Welcome Birthday Guest V.L. Locey!

Hello! I’m so excited to be visiting with Amber today as we celebrate one special day! It’s wonderful to be here. I’ve brought a brand new short story with me, taken from one of my Colors of Love MM hockey romance books. If you’d like more Mat and Indigo after you’re done with the birthday tale, you can find links and info about me, my books, an exciting new release, and links where you can find me online. For now, let’s dive right into this tender little tale set along the St. Lawrence River. I hope you enjoy it!

Gifts from Indigo (A Lost in Indigo Short)

V.L. Locey

I’ll admit it. I was having some issues with my fortieth birthday.

Nothing major, just minor things. Like not wanting to have a party, see a balloon, hear the crinkle of paper or the pop of a champagne bottle, or spend another moment contemplating how death was creeping up behind me.

My husband was unimpressed with my dour mood, but in all honesty, Indigo was used to my curmudgeonly ways. The man had nursed me back to health when I’d snapped my leg playing hockey and missed being on the ice when my ex-team, the Buffalo Surge, had clinched the Cup. He knew firsthand what a cantankerous shit Mathieu Beresford could be. And yes, despite my crabby, bearish ways, I’d managed to woo him and win him. Well, actually I’d hosed the wooing up pretty badly. If not for the fact that my beautiful, genderqueer spouse had a forgiving heart, I’d not be here on our yacht cruising down the St. Lawrence River to our summer home. Instead, I’d be living alone and cursing my stupid, crabby ways.

I was forty today so that gave me rights to be crabby. And scared of my own mortality.

“You’re frowning again,” Indigo said as he sat down beside me, a smile on his face, his chin tipped into the wind blowing over the bow.

He had come up from below where he’d been checking on the birds for the tenth time. I harrumphed and watched one of the thousand islands pass by. Ours was a few more miles upriver and my father-in-law was not in a hurry to deliver his son and me to Bere’s Den for some reason. Probably just to twist my tail a bit. Montclair Neu and I had known each other for many years, and he was one of an elite few who could get away with poking the Golden Bear, as I’d been known in my playing days. The list of provocateurs was short. Montclair, my summer island neighbor Fran Webster, my agent Arn Toras, and my beautiful Indigo. And my old fans, of course, and a few of the Surge. That was it though.

“The sun makes me squint,” I mumbled.

“You’re wearing sunglasses,” my husband pointed out.

He thought he was so cute. Which admittedly he was. Indigo Neu-Beresford was more than cute, he was breathtakingly beautiful. Nearly twenty years my junior, he stole my breath whenever I glanced his way. Like now. The wind in his ebony hair and the sun on his smooth cheeks made me yearn to touch him. His eyes were lined, his lips colored, and his hair gelled into a spiky creation that begged to be ruffled and ruined as we made love. He’d pulled on a summery shift, a bright yellow sundress with tiny white flowers. His long legs were bared and on display as the wind blew around him, flipping his dress up to flash taut, tanned thighs. His legs crossed at the ankle where a pair of yellow high tops graced his delicate feet.

“Promise me you haven’t planned a big party for today,” I said, ignoring the sunglasses jibe. He threw a look my way, smiled in that way of his, and then pulled his big, yellow shades down to rest on his finely made nose. “Indigo, you know I’m not in the mood for a big blowout.”

“Mathieu, I know. We’ve been married almost eighteen months now. I know how you are. I promise there is no big party for today, you antisocial thing.”

“I’m not antisocial I just don’t like people.” I wiggled around on the padded bench so that I could admire his profile as we passed a small isle with one bent tree and a tiny cabin.

“Such a grumpy bear,” he replied, one corner of his lush mouth twitching.

“There was a reason they called me that,” I replied, reaching for him. He scrambled into my lap, his weight slight as he settled on my thighs. With him in my arms, the upcoming plunge into middle age didn’t feel quite as deadly. I buried my nose in his long neck, inhaling the scent of a secret garden on his flesh. God above this man was my rock. “Why do you put up with me?”

“Must be I love you,” he answered, kissing my shaggy sandy blond head. “You should have let me trim this mess since you wouldn’t go to the barber.” He drove his fingers into the mass of hair. I groaned at his touch, wishing my father-in-law weren’t above us steering BERE NECESSITIES down the river. Taking Indigo into the well-appointed bedroom below and loving him well sounded like heaven right about now. “Oh! Land ho!!”

He leaped off my lap and ran to the side of the boat. I rose, slowly, sure I’d see a flotilla of boats gathered at the dock. Oddly enough, there wasn’t a single speedboat, rowboat, or even a canoe. Actually there was nothing or no one to be seen as we docked. I gave Montclair a questioning look when he joined us on the deck.

“Is there a surprise for today planned up at the house?” I asked on the sly as Indigo threw out the folding gangplank while his father tied off the boat. Montclair gave me a flat look. It was the exact same one his son gave me at times. They were similar in a few ways and very different in others. Same dark, dark eyes and jaw, same ebony hair only Montclair’s was militarily short and Indigo’s was usually spiky or flat, depending on how masculine or feminine he was feeling. That was about where the similarities ended although both men had good hearts and laughed with ease. “Please tell me so if there is.”

Indigo ran past after fetching the covered bird cage down below.

“There isn’t,” he said but I didn’t trust him. The Neu men liked to rattle my cage.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

He shrugged then hustled off the boat after his son. I followed behind at a snail’s pace with our suitcases in my hands. Yes, Montclair was officially my estate manager if one wished to use that term but he was also my father-in-law, so him toting for me felt odd now.

“Hurry up, old man!” Indigo called down to me. I paused on the dock, listening to the steady slap of the river over the rocks and piers below. Breathing in, I pulled the smell of the mighty St. Lawrence deeply into my lungs. I’d missed this place. Montreal had many wonders but nothing compared to this house on the river. Indigo and I had come together here, had fallen in love here, and had married here. Pity the winters were so brutal or we could stay here year round. Also there was his job at the Montreal Botanical Gardens that kept us in the city. He worked identifying new plant species and loved it. So, summer trips were what we would do and be grateful for those.

“Remember the days when we had a golf cart and you drove me to the house?” I asked as I crested the slight knoll to stand by his side.

“Your leg is fine now. Mat, look at this place!” He threw one hand into the air, and in the other, he held the travel cage his lovebirds Martin and Hugo were in. I pulled my gaze from him to check out the Greek revival home. It was an old beauty, with six bedrooms, three and a half baths, and bright white clapboards. Montclair must have had the painters out recently. I eyed the home with appreciation for her classic lines. Considering she’d been built in the 1830s she looked grand to me. “No, not at the house. At the flowerbeds! Who has been hired to tend to them? Do they ever water them?! And disgusting color schemes. I’m going to have to fix them. I can’t spend a long weekend here looking at purple and red in the same bed.”

I chuckled at my feisty botanist then patted his high, tight rump. “We have four days here before you have to go back for work.” He pouted. “The flowers are fine. Come on.” I took his hand and we made our way to the house, Indigo muttering about pansies being planted in the wrong place. Once inside, we opened the windows while Montclair got the water turned on for us. We made our way to the master bedroom, the same room that the original owner, Roberto Guillard Cote who had served in Napoleon’s Army, had died in, supposedly while in bed with a young male lover. If I had a choice in where and how to go, it would be in this house and with my husband riding me.

“They love it here,” Indigo cooed as he transferred the watermelon-colored birds into the massive, ornate cage by the French doors. “I think it’s the air off the river.”

“Okay, I have the water running and the sewer is ready. Enjoy the weekend and happy birthday, Mathieu,” Montclair called from the doorway.

I spun to gape at him. “You’re not staying?”

“No, I’m heading to Alexandria Bay.” With that he left leaving me staring at the empty doorway.

“So there really is no party today?” I asked, kind of shocked that they’d actually listened to me. It rarely happened so naturally I would be surprised.

“Nope, no party today,” Indigo replied as he rubbed his cheek against a lovebird’s soft chest. The bird nipped at his lip then bumped its small head to my husband’s chin. “Just us.”

“Huh.”

We then unpacked our clothes, had lunch, went down to the back of the house, the wild part of the island as we called it, and cuddled into a big hammock that faced Canada. It wasn’t truly wild at all. Just steep and incredibly rocky. Lying with him in my arms, the blue sky above, the roar of speedboats with snapping Canadian flags passing by, I sleepily drifted back to when we were newly met.

“Do you remember the first time we sat out back and held hands?” I asked out of nowhere.

“Mm, you were so shy.” His head rested on my chest. His long fine leg laying over my thick one. The one that hadn’t been so badly injured that it had ended my career.

“You were so young.”

“I was legal plus a couple of years, and now I’m twenty-two.”

“Oui, to my forty.”

“Such a sexy old coot,” he teased gently. “I’m glad we did that, held hands. And then other things.”

I smiled at the clouds floating over. “Yes, I do love the other things.”

“Do you want your gifts now?” he asked on a purr.

“It’s quite hard to make love in a hammock but if you’re willing…”

He chuckled. “Ass. No, not that. We’re saving that for later.”

“We are?” I brushed a strand of black hair from his eye.

“Yes, we are. Do you want your non-sexual gifts now or after dinner?”

I pondered on that for a long time. So long my impatient spouse started to sputter. “I’ll take the non-sexual gift now and then, since it is the official day of my birth, I want to lay in bed with you tonight and all day tomorrow.”

“All day?!” He asked as if the idea shocked him. I knew better. The man wore me more often then I cared to admit.

“All day. No clothing permitted, and the only reasons for leaving our love nest is for food, the bathroom, and to tend to Martin and Hugo.”

He dropped a kiss to my whiskery chin. “You sure you can keep up, grand papa?”

“Your French lessons are paying off. I rather like being called your big daddy, but yes, I can keep up.”

I hope.

With a spark of joy in his gaze, he untangled himself and eased out of the hammock. Rolling my head to the side, I watched him hustle inside. I closed my eyes and let the contentment of the moment seep in. So what if I were forty now? I felt no different. And looked no different. Tonight I would bed my spry young husband and make him howl with pleasure. Then I would go back to Montreal to continue work on my second memoir. I would spend my days of leisure at the food bank, the youth center, and at home puttering. There was also the offer to sign on to be color play man for Montreal to consider. It was tempting for I missed hockey desperately but traveling with the team would take me from Indigo. I wasn’t sure I wished not to see his smile every day or hold him to my side every night.

My life was not over, not really. Yes, I was forty and had to watch my diet now. Perhaps there was silver on my chin, in my hair, and cropping up down below. True, my bad leg ached when the barometric pressure fell, and my shoulder cracked so hard when I woke up in the morning that I winced. And there was the new ache in my back. And that funny clicking sound in my ankles, and the fact that my optometrist had suggested bifocals and…

“Ah God, I am old.” I sighed forlornly then Indigo arrived like a sunbeam bursting through a raincloud. I grinned like the old fool that I was. He clambered back into the hammock, holding two presents. After the wild swinging settled, he handed my first gift to me.

I shook it gently and got a sour look. “Stop trying to guess and just open it!” I loved teasing him. It brought a nice color to his high cheeks. Ripping the paper off, I grinned at the special 30^th anniversary edition of The Breakfast Club DVD. “There’s commentary and interviews with the cast and crew, and the film itself has been remastered because things get dingy with age.”

“Such a brat.” I chuckled then pulled his soft and oh-so pink lips to mine. “It’s perfect. We’ll watch it tonight.”

“Oh yay,” he deadpanned. The film was one of my favorites and held a special place in our hearts, despite him pretending otherwise. “Now the next one!”

“You have no patience,” I remarked as he shoved a smallish box into my hands. Again, I tore into the purple wrapping paper and blinked at the new eReader.

“It’s the newest model and has every Louis L’Amour book ever published already installed on it.” He was beaming. “Even the science fiction and short stories!”

“Wow, Indigo, this is incredible.” I stole another kiss, this one a little more heated than the last. “Did you know he wrote over a hundred books?”

“Yep, I had to download them all.”

“I love it,” I whispered. I’d been slowly picking my way through the westerns. “Do you remember Nurse Rampette?”

“Ugh, yes, don’t mention her now. It will kill the good birthday vibes!”

“Sorry, sweet one.” I placed the eReader beside me and peppered his face with tiny kisses. The unease about my old nurse lifted from his brow as the kissing made its way to his mouth yet again. He began making those sensual, mewling noises of desire that drove me mad.

“Can we start the naked in bed part of your birthday celebration now?” he asked while sliding the tips of his fingers under my belt.

I glanced at the sun still high in the sky. “If we go now we’ll be done and sleeping by seven tonight.”

“You’ll be done and sleeping by seven.”

“Smart ass,” I mumbled as he slipped from my arms then wiggled out of the hammock. A gust of wind blew in over the waterway, playing with his dress and hair. “Fine, let me get my decrepit ass out of this stupid thing.”

It took a bit of doing, but I finally had my feet on solid ground and my husband wrapped in my arms. He grabbed a taste of my mouth then broke free of my embrace.

“Come on.” He took my arm and gave it a tug.

“My goodness, such a rush to get me in bed. I must be quite the virile lover, no?”

“Oh well yes, for sure. Also, the party guests are arriving at eight in the morning so we should hurry if you want to make love to me and grab a nap while it’s still your birthday.”

He winked and scampered off into the house, leaving his dress on the patio. I caught a glimpse of a small, sweet buttock. Then I shut my mouth and raced inside after him, chasing my giggling husband around the house, shedding clothes as I went, until he let me capture him in the master bedroom.

“You said no party,” I panted then swept him off his feet and carried him to the antique bed.

“I said no parties today. I never said anything about tomorrow.”

His eyes danced with merriment.

We fell into the wide bed where I got lost in Indigo once more.

The End

*~*~*

GIVEAWAY

Want to experience the book where Mathieu and Indigo meet and fall in love? You can grab Lost in Indigo and all the other Colors of Love books over at Amazon. They’re all in KU now so you can binge the five that are out and be caught up when book number six, Songs of Red Currant Wine, releases in February of 2021!

http://vllocey.com/Read-colorsoflove

One lucky winner will win a ten dollar Amazon gift card simply by replying below and telling me which color of the rainbow is their favorite. Easy and super peasy, right?!

Winner will be chosen randomly. Best of luck everyone!!

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NEW RELEASE NEWS

My bubbly coauthor RJ Scott and I have a brand new novella set in our best-selling Harrisburg Railers world! Baby Makes Three just came out on 11/11 and we’re so excited to be visiting with Ten and Jared again as they add to their family!

When baby makes three, Christmas will never be the same for Ten and Jared.

There’s not much that Tennant Rowe hasn’t accomplished, and all before reaching thirty. Hoisting the Cup, marrying the man of his dreams, and becoming a spokesman for LGBTQ2+ athletes’ rights have filled his world with great joy. While his successes on and off the ice have been beyond his wildest expectations, he’s now wondering if it’s time to add one more tiny addition to his already wonderful life.

Being a dad to Ryker and marrying Ten are the two of the best things in Jared’s life, only something is missing. He always wanted more children, but with Ten and the Railers riding a wave of success, how could he even broach the subject of adoption or surrogacy with the man he loves? Jared would give the moon and the stars to his husband, so when Ten reveals his desire to be a father, they start a journey that will fill their Christmas with a new and special kind of love.

https://rjscott.co.uk/Read-BabyMakesThree