👻🎃👻 Happy Halloween 👻🎃👻
For the past couple of years I've been doing a post featuring LGBTQ stories that were set at Halloween but not paranormal. Not all of these 5 stories are strictly Halloween set, some are only a small scene but as with Christmas reads, the tiniest mention makes a story a holiday read for me. So if all things spooky aren't up your alley or you just want something not quite so creepy for a change of pace but still love the holiday, have a look at these 5 tales. If you know of others in the LGBTQ genre that fit this description be sure and leave a comment here or on any of the social media posts that brought you here, I'm always on the lookout for more. Hope you have a fun & freaky Halloween.
👻🎃👻 Happy Halloween 👻🎃👻
Summary:
Williamsville Inn #7
Some crushes are worth the wait, even if they’re howlingly complicated.
After years of pandemic isolation, Ivan Mason has settled into a comfortable but lonely existence, hiding behind his lumberjack aesthetic and work-from-home routine. When his best friend Jules convinces him to spend Halloween weekend at the charming Williamsville Inn with the extended Powell family, Ivan reluctantly agrees, never expecting to come face to face with the man he’s secretly desired since adolescence.
Skylar Powell has always felt like the overlooked middle child, recently single and still figuring out his place in the world. Coming home for his mother’s Halloween extravaganza wasn’t high on his priority list until he sees his little brother’s childhood friend all grown up, bearded, and impossibly attractive.
As autumn leaves fall and jack-o’-lanterns glow, Ivan and Sky find themselves drawn together under the warm lights of the inn’s courtyard. But with meddling family members, an obnoxious almost-stepbrother, and the complication of living hundreds of miles apart, their connection seems as fleeting as Halloween night itself.
When costumes come off and truths are revealed, Ivan and Sky must navigate the feelings of those around them as they try to decide if what sparked between them is just seasonal magic or a treat worth savoring long after the holiday ends.
Trick or Treat Temptation is a heartwarming, slow-burn romance featuring childhood crushes on a best friend’s brother, awkward family dynamics, a costume contest, and two men discovering that the perfect time to fall in love might just be during the spookiest season of all.
Time isn't on my side right now so I hope to add to this review down the road but just know that it's worthy of the Williamsville Inn moniker. I have not quite read all the entries so far but each one I have, I loved. What better way to have a holiday-centric story than a rustic, cozy inn. One of the things I loved most was this was a Halloween story without the scary, don't get me wrong, I LOVE the scary but sometimes it's nice to just step back and have a good old fashioned romance.
Trick or Treat Temptation is labeled as a slow burn, I don't know that I would quite go that far unless you think of the time spent crushing in younger years. I also wouldn't go as far to say it's the opposite end of the timing spectrum as an insta-love either. However you label it, Hank Edwards has once again brought an enjoyable romance with characters you can connect to and want to see get their HEA.
As I started with, I hope to add to this review down the road when I have more time but just know you'll root for that HEA trophy for Ivan and Skylar and that their journey will fill you full of all the warm and fuzzies most of us aim for in life.
The Heart as He Hears It by AM Arthur
Summary:Perspectives #3
Love can slip through the smallest crack in the door.
While most of his friends have moved on to “real” careers, Jon Buchanan is content skating through life as a part-time waiter and gay porn star. Firmly single thanks to a previous relationship disaster, he focuses his spare time on Henry, a dear friend dying of cancer. And with Henry’s happiness paramount, Jon is on a mission to help Henry meet his recently discovered grandson.
Isaac Gregory hasn’t set foot outside for the past year. He has everything he needs delivered, and his remaining family knows better than to visit. When a complete stranger shows up claiming to be his grandfather—with a distractingly handsome younger man in tow—his carefully structured routines are shaken.
Despite his instant attraction, Jon senses Isaac is too fragile for a relationship. Yet tentative friendship grows into genuine companionship. And when Henry’s health begins to fail, they realize Fate brought them together for a reason.
Note: This book was previously published by Samhain Publishing. No significant changes have been made. Please read with tissues handy.
As usual, when each new installment in a series concentrates on a new couple, I have a hesitancy to let the new pair into my heart because I am not ready to let the last one go yet. With AM Arthur's Perspectives series, I was dead set on knowing no one could possibly reach me as wholeheartedly as Tristan from book 2, The World as He Sees It, did. Boy was I wrong. Isaac Gregory may not have passed Tristan in my heart but he burrowed in right next to him. I am by nature a very shy person having grown up in the boonies and an only child, I tend to keep to myself as well but it does not compare even an iota to what Isaac deals with. When he lets Henry and Jon into his home, their lives are forever changed. With The Heart as He Hears It, the author shows us just how much one person can truly change our lives, how strangers become friends, lovers, and become home. Truly a great read filled to overflowing with heart, all the strength and weaknesses that come with letting someone in. I cannot recommend this series enough, you won't be disappointed.
Original Audiobook Review September 2020:
RATING:
It has been over four years since I read The Heart as He Hears It and it is as beautifully told today as it was then. Isaac is just, well I just want to protect him, tell him it's okay to be mindful of the outside world but at the same time make sure he knows he's strong enough to face what is out there. I can see parts of myself in Isaac and yet I am completely blown away by not even beginning to imagine what thoughts are rattling around inside his head. Don't think that last sentence is a negative judgement of Isaac, no it's more of a statement of how complex and yet completely relatable character he is.
As for Jon, well if I met him on the street and he behaved the way he is I'd think he's too good to be true, he's too considerate but lets face it, he has his flaws too which is why he and Isaac are so perfectly suited. Friendship plays such a huge part in this tale and for me that is what makes this entry in AM Arthur's Perspectives series so amazing, so real, so heartwarming.
This is my first audiobook with the narrator Guy Locke and he did an amazing job. I could feel Isaac's anxiety, I could see Jon's compassion, and not to be too clever I could hear their relationship unfold. Because his narration reached all my senses, it made AM Arthur's words that much more incredibly gripping.
Summary:
Stars & Players #1
One night. Two players. One goal.
They were two strangers at a party... the devil and the wolf giving in to the anonymous attraction.
But when the masks come off the next day... they find out they went too far.
When Rhodes Kennedy finds out he hooked up with his little brother's best friend—Theo McLaughlin—he knows it can never happen again despite Theo's growing interest.
Wanting Theo is hard, but resisting Theo is even harder...
Halloween Fumble is a hot and fast Halloween hook up novella. It is a prequel with a happy-for-now ending leading up to a full novel coming early 2025. The content is meant for readers 18+ so please read responsibly.
This is a new-to-me author and though I prefer a little more meat and potatoes with my reading meals, Halloween Fumble had me hooked on each page. If you're looking for a long story, then this is probably not for you, although it sounds like it is meant to be the beginning of more to come. I won't lie, the follow-up probably won't be something I'm going to grab instantly but it's on my TBR list and the author has made my author-to-watch list. It's heat filled, fun, attention grabbing, and a perfect break from the scare and freaky most of us have been indulging in all month. Whether you're looking for a fun little romp, heat-filled YUM, or potential build-up to more, you won't be disappointed.
Summary:
Matter of Time #6
Jory Harcourt is finally living the dream. Being married to US Marshal Sam Kage has changed him—it’s settled the tumult of their past and changed Jory from a guy who bails at the first sign of trouble to a man who stays and weathers the storm. He and Sam have two kids, a house in the burbs, and a badass minivan. Jory’s days of being an epicenter for disaster are over. Domestic life is good.
Which means it's exactly the right time for a shakeup on the home front. Sam’s ex turns up in an unexpected place. A hit man climbs up their balcony at a family reunion. And maybe both of those things have something to do with a witness who disappeared a year ago. Marital bliss just got a kick in the pants, but Jory won’t let anyone take his family away from him. Before he knew what it felt like to have a home, he would have run. Not anymore. He knows he and Sam need to handle things together, because that’s the only way they’re going to make it.
Original Review 2013:
This was a perfect addition to Jory and Sam's love story. Very interesting to see them in a complete family setting and still never lose a beat of their individual nature. They've both grown so much since their first meeting and yet maintain the fresh passion that brought them together all those years ago. Quite possibly the best in the series.
Overall Series Re-Read 2019:
Again there's really nothing new I can add that would express how much I love Jory and Sam. Not everyone likes the kind of alpha male that Sam Kage is and I too don't always appreciate that element but when the dynamic between the two men is so powerful as Sam and Jory then I completely fall in love. Just because Sam is so alpha don't think Jory is a pushover, oh no he definitely has no problem voicing his opinion either and I think that is what makes them work for me because its an even balance of push and pull from both.
Now as for the audios, there are four different narrators, three for Jory/Sam and one for Duncan/Aaron in Parting Shot. Some might find that off-putting but I actually found it fitting. Just why there is different narrators I don't know but as a listener, I found each one did a brilliant job and yes they are noticeably different but they bring the perfect nuances for where the characters are in their journey, we all change as life goes and Paul Morey, Jeff Gelder, and Finn Sterling showcase that wonderfully. Tristan James brings Duncan and Aaron's story to life that is a perfect fit for the Matter of Time series.
Again there's really nothing new I can add that would express how much I love Jory and Sam. Not everyone likes the kind of alpha male that Sam Kage is and I too don't always appreciate that element but when the dynamic between the two men is so powerful as Sam and Jory then I completely fall in love. Just because Sam is so alpha don't think Jory is a pushover, oh no he definitely has no problem voicing his opinion either and I think that is what makes them work for me because its an even balance of push and pull from both.
Now as for the audios, there are four different narrators, three for Jory/Sam and one for Duncan/Aaron in Parting Shot. Some might find that off-putting but I actually found it fitting. Just why there is different narrators I don't know but as a listener, I found each one did a brilliant job and yes they are noticeably different but they bring the perfect nuances for where the characters are in their journey, we all change as life goes and Paul Morey, Jeff Gelder, and Finn Sterling showcase that wonderfully. Tristan James brings Duncan and Aaron's story to life that is a perfect fit for the Matter of Time series.
RATING:
The Ghost Had An Early Check-Out by Josh Lanyon
Summary:Ghost Wore Yellow Socks #2
To live and draw in L.A.
Now living in Los Angeles with former navy SEAL Nick Reno, artist Perry Foster comes to the rescue of elderly and eccentric Horace Daly, the legendary film star of such horror classics as Why Won’t You Die, My Darling?
Horace owns the famous, but now run-down, Hollywood hotel Angels Rest, rumored to be haunted. But as far as Perry can tell, the scariest thing about Angels Rest is the cast of crazy tenants--one of whom seems determined to bring down the final curtain on Horace--and anyone else who gets in the way.
Hank Edwards
AM Arthur
A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone's throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She's been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn't been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur's work is available from Carina Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.
When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she's an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.
A Winchester
Mary Calmes
Josh Lanyon
The Ghost Had An Early Check-Out by Josh Lanyon
Now living in Los Angeles with former navy SEAL Nick Reno, artist Perry Foster comes to the rescue of elderly and eccentric Horace Daly, the legendary film star of such horror classics as Why Won’t You Die, My Darling?
Horace owns the famous, but now run-down, Hollywood hotel Angels Rest, rumored to be haunted. But as far as Perry can tell, the scariest thing about Angels Rest is the cast of crazy tenants--one of whom seems determined to bring down the final curtain on Horace--and anyone else who gets in the way.
Original Review January 2019:
When Perry Foster set out to do some renderings of the run-down Hollywood Hotel, Angels Rest, he never expected to come to a stranger's rescue but when he heard the screams he went to investigate. When he returns home to find his boyfriend back early from his own investigation he talks Nick into going with him back to Angels Rest where a small cast of eccentric tenants make for an interesting weekend. Will Perry and Nick discover who or what is after Horace, the legendary horror actor before the final curtain falls for the last time?
It has been four years since I read The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks where Perry and Nick meet and I normally would have re-read book one before starting The Ghost had an Early Check-Out to "refresh my memory" but I didn't and you know what? I remember everything of the boys that I fell for ages ago. Now I don't want to say too much about the plot since this is a mystery and so many points can be important and telling but I will say I loved every eccentric and crazy moment of Early Check-Out.
The occupants of Angels Rest is definitely a cast of characters that made Perry and Nick's "case" intriguing. I wanted to laugh, scream, and even pull my hair out at times. You know what Perry ran into when he chased after Horace's screams and yet there is always that inkling of doubt to just what it all meant and who was really behind it. Its these moments where doubt and certainty war within the reader that make this mystery standout and kept me guessing.
So often in series, the second entry can be more about the couple finding their footing and keeping the relationship moving forward but with Early Check-Out that doesn't enter into it. Sure there are fleeting moments of internal "What have I got myself into?" for the pair but it really doesn't become a factor of the story and I very much appreciated that element. I hope there will be more of Perry and Nick in the future because they are a pair that is not getting old anytime soon.
The Ghost had an Early Check-Out is definitely a story with present day attitudes and yet its got just enough of a classic feel that I expected the likes of Humphrey Bogart or Dick Powell to turn up asking questions with their own brand of sarcastic wit. Definitely a delightful blend of mayhem and fun to make this a winning read.
It has been four years since I read The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks where Perry and Nick meet and I normally would have re-read book one before starting The Ghost had an Early Check-Out to "refresh my memory" but I didn't and you know what? I remember everything of the boys that I fell for ages ago. Now I don't want to say too much about the plot since this is a mystery and so many points can be important and telling but I will say I loved every eccentric and crazy moment of Early Check-Out.
The occupants of Angels Rest is definitely a cast of characters that made Perry and Nick's "case" intriguing. I wanted to laugh, scream, and even pull my hair out at times. You know what Perry ran into when he chased after Horace's screams and yet there is always that inkling of doubt to just what it all meant and who was really behind it. Its these moments where doubt and certainty war within the reader that make this mystery standout and kept me guessing.
So often in series, the second entry can be more about the couple finding their footing and keeping the relationship moving forward but with Early Check-Out that doesn't enter into it. Sure there are fleeting moments of internal "What have I got myself into?" for the pair but it really doesn't become a factor of the story and I very much appreciated that element. I hope there will be more of Perry and Nick in the future because they are a pair that is not getting old anytime soon.
The Ghost had an Early Check-Out is definitely a story with present day attitudes and yet its got just enough of a classic feel that I expected the likes of Humphrey Bogart or Dick Powell to turn up asking questions with their own brand of sarcastic wit. Definitely a delightful blend of mayhem and fun to make this a winning read.
Overall Duology Review
Original Audiobook Review July 2023:
It's been 9 years since I originally read Yellow Socks and 4-1/2 since Early Check-Out, you'd think everything would be brand new after that long . . . it wasn't! Sometimes I wished my memory wasn't so good when it comes to reading and viewing as I miss that adrenaline rush you can only get from the first time but for me, knowing the work doesn't lessen the enjoyment, never has. Well this duology(though I do wish there were more than just the two) is just as entertaining in audio as it was in reading.
Not a lot I can say(or will say😉) about the plots that wasn't already covered in my original reviews so I'll just make a few comments on narration. I tend to enjoy audios of series more when it's the same narrator but different voice performers happen for a variety of reasons and life happens, certainly not something that ruins a series for me though I know it bothers some so that's why I mention it.
Who did Perry & Nick better, Max Miller or Michael Pauley? Hard to say. Miller might have a slight edge but for me that is much more likely to be the case simply because he brought the characters to life first, similar to the way I prefer an the first actor in a series who gets recast later on, neither is necessarily better than the other just who we meet first. As for this duology there was only a few days between listens but Miller was still first and therefore slightly more fitting. Pauley does the pair wonderfully and personally I chalk the difference in nuances to Perry and Nick growing, individually and as a pair, we all change over time and I look at different narrations in that way as well, making Pauley also very well suited when bringing life to the zany mayhem that the men find themselves facing.
As it was with the original discovering of the men and their mysteries, the blend of chemistry, humor, mayhem, and romance is spot on and never boring. Certainly won't be years before I visit this pair again.
RATING: 
Trick or Treat Temptation by Hank Edwards
“Want me to give you a few minutes alone in the room so you can absorb the vibes from celebrity singer and songwriter Rex Garland?” Ivan said, grinning as he followed Jules down the hallway.
“I hear your voice, but I’m ignoring your sassy words,”Jules said without looking around or missing a step.
Their room was at the end of the intersecting hallway, and Ivan lingered in the hall as Jules stepped inside. The door swung shut with a slam. Ivan stood smiling, waiting for Jules to realize he was alone in the room.
“Oh, shit, is that Ivan?” someone asked from behind him.?He looked back along the hall and his heart lurched.?Skylar Powell approached, pulling a roller bag. Everything slowed down, like a cheesy effect in a TV show or movie. The sureness of Sky’s stride. The way his long-sleeved T-shirt accentuated his strong torso. How well his jeans hugged his hips and legs. Henna highlights gleamed in his brunet hair with each wall sconce he passed. The upward curl of his lips within the neatly trimmed dark beard. The very presence of him in this place, where men before them had met and fallen in love, sent Ivan’s heart racing.?As Sky stopped a few feet away, Ivan stared, dumbfounded.?“Wait, are you not Ivan?” Sky’s expression shifted to embarrassed panic. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”?
The door to the room opened, jerking Ivan’s attention away from Sky’s handsome face. Jules stood glaring out at him, one hand high up on the edge of the door, the other on his hip.?“You have this ridiculous notion that you are a humorous person,” Jules said. “And, yet, time and time again you keep proving yourself wrong. I was in there talking away to you and you’re being a smart ass, lingering here in the hallway to give me time alone with the Rex Garland vibes. You are a complete tool.”
“Julian?” Sky moved closer, looking between Jules, who had been out of his sightline, and Ivan. Ivan took a few steps back to give them space, but an enticing scent drifted his way, and he breathed it in. Sky’s cologne was subtle but masculine, and it made Ivan feel slightly lightheaded.
“Sky?” Jules moved into the hall and grabbed his brother in a strong hug. “It’s really good to see you.”
“You, too,” Sky said. “It’s been a long time.”
Jules stepped back and smiled as he looked Sky up and down. “You look great.”
“Thanks. You look really good yourself.”
“You remember Ivan, right?”
“Yeah, of course. I thought it was him, but he looks so mature now, I second guessed myself.”
“Mature?” Jules said with a snort.
That broke Ivan from his daze, and he shot Jules a dirty look before extending his hand to Sky.
“Hi, Sky. Sorry for not responding right away. You caught me off guard, and I was daydreaming.”
“No worries.” He looked Ivan in the eye as they shook. Sky’s warm brown eyes were locked on Ivan’s like a tractor beam. His palm was warm and soft, while Ivan’s felt sweaty. “You look good. Got kind of a lumberjack vibe going on.”
“Yeah, well,” Ivan said, blushing. He dropped his gaze to the floor as he released Sky’s hand. He curled his fingers in tight, as if trying to hold on to the heat from their touch. “I’ve been told that once or twice.”
“Or seven hundred times,” Jules said. “And most of those by me.”
The Heart As He Hears It by AM Arthur
Jon studied Isaac, his gaze taking in…something. “May I ask you something?”
“Of course.” His chest flushed with anticipation.
“How do you feel when you’re with me?”
Isaac tried to push aside the anxiety still attempting to blur his thoughts, an old friend that wanted to be part of the conversation. Only anxiety wasn’t allowed in, not this time. He shuffled through different words, emotions and adjectives, searching for the one that best described how he felt about Jon. How Jon made him feel, despite being a near-stranger, bigger, stronger and far more experienced in pretty much everything. Jon still made him feel… “Safe,” Isaac said.
Jon’s eyebrows crept up. The corners of his mouth quirked into something not quite a smile. “Really?”
“Yes. The first time I saw you on my security feed, I noticed how beautiful you were.” His cheeks warmed.
Jon flat out grinned. “Yeah?”
“You’re kind and patient, and I feel safe because you don’t try to fix me, and you don’t act like I’m broken. My family thinks I’m broken, and I don’t want them to fix me. I just…” Something in Isaac shifted, accepting this new truth. “I need to feel safe, Jon. That’s why I hide. But you make me not want to hide.”
Jon’s eyes glittered. His expression melted into something so warm, so sweet, that it burned in Isaac’s blood in a way he didn’t understand at all. The strange sensation urged him to reach out, to initiate contact of some kind. Deep-rooted fear kept Isaac still, unable to make that first move. Unable to do anything except soak in the wonderment on Jon’s face.
“I think that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten,” Jon said. His voice was hoarse, strange. Almost difficult to hear, so Isaac paid more attention to his lips. “Is it cheesy to say your strength makes me want to be better too?”
Isaac shook his head. “I’m not strong.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You proved that by letting me and Henry in two weeks ago. You proved it again by going out to rescue a kitten. Twice, by the way. You told me you want to get better, get into the world, and that takes a ton of courage when you’ve lost as much as you have. I know it won’t be easy, but I still want to help you do that.”
“I know you do. I want that too.”
Isaac needed to prove to Jon how much he wanted it. He couldn’t do it with words. Words only went so far when making promises. Actions spoke much more loudly. Swallowing hard against a storm of butterflies, Isaac turned his left hand palm up and slid it to the center of the table, knuckles skidding on the cool wood.
Jon’s gaze traveled from Isaac’s eyes, down his arm, stopping at his hand. His outstretched hand. Jon placed his right hand flat to the table and pushed it forward, a centimeter at a time. Timid. Tentative. Oh so careful. He stopped with his middle finger a bare inch from Isaac’s. Neither of them spoke. For an instant, Isaac forgot to breathe.
And then Jon covered Isaac’s palm with his, warm and strong, so much like their handshake from the previous week. A sure grip that sent a jolt up Isaac’s arm, then right down his spine to his d**k and balls—a reaction that terrified him as much as it made something deep inside of him sing. An acknowledgment of feelings he couldn’t yet voice.
He was holding Jon’s hand, and he liked it very, very much.
Jon’s fingers drifted higher, the tips lightly stroking the inside of Isaac’s wrist in a gentle, soothing rhythm.
Isaac closed his eyes, basking in the simplicity of something so rare as human touch. Human touch that he’d initiated for the simple reason that, in his very core, he’d missed it. Early hugs from his mother. Back slaps from Pappou. Brief, one-armed embraces from Yia Yia. Wrestling with his cousins when they were children.
Jon’s hand in his made his body hum with joy as much as it made him want to cry. Isaac had made a connection. An actual, real connection with another human being unlike anything he’d had with his family. This ran deeper, past his fear and his walls and into his soul. This was something he could trust.
Pressure and heat around his hand increased, the squeeze subtle, but Isaac’s eyelids flew up. Jon was smiling at him, perfect teeth flashing white, his eyes dancing with beautiful things.
Isaac reached his other hand out, and Jon caught it in a sure grip—a lifeline that would never let go. “I don’t understand this,” Isaac said.
Jon drew their locked hands together in the center of the table, all four in one tangle. “This is what attraction is, Isaac. This thing you’re feeling. You don’t have to act on it, but does it feel good? Safe?”
“Yes.” It felt unlike anything Isaac had experienced. Was that it? He was attracted to Jon, so all of the good things like trust and friendship came along with it? Perhaps so. “I do feel safe. And good.”
“I’m glad.” Jon’s gaze flickered lower, toward Isaac’s chin. No. Mouth. “You have no idea how much I want to k—hug you right now.”
Isaac’s gut burned in a totally new, unexpected way. A good way. The last hug he’d allowed had been on the day of Yia Yia’s funeral, from his cousin Grace. Afterward he began side-stepping hugs, and the family stopped offering them. “I haven’t been hugged in a really long time.”
“I kind of guessed.” Jon’s smile went soft, almost shy. “Is that okay? Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine.” He actually was fine.
“May I hug you, Isaac?”
Instead of allowing the question to throw his insides into knots, Isaac calmly examined it. He liked touching Jon, and he liked it when Jon touched him. A hug was something offered between friends and family, and they were definitely friends. And he trusted Jon enough to know that if Isaac asked him to, he’d let go.
“Yes,” Isaac said. “I’d like to try that.”
Jon’s smile was wide and beautiful, joy going all the way to his eyes. “Okay.”
Somehow they both stood without letting go of each other’s hands—except they were kind of holding each other by the wrist now, a firmer, more powerful grip. Jon came around to his side of the table, slowly obliterating the space between them. Isaac’s shoulders tightened and his back tensed, an instinctive reaction to proximity that he couldn’t stop. Jon noticed and froze with less than a foot of air separating them.
“Is this okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac rolled his shoulders, forcing himself to relax. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. If it gets to be too much, tell me, all right?”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Isaac concentrated on their hands, warmed by this new, intoxicating connection to another human being. It made Isaac want more than his closed-off life in this house. Jon shuffled closer, the spice of his cologne and the heat of his body living things that wrapped themselves around Isaac.
Their eyes stayed locked, Jon’s flickering with both intent and trepidation. Isaac had no idea what his eyes said to Jon. Yes, please, it’s okay, I’m fine, he hoped. Slowly Jon let go of his hands, leaving Isaac’s skin cold where they’d touched—until one landed on his shoulder, while the other rested gently on his hip.
“Still okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac’s heart flipped, overjoyed at how patient and careful Jon was being with him. “Yes.”
Jon’s hands slid toward his back, one down over the shoulder, the other up past his waist. He leaned in, his chest pressing gently against Isaac’s, an unfamiliar but very welcome weight, until Isaac was enveloped in a one-sided embrace. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the scents of cologne, sweat and something earthier beneath it—the unique scent of Jon. He relaxed into the sensation of heat and pressure everywhere Jon touched him.
The angle of the embrace left Isaac’s arms free. He wanted to hug Jon back, but hugs were bigger than holding hands. He worked against the stiffness that had overtaken his limbs, forcing his right arm to move to Jon’s waist, fingers brushing cotton and the shape of a belt. He got his left arm working too, and rested his palm lightly on Jon’s shoulder. As much as he wanted to mimic Jon’s posture, he couldn’t make his hands stray from those points.
His heart thundered in his chest and blood pulsed in his temples. Everything about this felt right, like everything he’d been missing for a very long time. A part of a puzzle he’d been too scared to acknowledge was unfinished. He unknotted himself enough to rest his chin on Jon’s shoulder, putting Jon’s ear close to his mouth. Jon hugged him a little bit tighter and leaned his head against Isaac’s—another contact point.
He wanted to ask Jon what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but Isaac couldn’t find the words. All he had were unexpected and joyous emotions, and speaking might ruin it all. Except he had to say one thing. One thing to show Jon how important this was.
“Thank you,” Isaac whispered.
More than hearing the words, he felt them rumbling through his chest as Jon answered, “You are so welcome.”
“Of course.” His chest flushed with anticipation.
“How do you feel when you’re with me?”
Isaac tried to push aside the anxiety still attempting to blur his thoughts, an old friend that wanted to be part of the conversation. Only anxiety wasn’t allowed in, not this time. He shuffled through different words, emotions and adjectives, searching for the one that best described how he felt about Jon. How Jon made him feel, despite being a near-stranger, bigger, stronger and far more experienced in pretty much everything. Jon still made him feel… “Safe,” Isaac said.
Jon’s eyebrows crept up. The corners of his mouth quirked into something not quite a smile. “Really?”
“Yes. The first time I saw you on my security feed, I noticed how beautiful you were.” His cheeks warmed.
Jon flat out grinned. “Yeah?”
“You’re kind and patient, and I feel safe because you don’t try to fix me, and you don’t act like I’m broken. My family thinks I’m broken, and I don’t want them to fix me. I just…” Something in Isaac shifted, accepting this new truth. “I need to feel safe, Jon. That’s why I hide. But you make me not want to hide.”
Jon’s eyes glittered. His expression melted into something so warm, so sweet, that it burned in Isaac’s blood in a way he didn’t understand at all. The strange sensation urged him to reach out, to initiate contact of some kind. Deep-rooted fear kept Isaac still, unable to make that first move. Unable to do anything except soak in the wonderment on Jon’s face.
“I think that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten,” Jon said. His voice was hoarse, strange. Almost difficult to hear, so Isaac paid more attention to his lips. “Is it cheesy to say your strength makes me want to be better too?”
Isaac shook his head. “I’m not strong.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You proved that by letting me and Henry in two weeks ago. You proved it again by going out to rescue a kitten. Twice, by the way. You told me you want to get better, get into the world, and that takes a ton of courage when you’ve lost as much as you have. I know it won’t be easy, but I still want to help you do that.”
“I know you do. I want that too.”
Isaac needed to prove to Jon how much he wanted it. He couldn’t do it with words. Words only went so far when making promises. Actions spoke much more loudly. Swallowing hard against a storm of butterflies, Isaac turned his left hand palm up and slid it to the center of the table, knuckles skidding on the cool wood.
Jon’s gaze traveled from Isaac’s eyes, down his arm, stopping at his hand. His outstretched hand. Jon placed his right hand flat to the table and pushed it forward, a centimeter at a time. Timid. Tentative. Oh so careful. He stopped with his middle finger a bare inch from Isaac’s. Neither of them spoke. For an instant, Isaac forgot to breathe.
And then Jon covered Isaac’s palm with his, warm and strong, so much like their handshake from the previous week. A sure grip that sent a jolt up Isaac’s arm, then right down his spine to his d**k and balls—a reaction that terrified him as much as it made something deep inside of him sing. An acknowledgment of feelings he couldn’t yet voice.
He was holding Jon’s hand, and he liked it very, very much.
Jon’s fingers drifted higher, the tips lightly stroking the inside of Isaac’s wrist in a gentle, soothing rhythm.
Isaac closed his eyes, basking in the simplicity of something so rare as human touch. Human touch that he’d initiated for the simple reason that, in his very core, he’d missed it. Early hugs from his mother. Back slaps from Pappou. Brief, one-armed embraces from Yia Yia. Wrestling with his cousins when they were children.
Jon’s hand in his made his body hum with joy as much as it made him want to cry. Isaac had made a connection. An actual, real connection with another human being unlike anything he’d had with his family. This ran deeper, past his fear and his walls and into his soul. This was something he could trust.
Pressure and heat around his hand increased, the squeeze subtle, but Isaac’s eyelids flew up. Jon was smiling at him, perfect teeth flashing white, his eyes dancing with beautiful things.
Isaac reached his other hand out, and Jon caught it in a sure grip—a lifeline that would never let go. “I don’t understand this,” Isaac said.
Jon drew their locked hands together in the center of the table, all four in one tangle. “This is what attraction is, Isaac. This thing you’re feeling. You don’t have to act on it, but does it feel good? Safe?”
“Yes.” It felt unlike anything Isaac had experienced. Was that it? He was attracted to Jon, so all of the good things like trust and friendship came along with it? Perhaps so. “I do feel safe. And good.”
“I’m glad.” Jon’s gaze flickered lower, toward Isaac’s chin. No. Mouth. “You have no idea how much I want to k—hug you right now.”
Isaac’s gut burned in a totally new, unexpected way. A good way. The last hug he’d allowed had been on the day of Yia Yia’s funeral, from his cousin Grace. Afterward he began side-stepping hugs, and the family stopped offering them. “I haven’t been hugged in a really long time.”
“I kind of guessed.” Jon’s smile went soft, almost shy. “Is that okay? Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine.” He actually was fine.
“May I hug you, Isaac?”
Instead of allowing the question to throw his insides into knots, Isaac calmly examined it. He liked touching Jon, and he liked it when Jon touched him. A hug was something offered between friends and family, and they were definitely friends. And he trusted Jon enough to know that if Isaac asked him to, he’d let go.
“Yes,” Isaac said. “I’d like to try that.”
Jon’s smile was wide and beautiful, joy going all the way to his eyes. “Okay.”
Somehow they both stood without letting go of each other’s hands—except they were kind of holding each other by the wrist now, a firmer, more powerful grip. Jon came around to his side of the table, slowly obliterating the space between them. Isaac’s shoulders tightened and his back tensed, an instinctive reaction to proximity that he couldn’t stop. Jon noticed and froze with less than a foot of air separating them.
“Is this okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac rolled his shoulders, forcing himself to relax. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. If it gets to be too much, tell me, all right?”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Isaac concentrated on their hands, warmed by this new, intoxicating connection to another human being. It made Isaac want more than his closed-off life in this house. Jon shuffled closer, the spice of his cologne and the heat of his body living things that wrapped themselves around Isaac.
Their eyes stayed locked, Jon’s flickering with both intent and trepidation. Isaac had no idea what his eyes said to Jon. Yes, please, it’s okay, I’m fine, he hoped. Slowly Jon let go of his hands, leaving Isaac’s skin cold where they’d touched—until one landed on his shoulder, while the other rested gently on his hip.
“Still okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac’s heart flipped, overjoyed at how patient and careful Jon was being with him. “Yes.”
Jon’s hands slid toward his back, one down over the shoulder, the other up past his waist. He leaned in, his chest pressing gently against Isaac’s, an unfamiliar but very welcome weight, until Isaac was enveloped in a one-sided embrace. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the scents of cologne, sweat and something earthier beneath it—the unique scent of Jon. He relaxed into the sensation of heat and pressure everywhere Jon touched him.
The angle of the embrace left Isaac’s arms free. He wanted to hug Jon back, but hugs were bigger than holding hands. He worked against the stiffness that had overtaken his limbs, forcing his right arm to move to Jon’s waist, fingers brushing cotton and the shape of a belt. He got his left arm working too, and rested his palm lightly on Jon’s shoulder. As much as he wanted to mimic Jon’s posture, he couldn’t make his hands stray from those points.
His heart thundered in his chest and blood pulsed in his temples. Everything about this felt right, like everything he’d been missing for a very long time. A part of a puzzle he’d been too scared to acknowledge was unfinished. He unknotted himself enough to rest his chin on Jon’s shoulder, putting Jon’s ear close to his mouth. Jon hugged him a little bit tighter and leaned his head against Isaac’s—another contact point.
He wanted to ask Jon what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but Isaac couldn’t find the words. All he had were unexpected and joyous emotions, and speaking might ruin it all. Except he had to say one thing. One thing to show Jon how important this was.
“Thank you,” Isaac whispered.
More than hearing the words, he felt them rumbling through his chest as Jon answered, “You are so welcome.”
Halloween Fumble by A Winchester
Everdale, Maine should’ve been renamed to Halloweenville or Halloween Village or Halloween Central. Some Halloween-themed bullshit like that. Halloween in Everdale was an entire experience, to say the least. The holiday meant everything to the college town, and starting in August, everyone went balls-deep with the holiday preparation. Not a single house went undecorated. Some were gentler in appearance with lights, pumpkins, bats, ghosts, and witches. Others were more intense with zombies, severed heads, graveyards, and fake blood. Hell, there were entire blocks that coordinated their entire Halloween display every year. People even decorated the lawns of vacant houses on their street. I couldn’t remember a single Halloween growing up where any house was undecorated.
And in the thirteen years since I’d left, it hadn’t changed at all.
But the holiday hit differently now. The masks put me on edge. Time in the military dealing with shit no one should have to go through made me wary. On edge and uneasy. I’d rather see faces and be able to judge intentions than run around in a costume. It made walking through town on Halloween a little bit of something like hell for me.
But Jude needed to be picked up. The kid was nineteen and stupid as shit. He was also the starting quarterback for Harbor Tech University. Our dad would kill him if he was caught drinking—never mind the underage part. It’d cost him his position on the team and that was a crime worse than drinking.
Oh, yeah. Football was tied with Halloween for importance in Everdale.
The biggest frat house sat on the far side of town, brushing up against the cornfields. Who thought putting a frat house next to miles of cornfields was a good idea was beyond me. It led to trouble—I’d know. I’d been a GOAT. A greatest of all time frat guy. No one gave a fuck about the actual Greek name of the fraternity. Only the best of the best were allowed to be a GOAT—the ones with real talent and potential, the ones scouted in sports and with grades that raised the bar.
As far as I knew, Jude hadn’t been invited to pledge, but obviously, that didn’t stop him from crashing their party. Granted, I knew very little about my baby brother. That twelve-year age gap between me and him was one hell of a rift. Growing up, I didn’t know how to connect with him. We were just in very different places with our ages. And when I left for the military, he was still losing baby teeth.
I probably should’ve done better about keeping in touch with him over the years, but that was a can of worms for another night—one where I wasn’t dragging my drunk baby brother out of a raging frat party.
College kids in costumes ran past, drunk and shrieking. I paused right where I was. I wanted no part of their shit. Instead, I shoved my hands in my pockets and glanced down at my outfit. Fitted jeans, work boots, a black t-shirt, and a red flannel. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Maybe I could pass as a lumberjack or some shit since everyone else around me seemed to be in costume. Was that a requirement to get in? I’d kill Jude if I couldn’t come in to fetch his dumb ass because I wasn’t dressed up like something stupid.
Jack-o-lanterns lined the walkway, and most of them were pretty damn good considering a bunch of college guys did them. Cobwebs framed the steps along with blood handprints on the rail. I stopped at the front door and stared. A casket blocked the entryway. A literal fucking casket. I wanted to know how, but I didn’t. Some things were better left alone, especially where GOAT was concerned. Once upon a time, parties like this had been a thing I helped plan, so I knew the kind of thought process that went into it. Hint: there wasn’t one. It was a lot of bullshit and shenanigans.
There was a party this way sign poorly painted on a fucking napkin pinned to the front of the casket. See? Chaos. I followed it around the side of the porch and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight in front of me.
There was a fucking ghost.
On the edge of the cornfield.
Rather it was either a statue or someone in a sheet just standing there holding a lantern. And it just stared at me, completely unmoving. What the fuck? Had we been this fucking weird back in my day?
“What’s with the ghost?” I nodded to the ghost in the field as I approached the bouncer at the side door. Calling him a bouncer was fucking stretching it. The kid was scrawny as hell and just as drunk. I could probably blow air in his direction and he’d fall over.
“That’s just Fred,” the kid said, his head bobbing up and down like I should’ve known what he was talking about. I didn’t have a fucking clue. I glanced back out at the cornfield. Fred still stood there with his lantern raised. If there was a kid under there, he had impressive stamina.
“Is Fred real?” I asked because I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “Well, Fred’s not real real, you know? But that Fred is real.”
My frown deepened. I had a goddamn degree in mathematical engineering and I still couldn’t connect the dots in anything he said. Had I been this bad in college? Jesus fuck.
But For You by Mary Calmes
Chapter One
THE man was a pig, and it wasn’t just me who thought so. Rosa Martinez, who lived on the other side of the Petersons, agreed with me. In fact, all the women who lived on our cul-de-sac were of the same mind. Oliver Peterson, whose wife had just caught him cheating on her—again —was filth. It wasn’t the fact that they already had two children; it was the fact that she was currently pregnant with a third.
Sam, the love of my life, my partner, husband, and the guy who was parenting two small people with me, just shook his head the night before and kissed me breathless after telling me for the nine-hundredth time to please not get involved. Leave the neighbors alone; this was not Housewives of Wherever, we were not on reality TV. I had explained over the McDonald’s that the man had brought home instead of having me cook—which, after the last time, we had both agreed would never happen again—that I was involved because I was her friend.
“No,” he told me as we put the kids down. “You use that word so loosely. She’s an acquaintance, Jory, she’s not a friend.”
“She’s my neighbor, Sam, and her man’s a dog, and if she needs my help with whatever, I’m gonna give it to her.”
“I’m not saying not to be nice to her, but just don’t stick your nose in their business.”
I ignored him.
“Jory Harcourt!”
I gave him the most indignant look I could manage. “So I’m what, nosy now? I’m the busybody neighbor?”
He threw up his hands in defeat.
I gave him a superior grunt because I thought he was on his way out of the bedroom to check the house, make sure all the doors were locked, make sure the stove burners were all off, but then I realized he hadn’t moved. “What?”
“You’re very cute.”
I squinted at him. “Thirty-five-year-old men are not cute.”
“You’ll always be the twenty-two-year-old club kid I saw for the first time lying in the street with a beagle on top of him.”
“I thought George was a Jack Russell.”
“Nope.” He came toward me. “Beagle.”
“Go away.” I smiled at him, trying to shoo him out of the room. “Go make sure the zombie horde can’t get us.”
But instead of leaving, he grabbed me and slammed me up against the wall in our room. With his hot mouth nibbling up the side of my neck, his hands frantically disrobing me, and his hard groin pressed to my ass, my mind went completely blank. There was no way to concentrate when I had 220 pounds of hard-muscled man focused on getting me in bed.
But the next day, as I staggered around my kitchen—I never had been and never would be a morning person—and saw my neighbors on their front porch, Christie Peterson smiling tentatively, her husband scowling, I just wanted to go over and punch him out. I had an idea what I must have looked like: robe on, T-shirt and pajama bottoms under that, bunny slippers looking all bright-eyed and happy, I resembled the nosy neighbor in every sense.
A throat cleared behind me.
“Don’t you have to go to work?” I asked pointedly. It was Wednesday, not Saturday.
The warm rumbling chuckle was next. “You think maybe now since you’ve got one kid in preschool and the other in first grade that you should start thinking about going back to working from your office?”
Obviously my sanity was in question, because I was still working from home. I hoped the look I gave him when I turned and squinted conveyed my displeasure.
He snorted out a laugh.
I all-out scowled at the supervisory Deputy US Marshal standing beside me at the kitchen sink. We had both been looking at the Petersons. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what?”
I growled.
He pressed his beautiful lips together in a hard line so he wouldn’t smile.
“Sam?”
“No reason.”
“Spit it out.”
He cleared his throat. “I just think that perhaps you being home during the day is giving you cabin fever, and maybe you need to get back out in the real world and talk to the grown-ups.”
I huffed out an exasperated breath. “Sam, just because I don’t go to the office doesn’t mean I’m starved for adult contact. I talk to Dylan every day, I talk to Fallon every day. They’re my business partners, they need me, and they keep me involved with what’s going on at the office.”
“Okay.”
“I send out more e-mails than both of them combined!”
“I’m sure you do,” he said, sliding his hand around the back of my neck, then squeezing gently, massaging, and easing me closer. “I just think that maybe getting out of this house during the day would do you some good.”
I batted his hand away, whirling on him. “I go to the store, to the park, drop kids off at school, pick them up… when do I not see people?”
He grunted, rolled his eyes, and put his coffee cup down in the sink before his dark smoky-blue eyes flicked to mine.
“No,” I almost squeaked, turning to run.
So not fast enough.
You would think that a big man could not move like that, with so much speed, but Sam Kage’s athleticism and strength were never to be underestimated. At forty-six, he was just as powerful as he’d been when I first met him, and I finally understood the whole getting better with age thing. The man looked the best he ever had, and he lived well in his skin, so content, so happy both personally and professionally.
I was so proud of him and told him so often. He was an amazing father, a wonderful husband, a great son, and the kind of friend anyone would be happy to claim. I was biased because I loved him, but still, I saw people look at him and knew the truth. Four years after beginning his new job as a marshal, he was now the supervisor of the Chicago field office, overseeing five other deputies and three clerks. I had thought once he moved up, he’d become a sheriff, but apparently all they did was add the “supervisory” in there. A sheriff was a totally different thing. It made no sense from a Western standpoint. In every movie I had ever seen, the deputy got moved up to sheriff. As usual, Sam had just shaken his head at me.
As I ducked around the island in the middle of the kitchen, I thought for half a second that I would get away from him, but as he grabbed, yanked, and pinned me against the refrigerator, I realized how wrong I had been.
“All I meant to imply,” he began, tilting my head up with a hand on my chin, “was that since you have a six-year-old and a four-year-old now, you can do a half day at the office instead of working full-time from home. It might be nice after you drop them off to pick up a fancy cup of coffee and go to your office and actually see Dylan and Fallon and talk to them face to face.”
I was really far too interested in his mouth to listen to him. He had the kind of lips made for kissing, plump and dark, and when he smiled, there was this curve in the corner that could break your heart. Not that the rest of his rugged features were without appeal. His dark smoky blue-gray eyes with the deep laugh lines at the corners, his long straight nose, the hard square jaw, and the thick copper-gold eyebrows were a treat too. And his voice, over the phone or in person, deep and husky, edged with a growl, could send rippling heat through my entire body. But the man’s mouth, the shape of it, the feel of it… really, I was a fan.
“Are you listening to me?”
I lifted up from my height of five nine to his of six four, and he bent down at the same time. Our lips met and parted, and his tongue slid deep to taste me.
The sounds from the peanut gallery—choking and retching—and the tug on my robe instantly drained the heat from the encounter. Sam snorted out a laugh as he broke the kiss, both of us eyeing the short people standing close to us.
“That’s disgusting,” Kola assured me with a glare that a six-year-old shouldn’t have had, full of judgment and revulsion.
“Why?” I asked snidely.
“Your mouth has germs,” he informed me haughtily. “That’s why you told Hannah not to lick Chilly.”
“No, I told her not to lick Chilly because the cat doesn’t like to be licked by her.”
“He licks his body.”
“He does,” Hannah, our four-year-old, agreed with a nod. “Kola’s right.”
“But he doesn’t want you to do it,” I assured my daughter, directing my comment to her.
“How do you know?” Kola questioned.
“Yeah,” Hannah Banana chimed in again, always her big brother’s backup. “How do you know?”
I had to think.
Kola waited, squinting at me.
Hannah was waiting as well, one of her perfectly shaped dark brows arching. It was new. She had the same way of looking at me that her father did, like I was an idiot.
“Do not lick the cat! Nobody licks the cat!” Sam ordered when the silence stretched for too long.
I started laughing; only my husband would have to make such rules.
He looked down at his son, Mykola Thomas Kage, six years old going on forty, who was full of questions and opinions.
We had adopted him when he was three, from an agency in the Netherlands. When we had made the final trip to bring him home, he had seen us from the window of the orphanage director’s office and run to the door to meet us. We had been there two weeks and he already called Sam Daddy, which Sam was madly in love with hearing. But though Kola had been taught the American word meaning father, it was not his, not the one he had grown up hearing and had been waiting to use for someone who belonged to him. So he had tried out the one he knew on me.
Pa.
So simple a word but it meant so much.
I had heard it in the streets when we visited, along with the more formal, vader, and seen kids run to their fathers using it. Not the papa I knew, not what Sam’s father was called by his grandchildren, but instead just pa. When Kola called to me, I answered to it, and his face, the way it lit up, the absolute blinding joy, had been a gift.
Sam was Daddy, and Daddy represented Kola’s new life and his new family in the United States, and I was the comfort of the old. I was Pa, and he had named me.
Of course it didn’t matter to me what name he settled on. He could have called me Jory for all I cared; he was my kid, and that was all I gave a damn about. He was legally and completely mine and Sam’s, and that was what mattered. And we were good, the three of us, until the first agency we had contacted back when we’d started the whole adoption process called to tell us that there was a little girl from Montevideo ready for adoption. I had forgotten about them because they had never come through, but that turned out not to be the case. You heard from them when it was time, and it finally was.
I was surprised, Sam unsure, until the professional but not personable and definitely not warm gentleman slid the picture across the desk for us. He needed to know if we wanted the little girl in the photograph.
Yes, we wanted the angel very much.
Our family went from three to four with the coming of the little sister that Kola wanted nothing to do with until we were all home under one roof. He resented all of us going to the airport to pick her up, hated her crying in the car, and was really annoyed that Sam was carrying her instead of him. He was starting to fret, it was all over his face—until Sam knelt and picked him up too. Kids are so funny. As soon as Kola figured out that Hannah was planning on sharing us with him, that she wasn’t there to take his spot, that nothing was changing in the love department, just some tweaking in the time area, he decided he liked her. And now, with him at six and her at four, their bond was noticeable.
They fought like cats and dogs… but only sometimes. She cried, he moped, they chased each other and roughhoused, but nine times out of ten, I found her in his room in the morning. When we were out, he held her hand, he fixed things when she couldn’t, and he was supremely patient when she was trying to impart some tidbit of information. I was like, Spit it out, kid, but Kola just nodded and waited until some incident about a bug on a flower was all communicated in excruciating detail.
He brushed her off if she fell down, made her remember her mittens and hat, and could be counted on to translate her wishes to others if Sam and I were absent. Dylan Greer, my best friend, was really surprised because she was certain that, sometimes, Hannah Banana—or B, as we all called her—spoke in tongues. But Kola would just say that she wanted milk or a crayon or a flashlight. And he was never wrong. He was an excellent big brother, and she adored him.
Hannah Regina Kage—her middle name after Sam’s mother—had the most adorable little button nose on the planet. I would lean in to kiss her sometimes and nibble on her nose instead. It made her squeal with delight. Putting her toes in my mouth was also cause for raucous laughter. Even at a year old, she had a good laugh. It was not timid or soft. She was small, but how she expressed herself was big. People heard the deep, throaty sound and were enchanted. I had been under her spell at first glance.
In our neighborhood in River Park, sometimes people still looked at us when we were out walking. And most questioned Kola when they got close, since with his deep-set cobalt-blue eyes, sharp European features, and dark-brown hair, he didn’t look like either me or Sam. But Hannah, who was half-Uruguayan, was obviously adopted. What was funny, though, was that people sometimes questioned whether Gentry—born with my brother Dane’s charcoal eyes instead of my sister-in-law Aja’s honey-brown ones—actually belonged to his own mother. I always wondered why people cared. If your kid was blue and you were orange, who gave a crap as long as you loved and cherished the blue kid? People still surprised me.
“Pa.”
Hannah was looking up at me like I was the village idiot.
“What?”
“If Kola can’t lick Chilly, you can’t lick Daddy.”
I had a terrible image of giving Sam a blow job just then, and he probably knew it, which was why he grabbed me and covered my mouth with his hand. “Will you two go finish your breakfast, please?”
They left then, but not without casting looks back.
Sam moved his hand but bent and kissed me. I received it happily, and of course, there was more retching.
“Kola Kage!” I admonished him even as I laughed. “Will you knock that off?”
“Ewww,” Hannah squeaked out.
When I looked over at them, Kola was mixing his oatmeal with butter and brown sugar, making it burp with his spoon.
“Just eat it,” I told him.
“I’m making it edible.”
Edible. Damn kid and his damn vocabulary.
“Leave the Petersons alone,” Sam sighed, long-suffering as he was.
“I am.” I bit my bottom lip.
“Jory…,” he cautioned me.
I tried for innocent.
“Daddy,” Kola said, back beside us, looking up at Sam.
“Don’t lick the cat,” Sam reiterated, bending down to one knee as his son stepped into his arms and put his hands on his face. “All right?”
“Okay.” Kola nodded.
“Okay,” Sam sighed, pulling Kola close, hugging him tight for a minute.
“What’s homonic?”
“I dunno.” Sam yawned, leaning back so father and son could look at each other. “Where’d you hear it?”
“Pa told Auntie Dyl that Jake’s parents won’t let him come play at my house ’cause they’re homonic.”
Sam nodded. “That’s homophobic, and that means that Jake’s parents don’t want him to come over because you have two fathers.”
Kola squinted at Sam. “Why?”
“Some people just don’t like it.”
“Why?”
“Well, I think that some people are afraid of what it means.”
He shook his head. “What does it mean?”
“That if you can have two fathers, maybe things are changing.”
His scowl made his little eyebrows furrow. It was adorable. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you will when you’re older, buddy.”
“It’s dumb.”
“Yes it is,” Sam agreed, hugging him again. “But I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.” He hugged Sam back tight, both arms wrapped around his neck. “Stuart and his mom are coming with me and Pa and Hannah and Uncle Evan and Bryce and Seth and Auntie Dyl and Mica and Mabel and Tess and her dad to the movies next Saturday, so Jake’s the one who’s missing out.”
“Who’s coming again?” Sam teased him.
“Stuart and his mom are coming with—”
“Stop,” I cut Kola off. “Your father heard you the first time.”
Sam grunted and looked up at me. “How come I didn’t get invited to the movies?”
“First”—I smiled at him—“the Chipmunks give you hives, and secondly, won’t you be fishing with Pat and Chaz that Saturday?”
“What Saturday are we talking about?”
“We’re leaving tomorrow for Phoenix, for the reunion, and we’ll come home Sunday.”
“Yes, I know this.”
“Okay, so then I’m talking about not this coming Saturday, since we’ll be out of town, but the one after that.”
“Oh, so that’s right, then.” He smiled brightly. “I’ll be fishing. Sorry I won’t make the movie, babe.”
“Liar,” I said flatly.
He cackled.
But it was going to be fun. I was going with my two kids, my buddy Evan was bringing his sons Bryce and Seth, and Dylan was schlepping her two kids: her son, Mica, who was her oldest, and Mabel, her daughter, who was the same age as Kola. It was unfortunate that they had made another Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, but all the kids were dying to see it, so we were making a day of it. I was still waiting to hear from Aja to see if she was coming along as well. I knew that Robert and Gentry were just as interested in helium-fueled rodents as the rest of our kids, but Aja wasn’t, and she could use a day off.
Aja, who had been in the public school realm when she first married my brother, as first a principal and then assistant superintendent of schools, had found herself unable to enact change at that level. Aja could not amend policy or allocate funds, but instead of growing bitter about what she saw happening around her—the apathy and deliberate ignorance—she decided to do something about it. In her present position as the associate dean of education at De Paul University, training and inspiring the next generation of teachers, she was preparing bright minds for the real world as well as toughening skins. She armed them and motivated them and made sure they knew she would always be a resource for them even after they graduated. All that plus parenting two children, being a wife, attending a myriad of social functions with her husband, and the result was a worn-out Aja Harcourt. I wanted to help lessen her load.
As I was driving back home after dropping off Kola and Hannah—they both went to the same Montessori school close to Oak Park—I called Aja from the car and offered to take her two short people off her hands instead of having her join us. I was immediately called a saint.
“Jory, I need some me and Dane time.”
“How ’bout I pick Robbie and Gen up next Friday after school and keep them until Sunday morning? We’ll all go to brunch and you can have them back. But that gives you Friday night and all day Saturday. Whaddya say?”
I thought she was going to cry, she was so thankful.
“So is that a yes?”
“Ohmygod, yes, that’s a yes!”
“You’re starting to sound like me.”
“Thank you, baby.”
“What is family for?”
“But you’re the only one I trust.”
“That’s not true.” I smiled into the phone as I turned from the side street I was on into traffic on Harlem Avenue, heading for home. I went maybe ten feet before I and everyone else on the street came to a grinding halt.
“Yes, but since Carmen got her dream job globetrotting around the world and my folks fled to Florida and Alex to Delaware, you and Sam are the only family I’ve got here.”
“You have a lot of other girlfriends,” I told her as I tried to see what the problem was around the SUV in front of me.
“I know, but I would check in with the others, I don’t need to check with you and Sam. He’ll kill anyone that comes near my kids, and you worry more than I do.”
“I don’t worry.”
She snorted out a laugh over the phone.
“That was very undignified,” I said as I leaned back in the driver’s seat of the sleek black minivan I utterly adored. Everyone else I knew had SUVs that were, I was certain, helping to destroy the environment. My minivan was not part of Satan’s master plan, and I loved my car that proclaimed me married with children as well as safety conscious. I was looking forward to Kola starting soccer in the spring so the picture of domestic bliss would be complete. I had a sweater all picked out.
“You bring it out of me,” Aja cackled.
“Whatever, I’ll call you when I get back from the reunion on Sunday.”
She started snickering.
“What?”
“Family reunion.” She was laughing now. “Oh the horror!”
“It’ll be fine,” I told her as I noticed a man striding by my window. It was weird that he was walking down the middle of the street and not on the sidewalk, but since we were in gridlock, he was in no danger of getting run over. “Hey, your kids like Mountain Dew and Oreos, right?”
“They’re staying with you for two days. Feed them whatever you want.”
I was laughing when I hung up, but when the SUV in front of me suddenly reversed, crashing into my front bumper, I yelled and laid on my horn. But the car didn’t stop—it kept grinding metal, and I realized that he, or she, was trying to get enough of an angle to go up onto the curb to the right.
I took a picture of the license plate with my phone, thanked God that my kids weren’t with me, and was about to call the police to report the accident when I saw the passenger door of the SUV open. What was confusing was that the small woman who scrambled out had keys in her hand. It was like she had been driving but had not wanted to get out of the driver’s side door. When she flung open the back door, a little rocket seat was visible: she had a toddler.
I got out fast and went around the back of my van—even as the guy in the car behind me honked, leaned out, and told me to get back behind the fucking wheel—and darted to her side.
She whirled on me with a can of pepper spray in hand.
“Wait! I’m here to help.”
Her eyes were huge as she looked at me, shoved the can into my chest, and told me to look out for the guy so she could get her son out of the car. She had been too frightened to even open her door.
“What guy?”
“I don’t know, some psycho. I think he killed the man in the car in front of me,” she cried. “I think he has a gun or—oh God!”
Turning, I saw a man advancing on us. “Move your fucking cars!”
“Get inside!” I ordered her. “Lock it!”
She climbed into the backseat around her kid, and I heard the locks behind me as the man advanced on me fast.
He had a lug wrench, not a gun, and since I could run if I needed to, I went from terrified to annoyed very quickly. “What the hell are you doing?” I barked at him. “You’re scaring the crap out of this lady!”
“Move your cars! This whole street is just full of fucking cars!”
He wasn’t even looking at me; I doubt he could have told me where he was or what he was doing. Maybe the road rage had made him snap; perhaps something else. I didn’t know and I didn’t care—he was carrying around an automotive tool like a weapon. That was really my only concern. The lady in the SUV was freaked because her kid was in the car and this guy was acting crazy. If my kids were with me, I would have had the same reaction.
“Stop,” I ordered him. “Don’t come any closer.”
He kept coming, and he raised the wrench like maybe he was thinking of braining me with it. I aimed the nozzle of the pepper spray and made sure to get his face.
His scream was loud and wounded, but he didn’t drop the tool.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
It was the guy who had yelled at me earlier, whose car was in gridlock behind mine.
“You just attacked this guy?” he roared right before he hit me.
I went down hard, hitting the van as I bounced off it, but from my angle, I could see the guy I had sprayed coming at him.
Kicking hard, I knocked the guy who had just hit me off balance, and he tumbled to the ground beside me.
“What the fuck are you—”
“Look out!” I yelled as the guy with the lug wrench came after us.
“Oh shit,” he screamed, scrambling back away from me, moving to run.
“Drop the weapon!”
“Get on the ground!”
Normally, policemen—even though I’m married to an ex one—are not my favorite people. As a rule, they catch me doing crap I shouldn’t be but somehow miss everyone else talking on their cell phones, running red lights, and speeding.
But right at that moment, as I saw the uniforms, noted the drawn guns, and heard the orders being roared out, I was comforted.
The guy dropped the lug wrench and went to his knees.
“All the way down, face on the pavement!”
“You saved my life,” the guy who hit me said.
“I—”
But something slammed the back of my head, and everything went dark.
MY HUSBAND, my brother, family, and friends would say that yes, Jory Harcourt is a trouble magnet, but I think it’s more coincidence than anything else when fate decides to screw with me. Especially this time: I was going home from dropping off my kids, a trip I made Monday through Friday, normally without incident. How was I to know that I would end up in the crosshairs of accidental crazy?
“A what?” the policeman who was taking my statement at the hospital asked.
“Trouble magnet,” I told him as I sighed deeply.
“How did you get knocked out?” he asked me.
“I guess the lady I told to stay in her SUV, she opened the door really fast and I was sitting right beside her car and… you know.”
He nodded. “I see.”
“That’s why vans are better, the doors slide,” I educated him.
His smile was patronizing.
“I—”
“Jory!” His yell bounced off the walls, and I winced.
The officer looked startled. “Who was—”
“Scooch back,” I ordered, and took a breath to get the required amount of air into my lungs. “In here!”
The curtain was flung open moments later and there was Sam, jaw clenched, muscles cording in his neck, eyes dark and full of too many things to soothe at once.
“Detective Kage?”
Sam turned to the officer.
“Oh, no, marshal.” He tried to smile at my glowering man.
Sam’s attention returned to me, and I smiled as I lifted my arms for him.
Moving fast, Sam closed the short distance between us and hauled me forward and crushed me against him.
It was not gentle; the entire movement was jarring and hard.
I loved it.
“Scared me,” he said as he clutched me tight.
I knew I had, which was the reason for the grab. I leaned into him, nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck, and slid my arms under the suit jacket and over the crisp dress shirt. He smelled good, a faint trace of cologne, fabric softener, and warm male. I whimpered softly in the back of my throat.
“Those calls take years off my life, you know?”
“What calls?”
“The Jory’s in the hospital calls.”
I nodded, and there was a rumble of a grunt before he leaned back and looked down into my face. His eyes clocked me, checking, making sure I was whole and safe.
“I’m fine,” I said as he lifted his hand and knotted it into my hair, tilting my head back as he examined my right eye and my cheek.
“Yeah, you don’t look fine,” he said, and his voice was low and menacing. “Who did this?”
“There was a guy behind me, and he didn’t understand why I sprayed the man with the lug wrench, and he—”
“Stop,” he cut me off, dropping his hand from my hair as he turned his head to the policeman. “Talk.”
I could tell from his change of tone that he wasn’t waiting on me, but apparently the officer could not. “Hello?” Sam snapped icily.
“Oh-oh,” the guy stammered and then recounted to Sam the events of the morning.
“So the lady in the SUV knocked him out when she opened the door?” He was trying to make sure he understood everything.
“Yes.”
Sam grunted.
“She’s really sorry about it. She told me that your partner there saved her life.”
That didn’t make it any better, at least for Sam.
“My van is—”
“We’ll take care of the van and get you a rental until it’s fixed. Just don’t worry about it.”
“No, I know,” I snapped at him. Sometimes—a lot of the time—Sam treated me like an invalid. It was happening more and more lately, like I needed to be taken care of, same as the kids, because I couldn’t think for myself or reason things out. “I just wanted to know where my vehicle was towed to… Officer.”
I had turned to the man in uniform, pinned him with my gaze—my question was directed to him—and he was still looking at Sam to see if he should answer me.
“Officer?”
“I can find out where the—”
“No,” I shut Sam down, eyes wide as I waited. “Where’s my car?”
“We, um.” He coughed as he passed me a business card from his clipboard. “Had it towed to a garage downtown and—”
“Just stop,” Sam barked at me, snatching the card away. “Sit here while I go find your doctor and figure out if you have a concussion or—”
“Sam—”
“After I get you home, then we’ll worry about the damn van.”
“I can—”
“Stop,” he ordered again, and because I didn’t want to have a scene, I went still and quiet and stared at the clock on the wall.
The officer muttered something and left, and Sam told me that he had to go and find out about the other people in the accident and would see about my release at the same time.
I stayed quiet.
“You’re gonna sulk now?”
I turned my head and was about to say something when he lifted his hand.
“I don’t wanna fight with you. Just let me do this.”
“I’m not a child, Sam. I can take care of my own car. I can do—”
“So I shouldn’t be here? I shouldn’t have even come?”
“No, I just… lately it seems to be the Sam Show and not the Sam and Jory Show. You do everything, and I don’t get why that’s happening.”
His eyes searched mine.
“Sam? Do you think I’m helpless?”
The glare I was getting would have terrified most people. But this was the guy who loved me, and as always, when I stopped and actually used my brain, I understood what was really going on.
He was terrified.
I had scared the crap out of him that morning, and because he was waiting for the other shoe to drop anyway… it was almost like he was expecting bad news. And he was—he was expecting the worst.
“You think me and Kola and Hannah could get taken away.”
“What? No,” he said quietly, not a lot of force behind his words. “No.”
He was such a liar.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, putting my hands on his heavily muscled chest, unable to stop myself from curling my fingers into his shirt, holding on. Yes, he was being overprotective, but not for the reasons I thought. He didn’t think I was stupid; he just didn’t want to let me, or his kids, out of his sight for any reason. Not ever. And because he was trying not to be suffocating, he was managing the exact opposite. “I wasn’t thinking.”
He took a breath. “What’re you talking about?”
“The more you work, the more you see, the more you realize that this, what we have, is not the norm. Most people don’t get the kind of happiness that we have, the home we have, so you get over protective and smothering.”
He furrowed his brows, and I smiled up at him as I hooked my legs around the back of his thighs. He leaned closer, hands on either side of me on the narrow hospital bed. “You think you know me?”
I nodded, my fingers unclenching from his shirt. “Yes. I know you well.”
He bent toward me, and I twined an arm around his neck to draw him close. His breath fanned softly across my face before his mouth settled over mine.
I loved to kiss him. Whenever, however, for as long as he’d let me or as long as he wanted to. I was his for the taking.
He swept his tongue in, mating it with mine, tangled, rubbed, pushed, and shoved. Our lips never parted, not once, even for air. I felt his arms wrap around me, crush me to his chest, and hold tight. I had a hand knotted in his hair, and the moan I couldn’t stifle was low and aching. When he suddenly shoved me back, breaking the scorching, devouring contact, my whine of protest was loud.
He was flushed and panting, his lips swollen, his pupils blown as he stared at me.
I was breathing hard, my lungs heaving for air as I smiled at him.
“Crap.” He finally managed to get out a word.
My smile was wicked.
“You’re not supposed to kiss me at work.”
“You kissed me,” I reminded him.
“Crap,” he said again and swallowed hard as he straightened up, stepping away from me, obviously fighting to get his body back under control.
“You can nail me in your car.”
His frown came fast, and so did my grin.
“What?” I smiled wide.
“A Deputy US Marshal does not nail his spouse in the car.”
I arched an eyebrow for him. “Are you sure?”
He pointed at me. “I will take you home to our bed and nail you.”
“Oh yes, please.” I waggled my eyebrows for him.
“Just sit there,” he growled at me. “And wait while I get you signed out of here so we can go get the kids.”
“Not today, Marshal,” I told him.
He looked surprised. “You didn’t plan to pick up your children today?”
“No, your mom’s picking them up and then we’re going there for dinner.”
He squinted at me.
“You know she’s a planner,” I said cheerfully.
“Lemme get this straight,” he sighed. “We’re gonna be with them on a plane tomorrow, with them at a resort from Thursday to Saturday, and then with them again on a plane on Sunday coming home, but we’re still eating with them tonight because they won’t see us?”
“Your mom likes to coordinate and you know this, so just let it go.”
“Why?” He was annoyed.
“Why does she like to plan things or why are we indulging her?”
“The second one,” he grumbled. “Why do we do that?”
“Because we love her,” I said like it was obvious.
“No, screw that. I’m gonna call her and tell her we—”
“Why would you rock the boat? Why would you upset the delicate balance of all things Regina?”
I loved his mother, Regina Kage, with absolute abandon, and of everyone—her own children, their spouses, and all her grandchildren combined—she and I got along best. The reasons for that were twofold: first, because I’d never had a mother and craved one like a drug; second, and most of all, because I didn’t ever try to change her. We never fought; I allowed her to rearrange anything in my house she wanted, make suggestions on parenting—because really, her kids came out good, so where was the argument?—and most of all, when she fussed, whenever she fussed, I was at her disposal to lend a hand. We were good.
“Jory—”
“Let it go, Sam.”
He rolled his eyes, but we both knew he wouldn’t say a word. No one said a word to Regina Kage. We all did exactly as she wanted. She was the matriarch, after all.
“Seriously, though, we should cancel, you’re in no—”
“I’m fine, and besides, I think she had trip itineraries printed up, and I want to make sure to get mine.”
He was disgusted, but I got the smile I was after with the shake of his head, the you are too much and I give up one that I loved.
“So,” I said softly as my gaze skated over him. God, I loved looking at him. The broad shoulders that the suit jacket accentuated, the snug fit of the tailored dress shirt over his massive chest, and the stubble that covered his square, chiseled jaw even though he’d shaved that morning before work.
“What?” he asked, and his voice was husky as he stared at me.
“You’re gonna take me home?”
“Yes.”
“And stay with me?”
“Yeah. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
I stared into those eyes that I loved as much now as I had the first time he’d kissed me all those years ago. “You’re taking care of me again.”
He grunted and it was all male, all growly bear. “And?”
“And it’s nice.” I smiled at him, taking a loose hold of his tie.
He sighed and I got a trace of a smile. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” I said before he could leave.
“Why? What?”
“Come gimme kiss.”
“No.” He snorted out a laugh and then bent and kissed my forehead before he walked out of the room.
I was lost in thought, every brain cell I possessed absorbed with Sam Kage and what I was going to do to him with an afternoon alone, when my name was called.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
When I turned, there was a doctor there, and I registered almost instantly that it really wasn’t fair. He got to look like that and be brilliant? Normally you were smart or pretty, not both. He even had bright blue-green eyes. I noticed that because they were the exact shade of turquoise that I wanted when I was growing up. I had hated my brown eyes with a passion. Now things were different. My daughter and I had almost the same shade of deep chocolate brown with hints of gold, and the man who woke up in bed with me every morning never failed to mention that as eyes went, mine were his favorite color.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I flashed him a quick grin. “That’s me.”
“Hi.” He smiled warmly as he closed in, offering me his hand. “I’m Dr. Dwyer, and—”
“Jory, you—”
“Sam?”
My doctor called my man by his first name.
Sam stood there looking utterly gobsmacked.
Both men, my partner and the doctor, froze as they stood staring at each other.
What the hell…?
Doctor Dwyer had been interrupted by Sam’s return, and Sam had apparently been quite startled to see the doctor when he came charging back into the room.
I kept looking between them, feeling weirder by the second.
“Kevin,” Sam finally said.
The man took a step forward, and the smile, the light that hit his eyes, the shiver that ran through his long, lean swimmer’s frame, was not to be mistaken for anything other than absolute, quivering, pulse-pounding, blood-racing joy. Whoever he was, he was deliriously surprised and delighted to see Sam Kage.
I waited and realized that I had stopped breathing.
Who was this heavenly creature, this doctor who was looking at Sam like he was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his entire life?
“You….” Sam sucked in a breath. “What are you doing here?”
“Jesus,” the doctor gasped and rushed forward, arms lifted, ready to reach out and grab hold, reclaim.
Sam moved faster, meeting him and cutting him off, so basically, with his forward momentum halted, the good doctor was brought up short, almost to a jarring, lose-your-balance stop. Sam leaned, gave him the guy clench, tight-tight, then pushed off and back so Dr. Dwyer was basically left abandoned and bewildered, arms empty, looking lost.
“Nice to see you,” Sam said quickly, stepping close to the bed and taking my hand at the same time. “Jory, this is Dr. Kevin Dwyer. We met in Columbia when I was there working that drug bust after Dom went into witness protection. He was with Doctors Without Borders at that time. What are you doing here in Chicago?”
Years ago, Sam had left me recovering in the hospital to track down a drug cartel in Colombia on a tip from his corrupt partner. We had been apart for three years, and at some point he had met the good doctor.
Dr. Dwyer seriously looked like someone had punched him in the gut or run him over with a truck. It was hard to tell which better described him at that moment. “I,” he started but stopped, and then his eyes flicked to mine. “Jory?”
I smiled at him. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Sam told me all about you.”
And yet Sam had never, ever mentioned Kevin Dwyer to me. “Did you date?” I asked the doctor, because I didn’t mess around.
“Jor—”
“No,” he cut Sam off. “We lived together for three months.”
And my world imploded.
THE man was a pig, and it wasn’t just me who thought so. Rosa Martinez, who lived on the other side of the Petersons, agreed with me. In fact, all the women who lived on our cul-de-sac were of the same mind. Oliver Peterson, whose wife had just caught him cheating on her—again —was filth. It wasn’t the fact that they already had two children; it was the fact that she was currently pregnant with a third.
Sam, the love of my life, my partner, husband, and the guy who was parenting two small people with me, just shook his head the night before and kissed me breathless after telling me for the nine-hundredth time to please not get involved. Leave the neighbors alone; this was not Housewives of Wherever, we were not on reality TV. I had explained over the McDonald’s that the man had brought home instead of having me cook—which, after the last time, we had both agreed would never happen again—that I was involved because I was her friend.
“No,” he told me as we put the kids down. “You use that word so loosely. She’s an acquaintance, Jory, she’s not a friend.”
“She’s my neighbor, Sam, and her man’s a dog, and if she needs my help with whatever, I’m gonna give it to her.”
“I’m not saying not to be nice to her, but just don’t stick your nose in their business.”
I ignored him.
“Jory Harcourt!”
I gave him the most indignant look I could manage. “So I’m what, nosy now? I’m the busybody neighbor?”
He threw up his hands in defeat.
I gave him a superior grunt because I thought he was on his way out of the bedroom to check the house, make sure all the doors were locked, make sure the stove burners were all off, but then I realized he hadn’t moved. “What?”
“You’re very cute.”
I squinted at him. “Thirty-five-year-old men are not cute.”
“You’ll always be the twenty-two-year-old club kid I saw for the first time lying in the street with a beagle on top of him.”
“I thought George was a Jack Russell.”
“Nope.” He came toward me. “Beagle.”
“Go away.” I smiled at him, trying to shoo him out of the room. “Go make sure the zombie horde can’t get us.”
But instead of leaving, he grabbed me and slammed me up against the wall in our room. With his hot mouth nibbling up the side of my neck, his hands frantically disrobing me, and his hard groin pressed to my ass, my mind went completely blank. There was no way to concentrate when I had 220 pounds of hard-muscled man focused on getting me in bed.
But the next day, as I staggered around my kitchen—I never had been and never would be a morning person—and saw my neighbors on their front porch, Christie Peterson smiling tentatively, her husband scowling, I just wanted to go over and punch him out. I had an idea what I must have looked like: robe on, T-shirt and pajama bottoms under that, bunny slippers looking all bright-eyed and happy, I resembled the nosy neighbor in every sense.
A throat cleared behind me.
“Don’t you have to go to work?” I asked pointedly. It was Wednesday, not Saturday.
The warm rumbling chuckle was next. “You think maybe now since you’ve got one kid in preschool and the other in first grade that you should start thinking about going back to working from your office?”
Obviously my sanity was in question, because I was still working from home. I hoped the look I gave him when I turned and squinted conveyed my displeasure.
He snorted out a laugh.
I all-out scowled at the supervisory Deputy US Marshal standing beside me at the kitchen sink. We had both been looking at the Petersons. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what?”
I growled.
He pressed his beautiful lips together in a hard line so he wouldn’t smile.
“Sam?”
“No reason.”
“Spit it out.”
He cleared his throat. “I just think that perhaps you being home during the day is giving you cabin fever, and maybe you need to get back out in the real world and talk to the grown-ups.”
I huffed out an exasperated breath. “Sam, just because I don’t go to the office doesn’t mean I’m starved for adult contact. I talk to Dylan every day, I talk to Fallon every day. They’re my business partners, they need me, and they keep me involved with what’s going on at the office.”
“Okay.”
“I send out more e-mails than both of them combined!”
“I’m sure you do,” he said, sliding his hand around the back of my neck, then squeezing gently, massaging, and easing me closer. “I just think that maybe getting out of this house during the day would do you some good.”
I batted his hand away, whirling on him. “I go to the store, to the park, drop kids off at school, pick them up… when do I not see people?”
He grunted, rolled his eyes, and put his coffee cup down in the sink before his dark smoky-blue eyes flicked to mine.
“No,” I almost squeaked, turning to run.
So not fast enough.
You would think that a big man could not move like that, with so much speed, but Sam Kage’s athleticism and strength were never to be underestimated. At forty-six, he was just as powerful as he’d been when I first met him, and I finally understood the whole getting better with age thing. The man looked the best he ever had, and he lived well in his skin, so content, so happy both personally and professionally.
I was so proud of him and told him so often. He was an amazing father, a wonderful husband, a great son, and the kind of friend anyone would be happy to claim. I was biased because I loved him, but still, I saw people look at him and knew the truth. Four years after beginning his new job as a marshal, he was now the supervisor of the Chicago field office, overseeing five other deputies and three clerks. I had thought once he moved up, he’d become a sheriff, but apparently all they did was add the “supervisory” in there. A sheriff was a totally different thing. It made no sense from a Western standpoint. In every movie I had ever seen, the deputy got moved up to sheriff. As usual, Sam had just shaken his head at me.
As I ducked around the island in the middle of the kitchen, I thought for half a second that I would get away from him, but as he grabbed, yanked, and pinned me against the refrigerator, I realized how wrong I had been.
“All I meant to imply,” he began, tilting my head up with a hand on my chin, “was that since you have a six-year-old and a four-year-old now, you can do a half day at the office instead of working full-time from home. It might be nice after you drop them off to pick up a fancy cup of coffee and go to your office and actually see Dylan and Fallon and talk to them face to face.”
I was really far too interested in his mouth to listen to him. He had the kind of lips made for kissing, plump and dark, and when he smiled, there was this curve in the corner that could break your heart. Not that the rest of his rugged features were without appeal. His dark smoky blue-gray eyes with the deep laugh lines at the corners, his long straight nose, the hard square jaw, and the thick copper-gold eyebrows were a treat too. And his voice, over the phone or in person, deep and husky, edged with a growl, could send rippling heat through my entire body. But the man’s mouth, the shape of it, the feel of it… really, I was a fan.
“Are you listening to me?”
I lifted up from my height of five nine to his of six four, and he bent down at the same time. Our lips met and parted, and his tongue slid deep to taste me.
The sounds from the peanut gallery—choking and retching—and the tug on my robe instantly drained the heat from the encounter. Sam snorted out a laugh as he broke the kiss, both of us eyeing the short people standing close to us.
“That’s disgusting,” Kola assured me with a glare that a six-year-old shouldn’t have had, full of judgment and revulsion.
“Why?” I asked snidely.
“Your mouth has germs,” he informed me haughtily. “That’s why you told Hannah not to lick Chilly.”
“No, I told her not to lick Chilly because the cat doesn’t like to be licked by her.”
“He licks his body.”
“He does,” Hannah, our four-year-old, agreed with a nod. “Kola’s right.”
“But he doesn’t want you to do it,” I assured my daughter, directing my comment to her.
“How do you know?” Kola questioned.
“Yeah,” Hannah Banana chimed in again, always her big brother’s backup. “How do you know?”
I had to think.
Kola waited, squinting at me.
Hannah was waiting as well, one of her perfectly shaped dark brows arching. It was new. She had the same way of looking at me that her father did, like I was an idiot.
“Do not lick the cat! Nobody licks the cat!” Sam ordered when the silence stretched for too long.
I started laughing; only my husband would have to make such rules.
He looked down at his son, Mykola Thomas Kage, six years old going on forty, who was full of questions and opinions.
We had adopted him when he was three, from an agency in the Netherlands. When we had made the final trip to bring him home, he had seen us from the window of the orphanage director’s office and run to the door to meet us. We had been there two weeks and he already called Sam Daddy, which Sam was madly in love with hearing. But though Kola had been taught the American word meaning father, it was not his, not the one he had grown up hearing and had been waiting to use for someone who belonged to him. So he had tried out the one he knew on me.
Pa.
So simple a word but it meant so much.
I had heard it in the streets when we visited, along with the more formal, vader, and seen kids run to their fathers using it. Not the papa I knew, not what Sam’s father was called by his grandchildren, but instead just pa. When Kola called to me, I answered to it, and his face, the way it lit up, the absolute blinding joy, had been a gift.
Sam was Daddy, and Daddy represented Kola’s new life and his new family in the United States, and I was the comfort of the old. I was Pa, and he had named me.
Of course it didn’t matter to me what name he settled on. He could have called me Jory for all I cared; he was my kid, and that was all I gave a damn about. He was legally and completely mine and Sam’s, and that was what mattered. And we were good, the three of us, until the first agency we had contacted back when we’d started the whole adoption process called to tell us that there was a little girl from Montevideo ready for adoption. I had forgotten about them because they had never come through, but that turned out not to be the case. You heard from them when it was time, and it finally was.
I was surprised, Sam unsure, until the professional but not personable and definitely not warm gentleman slid the picture across the desk for us. He needed to know if we wanted the little girl in the photograph.
Yes, we wanted the angel very much.
Our family went from three to four with the coming of the little sister that Kola wanted nothing to do with until we were all home under one roof. He resented all of us going to the airport to pick her up, hated her crying in the car, and was really annoyed that Sam was carrying her instead of him. He was starting to fret, it was all over his face—until Sam knelt and picked him up too. Kids are so funny. As soon as Kola figured out that Hannah was planning on sharing us with him, that she wasn’t there to take his spot, that nothing was changing in the love department, just some tweaking in the time area, he decided he liked her. And now, with him at six and her at four, their bond was noticeable.
They fought like cats and dogs… but only sometimes. She cried, he moped, they chased each other and roughhoused, but nine times out of ten, I found her in his room in the morning. When we were out, he held her hand, he fixed things when she couldn’t, and he was supremely patient when she was trying to impart some tidbit of information. I was like, Spit it out, kid, but Kola just nodded and waited until some incident about a bug on a flower was all communicated in excruciating detail.
He brushed her off if she fell down, made her remember her mittens and hat, and could be counted on to translate her wishes to others if Sam and I were absent. Dylan Greer, my best friend, was really surprised because she was certain that, sometimes, Hannah Banana—or B, as we all called her—spoke in tongues. But Kola would just say that she wanted milk or a crayon or a flashlight. And he was never wrong. He was an excellent big brother, and she adored him.
Hannah Regina Kage—her middle name after Sam’s mother—had the most adorable little button nose on the planet. I would lean in to kiss her sometimes and nibble on her nose instead. It made her squeal with delight. Putting her toes in my mouth was also cause for raucous laughter. Even at a year old, she had a good laugh. It was not timid or soft. She was small, but how she expressed herself was big. People heard the deep, throaty sound and were enchanted. I had been under her spell at first glance.
In our neighborhood in River Park, sometimes people still looked at us when we were out walking. And most questioned Kola when they got close, since with his deep-set cobalt-blue eyes, sharp European features, and dark-brown hair, he didn’t look like either me or Sam. But Hannah, who was half-Uruguayan, was obviously adopted. What was funny, though, was that people sometimes questioned whether Gentry—born with my brother Dane’s charcoal eyes instead of my sister-in-law Aja’s honey-brown ones—actually belonged to his own mother. I always wondered why people cared. If your kid was blue and you were orange, who gave a crap as long as you loved and cherished the blue kid? People still surprised me.
“Pa.”
Hannah was looking up at me like I was the village idiot.
“What?”
“If Kola can’t lick Chilly, you can’t lick Daddy.”
I had a terrible image of giving Sam a blow job just then, and he probably knew it, which was why he grabbed me and covered my mouth with his hand. “Will you two go finish your breakfast, please?”
They left then, but not without casting looks back.
Sam moved his hand but bent and kissed me. I received it happily, and of course, there was more retching.
“Kola Kage!” I admonished him even as I laughed. “Will you knock that off?”
“Ewww,” Hannah squeaked out.
When I looked over at them, Kola was mixing his oatmeal with butter and brown sugar, making it burp with his spoon.
“Just eat it,” I told him.
“I’m making it edible.”
Edible. Damn kid and his damn vocabulary.
“Leave the Petersons alone,” Sam sighed, long-suffering as he was.
“I am.” I bit my bottom lip.
“Jory…,” he cautioned me.
I tried for innocent.
“Daddy,” Kola said, back beside us, looking up at Sam.
“Don’t lick the cat,” Sam reiterated, bending down to one knee as his son stepped into his arms and put his hands on his face. “All right?”
“Okay.” Kola nodded.
“Okay,” Sam sighed, pulling Kola close, hugging him tight for a minute.
“What’s homonic?”
“I dunno.” Sam yawned, leaning back so father and son could look at each other. “Where’d you hear it?”
“Pa told Auntie Dyl that Jake’s parents won’t let him come play at my house ’cause they’re homonic.”
Sam nodded. “That’s homophobic, and that means that Jake’s parents don’t want him to come over because you have two fathers.”
Kola squinted at Sam. “Why?”
“Some people just don’t like it.”
“Why?”
“Well, I think that some people are afraid of what it means.”
He shook his head. “What does it mean?”
“That if you can have two fathers, maybe things are changing.”
His scowl made his little eyebrows furrow. It was adorable. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you will when you’re older, buddy.”
“It’s dumb.”
“Yes it is,” Sam agreed, hugging him again. “But I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.” He hugged Sam back tight, both arms wrapped around his neck. “Stuart and his mom are coming with me and Pa and Hannah and Uncle Evan and Bryce and Seth and Auntie Dyl and Mica and Mabel and Tess and her dad to the movies next Saturday, so Jake’s the one who’s missing out.”
“Who’s coming again?” Sam teased him.
“Stuart and his mom are coming with—”
“Stop,” I cut Kola off. “Your father heard you the first time.”
Sam grunted and looked up at me. “How come I didn’t get invited to the movies?”
“First”—I smiled at him—“the Chipmunks give you hives, and secondly, won’t you be fishing with Pat and Chaz that Saturday?”
“What Saturday are we talking about?”
“We’re leaving tomorrow for Phoenix, for the reunion, and we’ll come home Sunday.”
“Yes, I know this.”
“Okay, so then I’m talking about not this coming Saturday, since we’ll be out of town, but the one after that.”
“Oh, so that’s right, then.” He smiled brightly. “I’ll be fishing. Sorry I won’t make the movie, babe.”
“Liar,” I said flatly.
He cackled.
But it was going to be fun. I was going with my two kids, my buddy Evan was bringing his sons Bryce and Seth, and Dylan was schlepping her two kids: her son, Mica, who was her oldest, and Mabel, her daughter, who was the same age as Kola. It was unfortunate that they had made another Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, but all the kids were dying to see it, so we were making a day of it. I was still waiting to hear from Aja to see if she was coming along as well. I knew that Robert and Gentry were just as interested in helium-fueled rodents as the rest of our kids, but Aja wasn’t, and she could use a day off.
Aja, who had been in the public school realm when she first married my brother, as first a principal and then assistant superintendent of schools, had found herself unable to enact change at that level. Aja could not amend policy or allocate funds, but instead of growing bitter about what she saw happening around her—the apathy and deliberate ignorance—she decided to do something about it. In her present position as the associate dean of education at De Paul University, training and inspiring the next generation of teachers, she was preparing bright minds for the real world as well as toughening skins. She armed them and motivated them and made sure they knew she would always be a resource for them even after they graduated. All that plus parenting two children, being a wife, attending a myriad of social functions with her husband, and the result was a worn-out Aja Harcourt. I wanted to help lessen her load.
As I was driving back home after dropping off Kola and Hannah—they both went to the same Montessori school close to Oak Park—I called Aja from the car and offered to take her two short people off her hands instead of having her join us. I was immediately called a saint.
“Jory, I need some me and Dane time.”
“How ’bout I pick Robbie and Gen up next Friday after school and keep them until Sunday morning? We’ll all go to brunch and you can have them back. But that gives you Friday night and all day Saturday. Whaddya say?”
I thought she was going to cry, she was so thankful.
“So is that a yes?”
“Ohmygod, yes, that’s a yes!”
“You’re starting to sound like me.”
“Thank you, baby.”
“What is family for?”
“But you’re the only one I trust.”
“That’s not true.” I smiled into the phone as I turned from the side street I was on into traffic on Harlem Avenue, heading for home. I went maybe ten feet before I and everyone else on the street came to a grinding halt.
“Yes, but since Carmen got her dream job globetrotting around the world and my folks fled to Florida and Alex to Delaware, you and Sam are the only family I’ve got here.”
“You have a lot of other girlfriends,” I told her as I tried to see what the problem was around the SUV in front of me.
“I know, but I would check in with the others, I don’t need to check with you and Sam. He’ll kill anyone that comes near my kids, and you worry more than I do.”
“I don’t worry.”
She snorted out a laugh over the phone.
“That was very undignified,” I said as I leaned back in the driver’s seat of the sleek black minivan I utterly adored. Everyone else I knew had SUVs that were, I was certain, helping to destroy the environment. My minivan was not part of Satan’s master plan, and I loved my car that proclaimed me married with children as well as safety conscious. I was looking forward to Kola starting soccer in the spring so the picture of domestic bliss would be complete. I had a sweater all picked out.
“You bring it out of me,” Aja cackled.
“Whatever, I’ll call you when I get back from the reunion on Sunday.”
She started snickering.
“What?”
“Family reunion.” She was laughing now. “Oh the horror!”
“It’ll be fine,” I told her as I noticed a man striding by my window. It was weird that he was walking down the middle of the street and not on the sidewalk, but since we were in gridlock, he was in no danger of getting run over. “Hey, your kids like Mountain Dew and Oreos, right?”
“They’re staying with you for two days. Feed them whatever you want.”
I was laughing when I hung up, but when the SUV in front of me suddenly reversed, crashing into my front bumper, I yelled and laid on my horn. But the car didn’t stop—it kept grinding metal, and I realized that he, or she, was trying to get enough of an angle to go up onto the curb to the right.
I took a picture of the license plate with my phone, thanked God that my kids weren’t with me, and was about to call the police to report the accident when I saw the passenger door of the SUV open. What was confusing was that the small woman who scrambled out had keys in her hand. It was like she had been driving but had not wanted to get out of the driver’s side door. When she flung open the back door, a little rocket seat was visible: she had a toddler.
I got out fast and went around the back of my van—even as the guy in the car behind me honked, leaned out, and told me to get back behind the fucking wheel—and darted to her side.
She whirled on me with a can of pepper spray in hand.
“Wait! I’m here to help.”
Her eyes were huge as she looked at me, shoved the can into my chest, and told me to look out for the guy so she could get her son out of the car. She had been too frightened to even open her door.
“What guy?”
“I don’t know, some psycho. I think he killed the man in the car in front of me,” she cried. “I think he has a gun or—oh God!”
Turning, I saw a man advancing on us. “Move your fucking cars!”
“Get inside!” I ordered her. “Lock it!”
She climbed into the backseat around her kid, and I heard the locks behind me as the man advanced on me fast.
He had a lug wrench, not a gun, and since I could run if I needed to, I went from terrified to annoyed very quickly. “What the hell are you doing?” I barked at him. “You’re scaring the crap out of this lady!”
“Move your cars! This whole street is just full of fucking cars!”
He wasn’t even looking at me; I doubt he could have told me where he was or what he was doing. Maybe the road rage had made him snap; perhaps something else. I didn’t know and I didn’t care—he was carrying around an automotive tool like a weapon. That was really my only concern. The lady in the SUV was freaked because her kid was in the car and this guy was acting crazy. If my kids were with me, I would have had the same reaction.
“Stop,” I ordered him. “Don’t come any closer.”
He kept coming, and he raised the wrench like maybe he was thinking of braining me with it. I aimed the nozzle of the pepper spray and made sure to get his face.
His scream was loud and wounded, but he didn’t drop the tool.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
It was the guy who had yelled at me earlier, whose car was in gridlock behind mine.
“You just attacked this guy?” he roared right before he hit me.
I went down hard, hitting the van as I bounced off it, but from my angle, I could see the guy I had sprayed coming at him.
Kicking hard, I knocked the guy who had just hit me off balance, and he tumbled to the ground beside me.
“What the fuck are you—”
“Look out!” I yelled as the guy with the lug wrench came after us.
“Oh shit,” he screamed, scrambling back away from me, moving to run.
“Drop the weapon!”
“Get on the ground!”
Normally, policemen—even though I’m married to an ex one—are not my favorite people. As a rule, they catch me doing crap I shouldn’t be but somehow miss everyone else talking on their cell phones, running red lights, and speeding.
But right at that moment, as I saw the uniforms, noted the drawn guns, and heard the orders being roared out, I was comforted.
The guy dropped the lug wrench and went to his knees.
“All the way down, face on the pavement!”
“You saved my life,” the guy who hit me said.
“I—”
But something slammed the back of my head, and everything went dark.
MY HUSBAND, my brother, family, and friends would say that yes, Jory Harcourt is a trouble magnet, but I think it’s more coincidence than anything else when fate decides to screw with me. Especially this time: I was going home from dropping off my kids, a trip I made Monday through Friday, normally without incident. How was I to know that I would end up in the crosshairs of accidental crazy?
“A what?” the policeman who was taking my statement at the hospital asked.
“Trouble magnet,” I told him as I sighed deeply.
“How did you get knocked out?” he asked me.
“I guess the lady I told to stay in her SUV, she opened the door really fast and I was sitting right beside her car and… you know.”
He nodded. “I see.”
“That’s why vans are better, the doors slide,” I educated him.
His smile was patronizing.
“I—”
“Jory!” His yell bounced off the walls, and I winced.
The officer looked startled. “Who was—”
“Scooch back,” I ordered, and took a breath to get the required amount of air into my lungs. “In here!”
The curtain was flung open moments later and there was Sam, jaw clenched, muscles cording in his neck, eyes dark and full of too many things to soothe at once.
“Detective Kage?”
Sam turned to the officer.
“Oh, no, marshal.” He tried to smile at my glowering man.
Sam’s attention returned to me, and I smiled as I lifted my arms for him.
Moving fast, Sam closed the short distance between us and hauled me forward and crushed me against him.
It was not gentle; the entire movement was jarring and hard.
I loved it.
“Scared me,” he said as he clutched me tight.
I knew I had, which was the reason for the grab. I leaned into him, nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck, and slid my arms under the suit jacket and over the crisp dress shirt. He smelled good, a faint trace of cologne, fabric softener, and warm male. I whimpered softly in the back of my throat.
“Those calls take years off my life, you know?”
“What calls?”
“The Jory’s in the hospital calls.”
I nodded, and there was a rumble of a grunt before he leaned back and looked down into my face. His eyes clocked me, checking, making sure I was whole and safe.
“I’m fine,” I said as he lifted his hand and knotted it into my hair, tilting my head back as he examined my right eye and my cheek.
“Yeah, you don’t look fine,” he said, and his voice was low and menacing. “Who did this?”
“There was a guy behind me, and he didn’t understand why I sprayed the man with the lug wrench, and he—”
“Stop,” he cut me off, dropping his hand from my hair as he turned his head to the policeman. “Talk.”
I could tell from his change of tone that he wasn’t waiting on me, but apparently the officer could not. “Hello?” Sam snapped icily.
“Oh-oh,” the guy stammered and then recounted to Sam the events of the morning.
“So the lady in the SUV knocked him out when she opened the door?” He was trying to make sure he understood everything.
“Yes.”
Sam grunted.
“She’s really sorry about it. She told me that your partner there saved her life.”
That didn’t make it any better, at least for Sam.
“My van is—”
“We’ll take care of the van and get you a rental until it’s fixed. Just don’t worry about it.”
“No, I know,” I snapped at him. Sometimes—a lot of the time—Sam treated me like an invalid. It was happening more and more lately, like I needed to be taken care of, same as the kids, because I couldn’t think for myself or reason things out. “I just wanted to know where my vehicle was towed to… Officer.”
I had turned to the man in uniform, pinned him with my gaze—my question was directed to him—and he was still looking at Sam to see if he should answer me.
“Officer?”
“I can find out where the—”
“No,” I shut Sam down, eyes wide as I waited. “Where’s my car?”
“We, um.” He coughed as he passed me a business card from his clipboard. “Had it towed to a garage downtown and—”
“Just stop,” Sam barked at me, snatching the card away. “Sit here while I go find your doctor and figure out if you have a concussion or—”
“Sam—”
“After I get you home, then we’ll worry about the damn van.”
“I can—”
“Stop,” he ordered again, and because I didn’t want to have a scene, I went still and quiet and stared at the clock on the wall.
The officer muttered something and left, and Sam told me that he had to go and find out about the other people in the accident and would see about my release at the same time.
I stayed quiet.
“You’re gonna sulk now?”
I turned my head and was about to say something when he lifted his hand.
“I don’t wanna fight with you. Just let me do this.”
“I’m not a child, Sam. I can take care of my own car. I can do—”
“So I shouldn’t be here? I shouldn’t have even come?”
“No, I just… lately it seems to be the Sam Show and not the Sam and Jory Show. You do everything, and I don’t get why that’s happening.”
His eyes searched mine.
“Sam? Do you think I’m helpless?”
The glare I was getting would have terrified most people. But this was the guy who loved me, and as always, when I stopped and actually used my brain, I understood what was really going on.
He was terrified.
I had scared the crap out of him that morning, and because he was waiting for the other shoe to drop anyway… it was almost like he was expecting bad news. And he was—he was expecting the worst.
“You think me and Kola and Hannah could get taken away.”
“What? No,” he said quietly, not a lot of force behind his words. “No.”
He was such a liar.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, putting my hands on his heavily muscled chest, unable to stop myself from curling my fingers into his shirt, holding on. Yes, he was being overprotective, but not for the reasons I thought. He didn’t think I was stupid; he just didn’t want to let me, or his kids, out of his sight for any reason. Not ever. And because he was trying not to be suffocating, he was managing the exact opposite. “I wasn’t thinking.”
He took a breath. “What’re you talking about?”
“The more you work, the more you see, the more you realize that this, what we have, is not the norm. Most people don’t get the kind of happiness that we have, the home we have, so you get over protective and smothering.”
He furrowed his brows, and I smiled up at him as I hooked my legs around the back of his thighs. He leaned closer, hands on either side of me on the narrow hospital bed. “You think you know me?”
I nodded, my fingers unclenching from his shirt. “Yes. I know you well.”
He bent toward me, and I twined an arm around his neck to draw him close. His breath fanned softly across my face before his mouth settled over mine.
I loved to kiss him. Whenever, however, for as long as he’d let me or as long as he wanted to. I was his for the taking.
He swept his tongue in, mating it with mine, tangled, rubbed, pushed, and shoved. Our lips never parted, not once, even for air. I felt his arms wrap around me, crush me to his chest, and hold tight. I had a hand knotted in his hair, and the moan I couldn’t stifle was low and aching. When he suddenly shoved me back, breaking the scorching, devouring contact, my whine of protest was loud.
He was flushed and panting, his lips swollen, his pupils blown as he stared at me.
I was breathing hard, my lungs heaving for air as I smiled at him.
“Crap.” He finally managed to get out a word.
My smile was wicked.
“You’re not supposed to kiss me at work.”
“You kissed me,” I reminded him.
“Crap,” he said again and swallowed hard as he straightened up, stepping away from me, obviously fighting to get his body back under control.
“You can nail me in your car.”
His frown came fast, and so did my grin.
“What?” I smiled wide.
“A Deputy US Marshal does not nail his spouse in the car.”
I arched an eyebrow for him. “Are you sure?”
He pointed at me. “I will take you home to our bed and nail you.”
“Oh yes, please.” I waggled my eyebrows for him.
“Just sit there,” he growled at me. “And wait while I get you signed out of here so we can go get the kids.”
“Not today, Marshal,” I told him.
He looked surprised. “You didn’t plan to pick up your children today?”
“No, your mom’s picking them up and then we’re going there for dinner.”
He squinted at me.
“You know she’s a planner,” I said cheerfully.
“Lemme get this straight,” he sighed. “We’re gonna be with them on a plane tomorrow, with them at a resort from Thursday to Saturday, and then with them again on a plane on Sunday coming home, but we’re still eating with them tonight because they won’t see us?”
“Your mom likes to coordinate and you know this, so just let it go.”
“Why?” He was annoyed.
“Why does she like to plan things or why are we indulging her?”
“The second one,” he grumbled. “Why do we do that?”
“Because we love her,” I said like it was obvious.
“No, screw that. I’m gonna call her and tell her we—”
“Why would you rock the boat? Why would you upset the delicate balance of all things Regina?”
I loved his mother, Regina Kage, with absolute abandon, and of everyone—her own children, their spouses, and all her grandchildren combined—she and I got along best. The reasons for that were twofold: first, because I’d never had a mother and craved one like a drug; second, and most of all, because I didn’t ever try to change her. We never fought; I allowed her to rearrange anything in my house she wanted, make suggestions on parenting—because really, her kids came out good, so where was the argument?—and most of all, when she fussed, whenever she fussed, I was at her disposal to lend a hand. We were good.
“Jory—”
“Let it go, Sam.”
He rolled his eyes, but we both knew he wouldn’t say a word. No one said a word to Regina Kage. We all did exactly as she wanted. She was the matriarch, after all.
“Seriously, though, we should cancel, you’re in no—”
“I’m fine, and besides, I think she had trip itineraries printed up, and I want to make sure to get mine.”
He was disgusted, but I got the smile I was after with the shake of his head, the you are too much and I give up one that I loved.
“So,” I said softly as my gaze skated over him. God, I loved looking at him. The broad shoulders that the suit jacket accentuated, the snug fit of the tailored dress shirt over his massive chest, and the stubble that covered his square, chiseled jaw even though he’d shaved that morning before work.
“What?” he asked, and his voice was husky as he stared at me.
“You’re gonna take me home?”
“Yes.”
“And stay with me?”
“Yeah. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
I stared into those eyes that I loved as much now as I had the first time he’d kissed me all those years ago. “You’re taking care of me again.”
He grunted and it was all male, all growly bear. “And?”
“And it’s nice.” I smiled at him, taking a loose hold of his tie.
He sighed and I got a trace of a smile. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” I said before he could leave.
“Why? What?”
“Come gimme kiss.”
“No.” He snorted out a laugh and then bent and kissed my forehead before he walked out of the room.
I was lost in thought, every brain cell I possessed absorbed with Sam Kage and what I was going to do to him with an afternoon alone, when my name was called.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
When I turned, there was a doctor there, and I registered almost instantly that it really wasn’t fair. He got to look like that and be brilliant? Normally you were smart or pretty, not both. He even had bright blue-green eyes. I noticed that because they were the exact shade of turquoise that I wanted when I was growing up. I had hated my brown eyes with a passion. Now things were different. My daughter and I had almost the same shade of deep chocolate brown with hints of gold, and the man who woke up in bed with me every morning never failed to mention that as eyes went, mine were his favorite color.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I flashed him a quick grin. “That’s me.”
“Hi.” He smiled warmly as he closed in, offering me his hand. “I’m Dr. Dwyer, and—”
“Jory, you—”
“Sam?”
My doctor called my man by his first name.
Sam stood there looking utterly gobsmacked.
Both men, my partner and the doctor, froze as they stood staring at each other.
What the hell…?
Doctor Dwyer had been interrupted by Sam’s return, and Sam had apparently been quite startled to see the doctor when he came charging back into the room.
I kept looking between them, feeling weirder by the second.
“Kevin,” Sam finally said.
The man took a step forward, and the smile, the light that hit his eyes, the shiver that ran through his long, lean swimmer’s frame, was not to be mistaken for anything other than absolute, quivering, pulse-pounding, blood-racing joy. Whoever he was, he was deliriously surprised and delighted to see Sam Kage.
I waited and realized that I had stopped breathing.
Who was this heavenly creature, this doctor who was looking at Sam like he was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his entire life?
“You….” Sam sucked in a breath. “What are you doing here?”
“Jesus,” the doctor gasped and rushed forward, arms lifted, ready to reach out and grab hold, reclaim.
Sam moved faster, meeting him and cutting him off, so basically, with his forward momentum halted, the good doctor was brought up short, almost to a jarring, lose-your-balance stop. Sam leaned, gave him the guy clench, tight-tight, then pushed off and back so Dr. Dwyer was basically left abandoned and bewildered, arms empty, looking lost.
“Nice to see you,” Sam said quickly, stepping close to the bed and taking my hand at the same time. “Jory, this is Dr. Kevin Dwyer. We met in Columbia when I was there working that drug bust after Dom went into witness protection. He was with Doctors Without Borders at that time. What are you doing here in Chicago?”
Years ago, Sam had left me recovering in the hospital to track down a drug cartel in Colombia on a tip from his corrupt partner. We had been apart for three years, and at some point he had met the good doctor.
Dr. Dwyer seriously looked like someone had punched him in the gut or run him over with a truck. It was hard to tell which better described him at that moment. “I,” he started but stopped, and then his eyes flicked to mine. “Jory?”
I smiled at him. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Sam told me all about you.”
And yet Sam had never, ever mentioned Kevin Dwyer to me. “Did you date?” I asked the doctor, because I didn’t mess around.
“Jor—”
“No,” he cut Sam off. “We lived together for three months.”
And my world imploded.
The Ghost Had An Early Check-Out by Josh Lanyon
It was after eleven by the time Nick got home.
The apartment was dark and silent. It smelled of paint and linseed oil, which was how home smelled now. It would not smell like cooking because Perry did not bother to cook when Nick was not around for meals. It was a question as to whether he even bothered to eat.
Nick quietly set his bag down and turned on the living room light. God it was good to be back. He looked around approvingly. The room was comfortably furnished. His old blue sofa was positioned against one wall. Two small end tables they’d picked up at a Goodwill store sat at either end. The tables were topped with matching alabaster lamps that Perry assured him were terrific finds. Maybe. Nick had doubts about the antiquated wiring, but Perry loved them, so he’d bought the lamps. Nick’s framed seascape hung on the opposite wall. A tall mahogany bookshelf, another Goodwill find, held Perry’s paperbacks and his vintage clock. They were using an old trunk for their coffee table. Most of the remaining available space was taken up with Perry’s canvases—those that were either on their way out to galleries and local shops or those on their way back.
Everything appeared neat and tidy and in its place. Everything but Perry.
A quick glance in the bedroom verified that he was not in. Nick swallowed his disappointment. It was unusual for Perry to go to bed before midnight, and he hadn’t known Nick was heading back to LA—Nick hadn’t wanted to let him down in case things didn’t wrap up on schedule—however, a survey of the apartment made it clear that not only was Perry not there, he hadn’t been home since breakfast.
His rinsed cereal bowl sat in the sink. A box of Froot Loops sat on the breakfast counter. Perry teased Nick being a neat freak, but he also did his best to accommodate those fifteen years of military regimen and order.
Nick stared at the red and white cereal bowl with a sinking feeling.
There were any number of benign explanations for why Perry wasn’t home. He could be out with friends. He wasn’t exactly a party animal, but he had made friends in art school and he did hang out with them occasionally. He wouldn’t have left a note because he wasn’t expecting to see Nick until tomorrow evening at the earliest.
He could have gone to a movie.
There were less benign possibilities too.
He could be stranded somewhere. That piece of junk car of his was always breaking down.
He could have had a severe asthma attack and landed in the hospital. Although, fortunately, he was so much better now that he was on those controller medications, an attack wasn’t the concern it once would have been. LA’s smog wasn’t great for him, but it had been months since he’d had a real flare-up.
Nick listened to the sound of traffic outside the apartment as he continued to uneasily study Perry’s cereal bowl. The streets were never silent here. At three o’clock in the morning, you could still hear the rush of the nearby freeway.
Well, it was a trade-off. Peace and quiet in exchange for a real job for him and a decent art school for Perry.
Unbidden, another thought slithered into his brain: he could have met someone.
What the hell? Where was that thought coming from? It wasn’t the first time either. He rejected it instantly, impatiently. For God’s sake. Perry wasn’t home to greet him and his thoughts jumped there?
It wasn’t like he was even the jealous type. He knew Perry loved him, and God knew he loved Perry. More than he’d ever imagined he could love anyone. He trusted Perry.
But there was that ten-year age gap and the fact that Perry had never been exposed to so many other gay men before the move to LA.
Bullshit. Working all these goddamned divorce cases was what even put the thought in his head.
That said, he’d have to be blind not to notice the way other guys responded to Perry—or the way Perry responded to finally getting some appreciative male attention. Meaning only that Perry’s blushing confusion at being flirted with was touching.
And the kid was alone a lot. It couldn’t be helped. Nick was low man on the totem pole and most of the out-of-town and late-night gigs fell to him. Fair enough. He was grateful for the job and beyond grateful at the possibility that he might even be made a partner eventually. But it meant Perry was on his own in the big, bad city a lot of the time.
And so what? Whatever was keeping Perry out at this time of night, it was not some illicit affair. That the idea even crossed his mind was proof Nick was spending way too much time photographing cheating wives and double-dealing husbands.
Whatever. The job was what it was, and what it mostly was, was adulterous spouses and fraudulent insurance claims. He was lucky to have it. But. Not exactly why he’d become a navy SEAL.
But then he wasn’t a SEAL anymore.
Nick was brooding over this, staring out the window over the kitchen sink at the smog-dimmed stars when he heard the smothered sound of Perry’s cough outside the apartment door. He stepped out of the kitchen as Perry’s key turned the lock.
Perry opened the door, clearly surprised to find the lights on. His thin, pointy face lit up as he spotted Nick. “Hey, you’re home!”
Nick retorted, “One detective per family is e—” but the rest of it was cut off as Perry launched himself. Nick’s arms automatically locked around him and his mouth came down hard on Perry’s eager one.
What was it about Perry? He was cute enough, sure. Medium height, lanky, and boyish-looking. His hair was blonde and spiky. His eyes were big and brown and as long lashed as a cartoon character. In this town where two out of every three guys looked like they were trying out for a role in a major motion picture, Perry was almost strikingly ordinary. Maybe that was it. The fact that Perry didn’t look like everyone else. That he didn’t act like everyone else.
It was funny though because Perry was almost the complete opposite of what Nick had always thought was his type. Not that he had really thought of himself as having a type—beyond wanting someone with a penis.
Even after nine months, that unstinting…what the hell would you call it? Sweetness sounded too sappy, but there was something so honest, so generous in Perry’s responses. It made Nick’s heart feel too big for his chest. Closed his throat so that he could rarely say the things he wanted to say, things that Perry deserved to hear.
I love you. It scares me how much I love you.
Instead, he said gruffly, “Where the hell have you been at this hour?”
Perry didn’t seem to hear the gruffness. His wide brown eyes smiled guilelessly up into Nick’s. “I was sketching—”
He had to stop though, starting to wheeze. He threw an apologetic look at Nick and dug out his rescue inhaler. He took a couple of quick puffs while Nick watched, frowning.
This was not good. He didn’t like the sudden alarming reappearance of coughing and wheezing. He put a hand on Perry’s shoulder. Under Nick’s tutelage, Perry had built up some muscle, but he had not really put on much weight. His shoulders were still bony, his collarbones sharp.
“You okay?”
Perry put the inhaler away—he didn’t like using it in front of Nick. As if he thought Nick looked down on him for it?
He said, “It was so dusty up there!”
“Where? Where’ve you been?” Nick hoped he didn’t sound as accusatory as he did to his own ears.
“I drove up to Angel’s Rest.”
“Where?”
“That old hotel in the hills. Remember at Dorian’s exhibition last Saturday? The 1920s hotel in those photos?”
“The abandoned place on Laurel Canyon?”
Jesus fucking Christ. He remembered Perry had seemed fascinated by those photos. But hiking around those hills on his own? Anything could happen to him, from being bit by a rattlesnake to running into some crazed homeless person.
Nick didn’t let any of that show on his face. That was one thing he had decided early on. He was not going to undermine Perry’s confidence or self-resilience with his own fears. Perry was not his child, he was his partner. Physically frail or not, he was a grown man.
“Right,” Perry said quickly, as though he sensed everything Nick was determined not to say. “Only it’s not abandoned. Well, not completely.”
Now, studying him more closely in the lamplight, Nick noticed Perry’s t-shirt was smeared with dust and torn at the collar. And—more alarming—his knuckles were scraped and cut.
Perry said, “Anyway, I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t know you’d be home tonight. I bought pork chops for when you got home.”
“Were you in fight?”
Perry’s eyelashes flicked up guiltily. “Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Nick felt as winded as if Perry had punched him. Trying to picture him in a fight was—well, yes, Nick had been showing him some moves, tried to prepare him a little in case he ever had to defend himself—but still, Perry in a fight?
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” Perry said. “Should I cook the pork chops?”
“I’ll fix us something to eat. You talk.”
In the kitchen Nick grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge, uncapped them, handing one to Perry and taking a long swallow from his own. He came up for air and exhaled. He’d needed that.
“How did the job go?” Perry asked, watching him.
“The usual. It was okay. I want to hear about your week.”
Nick dug the package of pork chops out of the fridge while Perry told him about sketching Angel’s Rest over the past few days—Nick hanging onto his patience while Perry was momentarily distracted by his enthusiasm for crumbling architecture and light and shadow—before finally describing hearing someone yelling for help from the hotel grounds.
Nick clenched his jaw on his instinctive protest. Of course, Perry would respond. Of course, he would try to help. It was the right thing to do, and by God Nick was not going to try to tell him otherwise—although the sight of Perry sitting there with his torn t-shirt, bruised knuckles, and shining eyes worried the hell out of him.
While he prepared the pork chops, he heard out the whole ridiculous but still alarming story of men in skeleton costumes with wooden swords— He was both proud and aghast that Perry had charged into the middle of that.
Perry chattered on, barely touching his own beer.
“He said his name was Horace Daly. He used to be an actor. He lives at the hotel. It’s not a hotel anymore though. Now it’s sort of like apartments. Kind of like the Alston Estate really. Only—”
“Horace Daly,” Nick interrupted. “The actor. I remember him.”
“Yeah? I didn’t recognize his name, when he introduced himself, but I did sort of recognize his face.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“No. He’s pretty old, but he seems spry. He’s retired now, of course. You should see that place, Nick. He’s got a bunch of movie memorabilia everywhere. You walk down a corridor and suddenly you see a life-sized mummy standing in the shadows. Or a chopped off head sitting on a table. All these props from his films. There’s a gibbet in the old ballroom. The real thing they used in his movie, not replicas. At one time Horace thought maybe he could turn part of the hotel into a museum.” Perry’s eyes shone with enthusiasm, the artist in him no doubt getting off on the workmanship that went into creating realistic-looking skeletons and ghouls or whatever it was Daly kept in his closet.
Nick said, “Right. He was in all those old horror flicks. Night of the Blue Witch, Seven Brides for Seven Demons, Sex and the Single Ghoul.”
“My parents wouldn’t let me watch that stuff.” Perry’s expression was one of brooding regret.
Nick bit back a grin. “No, well. So, Daly is still around and lives in an abandoned hotel in Laurel Canyon?”
“Exactly. But that’s the thing. It’s not abandoned. He owns the property. He rents the suites out to regular tenants.” Perry amended, “Well, maybe regular isn’t the word. I met a couple of them. But he’s got about seven people renting from him.”
“Huh,” said Nick, noncommittal.
Perry’s big brown eyes—wide with worry and concern—raised to his. “Horace thinks someone’s trying to kill him.”
“To kill him,” Nick repeated. “He actually told you he thinks someone is trying to kill him?”
Perry nodded. “He says it’s not the first time he’s been attacked, but no one ever believed him because he’s never had a witness before.”
Several comments leaped to mind. Nick nobly squashed them all.
Perry was still following his own thoughts. “He thinks it might be a crazed fan or someone like that. Someone who saw his movies and kind of lost it.”
“So…like a movie critic?” Nick was teasing, but he didn’t like this at all. Perry had seen the guys dressed up in skeleton costumes, so Horace wasn’t making that part up, but the rest of it sounded pretty sketchy. Speaking as someone in the PI biz, homicides weren’t really all that common. Not even in LA.
Perry made a face and laughed, but he continued to watch Nick in that serious, hopeful way as though he imagined Nick might have an instant solution to old Horace’s problems.
“Why would someone want to knock Horace off?” Nick asked. “I mean, assuming it’s not a crazed fan out to get him.”
“But that’s it. He’s sure it is a crazed fan or a stalker. Someone confusing the movies with real life. He said for years he’s been getting weird, threatening letters.” Perry bit his lip thinking. “He’s hiding something though.”
Nick studied him. The funny thing about Perry was, despite his lack of worldly experience, he had good instincts about people. Reluctantly, he asked, “Why do you think so?”
Perry gave a little shake of his head. “I don’t know. He’s frightened. That’s real. He does believe someone is trying to kill him.” He said slowly, “What I think he’s lying about is not knowing why.”
“It would be in the letters, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess. Horace said he didn’t keep the letters.”
Nick considered that piece of information. It might be the truth. It might be that Horace had the letters but didn’t want anyone to see them. It might be that there never were any letters. He said, “I can tell you the usual reasons people kill. They want something someone else has. Usually money or sex.”
“What about revenge?” Perry asked.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. Just that it’s not nearly as common in real life as it is on TV.”
“I don’t think either money or sex would apply in Horace’s case.”
Probably not. Nick was having trouble believing in any scenario where an aging and long forgotten film star would have a murderous stalker.
“But you think revenge would?”
“Er…no. But by process of elimination…”
Nick sighed inwardly. Thanks to true crime TV, everybody thought they were a PI. Even his own boyfriend.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “If these yahoos wanted Horace dead, couldn’t they have killed him today?”
“Yes.”
“Wooden swords sound more like movie props to me.”
Perry’s expression grew animated. “Yes. Exactly. That’s it. That’s one reason why Horace thinks that this is the work of crazy stalker fans. He believes they tried to use wooden swords because that’s what you do with vampires. You drive a wooden stake through their heart.”
Okaaay. Judging by the bright eyes and pink cheeks, it was pretty clear that Horace wasn’t the only one who thought crazed fans wielding wooden swords made total sense.
“Did Horace report the attack to the police?”
“No. I tried to get him to, but he said he reported the earlier attacks, and nobody believed him. The police thought he was making it up for attention.”
Nick grunted. The same thought had occurred to him.
“Even his tenants thought he was imagining things.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the case.” Nick had to allow that much. “You saw these three yourself.”
“Yes.” Perry’s mind was on other things. “In the movie Why Won’t You Die, My Darling? Horace had to use a wooden sword to kill Angelina once she became a vampire. You see?”
“Mmhm.” Only too well.
“So, it does kind of make sense.”
Perry went back to watching him with that resolve-weakening mix of confidence and hope. Uneasily, Nick considered the hopefulness. What did Perry want? What were his expectations?
The pork chops were fried to perfection, their fragrant smell warming the small kitchen. Nick slid them from the frying pan onto two thick blue plates, then placed the plates on the table.
“Oh, I’m not hungry,” Perry said quickly. Nick guessed that he was thinking—correctly—that two paper-thin pork chops was not a lot of dinner for him. These four beautiful little pork chops would have been a special welcome home dinner for himself. He had to watch for that kind of thing because Perry was prone to unnecessary self-sacrifice. No way was he going to bed hungry. Not on Nick’s watch.
“Did you have dinner?”
“No, but—”
“Eat your dinner.”
Perry grimaced, but then smiled as though Nick were offering him a special treat and not his fair share of their rations.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Nick was tired. It had been a long ass drive from Modesto. His thoughts were still partly on his case. Perry had had a little adventure, but it was over and no harm done. Nick looked forward to a shower, a sleep, and eventually waking up with his favorite person on the entire planet. Rarely did they get an entire weekend to themselves.
Perry chewed a couple of neatly carved pieces of pork before saying slowly, “I wasn’t expecting you home until Monday.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get away. Why? Did you make plans?” Nick smiled, a little amused. He took it for granted if Perry had made plans he’d change them to accommodate him. Not that he wouldn’t fall in with Perry’s plans if Perry had his heart set on another art show or something.
Perry looked troubled. “I did, yeah.”
Nick’s brows rose. He was still tolerant.
“I told Horace I’d stay up there this weekend.”
“You…”
“He needs help, Nick.”
“It sounds like it, all right.” Nick was grim.
Perry seemed to evaluate Nick’s mood. He brightened. “What if you stayed up there with me? That would be even better. You know what you’re doing.”
“What I’m…” Nick swallowed the rest of it. He said very mildly, “Why would you agree to that? Why would you agree to spend the weekend at a falling down hotel where people in costumes are running around swinging swords at innocent bystanders?”
“I’ve told you. Horace is afraid,” Perry said. “Nobody else believes him.”
Nick had no answer for that. Or rather, he had so many answers he didn’t know where to start. He finally managed, “But they’ll believe him now. Right? He’s got corroborating testimony.”
Perry grinned. “‘Corroborating testimony.’ You’re starting to sound like a PI.”
“Yeah. But I’m serious. I don’t see how it would be of any help to Horace for you to stay over in that dump. What are you supposed to do?”
“I think he’s lonely and it’s a relief that someone believes him.”
“Okay, that’s great. But, again, what are you supposed to do about whatever’s going on there?” Nick was struggling not to let his impatience show. Anyway, he was not impatient with Perry. He was impatient with Horace Daly for dragging Perry into his problems.
“Lend moral support?”
“Isn’t that nice,” Nick said grimly. “But you’ve had to use your inhaler tonight for the first time in how long? That’s not a healthy place for you. Clearly.”
Perry colored. His jaw took on that stubborn jut that Nick had become all too familiar with during the past nine months. “I can’t not go places just because I have asthma.”
“Of course you can. Can’t.” Nick drew a breath. “Of course you can avoid situations that make you s—that aren’t good for you. That’s just commonsense.”
“I already agreed to help.”
“We’re going in circles here. Help him how? How does your being there help Daly?”
Perry said, and it sounded like he too was trying to control his impatience, “But that’s what I’m saying, Nick. If you went with me, you could look into it for him. You’re trained to do this.”
“Look into what?”
“Look into whoever is trying to kill Horace. And why.”
Perry’s stare was unwavering. Almost stern. Meeting it, Nick’s heart sank.
Clearly, he was not going to win this battle. Either he went with Perry or Perry went on his own, but go Perry would. The weekend Nick had in mind was already a write-off.
He struggled for a moment with his disappointment and irritation. Obviously, he could not leave Perry to deal with this bizarre situation on his own. Even if he could, well, there was something about the way Perry looked at him—like he really believed there was nothing Nick couldn’t handle, no problem he couldn’t solve—Nick didn’t want Perry to ever stop looking at him like that.
Anyway, the main thing was that they had the weekend together, right?
“Sounds like you have your mind already made up,” Nick said.
His tone was a little flat and some of the eagerness died out of Perry’s face. “You don’t want to go?”
“Want to go? No. If I do give up my weekend, what do I get out of it?” Nick asked.
Perry continued to eye him in that grave way. “Horace’s undying gratitude?” he suggested finally.
“Uh…”
Perry grinned slowly with that funny mixture of sweetness and mischievousness that always set Nick’s heart thudding in his chest. “Let me show you.”
The apartment was dark and silent. It smelled of paint and linseed oil, which was how home smelled now. It would not smell like cooking because Perry did not bother to cook when Nick was not around for meals. It was a question as to whether he even bothered to eat.
Nick quietly set his bag down and turned on the living room light. God it was good to be back. He looked around approvingly. The room was comfortably furnished. His old blue sofa was positioned against one wall. Two small end tables they’d picked up at a Goodwill store sat at either end. The tables were topped with matching alabaster lamps that Perry assured him were terrific finds. Maybe. Nick had doubts about the antiquated wiring, but Perry loved them, so he’d bought the lamps. Nick’s framed seascape hung on the opposite wall. A tall mahogany bookshelf, another Goodwill find, held Perry’s paperbacks and his vintage clock. They were using an old trunk for their coffee table. Most of the remaining available space was taken up with Perry’s canvases—those that were either on their way out to galleries and local shops or those on their way back.
Everything appeared neat and tidy and in its place. Everything but Perry.
A quick glance in the bedroom verified that he was not in. Nick swallowed his disappointment. It was unusual for Perry to go to bed before midnight, and he hadn’t known Nick was heading back to LA—Nick hadn’t wanted to let him down in case things didn’t wrap up on schedule—however, a survey of the apartment made it clear that not only was Perry not there, he hadn’t been home since breakfast.
His rinsed cereal bowl sat in the sink. A box of Froot Loops sat on the breakfast counter. Perry teased Nick being a neat freak, but he also did his best to accommodate those fifteen years of military regimen and order.
Nick stared at the red and white cereal bowl with a sinking feeling.
There were any number of benign explanations for why Perry wasn’t home. He could be out with friends. He wasn’t exactly a party animal, but he had made friends in art school and he did hang out with them occasionally. He wouldn’t have left a note because he wasn’t expecting to see Nick until tomorrow evening at the earliest.
He could have gone to a movie.
There were less benign possibilities too.
He could be stranded somewhere. That piece of junk car of his was always breaking down.
He could have had a severe asthma attack and landed in the hospital. Although, fortunately, he was so much better now that he was on those controller medications, an attack wasn’t the concern it once would have been. LA’s smog wasn’t great for him, but it had been months since he’d had a real flare-up.
Nick listened to the sound of traffic outside the apartment as he continued to uneasily study Perry’s cereal bowl. The streets were never silent here. At three o’clock in the morning, you could still hear the rush of the nearby freeway.
Well, it was a trade-off. Peace and quiet in exchange for a real job for him and a decent art school for Perry.
Unbidden, another thought slithered into his brain: he could have met someone.
What the hell? Where was that thought coming from? It wasn’t the first time either. He rejected it instantly, impatiently. For God’s sake. Perry wasn’t home to greet him and his thoughts jumped there?
It wasn’t like he was even the jealous type. He knew Perry loved him, and God knew he loved Perry. More than he’d ever imagined he could love anyone. He trusted Perry.
But there was that ten-year age gap and the fact that Perry had never been exposed to so many other gay men before the move to LA.
Bullshit. Working all these goddamned divorce cases was what even put the thought in his head.
That said, he’d have to be blind not to notice the way other guys responded to Perry—or the way Perry responded to finally getting some appreciative male attention. Meaning only that Perry’s blushing confusion at being flirted with was touching.
And the kid was alone a lot. It couldn’t be helped. Nick was low man on the totem pole and most of the out-of-town and late-night gigs fell to him. Fair enough. He was grateful for the job and beyond grateful at the possibility that he might even be made a partner eventually. But it meant Perry was on his own in the big, bad city a lot of the time.
And so what? Whatever was keeping Perry out at this time of night, it was not some illicit affair. That the idea even crossed his mind was proof Nick was spending way too much time photographing cheating wives and double-dealing husbands.
Whatever. The job was what it was, and what it mostly was, was adulterous spouses and fraudulent insurance claims. He was lucky to have it. But. Not exactly why he’d become a navy SEAL.
But then he wasn’t a SEAL anymore.
Nick was brooding over this, staring out the window over the kitchen sink at the smog-dimmed stars when he heard the smothered sound of Perry’s cough outside the apartment door. He stepped out of the kitchen as Perry’s key turned the lock.
Perry opened the door, clearly surprised to find the lights on. His thin, pointy face lit up as he spotted Nick. “Hey, you’re home!”
Nick retorted, “One detective per family is e—” but the rest of it was cut off as Perry launched himself. Nick’s arms automatically locked around him and his mouth came down hard on Perry’s eager one.
What was it about Perry? He was cute enough, sure. Medium height, lanky, and boyish-looking. His hair was blonde and spiky. His eyes were big and brown and as long lashed as a cartoon character. In this town where two out of every three guys looked like they were trying out for a role in a major motion picture, Perry was almost strikingly ordinary. Maybe that was it. The fact that Perry didn’t look like everyone else. That he didn’t act like everyone else.
It was funny though because Perry was almost the complete opposite of what Nick had always thought was his type. Not that he had really thought of himself as having a type—beyond wanting someone with a penis.
Even after nine months, that unstinting…what the hell would you call it? Sweetness sounded too sappy, but there was something so honest, so generous in Perry’s responses. It made Nick’s heart feel too big for his chest. Closed his throat so that he could rarely say the things he wanted to say, things that Perry deserved to hear.
I love you. It scares me how much I love you.
Instead, he said gruffly, “Where the hell have you been at this hour?”
Perry didn’t seem to hear the gruffness. His wide brown eyes smiled guilelessly up into Nick’s. “I was sketching—”
He had to stop though, starting to wheeze. He threw an apologetic look at Nick and dug out his rescue inhaler. He took a couple of quick puffs while Nick watched, frowning.
This was not good. He didn’t like the sudden alarming reappearance of coughing and wheezing. He put a hand on Perry’s shoulder. Under Nick’s tutelage, Perry had built up some muscle, but he had not really put on much weight. His shoulders were still bony, his collarbones sharp.
“You okay?”
Perry put the inhaler away—he didn’t like using it in front of Nick. As if he thought Nick looked down on him for it?
He said, “It was so dusty up there!”
“Where? Where’ve you been?” Nick hoped he didn’t sound as accusatory as he did to his own ears.
“I drove up to Angel’s Rest.”
“Where?”
“That old hotel in the hills. Remember at Dorian’s exhibition last Saturday? The 1920s hotel in those photos?”
“The abandoned place on Laurel Canyon?”
Jesus fucking Christ. He remembered Perry had seemed fascinated by those photos. But hiking around those hills on his own? Anything could happen to him, from being bit by a rattlesnake to running into some crazed homeless person.
Nick didn’t let any of that show on his face. That was one thing he had decided early on. He was not going to undermine Perry’s confidence or self-resilience with his own fears. Perry was not his child, he was his partner. Physically frail or not, he was a grown man.
“Right,” Perry said quickly, as though he sensed everything Nick was determined not to say. “Only it’s not abandoned. Well, not completely.”
Now, studying him more closely in the lamplight, Nick noticed Perry’s t-shirt was smeared with dust and torn at the collar. And—more alarming—his knuckles were scraped and cut.
Perry said, “Anyway, I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t know you’d be home tonight. I bought pork chops for when you got home.”
“Were you in fight?”
Perry’s eyelashes flicked up guiltily. “Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Nick felt as winded as if Perry had punched him. Trying to picture him in a fight was—well, yes, Nick had been showing him some moves, tried to prepare him a little in case he ever had to defend himself—but still, Perry in a fight?
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” Perry said. “Should I cook the pork chops?”
“I’ll fix us something to eat. You talk.”
In the kitchen Nick grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge, uncapped them, handing one to Perry and taking a long swallow from his own. He came up for air and exhaled. He’d needed that.
“How did the job go?” Perry asked, watching him.
“The usual. It was okay. I want to hear about your week.”
Nick dug the package of pork chops out of the fridge while Perry told him about sketching Angel’s Rest over the past few days—Nick hanging onto his patience while Perry was momentarily distracted by his enthusiasm for crumbling architecture and light and shadow—before finally describing hearing someone yelling for help from the hotel grounds.
Nick clenched his jaw on his instinctive protest. Of course, Perry would respond. Of course, he would try to help. It was the right thing to do, and by God Nick was not going to try to tell him otherwise—although the sight of Perry sitting there with his torn t-shirt, bruised knuckles, and shining eyes worried the hell out of him.
While he prepared the pork chops, he heard out the whole ridiculous but still alarming story of men in skeleton costumes with wooden swords— He was both proud and aghast that Perry had charged into the middle of that.
Perry chattered on, barely touching his own beer.
“He said his name was Horace Daly. He used to be an actor. He lives at the hotel. It’s not a hotel anymore though. Now it’s sort of like apartments. Kind of like the Alston Estate really. Only—”
“Horace Daly,” Nick interrupted. “The actor. I remember him.”
“Yeah? I didn’t recognize his name, when he introduced himself, but I did sort of recognize his face.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“No. He’s pretty old, but he seems spry. He’s retired now, of course. You should see that place, Nick. He’s got a bunch of movie memorabilia everywhere. You walk down a corridor and suddenly you see a life-sized mummy standing in the shadows. Or a chopped off head sitting on a table. All these props from his films. There’s a gibbet in the old ballroom. The real thing they used in his movie, not replicas. At one time Horace thought maybe he could turn part of the hotel into a museum.” Perry’s eyes shone with enthusiasm, the artist in him no doubt getting off on the workmanship that went into creating realistic-looking skeletons and ghouls or whatever it was Daly kept in his closet.
Nick said, “Right. He was in all those old horror flicks. Night of the Blue Witch, Seven Brides for Seven Demons, Sex and the Single Ghoul.”
“My parents wouldn’t let me watch that stuff.” Perry’s expression was one of brooding regret.
Nick bit back a grin. “No, well. So, Daly is still around and lives in an abandoned hotel in Laurel Canyon?”
“Exactly. But that’s the thing. It’s not abandoned. He owns the property. He rents the suites out to regular tenants.” Perry amended, “Well, maybe regular isn’t the word. I met a couple of them. But he’s got about seven people renting from him.”
“Huh,” said Nick, noncommittal.
Perry’s big brown eyes—wide with worry and concern—raised to his. “Horace thinks someone’s trying to kill him.”
“To kill him,” Nick repeated. “He actually told you he thinks someone is trying to kill him?”
Perry nodded. “He says it’s not the first time he’s been attacked, but no one ever believed him because he’s never had a witness before.”
Several comments leaped to mind. Nick nobly squashed them all.
Perry was still following his own thoughts. “He thinks it might be a crazed fan or someone like that. Someone who saw his movies and kind of lost it.”
“So…like a movie critic?” Nick was teasing, but he didn’t like this at all. Perry had seen the guys dressed up in skeleton costumes, so Horace wasn’t making that part up, but the rest of it sounded pretty sketchy. Speaking as someone in the PI biz, homicides weren’t really all that common. Not even in LA.
Perry made a face and laughed, but he continued to watch Nick in that serious, hopeful way as though he imagined Nick might have an instant solution to old Horace’s problems.
“Why would someone want to knock Horace off?” Nick asked. “I mean, assuming it’s not a crazed fan out to get him.”
“But that’s it. He’s sure it is a crazed fan or a stalker. Someone confusing the movies with real life. He said for years he’s been getting weird, threatening letters.” Perry bit his lip thinking. “He’s hiding something though.”
Nick studied him. The funny thing about Perry was, despite his lack of worldly experience, he had good instincts about people. Reluctantly, he asked, “Why do you think so?”
Perry gave a little shake of his head. “I don’t know. He’s frightened. That’s real. He does believe someone is trying to kill him.” He said slowly, “What I think he’s lying about is not knowing why.”
“It would be in the letters, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess. Horace said he didn’t keep the letters.”
Nick considered that piece of information. It might be the truth. It might be that Horace had the letters but didn’t want anyone to see them. It might be that there never were any letters. He said, “I can tell you the usual reasons people kill. They want something someone else has. Usually money or sex.”
“What about revenge?” Perry asked.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. Just that it’s not nearly as common in real life as it is on TV.”
“I don’t think either money or sex would apply in Horace’s case.”
Probably not. Nick was having trouble believing in any scenario where an aging and long forgotten film star would have a murderous stalker.
“But you think revenge would?”
“Er…no. But by process of elimination…”
Nick sighed inwardly. Thanks to true crime TV, everybody thought they were a PI. Even his own boyfriend.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “If these yahoos wanted Horace dead, couldn’t they have killed him today?”
“Yes.”
“Wooden swords sound more like movie props to me.”
Perry’s expression grew animated. “Yes. Exactly. That’s it. That’s one reason why Horace thinks that this is the work of crazy stalker fans. He believes they tried to use wooden swords because that’s what you do with vampires. You drive a wooden stake through their heart.”
Okaaay. Judging by the bright eyes and pink cheeks, it was pretty clear that Horace wasn’t the only one who thought crazed fans wielding wooden swords made total sense.
“Did Horace report the attack to the police?”
“No. I tried to get him to, but he said he reported the earlier attacks, and nobody believed him. The police thought he was making it up for attention.”
Nick grunted. The same thought had occurred to him.
“Even his tenants thought he was imagining things.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the case.” Nick had to allow that much. “You saw these three yourself.”
“Yes.” Perry’s mind was on other things. “In the movie Why Won’t You Die, My Darling? Horace had to use a wooden sword to kill Angelina once she became a vampire. You see?”
“Mmhm.” Only too well.
“So, it does kind of make sense.”
Perry went back to watching him with that resolve-weakening mix of confidence and hope. Uneasily, Nick considered the hopefulness. What did Perry want? What were his expectations?
The pork chops were fried to perfection, their fragrant smell warming the small kitchen. Nick slid them from the frying pan onto two thick blue plates, then placed the plates on the table.
“Oh, I’m not hungry,” Perry said quickly. Nick guessed that he was thinking—correctly—that two paper-thin pork chops was not a lot of dinner for him. These four beautiful little pork chops would have been a special welcome home dinner for himself. He had to watch for that kind of thing because Perry was prone to unnecessary self-sacrifice. No way was he going to bed hungry. Not on Nick’s watch.
“Did you have dinner?”
“No, but—”
“Eat your dinner.”
Perry grimaced, but then smiled as though Nick were offering him a special treat and not his fair share of their rations.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Nick was tired. It had been a long ass drive from Modesto. His thoughts were still partly on his case. Perry had had a little adventure, but it was over and no harm done. Nick looked forward to a shower, a sleep, and eventually waking up with his favorite person on the entire planet. Rarely did they get an entire weekend to themselves.
Perry chewed a couple of neatly carved pieces of pork before saying slowly, “I wasn’t expecting you home until Monday.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get away. Why? Did you make plans?” Nick smiled, a little amused. He took it for granted if Perry had made plans he’d change them to accommodate him. Not that he wouldn’t fall in with Perry’s plans if Perry had his heart set on another art show or something.
Perry looked troubled. “I did, yeah.”
Nick’s brows rose. He was still tolerant.
“I told Horace I’d stay up there this weekend.”
“You…”
“He needs help, Nick.”
“It sounds like it, all right.” Nick was grim.
Perry seemed to evaluate Nick’s mood. He brightened. “What if you stayed up there with me? That would be even better. You know what you’re doing.”
“What I’m…” Nick swallowed the rest of it. He said very mildly, “Why would you agree to that? Why would you agree to spend the weekend at a falling down hotel where people in costumes are running around swinging swords at innocent bystanders?”
“I’ve told you. Horace is afraid,” Perry said. “Nobody else believes him.”
Nick had no answer for that. Or rather, he had so many answers he didn’t know where to start. He finally managed, “But they’ll believe him now. Right? He’s got corroborating testimony.”
Perry grinned. “‘Corroborating testimony.’ You’re starting to sound like a PI.”
“Yeah. But I’m serious. I don’t see how it would be of any help to Horace for you to stay over in that dump. What are you supposed to do?”
“I think he’s lonely and it’s a relief that someone believes him.”
“Okay, that’s great. But, again, what are you supposed to do about whatever’s going on there?” Nick was struggling not to let his impatience show. Anyway, he was not impatient with Perry. He was impatient with Horace Daly for dragging Perry into his problems.
“Lend moral support?”
“Isn’t that nice,” Nick said grimly. “But you’ve had to use your inhaler tonight for the first time in how long? That’s not a healthy place for you. Clearly.”
Perry colored. His jaw took on that stubborn jut that Nick had become all too familiar with during the past nine months. “I can’t not go places just because I have asthma.”
“Of course you can. Can’t.” Nick drew a breath. “Of course you can avoid situations that make you s—that aren’t good for you. That’s just commonsense.”
“I already agreed to help.”
“We’re going in circles here. Help him how? How does your being there help Daly?”
Perry said, and it sounded like he too was trying to control his impatience, “But that’s what I’m saying, Nick. If you went with me, you could look into it for him. You’re trained to do this.”
“Look into what?”
“Look into whoever is trying to kill Horace. And why.”
Perry’s stare was unwavering. Almost stern. Meeting it, Nick’s heart sank.
Clearly, he was not going to win this battle. Either he went with Perry or Perry went on his own, but go Perry would. The weekend Nick had in mind was already a write-off.
He struggled for a moment with his disappointment and irritation. Obviously, he could not leave Perry to deal with this bizarre situation on his own. Even if he could, well, there was something about the way Perry looked at him—like he really believed there was nothing Nick couldn’t handle, no problem he couldn’t solve—Nick didn’t want Perry to ever stop looking at him like that.
Anyway, the main thing was that they had the weekend together, right?
“Sounds like you have your mind already made up,” Nick said.
His tone was a little flat and some of the eagerness died out of Perry’s face. “You don’t want to go?”
“Want to go? No. If I do give up my weekend, what do I get out of it?” Nick asked.
Perry continued to eye him in that grave way. “Horace’s undying gratitude?” he suggested finally.
“Uh…”
Perry grinned slowly with that funny mixture of sweetness and mischievousness that always set Nick’s heart thudding in his chest. “Let me show you.”
Hank EdwardsHank Edwards has been writing gay romantic fiction for more than twenty years. He has published over thirty novels and dozens of short stories. His writing crosses many sub-genres, including romantic comedy, contemporary, paranormal, suspense, mystery, and wacky comedy.
He has written a number of series such as the funny and spooky Critter Catchers, Old West historical horror Venom Valley Series, suspenseful Up to Trouble series, and the very erotic and very funny Fluffers, Inc., He is also part of the shared universe Williamsville Inn series of contemporary gay romance books that feature stories by Brigham Vaughn as well. He's written a YA urban fantasy gay romance series called The Town of Superstition, which is published under the pen name R. G. Thomas.
No matter what genre he writes, Hank likes to keep things steamy, kind of sassy, and heartfelt. He was born and still lives in a northwest suburb of the Motor City, Detroit, Michigan.
A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone's throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She's been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn't been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur's work is available from Carina Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.
When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she's an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.
A. Winchester is a Chicago native with a love for swoony romances, deep character development, and happily ever afters.
Mary Calmes lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and two children and loves all the seasons except summer. She graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Due to the fact that it is English lit and not English grammar, do not ask her to point out a clause for you, as it will so not happen. She loves writing, becoming immersed in the process, and falling into the work. She can even tell you what her characters smell like. She loves buying books and going to conventions to meet her fans.
Josh LanyonBestselling author of over sixty titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON has been called "the Agatha Christie of gay mystery."
Her work has been translated into eleven languages. The FBI thriller Fair Game was the first male/male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan's annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list).
The Adrien English Series was awarded All Time Favorite Male Male Couple in the 2nd Annual contest held by the Goodreads M/M Group (which has over 22,000 members). Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads Favorite M/M Author Lifetime Achievement award.
Josh is married and they live in Southern California.Her work has been translated into eleven languages. The FBI thriller Fair Game was the first male/male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan's annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list).
The Adrien English Series was awarded All Time Favorite Male Male Couple in the 2nd Annual contest held by the Goodreads M/M Group (which has over 22,000 members). Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads Favorite M/M Author Lifetime Achievement award.
Hank Edwards
AM Arthur
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EMAIL: AM_Arthur@yahoo.com
A Winchester
EMAIL: addison.winchester76@gmail
Mary Calmes
Trick or Treat Temptation by Hank Edwards
The Heart as He Hears It by AM Arthur
Halloween Fumble by A Winchester
But for You by Mary Calmes
The Ghost Had An Early Check-Out by Josh Lanyon
