The Dark Horse

Love is a dark horse—and Sean Fairchild is in for the ride of his life.

Paul Hammond is dead. That’s what tough and sexy LAPD Detective Daniel Moran tells his lover, Hollywood actor Sean Fairchild—and Sean wants to believe him, but what about those threatening postcards in Hammond’s handwriting? What about the fact that he’s seeing Hammond everywhere he goes? Yes, Sean’s had some emotional problems in the past, but that was a long time ago and he’s not imagining things, so why is Dan looking at him that way?

The last thing Sean needs is someone doubting him, especially when he’s competing for the coveted leading role in the screen adaptation of The Charioteer. But then again, as ex-lover and manager Steve points out, what does Sean really know about his new boyfriend?

Dan is a dark horse—and maybe Sean is betting too much on this relationship. It’s not just Sean’s career at stake, or his relationship, or even his sanity—-it’s his life.

The Dark Horse

Josh Lanyon

Chapter One

The postcard was nestled between Variety and the Edison bill.

Just an ordinary picture postcard. White font proclaimed MALIBU! across the mai tai-colored sunset. I turned the card over, and there was the spidery black writing I had thought I would never see again.

Miss me?

No signature. No signature needed. I looked at the postmark. Pacific Coast Highway. Yesterday’s date.

I stared for a long time while Dan’s deep voice receded into the cries of the gulls overhead and the pound of the waves on the beach a few yards away, until those too faded to a kind of white noise.

No. God.

Then Dan stretched across and took the card from my unresisting hand, and I was abruptly returned to the present.

The wooden chair creaked as he leaned back, his long muscular body at ease. His dark brows drew together. Absently, he raked his still-wet hair back. It wasn’t like there was a lot to read. One simple sentence.

Miss me?

A rhetorical question if there ever was one.

Water glistened on Dan’s broad sun-browned shoulders, one drop trickling down between his rock-hard pecs, sparkling through the dusting of dark hair across his flat abdomen. The tiny flicker of irritation I’d felt at his arrogance faded in the wake of lust. After he’d spent nearly a month playing Bodyguard to the Stars, I couldn’t blame him if he still occasionally reacted like he was getting paid for overtime.

It’s not Hammond, he said, and tossed the card to the table. It landed face up in a blob of crabapple jelly.

The writing is the same.

"Superficially. We’d have to get it analyzed. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Say one of his cards was delayed for a few days; it doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead."

If he is dead.

His eyes, blue as the surf behind him, met mine levelly. Sean, he’s dead. I saw the car. No one could have survived that crash.

Then why wasn’t his body recovered?

It’s somewhere in the aqueduct. I don’t know. It must have been swept away or lodged somehow.

I nodded tightly. It’s not like there’s high tide in the California Aqueduct.

Dan’s large hand slid under my fingers nervously fiddling with a teaspoon. It’s over, chief. Trust me.

I do. It came out more husky than I’d intended.

He turned my hand palm up, lightly kissing it. The warmth of his lips against my surf-chilled skin made me shiver. I dropped the teaspoon. It hit the edge of my saucer with a silvery chime. He grinned.

You only ever hear about closeted cops, so Dan’s relaxed attitude still caught me off guard. He was probably more at ease with his sexuality than half the civilians I knew. He sure as hell was more relaxed than me.

I pulled my hand away at the familiar yap-yapping of the four-legged hairball belonging to our nearest neighbor, Mrs. Wilgi. Sure enough, a moment later Mrs. Wiggly came around the cairn of rocks, armed with her usual binoculars and police whistle.

I caught Dan’s eye. His grin was wry. He was getting to read me pretty well.

I said, Hey, for all I know Mrs. Wiggly has a spy cam concealed in her muumuu.

He forked another waffle off the plate. I don’t even want to think about what that muumuu conceals.

I laughed. My glance fell on the jam-stained postcard, and I made myself look away. If Dan said it was over, it was over. He was the expert here.

All the same, after a year of being stalked, it wasn’t so easy to drop my guard. One week after Paul Hammond lost control of his car during a police chase on Highway 138 and crashed into the California Aqueduct, I still tensed when the phone rang, waiting for that familiar whisper. I still sorted through my mail fast, trying to get it over with in case, like today, something ugly fell out of the mix. I still watched the rearview mirror everywhere I drove, although for the past three weeks Lt. Daniel Moran of the LAPD had been riding shotgun with me—when he didn’t insist on doing the actual driving.

I said, talking myself away from my anxiety, "I just don’t want to turn up in the National Inquirer as the gay Bennifer or something."

Dansean? Dan suggested, playing along.

I’m the celebrity, I pointed out. My name gets top billing. Maybe…Seandan.

You can be the top anything you like. Dan’s eyes were very blue. Just say the word.

Heat rose in my face.

I mean, how ridiculous was that? You’d think I was a blushing virgin of seventeen, instead of being a reasonably experienced twenty-five year old veteran of the Hollywood party scene. True, most seventeen-year-olds probably saw more action than me—although things were definitely looking up these days.

Automatically, I returned Mrs. Wilgi’s wave as she tromped along the shoreline, her red and yellow dress puffing out and flattening against her ungainly body. The dog, barking hysterically, veered off, galloping toward the deck where we sat, as though he’d just noticed this house on the otherwise empty beach.

Doesn’t that thing have an off button? I murmured.

Mrs. Wilgi began clapping frantically and calling to the dog.

Binky! Binky!

Speaking of off buttons, Dan remarked, I’m supposed to start back at work tomorrow.

Oh.

I tried to hide it, but I knew he could see my disappointment.

He said, his tone very casual, Were you planning to stay out at the beach for a few days or should I drop some things off at the house?

The House being my place in the Hollywood Hills. My place and now, maybe, Dan’s place, too. It was still so new this relationship, so unexpected. We were both tentative, feeling our way along. Trying not to take too much for granted. Or spoil it by not taking enough for granted.

I said, going for the same off-hand note, I was thinking of staying out until next weekend. What do you think? Malibu too far to drive every evening?

Not if I’m waking up next to you every morning.

My heart skipped a beat. How the hell could he say this stuff and not sound corny? Practice, I guess. Dan was ten years older than me—and they had been an active ten years.

I said, That can be arranged.

We’d been sleeping together for one week, starting with the night Dan had returned home to tell me Hammond had crashed into the aqueduct. But the attraction had been immediate. My manager, Steve Kreiger, kept saying what a great screenplay it would make. Gay cop falls for the gay actor he’s assigned to protect from a crazed stalker. And it was true: for once real life was every bit as satisfying as the movies. Dan was a decorated officer frequently held up as the poster boy for the new and improved (read sensitive and diverse) LAPD. It didn’t hurt that he was articulate, smart, and old-fashioned movie-star handsome. A straight arrow in every way but one—and that one way got him assigned to my bodyguard detail.

So now we were finding out what happened after the screen faded to black and the final credits rolled.

Mrs. Wiggly was blowing her police whistle like a crime was in progress. The fur ball ignored her, barking shrilly, plumy tail waving frantically as he stood at the steps of the deck.

I tossed a sausage link, just missing Binky’s indignant nose. Both Dan and the mutt disapproved of this—the mutt vocally, Dan silently. I was getting to know him well enough to translate his silences. I smiled at him, and he shook his head a little.

I’m trying to win him over, I said.

I don’t think he appreciates your cooking the way I do.

I guess not.

I was going to miss our early morning swims followed by these lazy breakfasts. I was going to miss having Dan around all day. Hopefully, I’d be going back to work myself before long. But what happened if the next film I got required a location shoot? Dan and I were way too new to survive extended long distance. I knew, without asking, that he would not be willing to hang up his career in law enforcement to keep me company in New Zealand or Romania for twelve weeks. And I was at a place in my own career where I had to pick my projects carefully.

He pushed his chair back and said, I think I’ll have a quick shower and drive into town. I want to pick up a few things.

Okay. My gaze wandered back to the postcard.

Want to help me try out my new back-scrubber?

I laughed. He made it so easy. I rose, dismissing the card, but as I followed Dan indoors, I couldn’t help wondering…if Paul Hammond hadn’t sent that card, who had?

* * * * *

Gotta admit, I had my doubts about you when I saw the pink bubble bath. Dan squirted pastel gel into the ramie mitt and slid it over my shoulders. Scented steam rose from the granite floor of the large shower stall.

Mm. That feels good. I bent my head, and he smoothed the mitt down the nape of my neck. It’s not bubble bath. It’s shampoo slash shower gel. There’s a difference.

You’d know. I’ve never seen so many grooming aids in one bathroom. The rough cotton felt good on my wet skin, and Dan applied just the right amount of pressure. I relaxed—only recognizing at that moment how wound up I’d been.

Tools of the trade, I informed him. I’m a commodity. I’m in business, and I am my product.

"That attitude and a pair of tight jeans will get you