Cherish the Land (18 page)

Then Jason tugged on his hand and pulled Seth into his arms.

That was new. Years overdue to hear some of the year-rounders tell it, but definitely new.

Seth wrapped his arms around Jason’s chest, tucked his head under Jason’s chin, and held on. Now that he had the right to touch this way, he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity.

“You know everyone who saw us walk this way together is going to think we’re having sex,” Jason observed softly.

Seth tipped his head back so he could look at Jason. “With my brother in the next room?” he said with a shudder. “I don’t think I could get it up, knowing he could hear every sound we made.”

“You mean you never snuck a girl into your room before you and Chris came to Lang Downs?” Jason teased.

Seth shook his head. “When we lived with Tony, I didn’t bring anyone home because I didn’t even want to go into that hellhole. Why would I have brought anyone else there? And after Tony kicked us out, I didn’t have a room of my own. We were lucky to have a bed in some of the places we stayed. I didn’t have my own room again until we moved here.”

Jason’s arms tightened around Seth. “You never talk about your life before you got here. I always forget growing up wasn’t the same for you as it was for me.”

Way to go, Simms
, Seth thought.
Totally fuck up the mood.

“Mostly I just want to forget about it too,” Seth said. “But no, no sneaking girls into my room. Boys either, for that matter. I slept over with friends a few times, but that never lasted long when I wouldn’t reciprocate.”

Jason kissed the top of his head. Seth alternated between feeling comforted and patronized. He pushed the second reaction aside. Jason wouldn’t patronize him. He needed to change the subject, though, because Jason would feel sorry for him, and Seth hated that. “We talked about Misfit, but I didn’t ask how Jeremy was doing.”

“Jeremy looked really run-down.”

“It’s got to be hard,” Seth said. “I can’t imagine what I would do if something happened to Chris. He was all I had for so long.”

Jason’s arms tightened around him. “Nothing’s going to happen to Chris, but even if it does, you won’t be alone. I promise.”

Seth would have given anything to believe that, but he knew the value of promises. His mother promised things would get better when she married Tony. She’d promised Tony would take care of him after she died. Hell, Tony even promised her he’d see to her boys. He’d seen to them all right. He’d seen them right out the door. Chris was the only person who had never broken a promise to him, who had never left him. Seth wanted to believe Jason, but he didn’t know how to trust anymore.

“I need to get over to Taylor Peak and take a look at Jeremy’s machinery,” Seth said instead of acknowledging Jason’s promise. “It’s not much, but if I can take that worry off his mind, he can focus on other things.”

“I know he’d appreciate it.” Jason scooted down on the bed so he was lying nearly flat and rearranged his arms so one lay across Seth’s chest and the other rested between them. He stroked the line of Seth’s sternum lazily, the contact more relaxing than arousing. That could change in a heartbeat, but for now, Seth purred under the touch like a lazy kitten. It had been a long time since he’d just basked in someone’s presence this way. Ilene hadn’t been the relaxing sort, and even then, she’d expected him to take care of her, not the other way around. Seth would happily take care of Jason anytime he needed it, but the casual affection implicit in Jason’s light caress soothed rough edges he didn’t even know he had.

God, he hoped this meant Jason loved him too. He’d told himself repeatedly that Jason’s reaction in the tractor shed was more than enough proof that Jason felt the same way, but a part of him really wanted to hear the words. Asking for them would be admitting how needy Jason made him feel, though, and he couldn’t make himself that vulnerable. Not even to Jason. Jason wouldn’t hurt him deliberately, but Seth had learned the hard way not to open himself up to being hurt. He could be patient. They had time. Jason would say the words when he was ready and everything would be fine.

If he said it enough times, he might even believe it eventually.

Jason rolled onto his side and kissed Seth hungrily. Seth responded instantly, his body reacting despite his earlier comment about Chris in the next room.

“Think we can come up with an excuse to get Chris and Jesse out of the house for a few hours?” Jason asked. “Because I really want to get naked with you.”

The words sent shivers through Seth. He wanted Jason so much it scared him. He leaned in for another kiss to cover his nerves. “They’ll see right through any excuse we come up with.”

“Does it matter?” Jason asked. “We’re both well over the age of consent. There’s no reason we shouldn’t have sex. I guarantee they do. And probably have since you’ve been home.”

That wasn’t an image Seth needed in his head. “Way to kill the mood,” he grumbled. “I don’t guess the bunkhouse is an option either.”

“Those walls are even thinner than the walls here. And… I’d feel like I was rubbing it in Cooper’s face, and that seems like a shitty way to thank him for pushing us into getting together, even if that wasn’t his intention.”

Seth was twisted enough to want to rub it in Cooper’s face a little, but Jason was right, and Seth had won the prize, so he could be magnanimous. “Drover’s hut?”

Jason laughed. “Why don’t we just suggest to Jesse that he should take Chris into town on their next day off? Yes, they’ll know, but it’ll be worth it to have you to myself.”

“You talk to him,” Seth said. “I’m not going anywhere near either of them with this. One sex talk with my brother was enough to last for a lifetime.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Jason replied. “Just not right now.”

Seth snuggled deeper in Jason’s embrace. Jason could worry about that tomorrow. Seth had more important things on his mind. Like keeping Jason there until they fell asleep together. Just like old times, only better.

“A
RE
YOU
sure you’re okay with this?” Sam asked as he and Jeremy got ready for dinner. It had been a week since Sam had brought up the idea of asking their friends to invest in the station. Caine and Macklin had agreed to come over, and Walker had shrugged and told them he didn’t care where he ate as long as he got food. “We can forget about it and just enjoy dinner with friends and our foreman. We can ask Caine and Macklin’s advice on all the things we still feel like we’re guessing about, and we can explain Walker’s presence because he’s the one who will help us carry out whatever plans we make.”

“No.” As much as Jeremy hated admitting he was in over his head, the other option was losing the station to the bank, and that would be even worse. “As hard as this will be, it’s still the best alternative we have. If they say no, we’ll consider other options, but we have to try.” Devlin wouldn’t agree, but it was Jeremy’s best choice for preserving some part of his family’s legacy. “We should go down. They’ll be here soon.”

“I’ll be down in just a minute,” Sam said. “I want to look through the numbers one more time, just to make sure I haven’t missed anything.”

Sam hadn’t missed anything. Jeremy knew that as surely as he knew his own name. That was nerves talking. Sam didn’t want to do this any more than Jeremy did, but they didn’t have a choice. Jeremy gave Sam a quick kiss and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Philippa, the station cook—nowhere near as creative as Kami but still a sight better than the station cook from before Jeremy had moved to Lang Downs—had left dinner warming in the oven so all Jeremy would have to do was serve. The food would be edible and filling, but he wondered what he’d have to bribe Caine with to get her lessons with Kami. Or maybe he could borrow Sarah for a week. She’d picked up all of Kami’s recipes by now. Most nights the Lang Downs jackaroos couldn’t guess who had actually made the meal anymore.

“Stop stalling,” he muttered to himself as he set the table. “Even if they say no, they’re still your friends and you can enjoy an evening together.”

He heard a car door close and booted feet on the veranda. “They’re here, Sam,” he called up the stairs as he went to open the door. “Hi, Caine, Macklin. Thanks for coming.”

“We’re glad to be here,” Caine said. “Is everything okay? You said you had something you wanted to talk about.”

“Dinner first, business later,” Sam said as he joined them in the foyer. “No need to spoil our appetites. We’re just waiting for Walker.”

“How’s he working out as foreman?” Macklin asked.

“Better than I could have hoped,” Jeremy replied. In the month Walker had been at Taylor Peak, Jeremy had already come to rely on him as much as he relied on Sam, albeit for different things. “He’s not always up to date on the latest trends, but he’s smart and willing to learn. Most importantly, though, he put the fear of God in the jackaroos. Some of them still look like they might argue with Sam or me, but they see him coming and get to work without him saying a word. It suddenly doesn’t matter that the orders came from me when Walker is the one barking them at the men.”

“Nobody instills discipline like a Commando drill sergeant,” Walker said from behind them as he walked in the door. “I had good teachers.”

“Walker, good to see you again,” Macklin said, offering his hand for Walker to shake. “How are you settling in?”

“Like a duck to water,” Walker replied. “Some things you just don’t forget. It helps to have bosses who know what they’re doing. It’s easy to enforce a logical order. Not so much when the decisions don’t make sense.”

“Tell us if that ever happens,” Jeremy said immediately. “This isn’t a dictatorship.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it was,” Walker replied. “Some of the jackaroos haven’t figured that out yet, but they’ll come around.”

“My brother—”

“Is no longer running the station,” Walker interrupted. “I don’t speak ill of the dead. So, enough about that, you said you had something to talk to me about?”

Caine laughed. “We just asked and were told no business until after dinner.”

“I wouldn’t want to spoil anyone’s appetite,” Sam said. “Our cook may not be up to Kami’s standard, but who is?”

“Then let’s eat,” Walker said. “I’m starving, and Phil might not cook like Kami does, but she’s still in a whole different class than what I got in the army.”

“Phil?” Caine asked.

“Philippa, but the only thing she hates worse than being called that is being called Pippa.” Caine’s grin grew wider, and Jeremy could practically see him matchmaking in his head. “What?” Walker said. “It pays to be on the good side of the person making your meals. Just ask Lachlan if you don’t believe me.”

B
Y
THE
time they finished eating, Jeremy had relaxed. Whether that was because of the good company or the beer, he wasn’t sure, but he lifted his glass in a toast to the others at the table. “Cheers, mates. Sam and I are lucky to have such good friends.”

As if sensing his change of mood, Caine, Macklin, and Walker returned
the toast but waited for him to continue.

“Sam and I have been going over the financial records Devlin left,” Jeremy continued, “and it doesn’t look good. He had a couple of bad seasons, by which I mean four or five, and he took out some pretty hefty loans to cover the losses. Those loans are going to come due, and we don’t have the money to pay them off. We might be able to do it if we sold off most of the mob, but then we wouldn’t have the resources to get through next year without taking out another loan. And that’s no way to run a station.”

“The problem,” Sam said, picking up the thread of the conversation, “is that the banks won’t care about running the station in the long term. Their concern is the repayment of the loan, nothing else. We might be able to renegotiate the terms of the loan on the grounds that Jeremy just took over and needs some time to get his feet under him, but that’s not going to change the bottom line. We would need four or five exceptional seasons at least to pay off the loans without doing damage to the long-term viability of the station.”

“So what’s your p-plan?” Caine asked.

Jeremy winced at the stutter. Caine hated to stutter, but more than that, he only did it when he was upset these days. If Caine was upset at their situation, that was okay. If he was upset at them bringing him into it, they were screwed.

“You have one or you wouldn’t have invited us over for d-dinner,” Caine said. “You would have told us you were selling and asked if your house was still available.”

“We’re looking for investors,” Sam said. “An influx of capital now in exchange for a percentage of the profit in the future.”

“And input into the running of the station,” Jeremy added. “We’re not asking for anything on blind faith.”

“It wouldn’t be a small investment,” Sam said, “but I know the kinds of expenses Lang Downs incurs, and I’ve looked at the accounts for Taylor Peak. If we combine operations as much as possible without endangering the organic certification on Lang Downs, we can cut down on a lot of overlap.”