Light as Air Read online

  Light as Air

  Compass Boys, book 4

  Mari Carr

  Jayne Rylon

  Copyright © 2018 by Mari Carr

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To Dr. Lee, my very clever “storm-chasing” cousin at NOAA.

  And to my daughter and her very dear friend from college,

  who was kind enough to loan me her beautiful name for Rosalia.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Dear Readers

  The Compass Series

  About the Authors

  Other books by Mari Carr

  Also By Jayne Rylon

  Prologue

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Sigh.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Sigh.

  “Change the radio, son. That song’s getting old.”

  Doug Compton glanced up as Jake, one of the Compass Ranch hands, walked into the living room. Jake was more beloved surrogate grandfather than employee, but it didn’t matter at the moment. Doug didn’t want to see anybody.

  He continued to tap the old cane his brother, James, had given him as a joke against his thigh-to-ankle cast.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Jake came and stood behind him, taking a peek at the view outside the window.

  Doug wasn’t sure why he’d chosen this spot to set up camp for a lifelong sulk. Actually, he knew exactly why. It gave him a clear, unobstructed view of his saddle bronc, Buck.

  Jake grunted behind him, and he waited for the older man to make some “life will get better” comment or give him hell for brooding and feeling sorry for himself.

  Doug didn’t want to hear it.

  In one minute, every hope and dream for his future had been shattered, held together now by metal screws and plates. The only thing he had to look forward to the next few months was a shit-ton of rehab, and after that…

  Well…there wasn’t anything to look forward to after that.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “If you’ve come to give me a pep talk, you can save your breath. Dad beat you to it yesterday.”

  “Since when have you known me to play cheerleader? Too old to shake a damn pom-pom.”

  Jake had a point—which meant he was here to ride herd on Doug’s sorry hide.

  “I don’t wanna hear it’s time to get my head out of my ass, either.”

  “Don’t bother me if you want to wear your ass as a hat.” Jake dropped down in the chair next to him.

  Doug had spent the last two weeks in this very spot, his mother placing an ottoman in front of his seat so he could keep his broken leg propped up. When it became apparent after three days he’d settled in for the long haul, she’d moved the second chair over, creating a little sitting area that would allow friends and family members to “keep him company.”

  A few had tried, but his silence and sullen expression drove them away quick enough. Jake was made of sterner stuff.

  “Really sucks about the leg.”

  Doug looked at Jake in surprise. No one, not one person, had acknowledged that yet. At least, not in his presence. He had no doubt they were saying it out of his earshot, worrying and stressing about him, but his family was nothing if not optimists. They always insisted there was a silver lining or a reason for shit happening. If there was one here, Doug didn’t want to find it.

  Since the day he was old enough to sit on a horse, he’d known what he wanted to be. He was born to live life just eight seconds at a time atop a raging bull, riding the circuit, king of the arena. In medieval times, he would have been a goddamned knight.

  Now he was just plain old Doug, one in a long line of Compton men destined to live out his entire life on this ranch. No adventures, no glory, no buckle bunnies, no…nothing.

  “Yeah,” Doug said at last. “It sucks.”

  “Doctors say you can’t ride Buck anymore? Even after the rehab?”

  Doug nodded, recalled the moment he’d heard those words. After a few minutes of listening as the doctor explained the diminished strength he’d suffer in his left leg, and the unfortunate placement of the two breaks, and how metal screws wouldn’t survive the continual beating of riding on a bucking bronc, the words had turned to white noise.

  Doc had said a hell of a lot more, but Doug hadn’t heard it. He let his parents digest the information while he sat there, stone-faced, fighting like the devil not to make an ass of himself by crying.

  “I can’t ride again. Rodeo is over for me.”

  Jake harrumphed. “Sucks,” he repeated.

  Doug was grateful to have someone to bitch to. Jake wasn’t telling him to buck up or to look for a bright side. He looked as genuinely pissed off by this twist of fate as Doug.

  “It’s bullshit, is what it is,” Doug added hotly.

  The first time Doug had cussed within Jake’s hearing, he’d only been eight, and the old hand had told him if he ever heard that kind of language from him again, he’d wash his mouth out with soap.

  That threat had stuck, even after all these years—but only around Jake. When it was just Doug and his brother James around, and his cousins Austin and Bryant, he cussed a blue streak.

  Now that he was sixteen, Jake didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he just said, “Yep. Bullshit.”

  With that, the door was flung open. Doug spewed out all the anger and misery he’d been storing up the last few weeks. He’d spent day after day after day stewing silently, his fury building from sparking embers to raging wildfire. Until that moment, he’d been able to keep it contained, but Jake, with just a few words, managed to unleash it.

  “Right?! What the fuck, man?” Doug shouted to Jake, not at him. “What the fuck do I do now? I’m not staying on this fucking ranch. I was supposed to ride the circuit.”

  Dream after broken dream fell out of him, along with four million “fucks” and “bullshits”. It was a barrage of words filled with anger, injustice, unfairness and desolation.

  Through it all, Jake let him rage, until finally, after several minutes, he started to run out of steam. “It was all I ever wanted. All…”

  When he felt the anger turning to tears, he sucked in a deep breath and twisted his face away from Jake, unwilling to let him see the wetness in his eyes, the tracks as they spilled over and ran down his cheeks. He swiped at them with his sleeve, his chest burning from trying to hold it in.

  Jake’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Let it out, Doug. There’s just so long a man can hold on to all that pain without burning alive.”

  It was the first time Jake had ever called him a man. Typically, he referred to him as “son” or “boy” or, on one of Doug’s mischievous days, “son of a bitch.”

  But never a man.

  The dam broke. Doug fell apart, the tears turning to sobs, all semblance of control gone. Everything streamed out of him in one long, loud rush. Through it all, Jake remained silent, though his hand never left Doug’s shoulder. Jake let him know with that strong, comforting grip that he wasn’t alone.

  Finally, his voice hoarse from the shed tears, Doug said, “I was going to be somebody.”

  With that, Jake spoke, “Aren’t you alrea
dy somebody?”

  Doug didn’t know how to respond to that. Jake wasn’t a fool. He knew what Doug meant by being somebody, knew that even while it might have seemed a childish dream when he was younger, Doug had put in the time, shed the blood and sweat and tears required to hone his skills, to master the art of riding the broncs. Doug had proven he had the grit and the drive to make his rodeo dream a reality.

  And then, he got tossed. Not during an event, but here, on the ranch, by his own damn horse. A bee had stung Buck. It took both the beast and the rider by surprise and the horse bucked him off. Then, in a leaping, pained frenzy, Buck had come down on Doug’s leg with both his hind ones, breaking the thigh and the shin and shattering the bones, before leaving Doug and his dreams in the dust cloud he’d kicked up.

  “You know what I mean,” Doug said quietly. Now that the storm had passed, he was feeling empty and exhausted.

  “That’s right. I do. But I’m gonna ask you again. Aren’t you already somebody?”

  Doug’s shoulders slumped, then he rested his head on the back of the chair, a long sigh escaping out of him slowly, like air from a wilted balloon with a tiny pin prick.

  “I don’t know,” Doug admitted. “I don’t know who I am.”

  “Course you do. Say it.”

  Doug forced himself to look at the man. He’d already fallen apart in front of him, lost his shit and cried like a baby. If there’d been any pride left, he might’ve continued to avoid Jake’s gaze, but Doug was completely out of it.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Tell me who you are.”

  Doug shrugged. “Right now? I’m Doug Compton. Just fucking Doug Compton.”

  Jake shook his head as if Doug was missing something obvious. “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, Jake.”

  Jake ignored him. “I’ve known you since you were a squalling baby in a shitty diaper. Saw you grow into a rough and tumble, rambunctious little boy with more energy than sense, constantly running around with scraped knees and torn jeans. I get it, Doug. I know how hard you’ve worked to make that rodeo dream a reality. I know what you put into it because I was in the stands cheering you on the whole time. It didn’t turn out the way you thought, but that doesn’t really change a goddamn thing. So tell me—who are you?”

  The anger that had been consuming him for weeks was gone, washed out in that explosion of curses and tears. Without it there, scorching everything inside, he felt more clearheaded. Better able to think.

  “I’m Doug Compton.” His voice was stronger, more sure.

  “Never seen him quit at anything, even when people told him something was impossible or the dream of a kid who didn’t know better. You a quitter now?”

  Doug shook his head. “No.”

  “Every man is tested. Every man has that moment when he has to decide who he is, deep down. Hell, you’ll have more than one of those tests thrown your way in life. God knows I’ve had a few too many. This is your first. This one counts. Remember who you are and I figure you’ll do just fine.”

  Doug couldn’t reply, thanks to the big lump in his throat. Jake’s advice struck a chord, hit the spot that made the difference, that pushed him around the corner. So instead, he simply nodded.

  Jake pushed himself up, the movement a little slower, more difficult as he grew older. It was funny how Doug had never thought of the beloved man as old. Today, he looked…yeah…old, or maybe just tired. Either way, Doug didn’t like it.

  It was another wake-up call. Doug had lived the first sixteen years of his life assured that he’d get what he wanted and the people he loved would always be there.

  Perhaps Jake was right. Doug was suddenly viewing the world through a man’s eyes. It was a place where he would get knocked down. He would suffer pain and loss.

  He would be tested.

  Doug used the cane to rise, eschewing the nearby crutches. He didn’t need them for this. He stood unsteadily, all his weight rested on his right leg as he reached his hand out, albeit the wrong one. Jake looked at it in surprise for a split second before taking it, the two of them shaking hands.

  He was a man.

  Doug wouldn’t fail this test, wouldn’t let Jake down.

  More than that, he wouldn’t let himself down.

  Chapter One

  Seven years later…

  Doug stood outside the door, his knock drowned out by the shattering of glass. The sound justified Doug’s purpose for being here. He was a man on a mission.

  There was another loud thud and some cursing.

  “Shit,” he muttered, pounding his fist against the wood to be heard.

  Thornton Joshua Nicholas, the third, opened the door, and Doug winced at the sight of his best friend’s black eye.

  Doug shook his head. “Jesus, man. Rough night?”

  TJ gave him a tired grin. “Slim called me as I was leaving work, wanted Dad out of the bar. Thorn had other plans, mainly ones that included more whiskey and cussing out everyone within a five-mile radius. Fucker caught me in the eye with his elbow when I was trying to drag him out.”

  TJ’s dad, Thorn, in addition to being a full-blown alcoholic, was the meanest drunk on the planet. Actually, the guy was a dick when he was sober, too. Doug figured that was how everyone in town wound up using the shortened version of his name. The man was prickly as a thorn, so it fit.

  Thorn had always had alcoholic tendencies, but it had been more controlled when TJ’s mom was alive. She’d been capable of doing what no one else could—keeping the man sober ninety-five percent of the time. The mean, bitter, full-time drunk had evolved slowly, starting when TJ’s mom had died of cervical cancer when her son was eleven years old. Thorn had been holding his own until then, but with her passing, he fell off the wagon completely.

  TJ had sat by his mom’s bed and held her hand for weeks before she passed. And as much as Doug had loved TJ’s sweet mother, he felt some resentment toward her these days. He wondered if she would have changed her last words if she’d known the curse she was leveling on her only child’s head. She’d made TJ promise to always look after his dad, to take care of him.

  TJ reasoned alcoholism was a disease just as much as cancer, and he had taken that promise to heart because there was nothing he wouldn’t have given his mom to ease her suffering, her worry.

  TJ had made and broken other promises in the time since, simply to keep that vow to his beloved mother. He’d never complained about his lot in life, rolling with the punches—literally and figuratively—taking care of his drunk father all through school, working part-time on Compass Ranch to help cover bills whenever his dad was out of work, something that happened more and more frequently as the years passed. By the time TJ graduated from high school, his dad’s employment record was sporadic at best. Thorn worked just enough each week to cover his bar tab. Meanwhile, TJ’s paycheck kept them in their house, with food in the fridge.

  “Whodafuck at the door?” Thorn yelled, slurring his words together. Doug could hear the TV blasting, some sitcom, judging by the sound of canned laughter filtering out to them. Doug glanced over his friend’s shoulder and caught sight of the man, kicked back in his recliner, bottle resting upright on his bloated stomach.

  “Doug,” TJ hollered back.

  “Fucking Compton freaks,” Thorn muttered, loud enough that it carried to them. “Should all be locked away from ’ciety.”

  TJ gave him a lopsided grimace, his face full of apology. “He got away from me this morning. Must have a new hiding place in the shed for his booze that I haven’t found yet.”

  Violence wasn’t a new thing in the Nicholas house. Sadly, it was an old thing in TJ’s life.

  TJ admitted once that the only reason he knew daddies didn’t beat their sons’ asses for breaking a dish or spilling a glass of milk was thanks to the time he spent on Compton Ranch with Doug’s family.

  Maybe because of that—or in addition to it—there was one th
ing Thorn Nicholas hated above all else in life.

  The Comptons.

  Doug and TJ had reasoned it out once and decided Thorn’s hatred came from the fact that the Comptons had everything he didn’t—a large, loving family, a successful business, even sobriety.

  They also had no problem standing up to bullies, namely Thorn. After TJ showed up at the ranch late one night when he was in eighth grade with a bruised cheek and blood on his shirt from a split lip his dad put there, Doug’s father, Seth, and Uncle Silas paid a visit to Thorn.

  Doug didn’t have a clue what was said, but when they got back, Dad made two offers. The first was for TJ to come live with them. TJ refused, something that hadn’t really surprised Dad or Doug. The second TJ’s mom died, he’d taken over as his father’s caregiver, something he wouldn’t relinquish easily…if ever.

  So Dad told TJ if Thorn ever laid another finger on him, he and Silas wanted to know. TJ made the promise, but Doug knew he’d broken it more than a few times, considering the blows he’d suffered his own fault for not dodging quick enough.

  After Dad and Silas’s visit, Thorn started referring to the whole family as freaks to anyone who would listen, claiming it was wrong for Silas to be married to Lucy and Colby. Then he added how disgusting it was for Hope to be with Wyatt and Clayton. And when Doug’s cousin Bryant recently started dating Vaughn, the local tattoo artist, it merely inflamed Thorn’s hatred anew as he spouted off about the Comptons being a bunch of fucking faggots.

  Like a typical bully, Thorn never voiced his opinions in front of Silas or Wyatt or Vaughn, perfectly aware that all three of the men were more than capable of knocking his block off. Instead, he saved his venom for the other drunks at the bar or for TJ and Doug.

  Not that his words didn’t piss them off, too, but if they took him to task every time he said something, they’d be sporting permanent bruises on their fists and, as TJ had said more than once, “It wouldn’t fix anything. Wouldn’t change his mind or shut him up about it.”