Page 75 of Scapegoat

I didn’t see much of Ned that day or the next, because the prick pulled out of the job at the Hamiltons, taking his buddies with him. Vicki had fussed and George had sworn black and blue, threatening Ned on the phone to dock his wages. But I could have told them they needn’t have worried. My guys stepped up and moved even faster in response. We finished up all of their sheep, then moved onto other farms around the district. People welcomed us with open arms, even if they had a full roster of shearers on deck. Vicki had sung the boys’ praises and people saw she wasn’t talking bullshit, paying the four of us a big chunk of money, then sending us onto the next farm, then the next, until we’d be forced to move to a different area if we wanted more work.

I thought we’d gotten clear of Ned and his cronies, that he’d learned an important lesson, but men like him rarely do.

“So how’s it going, kid?” Jamie asked down the phone line. “How’s working as a rouseabout?”

“Good,” I replied, settling on the edge of the deck and staring out at the sheep. The guys were walking in and out of the cottage, loading up everything we had on the back of the truck. We’d already sold my rust bucket of a car. “Like, it’s hard work, but it pays well and it’s easy to do.”

“You sound happy, and not just with your change of career,” she prompted.

“I am.” I let out a sigh and she laughed, the sound kind of hollow and echoey over the roar of her truck’s engine. “Honest, I am. I’m just ringing to let you know that we’re moving on.”

“We’re moving on.” She snickered at that and I found myself flushing despite myself. “So, you are happy. Really happy.”

“Happiest I’ve been since the day you found me.” I blurted that out, only realising how tactless that sounded once the words were out. “Shit, sorry—”

“Don’t be, kid,” she said. There was a long silence. “I’ve known you were hurting since the moment I met you, and if those boys can take that away? Then I’m on board, one hundred percent. So where you off to?”

I told her: where we were headed, what we were thinking of doing, that we were going to stop at a concert being held in one of the bigger towns on the way.

“Raleigh, huh?” she asked. “I might be able to make a detour there. What day and what time? I wanna meet these boys that’ve put the smile back on your dial, properly this time.”

Chapter 43

“You know we don’t have to keep shearing.”

Xavier told me that as we all walked towards the gates of the Raleigh showgrounds. People were streaming forward, showing their tickets and being granted entrance.

“What do you mean?” I asked, but he only had half of my attention.

My steps felt extra springy, my whole body lighter. I’d never gone to a concert before. We would never allow that many humans to come into our hometown and even if we did, the population was too small. So I’d never felt the collective build of anticipation. I could smell people’s excitement on the wind, feel the energy that came from so many people being in the same place. Xavier smiled slightly, then shook his head before pulling me closer.

“We could do whatever you want.” He stopped us from moving forward, so that people were forced to walk around us to get in the gates. “We’ve got enough money to buy a house. We could settle down in a small town or go to the city. If you wanted to study—”

“What brought this on?” I asked, trying to dance out of his grip, but his hand tightened around mine. I could only go so far without fighting to get free.

“We don’t have to go to the next shearing job,” he said. “That’s what I mean. If you wanted—”

“I want to go inside,” I told him, tugging him closer. “I want to drink beer—”

“Have you had a beer before?” Jayden asked. “Because I’m not sure you’ll like it. Maybe we should get you a few rum and Cokes instead.”

“Because that’s a better choice,” Xavier said sarcastically.

“Whatever you want.” Atlas slid up behind me and I saw some of the humans stare and mutter as they passed. Because I looked like a girl holding the hand of one man, while getting a hug from another and I knew what they thought about that. I didn’t focus on them, twisting to meet his eyes.

“You mean that, don’t you?” I stared at Atlas, then Jay, then Xavier. “Don’t you want to go back to Stanthorpe, take your place as alphas?”

“Not if it means losing you,” Xavier said with a deadly intensity. Each man stepped forward then, staring into my eyes. “You’re the most important person in the world to us, more than our parents, our family, the town and the alphas. We’ve had a few calls—”

“You never told me that,” I said with a frown.

“Because it was never relevant until now,” Jayden said. “You were happy on the farm, so we stayed there until the work ran out. Now we’re on the move—”

“You decide where we go, what we do,” Atlas told me, offering me the one thing I really truly wanted. I’d been master of my own destiny since the moment I’d left home and I didn’t want that to stop. I sucked in a breath and another, right before I turned to him.

“Really?”

Part of me expected them to step into the role Mum had taken, one where they hassled and chivvied me from one place to the next, ‘acting in my best interest’. But each one of them only nodded in response to my question.

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