Inherit the Sky (Lang Downs 1 ) (30 page)

“I can’t discuss this tonight,” Macklin said, going to the door. “I’ll make sure Kyle has the watch set for the night.”
He was out the door before Caine could stop him.
“Well, fuck,” Caine muttered.
“He’s a stubborn one,” Kami said from the door to the kitchen hall.
“How much did you hear?” Caine asked, embarrassed.
“Not much. Enough to hear him dismiss your logic,” Kami replied.
“Your logic,” Caine reminded him.“So what do I d-do now?”
“You give him a few days to see that the world hasn’t come to an end because the jackaroos know about you,” Kami said. “He’ll come around.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve known that man for twenty-five years, and I’ve never seen him act like he has since you arrived. He may not be willing to say it, but he can’t stop thinking about you.”
“That’s not the same as loving me,” Caine said. “If he can’t do that, if he
won’t
do that, it doesn’t matter how often he thinks about me.”
“If he’s thinking about you that much, he’s fallen in love with you,” Kami assured him. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“I hope you’re right.”

A
LONEin bed later that night, Caine struggled to hold on to Kami’s reassurances. The doubts that had always plagued him were stronger in the darkness, making him all the more aware of the empty space next to him, a space he had hoped Macklin would fill. Perhaps not every night, but most nights. If Macklin had been on watch or out with the sheep for some reason, Caine wouldn’t be nearly as troubled by his absence. It would be a temporary one, related to work, not to Macklin’s desire to be with him. His absence tonight had nothing to do with work and everything to do with Macklin’s desire to be with him.

Unfortunately.
Caine forced himself to consider the possibility that Kami was wrong, that Macklin wouldn’t come around if Caine gave him enough time. Caine didn’t want to leave Lang Downs despite his promise to Macklin that he would leave rather than make the foreman go, which begged the question of whether they could coexist as colleagues at the station after having spent three nights together as lovers.

Caine wanted to believe they could. He wanted to think they could be adults and act courteously to each other even if they never regained the ease they’d had with each other in the first month Caine was at Lang Downs. Macklin hadn’t refused to come speak to Caine today about the missing sheep, and he hadn’t dismissed Caine’s decisions. It wasn’t the same camaraderie from their evenings drinking beer on Macklin’s veranda or in his living room, but it was proof they could have a working relationship.

So he could stay, but he wouldn’t have a lover and partner at his side to support him the way he’d started to dream of having with Macklin. He could follow Macklin’s example of going to Sydney or Melbourne once or twice a year if the loneliness got to be too much, although he’d never been a fan of one-night stands. Still, the touch of any hand had to be better than his own. He could be open to the possibility that his orientation being public would bring others to the station who shared it.They wouldn’t be Macklin—a thought that tore at his heart—but he might find someone else who would be willing to be his partner openly the way he desired.

The disloyalty of that thought left him feeling ill. They hadn’t even been separated twenty-four hours, and he was already thinking about someone else. So maybe he wouldn’t find a partner the way Uncle Michael had. Not everyone did. Some people filled their lives with work and close friends and a kind of extended, adopted family. He certainly had that with Jason. Given enough time, he might even have it with some of the other men at the station. If it was less than he’d begun to hope he might have, it was still more than he’d had in Philadelphia.

He ran his hand down his stomach. The softness that had plagued him all his life was gone. In a few short months, he’d gone from being a soft city boy to having muscles, not from the gym but from living his life in the outback. If a few months could do that, what would a few years do? Living in the outback had transformed more than his body. He had argued with Neil that morning without stuttering once. He didn’t believe for a moment that he’d never stutter again, but the confidence he’d felt as he faced down the jackaroo and his prejudices was new. He’d never had that kind of nerve before coming to Lang Downs.

He was making a life for himself, a good life, one that he could be proud of regardless of whether he had a lover to share it with him. The passage of years would only make that better as he grew even more confident with himself and his role at Lang Downs. If they could get the organic certification, he could proudly say he’d taken his uncle’s legacy and built on it even more than simply maintaining it. He could make plans to set it up as a trust so that after he was gone, the station would become a joint venture of the families who had invested so much of themselves in it, or maybe he could look into adopting a child to take over the station after his death. The possibilities were limitless, even without Macklin at his side. His life would be richer with someone to share it—he had no doubt about that—but he could do this alone. He could have a life at Lang Downs as Caine Neiheisel, not as Michael Lang’s nephew or Macklin Armstrong’s lover, but simply as himself.

“I don’t know what the future holds, Uncle Michael,” Caine said into the darkness, “but I’m not going to let falling in love with Macklin when he doesn’t feel the same way keep me from being happy. It might not be what you had with your Donald, but I’m going to make this work.”

C
AINE went down to breakfast early the next morning, determined to carry out his resolutions of the night before. Macklin wasn’t in the canteen, but several of the men spoke to Caine as he came in, making him feel better about the reaction of the year-rounders as a whole.

Caine grabbed a cup of coffee and some breakfast. He would eat first and let the men finish their meals, and then he would check in with the ones who had stood watch during the night and give orders for the day.

If Macklin came in while he was eating, Caine would consult with him, but Caine refused to sit around dilly-dallying like he couldn’t do anything without Macklin’s approval. He’d just finished his breakfast when Kyle came in. “Morning, boss,” he said. “We set the watch like you said.”

“Good,” Caine replied. “Get something to eat and then we’ll talk about it.”
Macklin walked in a moment later. Caine nodded politely in his direction, making no move to invite him over but not pretending he didn’t see the foreman either. They were colleagues; Macklin was his foreman. That relationship had to abide.
Kyle came back with his plate, obviously torn between reporting to Caine and reporting to Macklin as he had always done. “Macklin,” Caine called, “Kyle wants to give us his report from the night watch. Why don’t you join us?”
Both men looked at him in surprise, but Caine simply waited until they had both joined him at the table before gesturing for Kyle to begin.
“It was pretty quiet,” Kyle said. “The only person who reported seeing anything was Ian, but he was pretty sure it was just a pair of dingoes checking out the valley from the ridge.”
“Is it normal for dingoes to come that close?” Caine asked, looking at Macklin.
“Not normal, but not unheard of,” Macklin replied. “It means it’s cold and snowy up at the higher elevations, and they’ve come down looking for food. They’ll have to get pretty hungry before they’ll come into the valley, even with the lure of the sheep. There are too many people around.”
“But it means the sheep that got loose yesterday will be easy prey for them,” Caine concluded. “Kyle, find Ian and have him come to my office. We need to know where he found the sheep that got loose and where he looked for the strays he couldn’t find.”
“Yes, boss,” Kyle said, gulping the last of his coffee and hurrying off to do Caine’s bidding.
“I’ll need your help organizing the search,” Caine said to Macklin. “I don’t know the station as well as you do.”
“I was beginning to wonder if you still needed me at all,” Macklin said, his voice bitter. “You certainly took charge well enough this morning.”
“Not here,” Caine said, heading toward his office. Macklin followed more slowly. When they were alone, Caine faced Macklin and took a deep breath, trying to put his revelations of the night before in words that would explain without shutting any doors forever. “I would be happy to have you as my partner,” he began slowly. “That hasn’t changed and probably won’t change, but that’s not what you asked me. You’re worried about your job and the life you’ve built here, the one that’s so important you can’t risk it. We’re both adults. We can continue to work together as boss and foreman, but I
am
the boss and I need to act like it. Not for the men, not for us, but for me. I will always listen to your advice and probably always follow it because I don’t have your experience, but I need to make decisions and be involved and be the leader this station deserves, and that means you have to accept me too.”
A knock on the door interrupted them, but Caine ignored it for a moment.“Can you do that?”
“Answer the door, boss,” Macklin said. “We have a search to organize.”
Caine let out a sigh of relief. If Macklin had refused his offer, Caine would have found a way to keep going, but knowing he had the other man’s support with the station relieved the one fear he had left. He called for Ian to come in.
They spent the next half an hour listening to Ian’s report and dividing the nearest paddocks into quadrants so they could search for the missing sheep. Caine and Macklin divided the hands into groups of two and sent them out to search with orders to check in every hour and to find a drover’s hut for a break at lunch. It was too cold to be out for longer than that without the opportunity to warm up again. A couple of times, he thought he caught an admiring expression on Macklin’s face, and once he even thought he saw a hint of wistfulness, but the emotions were always quickly hidden the moment Macklin realized he was looking.
They found the sheep that afternoon, cold and straggly but seemingly unharmed. Caine stood across the pen from Macklin, overseeing their return, the gulf between them feeling insurmountable.

T
HREEweeks later, Kyle came in to Caine’s office, his face grave. “You need to come see this, boss. I sent Ian to find Macklin. It happened again.”

“What happened?” Caine asked.
“A broken fence, a drilled hole in the boards,” Kyle said. “I sent everyone else out to round up as many sheep as we could as quickly as possible. This late in June, you never know when a storm will pop up.”

They walked out to the pens where the sheep spent the winter. The one that had trouble previously was fine, but one of the pens on the south side of the valley had a fence down. Ian and Macklin arrived at almost the same time as Caine and Kyle.

“Look here,” Kyle said, picking up the damaged wood and showing it to Caine and Macklin. “It’s the same as the last time. Someone is damaging our fences deliberately.”

“But who?” Caine said. “And why?”
“That isn’t important right now,” Macklin interrupted. “Yes, we need to figure it out, but first we have to get the fence repaired and the sheep back in their pen. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”
Sure enough, dark clouds hovered on the horizon to the west of the station. “Macklin’s right,” Caine said. “We’ll worry about the whos and whys later. You said you’d already sent everyone else out after the sheep. That means we get to repair the fence.”