Page 5 of Rebel

Chapter 2

THE LAST THING Nate had expected when his father banished him from Boston was Samuel Hutchinson. He’d very much doubted there’d be anyone to interest him in the sleepy provincial town of Rosemont, Rhode Island—let alone someone who interested him in the way Hutchinson did. That had been the whole point in sending him there, after all.

Yet there was Hutch, the moment Nate walked through the door to Reed’s law office, with his ridiculous curls, golden as a Greek fantasy, and the hints of a muscled body hiding beneath his countrified clothes. Although, in truth, it was neither of those things that had started Nate’s heart racing. It was his eyes. Gray like the morning sky, they’d watched him those first weeks with such avid attention it made Nate feel as if every hackneyed phrase that dropped from his lips was worthy of Plato himself.

Ironic that his father had sent him to Rosemont to remove him from inappropriate company, only to confine him in a small office with an Adonis who spent his days shooting Nate confused and confusing looks. Not only that, but a man who possessed a mind open to Nate’s free-thinking ideas and who was more than happy to listen and debate them for hours, even when he disagreed. That was a rare find indeed.

Hutchinson really was his father’s worst nightmare—and potentially Nate’s dream, if he could only understand what the man wanted. And whether he wanted Nate at all.

He’d thought himself good at this dance back in Boston. At Harvard he’d been able to find amenable men even in the shadow of all that Puritan disapproval. He’d known where to go to get his cock sucked, at least. He’d known the look in a man’s eye that meant he was open to an advance. God knew he’d learnedthatthe hard way.

But Samuel Hutchinson… He was a riddle. Sometimes he gazed at Nate with so much calf love that Nate thought Reed would throw him out on his ear, yet whenever Nate stood too close, gave him the opportunity to make himself clear, Hutch blinked at him with those fine gray eyes, innocent as the dawn, and clearly had no idea what Nate was asking.

Was it possible that Nate was misreading him? Was it possible that Hutch didn’t understand his own desires? Or, more likely, did he understand them but refuse to indulge? The man’s father had been a clergyman, after all, and Hutch might well be twisted up with the usual notions of sin.

Only he didn’t look twisted. With his open face and ready smile, Hutch looked the picture of untroubled confidence when he listened to Nate talk. And hereallylistened. Most men of Nate’s acquaintance weren’t interested in the world beyond their own experience, or were only interested in their own opinions, but Hutch had a questioning mind just begging to be opened. Nate loved feeding him books and ideas and watching him unpick them. He’d like to open him up to other things too.

The truth was that Nate wanted Sam Hutchinson. There was no denying it. Almost from the moment he’d walked into the office and seen Hutch studying him, Nate had wanted to show him the world. Starting with the very great pleasure he knew they could bring each other. If only Hutch wanted it too.

And Nate thought he did. He was almost certain he did—but almost wasn’t enough. He had to be sure because a mistake… In a town like Rosemont, a mistake could be deadly. So Nate watched and waited and sat by Hutch’s fire every Saturday night, read with him, debated with him—imagined him naked on the hearthrug, flushed with desire and gasping in pleasure. And then went home, frustrated, to the paltry relief of his hand, and cursed whatever cockless bastard had ever called love between two men a sin.

One day, however, with spring pushing into summer and the heat turning decadent, Hutch said, “Do you fish?”

Nate didn’t. He preferred his books to tramping about the country killing and trapping things, but the hopeful look in Hutch’s eyes made his pulse spike. “I wouldn’t mind learning,” he said, which wasn’t a lie if it meant Hutch teaching him.

So that Sunday, Hutch called on him after church. He didn’t ask where Nate went to church, which was all for the better since Nate hadn’t been to church in five years and wasn’t likely to again. To his mind, God had created the world and then left his creation to its own devices. Men’s fates were their own business, as far as Nate could tell, and certainly not determined by the whim of a divine being as prurient as any maiden aunt.

“I like to fish a little further up the Pawtuxet,” Hutch said as they walked. “It’s something of a hike, but worth it for the peace and quiet.” He carried a fishing pole and a bag over one shoulder. Nate had brought honey cake and an illicit book of poetry that he might, or might not, have the courage to read aloud to Hutch.

The river was beautiful, overhung with trees at the spot where Sam stopped, the bank lush with early summer grass. Thankfully, it was too early for most biting insects too, and as peaceful as Nate could ever hope.

“There’s cottonfish in there,” Hutch said, nodding to the whispering reeds on the opposite bank. “They like the shade.”

“Not only them,” Nate said. “Do you mind if I take off my coat?”

Hutch left a telling pause before he said, “Of course not,” and turned away. Not far enough to conceal the way his ears pinked beneath the brim of his hat, though. Damn the man for being so coy, what was he about?

Nate laid his coat on the grass and himself on the coat, propped up on his elbows as he watched Sam fiddle with the fishing pole and line. The bait entered the water with a plop and Hutch sat down to wait. A good part of fishing, it transpired, involved waiting.

The silence might have been awkward, but the chatter of birds and the burble of water filled the space with their music. Nate wondered whether it was a good river for swimming. The day was hot, and even without his coat he felt sticky. He glanced at Hutch. “Would it disturb the fish if I dangled my feet in the water?”

Hutch laughed, bright as his sunshine curls. “Maybe. But don’t let that stop you.” Again with that flush but this time at least he looked at Nate, his eyes sparkling like the water. Christ, he was fetching. The sunlight suited him. “Maybe I’ll join you.”

In someone else, that would have been flirtation. In Hutch…? Nate wasn’t sure, but he ventured an inviting smile. “Maybe you should.”

That had Hutch looking away, but he stripped off his shoes and stockings, nonetheless. Then they sat together on the bank with their feet in cool water and their fingers so close Nate could have covered Hutch’s hand with his own if he’d had the courage.

“I used to come here when I wanted some peace,” Hutch said, after a while. “My father could be…demanding.” He looked at Nate, grimacing. “Sorry, I shouldn’t speak of him like that.”

“You should say what you think. At least, you can to me. I feel we can say anything to each other, don’t you?”

Hutch smiled at that, a charmingly shy expression, and shrugged his broad shoulders. He’d discarded his coat, too, and Nate found his mouth a little dry at the sight of the white linen fluttering against Hutch’s arms. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could almost feel the heat of his body in the summer afternoon.

“I do feel that, Tanner. I feel like I could say anything to you, but it still isn’t right to speak ill of the dead.”

“Why not, if it’s the truth? Dying never made a man better than he was when he was living.”

“But my father wasn’t a bad man,” Hutch objected. “He was devout and honest. I wish— Ishouldbe more like him.”

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