The press of his heated body into Austin triggered so much… need.
“Oh my god,” Austin gasped out between kisses. “Oh my god. No. I mean. What are we… doing?”
Heath left him just as quickly as he had a few moments before. This time Austin had the wall to cling to when he found himself off balance. Heath looked around the room as if he’d never seen it before. His eyes were wild. There was a pronounced bulge behind his tailored trousers. His gaze darted back to Austin’s. He looked… startled. Like he hadn’t meant to kiss him.
“I’m… I have no idea,” Heath whispered brokenly. “What I’m doing here. In Georgia of all places. Why am I in Georgia? I’ve never been in Georgia a day in my life. But suddenly I had this horrible urge to come…” He waved at the surrounding room.
“Home?” Austin said for some inexplicable reason.
Heath nodded, his eyes growing wilder by the second. “And you’re so familiar. Like I’ve known you all my life. I never laid eyes on you until that moment you fainted. And here I am jealous of a bartender over a man I’ve never met. So… Doctor Baylor, you tell me what the hell we’re doing? Because I have no fucking clue. But… you do. The way you look at me. Like…”
“Like I’ve seen you before?” Austin answered his unspoken accusation.
“Yes. Like you’ve seen me. Like I scared you so badly that you fainted. Why is that? I can’t help but wonder.” Heath hovered over the crate that held the photos of the last Cortlandt’s. The spitting image of the young man in the photos, almost like he’d stepped out of the photo to stand there. Lost and confused. From a bygone era. “Why was I drawn here?”
“I don’t know,” Austin lied. Was it a lie when he didn’t understand what the fuck any of this meant? “I have absolutely no idea. But…”
“But what? Just say it, okay. Whatever it is. I can take it.”
Austin closed his eyes and dragged in a deep breath. The wall, freezing against his back. The surrounding air suddenly colder. Almost… unnaturally cold. “You saved my life. Last Friday. You picked me up and threw me out of the path of that car. And you… died. I saw you disappear just as the sun set. And here you are. Come back to me.”
He opened his eyes, finally, after he’d confessed everything. Well, not everything. Enough… to condemn himself. Heath stood right where he had been. The look on his face one of stunned horror now.
“You’re out of your fucking mind, aren’t you?” Heath growled. The words shouldn’t have come as a shock.
Laughing softly at the sting of the condemnation, Austin huddled against the wall.
“Maybe,” he said after a long moment. “Just maybe.”
When he dared look up again, Heath was gone. Austin hadn’t seen him leave, nor had he heard the door close.
He was alone.
The oppressive cold of the old house settled into his bones. The darkness outside the workroom echoed with whispers that he couldn’t quite understand.
The ghost lover he’d imagined come to life again, gone in a blink.
Afraid now, maybe for the first time in his life… Austin had to escape.
Forgetting to lock the doors in his haste to get out of… the crazy… before it consumed him, Austin fled.
He had no idea where he was going. Anywhere but here. Away from… him.
Chapter Twenty
The night lay heavy around him. The cold nearly bearable as he ran for his apartment and safety.
He could smell the fires burning as he neared the stable. The soft whinny of the new stallion greeting him. The young master smiled at him. His back sweaty in the heat. His muscles glistening as he did the work assigned to him. He wanted nothing more than to run his hand over the sweat-slick skin. He looked around… they were alone. He could hear voices off in the distance. The head groom busy in the tack room. When he looked back—
Austin grabbed at the hand that wrapped around his good arm. Crying out in terror, he swung with his cast. A large, rough hand blocked his swing. And held his hands together. “Austin?”
Austin? Who? He smelled horses and smoke from a wood fire. It wasn’t winter… yet. Or it was… spring—
“Austin, are you okay?” He heard the words, but didn’t understand.
“There were horses, and he had no face. I saw him… with no face. Like it wasn’t…” Austin couldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t focus. His glasses fogged over. He… the hand on his face wasn’t the same as before. But he knew the touch. The smell. “I don’t know… Rory… I don’t know. He’s… Where am I?”
“Austin, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He knew the voice. He loved that voice. His vision cleared. His glasses unfogged. He looked around at the bar stools and the leprechaun watching from the end of the bar. His glass of beer held up as if he were about to drink and forgot what lips were for.
“Slainte,” Austin said to the guy hoping to remind him and the leprechaun stopped staring, but Rory looked at him like he’d lost his damned mind. “Rory?”
“Yeah?” Rory held him in his arms. His strong arms. The arms that were always open for him.
“It’s you,” Austin said, shivering now that he wasn’t trapped in some living nightmare. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“Always has been,” Rory replied, he sounded sad. Like he’d waited for Austin to say something like that forever.
“There were horses. I saw horses. And he kissed me. And it was right. But it wasn’t him. And I think I really am losing my mind.” Austin saw the heartbreak in his friend’s eyes. The leprechaun at the end of the bar shook his head as if he was the biggest idiot. “And your leprechaun is a judgey bitch. You tell him that. He’s a judgey leprechaun bitch.”
The statue glared at him as a statue glares. Rory looked over his head and waved a hand and swirled his finger pointing to the ceiling as if there was someone back there who understood his weird sign language.
“Okay, let’s go upstairs. I’m about to have dinner. We’ll talk and eat and it’ll be fine.”
Austin nodded. The shivering stopped. It wasn’t as cold in the pub as it usually was. There were a few early patrons. They looked at him curiously. Or maybe they tried not to look at him as Rory led him through the dining room to the stairs in the office and up to his bedroom. The leprechaun stayed at the bar drinking his beer, but Austin didn’t miss the murderous glare he threw at him as they went past.
“Judgey bitch,” Austin mouthed, glaring at the statue. “Got my eye on you. Judgey bitch.”
“Slainte,” the leprechaun said and finally lifted his glass to his mouth… along with one middle finger. The toast sounding more like a fuck you to Austin’s ears.
“Yeah, fuck you too, asshole.” Tired of his judgmental bullshit, Austin rounded on the guy… or tried to.
“Upstairs. Now.” Rory pushed him faster and Austin tripped over his feet as they climbed the stairs. When they were safely inside his room, Austin brushed Rory’s hands off and stumbled to the bathroom. Everything he’d eaten that day, including leftover scones, came back up. He hated the damned things, even more, the second time around.
When he couldn’t throw up anymore, he washed his face and went out to face his friend.
Rory didn’t say anything. He helped him to the bed. Took his shoes off and his belt. And his jeans. And pressed him back against the pillows. “Sleep it off, okay. There will be food when you’re rested. And we’ll talk. Just… sleep okay.” He peeled off his clothes and slid under the covers with Austin. His body larger than Heath’s. Muscled in the right places. And sleek at the same time. He worked for a living. Austin nestled his nose in Rory’s neck and breathed in his scent. It was the wrong scent. But it was familiar… and safe.
He was safe here. That’s all that mattered. “No horses. Okay. Promise me. That we’ll never get horses.”
He felt Rory swallow against his nose. “I promise.” He sounded so sad. Like he knew it was a lie. Austin kissed his throat. Licking the rough bit of stubble, he always m
issed when shaving. He was so warm. And so… familiar.
Rory moaned; his head thrown back as if he wanted Austin to do more. “I love you, Austin,” he whispered. His neck moving beneath Austin’s lips. “And I want you so much.” He swallowed again. Almost like he was swallowing back… “But not like this. When you’re scared. And messed up.” Tears. Austin heard tears in his voice. “When he’s gone and… and you’re you again and not…”
“Crazy.” Austin supplied the word he didn’t say. “When I’m not crazy.”
“Yeah.” Rory didn’t lie to him. “When you’re sane again. We’ll make love. I want to. I want to so much. But—”
“I’m crazy.” Austin got it. He understood. “When the holiday is over. Everything will be normal again.” Austin rolled away from his… friend. Curling into a ball, he pulled the quilt up over his head to block the light. “Is today the eighth or ninth day of Christmas?” He asked for no damned reason what so ever.
“Depends on how you count it down.”
“Christmas day is the first. Ends the day before Epiphany. Epiphany is January sixth. I don’t know if I have the days straight.”
“Seventh. I believe. I don’t know the words. Don’t ask me to sing the song.”
“I hate the song.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because… I don’t know what day it is. Yesterday, I was almost hit by a car. Every day feels like yesterday. Like I got stuck, and that’s all I can see. The headlights. And… death.”
Rory sighed behind him and curled around him. His body so warm. Yet Rory shivered. “We should leave this place. It’s… not home. Go back to Savannah.”
Austin rolled into his arms. He couldn’t stop the feeling that things would never be that simple again. “We should. I’ll give notice tomorrow. The boss is already here. We can leave in two weeks.”
“Okay,” Rory said, shivering as a cold draft raced over the bed. “Sounds like a plan. We’ll get on that.”
“Your dad… won’t he be angry?”
“Let me worry about my father,” Rory said, an echo of some long-forgotten dream. Let me worry about my father.
The image of the portrait flashed in his mind as he listened to Rory’s heart lull him to sleep. The pale eyes of the monster upon him. Sucking him down into the abyss.
Let me worry about my father.
The last words he ever remembered before the darkness swallowed him… every time.
Chapter Twenty-One
Heath regretted leaving the way he had. He regretted the accusation the moment the words left his mouth. He’d asked for an explanation for something completely insane. What the hell had he expected Austin to tell him? There was nothing Austin could say that would explain the strange feeling that had settled over him on Christmas Eve.
This utterly horrible sense that… he was wrong. That his family and his life, his apartment, job. Everything. That it was all wrong.
That wasn’t something Austin could possibly even know.
But to hear that Austin had seen him die on the same day… well, that was just batshit crazy.
Heath stopped at the edge of the courtyard. He’d left Austin behind because he hadn’t trusted himself not to… what? Strike out?
He’d never hit anyone before. Not in anger, at least. But he couldn’t stop feeling this powerful… something. There was just something completely not right here.
His sense of common decency returned just before he made it to the tiny apartment. Heath could kick himself for leaving an injured man all alone to navigate the still iced over courtyard. Not that he thought Austin needed coddling. He seemed steadier today than yesterday. Still pale. The bruises he could see on Austin’s arms looked strangely like fingerprints. As if someone had grabbed him by the arms and…
“You picked me up and threw me out of the path of that car. And you… died.” He’d said. His heart in his eyes, truth in his voice.
Someone had saved the man, the bruises proved that much. But it hadn’t been him. Heath had been sitting at a table in a crowded restaurant in New York City with someone else. They had tickets for Hamilton. Clark had paid a fortune for them more than a year ago. It didn’t matter that he and Clark had separated months ago. It was still their anniversary.
He couldn’t remember the show. He remembered Clark following him back to the apartment they’d once shared. He remembered waking up in Clark’s arms. He remembered the overwhelming feeling of shame for sleeping with his husband. Ex-husband. Soon to be ex-husband.
“Marry me,” Clark had whispered, stroking Heath’s back as he sat on the side of the bed, holding his aching head. “Again. We can call the lawyer and have the papers destroyed before they’re filed. Heath, please. I love you.”
But he didn’t. Heath knew it was a lie the moment he said the words. Clark had never loved him. And Heath had realized that he’d never loved Clark, not the way he wanted to love Clark.
Heath packed a suitcase while Clark watched him, thinking he was packing to go away with him. To go back to Los Angeles. Heath hated living in Los Angeles. But now, New York didn’t feel right, not anymore.
Until today, he’d thought it was because Clark was in his bed. He’d tried so hard to justify why he’d left Clark in his bed and drove the fuck away. He hadn’t even called his mother to tell her he was leaving. She didn’t matter. This was his life. And he was tired of living it to make others happy.
Somehow, putting his bag into the back of his Jaguar had seemed like the perfect thing to do. Somehow, it seemed poetic that he should walk away, on what would have been his first anniversary. And he didn’t feel a damn thing.
He hadn’t felt a damn thing at any hotel he stopped at in any state he passed through. He hadn’t felt a damn thing until he was standing on that landing yesterday staring himself in the face.
But the sheer lunacy of the notion that Heath had somehow been in two places… to save Austin was just that… insane. And… that he’d died in the process—
He’d died.
Oh god, he’d called the man insane… for telling him what felt like the truth.
Heath’s heart raced. His head spinning from the complete… insanity. That explained the dreams. So many dreams. Strange dreams. He’d never dreamed before that night after Hamilton, not that he remembered. Never in his life could he remember ever dreaming. And now he couldn’t stop dreaming. He couldn’t forget the first dream that night before he’d walked out on his life.
He’d made love with his husband, but he… saw another face.
He dreamed of horses and summers so hot he couldn’t breathe. And… fear so strong he could taste the coppery tang of blood.
He’d dreamed of… Austin. And… he’d insulted Austin. He’d kissed him, and insulted him for answering a stupid question. Because if he believed it… if he believed any of it. He’d be the crazy one.
Or just an asshole.
Turning on his heel, Heath went back to the manor and slid on a patch of ice he hadn’t seen. Fuck. He caught his balance and hurried on, determined now to walk Austin to his apartment and maybe… what? Get him into bed? That’s what he’d wanted when he had the man pressed against the wall. Never mind that Austin was his employee. Never mind that he’d just been accused of impropriety. He wanted Austin. Wanted him more than he’d ever wanted Clark. Or any man he’d ever slept with.
And hell, Austin wasn’t even his type. He was too delicate, too slim, too… smart. Heath liked his men big and rough. And submissive. He wanted a man he wouldn’t hurt. Austin wore so many bruises now, Heath feared he’d break him with just a touch.
Austin needed protection. And Heath wasn’t the protective type.
He slid again in the courtyard, balancing himself… the frigid temperature… wasn’t so frigid anymore.
The whinny of a horse in the haze surprised him. Heath didn’t remember okaying the return of actual horses to the property. God, it was hot. So very hot now. Hot enough to melt the ice and clea
r the fog that engulfed him.
The scent of smoke from a wood fire led him out of the fog. The surrounding air, warmer than it had been, and sweeter, smelling of earth and… he turned in time to catch sight of the one he sought. Helping the smithy when he shouldn’t be, his hands dirty from cleaning the fire pit. A fire in his eyes… all for Heath.
Heath stumbled on another patch of ice and went down hard on one knee. He looked up in time to see Austin turn and run. He wasn’t wearing a coat. His arms were bare. His eyes unfocused.
Heath called out for him to wait. Austin ran faster, slipping on the ice, but he didn’t stop. He ran through the gate and out onto the street. A car horn blaring as it came to a jerking stop before hitting him, yet Austin still didn’t stop. He didn’t react. He kept going as if he’d never seen the car. He kept running, and Heath followed him… right into the arms of the bartender.
Their backs were turned to him as he entered the pub. They only saw each other. Austin clawed at his lover’s shirt. Heath couldn’t hear what they said.
The guy sitting on the stool at the far end of the bar near the ugly leprechaun statue cast a sad gaze his way and raised his glass. “Slainte,” he’d said as Rory steered his lover past the drunken man at the bar and into the back.
“Looks like the boss will be busy for a while,” a waitress shouted. The guy on the stool shot her a dirty look. One of pure unadulterated… jealousy.
Backing slowly out of the pub, Heath made his way back to the apartment. He needed to get the hell out of Georgia. That’s all it was. He was losing his goddamned mind. That’s what it was.
Because he’d… died.
Dying took a lot out of a person. Sort of like divorce. One day you wake up and everything you thought you knew was all a lie.
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