Lang Downs

by Ariel Tachna

  “See?” he said after a few minutes. “If you’d come in here with me instead of hanging out with Arrow all the time, you could spend all day like this, just relaxing and being held.”

  She rolled over, giving him access to her belly. He scratched obediently. “It’s winter right now, so things are quieter, but when spring comes, Arrow’s going to have to work a lot more. You’re going to have to get used to him not being around during the day.’

  She just purred louder.

  “Of course that means I’m going to have to get used to Jeremy not being around as much during the day too,” Sam said with a sigh. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? Mooning over a boy and his dog like this. At least we can spend the time together when they’re out doing sheep-y type things.”

  It felt good to say the words, to admit that Jeremy had caught his interest beyond the friendship they were limited to until Sam’s divorce went through. He couldn’t budge on that, but he could use the next five months to lay a foundation on which to build something when the divorce was final and he was free.

  He looked down at the kitten on his lap, heart pounding at the thought. “Oh God, I can’t do this, can I? I’ve got to be out of my mind.”

  The kitten squirmed out from underneath his hands and braced her little paws on his chest, bumping her chin against his sternum. He picked her up and snuggled her closer. She purred and rubbed against his jaw. “Am I crazy to be thinking this way so soon?”

  He took a deep breath to calm the reactionary panic. His marriage to Alison had been over for months now, even if the legal proceedings would take time to complete, so it wasn’t like the idea of being single was new to him. He’d had nine months of thinking that way. Nine months of taking stupid chances in bars with nameless men for the sake of not feeling worthless for a few hours. He’d been at Lang Downs for six weeks already, long enough to have established a routine in his work and his downtime as well. He had always been a creature of habit, preferring to know how things would go ahead of time whenever possible, so having a new routine gave him a real sense of security, something that had been lacking since he lost his job. Separating from Alison had been almost easy in comparison. He’d spent four weeks with Jeremy, sharing evenings in the bunkhouse most nights, even if he did go to Neil and Molly’s house at least once a week so Neil wouldn’t feel like Sam was choosing Jeremy over him. Sam had invited Neil to the bunkhouse multiple times as well, but he’d always refused.

  In those four weeks, Jeremy had been everything Sam could ask for in a friend. He’d been patient with Sam’s ignorance about the workings of the station, understanding of Sam’s obligations to work in the office, fun to be around, not to mention good for Sam’s ego whenever he flirted a little or refused to let Sam put himself down. He was perfect, and that scared Sam a little. He’d learned the hard way that anything that looked too good to be true probably was.

  He didn’t want to start something with Jeremy only to have it end, because unlike his marriage with Alison, a relationship with Jeremy wouldn’t be a sham to hide his sexuality from his father. A relationship with Jeremy would be the real thing, and losing that would be a hundred times harder than ending his marriage to Alison.

  “What am I supposed to do, sweetheart?” he asked.

  The kitten just purred up at him.

  MACKLIN WAITED while Jeremy latched the gate behind them. It was a relief to have someone who knew what he was doing after a summer of herding jackaroos as much as sheep.

  “How are you settling in?” Macklin asked when Jeremy drew up beside him again.

  “Pretty well,” Jeremy said. “It’s nice having company in the bunkhouse, and Chris and Jesse invite me over a couple of times a week as well.”

  “That’s good. The others are still giving you the cold shoulder?”

  “Not everyone,” Jeremy said. “Patrick and Carley have included me in a few things, and Ian asked me to help him out day before yesterday, even though I wasn’t the only one available. I knew it wouldn’t be easy coming here, but I’m not sorry I did.”

  “Good,” Macklin said. “I can speak to Neil if you want.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Jeremy said. “You can order him to work with me, but you can’t order him to be my friend, and even if you could, I wouldn’t want you to. He has to come around in his own time.”

  “He can be stubborn,” Macklin warned.

  “So can I,” Jeremy replied. “Right now, he’s leaving me alone, and Molly is keeping him from giving Sam any grief about us being friends. I just don’t want Sam to feel like he’s caught in the middle.”

  “Oh, so that’s the way it is,” Macklin said with a grin.

  “No, that’s not the way anything is,” Jeremy retorted, but Macklin saw the way Jeremy’s skin darkened.

  “Really?” Macklin said. “You know I’m not going to say anything about it, not when I ended up with Caine.”

  “It’s not that,” Jeremy said. “He’s not ready for anything, and I’m not going to push him. His divorce isn’t even final yet.”

  “It’s a piece of paper,” Macklin said. “They’ve already agreed to end the relationship.”

  “That’s not the point,” Jeremy said. “She’s a bitch. I know I haven’t met her and have only heard Sam’s side of the story, but have you talked to him? Have you listened to the way he talks about himself? He doubts himself constantly. He thinks he’s unattractive. He has no self-esteem. She did that to him, and I’m not going to give her anything else to use against him, whether in court or personally. When the divorce is final and he never has to talk to her again, it won’t matter anymore, but right now, there’s no way. She’d use anything between us as a blunt weapon to beat him to death, and I won’t let that happen.”

  “You really think she would do that?” Macklin asked.

  “It’s not a chance I’m willing to take,” Jeremy said, “and furthermore, it’s not one Sam’s willing to take. He’s not thinking of it from an abuse perspective. He’s thinking about it from a financial perspective. She supported him for nine months after they were separated. He’s afraid she’ll demand repayment if he gives her a reason to be annoyed with him.”

  “So we’d pay her off, and Sam could pay us back out of his salary,” Macklin replied with a shrug.

  “He’d never go for that,” Jeremy said. “He’s been dependent on her for so long that the thought of being dependent on anyone else scares him.”

  “You sure you want to take that on?” Macklin asked.

  “I’m not planning on making him dependent on me,” Jeremy said. “I’m hoping he’ll learn he can rely on me, but he doesn’t need someone to support him. He needs a partner. It’s not the same thing.”

  “No, it’s not,” Macklin agreed, thinking about Caine and the station and the difference between working for Caine those first nine months and owning the station with him since Christmas. “You know him better than I do, but if there’s anything Caine and I can do, one of you needs to tell us. We take care of our own at Lang Downs.”

  “I’m figuring that out,” Jeremy said. “It’s the piece of running a station Devlin never understood.”

  “In his defense, your father wasn’t a lot better,” Macklin said. “Devlin didn’t have the same model for running a station that I did.”

  “Caine didn’t have any model,” Jeremy retorted.

  “Caine is… Caine,” Macklin said finally, not sure how else to describe his lover. “He doesn’t play by any rules but his own.”

  “He’s one hell of a man,” Jeremy agreed. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch.”

  Macklin laughed. “Don’t I know it.”

  “So tell me about this horse of yours,” Jeremy said. Macklin allowed the change of subject because it was easier than talking about his emotions. That was Caine’s area of expertise, not his.

  “What about him?” Macklin asked.

  “I keep hearing no one can ride him but you.”

  “That’s not compl
etely true,” Macklin said. “He let Michael ride him before Michael got too frail to have any business on horseback.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did he let Michael ride him? Or why won’t he let anyone else?” Macklin asked.

  “Both,” Jeremy said.

  “We bought him at an auction,” Macklin said. “A mob of brumbies that was going to be put down if they couldn’t be sold or relocated. Michael was furious. He wanted to relocate the whole mob, but we couldn’t afford it, and other people were bidding on them, so he let them go to other stations. Then Ned came up, screaming and fighting, and so clearly not the kind of horse you could throw a saddle on and put straight to work. Michael got him for almost nothing, far less than he was worth.”

  “If he can’t be ridden, he isn’t worth a whole lot,” Jeremy said.

  “Really?” Macklin said. “Is Sam worth less because he’s not free right now or because he has issues you’ll have to work through?”

  “What? Of course not!”

  “Then why shouldn’t the same be true of Ned?”

  “Because Ned’s a business investment,” Jeremy said.

  “The same way Arrow is a business investment?”

  “He’s useful, at least.”

  “So is Ned,” Macklin said. “He’s the most reliable horse I’ve ever ridden.”

  “So you bought him at a brumby auction, wild as can be,” Jeremy said. “I guess you broke him or Lang did?”

  “Neither,” Macklin said. “He’d already been broken. You can see it in the scars all over his sides. We helped him heal, and we let him come to us, and once he did, we taught him what kindness meant. He trusts us because we’ve never raised a hand to him. He doesn’t trust anyone else because he has no reason to. Most of the year-rounders have favorite horses of their own, so they don’t need to ride him. Caine doesn’t ride well enough to handle a horse as strong as Ned. And it works wonders for my reputation with the seasonal jackaroos to see me riding him like it’s nothing when most of them can’t even get on his back, much less stay there.”

  Jeremy chuckled. “Okay, I can see that part. It just seems risky. What if someone needed to ride him? Not just to prove a point or anything, but actually needed to.”

  “I don’t know,” Macklin said. “We’d have to hope for the best.”

  Fourteen

  CAINE HAD to wait almost a week before he got a chance to make the remaining calls to the women he’d identified, hoping one of them might be Macklin’s mother. Macklin wanted Caine’s opinion on this and that and the other thing, and Caine could hardly complain when the whole point of hiring Sam was to have more freedom for himself to go out into the paddocks with Macklin and to work on the organic certification for the station. The list of names had haunted him, though, and finally there was a day when Macklin didn’t have something specific he needed Caine for, so Caine gave the excuse of checking in with Sam for a few hours to get the time alone.

  He made two more calls that ended in disappointment. He had two names left, and then he’d have to go back and start the search over. Hoping for the best, he dialed the second-to-last number and waited for an answer.

  “Hello?”

  “May I speak with Sarah Armstrong, please?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Mrs. Armstrong, my name is Caine Neiheisel.”

  “Is this a sales call?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m trying to find someone, and I’m hoping you can help me.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can’t,” the woman said. “No one would want to find me, and I don’t know anyone worth finding.”

  As miserable as that sounded, it gave Caine hope. “Does the name Macklin mean anything to you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  She sounded so sad that Caine was sure he’d found the woman he was looking for. “He misses you, Mrs. Armstrong.”

  “You know Macklin?”

  “I do,” Caine said. “He’s my partner.”

  Mrs. Armstrong was silent for so long Caine wondered if he’d lost the connection.

  “What kind of partner?” she asked finally.

  Caine nearly cried in relief. He’d thought from Macklin’s comments that his mother had guessed about his sexuality, but he hadn’t been sure. “Both kinds,” he said. “We own a sheep station in New South Wales.”

  “Is he… is he happy?”

  “I l-like to think so,” Caine said, silently cursing his stutter, but his emotions were too high to control it. “He’s a w-wonderful m-m-man.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “His father was a miserable bastard who made both our lives hell. Macklin got out, thank God, but by the time his father died, I didn’t have any way to find him.”

  “W-would you l-l-like to see him again?” Caine asked.

  “You have no idea how much,” she said, and he could hear tears in her voice. “I’ve worried about him and prayed for him. I never believed I’d see him again.”

  Caine considered his options for a moment. Getting Macklin away from the station for long would be a challenge, but depending on where his mother was, Caine could pick her up and bring her back to the station for a visit. “Where are you living now?” he asked, because he hadn’t bothered to write down addresses along with the phone numbers. “Perhaps I could come pick you up, and you could come to the station for a visit.”

  “In Canberra,” she said. “I left Tumut after my husband died.”

  “That’s only an hour and a half from Boorowa,” Caine said. “Our station is north of there. When would you like to come?”

  “I’m still working,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “I don’t have another long weekend until the Queen’s Birthday in June.”

  Caine checked his calendar, glad it had the Australian holidays marked or he wouldn’t have known the Queen’s birthday was celebrated on the second Monday of June. “I’ll be there the Friday before,” Caine said. “We’ll drive as far as Boorowa after you get off work and then decide if you’re up to the drive to the station that night or if you’d rather stay in Boorowa and drive the rest of the way in the morning.”

  “Bless you, child,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “You’re a miracle worker.”

  “No, ma’am, nothing like that.”

  “Please, call me Sarah.”

  Caine smiled. “I’ll see you in a month, Sarah.” He gave her his phone number and e-mail in case she needed to reach him before then and hung up. He leaned back against the headboard and smiled. It would be the perfect surprise for Macklin.

  SAM SAT on the porch of the bunkhouse, watching his kitten—he really had to name her soon or she’d be Little Bit forever—chase a leaf around the grassy area between the bunkhouse and the road. She wasn’t moving stiffly anymore, but with her mum still in no shape to take care of her, Sam had given up the idea of sending her back to the sheds, which meant she needed a name. A real name.

  “What are we going to call her?” Sam asked when Jeremy joined him on the porch and handed him a beer.

  “Little Bit,” Jeremy said like it was the most obvious choice in the world.

  “That’s a nickname, not a real name,” Sam said. “She needs something dignified.”

  She tumbled arse over head, surprising a laugh from both of them. “Yeah, like she’s so dignified.”

  “She’ll grow out of the awkward kitten stage,” Sam said, “and for all you know, she’ll end up weighing twenty pounds, and then won’t that name seem silly?”

  A screech overhead made them look up. A hawk, to judge by the size, glided over the valley.

  “I still haven’t got used to seeing them,” Sam said. “We didn’t have a lot of hawks or other big birds in Melbourne.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Jeremy said. “They need rodents and the like to hunt, and that’s easier to do up here than in a city. I’d see one occasionally in uni, but almost always near a park of some kind.”

  The hawk screeched again, diving toward the grass in the distance. “He’s found something,�
�� Jeremy said. “I wonder what he caught.”

  When the hawk began its ascent, talons empty, Sam said, “Nothing, apparently.”

  “He’ll try again,” Jeremy said. “He’s hunting, no doubt about it.”

  The hawk circled overhead a few more times and dove again, this time almost directly at them. Sam never saw where Arrow came from, but fur and feathers collided when the hawk tried to grab the kitten. Arrow leaped at the bird, knocking it from the air and away from the kitten. He stood over her protectively, barking and snarling at the stunned predator but not moving an inch from his post.

  The hawk righted itself after a moment, shaking out its feathers. It glared at Arrow but didn’t challenge him. Arrow barked again and that was enough. The hawk launched itself skyward again, flying toward the far end of the valley.

  “I guess it thought she was easy pickings,” Sam said slowly, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “If he got the rest of her family, he probably didn’t see any reason not to go after the one that got away,” Jeremy replied just as slowly. “Come here, Arrow.”

  Arrow turned his head in Jeremy’s direction but didn’t budge.

  “It’s okay, Arrow,” Sam said. “The hawk is gone now.”

  Arrow looked at them like they’d both lost their minds, but he stepped back so the kitten was in front of him instead of between his legs and nudged her toward the porch. She went happily enough, scampering up the steps with Arrow right behind her.

  Sam reached down and picked her up, checking to make sure the hawk’s talons hadn’t scratched her before Arrow got there, but he couldn’t find any trace of blood on her fur. “I know what her name is,” Sam said.

  “What?”

  “Hawk.”

  Jeremy smiled and scratched her head. “If you say so.”

  Sam looked down at her precious little face and smiled too. “I do.”

  “HEY, MATES,” Seth said, all but bouncing as he ran into the bunkhouse holding a box. “Can I hide this in here?”