Page 5 of Rough Stock

‘I remember.’ Wishing he didn’t. Or that familiar tingling feeling he got from her holding him. ‘And you’re not weird.’

Her brow ruffled in confusion.

Sadly, he couldn’t switch off his protectiveness over her, no matter how hard he tried, especially when she’d call herself weird. She wasn’t.

Izzy had a high-functioning distinctive neurodivergent profile, so said the doctors. With a blend of ADHD, and a whole bunch of other letters that ended with the worddisorder. To Craig it was a lot of unkind things to say about Izzy’s uniqueness, until one of them said she wasgifted.

Simply put, Izzy’s incredibly high-functioning brain would become so hyper focused on one subject—which was perfect for a criminal case lawyer—that her brain would spin so fast it’d become overstimulated, she’d end up crashing on the couch, burnt out and overwhelmed by everything, unable to even speak in full sentences. Mental fatigue, they called it.

As the smartest woman Craig had ever known, Izzy always made sense. She was just too smart to be the wife of this simple stockman.

‘Don’t worry, I brought some teas and other goodies.’ Izzy sat her suitcase on the verandah and headed back to the ute.

Didn’t that do something to his masculine ego, watching her unload his gear while he struggled to open the back door. ‘I’ve been meaning to fix this door.’ But then again, he only shut it when he was going off mustering for months at a time. He only ever came back to Dustfire in the wet season, to watch the rain fall, drink beer and wallow in misery—which is why he rarely bothered to come back.

This was supposed to be home, yet both of its owners did their best to avoid the place. But it was a trillion times better than the hospital, even if he was being forced into some home detention-like prison sentence at the mercy of his wife, Izzy.

Back at the hospital, she’d relished holding out a hand to his visitors, as if to shake it in a business meeting, complete with an icy smile, saying,‘Hi, I’m Craig’s wife. And you are?’

Didn’t that send the ladies scurrying down the corridor, never giving him a chance to explain. All while Izzy laughed, relishing the game of being his gatekeeper.

Although she did flatly refuse to bring home any of the flowers delivered to his room. Some might think the ever-callous Bee Queen was jealous, but he doubted it.

Izzy dumped her shopping bags on the kitchen bench and perched her sunglasses on her head. ‘Does the fridge work?’

‘Of course.’ It had one job and that was to keep his beer cold.

‘Silly question. You’d need it to keep your beer cold.’

It was spooky how, even after all these years, she could still read his mind.

Izzy poked around the fridge, giving him a superb view of that arse of hers.

‘Ew. Are you conducting some sort of science experiment with this?’ She held up a jar of pickles filled with mould.

He couldn’t even remember buying them.

She tossed the jar into the bin, only to drag the entire rubbish bin over to the fridge and completely gut it.

‘Hey, that’s my food.’

‘If you want to die a slow and horrible death from botulism, sure, eat away.’

‘This is a horrible death, this homecoming hell.’ His crutches clanged to the floor as he slowly sank onto his couch. With the kitchen bench blocking his view, he rubbed his ribs that irritated him to no end.

Wait a second? Did this mean Izzy was going to cook and clean the place?

Hmm…Stroking his chin—noting he needed a shave and a shower to get rid of that hospital smell—this arrangement might just work out.

The large living room and kitchen area held little furniture, just the table and chairs that came with the place. It had a bookcase he’d slapped together from some left-over wooden pallets, just so he had a place for his rodeo trophies, ribbons and belt buckles. And he had a couch. But the place could do with a clean, maybe a coat of paint. ‘What do you want to do with the house?’ Not that he was giving in to her request to sell, he was just too tired to argue.

‘Clean the walls and windows. Maybe paint it?’ Izzy dragged inside an empty wooden crate, tipping it over to create a coffee table, putting a glass of water on top.

Hmm, this might work out nicely.

‘You seriously didn’t buy any more furniture?’

‘What you see is what you get, sweetheart.’

---