Paint a New Scene

By Deirdre O'Dare

Young widow and artist Keely must reinvent her life after her husband’s sudden death. Her first step is to move to a new town.

When her landlady hires a couple of itinerant painter-handymen to refurbish the house, Keely begins to awaken from her grief-spawned isolation. Inspired by the two good-looking workers, she explores a new focus for her art and discovers the exotic pleasures of a ménage for the first time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Mar 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646567119

Deirdre O'Dare

Deirdre writes gay romance channeling a prior life’s gay male twin she calls Danny. Fascinated by love’s diverse shades and guises, she explores and experiences a range of attachments. She still believes in happily ever after, that Love is the One True Thing and genuine Love is never wrong. For more information, visit deirdredares.blogspot.com.

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Chapter 1

Copper City, New Mexico

August 12

For the first time since the brutal shock of her husband’s sudden death, Keely Sandoval felt a faint flicker of hope. It was still hard to imagine going on without Mike, but it helped to be in a new house, a place not crammed with wall-to-wall memories of the ten amazing years they’d shared. True, it was just a rental. It was old-fashioned and a bit rundown, but she was here with all the things she couldn’t bear to part with. Armed with determination to reinvent her life, she’d moved and left her former home to someone else.

A lot of her friends were amazed and shocked when she’d announced she was going to get rid of her home and move a couple hundred miles away to a small town she’d only passed through a few times before she selected it.

Well, it’s done now. I’m here, for better or worse.

Absently, she stroked the silky fur of her tortoiseshell cat, Sekmet, curled in her lap as she sat at her computer. The cat purred in a quiet hum and kneaded Keely’s jeans-clad thighs. She sighed as she attached a picture of her new home to the Here I am email she was sending out to all her correspondents. The place really didn’t look like much. The siding was rotten in spots and the peeling paint gave it a leprous look. Maybe her landlady would get some work done, now that a responsible tenant had moved in. She could hope.

A sharp knock on the front door interrupted her work. She lifted Sekmet off her lap and crossed to the front door. It creaked when she opened it, almost without thinking. Ooopppps, Keel, not smart. You don’t even know who it might be!

The two men who stood on the small porch beyond the old-fashioned wooden screen door were seriously scruffy looking. One wore paint-spattered shorts and a T-shirt almost more holes than fabric. The other had on well-worn military style camo pants that threatened to slide off his lean hips and a blue chambray work shirt with the sleeves cut out. Still, beyond the clothing, both of them were good-looking guys, with nice physiques and easy smiles on sun-weathered faces.

Mind if we look around? We’re scoping out the place to bid on the paint job. Miz Donaldson says she’s havin’ a hell of a time gettin’ somebody to take it on. Shorts was the speaker. He had a nice deep voice, a hint of the South in his gentle drawl and the inflection of some words.

Keely shrugged. Sure. I guess so. Do you need to come inside?

No, not now anyway. We’re just thinking about the outside job. She didn’t say anything about the indoor part.

Keely felt a minor twinge of disappointment, something that made no sense at all. She didn’t know these guys from Adam, so why in hell would she want them inside her new personal space?

Help yourselves, she said. The place could use some sprucing up. It looks pretty sick right now, but I guess that’s mostly just cosmetic. The property manager insists it’s sound.

Camo pants shrugged. What do they know? Bunch of wusses. But that’s okay ‘cause, if we take the job, we’ll fix it up good as new.

They walked around the little bungalow, took measurements, poked and prodded at the holes in the siding and finally left. Keely noticed they were driving a beat-up import station wagon that had seen better days. She shook her head. I could mistake them for down on their luck beach bums, but maybe they know what they’re doing.

Sekmet gave a plaintive meow and twined through Keely’s legs, the cat’s way of saying her dish was empty and Keely was late getting it filled.

Okay, okay. I get the message. Quit mooning and feed you, right?

* * * *

Bright and early the next morning, the two men were back. They had a bunch of tools, a couple of ladders and wore what looked like the same clothes. It appeared they had taken the job.

In spite of knowing she had boxes to unpack, shelf paper to install, and a zillion other chores she needed to work on, Keely found herself sneaking peeks out the windows. The guys were hard at work. She watched as they chipped off old paint, cut away bad sections of siding and slid new strips in to replace them. Tools growled, and male voices rumbled indistinct words, but the sounds gave her a secure, familiar feeling. She’d missed the homely comfort of hearing Mike and his friends working on his vintage Thunderbird in the garage, kidding each other while they tinkered with this and that as men were prone to do.

Shorts had shed his T-shirt and pulled it over his head, wrapping part over his nose and mouth to repel the dust as he started sanding down the rough spots. Wow, did he have a bod—six-pack abs