The Eagle and the Fox (A Snowy Range Mystery, #1) (22 page)

This one had been different.

Hot, naked, sweaty different. And unlike most of his dreams, it seemed determined to linger in his consciousness as he shifted to make room for an erection the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in... forever.

Petilune had vanished from the doorway. He heard doors banging, metal being set on a counter. A pan on the stove.

Petilune cooks?

“Uncle Josh says to get your ass in gear. Breakfast will be on the table soon.” Petilune grinned, pleased with herself at slipping in a naughty word. She bounced away, the blonde braid lifting and settling right, left on her narrow shoulders. She’d traded her dance togs for one of Josh’s tee-shirts. It fit like a grain sack and fell almost to her ankles.

He muttered, “Huh, it’s ‘Uncle Josh’ now. What happened to ‘Mr. Josh’ like they’d agreed on?”

Praying the coast was clear, he inched his way to the edge of the mattress and slowly lowered his feet to the floor. Pain and shyness about having anyone see him without clothes had done little to convince his wayward libido to stand down. If anything, listening to Josh bang around his kitchen preparing their meal had him wanting to lie back on that bed and squirm underneath his imaginary lover.

Grabbing his clothes off the dresser, he peeked around the corner, spied the bathroom across the hall and dove in that direction. Shutting and locking the door, he leaned against it wondering if he had time for a quick shower. A shower with benefits.

God, how long had it been since he’d woken with such a raging hard-on? When was the last time he’d wanted to experience unbridled lust, even if the relationship was with his right hand? He grinned and slipped his shorts to the old linoleum floor. Feeling frisky wasn’t usually part of his mindset. Not even with Tommy.

They’d been staid, stodgy partners, content with their routines, glorying in the gift of predictability, cherishing each other quietly and without fanfare. Both of them, cast from the same mold. The sheer sameness in their personalities had been the glue cementing them together. Then once a year, they’d peeled away that glue and shed their masks, heading to the Vegas strip for a week of debauchery, sex and rock ‘n roll.

Marcus flicked his fingers in the stream of water. It was lukewarm and hard, the acrid bite of iron assaulting his nostrils. He eased in, enjoying the sting on scrapes and dings his skin had suffered when he’d ended up in a heap on the ground. Turning his back to the flow, he braced his left hand on the tiled wall and ran his hand down his belly, the approach tentative, uncertain.

The first touch was exquisitely painful, an unwelcome intrusion into the privacy of his enforced solitude. Touching, feeling... it reminded him of those times when he and Tommy had gone wild crazy free, walking down the strip hand-in-hand and perving to subtle glances or outright stares.

Tommy. God, how he missed him.

He’d been the picture of a gentleman scholar, all tweed and wool slacks, loafers and wire-framed glasses. Long, elegant fingers that had played Marcus’ body like a fine instrument, the melody ever familiar but none-the-less satisfying. The chords had resonated deep inside with a wantonness Marcus couldn’t accept outside their hidden world, yet still it fed their mutual self-indulgence with simplicity and purpose.

But there were many ways to show love, some outrageous, some contained, some dangerous, others so corrupt not even the sinner sinned with such decadent clarity.

He squeezed body wash onto his right hand. A coconut-based scent flooded his nostrils as he released it into the humid air with short, sharp strokes, his belly twitching in anticipation of each twist and pull. Lungs sucking water and air and the promise of release, he bent into a rictus of memories...

...of the first time Tommy had shocked the hell out of him, donning sequins and heels and the unimaginably painful torture device to hide his junk from protruding through the filmy fabric. Him, going mad with desire. He’d always lusted after tall, dark, and dangerous. Tommy, in heels and a Cher wig, had fulfilled that fantasy a million-fold.

He wondered what had kept them saner... their predictable lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere or their brief foray into smashing their boundaries, stepping outside even the most licentious of excuses to misbehave. Whatever it had been, Marcus had been grateful for the chance to be someone else for a single week.

Of course, when Tommy became ill, those respites from the cages they’d built to hold their secrets close finally shut down. In truth, Marcus hadn’t missed them. Fantasy was just that... an escape from reality that couldn’t possibly last. They’d had meaning with Tommy. Without them, they were nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Yet here he was, stepping outside his comfort zone, not once but almost on a daily basis. Pumping slow and steady, he counted off the miscues and near misses. Taking on Petilune, he and Josh wading into a melee to save Will, Kit, the fire, and the dance... And at every turn there was the promise of Josh.

Biting his bottom lip, Marcus’ knees buckled as nerves exploded, his body convulsing. The pleasure was so intense, so transitory he regretted giving in, because in his submission to the fantasy of Josh he’d loosed a need so profound there was no going back. Tommy had been his anchor and his reason for living, and then he was gone. Now, what he felt for Josh—that was so outside his experience, so intense and commanding, he had no idea how to process it, let alone react.

At first he’d worried Josh was only filling in the emptiness Tommy’s passing had left, but he realized last night that wasn’t true. Josh was Josh—unique, challenging, adventurous, and totally unpredictable. Those Vegas weeks, when he’d been the other Marcus Colton? With Josh he sensed that he could be
that
man all the time.

Icy water pummeled his back. Gasping Marcus grabbed a towel and rubbed himself down. A glance at the mirror offered his usual reality check. The frisky Marcus Colton wasn’t the one staring back at him. That man was a figment of his imagination, boxed up and placed in the attic, never to see the light of day again. This Marcus Colton was familiar. A middle-aged shopkeeper who was nothing special, average in every way. Graying, softening, and wilting with the slow death of age and wear and tear.

How anyone as vibrant and alive as Josiah Foxglove could even bother to give someone like him a second glance was a puzzle he simply couldn’t solve.

He dressed quickly and tidied up the space, because that’s what predictable, good guests did. The knock at the door, a
bam bam bam
, had him jumping out of his skin.

“Breakfast’s ready. Come and get it.”

Come... Oh fucking hell.

Marcus opened the door, struggling to keep a neutral expression on his face and knowing he was failing miserably.

Looking Marcus over, from his toes to his forehead, Josh smirked. “Took your time in there.” Marcus squeezed past as Josh whispered in his ear, “Hope you enjoyed it.”

Marcus rooted to the spot, wondering if he’d heard the man correctly. A devil he didn’t know existed made him spin and say, “Yeah, I did. Best I’ve had in a long time.”

Piercing blue eyes raked him over as Josh teased, “There’s nothing like a good hot shower.”

Heat flooded Marcus’ face, then plummeted to his groin, but he stood his ground and assumed what he hoped was a taunting expression. Nodding coyly, he murmured, “The shower was good... too,” then turned and headed toward the kitchen.

He could have sworn he heard Josh snort with laughter.

****

M
arcus closed out the register and gave a sigh of relief. Between the Saturday crush of customers and him having to take time off to go all the way into Laramie to give a statement, they’d been so busy he’d called in reinforcements, two of the seniors happy to have something to do and pick up some extra cash. Marcus slipped them a small bonus at the end of the day, grateful for their assistance.

Petilune continued to be a revelation. Everyone saw her as simple but Marcus knew better. Her brain processed things differently, and her emotions could be all over the place, from her near breakdown over Kit’s loss of manhood—euphemistically speaking—to her competent, take-charge actions that morning. She’d practically force fed him breakfast, got him into the van, and then organized their day as Josh drove them to the store to drop them off and pick up his rig.

So, she needed simple, concrete instructions, but once assigned a task she was a bulldog attacking it. Marcus understood he had no right to mull over the girl’s quirks, but if he could find a way to remove her from Janice’s toxic parenting and place the child in a more stable environment, he would personally see to getting her tested. He knew absolutely nothing about autism or related conditions, other than what little he’d read online, but if it were a problem like that, then there would be specific actions he could take to see to her security and well-being.

The bombshell, mercifully dropped after Josh had pulled out, came after Marcus complemented her once more on how nice her hair looked, moving aside some stray strands and tucking them behind her ear.

She’d said, “He had to do it all over again ’cause it got messed up sleeping.”

Petilune only shrugged when Marcus gurgled, “He... what? Wait... He didn’t...”

The possibilities flashed in sequence—Petilune, sleeping alone in the spare bedroom, Kit sneaking in to be with her, fixing her hair in the morning like he’d done the night before. And then slinking out without alerting either him or Josh. It was a blessing Josh didn’t know because he would have gotten his hunting rifle out and been stalking the lower forty instead of dishing up scrambled eggs and sausage.

The girl ignored his blathering, smoothed down the old work pinafore and shyly said, “It makes him feel good to take care of me.” Marcus couldn’t imagine what expression he wore, but whatever it was, Petilune hastened to add, “”It’s okay, really... I don’t mind.”

Christ, out of the mouth of babes.

After setting the broom behind the counter, she rocked on her heels, her hands clasped behind her back. Marcus recognized that as her drumming up courage to ask a difficult question.

“I was wondering, um, Uncle Marcus.”

He smiled. The ‘Uncle Marcus’ sealed the deal. He leaned against the counter and gave her his full attention. “What is it, Pet?”

Tucking her chin into her chest, she asked, “Did my brothers die?” Her voice was breathy and tainted with fear. “It’s just... If they’re dead, it’s my fault.”

Tears tickled the corners of his eyes. He had no idea how Petilune would come up with such a bizarre notion. Crouching to her level, he gripped her shoulders and blurted, “Oh, honey, no. They’ll be fine. Some bad men beat them up, is all. You had nothing to do with it.”

She shook her head violently, the braid tossing back and forth. “B-but t-they said...”

Pulling the tiny girl into his arms, Marcus asked, “Who is they, sweetie? What did they say?”

“J-joey and Jackie, they said it was me. That I’m stupid and don’t understand so they’re in trouble and it’s all my fault.”

Marcus struggled to keep his voice neutral, to avoid giving away the intense anger and dismay that her two brothers could be so cruel as to make the child believe something so heinous. “Listen to your Uncle Marcus, Pet. Boys can be nasty, especially brothers. They were being mean and trying to blame you for something they did.”

He pushed her away and stared into cloudy blue eyes, old eyes for an old soul who didn’t deserve the shit others dumped on her just because they could.

Polly opened the front door and yoo-hoo’d for Petilune. Marcus stood and waved the woman in. To Petilune, he said, “Pay them no mind, darling girl. How about you run to the break room and change into your pretty dress.”

He and Polly watched the child shuffle toward the rear of the store, her demeanor cowed and defeated. When Polly asked, “What’s up,” he explained about her brothers and their accusation and how the child had taken it to heart.

Growling, “I can’t stand seeing the light go out in her eyes, Polly. I really can’t,” he reached for his wallet and extracted some bills. “I know buying her something nice won’t change a damn thing, but it’s all I can do right now.” He handed the money over and said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this, taking her on. I just...”

“Shut it, Marcus. She’s one of ours and we take care of our own.” She squeezed his arm. “Me and the girls are happy to help out, you know that. So, no more of that talk, all right?”

Petilune returned, clutching her neatly folded pinafore. Marcus explained her mother was at the hospital, so Polly and her two daughters wanted her to stay for a special sleepover after they went shopping in Laramie. That the child looked relieved was like a kick in the nuts.

Truth was, no one had seen hide nor hair of Janice. For all they knew she’d packed up and left town, especially since, without her vile offspring, she wouldn’t be enjoying the largesse of unlimited drugs. The cops had searched the house and removed a considerable stash of garden variety X and weed. It had hardly seemed worth the fracas at the high school which might be why the cops had prodded him relentlessly for information about what the kids had been pushing.

His first reaction had been
how the hell would I know
, but then he’d freaked at the idea the cops would even think to ask. By the time he’d gotten back to the store, he was certain he was being tailed, that they’d hidden a tracking device on the van after scrubbing it down, or whatever they did during a vehicle search. He was officially a person of interest, someone possibly guilty enough of
something
they felt it necessary to remind him not to leave the area.

He silently prayed that Josh and he would have a few minutes alone on Sunday so he could regurgitate everything that had happened during the interrogation—all the questions, the snide asides, the glances between the detectives. It seemed the only thing they hadn’t asked was
are you gay
?

And damnation, wasn’t it ironic that, if they had asked
that
question, it would have been the only one he could give a categorical yes to.