Thirty-six
At midnight, the farmhouse was eerily quiet. It only made her loneliness smother over everything like an oil slick spreading across the harbour of no-hope.
Harper had let Scout and Sarge stay inside, because it was too dangerous for anyone to be outside.
To stop her worry over Ruby, and her fear of the dark, for the first time in weeks, Harper dragged out her laptop to check on her emails and let it load 762 emails. 762!
She skimmed the headlines for some international emergency. But there wasn’t one. It was just the job.
Poor Ruby was an emergency, it was a life and death situation. It was enough for her to prioritise and slam her laptop shut.
Instead, she checked on Mason again. He was fast asleep, holding on to a toy dog. Normally she’d find Ruby sleeping beside Mason’s bed, giving her a light wag of her tail.
She really missed that dog.
In the kitchen, she stared at the fridge. She had food, and she had wine.
Pouring a glass, she sat at the table, racked with worry for the dog, and guilt for what she was going to say to Ash and Cap.
Was her time with Ash, trapped inside the cave waiting out a sandstorm, a dream? Or was he doing that to keep his son happy, feeding her hopes of that fairytale where families were perfect?
Did she want to be in an instant family? When she was still feeling the sting from her own.
There was no way her father would have allowed her to shack up with some cowboy in the scrub! And she hadn’t factored children into her life this soon. First she actually wanted to date the guy.
What was wrong with enjoying the romance that had always eluded her? To squeal with delight as the guy dropped to his knee and proposed, where she then got to show off her engagement ring to everyone. What about showing off her Valentine’s Day card, or any gift her man gave her? Where was her chance to brag about dinner dates and weekends away—just like the other women at work.
She’d always thought she’d have a wedding one day, where her father could proudly walk her down the aisle, while her mother got all teary-eyed in the front row. Now none of that was ever going to happen.
She needed to focus on something else.
Scooping up the wineglass, she leaned against the front door letting the dogs to go out and do their business. She stared at the outdoor table where the Riggs brothers gathered morning and night. It was covered with dirty coffee cups, a few maps, and that large manila envelope.
She sipped on her wine, not even tasting it, and stared at the envelope.
She’d asked Ash to give her a copy of the letter from the government. She wasn’t sure if she could help, but she desperately needed a distraction.
She peered around at the thick blackness that surrounded her. There were no city lights, or traffic noises, just the two dogs sniffing around the grass, again making that foul taste of fear rise in her throat. Was there another snake in the grass?
Needing something to take her mind off her fear, she pushed the paperwork off the table where it scattered to the floorboards.
‘Whoops.’
She scooped up the assorted maps and papers, until she found what she was looking for—the letter from the government. And what she read only made her frown.