Scrap Metal by Harper Fox Read Free Book Online

first for the bewildered town boy. He tried gallantly to deal with the honour bestowed on him. I tried to help, getting behind Harry’s shoulder and offering a mime of how to hold the flailing little beast, how to lift its head to get it to take the teat. But the lamb, having decided to live, was now launched into the next stage of its natural order of business, which was to get itself onto its feet and away with its mother and the flock out of the reach of wolves. It fought and kicked, sending the bottle flying.
    “Ach!” Harry exclaimed, after I’d retrieved the bottle and he’d watched another failed attempt, the expensive syrup spraying everywhere. “For a farming student, laddie, you have’nae a clue!”
    Cameron looked up. “Sorry, sir.” He glanced at me as if for inspiration, though I could only shrug. “Er…we’ve only done theory of lambs so far, is the thing. The practical’s next term.”
    “What?” Harry frowned, and I was sure the jig was up. He’d be royally pissed off. He didn’t like strangers, and he’d never countenance a lie. I got ready to step between them. But after a moment he shook his head. The gesture was familiar to me—sad bewilderment at a world going headlong to the dogs. “Well, I don’t know how they think to turn out shepherds that way, boy. You learn by doing. I’ll show you when I’ve got more time. Here—give that to me. I’ll get it started in the barn then put it to that ewe that’s fostering yours, Nichol.”
    He stumped away. His sheepdogs were waiting for him by the door. They hadn’t barked at Cameron, but they had been distracted, and they followed Harry outside with lowered ears and tight-tucked tails. They took the loss of one of their charges with every sign of human shame.
    And we had lost one. I took a last look at the female. She was gone beyond retrieval, though, her little body no more than a shell. Sorrow and laughter fought for room in my chest.
    I turned to my visitor, who was still sitting by the fireside, looking as if he might faint. “Cameron, for God’s sake— theory of lambs?”
    “It was all I could think of.”
    “I can’t believe he swallowed it.”
    “I didn’t want to lie to him. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”
    “No, of course not. I didn’t mean to chuck you in like that.” I frowned, wondering at his intensity. He was watching in the direction Harry had gone, his eyes bleak. “I’m sorry. That story was all I could think of.”
    “An agricultural student?” He returned his attention to me, a tiny smile beginning. “They wouldn’t even let me take the school guinea pig home at the weekends. That’s how much I know about livestock.”
    “You know now what to do with hypothermic lambs.”
    “Yeah. Why’d you do it for me, Nichol?”
    “I wanted to give you a chance. You don’t have to keep running. Stay here for a bit if you want.”
    “I thought you said this was a bad place to hide.”
    “You won’t be hiding. You’ll be our trainee farmhand from Dumfries. If nobody tailed you out from Brodick, I doubt anyone will find you here. And God knows we could use the help.”
    “Even from someone like me?”
    “Well, you come cheap. And like Harry said—we learn by doing.”
    I hadn’t meant it to sound seductive. I couldn’t even work out why it had, except that the sight of him, there by the fireside in his borrowed clothes, splashes of the Quick Start still on his face, made my heart race and my throat tighten. Oh, and he hadn’t missed the softened little scrape in my voice.
    He got up and came to stand in front of me. “None of my business,” he said gently, “but I get the feel I won’t be bumping into any of your girlfriends around here.”
    I held his gaze. It wasn’t a challenge, just a question. When I thought about his reasons for wanting to know, a heat began to kindle in my spine. “That’s right.”
    “About it not being my business?”
    “About the girlfriends.”
    He nodded.