Inherit the Sky (Lang Downs 1 ) (15 page)

“Come on,” Caine said when they finished. “Everyone else is already inside warming up.”
“I’m fine,” Macklin insisted.
Caine grabbed one of Macklin’s hands and pulled off his glove. The skin beneath was chilled to the touch. “You aren’t fine. You’re cold and wet. You’re the one who lectured me about the dangers of hypothermia. Go home and change clothes. I’ll get a cup of coffee from the canteen and bring it to you. Even better, go home and take a hot shower. You can have your coffee when you get out.”
Caine let Macklin go with that despite the temptation to follow the foreman home and into the shower. Instead he detoured by the canteen and poured a thermos of coffee for Macklin. They could share it after Macklin changed clothes while they discussed what else needed to be done. He didn’t bother knocking when he reached Macklin’s house, expecting the foreman to be in the shower. He found him making a cup of tea in his kitchen.
“You should have told me you wanted tea instead of coffee,” Caine said. “Kami has both ready. Why aren’t you in the shower?”
“Because there’s still work to be done,” Macklin said. “I’ll shower before bed tonight.”
“At least change clothes,” Caine said, running his hand across Macklin’s shoulders. “Even with your drizabone to protect you, your shirt’s wet, and I’m sure your feet are as well.”
Macklin hesitated still.
“Go!” Caine ordered. “Or I’ll start undressing you right here, and somehow I don’t think you want me to do that.”
Macklin’s eyes darkened at Caine’s comment, giving him enough courage to take a step closer, but before he could reach for the button on Macklin’s work shirt, the foreman pivoted on his heel and disappeared into the other room. Caine let him go, checking on the tea and turning off the electric kettle when he saw it had started to boil. He added the ball of tea leaves and set it aside to steep while Macklin changed. He considered looking for a mug for his coffee, but he didn’t want to invade Macklin’s privacy too much. He’d drink from the thermos for now and ask for a mug when Macklin returned.
It didn’t take long. Macklin obviously hadn’t showered, but he was wearing dry clothes at least, and that was Caine’s primary concern. “Your tea is steeping. I didn’t know if you wanted sugar.”
Macklin didn’t answer directly, opening the cabinet and pulling out a mug. He dumped two heaping teaspoons of sugar into it before adding the tea. Getting out a second mug, he handed it to Caine, still in silence. Caine resisted the urge to fill the silence with aimless chatter. Macklin wouldn’t appreciate it, and that would defeat the purpose of being there. He wanted Macklin to enjoy his company, not wish he were anywhere else.
Macklin joined him at the small table and sipped his tea slowly. “Two more days and we should have all the sheep in winter pastures,” Macklin said finally.
“That’s good,” Caine said. “Then we can start the breeding, right?”
“Yes,” Macklin replied. “We’ll separate the ewes out into groups according to the rams we want to breed them with and then let the rams in and let nature take its course.”
“It sounds labor-intensive,” Caine observed.
“Time-consuming,” Macklin said, “but not hard. The biggest issue is keeping the bloodlines from getting inbred. We replenish our breeding stock by keeping the most likely lambs from one year to the next, which means that the sires of those ewes are here on the station. We don’t want to breed a ewe to its sire.”
“That makes sense,” Caine said. “So you obviously keep records.”
“We have a breeding book,” Macklin said. “Not really a book anymore—it’s all on the computer—but all the ewes have a tag, and we keep track by number of who their sires are so we can breed them to some other ram.”
“It sounds like you need a biology degree to keep it all straight,” Caine said with a smile.
“Or a lot of hands-on training,” Macklin replied. “Would you like to see the records?”
“I’d love to,” Caine said.
“I’ll get my laptop.”
A knock on the door interrupted them. “After I see who that is,” Macklin added.
“Sorry to disturb you, boss,” Neil said, “but Devlin Taylor is here asking to see Caine.”
“We’ll come to the big house,” Macklin replied.
“Our neighbor?” Caine asked.“What does he want?”
“To stir up trouble, I’m sure,” Macklin muttered. “Bring your coffee, pup. He can talk a man’s ear off, so we might as well be comfortable while we’re listening.”
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Caine offered. “Neil said he wanted to talk to me.”
“I don’t trust him not to sell you some load of sheep shit,” Macklin replied. “He wants Lang Downs, and I don’t know what stories he’d invent or bad information he’d give you to get it.”
“He can say whatever he wants,” Caine said. “I’m not interested in selling,so it doesn’t matter what he says.”
“It does if he gives you bad advice and we end up in trouble because of it.”
“Macklin,” Caine said, grabbing Macklin’s arm and stopping him before he could open the door, “you’re my foreman, not him. Your dedication to Lang Downs is not in question. If I need advice, I’ll ask you¸ and if Taylor’s told me something different, you’re the one I’m going to listen to. Attraction aside, you’re the one I trust.”
“Don’t mention that to Taylor,” Macklin warned, pulling free of Caine’s grip and opening the door.
“I’m green, not stupid,” Caine retorted, grabbing his hat and following Macklin outside.
If Caine hadn’t already met Macklin, Devlin Taylor would have been the epitome of an Australian grazier, as far as Caine could tell when he caught sight of the man standing on the veranda of the main house. Sun-darkened skin, sun-bleached hair, whipcord body, hipshot stance, but Caine had met Macklin first, and so when he looked at Taylor, he saw all the little ways he was less. His boots were similar to Macklin’s but without the scuffs that came from hard work. His shoulders were broad, but not quite as solid. His hips were trim, but Caine could see a slight paunch above his belt. Devlin Taylor might live in the outback, but he was no Macklin Armstrong.
“Introduce me to your new boss, Armstrong,” Taylor said with false joviality. “My boys tell me you dropped by last month, so I thought I’d return the favor. Being a good neighbor and all.”
Caine gritted his teeth at the overly hearty slap on the back Taylor gave him.
“C-caine N-neiheisel,” Caine said, not wanting for Macklin to answer. He wanted Taylor to deal with him, not with his foreman.
“Neiheisel,” Taylor repeated. “What kind of name is that?”
“Cincinnati German,” Caine replied, hackles rising at the implied insult.
Taylor shook his head. “So you’re old man Lang’s great-nephew, is that what I heard?”
“That’s right,” Caine said. “My g-grandmother was his older s-ssister.” He opened the door and gestured for Macklin and Taylor to go inside.
“This must be quite the shock for you, all the inconveniences of the outback after living in the city all your life,” Taylor said as they went inside.
“Not at all,” Caine replied. “It’s a thrilling adventure. Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“A cup of teaif you have one.”
“I’ll be right back,” Caine said.
Caine left the two men alone in the living room and headed to the small kitchen reserved for his personal use to turn on the electric kettle. He could have checked with Kami in the big kitchen, but he didn’t want to bother the cook this close to dinner. He started back toward the living room when he overheard the two Aussies talking.
“He’ll never make it, Armstrong. He’s a city boy through and through, and from what I dug up, a faggot on top of it. The jackaroos will never listen to him, and if you take his side, they won’t listen to you either. Help me convince him to sell out. I’ll pay him a good price. We’ll combine the stations and with the number of sheep we’ll be able to run, we’ll both be rich men.”
“I wasn’t interested the first two times you made the offer,” Macklin snapped.“What makes you think I’ll be interested now?”
“You hadn’t met him the first two times I suggested it,” Taylor replied. “How do you hold your head up, knowing you’re working for a poofter?”
“I hold my head up knowing I’m working for Michael Lang’s nephew,” Macklin answered.
Caine slunk back to the kitchen, not sure what to make of everything he had overheard. He hadn’t expected his sexuality to be a source of tension this early in his tenure. If he met anybody, sure, but he’d expected to have time to prove himself first, to be a known quantity to the men before it became an issue. He wasn’t hiding it— he’d told Macklin the first day because it came up logically in conversation—but he wasn’t advertising it either. Pouring two cups of tea, he carried them back to the living room, making sure to make enough noise that Macklin and Taylor heard him coming.
“So what brings you by today, Mr. Taylor?” Caine asked politely.
“I wanted to meet my new neighbor, like I said,” Taylor replied, “and to tell you I’d be happy to help out in any way I can. Advice, extra men, anything you need, you just send someone over to Taylor Peak.”
“That’s a very generous offer,” Caine said, “but I’m sure it’s one we won’t have to take you up on. Macklin keeps everything running tight here.”
“I’m sure he does, but your uncle and I were good friends, and in his memory, I’d like to help you out. We’ve been seeing packs of feral dogs up at the higher elevations. You’ll need to be careful about that so you don’t lose sheep.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for them,” Caine said, not about to discuss Macklin’s decision to move the sheep down to lower elevations or the dead animals they’d found the month before. He didn’t think Taylor would do anything as underhanded as killing their sheep to convince Caine to sell, but he didn’t want to put ideas in the other man’s head either.
Even if all his comments did was reveal the differences between their management decisions and Taylor’s, Caine preferred not to give the man the opportunity to offer unwelcome advice. If it had just been differences in management style, Caine might have listened, but Taylor had ulterior motives, and Caine didn’t trust that at all.
“You must be lonely out here in the outback by yourself,” Taylor said.
“I’m hardly all b-by myself,” Caine said with a forced laugh. He could already see where this was going, but he refused to give Taylor the satisfaction of trapping him into admitting something that was none of the other man’s business. If Taylor had the balls to ask outright, Caine might have answered, but he wasn’t going to dignify Taylor’s probing with a reaction. Macklin might read his nervousness in his stutter, but Taylor didn’t know him that well. “There are a good fifty people living here.”
“That’s not company,” Taylor scoffed. “That’s jackaroos.”
“No,” Caine replied, “that’s Macklin and Kami and Jason and Neil and all the others. Or are you one of those b-b-bosses who thinks you can’t be friends with your employees?”
“Kind of hard to fire someone if you’re friends,” Taylor pointed out.
“If you’re f-friends, they’ll work hard enough for you that you ddon’t have to fire them,” Caine countered. He turned to Macklin. “When was the last time you had to f-fire someone from Lang Ddowns?”
“We’ve had people choose to leave,” Macklin said, “or not come back after a season or two, but I haven’t fired anyone since I took over as foreman. I haven’t needed to.My people work too hard for that.”
Caine looked at Taylor smugly. “There, you see, Mr. Taylor? There’s no harm in being friends with the people who work on the station.”
“There’s friends and then there’s company,” Taylor tried again.
“This is also t-t-true,” Caine agreed, “but I need to g-get settled in my new life before I worry about c-c-company. Are you married, Mr. Taylor?”
“Divorced,” Taylor said, flushing beneath his tan. Caine hid a smile. Score one for the poofter. “My wife had a hard time coping with being so far from the city.She said Boorowa didn’t count.”
“I suppose that would d-d-depend on your definition of a c-city,” Caine replied. “I enjoyed the day I spent there, although I do hope to visit Sydney again when I’m not jetlagged.”
“You can come with me next month,” Macklin offered.“I go to Sydney for a week in the middle of winter. It’s my yearly vacation.”
The offer surprised Caine, especially with Taylor there and in light of what Taylor had said about Caine’s sexuality. Maybe it was Macklin’s way of telling Taylor it didn’t matter. He smiled at Macklin, hoping that was the case, but even if it wasn’t, a week in Sydney with Macklin sounded like heaven.“Thank you. I’d l-like that. I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Taylor, but I have some work I have to do before d-ddinner,so if there isn’t anything else, I’ll say good-bye.”
“No, nothing else,” Taylor said, clearly surprised at the dismissal. “Although if you ever change your mind about staying, look me up. I’m sure we could work something out.”
“If I ever change my m-mind, I’ll r-r-remember your offer,” Caine replied. Not that he would change his mind, but Taylor wouldn’t believe him if he said it, so he left it at that.
Caine showed Taylor to the door, closing it firmly behind him rather than going out on the veranda to see the man off. His mother would fuss at his lack of manners, but Caine was ready to be rid of the man. He turned back around to find Macklin standing practically on top of him, all but pinning him to the door.
“Do not even think about selling to Devlin Taylor.”
Caine smiled and draped his arms around Macklin’s neck. The foreman reared back, but Caine held tight. “Didn’t I tell you I was staying?”
Macklin shrugged free of Caine’s embrace, and Caine let him go. “Yes, but you told Taylor you’d remember his offer.”
“Just because I remember it doesn’t mean I’d take it even if I did decide to leave,” Caine pointed out, “and after what I overheard while I was making tea, I wouldn’t sell to him if his was the only offer I had. How do you put up with his attitude?”
“His attitude is pretty typical,” Macklin said. “Why do you think I go to Sydney once a year? And I don’t put up with his attitude. I don’t put up with him at all unless I have no other choice. How much did you overhear?”
“Him trying to convince you to talk me into selling and then his tirade about me being gay,” Caine replied. “He doesn’t know about you, I take it?”
“Nobody except Michael did,” Macklin replied, “and he didn’t care. He supported me completely.”
“I’m glad to know that,” Caine said. “It makes it easier to know he wouldn’t have a problem with me being here now.”
Macklin snorted. “He never told you, did he? I suppose that makes sense since he didn’t really know you. He was gay, too, pup. He and his foreman Donald were partners in every sense of the word. Donald died soon after I got here,so he wouldn’t have been in any of Michael’s letters about the station itself, but I assumed you knew.”