by Elle Keaton
And now there was Sacha. Waking up this morning wrapped around him had been both frightening and one of the most peaceful experiences he’d ever had. Sacha made him feel safe and solid and… he was afraid to trust it.
The one-sided conversation with Parker rang in his ears. He knew Parker was right about Sacha; he was not someone to take lightly. That made Seth cringe. Light was his signature. Light meant that when he and whoever he was fucking went their separate ways (and they always did), no one got hurt. Since all relationships would end eventually, Seth saved himself the heartache by never fully investing.
He’d been called on it a few times. His past partners had said he was emotionally unavailable; he didn’t let people get close enough for a real relationship. They weren’t wrong. He had an internal blueprint: as soon as he felt the noose tightening around his neck, he called things off. The second moving in, spending more time together, or “relationship status” came up in conversation, Seth was done.
Marnie had been very careful bringing strangers around after Seth moved in, to the point of it being the two of them against the world. He hadn’t realized until much later that she’d worried that, after the revolving door of Jaqueline’s vagina, Seth would have issues. She was probably right.
He’d meant his flirtation with the sexy, brooding Sacha to be the same light, innocent fun he was used to. Okay, maybe also something of an experiment, because Seth found Sacha compelling, unsettling, mysterious. Seth was starting to realize he’d bitten off more than he could chew, but he wasn’t quite ready to end things yet. Was he playing a dangerous game? Absolutely.
Engaging Sacha was dangerous, not because Sacha was an intrinsically dangerous man—though he was; there was no point in denying the aura of menace that engulfed him—but because peeling back Sacha’s layers also meant peeling back and exposing Seth’s own. Seth hadn’t realized that until too late.
“Dammit.”
Mrs. Anderson was ready to go; she waggled her fingers at him through her living-room window as he parked. A few moments later her front door opened and she stepped out wearing a practical bright-pink windbreaker, white slacks, and matching pink Keds. Adorable.
Seth met her at the top of her stairs and escorted her to his car, helping her in and making sure her seatbelt was buckled. Seth wished he had a nicer car to drive her in, but she didn’t seem to care about the derelict condition of his ancient Jeep.
The nursery was located on the south end of town, at the top of Old Charter, past the city rose gardens. The main building was a tiny cottage. Probably built around the 1920s, it sat on several acres of land. The current owners had packed it full of fun little treasures for the garden, houseplants, and seasonal decorations. Each nook and cranny was stuffed with surprises.
Seth parked and went around to open the passenger door. “Let’s start inside first, shall we? We can get a wagon for your plants.”
“Seth, thank you already for bringing me out here,” she said. “I don’t like to drive anymore.”
Seth had spotted the decades-old Chrysler tucked under her carport. “How do you get groceries and things like that?”
She fluttered a hand. “Oh, when I get desperate I’ll drive. But my car is so huge, and I’m afraid I won’t see someone over all that hood.”
“I know someone who might be able to help you with a smaller car, if you’d like.” Buck Swanfeldt would help her out, although as far as Seth knew he was knee-deep in wedding preparations at the moment. Seth snickered to himself. Buck might as well let Joey plan the whole thing and just show up on time.
Outside the main building, rows and rows of native plants, perennials, annuals, trees, and shrubs crowded the grounds, with gravel walkways in between. There was a section displaying grasses and bamboo, a section for berry vines, a section for water plants. Several greenhouses dotted the landscape, filled with not-so-hardy herbs, fuchsias, and tender annuals. Seth felt like he was in heaven. Mrs. Anderson felt the same, if her reaction to the spectacle was any gauge.
“Seth,” Mrs. Anderson sighed after a few minutes of looking at the huge selection of plants, “I want it all.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t that the truth.” He grabbed a wagon and led Mrs. Anderson toward the greenhouses.
Nineteen
Seth
The postcards and other treasures they’d found in the Warrick still intrigued Seth. Over the past few days he’d been close to obsessive, trying to learn as much as he could about the two men in the photo… which wasn’t much. He was desperately curious about who Owen Penn and Theodore Garrison had been, what their history was, and why someone had saved the books of poetry and dime-store novels. Why had the box been tucked behind a wall in the Warrick? Their story felt important, although he couldn’t explain why.
Plus, it was a good distraction from Sacha and Parker. The two of them fought like cats and dogs about ninety percent of the time. Over the few days since Parker arrived, Seth had moderated more than one “discussion” between the two. It was kind of endearing—their arguing merely accentuated how much they cared for each other—but it was stressful to be around.
Seth went to the Booking Room for some relative peace and quiet. The café was bustling, but most of the patrons were taking their drinks and snacks outdoors to enjoy the sunshine, so there were plenty of tables available.
Ira Fragale was in residence, doing his sexy, silver-haired, man in charge thing. They’d danced around an attraction earlier in the year, but it hadn’t gone anywhere. They were both emotionally elusive, but in different ways. Didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the silver fox from afar.
“Hey, Ira.”
“Seth.”
Ira made Sacha seem like a gossip.
Snagging a table away from the noise of the espresso machine, Seth got down to business, popping his laptop open and setting himself up for maximum focus. He’d been searching all week, but he decided to start over again from the beginning. Typing in Owen Penn got him a whole lot of nothing relevant. He tried Owen Penn 1939, the date from the back of the photograph. Nothing. These guys were too old for a big social-media presence. If they were even alive.
There were several Theodore Garrisons recorded as living in Washington between 1910 and 1930. The emeritus English professor at the UW kept catching his eye, but Seth still thought his birth year was too late… although at nearly ninety-five he was the single living Theodore Garrison Seth could find in Washington. He certainly wasn’t after the guy in Iowa who was a shift manager for Pizza Hut. The internet was a weird place. He had a burst of excitement when he discovered birth records for an Owen Penn born in 1920 in Twisp, Washington, but he couldn’t find anything following that.
Nothing for the two names together. He added Lake Chelan, then Chelan on its own. Then he tried each of them with the state and the year. He wasted some time following a string of names through a major ancestry site, but he didn’t know if he had the right people or not. Seriously, how hard could it be to find evidence of someone from the 1930s, when the population of Washington was less than two million souls? Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of how else he could research someone he literally knew nothing about.
Somebody tapped his shoulder, interrupting his train of thought. “Your coffee is cold; more?” Ira asked.
“What?” Seth squinted up at him, eyes bleary from staring at the computer screen.
“You’ve been sitting here for hours, focused on whatever it is you’re doing. Do. You. Want, another coffee or not?” If Seth hadn’t known Ira, he would have thought he was an asshole. Actually, he was pretty much an asshole.
“Damn. Is that the time?” Seth shut the lid of his laptop on the mostly futile search. He’d found a few possible clues, but if he was going to figure out who Owen and Theodore were, he would need to go somewhere like the city library in Winthrop, or even the county courthouse. In the meantime, he was late for his daily check-in at the Warrick. Parker or not, Sacha would probably be there. Fragments of
the other day’s conversation with Parker popped into his head, but he chose to ignore them. They were both adults, and it wasn’t Seth’s job to guard Sacha’s heart, was it?
After circling the block for a spot, Seth tucked his Jeep in behind a massive trash container jammed against the curb. Sacha had caved and rented a Dumpster to haul away material from the demolition. It sat directly in front of the Warrick, and the man himself was out front, tossing offending pieces of the building’s history into the trash.
Seth swallowed. Every time he laid eyes on Sacha he was hit with twin stabs of lust and longing. Even after days of having him, and Parker, in his house, Seth wasn’t tired of the sight of him. Or the sound of his gravelly voice, or the smile Seth knew was his alone. Parker had shaken his head behind Sacha’s back more than once, but Seth didn’t have to explain anything to Parker, and frankly Parker should focus on working out his own shit.
He wondered what Parker and Sacha’s home life had been like. Growing up under Marnie’s wing had been the luckiest thing ever to have happened to Seth. She’d created a safe place for him to live and explore, learn and grow. No subject had been taboo; if he had a question about anything, Marnie would answer the best she could. If she couldn’t answer, she’d find someone who would.
She’d never said, “Don’t love your mother; she is a bad person.” Instead, she’d helped Seth recover the good memories he had of Jaqueline, helped him understand that in some intrinsic, impossible way his mother was broken beyond repair… and it wasn’t Seth’s fault. Mostly.
Jaqueline had brought Seth into the world and therefore to Marnie, for which Marnie insisted to her deathbed she was forever grateful. When he’d been confused about his sexuality, she’d hugged him tight and said as long as he loved well and true it didn’t matter who they were. He wondered what she would have to say about Sacha.
Looking back on the exact moment Marnie appeared in his life, coming through the door of the social worker’s grim office in Aberdeen like some sort of hippie storm trooper, Seth could almost believe it had been a miracle. If he believed in a God, he would believe this one person had been sent for him alone. Without her, Seth’s life would have had a different outcome. Instead Marnie appeared and swept him off to Arizona with her.
It hadn’t been all sunshine and roses. Seven-year-old Seth had been practically feral. Which reminded him of what Parker had told him about Sacha; they had more in common than a mutual interest in old buildings. It had taken months for Marnie to gain his trust. He stole money from her wallet, believing she would put him out on the street. He kept his meager belongings packed, sleeping fully dressed, even in his shoes, because he knew they would be leaving in the dead of night at some point. He hoarded food in his room, because there would be a day when there wasn’t any. He’d had to learn how to make friends and started school a grade behind.
Seth shook himself, bringing his mind back to the present and the compelling vision before him. Limned by the early evening light blanketing the city, Sacha was a living work of art: shirt off, muscles flexing and straining while he heaved scrap wood, plasterboard, and whatnot off the sidewalk into the skip. The sight would challenge any red-blooded human. Taking a calming lungful of air, Seth got out of his car and headed toward the man of his dreams. In, in his dreams.
Micah came around the corner as Seth was nearing Sacha.
“Hey!” Micah waved. “I’m hoping to get that tour.”
Seth about died laughing at the expression of disgust on Sacha’s face. Evidently, Sacha had hoped Micah would disregard his offer of a tour.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sacha not-so-quietly muttered. “I will never get any work done with the two of you here. It’s bad enough I have to babysit Parker.”
Seth snickered. If Adam knew what a dick Sacha could be, they would either get along scarily well or there would be an epic Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah dogfight. Hard to tell who would win. Sacha was grizzly-bear huge, but Adam was crafty and seriously built. Seth had a short-lived fantasy about the two of them battling to the finish… until he squicked himself out envisioning Adam locked in a wrestling hold by a mostly naked Sacha. His brain had to shut it down; he did not need to be having pervy fantasies where his half-brother was an accidental co-star.
Anyway, not even Sacha could be unpleasant to Micah for very long. Micah niced people until they had no other recourse than to be pleasant back.
Micah was taken by the building, quickly seeing what both Sacha and Seth did: a diamond in the rough. “You could do so many interesting things with this space, and I know the Chamber of Commerce is really trying to bring N.O.T. into the economic plan for Skagit. What are you thinking about?”
“You two are like the Wonder Twins with all the questions. And the fucking Chamber of Commerce can kiss my ass.”
Seth wondered what the Chamber had done to get on Sacha’s bad side—not that it would have been difficult, but his response did seem particularly vehement.
Micah ignored Sacha’s outburst. “There really isn’t enough small office space here in town. I know loads of artists and other small-business owners who would kill to rent desk space somewhere like this. They could have a respectable address without renting the whole building. I’d rent space here. Or small retail could be nice, but the light in here is so amazing it would be wasted on retail. Although,” Micah twitched his sweaty T-shirt away from his body, “you should think about air conditioning.”
Seth couldn’t tell which horrified Sacha more, the idea of Micah renting imaginary desk space or having to deal with installing air conditioning. On second thought it was probably the idea of Micah being around on a regular basis. The air conditioning would have to lie there and take Sacha’s attitude.
Micah left after exacting a promise they would come over for dinner soon. Sacha and Seth stood together on the sidewalk watching him drive away.
Seth turned to Sacha. “Hey. So, did you find any more treasure today?”
“You were late,” Sacha grunted unresponsively, turning to pick up a large piece of lumber and heaving it over the edge of the container. It landed with a boom, and a cloud of dust spooled upward.
He had been later than usual after falling down the virtual rabbit hole researching Owen and Theodore. He’d been in the habit of showing up in the early to mid-afternoon and helping out for a couple hours. They’d fallen into a routine since the day Seth had brought the Danishes.
“Were you worried?” The idea was kind of mind-boggling. Marnie had worried, in a way, but that hadn’t really been how she parented. He couldn’t fault her; she had been in her forties by the time he had come into her life. He didn’t know how to be a kid, and she didn’t know how to parent, yet the both of them had been fine.
Sacha frowned. His default expression, it didn’t really mean anything. “A little.” He tossed another piece of lumber into the skip.
Seth told himself to quit ogling and get to work. Forty minutes later, the skip was three-quarters full, and most of the debris was gone from inside. Sacha went to grab his shirt—a shame, even if Seth did find his attention sliding Sacha’s way too many times to count. The ground floor was now empty except for what was left of Sacha’s belongings. He’d even taken out the wall between the tiny restroom and the main space, leaving a depressed-looking toilet in the far corner.
From where he was standing, Seth could see that much of the second level had also been on the receiving end of Sacha’s raze-everything treatment. Several large boxes stood in the main area, fixtures to replace what Sacha had removed. Original-style lamps from a lighting company that specialized in old designs, two ceiling fans, a stack of what looked like crown molding and other trim. Slowly but surely Sacha was bringing the Warrick back.
Twenty
Seth
The next afternoon Sacha was busy bullying the city, and a construction firm he was hoping to hire for a wiring upgrade and new electric box, into quickly issuing the necessary permits and generally moving faster. Seth
suspected that Sacha might have met his match in the city bureaucrats, although the construction firm could possibly fall in line. The timeline for the project had been pushed back a minimum of four weeks due to a backlog of requests. Four weeks for Sacha to stalk and prowl and generally scare the crap out of Seth if he wasn’t paying close attention.
Parker was holed up in the spare bedroom again, still. He hadn’t come out since lunch; when Seth had tapped on the door, he’d said he wasn’t hungry. Seth didn’t know how to help the younger man, who seemed a little depressed—when he wasn’t interfering in Seth and Sacha’s personal lives.
His front door banged open, and Sacha stomped in looking flustered and pissed off.
“So… didn’t go well with the city?”
“Fucking bureaucrats, pencil-pushing jackasses.” Sacha stopped, scowled, and ran a hand through the sexy salt-and-pepper hair Seth had been fantasizing about running his own hands through. “Fucking Chamber of Commerce…” He seemed to have run out of steam.
“Water, beer?”
“Fuck, yeah. Beer, please.”
Seth turned and began rummaging in the fridge. When he turned back there was no mistaking the heat in Sacha’s eyes, or the direction he’d been looking. He’d been staring at Seth’s ass. Seth allowed himself a small, very naughty, grin. Sacha still hadn’t taken the beer from his hand. Seth moved closer, holding the beer out. Before he could change his mind, he tucked his nose into Sacha’s neck, loving that they were close enough in height for this to be easy.
Seth was feeling reckless. Running his nose up Sacha’s neck, Seth nipped his earlobe, then placed a quick kiss on the corner of Sacha’s mouth. It was meant to tease. Instead, strong arms slid around his waist. The cold bottle trapped between them kept Seth acutely aware of the intimacy of the situation. He almost couldn’t breathe.
