Cherish the Land (9 page)

Caine wasn’t convinced, but arguing with Macklin was pointless, especially since he couldn’t do anything until Jeremy came back to the station and they saw what the situation really was. Maybe they were all worrying for nothing and Jeremy would step into Devlin’s shoes seamlessly.

S
ETH
LAUGHED
at Jason’s joke and pushed his hair out of his eyes. With his bruised and battered hand.

“What did you do to yourself?” Jason asked, grabbing his wrist.

“Nothing,” Seth said, heart pounding at the thought of Jason finding out what he’d done. He wouldn’t understand. No one did. The pain steadied him, but that didn’t make sense in anyone else’s head. Just in Seth’s. “Just skinned my knuckles fighting with a stuck bolt this morning.”

It was a flimsy excuse at best, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a better one. In school, before he came to Lang Downs, he’d been able to excuse it away by saying someone had picked a fight with him—a fight he’d always provoked, but subtly enough no one attributed it to anything more than hotheaded adolescence. He couldn’t use that excuse now. He was no longer an adolescent who could get away with stunts like that. He had responsibilities, and that meant finding other ways to steady himself when the noise in his head became too much to bear.

“Did you get someone to look at it?” Jason asked. “You don’t want it to get infected.”

“I cleaned it out when it happened,” Seth said. He’d learned more than enough first aid in his attempts to hide his injuries to keep the scrapes clean. He hadn’t covered them because it would have made working this morning difficult, but he’d do that before dinner. People would notice the gauze more than a few scrapes, but if they couldn’t see the marks, they couldn’t question his story.

“That must have been one hell of a bolt,” Jason remarked. “So what else is on the agenda today?”

“I have to drive out to a couple of the drover’s huts to get the lay of the land. I heard a rumor about solar generators and windmills. It’s not my area of expertise, but I had a couple of classes on green energy, so I should be able to get an idea of what might work. But for that I need to see the huts, because each one will be different. You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to. It won’t be particularly interesting work.”

“It’s not about the work,” Jason said. “It’s about spending the day with you. We haven’t had a day together in a long time. Even if you have to spend this one working, at least we can be together. I can take notes for you, if nothing else.”

Take the bloody excuse not to come
, Seth thought miserably. He craved spending the day with Jason, but having him there and yet so far away was salt in the wounds on Seth’s heart. He could deal with physical pain, but the pain in his heart made him want to run for the nearest knife. “Sure. You got something to write with?”

“No, but I’ll get something from Mum. Give me five minutes and I’ll be good to go.”

Seth nodded as Jason walked out of the tractor shed. The minute Jason was out of sight, Seth slumped against the tractor. Fuck, he was a glutton for punishment. Why had he decided to come home again?

As easy as it was to wish he’d stayed in Sydney, he’d been miserable there too. Maybe not the cutting kind of miserable, but more a numb, dead inside kind of miserable. The kind cutting couldn’t fix. As hard as it would be to see Jason every day and know he went off with Cooper every night, at least he was home.

Jason hadn’t said anything, of course. He was too discreet for that. But Seth had seen the way he sat carefully, the way he’d winced when he shifted on the hay bale from time to time. Seth might not have any personal experience with it, but he recognized the lingering signs of a good fuck when he saw them. He just wished he’d been the one to leave Jason feeling that way.

Far too quickly, Jason popped back into the tractor shed. “I have a notebook and pencil. I’m ready to go when you are.”

“Let’s go.”

They headed toward the gravel car park where they kept the station’s utes when they weren’t in use. Seth climbed in and found the keys in the ignition. “Ready?” he asked Jason.

“I was born ready,” Jason retorted.

The familiar comeback made Seth smile. How many times had they had that exact exchange before a test for School of the Air? God, it was so easy to fall back into all the old habits with Jason, but they weren’t teenagers anymore, and Seth knew a little more about himself than he had then. Would things be different if he’d been able to put a name to the warmth in his chest when he was sixteen or eighteen? He doubted it. He was Jason’s best friend, the buddy he joked around with, studied with, played tricks with, but not the lover Jason took to his bed. No, someone else had that privilege. Seth wanted to be happy for Jason. Really, he did. If only Jason’s happiness didn’t come at such a price.

He’s worth it
, he told himself.
And boyfriends come and go. Best friends are forever
.

He just had to keep reminding himself of that until he believed it. He’d dated more than one person while he was in Sydney, and Jason had more than one relationship during vet school, but nothing had shaken the core of their friendship. Not even Jason leaving him to go away to school could weaken that foundation. Seth just had to cling to that and let the rest alone. If he stopped obsessing over Jason, maybe he’d even find a jackaroo of his own.

The thought turned his stomach. He could imagine being with Jason in every way known to man, but the minute he tried to replace Jason’s face with another, he felt sick. He didn’t trust any other man the way he trusted Jason.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Jason said, breaking Seth’s train of thought.

“Sorry, just trying to remember what I learnt about orienting solar panels. It’s been a while since I took that class.”

“Yeah, I feel that way about some of the small-animal stuff I learnt in my first year of vet school,” Jason said. “I learnt it well enough to pass the class, but I always knew it wasn’t what I was going to do with my life, so I didn’t bother trying to retain it beyond that.”

“Except that you really don’t need it, and now I do,” Seth said.

Jason shrugged. “That’s what the Internet is for. You can use Mum’s computer if you don’t have one of your own and look up anything you’ve forgotten or didn’t learn in school. That’s what I do if I need to check something.”

“I have a laptop,” Seth said. “And I will double-check everything before I start installing anything. I’d do that even if it was my field rather than something I studied for a semester on a whim.”

“Aren’t you glad now that you did?”

“Caine has a way of making you glad for everything you do for him.”

Jason laughed. “Isn’t that the truth! So what are we looking for?”

Seth settled into an explanation of storage capacities, panel angles, relative exposure, and cost versus output ratios. From the look on Jason’s face, more than a little of it went over his head, but he asked questions occasionally that pushed Seth to consider things from a different perspective. By the time they reached the first hut, the sick tension in Seth’s gut had faded and their easy camaraderie had returned. Maybe the afternoon wouldn’t be all torture.

B
Y
THE
time they drove back into the valley for dinner, Seth had managed to forget most of his worries and bask in the warmth of Jason’s presence. They’d only visited two of the dozen or more drover’s huts scattered around the station, but Seth had a much better idea of what he’d need to look up and calculate in order to make Caine’s dream of a generator in each hut a reality. They didn’t need much. Enough for a refrigerator, a lamp, and a space heater, and only the refrigerator would be a constant drain on the stored power. They’d only need the heater in the winter and the lamp on the nights someone was using the hut. The two huts they’d visited that afternoon were both south facing and in full sun most of the day. A couple of solar panels on the roof and a good storage capacity on the associated battery would be plenty. If any of the huts had trees around them that would block the sun for part of the day, they might have to look at different options, but he’d worry about that later. For now, he had something to report for his first day on the job.

“Neil’s car still isn’t back,” Jason said as they parked the ute. “I hope that doesn’t mean they’ve had bad news.”

“Yeah, I hope not,” Seth agreed. He knew Devlin Taylor by sight, but little else. The grazier had made his opinion of everything about Lang Downs perfectly clear, so Seth didn’t have much use for him. He didn’t want Jeremy upset, though, and whatever happened with Devlin would affect Jeremy. Seth refused to think of Chris in a similar situation. Chris had been the only stability in his life before they came to Lang Downs, and Chris was still the only person he cared about who hadn’t abandoned him at least once. If Chris had an accident like Devlin had… it didn’t bear thinking about.

“I’m going to clean up before dinner,” Jason said, “and I ought to see what Cooper’s plans are for the evening. I shouldn’t neglect him too much.”

So much for forgetting his worries.

“I’ll see you at dinner, maybe,” Seth said. “Or not, if you want to spend time with him.”

“You could join us in the bunkhouse,” Jason offered. “There’s a lot of great blokes working the station this summer. You’d enjoy it.”

“I’ll think about it,” Seth said. He’d told Macklin he would take an empty room in the bunkhouse, but the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t stomach the idea. He’d stay with Chris and Jesse for now and make more permanent arrangements later. “I have to work again tomorrow, so I don’t want to stay up too late.” He didn’t want to watch Jason snuggled up with another man.

“I have to work tomorrow too,” Jason reminded him. “People come and go as they need to, but it’s better than sitting alone in your room.”

“I’m not alone. I have Chris and Jesse.”

“So you do,” Jason agreed. “I guess living with your brother is different than moving back in with your parents. I couldn’t get into the bunkhouse fast enough when I came back.”

Couldn’t get into Cooper’s bed fast enough
, Seth thought cynically. “It would be hard to take Cooper back to your place if you were still living there.”

“Mum and Dad don’t care that I’m gay or that I’m seeing Cooper,” Jason said. “But the other jackaroos already see me as a kid. Living with my parents would make that worse.”

“I guess,” Seth said. “You’ve got more experience than most of them put together, though, so what does it matter what they think?”

Jason shrugged. “It’s nice to have friends my own age. I didn’t know you were coming home when I moved into the bunkhouse.”

Could all this have been avoided if he’d shared his plans with Jason sooner instead of wanting to surprise him with the news? The thought made him sick to his stomach.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” Seth said. He had to get away from Jason before he said something he’d regret. He didn’t poach. As long as Jason was happy with Cooper, Seth couldn’t say anything. If he made Jason uncomfortable, he’d lose even their friendship, and that would kill him.

He bolted from the ute, leaving the notes Jason had taken and everything else behind. He’d come back after dinner and make sure everything was ready for whoever took the ute out next, but he had to be alone now. He thought he heard Jason call after him, but he didn’t turn around to check. He couldn’t deal with Jason right now.

Chris was in the living room when Seth came in. “Hi, how was your day?”

“Fine,” Seth said through gritted teeth, “but I really need a shower. We’ll talk when I’m done, okay?”

“Sure.” Chris looked surprised, but Seth couldn’t do explanations right now. Talking to Chris might be easier than talking to Jason, but only marginally. He’d get his balance back, and then he could go back to pretending nothing was wrong.

He grabbed a change of clothes in the bedroom and paused for a moment to consider his razor. He’d always liked the feel of a straight razor when he was shaving, and no one questioned him owning one or having it in the bathroom. He pressed hard against the scrapes on his knuckles, but they’d lost most of their painful sensitivity overnight and with all the work he’d done that day. “Fuck.”

He grabbed the razor along with his clothes and headed for the bathroom. He needed to shave anyway. Maybe the shower would help and he could just get rid of his stubble without needing it for anything else.

He stripped down and set the razor on the sink. Less temptation than setting it on the edge of the tub, where he could reach it more easily. The shower would work. Hot water, plenty of steam, to wash all the tension away along with the sweat and dirt from the day. He could do this. He didn’t need to cut himself to find his balance.

He scrubbed at his hair, cursing softly when the strands caught on his uneven nails. He either needed a haircut or a pair of nail clippers. He hadn’t thought working on the station would be that much harder on his hands than working in the shop in Sydney, but his hands were a mess. He clung to that thought instead of dwelling on Jason going back to the bunkhouse to find Cooper. They wouldn’t shower together. The shower block in the bunkhouse didn’t offer enough privacy for that.