Table of Contents
Legal Page
Title Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademarks Acknowledgment
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
New Excerpt
About the Author
Publisher Page
Ascension
ISBN # 978-1-78430-781-3
©Copyright Bailey Bradford 2015
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright September 2015
Edited by Eleanor Boyall and Rebecca Scott
Pride Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Pride Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Pride Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2015 by Pride Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Pride Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
Southern Spirits
ASCENSION
Bailey Bradford
Book seven in the Southern Spirits series
Conner Sutherland never thought he’d meet the love of his life in the afterlife.
Conner Sutherland has been alone for a long time. He can’t remember the last time he even felt the desire to be touched by another man. Some time before his death, when he’d still been Laine’s lover. But Laine had found Severo years ago, and if any two people were meant for each other it was Laine and Sev. Where that leaves Conner, he doesn’t know, other than feeling lost and out of sorts.
He doesn’t want to think about the way he feels when he sees Ro—Rogelio, Sev’s nephew. Conner’s seen Ro grow from a pretty boy into a handsome man, but wanting him is foolish and useless. Ro’s got a life to live, and even if he does things that hurt Conner, that’s not Ro’s fault. He doesn’t know he entranced Conner long ago.
Ro has only ever wanted one man for keeps. It’s a pointless want, though, because Conner Sutherland is dead and too busy pranking Laine and Sev to notice Ro anyway.
But life and death have a way of surprising you, as Ro and Conner find out.
Dedication
This one wrenched my heart a bit, but it also made me smile. I hope y’all enjoy it.
Trademarks Acknowledgment
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Stetson: John B. Stetson Company
L’Oréal: L’Oréal U.S.A., Inc.
Google: Google Inc.
Jell-O: Kraft Foods
Chapter One
“Hey, Ro, can you get the pot holder for me?” Severo asked as he opened the oven door.
Rogelio Martinez plucked the mitts from the counter top and handed them to his uncle Sev. The heat from the oven wafted out and Ro stepped back, swiping at his brow. “Are they ready?”
“I think so.” Sev pulled out the bubbling enchiladas. The spicy scent of them filled the kitchen and Ro’s stomach gurgled with anticipation. Between the enchiladas and the tortillas, both homemade, he was about to drown himself in drool. He swallowed and greeted Laine as he came into the kitchen. “Hey, Uncle Laine, how was work?”
Laine took off his Stetson and held it in one hand as he walked over to Sev. The kiss they shared was brief but the love between the two men was evident in the way they leaned toward each other, and in their expressions.
Rogelio’s heart pinched with something uncomfortably like jealousy. He didn’t want to be ugly, and he didn’t begrudge his uncles their love. He just… He wanted a love like that for himself. Well, and another man, duh. As he watched Sev and Laine, Ro’s mind wandered to his fantasy man. Ro had pictured him so many times since he’d realized he was gay. Thick blond hair, stocky, muscular build, and a smile that promised all kinds of mischief.
Ro blinked and shook his head. The image forming in his mind wasn’t one of a man he’d ever actually met. It was of a picture he’d seen years ago when, as a teen, he’d gone snooping into Sev’s past. It had twined with Laine’s, and Ro had been a naïve and romantic young fool, so entranced by Sev and Laine’s love story that he hadn’t been able to think of much else.
“You gonna help set the table, kid?”
Laine’s deep rumbling voice snapped Ro out of his thoughts. “Yeah, sure.”
Ro took the plain blue plates down from the shelf and placed them on the table. It didn’t take him long to lay out silverware and glasses of sweet tea. Laine made up a batch of guacamole while Sev finished up the salsa. They sat down at the table once everything was in place.
Laine arched an eyebrow at him and pointed at the enchiladas. “Two or three?”
“Three.” Ro was thin as a whip but he could and did eat anything he wanted.
Sev sniffed at him. “I used to have that kind of metabolism. It’ll catch up to you, trust me.”
“I doubt that,” Ro said as he scooped some guacamole onto his plate. He was starving, but he could spare a moment to pick on his uncle. “You’re still in shape, and you’re getting old.”
Sev hissed and kicked him under the table. “I am not old, smart ass. And Laine’s older than me, anyway!”
Ro nodded and managed not to grimace as his shin took another kick. “Yeah, but Laine has always looked…” Ro waited for Laine to glare at him, then he sent Laine his sweetest smile. “Dignified.”
Laine snorted and muttered, “Dignified, my ass. Sayin’ I always looked old is what you’re sayin’.”
Ro hitched up a shoulder and shoveled a forkful of enchiladas into his mouth. He closed his eyes and moaned appreciatively as the hot cheese almost burned his tongue. He wasn’t the only one enjoying the meal, either. The three men quit picking on each other and settled in to eat.
A prickling sensation caused the hairs on the back of Ro’s neck to stand up. His skin flushed with an awareness that he’d come to recognize. Sev cocked his head, but Laine kept eating, right up until the time that his plate scooted away from him.
Laine grabbed his plate and glared around the room. “Aw, damn it, Conner! You’re just jealous because you can’t have any!”
Sev shook his head. “He can have yours,” he said just as Laine’s plate was lifted off the table.
Laine leaped up from his seat but the plate spun up until its contents almost touched the ceiling.
“Conner…” Laine growled.
Ro’s pulse raced and he grew warm in places he just shouldn’t while sitting at his uncles’ table. Ro set his fork down and pressed his hands to his thighs, digging his fingertips hard against his legs to distract himself from the wave of arousal washing over him. Only someone like him would have a crush on a dead guy with a love for pranks.
�
��I’m gonna call someone who can exorcise spirits,” Laine warned. The plate tipped precariously and Laine tossed a hand out. “I was kidding! You know we love you, buddy.”
And just like that, the plate was lowered to the table again. Ro watched enviously as Laine’s hair was tousled. Sev swatted at the air shortly thereafter. “Conner, don’t fuck with my hair—urgh!” Sev’s hair became the victim of a mini whirlwind. Laine snickered. Ro dipped his head and wished he’d been included in the playing, but, as usual, Conner didn’t seem to notice him. He supposed that shouldn’t be surprising. Conner had been Laine’s lover before dying. There was no reason for the prankster spirit to notice Ro’s existence.
What would be the point if he did? Ro couldn’t figure that one out. He kept his sigh to himself. He was just a geeky twenty-eight year old who still lived at home with his parents and didn’t have a life to speak of.
“Did you sense him?” Sev asked as Ro fiddled with a fold in his jeans.
Ro shook his head. “No.” He didn’t think that prickling sensation counted. As much as he’d longed to be gifted like Sev, to be able to communicate with the dead, Ro just wasn’t able to. He figured his familiarity with Conner was the only reason he knew when that particular spirit popped in. Conner had been swooping in to tease Laine and Sev, and sometimes save their asses in certain situations, for a long time now. Ro had heard so many stories—
Sev pushed back his chair. “I bet he’s in the bathroom hiding my stuff again. I’ll be right back.”
“Huh?” Ro looked at Laine for an explanation.
Laine grunted around a mouthful of food. He chewed it then swallowed, in no obvious hurry to answer, but he finally did. “‘Huh’ isn’t exactly a question, at least not in my mind, it isn’t. Conner’s taken to hiding Sev’s creams and hair dye. I don’t think he likes your uncle hiding his gray.” Laine took a drink of his tea and held the condensation-covered glass in his hand as he spoke. His dark eyes held a seriousness to them that made Ro want to squirm like a recalcitrant child. “You’re a smart kid. Are you gonna keep working at Virginia’s Café forever?”
In other words, why didn’t he go to college, get a real job—no, a career—and make something of his life? Ro felt a surge of anger at that. He’d been asked it too often. He tipped his chin up and glared at Laine, fighting down a shiver of fear and the intimidation he always felt at even the idea of standing up to the sheriff. But Ro was tired of everyone looking at him like he was a fool for not wanting more.
“What’s wrong with it if I do? I’m making an honest living. I’m good with the customers.” It wasn’t challenging, except for when Mr. Brown decided to be an asshole, but even that Ro could handle. “Not everyone is made to go to college. There have to be little people working jobs like mine so educated people can have food they don’t have to cook themselves. It’s not like—”
“Whoa, whoa, kid, stop,” Laine said as he held up a hand. “I didn’t mean any offense.”
Ro cocked his head, puzzled by that. “Well, how else was I supposed to take it?”
“Maybe that your uncle Laine thinks you’re too smart and talented to spend the rest of your life waiting on tables?” Sev said from behind him.
Ro twisted around in his chair to watch Sev stash an armful of products in the pantry. “Won’t Conner find them there?”
“Nah. He’s off again, probably keeping Stefan company, or spying on someone else.” Sev closed the pantry door and leaned a hip against it. “You’re evading.”
Ro scowled and turned back to his plate. “No, I’m not. I already answered. I don’t want to go anywhere other than where I am. Why’s that so hard for anyone to understand? Some people go and come back, some people just go, and some people stay and are happy with their lives.” Honestly, Ro wasn’t a hundred percent certain why he didn’t want to go off to college, or even to the community college. It just wasn’t for him. That was the best he could come up with.
Sev sat down beside him and touched his nape, brushing aside Ro’s long hair to do so. “Look, we just worry. We only want you happy, just like your mama and dad do. They love you, but feel like you’re staying here because you feel obligated.”
“I don’t.” He did, but that wasn’t all of it. His mother’s diabetes had ravaged her body over the past decade. The amputations and dialysis were draining what had remained of her will to live, Ro could see it. So could his father Roger, and Ro’s siblings.
And so could Sev. Ro saw the sadness Sev tried to hide. It had etched lines around his eyes and mouth, and dimmed the enthusiasm that used to shine so bright in Sev’s eyes.
“Someone has to be here for them,” Ro finally said when he couldn’t stand another moment of silence. “One of their kids should, at least, and I won’t ask that of my sister or brother. They have dreams that don’t involve staying in McKinton, and I really do like my job.”
“But—” Sev began and Ro was done arguing.
“No, Sev. I don’t have the drive, the…the ambition that I’d need to do something else. I’m comfortable here. It’s where I want to be, even if that means living with my parents. They need me, no matter what they say.” Truly, the only thing he’d wanted was to be like Sev, but he wasn’t, not really. Sev could have been his father, they were so alike in looks, both on the short side with slender builds and dark, glossy black hair. Well, Ro’s was natural, while he suspected, now, that Sev’s had some help courtesy of L’Oréal. Sev was also more muscular, but they had the same green-gray eyes and honey-colored skin. Celadon, that was the name of the color, if he wanted to get technical about it. Sharing those traits with Sev had given Ro so much hope that he’d inherit more things from Sev, but he hadn’t, and that was that.
“Let’s just enjoy our meal and stop harping on him,” Laine rumbled. “Sorry, Ro, since I’m the one that started it.”
Ro rolled his neck once Sev moved his hand. He got a good pop out of it and grinned when that sound made Laine wince. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I’m over it.” He cast a teasing glance at Sev. “So, how long have you been dying that gray?”
Ro grinned as Sev shook his fork at Laine. “You told!”
Satisfied with the distraction he’d created, Ro sat back and enjoyed the show.
Chapter Two
The thing about being dead was that he really lost track of time. Understandable, Conner supposed, considering time didn’t affect him anymore.
Well, not him personally, as in his spirit form. But it did affect him in other ways, like when he had to watch those he’d left behind in life. To see them age, and grow frail—
Laine would shit bricks if he knew what Conner was thinking. Laine wouldn’t know, though. Conner could communicate with his former lover to an extent but, for the most part, the art of conversation was lost between the veil of the living and the dead.
Severo, Laine’s partner—and Conner couldn’t have picked a better-suited man for Laine had he tried…which, okay, he might have meddled some—could communicate with spirits somewhat. The bond with Conner was the strongest, and that was owing in part to Conner’s determination to have a relationship with Laine. To do so entailed having one with Sev, and maybe Conner had been a little—or a lot—jealous at first, but Sev had come to mean a lot to Conner over the years. Plus, Sev loved Laine, really loved him like Conner wished he had before he’d died.
Still, Conner had loved Laine enough to die for him, although if he’d been given a choice, he’d have lived and kept Laine safe, too. Whether or not they’d have made it together for the rest of their lives, Conner couldn’t say. Sometimes he thought not, because they’d been so closeted, but who was to say how Fate would have played out if Conner hadn’t been murdered by a stalker who’d wanted Laine?
It didn’t help to wonder. Conner had long since stopped doing so because watching Laine and Sev had finally stopped making him hurt with that sharp edge of want, and had started comforting him. It was good to see them happy and loving each other.
Hot, too, although Conner tried not to spy on them when they were having sex…now. He had been a bit of a Peeping Tom for a while, but he knew Laine and Sev hadn’t minded. In fact, he thought once they’d got past the idea of him being Laine’s ex, him watching had added a bit of spice now and then.
Now, it was hard for Conner to watch them. He’d started noticing things like the almost solid gray of Laine’s hair and the wrinkles lining Sev’s face, although the man battled them with every cream he could find. They weren’t so deep or numerous, but they were there, along with strands of gray that Sev dyed black every month so they would match the rest of his hair.
At first Conner had been amused, and had taken great pleasure in teasing Sev, hiding his dye and spreading his face cream on the mirror to look like…well, lots of things. Conner could easily get restless, distracted, and once he’d got the hang of making parts of himself substantial enough to move things in the living world, he’d kind of gone overboard.
He was just astounded because it seemed like yesterday that he’d been thinking about how he used to watch Laine and Sev and admire their firm bodies and their sheer livingness. How many years had he been dead now? Conner looked at the table where Laine had left the newspaper spread out.
Good old Laine, he’ll never upgrade to reading the news online. He used to get print smudges on his cheek and chin when— Conner stopped the thought more out of habit than anything else. Once it would have made him ache with regret and lost love, but those sensations had long ago ceased occurring, maybe because he had stopped letting himself think on what he’d lost when he’d been murdered.
That whole nasty episode wasn’t something he’d ever forget. He wondered if he’d have felt any better about dying if he’d known spirits existed back then. Conner had known he wouldn’t live to escape his situation before he’d actually died. It had been so obvious in the glee his killer had taken in torturing him. Sometimes he could still feel that knife piercing his skin and muscle so, so slowly, trailing agony behind it and racing terror in front of it. Conner had lived for hours under that sadistic bastard’s blade. He had literally got off on torturing Conner to death.
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