Footsteps in the Dark by Josh Lanyon

Author:Josh Lanyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay mystery, mm romance, mystery-suspense
Publisher: JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2019-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

I can’t believe it’s over because isn’t Hell meant to last forever? Though I don’t think Reverend John Gillies had a clue Hell was in France. Or on the Atlantic.

I keep telling everyone I’m fine, but they treat me like one of those bone-china cups my mother keeps for the Communions and Worships. Of course I have nightmares, but we all do. It makes me shiver to think that soon, soon, I’ll know yours.

I saw someone has published a poem about the battle that sent me home. Arras. It’s one of those English public schoolboy efforts, bitter like we all are. But what’s the point? You’re right. We should try to forget, think of what we’ve won and what we have ahead.

I just realized today, it’s been thirteen months since I was shipped back to Blighty, as they jolly well call it. Three months in a hospital, then ten in Kent, and finally home.

I thought being here would make it better. But it hasn’t, because I see you everywhere I turn, and I’ve spent every day frightened the Lord might take you from me.

But we survived, my darling. Both of us. That’s not tempting fate anymore. John Gillies’s God is angry and vengeful, but my God is merciful and loving, and He has proved it by bringing you home to me.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard your voice, or looked into your sea-grey eyes, or tasted your skin. I remember every heartbeat of that first night, after the minister told us we had to report for duty, that there was a war now. The hotel in London, that first leave, and the times after. And when you came to see me at the hospital in Kent. I remember every touch. Every word you said.

I’m writing this because I just saw your mother, and she told me you may have squeezed a place on the Iolaire, to get you home for New Year’s Day. And I thought, if you get a berth, you’ll be lying in my arms when you read this. If not, well, we can wait a week more.

I signed the lease on the croft yesterday, so we’ll have land to work. No one will care about two bachelors, two friends forgetting the horrors of war. Even my mother says she understands we want to be left in peace. The truth won’t trouble them, because to them, our truth doesn’t exist. But if there were justice, I’d be singing from the hilltops how beautiful you are, the miracle of finding you beside me and having you love me in return.

Darling of my heart, I didn’t know it was possible to feel such excitement and joy. The Lord has seen that we’ve suffered, and granted us His mercy.

I will shake your hand at the pier when I greet you, like a proper gentleman. Until we can be alone, my one true love.

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