Scrap Metal

Scrap Metal Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Scrap Metal Read Online Free PDF
Author: Harper Fox
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Gay, Contemporary
cuppa.”
    “You need more sleep. Go back to bed. I’ll take the early feeds today.”
    I blinked, startled. He was sometimes gruffly contrite with me after he’d torn me off a strip, but he’d never actually relieved me of duty. Even the collies, who slept at the foot of his bed and normally greeted me with a snarl, seemed less hostile today. Floss, the pack leader, was sniffing at my hands with great interest. I hoped she wouldn’t go too nuts at the foreign scents downstairs, or follow a trail to the barn. I hoped to God Cameron had gone. “Can you manage it all on your own?”
    That was a mistake. He let me go. If I’d been ten years younger, he’d have cuffed me round the ear. “Insolent wee diobhal ! How do ye think I managed it while you and your brother were trailing round in your nappies? You think I couldn’t still run this whole show with one hand tied up my back?”
    “I’m sure you could, Granda.” I wondered if he knew he’d mentioned Alistair for the first time in a year. I wondered if he remembered he was dead. Through the window at the end of the corridor, I could see that the sky remained pitch-black. My body, lulled by sleep, yearned to be back in its bed. “Are you serious about…?”
    “Aye. Go on with you, while you can still carry those bags under your eyes.”
     
     
    When I woke next it was daylight. Not quite eight o’clock, but a clear day on this sea-lit island brought the dawn in early even at this time of year.
    It was clear too. I fixed myself a mug of black coffee and carried it out into the sun. There was a bench by the door where my ma had liked to bask in her rare idle moments. I’d been avoiding it, but this morning it felt like no big deal to sit there and lift my face to the warmth. She’d been a royal sun-worshipper, Ma. Not just the holidays to Costa del this and that but Celtic fire festivals out in the fields in the season. By this stage of spring she’d have pissed off the minister already with a dance round the Imbolc fires to celebrate the pregnant ewes and the return of the goddess and her consort king. Maybe that was why we’d had such a long foul winter—maybe Lugh and Brighid missed her as much as…
    I grabbed the thought and crushed it. I’d woken up serene. It would be nice to stay that way, at least until the rain began again. I’d had a shower and put on clean clothes, just workaday ones but crisp and fresh from the skin out. I’d let such things slide a bit. She’d have hated that, one of her lads in yesterday’s undercrackers. I broke out laughing, scaring a crow off her bird table, also neglected. Maybe later I’d put out a handful of crumbs.
    Maybe I’d walk over to the barn. It wasn’t often I had leisure for maybes at all, so I finished my coffee first then got up, stretched, and took it slowly. Harry would have seen to the foster ewes and lambs already, so I had no business there, but I wanted to look in on the lamb I’d rescued, which seemed to have inherited more than a normal sheep’s share of obtuseness and might well have forgotten again how to feed. I wanted to check the barn was empty.
    No. What I really wanted to do was to snuff out the stupid, dull ache in my chest at the thought of that empty barn. What the hell was wrong with me? I eased open the door. Sunlight fell in, illuminating a domestic scene to warm any sheep-farmer’s heart—three ewes, each with its assigned orphan lamb curled up next to it. If they were going to reject the infants, they wouldn’t let them near. So that was good. I crept past the pen, being careful not to disturb them.
    The ladder was resting on the edge of the hayloft again. That was good too. I’d meant to tell Cameron to go there to sleep, where it was dry and he’d at least get the benefit of body warmth from the livestock below, a time-honoured central heating system of ancient Gaelic farms. He’d had the sense to climb up there, and had climbed down too, and heaven only knew where he
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