by Lux Miller
From what he’s told me, Hunter’s the middle child with Poppy and their oldest brother ahead of him, and a younger brother and sister behind him. Their oldest brother, Easton, is married with several kids of his own. Poppy is married too, apparently, but it’s something he warned me not to bring up when she visited. Something about bad blood and a loveless marriage. He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask after that kind of warning. Everyone has their skeletons in the closet, and I’d prefer to keep mine there, so it’s not my business to go dragging someone else’s out.
I haven’t met the younger two yet, but apparently they’re both hell on wheels. His younger brother, Jasper, is almost twenty-one and moved out to Malibu to pursue his dream of becoming a surf bum. Though Jasper and Hunter are only ten months apart in age, Hunter jokes that Jasper was the black sheep of the family, because he’s never had any interest at all in animals of any kind. Not that they know of, anyway. The youngest, Maisy, is my age, and Hunter claims she’s the reason their father has no hair left. He didn’t get into details, but he didn’t have to. Apparently, she’s some kind of daredevil that tagged along to Malibu with Jasper, and she’s been giving her father heart palpitations ever since with her drifter lifestyle. She sounds like a girl after my own heart, well, maybe after Queenie’s heart.
Speaking of Queenie, she hasn’t been around lately. It’s not that I haven’t been having the bone-crushing headaches, but Hunter says he can see warning signs of them coming on. When he does, he makes me stop what I’m doing to take one of the pills that Poppy sent me. She wouldn’t tell me where the pills came from, but she assured me they’re legitimately prescribed for a friend of hers, and the friend agreed to let me try a couple. I hate to be a guinea pig to unapproved drugs, but anything has to be better than another homegrown disaster like the glass apples. And Hunter trusts her explicitly, so I gave them a go.
And believe it or not, they actually help! With permission from my doctors back home, I started taking the drug in a clinical trial. Truthfully, they almost never completely stop them, but they make them liveable. I can usually even work through them still. When they get to be too much to handle, Hunter will send me to bed and finish both of our jobs on the ranch. I hate that he ends up doing so much work that should be mine, but he says he doesn’t mind. He says he’d handle the entire ranch by himself if it meant that I could get some relief from the crippling migraines.
To Hunter’s delight, one of the best treatments I’ve found for the blinding pain is making love. Sounds crazy, right? But the arousal of being with Hunter makes the blood flow easier, and the experimental medicine works better if I have an orgasm afterwards - or go for a run, which I do enjoy too. But for obvious reasons, Hunter prefers the first option. I do too, honestly. I never thought I’d enjoy sex after the darkness of Queenie’s reign, but much to Hunter’s delight, I’ve a healthy sexual appetite.
I point to my phone on the bedside table as it starts to ring, and Hunter snags it off and hands it to me. Hunter crawls out of the bed, adjusting the bulge in his pants without bothering to hide it from me. It’s probably just morning wood, but then again, for the last week, we’ve been having sex before starting our day on the ranch. That in itself has helped to slow the migraines down a bit. I’m not even having one daily anymore. I don’t know if it’s all the sex, a residual effect from the pharmaceutical trial, or a combination of the two, but I’ll take it.
I lay down on the bed and watch as Hunter wanders out into the hallway to go grab his morning shower before he heads out into the herd. I’ll see him briefly for lunch, but not for dinner today. It’s herd-swap day, so he’s got to round up the Anatolians that are currently in with the herd and reintroduce the next shift. They rotate out which of the herding dogs are embedded with the herd once a week. The two adults almost always stay with the herd, but the eight, eight-month-old pups rotate. Half will go out with the herd and the other half will stay in the dog barn with the runt, Knight, so that they can keep a close eye on the miniature horses. The miniatures have mostly settled in fairly well. They’re broken enough to be bridled, so we can lead them where we need them to go, but they’re too small to be ridden by anybody except maybe Gwen, but Ditsy still routinely gets into tough spots and has to be rescued. That’s my job.
I yawn and answer the phone. “Hello?”
“Raven! Where’s Hunter?”
I blink and pull the phone away from my face, realizing that it’s Hunter’s and not mine. “Oh, sorry Poppy. He’s in the shower. He must have handed me his phone by mistake We thought it was mine.”
She’s silent on the other end of the line for an extended pause. Then she responds, “Can you have him call me tonight when he gets in from work? I have an… issue.”
I nod, drawing little circles on the bedspread. I know better than to open a can of worms with a girl who barely knows me, but the words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them, “Anything I can help with?”
She laughs nervously on the other end, then says, “Probably not. I know you’ve practically got your happily ever after wrapped up there with my brother, but my life is a bit more… difficult.”
I sit up, my heartbeat thundering in my chest, “Poppy, are you okay?”
She sighs through the phone, then drops a bombshell on me, “Not really. I mean, Brad’s being a complete douchebag. I don’t know what’s going to happen with us Raven, I… I met someone.”
There’s no stifling the screeching in my voice as I ask, “What??? But you’re married!”
Her voice is meek on the other end of the line, “I know, but… it’s really just a formality. I don’t love Brad. I never have and he doesn’t love me. I’m just a possession to him. When I’m with him, it’s just dutiful obligation. Dress up nice, make him look good, make him feel good. Wash, rinse, repeat. I feel dead inside when I’m with him. But this new guy, Storm… he makes me feel something. And he’s actually one of the good guys...”
I blink as I stare at the phone. Has Poppy lost her damn mind? Her husband is rich. If she tried to leave him, he’d bury her in the legal system. And if she did something without trying to leave him… he might bury her for real. “Poppy… you’re not seriously considering… doing something, are you?”
She sighs through the phone, “I kinda already did. Raven, you know how it feels. To feel like nothing you do matters anymore. At least on the ranch, I felt alive. Brad’s taken that away from me too. I want to feel again, Raven… and I’m to the point where I don’t care if Brad finds out and starts screaming ‘Off with their heads!’. At least I could die happy…”
I swallow hard. Poppy needs to be talking to her brother about this, not me. I am not good with advice. I don’t want to encourage her, but I don’t want to stifle her either. I know what it feels like to be stifled. So, instead, I say the first thing that comes to mind, “Poppy...are you mad?”
There’s several moments of silence before she answers, “Raven, you’ve met my brother. You’ve heard about the rest of us. We’re all mad here…”
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Also by Lux Miller:
Barresi Series
Fairly Twisted Tales Series
If you found errors or inconsistencies in this book, please email [email protected] and let me know about them! Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review!
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