Lang Downs

by Ariel Tachna

  Finally Ian pulled his hand free to pick up the pen again. I wish I could kiss you again.

  Thorne’s breath caught in his throat. “If you weren’t stuck in that hospital bed, I’d do a whole lot more than just kiss you,” he promised. “Maybe tomorrow they’ll take the mask off while I’m here and I can kiss you properly.”

  Ian nodded and started coughing at the same time.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” Thorne said. “I didn’t mean to set off another fit.”

  Ian shook his head, but Thorne couldn’t help feeling responsible. Ian’s breathing hadn’t been at all perturbed until Thorne had brought up the possibility of sex. He pressed another gentle kiss to Ian’s forehead. “I’ll leave you alone now. I’m sorry I upset you, but I promise I’ll keep Lang Downs safe for you. I’ll see you tomorrow night, okay?”

  Ian frowned and grabbed Thorne’s hand to stop him from leaving, but Thorne slipped free of his grip. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he repeated. He didn’t know what Ian wanted to say, but he couldn’t deal with it tonight. He’d do his job tomorrow, and tomorrow night, when Ian could talk, they’d sort things out. “Enjoy your book.”

  He heard Ian’s noise of protest or frustration or both, but he didn’t let it stop him from leaving. He couldn’t. He tainted everything he touched these days, and he wouldn’t do that to Ian.

  He made it back to his ute and rested his forehead against the steering wheel. Fuck, he needed a drink. Actually he needed to get rip-roaring drunk and fuck the first willing trick to come along, but that wasn’t going to happen. He’d made a promise to Ian, and he wasn’t going to break it, which meant driving back out to the fire line tonight so he could make sure it didn’t threaten Lang Downs tomorrow.

  IAN STARED down at the book in his hand because he couldn’t stand to look at the empty hospital room. He’d mostly been okay with his solitude after Caine and Macklin left because he told himself Thorne had gone to get dinner and would be back later, but now Thorne was gone for the night, and that was a very different kettle of fish. It shouldn’t have bothered him. He spent far more evenings alone than with company, and he’d only spent one evening with Thorne. Certainly not enough to justify feeling this nagging sense of his absence.

  It was the way Thorne had left that unsettled Ian so much. He’d come back in almost shyly with his gift in hand. He’d pressed it into Ian’s hands with an endearing awkwardness that made the gift even more precious. Thorne clearly wasn’t used to giving gifts and hadn’t been sure what kind of reception he’d get, but he’d taken the time to pick something Ian would enjoy. Then he’d kissed Ian’s cheek so tenderly, and Ian had ached for another kiss, a real one, and he’d said so. Even now, he could hardly believe his own temerity. He didn’t say things like that. He didn’t feel things like that, except apparently he did, and Thorne had reacted exactly as Ian had expected, wanting more than just a kiss. Ian told himself that wasn’t a bad thing. It was normal to want a kiss to become more. They were grown men. They were free to engage in kisses that led to sex. Thorne had no reason to suspect Ian wasn’t normal in that regard, that the mere thought of sex scared him witless, although maybe his coughing fit had given Thorne a clue if the way he’d taken off right after was any indication.

  Ian frowned at the book again. Had he ruined everything before it had a chance to start? The thought made him feel vaguely ill, but the thought of what a relationship between them would logically entail was even worse. Not to mention that this whole train of thought was predicated on Thorne staying, which didn’t seem particularly likely. He didn’t have anywhere else he had to be, but that didn’t mean he’d want to stay on the station. Nor did it mean Caine and Macklin could afford to hire another jackaroo year-round, especially someone they’d have to train. They’d taken Chris and Seth in, but originally that had been for the summer, and by the time they’d asked them to stay, Chris knew his way around the station. They’d taken Sam in, but his skills in managing the station’s finances had proven a huge boon to Caine and Macklin. Sam wasn’t a jackaroo, but he had useful skills in other aspects of the business. Ian had no clue what skills Thorne had outside of fighting fires and wars. He was sure Thorne had learned other things in the military, but he didn’t know if any of them would transfer to the station.

  You’re getting ahead of yourself, he scolded silently. None of this will matter if he wants more than you can give him.

  With a miserable sigh, he set Thorne’s gift aside and went back to reading Dragon Prince. It didn’t require any concentration, not like a new book would. Instead he could relax into the mindlessness of it and forget for a few hours that he was too broken for anyone to put up with him for long.

  Ten

  THORNE FOUGHT his way through the burning forest, slowed down by the dead weight slung across his shoulder. He had to get free of the trees, but every way he turned, something blocked his path: a wall of flames, a pile of dead bodies, insurgents with machine guns and machetes pointed at him and the precious cargo he carried. He spun to the left only to come face-to-face with a suspended body. From the look of it, it had been hanging there for a few days. The fire hadn’t got to it yet, but the carrion crows had. Bile rose in his throat, but he made himself check the face in case it was recognizable.

  Ian’s green eyes stared blankly out of their swollen sockets.

  He stumbled back away from the body, trying not to retch. He had to keep moving. If he stopped, they’d both die, and he couldn’t allow that. He’d already failed so many times, so many people. He couldn’t fail this time. He wouldn’t survive another loss.

  He veered around the corpse and kept going down the trail. The death was horrendous, but the body wasn’t burned. The fire hadn’t come this far yet, so this path should be safe. He would bring his burden home and everything would be well.

  He’d gone another fifty feet when something in the undergrowth caught his foot, and he nearly fell. Catching his balance, he looked to see what had tripped him up. Booted feet lay across the path. He followed the legs up to a body, but he knew right away there was no hope for life. Half the chest was torn away. Nobody could have survived such a wound. Hoping for some identification, he rolled the body over, only to lose his battle with his stomach.

  Ian’s eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking his red hair and freckles, or the sweet curve of his lips.

  He had to get away. He had to get to safety. He picked up his burden again, running this time despite the weight he carried. The forest was dangerous even without the fire. First the body that had been hanged and now this one, torn apart by a roadside bomb or landmine. They couldn’t stay here if they wanted to live. They had to get back to base, to safety and treatment and the possibility of salvation.

  The trail curved off to the right ahead of him. He frowned at that. The fire was to his right. They couldn’t go that way, but he didn’t see a path going any other way, and they couldn’t go back. Danger lay behind them. The fire lay to their right. He would have to take the trail anyway and hope the turn was only a short one to avoid some obstacle ahead of them. He followed the path only to find a line of bodies laid out next to it. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they each had a single bullet wound to the back of their heads. Executions, then, not that it made seeing the bodies any easier. Most frightening of all, though, they all had familiar short red hair. He knew without needing to look that every body in that row bore Ian’s face.

  He sprinted past them, desperation riding him hard. The base had to be right ahead. He’d been carrying the body on his back long enough now. The forest blurred as he ran, tree trunks blending together in a crazy kaleidoscope of colors and sensations. Flashes of red against the green and brown of the trees tried to catch his attention, but he ignored them. He couldn’t see another body bearing Ian’s likeness. He couldn’t stop. He had to get his teammate to safety.

  With a final burst of speed, he made it through the door of the base just as it swung shut behind him. Carefu
lly, so very, very carefully, he eased the body off his shoulders onto the cot in the medical ward. Ian’s eyes were closed, but Thorne wasn’t deterred. He called for the doctor as he felt for a pulse. It was weak but present, so he hovered at Ian’s side until the doctor got there and started checking him for injuries.

  They searched every inch of his body, but they couldn’t find a single mark to explain Ian’s unconscious state. No wounds, no contusions, nothing to give them any hint of finding a cure. He simply lay there unmoving, his breaths coming more and more slowly. The doctor started an IV, pushing fluids or medicine or who knew what into Ian’s body, but nothing changed. And then the breathing stopped, and his chest went motionless. Thorne sprang into action, breathing into Ian’s lungs to keep them moving, putting his fingers on the pulse at Ian’s neck to monitor his heartbeat. That, too, was painfully sluggish, but still there, so he kept breathing for both of them. He could do this. He’d do it for as long as it took. The doctor would find the cause and fix it, and Thorne would provide breath and even a pulse for Ian until that time. He wouldn’t lose him. Not again.

  The pulse flickered out and Thorne started CPR. Thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths. He had no idea how long he worked to give the doctor time to find a solution, but his arms grew tired and his lungs burned from the strain. Hands pulled at his shoulders, trying to drag him away from Ian, but he resisted. Couldn’t they see? Didn’t they understand? Ian wasn’t dead. He was just sleeping. Thorne just needed to wake him up.

  The hands pulled again, succeeding this time in separating him from Ian. As the medics covered his body with a sheet, Thorne threw his head back and howled in defeat.

  The sound of his own shout brought Thorne out of his nightmare and back to the present. His heart pounded frantically in his chest, and he gasped for breath as he tried to dispel the dream images and reconnect with reality. He was lying on Ian’s couch, the blankets so tangled around him he could barely move. It was still dark outside, although Thorne thought it must be getting close to morning, but the light from the lamp he’d left on when he fell asleep made it hard to judge the quality of the darkness. He was safe and whole, if a little battered. His back stung where the rocks had cut it the day before, but that was a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things. The book he’d been reading before bed sat on the table still, waiting for him to pick it up again. In short, his nightmare had been just that: a hypnagogic amalgam of his worst experiences with death and dying, Ian’s face superimposed over the faces of men he had seen murdered, executed, or killed in battle, and finally on Walker’s face. He knew Nick wasn’t dead. Thorne’s stuff was at Nick’s apartment, but he’d nearly died, and Thorne would carry the memory of that frantic flight through the forest for the rest of his life.

  He could have done without the nightmares, though.

  He’d had enough experience with bad dreams and his reaction to them to know he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, so he untangled himself from the covers, folded them neatly, and went to shower. He’d clear the cobwebs from his head and get an early start back to the fire line. He couldn’t change the past, but he could bloody well make sure Ian had a home to come back to when the doctors released him in a few days.

  “ANYBODY SEEN Thorne this morning?”

  “No, why?” Neil asked, looking up from his breakfast.

  “Because he didn’t come back to the main house last night, and his ute isn’t with the others,” Caine said. “Did he come back to the station at all?”

  “He did,” Neil said. “I heard him go into Ian’s place last night. Maybe he parked by Ian’s house instead of with the other utes?”

  “I don’t think so,” Caine said, but he went to the window to check. “No, I don’t see any sign of him.”

  Neil frowned. Thorne had risked his life yesterday to save Ian, winning Neil’s loyalty almost as fully as Caine had it for saving Neil’s own life. “Bloody hell, I hope he hasn’t gone and done something stupid.”

  “Is that a concern?” Macklin asked, joining Caine at the window.

  “Maybe.” Neil gestured for them to join him. Ian wouldn’t appreciate Neil revealing any of what he was about to say, but it would be even worse if he shared it with the whole canteen. “You know Thorne’s got issues, right?” Caine and Macklin nodded. “Well, he’s apparently latched on to Ian as someone safe. Two nights ago, he almost lost it again, and he let Ian stay with him while he calmed down. They talked for a while and Thorne slept on his couch. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but when Thorne found out Ian was missing yesterday, he was like a madman. Ian’s my best friend, but I wouldn’t have gone back into that hellhole to look for him. I wouldn’t have known where to start, for one thing. Thorne threw himself down into the inferno like it was nothing, and he came back with Ian. And….”

  He hesitated a bit now. What he’d told them so far was pretty much public knowledge, things Neil had observed, not things Ian had shared in confidence, but to continue would break Ian’s confidence. He looked at the two men sitting across from him. If anyone on the station needed to know what Ian had said, it was these two, because any kind of long-term relationship would require their blessing. “And I think Ian likes him. I mean, is interested in him.”

  Macklin raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Ian?”

  “Yes, Ian,” Neil said. “I’ve known him a long time, and he’s never shown any interest in anyone. I don’t know Thorne well enough to know if he returns it, but he saved Ian’s life. I kind of feel like we owe it to Thorne to make sure he gets the chance to make up his own mind.”

  “Not to mention you’d like to see Ian happy,” Caine said.

  “Yeah, there’s that too. He has a smile for everyone and a kind word, but have you ever looked at his eyes?” Neil asked. “He’s always alone, even in a crowd. Even with me. If Thorne can take that look away, I’ll do whatever it takes to let him.”

  “But you think he’s gone and done something stupid,” Macklin said.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” Neil said, “but while I’m thrilled with the results, going after Ian yesterday was pretty much the definition of something stupid, and he stayed at Ian’s place again last night instead of going back to the guest room that has to be more comfortable than Ian’s couch. I’m not even going to guess at what’s going through his head, but I’d put money on it not being rational.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Caine asked.

  “Keep an eye on him,” Neil replied. “Maybe I’m wrong and everything will be just fine, but if I’m right and he starts doing stupid shit, maybe we can make him see it, and if we can’t, maybe we can protect him from himself.”

  “There are kids on the station,” Macklin said. “We can’t have him here if he’s a threat to them.”

  “I know,” Neil said. “One of those kids is mine, and about to be two, but the kids can learn to respect his boundaries just like adults can, and he didn’t actually hurt Laura. He saved Ian’s life. Isn’t that worth giving him the benefit of the doubt?”

  “Yes,” Caine said before Macklin could reply, “but there’s still a line he can’t cross, and if he does, we’ll have to ask him to leave.”

  “That’s fair,” Neil said. “Thank you. I’m going to grab a passenger and head back to the fires. I don’t like the idea that he’s out there by himself.”

  “You know the other Firies are out there too,” Macklin said.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know them. I trust our men to watch his back.”

  “We’ll meet you there as soon as we can,” Caine said.

  “Thanks,” Neil said. He grabbed his hat and the keys to one of the utes and found a jackaroo who’d already finished his breakfast. The other man grumbled a little about being pulled away, but Neil was the foreman. None of them would argue with him for long.

  THE FIRE had moved from where they’d been fighting it before, Thorne discovered when he reached the base camp. The flames in the deadfall and surrounding
woods had burned out overnight for the most part, although Captain Grant had ordered a crew to check for hot spots and put them out if possible. The firebreaks had worked on one side, but it had jumped the break on the other side and was creeping through the fields to the west of the ridge where they’d fought the day before.

  “We’ve got to put it out,” Thorne said. “It’s not enough to try to contain it. Each time we do, it jumps the firebreak and keeps going.”

  “I don’t have the men or the equipment to fight it directly,” Captain Grant protested.

  “You will,” Thorne said. “When the Lang Downs folk get here again, their utes can go into the grasslands. They were useless in the woods, but they won’t be out in the open. Have them start at the firebreak and work inward, dousing the fire as they go. If they maintain a fairly tight line, they should be able to put a huge dent in the fires.”

  “That’s asking a lot of them.”

  “It’s their lives and their livelihoods at stake,” Thorne said. “I don’t see them saying no.”

  “Fine, I’ll ask,” the captain said, “but until they get here, I want everyone working to widen the firebreak.”

  Thorne didn’t acknowledge the order. He should have. He knew it was the logical thing to do with so few people and such a powerful fire, but he couldn’t make himself retreat that way. Every inch of grassland the fire burned was an inch closer to Lang Downs and Ian’s home. Thorne had failed at protecting Ian. He wasn’t going to fail again. He grabbed one of the portable foam sprayers and joined a crew heading toward the firebreak. No one looked at him askance since they often soaked the firebreaks with foam to decrease the likelihood of the flames catching any lingering fuel in the breaks, but when they got to their destination, Thorne didn’t stop. The foam worked well as a flame retardant, but it would also work to smother the flames at their source.