Any Given Lifetime Read online

  Any Given Lifetime

  By Leta Blake

  An Original Publication from Leta Blake Books

  Any Given Lifetime

  Written and published by Leta Blake

  Cover by Dar Albert

  Formatted by BB eBooks

  Copyright © 2018 by Leta Blake Books

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and locations are either a product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious setting. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental or inspirational. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written consent from the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Kindle Edition

  First Digital Edition, 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-626227-78-1

  Other Books by Leta Blake

  The River Leith

  Smoky Mountain Dreams

  Angel Undone

  ’90s Coming of Age Series

  Pictures of You

  You Are Not Me

  The Training Season Series

  Training Season

  Training Complex

  Heat of Love Series

  Slow Heat

  Alpha Heat

  Co-Authored with Indra Vaughn

  Vespertine

  Co-Authored with Alice Griffiths

  The Wake Up Married serial

  Will & Patrick’s Endless Honeymoon

  Gay Fairy Tales

  Co-Authored with Keira Andrews

  Flight

  Levity

  Rise

  Leta Blake writing as Blake Moreno

  The Difference Between

  Audiobooks

  Leta Blake at Audible

  Free Read

  Stalking Dreams

  Discover more about the author online:

  Leta Blake

  Gay Romance Newsletter

  Leta’s newsletter will keep you up to date on her latest releases and news from the world of M/M romance. Join the mailing list today. Click here to sign up!

  Leta Blake on Patreon

  Become part of Leta Blake’s Patreon community in order to access exclusive content, deleted scenes, extras, bonus stories, rewards, prizes, interviews, and more. Click to find out more!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Books by Leta Blake

  Gay Romance Newsletter

  Leta Blake on Patreon

  Acknowledgements

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Three

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Letter from Leta

  Gay Romance Newsletter

  Leta Blake on Patreon

  Other Books by Leta Blake

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to the following people:

  Mom & Dad, without whom I couldn’t be following this dream of being a writer. B & C, my lights to travel home to. All the wonderful members of my Patreon who inspire, support, and advise me, especially Sadie Sheffield. Amanda Jean for the editing work. DJ Jamison for proofing. Nick & Julie for the times I spent at their home in years past, learning about Scottsville.

  And thank you to my readers who make all the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile.

  He’ll love him in any lifetime.

  Neil isn’t a ghost, but he feels like one. Reincarnated with all his memories from his prior life, he spent twenty years trapped in a child’s body, wanting nothing more than to grow up and reclaim the love of his life.

  As an adult, Neil finds there’s more than lost time separating them. Joshua has built a beautiful life since Neil’s death, and how exactly is Neil supposed to introduce himself? As Joshua’s long-dead lover in a new body? Heartbroken and hopeless, Neil takes refuge in his work, developing microscopic robots called nanites that can produce medical miracles.

  When Joshua meets a young scientist working on a medical project, his soul senses something his rational mind can’t believe. Has Neil truly come back to him after twenty years? And if the impossible is real, can they be together at long last?

  Any Given Lifetime is a stand-alone, slow burn, second chance gay romance by Leta Blake featuring reincarnation and true love. This story includes some angst, some steam, an age gap, and, of course, a happy ending.

  For Brian, for all lifetimes

  Prologue

  January 2012—Atlanta, Georgia

  “He doesn’t look like a Joe,” Alice said, staring at her squalling son, whose face scrunched in fury and pale skin grew blotchy from crying. She pushed her still-damp dark hair behind her ear and tried to get more comfortable on the hospital bed.

  “That was my brother’s name,” Jim said stubbornly. He reached out and touched the baby’s clenched fist, which seemed to set off another round of wails. He jerked his meaty hand away, and his dark, caterpillar brows stitched together ominously. The muscles of his chest rippled as he crossed his arms.

  Alice tried to place the baby to her breast, shushing and soothing him, hoping that the nurses wouldn’t come into the room and try to talk her into feeding him formula again. Her milk would come in just fine. She knew it would. If he would just latch on, for heaven’s sake.

  “I promised my mom I’d name my son after my brother,” her new husband pressed on. His gray eyes took on the flinty look that she’d already learned to fear.

  Alice refrained from mentioning that the baby wasn’t actually his son. Both of them were very bent on pretending otherwise. It was best for everyone if Marshall’s memory was left with his body—blown to bits in the desert of Afghanistan. Jim had married her out of an obligation to his dead best friend, and claimed Marshall’s son as his own, determined to raise him right. Alice was grateful for his help, even if she didn’t have his love, or want it. Alice had tried to care for the man, but it was hard to love a man as unpredictable as Jim.

  Especially after having been loved by someone as tender and thoughtful as Marshall.

  “Did you hear me, Alice? I promised my mom,” Jim said again. Afghanistan hadn’t been kind to Jim, taking both his brother and his best friend.

  “Yeah, I know you promised,” Alice agreed, looking down at her son’s face as he mouthed at her nipple, never quite taking it in before he started screaming again. “But…but look at him. He’s just not a Joe.”

  “You got a better name in mind?” Jim asked, his voice implying that whatever she suggested, it better be good or else.

  “Neil,” she said, whispering the name that had rung through her like a bell the moment she took the baby into her arms. “Neil Joseph,” she added quickly. “For your brother.”

  Jim chewed his bottom lip, but then he nodded once, and Alice relaxed, relieved that was the end of it for now. She smiled up at her husband, and he smiled back, tense and insincere but good enough. At least there wouldn’t be a row.
r />   For his part, Neil screamed even louder.

  January 2012—Scottsville, Kentucky

  Joshua stood by the creek on his family’s land in his hometown of Scottsville, Kentucky. He shoved his gloved hands into his coat pockets and studied the winter-gray sky reflecting in the ripples in the dark water. All around him the woods creaked and rustled. A squirrel chomped on a nut, eyeing Joshua suspiciously.

  The creek was deep and wide, bubbling over rocks and fallen limbs carelessly. When he was a boy, he’d played in it every day, digging on its banks, jumping in up to his hips, skipping over the rocks from muddy shore to muddy shore. It had been his favorite place on earth.

  He still loved it, but it had been over a month since he’d come out to the creek. Not because he’d forgotten about any of it, but because he was making an active attempt to hurt less. Somehow he’d convinced himself that if he avoided the place where he’d carefully emptied the container of ashes—all that had been left of Neil after the cremation—maybe he wouldn’t feel cut to the quick.

  Avoidance hadn’t worked, though. So, here he was.

  “Hey, Neil,” he said, rocking on his heels. “I miss you.”

  The creek burbled and rushed. Like life itself, it was nonstop and joyful in its lack of empathy. On it went, sluicing over gravelly bottoms and slipping through woods and fields. Onward, never a glance back, just forward into forever.

  “My new baby brother was born today. Remember how I told you my mom was pregnant? He arrived. They named him Sam.”

  He was quiet for a second, trying to feel Neil there with him, wanting some kind of connection, but he got nothing at all.

  “You’re really gone, huh?” he asked.

  The wind blew around him, ruffling his hair, but it didn’t feel anything like Neil.

  “Where’d you go?” he murmured. Off with the water into the great unknown. It’s part of why he’d cast his remains into the creek, wasn’t it? To release him. Set him free. So why did he keep coming back to the creek looking for something he’d never find?

  Joshua listened harder. “Where does the river take you? Where did you end up?” Then he smirked. “I know, I know. I can hear you telling me that you didn’t end up anywhere, that you died, and any ideas I have to the contrary are just hopes and wishful thinking. You’d say I’m better off accepting reality and moving on.”

  Joshua ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. The squirrel decided this human wasn’t quite sane, talking to himself this way, and skittered into the woods and then up a high tree. “I might be better off, Neil. But I just can’t believe that.” He stared up at the clouds covering the sky. The water rushed at his feet. “I don’t want to believe that.”

  The grief fell on him again, heavy and useless. He made a big show of shaking it off, clapping his hands together and saying, “So, anyway, since we last talked, things have really kind of sucked. Paul is bugging me to sell my Grandpa Roger’s lumber company, come back to Nashville, and live with him. He says I need to finish my degree, pick up where I left off when you…” He swallowed hard. “When you died. But I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. Nashville isn’t for me. And Mom and Dad aren’t capable of running Stouder Lumber. They never have been. Dad’s more into the farm, and Mom’s got her career as a teacher. It’s on me to keep Grandpa Roger’s legacy alive. Just like it’s on me to keep yours alive, too.”

  Joshua sat down on the cold ground and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Why’d you do that, Neil? Put all of that responsibility in my hands? I’m only twenty-two years old, and it’s too much.” Puffing cloudy breath, he squeezed his eyes tight, thinking of all the questions Neil’s lawyer still had for him. “How old were you when all of that fell into your hands? That’s not something we ever discussed.”

  He was silent for a few moments and tried to think of what Neil would say to all of that. He smiled softly when he realized that in all likelihood whatever Neil said would’ve pissed him off.

  “You’d say, ‘Suck it up, buttercup.’ You’d say, ‘Stop taking Paul’s calls if he annoys you.’ You’d say exactly what I wouldn’t want to hear, and…well, I don’t think I like your advice any more now than I would if you were alive. But I’m glad that I know what you’d say to me. It makes you feel not so—” Dead. “Far away.”

  Joshua swallowed a lump in his throat. That was a lie. Knowing what Neil would say made him feel even more gone. He wiped at his eyes.

  “I hate you for dying.”

  The wind blew again, chill and full of winter. Joshua bowed his head.

  “I love you,” he said, his breath lifting around him like smoke.

  June 2012—Atlanta, Georgia

  Alice watched as the doctor examined her son. She could see the intelligence snapping behind his eyes, taking in the world around him in a wordless assessment, and it vaguely distressed her that he seemed to find it lacking.

  “He’s still nursing?” the doctor asked, wrapping a measuring tape around Neil’s head and then making some notes.

  Alice nodded. Nursing was finally going well. It had taken a while to get into the groove, but eventually Neil started eating like a champ. When he was wrapped up in her arms, gulping greedily, she felt truly connected to him in a way that she imagined other mothers felt toward their children all the time.

  “He’s showing excellent advances in motor coordination, and he’s meeting and surpassing physical milestones,” the doctor intoned, as though he was bored.

  “So, he’s healthy?” she asked, a little doubt in her voice. He was, after all, so skinny and moody, and somehow she felt like he was different from other babies.

  “Well, he’s of lower weight than average for his age, but he’s not anywhere near the danger zone on the chart. Given what you’ve told me in the past about his eating habits, he likely has a fast metabolism. Be prepared for some marathon nursing sessions when he hits his growth spurts.”

  Alice picked Neil up from the table. His bobble-head jiggled on his skinny neck, and she kissed his cheek. He didn’t really relax into her arms, but he didn’t fight her either, and she got the sense that he enjoyed being held by her. That meant something, at least.

  “Why?” the doctor asked, seeming to suddenly tune into her hesitations. “Is there something in particular that you’re worried about?”

  Alice let out a guilty sigh. “I just feel…I don’t know, like something’s missing? My friends…well, their babies are more…” She winced. “They seem happier?”

  A smirk crossed the doctor’s face. “Well, Mrs., uh—” He consulted the chart.

  “Quinley,” Alice offered, still unaccustomed to Jim’s name and wishing she’d kept Marshall’s. But Jim would have lost it if she’d ever suggested that. His loyalty to his dead friend didn’t go so far as to allow his wife to still ‘moon’ over him, as he put it.

  “Mrs. Quinley, your son may have a taciturn nature, true. Every child is different. But is it possible you might be suffering from postpartum depression? Are you having trouble bonding with him? Do you have an unhealthy burden of guilt, or fear that you might harm your son?”

  Alice blinked at him. Guilt? A little. Bonding? She wasn’t sure. She loved Neil and had since she first moment she saw his screaming little face. But he certainly wasn’t what she’d been expecting. Harm him? Absolutely not. She just wanted to know that he was okay. That he would grow up to be a normal man with a normal life. She guessed the doctor probably couldn’t guarantee her that.

  “I don’t think so,” she said softly.

  The doctor nodded, made a mark in Neil’s chart, and said, “Okay. Well, just let me know if anything changes on that front. I know a very good doctor who specializes in postpartum emotional issues.”

  Alice gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded. She cuddled Neil close. He tensed before relaxing in her arms, and then he put his small head on her shoulder, gazing up at her with blue, trusting eyes that pulled at her heart.

  The doctor left the room, and
Alice got Neil’s little clothes back on him. She could feel him studying her, so she whispered, “I’ll always take care of you.”

  He waved a fist in her direction, and he almost looked like he might smile.

  But then he cried instead.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  May 2018—Scottsville, Kentucky

  Joshua sat at a tiny table in a quiet corner of Earl G. Dumplin’s diner. It was a slow day, and not many other tables were occupied. His coffee was verging on being too cold, and he considered getting up to find the waitress to ask her for a refill, but then he’d have to shift the piles of papers that he’d spread out over his lap, each precariously balanced.

  There was the stack on the table in front of him that had to do with Stouder Lumber, all of which he needed to pay close attention to because he was in the middle of converting everything from paper to computer at long last, and his lumber shipping business was often full of rough roads, both literal and metaphorical. He had a lot of responsibility on his shoulders since taking over the family business—and he’d had to learn it all incredibly fast after his Grandpa Roger’s death just a few months after Neil’s.

  Sure, Grandpa Roger had generally reliable people installed when Joshua took over, a lot of them from the local Mennonite sect, but the business itself had spent the last six years stuck in the past. Admittedly, that’d been appealing to his horse-and-buggy-driving employees, but things had to change if they were going to stay profitable. It was time Joshua got a grip on all the paper his Grandpa had used to track everything and converted it to digital programs and processes. That included dealing with tons of old contracts covered in legalese about trucking and transportation all of which made his brain want to run out of his ears in an effort to escape the boredom.