River Home

by Elle Keaton

  “Hey, boss.”

  Miguel started. “Jesus,” he snapped, spinning to face Dom. “Do not sneak up on me.”

  Dom raised his hands in surrender. “Whoa, dude, you are super touchy. I was just going to tell you that I got the parts ordered for tomorrow, except for the carburetor for that ancient Toyota Land Cruiser you agreed to work on. We’re going to have to call around on that.”

  “Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Regret welled; why was he snarling?

  Dom cocked his head at Miguel, a question in his eyes. “You wanna hang out with us later? Kevin wants to grab a burger.”

  Miguel felt too out of sorts and spiritually rumpled to hang out with the fresh-faced brothers. He was only six years older than Dom; today he felt a million times that. Joking around, trying to figure out who Kevin was mooning over or if Dom had met a girl who could stand him for more than a couple weeks… none of it sounded fun. Neither did his apartment.

  “Nah. Thanks for the offer. I’m going to make a last sweep at Buck’s before the honeymooners get back. Water plants and stuff.” Catch up on his favorite crime shows. Snuggle on the couch he missed. Except it wasn’t the same without his friends there.

  “All right.” Dom didn’t look convinced but didn’t press the issue.

  After closing, Miguel changed into street clothes and headed over to Buck’s. Dutifully he watered the plants on the back deck and halfheartedly aimed the hose at the backyard lawn—it was kind of uncool to water your lawn in Skagit. It was still light, because it was July and the sun set late. Turning off the hose, he sat in one of the deck chairs for a while feeling very alone and sorry for himself, watching the bats swoop across the yard searching for bugs. Finally he went inside and turned on the TV, but even a rerun of Sons of Anarchy couldn’t get his spirits up.

  His let his eyes drift shut, only to wake up hours later with a jolt. The living room was shadowed, and the TV was no longer on. He must have turned it off. Or rolled on top of the remote. Maybe that’s what had woken him.

  The front shade was wide open. Buck’s house was set back from the street, but not so far that Miguel didn’t have a clear view of the jogger making his or her way down the street, away from the house. What was it with middle-of-the-night exercise? The only exercise Miguel liked at midnight was between the sheets.

  The wall clock ticked past eleven-thirty a.m. Tuesday. Miguel was thinking about ordering lunch for the three of them when the office phone rang. Buck had a bad case of retro; the phone was an old wired-in wall mount. The coiled cord between the body of the phone and the handset was something like fifteen feet long, and Miguel spent more time untangling it than talking on the damn thing.

  “Swanfeldt’s Auto,” Miguel said automatically.

  “Hey, buddy.” Buck’s warm voice danced across the connection.

  “Buck!” Miguel couldn’t believe how happy he was to hear his friend’s voice.

  “Everything going okay?”

  “Of course. The guys and I have everything under control. What are you doing calling, anyhow? You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon.”

  Buck chuckled. “Joey told me you’d say that.”

  “How’s the vacation?”

  “Between you and me, it’s weird how many adults go to Disney World. We’ve had a great time, though.”

  “Tell me you haven’t spent all your time there.”

  “Nah, only five days. We went to the beach, and then Joey surprised me with tickets to a car show.”

  “You got a nice tan, handsome?”

  “I’ve got some color. Joey looks like a toma—”

  There was rustling and then Joey’s outraged voice. “I do not look like a tomato, it just takes me a little longer to brown.”

  “You’re not a turkey, Joey,” Miguel snickered.

  “Annd, everything is okay at home, so I’m hanging up now and hiding the phone. We’ll see you this weekend.” Joey hung up.

  Miguel stared at the handset, dial tone blaring before turning to the annoying bleep meaning the connection had been disrupted. He’d hadn’t told them he’d moved out—there’d been no time. He knew Buck was going to be upset; it felt like he was breaking up with his friends.

  Absently he hung the handset back up, silencing the bleeping tone.

  Nate Richardson walked into the shop. Miguel blinked. That stupid phrase, “A tall drink of water”—that’s what came to mind when Miguel laid eyes on him. Nate had been on his mind since the week before, seriously trying his semi-drunken vow of chastity.

  Miguel wasn’t certain if it was cheating if he masturbated to thoughts of a fiery redhead or not. He’d done it anyway. The experience had been unsatisfying. Rubbing one off was fine, but Miguel preferred skin-to-skin contact.

  And here was his current fantasy come to life.

  “Hello, handsome. You are solace for my poor eyes. I’ve had to look at these two saps all day.” Dom and Kevin rolled their eyes at him in tandem.

  Nate reddened and looked down at the floor for a second. “I was wondering, do you guys do oil changes and things like that?”

  Miguel waggled his eyebrows. “I would be happy to change your oil.” Something about the quiet federal agent got his engines revving. He couldn’t help flirting with him just to see him blush. He wondered what Nate had been doing over the past week, since their impromptu shopping trip.

  “Good lord, Miguel, the guy is going to burst into flame if you keep it up.” That was Kevin, adding his two cents to the conversation. Kevin needed lessons in how to flirt if that was his reaction.

  “Look and listen, grasshopper.” Miguel felt more like himself than he had in days. Since the wedding. Since Nate had helped him move his stuff.

  “Grasshopper? Miguel, you are weird.” Kevin shook his head in disgust.

  “I don’t know,” Nate interjected, “seems to me somebody referencing a movie filmed in the 1980s may need to brush up on his moves. Wasn’t it Pat Morita who had that line?”

  Miguel pretended to be horrified. “Are you dismissing my hero, Ralph Macchio?”

  “I don’t know what either one of you are talking about,” Kevin muttered. “You flirt back with him at your own risk. That’s all I’m saying.” The comment was directed pointedly at Nate.

  “Who’s flirting?” Miguel asked no one in particular. “We’re discussing movies.”

  “So, can I get my oil changed or not?” Nate raised a hand to stop what Miguel had been about to say. “For real, oil, the stuff that gurgles out of the ground?”

  “Fine. Yes, you can have your oil changed here. Your car’s oil. The other we have to do somewhere else.”

  “Do you have no shame?” Nate paused. “Don’t answer. Nobody answer. I don’t want to know.”

  Miguel took pity on Nate and belatedly reminded himself he’d recently taken a vow of chastity: no men, no women. No sex. That didn’t mean no touching, though, right?

  “Can you come back at the end of the day?” Miguel asked. “We’ve got a couple time-sensitive jobs, but one of us can take care of you—your car,” eyebrow waggle, “before we close.” Besides, that way maybe he could get Nate to cash that rain check for dinner.

  Eating wasn’t sex, after all. Eating was just talking and getting to know this person, who Miguel was far more interested in than he should be. And, okay, eating could totally be about sex.

  Chapter Eight: Nate

  Hours of online certification and refresher safety courses had left Nate feeling brainless and fuzzy. It was his own fault for continuing to click the “Remind me later” button until he had no more time and had piled up over forty hours of classes.

  Klay kept him apprised on Gomez and Ferreira. Over a week and nothing had happened. Nate felt itchy. The dead body had been positively ID’d as Alejandro Rosales, the only connection they’d had between Texas and Washington. Nate was certain his death hadn’t been happy coincidence.

  So was Klay, which was why he was leaving Gomez at the farm camp for now. Agent F
erreira had been sent to California, following a tip that Rosales had met with someone before heading north. They needed to find the source, whoever was “recruiting” the victims. Evidence pointed to someone in the Skagit area, but they didn’t have a name. Yet.

  Leaning back in his chair, Nate tried again to get his back to pop. Klay poked his head around the side of Nate’s cubicle. “Go home. Go for a run. You are driving me up a wall with that chair squeaking every three minutes. Anything breaks, I will let you know right away.”

  Nate wasn’t going to argue. The day was beautiful, perfect temperature in the mid 70s. He could go for a run, or a hike maybe. Take his fancy SUV out and test its abilities. Snatching his keys up and shoving his laptop and notes into his bag, Nate took off like the hounds of hell were behind him.

  The problem was, being out of the office meant he had time to think. Lately he’d been thinking about Miguel Ramirez. Nate felt funny when he thought about him. A part of him he wasn’t familiar with had done a double take at first seeing Miguel… then seeing Miguel.

  Nate wasn’t an idiot. Most of the time.

  Admitting he was attracted to Miguel was one thing. Nate had found a few other men attractive, but he’d never deeply explored his sexuality. He shuddered at the memory of that one visit to a gay bar in college. Why would he after that? He’d never been exposed to, to quote his dad, the “alternative lifestyle” growing up, and had no idea how to act on his attraction.

  It seemed enough that he’d spent his childhood trying to figure out how to please his family and his high-school years trying to sort out how he’d become an outcast. Sex was easy to go without. Diving into studies had been his distraction. In college he excelled in his courses, and the Feds had started trying to recruit him by the end of his freshman year. Realizing he could do something other than join the family firm had been freeing, a weight lifted from his soul.

  Now, in Skagit, Nate had more down time than he’d had in fifteen years. He could do some exploring.

  As he opened his car door, a rush of heat swooshed out. He’d made the mistake last summer of not checking the leather seats before he slid onto them. Never again. He swore he’d burned off a significant amount of skin from the back of his legs, as he had been wearing shorts at the time.

  Getting in, he noticed the little plastic decal on his windshield. His car was due for an oil change. Why not see if he could get that taken care of? Sure… his subconscious chided. He waved it off and headed toward certain trouble.

  Swanfeldt’s Auto came into view, and Nate almost turned around, because he was pretty much using an oil change as an excuse to see the enticing Miguel.

  He knew the man was gay—or bi, maybe, because Nate remembered him dancing quite suggestively with a woman at the wedding before disappearing upstairs with a man. Not that he’d been watching closely; he just happened to notice.

  Miguel was one of those people who lit up from the inside. Some wordy people would probably say he glowed or something. Nate couldn’t really put his finger on it, but whatever it was, whatever something Miguel carried around inside himself was something Nate wanted more of.

  Even if he hadn’t been using his car as an excuse, there was no way Nate wouldn’t have reacted to Miguel’s sexy welcome. Nate wondered where Miguel’s green eyes came from. They were bright and deep and stood out against his tan skin and hair. He seemed to be fighting an ongoing losing battle with his hair—much like Nate, except Nate cropped his close to his head. He liked how Miguel’s was generally unruly, like the man himself.

  And who in their right mind would call Nate handsome? Apparently a man whose flirt button perpetually went to eleven. Nate flushed, both from the attention, even if the only witnesses were Miguel’s fellow mechanics, who both were probably used to his behavior, and from his own reaction—which made him blush harder. Fair skin was a curse.

  After a ridiculous conversation resulting in Nate agreeing to come back at the end of the day, he headed out of town, pointing his car east. If he was meeting Miguel later, he needed a way to distract himself over the course of the afternoon. Klay’d told him about a great trailhead a few miles from town that meandered along the Skagit River for a while before gaining some elevation and ending with a beautiful view of the entire valley.

  The hike was incredible and just difficult enough to do exactly what it was supposed to: distract Nate from his internal confusion. When he arrived back at Swanfeldt’s he was sweaty and pleasantly tired, with a buzz from being outside for hours with the sun beating down and birds calling each other, ignoring the human walking by. Eagles and hawks had caught the air currents over his head, gliding effortlessly along them before circling and swooping down for their prey. He’d heard a woodpecker thumping against a tree trunk. It was too late in the season for huge fields of wildflowers, but as he’d drawn closer to the view point he’d seen patches of purple and red crawling up the mountainsides.

  Miguel had his head under the hood of a late-model Ford SUV when Nate walked in. Nate didn’t immediately see either of the other two. Dom and Kevin, he remembered.

  “Hey.” The radio wasn’t blaring, so his voice boomed louder than he expected into the quiet space.

  Miguel stood up, banging the back of his head against the hood. “Ow, fuck.” He rubbed the back of his skull, grimacing. He grinned when he saw Nate. “You came back! Dom and Kevin were pretty certain I scared you off.”

  “Why?” Nate asked before he thought better of it.

  Miguel smirked. “Nah, then I really will scare you off. Pull your beast up, let’s look under the hood.” His green eyes sparkled with that something Nate couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  Nate thought it was possible flirting came as naturally to Miguel as breathing for most humans. He also thought it possible he could burst into flames from innuendo alone. He went back out to his car and blasted the air conditioning for a moment to cool his face down.

  “All right,” Miguel said once he took a look at the car. “This won’t take too long. Then you wanna grab something to eat later, take me up on my dinner offer? I’m starving.”

  Nate looked down at his battered cargo shorts and sweaty T-shirt. “I need a shower first.”

  “We can do that. There’s nothing like a nice cool shower after a hot day.”

  Miguel needed a warning label. Nate imagined one glowing and flashing above his head: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. Nate shook his head. Miguel was a force of nature, much like the river he had hiked along that afternoon. The river was deep and strong, and it was easy to be deceived by the rocks barely visible beneath the surface and think it was shallow. The uneven riverbed could easily knock a person off balance. If you fell in, the current would pull you under.

  Nate could feel Miguel’s current tugging him closer, challenging him to resist, daring Nate to give in to… whatever sparked between the two of them.

  At home, Miguel surprised him. After all the flirting and suggestive looks, Miguel said nothing. Made no comments about showering with a friend or anything else Nate could think of. Nate changed into clean shorts and a plain blue T-shirt alone in his bedroom while Miguel waited in the living room flipping through an outdoors magazine. He tugged on his slip-on Jack Purcells and he was ready. Ten minutes later they were on their way to get dinner.

  Miguel had changed out of his coveralls at work. He was handsome in jeans and an olive-greenish button-down work shirt. Nate could see why people of both sexes were drawn to him. Whatever color the shirt was, it made his skin glow and complemented his eyes. He’d toned down his flirting so much since they’d left the shop that Nate almost asked if he had done something wrong.

  In the spirit of not confusing himself further that this was anything but new friends getting dinner together, Nate suggested a local sports bar where they could watch baseball and have burgers. Except, when they arrived, it had been closed by the health department.

  Miguel laughed. “I guess we dodged a bullet, and now I don’t have to pretend I
know anything significant about the teams or the game.”

  “You could’ve said something,” Nate grumbled, feeling slightly foolish for not asking if Miguel watched baseball.

  “I would’ve had fun anyway.” He was still smiling, and Nate’s gaze was drawn to Miguel’s lips. Lips weren’t something he’d contemplated before, but Miguel’s were expressive, and his mouth was constantly moving, talking, smiling, grinning, smirking. Miguel caught his gaze, and Nate felt his face heat with a rush.

  “Where should we go?”

  Miguel looked away from him, glancing up and down the street. There were a couple chain restaurants; most of this block was retail, and the shops were closed or closing. “We could head over to the Loft?”

  Right. The Loft. Nate had been there, recently even. But never with someone he had complicated feelings about. Complicated. “The Loft sounds good.”

  They managed to get a table on the bar side of the restaurant, away from the dance floor. It wasn’t very busy. Nate saw a colleague of sorts sitting at the bar. Luckily Weir hadn’t seen him. They weren’t close friends, and Nate had no idea what he would say to him.

  When they first met, Weir had been on Klay’s team, but now he acted as a consultant. He was younger than Nate, even, and had been the team wonder boy until he took a job at the local university teaching statistics. Nate shuddered. Statistics.

  “So,” Miguel said around a mouthful of burger, “what makes you tick? What brought Nate Richardson to Skagit?”

  In a normal situation Nate hated talking about himself, but nothing was normal tonight. He felt that tug again—the magnetic pull of Miguel’s personality—and found himself telling his story.

  “I jumped at the chance to move to the West Coast.” Nate speared a bite of his salad before continuing. “Adam Klay has a great reputation. I was floored when he and his boss tapped me for the team. I can’t tell you what for, but it’s something I feel strongly about.”

  “No family? Girlfriend or boyfriend?” Miguel teased.