Outlast the Night (24 page)

Chapter 18

C
AINE
woke alone on Monday morning, an unusual enough occurrence that he worried for a moment that something might have happened during the night. Macklin had been grumpy the night before, but Caine had chalked that up to the knowledge that Sarah would be returning to Canberra today. They had asked her repeatedly over the weekend to come and live with them, but she hadn’t given them a definite answer yet. Caine expected to listen to Macklin trying to talk her into it all the way back to Canberra.

With a groan, he stretched and climbed out of bed. He pulled some clothes on and headed toward the canteen. Macklin would either be there or on the veranda, and at this hour of the morning, the canteen seemed more likely. When he reached the living room, though, he saw a light on in the office and detoured there instead. “What are you working on so early?”

Macklin looked up and smiled absently. “Plans.”

Snorting softly at the singularly unhelpful answer, Caine walked into the room and peered over Macklin’s shoulder. On the paper in front of him were detailed sketches, complete with penciled-in measurements. “What’s this?”

“Mum’s house,” Macklin said. “Maybe she isn’t ready to move here yet. Maybe she won’t ever be, but at least the house will be ready if she wants it.” He looked up at Caine with painfully vulnerable eyes. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not!” Caine said. “I invited her to stay too, if you remember. We can start work on it tomorrow, at least clearing the land, while we order building materials. If she decides not to come, we can always find someone else to use it. Seth’s getting to the age where he won’t want to live with Chris and Jesse much longer.”

“You’re assuming he’ll stay,” Macklin said.

“If he doesn’t, someone else might come along who will want it. For that matter, Sam might want it. Or Jeremy.”

“Or Sam
and
Jeremy,” Macklin said with a grin.

“Or that,” Caine agreed. He leaned down and kissed Macklin softly. “Show her the plans. Let her help. That might give her an extra incentive to move here. It won’t just be a house of her own, it’ll be a house she helped design.”

“That’s a good idea,” Macklin said. “We can talk about it on the way back to Canberra. You don’t mind if I sit in the back with her while you drive, do you?”

Caine smiled and kissed Macklin again. “Of course not. You can sit in the front with me on the way back after we’ve dropped her off. Unless you convince her to come back with us, of course. Then you’ll want to sit in the back both ways.”

“I doubt she could really come back with us right away, even if we convince her,” Macklin said. “She’d have to quit her job and break her lease and everything. I think the best we could hope for would be to go back and get her next weekend.”

“Then we’ll go back and get her,” Caine said. “Or you could stay in Canberra with her. With your knee in a brace, you can’t do a lot around the station anyway.”

“We’ll see,” Macklin said. “You’re assuming she’ll decide to move here on the drive back today. That’s a pretty big assumption.”

Caine shrugged. “Just putting it out there, that’s all. You know I’m not going to complain about having you here, even with a bum leg, but if it works out for you to be with her, well, you have thirty years to make up for. I can do without you for a few days.”

“I love you. I can’t possibly say that enough.”

Caine squeezed Macklin’s shoulder. “You say it plenty. Now, I’m hungry, and I imagine you are too, and we have a long drive ahead of us, so let’s go see where your mother is and get something to eat.”

Macklin grumbled when Caine insisted he use the crutches to get to the canteen, but Caine refused to take any chances with Macklin’s recovery. He needed his foreman back at 100 percent before they hired seasonal jackaroos in August.

Caine called upstairs for Sarah, but she didn’t answer, so Caine figured she was already in the canteen. Sure enough, when they reached the area where everyone gathered to eat, they found Sarah in the kitchen standing toe-to-toe with Kami. Caine had spent over a year watching everyone run in fear of the big aborigine, but Macklin’s mother seemed completely unfazed by his size or his scowl.

“I’m telling you, the eggs will be fluffier if you put a bit of milk in them. Just a splash.”

“I have been running this kitchen for thirty years,” Kami snarled, “and no one has ever complained about my eggs.”

“Then prove yours are better,” Sarah challenged. “Make them my way today and see which they like better.”

“If I’m right?” Kami demanded.

“Then I’ll give you my grandmother’s scones recipe,” Sarah said. “But if I’m right, you let me cook dinner for the men the next time I come to visit.”

Caine held his breath as he waited for Kami’s answer. The aborigine had tolerated Chris’s help when he first arrived and his broken arm kept him from working with the other jackaroos, but Chris had always been an assistant, doing whatever Kami told him and nothing more. Sarah was talking about taking over.

“I’ll let you help me cook dinner,” Kami amended. Caine wanted to tell Sarah to take the offer since she wouldn’t get a better one, but he didn’t want to break the moment.

“Deal,” Sarah said, holding out her hand for Kami to shake. Kami looked at it the way Caine had seen the jackaroos eyeing a death adder when they stumbled across them in the bush. After a moment, he shook it, but the disconcerted look never left his face.

Caine tipped his head toward the dining area of the canteen. Macklin nodded, and they withdrew from the kitchen as quietly as they could. Caine had a suspicion they’d be hearing from Kami on the subject of Sarah and her “interfering ways” if she won the bet. Caine didn’t even care. It would be worth it to see someone challenge Kami’s absolute rule of his kitchen.

“I’ve never seen her stand up to someone like that,” Macklin said softly when they were out of earshot.

“She lived with your father long enough to recognize the signs of someone abusive,” Caine said. “Kami might grumble and even yell, but he’d never raise his hand to anyone. I’m sure she senses that. There’s no danger in arguing with Kami the way there was in arguing with your father.”

“I’d have his head if he did,” Macklin growled.

Caine laid a gentle hand on Macklin’s arm. “I’d have his job, which would undoubtedly be worse, but that isn’t why he’d never do it. He just isn’t that kind of man.”

“I know,” Macklin said with a shake of his head, as if to clear his thoughts, “but I spent fifteen years watching him hit her. It’s hard to let go of the need to protect her.”

“I never said that,” Caine said. “You’ll always want to protect her, and that’s a beautiful thing. You just have to recognize what is and isn’t a threat. Protect her from actual threats, not from everyone who might approach her.”

Macklin groaned. “You’re going to make me think about my mother dating someone, aren’t you?”

“You never know,” Caine said. “Uncle Michael lived into his nineties. If your mother lives as long, she might appreciate some companionship. She’s only what? Seventy?”

“Sixty-five,” Macklin said. “She had me when she was twenty-two.”

“Then she could have thirty years of living ahead of her still. Why should she be alone all that time if she meets someone she likes?”

“She could move here. Then she wouldn’t be alone,” Macklin grumbled.

“She wouldn’t live by herself in an empty apartment,” Caine agreed, “but that’s not the same as having someone to share your life with. There
is
a difference.”

“Maybe, but she’s my mother. I don’t want to think about it.”

Caine laughed. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if it happens.”

M
ACKLIN
waited until everyone had gathered for dinner, even making a point of asking Jason to bring his parents to the canteen for dinner that night. When everyone had food, he hobbled to the front of the room, cursing his crutches under his breath.

“Sit down,” Caine fussed, dragging a chair to where Macklin had intended to stand. “They can hear you fine.”

Macklin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. His knee bloody hurt after the drive to Canberra and back, and standing on it wouldn’t help, no matter how much he hated to show weakness.

“So there’s good news and bad news,” Macklin said after he’d sat in the chair Caine provided. “Sam found a bag of weed in the bunkhouse when he was looking for an extra blanket a few nights ago. It was in the room Jenkins used, so he won’t be back when we go to town in August, but we don’t know where he got his supply. He didn’t go into town any more often than anyone else, and I trust all of you to have told me if he’d asked you to pick up anything illegal for him. Our concern is whether he managed to introduce pot plants onto the station so he’d have a supply immediately at hand.”

“It goes without saying that we won’t tolerate that here,” Caine continued. “As Macklin said, we trust all of you, which is why we’re telling you this. Macklin and Jeremy already started checking the south paddocks, where Jenkins regularly volunteered to work, but the station is not small, and it’s not the right season either, so we’re asking all of you to help us by keeping your eyes open. It’s honestly fruitless to search directly.” Macklin ignored the glare Caine turned his way. “The station is too large for that, but if you see something as you’re going about your other duties, we need to know about it so we can eradicate it.”

To Macklin’s relief, everyone nodded in agreement, none of them seeming uncomfortable with the request. He hadn’t expected anyone to refuse. He just hadn’t wanted them to feel accused, either of using drugs themselves or of protecting the one who had. Fortunately they didn’t seem to have taken the announcement that way.

“So that’s obviously the bad news,” Patrick said. “What’s the good news?”

“The good news is that my mother, who you got to meet over the weekend, has agreed to move to the station,” Macklin said. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d said yes, but he had the modified plans for her house in the office, and they’d already ordered the supplies they’d need to begin work on it. “There’s space in the big house for guests, of course, but that would only be comfortable for so long, so I’m hoping you’ll all be willing to pitch in and help us put up a house for her.”

The cheer was nearly deafening, driving home to Macklin how completely the men and women in this room had become his family. Maybe they didn’t know the details of his childhood or what had led him to run away and end up on the station, but they had clearly seen the delight he’d felt in having his mother back, and they’d taken that to heart.

“So where are you going to build it?”

“How big is it going to be?”

“When is she moving?”

The flood of questions continued, too fast and overlapping for Macklin to even begin to answer them. He met Caine’s eyes and laughed with the sheer joy of the moment.

“H
E
LOOKS
happy,” Sam said to Jeremy as everyone crowded around Macklin and Caine, asking questions about Macklin’s mother.

“He does,” Jeremy agreed. “I’ve known him for a long time. Not well, necessarily, but he’s always had this brooding air to him, like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

“He doesn’t look that way now.”

“No,” Jeremy said, “he doesn’t. I’m glad it worked out. When you first told me what Caine was doing, I was worried. I didn’t know how she’d react to him and Caine or how Macklin would react to the surprise, but it looks like I worried for nothing.”

“And now she’s moving here,” Sam said. “I’m so happy for him. I need to talk to him and Caine about something else, but it can wait until tomorrow.”

“What’s going on?” Jeremy asked, concerned at the subdued expression on Sam’s face.

“I got the summons for the divorce hearing. I have to be in Melbourne on July 24, so I’ll need at least two, possibly three days off to get down there, attend the hearing, and then get back. I don’t have a car, so I’ll either have to borrow Neil’s or take the bus again. If I take the bus, that means someone has to drive me to Yass and come pick me up again, but I don’t really feel comfortable driving off the station by myself.”

“I’ll come with you, if you’d like,” Jeremy said, “although you’d run the risk of Alison asking who I am or what I’m doing there.”

Sam was silent for so long that Jeremy grew concerned. “Sam?”

“I want to tell her to bugger off, that it’s none of her business who I’m with now since she’s the one who kicked me out, but I’m afraid of what she’s capable of,” Sam explained. “I don’t want anything to delay the divorce. I’ve been in the closet my whole life. I can live with it for another eight weeks.”

“It’s up to you,” Jeremy said. He certainly didn’t want to do anything that might delay the divorce proceedings, but he hated the idea of Sam having to face his ex alone and without any support. “You’re welcome to borrow my car, for that matter, if Neil needs his for some reason. I’m not going anywhere. Or I could drive with you as far as Seymour or one of the outlying suburbs. You could go the rest of the way in by yourself and then join me after the hearing is over. That way you wouldn’t be alone.”