As Sure As The Sun

by Elle Keaton

  They met at her home and set a date for Seth to pick her up so they could go the nursery together and pick out the exact plants she needed. Mrs. Anderson seemed a little lonely, and Seth looked forward to spending time with her. He knew she wouldn’t be able to stay inside while he worked on her flower beds.

  “Will, Mr. Anderson, passed away three years ago,” she said when she saw him glance toward the photograph on the mantel. It was a black-and-white wedding picture from the late fifties, if the dress was any indication.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “It’s part of life, but I would be lying if I told you I didn’t miss him every day.”

  “My aunt, who raised me, died a few years ago. I still miss her.” Sometimes it was almost unbearable. He figured it was because she had been the one certainty in his life, and when she died he had no one to act as his center. The grief had dulled but hadn’t disappeared. He supposed it never would. Marnie wouldn’t want him to grieve so hard, but he couldn’t help it. Missing her felt like a splinter he couldn’t quite remove; a little of it was left behind to fester.

  Mrs. Anderson was very astute; she cocked her head at him. “Is your aunt the one who taught you to garden?”

  “She was.” He smiled. Marnie had brought home several packets of seeds. Together they had planted them in tiny pots, watered them, and waited for the first seedlings to poke through the soil. She had taught him how to water, to gently separate the plants. Seth hadn’t wanted to go to school, worried that something would happen to the seedlings while he was gone.

  “What a wonderful way to honor her memory.”

  As he was leaving, she tried to give him a check, but he refused to take any money until the work was done. As he drove away he set an internal note to ask Micah who else, if anyone, spent time with her.

  His second—or third, depending on how he was counting—appointment of the day was outside of town. A little farther than he would like, but he couldn’t complain when he needed the work. So here he was out in the east county following his GPS to gods knew where. Finally, the female voice directed him to take a right, and Seth parked in the driveway of a slightly disheveled mid-century two-story home with an unkempt yard. Seth’s mental hands were rubbing together with excitement; this kind of yard was a blank slate and a moneymaker. He grabbed his notebook and headed for the door.

  A youngish guy met him on the porch. “Hi, you must be Seth. I’m Greg. Would you like something to drink?” Greg was cute: big brown eyes, stick-straight brown hair longer on one side and currently tucked behind his ear. Seth would have had a pretty good idea which team he played for even if he hadn’t been wearing a pink T-shirt with PRIDE imprinted in huge letters on the chest.

  “No, thanks, I’m excited to take a look at your yard. Take me on a walk.”

  “Cool.” Greg shut the door behind himself and motioned for Seth to follow him.

  They walked around the property, a great deal of which was covered with invasive blackberry; they found two rhododendron bushes Greg hadn’t known about and generally got an idea of what it would take to clear it out.

  “So, you think you can pound it into shape?”

  Seth shook his head and smiled. Did the guy have these lines written up beforehand? He quickly sketched out a map of Greg’s yard and added some notes so he wouldn’t forget. “I think so. How about I send you an estimate with three levels of work, and then we talk again.” He looked up from his notepad, smiling at Greg’s appraising glance.

  “Still nothing to drink? I’ve got iced tea or beer.” Definitely a suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

  Seth thought about it for a second, but Sacha, with his salt-and-pepper hair, broad shoulders, and wary eyes popped into his head. No, he thought better of a quick afternoon delight with a stranger and possible client. Ethics and all that. “I better not; I have one more appointment waiting. No rest for the wicked.”

  By the next day he had two possible jobs—but he was pretty sure about Greg—and one potential customer trying to get work done for free. Seth valued himself more than that. No amount of hinting that she would “spread the word” had him offering several days of free labor. Next on his list was a visit to the Warrick building: if the coffee date wasn’t going to come to him, he would take himself and coffee to Sacha.

  Pushing open the door of the Booking Room, he half-waved to a few regulars he recognized. Thankfully Ed Schultz wasn’t there, or he would have been stuck gossiping for hours.

  “Hey, Sara.” Sara, Ed’s daughter, owned the place. As usual she was behind the counter making the world turn, churning out coffees and plating pastries.

  There was a new kid behind the cash register. Sara tended to hire lost souls, and Seth wondered where she had found this adorable limpet. He couldn’t be more than eighteen, with jet-black hair that hung across one eye and porcelain skin goths would kill for. His eyes were a striking ice blue with a darker ring around the iris, set in an elfin face. The name tag hanging from his apron said “Rich.”

  “Hi, Seth. How’s it going? What can we get you? Why don’t you take this one, Rich?” She indicated Rich, who seemingly turned to stone at the request, his mouth opening and closing before he was able to reply.

  “Um, hi. How can I help you?” Rich managed to ask.

  “Don’t worry, Seth doesn’t bite.” She looked at Seth. “Rich had an encounter with Mrs. Behn, and before that Jack Summers was in here with one of his sycophants.”

  Seth nodded in sympathy. Mrs. Behn was very particular about her pastries and the temperature of her coffee. She always repeated her orders to the staff several times, louder with each repetition, as if they were deaf. No matter that she always ordered the same thing and everyone had it memorized. Seth had seen her in action several times. Ed told him she had been a teacher for forty years, and that explained everything. As for Jack Summers, he was SkPD and unfortunately believed the world revolved around him.

  Ten minutes later, Seth left with a bag of mouthwatering pastries and his thermos full of coffee. Let Operation Drop In Unannounced commence. He’d given Sacha a week to call for a coffee date, but who knew, maybe he hated texting or using the phone. Or was shy, but Seth didn’t think that was it. It was time for a direct approach. Seth didn’t want to come across as a stalker, but his curiosity had been piqued.

  As he parked, the door of the Warrick opened and a blond man in a gray suit exited the building. Seth narrowed his eyes. Who was this guy? Seth had first dibs. Stopping short outside the entrance, the stranger turned back and frowned. Seth was pretty sure it wasn’t the building he was frustrated with. After a moment, the man shook his head and walked up the block.

  From where he was parked, Seth could see Sacha’s shadow moving around inside. Sometime in the past week Sacha’d pulled much of the façade away from the first floor. Three enormous windows were now exposed, extending almost from floor to ceiling on the first floor.

  The windowpanes were opaque from years of built-up soot and dust, but Seth could see where Sacha had managed to crack one of them open a little. The revealed granite of the original fascia was grimy from being stuck behind cheap veneer for so many years, but damn, the Warrick would be extraordinary when it was finished.

  “Hey, you found the windows. I can’t believe someone covered them up like that.”

  Sacha didn’t seem surprised to see him, offering a small smile before stepping back so Seth could come in. Seth wondered how often Sacha smiled, if it was something he wasn’t used to. “Spent all night doing it. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have any neighbors,” he grumbled.

  Sacha looked exhausted, worn thin. There were bags under his eyes, and it was obvious he hadn’t shaved; his stubble had more salt and pepper than his hair and was sexy as hell. Seth wanted to run his fingers across it—was it soft, or rough? Not that it mattered; either way, Sacha was a living, breathing fantasy come true. His height, breadth of shoulders, muscles that weren’t from a gym. A little older than Seth, for
sure, and that was icing on the cake. Or maybe Danish.

  “It’s good to see you. What brings you by?”

  Seth held up the bag, shaking it a little. “I brought treats.” He didn’t imagine the charge of attraction; it was practically a living thing, a downed electrical wire sparking between them, waiting for one of them to make a move.

  Ten

  Sacha

  Sacha tried to rub the grit out of his eyes. A heat wave had made it impossible to sleep for several days and showed no signs of letting up. Instead of sleeping, he’d spent the last night wrenching ancient drywall and two-by-four framing away from the boarded-up front windows so a breeze could hopefully sneak inside. Frustration-fueled and poorly planned, the “five-minute” project had turned into hours when it became clear that he would need to pull all the drywall and plywood away from both inside and outside to allow even the smallest breeze access. When five a.m. rolled around, sleeping had been pointless.

  He’d finally gotten rid of Chris Meyer, again—the man was relentless—when, from his side of the frosted glass, Sacha spied a lanky figure bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet. His heart pounded in his throat, making him slightly lightheaded. Sacha had hoped Seth would stop by; he was too old to start texting and couldn’t bring himself to call. He knew it was ridiculous; Seth had given Sacha his number. It didn’t help that in the days since the coffee-zombie incident Seth had managed to insinuate himself into Sacha’s daily thoughts and fuel his nightly fantasies. It was inexplicable. They had known each other for three or four hours, tops.

  Besides, Seth was far too nice for him, and younger. There was no reason to imagine a hot younger man would find anything about Sacha compelling. It was pathetic. A laughable fantasy to imagine the minute Sacha decided to live “out” he would meet someone; life didn’t work that way. He turned the doorknob anyway, heart pounding.

  “I brought treats,” Seth said after admiring the results of Sacha’s overnight labors. He held up a small white paper bag, the kind pastries come in. “Fresh out of the oven.” In his other hand he held a dented silver thermos. “And coffee. Lots of it.”

  “Danish?” Sacha reached to snatch the bag out of Seth’s hand, but the asshole jerked it out of range.

  “Ah, ah, ah. You must want these pretty bad. What are you willing to do for one?” Seth teased, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

  Seth looked good enough to eat, and Sacha was a starving man in more ways than one. Without thinking, Sacha moved toward Seth. Their chests were touching while Seth still held the bag of pastries out of reach. Seth’s breath was hot against Sacha’s cheek; his pupils dilated, reducing his irises to a strip of chocolate brown.

  “Oh yeah?” Seth cocked his head to the side, exposing more of his neck. Seth smirked and the pink tip of his tongue swept out, moistening his lips. “I dare you.”

  Fucking hell, he’d never backed down from a dare in his life. Sacha growled under his breath before inhaling deeply, worshipping the lingering scent of sweat and maleness that was Seth-specific. The striation of browns that made his eyes appear caramel when the light hit them right was easy to see and impossible to look away from. A week of this man in his dreams and he had no self-control.

  Seth was playing a dangerous game. Sacha’s hands dropped of their own volition to rest on Seth’s hips. Seth’s lips parted. Sacha didn’t miss the invitation. Ignoring the cacophony of voices in his head telling him this was a bad idea, he pressed his mouth against Seth’s.

  Fucking hell, it was perfection. Like a confection, sugary, hot, and sweet. It was impossible to resist sweeping his tongue across Seth’s lips.

  Sacha loved kissing. When he’d slept with women it was his favorite part, almost always better than the long drag toward orgasm. This kiss was explosive, a ticking bomb ready to go off. If they kept going, eating at each other’s mouths, licking, nipping, sucking, Sacha probably could come from that alone.

  Seth murmured something when Sacha abandoned his lips to trail hot kisses across Seth’s cheek and down his neck where he stopped nipping, now gently sucking where Seth’s neck and shoulder met. The low groans and murmurs coming from the man in his arms spurred him on. Abandoning Seth’s neck, Sacha returned to ravaging his mouth, sucking on his lower lip and his hot, eager tongue.

  “Jesus Christ, Sacha, just… ungph.” If Seth could speak, Sacha was doing something wrong.

  A hard thump against his hip had Sacha pulling back and looking down. Seth was trying to grab onto him but still had the thermos in one hand and the pastries in the other.

  Sacha chuckled. “Don’t you even think about dropping that bag.”

  “Dude, please. You’re killing me.” Seth’s body shuddered against Sacha’s, his eyes half-mast and his lips swollen from their kissing.

  “I don’t think so. You were asking for punishment.”

  “Shit.” .

  Sweeping his hands underneath Seth’s T-shirt, Sacha slowly traced his fingertips up Seth’s flat stomach to his nipples, which were hard under his touch. Sacha rubbed them both with his thumbs before flicking one of them, making Seth moan decadently and shudder again.

  “So fucking responsive,” Sacha ground out. The thermos thudded against the hardwood flooring, and Seth used his free hand to grab at Sacha’s hip, pulling them closer.

  They needed to stop before they ended up writhing and naked on the floor of the Warrick. In theory it sounded hot, but Sacha suspected one of them would end up with slivers in his ass.

  Before pulling away, he whispered into Seth’s ear, “I think I’ve earned a Danish now.” Seth was flushed, and his hair had gotten tugged out of its band. Sacha couldn’t recall when he had run his hands through Seth’s hair, but he had dreamt about it more than once over the past week.

  “I’m going to start bringing pastries every day,” Seth said, breathless. “Holy fuck.” He swiped a hand across his mouth before handing the bag to Sacha. “You can have first choice. I think I blew a fuse.”

  The apricot Danish was very good. It almost melted in Sacha’s mouth, but it didn’t hold a candle to the taste of Seth on his lips.

  “I’m finishing getting the ceiling down.” Sacha pointed at the wooden slats the plasterboard had been mounted to. “I ordered some cleaning supplies to strip the tiles, which is going to take a fuck-ton of time.”

  What he didn’t say was that he needed a distraction before he dragged Seth over to the tangled mass of sleeping bag and mostly flat air mattress. He had a feeling there wouldn’t be much protest, but Sacha needed a breather, self-control. As short a time as they had known each other, and now knowing what Seth tasted like, Sacha needed this whatever it was to matter. He hadn’t imagined the chemistry between them.

  He had to adjust himself before he got back up on the ladder. Seth smirked and licked his fingers suggestively. Sacha groaned. He was in capital-T Trouble.

  “Hey.” Several hours later, Seth’s voice dragged him from reliving the kiss. Again. Sacha’d finished pulling down the remaining ceiling plaster on the main floor and was propped against the ladder, planning the best way to get the rest of the wooden framing down with as little damage as possible. He could see where workers had fastened the frame into some of the tiles with woodscrews.

  Seth had stayed to help, and Sacha enjoyed having the company. Seth proved to be quietly efficient, not asking a lot of questions or engaging in meaningless chatter. Without asking, he had sorted the trash and recyclable materials into separate piles. Then he had found a spare set of gloves and worked on removing the remaining framing around the huge windows.

  “What?” Sacha didn’t look at Seth, instead planning for the next stage of deconstruction.

  “Why don’t you come back to my place for a shower again? Bring your stuff; you can toss it in the wash. You won’t be able to finish any of this tonight.”

  The right thing to do was to say no. He had already accepted a great deal from Seth. But Christ, a shower and clean clothes? That was an offer h
e couldn’t turn down. Not only could he not bring himself to refuse, he wanted to run out to his truck and roar over to Seth’s, running every single stoplight along the way to stand under the cool rain of a shower until he couldn’t feel a single speck of dust on his skin.

  Something must have shown on his face, because Seth grinned. Setting the broom he was holding aside, he tugged off his gloves. “All right then. My place it is. You wanna ride with me?”

  Sacha followed Seth in his truck, parking on the gravel strip in front of his house. Seth waited for him before unlocking his front door and stepping aside so Sacha could bring his duffel in.

  “You hop in the shower. I’ll throw these things in the washer for you.”

  Sacha hardly heard a word. He was so fixated on rinsing the sweat and grime off his body, it was like he couldn’t breathe. Unlike the gym, here he could take his time and not feel weird about it.

  Like the house, the shower was a tiny piece of shit. Sacha barely fit inside the flimsy beige enclosure, and he had to scrunch down to get his head under the spray. Regardless, the experience was bliss. He was so tired of having to go to the gym to get cleaned up. Scrubbing the plaster dust and dirt from his skin and hair, he gloried in the cool water splashing across his shoulders. An indecent groan of pleasure escaped his lips. This shower was better than any sex he’d ever had. Yet.

  He still remembered his first hot shower on American soil. It had been both glorious and frightening. Glorious because he had been filthy from months, if not years, of systematic shelling and ongoing skirmishes even before the outbreak of war in Bosnia. There had been no facilities for orphan street children. Frightening because it finally hit him that he was never going back. That his life was now in the United States and he had a responsibility to make the best of it. Hot water gushing over his shoulders and tears running from his eyes, Sacha had washed his homeland from his body.