Summary:
Mac's three goals: keep Tony safe, catch the killer, don't come out.
Tony Hart's a dedicated teacher, though he's not much older than his high-school students. Between his profession, a few good friends, and plenty of books, he's content with his quiet life. Then the murdered body of another teacher falls into the elevator at his feet, and Tony's life becomes all too exciting.
Jared MacLean is a homicide detective, widowed father to a young daughter, and deeply in the closet. But from the moment he meets Tony's blue eyes in that high school hallway, Mac can't help wanting this man in his life. Mac's not out ― can't afford to be out ― but Tony makes him want the impossible.
Mac isn't the only one with their eyes on Tony, though. As the murderer tries to cover their tracks, Mac has to work fast or lose Tony, permanently.
(This is a rerelease of the 2011 original with light editing.)
Summary:
Sometimes one moment defines a man.
For homicide detective Mac, it's been a good year. Having Tony to go home to makes him a better cop and a better person. For Tony, it's been hard being in love with a man he can't touch in public. Evasions and outright lying to friends and family take a little of the shine off his relationship with Mac, but Tony is determined to make it work.
As the Minneapolis Police Department moves into a hot, humid summer, Mac is faced with a different challenge. A killer has murdered two blond women, and the police have no real clues. Mac hates to think that another murder may be the only way they'll make progress with the case. But when that murder happens, it hits close to home for Tony. And suddenly Mac faces an ultimatum: come out into the sunlight and stand beside Tony as his lover, or walk away and live without a piece of his heart.
Summary:
Murder, trauma, and raising children - who said love was easy?
Mac and Tony thought the hard part was over. They’re together openly as a couple, sharing a home and building a life with their two kids. It’s what they dreamed of.
But daughter Anna struggles with the changes, Ben is haunted by old secrets, Mac’s job in Homicide still demands too much of his time, and Tony is caught in the middle. It’ll take everything these men can give to create a viable balance between home and work. Especially when life refuses to give them a break.
(This is a lightly edited rerelease of the 2012 original novel.)
Mac is afraid he won't recover enough to go back to being a cop; Tony's afraid that he will.
Three months after being injured, Detective Jared MacLean is healing, but he's afraid it may not be enough to go back on the job. He won't give up, though. Being a cop is written deep in Mac’s bones, and he'll do whatever it takes to carry his badge again.
Tony used to wish he could have Mac safely home, but watching his strong husband battle disabilities is far from Tony's dream come true. When Mac is asked to consult on a case involving one of Tony's students, both men will have to face old demons and new fears to find a way to move forward together.
(This is a lightly edited rerelease of the 2013 original, bringing Mac and Tony to their HEA. - content warning for a domestic abuse case, suicide)
Life Lessons #1
The elevator came to life with a grinding rumble, and a thump as it arrived. The door opened, its faint ding almost erased by a familiar low buzz as the janitor began buffing the floors somewhere down the hall.
See, you’re not the only poor sap left in the building.
Tony stepped in, stabbing at the third-floor button and the close-doors button with weary impatience. One more load of books and he could head home. That first beer of the evening beckoned in his mind, cold and crisp, and the Vietnamese place down the street would deliver. He could taste the spices now. For a city smack in the middle of the Midwest, Minneapolis had great Asian food.
As the elevator ground its reluctant way upward, Tony gave himself a mental pat on the back for the result of his students’ book drive. They’d collected over two hundred books for the children’s library project they were sponsoring. Most of those had already been brought down and stowed in his car by helpful— in other words, forcibly drafted— members of his last English class of the day. He’d been about to drive away when he remembered one more box stowed away in the classroom closet. He’d almost convinced himself to leave it there till Monday, but he wanted to get this project done. The stupid ankle hadn’t crippled him. He could handle one damned box.
The third-floor indicator chimed. As the doors began to open, Tony stepped forward impatiently and was caught unprepared when a big man stumbled backward onto the elevator. The man’s elbow thumped Tony’s chest and drove him against the wall.
“Damn it, Westin! Watch where you’re going!” he snapped, recognizing the wide shoulders and trademark tweed. He grabbed for the side rail as his weight landed on his sore ankle. Ouch! Damnit! “Let me get off first.”
The big man grunted and lurched against him again, the back of his shoulder whacking Tony’s chin. Is he drunk? Or just obnoxious? Tony shoved Westin off irritably and reached out to block the doors as they began to close, but Westin’s reaction to his shove was a slow, sliding collapse down the wall of the elevator to the floor. As Tony watched in dismay, Westin rolled towards him, face sheet white, and mumbled something. He coughed, and blood, shockingly bright in the fluorescent elevator light, sprayed and bubbled down his chin. He coughed once more, wet and muffled, then lay ominously still.
Oh, Jesus! What the hell…
Tony dropped to his knees beside the man, reaching for him, imagining a heart attack or stroke or pneumonia or… but then his eyes and brain caught up with each other. The handle of a knife protruded from Westin’s blood-covered chest.
Tony’s pulse pounded in his ears. Shit, shit, shit! Westin wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. Tony realized the pounding wasn’t just his heart; running footsteps echoed down the hall. For an instant longer he knelt, frozen in place, as the elevator doors closed on Westin’s trailing feet, dinged their displeasure, and sprang open again. By the time he lunged forward and stuck his head out of the elevator, the hallway was empty. The north stairwell door was swinging shut.
I could run after whoever it was. I should try to catch them.
Instead Tony reached for Westin’s wrist, then his neck, feeling for a pulse that wasn’t there. The man’s shirtfront and jacket were soaked with blood, liquid and red, still trickling out around that blade and pooling by Tony’s knees on the elevator floor. The smell of urine and bowels loosening filled the elevator. Tony gagged and lunged out the doors, reaching back in to pull the emergency button and block the obscene squeeze and release on Westin’s feet.
Phone. Nine-one-one.
He reached without much hope for his cell phone. Sure enough— no service. The whole school was riddled with dead zones. That did have the benefit of keeping the students off their phones, except this time it has no fucking benefit at all. The classrooms would all be locked at this hour. He had no master key, only his own. Tony hovered one more moment, torn between Westin’s body, the stairwell, and his room way off down the corridor, with its landline.
No brainer, you stupid git, he told himself impatiently, you can’t help Brian Westin, you’re not going to catch the guy on the stairs, so call for some help.
He hobbled for his room, at the far end of a hallway that’d never seemed so long. His lock resisted the key when he jammed it in. Then there was his desk and his phone and he could finally dial nine-one-one.
“What’s your emergency?”
Amazing how good someone else’s live voice sounded right now. “He’s dead!” Tony blurted. Idiot! “I mean, one of the teachers has been stabbed, here at Rooseman.”
Breaking Cover #2
A tinny version of the theme from Dragnet woke Jared MacLean out of a sound sleep. With a now-practiced reflex, he reached for his cell phone on the nightstand with one hand and put his other hand over his bed partner’s mouth. His lover said a muffled “Mmph?” against his palm while Mac flipped the phone open.
“Hey, Mac, you awake?” Oliver’s voice demanded, much too alertly for whatever damned hour of morning it was.
“Am now,” Mac muttered. He glanced over at where Tony lay, eyes now open and shining in the faint light from the clock radio. Tony nodded slightly and Mac withdrew his hand.
“Well, drag yourself out of bed and tell her you have to go,” Oliver ordered him. “We’ve got a dead one.”
“Tell who what?” Mac asked. It was too early for what passed as his police partner’s sense of humor.
“The gal you’ve been banging. The one who has you coming in with a smile on your face lately? Tell her there’s no rest for homicide detectives and get your ass in gear.”
“There’s no girl in my fuckin’ bed,” Mac grumbled. “No fucking girl in my bed either.” “Not that there was no fucking in his bed, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his partner.
“If you say so. Here’s the address.” Oliver reeled off a street location. Mac recognized the area as one of the rougher Minneapolis neighborhoods. “Second floor, apartment twenty-two. Female victim, related to something we’ve worked on. That’s all I have so far. I’ll see you there.”
Mac shut his phone and stretched, wincing at the tightness in his shoulders. His muscles felt stiff from too many laps in the community pool yesterday, while Tony sunbathed in a lounge chair. There were reasons he hadn’t wanted to get out of the water. As long as he was waist-deep, no one would notice where his, um, interests lay. Wet swim trunks didn’t hide much.
The cause of his reluctance sat up in bed next to him. The clock’s glow outlined a slender, bare, twenty-five-year-old body. A body that’d looked much too good half naked beside the pool. Tony’s dark hair was cut shorter for summer, but those black curls still looked sleep-tousled above his steady blue eyes. If Mac turned on the light, he’d see the blush of too much sun on Tony’s fair skin. And that soft, full mouth… Mac glanced away.
“That was your work calling,” Tony said. It wasn’t a question. They knew each other’s personalized ring tones by now.
“Yep. Oliver says we’ve got a case. I’ve got to go.”
Tony glanced at the clock. “Three AM. No chance you’ll be back this morning, then. Will I see you tonight?”
“If not, I’ll call,” Mac promised. “I’ll probably be pretty late.” He leaned over and kissed Tony softly, opening his mouth for their tongues to meet. Tony slid his arms around Mac’s neck and leaned pliantly against him, but when Mac pulled back, Tony let go immediately. So far, he’d been pretty understanding about the demands of Mac’s job. So far.
“Stay safe,” Tony told him.
Mac kissed him again, hard and fast, and rolled out of bed before his body could remind him how wonderful it would be to lie back down. “Go back to sleep.”
Home Work #3
Tony Hart silently counted to ten and knelt in front of the hall closet to look directly at Mac’s daughter Anna. The tiny five- year-old stared back at him with no hint of yielding in her dark eyes.
“Anna. If you don’t wear the snow pants, you won’t get to go outside for recess. You’ll have to sit in the hallway while the other children play.”
“Don’t care.” She held the offending pants out between her thumb and forefinger, like a diva handling a dead mouse. Theatrically, she opened her fingers and let the pants fall to the floor.
“I know you like the blue ones but they’re in the hamper. You got them all muddy.”
“You should wash them. Aunt Brenda always washed my things right away.”
Aunt Brenda didn’t have another job. Tony took a breath. Not Anna’s fault that she was still adjusting to the big changes in her life. Whatever Brenda’s faults, she clearly hadn’t stinted in the care she gave Anna. Sometimes Tony wasn’t even close to measuring up. He gritted his teeth and reminded himself he was doing his best. “I’ll get to them. But there’s no way to do that before school starts this morning. You need to wear the black ones.”
“No.” Anna folded her arms and stuck out her chin.
Behind Tony, his foster son Ben grumbled, “We’re going to be late for before-school snack time. Again.”
“We’re not going to be late. Shi…shoot. Okay, Anna, you’re choosing to miss outdoor playtime if you won’t wear those pants. So be it. Get your jacket on.”
Ben kicked the doorframe. “And my boots are too tight.”
“What?” Tony straightened and turned away from Anna, who was docilely putting on her coat now that she had won her argument. “Ben, those boots can’t be too tight. We just bought them a month ago. Not even.”
The dark-haired six-year-old shrugged one shoulder, in a move clearly copied from Mac. “They pinch my toes.”
Tony closed his mouth firmly on vocabulary not fit for tender ears. “I’ll look at them later, okay? If you need new ones, we’ll get them. Later. For now, everybody get dressed. Coats, hats, mittens, not optional today. It’s really frigid out there.”
Both kids dug in the closet for hats and mitts. Tony helped Anna thread the zipper on her jacket, and located Ben’s stray mitten. He held the apartment door for them and did inventory. Warm clothes—check; lunch boxes—check; book bags—check. He grabbed his own backpack, gloves, keys. It wasn’t until they were halfway down in the elevator that he realized he’d put on his own sneakers instead of boots. To hell with it, we had ice, not snow.
The world outside was as beautiful as it was treacherous. A thick layer of ice glistened on every surface, refracting the street lamps in a thousand points of light. Every naked branch and dark pine bough shone as though polished.
“Look, Anna!” Ben took two running steps and slid on the glazed sidewalk. “It’s fun.”
Tony made a grab for Anna’s arm before she could imitate him. “Those who don’t wear snow pants don’t get to slide on the ice,” he told her. “And Ben, once was enough. You’re going to fall.”
“No, I won’t. It’s like skating.” The boy shuffled faster and spun in a little circle. His next slide stopped abruptly at a patch of bare concrete, spilling him on the ground. The boy hit the pavement hard on his hands and knees.
“Ben! Are you okay?”
“Sure.” Ben got up carefully, rubbing his hands painfully on his thighs. “It’s not so bad. I fall down skating too.”
Don’t fuss. Even after four months, Tony was still working on that part of the parenting thing. What was overprotective and what was just keeping the kid safe? Kids fall. Ben’s fine. Tony decided not to ask to see those hands. “How about if we walk carefully to the car?”
Tony kept hold of Anna’s hand as they crossed the parking lot to his Prius. When he hit the unlock button, Ben got in the back and buckled his seatbelt but Anna frowned. “I want to sit in the front.”
“You can’t. You know that. Not in my car.”
“I sit in front in Daddy’s car.”
“No you don’t.” Ben said. “We sit in the back, same as here.”
“When I’m alone with Daddy, I sit in the front.”
Tony sighed for what felt like the fiftieth time that morning. And it’s only seven a.m. “Your dad’s car doesn’t have front airbags. Mine does. It’s not safe.”
“Then maybe my Daddy can come home and drive me to school.”
Ah, that was the real issue. Mac had gotten called out of their warm bed before five that morning. Anna had not been pleased to find her father already gone when she woke up. Tony rubbed his eyes. He was tired himself, and his fuzzy brain wasn’t coming up with any parental pearls of wisdom. He told her, “Your dad won’t be home until tonight.”
“He’s never home. He never drives me to school. He never picks me up.”
Tell me about it. Mac’s schedule varied, and it didn’t mesh with the kids’ school well. Not that Tony’s was a great fit, with the high school starting an hour before the elementary. But at least there was pre-school care available, which the kids usually enjoyed. Tony could drop them off and make it to his first class. At first, he and Mac had tried to take turns whenever possible, but Mac was prone to last-minute calls. It was just easier for Tony to do the transportation. It seemed like it was just easier for Tony to do a lot of things lately.
“He’s home as much as he can be. He doesn’t do the school run but he does lots of other stuff with you. Now get in the car or we’ll be late.”
Anna’s lower lip was close to tripping her, but she climbed into the back of the car and snapped the belt across her booster seat. Tony tossed his bag in, dropped into the chilly driver’s seat, and turned the key. Bless the Prius, it started right up despite the flesh-eating cold. Tony pulled out of the parking space slowly, feeling the shaky traction on the glazed pavement. Traffic was moving carefully, already heavy despite the early hour. He waited for a comfortably large gap to pull out onto the road, and was glad of his caution as he felt the rear end fish-tail. His hands tightened on the wheel.
“If we drive this slow, we really will be late,” Ben complained. “The only good part about before-school care is the Pop-Tarts.”
“You know what? This is as fast as we can safely go. In fact, since the road is kind of icy and I really have to pay attention to my driving, I’m going to put on some music and we’ll have silent driving time.” Tony hit the CD button, and the light strains of Owl City filled the car.
Ben muttered, “I hate this music.”
Tony decided the comment was quiet enough for him to pretend he hadn’t heard it. He eased off the gas to increase the distance from his car to the one in front, and then grimaced as a more impatient driver slid over into the resulting space. Maniacs, everyone drives like a maniac lately. Tony took a glance in his mirror at the precious cargo in the backseat and slowed again to increase his following distance. Having the kids in the car made him drive like a little old lady. He couldn’t help it.
Traffic stopped for a light. Tony raised his eyes back to that rear-seat mirror mounted below his rear-view for a longer look. In the fish-eyed reflection, Anna was frowning, still turning over some grievance in her mind. Ben was staring out the window, singing along softly to the CD despite his complaint. Neither child was his own flesh and blood, and yet they were inescapably his. His with all the bone-shaking love and fear and pride and frustration that entailed.
He and Mac and these two kids were a family. That was something he’d wanted for as long as he could remember—a partner and children and a life. Not that he’d expected it to happen quite this way, with the lover dragged unwillingly from the closet, and one child gifted to him by the tragic death of the boy’s mother. But they were making it work. Tony couldn’t imagine his life without any of them now. Especially that big cop, out there chasing down murderers, who would come home to Tony in the evening and wrap him up in strong arms and keep them all safe. Mmm, yeah, Mac’s arms…
Tony dragged his attention back from daydreaming about his boyfriend. And from wishing there was a better word for Mac than boyfriend. He was driving. Not the time and place for getting distracted. He took another glance at the backseat and saw Ben nudge Anna with his elbow. Anna stuck her tongue out at her brother. He kicked her ankle and she yelped. Tony sighed, feeling the good thoughts of Mac slipping away. Yeah, he had a family all right. And I can’t wait to drop them off at school for the day. Ahead of them, the light finally turned green.
Learning Curve #4
Tony glanced up from the stove as Mac came into the kitchen. “There you are. You almost missed dinner. Luckily for you I got behind schedule.” He took a longer look. Mac’s expression was odd, at once happy and very anxious. “What have you been up to?”
“Um. Busy.”
Tony would’ve let that go, except for the way Mac wouldn’t meet his eyes. It was probably cheating to say, “You don’t have to tell me,” in a disappointed voice, but it worked.
Mac hesitated a minute longer, then said, “Oliver asked me to come in for a little while.”
“In… to the precinct?” Tony was proud of how casually he said that. “What for?”
“There was a witness who would only speak to me. He asked me to sit in on the interview.”
“Okay. This was someone you knew?”
“Something like that. Probably just a one-time deal. It was kind of fun to be useful again.”
Mac wasn’t looking at him. Tony dished out carrots and pork chops with a steady hand. “Tell me later. Would you call the kids please?”
“Sure.”
Mac seemed suspiciously happy to duck out of his line of sight and bellow up the stairs for the kids. Tony added potatoes to each plate and carried them to the table. Ben and Anna clattered down the wooden steps, the noise loud overhead. Tony mentally put “carpeting the stairs” on Mac’s to-keep-him-busy-and-not-crazy list. Maybe they could get a cheap runner carpet.
They sat in their seats and began eating. Mac had a good appetite, Tony noticed, and he seemed really interested in the kids’ accounts of their day. Really interested. He almost never looked Tony’s way. Tony ate his pork chop and plotted interrogation by blow-job for the evening. Something was definitely up…
I get asked about my name a lot. It's not something exotic, though. “Kaje” is pronounced just like “cage” – it’s an old nickname.
I live in Minnesota, where the two seasons are Snow-removal and Road-repair, where the mosquito is the state bird, and where winter can be breathtakingly beautiful. Minnesota’s a kindly, quiet (if sometimes chilly) place and it’s home now.
I’ve been writing for far longer than I care to admit (*whispers – forty years*), mostly for my own entertainment. I mainly publish M/M romance (with added mystery, fantasy, historical, SciFi…) I also have a few Young Adult stories released under the pen name Kira Harp.
My husband finally convinced me that after all that time writing for fun, I really should submit something, somewhere. My first professionally published book, Life Lessons, came out from MLR Press in May 2011. I have a weakness for closeted cops with honest hearts, and teachers who speak their minds, and I had fun writing the four novels and three freebie short stories in the series. I’ve been delighted by the reception Mac and Tony have received.
I now have a good-sized backlist in ebooks and print, both free and professionally published. A complete list with links can be found on my Books page.
I also have an author page on Goodreads where I do a lot of book reviews. You can find me to chat there– I hang out on Goodreads a lot because I moderate the Goodreads YA LGBT Books group there. I also post free short YA stories on that group, more than 50 of them so far. Or find me on Facebook.
Life Lessons #1
Breaking Cover #2
Home Work #3
Learning Curve #4
Series
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