When a half-century old skeleton tumbles out of the wall in the midst of the renovation of Cloak and Dagger Bookstore renovation, Adrien turns to hot and handsome ex-lover Jake Riordan — now out-of-the closet and working as a private detective. Jake is only too happy to have reason to stay in close contact with Adrien, but there are more surprises in Adrien’s past than either one of them expects — and one of them may prove hazardous to Jake’s own heart.

*********************************

Chapter One

It began, as a lot of things do, in bed.

Or to be precise, on the living-room sofa where I was uncomfortably dozing.

Somewhere in the distance of a very weird dream about me and a certain ex-LAPD police lieutenant came a faint, persistent scratching. The scratching worked itself into my dream, and I deduced with the vague logic of the unconscious that the cat was sharpening his claws on the antique half-moon table in the hall. Again.

Except…that boneless ball of heat on my abdomen was the cat. And he was sound asleep…

I opened my eyes. It was dark, and it took me a second or two to place myself. Moonlight outlined the pirate bookends on the bookshelf. From where I lay, I could barely make out the motion of the draperies in the warm July breeze in the front room of the flat above Cloak and Dagger Books.

I was home.

There had been a time when I’d thought I would never see home again. But here I was. I had a furry heating pad on my belly, a crick in my neck, and — apparently — a midnight visitor.

My first thought was that Lisa had called Guy, my ex, to look in on me. That furtive scraping wasn’t the sound of a key; it was more like someone trying to…well, pick the lock.

I rolled off the sofa, dislodging the sleeping cat, and staggered to my feet, fighting the dizziness that had dogged me since my heart surgery three weeks earlier. I’d been staying at my mother’s home in the Chatsworth Hills, but I’d checked myself out of the lunatic asylum that afternoon.

If Guy had dropped by, he’d have turned on the light in the shop below. There was no band of light beneath the door. No, what there was, was the occasional flash of illumination as though someone was trying to balance a flashlight.

I wasn’t dreaming. Someone was trying to break in.

I felt my way across the darkened room to the entrance hall. My heart was already beating way too hard and too fast, and I felt a spark of anxiety — the anxiety that was getting to be familiar since my surgery. Was my healing heart up to this kind of strain? Even as I was calculating whether I could get to the Webley in the bedroom closet and load it before the intruder got the door open or whether my best bet was to lock myself in the bedroom and phone the cops, the decision was made for me.

The lock mechanism turned over, the door handle rotated, and the door silently inched out of the frame.

I reacted instinctively, grabbing the rush-bottomed chair in the hall and throwing it with all my strength. “Get the fuck out of here,” I yelled over the racket of the chair clattering into the door and hitting the floor.

And — surprisingly — the intruder did get the fuck out.

Not a dream. Not a misreading of the situation. Someone had tried to break in to my living quarters.

I heard the heavy thud of footsteps pounding down the staircase back to the shop, heard something crash below, heard another crash, and, as I tottered to the wall light switch, the slam of a distant door.

What door? Not the side entrance of the shop below, because I knew that particular bang very well, and certainly not the front door behind the security gate. No, it had to have been from the adjacent structure. The bookstore took up one half of a subdivided building that had originally, back in the thirties, housed a small hotel. The other half of the building had gone through a variety of commercial incarnations, none of which had survived more than a year or so, until I’d finally been in a position to buy it myself the previous spring. It was currently in the expensive and noisy process of being renovated, the two halves divided by a wall of thick plastic.

Not thick enough, clearly.

The contractor had assured me the perimeter doors were guarded by “construction locks,” and that it was as safe as it had ever been. Obviously he wasn’t familiar with my history, let alone the history of the building.

I leaned back against the wall, trying to catch my breath and listening. Somewhere down the street I heard an engine roaring into life. Not necessarily my intruder’s getaway car fleeing the scene. This was a nonresidential part of Pasadena, and at night it was very quiet and surprisingly isolated.

There was a time when I’d have intrepidly, Mr. Boy Detective, gone downstairs to see what the damage was. That that was four murder investigations, one shooting, and one heart surgery ago. Instead I got the gun from the bedroom closet, loaded it, returned to the front room, where the windows offered a better vantage point, and picked up the phone. The streetlamps cast leopard spots on the empty sidewalk, accentuated the deep shadows between the old buildings. Nothing moved. I recalled a line by Raymond Chandler: “The streets were dark with something more than night.”

Reaction hit me, and I slid down the wall and dialed 911.

I was having trouble catching my breath as I waited — and waited — for the 911 operator, and I hoped to hell I wasn’t having a heart attack. My heart had been damaged by rheumatic fever when I was sixteen. A recent bout of pneumonia had worsened my condition, and I’d been in line for surgery even before getting shot three weeks earlier. Everything was under control now, and according to my cardiologist, I was making terrific progress. The ironic thing about the surgery and the news that I was evidently going to make old bones after all was that I felt mortal in a way that I hadn’t for the last fifteen years.

Tomkins pussyfooted up to delicately head-butt me.

“Hi,” I said.

He blinked his wide, almond-shaped, green-gold eyes at me and meowed. He had a surprisingly quiet meow. Not as annoying as most cats. Not that I was an expert — nor did I plan on becoming one. I was only loaning a fellow bachelor my pad. The cat — kitten, really — was also convalescing. He’d been mauled by a dog three weeks ago. His bounce back was better than mine.

I stroked him absently as he wriggled around and tried to bite my fingers. I guessed there was truth to the wisdom about petting a cat to lower your blood pressure, because I could feel my heart rate slowing, calming — which was pretty good, considering how pissed off I was getting at being kept on hold in the middle of an emergency.

Granted, it wasn’t much of an emergency at this point. My intruder was surely long gone.

I chewed my lip, listened once more to the message advising me to stay on the line and help would soon be with me. Assuming I’d still be alive to take that call.

I hung up and dialed another number. A number I had memorized long ago. A number that seemingly would require acid wash to remove from the memory cells of my brain.

As the phone rang on the other end, I glanced across at the clock on the bookshelf. Three oh three in the morning. Well, here was a test of true friendship.

“Riordan,” Jake managed in a voice like raked gravel.

“Uh…hey.”

“Hey.” I could feel him making the effort to push through the fog of sleep. He rasped, “How are you?”

Pretty civil given the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him for nearly two weeks and was choosing three in the morning to reopen the lines of communication.

I found myself instinctively straining to hear the silence behind him; was someone there with him? I couldn’t hear over the rustle of bed linens.

“I’m okay. Something happened just now. I think someone tried to break in.”

“You think?” And he was completely alert. I could hear the covers tossed back, the squeak of bedsprings.

“Someone did try to break in. He took off, but —”

“You’re back at the bookstore?”

“Yeah. I got home late this afternoon.”

“You’re there alone?”

Thank God he didn’t say it like everyone else had. Alone? As though it was out of the question. As though I was far too ill and helpless to be left to my own devices. Jake simply looked at it from a security perspective.

“Yeah.”

“Did the security alarm go off?”

“No.”

“Did you call it in?”

“I called nine-one-one. They put me on hold.”

“At three o’clock in the morning?” He was definitely on his feet and moving, dressing, it sounded like, and I felt a wave of guilty relief. Regardless of how complicated our relationship was — and it was pretty complicated — there was no one I knew who was better at dealing with this kind of thing. Whatever this kind of thing was.

Which I guessed said more than I realized right there.

Jake’s voice was crisp. “Hang up and call nine-one-one again. Stay on the line with them. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I said gruffly, “Thanks, Jake.”

Just like that. I had called, and he was coming to the rescue. Unexpectedly, a wave of emotion — reaction — hit me. One of the weird aftereffects of my surgery. I struggled with it as he said, “I’m on my way,” and disconnected.

§ § § §

I went down to meet him, taking the stairs slowly, taking my time. From above, I had a bird’s-eye view of the book floor. The register looked undisturbed. I could see where the bargain-book table had been toppled. Otherwise everything looked pretty much as normal: same comfortable leather club chairs, same wooden fake fireplace, same tall matching walnut bookshelves — strictly mystery and crime novels — same secretive smiles on the pale faces of the Kabuki masks on the back wall.

I unlocked the door, pushed open the security gate, which he’d knelt to examine. “You didn’t have to come down. I’d have gone around to the s —” Jake broke off. He rose and said oddly, “Déjà vu.”

I didn’t get it for a second, and then I did. Echoes of the first time we’d met; although met was kind of a polite word for turning up as a suspect in someone’s murder investigation.

Uncombed, unshaven, I was even dressed the same: jeans and bare feet. I’d thrown a leather jacket on partly because, despite the warmth of a July night, I felt chilled, and partly because I didn’t want to treat him to the vision of the seam down the middle of my chest from open heart surgery. Not that Jake hadn’t seen it when he visited me in the hospital, but it looked different out of context. The bullet hole in my shoulder was ugly enough; the incision from the base of my collarbone down through my breastbone was shocking. I found it shocking, anyway.

I said awkwardly, “Thanks again for coming.”

He nodded.

We stared at each other. These last weeks couldn’t have been easy on Jake, and not because I’d asked him to give me a little time, a little space before we tried to figure out where we stood. He’d resigned from LAPD, come out to his family, and asked his wife for a divorce. But he looked unchanged. Reassuringly unchanged. I think I’d feared… Well, I’m not sure. That he’d be harrowed by regret. For his entire adult life he’d fought to defend that closet he inhabited. Been willing to sacrifice almost everything to protect it. I couldn’t help thinking he’d take to being out like a fish to desert sand.

He looked okay. No, be honest. He looked a lot better than okay. He looked…fine. Fine, as in get the Chiffons over here to sing a chorus. Big, blond, ruggedly handsome in a trial-by-fire way. He was very lean, all hard muscle and powerful bone. Maybe there was more silver at his temples, but there was a calm in his tawny eyes that I’d never seen before.

Under that light, steady gaze I felt unnervingly self-conscious. It was weird to think that for the first time in all the time I’d known him there was nothing to keep us from being together except the question of whether we both really wanted it.

He asked matter-of-factly, “Why didn’t the alarm go off?”

“It wasn’t set.”

A quick drawing of his dark brows. He opened his mouth. I beat him to it. “We haven’t been setting it while the construction has been going on next door.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

He already knew I wasn’t. “The city threatened to fine me because we had too many false alarms. The construction crew usually arrives before we open the shop, and they kept triggering it. So I thought…until the construction was completed…”

His silence said it all — good thing, because I was pretty sure if Jake got started, we’d be there all night.

“I think he must have come in from the side.” I turned to lead the way.

He followed me across the front of the tall aisles. I pointed out where an endcap had been knocked over. “Only the emergency lights were on, and he crashed into that.” I nodded to the fallen bargain table, the landslide of spilled books. “And there.”

We reached the clear plastic wall dividing Cloak and Dagger Books from the gutted other half of the building. Staring from one side to the other was like peering through murky water. I could barely make out the ladders and scaffolds like the ribs of a mythological beast. I directed Jake’s attention to the long five-foot slit through the plastic near the wall.

“Good call.” He sounded grim.

I’d have happily been wrong. “The contractor told me that that side of the building would be secured with special locks. Construction locks.”

He was already shaking his head. “Look at this.” He stooped, pushing through the slit in the plastic, and I followed him into the darkened other side of the building. It smelled chilly and weird on that side. A mixture of fresh plaster, new wood, and dust. We picked our way through the hurdles of drop cloths and wooden horses and cement mixers to the door on the far wall. It swung open at his touch.

“Great,” I said bitterly.

“Yep.” He showed me the core in the center of the exterior handle. I discerned that it was painted, though I couldn’t make out a color. “See that?”

I nodded.

“It’s a construction core. That’s a temporary lock used by contractors on construction sites. They’re all combinated the same, or mostly the same, which means that if someone gets hold of a key, they’ve got a key to pretty much every construction core in the city.”

“Better and better.”

He shut the door and relocked it. “As security goes, this is one step above leaving the door standing wide open.”

I swallowed. Nodded.

“Whoever broke in may have been watching the place and knew no one’s been here at night.”

I said, “It doesn’t look like they touched the register.”

“It might have been kids prowling around.” Jake didn’t sound convinced, and I knew why.

“Trying to break in to my flat was —”

“Pretty aggressive,” he agreed. “Again, I think that probably gets back to the mistaken belief that no one was home. No one has been staying here at night for three weeks, right? So it was a reasonable assumption.”

I absorbed that. “This might not have been the first time he was prowling around in here.”

“True.”

“I don’t know that Natalie would notice the slice in the plastic wall. Hell, if Warren were hanging around, I don’t know if she’d notice the Tasmanian Devil bursting through.”

Sort of unfair to Natalie; Jake snorted, grimly amused.

All at once I was exhausted. Mentally and physically and emotionally drained dry. I didn’t seem to have much in the way of physical resources these days, and this break-in felt like way more than I could begin to handle.

Jake opened his mouth but stopped. Through the dirty glass of the bay window, we watched a squad car pull up, lights flashing, though there was no siren.

Better late than never, I guess.

After a second or two, Jake looked at me. “You okay? You’re shaking.”

“Adrenaline.”

“And heart surgery.” He glanced back at the black-and-white. Drew a deep breath. “Why don’t you head upstairs? I’ll take care of this.”

There it was again. That weird new emotionalism. The smallest things seemed to choke me up. Like this. Jake offering to talk to the cops for me.

Except this wasn’t a small thing. Jake, who had hid his sexuality from his brother officers for nearly twenty years, who had been unwilling for people to even know we were friends, who had very nearly succumbed to blackmail and more to keep that secret, was offering to stand here in my place and talk to these cops — and let them think whatever they chose to about us and our relationship.

I’m not sure what was stranger: the fact that he was making the offer or that I was ready to start crying over it.

“I can handle it.”

He met my gaze. “I know you can. I’d like to do this for you.”

Hell. He did it again. It had to be that I was overtired and still shaken by the break-in. I worked to keep my face and voice from showing anything I was feeling, managing a brusque nod.

The cops, a man and a woman in uniform, were getting out of their car. I turned and started back through ladders and wooden horses and scaffolds.

§ § § §

I was sitting on the sofa sleeping with the cat on my lap when Jake let himself into the flat.

I must have been snoring, because the snick of the door shutting seemed to come like a clap of thunder in the wake of a windstorm. The cat sprang from my lap. I straighted, closed my mouth, wiped my eyes, and when I blearily opened them, Jake stood over me, looking unfairly alert for four in the morning.

“Was that a cat I saw running into your bedroom?”

I cleared my throat. “Was it?”

“It looked like it.” He sat down on the sofa next to me — all that size and heat and energy — and every muscle in my body immediately clenched tight in nervous reaction. I didn’t feel ready for…whatever this was liable to be.

I said lightly, “Maybe the building is haunted.”

“Could be.” He seemed to study my face with unusual attention. “Your burglary complaint is filed. Tomorrow, first thing, you need to tell that contractor to get real locks on those doors. In fact, I’d advise you to change all the locks on both sides of the building.”

I nodded wearily. “I’ve been trying to think what he was after.”

“The usual things.”

“Then why not break in to the cash register?”

“An empty cash register? Why?”

Good point. No point robbing the till after the day’s bank drop had been made. I must be more tired than I thought. Maybe Jake had the same idea, because he said, “I thought you’d be in bed by now.”

“I’m on my way. But I wanted to thank you…”

He said gravely, “Don’t mention it. I’m glad you called me. I’ve been wondering how you’re doing.”

My gaze fell. “I’m all right.” There was so much to say, and yet I couldn’t seem to think of anything. “I’m getting there. The worst part is being tired all the time.”

“Yeah.” I could feel him watching me — seeing right through me.

“Jake…”

When I didn’t continue, he said, “I know. I know it’s a lot to ask. Probably too much, although I won’t pretend I’m not hoping.”

Forgiveness. That’s what he was talking about. Forgiveness for any number of things, I guessed. I was talking about something completely different.

I shook my head. “It isn’t — I don’t know how to explain this. It’s not you, though. It’s me.”

He waited with that new calm, that new certainty in his eyes. He was expecting me to drop the ax on him. I could see that. He had been expecting it since the last time we spoke in the hospital and I’d asked him to give me time. That’s what he had expected when he answered my cry for help tonight — what he still expected — but he had come anyway.

Was that love or guilt or civic responsibility? He was the best friend I’d ever had — and the worst.

I said, “This isn’t going to make sense to you, because it doesn’t make sense to me. I know how lucky I am. I do. I know I’m getting a second chance, and even though I feel like utter shit, I know I’m getting well and I’m going to be okay. Better than okay. That’s what my doctors keep telling me, and I know that I should be really happy and really relieved. But…I-I can’t seem to feel anything right now.”

Nothing from Jake. Not that I blamed him. What was he supposed to make of that speech?

I concluded lamely, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You feel what you feel. You’re allowed.”

It was getting harder to go on. I felt I had to be honest with him. “I was happy enough with Guy, but I don’t want Guy. I don’t want…anyone. Right now.”

There was another pause after he heard me out. He said, “Okay.”

It was that easy. I wasn’t sure if what I felt was relief or disappointment.

I heard myself say, awkwardly, “I felt like I should —”

“Got it.” Was there an edge to his tone? He still looked calm. Actually, he looked concerned. He said, “Why don’t you go to bed, Adrien? I’ve seen snowmen with more color in their faces. You need sleep. So do I. In fact, I’m going to spend what’s left of the night on your couch.”

I said, despite my instant relief, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know, Greta. You vant to be alone. But unless your need for space prohibits a friend crashing on the sofa, that’s what I’m doing.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with him — or myself. I nodded, pushed off the sofa, and headed for the bedroom. “There are blankets in the linen cupboard.”

“I remember.”

A thought occurred to me. I paused in the doorway, turning back to him.

“Jake?”

He was in the process of tugging off a boot. He glanced up. “Yeah?”

“Downstairs. With the cops. Was it okay?”

It seemed to take him a second to understand my concern. He smiled — the first real smile I’d seen from him in a very long time.

“Yes,” he said. “It was okay.”

Two men: one with memories he can’t escape, the other with memories he can’t recapture — both trusting strangers who lie.

Amnesiac Peter Killian, suspected art thief, can’t understand why LAPD detective Michael Griffin takes his memory loss so personally.

American expatriate Jack Stoyles, exiled in a distant Atlantic outpost, is suddenly in love with a stranger who kisses him — and then dies. With good reason Jack calls his place “Heartache Cafe”.

*******************************

You wouldn’t think it even gets hot in a place like this, but let me tell you, brother, it does. Around the middle of July, the fog clears away, and the sun comes out, hot enough (as they say around these parts) to split the rocks. It’s a different sort of place, not like anywhere I’d ever been before, but when you have to leave home as suddenly as I did, you don’t much care. You just pick a direction on the map and head out and hope things turn out okay. Twelve hundred miles as the crow flies to St. John’s, Newfoundland, from my hometown of Philadelphia; I slept nearly the whole way, never mind the roaring of the airplane engines. Some things hit harder than others, and I’d been dealt a knockout punch.

When we landed at the airstrip in this little town called Torbay, I felt like I’d come to the end of the world. Nothing much to see except trees, black spruce and tamarack and scrub pines, and the red gravel airstrip. I got out of my seat and climbed down, stiff and sore, feeling like I’d been run down by a truck. I guess I was still in shock a little bit. The air was colder than I was used to; even Philadelphia winters don’t have this kind of soggy bite. All I wanted was to get inside the little terminal and maybe get a cup of coffee. I had five hundred bucks, American, in my wallet, a passport and a copy of my discharge papers from the army. I guess I should have felt ashamed, because here was Hitler stomping his jackbooted way across Europe, and there was nothing I could do about it. Unfit for active service. Yeah, that’s me — thirty-eight years old and already broken beyond repair.

This — all of this — was a blur to me. I was seeing other streets and hearing a different accent, and I was remembering walking into Moe’s first thing in the morning for a cup of joe, sitting down at the counter to look over the newspaper before I went outside and took a sharp left toward the waterfront. Maybe that’s what drew me to this place: the promise of cold salt air and the tang of the sea in my nostrils, the bustle of the waterfront, and ships coming and going at all hours of the day and night. I loved the idea that I could do the same, just go whenever I wanted to, anywhere I liked in the world, and not have to answer to anybody. If I felt like it, I could hop a freighter to some other place and work my way across the world. It was something Moe and I had talked a lot about whenever I was in there. You thinking of going somewhere? He’d always refill my coffee cup without my having to ask, and I’d always leave a tip. Thinking of leaving old Philly, huh? Right up until the last, I wasn’t sure. Even after it happened, I figured I could just keep on the way I was, doing all the things that I’d been doing. I figured I was strong enough to take it, right up until I stood on the Delaware River Bridge one morning, looking down into the swirling water and wondering if I had the nerve.

You want to know what stopped me?

Egypt. Yeah, you heard me: Egypt. See, I’d always wanted to go, and standing there on the bridge with the wind whipping me around, I figured if I followed through with what I had in mind, I’d never get to go. I’d never get to see the pyramids and ride a camel and do all that stupid, touristy stuff that people do. Pretty dumb, huh? Maybe, but it was enough to get me down off the bridge before the cops came, and it was enough to make me understand that if I ever wanted to see the pyramids at Giza or stroll the native quarter in Cairo, I had to get out of Philly. I had to go somewhere far away and try my best to forget about it.

“Passport?” She was young and pretty, the girl behind the counter, with dark red hair worn in rolls at the sides of her head. She smiled at me like she meant it. “Welcome to Newfoundland, Mr. Stoyles. If you follow that corridor and turn right, there are taxis out front to take you into town.”

“Is it…” Goddammit, it was starting again. I took a deep breath and tried to get hold of myself. “Is it far, into town? I have a room booked at the hotel, I just…” I fumbled in my pockets and found the scrap of paper. “Yeah, I have a room at this hotel downtown.”

She looked it — and me — over and smiled again. She sure was pretty — and nice, in that way that women hardly ever are anymore. She looked at me like she was interested in more than how much money I had on me or where I was likely to go in life once the war was over.

Listen, Jack — why don’t you come up to Newfoundland with me? They’re building all kinds of stuff up there and the whole place is ripe for the picking.

Frankie Missalo, an old army buddy of mine; we’d both joined up long before the whole thing went to hell at Pearl Harbor. Only thing was, he stayed in while I’d gotten kind of…waylaid. Lots of Army contractors up there, and lots of Yanks like us needing somewhere to get a proper cup of coffee. Come on! Ain’t you always said you wanted to have your own place?

So I did what he said and bought my ticket, and here I was. All I wanted now was to live a quiet life, waiting out the war to the best of my ability and minding my own business. I wasn’t interested in anything but that.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

I spent three days at the hotel while Frankie and me scouted around for an empty space downtown. I’d just about given up hope when a real gem came on the market: a little storefront with lots of room for chairs and tables and a piano. The space was longer that it was broad and flared out nicely toward the back. Already I was making mental nips and tucks, adding a pot of flowers here, some ornaments and paintings there, and over here the bar, with its rows of bottles and a big mirror behind it. I found a cash register for cheap in a consignment store, and when Frankie showed up with a truckload of café chairs and tables, I didn’t ask him any unnecessary questions. I just got busy moving in.

“Whatcha gonna call it, Jack?” Frankie spread his hands out in front of him and squinted. “Whatcha want’s a big sign, neon lettering. JACK’S CAFÉ.”

“Naw, that’s been done. I want something that people are gonna stop for, something that’ll really bring ‘em in.” I slung a towel over my shoulder and came out from behind the bar. “Something catchy, you know?”

“Yeah.” Frankie shook his head and lit a cigarette. “Something like Moe’s Place?”

I faked a punch at his jaw. “Keep it up, mug.” We both laughed. “How about a beer?” I couldn’t stop touching the shiny brass taps; it was hard for me to believe that this was my place, my very own.

“You, ah…” Frankie’s eyes skidded away from mine. “You having one, Jack?”

“Nope.” I got a glass for him. “What’ll it be?”

“Whatever you got’s none too good for me.” He sat down at a table near the bar and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “So, here you are, Jack. Lock, stock, and barrel, huh? An honest-to-God property owner.” He thanked me for the beer as I sat down. “How much trouble they give you about the license?”

“You kidding me?” I sipped from the glass of ice water I’d poured for myself. “They couldn’t give it to me fast enough. Anybody woulda thought I was the Second Coming or something.”

Frankie, a lifelong Catholic, grimaced. “Yeah, cut that, okay?” He glanced around and nervously raked a hand through his sandy hair. “Don’t be bringing bad luck on yourself before you’ve even started.”

I didn’t answer him. Yeah, I’d been brought up in the church, too, but on me it never stuck the way it stuck to Frankie. I’d known him since we were kids, when he was serving at mass and singing in the choir. He wasn’t what I’d call superstitious, but he sure had a healthy respect for the church.

“So tomorrow’s the big day?” He laid the beer glass down.

“Yeah. Tomorrow’s the big day.” I spread my arms wide. “Welcome to the Heartache Café.”

In stories from four different wars and four different locales, four different writers honour men who chose to serve their country. Josh Lanyon, Samantha Kane, Victor Banis and George Seaton look at love when lives are at their worst and men are at their best.

This book is dedicated to those gay men who by not telling continue to serve our country with pride and honor. To those gay men who found the strength to tell and the courage to hold their heads high while being discharged in disgrace. To those gay men who have sacrificed their lives to maintain our freedoms while sacrificing their freedom to be heard.

Till we are judged for the honor and strength of our character and not by the prejudice and weakness of others…

I wish you Fair Seas, Following Winds, Safe Harbor & Silent Running.

***************************

One of the best pieces of flying advice Bat got was from his brother Algernon who flew reconnaissance at the start of the war.

“Think down to the gunners,” Algie had said. “Treat it like a game. You’re pitting your skill against theirs. It’s a kind of sport, really. And remember, a chasse machine is rarely brought down by Archie. You’re too fast for them. There are plenty of ways to outfox them. The best pilots are the best sportsmen.” He’d ruffled Bat’s hair, adding grimly, “Or the chaps who learn to stop feeling anything at all.”

At the time Bat couldn’t imagine what he meant.

The first two weeks were the most dangerous to a new pilot. They didn’t see anything — and what they did see, they didn’t understand. Shell fire scared the devil out of them and the Hun pilots they ran into were all hardened pros with several weeks experience in Russia or the Balkans. By 1916, the RFC was losing nearly a pilot a day; Gene worked it out once and told Bat the average life expectancy of an allied aviator was eleven days. Of course there were the old hands like Gene and himself who defied the odds. But no one defied them forever.

Bat knew Jackson was for it from the moment he was up in the air. Bat had given orders to rendezvous two thousand over the field and once they assembled, he’d headed northeast with the rest of A Flight falling into formation behind.

The new fliers got the oldest machines, and Jackson was in one of the battered Spads. It climbed slowly. Tubby and Varlik did their best to shepherd Jackson along, diving under and climbing up again to keep him aligned. Ambrose was on Bat’s left, in Gene’s former position. Cowboy was a dark silhouette on his right as they reached the cloudbank and began to climb.

As they rose into the crystalline air and the rising sun gilded the fleecy floor of clouds beneath them in amber and rose gold, Bat felt a spark of the old joy to be flying once more. All around him the rest of A Flight surfaced at widely scattered points through the drifting cloud cover. Cowboy crested on his right and gave him that little nod.

Bat nodded back.

They formed up once more and turned northward. Far below them were the green valleys, dark forest, shining rivers of France…and then the lines. Although they were too far up to hear anything one could see by the thousands of tiny bursts of light that the day’s business had already begun. Shell bursts and muzzle flashes winked and sparkled miles beneath them. But they weren’t crossing over enemy lines until the replacements had a chance to get the lay of the land; instead A Flight headed west along the sector.

The twinkling lights faded and the battle front — a jagged, winding scar of desert slashed through the green and pastoral land — lay beneath. They were now four kilometers within the French lines. Clouds of smoke bloomed like scarlet-edged roses — interrupted at intervals by puffs of black and white shell bursts.

A Flight turned northward and then back. Bat glanced in his mirror and Jackson was gone.

Just like that he had dropped out of the sky.

There was no time to react for at that moment a patrol of Spads and Fokkers came out of the sun like a swarm of hornets out of their hive. The air was alive with the deafening roar of engines as aircraft maneuvered for position, climbing and dropping, spinning, diving, banking and all the while the webbing of white streamers from machine gun bullet tracers wound around A Flight while they dodged each other’s machines and tried to make sure they fired at black crosses and not the roundels and tail cockades of their own planes.

Bat spared a quick glance for his altimeter, temperature and pressure dials, and when he looked up again a Fokker was coming at him, looming up like a freight train on a motion picture screen as it drove straight toward Bat firing as it came. Bat responded with the familiar surge of aggressive anger, opening the throttle and hurtling forward — and he’d have rammed the other plane if the German hadn’t lost his nerve and dived.

Making a tight turn, nearly on his wingtip, Bat shot after him and managed to settle on his tail, firing five or six rounds while the Fokker zigged and zagged until he finally lost control and plummeted down, engine smoking.

Bat looked around and saw Ambrose in hot pursuit of a Spad, machine guns blazing. Tubby was doggedly chasing another into the blue distance. Varlik was still in one piece, and Heath…

Fuck.

Cowboy glided into place beside him and nodded. Bat tightly nodded back, his mind mostly on Heath. Bit of a surprise, though; generally Cowboy preferred to hunt on his own. He’d stayed with the pack today. Expecting a repeat of Bat’s shaky performance of the day before? He needn’t have worried. Bat had resigned himself to seeing dawn patrol out at the least.

He looked again for young Jackson, hoping that he had missed him in the maelstrom of the battle, but there was no sign of the khaki and tan Spad.

Already the dogfight was breaking up, the Boche planes out of ammunition and raveled out by the wind. Most aerial battles didn’t last longer than two or three minutes as they only all carried enough ammunition to fire for about fifty seconds. But Bat’s fuel tank was still a quarter full, he had plenty of ammo and, unlike Cowboy’s bullet-scarred machine, his plane hadn’t sustained any new damage.

Bat signaled to Cowboy to make for home with the rest of the patrol, and gave her full rudder, heading back to see if he could spot where Jackson had gone down. There was always a chance the boy had managed to land safely.

The wind was kicking up now — rain clouds rolling in from the north.

Cowboy stuck to Bat’s machine — irritating as a burr beneath one’s saddle — but Bat knew he couldn’t endanger the other pilot or risk losing his plane by trying to shake him. In any case, it wasn’t necessary for he quickly spotted Jackson’s shattered plane in an open field. It was in flames.

Bat circled round once more to see if there was any sign of life. There was nothing but fire and smoke.

He turned toward homeward once more.

¹ ¹ ¹ ¹

“So your daddy’s a duke,” Cowboy said, blue eyes watching Bat over the rim of his glass. He drank, set the glass down. His lips were wet from the ale, and Bat had a sudden, uncomfortably vivid recollection of what that firm mouth had felt like pressing his own.

“An earl, actually,” he replied quellingly.

Cowboy was not quelled.

“So what’s that make you?”

“The youngest of five sons.”

Cowboy grimaced. “What do they call you? What’s your title?”

“The Honourable, but no one calls — ”

“What kind of a moniker is ‘Bat’?” Cowboy interrupted. “What’s your name?”

“Aubrey.”

Undisturbed by Bat’s terse response, Cowboy offered that wide, white grin. “Aubrey? That’s sweet.”

“Go. To. Hell.”

Cowboy laughed.

They had arrived back at base after first crawl without further incident. Bat had made his report to Major Chase, grabbed a quick kip, and taken out the afternoon patrol for an uneventful foray behind enemy lines. Now A Flight was done for the day.

Captain Sears, broad shouldered and dark with a long seam of scar down his tanned face, stopped by the table. “Hard luck about…” he trailed vaguely. These days it was always hard luck about someone or other.

Sears was 19 Squadron’s A Flight commander. He shared a friendly rivalry with Bat — Sears currently down two kills. Three if — once — Bat’s morning’s work had been confirmed.

“Jackson,” Bat supplied automatically.

“Replacements?”

“By tomorrow, according to Chase,” Bat said.

Two patrols a day, two hours each patrol. Now and again they put in as many as six hours, but Wing discouraged it. Pilots at the front were burning out fast enough and someone had to be in shape to go up every single day weather permitting.

When they weren’t flying, they slept. Or drank. Or read. Bat had grown very familiar with the works of Zane Grey and Max Brand. Some chaps played cards or wrote letters, but mostly they slept a good deal.

Sears moved off and Cowboy said, as though there had been no interruption, “So what are your brothers doing these days? One of ‘em’s a big muckety muck in the War Office, right?”

“Archie,” Bat said reluctantly. He didn’t feel like chatting with Cowboy. He didn’t want to spend any time with him at all if he could help it. What he’d have liked to do was sleep, but he was still too wound up — and then there were his dreams. “Algie and Cyril are gone — since the first year of the war. Dorian is with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea.”

“And you were at Cambridge when you decided to join up?”

“Magdalene College, yes.”

“What were you studying?”

Bat shrugged a negligent shoulder. “I was eventually headed for the Foreign Office, I suppose. That’s what the pater wanted.”

“You always do what the pater wants?”

Fastening a cool eye on him, Bat said, “Clearly not.”

And Cowboy grinned. He seemed — as usual — very relaxed. His own nerves strung far too tight for far too long, Bat found this…insouciance grating.

He said, “You haven’t yet told me what you did about…him.”

Cowboy’s white grin broadened. “You don’t really want to discuss it here?” He glanced meaningfully around the crowded mess.

No one was paying them any mind. Varlik was once again singing “Roses of Picardy” in duet with the gramophone. Ambrose and Heath were engaged in some drinking game. Tubby was busily cheating at solitaire. Everyone else seemed riveted by the antics of a half-starved monkey that B Flight’s Berckman had brought back from leave.

Bat said slowly, “According to Sergeant Lamb, Orton is supposed to have scarpered. AWOL.”

The smile faded from Cowboy’s face. “You didn’t question him?” he demanded.

Bat shook his head. “Orton was assigned to my bus. Lamb had to fill in for him. He happened to mention it.”

Cowboy was eyeing him with a dark and doubtful gaze. “You know to keep your trap shut, right?”

Bat managed to contain the flash of anger he felt. The unpleasant idea occurred that he could not afford to quarrel with Cowboy. Could not afford to fall out with him. Not given the secret they shared.

Perhaps some similar idea cropped up in Cowboy’s mind. He said, “Why don’t we get out of here and go some place we can talk.”

It was not a suggestion. He stood, waiting. Bat stared up at him — and realized that here too he had no choice.

He followed Cowboy out of the mess, and the last notes of “Roses of Picardy” died behind them as the mess door swung shut.

“Let’s walk down to the lodge,” Cowboy said. “You look like you could use some shuteye. When was the last time you slept? Really slept, I mean?”

“How is that your affair?” Bat burst out, his resentment of this high-handedness growing momentarily.

Cowboy’s big hand wrapped around Bat’s upper arm, warningly. “It’s my affair because if you make some stupid mistake ‘cause you’re too tired to think straight, we’re both sunk.”

Bat roughly freed himself, uncaring of who might be watching — knowing as he did so, that Cowboy had a point. He was too weary to be careful, his emotions dangerously near the surface.

He said, “I can’t stay on at the lodge. Those were Gene’s digs, not mine. Not officially.”

“The old lady won’t care, will she? Could probably use the extra dough.”

He thought of Madame Fournier’s kindness — most likely due to the infirmities of age. A God-fearing woman, Madame would not knowingly have sheltered Gene and him if she’d any notion of what they got up to in that little room where her son once slept. There was always a foolish — dangerous — temptation to believe that there was understanding, perhaps sympathy, in silence when in fact all there was, was ignorance.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care. I can’t stay there now.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” Cowboy said cryptically. “A little privacy would be useful.”

They walked down to the lodge in silence filled only by the crunch of their boots and the occasional song of a woodlark.

“You think the birds talk to each other in French?” Cowboy asked, and Bat smiled, forgetting his earlier annoyance.

“Possibly.”

Cowboy was also smiling. His eyes slanted Bat’s way, and Bat felt his face growing warm though he wasn’t sure why. He looked away hastily. Luminous white mushrooms grew at the roots of the ancient trees forming the leafy tunnel overhead. Wild berries lined the road, glossy purple and scarlet in the gloom. It smelled richly of damp earth and moldering leaves — and the leather of cowboy’s jacket and the soap he used.

“It’s a lot like home,” Bat said suddenly, forgetting his earlier annoyance. “Like Kent. Feels different, though. Feels…French.”

Gene had said you could see the Flemish influence in the village names and architecture.

The red roof of the hunting lodge appeared before them, smoke drifting from the white stone fireplace. Cowboy touched Bat’s arm, and they left the path and cut across the field to the gazebo where they could be assured no one would overhear their conversation.

“I’ll have to think what to do about Digsby,” Bat was saying distractedly as Cowboy pushed open the rickety door. “Gene’s dog. I suppose Madame — ”

He broke off as startled doves took wing through the holes in the roof. The door slammed shut behind them closing them in with the musty scent of decaying wood and dead leaves and bird nests, and Cowboy’s arms went around Bat.

Shocked into immobility, Bat recovered fast and shoved him away. Cowboy eyed him narrowly and then shoved back — harder — pushing Bat against the rough wall, big fists locked in Bat’s tunic, one knee thrust between Bat’s long legs.

Bat’s simmering resentment crackled into life, but beneath the anger was excitement. Part of him welcomed the idea of fighting Cowboy, part of him…

It was confusing. He told himself what Cowboy needed was a good thrashing, and what Bat needed was to deliver it, but…as his eyes met that dark blue gaze, he felt strangely irresolute. Cowboy’s breath was warm against his face. His mouth tingled recalling the feel and taste of Cowboy’s, and he wondered what would happen if he let Cowboy put his hands on him.

The idea alarmed him — but not nearly as much as it should have. In fact, maybe he wasn’t alarmed so much as…stimulated.

Cowboy pulled Bat close again, and Bat knew a kind of relief that he wasn’t being given a choice, that this was taken out of his hands; all he had to do was not fight too hard.

He closed his eyes, raising his face — leading with his chin, in fact. Cowboy’s big hands ran over the long lines of Bat’s body, tugging at his tunic, and Bat groaned, wanting the bulk of cloth removed from between his trembling body and the warm weight of Cowboy’s hands.

“Easy, easy,” Cowboy murmured, like he was soothing a nervous colt, undoing the fastening at Bat’s tunic collar, fingers warm against Bat’s throat.

Bat swallowed hard as Cowboy suddenly pressed a soft kiss in the naked hollow of his throat. He opened his eyes and Cowboy’s face was absorbed, grave. His lashes raised and he met Bat’s gaze. He seemed to be waiting for something.

What?

Seemingly of their own volition, Bat’s hands rose and he responded in kind, shoving aside Cowboy’s heavy jacket, working the fastenings of Cowboy’s tunic — careful of buttons, careful with His Majesty’s property — they couldn’t afford to explain untoward damage. Through the coarse wool of their uniforms, their groins ground urgently against each other, and then their hot mouths met in frenzied hunger.

The night before Bat had been too startled to truly acknowledge what was happening, but now…he was almost stunned by the intimacy of it, the silky rasp of Cowboy’s jaw against his own, the pressure of two mouths, the mingling of breath and saliva, the unaccustomed taste of another man, the slick surprise of tongue —

He was about to suffocate beneath the impact when Cowboy tore his mouth away, breathing hard. His hands slid down Bat’s long, thinly muscled back, finding his way to Bat’s waist band and fly. His hand slipped inside, rough but caressing, feeling Bat up with gentle but thorough expertise. Bat hissed but didn’t speak, didn’t say the words, even as Cowboy worked his way through layers of cloth to bare skin. Then Cowboy’s hard, unsteady fingers found the entrance to Bat’s body.

Bat jumped. “No,” he said hoarsely.

“Hell, yes,” Cowboy retorted a little unevenly.

“No.” And Bat started to fight him.

Cowboy let him go so abruptly Bat staggered, falling back against the wall.

“He’s dead,” Cowboy said. “You’re still alive, whether you like it or not.”

Rage washed through Bat’s body, but then…

“You don’t understand,” he said. “Gene and I…we never…did that.”

Cowboy went so still he merged with and vanished into the shadows, leaving Bat feeling as though he were alone. It was an awful feeling.

“Say something,” he said.

“I’m not sure what to say.”

The bubble of emotion that never seemed to leave Bat’s chest expanded and he couldn’t seem to breathe. He struggled with it.

So it was mostly relief when Cowboy’s powerful arms folded him close once more.

“You must’ve done more than hold hands,” Cowboy muttered. He bent his head and his lips grazed the nape of Bat’s neck. Bat shivered and pressed his face into the strong column of Cowboy’s throat.

Of course they had. They’d held each other, they had kissed, they had — but this, no. Bat, less experienced, had suggested certain things, but Gene had been very clear. And that had been all right by Bat — he’d been slightly ashamed for suggesting it.

Heat flooded his face which he kept it buried in Cowboy’s neck. “We tried to keep to the…the Platonic ideal.”

“Jesus.”

“I mean, we tried — ”

“I know what you mean,” Cowboy said astonishingly. “I read the Symposium. I went to Harvard.”

And it was Bat’s turn to be speechless. He raised his head, staring at Cowboy’s face in the gloom.

Cowboy laughed. “What did you think? I rode in from the plains on Old Paint?”

Hadn’t Cowboy rather acted that way? Was it perhaps his strange sense of humor? “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“What do I care what a bunch of English stuffed shirts think?”

Bat tried to throw him off, but Cowboy held him in place, back to the wall, and despite the cool words his hands stroked the other pilot in long tremulous caresses, warm hands sliding down Bat’s flanks and back.

“Not you. I care what you think,” he muttered.

“Oh, jolly for me,” Bat snarled. But it felt good. Very good to have Cowboy touching him like that. Despite his anger, Bat clutched Cowboy tightly, not wanting it to end, and when Cowboy’s hand slid down over his taut buttocks, he tried not to tense, tried to relax. The brush of fingertips on bare skin felt startlingly nice and started a peculiar ache in his chest. This was something he had not foreseen. That he might enjoy Cowboy’s sexual trespass. That he might welcome it. He struggled with guilt and pain and loyalty to Gene while Cowboy stroked him and whispered soothing things like he expected Bat to start bucking and biting any moment.

“Yeah, you’re beautiful, aren’t you? Sharp and shining like the edge of the sun.” He kissed the corner of Bat’s mouth, his erection thrusting aggressively into Bat’s groin.

And Bat began to move against Cowboy, longing for — needing more. Cowboy’s finger slipped right inside his body and an odd thrill shot through Bat. He shuddered all down the length of his body and half-swallowed a protest.

“Easy, easy,” Cowboy whispered hotly against his ear. “You want it and you need it. Hell, we both need it. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that. Why should it?”

He kissed away any objection Bat might have made while all the time his finger kept stroking inside Bat’s body, nothing tentative about that touch, fingering Bat up with tantalizing expertise while he kept him pinned against the wall, not letting him move. And Bat turned his mouth from Cowboy’s and heaved in great gulps of air like he’d flown far too high, putting all thought away and opening his thighs to give Cowboy greater access.

Dear God that felt

…it made him melt inside, made him ache, made his body keen silently, desperate for more — much more. Embarrassing sounds escaped him, abject sounds, and Cowboy kissed them all away, smiling, seeming pleased as Bat grew more frantic.When Cowboy withdrew his hand Bat was aware of stinging disappointment. But then Cowboy guided him around to face the wall, and Bat planted his hands against its splintered roughness, spreading his legs, instinctively readying himself.

He heard the rustle of cloth and then Cowboy’s fingers were back but now they were slippery with oil. Blunt fingers cupped his balls, cradling them, caressing, and then one blunt finger traced the quivering entrance of Bat’s body once more.

“Ready as you’re going to be,” Cowboy said. “Just relax…that’s it…”

Bat swallowed dryly. He knew a moment of dizzy alarm. What was he surrendering to? What liberties was he allowing Cowboy? The big American was warm and solid all down the length of his back, the open flaps of his tunic tickling Bat’s bare skin as he leaned over him, his breath hot on the nape of Bat’s neck, his knees pressing into the back of Bat’s, hard hands locked on his hips. Cowboy’s cock lanced lightly between the cheeks of Bat’s arse, and the implicit threat, the tease of alarmed pleasure focused Bat’s thoughts. This was no betrayal of Gene. This was lust. Animal lust. Nothing to do with what had been between himself and Gene, and perhaps he did need it — this disconcerting proof that he was still alive. He didn’t care if it hurt; he rather hoped it did.

Bracing himself as Cowboy’s cock pushed slowly into him, Bat was astonished to find his body grudgingly accommodating the larger man’s organ, though he had to grit his jaw to keep from crying out. It did hurt. Not unbearably so, however, and the pain freed him of guilt.

Slowly, slowly Cowboy shoved deep into Bat’s body until Bat could feel the softness of hair against his buttocks. Cowboy thrust against him once, and Bat shivered. They were locked so tight that he could feel Cowboy’s heart hammering against his back.

He wriggled, pushing back a little, trying to find himself a bit of room to breathe. To think. But one of Cowboy’s hands moved its grip from Bat’s hip, coming beneath his belly and finding his cock, closing around it with easy expertise, pumping as though caressing a rifle. That helped, and again Bat’s body responded eagerly, his cock filling and lengthening.

Cowboy kissed the back of Bat’s neck and it was sweet. Bat relaxed into Cowboy’s hold, resting his forehead on the wall, smelling the biting pungency of wood and sweat.

Cowboy was thrusting into him now, steady, rhythmic thrusts, his heavy cock like a piston pushing into the cylinder of Bat’s body. It was unbelievable — unbelievable that Bat would allow this, and yet he was standing docilely permitting Cowboy to take him. Cowboy was grunting fiercely in Bat’s ear and oddly it began to excite Bat: the honesty of that rough animal pleasure. He groaned into the knotholes of the paneling.

“Yeah, that’s right, Aubrey,” Cowboy rasped. “That’s right, sweetheart. You know it, don’t you? You know you belong to me now.”

Bat shook his head. “Y-you’re…fucking mad,” he jerked out as Cowboy shoved into him, but Cowboy laughed.

“You’re only fooling yourself.” He used his knee to push Bat’s legs further to give himself better access, making Bat take him more deeply, and astonishingly Bat acquiesced, pushing back on Cowboy’s engorged organ with a helpless moan.

He let Cowboy fuck him, submitted to Cowboy’s rough and thorough possession until his legs felt weak and wobbly. Then Cowboy changed his angle, drove into Bat one more time and it was like lightning striking.

A white blaze lit up Bat’s body, nerves igniting. His breath caught, he shuddered all over, releasing his seed over the larger man’s hand, flooded with physical sensation — and unexpected emotion. At nearly the same instant, Cowboy groaned deep down in his chest and grabbed Bat tight against his torso, spilling blood-hot semen into him. That splash of liquid heat recalled Bat to himself.

What had he done? He had given into the basest of desires. He had let Cowboy use him, mark him like a wolf spraying its territory. He knew only too well what Gene would make of such brutish behavior, and yet…he felt very little. Perhaps he was simply numb.

Bat slumped against the wall, panting. After a time Cowboy’s cock slipped out of him.

Bat’s limbs were trembling — hands too — and his cock was suddenly unbearably sensitive. The odd thing was Cowboy seemed to understand that and he became tender — almost woman-tender so that Bat could have wept with humiliating gratitude. It was unmanly but he wanted this, wanted to be gentled, cared for. He breathed quietly against his arm as Cowboy cleaned him off with his soft linen handkerchief and then tucked him back inside his trousers. Then he drew Bat against him and they sat down — half collapsing on the faded old cushions of the dilapidated furniture.

For a time they sprawled there and Cowboy rocked Bat against him in a funny soothing way. Bat closed his eyes. The traitorous wish occurred that he and Gene would have done this, and then, even more traitorously, he realized he wanted nothing more than to sleep against this strong warm body and not think anymore.

Cowboy kissed his hair and his face and rocked him some more and Bat let himself drift.

He must have fallen deeply asleep because the next thing he knew Cowboy was saying softly, “Rise and shine, Aubrey. I gotta get back and you need some real sleep.”

Bat blinked at him, nodded, and sat up. He ran a hand through his hair.

“All right?” Cowboy asked, and though he spoke brusquely, there was some remaining trace of that unexpected tenderness in his voice.

Bat nodded again. He had no words to express his confusion, his astonishment at what he’d done — what they had done.

They rose and dressed quickly, and then Cowboy went back to the air field and Bat let himself into the lodge.

Madame greeted him with pleasure and Digsby with outright joy. It was not until Bat had been persuaded into sitting down and eating a bowl of hot stew that he realized that Cowboy had still not told him what he had done with Orton’s body.