Page 27 of No Strings
“I’m glad my pain can cause you so much happiness.”
“Oh, come on, if you weren’t watching me like a creep, you wouldn’t have jumped like that.” She manages to get out through the laughter.
“I wasn’t exactly quiet. Maybe if you weren’t soin the zone.” I put in air quotes.
Morgan’s laughter slows. “Yeah, well, stop watching me.”
“It was just good to see you relaxed.” I shrug.
All humour is gone. “Oh, because I don’t relax?”
“That’s not what I meant, I just meant that the prick you were with tried to take something from you, and you’re getting it back.”
“Something?”
“I don’t know, your spark or some shit.” I’m really not good at this.
She looks at me puzzled. “My spark?”
“Yeah, the thing that makes you, you.”
Morgan doesn’t respond, I don’t know how she would. I walk over to her, but when I get in view of her sketchpad, she snaps it closed.
“What were you working on?”
“Nothing.” She blushes and seems sheepish. But I leave it, for now. That doesn’t stop me from asking,
“Will you show me one day?”
“Maybe.”
And with that, she’s up and walking back inside, with the fucking dingo pup following her.
She’s with me tomorrow. Because otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll come back to an emu or a fucking joey in my house. Plus, Shane trusted me to watch her. I can’t let anything happen to her, or he’ll kill me. At least that’s what I tell myself.
It’s two days before the muster, which means we need to start pushing the herd closer. Davis and Beau have already added runs to the yards that this herd will be going in.
When I tell Morgan she is with me. She tries to argue against it, but I don’t give her a choice. I don’t want to come back to her being stitched up again or to another animal.
She gave me a condition though…. Esky had to come with us.
The pup seems to already be attached to Morgan, and I guess she’s not that bad.
Two of the four jack-a-roo’s arrive today. By time we get back they should be there. Hopefully the others will arrive in the next couple of days. I want to get this lot done sooner than later. We’ll have to move a few more herds around. Watch for the last of the pregnant heifers, move them and their calves, so we can round up the latest herd we received and add the bull to the lot. Not to mention the small jobs between all of that. It never ends, and I wouldn’t mind a day or two off after this muster.
I’m lost in my own thoughts, work and the laundry list of shit I have to do there. Then there’s Morgan and the factI want to teach her self-defence, once her arm is completely healed. I am a little concerned about the jack-a-roo’s and Morgan. We’ve hired three of them before, and they’re top blokes. Hard working and ready to help whenever. But I’ve not heard of the other one, and neither has Brent.
Morgan’s voice pierces through the haze, “Rhys, stop!”
“Hmm?”
“Slow down!” she purposefully pronounces each syllable.
I look at her in question, but she just points out into the distance. I follow her line of sight and let out a sigh. What I’m about to do is going to make her hate me, more than she already does.
Morgan is out before the buggy comes to a complete stop, Esky behind her. I shift it into park while watching her make her way to the wounded animal. I take a deep breath before getting out and step around the back and reach for my shotgun.
She’s really going to hate me.
