Rough Canvas (Nature of Desire 6)

"Marcus," Thomas hissed, taking his arm. Thomas knew that fired-up look, knew this was entirely the wrong place. "I'm sorry sir," he said quickly. 'We should have asked permission before coming onto your land. "

The farmer nodded, a muscle in his jaw twitching in an ironic mirror of Marcus' expression as he turned around and strode away, his herd ambling after him. Some of them returned to their grazing, savvy enough to know it wasn't dinnertime.

"Why didn't you just apologize for breathing his fucking air while you were at it?" Marcus snapped, turning to the blanket and picking it up. He shoved the basket away before the male goat could start investigating the contents or nibble on the wicker on the outside.

"We're on his land. We weren't invited. It was my fault. I'm used to home where I know all the farmers and they know me. "

"It's your fault for being gay?"

Thomas set his teeth. "This isn't about that. Not everything is about that. He's just tired of tourists trespassing. "

"It isn't, hmm?" Marcus rolled the blanket into a ball, stuffed it into the duffel, shouldering it and gathering the picnic basket. "What do you think he would have done if we were Joe and Suzie Q sitting here, doing exactly what we were doing?"

"He still would have asked us to leave the property," Thomas said stubbornly.

"Maybe. But I'll lay you odds if he did, he'd have chatted them up a bit. Or as he headed back up that hill, he'd get a nostalgic feeling, thinking about him and the missus and their younger days. Sowing wild oats and all that. "

"Getting in his face doesn't work. You don't change people by living up to what they think you are. "

Marcus lifted a brow. "Have you tried that line on yourself?"

"What do you want, Marcus?" Thomas snatched the basket from him, slammed it to the ground. "Not everyone accepts people who. . . like. . . " Marcus rounded on him. "You searching for a word, pet? Maybe you should be listening more closely to your brother. Homosexuals, gay, fags, rump riders, fudge packers, whatever makes it into something nasty and obscene. " The male goat had retreated to his herd. Despite the fact he applauded the goat's wisdom, Thomas held firm, his brows drawing down over dark eyes that he wasn't even aware were snapping with their own fire. "This isn't about some farmer's veiled insult. The way you're acting - that's about you and me. "

"Really? You fucking think so? Artists are such brain surgeons, aren't they? Two seconds ago, I was inside you and you were inside me. Two seconds later you're bowing and scraping and asking for forgiveness for being here, for fucking being who you are. Just like you are with your family. As if it's something to be ashamed of. "

"It's not that. You know my mother, her faith - "

"Don't. " Marcus' voice was low and vicious, and it brought Thomas up short.

"When I've come inside you, lain on you, felt you tremble, felt that silence between us that has everything. . . you don't think God is there? If there is a God, I've felt It then, and I know you have too. "

"Marcus - "

Marcus snarled at him, hefted the blanket and turned on his heel, striding across the field, his back stiff and straight. He went right through the herd. If Thomas hadn't been so angry himself, he would have been amused by how the goats parted before him like Moses.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, following. But Thomas kept his distance as Marcus went up the opposite slope, letting him work off his mad. And maybe because he couldn't bear for the conversation to continue. They had been. . . everything had been perfect, just as Marcus said. Was he right? When he'd heard the farmer, all Thomas could think about during his stumbling apology was that the farmer had seen him fondling another man, and how that would color his perception.

But Marcus didn't understand. He lived in New York City, where prejudice was simply swallowed in the sheer volume of multinationalism and multicultures, where it could squeak and irritate but rarely roar and destroy. Where ridicule might come from one person, but not become a wall of reaction from the whole community that could impact his family.

Maybe coming out into the country hadn't been a good idea. He'd sought the familiar, but it was the familiar when he was playing the role of the hardware owner's son, in a community where he'd grown up and they knew him. Where his sexual preference might be suspected because of his looks and absence of a steady girlfriend, but never openly stated.

It wasn't familiar territory when he was with Marcus. He looked at the stiff lines of Marcus' shoulders and knew, as he'd known from the beginning, that this was a mistake. It would always be this way. But he had three more days before he had to walk away and God help him, Marcus was right about his lack of pride. When it came to Marcus, Thomas would take the remaining days because he couldn't have any more after that. This was borrowed time as it was.

He'd accepted that, would let it tear him apart. But for the first time, after his revelation of last night, he thought about it from Marcus' viewpoint. If Marcus was right, if Marcus did. . . love him, should Thomas be so selfish to take these three days?

Could Marcus be as vulnerable as he seemed to be at times, ways Thomas had never perceived him to be before? If he took the full week, what would that do to Marcus when he walked away?

Geez, he was losing his mind. Marcus had a life that normal, average people who stood in grocery store lines, staring at the glitzy covers of magazines, would envy.

A bleat distracted him. A straggler. Then Thomas heard another note to it, a note of distress, and came to a stop.

"Marcus. "

Marcus thought about ignoring the call. Actually contemplated driving away, leaving Thomas here, or at least making him think so. He'd drive just over the hill, around the curve. But knowing Thomas, the Southern redneck streak would kick in and he'd probably pick up a rock and destroy the Maserati's paint job.

No, that was more his style, not his gentle Thomas. Thomas would stand there and look like an abandoned puppy, making Marcus feel like shit.

He stopped, expelling a frustrated blast of air and turned to find Thomas waving to him from a copse of trees, an urgency to his gesture that obviously had nothing to do with their argument.