Wild and Precious Read online

  Brent turned and wrapped himself around Graham, tiptoeing up to give him a long, lingering kiss. “Hi there. Yeah, me and Mary, we go way back.”

  “Oh, do you?” Graham kissed the tip of Brent’s nose, smiling down into his eyes.

  “Yeah, I owe a lot to her.”

  Graham drew Brent closer, rocking him against his body, as he murmured, “Okay, do I even want to know what you’re talking about?”

  Brent smiled against Graham’s chest and snuggled in closer. “Naw. Doesn’t matter now. I got what I was looking for.”

  Graham’s arms tightened around him, and Brent felt warm all over. “Me too, babe,” Graham whispered. “Me too.”

  What’s Next in the Wild and Precious Series?

  What’s Next in the Wild and Precious Series?

  There You Are, Book 2

  Cody gets his Happily Ever After!

  Can a free spirited musician and a grieving widower find love while caring for a runaway teen?

  Bisexual musician Cody is a free spirit, easygoing and unattached. On a cross-country trip he befriends young runaway Sandy and gets him safely to his uncle Phineas. Beautiful Phineas turns Cody’s life upside down, and Cody learns he's not as unattached as he aspires to be.

  Ever since his longtime lover Allen died, Phineas has lived a circumscribed life. A former fierce drag queen now working in a bookstore, Phineas never expected his nephew to land on his doorstep, much less to find love again. Sexy and caring Cody brings him alive, but now Phineas must find the courage to let go of his grief and give love a second chance.

  If you like second chances for love, sexy musicians and drag queens, and heartwarming stories of found families, you’ll love There You Are. Buy it today!

  Chapter 1

  “You sure about this?” Bette’s pointed glance packed a world of meaning as she maneuvered the car through the DC traffic and Union Station came into view.

  Cody shifted, touching the door handle to ready his escape. “Yes, I’m sure. Didn’t we go over this?” In excruciating detail, he added silently but didn’t dare say aloud. Not with the mood Bette was in.

  “I’m giving you one more chance to come to your senses.” Bette pulled up outside the train station, frowning, and turned off the engine.

  She looked so unhappy, Cody wanted to change his mind. I can’t, he thought.

  Won’t, you mean, said the Bette in his head. He reached over and laid his hand on top of hers. “You’ll get along fine without me.”

  “That’s not the point.” She nailed him with a baleful scowl. “We don’t want to get along without you. Dang you, Cody Bellstrom, you have no idea who you are to us.” At his puzzled expression, she turned away and stared stonily through the windshield.

  “Well… I guess this is it.” Cody waited, but she didn’t respond. “I love you, girl, you know that, right? You and Aurora.” He meant it. He, Bette, and Aurora had been friends since they were college freshmen ten and a half years ago. Cody sometimes found it hard to believe that he’d known them since before Bette and Aurora had become a couple. It seemed like they’d been together forever.

  A barely perceptible nod.

  “Come on, Bette, don’t be mad. I’ll be back. I swear.”

  “Sure you will.” She sighed and turned a softer face toward him. “Godammit, you better. We love you. If you gotta do this, of course we can’t stop you. All we want is for you to be happy.”

  A car honked behind them, and a uniformed officer motioned them to get moving.

  “Shoot,” Bette muttered. “All right, babe. Get outta here.”

  Cody leaned over and planted a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll text. And call. And Skype.”

  “Okay. Send us a postcard from every stop, and take a picture of yourself in Powell’s Books when you get to Portland.”

  “Will do.”

  Cody opened the door and unfurled himself from the passenger seat, then hauled out his luggage, such as it was. He traveled light; always had. A knapsack, one rolling suitcase, and his guitar, and he was good to go.

  He stood on the curb and waved as Bette pulled away, then strode into the station, his spirits lifting, while Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again” played on a loop in his mind.

  Chapter 2

  Phineas drew the X-acto blade down the middle of the box, then along the sides, getting that familiar jolt of anticipation when he popped open the lid to reveal the books inside. What would they be this time? Fiction? History? Computers for Dummies? Of all the jobs at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, he liked working in the stockroom the best. He loved books—the smell of them, the heft of them in his hands, the worlds they contained. People wore Phineas out, by and large, but books soothed him. Hanging around a stockroom full of them was his idea of the perfect job.

  He cheerfully did all of the tasks at Powell’s, happy he had something to do, even if it was part-time and fairly mindless. His high-powered position at a computer software company had ended in a round of layoffs two years ago, but his heart hadn’t been in his work for a long time before that. Phineas had walked away with a pile of money—his golden parachute—surprised at how little he missed life in the corporate dog pile. When his friend Gemma had called him about working part-time at Powell’s, he’d jumped at the chance to surround himself with books. Books were the best friends of all. They never left him, the way people did.

  His peaceful interlude ended when his phone buzzed with a rare call from his older sister, Darcy. He almost didn’t pick up. Darcy and he were polar opposites. She still lived in Rockford, Illinois, a city Phineas had fled as soon as he could get away. She’d married her high school sweetheart, had five kids in quick succession, and remained a devout Catholic, whereas Phineas had deserted the Church and its homophobic bullshit the day he’d left home for good.

  Along with staying in their hometown, Darcy had taken on the lion’s share of looking after their aging parents, something neither Phineas nor his brother, Reg, could easily do from the opposite coasts they’d escaped to. Darcy was an admirable person, but Phineas didn’t like her, not only because she had no sense of humor, but because she always made him feel like a lazy bum in comparison.

  Seized with a fear that something had happened to one of their parents, Phineas grabbed the phone and pushed send. “Darcy?”

  “Hi, Beanpole.”

  Her flat Midwestern accent transported him straight to Rockford, and her use of the family nickname made Phineas wince. Dad had coined it when Phineas experienced a growth spurt in seventh grade that had left him a skinny, gangling giant who towered over his classmates. Never mind that most of them had caught up with Phineas by the time they graduated high school, and that nowadays his tall, slim frame still earned second glances, even at his advanced age of thirty-eight.

  “What’s up? Are Mom and Dad okay?”

  “They’re fine. I guess you know I wouldn’t call you except in an emergency. It’s Sandy.”

  Phineas felt his stomach clench. “What about him?”

  Phineas tried to love all Darcy’s kids equally, but her oldest, Sandy, had always been his secret favorite. Bright and popular in school, unlike the oddball Phineas had been, Sandy possessed an inquisitive mind. Best of all, he read voraciously and liked to sit and talk with his Uncle Phineas about books and life.

  “He….” Darcy’s voice held an odd hesitance. “He’s left.”

  “Left? What do you mean?”

  “So you haven’t heard from him?”

  Phineas gripped the phone tighter. “What’re you talking about, Darce?”

  Darcy cleared her throat. “Sandy’s gone. He took a suitcase and his clothes, and left a note saying he was going away to… find himself.” It sounded like she could barely spit out the words, probably from all the disdain dripping from them. God, she was a tight-ass.

  It intrigued Phineas that Sandy had apparently flown the familial coop. The last time Phineas had been to Illinois—when was that? Christmas, so four months
ago—Sandy had plied him with questions about his own leaving home—when and why and how. But it had never occurred to Phineas that Sandy’s interrogation had a purpose. He’d always seemed so happy, participating in sports and church activities and squiring around a seemingly endless string of girlfriends. A normal kid.

  Phineas brought himself back to the conversation. “Wow. What makes you think I’d know where he is?”

  A longish pause. “I’m—I can’t get into all that right now. Just let us know if he gets in touch, okay?”

  Not bloody likely, Phineas thought with a grim smile, as he made a vague assenting noise. Sandy was eighteen and no longer legally under the responsibility of his parents. Phineas remembered his own breaking away from the family at that age and how important it had been to make contact with them on his own terms. “When did this happen? Are you sure he’s safe?”

  “Two days ago. He’s texted to let us know he’s okay, but nothing else. None of his friends claim to know where he is.”

  Phineas wandered to the other side of the stockroom. “Okay. I’ll be on the lookout for a message from him.” There. That was vague enough and made no promises.

  “Thank you, Beanpole. For some reason, you’ve always been his favorite uncle.” The disapproval in her voice was evident, and he could hear what she left unsaid: “…despite your lifestyle choices.”

  He said briskly, “Oops, gotta go. Hey, I appreciate you letting me know. Thanks,” and disconnected before he ended up calling her something he’d regret.

  Then he pulled up Sandy’s contact info and sent a text. Hey, guy, I hear you got out of Dodge. Send me up a smoke signal and let me know how I can help.

  Also by CJane Elliott

  CJane's award-winning stories are scheduled to be re-released throughout 2020. Sign up for her newsletter (http://cjaneelliott.com/newsletter-sign-up) to keep up with CJane's re-releases and new books.

  Pattern For An Angel Holiday Short

  Stories from the Shore

  All the Way to Shore

  In Over Our Heads

  Campus Connections

  The Kinsey Scale

  The Player's Protégé

  The Dancer’s Dilemma (August 2020)

  Wild and Precious Series

  Wild and Precious

  There You Are

  Sand-Man's Family

  Serpentine Series

  Serpentine Walls

  Aidan's Journey

  Sex, Love, and Videogames

  Mercury in Retrograde

  Stay Right Here

  About the Author

  After years of hearing characters chatting away in her head, award-winning author CJane Elliott finally decided to put them on paper and hasn’t looked back since. A psychotherapist by training, CJane writes sexy, passionate LGBTQ romances that explore the human psyche. CJane has traveled all over North America for work and her characters are travelers, too, traveling down into their own depths to find what they need to get to the happy ending.

  CJane is bisexual and an ardent supporter of LGBTQ equality. In her spare time, CJane can be found dancing, listening to music, or watching old movies. Her family supports her writing habit by staying out of the way when they see her hunched over, staring intensely at her laptop.

  CJane is the author of the award-winning Serpentine Series, New Adult contemporary novels set at the University of Virginia. Serpentine Walls was a 2014 Rainbow Awards finalist, Aidan’s Journey was a 2015 EPIC Awards finalist, and Sex, Love, and Videogames won first place in the New Adult category in the 2016 Swirl Awards and first place in Contemporary Fiction in the 2017 EPIC eBook Awards. Her contemporary novel All The Way To Shore was runner up for best bisexual fiction in the 2017 Rainbow Awards.

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