Page 38 of Hot Ghost Summer

thirteen

Bowen's Farm

Theo

“Are you ready to talk about it yet?” Jayne asks, folding her wiry arms over the top of the broom.

“What makes you think there’s something t’ talk about?” I stretch my shrunken T-shirt up to wipe the sweat from my face.

Jayne stares at me for a long moment. Assessing. “Okay, well, work’s done for today, so I’ll be heading home. Do you want me to leave you the keys?”

I don’t answer straight away, choosing instead to busy myself by neatly coiling the hose onto the hook embedded in the barn wall. When I left home this morning, I’d been so angry with Hollis that all I’d focused on was getting away. I hadn’t had a destination or a plan in mind. My feet had carried me to the farm on autopilot, and once I was here, it was easier to lose myself in chores than to think about him.

I’ve sweated my arse off grafting all day in the heat. I’m knackered, hungry, and I really want a shower, but all of that means going home and dealing with Hollis…

Jayne leans her yard brush up against the wall beside the hose, and slips the keys to the farm she wears on a chain around her neck over her head. “I’ve got a spare set at home. Post them through the letterbox when you’re done.”

The metal is hot when she presses the keys into my palm, and the dirt under her fingernails matches the grime on mine when I close them safely inside my fist, but the kindly crinkles at the edges of her eyes overshadow all that. This farm is her baby, and that she’d trust it to me for the night…

Nodding, I bite the inside of my cheek.

Jayne exhales, and it carries a weariness I share. “You’ve got your phone? Just in case of emergencies?”

“Yeah,” I manage, looping her key chain around my neck. “Left it in your office this morning.”

I decide against telling her that I turned it off on the walk over here to stop an arsehole ghost from infecting it and blowing up her lightbulbs.

“Good.” She nods, pushing a smile forward. “Well then, there’re a few bits in the fridge that you’re welcome to—but don’t share with Brigid, it’s human food. And you know where the kettle is.”

A kettle. For cups of tea. In peace and quiet. I return her smile, my shoulders sloping away from my ears.

“Thanks,” I croak.

She clamps her hand onto my shoulder, eyes still locked on mine, and squeezes. Without another word, she turns and walks over to the boot scraper, where she swaps her outdoor boots for a pair of battered Crocs and heads inside.

Tilting my chin, I look up at the fading sky. I love this time of day—the golden hour—when the blues turn more lilac, and the dwindling sun paints everything in deep shades of amber. The rays still hold heat, but the ground is already cooling.

I head over to the reinforced metal gate that divides the yard and look out across the field. Daphne and Delia, the donkeys, are ambling further away from the trees now that the shadows are eating the sun, and even Baron is venturing out from his field shelter and drifting toward the hedges that overgrow the far fence. My gaze falls on the rickety back gate. I meant to do something with that today, but time got away from me.

Alvin and Simon are still on their throne of tyres, but Theodore’s wide-spaced eyes—locked hard onto mine—are almost lucent as they reflect the sun’s dying orange rays. I watch him as he watches me, and I wonder who might be worse to spend the night with, devil-goat or Hollis?

I chuckle at my thoughts. Hollis.

“You’re stuck with me tonight,” I call out

Theodore’s ears flick as if in displeasure.

“Yeah, yeah… you and Hollis both, it seems.”

I smooth my hands over the warm metal of the gate between us, dented from where he strikes at it with his thick skull. “Don’t worry, I plan on staying on my side. I just want a quiet night.”

Before he can step closer, I offer him a quick salute and head indoors to make that cup of tea.

The dairy is blessedly cool as I pass through, but Brigid has been cooped up in here all day. Before I brew my cup, I pull open her stall door.

“Go on, Bridge, int’ the yard for a bit. Stretch your legs.”

Leaving her to it, I continue into the little kitchen area, but opening the door is like walking into a greenhouse, so I push open the row of small windows set high in the wall and wedge the door open.