Jesse's Christmas (3 page)

Jesse woke at the seven am alarm he had set on his cell and washed up at the sink, eyeing the bath longingly. Later, he promised himself and then dressed in jeans and layers from T’s to sweaters. With the drapes open, he realized Diana and the US Weather Service had been right. The snow had certainly fallen overnight, and the start of light over the valley had a beautiful quality. The early morning dawn appeared feeble against the sea of white and highlighted the absolute and utter stillness. Pulling on boots and then grabbing his Nikon, he left his room in a hurry and made it downstairs in record time. Throwing open the front door, he was ready to jump into his work, already in artist-makes-brilliant-art mode, and he had exactly what he wanted. Undisturbed snow lying just as it should—deep and crisp and even.

“Morning.” The single word came from a man shoveling snow, Jesse’s pristine untouched snow. There went the whole first freaking post. Obviously the guy had started clearing in the dark. What kind of an idiot did that?
Shit.

“Stop,” Jesse said loudly—probably not what Mr Dressed-as-a-snowman expected, even though he did, in fact, stop shoveling.

“I’m sorry?” he queried. He pulled at the scarf across his face and frowned at Jesse, then down at the cleared snow.

“I need photos,” Jesse explained as he turned away from a quick glimpse of blue eyes and raised eyebrows. Already he was looking desperately for an untouched angle that included the hotel. Damn it to hell, the son had cleared a great big scar on the blanket of icy stuff.

“Photos of…?”

“Virgin snow. Can you
please
stop shoveling?” Panic filtered through him at the thought of not getting this photo now, and it wiped out any attempt he might make at social niceties. Yes, he was coming across as rude, but in his head, he justified the rudeness as he always did. Artists were temperamental, and people made exceptions for his behavior all the time.

“I can give you five,” Shovel Guy said slowly and leaned on the tool he wielded with such deadly photo-destroying accuracy.

Jesse vaguely nodded his thanks, his mind already gauging light and angles, concentrating on what he needed to do. The white carpet covered everything, giving him maybe three inches or so of perfect utter stillness. Even the parked Prius had a beauty about it when hidden in pure white. He inhaled the cold air and centered himself. He could do this. The snow might well be the first official photo he had taken in a while, but it wasn’t as if he’d forgotten how to take photos or how to frame a shot. Snow crystals sparkled in the winter trees, and the clouds looked heavy with the promise of more of the cold stuff to come. Despite the sun’s weak wash, the lighting was perfect, and focusing on what he wanted, he caught the crystal, the blue tinge from the early light, the sky, and the taller grass that bent with the weight of snow. Backing away from the parking area, he captured one of the stubborn trees he had seen yesterday and the frozen leaves attached to thin twigs, all perfectly acceptable images for the website.

“You the photographer, then?” the shoveling guy asked. Jesse groaned to himself. Talk about stating the obvious. What a thing to say. Not only that, but the guy probably expected an answer. Shovel Guy, the hotel owner’s son presumably, had a low and husky voice, but Jesse didn’t want or need interruptions if he only had five minutes to capture a whole post. The more photos he took, the more likely it was that he would take a photo that mattered. Perhaps if he ignored the other man, he would shut up. “Do you want to see something?” Shovel Guy asked. “A ways up the garden is an old shed. It’s where we store the wood for the winter—”

“No, that’s fine,” Jesse interrupted with an abrupt wave of his hand. Maybe the man clearing the path was a sandwich short of a picnic. Why the hell did he think Jesse wanted to see a shed? Jesse bent low at the waist to examine the petals of some winter flower burned at the edges by the sun and filled with small deposits of snow. The tall tree it was near must have protected it from the really deep stuff.

“It’s a good photo.”

God, the guy was persistent. “Jeez, man, will you leave me alone to concentrate?”

Jesse spun on his heel to face the guy as he spoke, the same guy who had now pushed the hood of his huge parka away from his face. Jesse wasn’t sure who was more shocked—the guy who looked utterly gobsmacked at what Jesse had just said or Jesse at seeing more face. Jesse couldn’t stop himself, photos or no, post or not. He stared. And he probably had his mouth open. It certainly felt like it as the cold air hit his throat. Shovel Guy was gorgeous, beautiful, with a strong stubble-darkened jaw and the same brilliant blue eyes as Diana.

“Sorry, I was…” Jesse began weakly, but he really had no explanation. Hell. Those were
really
intensely cerulean eyes. Blue Eyes shrugged at the apology and then smiled. He took off a glove and held out his bare hand, a warm, wide, and very strong hand that gripped Jesse’s firmly.

“Gabriel McClurey,” he said, introducing himself on the shake.

“Jesse Connor,” Jesse responded quickly. “I get involved,” he explained weakly with a wave of his now-freed hand at the snow around them. “In a world of my own.” Then he stopped talking because he didn’t want to come across as an idiot.

“I need to get shoveling,” Gabriel said finally to break the uncomfortable silence. Jesse realized he’d been standing there staring with his mouth open. “Shed’s up that way if you want to go yourself.”

Gabriel dismissed him. He was sending him off to find the shed himself.
Damn.
Eye candy like Gabriel McClurey was something he didn’t want to lose sight of.

“Could you show me—”

“Sorry, man, I need to shovel,” Gabriel said quickly. He pulled the scarf back over his mouth. Clearly the conversation was over.

“Okay,” Jesse said reluctantly. “Thanks.”

Gabriel resumed the long sweeping motions that cleared the pathway, and Jesse hovered for a while out of sight. He took a few shots of the tall, broad, blue-eyed Gabriel bent over and flexing to clear snow. Gabriel was too wrapped up for Jesse to see what he wanted to see, but a few photos of “man in action” would be okay.
Wouldn’t it? Who was to know?
He wasn’t taking them for the blog, just for himself. Ass up in the air, Gabriel moved to attack a new path of white.
God.
Now that was an easy part of body to see; jeans molded Gabriel to like a second skin, stretched across a firm, tight butt. Feeling suddenly guilty, Jesse slunk away in the direction indicated. For the first time in nearly two years he was appreciating the male form, and it felt odd and more than slightly like a betrayal of his wish to wallow in angst.

Still, he hadn’t seen a man that gorgeous since… Well, he wasn’t sure he had ever seen someone with a face so model perfect. Said man had a wonderful white smile, long thick lashes, and cheekbones to die for. Jesse wondered idly if maybe he could get this Gabriel to pose for him before he left Eden Vale. Maybe naked in the snow? Jesse had done some model photography before. In Gabriel’s case it didn’t matter what the body was like under the clothes because that face could sell just about anything. Idly he wondered what exactly the rest of Gabriel looked like under that bulky parka. Gabriel was tall, maybe a shade over Jesse’s five ten, but he could be any size width-ways under the navy blue down. Jesse laughed to himself. Gabriel could be a six-stone weakling under the coat, although somehow he doubted it.

The shed north of the old hotel looked to have been built the same time as the house. It was sturdy in the way wooden structures were when supported by the presence of the solid hillside rocks above them. Jesse could see moss on the corners of the roof peeking through the mantle of snow. He checked out the shed from different angles and took some halfway decent shots of snow on the old wood. Still, the shots were simply decent, and he wasn’t going to rock the world of photography at this rate.

Cautiously, Jesse pushed open the door. A light dusting of snow fell onto his hands, and he made a mental note to dig out the thin insulated gloves that allowed him to have full control of the delicate cameras he used.

Once inside, his imagination was captured instantly and tingles traversed his spine. From this vantage point, he saw the snow outside framed by the door and frosted windows. No snow had made its way inside, and the respite from the cold proved welcome. He did a complete three-sixty and finally realized that if he stood behind the wood inside and crouched down, he had the perfect picture—the logs piled ready for burning with the glow of white snowfall behind them. It was artistic and exactly what customers expected from him. He already had words to accompany the picture he could see in his mind…the supply ready and waiting to keep the inhabitants of the hotel warm and cozy, the scent of sap and freshly chopped wood redolent of winter. Readers would eat it up.

He explored a bit more of the gardens and shot a few of the hotel with the rest of the town laid out before it. The valley was steeper than he remembered from his drive up. If there were to be much more snow, driving out of the valley in the Prius would be impossible. Well, he’d known that. The hotel literature clearly pointed out that snow closed off Eden Vale at least once a year. The town sprawled across the vista, filled with houses all painted in different colors. He focused on one in particular, a small house in a row of similar places painted the same blue as the beautiful, dazzling, sexy McClurey eyes. Well, Gabriel McClurey’s anyway. He lifted the camera and zoomed in to focus close on the single house, framing the shot with branches heavy with snow.
Sweet.

An hour after he’d begun, he finally wondered if Gabriel would still be in front of the hotel. His reasons for wanting to see the other man were twofold. He needed to thank him for the inspiration for post one and maybe at the same time have another look at that beautiful face. He wasn’t in luck. Gabriel had gone. In his place sat a cleared pathway from hotel to street and snow piled neatly to either side in regimented rows.
Damn.

Chapter 3

Gabriel slid the last of the artwork in the drawer and then pushed it closed as gently as he could. Cameron had decided that the nativity story was best shown using dried pasta, and the combination of pasta and glue was likely to stick everything together if it got caught in the drawer.

“Gabriel? Do you have a minute?”

Gabriel smiled up at the owner of the voice. Austin Francis, the principal of this small school, was one of the nicest guys Gabriel had ever met. He ran Eden Vale Elementary with a firm but understanding hand, and even though he was very close to retiring, he was still active in the day-to-day running and in teaching his first love, math.

“How goes the Christmas play?” he asked conversationally as he perched himself on the corner of the desk. Gabriel schooled his features so the grimace wasn’t obvious, because Austin had just sat in a small pool of wet sticky paste. Getting covered in glue and glitter at this time of the year was a hazard of the job for any teacher, but Austin probably imagined his safe area of math was a world away from glitter.

“Going well. Everyone has their costumes except for Mark, who refuses to wear an ant outfit and wants to be in the play as Spider-Man.”

Austin chuckled. “That boy wants to do everything dressed as Spider-Man.”

“He’ll grow out of it as soon as he turns six,” Gabriel said knowledgably. Mark wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last kid who wanted to be a superhero. Gabriel knew that from his own experience having spent the entire year aged five wanting to be Johnny Storm. “I’ll talk him out of it, maybe big up the role of chief ant.”

“Good good,” Austin stood and winced as he realized he’d sat in the glue. Gabriel tried to hold back his smile but it was very difficult when he saw the absolute resignation painted on Austin’s expression.

“This is the second pair today already,” Austin said. “Never mind, it will soon be January and we can get back to normal.”

“Don’t wish Christmas away,” Gabriel laughed. “You run the risk of alienating half the town.”

“Including you,” Austin teased.

Gabriel shrugged. He wasn’t ashamed of his excitement for the Christmas season; he was a kid at heart, and he loved the entire season, the snow and the smiles and the kids who had enthusiasm that was infectious. “Don’t hate on Christmas,” he said with a smirk. “Otherwise I’ll tell my mom.”

Austin flushed scarlet at the mere mention of Gabriel’s mom.

“How is your mom?” he asked as if she had only just occurred to him.

“She’s well and looking forward to the Christmas celebrations,” Gabriel said. He attempted to be diplomatic. Everyone in town knew that Austin and Diana were absolutely ideal for each other and that one of them should get with the chatting up already.

“Will she be at the candle event?”

“Wild horses wouldn’t keep her away.”

Gabriel went back to his to-do list. Things were so damn hectic in the run-up to Christmas. What with school events and presents and carols and candles and just everything he got himself embroiled in, he didn’t have much down time, let alone time to find a boyfriend like his mom wanted. Thinking about his mom had him considering the snow and whether or not her paths needed clearing again, which instantly led to the guest at the hotel.

Jesse something. A photographer obsessed with snow it seemed. He recalled his mom saying something about a booking for a City artist but had kind of been expecting more paintbrushes and easels than camera. He was a snappy, irritable artistic guy. He also had the most gorgeous dark hair that was all sticking up like he’d just woken up—which to be fair, he probably had. Gabriel was one of the only ones showered and out at ass o’clock in the morning clearing snow. Then there were Jesse’s lips. Full, with curve to them that just begged to be kissed, and dark eyes that flashed with exasperation that Gabriel was clearing his snow.

Jeez.
His mom was putting ideas in his head thinking any random and ever-so-cute stranger was even gay, let alone interested in a small-town man like himself. Still, Jesse had been staring at him, and while he didn’t think he was the sexiest guy on the block, he knew he had enough of the pretty to be interesting to another gay man. Was it his imagination or had Jesse been checking him out, and what was it with the surreptitious photos of him with his ass in the air when Jesse thought he wasn’t looking?