The Growing Season

by Diana Copland

  “Such a nice man.” Her voice was so soft it might not have been there at all.

  “Yeah,” Danny whispered, staring at the empty doorway, “he is.”

  He finally stirred and shut off everything but the grow lights over the seed trays and walked across the driveway to the back door, his mind racing. Sam had been about to kiss him, he knew it. And he couldn’t decide if the fact he hadn’t was the best or worst development in recent memory. Still rattled, he opened the back door, and warm air rushed against his face.

  “What did Ignatius want?”

  Devon’s voice sounded hard. Danny stripped out of his jacket and tossed it at a peg, walking into the welcoming light of the kitchen. Devon was sitting on the butcher block, legs swinging, Will was on a stool, and Cal was standing, leaning his hips back against the sink.

  “To be an asshole.” Danny yanked a stool out with his foot before dropping onto it.

  “How’s Sam?” Cal asked. He studied Danny mildly. “I saw you follow him into the shed.”

  Feeling exposed, Danny reverted to sarcasm. “He’s great. We had sex. Hot monkey sex, right there next to the stacks of trays, me bent over Mom’s potting shelf.”

  Cal’s look turned dry and Devon kicked his shin lightly. “Be nice. We’re just curious.”

  “He’s...upset,” Danny answered finally. “His dad knew just what to say, too. Sam’s already a ball of guilt about his mom, even though she’s the one who told him to come work here.”

  Devon’s brows shot up. “She did?”

  “Didn’t you know they were friends, Sam’s mom and Audrey?”

  Cal shook his head. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I think they were in garden club together or something,” Will offered. The brothers turned to him and he shrugged as pink flushed the skin above his collar. Will wasn’t big on being the center of attention. “I seem to remember Sam’s mom saying something about it. What good friends they were.”

  “God, I miss her.” Danny was startled when the words came out of his mouth.

  “Me, too.” Devon and Cal spoke together. They all exchanged looks of commiseration.

  There was a short, communal silence. “Hey, did you tell Devon what Ignatius said, about us ‘seeing him in a different venue’?” Danny leaned forward on his elbows.

  “He said that?” Devon’s eyes sharpened.

  “That’s almost a direct quote,” Cal said. “He also asked Danny and me which of us was the former drug addict and which the convicted felon.”

  “He what?” Will began to rise to his feet, but Cal crossed to him, laying his hand on his shoulder. He sank slowly back onto his stool, but his mouth was pinched.

  “Clearly, he’s been talking to Angus.” Devon’s dark eyes were narrowed and flinty.

  “That’s what I assume, yes.” Cal leaned against Will’s side. Will’s long, freckled arm snaked around his waist.

  “Are you okay?”

  Cal shrugged. “I’m all right. I refuse to hide from it anymore. We got the loan, the kids’ parents all know. They can’t hurt me with it.”

  “As long as you’re sure...”

  Cal smiled down into his upturned face. “I’m sure.”

  Nothing was said about the “convicted felon” remark, and Danny avoided Devon’s too-knowing eyes. He had no idea what he’d do when one of them finally insisted he explain, but just thinking about it made his stomach ache.

  Chapter Eight

  Danny had heard the grandfather clock in the upstairs lounge strike eleven, then midnight. When it struck two, he gave up trying to sleep. Sam Ignatius was at the forefront of his mind, and his body’s yearning, and the sheer impossibility of it wouldn’t allow him to relax. He shoved his feet into his sneakers, grabbed his smokes off his dresser, and left his bedroom.

  When he was fourteen, some of the kids he’d roomed with had been afraid to wander around in the dark by themselves. Not Danny. Of course, he’d been having clandestine assignations that were strictly forbidden according to house rules. Audrey expected a certain amount of hugging and kissing and hand holding, but sex was absolutely out. Danny never had been much good at following rules, and that one had been no exception. There had been others, before Mark. At the time, he’d been proud of the fact he’d been getting one over on Audrey. Only now could he appreciate that he probably hadn’t been. She’d been smarter than all of them.

  Avoiding the floorboards that squeaked the worst, he headed for the stairs. It was lighter in the lounge than he remembered, probably because the heavy velvet draperies that had hung along the wall of windows were gone. Blue, purple and lilac shadows fell across the newly gleaming floors, patches of milky moonlight splashing the furniture. It was cold. Cal was turning down the thermostat at night to conserve on the gas bill, but even so Danny could hear the old heater clanging and thumping down in the vast, musty basement. It was the only place in the house Danny wouldn’t go. It had nothing to do with the rumored ghosts that walked the halls and everything to do with the fact that it smelled funny and creeped him out.

  He didn’t really have a problem believing the house might be haunted, despite what he’d said to Audrey. Anyplace as old as it was, with as much history as it did, deserved a ghost or two. And he’d sensed something a time or two while roaming the halls. Of course, that was before Audrey started whispering in his ear. Now he wondered how many of the other stories were true, and if she was able to visit with her ancestors. He smiled faintly. She used to tell him that heaven couldn’t compete with Neverwood, and that she’d just stay and hang out with her relatives.

  Instead of heading straight down to the porch for a smoke, he took a left through the lounge, passed Devon’s room and one of the massive bathrooms that used to serve for ten boys every morning. Near the end of the long hall, right before the stairs that led up to the attic, Danny paused. The shadows were deep here but not so deep he couldn’t see that what he’d been looking for was changed beyond recognition.

  The alcove had been one of his favorite places to meet the boyfriend of the moment. Hidden behind heavy, musty blue velvet drapes, there had been a recess in the walls, almost like a bay window, only square. Each short bench had at one time sported a worn velvet cushion to pad it, and more than once Danny had ended up with them between his knees and the floor. But his favorite part of the alcove had been the portrait that hung inside it.

  It featured an older man in mid-eighteenth century wardrobe, and Danny had loved the smirk on his face and the earring in his left ear. It was of some forgotten old Rasmussen, no doubt, but Danny liked to imagine he was the black sheep of the family. The older boys made up all kinds of stories about who he might be to terrorize the little kids; in some he was a highwayman who had been shot and haunted the halls, in others he was a pirate who burst out of the alcove brandishing a cutlass. Danny only knew he liked his knowing smile and the twinkle painted in his sky-blue eyes.

  But the portrait was gone, and the alcove had been stripped of its velvet curtains and cushions. Now it was little more than three short benches recessed at the end of the hall. He couldn’t imagine what its original purpose had been. Suddenly weary, Danny sat on one of the small benches and it creaked beneath his weight. He smiled. Will and his guys might reinforce and sand and polish until the wood gleamed, but the old house still sounded like an old house. He liked it. Reaching out, he touched the newly refinished surface of the aged cherry. It was probably fanciful, but he thought he felt a slight vibration in the wood, like some energy remained, some life force from when it had been a proud, mature tree. It soothed him. He felt protected in the small alcove, hidden from view, safe within the surrounding walls. Smiling slightly, he pressed his forehead to the cool wood and closed his eyes.

  The dream was not like his usual nightmares. There were no clanging metal doors, no restraints around his wrists. Instead, he was standing beneath a massive blooming cherry tree, his hand pressed to the bark.

  He looked up, and whit
e cherry blossom petals rained down on him, like soft, warm snowflakes, and he held out his hand to catch some in his palm.

  A strong chest pressed into his back and he leaned into the strength and the heat, closing his eyes when an arm snaked around his chest.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The voice in his ear was soft and mild, and Danny turned his face toward it, felt the lips near his cheek.

  “Why didn’t I tell you what?” he asked.

  The arm around him tightened so suddenly there was no time to react. One moment it was holding him, the next it was crushing the air from his lungs. He gasped and looked down, only to find it wasn’t a man’s arm around him, but a thick heavy chain. Voices began to assault him from all sides, and he looked up. A guard from his time in jail was there, lips curved in a sadistic snarl, and Danny tried to recoil but he couldn’t move. Audrey was there, her mouth moving but no sound emerging, tears slipping down her cheeks. Devon and Cal were there, and the disgust on their faces cut him to the core.

  “You’re going to cost us everything,” Cal said. “Everything she worked for.”

  “They were juvenile records,” Danny gasped. “They’ve been expunged.”

  “That doesn’t matter in Elk Ridge.” Sam’s father stood in front of him brandishing a sheaf of papers, Eric Angus at his shoulder grinning like a psychotic Cheshire cat. “This is all we needed, all we needed...”

  The others disappeared and Sam stood there, so tall and handsome it made Danny’s heart ache. He looked sad but resigned.

  “I could never want someone like you,” he said. “You’re too damaged. Too damaged.”

  Danny tried to speak but the chains around his chest tightened and tightened until there was no air left to breathe. He felt his ribs cracking as Sam turned and walked away...

  Danny came awake with a jerk so violent he smacked his head into the hard cherry wood and banged his fists into the unforgiving walls. His eyes shot open to only cool darkness, and he hauled in shuddering breaths, his hand pressed against his chest. His heart struggled under his palm and it took several minutes for it to slow to something like a normal rate.

  The dream was already fading, but he could remember bits of it. He’d disappointed his brothers, lost them the house because of what he’d done. He clenched his eyes shut. And he’d lost Sam because he was too frightened, too damaged to have anything like a normal relationship. He wasn’t a psychiatrist but it didn’t take one to figure out the source of that dream; all of his worst fears become real. Cal and Devon hating him, Neverwood gone. Sam gone and him unable to do anything to stop it.

  “Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck.”

  Danny shot up from the bench and fled through the house as if the hounds of hell were chasing him.

  * * *

  In the morning Danny moved to the small grove of fruit trees that lined the yard. He’d never relaxed after his nightmare and was almost lightheaded with exhaustion. Knowing he wasn’t at his best when he was tired and cranky, and still not sure what to do with the feelings that had been stirred up by Sam in the shed the night before, Danny decided the best thing might be to give it some distance.

  Three apple trees and three peach lined the farthest edge of the front yard, old trees that had been planted by Audrey’s great-grandmother in 1912. Delicate buds lined the spindly branches already, and Danny hated to trim them. It wasn’t the best moment but they’d been badly neglected and he felt he had little choice. He climbed a ladder into the highest part of one of the apple trees and was balancing with one foot on a rung and the other on a sturdy branch.

  “Careful, love.”

  Today Audrey’s voice was soft, a whisper, it might even have been the memory of something she’d said to him before. Either way, it made him melancholy, brought to mind his dream Audrey, muted and crying. It took him several seconds to banish the image.

  Jose asked Sam a question, and Danny glanced down in time to see Sam bend at the waist to answer. His sweatshirt rode up a couple of inches, revealing a slender stripe of tanned flesh and a glimpse of a white elastic waistband, like the one on Jockey Classics.

  Danny couldn’t help but enjoy the view. God, he loved a man in tighty whities. But the package had to fill the wrapping once there was nothing between you and skin except a thin layer of cotton. For a moment he could imagine Sam’s hard, wiry body in nothing but. He’d bet his life Sam filled out the front just fine. And despite his determination not to notice anything about Sam, Danny was human; he saw that there was a nice-sized bulge at the apex of his thighs.

  Danny’s fingers itched to touch, and his mouth watered whenever the sheen of sweat slicked Sam’s strong, bronzed throat. He wanted to lick the strong tendons and mouth the prominent Adam’s apple. And that was a really, really bad idea.

  He’d spent most of the long, sleepless night repeating over and over that he did not have a thing for Sam Ignatius. It had simply been too long since he’d been touched in anything resembling uncomplicated, reciprocal want. What he needed, he decided, was a new stash of porn. He had sworn off real men the moment he’d been abandoned and arrested. The lessons learned in jail were seared into his memory, reinforced in his nightmares. But still his eyes lingered on that slender strip of tanned skin.

  Almost as if Sam could feel his gaze, he stood and looked up. Danny was so surprised he took a step and his foot slipped on the branch. He overcorrected and almost fell out of the tree, and his heart shot into his throat.

  “Easy, there.” Sam came to stand beneath him. “You okay?”

  Danny took a deep breath, his pulse racing. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  Sam studied the bare branches. “How do they look?”

  Danny cleared his throat and caught onto a thick branch near his head, steadying himself. “Better than I thought they would. I think the peach are going to be worse.”

  Sam gazed down the line of trees. “Probably. Listen, I could use some help identifying what you think is worth saving in the bed along the porch, if you could spare a minute.”

  “Oh, sure.” Danny shoved his cutters into his back pocket and took a step toward the ladder.

  The ominous crack beneath his foot was all the warning he got, and then he was falling. The top of the tree hadn’t looked that high when he’d been standing in it, but the fall was both as fast as a heartbeat and seemed to take place in slow motion. He heard a warning shout and closed his eyes, curling in on himself as he tried to steel for a collision with the hard ground. Instead he was jerked to a stop in a pair of strong arms and held against a solid chest. He gasped, his eyes flying open, and looked into wide brown eyes, closer than they’d ever been. There were flecks of black and auburn in the chocolate brown.

  “Jesus,” Sam blurted. “Are you all right?”

  “I—” Danny’s voice died, strangled by the heart in his throat.

  “Nice catch, man!” Jose called. Sam smiled sheepishly.

  “That’s our Sammy, rescuing the damsel in distress.” Leroy smacked Sam on the shoulder. He grinned at Danny. “Feel like a princess tumbling from her tower there, kid?”

  Jose and Leroy began to laugh.

  Face and body awash in heat, Danny stiffened and began to struggle.

  “Danny—” Sam’s smile faded.

  “Put me down.” Pulse still pounding from the unexpectedness of the fall, Danny felt raw and exposed for entirely different reasons. Blood made a rushing noise in his ears, and warmth poured down his neck onto his chest. Phantom hands touched him, harshly whispered words echoed through his head. He shoved as hard as he could at Sam’s chest. “Put me the fuck down.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Sam frowned and loosened his hold.

  Danny jerked out of his arms and fell gracelessly to his hands and knees, landing on the pile of twigs he’d dropped while trimming. His palms crashed onto the sharp sticks. Unable to get a deep breath, he tried to crawl forward when a hand closed firmly around his bicep.

  “Danny, let me help—”r />
  Striking out blindly, Danny’s fist collided with Sam’s shoulder. “Don’t touch me!” His voice was high and shaky. Throwing himself onto his back, he scooted on his hands and feet like a crab. Dimly, he realized the laughter had stopped.

  Sam, Leroy and Jose were staring at him, their eyes wide, and smiles gone.

  Suddenly realizing how he must look, Danny scrabbled to his feet, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “I...I’ll just...”

  “Danny.” Sam approached him slowly, hand extended. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He was nodding too frantically, speaking too quickly. He knew it, and still couldn’t stop it. “I need to talk to Will and Cal, so I’ll just be...” He made a jerky gesture toward the house.

  “You’re bleeding.” Sam’s voice was gentle.

  Danny looked down and saw a smudge of blood on his forearm. When he rubbed at it, instead of making it better, it got worse. He flipped his hands over and saw blood seeping from puncture wounds on his palms.

  “Oh.” He laughed unsteadily. “Stupid. I’ll just go clean up.”

  Sam took a step forward and Danny jerked back an equal distance. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I said I was, didn’t I?” he snapped. “Just leave it, all right?”

  Sam held up his hands palm out, backing up a step, dark eyes watchful. “Yeah, okay.”

  Danny turned and hurried away, forcing himself not to run, his heart still jarring hard in his throat and his skin cold and clammy. He went to the back door as quickly as he could but he could feel eyes on him every step of the way. The flesh between his shoulder blades crawled. He hated the way they’d looked at him, as if he were some sort of freak show. But he was, wasn’t he?

  He slammed into the kitchen. Cal and Will were standing next to the butcher block, and he sped up to avoid having to speak to them.

  “Danny?”

  He ignored Cal as he shouldered through the swinging butler door into the dining room.