Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (17 page)

Ian fumbled for the oxygen mask hanging by his bed. Thorne helped him put it on and turned on the flow of air. He didn’t know how far the nurses had opened the valve on the tank before, but he opened it two turns, hoping that would be enough. When he was sure Ian wasn’t going to choke, he would get a nurse and have her come adjust it to the appropriate level.

Ian’s coughing eased a little, but his eyes were still watering. “Should I get a nurse?” Thorne asked.

Ian nodded, so Thorne rushed to the door and called for a nurse. One came in, all bustling efficiency, and set the flow of oxygen and then gave Ian another dose of something in the breathing tube. That seemed to help, but Thorne was acutely aware again of the smell of smoke on his clothes. Staying would only make Ian’s symptoms worse. When the nurse left them alone again, he squeezed Ian’s hand once. “I’ll come back tomorrow, in clean clothes this time. You should get some rest.”

Ian frowned at him, but Thorne didn’t let that dissuade him. He
couldn’t
put Ian’s health at risk. He stopped at the door and turned back for a moment to appreciate how even beneath the oxygen mask, Ian’s lips were visibly swollen from their kisses, his neck and jaw slightly red from Thorne’s beard. It was a delectable look on him, and one Thorne wouldn’t mind reproducing when Ian wasn’t stuck in a hospital bed with a compromised pulmonary system.

He blew one last kiss in Ian’s direction, feeling silly until Ian caught it and pressed his hand to his heart. He smiled and shut the door behind him. Now he just had to get through another day, and then he could come back and visit Ian again.

Twelve

I
T
TOOK
a long time after Thorne left for Ian’s breathing to return to normal. His pounding heart was probably as responsible for that as anything else, but he couldn’t very well explain that to the nurse. He ran his fingers over his cheeks and around the edge of the mask, feeling the tingling that remained from the gentle scratch of Thorne’s beard. The few guys he’d kissed before coming to Lang Downs had all been clean-shaven, so that had been a revelation. He’d felt the whiskers when they kissed before, of course, but it had been so sudden and over so quickly Ian hadn’t really had time to do more than realize they were kissing before it was over. Not so today. Today Thorne had lingered over their kisses, seemingly content with the tender contact. Not once had he hinted in any way that he wanted more or that their kisses somehow weren’t enough.

It was a good thing, too, because those kisses had been all Ian could handle without being a prelude to something more. His few fumbling forays hadn’t prepared him for the depth of emotion Thorne’s kisses evoked in him, the wonder that this magnificent man would want such a thing with him. Thorne hadn’t hurled accusations of teasing or worse at him. He hadn’t groped him. He’d simply touched Ian’s face and neck like he was the most precious thing in the world. If their first kiss had been desperate and full of fear, like Han kissing Leia before being encased in carbonite, their kisses tonight were more like their reunion after she rescued him on Tatooine: tender and full of promise.

He’d outgrown his obsession with Han and Leia about the time he’d decided boys were more interesting than girls, but they had defined romance for him from quite the tender age. Sioned’s vision of herself and Rohan in the flames had perhaps superseded that since then, but the imagery remained with him still.

Whichever comparison he chose, Thorne fit right into the role, a thought that warmed Ian’s heart even as it sped his pulse. He coughed a little behind his mask as his elevated pulse made breathing more difficult. As much as he wanted to dwell on the memories of the time spent kissing Thorne, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. He’d have time enough to remember—and repeat—the experience when he could go for more than a few minutes without coughing.

With a smile on his face, he picked up
Dragon Prince
again and allowed his imagination to replace the familiar faces of his favorite characters with the mental image of Thorne and himself.

I
AN
had just finished lunch and had been told by the nurse to leave his mask off for a while when Molly and Dani arrived.

“Uncle Ian!”

Dani ran across the room as fast as her three-year-old legs could carry her, which was far faster than Ian had ever been able to explain, given how short they were. He caught her as she threw herself at him and lifted her up onto the mattress with him.

“Hello, Danibelle,” he said. “Can I have a kiss?”

She gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. He blew a raspberry on her neck in return, making her giggle wildly.

“How are you?” Molly asked as she pulled the chair up to the bed.

“Doing better,” Ian replied. “How’s everything at the station?”

“Everything’s fine, if you don’t count everyone being worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Ian said automatically.

“You’re not,” Molly retorted, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I will be fine,” Ian amended. “They just want to keep me for another day or two until they’re sure I won’t have an asthma attack out on the station. I’m not in danger anymore.”

“Uncle Ian sick?” Dani asked.

“I am. I breathed in too much smoke and it made me sick,” Ian said. “But the doctors are taking good care of me, and I’ll be home before you know it.”

“Come home today,” Dani demanded imperiously.

“You’ll have to talk to the doctors about that,” Ian said. “I think they want me to stay a little longer. But I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

Dani pouted, so Ian tickled her until she laughed again.

“What are they doing about the fires?” he asked Molly.

“They went back out to keep an eye on the hot spots,” Molly said, “but Neil seemed to think it was a precaution more than a necessity. He said the fires were out in all but a few isolated locations, and that they’d probably burn out in another day or two without any help, so as long as no new ones start, the worst has passed.”

“Did he say… anything else?” He glanced at Dani. Neil wouldn’t have said anything about him and Thorne in front of his daughter, no matter his own feelings. He was raising her to love and accept her Uncle Sam and Uncle Jeremy without blinking. Ian had heard the brothers talking one night, and Neil had sworn to Sam he wouldn’t be the kind of father they’d grown up with. That didn’t mean he hadn’t said something to Molly in private.

“He mentioned that Thorne might be staying longer than planned,” Molly replied. “Something about sleeping on your couch?”

“The other choice is the guest room in the main house, and that means listening to Caine and Macklin.”

Molly chuckled. They’d all heard stories from Chris about the challenge of staying down the hall from their bosses. During the day, in the sight of the jackaroos, they were completely circumspect, and if one didn’t know about them, one might miss their relationship entirely. At night in the privacy of their own home, they were apparently much less reserved.

“Is it a good thing that he’s staying?” Molly asked.

Ian considered his answer for a moment. The very idea of Thorne staying on his couch and in his life pushed him far out of his comfort zone, but every time he got nervous, he remembered the way they’d kissed the night before, and especially the way Thorne hadn’t even tried to do more than kiss. He hadn’t abused Ian’s trust last night, so Ian was willing to trust him a little more. “I think so,” he said finally. “I’ve never done anything like this.”

“Just remember you aren’t doing it alone,” Molly said. “You have people who love you and who will be there if you need to talk or if you need someone to go beat him up for you.”

“Not sure how good an idea that is,” Ian said with a laugh. “He’s pretty highly trained.”

“Dani can take him,” Molly said. “Can’t you, sweetheart?”

Dani put up her little fists and looked at Ian with perfect seriousness. “I take him.” She looked back at her mother. “Who I taking?”

Ian burst out laughing, long peals of sound, until he couldn’t breathe and started choking. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he reached for the oxygen mask. Molly started to apologize, but he waved her silent. He grabbed his pad and wrote,
It feels good to laugh.

D
ESPITE
his confident words to Molly, Ian was glad of some time alone after she and Dani left and before Thorne arrived. Thorne had talked about staying on the night before, had asked Ian’s opinion on the possibility, and hadn’t been put off by Ian’s concerns, but Ian had had time to think since then, and he wasn’t sure he liked what he’d come up with. Staying on the station would mean starting over completely for Thorne. Ian didn’t know if he could ride a horse or if he knew the first thing about sheep. Ian loved every aspect of life on the station except maybe shoveling out the sheep sheds in the winter, but he’d spent fifteen years listening to jackaroos complain about one aspect or another of the job. He’d watched people swear never to spend another minute on a sheep station by the end of a summer. Even if Thorne chose to stay now, it didn’t guarantee he’d stay forever. He could well end up so bored he’d decide to leave, especially if Ian couldn’t get over his own fears. What good was a relationship if he couldn’t do more than kiss his lover?

The word was enough to make Ian shudder. What did he know about that kind of relationship? His father had disappeared around the time he was born, and his mother’s string of live-ins had been as likely to take a swipe at him—or her—as do anything else. Once the Department of Child Services had become involved, he’d been moved from one foster family to another so quickly as they tried to find a place for him that he hadn’t had a chance to learn much of anything from them, and then had come his last foster family, and that had been a disaster from beginning to end. He still had nightmares about the first night his foster father had come to his room “to make sure he was settling in.”

He wanted this to work. He wanted Thorne to be happy on the station and to stay with him and to keep looking at him like he’d done the night before. And maybe to keep kissing him like he’d done the night before. If only he had the slightest idea how to do that, he’d be a little happier about the prospect, because the idea of having Thorne and losing him was far too horrible to contemplate. If he did this, he had to do it for keeps, and if he didn’t, he needed to decide that soon. It wouldn’t be fair to Thorne otherwise.

Not to mention that the longer he waited, the harder it would be to keep his heart whole if Thorne left.

No, he had to commit to this. He was already in too deep to back out without consequences to his own heart. He took a deep breath and tried to consider what that would mean and how he could satisfy a lover without triggering his own panic attacks. Thorne had enough of those for both of them.

I
AN
lit up like a Christmas tree when Thorne came in a couple of hours later, which was appropriate, since Christmas was only about a month away. Thorne’s answering smile was everything Ian could have hoped. He looked genuinely happy to see Ian.

“I changed before I came,” Thorne said. “No smoky clothes today.”

“Good,” Ian said, patting the mattress beside him in invitation, “although I’m doing better today. I’ve had the mask off most of the day and only had one coughing fit when I had to put it back on. Molly and Dani made me laugh and I couldn’t stop.”

“That sounds delightful. She’s a precious child.” Thorne came and sat next to Ian on the bed.

“She’s a little demon is what she is,” Ian said, “but she’s the apple of everyone’s eye. She’s going to pitch a fit when her little brother makes an appearance. She won’t want to share the spotlight.” He reached for Thorne’s hand and pulled him closer. The smell of smoke hadn’t entirely evaporated from Thorne’s hair, but it was less noticeable than the day before. Ian didn’t think it would trigger a coughing fit, but he’d be glad when the fires were out and Thorne no longer smelled of smoke at all. Ignoring the memories triggered by the smell, he leaned up and kissed Thorne softly. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” Thorne said. “So you’re feeling better?”

“The doctors say if I do well tonight without the mask, they might let me go home tomorrow.” He paused for a moment. “I’m ready to be home. I’m not used to staying in bed all day.”

“I could think of a few good reasons to spend all day in bed.”

Ian flinched at the suggestion alone. He could spend all day kissing Thorne, he was quite sure, but if they were in bed, a real bed with no worry about nurses barging in to check on him, kissing wouldn’t be enough for Thorne, and that still made Ian uncomfortable.

“How are the fires?” he asked instead of addressing his fears. “Molly said there were only hot spots left.”

“There were a couple of small flare-ups today, but nothing major,” Thorne said. “I think the worst is over.”

“I hope so,” Ian said. “I hate the idea of you out there in danger.”