Comfort and Joy Read online

  Comfort and Joy

  The Firsts & Forever Series

  Alexa Land

  U.S. Copyright 2019 by Alexa Land.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission in whole or in part of this publication is permitted without express written consent from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is purely coincidental.

  This gay romance contains adult language and sexually explicit material.

  It is intended for adults only.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Anita, Kim, Melisha, Kelly, and Jera

  I truly appreciate your help and support!

  And thank you as always to the members of Alexa’s Land, my Facebook readers’ group, for your suggestions, enthusiasm, and friendship!

  Cover Design and Interior Layout by Alexa Land

  Chapter 1

  Mistakes were made. That was the only real explanation for my current predicament.

  My first mistake had been the decision to put in an appearance at my office’s holiday party. That meant a late start leaving San Francisco. Traffic was always bad, but on the Friday before Christmas, it had been horrendous. So now, it was well past midnight, and I’d totally failed to beat the torrential rainstorm that every news report had predicted.

  Mistake number two was thinking I could rely on my phone’s GPS to find the ski lodge where I was meeting my brother. Nope. There was no signal in the mountains outside Lake Tahoe. My mistake trifecta was completed by the overly optimistic idea that I could keep going and use my innate sense of direction to reach my destination. Yeah, right.

  That was how I found myself on a narrow mountain road in the dark, during a downpour that would have sent Noah running for a hammer. The fact that I was climbing steadily had to be wrong. My only hope was to get back to the highway, which was several miles behind me.

  There was a turn-out on my left, so I swung around in a wide arc. The SUV’s turn radius was awful, so I ended up pulling all the way off the asphalt. It ground to a halt, and when I stepped on the gas, the tires spun.

  I grabbed my suit jacket from the backseat, hopped out to see what was going on, and immediately sank into thick mud past my ankle. After a lot of effort, I managed to free my foot, but my loafer stayed behind. Awesome.

  As I shivered and held the jacket over my head in a futile attempt to stay dry, I plunged my hand into the sludge. I had to wrestle with it for a minute, but I finally unearthed the shoe. It came loose with a gross slurping sound and flung mud all over the front of me. Wow, this was going great.

  After I tossed the filthy loafer onto the road, I stepped back to assess the scene before me. While I stood there, I stuck my hand out so the rain could wash off the dirt. All four tires were stuck, and my phone hadn’t had a signal for the last hour. It had been about that long since I’d passed another vehicle, too.

  My teeth were chattering by the time I got back behind the wheel. I cranked the heater and dried my glasses with my tie. Then I made several attempts at flooring it to see if I could free myself from the mud, followed by holding my phone out at all sorts of different angles to try to get a signal. Not surprisingly, that was completely pointless. I resigned myself to sleeping in the SUV and trying to find help in the morning.

  Since I was wet and miserable, I climbed into the backseat and stripped off my clothes. My new suit was probably ruined, but at the moment, that was the least of my worries.

  Just as I pulled some jeans from my suitcase, headlights appeared around the bend. I jumped out of the SUV and raced into the road while waving my hands over my head. The fact that I was in nothing but a pair of briefs couldn’t be helped.

  My breath formed a cloud as I danced around to minimize the time my bare feet spent on the frigid asphalt. As a pickup truck came to a stop, I whispered to myself, “Please don’t be a serial killer.”

  The driver was a tall guy with a baseball cap and a short beard. When he circled around to the front of the truck and I got a look at him in the headlights, I just knew I had nothing to worry about. He flashed me a wide, friendly smile as he asked, “Need a hand?”

  “Definitely.”

  “What happened to your clothes?” There was a note of amusement in his voice.

  “They were wet and muddy, so I was changing. Flagging you down seemed a lot more important than finishing the job.”

  “I would have stopped anyway, not that I’m complaining about the view.”

  That had actually sounded flirtatious, but I was way too cold to stand there and analyze it. As I rushed back to the SUV, I said, “I’m going to get dressed. Please don’t leave.”

  “While you do that, I’ll find a chain to tow you out.”

  “Are you sure? It’s really stuck.” His truck was a rust bucket from the 1980s, and I didn’t want to insult him, but it seemed pretty unlikely that it was going to do the job.

  His tone was confident when he said, “Piece of cake. This old truck’s got a lot of get up and go, you’ll see.”

  I muttered, “Yeah, okay,” as I climbed back into the SUV.

  While he moved his truck into position, found a chain in the truck bed, and fastened the two vehicles together, I dried off with a T-shirt and shimmied awkwardly into a pair of jeans. After that, I layered on two shirts and my new puffy, powder blue ski jacket, then put on thick socks and a pair of sneakers. I finished off with some mittens, a hat with a pompom on top, and a matching scarf, all of which I’d knitted the week before in a pretty, marled blue yarn. The scarf was so long that I wrapped it around my neck several times. It came up to my nose.

  When I slid behind the wheel, the guy glanced at me, then looked again. He was wearing jeans, work boots, and a brown leather jacket over a flannel shirt, and the fact that he was getting soaked didn’t really seem to bother him. I flashed him a thumbs up, and he got back in the truck. As it rolled forward and the chain pulled tight, I put the SUV in gear and pressed the accelerator.

  The wheels just spun in the mud. He kept trying though, and I could hear his engine revving. Then it made a loud popping sound and fell silent. We both got out of our vehicles, and he said, “I think I killed it.”

  “I think you’re right. Do you have a phone, so I can call my brother?”

  “My cell doesn’t get a signal out here, but there’s a land line in my cabin. It’s a little less than a mile up the road. Do you want to come with me, or wait here while I call him for you? To sway your decision, I should mention I have a big fireplace and hot cocoa.”

  “I’m definitely coming along. Should I bring my suitcase?”

  “Up to you.”

  Since my jeans were already getting soggy, I decided to bring it so I could change again when we reached our destination. Then I locked the SUV, and he joined me with a powerful flashlight. Good thing he had that, because now that the headlights were off, it was pitch black.

  The rain began to lessen, so that was something anyway. We started walking up the center of the road as I dragged the wheeled suitcase behind me and said, “Sorry about your truck.”

  “I should have listened to you about the SUV being really stuck. That old Chevy had seemed indestructible, but I guess we all have our limits.”

  “I bet my brother can fix it. He’s a mechanic, and a genius when it comes to anything automotive.”
>
  “I hope he can. I’m Dakota, by the way. I probably should have led off with that.”

  “Jed.”

  “You don’t look like a Jed.”

  “Thank you.” He shot me a curious look when I said that.

  A few minutes later, the rain stopped. I paused and took off my knit cap, then wrung it out before putting it back on. “That hat was an interesting choice,” he said.

  “I packed for snow, not rain, and figured it was better than nothing.”

  “Did you come up here to ski?”

  “God no. I tried that once, and it was a total disaster. I’m here to spend the holidays with my brother Jessie. He was sort of adopted by this huge Sicilian-American family that he used to work for. They thought their little Nana would enjoy a white Christmas, so they rented a small hotel for the week. I got lost while trying to find it.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “The Black Bear Lodge. Do you know where that is?”

  He grinned and said, “Yeah, and you were way off. Did you lose your phone’s GPS signal in the mountains?”

  “That’s exactly what happened. It’s lucky you were out late and found me. Otherwise, I’d be spending the night in that SUV.”

  “Actually, this is early for me. I own a bar and decided to call it a night, since the rain kept all my customers away.” The road sloped up sharply before us, and when I glanced at him, Dakota told me, “This is the steepest part. It’s not much farther after that, I promise.”

  We trudged up the incline, and when we were almost at the top, my feet slipped out from under me. As I slid back down the hill on my belly, I accidentally let go of my suitcase. Once I came to a stop, I sat up quickly and watched it shoot back down the road on its little wheels.

  Dakota trained the flashlight on the suitcase until it disappeared from sight, and then he muttered, “Well, shit.” The sound of it rolling across the asphalt went on for another minute, until it finally faded out in the distance. As I got to my feet, he directed the light at me and asked, “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, just embarrassed. Talk about clumsy.” I tried to brush off the front of my new coat, but my wet, dirty gloves just made it worse.

  The fact that he wasn’t laughing his head off showed a lot of restraint. “It’s not your fault. Now that the rain’s stopped, all of this is turning to ice. In fact, you might want to spend the night with me and ask your brother to get you later in the day, because this road’s probably going to get pretty treacherous over the next few hours.”

  “That’s a good idea.” I took one last look down the road and said, “The suitcase can wait until it’s light out, too.” I just didn’t have it in me to chase after it.

  “Nobody but me ever drives up this road, so as long as it didn’t go over a cliff, it’ll be fine.”

  I sighed and trudged back up the hill. A few minutes later, we rounded a bend and a log cabin came into view. There was a light on inside, and it looked cozy nestled among the pine trees.

  When I followed him through the unlocked door, Dakota took off his blue baseball cap, revealing thick, dark hair that grazed his collar. He hung the cap and his jacket on a coat rack before turning to me and saying, “Since you’re wet and muddy, do you want me to find you something to change into?”

  His brown eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled at me, and I totally forgot what I’d been about to say. I’d already noticed he was attractive, but now that I got a good look at him in the light, that definitely needed to be upgraded to smoking hot.

  After a moment, I remembered how to form sentences and mumbled, “Yeah, um, that’d be good.”

  Dakota rolled back the cuffs of his plaid flannel shirt, revealing two full sleeves of tattoos. “Okay. Give me just a minute to get a fire going, because it’s really cold in here. Then I’ll find you some pajamas. In the meantime, the phone’s on the kitchen counter if you want to call your brother.” He crossed the room and began stacking logs in the stone fireplace, while I tilted my head and checked out his butt in those wet, form-fitting jeans. When he glanced at me over his shoulder, I quickly redirected my gaze.

  I piled my things on the coat rack as I took in my surroundings. The cabin was cute and rustic, if a bit messy. It had dark log walls and red plaid curtains, and the furniture was pretty random, but it looked comfortable.

  The kitchen was separated from the main living area by a cluttered counter with two barstools, and I found the mustard yellow rotary phone partly buried beneath some newspapers. When I dialed my brother’s number, he answered on the second ring, and I said, “Hey Jessie, it’s me. Sorry to call so late.”

  “It’s fine, I was waiting up for you. Are you still planning to drive up to the lodge tonight?”

  “I did and ended up getting stuck on the side of a mountain road. It’s a long story, but a Good Samaritan rescued me, and I’m going to spend the night in his cabin.”

  “That sounds like a terrible idea. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come and get you.”

  “No, don’t. The roads are getting icy, and I don’t want you to get in an accident.”

  Jessie immediately launched into full big brother mode. “Well, you can’t just spend the night in the woods with some random stranger! That sounds like the set-up for a horror movie.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” I said. “This guy’s really nice.”

  “But how do you know you can trust him?”

  “I just do.”

  “That’s not really putting me at ease.”

  “Since when don’t you trust my judgement?”

  “I do,” he insisted. “But you know you can be a little…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Naïve? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “No! Not exactly. You just tend to always see the good in people, even when it’s not necessarily there.”

  “That’s how I’d describe a naïve person,” I said.

  Jessie and I bickered for another minute, until my host joined me in the kitchen and said, “Let me talk to your brother.”

  When I handed him the phone, he leaned against the kitchen counter and said, “Hi, this is Dakota North.” I couldn’t help but grin at that name. “I own the only bar in the town of Sash Creek, which is about eighteen miles west of where you’re staying. If you talk to Shirley and Greg, the owners of the Black Bear Lodge, they can vouch for me, because they’ve visited my bar a couple of times.”

  He listened to my brother for a few moments before saying, “I know my name sounds fake. Blame my mom for that one, she thought she was being clever.” After another pause, he told Jessie, “Believe me, if I was pretending to be someone else, I sure as hell wouldn’t claim to be Dakota North. Hang on, let me show Jed my driver’s license. He can read it to you, so you know exactly where he is and who he’s with.”

  He handed the phone back to me before prying his wallet from those wet jeans. When he gave me the license, I burst out laughing. After a moment I managed, “That’s the worst driver’s license photo I’ve ever seen.” In the picture, his eyes were rolled back and his mouth was open.

  He grinned at me. “I know. The photographer caught me mid-sneeze and wouldn’t let me retake it.”

  I was still grinning as I read the name and address to my brother. Then I said, “Seriously, don’t come and get me. It’s not safe out there. Do you promise to stay put?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Put your husband on the phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it. I know he’s awake, because I can hear him saying something in the background.”

  “Fine.”

  There was a rustling sound as the phone was handed over, and a moment later my brother-in-law said, “Hi Jed. Are you getting axe murdered as we speak?”

  I chuckled at that. “Obviously. I just gave Jessie this address to appease him, but don’t let him
come and get me. The roads were already terrible before they started to freeze.”

  “Okay, I’ll make sure he stays put. He seems to forget you’re an adult sometimes.” Jessie argued with him, and Kai told his husband, “Yes you do. Jed will always be seventeen, as far as you’re concerned.” He spoke into the phone again and asked, “You really are okay, right?”

  “I’m great.”

  “In that case, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

  We said goodnight, and after I hung up the phone, Dakota said, “Your brother’s gay?”

  “He and I both are.”

  That brought out a big smile. “Good to know.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of his response, and I changed the subject with, “Would it be alright if I took a shower? I feel grubby.”

  “Sure, it’s through the bedroom.” He gestured at a doorway to the left of the fireplace. “I’ll find some pajamas and leave them on the bed for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  When I went into the bathroom and got a look at myself in the mirror, I was thrilled to discover mud on my face and on the tips of my dark blond hair. Since it really was cold in the cabin, I wasted no time stripping myself and stepping under the stream of hot water. A little shelf in the dark blue tile shower held nothing but a bar of soap and a bottle of store-brand shampoo. Dakota was definitely a no-frills kind of guy.

  Once I was warm and clean, I put my glasses back on and ran a hand over the fogged up mirror. Then I took a stab at finger-combing my short hair, but there was only so much I could do. After a minute, I gave up and went into the bedroom.

  The bedding had been rumpled when I cut through the room a few minutes earlier, but now it was neat and tidy. As promised, a pair of pajamas were waiting for me, along with some thick wool socks. I looked around as I got dressed. Plaid flannel was definitely a thing with this guy. It comprised his comforter, sheets, and curtains, as well as my red pajamas.