Mummy Dearest, стр. 20

“I noticed that.” I could feel my own mouth curving into a smile to match his. “I noticed those other talents too.”

“Did you?”

I nodded.

“You’re probably going to miss your plane if we stand here talking.”

“The thought had occurred to me. There will be other planes.”

Fraser brightened still further. “Well, if you’re okay with that, let me buy you a cup of coffee. I have a proposition for you.”

“What kind of proposition?”

He looked briefly self-conscious. “Not that kind. Well, not only that kind.” He leaned in closer.

“You can proposition me, but I think it’s my turn to buy. How about breakfast?”

“It’s the most important meal of the day,” he said, his mouth a kiss away from my own.

“I think it just might be today.” I closed the distance between us.

About the Author

A distinct voice in GLBT fiction, multi-award winning author Josh Lanyon has written numerous novels, novellas and short stories. He is the author of the critically praised Adrien English mystery series as well as the new Holmes and Moriarity series. Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.

To learn more about Josh, please visit www.joshlanyon.com or join his mailing list at groups.yahoo.com/group/JoshLanyon.

Look for these titles by Josh Lanyon

Now Available:

Mexican Heat (co-written with Laura Baumbach)

The Dickens with Love

The Dark Farewell

Strange Fortune

Come Unto These Yellow Sands

Holmes & Moriarity

Somebody Killed His Editor

All She Wrote

Sometimes the adventure chooses you.

Come Unto These Yellow Sands

Lover of fine poetry and lousy choose-your-own-adventure novels, Professor Sebastian Swift was once the bad-boy darling of the literati. The only lines he does these days are Browning, Frost and Cummings. Even his relationship with the hot, handsome Wolfe Neck Police Chief Max Prescott is healthy.

When one of his most talented students comes to him bruised and begging for help, Swift hands over the keys to his Orson Island cabin—only to find out that the boy’s father is dead and the police are suspicious. In an instant, the stable life Swift has built for himself hangs on finding the boy and convincing him to give himself up before Max figures out Swift’s involvement in the case.

Max enjoys splitting an infinitive or two with his favorite nutty professor, but he’s not much for sonnets or Shakespeare. He likes being lied to even less. Yet his instincts—and his heart—tell him his lover is being played. Max can forgive lies and deception, but a dangerous enemy may not stop until Swift is heading up his own dead poet’s society.

Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that Josh Lanyon’s smart, sexy, sophisticated stories may prove hazardous to your heart.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Come Unto These Yellow Sands:

Swift drove down the shady wide streets, past the little shops and art galleries and comfortable homes to the small brick police station surrounded by tidy green lawns and a forest of wet flagpoles.

Inside the station it was warm and surprisingly quiet. Hannah Maltz, the dispatcher, was working at her computer, clicking briskly away at the keyboard. She was a very pretty middle-aged woman—far too pretty to be an effective cop, in Max’s opinion. Max had a tendency to make those kinds of judgment calls. What Hannah thought about being regulated to desk duty was anyone’s guess, but she was a great dispatcher. She had a very nice voice in an emergency. Not that Swift had many emergencies these days.

“Why hello, Professor Swift,” Hannah greeted him. “Wet enough for you?”

Swift was unsure what official explanation of their friendship—if any—Max offered inquiring minds. Having grown up in the spotlight, Swift was basically blind to public curiosity. He took it for granted that people paid attention to what he did, and he’d stopped noticing his own celebrity a long time ago. After three much publicized stints in rehab you tended to develop a thick skin. But Max was the police chief of a small town, and it went without saying—or at least they had never got around to discussing it—that he required discretion.

He was not much good at jokey back-and-forth stuff, but Swift said gravely, “Are you checking out my gills again?”

Hannah laughed. “Chief Prescott’s on the phone, but you can go on through.”

The door to Max’s office stood open. Swift could see a sliver of Max tilted back in his chair, phone to his ear. He heard snatches of Max’s deep tones between the click-clacks of Hannah’s keyboard.

Max glanced up as Swift pushed open the door. His brows rose in surprised inquiry, and he nodded to the chair in front of his desk.

“You can bitch about First Amendment rights all you want, Harry, but I’m telling you if you print that, we’re going to have words.”

Swift sat in one of the chairs before Max’s orderly desk and looked idly about the small office with its battered file cabinets, wooden coat rack, bulletin boards and bookcase with leather-bound volumes that were older than Max.

Whatever Harry said on the other end of the line amused Max. He gave that deep, growly laugh that always sent a pleasurable shiver down Swift’s spine. He wished Max would hurry up and get off the line. He hoped the phone call never ended.

The first time Swift had been to this office was six years ago, not long after he’d moved to Stone Coast. He’d woken one morning to find someone had plowed into his parked car during the night. He reported the hit and run and spent a couple of minutes talking to the then newly elected Chief of Police. The only thing he really recalled of that first meeting was that he’d immediately liked Max’s air of quiet, easy competency. It hadn’t occurred to him that Max was gay. Sex, let alone romance, had been the last thing on his mind in those early brittle days of his recovery.

“I’m just an overworked, underpaid public servant of the people.” Max’s eyes met Swift’s and he winked.

That was another thing Swift remembered from that very first meeting. Max’s unexpected charm. You didn’t look for charm from a cop. Swift didn’t, anyway. But Max had it in spades. It didn’t hide the tough competency, just made it a little more palatable, like the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down. As now. Harry—most likely Harry Wilson, editor of the Stone Coast Signal—was having the law laid down in the nicest possible way. And as pissed off as he undoubtedly was, he’d probably vote Max into office for a second term when Max came up for reelection in two years.

Hannah came in and left a sheaf of papers in the tray on Max’s desk. “I’m taking off,” she whispered to Max.

He raised a hand in absent acknowledgment. “Yeah, yeah,” he said good-humoredly into the mouthpiece. “Same to you, my friend.” He stood his pen on its nose, absently balancing it for a second, then catching it before it fell. “Sure, give me a call. Maybe sometime next week.”

Swift smoothed his suddenly damp hands on his jean-clad thighs. The moment of truth. He wasn’t ready for it.

After all, no one need know what he’d done. Even when Tad was caught, he might not say Swift had given him keys to the cabin. It might never come out at all.

But no. No. Swift no longer permitted himself to run from the difficult things.

Max hung up and smiled across his desk at Swift. His eyes were the warm color of good whisky. “Your timing is perfect. I’ve just got time to grab some supper before I have to meet the coroner.” He rose, six foot four of lean muscle, and reached for his leather jacket hanging from the coat rack.