For Love of the Dead Page 5

  Jake nodded. “Yes. He is. But what do you see, other than a dead body? What can you tell about him?”

  This time, the look was longer.

  “He is...was...very good looking. His hair is blond...no, light brown but it has been bleached by the sun.”

  “Go on.”

  “He seems...he seems like he might have been a nice man. The way of his mouth...he smiled a lot. His eyes are closed so...” His voice trailed off as his attention was captured more fully.

  “Green,” Jake supplied. “In life, I think they may have been...merry. Look at his forehead, the skin around his eyes.”

  “Pain,” Mario realized with wonder. “Even dead, you can see it. A happy person but...pain.”

  Jake nodded sadly. “It was a blood thing. Very painful but, fortunately, very quick. He was poor and had no family. A few friends but...” He shrugged. “They may have liked him but when they found out how much it would cost to bury him properly...” He waggled his fingers to show how they had vanished. “They moved on. Even the men who had...loved him found someone else to love. He died alone and, in time, probably forgotten. Just a name of someone they remembered from way back who was gone, replaced by...”

  Jake caught Mario’s dark eyes with his own unusual dark blue ones and held his gaze, trying to communicate all he felt, all his commitment to what he felt he had to do.

  “I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let a life like his go unremembered. Maybe if I had met him...before. Maybe he and I could have...” He refused to allow the tears in his eyes to well over, sniffed, and tried to stuff the emotion back down. “He was the first after I came here and...well...every so often after that, Lucy and I would get another one. After a while, it became sort of a habit, I guess. It’s...I don’t know...a kind of testament to the fact that they were here. That in some way I’ll never know they might have made a difference to someone. Or I might have made a difference to them.”

  “It is...very strange.”

  “I know.” After his macabre confession, Jake had resolved himself to this man walking out, never to return.

  Mario rose and gently, carefully, replaced the photo on the wall. When he was finished, he placed one hand on Jake’s shoulder.

  “Strange, yes. But...sweet, in a way. It is a...” Mario sought the right phrase. “A memorial to the possibilities that never had a chance. To what might have been.”

  Jake froze for an instant at hearing the words he’d so long rolled around in his mind given voice by this wonderfully understanding young man. Mario squeezed the muscle of Jake’s shoulder lightly.

  “It will take getting used to, I suppose.”

  At the words, Jake looked up, hardly daring to hope, and saw Mario’s tentative smile. Then he leaned down and kissed Jake on the forehead, and with a look of promise, went out the door.

  Flabbergasted by his reaction, Jake sat alone for several moments. For the first time in a long while, he dared to hope.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lucy’s voice grew more urgent and now held a hint of panic. Jake ran his tongue around his teeth, which felt gummy and thick, and managed to get his eyelids up. Lucy’s face swam into focus, her skin drained of color, her eyes wide and round with shock and fright.

  “He’s alive, Jake! Good God, he was autopsied and he’s still alive!”

  “What?” The words penetrated his understanding but they made no sense.

  “Look, dammit! Will you just look?”

  Lucy moved so he could see past her. Her hand clutched at her chest, and from the way she breathed in ragged gasps, Jake feared she was about to have a heart attack or stroke. When he saw the prep table, his concern for his surrogate mother took a back seat to the startling sight of the young man whom they had been preparing to embalm sitting up on the table, his magnificent body displayed in nude splendor, blinking as if he too was wondering how the hell he’d ended up like this.

  “Ugghh,” Jake croaked. At the same time, the older woman sank into a chair with a sharp explosion of breath. Jake spared her a glance and when he was sure she was all right, his eyes swiveled back to the naked young man.

  His smoky grey eyes held confusion and some fear, but they showed intelligence and the potential for understanding. These were not the eyes of someone brain-damaged from oxygen starvation; the face was too mobile and vibrant to belong to someone who had been snatched from the brink of death or, perhaps, even from beyond it—as hard as that was for Jake to wrap his mind around that. The rise and fall of his impressive chest was more pronounced than normal, but was even and constant, as if he had just finished a brief jog, and showed none of the gasping or gulping of air which usually accompanied someone who had been recently revived.

  “Where...” He seemed surprised he could speak. “Where am I?”

  “Oh shit.” Lucy’s eyelids fluttered and she swayed in the chair, her frame going limp as she passed out.

  Jake leapt up and caught her before she slid to the floor. “Water!” he cried out, without thinking about the weirdness of commanding someone who was only moments before a lifeless corpse to do his bidding. Mark Hartner hopped off the table and strode to the sink, twisted the tap, and filled an empty glass. Concern for Lucy and the incongruity of what was happening momentarily shorted out the young mortician’s thinking processes and his mind took refuge in familiar habit. Rather than allow himself to freak out when a dead man handed him the glass, he instead noticed the feline grace with which Hartner moved—the confidence, the raw sensuality, and in spite of himself, he felt his jeans grow tight at the groin.

  He slapped Lucy’s cheeks gently but sharply, and when she groaned and started to come to, he held the water to her lips and instructed, “Drink this.” After the first sips, her eyes fluttered open, still terrified but now her brain seemed to have kicked into gear and her expression held disbelieving wonder.

  “How...?” she babbled. “How...?”

  “I have no idea,” Jake told her, “But there’s obviously got to be some kind of explanation.”

  “A mistake at the morgue?” She frowned. “But...the sutures...!”

  “Just relax. Catch your breath and we’ll work it out.” He was doing his best to reassure her but the dead guy standing a foot away looking on with mild curiosity was making it hard to concentrate.

  “And you,” Jake tossed over his shoulder. “Back off. You’re creeping me out.” Then he added as an afterthought. “And put some clothes on. I’ve got a pair of sweatpants and a shirt in the cabinet next to the sink. Cover up. We’ve got enough to figure out without being distracted by that...um...thing flapping in our faces.”

  With a look of vague amusement, Hartner fetched the clothing and by the time Lucy had regained her equilibrium, he had donned the shirt and pants. If possible, at least in Jake’s opinion, he looked even sexier in the baggy outfit than when he had been completely naked.

  This is not the time, Jake told himself, to get a hard on. Especially not after Mario last night!

  But his body betrayed him and before he rose from where he was kneeling at the side of Lucy’s chair, he made sure to surreptitiously rearrange himself so no one would get the wrong—or the right!—idea.

  “This is not possible.” Lucy had recovered from her fainting bout and her natural intelligence had come to the fore. “You were dead. Just a few minutes ago, you were dead.”

  “Was I?” Hartner seemed unconcerned and perched himself on the edge of the table. “I don’t feel very dead now. Do I look like a corpse to you?”

  “Hell no!” Jake blurted out before he thought.

  He had never seen anyone so undoubtedly alive. On the slab, he’d had brief pangs of envy at Hartner’s physique but now he realized he’d rarely seen a more attractive man. Every movement oozed sensuality, every word held some quality in the voice that promised prolonged, steamy nights of physical love. Mark Hartner was, quite simply and definitively, the entire concept of virile, passionate, wild male sex wrapped up and encased
in a spectacularly beautiful shell. But even though Jake had to fight the temptation to throw the guy back onto the table, rip his clothes off again and have his way with him right in front of Lucy, with no thought to the consequences, the strangeness or even of whether or not Hartner would be willing, he sensed something unwholesome in Hartner’s demeanor.

  Something...not very nice.

  Mark smirked. Clearly, he’d read Jake’s body language and knew exactly what kind of thoughts were running through his mind. It was evident he was used to that kind of attention and, even more obviously, that he relished it and got some kind of twisted jollies from it. “Maybe you’re right.” His brow furrowed and, for a moment, he looked almost lost. “There’s a blank spot. I can’t remember...” He shrugged off the matter as if it was of no concern. “If I was dead, I was dead. There’s no point crying over spilt milk, is there? I’m alive again now, aren’t I? Too mean to die, I suppose.” He grinned and his white teeth flashed like the predator he was. “I must be back for a reason, huh?” His grin grew until it was almost a leer. “Right now, the best reason I can think of is to fuck the shit out of Mr. Hunk over there.”

  Jake’s jaw dropped and Lucy gasped. It might have been at the incongruity of the remark given the situation, or maybe it was at the harsh vulgarity coming from a man with such an angelically beautiful face.

  Hartner enjoyed their reaction for a moment. “Yeah. I know I wanna do that. In fact, I feel like I wanna ream about a dozen hot guys right about now. They say death sparks the libido, right? I had a lover...well...we tricked a few times...died in a car crash. Bummer to lose him because he had one of the world’s greatest asses. Until you got inside, I mean. Then he was loose. I bet he could have taken two guys and The Saturday Evening Post at the same time. When I found out he’d smashed himself up, I was in a bar and, I don’t even wanna get into how many guys it made me wanna plow that night. His name was...it was...Jesus, I can’t remember.”

  He waved casually with one hand, as if the dead man’s identity was unimportant. Then his eyes widened and for the first time, he looked a little frightened.

  “Screw the trick’s name. I can’t remember who I am! Isn’t that funny,” he mused. The fear vanished as quickly as it had come. “I can see bodies, hot ones, and even recall faces but...I don’t remember anything about myself.” He dismissed the problem as if it was something too beneath him to worry about. “I guess I can just look on the bright side if it means I can fuck guys I already had and it will seem like the first time.”

  “Want me to kill him again?” Jake spoke aloud without realizing he’d done it. Yes, Hartner was stunning, but evidently he was also a complete asshole.

  Lucy stood up and made shushing motions as she approached Hartner.

  “You were autopsied. I’m sure of it. Take your shirt off again.”

  Hartner smirked and, like he was performing a lascivious strip tease in a cheap bar, he crossed his arms, grasped the edge of the sweatshirt and slowly peeled it off over his head.

  “Not into chicks, dearie. Not even old, dried-up ones who are just dying for it. Pardon the joke.”

  Lucy disregarded the insult in favor of examining his chest and stomach. Grunting to herself, she pushed the hair back from his head and ignored his dramatic growls and purring like a cat when she pushed back his hair in a fruitless search for the scalp incisions.

  “How about you, stud? You like what you see?” Hartner flexed his chest and moved one hand up so he could pinch one of his own nipples suggestively. “How about you join me in a strip-down, huh? Give the old broad a thrill.”

  “You...” Jake said with distaste, “are disgusting.”

  “Yeah. But hot as lava.” He took his hand from his chest, licked it suggestively. and placed a fingertip on his thigh, making a hissing noise as if the saliva was steaming away.

  Lucy turned from her exam to face Jake once again. Her face still bore clear indications of something just this side of terror, but the wheels inside her brain were clearly whirring at top speed, trying to make sense of what had happened and to decide what to do next. With sudden resolve, she strode to the phone on the wall and jabbed in a number.

  “What are you doing?” Hartner seemed mildly curious.

  “Calling the county morgue. Maybe Doc Charleston can figure this out. I know dead when I see dead. And you were definitely dead.”

  “You might want to take your hand off the hang-up button thing then,” he suggested, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

  “Huh?” Lucy looked at the telephone, dumbfounded. She scowled and began dialing again only to find her fingers once again hanging up the phone. She tried twice more in disgust before slamming down the receiver.

  “Well?”

  “Do you want to try?” she spat back at Jake, uncustomarily taking her frustration out on him.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” Hartner offered. “Dunno how I know, but I do know it won’t do any good. I’ll bet there’s no record of my ever being here.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Jake grabbed a clipboard holding the County transfer records. Fortunately it had been a slow week and Hartner’s paperwork should have been the only form on it. He leafed through and the annoyance he’d been showing toward Hartner turned to frustration, then bafflement.

  “There’s nothing here.”

  “Give me those.” Lucy snatched them away and her eyebrows rose as she read. “The name is almost completely faded away. Personal details, distinguishing features...They’re all...”

  “Gone. I noticed.” Jake could not imagine how such a thing had happened.

  “Some one up there obviously likes me,” Hartner smirked. “Not to mention the dozens of guys down here who are about to like me.” He winked at Jake. “Wanna be the first in line, sexy?

  Should I take my pants off? Or just put the shirt back on?”

  “Get dressed,” he snapped. The only way he could rationalize his anger was to admit to himself how attractive he found Hartner physically. Even now, when he’d decided he wouldn’t have sex with the prick if he was the last guy on Earth, his ramrod-stiff dick betrayed his baser desire.

  Hartner hopped off the table and tucked the borrowed shirt into the back of the sweatpants.

  “Well, then,” he said cheerily. “I’m off. Skipping the getting dressed part.” Another wink at Jake. “Never know who I might meet on the way home.’

  “Do you even know where home is?” Jake couldn’t resist the taunt, hating himself for being so petty but taking satisfaction in the brief flash of uncertainty that washed across Mark Hartner’s face before it was quickly replaced with what was undoubtedly his habitual arrogant confidence.

  “I don’t even know who I am.” He grinned. “But I’m sure I’ll find someone to take me in. At least until he starts to bore me.”

  “You already have found someone.” Lucy spoke slowly, but from her tone, she had come to a decision and was not going to tolerate any argument.

  “Oh no.” Mark Hartner was, it seemed, much more savvy and quick on the uptake than his innocent features at first suggested. “I am not sharing space with a dried-up old hag and Mr. All Muscle and No Personality over there.”

  “Where are you going to go?” Lucy demanded. “No memory. No money...”

  “There are ways around that.” Mark allowed one hand to drop suggestively to the side of his crotch. Even through the baggy sweats, Jake could see the huge bulge.

  “Within limits, yes,” Lucy agreed. “But I hardly see someone like you finding your way out there like a common prostitute. Something tells me you’d find it beneath you.”

  “Beneath me?” His eyebrow rose like a lascivious satyr’s, then he frowned. “No, you’re probably right. At least until my head clears and I can remember who I am.”

  “Fine. You’ll stay in the cottage with Jake.”

  “With me?” Jake was aghast.

  “Of course. The extra room upstairs has a bed underneath all that junk you’ve go
t stored up there. High time you tidied it up anyway.”

  “Ohhh! I get to watch Mr. Muscle work all shirtless and sweaty! How will I ever keep my hands to myself?”

  He crossed and took Jake’s arm in the manner of a debutante being escorted to her first ball. At the touch, the mortician flinched, expecting Hartner’s hands to be cold and clammy and surprised that in actuality, they seemed a bit warmer than a normal man’s.

  “If you’re a good boy,” Hartner added, “I won’t make you carry me across the threshold.” Jake scowled at him and turned a helpless and pleading face to his boss.

  “It’s temporary,” she assured him, then added with quiet desperation, “Please?” She tossed the clipboard onto the prep table. “Something very weird is going on here and we should...we need to figure it out. Gentle Rest has been in my family for a hundred years. I’m not going to risk our getting closed down just because someone finds out about this...this...”

  Her face twisted with distaste when she saw Hartner’s free hand grope toward Jake’s thigh while the taller man twisted to move himself out of reach.

  “Asshole,” she finished triumphantly as if she’d just managed to define the word for the first time.

  “Asshole,” she heard Hartner repeat suggestively as he tugged Jake out of the room, allowing one hand to brush the jeans covering his butt. “Now, isn’t that an interesting thought!”

  * * * *

  “It would have been a much more pleasant experience for me if you’d stripped to the waist. I could have enjoyed myself watching. I’m still in a very weak condition from my brush with death, you know.”

  “Bullshit,” Jake grunted. “You’re healthy as a horse.”

  “Hung like one too, as I know you noticed,” Mark confirmed.

  He flopped onto the bare mattress, which they’d finished clearing of the accumulated magazines, boxes of old receipts and other detritus which had accumulated over the years. Jake was sweaty, hot, grimy, and irritated after an hour of hauling away junk and functioning as a captive audience to Hartner’s incessant sexual innuendoes. At one point, when Hartner was being particularly crude, he’d almost been tempted to grab the guy, throw him face down onto the bed, rip the sweats from his divine ass, whip out his own dick, and fuck him viciously. It would have helped ease the tension he felt by being in close quarters with such an undeniably beautiful specimen of manhood – especially since Mark had not bothered to cover his torso and, though he was as smeared with dirt, dust, and cobwebs as Jake was, on him the filth seemed to cling almost as if it were meticulously and strategically placed on his model-perfect body by an art director preparing for a photo shoot.