Northern Exposure: Compass Brothers, Book 1 (15 page)

“He chose his own path, Si.” She stroked his chest while they talked. “You can’t take the blame for him being there. It wasn’t your fault.”

“He’d already quit the rig that morning.” Silas’s confession crackled with guilt. “He didn’t even work there anymore. He hung around to tell me he was leaving. He had a ticket out. A ticket home.”

“Oh, Silas.” Lucy nudged him toward the wicker loveseat. She propped him sideways on the cushion, his back resting against the arm so his leg extended the length of the bench. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll live with it for the rest of my life.” Her new lover drew her to him. She went willingly into his arms. She lay beside his brace—his other knee bent, his foot planted on the floor— and rested her head on his flat stomach.

“I only spoke to him once. That was enough to determine he cared for you very much, Si. He would have been glad
you
escaped. That
you
made it home.”

“You’re right, angel.” He rested his palm in the dip of her waist, holding her close. “And that only makes it worse, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily.” She nibbled her lip as she chose her message carefully. “I think it means you owe him your best, though.”

“I swear, Lucy, I’m going to make things right. I’m here for you, for Colby, for JD and Compass Ranch. I promise to do you proud. To keep you safe. To never disappoint you again. I’ll do what’s right, no matter how difficult it might be.”

“And I’ll be beside you every step. Colby too.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

She nuzzled his chest as they dozed together until the lights and purr of Colby’s truck heading up the dirt road to their house extracted her from their hushed intimacy.

Lucy smiled as she imagined the three of them heading indoors to indulge their passion again or maybe staying right here and worshipping each other beneath the summer sky. She didn’t expect the sudden tension morphing her pillow into a solid slab of flexed muscle.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

She inspected her husband when Silas’s alarm infected her. Colby sported one hell of a shiner, a fat lip and a slice in his eyebrow that oozed blood. He spit over the railing, probably clearing the iron tang from his mouth.

“Nothing worth discussing.” He grinned at Lucy then flexed his fingers into a loose fist. “I’m hoping you have some frozen peas stashed inside. I’m gonna need ’em.”

She scooted off the loveseat and dashed into the kitchen. The rumbling of her men arguing, low and urgent, drifted through the open bathroom window as she gathered a couple other first aid supplies.

“It’s not important. Some tool thought he could take out his ignorance on Billy. Made some asinine comment about the kid working for a homo. Billy fought back and the sheriff locked him up, but the dumb fuck wasn’t ready to leave well enough alone. He must have been at The Soggy Boot. Saw me come for Billy then decided to go for another round.”

“Son of a bitch!” Silas’s curse cut through the night. “It’s my fault this dickwad attacked you.”

“You’re so full of yourself.” Colby attempted to take the sting out of the truth. “He was drunker than shit and looking for any excuse to start trouble.”

“This jackass won’t be the only one who has a problem with this…” Silas’s voice trailed off.

“So I’ll keep kicking asses and setting them straight. It’s nobody’s business who I fuck. Who I love.”

“What will you do when someone attacks Lucy?” Silas’s question faded then grew louder as though he paced with uneven hobbles. She hurried outside to calm him down. She could take care of herself, damn it.

“Silas Compton, stop this bullshit.” She propped her hand on her hip. “You can’t take responsibility for the whole universe.”

“You two are my world. No one will hurt you because of me.” He glared at her. “You should understand.”

She threw the bag of peas at him, annoyed when he snatched it out of the air with ease and handed it to Colby. “It’s not at all the same thing, Silas.”

“It is.” He adjusted his crutches then swung toward the stairs. “Colby, drive me into town. I’ll confront these assholes myself. Then we’ll talk. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

“You swore you’d be here for us.” She couldn’t believe Silas would change his mind now. She’d never survive losing him.

“I swore to keep you safe.”

Lucy watched until the taillights faded from sight before crumpling to the porch floor. Tears soaked her fingers as she covered her face and sobbed. He couldn’t do this to them.

Not again.

Silas fumed the entire fifteen-minute trip into Compton Pass. Fury eradicated the opportunity to enjoy his first glimpse of the town he’d grown up in. Wrath blinded him to how it had evolved from a rural outpost into a bustling community, complete with an Internet café and an expanded school.

He refused to acknowledge Colby’s attempts to woo him off the ledge. Fucked up leg or not, he planned to make a statement. A handful of titanium rods, screws and plates wouldn’t stop him from protecting his family.

His lovers were not to be touched. Or there’d be hell to pay.

“Really, Si. This is ridiculous.” Colby droned on above the country music spilling from the rowdy bar conveniently located behind the town’s combo government building and two-celled jail as they swung into the gravel lot. “I don’t need your sorry ass to fight my battles. Jones probably went home anyway.”

“I’ll check it out for myself.” He slid from the bench seat of the pickup onto his good leg, ignoring how the jostling sent a tingle of pain up his spine.

“You’re overdoing it today, Silas.” Damn the observant foreman. “Let’s go home. Lucy gives great massages.”

“In a few.” It had to be close to last call. Didn’t a bunch of these cowboys have to be on the ranch in three or four hours? Hell, more than a couple probably started out the morning still tipsy or miserably hung-over.

He winced at the hypocritical disdain about to cause him to pass judgment on guys he’d never even met. Fuck. He’d lived through ten years of rough mornings and still managed to perform at the head of the pack. Wyoming could easily be someone else’s Alaska.

Colby stepped in front of him as he limped toward the front door.

“Are you sure you’re okay to go in there?” True concern radiated from his lover for the first time since he’d shown up at the house with his face somewhat worse for wear. “With all the alcohol? Shit, I can smell it from here. You said…”

Now that Colby mentioned it, so could Silas. The fumes curdled his stomach.

“I remember what I asked of you.” He sighed. “I’m alright. On that front anyway. Let me through, Colby.”

“Fine.”

Silas swung through the cracked door Colby held open as the other man mumbled beneath his breath.

“Stubborn. Egotistical. Overprotective…”

Silas headed straight toward the bar. Having left at eighteen, he’d never been inside The Soggy Boot but that didn’t stop him. He’d familiarized himself with other less-than-fine establishments not so different than this since then. His eyes scanned the sparse crowd for the asshole who’d dared to threaten Colby, searching for a smirk or a confident leer he could wipe into the dirt.

Silas’s stare made two circuits around the room before he quit. Only a smattering of half-passed-out men littered the place. None of them made good candidates for a bully. Shit, seemed as if the troublemaker had wised up and headed home after all. Damn.

“Didn’t expect the pleasure of your company again tonight, foreman.” The bartender dried glasses to be put up for the night. “Thought you’d be home milking those scratches so that sweet little wife of yours would fix you up right.”

“Not my idea.” Colby leaned a hip against the bar, looking more tempting than he had a right to. “You remember Silas?”

“How could I forget that ugly mug? How the hell have you been?”

Silas abandoned his single-minded perusal, disappointed his prey had escaped. It took a couple beats for him to shave years off the man in front of him in his mind. If he removed the masculine set of his jaw, some of the laugh lines around his mouth and a foot or two of his height…

“Donnie?”

Colby and the other man cracked up.

“Nobody’s called me that since high school.” He grimaced. “Except my ma.”

They’d had some fun times with the adventurous kid. How many others had he almost forgotten?

“I assume you hauled Stan Jenkins in, foreman?”

“Stan?” Colby shook his head, a confused glint in his eyes. Silas couldn’t stand to wonder another second.

“I need to talk to the dude who messed with Colby.”

“Dude?” Don laughed again. “Tonight keeps getting better and better.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Didn’t he tell you? Four hands decided to gang up on our boy here. No idea what they were thinking. Colby’s never had a problem holding his own. He kicked their asses good and hard. Then fired them on top of it all. Morons.” Don chuckled as he recalled the situation, not in the least concerned. “Had to cut one off after you left as he tried to drown his sorrows. The other three couldn’t make their hands or mouths work well enough to even try. Almost felt sorry for the bastards. Almost.”

Colby winced. “I got carried away.”

“No one expected different. Everybody knows you don’t talk shit about Lucy around you. Or this fucker for that matter.” Don jerked his chin in Silas’s direction. “They had it coming.”

A sickness swamped Silas’s gut. Had he underestimated his lover?

Colby stared at him, waiting for his reaction. Oh shit, he’d nearly fucked this up again. They had to cut him some slack, right? He didn’t have a decade of experience in how to be part of a relationship.

“You’re right. They did.” Silas turned to leave, calling over his shoulder, “Good to see you again, Don. I think Vicky and JD are planning a barbeque for the weekend. Come on over if you’re free.”

He’d reached the door when Colby paused to ask, “What was that you were saying about Stan Jenkins?”

Don stepped from behind the bar to avoid shouting. He lowered his voice until it wouldn’t carry over the music blasting from the crappy speakers. “He said he was in the shitter when those four earned the smack down but he’s a giant coward. I bet he hid in there on purpose. Afterward, he kept spouting off. The more he drank, the more he fired himself up. The fact no one else agreed pissed him off double.”

The bartender scrubbed his hand through his hair then sighed hard. “I kicked him out after I heard him talking trash. About Lucy.”

Don grimaced.

“We’re rational men.” Colby laid a hand on Don’s shoulder then glared at Silas before adding, “Mostly. I won’t let him punish the messenger. Spit it out.”

“I told him he was no longer welcome here after I heard him say, ‘If Colby ain’t man enough for his wife, I’ll give her a ride she won’t soon forget. I’d have her screaming in no time.’”

“Motherfucker!” Silas smacked his crutch into the doorframe.

“I heard rumors he was the one who beat Beverly Morton last year, though the cops never did prove it. My waitresses refuse to serve him. He cornered Rae out in the parking lot one time. I don’t care to think about what might have happened if I hadn’t taken out the garbage right then. I don’t like the bastard. I don’t trust him. And I sure as shit didn’t think you’d have appreciated the menace in his beady eyes as he insulted Lu. I thought maybe he’d tried something stupid.”

“Fuck!” Colby slammed past him, out the door.

“Thanks, Don.”

“I hope I’m wrong.” The man wrung his dishtowel between his hands.

Silas cursed his jacked leg as he hobbled toward Colby. The man had already started the truck. Stray peas of gravel hit the side of the bar as he swung around in front of Si then slammed on the brakes. He leaned across the cab to push open the door. Silas tossed his crutches behind the seat, grabbed the oh-shit handle and clambered in. Not pretty but fast.

“Here. Call her.” Colby tossed a cell phone into his lap.

Silas had the hunk of plastic halfway to his ear when it rang. He exchanged a look with Colby as the man took off at terrifying speeds given the road conditions and the obsidian darkness engulfing them as they left the radiance of the town behind.

Si wished he’d drive faster.

“What the hell are you boys doing out there?” JD’s gruff reproach echoed loud enough for both of them to hear in the cab of the truck. “Do you know what time it is? Are you going to start acting like a bunch of dumbass teenagers ‘cause you’re all together again?”

“What do you mean?” Silas couldn’t breathe past the constriction of his chest. “Because we went to The Boot? On a week night? Long story but Colby had to show some losers who’s boss.”

“Huh?” JD sounded like he might be running now. A car door slammed in the background. “You’re not home? Neither of you?”

“No. We’re heading back now though.”

“Is Lucy with you?” his father shouted.

“No.”

“God damn it!” JD cursed a blue streak. “My tires are flat, and I heard shots. Someone’s unloading at your house. Woke me up the first time a few minutes ago. Heard two more rounds right before I dialed.”

“We’ll be there in five.” At this rate they’d make it in half the time it’d taken to reach Compton Pass. Couldn’t be soon enough. “We heard Stan Jenkins could be causing trouble.”

“I should have fired that slimy jackass a long time ago. Never could catch him at anything I suspected,” JD growled. “I’m gonna ride over. I’ll come at the house from the back. Be careful. Both of you.”

Chapter Eleven

“If he harms one hair on her head, I’ll kill that bastard painful and slow.”

“Drive, Colby.” Silas scrubbed his face with his hands, a calm settling low in the pit of his stomach. “She’s tough and she’s smart. We’re no use if we don’t make it there in one piece. We have to trust her to take care of herself until then.”

Colby took his eyes from the road for an alarming second to stare at him as though he’d grown seven heads. “Who the fuck are you? What did you do with Silas?”

“I may be slow but I’m learning.” He grinned as he selected
Home
from Colby’s cell phone directory.