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We sank into silence until we reached the next house.

The guys were awake there thankfully, but similarly underdressed.

It had been warm last night, but I was comfortable in my jeans and top, so I wasn’t sure why they were stripped down that far.

They looked very interested when I dumped their beer and food on the counter, but I stopped them cold with a question about the full moon.

Brandon just smiled and shook his head as each guy backed right off after that.

“Now, we’re heading to the married quarters, so there’ll be bigger boxes. I’m going to take you somewhere special first though, OK?”

“Where?” I said frowning.

“You’ll find out in a second. It’ll be fine. Just trust me.”

We drove through the admin sector, past a lot of sheds and buildings I was still yet to visit, and then back up the hill.

The houses were a lot bigger on this side I realised, with sprawling gardens filled with children’s play equipment.

Brandon skipped all of them, heading down the third row and pulling up outside one three quarters the way along the street.

He smiled as he got out of the cab. “C’mon. ”

We picked up the boxes and Brandon got the gate for me, walking up a pretty white stone driveway to a house with a huge porch running around each side of it.

“Hey, honey!” I heard a feminine voice call out.

The door opened and a beautiful woman of slim build with long dark hair arrived at the door.

Am I meeting his girlfriend? I thought. That’s something I’d never really asked about, if blokes had multiple girlfriends as well.

She was pretty enough to be so, which sent a stab of jealousy through me.

Where did that come from? “Did you bring our stuff first again? The neighbourhood is going to kill me if you keep doing this. Especially Phyllis, you know how she is about precedence. Oh, who’s this?

” Her eyes flicked to me, and then the broadest smile split her face. “Is she…? Have you…?”

“Mum, this is Julie. She’s the new girl, Finn’s offsider. Julie, this is my mum, Janice.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Come in! Come in! So you’re from the outside world, huh?

Your head must be spinning right about now.

” She turned to Brandon, “John and Bill are at the pub, but Adam and Duke are in the den looking over the books. Go and grab them.” He walked down the hallway obediently.

“So how are you coping, honey? I’m a Sanctuary girl myself, but my best friend, Carissa, I still remember when she first came here, poor thing. Her head was spinning for weeks.”

“Spinning would be a polite word for it. The way people live here is just so different,” I said cautiously. I didn’t want to just blurt out that I thought it was weird that she had four husbands and looked only a little older than me.

“The harem thing? I know from Carissa that the way we do things here is quite unconventional. Maybe I should introduce you, might help you adjust?”

“Ah, yeah. And then there’s that full moon thing.”

“Still not telling you what’s going to happen until afterwards? I’ve talked to Kelly about this for years. I don’t think it’s the right way to go about it, but I’m not the matriarch here.”

“You can’t fill me in at all?”

“Not without losing everything. Kelly runs Sanctuary well, and is a fair and reasonable boss, but that is absolutely no go for her. I’m sorry, it’ll be OK though.

Once you find out, it’ll probably be a let down, I think.

” She saw my face and reached over and rubbed my arm, “I know, honey, it’s not fair.

Look, some people are coming around for a BBQ this afternoon.

Carissa will be there, you want to come and meet her?

She’d have to have a lot of advice about how to cope in the next few weeks. ”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So, how’s my son treating you?”

I was giving Brandon a glowing recommendation when two men came into the kitchen.

One of the guys was tall and had that big, bulky, muscled look bodybuilders have, with a short crop of greying black hair.

The other looked like he could be Brandon’s dad.

He had a similar lean build, covered in compact muscle and waving dark hair that fell to his shoulders.

Both of them took me in and burst into smiles.

“So, this is Julie,” big guy said, taking my hand. “I’m Brandon’s dad, Duke.”

“And I’m his other dad, Adam. Johnny and Bill will be pissed they missed you. Did you have any plans on tonight? We’re having a BBQ.”

“Janice just invited me. Yes, that would be lovely.”

“So, how long have you known our son?” Duke asked.

“Duke, don’t give the girl the third degree,” Adam said.

“You’re going to make the girl nervous,” Janice said.

“Mum, Dad and Dad, I know you’d like to grill Julie, but we have more deliveries to make.

Phyllis will have rung the front office and made a complaint right about…

” he looked at his phone as it began to ring, “now. I’ll bring her by tonight and you can talk to her, respectfully, without asking a million invasive questions. ”

“Son, we just want to get to know the new lady in your life,” Duke said.

“Well, she won’t be in my life if you guys have your way, so cool it. Think back to grandma and the grandpas…” Duke and Adam winced at that. “Exactly, so chill. Anything you want us to bring?”

“Just Julie,” Janice said with a warm smile. “We’ll see you later.”

“Sorry for the parental overkill. Every time I’m seen with a girl, they lose their shit.

Duke gets all ‘who are you that wants to see my son’s junk’ and Janice and Adam act like cheerleaders, overexcited by everything.

John’s much more low key, he’ll just offer you a beer, and Bill’s usually too stressed out with running the mine to worry about what I’m doing. ”

“So, that’s who you grew up with. What happened when you wanted permission to do something? Did you have to ask every single one of them?”

“Nah, just Mum. Though if I knew she’d say no, I’d ask Adam or Bill. If they said no, I’d just keep asking, hoping to get a better answer.”

“That sounds…so confusing.”

“Not really. If Bill was my only dad, I wouldn’t have had much of a male role model growing up.

I love him, don’t get me wrong. He makes tremendous sacrifices to keep the family going, but having multiple dads meant there was always someone to care for us kids.

Duke made sure we got our homework done and brushed our teeth, John patched up scraped knees and told us stories every night before bed, Adam got us drunk the first time.

Said he wanted us to do it under supervision, but Mum freaked out. ”

“Us? You have siblings?”

“Yeah, a twin sister, Brady. I know, Brandon and Brady is naff as hell, but Mum liked it. You’ll meet her tonight, she’ll bring her husbands and the kids, especially now you’re coming.”

“I’m starting to feel a bit intimidated.”

“Don’t be. People want to have a gawk at anyone new, it’s too small a community not to, but they won’t get too crazy. Just say hello. Here we are, Queen Phyllis’s.”

He pulled the truck up outside a very large house with a perfectly manicured lawn and fence around the perimeter.

An older woman came barrelling out as soon as we arrived, striding over in a cloud of orange chiffon.

“Where have you been, Brandon Meares! I was told you would be here by ten o’clock at the very latest. You know you are supposed to come to my house first. I have a formal dinner tonight and it’s now 11:30.

I don’t know how I’ll get it ready in time. ”

“Delivery times are estimates only,” Brandon said, getting out of the cab.

“That is not what head office said. They definitely said 10 o’clock. I even got the officious little snip, Karen, to send me an email in writing confirming this.”

“Better take that up with Karen,” he said, rolling the back door up and jumping in to start sorting out the goods.

“And what’s this?” she snapped, turning those scary green eyes on me. “I don’t know you. Are you…? You’re that single girl who wants to break up happy marriages! How dare you bring someone like that here? And with some flea bitten mutt in tow. There are mothers and children!”

“What the fuck?” I said. “You crazy... Oh! Hi, Al.”

A stream of men came out the front door and made their way down to the truck. Al, the married guy I’d met at the mess, was one of them. “Hey, Julie. You giving Brandon a hand today?”

“Yep, I think this is yours,” I said, passing him a box of produce.

Her eyes went from Al to me, and then narrowed. “You know this woman? This is what I keep telling Kelly. We need to create separate settlements! There’s no reason for settled packs and the single to mix at all…”

“Which means you wouldn’t see the kids at all,” one of the men said to her. “Love, go inside and have a drink and calm down. The girl is delivering groceries, not hawking her wares on a street corner.”

“I might have to cancel tonight,” Phyllis said, her voice starting to waver. “I’m feeling one of my spells coming on.”

“Buck, walk her back to her room. Don’t let her take anything,” Al said to one of the other guys.

“Dom, Earl, get the patio ready. Make sure you’re careful at the corners.

You know how she freaks if there’s any dirt there.

Jock, Henry, put the groceries away and we’ll start on the dinner.

Thanks Brandon, appreciate you making us second on the list.”

“No problems, Al. See you next weekend.”

The goods disappeared into the hands of the many men, as fast as Brandon could hand them out. Earl took Phyllis by the arm and marched her back up into the house, and she whimpered the whole way.

“Something to keep in mind if you go with a big pack,” Brandon said once we got inside the truck, “everyone’s sure the constant histrionics are Phyllis’s attempts to maintain control of her blokes.

There’s two more out at the mine, so she’s got eight in total.

Eight sounds awesome at the beginning, when it’s all red hot passion, but once kids start coming…

Her chances of getting to all of them and meeting their needs is not good.

Instead she runs around being a ball busting bitch to keep everyone beholden to her, rather than there for love. ”

“There must be more to it than that,” I said, looking out the window. “Al seemed like a reasonable bloke, he’s not going to be emotionally blackmailed into staying.”

“Maybe she gives head like a vacuum cleaner,” Brandon said, laughing when I started to make gagging noises. “Yeah, just like that.”

“Ew! Ew! Ew!”