The Shearing Gun (24 page)

I stripped off in the laundry and delayed the moment I would have to face him. As I banged into the kitchen, he looked up from the papers with a large smile of welcome that soon disappeared when he saw my face.

“Hey Hank! How did it… shit! What happened to your face? Are you okay? Come and sit here.”

He was on his feet, urging me to sit on the chair, and examining the swelling—while I couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. He fussed around me and gently peeled back the gauze, which was now soaking wet and filthy.

“What happened? Let me see… damn. Who stitched this for you? It’s going to leave a scar if you leave it like that. Let me get my bag from my car, and I’ll restitch it.”

I knew he would be angry with me once he found out the truth, so I grabbed him and pulled him onto my lap. I wrapped my arms around his torso, so I could absorb his smell and closeness before the anger started. He stopped and returned the hug, kissing me gently on my brow.

“Hank? What’s the matter, buddy? Are you okay? Are you hurting somewhere?”

I didn’t answer. I simply buried my face in his neck and held him, drawing strength and love from his skin.

I could feel his heartbeat through his body—a sound that quieted me inside and cooled the burning lava. I felt his hand on my head, patting me and stroking my hair back from my brow.

“Hank? Where else, buddy?”

“My hand,” I muttered with my mouth against his neck.

“Your hand? Where? Let me see.” He brought my hand around and examined the bruising and swelling. I felt the moment he realized what it meant—I’d been in a fight. “Oh.” His body sagged, and he brought my hand up to his mouth to lightly kiss the bruising.

I endured it for a minute before I had to ask, “They teach you that in medical school, Doc? Kissing the hurt better?”

He chuckled. “I think the art is seriously underrated. And I have to confess there was one particular lecturer at university that I wouldn’t have been averse to having a demonstration from.”

I drew back and smiled. “Yeah? He was hot?”

“Smokin’.” The laughter dropped from his face. “Did you hurt anyone, Hank?”

I grimaced and lowered my gaze. “Just a bit banged up. He asked for it.”

“What? He stood there and said ‘please hit me Hank?’ I don’t think so.”

I scowled. “No. He stood there and called my boyfriend a faggot. I couldn’t let it go, Ell.”

I could feel him run the gauntlet of emotion: surprise, anger, hurt, fear, and then forgiveness. There was silence while Elliot sighed and tenderly stroked his soothing hands down my face. Finally he asked, “Is that what I am? Your boyfriend?”

My heart was pounding in my chest so loudly, I could barely hear his soft words. “If you want to be.”

Our gazes held for infinity before he smiled his boyish grin. “Yes. I want to be. Now, let me up, so I can make my boyfriend all pretty again by restitching his wound so it won’t scar.”

I tightened my hands around him and drew him close for a kiss. “I don’t care about my looks, Doc. It’ll be fine.”

He pecked me on the mouth and pushed aside my hands so he could get to his feet. “I care. Now just think of it as a perk of having a doctor for a boyfriend.”

He moved to the door, and I called after him, “The best part of having a doctor for a boyfriend is getting to play doctors and nurses.”

The door banged closed, cutting off the sound of his amusement as he went to his car.

Chapter 20

I
N
A
tradition born long before I moved to the district, the lads all met at the local historic pub about five o’clock on Sunday afternoon. We talked footy during footy season, cricket during cricket season, and farming year round. Footy had wrapped up, apart from the finals—which we didn’t make—so it was grain prices, wool prices, and the weather that night. There were plenty of conversations to join in, some darts for those who needed a bit more stimulation, and beer flowing freely.

I had persuaded Elliot to join us, so he’d gone home to shower and change before coming to meet me. I ordered a jug of beer and gratefully took the empty glass Sharon passed over for my weekly hops and barley consumption. I placed my jug on the table next to two other half-full jugs and poured a cold one.

Middy was already there and had spread the word about my total, so there were plenty of back slaps and handshakes in congratulations. Then there were the questions about the black eye that was forming. Middy looked at the cut, and his mouth twisted in amusement.

“What?” I demanded.

“Obviously my w-work wasn’t up to scratch, huh?”

I desperately tried to keep the blush from my cheeks, but I don’t think I succeeded. Luckily Middy was the only one who knew that he’d stitched me shut with a single stitch, since I now sported two neatly tied knots. I shot him a chagrined look and defensively muttered, “I told him to fucking leave it, but he insisted.”

I’m pretty sure my best mate was attempting to not laugh uproariously. “Poor baby.” He leaned over and asked in a whisper, “What’s the gay equivalent of p-pussy-whipped, anyway? I’ve b-been wanting to ask for years. Willy-whipped?”

I gaped at him in absolute disbelief. My brain fizzled, and I couldn’t formulate an answer. We stared at each other, until I snorted in laughter and walloped him on the back of the head. “Prick.”

He choked for a moment, and I’m sure I heard him say, “Prick-whipped?” but ignored him in favor of the stunning sight of my boyfriend coming through the doors. He was greeted by several people as he came in the door—Tim Davies being one of those who stood and shook his hand. Rooster saved me from being the one to call him over.

“Hey, Doc! Grab a glass from Shazza behind the bar and pull up a pew.”

He smiled and waved his understanding, then turned to talk to Mr. Jenkins, who was perched on a barstool. It took him a good five minutes to make it to our group, but he joined in the conversation effortlessly, deliberately taking the place on the other side of Middy. We had to be careful in public—no displays of affection and no letting on that we knew each other as well as we did. To everyone else, we were mates. They would be horrified if they realized how frequently we saw each other.

And what we did.

Neil came in late and offered to buy Elliot a beer when he saw he was only drinking lemonade. “I’ll shout you a Beam if you want some of the hard stuff, Doc. I know not everyone likes beer.”

Elliot smiled in gratitude. “No, thanks for the offer, though. Doctor Larsen called me an hour ago. He’s gone down with this flu that’s making the rounds, so I’m on call tonight.”

That brought the conversation around to illnesses. “Remember when that gastro hit back in ’07?” someone said. I was secretly proud that Elliot joined in so smoothly. It was like he’d always been there.

We laughed and joked. We told tall stories and exaggerated successes. We ordered pub grub and ate it in the alfresco area at the back of the building. I finally sat down next to Elliot and passed him my plate of wedges to share, when his mobile rang in his pocket. Experience taught me what that meant, and my heart sank—not only was someone sick or injured, but it meant no more Elliot for me that night. He answered and told the other person he was on his way. He was out of his chair and apologizing to us before they’d even hung up.

“Sorry, guys. A car’s gone off the road south of Nippering. See you later, yeah?”

He gently touched my shoulder as he left and hurried away. It put a damper on the night—for all of twenty seconds, before Neil said, “Did you hear about Kevin Shultz’s second wife?”

S
PRING
WENT
mad as shearing and harvesting competed with each other. Most guys were working seven days a week—if they didn’t already. My grain ripened, and I spoke to Paul on the phone to organize a day when he could come and help me out between my shearing jobs. I paid my mortgage, which was running behind a month in repayments, then chucked in the next two months to keep the bank off my back. I settled up my account at the local stockfeeds, with a bottle of scotch thrown in to thank the owner for carrying me without payment for a good two months.

One night Elliot watched me wrestle with my figures, working out how much I needed over the next six months, until autumn, when shearing would take off again.

“I don’t know how you farmers can live like that,” he said, “with income only coming in once a year when you sell your wool or grain, and not even knowing how much you’re getting until you get to market.”

“That’s why we have chooks and a veggie garden, Quackle. If your crop goes down the drain, at least you have eggs and veggies to eat. And you can always slaughter your own stock for meat when you’re desperate.”

I was mostly joking, although there was a definite grain of truth in that statement—but the following evening he turned up with several boxes of food. I frowned at him fiercely and demanded to know what he thought he was doing.

“Come on, Hank. I eat here all the time, and I just want to contribute so as to not mooch off you.”

I appreciated the gesture but didn’t want him to think I was unable to support myself. “You can buy the condoms, then. I think we need another packet.”

He blushed adorably red, something I was completely addicted to, since it was the color he turned when he hit his climax. “I did already. That’s in the box too.”

My cupboards were getting embarrassingly bare—due more to lack of time to shop than lack of money. Elliot had just finished stacking the last tin on the shelf, and I was busy planning his seduction, when Buck started up, telling us nooky time was off since I had a visitor. I vowed to get rid of them in under five minutes and went outside to see.

What do they say about the best-laid plans?

I stared in disbelief as Uncle Murray climbed out of his car and waved to me, and Jimmie was with him. It was nearly six in the evening so that meant….

Dammit!

I swore under my breath and muttered an aside to Elliot, “Brace yourself, Quackle. My family has arrived.”

I heard Elliot choke as Jimmie closed his door and came around the car in his three-quarter length white capri pants, skin-tight orange T-shirt, and matching orange thongs on his feet. His sunglasses were perched decoratively on top of his perfectly arranged hair-do, instead of on his face, and he sashayed across the yard with his white man-bag over his wrist.

“Hank, darling!”

I swallowed my resentment at the interruption and put on a genuine welcoming smile. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We’ve come to help! I said something to Murray, and we decided that we should just jump in the car and come. Murray has a real hankering to get his hands dirty, and I’m sure you need some decent meals in you. Murray wanted to phone you, but I wanted it to be an absolute surprise. Are you surprised, darling? Unfortunately we will be throwing you out of your bed while we’re here, but I’m sure that can’t be too much of a difficulty. Paul sleeps in your spare bed all the time. Oh, hello there. How rude of me. I’m Jimmie and this is Murray. What’s your name? Hank, you never told me about how cute your friends were. I would’ve come to visit ages ago had I known. And I didn’t even bring my best clothes to parade in front of you. We’ve brought some food with us because….”

He trailed off when Uncle Murray simply placed a large hand over his mouth like he’d done it a million times before. I was pretty sure he had. “Jim-dear, kindly shut up and let poor Hank get a word in.”

Elliot was still staring in surprise at Jimmie, so I made the introductions. “Guys, this is Elliot—he’s the doctor in town, so don’t be surprised if someone calls him Doc Elliot. Elliot, this is my Uncle Murray and his partner, Jimmie.”

Jimmie extended his hand and I sighed in relief when Elliot readily accepted it, only to be bowled over when Elliot exclaimed and said, “Oh! Is that a real Gucci bracelet? It looks fantastic! I was looking at that one to buy my mother last Christmas, but in the end decided on the rose gold.”

It was a perfect comment to make. Jimmie went into raptures.

“Oh, really? I just loved the rose-gold one, but I thought that this would go with more outfits. I’m really into yellow gold and had to be talked out of the rose-gold one. I absolutely adore their horse-bit range and would be spending all my money on them if I could, but you know what it’s like—bills to pay and all. Have you seen the horse-bit cufflinks?”

Elliot was looking a little shell-shocked—was it from Jimmie’s over-the-top gay-is-me attitude, or that a man who had probably never been on a horse in his entire lifetime seemed to have some fetish for horse-apparel jewelry? Jimmie finally stopped to take a breath, and Murray distracted him by asking if he’d brought some blue scarf. Jimmie quivered with excitement and pranced over to the car to rummage through his luggage.

Elliot turned to me. “I’ll just get going, then, huh? You must be excited to visit with your family. We’ll catch up soon?”

With reluctance I walked him to his car and watched him get in. “Quackle, mate. I’m really sorry—”