“Um . . . thanks, I think?” I drew the plate towards me. Sandwiched between the keto bread was a sliced hardboiled egg, what looked like houmous, and some raw kale—stalks and all. “What are you bringing me sandwiches for at this time of night?”
Joe shrugged. “Why not? I just ate a packet of Haribo, so . . .”
“You’re a sugar fiend.”
“Only because I’ve cut the fags down. I’d rather have a smoke than a bag of Tangfastics, but what you gonna do?”
Both vices were a mystery to me, but I held my tongue. Joe’s days had been crazy as he’d caught up with work on the farm, and I’d got away with dodging meals. But it was late now, and he was in for the night, which meant that it had only been a matter of time before he’d come looking for me.
Not that I was complaining. The sandwich looked . . . interesting, and beyond that, I was pleased to see him. We slept together every night, but he was gone at dawn most mornings, and chasing my deadline had started to keep me busy well into most evenings.
I missed him.
And with his dry grin finally soaking into my soul, eating the strangest sandwich I’d ever seen didn’t seem so bad.
Joe perched on the edge of my desk but didn’t watch me eat. Instead he peered at my work, frowning as he read my words under his breath. “I don’t get you.”
“You don’t get me? What’s that got to do with mindfulness in the city?”
“Everything. You’re talking about how people should be kind to themselves, but that doesn’t fit with how you treat yourself.”
“It’s my job, mate. Not an autobiography.”
“Yeah, but you don’t say stuff you don’t mean. That’s why I don’t get it.”
With anyone else, the food in my belly would’ve turned to dust, but Joe had a way of saying things that made me think beyond my own harmful behaviours. “If it had been George who’d been kicked by Shadow, telling him to stay home and rest would’ve been much easier for you than trying to take care of yourself has been.”
“George isn’t responsible for the farm.”
“No, but he’s responsible for himself.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
He had a point. I mentally crossed the words out and searched for replacements, but after twelve hours of typing, none came to mind. Besides, I knew exactly what Joe was saying—I just didn’t want to hear it.
I shut my laptop and ran my gaze over him. He’d ditched my clothes since he’d returned to work and was back in his weathered jeans, but he’d claimed one of my hoodies as his own and rarely took it off now the summer heat had gone. I wound the cords around my fingers and tugged him closer. Kissing him was effortless and made the itch in my bones easier to ignore.
We found our way to the bed like we did most nights when we caught each other awake. Joe lay beneath me, submissive in a way he never was outside of this room, and I made short work of stripping him. His body was glorious—long and lean and hard in all the right places. His hands were rough from farm graft, but the rest of him was hypnotically smooth, and I lost myself tracing every inch of him with my tongue.
Beneath me, he gasped and arched up. A week ago, the movement would’ve made him wince, but not now. Now, his eyes were bright with arousal, not pain, and I wanted to fuck him so much my cock hurt.
I shed my own clothes and tossed them somewhere over my shoulder. Then I fell forwards, dropping my palms either side of his head, and grazed his lips with mine. “I’ve been looking forward to getting naked all day.”
Joe smirked. “Me too. I had to think of my grandma when I was riding Mani, or I’d have hurt myself.”
“You’ve been riding?”
That was new to me, and my heart warred between concern that he was pushing himself too soon and relief that he was back where he belonged.
Relief won out. He’d once told me that fucking wasn’t that different to riding a horse, and if the scenes flashing through my mind played out, I had nothing to worry about. I dipped my head for another ruining kiss, then evaded his hands to slide back down his body. Joe had become an instant master at driving me insane with his mouth on my dick, but somehow, I’d yet to return the favour.
That was about to change. I bit his hip to distract him and then swallowed him whole, holding him to the bed as he reared up, digging my fingers into his lean thighs. His groans sent shivers down my spine as I slid his cock down my throat, and I stared up at him, revelling in his reddened cheeks and blown pupils. This was the Joe I craved when my mind was filled with nothing but him. When the memory of him shirtless and riding wasn’t enough. In his unique way, he was as guarded as me, but not when we were like this.
Not when his dick straining and pulsing in my mouth was all there was.
Over and over, I took him to the brink while he thrashed and moaned beneath me. I gripped his thighs and opened his legs, pushing them wider as I deep-throated him. My fingers gripped the base of his cock, and I looked up at him again, and if I could’ve frozen the world in that moment, I’d have done it in a heartbeat.
But as the world kept turning, a soul-deep desire for him spurred me on. I slid a wet finger into him. His ragged cry pierced the air and his whole body trembled. That it was me turning him inside out sent my blood roaring in my ears, and the urge to add another finger and curl them, to make him come, was so strong I almost gave into it. But there was another urge coursing through me. I withdrew my finger.
“Harry.” Joe tangled his fingers in my hair. His eyes were clenched shut. “Fuck—”
A wailing siren shattered the heady air. Blue lights flashed through the window, and Joe leapt from the bed, launching himself over my head and to the floor to snatch his clothes.
He was gone from the room before I could comprehend it, and I staggered to the window just in time to see four police cars and a van pull up in the yard.
Chapter Sixteen
Joe
“How the fuck did you get this warrant?”
The CID officer somehow managed to look bored and smug at the same time. “We got it the same place we get every other warrant in the land, now step aside so we can search this property.”
“You’re not searching the stables.”
“Yes, we are.” The officer jabbed a pudgy finger at the warrant he’d stuck to the side of the house. “The warrant covers the house, the stables, and all outbuildings and land. I’m asking you nicely right now to let us work, but if you obstruct, I’ll arrest you.”
Cunt.
Harry came out of the house, dressed in a hotchpotch of clothes he must’ve found on the floor. Two policemen jumped on him, demanding to see ID. He shot me a quizzical glance, but I had nothing. I’m so fucking sorry.
A team of police officers started towards the stable block. I moved fast to block them again. “Wait. You can’t just barge into the stalls. I need to get the horses out first.”
“One by one,” the CID officer said. “And we’ll be watching every move you make.”
They started with Tauna and Carric. I led the placid old mares out and stood in the lane with them, fury seeping from every pore as my mind worked to figure out how this was happening to us again.
It didn’t have to work very hard. Raids like this had happened dozens of times before Grandpa had kicked Jonah off the farm for good, and we hadn’t had one since . . . until now. Bastard. I could’ve killed him. Would’ve, if he’d been in my line of sight, and everything he’d done for Emma and the horses while I’d been in hospital evaporated. He’d taken advantage of us at our weakest, and now all that remained to be seen was how deep a hole he’d left us in.
My mother and Emma were escorted from the bungalow and made to stand by the police van while the houses were searched. Harry stood with them, his back to me as he comforted Emma. I longed to see his face, to ground myself in his eyes, to go back to where we’d been a split second before this latest nightmare.
I had to settle for whispering soothing words to Tauna th
at the stoic old mare didn’t need.
One by one, the stalls were searched. When Sal and Emma were allowed into the house to wait in the kitchen, Harry came out to help me with the horses. I thought he’d never led horses out by himself, but apparently, I was wrong. Mani went with him easily, and then Ava, until finally we were left with Shadow.
Police surrounded his stall. I rounded on them again, but Harry pulled me back, his lips at my ear. “It was your father’s idea to move the horses around.”
The words were muttered. Barely intelligible. But the implication was deafening. If there was anything to be found, it was in Shadow’s lair, and if we didn’t bring him out, the police would call someone to do it for us.
Someone who couldn’t handle him.
The idea of Shadow being tranquillised—or worse—poured water on the fire in my veins. I didn’t give a fuck what my father had buried in that damn-fucking stable, Shadow was my priority—and as much my family as Sal and Emma.
“I’ll come with you,” Harry said. “He doesn’t seem to mind me when Emma leads him.”
I nodded. “Okay, but step back if he kicks off. I can’t handle you getting hurt.”
We advanced on Shadow together. I’d always approached him with absolute quiet, but Harry spoke to him in much the same way he had to me when I’d been losing my mind with pain. His voice was low, entrancing, and Shadow tuned into him almost as fast as I had. I slipped a head collar on him and then reins, and we walked him out of the stall.
“Stand back,” I gritted at the waiting police. “He’ll brain you if you startle him.”
Shadow was a big enough horse for them to take me seriously. They moved aside, but even with them well out of the way, Shadow couldn’t be trusted to wait patiently in the lane like the others had. “We’ll have to take him to the top field,” I said. “Turn him out and hope he doesn’t get into mischief before morning.”
Harry opened the yard gate. “Have you left him out overnight before?”
“Only when I haven’t been able to catch him. Didn’t sleep, though. Spent the night sitting on the fence like a raving lunatic.”
“Oh well.” Harry snorted softly. “You probably weren’t going to get much kip tonight anyway.”
I couldn’t figure out if he meant because of the clusterfuck with the police or the fact that he’d been on the brink of banging my brains out when they’d arrived.
Either way, he was right.
We turned Shadow loose in the field. He took off like a bullet and we made our way back to the yard, but despite the pressing need to return to the other horses, I pulled Harry behind the large tree at the donkey paddock. “I’m so sorry.”
He rubbed his hands up and down my arms. “What the hell for?”
“For dragging you into more mess. This isn’t what you signed up for.”
“I signed up to a break from my suffocating city life. Whatever’s happened, I’ve definitely had that.”
“Is your life really suffocating?”
Harry shrugged. “Ask me again in a few weeks. The longer I’m here, the more I seem to think so.”
A policeman appeared on the path and shone a flashlight in our faces. “Come out from there.”
My hackles rose, but Harry’s touch kept me in check. We stepped out from behind the tree and returned to the yard. He darted inside to check on the girls, and I slouched against the tack room door and surveyed the scene. Shadow’s box was still being searched, though I couldn’t imagine what was taking so long. There were only so many places to look in a pile of straw and shit.
Someone came out and muttered to the bloke in charge. A gaggle of police converged on Shadow’s stable, and I closed my eyes. I’d seen energy like that before in coppers when they caught a scent. What would it be this time? Dodgy number plates? Knocked off jewellery? Over the years, they’d found it all.
Or so I thought until the lead officer walked out of the stable carrying a sawn-off shotgun.
As a child, I used to wonder if my life was nothing but a dream. If I’d wake up one day and be someone else entirely. On good days that would scare me—who would take care of Mani? Ride him, and feed him his favourite horse nuts? On bad days, I didn’t much care. Take my shitty life and fuck it up worse than Jonah had. Go on. I dare you.
Without Harry beside me, today was one of those days. I stared at the gun with as much surprise as if they’d brought out a severed head, and a prickle of real fear shuddered through me. Guns? Seriously?
The head honcho approached, his hands already reaching to restrain me. A couple of goonies joined him and I was face down on the ground before I knew what was happening.
A knee drove into my back, pressing my still tender abdomen against the cold ground. “Who does the gun belong to?”
I laughed. Couldn’t help it. I didn’t know the lead officer, but I recognised some of the other coppers as men and women who’d cried over dead horses with me over the years. Funny how they never seemed to remember that when Carter family bullshit brought trouble to my door. “If you knew to come here to look for it, then you know who it belongs to.”
“Not good enough.” The knee pressed harder. “If you can’t explain how a sawn-off shotgun came to be on your property, I’ll have to assume that it belongs to you.”
Bastard. He knew it wasn’t mine. Just like his predecessor had known the fenced TVs last time hadn’t been mine either. But did they care? Of course they fucking didn’t. They wanted a scalp, and mine would do.
Give him up. But even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I’d never do it. My father didn’t deserve my loyalty, but he had it anyway. I could no more give him up than I could one of the horses. I hate him. Finally, something that made sense.
The officer on my back ran through his methods of persuasion. My arguments lapsed into silence and handcuffs were slapped around my wrists. It began to rain as I was hauled to my feet, and I could almost smell the grubby cell I’d be spending the night in when the front door opened.
Harry appeared in the doorway, the light from inside framing him so he looked like a broad-shouldered apparition. “What are you doing? Let him go.”
The officer ignored him and began to tow me away. Harry’s footsteps had always been light, but I heard them now as they followed us. I wanted to tell him to back off—to go inside so he didn’t have to witness the latest round of Carter humiliation.
But I was too fucking tired.
Harry caught up with us and grabbed the lead officer’s arm. “I said let him go. Whatever you’ve found . . . it’s mine.”
Chapter Seventeen
Joe
I had no words for how it felt to watch them arrest Harry. My protests that the gun was indeed mine fell on deaf ears, and as the lead officer closed the van doors on Harry, he turned to me with a smug leer.
“I suggest you get your story straight and then come and find me, because until then, I’m holding your friend. And don’t think I won’t charge him, because I will. Just like I’d have charged you if you’d coughed to it when I asked.”
“You know it’s not his.”
“I only know what I’m told,” the officer said. “And he’s saying it is.”
My fists twitched. I could smash this bloke’s face in any day of the week and still sleep like a baby, but I didn’t have time for that shit. If he was serious about charging Harry, then I had to find Jonah, Dicky . . . anyone who I could pin that damn-fucking gun on.
“Of course,” the officer continued when I didn’t respond. “I could take your new statement seriously and believe that the gun belongs to you, but I don’t think you really want me to do that.”
“Why would I say it if I didn’t want you to take it seriously?” I spat.
“Because you haven’t thought it through. I’m familiar with everyone who lives and works on this farm, Mr. Carter, but your record makes a more interesting reading than most. Add a firearms charge onto that and I doubt you’d see the light of day for quite some
time. Think on that while I question your friend.”
The police left the farm, taking Harry with them, and the yard was plunged into sudden darkness. Mani called to me. Dazed, I went to him and brooded fruitlessly against his neck until I remembered Shadow.
I trudged to the top field to fetch him in, but he wouldn’t come. A month ago, I’d have hurdled the gate and chased him around. Now, I didn’t have the stomach for it—literally—or the time to sit on the fence and wait for him.
“Joe?”
I tossed an unseeing glance over my shoulder. “Em, go back inside. There’s no reason for us both to be out in the rain.”
“Never stopped you putting me to work before.” Emma hopped up on the fence beside me. “Why are you shouting at him? You know that makes him more stubborn.”
“I don’t know anything. If I did, we wouldn’t be in this mess, eh?”
“That’s not fair, but we can’t let Harry take the rap for this. Even a minor charge could ruin his career.”
“It’s not a minor charge. Jonah stashed a sawn-off in Shadow’s stable.”
Emma’s sharp intake of breath seemed unnaturally loud. “A gun? Where the hell did he get it?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. If we know where it came from, then we’re a step closer to getting Harry off the hook. He could go to prison for firearm possession.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” My shout rang out across the dark field. Somewhere in front of us, Shadow snorted and stamped his feet. I sighed, and the sensation of wandering amongst nightmares returned. “I don’t know what he was thinking when he said the gun was his. Or if he even knew that’s what he was coughing for. But I won’t let it stand. If I can’t straighten this out with Jonah, I’ll find a way of proving it’s mine.”
“Joe, they’ll put you away for years with your record.”
“So? That’s better than Harry taking the heat.”
“Neither of you should be taking the heat. It’s Dad’s gun—or, at least, he brought it here. Just tell the police that.”
Whisper (Skins Book 2) Page 16
