Page 81 of The Mechanics of Lust

I pushed off the wall, pulled my icy hands up into my sleeves, and kept walking. Past the old Oakwood pub humming with muted conversation and the sound of someone singing “Yellow Brick Road” slightly off-key. Past the old church with its quaint graveyard and a hodgepodge of community announcements pinned to its noticeboard. Along streets packed with houses, darkened windows, and the occasional flicker of television screens. Heading home. Home, where an unopened bottle of rum sat in the cupboard above the fridge.

Home.

I thought about the word as the neighbour’s Pekinese stared at me through a gap in the curtains, its tiny eyes glowing in the streetlight.

Home.

It felt right. Maybe not this house. But this place. Mackenzie Country.

Zach or no Zach.

I huffed out a half laugh. I guess I had my answer to that last bit, already.

I stepped through my front door, threw the keys on the hall table, and made a beeline for the kitchen, walking straight past the large bag of dog biscuits I’d bought to keep on hand for Jojo and Nina. So much for that.

The bottle of rum was exactly where I’d left it when I first moved in. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard, debated whether to just down a couple of shots straight, remembered I had to work the next day, and opened the fridge for a Coke to go with it. But when I reached for the can, the harsh light landed on Callie’s green silicone band and my knees buckled.

I fell against the countertop and the bottle of rum exploded on the polished wood floor, its contents shooting from one side of the kitchen to the other.

“Jesus Christ.” Doug burst into the kitchen and I barely even blinked. “What the hell happened here?” He surveyed the mess with a shake of his head.

I turned and studied him for a second, like his presence had only just registered in my brain. “What are you doing here?”

He looked me up and down and sighed. “I saw you pass the pub looking like... well, like that—” He waved a hand over me. “—and figured that was my cue to do the whole being-a-friend thing, although you owe me the beer I left on the bar. And you didn’t even close the front door, you muppet.” He picked his way across the floor and crouched at my side. “Are you cut anywhere?” He checked me out and pronounced me a lucky, bloody idiot. “Come on, let’s get you in the shower while I clean this mess up. Then you can tell me what the fuck’s going on.”

“I’m not drunk.” I accepted his help to stand, mostly so I didn’t jag myself on any broken glass. “It’s been a night, that’s all.”

He let me go and patted my cheek. “I know you’re not, sunshine. Let me guess. Wonder boy said no to whatever you asked him?”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t have the energy to deny it. “I thought maybe... I hoped... fuck, I don’t know what I hoped. I was an idiot to expect anything. I’m hardly going through a lucky patch.”

Doug shook his head grimly. “He’s the idiot, not you.” He tipped his head to the side and studied me for a second. “What else is going on?”

“Nothing new.” I grimaced and stared up at the ceiling. “I just miss her, Doug. I miss her so fucking much.”

“Oh, Jesus.” He snapped me into a hug and I sagged against him, wanting the arms around me to be Zach’s. Wanting it more than I’d have ever thought possible.

Eventually, he let me go and steered me toward the bathroom. “Get yourself in that shower. You smell like a distillery. I’ll deal with all this. But man, the next timeIfuck up my love life, I’m calling in a favour.”

“I’ll be there,” I promised. “I’m pretty much an expert now.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

Zach

Seven daysinto muster and we finally had the last stragglers off the hill and safely mobbed at River Hut ready for Tom to drive them down to the homestead the next day. While he did that, the rest of us would shift camp to Folly Hut to start on the second mob.

To celebrate a successful first stage of muster, we decided on an early dinner so we’d be done before dark and could enjoy a few beers and relax with the paying guests who were happily exhausted and barely standing upright. They’d proved to be a nice bunch of people, enthusiastic, and keen to get their hands dirty rather than just tag along.

Genuine extra hands were always a bonus, considering the station was one of the largest in the Mackenzie Basin—about thirty-five thousand acres and change—and stocked around ten thousand merinos and three hundred head of cattle. Summer grazing pushed sky-high into the Southern Alps over land too steep for horses, and bringing down all those thousands of merinos was the job of a bunch of crazy shepherds and their dogs. Walk in, walk out, just as it had always been done.

Happy tourists made life a lot more pleasant for everyone else, which was just as well considering we’d been dogged from day one by damp weather and bone-chilling low cloud—mountain fog, as we called it. The annoying stuff hung around until mid-morning and then returned at dusk. And the weather was set to get worse with a chance of sleet or even snow over the next twenty-four hours. It wasn’t common in April, but it happened.

Not that the weather had dampened anyone’s spirits, not even those of the guests. They seemed to relish every muscle-burning minute of the roller-coaster climbs and scrambles through treacherous valleys, proclaiming the spectacular views all the more appreciated because of it. Go figure. Some people were born to smile.

Charlie and I had been allocated clean-up along with making conversation with the paying guests, except the latter were holed up in their bunks resting their aching bodies, and Charlie was seeing to the dogs. Which meant I had some rare time to myself.

I’d commandeered a seat by the fire where I could keep an eye on the happenings in the hut’s tiny kitchen while the rest of the team were busy following Holden’s—read Gil’s—detailed instructions regarding that night’s dinner—a gigantic lamb pie, mashed potatoes, minted peas, creamed fennel, roast pumpkin, and a chocolate mud cake for dessert. Gil delivered meals to the hut on a daily basis, and most only needed a minimum of prep, but Holden was an autocratic arsehole when it came to making sure we got the final steps right so everything hit the table exactly as Gil intended. We gave him shit about how whipped he was, but we wouldn’t change a thing. Gil spoiled the pants off us all.

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