Heartward Read online

  “Don’t give me that. Rumor has it that you’ve been seen with a certain police officer and he seems very smitten with you.” Alan wasn’t going to let her get away with that sort of woe-is-me talk any longer.

  “Which one?” Tyler asked.

  “Andrew Marks,” Alan answered.

  Tyler smiled and turned to Marcie. “Good job. He’s a good guy and a very lucky one.”

  Marcie didn’t seem to understand how to take the teasing, but she grinned, and it was so nice to see her happy. “We just started dating, so it’s really new and I’m not going to jinx it. So why don’t you go to your meeting and I’ll stay here and moon over Officer Hunky.”

  Tyler snorted. “As long as you make him your Officer Hunky. He really is a good guy. Andrew went out to review a fire scene with me last week. Really good man. I’m glad he was with me.”

  “I’ll see you later. Text if there’s any trouble or if you need anything.” Alan said goodbye and left with Tyler through the back. It was a nice evening, warm but not too humid. One of three or four really great days a year. They strolled down the sidewalk toward the town hall. Alan wanted to take Tyler’s hand but resisted. Still, the excitement built inside him.

  SMALL-TOWN POLITICS could be very many things. They could have drama, complete disinterest, passion, and quiet acceptance. Thankfully, since there were no earth-shattering business items on the agenda, they were able to get through most of the business without stumbling along or getting bogged down.

  Alan sat in his place on the dais, looking out at the twenty or so people in the audience. He knew a few people as the regulars, the ones who attended every council meeting. There were the reporters who covered the town beat, and of course Tyler. He sat toward the back, but Alan could feel his gaze on him.

  Nearing the end of the meeting, Alan saw Tyler’s expression shift, and he reached for his phone, stood, and quietly but hurriedly left by the back.

  The business continued for five more minutes. “Excuse me, folks,” the council president Gilbert Lowell said, and turned to Alan. “I just got a message. You need to get to your store.”

  Alan’s heart fell through the floor as his mind put the pieces together in an instant. He thanked Gilbert, stepped off the dais, and headed for the door as quickly as his feet could carry him. He checked his phone and found he’d forgotten to charge it.

  Outside on the street, he raced down the sidewalk, looking for smoke or some indication of what was happening, but saw none. Firetrucks were parked in front of the store, which was dark, but Alan didn’t smell smoke. He wasn’t sure how to react as he hurried up.

  “What happened?” Alan asked the nearest firefighter.

  “We’re not sure at this point. When we got here, the power had been turned off and—”

  “Alan,” Tyler said as he strode up. “Marcie texted that she smelled something electrical and found the box in back sparking. I got here and switched off the main power breaker. Since then, whatever was hot has cooled, and I don’t think there is further danger. The power company is coming to shut off the power for now.”

  “Okay. So there’s no damage?” Alan asked.

  “No. But the electrical system is going to need to be looked at by an electrician.” Tyler glanced around as though he were nervous. “Do you have someone you trust?” he added much more quietly.

  “Yeah. My uncle,” Alan said.

  “Good. Make sure he goes over it from start to finish.”

  Alan nodded and stepped back a little. “What are you thinking?” A cold streak ran up his back. “That someone did this? Did you talk to Marcie?”

  “Yeah. And she said she thought someone snuck in back while she was helping a customer. It’s hard for me to tell right now. I’ll come back in the morning to check more closely. Can you have your uncle meet me here?”

  “Yes.” Alan’s insides shook like they’d been through a blender. “I don’t know why someone would want to do this to me. I run a small business—I help other people. I work for the town, for God’s sake. They don’t pay me for all the hours I spend, and….” He felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under him. His store. Someone had attacked his store, the way he made his living.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Tyler told him gently. “The guys have some things they need to finish up, and they’ll be heading out soon. Everything is okay in the store. Give us half an hour, and I’ll take you back to my place for the night.”

  “I should go home and….”

  “You shouldn’t be alone, so you’ll come to my place tonight. And call your uncle, arrange to meet him here. I’ll call Andrew and see if he’ll accompany us.”

  The chief approached where they were standing. “This looks like a simple electrical issue,” he said, turning to Alan and ignoring Tyler. “Have someone take a look at it tomorrow, and once it’s been inspected, the power company can restore service.” He made as little of it as possible, and Alan simply nodded. Then the chief turned and strode away, directing the guys to pack it in and head back to the station.

  “WHAT THE heck is going on?” Alan asked once he and Tyler were at Tyler’s house, sitting on the sofa.

  “I’m not totally sure,” Tyler said. “But something is. And the chief is involved somehow.” He put his arm around Alan’s shoulders, and Alan leaned against him.

  “What should I do?” Alan asked.

  Tyler sighed. “I’m not sure yet. Part of the reason I called Andrew was because I need his advice. There is more to this than just your store and one incident, but I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is.” Tyler seemed as frustrated as Alan felt at the moment. “What did your uncle say?”

  “That he’d meet me at the store at seven in the morning.” Alan closed his eyes, trying to put some of the turmoil out of his head. “I suppose I should be grateful that nothing really bad happened. But it’s hard to think about what could have been. You know, I could have lost the entire business and everything that I’ve tried to accomplish. It seems pathetic, but that’s what could have happened if Marcie hadn’t been on the ball.”

  Tyler sighed and held him closer. “It will be okay. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  It took Alan a few seconds before he heard what Tyler had really said. We. Most of his life, he had been a first-person singular, and now… for whatever reason, this good fortune had smiled on him and he was part of a first-person plural. “Thanks. But I have no idea what the hell is happening. I mean… what? Did someone come into my store and do something to try to short out the electrical system? What the hell? That’s kind of sick. This is Scottville, and stuff like that doesn’t happen here.” He closed his eyes and couldn’t help wondering if the entire world had suddenly gone all wonky.

  “We’ll get some answers tomorrow.” Tyler held him closer until the phone on the coffee table vibrated. Tyler picked it up, and there was Abey, grinning out at them.

  “Papa, night night.” He moved in and out of the picture.

  “Good night, buddy. Did you have a good time with Grammy and Grampy?” Tyler grinned right back at his son. That was probably the happiest moment Alan had experienced all day.

  “Mr. Alan, night night.” Abey waved frantically.

  “Night, Abey,” Alan said as the phone went dark.

  Tyler set down his phone, still chuckling.

  “What the heck?”

  Tyler leaned forward, still laughing. “That kid is either going to steal the entire international monetary system and hold it hostage… or he’s the next technological genius. I have to keep my phone in hand and locked because he will figure out how to get into anything and he’ll make it do what he wants it to. In a week, he figured out the television and the fact that he can talk to it. Now he orders the television around. I have set the parental controls on everything in the house with any sort of electronic interface.” Tyler calmed down a little. “I only hope that I’m good enough for him.” He began shaking.

  “Where did tha
t come from?” Alan asked.

  “He has so much potential, and….” Tyler took a deep breath. “God, I was never meant to be a parent. There have been so many times that I’ve looked at myself in the mirror and wondered if I was doing the right thing. I took one look at that little body on the beach and frantically managed to bring him back. But the first time those little arms wrapped around my neck… I was a goner. I was actually relieved that there was no family and I could keep Abey.” He lifted his gaze. “I know it was selfish, but it was how I felt.”

  “You know you had nothing to do with what happened to his family.” For a second Alan wondered if Tyler had been drinking. He was acting a little drunk, but maybe it was just all the pressure and months of wonder that were all coming to the surface now.

  “I know. But I still wonder sometimes….”

  Alan shook his head. “Did you see that excited, happy face? You did that. You made that possible. That was all you. He was excited to see you, and you’ve provided him with a home, a family, and love.” Alan paused. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told me.”

  “No. You know the story. Heck, you know more than my mom and dad, and that’s how I want to keep it. They love Abey, and they don’t need to know all of the details.” Tyler sighed. “There are times when I try not to remember them.”

  “Okay.” Alan was determined to be patient. “What do you see when you close your eyes?”

  Tyler shook his head. “Sometimes I see that beach, except in my dreams, or nightmares, I’m too late and all I find is a little body, cold, with waves lapping him up on the sand.” He shivered, and Alan held him. Actually, they held each other. “There are so many times that I think I’m going to fly apart, just break into a million pieces and fly through the air as these tiny specks that no one is ever going to see.”

  “Then maybe it’s a good thing that you decided to come home. Maybe what you needed was here.” Alan hoped that was true. He hoped that what all of them needed was right here. But with what happened today, Alan was beginning to wonder.

  His phone vibrated, and Alan pulled it out of his pocket. It was a message from the council president, saying that he hoped everything was okay and that the meeting had wrapped up with no additional business. “There are good people in this town.”

  “Yeah, I know it. But it seems like I’ve been crossing paths with the assholes.” Tyler held him tighter. “I discovered the cause of that fire, the one outside town from about a week ago. The stove was caked with stuff on the inside. It was a mess. The fire was still an accident, but the chief had completed his conclusion and closed the record. He wasn’t even there.” Tyler met Alan’s gaze. “What kind of person does that?”

  “The kind who covers up for his friends. Can you prove it?”

  “Yes. But in the end, it isn’t material. The fire was an accident, but with the details I added, the insurance company isn’t going to be particularly happy about it. The comments can’t be removed, and the police have the same information in their report. It could be that he was just trying to be efficient, but it seems suspicious to me.”

  Alan agreed. “Keep what you have to yourself. The chief has plenty of friends, and at the moment, we don’t have enough votes on the council to remove him. There are those of us who want to, but it won’t happen now.” Alan groaned. “Just hang on to that information, and we can try to use it when the time is right.”

  “It could be nothing.”

  “And it could be him trying to cover for his friends.” Alan’s heart beat a little faster. “I would love to get a look into past department records. Though I’d have no idea what I was looking for.”

  “And I don’t think I could help you. If he is falsifying records, then I’d only see what he wanted me to, rather than the real thing. It was only because this happened to be a fire that I was at that I knew something was wrong.”

  “I know. It’s part of why this is so frustrating. If I thought he was a good chief, I wouldn’t have any problem with him. But he’s up to something, and he’s got protection.”

  “Have you been through the department’s books and budgets?”

  “Yes. With a fine-tooth comb. I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary, but he would be a fool to use department funds for anything other than what they are allocated for. Too many eyes on them. If there is money involved, it’s coming in from different sources.” Alan shrugged. “I don’t really care what he’s up to. To tell you the truth, I just want to be able to get him out of that position so we can have someone who really cares about the department and the town.” He had already told Tyler about all this. Alan shook his head slowly. “Maybe there’s something else we can talk about.”

  “God, I hope so.” Tyler seemed even edgier by all this.

  “When is your next time off?” Alan asked.

  “I work tomorrow and Wednesday, and then I have two days off. I just want to rest part of that time. But I planned to take Abey out to Laughton Farms. They have a therapy riding program out there, and I know he would love to see and maybe get to ride a horse. I called, and they said to come on Thursday. Do you want to come with us? Can you ride?”

  Alan grinned. “Yeah. I can ride. Ione Whitaker, one of the girls in our class—she and I were really close, and her family had horses. We took lessons together when we were kids. Can you ride?”

  “Yes, I can ride.” Tyler clammed up, and Alan shifted closer, holding him nearer. He had the feeling that this conversation had the potential to circle back to their earlier topic, and Alan didn’t want to go there… not again. Let Tyler relax if that was possible.

  “I should go home and let you go to bed for some rest.” Alan stood, and Tyler did the same, except he took Alan’s hand.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, and Tyler began turning out the lights. He pulled the curtains and closed up the house without letting go of Alan’s hand. Then Tyler led him down the hall to the bedroom and inside, closing the door. “It’s just the two of us.”

  Alan nodded in the near darkness, just able to make out Tyler as he came closer.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” he breathed.

  “Tyler….” Not that Alan hadn’t been thinking of what it would be like to spend the night getting to know every inch of Tyler’s incredible body. God, his head kept going there all the damned time, and even now, with as worried as he was about his store and what was going on, the invitation was enough to send all of that flying out of his mind. The room grew warmer and the scent headier by the second. His belly quivered and his knees shook just a little with anticipatory excitement.

  “I know what I want, Alan…,” Tyler said softly, drawing closer.

  “I know you do.” Alan swallowed hard.

  Tyler extended his arm and said nothing more. Alan understood exactly what he was offering, and Alan took a step closer, as though pulled to Tyler by an invisible force. He took his hand, and Tyler drew him nearer.

  Within seconds, Tyler was right in front of him, chest heaving, his eyes as wide as saucers. But it was his hands. Tyler held Alan’s hands for a second, caressing his fingers lightly, then trailing up his arms to his shoulders and down to his chest, heat rising with every touch. Alan’s heart beat faster when Tyler’s palms rested over the center of his chest. It was almost as though Tyler could touch him inside where the excitement originated, and damn it all, he wanted even more.

  Alan closed his eyes, breathing as normally as possible, even though he felt like he was in the middle of a marathon and should be gasping like a spent horse. But he wasn’t. It was Tyler and what he did to him. So when Tyler’s fingers slid up to the collar of his shirt and slowly opened the buttons, he gasped softly as Tyler’s hand brushed heatedly against the skin of his chest. The touches were accidental, and yet Alan found himself searching for the next one, holding his breath for when a knuckle brushed here or a finger touched there. It was like if he made a sudden movement or even a sound, the spell would be broken and Tyler would step away
and decide that maybe Alan was right and that he should go home.

  But he knew better now, and Alan was wrong, so incredibly, heatedly, passionately wrong. God, he had never been so wrong about anything in his life, and at the moment, he didn’t want to be proven right, not in any way.

  Alan closed the gap between them, taking Tyler’s lips in a display of passion that was no longer going to be denied. He cupped his cheeks and deepened the kiss even as Tyler’s hands slid under his shirt, wrapping around his waist to bring him in even closer, heat pouring off both of them.

  Alan’s mind and world narrowed to just the two of them in that small room, and for now, that was all he wanted to deal with. The rest of the world could take a break for a few hours.

  “Are you interested in the bed or…?” Tyler didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move, and then he was guiding Alan back and down onto the bed. His shirt parted, falling to the side, and Tyler buried his face against his chest. The trail of heat blazed by his tongue was almost too much.

  Alan cradled Tyler’s head in his arms, holding him there as his hips rocked slowly on their own. He tried to remember the last time he’d been this excited. Even as a teenager, when a stiff wind could get him going, he didn’t remember being this close to losing it this danged fast.

  “I’m sorry there isn’t a lot in here or anything,” Tyler whispered. “I haven’t had a lot of time to really make this room mine yet.”

  Alan was taken aback. “I don’t get it. Why is that important now?” He propped himself up on his side, tugging up Tyler’s shirt so he could rub his lightly furred belly.

  “It isn’t. It shouldn’t be. But some guys like everything to be just so… I guess.” Tyler seemed tense once again.