Summary:
Falling in love is just the beginning...
Samuel Hutchinson has lived his whole life in Rosemont, Rhode Island. And as far as he’s concerned, his future is fixed: complete his legal training, marry a respectable woman, and settle down to raise a family.
But Sam never counted on meeting Nathaniel Tanner.
Clever, urbane, and dazzling, Nate has been banished to Rosemont by a father determined to remove him from the rising political tension in Boston. The last thing Nate expects to find in the sleepy Rhode Island town is a man who’s not only interested in Nate’s radical ideas, but who interests Nate in return.
In every conceivable way.
Over books and conversation, their friendship deepens. But when Nate dares to confess his true feelings, Sam faces a stark choice—reject his friend and continue to live a lie, or rebel against everything he’s been taught and embrace his heart’s desire…
This short story is approximately 12,000 words and comes with a HFN guaranteed.
Two weeks on the road together. Two weeks trapped in a carriage. Two weeks to win him back, or part with him forever…
Had there been no war, Sam Hutchinson and Nate Tanner would have lived their lives together, as friends and secret lovers. But when the revolution convulsed America, it threw them down on opposite sides of history…
Five years later, Sam is a Loyalist refugee in London, penniless, bitter, and scrambling to survive amid the city’s shadowy underworld. It’s a far cry from his respectable life as a Rhode Island lawyer, and the last person he wants to witness his ruin is Nate Tanner— the man he once loved, the man who betrayed him. The man he can’t forgive.
Now an agent of the Continental Congress, Nate is in London on the trail of a traitor threatening America’s hard-won freedom. But the secret mission of his heart is very different. Nate longs to find Sam Hutchinson—the man he still loves, the man he lost in the war. The man he can’t forget.
When their lives unexpectedly collide, Sam and Nate are thrown together on a dangerous mission. Still nursing his resentment, reconciliation is the last thing on Sam’s mind, but every day he spends on the road with Nate weakens his resolve. And despite everything that divides them, old passions begin to reignite...
Can they seize this second chance at love, or is the past too painful to forgive?
This novel is approximately 76,000 words and comes with a HEA guaranteed.
Rebel #.5
Chapter 1
November 1774—Rosemont, Rhode Island
THE FIRST TIME Sam saw Nathaniel Tanner he was standing in the doorway to John Reed’s law office amid a pool of crisp November sunlight. It picked out copper threads in his chestnut hair, glinted on the gilt buttons of his coat, and turned his fine-boned face milky against dark eyes that regarded the office and its inhabitants with profound disinterest.
He doesn’t want to be here, Sam realized. Thinks we aren’t good enough for him.
Everything marked out Tanner as a gentleman, from the cut of his elegant coat to the slender hand holding his hat. He was a Harvard man, Reed had told them, and the son of an old friend. Why Tanner had taken a position at a provincial law office in Rosemont, Sam couldn’t imagine. Surely a blue-blooded gentleman like him could find work in Boston.
“Tanner!” Reed heaved himself out from behind his desk with a beaming smile. “Come in, come in.”
“Mr. Reed. How do you do, sir?” Tanner offered a slight bow. He moved with quick, impatient grace, as if he had better things to do. Sam felt his hackles rise; Reed was a good man, and he didn’t have to take Tanner on. He was doing the man a favor and deserved his gratitude.
But Reed seemed oblivious to Tanner’s cool greeting. “Ah, Nate, my boy. It does my heart good to see you. Last time we met you were no more than this high!” He chuckled and bent stiffly around his girth to indicate his knees. “And now look at you, eh? Quite the gentleman, and the spit of your dear mother.”
Tanner accepted the comment with a remote smile. “Thank you, sir. Many people say so.”
“I don’t doubt it! A fine woman was Isabelle. A great beauty.”
Sam imagined she must have been. There was nothing womanly about Nathaniel Tanner, despite his graceful build, yet there was something luminous in his face—beauty, Sam thought, if that wasn’t a ridiculous word to apply to a man. With his dark hair pulled back into a neat queue, and his fashionable coat cut to flatter, Tanner made a fine figure of a man. But Sam could imagine a woman with those same strong, demanding features, and that notion stirred something fluttery in the pit of his stomach. As always, he ignored the sensation before the feeling became a thought.
“Hutchinson, my boy.” Reed beckoned him over. “Come and greet your new colleague, Mr. Tanner.”
Sam had ink on his fingers and wiped his hand on his handkerchief before he crossed the room. Standing up, he found himself a few inches taller than Tanner. Taller and broader, he should have felt the more powerful of the two, but when Tanner’s urbane gaze fell on him Sam felt infuriatingly gauche. For a wild moment he imagined Tanner could see through his skin and into his secret heart. But that would be impossible; the man wasn’t a witch.
Deliberately, Sam didn’t bow but stuck out his hand in the common way just to see how Tanner responded. “How do you do, Mr. Tanner?”
Tanner’s eyes dipped to Sam’s hand with an expression of mingled surprise and approval. “Very well, Mr. Hutchinson,” he said as they shook hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” Tanner’s fingers felt warm and slender, but his grip was firm. He looked Sam right in the eye as he said, “I hope I shan’t be too troublesome as I learn my way.”
“Not at all.” Sam was aware their handshake lingered, that his attention was very much taken by the feel of the other man’s hand in his own. “Feel free to be as troublesome as you like.”
A tick of a smile twitched the corner of Tanner’s lips, a flicker of curiosity brightening his eyes. “I shall take you at your word, sir.” When Tanner dropped his hand, Sam found himself rubbing his fingertips against his palm as if to trap the heat of that touch.
Unaccountably, his heart raced like a hound on the hunt, his cheeks burning. God in heaven, I must look like a fool. But Tanner only smiled. A fleeting expression that Sam, in his confusion, imagined was meant for him alone.
For the first few weeks, as fall turned into an icy Rosemont winter, Sam’s intercourse with Tanner remained strictly professional. Sam had been clerking for Reed for two years, since his parents’ death in the typhus of seventy-two. So he had much to pass on to Tanner, and Tanner proved an astute and able student. Everything about him was quick: his speech, his thought, his occasional flash of humor. The way he walked across the square to his lodgings every evening, alone and inviting no company.
That was the thing about Tanner: he kept himself to himself. He never talked about his family, or his life in Boston, and often, during the half hour Reed permitted them for lunch, he had his nose in a book or pamphlet. Always reading, was Nathaniel Tanner. No wonder he’d been a Harvard man.
Sam spent his days surreptitiously watching him from across the office, admiring the way his straight, dark hair gleamed where it was pulled back into a queue. He wished his hair would do the same, but his blond curls had proven unbiddable, so he kept his hair unfashionably short and donned a wig for formal occasions. Sam didn’t have much use for fashion but looking at Tanner in his fine clothes made him want to look a little finer in his own.
He bought two new shirts and a waistcoat that, like Tanner’s, flattered his figure. He didn’t have Tanner’s slender grace, but neither was he running to fat like Reed. The time he caught Nate admiring his new waistcoat, a thoughtful look in his eyes, made Sam smile for the rest of the day. And for some days thereafter.
King's Man #1
Chapter One
August 13th, 1778
Rosemont, Rhode Island
Sunlight fell in dreamy pools over the man drowsing at Nate Tanner’s side, burnishing his tangled hair with flecks of gold, and picking out freckles on the smooth skin of his back.
Nate lay watching him in the aftermath of their lovemaking, the warmth in his heart fading fast, cooled by the gathering storm. He recoiled from the knowledge that this would be their last afternoon together, but they lived in a time of war and there was no room for sentiment left in the land. Reaching out, he smoothed his palm over his lover’s shoulder and smiled when Sam blinked open his eyes.
“Well,” Sam said in a smiling rumble. “That was something.”
“So it was.” Curling his hand around the back of Sam’s neck, Nate pulled him close enough to kiss his lips. “Quite something.”
With a contented sigh, Sam rolled onto his back, rearranging them both until Nate’s head came to rest against his chest and Sam’s strong arms wrapped around him. Nate snaked his own arm around Sam’s waist and, for a moment, buried his face against his skin, breathing in the scent of him. Committing him to memory.
“Hush now,” Sam said, stroking a hand over Nate’s back. “And tell me what’s had you jumpy as a cat all afternoon.”
As always, Sam knew Nate better than Nate knew himself.
Amicus est tamquam alter idem: a true friend is a second self.
Nate let his thumb run over the ring he wore — the ring Sam had given him two years ago, engraved with an abbreviation of those words: AETAI. Its twin felt warm against Nate’s back as Sam continued his steady caress. “I can’t come here anymore,” Nate said softly. A shard of sunlight lanced up from the heavy armoire by the window and Nate watched the dust motes dance, unable to meet Sam’s eyes. “It’s too dangerous — our friendship is drawing too much attention.”
Sam stilled to his bones. Only the accelerating thump of his heart beneath Nate’s ear told him that Sam still breathed. Outside, a songbird trilled, and a distant carriage rumbled past. If he listened very carefully, Nate could hear the distant rush of the Pawtuxet River. Inside Sam’s bedchamber, the silence grew thick. Nate levered himself up onto one elbow and Sam’s arms fell away to lay slack at his side, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “How long must you stay away?”
“I don’t know.” Despite his best intentions, Nate’s voice wobbled. “Until things calm down. The British are so close. People are afraid.”
“Is this — ?” A painful pause. “Is this because of Holden?”
Amos Holden. The swaggering little shit had resented Sam for years. Holden’s recent elevation to chairman of Rosemont’s Committee of Safety had only made his persecution more vicious. And Sam did nothing to mollify him. Quite the opposite in fact, the obstinate fool that he was.
Nate had to look away from Sam’s distress before he answered, staring at his chest instead, at his own hand resting there and the golden glint of his ring. “Not just Holden, the whole committee are against you now.”
Silence. Then, “And does that include you?”
“Of course not.” Nate spread his fingers, tried to find Sam’s heartbeat again. “But you’re not making it easy for me to explain our friendship. Not easy at all.”
Pushing his hand away, Sam surged upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Oh, so it’s my fault?”
“Well…” He suppressed his flash of exasperation. “It’s your decision to refuse the loyalty oath.”
“It’s my right to refuse it. I’ll think as I choose, and Holden’s mob can go to hell if they say otherwise.”
“His committee,” Nate corrected, “are trying to keep Rosemont safe.”
“From me?”
“Sam…”
“No, tell me.” Angrily, he turned around. “Does he think I’m a danger to Rosemont, to the place I was born? To the place my parents were born? Where they’re laid to rest?”
“Holden’s a bully, we both know that, and he’s using the committee to settle old scores. But the world has changed, Sam. And you must change with it.”
“Must I? Why? Why should I change to suit Amos Holden?”
“Because —” Nate raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “Because a storm’s coming. Hell, the storm’s already here. And in a storm, you have to trim your sails or be wrecked.”
“Storms pass,” Sam said, stubborn as a damned rock. “And this will pass, too. Things will go back to normal, you’ll see.”
“Normal? Sam we’re at war. Whether you like it or not, we’re at war with Great Britain.”
“I’m not at war. With anyone.”
“But America is! You can’t pretend — Look, you don’t have to mean it. Cross your fingers if you must, but for God’s sake take the loyalty oath.” Cautiously, he touched Sam’s bare shoulder. “Keep your head down and your mouth shut, love. Keep yourself safe.”
But Sam shook him off, standing up. “Surrender to the mob, you mean.” He picked up his shirt from the chair where he’d flung it. “Tear up the law and let anarchy reign.”
Nate closed his eyes, searching for patience. “They’re not a mob, they represent the people of Rosemont —”
“By whose authority? Nobody elected them. Holden made himself judge, jury and executioner. And I’ll be damned before I swear loyalty to him or any other self-appointed despot.”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear. To the whole damn town!” Nate scrambled out of bed and began to dress, buttoning his breeches with irritable swiftness. They’d been over this a thousand times. Sam was determined to cling to the life he’d always known, even if it killed him — which it might. And Nate was determined to fight for a radical new world, even if it killed him. Which it might. They should be enemies. Yet Nate still loved him as deeply as he had these last four years. Loved him with a fierce, angry passion that he couldn’t quell. “Damn it, Sam. Why can’t you just… just bend a little?”
“Why can’t you?” Sam fixed him with a heated look. “You didn’t have to join the committee. You didn’t have to be part of this. You could have kept your head down and your mouth shut.”
“I don’t want to keep my head down —”
“Neither do I!” Sam sucked in an angry breath. “For God’s sake, can’t you see what’s happening? All over the country, men like Holden are trampling the law to get what they —”
“I’m not saying I agree with it all, but this is a crisis. We’re fighting for our liberty.”
“Liberty?” Sam’s eyes flashed angrily. “Amos Holden keeps ten enslaved people on his farm. He can talk to me about liberty once he’s freed them.”
Nate’s jaw bunched, but he had no answer to that. “It’s not about Holden. God knows he’s a prick, but this… It’s bigger than him. Bigger than us. You must see that. It’s impossible to turn away from this fight.”
“I’m not turning away.” Sam bristled in angry defiance. “But I had no quarrel with the way things were. America should be at the heart of the empire. That’s where we belong. Hell, I bet we’ll be running it from Boston one day. And whatever your committee says, that doesn’t make me an enemy of America. It makes me her friend. A better friend than the likes of Amos Holden.”
“For God’s sake, Sam. It makes you a British sympathizer.”
“But we are British,” Sam cried in exasperation. “And we’re American. We’re both, that’s my point. And abandoning the rule of law just to score a political point —”
“That’s not what’s happening, and you know it.”
“Isn’t it?” Sam leveled a finger at him. “Your committee banned me from voting. They tripled my taxes, and they barred me from practicing law. All because I refuse to support this war. Because I see a different destiny for our country. Well, let them do their worst; I deny their authority over me. It stems from threats and violence and, as an American, I will not bow before it.”
“No more than I will bow before a king who has violated all our rights as Englishmen.”
“There are better ways to defend our rights than with violence.”
“None that the British understand!”
Angrily, Sam bit off his response. After a pause, and with an obvious effort at calm, he said, “And here we are again, at an impasse.”
“So it seems.”
“Maybe there really is nothing else to say” — his voice cracked — “except goodbye.”
Even though Nate knew it to be true, Sam’s clear grief pierced him. “This isn’t what I want.” He reached for Sam’s arm, winding his fingers into the sleeve of his shirt. “I don’t want this to end.”
“And yet you’re ending it.”
“Because I have no choice.” The risk of loving Sam had always been high, but in the last six months even acknowledging their friendship posed a danger. Amos Holden had eyes everywhere, and it was impossible for Nate to explain his continued friendship with an infamous Tory. “If Holden used our attachment against you…” He blew out a breath. “It’s safer this way.”
Sam didn’t respond, just looked at Nate for a long, anguished moment, then pulled his shirt free of Nate’s grip and turned away. “It’ll take me some time to —” He cleared his throat. “To gather all the books you’ve left here. I assume you want them back.”
That was designed to wound, and it did its job, sliding like a blade between Nate’s ribs. Oh, the hours they’d spent together reading. They’d fallen in love over those books. When Nate found his voice again, he said, “Keep them. Take care of them until we can…”
His throat closed around the words, eyes filling with tears. Blinking them away, he finished dressing in silence. And in silence he made his way downstairs, avoiding the front door. Sam followed, and they stopped in the kitchen amid the scent of drying rosemary. How he’d leave, Nate couldn’t fathom, and for a few slow ticks of the clock they stood and gazed at each other in agonized silence.
“There was a time,” Sam said roughly, “when you’d leave by the front door, when you weren’t ashamed of our friendship.”
Not shame, never that. But exasperation and dread and a terrible aching regret that balled up into impossible frustration. “I just wish you could see that history is with us, Sam. Our cause is just. It’s right. And we will prevail. I wish you’d join us.”
Sam straightened, his expression changing from sorrow to something colder, harder. It made Nate shiver. “I wish you could see that tearing down the law and raising up a mob risks every liberty you claim to defend. And I wish your committee could understand that I have a right to voice my opposition to this damned war, and that my opinion doesn’t make me a traitor.”
Those were his parting words. Nate had no answer they hadn’t rehearsed a hundred times. They would never agree, and more arguing was futile.
Opening the door, he stepped out into the sticky heat of the afternoon and walked through Sam’s neglected kitchen garden to the dusty road beyond. He looked back once and saw Sam standing in the shadow of the doorway watching him leave.
Neither said goodbye.
Sally Malcolm was bitten by the male/male romance bug in 2016 and hasn’t looked back.
Perfect Day was her first published male/male romance, with the follow-up (Between the Lines) out later in 2018 and a dozen other ideas bubbling away on the back burner. Her stories are emotional, sweetly angsty, and always have happy endings.
Sally also writes tie-in novels for the hit TV shows Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. To date she’s penned nine novels and novellas, and four audio dramas.
She lives in South West London with her American husband, two lovely children, and two lazy cats.
Rebel #.5
King's Man #1
Series
