by Ariel Tachna
“Welcome home,” Chris said. “Are you glad to be back?”
“Very glad,” Thorne said. “I missed everyone.”
“Uh-huh,” Jesse said. “You mean you missed Ian.”
“I did miss Ian,” Thorne said, because he could hardly deny that he’d missed his lover, “but I missed the rest of you as well. Lang Downs has become home.”
“It does that, doesn’t it?” Jesse agreed. “I’ll get Titan saddled up for you. I imagine you’ll want to ride out with Ian today.”
“I have to talk to Caine and Macklin first,” Thorne said. “I have a contract to sign.”
Ian smiled at him, the light in his eyes nearly blinding in its intensity. “We’ll be out as soon as that’s done,” he told Jesse. “It shouldn’t take us long.”
The rest of breakfast passed in the same vein, the other year-rounders welcoming Thorne home and offering any assistance he needed in settling in. By the time they finished eating, Thorne felt completely overwhelmed. Ian smiled at him as they walked toward the station house.
“Doing okay?”
“I’m fine,” Thorne said. “Just a little surprised at how much everyone seemed to miss me. I mean, I knew you did, but there’s no reason for everyone else to have noticed, much less cared.”
“There’s every reason for them to have noticed,” Ian disagreed. “We’re a family, remember?”
“You keep telling me that,” Thorne said, “but it’s been so long since I’ve had anyone but Walker….”
“And now you have more people than you know what to do with,” Ian said. “I remember how overwhelming it was when I first got here. Some of the faces have changed in that time. Michael is gone and some of the older year-rounders from the first few years have retired and chosen to go elsewhere, but the feeling hasn’t changed in fifteen years. You just have to trust us.”
“Welcome back, Thorne,” Caine said when he opened the door to the station house. “Are you ready to sign that contract now?”
“I am,” Thorne said. “I shouldn’t need to go back to Wagga Wagga for any extended period of time now, but I will need to log in to the station’s Internet on my days off. My therapist wants to continue our sessions via Skype.”
“That’s easy enough to arrange,” Caine said. “Get the password from Sam. We only have it protected because of the station accounts on the computer.”
“You’ll have to teach me how to use that,” Ian said. “It would be easier than driving to Cowra once a week, since I’m not exactly done either.”
“We’ll get you sorted,” Caine promised, the Australian idiom in Caine’s Yank accent making Thorne smile.
Amusement aside, Thorne finally believed it. He’d arrived at Lang Downs three months earlier a broken man. He didn’t claim to be healed yet—he wasn’t sure such a thing existed with all the black marks on his soul—but he was better than he’d been in years. Best of all, he had Ian now, and he’d do whatever it took to protect that. Caine set the contract in front of him. Thorne skimmed through it and picked up a pen.
This was a contract he’d willingly spend the rest of his life honoring.
To everyone who asked for more.
Character List
Caine Neiheisel – owner of Lang Downs (Inherit the Sky)
Macklin Armstrong – co-owner of Lang Downs, Caine’s partner (Inherit the Sky)
Seth Simms – Chris’s brother, moved to Sydney to get an engineering degree, Jason’s best friend
Jason Thompson – Seth’s best friend, Patrick and Carley’s son, just finished vet school
Chris Simms – Seth’s brother, year-rounder on Lang Downs (Chase the Stars)
Jesse Harris – Chris’s partner, year-rounder, mechanic (Chase the Stars)
Sam Emery – business manager for Lang Downs (Outlast the Night)
Jeremy Taylor – year-rounder on Lang Downs, Sam’s partner (Outlast the Night)
Thorne Lachlan – year-rounder on Lang Downs, former Commando (Conquer the Flames)
Ian Duncan – year-rounder on Lang Downs, Thorne’s partner (Conquer the Flames)
Patrick and Carley Thompson – year-rounders on Lang Downs, Jason’s parents. Patrick is head mechanic
Neil Emery – foreman on Lang Downs, Sam’s brother, married to Molly, father of Dani and Liam, Ian’s best friend
Kami Lang – station cook
Sarah Lang – Macklin’s mother, now married to Kami
Devlin Taylor – owner of Taylor Peak, the neighboring station, Jeremy’s brother
Nick Walker – former Commando, Thorne’s best friend
Kyle and Linda – year-rounders. Linda has a daughter Laura from a previous marriage.
Charlie White – year-rounder at Taylor Peak
Michael Lang – deceased founder of Lang Downs, Caine’s great-uncle
Prologue
SETH SIMMS tossed his lunch bag on the counter as he walked into his apartment. Ilene would fuss if he left it there, but he needed a shower to get the grease off his hands and out of his hair first. He’d deal with his lunch bag after he was clean. She wasn’t due home for another hour anyway.
As he stood under the hot water, Seth wondered, not for the first time, what he was still doing in Sydney now that he’d finished his degree. The job at the local mechanic shop paid the bills and let him root around under the bonnet of as many cars as he wanted, but it was work he could have done when he was sixteen without any of what he’d learned in his mechanical engineering courses. He and Ilene argued about it at least once a month, but looking for anything else would feel too much like making a commitment to stay in Sydney. He didn’t hate Sydney the way he’d hated some of the other places he’d lived growing up, before he and his brother Chris moved to Lang Downs, but it wasn’t home either. Lang Downs was the only place to ever have earned that designation.
He stepped out of the shower and started drying off. He’d given in to Ilene’s demands and spent last Christmas with her family, so it had been more than a year since he’d last visited Lang Downs. He and Chris e-mailed regularly, sometimes even daily, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe he should think about using a little of his vacation and going down to visit. Chris and his partner Jesse would make up his old room for him, and Caine, the station owner, wouldn’t mind having an extra mouth to feed for a few days, especially if Seth pitched in around the station. That would certainly be easy enough to do. Patrick, the station’s head mechanic, never changed anything. Seth bet he could find every tool he needed in the shed blindfolded.
“Seth! How many times do I have to tell you not to leave your lunch bag on the counter?” Ilene’s shriek echoed through the apartment, grating on Seth’s nerves. Sometimes he didn’t know why he was with her in the first place. It hadn’t always been like this, although he couldn’t have said when it changed. When they first met, three years ago, she’d been fun to be with, always laughing, always happy. She hadn’t cared then that even with his engineering degree, he was working as a mechanic. She’d told him the right job would come along in time. She wasn’t nearly as forgiving now. Hell, given his track record, it was probably his fault she’d turned into a screeching harpy.
He pulled on shorts and a singlet and walked out of the bathroom. “I was coming to put it away, but you’d have been more upset if I got grease everywhere. I was covered in it today.”
She frowned at him but didn’t continue her harangue, for which Seth was grateful.
“I was thinking about going back to Lang Downs for a few days to see my brother. Do you want to come with me?”
Ilene’s expression was all the answer Seth needed. Lang Downs held no interest for her and never would. It had been the one strike against her when they first started dating, but he’d hoped she would see how important it was to him and learn to love it as he did, or even to tolerate it for his sake. It hadn’t happened.
“When are you going?” she asked, her voice so cold and disapproving Seth almost asked her to leave right then. She’
d moved in with him. His name was the only one on the lease. He could make her go and she wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop him.
“I haven’t decided yet. I have to talk to Chris, see when it would suit and all that. Not to mention ask for time off at work.”
“You couldn’t just go for a weekend?” Ilene wheedled. “I’ve been looking at cruises for vacation this year. If you use your holidays now, we’ll have to wait until next year.”
“Ilene, I hate boats. You know that. Why would you even think about a cruise? I’d spend the whole time miserable.”
“You hate small boats,” Ilene said. “You’ve never been on a cruise ship. You’ll never know you’re on a boat if you stay away from the outer decks. It’s more of a floating city than a boat.”
It was still a boat.
“I’m going to e-mail Chris. I’ll see what he has to say and then we can talk about our holiday plans for this year. But no boats.”
She humphed but left it at that. Seth unpacked his lunch bag and put it under the sink so she wouldn’t have that to harp on when he came back out later. Then he went to the extra room they used as an office and booted up the computer. He could hear her flouncing around in the living room and kitchen, fussing over things that didn’t need fussing over just to make her annoyance clear, but he tuned it out. When his in-box opened, he smiled to see a note from Chris at the very top. He clicked it and froze when he read the first line:
Jason is home.
JASON THOMPSON stood on the veranda of the bunkhouse, staring at the night sky. His parents had offered him his childhood room again, but he didn’t want to come back as a visitor or as a child. He wanted to come back as one of the men, whether he spent his time as a jackaroo or as the vet, and the only way the year-rounders—and maybe even the seasonal jackaroos—would see him as one of them was if he stayed in the bunkhouse.
“You’re awful quiet, mate.”
Jason looked up to see who had joined him. It took a minute to place the name of the other jackaroo. Cooper something. He didn’t remember the last name. He’d met too many new people all at once in the past two days to remember all the details.
“It’s strange to be home and yet have it so different,” Jason explained. “Before I went away to school, Mum didn’t let me come to the bunkhouse very often, and only with someone for a specific reason. I wasn’t one of the jackaroos, so I didn’t have any business being here as far as she was concerned.”
“And now you do,” Cooper finished.
“Maybe,” Jason said a little bitterly. “Neil gave me the same job he gave one of the blow-ins this morning. He’s either afraid something will happen to me and my father will have his hide, or he’s forgotten I’ve been on the station as long as he has. He still sees me as a kid.”
Cooper leaned back against the wooden column that supported the roof of the veranda, giving Jason an uninhibited view of his lanky body. For a second, Jason felt bad about ogling him, but Cooper was ogling right back. “Then he’s blind. You certainly aren’t a kid.”
Jason smiled. Cooper wasn’t Seth, but he was there, interested, and available—three things Seth would never be. He could think of worse ways to spend a summer. He tipped his beer back and emptied the bottle. “I could use another beer. I have some in my room. Do you want one?”
Cooper’s smile spread slowly across his face as he raked Jason with his gaze again. “Depends on what else you’re offering.”
Jason smiled back. “I’m sure we could come up with something we’d both enjoy.”
One
THE SOUND of the phone ringing startled Sam Emery, business manager at Lang Downs, out of his concentration on the end-of-quarter accounting he did every three months for the station. He muttered a curse under his breath as he lost track of where he was in the line of numbers, but no one else was in the big house at the moment to answer it.
“Lang Downs, Sam Emery speaking.”
“Is Jeremy Taylor available?”
“No, he’s out in the paddocks,” Sam replied. “Could I take a message?”
“Could you ask him to call Taylor Peak as soon as he can? It’s about his brother.”
Sam debated for a minute what he should say. He and Jeremy had made no secret of their relationship at Lang Downs, but Jeremy’s brother hadn’t been at all accepting, which was why they were still on Lang Downs, not on Taylor Peak, the station directly to the west. On the other hand, if there was a problem, Sam might be able to help… if the man on the phone didn’t share Devlin Taylor’s prejudices and would talk to him.
“I’m Jeremy’s partner. Is something wrong with Devlin?”
The man hesitated for so long Sam thought he wasn’t going to say anything, but he finally spoke. “There’s been an accident. Devlin’s been airlifted to the hospital in Canberra. I know he and Jeremy haven’t been on the best of terms recently, but I thought he should know.”
“What kind of accident?” Sam’s heart clenched at the thought of all the things that could go wrong on a station: broken bones, mangled limbs, or worse.
“He was thrown from his horse,” the man said. “He lost consciousness an hour or so later, and we couldn’t rouse him. It doesn’t look good.”
“I’ll get word to Jeremy,” Sam promised. “Do you need him on the station or should we go to Canberra to be with Devlin?”
“The crew bosses can keep things running for a few days. It’s not mating season yet. If it drags on that long, though, someone will have to make decisions. We just do what Taylor tells us.”
Sam had a few choice things to stay about stubborn stockmen making stupid decisions, but he’d save those for Devlin when the man recovered. Right now, he needed to get Jeremy in from the paddock and headed toward Canberra. Everything else could wait until they knew what Devlin’s prognosis was.
“Thanks for letting us know,” Sam said. “If you talk to whoever is with Devlin, let him know Jeremy is on his way. We’ll be there as quickly as we can.”
“I will,” the man said before ending the call.
Sam leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He had no idea how Jeremy would take the news. Yes, he and Devlin were estranged and had been for a number of years, but they were still brothers. Sam couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if it were his own brother in Devlin’s place. He’d be gutted if something happened to Neil. Delaying wouldn’t change anything, though, and even seconds could make a difference in whether Jeremy got to see Devlin again. Sam took a deep breath and picked up the radio.
He looked up the frequency Jeremy had been assigned that day and switched the transponder to only call his radio. No need to broadcast the situation to the whole station just yet. They could worry about that when they had more news.
“Jeremy? Are you there?”
The radio crackled for a moment, then Jeremy’s voice came over the airwaves. “I’m here. What’s going on?”
“There’s been an accident at Taylor Peak,” Sam said.
Jeremy said something that got lost in the static, but Sam suspected it wasn’t terribly flattering.
“You need to come back in,” he insisted. “We need to go to Canberra.”
“Sam, this isn’t a good time,” Jeremy said.
“Jeremy Taylor, get your arse back to the station now. Your brother is seriously hurt,” Sam exclaimed. “Where are you? I can meet you halfway to save time. One of the other jackaroos can bring your horse back in.”
Silence greeted his outburst.
“I’ll meet you on the road out of the valley in an hour,” Jeremy replied finally. “Bring a change of clothes for me? I stink of sheep.”
“I’ll wait for you at the third gate from the house,” Sam said. “See you soon.”
He set the radio down and hurried toward the kitchen. He didn’t expect anyone to be there except Kami and Sarah, but he could tell them what had happened and they could tell Caine and Macklin. To his surprise, Macklin sat at the little table to the side of the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” Macklin asked as soon as he walked in.
Sam didn’t bother asking how Macklin knew. He was sure it was written all over his face. “We got a call from Taylor Peak. Devlin was thrown from his horse. He’s been airlifted to Canberra. Jeremy’s on his way. We’ll leave as soon as I can pack a bag for us. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Macklin rose to his feet. “Don’t let Jeremy rush back because he feels like he’s neglecting his job here. Devlin Taylor and I have never been friends, but he’s Jeremy’s brother. Jeremy should stay as long as Taylor needs him. We’re not shorthanded. We can cover for him until he comes back.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. “I appreciate it even if he doesn’t think to say it.”
Macklin smiled. “It’s understood.”
“I only got halfway through the quarterly reports.”
“Sam, go,” Macklin said. “Caine will figure it out. Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.”
Sam nodded and headed for the house he and Jeremy shared. He threw clothes in a suitcase at random. When it was packed, he tossed it into the boot and drove toward the gate where he’d promised to meet Jeremy. He would probably be early, but better that than being late. As soon as Jeremy got there, they could leave and hopefully reach Devlin in time.
SETH WASN’T terribly surprised not to meet anyone as he drove across Taylor Peak toward home. Sometimes he ran into a group of jackaroos from the neighboring station, but more times than not, he only saw sheep scattered here and there in the paddocks. He was somewhat more surprised to pass a car coming down the road from Lang Downs. He pulled to the side to let it pass and caught sight of Sam and Jeremy in the front seat. He waved, but they either didn’t see him or didn’t recognize him. He shrugged and drove on. They probably forgot today was the day he was arriving. Chris would have told them, but he was hardly the top of their priority list. He wasn’t even really at the top of Chris’s list anymore, since he’d moved off the station to go to school, but Chris wouldn’t have forgotten he was coming. He could always rely on Chris, even when everyone else disappointed him.