Page 4 of Last Track

Attaching the strap required them both bent over the same stretch of bumper, close enough that Galen's hair brushed Martin's wrist when he leaned in to check the hook, close enough that Martin caught, in the flat grey afternoon light and without the excuse of any drama to blame it on, the exact, startling colour of his eyes.

Martin straightened first and gave instructions for the tow with more force than the tow strictly required. Galen followed every one of them without argument, steering Nina in a dead straight line behind the Land Rover as though he had been doing it his whole life, which, Martin supposed, he more or less had.

They parked her on the hard standing beside Martin's cottage, where the power point sat beneath the kitchen window and Peter could bring in the trailer without crossing the working yard.

The van sat twenty feet from Martin's kitchen window. Galen would shower and eat at the farmhouse, but Nina would remain here through the night, a faded green obstruction in the middle of Martin's established view. Peter might solve the mechanical problem tomorrow. Martin had considerably less confidence in anyone's ability to solve the other one.

Galen stood with one hand resting against Nina's side and looked toward the lane. Martin caught, for just a second before Galen covered it, something under the dry acceptance: a flicker of the stress from the phone call, the fee gone, the next booking now in question, the particular tiredness of a man doing the sums again and not liking the answer any better the second time.

It vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by the same wry, functioning face Galen had been wearing since the field, but Martin had seen it.

It did something to him considerably more inconvenient than lust had managed all afternoon.

"Sorry," Galen said, following Martin's glance toward the van parked against the cottage wall. A stranger, a small green problem sitting exactly where Martin would see it every time he came home. "I know I'm in your way."

Martin looked at him for a moment too long before he answered and found, when he did, that he had already stopped pretending to himself that this was only about the yard.

"You already are," he said, and something in it came out gentler than he'd meant it to, the corner of his mouth giving him away before he could stop it.

3

GALEN

The smile changed it.

Without it, Martin's answer might have been dismissal, the sort of dry territorial warning Galen had heard often enough from men whose land, houses, or lives he had wandered briefly across. With the slight pull at one corner of Martin's mouth, it became something else entirely, and Galen stood beside Nina with the tow strap hanging loose between them and felt his body accept the revised meaning before his mind had finished examining it.

"You already are."

Martin turned away to coil the strap, apparently satisfied that he had said enough. Galen watched the set of his shoulders for a second longer than good sense recommended, then put both hands against Nina's side as though the van required steadying. She did not. Galen might.

He knew how temporary attraction worked, the way you know a route you've driven too many times to really see anymore — arrive light, leave lighter, never let the leaving cost you anything you'd have to come back for.

Martin Cattermole had smiled at him once, and Galen was already curious about the contents of his kitchen cupboards. That seemed excessive.

Martin finished with the strap and put it into the back of the Land Rover. "Hazel will send someone looking if we take much longer."

"Someone?"

"Jacks."

Galen followed him toward the farmhouse. "That sounded less like concern and more like a threat."

"It can be both."

The back door stood open when they arrived, warm air spilling into the yard with the smell of bread, onions, and something richer that had been cooking long enough to make Galen's empty stomach abandon dignity. Hazel pointed him upstairs before he had fully crossed the threshold, her French accent turning the instruction musical without making it negotiable.

"Second door on the left. There are clean towels in the cupboard. Leave your clothes outside if they need washing."

"They don't need washing," Galen said, looking down at the mud dried across his knees. Hazel looked too.

"They need burning," Jacks said from the kitchen table. She had paperwork spread in front of her and another mug of tea at her elbow, dark enough to absorb light. "Hazel's offering the charitable alternative."

Galen had survived one cup of Jacks's tea and had no wish to test whether the second produced cumulative effects. "The charitable alternative sounds excellent."

The bathroom was warm, old-fashioned, and unexpectedly full of small evidence that two women had occupied the house together for a very long time. There were two hooks beside the door, one holding a thick dressing gown and the other a lighter one embroidered at the collar. A shallow dish on the windowsill contained hairpins and two foreign coins. Labels in neat handwriting marked the cupboard shelves, one in English and one in French, with a correction added beneath the French in darker ink. Galen could not tell whether Hazel had corrected Jacks or Jacks had objected to being corrected, but the exchange had apparently been preserved as household infrastructure.

He shut the door, peeled off his muddy clothes, and stood beneath water hot enough to make him aware of every place the afternoon had landed on him. His shoulder had begun to stiffen from the gate. One knee carried a fresh bruise, and the familiar red mark from Nina's seat spring had been joined by several less familiar marks from sheep, mud, and poor decisions.