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

As we walked, Hank asked me about my life in the city, and I obliged. It was strange, for what I talked about seemed at once so distant and so meaningless that part of me felt embarrassed. I thought about, but didn’t go into the darker aspects: going to the bars, one-night stands. But I did tell of getting drunk at parties with people only half of whom I liked. And my work. It paid well and I was good at it, but talking about it here, with him, it sounded just like paper-pushing, grinding out material for a vast, pointless machinery of business.


I spoke of my apartment, taking the subway downtown to work each day, eating a quick lunch in a park surrounded by office towers, returning to work in my cubicle afterwards. At his request I explained something what it was I did, so I told him basically what an investor did. And, even though I enjoyed the challenge of my work, listening to my description now made it seem venal and very shallow.


Chapter 22