CHAPTER 1
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
North climbed out of his truck and slammed the door closed as he stalked across the lawn and over to the prefab reception office at the side of the house. He was already fuming mad, so seeing the door wide open, and no one sitting behind the reception desk, sent him over the top.
“God dammit,” he cursed as he lifted the counter flap and moved behind it to go through to the back office, which was closed off from the public. “Sally?” he called out before he even got the door open, but it was empty.
When his parents died they had been running the business on a word of mouth casual basis and getting by with everything they needed. But that wasn’t enough for North. He talked his plan over with Gordon, then took the money from his parent's life insurance and invested heavily in the business, expanding it to even more tours and services, which meant more staff, which meant more headaches.
While his dad had just used a small corner in the kitchen to figure out bills and schedules, North had purchased a portable cabin and had it installed with signage, a seating area, a reception desk and a small office with a toilet. The point of this portable office was to keep the family home just for the family. They needed that space to figure out how they were going to live without their parents.
The first few months after the funeral were chaotic. He tried to cancel or postpone as many bookings as he could but his dad’s lackadaisical way of keeping track of everything meant there were a few groups who turned up for an adventure that no one even knew about. When the summer ended there was a lull in phone calls, which was always the case until the winter enthusiasts started calling.
Then Gordon went back to university, but North didn’t. Another life altering moment that was out of his control. Going from a university student, who was studying art history, to the guardian of 3 kids and running a business, was a switch he never expected, but one he was determined to succeed at.
North had no idea if he was doing a good job, but everyone was alive and most of them seemed happy, except for right now, when he felt like the top of his head was going to explode from tension.
“Sally?” he called out again and he walked through the prefab and scanned the area to see if he could find her.
She wasn’t supposed to leave the office without notice and she wasn’t supposed to be talking to more clients. He knew, after the argument they had the night before, where she told him about a last minute booking for a horse trek, for a group of corporate workers who wanted to bond, or something, that she would defy him and take them on the trek herself because he said he was too busy.
He raced over to the stables but even before he got there he knew what he was going to find and it was five empty stalls.
“God dammit!” he yelled and kicked at a tuft of hay.
“North?”
He whipped around and saw his baby sister South approaching. He had to correct himself all the time from calling her his baby sister. She was twenty one now and just completed a course on business management at the local community college. He had urged her to go somewhere else and study anything she wanted but she was adamant about staying close to home and being involved in the family business, Compass Odyssey Outings, as much as possible. She would still always be his baby sister and no matter how much time had passed, he’d never forget how he held her as she wept uncontrollably through the funeral.
“Have you seen Sally?”
“Sally Leary?” His sister teased and his frown deepened. “Sally Leary, who works here with you? Who runs the tours?”
“South,” North warned with a growl and South chuckled and nodded her head.
“She left with a group on horseback about an hour ago. She logged the trail she was taking.”
“Where is she taking them?” North asked as he moved towards the equipment shed where he knew he would find an ATV to catch up with them quicker.
“Farthings trailhead, up to Peggy creek, then back by Newcombe road.”
“God dammit,” he cursed again and quickly realised this was his favourite word when he got riled up by Sally and some of her actions.
“What’s wrong?” Sally said as she half ran to catch up with him. “North, what’s wrong?”
“God dammit! Sally’s making decisions again, when I explicitly told her not to take that group,” he muttered. “I told her we didn’t have the resources for them and she took them anyway.”
He pulled open the shed and grabbed a set of keys from the rack for the nearest ATV.
“So, you’re going to go racing up there, scare the horses, make a fool of her in front of the clients, and drag everyone back?”
She grabbed his arm, and turned him around to face her, before he could climb onto the ATV and North was struck again by how grown up she was. Her ash blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail but many tendrils were loose about her face. She was wearing their customary uniform of blue jeans and a plaid shirt, and her rosy cheeks and shining blue eyes were full of strength and vitality. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to simply order her back into the house like he usually did.
“I told her not to take that group and she ignored me.” He shrugged off her arm and swung one leg over onto the ATV as he put the keys into the ignition.
“I’m sure she had her reasons, but the fact is she is gone now. She’ll be back soon, you can yell at her then and do it in the privacy of your little office without customers seeing!”
North knew his sister was right and that annoyed him even more. He took the keys out of the ATV and slumped back and South moved her hand to her brother’s shoulder in a soothing gesture.
“She drives me up the wall with how incapable she is of following orders.”
South smiled and patted her brother’s arm. “North, she’s been working here for five years. If she’s still driving you up the wall, as you say, maybe it’s not her that’s the problem.” North glared at her but South was undeterred. “Maybe give her orders that make sense and she’ll follow them.”
North rolled his eyes and climbed off the ATV. He hung up the keys and closed the shed and South linked her arm around his elbow and pulled him back to the main house.
“I made lunch. Come enjoy it so when Sally gets home you’ll be nice and calm.”
North made a harrumph sound but let his sister guide him across the lawn and into the house. He stepped onto the porch and pulled the door open then let her enter first and followed right behind. They hadn’t done much work to the house since their parents died, other than moving the business stuff into the portable office and reclaiming the whole space for the family. The walls were still covered with family photos though none had been added in the last fifteen years.
The kitchen was still the main focus of the house and where they spent most of their time together usually around a massive pot of stew or chilli, or if Gordon was around, some slow roasted pork, or made from scratch bolognese.
Right now North could smell carrot and potato soup on the stovetop and his mouth was watering. South pushed him onto a seat, and he ran a hand through his hair with a sigh, before he scrubbed it down his face and scratched his chin through his beard.
“Eat. Calm down. Stop being so bossy.” South put a bowl in front of him as well as a spoon and a side plate with a couple of crusty bread rolls.
“I am the boss, it comes with the job title,” North muttered, but he could already feel his anger dissolving as he picked up the spoon and started to eat.
“Maybe look into new management styles?” South said as she joined him with her own helping and looked up at him with a half smile.
North narrowed his eyes and looked at her sideways but there was no malice behind the look and her smile grew. He wasn’t annoyed at Sally for taking the group out. They could always do with the extra business. But he was mad at her for making the decision without talking to him first. Or rather, for talking to him and then ignoring what he had to say about it.
He was almost finished with his lunch when the front door opened. He turned on his seat and leaned to the side to see if it was Sally coming back, and felt his blood starting to simmer all over again, but instead it was his brother East.
East tossed his hat onto the rack and shrugged out of his jacket, then hung that up too, before he sauntered into the kitchen where he immediately went to the soup and poured himself a bowl.
“Don’t you have your own kitchen with your own lunch?” North grumbled as he turned back to his own bowl and sopped up the last of his soup, with the last of his bread, as East lowered himself onto a chair with a low moan.
“I’m meeting Sally here, is she done?”
“Pfft, done?” North cursed as he pushed his bowl aside and East looked up in surprise.
“What?”
“She’s gone out on a trek, she’ll be back in a little while,” South said as she looked between her brothers.
East was a little smaller than North, slimmer too, but no less fit. He was currently wearing his police uniform, which always seemed to add a few inches to his chest. Where North was rugged and rustic, with his beard and unkempt hair, East was clean shaven, with a neat haircut and gel holding it in place. Both of them had ice blue eyes, except where North’s were crinkled and narrow, East’s shone bright, and were wide and soft.
“You need to tell your girlfriend-” North began with an accusing finger pointing across the table at East.
“If you have something to say to Sally, you can say it yourself,” East said without looking up from his lunch.
“She doesn’t listen to me,” North argued.
“Then it must not have made sense.”
South snorted at that, but North ignored her.
“She never listens!” North said. He stood up quick enough to almost knock his chair over, then snatched his bowl from the table and carried it over to the dishwasher to put it away.
“Only because you were probably yelling,” East said. His voice was still calm and low as he focused on eating his lunch and not riling up his brother.
South looked between them and sipped her tea, as she half smiled with amusement at the bickering between her brothers. North’s temper was short and flared quickly. He never held a grudge and he was rarely unreasonable. East never had a temper, and it was one of the reasons why he made such a good cop. He was always happy and easy going.
“I wasn’t yelling!” North yelled, and East chuckled. “Then, I mean. Yesterday, I wasn’t yelling yesterday.”
“Seriously, North, you need to call Laura, and let your girlfriend work this stress out of you!” South said with a laugh. “Your blood pressure must be through the roof!”
“Shut it,” North growled over his shoulder. “This has nothing to do with Laura. This is all about how Sally can’t follow simple orders!”
“Look dude,” East said as he finished the last of his soup. “You hired her! I told you, I wouldn’t get into the middle of anything, and it was between the two of you to work everything out.”
“Yeah, well-” North started to argue, but stopped when they heard the front door opening again. Everyone turned in anticipation of the new arrival, and North tried not to let his blood simmer into boiling point.
Sally walked in with a wide smile on her face, as she pulled off a pair of gloves. Her wavy blonde hair was loose about her windswept face, and her cheeks were rosy from the ride she just finished. She was wearing the same outfit as everyone else, blue jeans and a plaid shirt, though hers looked a little more snug. North pulled his eyes away and turned to switch on the kettle.
“Peggy Creek looks amazing! The overflow from the spring ice melt is perfect,” she said as she took the bowl of soup from South’s hand.
“The trek went well?”
“Yeah, they loved it. They already booked another slot for next week, and they want us to host a summer retreat in August.”
“That’s great!” South said.
“Hey babe,” she said to East, as she walked behind him, and kissed the top of his head, and took the seat next to him. “North, you’re back from Denver early.”
“Is that why you thought you’d get away with it?” North said, unable to hold it back any more, as he whirled around to glare at her.
East chuckled, and stood to put his bowl into the dishwasher, and took over making the coffee when it seemed North was working up into a rant that would keep them from getting any to drink.
“Get away with what?” Sally said innocently. “Giving customers a top class service, locking in repeat customers and making tonnes of money?”
“I told you we didn’t have time for the trek.”
“I told you we did,” she countered, without looking up.
“Sally-”
“You can’t do everything around here, North,” she said softly, cutting off whatever he was about to say, and turned on her seat to face him for the first time.
As usual, he looked away, and it annoyed her how he never addressed her properly, and treated her like a stranger most of the time. She had been working at the Compass family business for almost five years, and he was still acting like she wasn’t able to tack up a horse. She brought in more business than anyone else. She was an excellent trekking guide, could ride any of the ATVs, or snow mobiles. She could ski, swim, dive, and glide and last summer got her white water licence. But no matter what certificates she earned, or training she completed, he just wanted her to sit behind the desk and look pretty. While it was true she was hired as a receptionist at first, she knew she had proven her worth, he just refused to see it.
“I’m doing my best to keep this business afloat,” North said.
“I’m doing my best to get us new customers.”
“You’re over stretched, and those animals were out yesterday and needed a rest,” North argued.
“It was a trek up to Peggy’s creek with four corporate managers. It wasn’t a race across the Mojave desert!” she said, and felt her nerves getting frayed and her voice getting louder.
“I told you-”
“I’m not an idiot, North!” she pushed up from the table and hung her hands on her hips.
“I never said you were!” He took a step closer, and put his hand on his hips too, though he stared at a point on the wall just above her head.
“You treat me like one.”
“I don’t, I treat you like an employee, because that’s what you are!”
“I’ve been here for five years!” She took a step closer and he did too.
“You’re still an employee and I’m the boss.”
“Alright you two,” East said in his usual easy cop voice that allowed him to diffuse any situation. He stood up between them both and put a hand on each of their chests to push them away from each other. “This is clearly just a misunderstanding.”
“No, she understands perfectly, she just chooses not to listen,” North snapped out.
“Not when it doesn’t make sense!” Sally responded.
“That’s what I said,” South muttered.
“Enough!” East said, this time a little louder and more firmly, and he pushed them apart again. “Sally, sit down and finish your lunch. North, go out to your shed and calm down.”
North ground his jaw tightly as his eyes flicked over to Sally and immediately he regretted that decision when he saw her staring back, then he turned on his heels and left the kitchen. Sally followed him with her eyes, then sat down on her seat with a sigh, and resumed eating her lunch.
East shucked his utility belt around his waist, and stood behind her, then cupped the back of her head in a gentle motion.
“You ok?” he asked.
“Yes,” she clipped in response. “I’m fine, he just drives me mad with his big boss man bullshit.”
East chuckled and took his seat next to her again. “He is the boss, Sally.”
“Yeah, I know and I’m not trying to take over, I’m just trying to-”
“I know, I know,” he said soothingly and leaned in to kiss her neck just below her ear.
“I love when you two fight,” South said with a chuckle as she put three cups of coffee on the table. “It’s great to see him taken down a peg or two, now and then.”
Sally scoffed as she sipped her coffee and East chuckled.
“I suppose you don’t want to come back into town with me then?” he asked as his hand moved off her shoulder, down Sally’s back and rested just above the top of her ass.
“No, I better talk to the boss man,” she said and sipped her coffee again.
“Are we still on for dinner tonight?” East asked as he sipped his coffee, then stood up and tossed the rest down the drain.
“Yeah, I’ll go home soon, and shower and change, and meet you at your place. You’re off at five, right?”
“Yeah, I should be home no later than five thirty.”
“I’ll be there.”
East kissed the top of her head and ruffled his sister’s hair, much to her annoyance, then walked out of the room. South fixed her hair with a scowl, then sat on the seat her brother just vacated.
“Are you going to go apologise?” she asked, her expression scrunched like she tasted something bad.
“God no, I’m going to go make him apologise to me.”
South chuckled and sipped her coffee. “I’d almost pay to see that.”
“Right,” Sally said as she sipped her coffee again, then pushed up from the table with a grunt. “No time like the present to go and face the wrath.”
“Good luck!”
Sally squeezed South’s shoulder as she walked by, and smiled with a wink before she went out the front door.
