Only You (2 page)

* * * *

“You do know Nick’s here, don’t you?”

Barrett kept his wince of reaction internal. Nothing but a poker face on the outside. He’d had practice. “Course I do.” As a soulmate should be able to. If he and Nick had been genuine mates, and not just…doing what they did.

He had no regrets, though. Not a one. Barrett had been glad to hit thirty without a soulmark showing up. Gladder still that Nick didn’t have a mark either, selfish as that might sound. If no one else had a claim to them, they could belong to each other.

They could pretend, with no one the wiser, and no harm done to a single soul.

Barrett wiped his forehead on his arm and held the rock he’d just guided into place steady for Daniel to apply mortar around it. “You know I like to tease him.”

If Daniel picked up on anything odd—and Barrett didn’t think he had—he kept it to himself and patiently adjusted Barrett’s grip on the rock. “I think I’d call that an understatement.”

“You’ve got to keep things fresh.”

“Any fresher, and they’ll revert to seed. There, perfect. Hold it steady.” Daniel stopped. “Actually, I’d better take it.”

“No, I’ve got it. Why would I—”

Cold hands slipped beneath Barrett’s jersey and goosed his waist, followed by a sturdy body-blanket of a man draping himself over Barrett’s back.

“Hello, handsome,” Nick said in Barrett’s ear before lifting him by his hold on Barrett’s waist and swinging him around. He set Barrett down facing the other way and brushed a kiss across his lips. “God, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“I saw you less than thirty-six hours ago,” Barrett said, only pretending to be annoyed and knowing he wouldn’t have fooled a brain-dead gerbil. He wrapped his arms loosely around Nick’s neck and dropped a heartier smack on his lips. “Hello yourself.”

Daniel chuckled quietly. “As I was saying, because you’re about to be distracted, and I’d rather you didn’t smash my thumbs.”

“Daniel, my friend.” Nick freed his right hand, the one meant to be unmarked, and caught his balance against Barrett. “If you’re trying to keep Barrett out of trouble, it doesn’t work.”

Barrett bumped shoulders with Nick. “So you say. Ignore him, Daniel.”

Already looking down, focusing on levering a stone just so into a gap, Daniel made a quiet if rude noise mixed with a small smile. “Oh no. I’m staying out of this.”

“Probably smart.” Barrett patted Nick’s chest. “See where the wall’s fallen down partway? Happened last night. Scared the shit out of me. I thought the neighborhood garden gnomes had risen up in protest against an oppressive patriarchy.” He grinned proudly at Nick’s expression, all wrinkled nose and tucked eyelids, the one that said
you’re such an idiot
and
I love you
in synchronized harmony. “I was kicking around out here, reading until the best of the light went, and since you hadn’t gotten back yet, I figured I’d lend a hand. I wasn’t doing too bad, either.”

Nick made a
pfft
noise then raised an eyebrow and riffled his fingertips through the freshly trimmed, crisp edges of Barrett’s hair. “Thirty-six hours, sure, but you have less of this than the last time I saw you.”

“Remember the parent-teacher conferences? I had to add an extra appointment at the last minute thanks to a chewing gum incident.”

Nick winced. “Ouch.”

“If anyone got gum stuck in your hair, it’d be lost forever. Pop another band?” Barrett tugged lightly at one of the heavy hanks. “What happened to the leather tie?”

“God knows. I don’t.” Nick took Barrett’s wrist and ran his thumb lightly over the woven band tied there as a cuff. He didn’t say anything, not as such, but gave Barrett the smallest of questioning looks. “Sorry I lost track of my things.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep on talking and I’ll probably forgive you someday.” Barrett drew in a slight breath as Nick stroked over the pulse on his wrist, across the smooth bare skin beneath the band. “In the meantime, you’re lucky I’m so nice. I picked up a few things I figured you might need at the farmer’s market this morning.”

“Damn. I missed that?”

“He says it as if he’s not relieved and thankful.” Given the chance, Barrett could spend hours at the market. So much to look at, and taste, and smell. Fresh-baked bread, sweet chunks of honeycomb floating in jars of sticky gold, tart crimson berries, crisp peppers that bit back…heaven.

Nick could spend hours there too, mind. Most of them carrying packages and being bored. He hadn’t gone into emergency medicine out of a love for rest and relaxation. No more than Barrett had decided to become a kindergarten teacher out of enthusiasm for strict order. They worked well together, Nick and him.

And if Barrett had anything to say about it, they always would.

He slipped a finger beneath Nick’s sleeve, tapping the spot where the cuff would normally lie. Just a friendly reminder. Nick winced, then grimaced at him in apology.

“There’s a bag on your pillow,” he told Nick. “Go on. I’ll catch up with you as soon as we’re finished here.”

Nick kissed the tip of Barrett’s nose and let go with obvious but genuine reluctance that still never failed to kick-start Barrett’s engines. “Come to dinner, Daniel. There’s bound to be plenty.”

Barrett watched him go before turning and crouching to finish the job he’d started. “You’re welcome to join us, you know. And he’s right. There’s loads. You’re better at this than I am, aren’t you?”

“Practice,” Daniel said, dismissive of his own skills. He’d secured the loose stone in place while Barrett had had his back turned, and his work was so neat and precise, Barrett had to admit he’d probably have done more harm than help by lending a hand. Daniel wouldn’t have said so. He might not be anybody’s doormat, but Daniel could be too nice for his own good.

Not for the first time, Barrett studied their neighbor curiously, wondering about the things he couldn’t see on the surface. Daniel was a hard one to get a read on. He spoke with the enunciation and precise accents of a man with degrees, plural, but as long as Barrett had known him, he’d worked construction with no complaints. Probably around the same age as Nick and himself—early thirties—and as far as Barrett could tell, had no family and had never been married. Had precious few other friends, come to that. A man without ties and no hints as to why.

Barrett had thought him a widower when they’d first met, like Nick’s friend Abram, even if he was young for it. Not sure why. Daniel just had that air to him. Distracted and a little sad all the time, even when Barrett teased him into laughter. He didn’t wear a black widower’s bead in his ear, though. Never mentioned a lost soulmate by name.

Nick teased Barrett for his curiosity, but Barrett still wanted to know Daniel’s story. Only, whenever he worked up the nerve to ask—

“Don’t pretend you want to make him wait,” Daniel said, cocking an eyebrow. He had a long, narrow face with a small but mobile mouth, and a knack for quiet mischief. Maybe that was why he didn’t say much. With a face like that, he didn’t really need to. “Go on. I’ve got this under control.”

“Which is the nice way of saying ‘scram before you wreck the joint’.” Barrett stretched out his arms. “Anything I damaged beyond repair, send me the bill.”

“I’ll figure out some way you can repay me.” Daniel sat back on his haunches and looked up at Barrett, frowning playfully.

Barrett did not cover his wristlet in automatic reaction—but it was a near thing. He tsked at himself inside his head. Daniel had never questioned his and Nick’s claim to a soulbond. “Something on your mind?”

“Not as such,” Daniel said, though in direct contradiction to that he tapped the handle of his trowel against his palm in the classic thinker’s tic. “The two of you… It’s good to see. Gives the rest of us hope that every once in a while, things work out exactly like they should.”

“We try,” Barrett said. He made himself smile as if it were an ordinary compliment. He wished. “Thanks. So, give it to me straight.
Did
I break the wall?”

* * * *

Nick shed layers as he made his way through his home, ditching first the plaid flannel shirt he’d worn over a tee for extra warmth, then the tee itself, his boots, then socks, and he undid his belt. The wooden floor, swept gleaming-clean, was just the right side of too cold to walk on. He shivered and made a run for the bedroom area with its scattering of rag rugs.

It wasn’t a long jaunt. Old their home might be, but that didn’t necessarily equal huge. Their farmhouse had been built in the round, and made to last with thick walls, heavy beams and coats of creamy plaster. Technically one room plus a bath, but clearly divided into defined areas meant for bed, for play, for eating. Plenty of space to share between two men, with enough room left over to contain the spillage of lesson plans and snips of construction paper Barrett had trailed behind him.

God, but it was good to be home.

And so what if that was an overreaction? Nick rolled his shoulders in mild irritation—yes, he had only been gone overnight and it wasn’t as if he and Barrett had a real, true soulbond tie to tug across any distance between them, but did that mean he wasn’t allowed to miss the man?

Come to think of it, they hadn’t spent a night apart since they’d moved in.

Nick caught sight of a haphazardly piled stack of flat-pack boxes slip-sliding across a cleared patch of floor where an old recliner used to live. He crouched to read the print on the topmost box. “I didn’t know we could afford this yet,” he called to Barrett, who’d padded almost silently through the front door.

“We still couldn’t, if I hadn’t gotten the sweetest deal of my life.” Barrett paused on his way through to the kitchen and favored Nick with a warm, spicy look. “It’s worth a splurge, anyway. How many years have we wanted our own pool table?”

“Too many to count, unless I want to feel old.” Nick ran his fingers through the heavy mane of hair falling down over his shoulders and decided he’d let it hang for now. Barrett liked the lion look enough to make the hassle worthwhile. “Think we can set it up before next weekend?”

“That’s the plan,” Barrett replied as he returned to his earlier course. “That might change once I get a look at the instructions, but I bet we can do it.”

“And by ‘we’ you mean ‘mostly me’.” Nick sniffed the air and caught a whiff of beef stew with rosemary in the slow cooker. His stomach rumbled in appreciation. He liked that offering far more than he had the dry room-service chicken from the night before. Maybe a glass of red would go well with it, if Barrett had picked up a bottle at the market. Or espresso, velvety-dark, with even darker chocolate.

Barrett laughed. He had ten thumbs and knew it, but he still tried. “I’ll help.”

“You’ll make a mess, you mean.”

“Maybe so. But in any case, I’ll make it worth your while.”

He would, too.

Nick paused, feeling oddly if only slightly restless. He didn’t so much feel like tossing on any clean clothes. The inside of their old house generally ran about fifteen degrees cooler than the outside, but not tonight. Almost cold, yet at the same time oddly still and stifling. Nick crossed to the small window to the left of their bed and lifted the sash to let in a plume of fresh breeze start circulating.
Better.

Barrett wandered back toward the sleeping area. “It’ll get cold in here with the window open,” he said instead of asking, or telling Nick to shut it. “I’ll turn on the fire.”

Nick eyed the double-sided hearth that filled the center of their small home. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the thing, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. I swear it feels like cheating. Fire’s supposed to be something you put blood and sweat into, chopping logs and layering kindling, not pushing a button.”

“Oh, yeah? I remember plenty of blood and sweat while we were installing the thing,” Barrett said. He crouched, easy and graceful, to work the controls tucked underneath the lip of the chimney, where the flue used to live. Flames sprang to life with a hushed
whoosh
of gas and a
snap
of ignition. He made a pleased sound and held out his hands, toasting them by the sudden warmth.

Nick savored the sight of his mate in all but marks, caught in the firelight that sprang up at the touch of a fingertip. Crimson and vermilion light dappled and gilded his skin, turning him for a moment into a creature of brightness and shadow. A dragon, dancing in the darkness, settling by the rockwork of their hearth.

As he watched, the back of his neck itched, a sharp, spiky needle no wider than a hair skewering a spiral.

Ouch.
Nick slapped at the spot and blinked in surprise when he didn’t come away with a squashed bug.
Huh. I was sure I’d been stung.

“Beef stew tonight,” Barrett said before Nick could ask him to take a look. He turned casually, fluidly on his heel to make for the kitchen and the source of the good smells that filled their home from stem to stern.
Huh.
Maybe he was a bit restless, too. “Fair warning, I’ve been spending way too much time with the old recipe books again. I can feel a real cooking binge coming on.”

“Not a problem,” Nick said, absently rubbing his neck. He watched Barrett lope away, wanting to move but not quite ready to stand just yet.

Sometimes he thought they were pushing their luck with all this playing pretend.

Sometimes he knew they were.

And sometimes…oh, sometimes he didn’t care. He just
wanted
.

Chapter Two

Barrett cracked the lid on the slow cooker and breathed deep of the fragrant steam that curled up to greet him. Garlic, bay and thyme woven throughout with savory beef and bacon and the lushness of half a bottle of red wine. Best in the county for decades, and only he knew the secret. His gran had kept her recipes locked up tighter than a nun’s virtue. He’d never imagined she’d choose him to leave the old books to when she’d passed, but leave them she had. Go figure.

Of course, she
had
made him promise to keep every last detail a secret. Not a hint of what seemed damned near alchemy jotted down in her margins was allowed to escape him on pain of death. And kept the secrets he had. Not even Nick got a look inside those old leather covers, and he’d tried.