Though I think your pa just wanted a vet in the family so as to reduce the bills.”

“Charge like a wounded bull, they do,” he muttered.

“But what about this shelter thing? Seems like there’s a need for more shelters outside the city,” Nan said.

“Probably because they make little to no money and survive off donations.” I was reciting the Marg playbook word for word now. “Land prices have gone through the roof, so existing shelters are selling up, and new ones can’t afford to buy anywhere.” I shook my head. “It’s really tough work, heartbreaking really.”

“Never thought you were one to be scared of hard work, Katie girl,” Pa said, shooting me a sidelong look. “You were always a tough little kid, bouncing back after a setback faster than Mandie ever did.”

“She was always a drama llama, that one,” Nan said with a shake of her head. “A beautiful little girl, but… sometimes it felt like she expected everything handed to her.”

“But not you.” Pa gazed steadily into my eyes. “You always stood back, let your sister, your cousins, go first.”

“I was the oldest,” I began to rationalise.

“The most responsible.” Nan tipped her head my way.

“The most caring.” Pa drained his tea and then got to his feet. Bronson eyed him from where he was sitting in the corner of the kitchen, gnawing his bone on the lino floor. “So, how about giving your pa a hand to feed that cattle? Hasn’t been enough rain this year, and we’ve had to supplement their feed.”

“You got it.”

It felt like I’d stepped back in time then, and it wasn’t a grown woman, but a child who followed him out to the truck. Bronson did too, toting his bone hopefully.

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