He was a shadow against the stone wall, like a jagged crevice working its way up from the ground. As Melissa approached, his edges didn’t sharpen; by some trick of the late afternoon light he flitted between there and not there. She picked up speed, her footfalls dragging just behind her rapid heartbeat. She was pleased and outraged to see him, and this internal bluster fuelled her like coal in a steam train boiler.
“I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m busy.”
She walked right past Beck into the farmhouse, the screen door slamming behind her. Anger crackled along her arms and burned in her belly. In her revenge fantasies about Beck’s return he was more handsome than real life – his dark hair rippling, a gloss on his skin, shoulders broad – and she kicked him off the farm before she we
