Rainbow Hill
WILDE CITY PRESS
Rainbow Hill © 2014 Alex Carreras
Published in the US and Australia by Wilde City Press 2014
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Published by Wilde City Press
ISBN: 978-1-925180-71-8
Cover Art © 2014 Wilde City Press
RAINBOW HILL
Alex Carreras
Dedication
It takes quite a few people to write a book, namely the wonderful and talented people at Wilde City Press. A special thanks to Val Hughes for remaining calm and kind when my neurosis started to escalate. She's a class act and a very lovely lady. Hope to give you a huge hug in person one day Val! Also to the people of Jefferson, Maryland, yes I took a few liberties with your lovely town but I hope I made it just that much lovelier.
Chapter One
Ethan Stokes dreaded going home, or better stated, where he had been raised. Since graduating from college, home was now Washington, DC with its sidewalk cafés, world-famous museums, historic universities, and vibrant gay life, not…this.
As he steered his Range Rover toward Jefferson, Maryland, the familiarity of the vast, green pastures most people found breathtakingly beautiful—that is, if you could breathe through the smell of freshly laid fertilizer—caused Ethan to remember, instead, endless months of back breaking work in extreme weather conditions, combined with stretches of seemingly endless mind-numbing boredom. But when he received the phone call from his father, the roughneck, straight shooting, Tucker Stokes, asking for his help, it was the call Ethan had waited for all his life. So saying no wasn’t an option. The one thing Ethan wished he had gotten around to asking was, what kind of help did his father need, exactly?
Over the hour drive north, heading toward Frederick, Ethan had played out every possible scenario he could imagine, coming to only one conclusion, that it was time to sell the family farm.
With the economic downturn, rising taxes, and the country's obsession against all things dairy, Ethan had no idea how his father had survived as long as he had in the farming industry. After his mother’s death three years earlier, selling Oak Hill Farm appeared to be the only logical conclusion. Ethan was positive his father would live comfortably for the rest of his life on the sale of the farm, which consisted of over two hundred acres of pristine countryside, numerous barns and outbuildings, and a five-bedroom Victorian farmhouse, chipped paint and porch swing included. Sure, he knew that after the sale, the buildings would be leveled and the land cleared for a single-family home community for DC commuters, but he didn’t care. The farm had been a place he had hated as long as he could remember.
Coming off the highway, Ethan signaled right, his anxiety ratcheting up a notch. With his mother gone, there would be no one to referee the arguments that would no doubt ensue. No matter how hard he tried to get along with his father, they generally found something to disagree on, usually the way Ethan lived his life.
Spotting the rusted out sign for Oak Hill Farm, the letter ‘O’ nothing but a hole, Ethan slowed to take the turn. Deep potholes bucked his Range Rover from side to side, causing his weekender bag, stuffed to capacity, to fall off the backseat onto the floor. He cringed as he heard the thud, worried that the fine Napa leather would suffer an unsightly scratch. But the bag wasn’t Ethan’s, it was his ex’s, who still cluttered up half the master walk-in closet.
Recently separated, the Dupont Circle townhouse was now listed, but as of yet there were plenty of lookers and no serious offers. Randall had suggested lowering the price, but that was easy for him to say, he had a trust fund left to him by a spinster aunt, and a successful interior design business that catered to the area gays with million dollar disposable incomes. The same interior design business Ethan had worked at for over five years until Randall announced that he no longer loved him and wanted to call it quits. Ethan suspected that Randall had had a better offer for role of partner from a younger, more muscular guy, who was willing and eager to do anything, especially between the sheets. His suspicions where confirmed when Randall showed up at the townhouse late one night with a young Latino ‘friend’ with overly pumped pecs and a bubble butt to match, helping Randall to ‘collect a few things’. Any hopes of a reconciliation were dashed, Ethan unable to compete with such a plentiful amount of young nubile flesh.
With no job and feeling a stranger in his own home, the offer of helping his father was the perfect excuse to leave the city and his worries behind if only for a short while.
Braking to a stop, Ethan closed the windows and shut down the engine. “I’m home,” he mumbled under his breath, feeling less than excited.
Getting out and retrieving his bag, Ethan walked toward his childhood home, noticing the flowerbeds his mother, Judith, once painstakingly tended were now overtaken with weeds. His throat tightened and a slow throb pulsed at his temples, remembering his mother’s shoulder-length, auburn hair sprinkled with silver strands glinting in the summer’s afternoon sun, her hands covered in green gardeners gloves, and a smudge of earth streaked across her forehead. The sporadic visits to Oak Hill dwindled even more after the funeral, the memories of his mother too painful to bear. Ethan leaned in and tugged a clump of crabgrass to uncover a resilient pansy.
“Ethan.”
He wasn’t sure if he heard the smack of the screen door against the wooden frame first, or his father’s fading baritone. He looked up to see Tucker wearing a short-sleeve plaid shirt and loose fitting khakis in need of an iron, standing on the porch.
Ethan straightened to his full height. “Hi, Dad.” He feigned excitement. “You’re looking good.”
Tucker rushed down the stairs. “How’s my fancy son doing? Hope you’re hungry. I made your mother’s stew. I don’t promise it’ll taste the same, but I know how much you love it.”
Instead of feeling delighted to hear that his father had cooked his favorite dish, Ethan was sad instead. Sometimes he forgot that Tucker, too, had suffered a tremendous loss.
Walking up to Tucker, he extended a hand. “I’m sure it’ll taste just like when she made it, especially now. I’m famished.”
“We say starved out here in the country.”
Ethan knew his father’s comment was intended as father-son good-natured chiding, but it slid under his skin just enough to make him bristle.
Tucker took Ethan’s hand, shook, and then reached for the bag. “Let me take this, son.”
“No worries.” Releasing Tucker’s grasp, Ethan yanked the bag out of reach. “It’s a little heavy, and I don’t want your back acting up.”
“Are you saying I’m too old to handle a little luggage?”
“I’m saying that you have a bad back, nothing more. I can hear mom’s voice reminding you to lift with your legs, not your back.”
Tucker chuckled, and his gaze searched the ground. “I forgot she used to say that. I guess I was so used to ignoring her when she’d pester me. I’d give anything for her pestering now.”
“Me too, Dad.” Ethan’s voice caught in his throat. “Me, too.”
“It’s good to see you haven’t forgotten how to come home, or did you use one of those GPS things?”
“You’re a funny man, you know that?” Ethan smiled at his father, noticing a few extra wrinkles around his eyes. “It hasn’t been that long since I was here last.”
“Maybe it doesn’t feel that long to you, but for me it’s been an eternity.”
“Sorry, but I’ve been busy. The summer months are when many people choose to renovate and redecorate. They leave the city for the beach or mountains, and their homes are empty.”
“I’m glad to hear that you’re busy, but it’s been busy around here too. Time to bale hay and straw, or has it been so long since you’ve done some real work that you’ve forgotten?”
“What I do is real work.” Ethan's jaw tensed.
“Farming is real work,” Tucker reminded, “not painting a few walls and throwing around a couple of funny-shaped pillows that cost more than a tractor. Those people you work for have more money than sense.”
“I’m glad that they do, or I wouldn’t be gainfully employed.”
Tucker took in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, looking in the direction of Ethan’s black Range Rover. “Is that what they’re calling a truck these days?”
Ethan prayed for patience and that he didn’t grind down his molars. “Pretty much,” he managed.
Tucker rocked back on his heels and blew out a whistle as Ethan waited for his father’s disparaging comment. “I have to admit, it’s quite a beauty.”
“What?” Ethan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You like my Rover?”
“Absolutely.” Tucker raised his chin, narrowed his eyes. “How much can that thing haul? The hitch on my truck’s a little loose, and I got a wagon full of hay abandoned in the far field that needs to be put away. You think you can take care of that for your dad?”
Bile choked back the words, and Ethan could’ve sworn he saw black spots overtaking his vision. Breathe, he told himself.
Deeply
.
“Jesus, son, I’m kidding,” Tucker said, chuckling. “Don’t land yourself in the emergency room.”
A sense of relief swept over Ethan. “Why do you do that to me?”
“’Cause it’s hard not to,” Tucker admitted. “I thought you were going to faint just then. You went as white as a ghost.”
“Although I’m pretty positive that my vehicle could tow your wagon, I’d hate to be proved wrong. I say leave the heavy jobs for the tractors.”
“I agree.” Tucker leveled his chin and nodded in the direction of the house. “How about that stew?”
“Miraculously, I still have an appetite.” His attempt at a joke fell flat. “Let’s head in.”
Tucker started to walk but stopped short and looked at his son. “There’ve been a few changes around here.”
“I expected as much.” Ethan shrugged. “But I still have my room, right? You haven’t converted it into a man cave? I can picture it now, fifty-inch flat screen TV with surround sound, country music CDs lining the walls on custom-made shelves. Dense pile carpet everywhere.”
“I do have to admit, that sounds mighty nice, but your room is still safe.” Tucker’s bushy, graying eyebrows hitched upward. “Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone else is sleeping in it.”
* * * *
After Tucker’s admission, Ethan didn’t hear another word. He didn’t even feel his feet make it along the sidewalk, up the stairs onto the porch, through the front door into the kitchen. Now seated at the kitchen table, he couldn’t even feel his butt. His brain could only manage one thing, figuring out
who
was living in his boyhood bedroom? He blinked against the glare of the freshly painted room, temples throbbing.
Dazed, he said, “Dad, who painted?” He sniffed the air. “It’s been recently done.”
