Chase the Stars (Lang Downs 2 ) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Chris, but I didn’t catch your last name.”
“Simms. I’d offer to shake hands, but that’s a little hard at the moment with this on my arm.”
“What happened?” Kami asked, some of his grouchiness fading.
“Some guys took exception to me being gay,” Chris said. “They thought they’d beat it out of me. Macklin and Neil and a couple of others dissuaded them.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Kami demanded, turning on Neil. “Get out. Leave him here.”
“Good luck,” Neil said with a laugh as he left Chris in the kitchen with Kami.
Chris had a feeling he’d need it.
“I don’t know how much help I’ll be, honestly,” Chris said. “I can move my shoulder and my wrist, but not my elbow.”
“You let me worry about that,” Kami said. “Right now you have a seat. Do you want a cup of tea?”
“That would be wonderful,” Chris said. “I didn’t want to impose, but the trip was rough.”
“Sit,” Kami said again, bustling toward the stove and the electric kettle next to it. “They didn’t just break your arm, did they?”
They’d come damn close to breaking his spirit.
“No, they cracked my ribs too.”
“We’ll set you to rights in no time,” Kami promised. “Dinner’s mostly done for tonight so you can start tomorrow. Did Macklin tell you what time I start cooking?”
“Caine said you usually start at four thirty.”
“Unless they’re going out to the back paddocks, at which point I serve breakfast at four thirty,” Kami said, “but that’s not very often. Early to bed, early to rise, and all that. Where are you sleeping?”
“Upstairs in the main house,” Chris said. “Caine was worried about my brother if we moved into the bunkhouse.”
“That’s better anyway,” Kami agreed. “In the bunkhouse you’d have to listen to the jackaroos complain about your alarm going off earlier than theirs. That won’t be a problem in the main house. Even if Caine and Macklin aren’t awake, you won’t wake them coming downstairs.”
The kettle whistled so Kami poured the water over the tea bag, added milk, and handed the cup to Chris. “Here you go. Drink that and tell me about your brother while I finish making dinner. Tomorrow morning we won’t have time to talk.”
Chris sipped his tea and pondered what he wanted to say. Seth had become two people in his mind: the brother he was fighting to protect and the little shit he’d become to protect himself. Hoping those days were over, Chris focused on Seth as he’d been before their mother’s death. “He’s a clown,” Chris said, “always looking for a way to crack a joke or make people laugh. Unlike a lot of clowns, though, he never does it by tearing people down. If anything, he makes himself the butt of the joke because he knows he can handle it.”
“He sounds like a good kid.”
“He is,” Chris said.
“But?”
“But what?” Chris asked, feeling all the defensive walls go up.
“You tell me,” Kami said, moving around the kitchen so his back was to Chris, making it easier for Chris to contemplate the truth. “There was a ‘but’ in your voice.”
“But the past six months have been hard,” Chris admitted. “We’ve been living one step away from the streets, and we’ve been around some people we never would have been around before.”
“Your folks kicked you out because you were gay?” Kami asked.
“No, Mum died. We never knew our real father. He disappeared soon after Seth was born. The drongo Mum married kicked us out after the funeral. He said he didn’t have time for her bastard kids.”
“Not very charitable of him,” Kami observed.
Chris snorted, nearly choking on his tea. “Not a word I’d use to describe him, and I’ve come up with a few over the past six months.”
“I’m sure you have, but that’s in the past now,” Kami said. “Lang Downs is a good place to start over, whether you stay for a season or a lifetime.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Chris asked curiously.
“The