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    The Keeper
    The Keeper
    The Keeper
    Ebook59 pages33 minutes

    The Keeper

    By Hollis Shiloh

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    One day after a storm, lonely lighthouse keeper Cole stumbles upon a half-drowned man.  The man is a magician, who's forgotten everything, even his name.  As the two wait for the supply boat to come and take him away from the island, Cole finds himself falling in love.

    He doesn't think the beautiful blond man could ever return his feelings.  But everything is not as it appears—including the man's past.  And someone might just want him dead.

    A sweet gay romance
    15,000 + words long

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpare Words Press
    Release dateMay 20, 2014
    ISBN9781498944571
    The Keeper

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      Book preview

      The Keeper - Hollis Shiloh

      The Keeper

      by Hollis Shiloh

      The sea brings me things.  Some things better than others.

      For instance, once the sea brought me a man.

      It happened like this.

      I was walking down the beach, as I so often do after a storm, breathing the clean air and enjoying the peacefulness.  The storm seems to both clean and dirty the shore.  I was always glad to get away from the lighthouse a little and see what the storm had brought me.  Sometimes driftwood, sometimes fish and crabs.  If they were alive, I threw them back. 

      Sometimes the storm changed the shape of the shoreline on my little island, heaped up seaweed and left sea glass tangled in it.  I collected the little rounded smooth shapes of green and blue and brown glass, medicine bottles thrown to the sea where they smashed on rocks and churned in the surf until they were smooth as pebbles.  I had a large collection on my dresser, like bits of sunlight captured there in all its many colors.

      I walked along the beach that day, picking up a few small bits, tossing creatures back, and not at all suspecting my life was about to change intensely.

      You see, I became a lighthouse keeper because I wanted to be alone.  I thought life would get easier if I was away from people; my foolish heart wouldn't be broken so many times.  I wouldn't have to hide who I was.  I could just be myself, lonely, but myself.  And in some ways it was easier, and in others it wasn't.  I didn't have anyone to talk to, and minded it more than I thought I would.  Even more than not having anyone to love.

      The thing about having someone to love is that they need to love you back, or it just doesn't work.  That had always been my problem. 

      I felt lonely even that morning, breathing the clean air and walking by the fretful sea.  I was feeling so lonely, in fact, that I thought I must have imagined that man I saw on the beach.

      I stopped.  He just lay there in sodden clothes, looking like a beached seal.  That was my first thought: that's a seal, and I'm seeing things.  But another step closer, and then another, and the man didn't become a seal and lump its ways barking back into the sea.  No, it stayed a man.  A man in sodden clothes, lying like one dead.

      Then I was running.  I ran up to him, pushed on his shoulder, and felt for a pulse at his cold, pale neck.

      And he shivered.  He opened his eyes and looked up at me, one of the bleakest looks I'd ever seen in my life.  I stared down at him.

      Hello, he said, in an achingly cold voice, and then shivered.  Would you care to help me up?  Even while lying half-drowned on a beach, freezing, he was polite.

      I helped him up.  I had to almost carry him back to the lighthouse.  He was fully dressed except for shoes and socks.  He was weak, stumbling every few steps.  I'm sorry, he said.  I can't seem to keep my legs under me.

      That's all right, I mumbled, not speaking very distinctly.  It was odd to have another person here: I felt self-conscious, even though he was in no state to judge me.

      I helped him up the beach and to the keeper's house and brought him inside with me.  I'm sorry I can't offer you a hot bath, I said.  It'll take a while to heat enough water.  It would be best if you sat in front of the fire.  Er, wrapped in a blanket.  I nodded to his wet clothes.

      Oh, yes.  Of course, he said in his soft, polite voice.  If you'd...just help me, please?  I can't seem to work the buttons.  His hands trembled as he proved it.

      My mouth formed a thin, straight line as I helped him undress.  Just a few minutes in another man's company and already I was feeling things I didn't want to feel, yet again.

      I undid his clothes for him, revealing his pale, cold flesh.  He was shivering, but not enough for how cold he was.  He must be very close to death, and yet he was alive, even lucid.  It frightened me a little.  Was he even human?  Then I realized he must have some magic keeping him alive.

      Thank you very much, he said as he sat down on a chair in front of my fire, now safely bundled in a woolen blanket.  Or not so safely, really: I could still see

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