Into the Gloaming

by Mercy Celeste

  “To come first,” Austin said, his voice clogged with what sounded suspiciously like tears. “Yeah. I get that… Rory… I’d never come first with him. And that’s why… when we get right down to it… we could fuck every night since the day we met… but… he’d still look for someone else to fill that ache he has that I don’t understand. So… there’s the truth. I don’t want to be a side piece of ass. I want…” He stopped speaking and sighed. “Anyway, it doesn’t much matter right now. I’m drunk and horny and I’m sure there’s a redheaded ghost sitting beside the fridge watching us and I’m creeped out enough to run screaming to Florida right about now.”

  Out of some kind of perverted curiosity, Heath followed Austin’s gaze to the counter beside the refrigerator. There was nothing there. Maybe… a bit of a blur shifting around before it shimmered out of existence. But that could just be the beer and wine and the late hour making him see things. “Looks like Rory’s cousin in Savannah? I think I met him yesterday.”

  Austin nodded and blinked rapidly. The color coming back into his face as his eyes focused. “Yeah. A little like Conner Callaghan, but… younger. And… skinny. Really skinny. Skinny like he hadn’t been fed a lot most of his life. And dirty. He was filthy. Smells like… horses in here right now. I’m terrified of horses. Did you know?”

  “No, Austin, I didn’t.” Heath pushed himself to his feet and walked the few steps between them to hold out his hand. “Come on, baby, let’s get out of here. Let’s put you to bed.”

  Austin reached for his hand with his good hand and allowed Heath to pull him to stand in front of him. Heath cupped his face with trembling fingers and graze his lips over Austin’s mouth. As he’d wanted to do for hours.

  Austin kissed him back. Softly. Lips lightly grazing Heath’s as he sighed. “Stay with me.”

  “Austin…” he closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “No sex. Just… stay with me. It’s so late and… just stay with me. Please.”

  Heath nodded, and without another word, he led Austin to his bedroom… and slipped into sheets that smelled of another man.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Something solid, scratchy and hard rubbed across his chest.

  Heath opened his eyes to a strange room. The wood planks on the ceiling similar to the ones he’d awakened to the past few mornings. But different. The pattern went the wrong way. The bed was also bigger. But not by much. At least a full size, as compared to the extra-long twin he’d slept on before now.

  The warmth nestled against him moaned slightly and not in a sexy way. He rolled into Austin’s embrace, a wince of pain crossing the man’s face when Heath moved his arm too fast. “Sorry,” he whispered, having forgotten the cast he wore.

  “Is’okay, I forget it’s broken sometimes. And really, it doesn’t hurt as much now. I don’t hurt as much anywhere.” Austin spoke in a sleepy whisper without opening his eyes. “It’s cold in here.”

  “It’s always cold in here,” Heath replied and placed a soft kiss on Austin’s upturned nose.

  “Mmm,” he sighed, eyes still closed as he snuggled closer as if to hold on to sleep and their shared warmth a little longer.

  Heath didn’t need a clock to know it was late in the morning. Long past the time, he would be up and in the office. Maybe even closer to noon than actual morning. He had no real urge to remedy the situation now that he had Austin in his arms.

  “Are you turned off by morning breath?” Austin’s sleepy whisper, less sleepy, and more of a rumble now. He still hadn’t opened his eyes.

  “Want more of last night?” Heath could taste the beer and pizza from last night.

  One eye finally opened and Heath saw amusement shining in the hazel depths. “A quick hand job as we slobbered all over each other rather drunkenly, I might add. Oh, sure. Let’s do more of that.” Austin chuckled huskily against his shoulder.

  “That’s not the way I remember it,” Heath said, trying not to laugh. They’d fought some about fucking and Rory and some other bullshit then struggled to strip each other, fumbling their way to a sloppy resolution.

  “Okay, maybe that is what happened.” He laughed. God, it felt so good to laugh.

  Austin blinked rapidly, the light leaving his eyes as if he didn’t share Heath’s amusement.

  “Yeah?” Austin frowned, he definitely found nothing funny. “You think morning breath is funny?”

  Heath was about to explain, but lay flat on his back with a very warm, very awake Austin lying on top of him. He pushed himself up on one arm and leaned over Heath, his eyes serious. His body, so warm and hard in all the right places, and… Heath tried to keep his hands to himself. He really did. Right up until he slid his hands around Austin’s waist and lower to grip his firm ass. “You’re still wearing underwear. So, it must not have been much of anything special.”

  “You aren’t wearing any at all. Now that I think about it, you weren’t wearing any last night either.” Austin leaned over, touching his forehead to Heath’s, his eyes not as passive as he wanted Heath to believe.

  “Briefs just get in the way.” He shoved his hands beneath the cotton fabric hugging Austin’s ass. “And yours are definitely in the way.

  “Was wondering why I’m overdressed all of a sudden.” Austin flexed his hips as Heath slowly eased the offending material down his hips. The heat between them nearing sauna levels. Heath only managed to get Austin’s briefs down to his thighs when the temperature under the quilts reached full Magma. “You’re... I might not have thought this through.”

  Austin stopped moving against him, sweat beading on his forehead. “Feels good, Aus.” Heath skimmed his fingers over his sweat-dampened skin as he eased his legs apart, allowing Austin to fit between.

  “I’m about to bust a nut.” He sounded embarrassed, Heath couldn’t tell if the color staining his chest was erotic or just a blush.

  He hooked his arms around Austin’s shoulders and pulled him flush against his body. Spreading his legs wider, he planted his heels into the soft mattress and rocked his hips against Austin’s.

  “Me too, Austin. And it feels good,” Heath whispered against Austin’s lips and waited for Austin to make the next move.

  His eyelids fluttered almost delicately, his lashes fanning his cheeks as a soft gasp escaped his perfect lips. “Move with me, Aus.” He skimmed his tongue over Austin’s lips, feeling his breath change as they moved together… slowly. “That’s it, baby. Fuck me, Aus.” Heath heard himself whispering between soft kisses. “Feels—so good. So good. Touching you. Kissing you. Like... I need you. So much.”

  Austin’s mouth closed over his, his tongue sweeping into Heath’s mouth. Possessing him. He rolled his hips harder against Heath’s body, repositioning himself so they fit together... as if they were two parts of the same whole.

  “Heath,” Austin breathed his name. His body trembling beneath Heath’s hands. “Going to come.”

  Heath arched into him, lifting them both off the mattress to get closer. “Me too. Can’t stop. Don’t... stop.”

  He felt the electric charge in his spine. Hot and... “Austin!”

  But Austin was lost in his own pleasure. Sweat dripped from his eyebrows as he shuddered in Heath’s arms.

  When Austin was still again, Heath rolled him onto his side, careful of his injured arm. He tried to ignore the sweet scent of summer grass perfuming the room.

  “Pull the covers up,” Austin whispered into the crook of his neck. “Not ready to lose you... again.” He yawned, exhaustion filling his eyes now that his body was sated.

  Again? “Me either.” Austin’s yawn contagious. His eyes growing heavy, his brain sluggish. “Love you... Austin.”

  Austin, smiling in his sleep, the last thing Heath saw.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  October 1917

  The girl has been confined to bed. If she is able to keep this babe in her feckless belly for six more weeks, the doctors say the babe could survive.
r />   One more person for me to wait upon, I suppose.

  I had to release the remaining staff today. Nephew says there is no money for servants. Even if he doubles the output of the mill, the war is draining what little resources HC left us.

  We have only the land around the house, and the family cemetery left. There are no horses to sell. Nephew sold the last team to see us through the autumn months. With winter fast approaching, I fear for our very survival.

  Emma is refusing to wed upon her fourteenth birthday next year. As her dowry is no longer possible, she may yet get her wish.

  Though... One less mouth to feed.

  The child, Ruth, has ceased her wild ways. I managed to delouse her and get her into a dress for the first time in ages. Shoes, however, will be a battle for another day.

  The nephew and his wife have come to an understanding of sorts. He does not sleep in the stable of late, but he refuses to share her bed.

  He has accepted that he is to be a father. Though, he spends more time at the publican across the street than is healthy. He does not come home in the wee hours reeking of spirits and women, so there is that.

  He has not spoken of enlisting in many months. Yet he grows old before my eyes. The burden of family weighing him down.

  I do not know if I have sympathy for him.

  My health is fading. I fear another bout of melancholy... but if this should happen, who will see to the children?

  ~

  On the tenth day of Christmas…

  If he heard that fucking song one more fucking time…

  “Aren’t we taking the Christmas decorations down today?” Jemma came into the workroom where Austin sat mending the journal as best as he could. Mostly he was reading. His heart beating harder the closer the mystery author got to the end of 1917. He knew Nephew, Heath, would die on Christmas Eve. He knew the daughter-in-law would die some days before that. Yet he avoided the temptation to skip ahead to the end.

  “I believe the plan is to take them down on the seventh, after Epiphany, as was the custom in Victorian times.” Austin sincerely wanted to snatch every piece of green garland and red spangled anything down and burn it in one of the now inoperable fireplaces. But… he could bite his tongue and deal for… “Three more days, Jemma. We can hold out three more days.”

  She pulled off the pair of gloves she’d snitched from his private stock and flopped down in the chair in front of him. “I swear if I hear The Twelve Days of Christmas one more fucking time, I am going to… pull a Jack Nicholson…. Here’s Johnny!”

  Austin laughed. The delicate pages of the journal shaking in his hands. Jemma just stared at him. One eyebrow raised at him. She shook her head and smiled.

  “You’ve thought that already, haven’t you?” She asked, her gaze darting around the brightly lit room.

  “I was here alone for nearly three months. As winter slowly came along and the weird shit ramped up, yeah, I thought I’d landed in my own private version of The Shining.” He set the pages aside and pulled off his gloves. Not that it mattered anymore since the journal was destroyed. He tried to maintain some level of professionalism.

  “Before you and Ghost Heath did the dirty in the wedding ring quilt room.” He could have sworn her eyebrow rose even higher, almost up to her widow’s peak. “And you and reincarnated Heath finally got around to doing the deed out in the stable. Seems… legit… where the master would go to dally with the help.”

  “Oh, fuck, Jemma, don’t start that again. Yes, we know this was a class situation back then. But… as you said, reincarnated Heath, and I already did the deed in the same bedroom. So much for the help—”

  “Sneaking upstairs while the young master is home alone to catch a quickie before getting back out to the stables to do his job.” Jemma stopped staring at him with that annoying raised eyebrow, her expression going from amused to serious. “Think about it, Oz. Go back to the beginning of that journal. You said the stable boy was missing. And the old hag writing the thing couldn’t give a rat’s ass. Right?”

  “Yeah?” Austin shifted back to the beginning, pulling out the entries from the summer of 1912. Most of the entries from that time were about petty household occurrences. She rarely wrote her thoughts on the family. At least not as often as she noted down her thoughts on which maid might be stealing food or the silver. He read the longest entry concerning the stable boy.

  “Heath, the other Heath, he was twenty-two when he died in 1917 right?” Jemma took a notepad and began making notes. “So, he was born in 1895?”

  “January…” Austin looked at the family history he’d jotted down on the whiteboard on the wall right behind Jemma’s head. “Sixth. He was born on Epiphany. His birthday is in a few days. Holy shit, that’s odd.”

  “What’s odd?” The reincarna— Heath came in carrying another of the mystery crates from the attic room. He was just as dusty and covered in cobwebs as he’d been the day they discovered the room.

  “The ghost Heath, his birthday is on the sixth.” Jemma supplied, going back to her notes, she took the journal pages and started leafing through the 1912 summer months.

  “Yes, so? Another thing we share. A name. A face. And a birthday. Though, I was born in 1988. Unlike him, he was born in…” Heath glanced up to the whiteboard as if noticing it for the first time.

  “Your birthday is in two days?” Austin squeaked up. “Uh… we should… do something. Get Mrs. Henley to bake a cake. Uh… presents?” Jesus god he sounded… like a smitten little kitten just hoping for a scratch between his ears. From his boss man… with whom he’d just spent a lovely morning in the stable… doing sweaty work that had nothing to do with—

  “Aha, yes. I think Heath was sneaking out to the stables for some afternoon delight with the staff.” Jemma crowed and Heath jumped back quickly, his face going very rigid, and pale.

  “I beg your pardon?” And the oh-so-precise speech was back. His shoulders thrown back. His whole demeanor changed.

  Jemma looked up, blinking, her gaze landing on Austin, then drifting over to Heath, and she finally lost her smirk. “Oh, no, not you Heath, the other Heath. We know you and Oz are banging in the stable. It was quite… uh… entertaining.”

  “You heard us?” Austin heard his voice hit an octave he’d never heard come out of his mouth. “Through three feet thick stone walls, two apartments away.”

  “Or… uh, right outside your window. It was late. We were heading to work. Went to breakfast instead. Figured you’d be a while.” Jemma didn’t dare crack a grin, but Austin could tell she wanted to. “Calm your tits, Oz. We’re all consenting adults around here. And… it’s sweet. So now… back to the other Heath, banging the stable boy. Because I seriously think he was. And something happened. Like something permanent.” She turned the pages around and dug through the box she’d carried in, coming up with a newspaper clipping. She picked up one of her discarded gloves and used it to scoop out the clipping and lay it on a felt-lined board. “I found this tucked into a scrapbook from that crate yesterday. It’s about a brother, a Cormac Byrne, who’d started making claims that the Cortlandt’s had lied about his disappearance. He said the boy, Osian— fuck that’s a name, how do you even pronounce that? Anyway, the boy never came home. So, where’d he go? And if he just ran off… why would that Heath go into a full-fledged downward spiral… and why in the hell would they marry him off at seventeen? Wealthy people did not marry their sons off before they’d sent them off to college. Unless there was something—”

  “Wrong with them,” Austin finished her thought. Those nights back in… just a week ago… god, it felt so long ago. “He…” Oh fuck. He pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. If he didn’t hold his tongue, Jemma would think he was fucking nuts. Heath wasn’t exactly too far off from thinking it still.

  “Tell her, Austin.” Heath’s voice, like velvet, washed over him. He could so easily mistake this voice from one he’d heard not so long ago.

  “She’ll think I’m insane
. Even I think I’m insane.”

  “I already think you’re insane. But not because you had carnal relations with a ghost in the wedding ring quilt room. We’ve already had that discussion. Remember?” Jemma eyed them both as if they’d lost their minds. “That was like… yesterday. Did you forget that already? I swear you need your head examined.”

  “The MRI came back clear,” Austin retorted. And they both laughed. Breaking the tension. “Okay, fine, yesterday is a bit of a blur. We got drunk last night and stayed up until three. And I’m getting my days mixed up. I mean, it was a little more than a week ago that… I have no idea anymore. Seems like years ago. Seems like hours.”

  “The bruises are finally fading. You’re looking normal… well… as normal as you ever looked.” Jemma tapped his shin with the tip of her shoe. Another pair of ballerina slippers. This pair a matte black. To go with her black skinny jeans that clung to every curve, showing nothing that would make anyone suspicious about what secrets she hid in those jeans. And a gold long sleeve sparkly cropped sweater over a black tank top. Her hair pulled up in her customary high, tight ponytail.

  He smiled at her, fondly. Loving her… like an annoying… older sister. “What?”

  “Okay, stop staring at me like that. You didn’t just have a full-on spectral vision again, did you?” She kicked him under the table this time, to get his attention. And Austin jumped.

  “No. Ow! Those pointy little shoes of yours hurt.” Reaching down to rub his leg, he snarled at her. “And no. I didn’t see anything. Just… I keep getting weird déjà vu. Like we’ve done this all before. Or… something. Like… I don’t know, I can’t explain it. I’m seeing things I can’t explain away. I had a six-week flirtation with a ghost trapped in a death loop. And… why do we all feel like we’ve known each other forever when it’s only been a couple of weeks… don’t tell me it’s not just me?”