Page 57 of Scapegoat

“I’ll call,” I said, shaking my head. “Promise.”

She stepped off my deck then, onto the grass, then down the track. Her truck was parked down by the front of the property, as the shitty dirt track was too narrow and rough for her beast. Because she was walking away from me now, I jerked up a hand to wave goodbye and forced my lips into a smile, feeling a strange kind of sweet, sweet pain as she turned and headed off.

I’d run from the town square two years ago, I realised, because it was a lot easier being the person who left, rather than the one being left behind.

Chapter 34

I didn’t have a job to go to, I didn’t have anyone who needed me fussing over them at home and my bags were still packed and sitting by the door. I felt lost, pacing back and forth across my floor as the wolf whined and whined, until I was forced to grab one of the bags and start unpacking.

Or…

Or I could give into the impulses the wolf kept pushing at me. I could see her trotting over the grass and then leaping over the fence, not paying the sheep any mind as they scattered. Then running up, up the long path towards the main house, only to come to a stop at the shearing shed. There’d be sheep clustered in a holding pen, to stop them from eating or drinking for a while before they were shorn, preventing them from pissing and shitting all over the shed floor. Vicki and George would be rushing around, collecting fleeces and handing them to the wool grader to be sorted, but I wouldn’t care about any of that. The wolf would allow me to come back to skin there, in the shearing shed, and every eye would be on me as I emerged naked. But it would only be my mate’s eyes, the way they turned silver the moment they saw me, their expressions openly lustful, that I would notice. I’d crook a finger and—

Lunch, I thought, that was what I would work on. It was pathetic really, but I’d either spent no time on my own or had long, long hours of it, and I was never comfortable with either. Mum had taught me to keep busy and those instincts were what I fell back on, the tension in my body only easing when I was pulling ingredients out of the fridge and starting the prep.

Around lunchtime I carried a bag full of food towards the shearing shed. I could hear the plaintive sounds of the sheep’s bleats, the muffled sounds of men talking, but then the shed door opened and George, the Campbells and a few other men came spilling out.

It was lunchtime.

“We’ll take an hour for lunch,” George said, all business. “Vick’s cooked up a roast…” But his voice trailed away when he noted that he didn’t have the attention of my boys. George looked at me and then the Campbells, his lips twisting into a knowing smile. “But it looks like you might have other plans. We start again at two.”

“Got it,” Xavier said, right before he leapt off the shearing shed veranda and over to me, Jayden and Atlas following hard on his heels. “What’re you…?”

“What have you got there?” Jayden interrupted, pushing forward and peering at the bag.

“Lunch,” Atlas said definitively, shooting me a secret smile before he threw the butt of his cigarette down and ground it under his heel. “You made us lunch.”

“Um… yeah, but it sounds like Vicki—” I started to stammer out.

“Don’t care.” Atlas plucked the bag from my fingers, then offered me his arm. I took it with a splutter of laughter. Then, just like a gentleman of old, he escorted me around the shearing shed and to the back of the accommodation they’d been given, where a bunch of logs had been set up as a kind of impromptu outdoor seating. He dusted one off and then indicated I should take a seat.

“Whatever you’ve made is gonna taste the best,” Jayden said, sitting down and then pawing through the bag. “Oh my god…” He groaned as he pulled out a sandwich that I’d marked as his, but he didn’t look at the identification, knowing it by smell. “Corned beef, cheese and pickled onion?”

“They were always your favourite,” I said.

“Fuck. Salami, cheese and onion,” Xavier said, pulling out his.

“You remembered.” That’s all Atlas would say, staring at me, not the sandwich in his hand.

“Of course, I remembered,” I replied, then dragged my hair back from my face. “It gave me PTSD flashbacks, making those damn sandwiches over the last two years.”

“But not now,” Atlas said. He moved until he was sitting right beside me on my log. It was then that I questioned my decision to come over to bring them food, because as soon as I was close to him, my senses came alive, feeling the heat radiating off him, spelling that spicy scent I knew so well. I felt on edge, ready to run away and yet about to throw myself at him, all at the same time, humans’ sensibilities be damned.

“Not now,” I agreed, looking up.

But doing that had my eyes locking with his, seeing that they were perfectly silver in the bright sun, just like I was sure mine were. It meant I saw clearly the moment his eyes dropped down to my lips and up again, only to slide back down more slowly, more sensuously. I watched the small crease of his eyebrows, then watched his head drop a little closer, heard the whistle of his breath, before Xavier’s words broke in.

“We’ve only got an hour for lunch.”

So we couldn’t be spending it kissing, was the timely reminder, but also it helped remind all of us where we were and who was close.

“You didn’t have to make us lunch,” Xavier said, holding up his sandwich. “You don’t have to do anything—”

“But we’re glad you did, right, Xave?” Jayden shot his brother a meaningful look. “Like I’m gonna love anything you cook for us. But this was always my favourite. I haven’t had a sanga like this since…”

And there it was, the ghost of our past, but this one wasn’t an entirely malevolent one. So many of my memories with them were ones I treasured, held close to my heart. That’s why it had hurt so much—their betrayal—because it had felt like they’d torn away the one bright thing… I forced a smile, willing myself back to the here and now.

“I’m happy to bring you lunch,” I told Jay. “It’s not like I’m doing anything currently. I quit my job—”

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