While traveling in a storm, Glen Harper takes a wrong turn and crashes his car. Unhurt but cold and wet, he decides to get help. Using a distant light as a guide, Glen discovers an uninhabited cottage, where he lights a much needed fire. Glen quickly warms up but soon becomes aware of a presence in the room. Hank Waterford is the caretaker of the estate where Glen found refuge from the storm. They meet when Glen, thinking he’s alone in the cottage, jumps into Hank’s bed. Both men are strongly attracted to each other, but they have to overcome a hurdle Glen never anticipated: the spirit of Henry, the estate owner’s son, who committed suicide after his unrequited love for Hank became too much to bear. Together Glen and Hank must deal with Henry, who haunts the manor house as well as Hank’s cottage. Can they find a solution that will allow Henry’s spirit to finally come to rest? Will he accept Glen and Hank’s relationship, or will he become a malevolent presence in their lives?

The Haunted Caretaker

Wait a minute! Now, I thought, what did that remind me of?


A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,


Y clad in mightie armes and siluer shielde,


Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain,


The cruell markes of many a bloudy fielde;


Yet armes till that time did he never wield:


His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,


As much disdaining to the curbe to yield:


Fully iolly knight he seemed, and fiare did sitt,


As one for knightly guists and fierce encounters fit.


A thrill of familiarity came to me, then. That odd spelling, that antiquated language, somehow very beautiful. And then I remembered—concupiscence!I read down, looking for the word. But instead I came to,


To winne him worship, and her grace to haue,


Which of all earthly things he most did craue;


And euer as he rode, his hart did earne


To proue his puissance in battel brave…


Chapter 11