Northern Exposure: Compass Brothers, Book 1 (7 page)

Colby stared into her eyes as he surrendered. The vocalization of their love became unnecessary as he communicated the value of their mating on a level far beyond words. She struggled to stay awake, to linger on the alternate plane they’d created with their exchange, but before she was ready, exhaustion and the security of his hold lulled her to sleep.

When she woke, Colby was gone.

Chapter Five

Silas groaned. He attempted to roll over to relieve the discomfort in his side but a canvas strap around his waist pinned him to a gurney. Fuck! He’d objected to being shipped home like a hunk of meat. Doctors had overruled his arguments. Crowded Alaskan hospitals forced them to release him despite his protests.

Once the insurance company found out about Lucy and the exceptional level of homecare she’d offered to provide, they’d assumed he would be thrilled. When he’d fought instead, the doctors had subdued him with a shot of something strong.

So strong he didn’t remember anything else until this moment. Probably for the best.

Voices swirled around his clouded mind. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Then a beam of light stabbed through an opening to his left, illuminating the interior of a tiny plane, and hot air buffeted his face. At least it seemed steamy to him.

Silas didn’t have to wonder where in the world he lay or if this stop were a transfer en route because fresh air enveloped him like a comforting hug, easing the pain he’d endured for the past month. No, since he’d left this place. His heaven on earth.

The smell of home—fresh mountain air, late summer flowers and hints of the cow pasture near the ranch’s airfield—had him flaring his nostrils like a stallion scenting a mare in heat. He blinked and shook his head, struggling to stay awake. Ironic, considering all the times he’d battled the intrusion of his alarm to linger in a dream of Compass Ranch a moment or two longer.

He might have thought it another vision, or maybe heaven this time, when a familiar woman called to him. “Oh, Silas.”

The backlighting of the hatch caused a blurry silhouette, haloed by Wyoming sunshine, to materialize above him. Thank God for the buckles locking his arms by his sides or he wouldn’t have been able to prevent himself from groping forbidden fruit. The lure of his personal siren’s proximity after years and miles of separation overwhelmed all his logic.

“Lucy.” The gruff bark seemed indecipherable but she came closer, dropping to her knees beside him. His frustrated bellows, not to mention the sedation the Alaskan interns had forced on him, acted like nettles stuffed down his throat.

“Si.” The ragged gasps of her breath betrayed her weeping, though he still couldn’t see her clearly. “Look at you.”

Gentle hands stroked his scruffy face, his chest and his arms, stealing his ability to speak. When she entwined their fingers and laid her head on his shoulder, whispering prayers of thanks for his safety over his heart, he stared at her gorgeous mane of curls. Some things never changed.

“Come on, sweetheart.”

Silas tensed at the inherent command radiating from the latest form, highlighted by the sun. “Let’s take him home. We’ll catch up there.”

“Colby?” It seemed some things did change. The broad, filled-out form exuded power and a potent strength Silas didn’t quite remember. Impressive. He hoped whatever blanket they’d covered him with for the trip hid the erection struggling to form despite the drugs lingering in his system.

His gut clenched, and he closed his eyes. Leaving had been the smart decision. He never could have controlled himself around these two. Reports of home from his brothers and his parents confirmed the couple’s lasting happiness. He had no business intruding.

Colby crouched near his wife, one hand rubbing her back with an ease that made it clear he’d done it a million times before. Silas had never built familiarity with a partner. Other than Red, he’d forbidden repeat performances. His chest ached with regret.

For his friend.

For himself.

What would it be like to have that kind of unconditional support? He’d flown solo long enough to forget.

The tiny space grew cramped to the max when the weight of another passenger rocked the aircraft. This set of shoulders blocked the sun entirely. Lucy, Colby and JD came into view, the sight so overwhelming it almost knocked him out again. He swam toward the sunshine, the heat and the people he treasured. He couldn’t bear to depart again so soon.

“Welcome home, son.”

Surely, the rasp in his father’s greeting had to do with his aging and not unbridled emotion. Right?

“JD.” He couldn’t say more but didn’t have to. Three sets of hands braced him now, promising to lend him strength.

“Rest. We’ve got you,” JD reassured him. “You’ll need all your energy when your mama sees you. Prepare yourself. She’s likely to squeeze you in half…or beat your ass with a wooden spoon. It’s kind of a toss-up at this point.”

Silas laughed, or tried to. The pain in his side dimmed his vision.

No! He scrambled toward the shimmering light but couldn’t gain a firm toehold on consciousness. He spiraled into nothingness, everything in him straining to rejoin his family.

Lucy sat in the corner of the room, watching Victoria alternate sobs with shouts at her stubborn son, who occupied the king-sized bed in the center of his boyhood room. Colby stood by Lucy’s side, his supportive grip on her shoulder helping to keep her relaxed.

Well, as much as she could be.

She’d anticipated that the jolt of desire Silas had always inspired in her would rear between them when they connected once more. And it had. But the intensity of the reaction had surprised her. It flared a hundred times brighter than the naïve infatuation she’d experienced as a young girl.

The injuries dotting his body, draining his alertness, had stopped her from mounting him where he lay. The wounds evident in his tortured gaze had broken her heart. She shivered as she remembered the undisguised agony she’d spotted in his dazed stare.

“Want me to find your sweater?” Colby whispered near her ear.

“No thanks.” She capitalized on his nearness, stealing a kiss, needing the fortification to gel her insides, which threatened to dissolve into a pile of mush.

“He’s going to be okay.” Her husband sipped from her lips again.

“Are
we
?” She shivered again. “Did you feel it? The connection…”

“Did I?” Colby breathed hard though she doubted their kisses inspired his elevated respiration. “I still do.”

Lucy couldn’t help herself. She glanced at the crotch of her husband’s ripped work jeans, sighing when she spotted the bulge there.

“Behave.” He rearranged himself. The gesture didn’t obscure the evidence. “I’m trying not to be obvious here, but it won’t quit.”

“Want me to take care of you?” Lucy squirmed in the chair. It’d been three hours since Silas had crashed into their lives again and already she thought she might die if someone didn’t touch her soon. “I’ll meet you in the bathroom downstairs in five minutes. I bet Vicky’s good for another half hour of lecturing.”

“At least.” Colby winced.

They’d all faced the mama bear’s wrath once or twice, but even the time Sawyer had gotten caught stealing from the general store for the hell of it his junior year of high school had generated less stern disappointment than this.

“When you have problems, you don’t run from family. You
trust
the people who love you. I did not raise you to shirk your responsibilities. Your place was here. Always here. Not like your brothers, who dreamed of something else. What made you think the answer was lying to us? To yourself? To Colby and Lucy?”

“I feel kind of bad abandoning him. Especially for a BJ. Even one of yours, baby.” Her husband hunched his shoulders and jammed his hands in his pockets when Vicky aimed her laser vision at him. He froze—like a deer in the headlights—until she turned back to her eldest son, disaster averted.

“…disrespectful…”

Lucy peeked up at Colby and grinned. Someday she hoped to have half as much command over her men and their children.

Men
?

Oh damn, when had she gotten so greedy? Could it really be possible to keep them both? She had to try at least.

“…wasteful…”

Something about the energy surrounding the three of them when they’d touched in the ranch’s plane, which they’d rigged to haul their damaged friend home from Cheyenne, had electrified her. Given her hope.

“…unhealthy…”

Lucy grimaced at the rising pitch of Vicky’s diatribe. She thought she could hear dogs howling in the yard. When she shifted to leave the room, regardless of the danger from Silas’s mom, the tirade stopped short.

“And I love you more than I can say. I missed you, Silas.” Vicky smothered her son in hug tight enough to break another rib or two. “Please, don’t ever do that to us, or yourself, again. This accident is a blessing in disguise. It’s brought you home, where you belong.”

“Is this still my place?” Silas broke his silence.

“Absolutely.” Vicky answered before either Colby or Lucy could interject.

“How do you know?” Their injured friend fiddled with the edge of the blanket covering him.

“Because I’m your mother.” She kissed his forehead then glanced toward the corner where Lucy and Colby waited. “You can still set things to rights. Be true to yourself. Make me proud, Silas.”

“I’m working on it.” He sighed. “I don’t blame you for not believing me, but it’s what I always tried to do.”

“Foolish boy.” Her warm tone betrayed the true feelings behind her criticism. “Don’t struggle so hard. The solution is easy if you let it be. Listen to your heart.”

Vicky rested her palm on her son’s bare chest before nodding then leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

Lucy couldn’t swear she breathed.

Colby acted first. He pried her white-knuckled fingers from the arms of her chair then helped her stand. Together they walked, side by side, toward the bed. Toward Silas.

The puffy slashes of fresh scars marring his skin threatened to distract her. He seemed so pale. Whether his injuries or his time hidden from the sun had leeched his color she couldn’t tell. It made him appear cold. So did his tight nipples, which stood proud above the line of the sheet. The bright cotton cover obscured the lower half of his body from her wandering gaze.

He hadn’t shaved in forever. The scruffiness worked for him. Still, she couldn’t wait for him to reveal his strong jaw and the other hints of masculinity he’d grown into well.

“Christ, you’re so beautiful. More than I guessed, Lu.”

When his compliment knocked her off balance, he covered the gap.

“Are you going to yell at me too?” The mischievous grin she recognized from their childhood made an appearance even if it seemed a little rusty.

“Not exactly what I had in mind.” Colby answered for them both. He scrubbed his hands through his sun-bleached hair then cursed. “Hell if I know where to go from here, though.”

Lucy opened her mouth to make a suggestion. Silas interrupted. “Can I ask you something first?”

She nodded.

“Are you happy, Lu?” He tilted his head when her eyes narrowed. “I mean, really happy. And Colby too. Please promise me those lonely nights were worth it.”

“Jesus, dickhead.” Colby filled in when no sound would pass the knot in her throat. “Did you listen to one word Vicky said?”

“Yeah, she told me to follow my heart.” Silas’s rugged face, stressed by years of hard living—and, if she wasn’t mistaken, dented by the subtle unevenness caused by patches of frostbite—expressed his genuine interest. “All it’s ever wanted was to protect you. Both of you. To preserve your happiness.”

Lucy exchanged a look with her husband, enough to convey more than an entire conversation between most people. Colby nodded.

“Clearly, you didn’t read a single one of my letters.” Lucy plopped onto the mattress when her knees buckled. “Wow, that’s probably a solid three months of my life wasted.”

Maybe they’d deluded themselves all this time. Had Silas departed without a glance over his shoulder? Had his nobility supplied a convenient excuse? She scooted toward the edge, prepared to leave and reevaluate the situation, when his hand braceleted her wrist.

His hold sent electricity through her core.

“I couldn’t.” He coughed after the rush of air he’d expelled, his lungs still not fully recovered. When the fit extended, Silas’s face flushing an unhealthy shade of purple, she reached for the pitcher of water beside the bed.

Colby wrapped his arm around Silas’s shoulders then tipped their lost friend forward until she could touch the cup she held to his lips. He didn’t drink for a moment, as though his pride rebelled at needing help to accomplish something so simple. Eventually, he accepted her offering.

The cool liquid soothed Silas. Lucy expected her husband to lower the man to the mountain of pillows arranged behind him. Instead, he stared at the expanse of their friend’s back.

“You should see this, Lu.”

“Does he have more cuts and burns there?” She nibbled her lip. Nurses couldn’t be squeamish. She usually wasn’t, but the extensive damage Silas had sustained wrung her stomach. “Should I grab some fresh bandages?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty tore up. That’s not what I’m talking about, though.”

Silas met her gaze. He stared, offering no input. Close enough to kiss him, she watched him lick the last of the water droplets from his cracked lips. She opened a tube of balm she’d laid by the bed, part of her standard patient kit, and swirled some onto her finger. She’d applied the silky gel to many people in her career. None of them had made it seem like a dirty act. Tracing Silas’s parted mouth inspired her to flush then avert her eyes.

They weren’t ready yet.

Lucy forced herself to retreat, at least far enough to carefully straddle him as she crossed to his other side. Examining him from beneath Colby’s supportive hold would prove impossible. She gasped when something hard and long brushed her thigh. “You’re supposed to be sick.”

“I’d have to be dead not to get a rise in my Levi’s with you in my lap.”