Excerpt: The Summer Gardener by Jan Irving

[reviews_and_ramblings]

The Summer Gardener by Jan Irving
Release Date: 11/2009
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Buy Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=1579

Blurb: Alejandro Moreno drops out of college and puts aside his dream of a degree in landscape design to take care of his mother and younger brother. Then he gets the chance to restore a strange and unpopular patch of land with an uncanny inhabitant—Fane, a prickly fairy. At first, Alejo isn’t thrilled to share the space with the annoying fae, but as they work together on the neglected garden, both men discover they have two things in common: a love for working with the natural world and loneliness. But how can Alejo handle feelings for not just another man, but one who isn’t human at all?

Excerpt:

The buzzing sound was getting on Alejandro Moreno’s nerves, but he held onto his patience now that he knew the source. He was bent over the petunia bed, weeding, the sun hot on his back, his long hair in a braid over one shoulder, his muscles aching since he'd only just started working this garden and there was a lot to do. Mr. Appleby, the fussy head of the garden board had been right in this case; whoever had done the job here before Alejo had been one lazy cabron.
Alejo had begun with this kind of work on people’s yards, gas station strips of greenery and condo grounds as part of a landscaping crew in college. In fact, he’d liked it so much, he’d wanted to pursue a Master of Science in Landscape Design. But then his mamita had her first episode... Alejo was the man of the family since his father was dead. He had to do what was right; drop out of college, take care of her and his brother, Jose. Fortunately he didn’t need any special courses to take a summer job working for the city.
At first, the work hadn’t been so bad. Mainly seeding flowers in green houses to be planted out in various common places, something he’d done all over town. He never thought he’d get a patch of his own but right away he’d known there was something different about this job. The wording and presentation of the assignment were very...odd; he’d received a scroll—rolled up, tied in ribbon!—naming him the new guardian of Autumn Glade, a strange half-acre garden which no one else apparently wanted.

It had taken him less than two days to find out why.

…

"There's a big-assed snail in there, you know." A now familiar and annoying silken voice interrupted Alejo's reverie. “You almost stepped on it!”

Alejo sat back with a sigh, flexing the muscles he didn’t need to resort to a gym to maintain because of landscaping in the summer, construction jobs in the winter. He flipped his braid out of his eyes, looking around to see if he could spot his critic. "Yeah, I can see the trail. Don't suppose you'll tell me where?" He cocked a brow.

"Sorry, it's the wee folk code. Can't help the big, stupid people out.” There was a thread of insolence in the voice; Alejo would bet part of his family’s grocery bill that his visitor envied him just a little for being human.

"Yeah, wouldn't want that." Alejo grimaced.

"You look played out for a young lad." The speaker had a slight accent, shaded Irish in intonation.

"I'm not played out. And I'm not a lad. I'm twenty-three, Soy majo—I’m hot, yes? And gardening is hard work. A lot of bending over and getting on your knees."

Laughter. "I would think you'd be used to that."

Alejo flipped his companion the bird before he found the snail shell and pulled it gently free of the underside of a winter pansy.

From his place propped on the bird bath, Fane, all nine inches of him, including his delicate webbed iridescent purple wings, gave Alejo a wary look. "Guess you'll kill him now. Or maybe sprinkle salt on him, like the last gardener."

Alejo shook his head. "You'd be wrong, mosco bonito," he said, taking private amusement from calling the fae a pretty fly, since he was that, but irritating like one also.

He placed the snail in a small bag with the other assorted bugs and slugs he'd found as he dug through the raised beds, repairing the crumbling wood that divided them from the grass; this was a major task, and something he knew would take him at least a couple of weeks, pulling out rotting wood that circled the grassy area and the pebbled path, digging deeper, and replacing the wood with fresh. He’d already sent in a request for the planks, and to his surprise been somewhat crankily assured by Mr. Appleby that someone would deliver it the following week. It seemed the city board would give him just about anything if he’d keep working this particular garden.

The fairy demanded in an appalled tone, "You aren't gonna eat that snail, are you?"

"Don't you have anything better to do? Like...I don't know, make nectar, or whatever guy fairies do?" Alejo pushed back damp, escaped strands of his waist-length hair. He was sweaty from the sun and all day he'd been followed around and mocked by the real little guardian of the garden he had been hired to care for. No wonder every other gardener had quit! Although the last one trying to set fire to the sanctuary had been going too far, but Alejo could see the resident imp might have driven him to it.

"Can't believe I'm talking to an actual fairy," Alejo grumped, still wishing he could go back to blissful ignorance about their existence. Fane had scared the fuck out of him when he’d appeared like a streaking hummingbird, getting into Alejo’s face on his second day at the job, and scolding him on how much he’d removed while pruning an aging apricot climbing rose.

"Gets boring being a fae. No one wants to talk to me, always thinkin' they're going mad," Fane mused, leaning back lazily to let the sun warm his body. "Saw you have a lady in that locket you wear.”

Alejo paused, fingering the old fashioned heavy silver of the heart shaped pendant he wore which was the twin of a second one he’d given to Alicia. He felt familiar pride that he had such a popular girlfriend even as uneasiness worked under his breastbone. He shoved it aside.

“Howabout you brag about how much she likes to fuck you? That's always entertaining. You can pretend you're virile for a human."

Alejandro freed his braid, shaking out his long hair in a silken black waterfall. It was nearing closing and he thought maybe he’d stand under the garden hose in the green house and cool off soon. As he climbed to his feet, he wondered how he looked to the fae, browned already because of his Hispanic heritage, six two, muscled but thin with serious sherry brown eyes, wearing only the cut offs he lived in from spring to fall if he had his way. He had abandoned his tee shirt hours ago so it was somewhere on the grounds.

He probably looked pretty ordinary for a human. Not fancy, since he liked things simple, straightforward, even his appearance. His hair had grown so long because he forgot to get it cut, despite his mamita’s hints. But he’d liked the feel of it against his skin, so he’d let it grow.

"I'm not going to talk about my sex life with a guy who isn't even as tall as my dick!"

"At least you have a sex life!" Fane lamented, then his amber eyes widened with speculation—the fairy was terribly curious about Alejo for some reason. “And you must have a nice cock,” he said, eyes sparkling.

"Joder!" Giving the wee one a glare, Alejo followed the pebbled path to the compost house, a little lean to he’d slapped together. He didn’t want to discuss his innocence with the fae. He knew people assumed that at the age of twenty-three he had been around, and he’d had plenty of opportunities, but he had reasons for preferring abstinence.

Fane followed, whizzing like a large dragonfly, as if stirred up over what Alejo'd do next. Well, it wouldn't take long before the fairy saw for himself.

Alejo had taken the time his first day to dig a deep pit for compost, even though Mr. Appleby thought it was a waste of his time--all this new fangled recycling was bullshit to him. But Alejo believed that a garden wasn't just pretty flowers and statuary. It needed support, and that started with the basics.

Apparently Fane had watched him shovel all day long, stripped down to his tee shirt and wearing nothing but jeans with holes in them and heavy gloves; he’d told Alejandro that his sweat had smelled earthy, like a man used to the outdoors, so that's why he'd introduced himself to the new gardener. Apparently not many humans smelled so good to a fey person.

In fact, for some reason that Alejandro couldn't see, there must be something about him, an ordinary seasonal gardener, that made Fane follow him around all day long. Right up till the moment the big man strode out of the walled garden and then Fane would settle on a branch wearing a disgruntled expression.

According to Fane's bragging, he'd already driven off the last twelve gardeners. They'd all been lazy or loud-mouthed and one had tried to capture Fane because he lusted after him!

Fane got quiet after he related that last bit and Alejo had paused in his digging, tense, but then Fane admitted he'd hidden from that one on the night he'd showed up in the garden after hours with a butterfly net and a bell jar.

Even though the little one was a pain in the ass, rude, nosy as his brother, Jose, Alejo had been relieved he hadn’t been hurt by the amorous former gardener.

Now he finished raking up the compost and a few garter snakes seethed free, vacating the steaming mess. The pile was a warm, safe nest for them. One of the snakes had a bit of its tail missing, maybe run over by a car, so it had found refuge in Alejo’s mash of leaves, twigs, and garden scraps.

Fane smiled, seeing them. "It's a trip riding one of those snakes through the garden," he shared. "If you find a good sized one they can really zip along at a good clip."

Shaking his head at this story, Alejo carefully emptied the bag with all the creatures he'd gathered into the pit.

"Won't they eat the flowers and stuff? I mean, shouldn't you just..." Fane drifted off, as if not sure why he was playing Devil's Advocate, as if he couldn't make out this strange young human.

Alejo sensed Fane was wary of humans because they could easily hurt a fairy. Only his speed and his magic--not that Alejo was convinced he actually possessed any, but his mother and brother were sure a fae had to have it--seemed to have kept him safe.

"Maybe, but you can't fight nature all together,” Alejo noted serenely. “I'll just have to do more work in the beds and bring them back here if I find them. But there's lots of decaying vegetation so they should make out okay. I was even going build a little wall around it and line it with copper tape. It doesn't hurt them, but it keeps them inside."

"You'd do all that rather than squish them?" Fane blinked, zipping onto a closer branch. Alejo studied him, taking in his shaggy black hair and strange glowing amber eyes. His skin was brown, but glittered under the sun. He was nude, since he claimed no real fairy would ever hide his manly attributes—and Fane was proud of his.

Alejo flushed, but somehow Fane's openness made him want to reciprocate, even if he was used to being self-contained, losing himself in abstract plans. "When I was a kid, I was walking home and saw a snail some other kids had used their shoes to squish all over the sidewalk. I, uh, stopped and gathered it up with leaves and buried it."

The fairy stared at Alejo intently. He opened his mouth as if to say something but hesitated. Well, it was pretty dumb story, Alejo guessed, still blushing. He’d never shared it with anyone before.

Alejo finished working with the compost and dusted off his hands, rubbing his back, which had that stretchy-sore feeling. "Another day over," he said, looking toward the setting sun.

Suddenly Fane hovered close, startling Alejo.

“Hey! Que haces?”

The fairy landed on Alejo’s left hand, then knelt and kissed where a fresh callous had blistered and was giving Alejo some pain when he gripped the handle of his rake.

Alejo blinked, eyes dazzled as for a second his hand was engulfed in a kaleidoscope of mad, heated jewel colors, a rainbow that burned--

Then the wound was gone and so was the fairy.

He looked around and but didn't see Fane anywhere.

"Wonder why he did that for me?" Alejo mused aloud, rubbing his rough, large hand against his bare leg.

"I didn't do it for you. Did it for that snail you buried," a voice said from somewhere in the garden.