Harry

I was going to kill them—all of them. I didn’t care that there was three of them and one of me, they were going down.

And they knew it too, if their hasty steps back were anything to go by.

Sal grabbed my arm. “Don’t, Harry. It’s okay. I’m sure Dicky didn’t mean it.”

I pried her hand loose and pulled her further behind me. It didn’t matter if they’d meant it. I’d come outside to find three men surrounding her, backing her against the wall, demanding who the fuck knew what.

Fuck that.

I stepped forward. The guy at the front held up his hands. “Now look here. I don’t want any trouble. Sal knows I just want my money, fair and square.”

“Fuck off. You’re on private property.”

“So? Ain’t my fault her old man has waltzed off with cash that don’t belong to him, is it? I want paying.”

His voice was rising, like he thought the louder he spoke, the more likely I was to give a shit about what he had to say.

Fucking joker. I didn’t give a shit. We were inches apart now. He leaned forward a fraction, and I was done.

I threw him across the yard. He landed heavily on his side, rolled over, and fixed me with a look that could go either way. I glanced at his friends. They didn’t move. Didn’t look at me.

This bloke was on his own.

He got shakily to his feet. I braced myself to bounce him across the yard again, but suddenly Joe was between us, his hand on my chest, his face obscured by his lean, coiled shoulders.

“What the fuck is this, Dicky?” he spat. “I told you not to rock up here, you daft cunt.”

Dicky—apparently—turned to Joe, though he kept his gaze on me. “I warned you, lad. Your old man owes me, so someone’s gotta pay.”

“And I told you that it didn’t have jack shit to do with the rest of us. Get the fuck off my land.”

“Your old man’s for it if I see him.”

“I don’t care!” Joe shouted, but the smallest of tremors caught the words.

It was tiny, barely there at all, but I heard it, and so did Dicky. He smirked and, for a man who was more bulge than brawn, moved quickly into Joe’s personal space, prodding him with a fat finger. “I’ll burn this place down if I have to—what’s left of it. I want my money.”

I’d heard enough. I opened the door to the feed store and pushed Sal inside. Then I pulled Joe behind me too and lunged at Dicky again. “Get off the fucking land, arsehole.”

He stumbled back into his friends. They gripped his arms and started to drag him away, but he fought them, and they let him go.

I was ready for him. A Land Rover I presumed was theirs was a few feet away. I propelled him towards it and he crashed into the side. “Get in.”

“Piss off. Look at you, all muscles and faggy clothes. You his fucking boyfriend or something? Pair of fairies.”

I laughed. It had been a hell of a long time since my sexuality had been used against me like that, and hearing it now in such clichéd terms was so fucking ridiculous that humour was all I had. “Just get in the car, mate. Before you get hurt.”

Dicky’s pals hit the Land Rover, one of them falling to his knees. I didn’t have to look to know that Joe had put him there. Or that Joe was right behind me. Even through the haze that had descended the moment Dicky had come up on Sal, I felt Joe everywhere.

The man on his knees scrambled to his feet and got in the Land Rover. His mate followed, but Dicky remained.

Joe stepped around me and closed a hand around his brawny throat, pressing his elbow into his chest. “I don’t care about your money. If you come on my land again, or even breathe near my family, I’ll burn you alive. You got it?”

I believed him. And so did Dicky. He spat on the ground and reached for the door handle behind him. “Fucking pikeys, the lot of you. Always have been. Your pa hasn’t heard the last of this.”

Joe released him. Dicky got in the Land Rover and his mate gunned the engine. They roared out of the yard with a hail of gravel, leaving a cloud of diesel fumes in their wake. I tracked them down the lane and passed the bungalow and only let my breath go when I was sure they’d made it to the main road.

The haze evaporated, but in its place came the mess I’d been in the first time I’d ever raised my hands to someone. Nausea flared in my gut and spread out, its acid tendrils creeping through my veins like lava.

I spun around as Sal emerged from the feed store. She was fine. Joe’s anger vibrated through me, but he was fine too. They were all fine. It was done. It was over, and I needed to get the fuck away from it all before I lost my shit all over again.

Joe touched my shoulder. I brushed him off and walked away from him, ignoring him when he called my name. If my car keys had been in my pocket, I’d have made my escape that way, but they were upstairs in my room, and before I knew it, so was I.

I shut my bedroom door and leaned against it, my heart thumping in my chest. Fighting wasn’t my bag, but I was good at it—I’d had to be—and a sick part of me got off on it when I didn’t keep myself in check. When I let myself be like him.

’Cause let’s face it . . . it was in me, whether I liked it or not.

I closed my eyes, parroting the bullshit I’d fed Emma to get her out of the house. “The only constant in life is change. And I’m ready for it.”

But was I? Until now, the farm had seemed a sanctuary from the real world—the last place I’d pictured myself squaring up to someone—but it was clear now that I’d been naive. Joe’s family had drama just like everyone else. More than everyone else, if the scene in the yard was anything to go by.

A shudder passed through me. Those men had stood no chance of getting anywhere near Sal, even before Joe had appeared, but they’d meant business when they’d first arrived. If I hadn’t been there, how far would they have gone? Would they still go? They’d threatened to burn the farm down if Joe didn’t get to them first. Did they mean it?

Pondering that question reignited the anxiety dancing in my chest. I exhaled long and slow, trying not to fight the inevitable. A full-on meltdown was probably avoidable if I could get out for a run, but that would mean facing Joe and Sal, and I wasn’t ready for that.

Not yet.

I went to my desk and forced myself to work. The words didn’t flow, but I hammered them out anyway, until my cracked muse gave up on me. I was staring moodily at the nonsense I’d typed when a knock at the door made me jump. “Come in,” I called, expecting Sal.

Joe slipped through the door and shut it behind him. He leaned on it in much the same way I had, but didn’t close his eyes. Instead, he stared at me, curious—expectant, even—like he was the one waiting for an explanation.

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” he asked quietly.

I turned back to my laptop. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Not if you were paying attention. Pretty sure Dicky McGee told you all you need to know about my family drama.”

“So, what else is there to say?”

Joe pushed off the door and came close enough that I could smell clean sweat and hay. “Whatever you want to tell me? I mean, I’m grateful that you twatted them, but I’m curious about the death moves. You wanted to kill him. Why?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was disturbed that Joe had read me so easily, but I stood by my actions, however he’d interpreted them. I forced myself to look at him. “You wouldn’t kill someone who put their hands on your mum?”

Joe’s eyes darkened. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“Yeah, well. You know how it went down. He wanted money, she wouldn’t give him any, so he got tricky with her. I moved him on . . . that’s all. Guess he’s lucky it was me, not you, eh?”

“Not necessarily. I had a row with him a few weeks ago. Got nicked for it. But he still came here and got in my ma’s face, so I can’t be that intimidating.”

I begged to differ. The fact that a man as big as Dicky McGee had felt the need to come back with two equally large men said a lot, even if they had taken the pathetic route of harassing Sal. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

Joe came closer still. He crouched beside me, his elbows on my desk, his forearms tanned and strong. “I don’t know.”

“Are you worried?”

“I’m always worried, but having an idiot drunk for a father will do that.”

“Is he violent?”

“Christ, no. I wish he was. Perhaps I’d understand him better.”

I laughed. Couldn’t help it. “You’d understand your father better if he hit you?”

“You said violent. You didn’t specify that it had to be towards me. Am I missing something here?”

He was missing the world—my world—but why would he want to share it with me? Why would anyone? I tapped a key on my laptop to bring it back to life. “Trust me, you’re not missing anything. Is Sal okay?”

For a protracted moment, Joe stared at me, his eyes deep pools of something I couldn’t escape. Didn’t want to escape. But he sighed before I caught up with him, and the moment passed. “Ma’s fine. She’s used to dealing with my dad’s mess. If you’re okay too, I’m going to head out and try to get to the bottom of this bullshit.”

“You’re going after those blokes?” Tension rippled through me. The urge to kill had simmered down while I’d sat and brooded on where it had come from, but the thought of Joe fighting alone reignited the worst kind of fire.

He touched my arm, lightly at first, but then his fingers closed around my wrist, his thumb pressing against my pulse point. Sometimes I wondered if people could hear my thundering heart, but I didn’t care if Joe heard it, if it outpaced his by a mile. How could I care about anything when the heat of his touch reached every part of me?

“I’m not going after Dicky,” he said. “I want to, but I’ve fucked up too many times to believe it will change anything. Besides, I can’t get nicked again for at least a year.”

“Got a record?”

“Little bit.”

“But Dicky McGee’s the one harassing you.”

“Don’t mean nothing in this town. We’ve got too much gypsy blood in us for the police to ever take our side.”

Gypsy blood explained Joe’s wild eyes and dark complexion, and as I glanced around my borrowed room, little clues that I’d missed made sudden sense. There was even a Romani trailer abandoned in one of the fields outside. How had I not made the connection before? “Your grandpa was a gypsy.”

It wasn’t a question, but Joe nodded anyway. “Roma. Came over from Bulgaria in the thirties. He was travelling with a circus, but when it all kicked off in Europe again, they couldn’t go back. He trained horses in Norfolk for a while, then came here to work as a farrier.”

“How did he end up with this place?”

“He won it in a card game. We’ve bought more land legitimately over the years, but this house is someone else’s history.”

“Sounds like you have plenty of history here.”

Joe’s eyes darkened again. “Too much. Listen, Sal’s going to be downstairs for the rest of the day. Would you mind keeping an ear out while I go deal with my old man? I know it ain’t your problem, but—”

“It’s fine.” Everything was fine while Joe’s hand was still millimetres away from holding mine. “Your mum is safe with me.”

“I know.” And then he was gone, away and to the door before he looked back. “Hey, Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Come have a beer with me later, if you’re not too busy. Maybe we could both use the company.”

* * *

I took my role watching over Sal and the farm seriously. It was the perfect excuse to abandon my work and sit by the window. I watched George arrive on his rickety old bike, bring the oldest mares in for an ear inspection, and then push chaff through a machine that was older than he was. Some days I helped him bundle the chaff into bags, but I wasn’t in the mood for even his quiet company today.

A little while later, Emma appeared in the lane from the bungalow. I tracked her as she came to the yard, comparing her slender frame and pale complexion to Joe’s. They moved with the same grace; I couldn’t imagine Joe creeping across the yard with the trepidation I saw in Emma now.

The decent fella in me thought about going downstairs to greet her. To smile at her and push a cup of tea into her hands like everything was okay. To help her forget the inexplicable terror that so often paralysed her. But I stayed upstairs and left her to Sal. Helping Emma with her anxiety was important enough to keep me up at night, but my brain was fixated on myself right now, and she deserved better.

In an effort to distract myself, I let my mind drift back to Joe, then immediately wished I hadn’t because that was a vortex I could drown in all day long. I pictured him as I’d found him that morning, asleep on the couch, his face boyish and smooth—innocent, almost—then compared it to the Joe who’d hurled Dicky’s accomplices to the ground, and then the Joe who sat up all night nursing a poorly donkey. It was hard to believe they were the same man.

At least it would've been if I’d been a different man myself.

Early evening, Sal knocked on my door and told me it was dinner time, but I didn’t go down. I returned to my laptop and opened a blank document. I thought of Emma, and Joe, and everything they’d been through to make them such different people. After all, Joe’s father was Emma’s too, but the anger, the resentment, the raw pain was absent from her eyes when she spoke of him.

Why?

Four-thousand words later, I still had no idea, but an essay on the effect of personal relationships on the spirit was halfway done. I shut my laptop. I’d veered way off course, but the words I’d vomited out had legs. They had to, or I was wasting my time.

Something drew me back to the window. The gang had left after dinner, and the house and yard were quiet, but there was an energy in the air I couldn’t decipher until I spotted movement in the top field. The sun was setting, casting a rosy glow across the horizon as Shadow cantered the perimeter of the field, his powerful legs and shoulders moving like liquid poetry. Joe was on his back, no saddle or helmet, his torso bare to the evening air. Even from this distance, I saw his strong shoulders and leanly muscled chest. He was glorious.

I watched him for a long time, enchanted. At one point, he seemed to return my stare, his flinty gaze and steely set jaw turning my insides to mush, but then Shadow whirled around again, and the moment passed, though the tremor in my heart remained.

Work drew me back to my desk eventually. Joe had been riding for hours and didn't look like he was going to stop anytime soon. I edited a few chapters from the book until I was sick of my own words, and then ventured downstairs. The kitchen was deserted, like it often was when the offer of free food was done for the day. The yard was quiet too, the horses in for the night, fed and watered. Only a goat that had randomly appeared a few days ago seemed to be awake, and it paid me no heed at all when I poked my head out of the front door.

Hunger brought me to the fridge. I opened it and surveyed the shelf that was apparently mine. Sal had left a covered plate that I considered removing and scraping into the bin, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Perhaps I’d eat it later.

Right.

Another plate caught my eye. It had a Post-it stuck to the foil. Joe. I’d forgotten that he’d missed dinner too and, somehow, the reason why.

I grabbed both plates and stuck them in the warming oven—the farm didn’t own a microwave—and then drifted back to the front door, scanning the fields for any sign of Joe.

There was none, and darkness had begun to fall while I’d dithered at the fridge. Has he come in already? I hadn’t heard him, but I didn’t always. Joe had a way of slipping undetected into his living room lair, and I’d noticed that people rarely disturbed him in there, and even then, it was only Sal and Emma.

Fuck it. I followed one of the cats into the hallway and took the open living room door as permission to peer inside.

Joe was sitting on the couch, an open bottle of whisky on the table, his T-shirt still missing-in-action. Sweat glistened on his beautiful chest, and his eyes gleamed like a wolf in the murky light of dusk.

He held up an empty glass and nodded to the space beside him. I hesitated for the briefest moment before I took the glass and sat down.