Page 25 of The Science of Attraction

With dinner sorted, I grabbed a warm jacket and headed for the woolshed, indulging in a bit of exploring along the way. I slowed my steps as I passed Jules’ flat at the back of the big house so I could take a closer, completely non-nosey look. The flat shared a wall with the kitchen that must’ve been closed off at one point and had its own covered porch and entry. A pair of boots sat next to the door, and I wondered if Jules was home, and if he was, what he was doing. Then I mentally slapped myself and picked up my pace.

At the woolshed, I wasted an hour chatting with Tennyson and Brent as they passed a mob of unimpressed merinos through the sorting yard. I was inducted into the intricacies of mustering, the special properties of merino wool, and how the government and environmental groups were tying up these massive leasehold properties with so much red tape that they could barely breathe. And then it was back to the cottage. By eight, I was stuffed full of dumplings, tucked up in bed with a mediocre book that I hadn’t been able to finish for months, and fighting a disturbing propensity to go off track and find my brain pondering Jules Lane instead of reading.

Something I really, really needed to stop doing.

By ten, I was regretting the fact I’d bothered to finish the book at all. I snapped off the light in the churlish manner of an unsatisfied reader who’d wasted far too many hours of their life on a story whose unimpressive flame had sputtered and died somewhere around the sixty percent mark.

Convinced my pissy mood would keep me awake into the wee hours, I swore at the moonlight spilling through the gap in my curtains, pulled my pillow over my head, and was asleep in minutes.

CHAPTERSEVEN

Jules

“Isthat the best you can do?” Marty mocked from his seat on the tractor. He was critiquing my effort to try and roll a four-hundred-kilo water trough on its side, just a smidge to the right so the tractor could manoeuvre it through the gate and into our largest stock yard. All without making mincemeat of my toes. “Put your back into it, son.”

I whipped off my hat, wiped the sweat from my brow, and glared up at him. “You wanna get down here and lend a hand?”

He chuckled. “Now you know I’d love to, but the doc says I can’t lift heavy weights no more.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I shoved my hat back on my head. “Seventy-two years will do that to you.” Not to mention Parkinson’s Disease, which we never did. “Funny how quickly you seem to forget about your age when it comes to driving through a mid-winter storm to do the dirty with your girlfriend.”

Marty snorted and backed the tractor up a little. “Can’t deny an old man his pleasures, son.”

“Hers too, I hope. How old is she, by the way?”

He barked out a laugh. “Old enough.”

Like eighty, give or take. I smiled to myself.

“Now, don’t you worry about that. Pamela is more than happy with this old bird’s performance. Maybe I should give you some pointers?” He shot me a rheumy-eyed wink.

Holy mother of God.“Nope. Absolutely not.” The less I thought about Marty getting his rocks off in any way, shape, or form, the better for everyone.

He laughed and slapped his thigh. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

I figured I did and wanted to keep it that way. Besides, the man would’ve had a coronary if he had a clue who was currently featuring in my sex fantasies. Next to Marty, my father was positively woke when it came to man-on-man love as evidenced by the fact he’d had nothing good to say about Liam since he’d arrived. So much so that I’d had to don my boss hat—something I rarely did with Marty who’d forgotten more about merinos than I’d ever know—and told him to quit the shit-talk.

Needless to say, he hadn’t been impressed. But Tennyson had come and thanked me after, which made it easy to endure Marty’s cold shoulder for the three days it took for him to start talking to me again. He hadn’t said a bad word since, at least not in my hearing.

As for Liam himself, I’d mostly managed to avoid running into the sexy man since our chat on the road three days before, but there was no escaping lunchtimes in the big kitchen, which were proving to be a kicker to any hope I had of evicting him from that corner of my brain he called home.

Most days he sat across from me, although God only knew how that had come about. That spot usually belonged to Brent, but for some reason the quiet shepherd had recently decided to sit next to Stuart, and it wasn’t like I could get all pissy and obvious about it, was it?

End result—I couldn’t avoid catching Liam’s pretty hazel eyes more times than was entirely necessary in the space of forty-five minutes, but who’s counting? And with every question he fired my direction regarding what worms we treated, did the mustering huts have toilets, could he watch Spencer, the vet, the next time he came—like that wasn’t going to sit sourly in my stomach—and where the current price of merino wool sat, there was a quirk to his lips and a twinkle in his eye that let me know he was absolutely fucking with me.

And I deserved every bit of it.

“I need more leverage,” I grumbled to Marty, wedging myself with my back against the trough and my feet on the woolshed wall. From that position, I managed another couple of centimetres in the right direction before I had to stop, gasping for breath. “For fuck’s sake. Whatever idiot unloaded this thing here is gonna be forever on my shit list.”

I cast a questioning look Marty’s way, but he pointedly zipped his lips.

“I’ll remember that,” I grumbled, getting myself back into position. “If this next push doesn’t do it, it can sit here another month for all I care. My back’s killing me.”

Marty looked up and nodded. “The weather’s coming in, anyway. I can always have another go at shooting that pig we lost sight of last week.”

I glanced at the burgeoning clouds above Yellow Tarn and grimaced. “Shit. Ten and Stuart headed up the back of Widow’s Walk, poor sods. They’re gonna get drenched.” I eyeballed Marty. “And I thought we agreed you weren’t to hunt anymore.” I sent a pointed look to the Parkinson’s tremor evident in his right hand. It made it almost impossible for him to take a good shot and I’d gotten tired of finding rabbits and stoats who’d taken too long to die.

He huffed. “Your father has no issue as long as I’m careful.”

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