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Everyone laughed as Gabriel got up and started dancing in a silly way for his daughter, earning him happy squeals, and for a moment as I looked around at everyone, I could see the potential for a new future.
A future that I was going to do everything to protect even if it meant I had to kill for it.
We sat around the fire as the women disappeared inside, Rosslyn taking Anouska with them to put her to bed and Anya saying she would make some tea.
“The new coordinates are in a strange place that I don’t really trust. It is in an abandoned warehouse and about a hundred ks out of the way. They never usually go that far and they want it all in one truck. They have never done that before.” I said and the others were quiet for a while.
“Something might have spooked them after what happened. The only way we will find out is by going. So who is going to take the truck?” Mikhail said and I sighed.
“It has to be me. Out of all of us, I am the one that would be the least suspect and I would assume they know that our men left.” I said and Wyatt clapped me on the shoulder.
“I can come with you.” He said and I shook my head.
“Nah. Can’t do that. They will suspect something if there is more than one person in the truck like usual and you need to be here. Just in case something happens.” I didn’t add that I wanted him here for Anya. If this was a trap, she didn’t need to lose all of us.
Wyatt looked at me for a long time as if reading my thoughts.
“She isn’t going to want you to go alone.” He said and I shrugged.
“This is something that has to be done alone.” But he was right. I wasn’t looking forward to having that conversation with her and I knew it was going to end in an argument.
But I made a promise, and I was so close to cutting us free, I could feel it. I trusted Mikhail and his family; they knew what they were doing. Now I had to convince the woman who held my heart to trust in the process as well.
“I need to take a walk and clear my head,” I said before I took my beer and headed towards the paddock closest to the house where the horses were currently held.
The harsh summer sun was finally gone from the sky, the buzz of insects in the air the soundtrack for the coming night.
The mozzies would be out too, the sun setting might mean relief from the flies but the night just had its own little winged demons.
You could smell the coming rain in the air, a welcome thing when it came in a gentle downpour, but the radar and warnings had predicted this week we were at risk of a flash flood.
That meant more work, the cattle were in a low-lying paddock and the sheep were also in a less-than-ideal one, meaning we would need to move them in the next two days before the rain set in or risk losing the herd.
This business with the Fellowship meant the ranch was now suffering and that was something I couldn’t let happen. This was the heart of Anya’s family and I couldn’t have her mother returning to all the stock gone.
I climbed the fence, jumping into the paddock that I often spent time sitting in when I needed to think.
We all had our places that we went, different spots for different reasons and I always found my mind discovered the solutions easier when I came to this paddock.
I liked to sit right in the center, it was far enough away that I felt like I was alone but not too far that I couldn’t still see the house just in case I was needed.
When I reached my spot, I lay down in the grass and watched the stars begin to show, going over the list of things that needed to be done.
Twenty eight
Anya
Iwentbackoutsideto invite the men in for tea and coffee and noticed Beau was missing. I looked at Wyatt who gestured to the paddock.
Something was weighing on his mind, and I knew it had to do with this upcoming shipment. They had conveniently not spoken about it yet and that meant he was avoiding telling me something.
I quickly grabbed one of the old blankets from the lounge room and tossed it over my shoulders to shield from the cool evening air and headed out to the paddock.
The darkness was consuming and a little part of me had a flash of irrational fear as I walked through the field but as I glanced up at the sky, I smiled. The stars were so much brighter out here and littered the sky like glitter. It was one of the things I had missed when I was in the city, the bright lights dulled your senses as well as the beauty of the world around you.
I found Beau sitting in the center of the field and when I sat down next to him, he automatically put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in so he could kiss my temple.
“What’s on your mind?” I said softly and he was quiet for a moment before I heard him let out a long, slow breath.
