Covet (Sinful Secrets 3)

I can figure this shit out. I can. I rub my watery eyes. I just need to move. I think of running in the rain, but I don’t know if I can. Everything’s so fucking soggy.

I roll out of bed and do some jumping jacks. A hundred. Then three hundred sit-ups. Two hundred push-ups. I remember a few yoga poses, so I try those. Not enough. I need to get my heart rate a lot higher to feel relief.

I run around the house for half an hour, feeling like a fucking nut, before I sink into the tub again, rubbing at the film of dissolved pill residue around it.

Fuck.

I lean my head back, exhale slowly.

My arms are underwater. I lift my hands up through the bubbles and squint at my fingertips. Water ripples all around them. I close my fists, draw them back under.

I can run after the rain stops.

I kill some hours playing r

eal card solitaire, sitting on a wooden stool under the awning over the back porch. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks behind the house should be a soothing one, but it makes me feel jumpy. Almost fearful.

Back inside, I pull on a shirt and force myself to eat some eggs. When it’s five, I slide my phone into my pocket, grab an umbrella, and make my way down to the pub.

“What can I get you?” The old man behind the counter has to raise his voice so I can hear above the rain that’s pelting the tin roof. He’s smiling, though, as if I’m not the only asshole in the bar, the one who made him set his book down and put on his apron.

“Rusty Nail?” It’s posed as a question because I don’t know how familiar he is with mainstream drinks.

He gives me a small smile.

“Heavy on the scotch. Please.”

“One Rusty Nail coming right up.”

As he sticks an orange peel in the glass, a swell of noise punches in from behind us—low voices and a brief soundbite of driving rain. A few seconds later, all the other barstools fill up. Dude beside me takes his hat off, giving me a nod before he turns back to the guy beside him.

“Need more hands on deck,” he’s saying. “Cannot patch the roof and mend the fence and clear the road and fill the buckets at the church all with the same four or six hands.”

The other chuckles. “Don’t forget the good doctress.”

“The clinic’s leaking, too, but I heard she’s out at the Patches. Sheep up there around the gulches as they do.”

Their odd English accents are so thick I’m several seconds behind, translating in my head.

“Tireless, Finley.”

My chest flares at the sound of her name. “Finley?”

They turn to me.

“I’m…uh, I think I’m renting her house?”

Their lined faces bend in confusion.

“Staying there,” I correct. “At her grandmother’s house.” The older one’s eyebrows jut up. “Oh. And so you are.”

“Is it leaking as well?” the younger asks, shaking his head.

“Nah. It’s been okay.” My stomach tightens as I fish for information. “Is she—did I hear you say Finley is the doctor?”

The man beside me pushes wet curls out of his face. “She does many jobs. Shepherd. Nurse. Although with the good doctor in Cape Town, I suppose she’s naturally his stand-in.” He smiles. “And the livestock doctor. Too many caps, that one. She’s got sheep stranded up the slopes. Probably a need for her here, or there will be fore the weather’s blown by. Quite a shame no shepherd’s as good as she is.”

Something rises in my chest—a kind of brightness.