by Ariel Tachna
“So that means tomorrow I can show you the station?” Ian picked nervously at the waistband of the clean pants, but he had answered, so Thorne kept the conversation going.
“That’s what it means,” he agreed. “Be gentle with me, though. I’m as much a novice as your newest jackaroo.”
Ian grinned at that. “I’ve been teaching blow-ins how to survive for fifteen years. I think I can keep you from making too many mistakes, especially since all the other blow-ins know what they’re doing for the most part now. They’ve had three months to learn and don’t need constant supervision anymore.”
Thorne wanted to keep Ian talking just so he could keep staring at his bare chest, but they both needed to shower, and Kami didn’t hold dinner for anyone. “Get cleaned up. You can tell me what to expect over dinner.”
Ian flashed that grin again and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Thorne to sit on the couch and will away the erection he couldn’t do anything about, not when Ian still looked like a stunned mullet every time some new intimacy arose between them.
“COME ON,” Ian said, tugging playfully on Thorne’s hand after breakfast the next morning. “I’ve got things to show you today!”
“Can’t a bloke even finish his coffee?” Thorne retorted, but he was smiling, so Ian ignored the protest as Thorne left his coffee cup—empty, Ian noticed—in the bin with the other dirty dishes.
“So what’s on the agenda today?” Thorne asked as they headed toward the utes parked near the shearing sheds.
“It should be getting the sheep back to the outer paddocks,” Ian said, “but you’re a blow-in and I’m still on light duty, so we won’t be riding out with the mob.”
“Good thing,” Thorne said. “I don’t know how to ride.”
Ian grinned. When they were in the ute, he said, “We can fix that. Titan doesn’t have a regular rider right now, so once all the sheep are back where they belong, we can use him and teach you enough to get you comfortable on a horse. For now we’re checking fences and drovers’ huts. Caine doesn’t think the fires did any damage, thanks to the Firies, but we’re going to make sure and also to check the drovers’ huts for supplies.”
“Sounds tedious,” Thorne said.
“A lot of what we do is,” Ian admitted as he drove them out of the valley, “but I try to look at the contributions each piece makes. Sure, it’s boring driving along klicks of fences, but if it keeps us from losing sheep, then I’ve contributed to the well-being of the station as a whole. Stocking the drovers’ huts is tedious work, but if it means someone has food and water when they need it, I’m making sure my friends are safe and cared for.”
“A lot of my work in the Commandos was the same,” Thorne said. “Months of legwork for the greater good, and then moments of excitement to break up the boredom.”
“I think my moments of excitement are safer,” Ian replied with a grin. “The occasional dingo or snake, a grassfire if I’m really unlucky. Nothing compared to bullets and guerrillas.”
“Be glad for it,” Thorne said, a shadow passing over his face.
“I am,” Ian said.
“Are we headed back toward the fire zone?” Thorne asked.
“Only to the property line,” Ian replied. “We’ll drive the fences and repair any damage we find, whether from the fires or other causes. There are a couple of huts out that way, so we’ll check them too.”
“So the huts are temporary shelter?” Thorne asked.
“Pretty much,” Ian said. “They’re little one-room cabins stocked with water and nonperishables. We use them if we’re out with the mob overnight or if there’s an emergency. I’ve waited out more than one storm in them. Everyone knows to bring replacements for what they use, but Caine still likes to check them systematically two or three times a year; switch out the blankets, make sure there’s plenty of water and food, restock the firewood, refill the first-aid kit, that sort of thing. In an emergency, it could make the difference between surviving and dying.”
“You don’t have to sell me on what we’re doing,” Thorne said. “I was a soldier, remember? Give me an order and I’ll follow it. Especially when I see the logic in it like I do this one.”
“But I’m not an officer,” Ian said, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at the idea of giving Thorne orders. He’d been thrilled when Macklin asked Neil, not him, to take the foreman’s job. Ian would have done it if asked, but he was far more comfortable as a crew boss or even simply a jackaroo who didn’t need to be told what to do. “And this isn’t the military.”
“No, but there is order and routine and discipline to it,” Thorne said. “Neil or Macklin or someone gives orders, and everyone else carries them out. When you’re out with a crew, you have a job to do and you get it done. That’s very much like in the military. The only difference is that it’s not always a matter of life and death.”
Ian hadn’t thought of it like that, although it made sense when Thorne said it. “I know I started feeling more comfortable here when I understood why I was being asked to do different things. I try to extend the same courtesy to others.”
“You mean you didn’t know this was home the minute you stepped foot on the station?” Thorne teased. “It seems like everyone else did.”
Memories of his early days on the station washed through Ian. He’d been on his own for two years by that time and had learned not to trust anyone, not that he’d been terribly trusting already after what his foster father had done. He’d been sullen and hard to work with. Macklin wasn’t foreman yet, just a crew boss, but he’d rubbed Ian the wrong way from the very beginning, every order raising Ian’s hackles until he nearly snapped. He’d been ready to quit when Michael had summoned him to the station house.
“No, it wasn’t an easy adjustment for me,” Ian admitted. “When I lived with my mum, we moved around a lot, mostly hiding from her exes or from creditors, and once I ended up in DoCS custody, they had a hard time placing me with a foster family. I wasn’t young and cute. I was an angry teenager with an attitude the size of Uluru. By the time I got here, I was an angry twenty-year-old with an attitude. I didn’t know what it meant to have a home, so of course I didn’t recognize Lang Downs for what it was.”
They reached the gate for the upper paddock. Without waiting to be told, Thorne jumped out of the ute and opened the gate. Ian drove through and waited for him to climb back in before turning the ute along the fence line and continuing the conversation. “Michael finally got sick of it. I was sure he was going to fire me, but instead he sat my butt down and told me I had a choice in life. I laughed in his face. I hadn’t had a single choice in my entire life up until that point, as far as I was concerned.”
“He obviously changed your mind about that,” Thorne observed.
“He said he couldn’t change what had happened before I got to Lang Downs, and neither could I, but that it was up to me what happened now that I was here,” Ian explained. “He said I could hold onto my bad attitude and leave at the end of the season with everyone else, or I could accept that life had dealt me a shit hand up until then, let it go, and make a place for myself here. I didn’t believe him, to be honest. Nobody else had ever wanted me. Why would he? He was an old man already, and he was still too in love with his partner to be interested in me. I wasn’t a particularly good jackaroo because I’d been too busy being a pain to actually learn much. It didn’t make sense.”
“How did he convince you?”
“He didn’t, really,” Ian said. “I mean, not by anything he said. I didn’t believe him, but he got me thinking, and so I started looking around at the other year-rounders and listening to the other jackaroos talk, the ones who came back year after year even if they left in the winter. That’s when I started hearing things. They called the year-rounders Michael’s Lost Boys. I scoffed at that. Peter Pan was only a fairy tale and this wasn’t Neverland, but I kept listening, and before long I realized maybe it was, and if it was, if Michael’s offer really was genuine, I’d b
e a fool to pass it up. When the season ended, Michael called me to the station house again and asked me what I’d decided. I asked him if I could stay.”
“He obviously said yes.”
Michael had said yes, on one condition. He needed to know exactly what had brought Ian to him, but Ian didn’t tell Thorne that part. He’d acceded to Michael’s request and poured out the whole sordid story, but he didn’t want to go through it again. Fortunately for Ian, a break in the fence drew his attention.
“Yes, he did,” Ian said, putting the ute in park. “Let’s go. We’ve got a fence to fix.”
Fifteen
“GOOD NEWS,” Thorne said when he joined Ian in the living room of Ian’s house after dinner. “I got a call from Walker. He’s back in Australia. He’ll be in Wagga Wagga next week, so I thought I’d drive down and get the rest of my things one day next week. It’s probably too long to drive there and back in one day, though.”
“I think we can spare you for two days,” Ian replied. He forced a grin even as he fought the sudden surge of jealousy. “Or even three if you want to catch up with your friend.”
“That’ll depend on his schedule,” Thorne said. “I don’t know that he’ll have much time off other than in the evenings. I’ll probably drive down, spend the evening with him, and drive back the next day. I want to see him and get my stuff, but I don’t want to be gone too long.”
Ian felt the jealousy subside. “So tell me about him.”
“About Walker?” Thorne asked. Ian nodded. “There’s not much to tell that I haven’t already told you. We were in the Commandos together. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“What will he think of you staying here on the station?” Ian asked. It wasn’t what he really wanted to know, but it was the best he could come up with to ask.
Thorne pulled the book Ian had been reading out of his hands and set it on the coffee table. He cradled Ian’s cheeks in his hands and kissed him. Ian leaned into the touch, completely addicted after the two weeks they’d spent doing this. “Is that what you really want to know, or are you asking what he’ll think of me being with you?”
“Both,” Ian admitted, feeling his cheeks flush from the kiss and from being caught out.
“He’ll probably be surprised about the station,” Thorne said. “I don’t know how he’ll react to me being with you, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not his decision to make, and his reaction, good or bad, isn’t going to keep me from coming back to you. Yes, he’s a friend, one of the few people I’d actually give that title to, but he’s not a threat to you.”
“Sorry,” Ian said. “I shouldn’t be so clingy.”
“You can be as clingy as you want, baby,” Thorne said as he leaned in to kiss Ian again.
Ian let him take control of the kiss. He’d found it easier and easier to trust Thorne over the past two weeks when they sat together in his living room kissing, and today had only added to that. Thorne had been a model student out in the tablelands, doing everything Ian asked him to and only needing Ian to explain things once. The first time they’d stopped to fix a fence, Ian had to show him how to do it, but the second time, they worked like a team.
Ian tilted his head into Thorne’s hands, trusting their support. Thorne didn’t let him down, and before long, Thorne had wandered away from Ian’s mouth and along his jaw, his beard providing an erotic prickle that always made Ian gasp.
He’d watched Thorne today and had seen the strength in his hands and arms. Pulling a fence was hard work, something a lot of the seasonal jackaroos never managed to do on their own, but Thorne had figured it out the first time Ian had shown him, and then he’d done it with such powerful efficiency that Ian hadn’t been able to stop staring at his forearms. Feeling bold now, he traced the line of muscle in Thorne’s arms with tentative fingers. He didn’t move above Thorne’s elbows yet, not wanting to rush and miss any part of the experience. The skin on Thorne’s arms was covered in hair like his chest, soft black strands that matched the hair on his head, and beneath that, rock-hard muscle. Thorne murmured something incomprehensible against Ian’s neck, but Ian figured Thorne wasn’t telling him to stop, so he took his time with his exploration.
The inside of Thorne’s wrists were exquisitely sensitive, Ian discovered through trial and error, and it made him smile to hear the gasps that escaped each time he dragged his nails over the smooth skin, one of the few patches not dusted with that wonderful dark pelt.
“I wondered if you’d find that spot,” Thorne said between gasps, and Ian smiled even wider to think he’d discovered something about Thorne through his own initiative. It made him wonder what other spots he could find if he were bold enough to look.
He could have simply asked, of course, but he suspected the search was at least half the fun for both of them… as long as he had the courage to follow through.
Thorne still nuzzled his neck, but Ian could tell he was waiting, too, to see what Ian did next. The moment stretched between them, pregnant with significance. Ian could pull back or continue doing what he’d already done, and Thorne would resume his usual attentions, or Ian could try something new and see what kind of reaction that got. He took a calming breath and then another one, reminding himself how Thorne had always respected the limits he set. Thorne would never pressure him to do more than he was comfortable with, but as Ian glanced down at where his hands rested on Thorne’s arms, he realized he wasn’t done. As attractive as Thorne’s forearms were, there was still so much more of him to explore. Maybe he wasn’t ready for everything, but he could move to Thorne’s biceps. That wasn’t much more of an intimacy than what he’d already undertaken.
He cupped Thorne’s elbows in his palms before running his hands up Thorne’s biceps until he reached the edge of Thorne’s T-shirt. He stopped there and worked his way back down over the strong muscles.
“I can take it off,” Thorne offered.
Ian froze at the words. He’d seen Thorne shirtless, but only from across the room. Since his first day home from the hospital, Thorne had been careful to take all his clothes with him into the bathroom and come out fully dressed after his shower. He waited until Ian went to bed at night to strip down to whatever he slept in, and he was always up and dressed when Ian came out of his room in the morning. He knew Thorne had made the effort for Ian’s comfort, not for his own, and that helped settle his nerves and make up his mind. “If you want.”
Thorne shook his head, the gesture rubbing his beard against Ian’s skin again. Ian moaned softly at the contact. “It’s not what I want, Ian,” Thorne said seriously. “It’s what we want, and right now, that’s determined by what you want. I know you’ve been hurt in the past, and I won’t be the one to make it worse.”
Ian’s first reaction was to deny it, but the look on Thorne’s face stopped the words in his throat. Thorne didn’t pity him, but he also wasn’t going to take any bullshit about how nothing bad had happened. He wasn’t demanding answers, but he wouldn’t accept a lie. Ian nodded slowly, trying to go back to the question at hand. What about his shirt? He’d certainly admired Thorne’s chest before, and he didn’t have to do more than look even now just because Thorne took his shirt off. It didn’t obligate him to do anything. “Maybe in a minute,” he said finally before drawing Thorne back into their kiss.
Thorne came willingly enough, and that gave Ian the courage to move his hands over the cloth-covered breadth of Thorne’s shoulders. It wasn’t a daring caress, but it felt like a victory to Ian. Instead of burying his hands safely in Thorne’s hair, he let them wander over Thorne’s back, feeling the strong muscles beneath his T-shirt. When Thorne reciprocated, though, he froze. Immediately Thorne removed his hands and leaned back on the couch away from Ian.
“I won’t touch you unless you ask,” Thorne promised, “but I hope you won’t stop touching me.”
Ian gulped hard once and then a second time as he stared at Thorne laid out on the couch in front of him. With his hands locked behind his h
ead, his chest puffed forward, making him seem even broader than usual. Ian raked his gaze over Thorne’s body, flushing hard when he saw the bulge in Thorne’s jeans. He’d done that, or rather, kissing him had done that to Thorne. Yet even aroused, Thorne put himself completely at Ian’s command. It was a liberating realization.
He reached out again and rested his hand on the curve of Thorne’s chest. He couldn’t meet Thorne’s gaze as he waited for a reaction—he didn’t have that much boldness in him—but the sound of Thorne’s sharp intake of breath reached his ears. “You’re going to be the death of me,” Thorne said, his voice a rumble in his chest that Ian swore he felt as much as heard.
“Will it at least be a good way to go?” Ian asked, plucking up his nerve.
“The best,” Thorne replied.
The words sent warmth of a different kind through him. This wasn’t just lust, although that was a part of it. This went beyond that to something deeper. Thorne tugged at him in a way no one else had ever done, both physically and emotionally.
“Can I…?” He couldn’t get the words out.
Thorne cupped his cheek with his hand again, drawing Ian’s gaze up to his face. “You can do whatever you want, Ian. I’m all yours, remember?”
Ian swallowed hard and nodded as he reached for the hem of Thorne’s shirt. Thorne sat up enough to rip the cloth over his head before returning to his reclining position on the couch. “Whatever you want,” he repeated.
Ian took a moment just to stare. He’d seen Thorne from across the room, but this was different. At this distance, he could see the scars that lurked beneath the pelt of dark hair and the details of the tattoos that adorned Thorne’s shoulders under the cover of his T-shirt, a sword through a boomerang on one side and a series of numbers on the other. He didn’t ask, but he committed the black lines to memory. Another time, perhaps, he’d find the courage to ask the significance of the numbers. If they were dates, as they appeared, the oldest was from more than twenty years ago. The scars told a different tale: a pucker beneath Thorne’s collarbone, a sharply ridged line along his ribs, what looked like the jagged edge of a handsaw disappearing into the waistband of his pants, the shiny remnants of a burn wrapping around his waist to his back. The details drove home to Ian just how hard a life Thorne had lived. Ian had a few marks on his hands and legs from life on the station, where barbed wire had caught him once when he was still a blow-in and had more bravado than brains. Macklin had torn him a new one when he’d found him tangled in the wire and bleeding in more places than he had intact skin, but only a few of the puncture wounds had left scars. Thorne hadn’t been as lucky, it seemed, or if he had, he’d been hurt far more often than Ian.