Chapter 21 #2
How the hell did I get here? Financial model after model laid out on the screen, but none of them would help us long term.
Selling off sheep and cattle now would fix our cash flow and reduce our feed burden, but every other broke farmer would be doing the same thing in the hope of getting some return on their animals.
That would be forcing prices down, meaning we wouldn’t get much money for them.
The heat had come at the wrong time, so we’d lose a bunch of crops.
That would mean that come harvest time, prices would be higher, but how much wheat would we actually have to sell?
If the weather had just held. If the rains had come when they were supposed to.
Shame was like a prize fighter, sucker punching me in the gut, but I couldn’t allow it to drop me to my knees.
Had to keep on fighting, keep on going, because there was no way—
“Hey…” My head jerked up and I must’ve looked guilty as hell, hunched over the computer, then blinking, wide eyed at Mackenzie. “Everything OK? I’m not… interrupting anything, am I?”
“Interrupting…?” I shook my head. Fuck, she thought I was looking at porn. God, how I wish that was the case, because hiding my search history would be a whole lot easier than this. “No, I was just working on the budget.”
“Ditching me for spreadsheets, not nubile babes,” she said, coming closer. Hopefully she didn’t notice the way my body stiffened as she looked over my shoulder at the screen. “Never been so glad to see Excel on a laptop.”
I didn’t like the way her eyes scanned the columns. Some part of me wanted to hide it all away.
The evidence of my failure.
We were going to lose the farm if I couldn’t find a bloody way forward, and no matter how I racked my brain, I couldn’t seem to come up with a solution.
“Sleep,” I said firmly, shutting the laptop down. “You can’t save wild animals on only a couple of hours of sleep.”
“And you can’t bring the stock in and stop from killing your brothers if you don’t get some rest either.”
We were at a stalemate, I realised, as I stared into her eyes, so why was I smiling? Because Mum told me I’d find someone like this one day. Charlie called me on my shit all the time, but I could ignore my sister when it suited me.
Not Mackenzie.
“If you wanted to get me into bed,” I said, “you don’t have to pretend it’s for my brothers’ sake.
” My fingers sank into her hair, wanting, needing to touch her.
It was an urge I could barely suppress during the day, but at night?
Control abandoned me, leaving me at the mercy of my instincts.
“Is there something you need, Mackenzie?”
Her breath sucked in, her lips parted, and for just a moment, I thought she’d be the one to say it. Turn what throbbed between us into words, making it all the more concrete as a result. Instead, she smiled and pressed her lips against my palm.
“Sleep,” she replied. “We both need to rest.”
“We will.” Taking her hand, I pulled her down the hallway and not just because the idea of lying next to her was irresistible. Every step we took away my computer allowed me to focus on what was before me, not the dire future I would have to face. “Afterwards.”
Falling into bed, falling into her, watching Mackenzie’s every response as I touched her gave me something more than just her pleasure.
I could do this, please one person, and that was enough to allow me a moment of relief.
Thrusting deeper, harder, trying to crawl up inside her, because right now?
Mackenzie was a soft place to land, and I needed that so damn much.
So did she.
The way she clung to me, her nails marking my flesh felt so fucking right. I wanted to wear each one with pride, knowing that under my shirt, my girl had claimed me. That drove me onwards, prolonging her pleasure until finally Mackenzie begged me to come, needing me to join her as she burned.
I did. Sobbing breaths into the hollow of her neck, it felt like I emptied everything I had into her and that was what allowed me to collapse down onto the bed. Holding her close, my body gave up the fight, letting exhaustion win. Only with her, I thought dimly as I dropped into sleep.
Trouble is when I woke up, all my problems were still there, waiting for me to deal with them.
“Stay safe,” I told Mackenzie over breakfast. “Charlie, you’ll have the radio on you at all times. Keep an ear out for the Country Fire Service announcements if a fire breaks out.”
“Like I always do, brother,” she said, sliding a plate in front of me.
But the fact my sister knew exactly what to do did little to reassure me. I stood on the veranda, staring after the two women as they got into the 4WD, right as my brothers joined me.
“So, we better get this shit show on the road then?” Billy asked, then shot me a sly smile. “Unless you want to leave moving the stock to us so you can go rescue koalas with Mackenzie?”
“And risk you driving all the sheep into a gully?” I snapped back. “No way. Everyone knows what they need to do today?” Bronson and Scotty nodded. “Then let’s get this shit done.”
In the end, I had to take my own advice and hope that the things I could do would move the needle for the family and the farm, because in the absence of hope?
There was only failure and I could not accept that.