The Distant Hills and Other Stories

By Kaje Harper

Can a farmer still love the man who stole his horse, and broke his heart?

What kind of relationship begins with a passive-aggressive bottle of wine?

How's life treating Mac and Tony of Life Lessons, ten years later?

Thirty short stories, ranging from flash fiction to 10,000 words, bring laughter and tears, triumph and heartbreak, and the quiet moments in between. And love, always love.

Do you have ten minutes, or an hour, to spend with a story? Check out this collection, filled with a wide range of contemporary, paranormal, and fantasy stories to feed the gay-romance-loving soul.

(Stories in this collection were originally published on Kaje's Facebook group.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kaje Harper
• Release date: Mar 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215190722

Kaje Harper

I get asked about my name a lot. It's not something exotic, though. “Kaje” is pronounced just like “cage” – it’s an old nickname, and my pronouns are she/her/hers.I was born in Montreal but I've lived for 30 years in Minnesota, where the two seasons are Snow-removal and Road-repair, where the mosquito is the state bird, and where winter can be breathtakingly beautiful. Minnesota’s a kind, quiet (if sometimes chilly) place and it’s home.I’ve been writing far longer than I care to admit (*whispers – forty years*), mostly for my own entertainment, usually M/M romance (with added mystery, fantasy, historical, SciFi...) I also have a few Young Adult stories (some released under the pen name Kira Harp.)My husband finally convinced me that after all the years of writing for fun, I really should submit something, somewhere. My first professionally published book, Life Lessons, came out from MLR Press in May 2011. I have a weakness for closeted cops with honest hearts, and teachers who speak their minds, and I had fun writing four novels and three freebie short stories in that series. I was delighted and encouraged by the reception Mac and Tony received.I now have a good-sized backlist in ebooks and print, both free and professionally published, including Amazon bestseller "The Rebuilding Year" and Rainbow Award Best Mystery-Thriller "Tracefinder: Contact." A complete list with links can be found on my website "Books" page at https://kajeharper.wordpress.com/books/.I'm always pleased to have readers find me online at:Website: https://kajeharper.wordpress.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KajeHarperGoodreads Author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4769304.Kaje_Harper

Book preview

The Distant Hills

I chose to begin the collection with one of the two most-requested stories from my Facebook group members. (The other being a World War Two story you’ll find a bit later on.) I wrote the first little yearning section in Roy’s voice to stand alone, but group members insisted they needed his HEA, so I wrote the follow-up for them.

* Content warning for addiction (secondary character).

* * * * *

Part 1

Roy

Sometimes I climb the hill here at the end of a long day. Not so much in winter, when the wind blows sharp and cold across those hilltops, and the warmest place on the farm is the arm I have up the back end of a cow. But in summer, when the light lingers long enough to take me through all of a day’s work. Some evenings, when that gold hits the fields just right, and the haze hangs mysterious in the hollows, I come stretch out on my back, arms behind my head, the grass prickling under my shirt, and I stare at the place I saw you last, and let myself remember.

My brother Hugh— you remember, the guy who always hated you— caught me here once and tried to kick my ass. Wallowing he called it, along with pouting and self-indulgent bullshit and I swear, Roy, you’re pathetic. For my own good, of course, said with love. (And if you buy that, I have an ocean beach in Arizona for you. Hugh would prefer me as a sexless eunuch and hates being reminded I once did something openly gay. For a while.)

Maybe a year or two back, he’d have been right about the pining. But over time, my mood here changed. Yeah, this is where I lost you. You and that Quarter Horse mare you ran off with when you left, and don’t tell me she was a sentimental gift— you sold her two towns over for traveling money, and I had a hell of a time buying her back.

But this is also where I taught you to ride. This is where we made love once, and you complained so hard about the dirt on your favorite shirt, but back then you liked me enough to laugh and do it again anyway. This was a hundred nights, in our three years, watching the sun set because you loved the colors behind the hill, and talking about our dreams.

That’s the thing Hugh doesn’t realize. I understood you from the start, from the moment I heard you sing in that little dive. Music was dug as deep in your bones as the land was in mine, was carved in your heart, the wings beneath your breath. When I saved you from that gang at the bar that night, and brought you home to heal, our end was already written. In the three years it took you to gather your nerve, we had a lot of good times. But I knew you’d never stay. And you knew I’d never leave.

It was the way you left that gutted me. Riding off silently, not looking back, leaving me standing here with those stupid sentimental words still on my lips. That’s what it took me time to get over.

Then I heard that song of yours on the radio. Wrenched Free. The one where the guy says he had to sneak out in the night, because one word from the girl he loved, and he’d lose his nerve and stay. At least you didn’t quite sneak out on me. But I figured there was something of us in that song. I never wanted to be the thing holding you back or tying you down. I just wish you’d said goodbye.

I see you sometimes, on the TV or online, usually with some pretty girl hanging on your arm. I’m not jealous, not really. I remember what you said about trying to sleep with women. Don’t know if I’m more sorry for them or for you. But it does hurt, just a little, down inside, when they lean close to you, and I remember back when I had the right to press my nose to your skin.

I’m almost forty now. You’re not yet thirty. Your career could last decades. Hell, the rest of my life, even. And with the way things are going in this good ol’ US of A, I don’t see being out and proud in country music as a great career move for you, any time soon. Especially when it comes with the memory of boots and fists. I know all the nightmares you have. I held you through them, many a time. So I’m not waiting. Not exactly.

It’s just that no one ever lit me up inside the way you did. Never before, and not since.

If someone does, I won’t say no. I’m not stupid or masochistic.

But unless, until… if someday you get tired of the lights and the crowds and the girls, you can still come home. Drive that big pickup I seen you with in that online magazine spread, or hell, walk here in those polished cowboy boots you wear that have no stirrup-rubbing on them. Come back over that hill, and you’ll find me here waiting.

We might make love here, in the grass. Maybe I’ll bottom this time, so you don’t dirty up those pretty city clothes. Maybe this time, when I say I love you, you’ll say it back.

Sometimes when I lie here, remembering all the good times, I pretend today’s that day. But mostly, I know better, and when the sun fades behind the hill, I go home to the life I wouldn’t leave to be your dirty secret. This is a good life. It feeds my soul. It’s just my heart that aches sometimes, wishing you were here.

***

Five years later

Trevor

There’s a picture on the cover of my third album— me and my favorite guitar and a long stretch of railroad track. We titled that album Goin’ Places but in my head, it was always The Long Way Home. I used to make up stories on the tour bus, when the echoes of amplifiers and the rumble of the wheels throbbed in my head till I couldn’t sleep. Someday, I’d go home.

Not to my little Nebraska hometown, where my parents are so proud of my singin’ career they hung my album cover on the wall, between the confederate flag and Jesus. Where my mom still cooks a heart-attack breakfast for my dad every morning— even though he sells insurance— and prides herself on her down-home country values. Where my dad talks about my three years off the map as my cowboy days, all man to man. Where they don’t have a clue.

And not to my place in Nashville, the nice house I bought and furnished with baseball posters and music shit, no horses, no cowboys, nothing to make me remember. It’s luxurious, but cold. There’s no dog because I travel too much; no man because…I’m Trevor Stone, heartthrob to a hundred thousand pretty blond girls in cowboy boots who keep me in beer and guitar strings. Who keep my label and my agent and my backup band and roadies in rhinestones and liquor and coke.

But someday…

Going home means a little spread in western Kansas, where the sky’s so wide the sunset colors arc from one horizon to the other. A place where the old farmhouse could use a lick of paint, but there’s never time and money to get to it. Where the horses go ankle-deep in mud when the snow melts, but toss their pretty heads and work willingly among the black Angus cows, for the man who rides them.

Where a real cowboy lives, a guy who’d laugh at my tight jeans that wouldn’t let me throw a leg over a saddle. A man whose busted-up boots on the mat by the door could make my heart beat faster. A man who took the money I sent when I hit it big— the only thing I could give back to say sorry for everything— and returned it with a note that said, Save it for a rainy day.

I stare at that cover sometimes and imagine Roy just over that ridge, waiting for me.

Ten years. He’s probably not waiting anymore.

***

I wake with a start and the chilled awareness something’s not right. My neck aches from falling asleep in the bus seat instead of going to my bunk. Hail or freezing rain or some kind of bad-weather shit pings off the window near my head, and it’s dark enough the glass just reflects my face. I look tired and old in that half-mirror, circles under my eyes and my cheeks thinned down like they get at the end of a tour.

What’s wrong?

At first, I think maybe it’s the weather. I can feel the bus slide a little as we go through a turn. Maybe I should’ve called off this last leg of the drive, with the forecast being bad, but the driver said he’d be fine, and the end of the line’s so close I can taste it.

I like my band, mostly, even though they’re all older than me and I didn’t get to choose them. I get along okay with the crew. Their hard partying isn’t my problem as long as they leave me out of it. But coming off the stage after that last encore, the peace and solitude of my own place called me so loud it would’ve taken a tornado to keep me from getting us on the road.

The bus steadies, but the feeling of wrong doesn’t go away.

A gasping breath with an odd rattle catches my ear from one of the bunks where the band members sleep. I get up and hurry over there, then stand between the curtained alcoves, listening. My first tour, I thought one of the guys was in trouble and pulled back a curtain, only to find he’d snuck a girl onboard and she was giving him head. She offered to blow me too when she was done, and I slammed the curtain shut, mortified, while he laughed his fool head off.

This sounds different.

I pause, listening, and hear the sound again. Slow, wet, with a gurgle in it, coming from Colby’s bunk. I ease back the corner of the drape. It’s hard to see in the dark, but he’s alone, lying on his back. The smell of vomit and piss hits me and I rip the curtain open.

Colby! He’s pale as shit in the low lights, face wet with crud, breath coming slow and thick. He’s not coughing like he should be with a mouth full of puke.

I shake him by the shoulder, yelling his name, waking the others who grunt and mumble at me. When he doesn’t stir, I try to turn him on his side, recovery position, like I read about after the drummer we had five years ago became a blackout drunk. Colby chokes when I tug his shoulder over, coughs once, which gives me hope, then stops breathing.

Shit! Fuck! I look over my shoulder at the guys getting out of their bunks. Any of you know CPR?!

Why? Dusty, the unofficial leader of the backup band, appears at my shoulder.

He’s not breathing! I swipe in Colby’s slimy mouth with a corner of his sheet, trying to clear his airway. I put my fingers to his neck, and I think I feel his pulse, but I’m not sure it isn’t my own panicked blood throbbing in my fingertips.

I know some, Dusty says. But I ain’t doing mouth-to-mouth on that gross face.

"He’s your friend. As much as he’s anyone’s. Addicts don’t keep friends. When Dusty gives me a blank look, I say, Shit, all right, someone get the driver to stop. Call 911. Can you check his pulse, Dusty?"

I hear voices behind me, trying to do what I asked, someone yelling at the driver to stop right now. Dusty picks up Colby’s arm, feeling his wrist, and starts shaking his head, bleary eyes finally alarmed.

You do the chest thing, I tell Dusty. I’ll do the breathing.

I don’t want to. I dry-heave a little at the smell, but I push Colby back flat and bend over his head, pinching his nose. Then suddenly the bus slides and fishtails. I’m thrown off Colby against the other bunk. There’s a crunch and we’re tilting, slipping, the floor rising to become a wall. I cling to the bunk behind me for all I’m worth as the world spins and crunches, and we come to rest on our side. The lights go out, and in the dark, I can’t even tell where Colby is. Guys are cussing and someone’s coughing, someone’s groaning loudly, I hope one of them is him.

I don’t think I’m hurt, not bad anyway, though my head aches, but someone sounds like they are. And the end of the tour dissolves in disaster.

***

The press conference is my label’s idea, to get ahead of all the rumors. I made them take a blood sample from me at the hospital, even though I wasn’t hurt beyond bruises and a scalp laceration. I needed to show I was clean. So even though Colby ODed and the cops found a bunch of coke in Dusty’s bags, I came out mostly untouched.

To the label, it’s as simple as blaming everything on the band, getting me new back-up, and signing on to record that next album. Make me a hero. Brave country star attempts CPR on band member as his tour bus crashes. My agent’s been spinning the story for all it’s worth.

But I’m so fucking tired. Not just end-of-the-tour tired. Whole-life tired. Merry-go-round of expectations and contracts and performing and kissing ass and playing straight tired.

Poor little ol’ me, with a couple million in the bank, and the label offering a new three-album contract, if this all dies down in my favor.

The ride to stardom’s been everything I dreamed of. I had no idea I’d hate it this bad.

Not all of it. Getting up on stage, playing my music to ten thousand people who hang on every note? That’s a high like no other in the world. Hearing someone say my words got them through a tough time. Jesus, that feeds my soul, like Roy used to say about his farm.

But the shit that comes with it makes me feel like I’m eighty, when I’m only thirty-four.

I sit behind the table, take a sip from my soda. The right brand. They pay me to represent them. The reporters ask questions about the accident, about Colby, did I know he was using.

Drugs are unfortunately part of the music scene. Much like any other industry these days. We see people from all walks of life who start taking drugs to get them through the day, and then spiral out of control. A generous description of Colby, who just liked any high he could get, but how was I to know what made him take that first hit, all those years ago. If I’d known Colby had a bad problem, I’d have tried to help him.

You took a blood test right after the accident. Was that your idea or the label’s? How sure were you it’d be negative?

Mine. I was sure I’d be fine. I never use and I hadn’t managed to start mouth to mouth on him yet, so there was nothing to find. I wanted to simplify the picture. Or protect my ass. Same difference.

A woman asks, What’s next for Trevor Stone? Is a new album in the works? Have you chosen new backing musicians?

I’m about to give her the usual spiel about being in contract negotiations and looking forward to getting back into the studio, when someone from the back calls out, Why didn’t your girlfriend show up at the hospital after the accident? Are you and Nicole still seeing each other?

My eyes blur as I look over there. Nicole was just the latest in a long line of The label wants you to be seen with a pretty girl stand-ins. But no one had told her clearly enough that’s all she was, and she’d gotten clingy and begun making assumptions. I’d needed to be pretty harsh in breaking things off, a week before the accident. I hadn’t been able to face going back to my house and finding her in it. I’d seen her since then, in news stories, claiming her place with the hero but she’d been smart enough not to do it to my face.

I open my mouth to say how, sadly, we aren’t together anymore, and a wave of something, revulsion and truth, comes over me. I say, She wasn’t my girlfriend. She’s a great girl—woman— and I wish her all the best, but I’ve never had a real girlfriend. I’m gay.

Gay. The word echoes around in my head, bouncing off my skull, a thousand times too loud for a single voice. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and the snug denim shirt I’m wearing threatens to strangle my breath. I lace my fingers together under the table to control their shaking.

There’s a pause, and I can almost see all the reporters’ eyes brighten, and their brains pivot to this new revelation. The headlines are writing themselves. Singer Trevor Stone Comes Out as Gay. And the tabloids, no doubt, will spin it as All of Trevor Stone’s Past Girlfriends Were Beards. Or Trevor Stone’s Image All a Lie.

My agent must be choking on his spit. The label’s probably having a heart attack. I should care. But all I feel is numb, like I just stepped out of an iron maiden that’s been squeezing me down and stabbing my heart for years, and the world around me is an unwritten blank.

Questions come flying hard and fast. How long have you been in the closet? Did the label force you to pretend to be straight? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you dating? Did your past girlfriends know you were lying to them?

I have to pull myself together to answer that one. Every woman I went out with heard from me, right from the start, that I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, a relationship, or a life. Just a bit of fun.

But they didn’t know you were gay?

No. And I’m genuinely sorry if any of them imagined they could change my mind about getting serious.

More questions about men, dating, did the label know about me, am I afraid what this’ll do to my career, and on and on. I let the sounds break over me and don’t try to answer. Eventually, in the wake of my silence, the questions die down.

I need to make some kind of statement. Even though all I want is to walk away, that’d kill my career dead. Deader. I try to think, then give up and simply speak from the heart. All I ever wanted to do was sing, from the time I was small. In my house, country was what we heard. Country music spoke to me— the way it turns pain and joy and simple everyday life into something listeners feel in their bones. But country’s not a world that’s kind to gay men. Or anyone LGBTQ.

I take a sip from my soda to wet my throat, out of habit holding the can so the cameras will catch the label. Then I wonder if the soda company will want to be associated with me anymore. Maybe they’d rather I hide their name. I started singing in little dive bars and cafes, anywhere that would let a man with a guitar share his music. And one night, after a great set in a truck-stop bar, a bunch of rednecks decided I looked queer and was coming on to them, and dragged me behind the bar and beat the shit out of me. That’s too personal to share. So’s the man who saved my life, in so many more ways than one.

I saw evidence, plenty of times, of how being gay could kill my career, maybe even risk my safety. So I played it straight, while trying to sing from the heart. I’ve had awesome success. I’m grateful to every fan who bought an album or a song, or came to a show. I love you all. The music was for you. But I’m tired.

I pinch my nose and take a breath. The reporters stay silent, letting me go on, and that’s a gift. Hiding who I am, pretending to be straight, was like being locked in a box with my picture painted on the outside. I could share my music, but nothing that mattered to me could make it in or out. I couldn’t have real friends in my band, for fear of what they’d think or who they’d tell. I couldn’t even sing the songs the way my heart wrote them, because every ‘she’ should’ve really been ‘he.’

A reporter called, "Is Barbed Wire Love about a man?"

I ignore the question. The crash, the death of my bass player, reminded me life is short. If I’d died in that crash, no one would’ve mourned the real me. My songs would’ve lived on, but with that layer of disguise on all of them. I don’t know what comes next. Don’t know if the label will still support me. I guess I’ll find out who my friends are. All I know is, right now, I’m taking real, deep breaths for the first time in ten long years.

After a moment, the questions start up again, but I’ve said everything I’m going to say. I stand, pick up my Stetson that has no rubbing and no sweat stains and put it on, tug the brim down low to shade my face. I say, Thank you all for coming, and head out the back door.

The security guy my label sends to events like these is behind me, and he stops in the doorway, so if the reporters were thinking about following me, they might think twice. I walk down the hall, not sure where to go. Someone in a suit rushes to my elbow, yapping about meetings and damage control, and I tune him out, same as the reporters. The door to the parking lot’s ahead, and I push it open. The sky’s cloudy, a chill wind whips rain around us, and the suit guy hesitates.

Good. I plunge forward, digging in my pocket, and get the truck started before he can decide about leaving the shelter of the doorway. Security lets me out of the lot. In the mirror, I see suit guy standing there watching me leave, my bodyguard hurrying toward him, and wonder what will happen. But I only wonder in a dull, uninterested way.

I hit the freeway, driving on autopilot. I wonder where I should go. My house isn’t far, and odds are the paparazzi won’t be there yet. But going there feels more like stepping into a prison than a refuge. Good bet the paps will be outside soon, and I’ll have to cross a gauntlet just to go to the store. I pass my exit without slowing down.

My phone rings and chimes, and I power it off. Don’t need GPS for this trip.

I-70 runs west a long way, through Missouri and into Kansas. It’s not a particularly pretty drive, and not improved by the steady rain that seems to dog my path. I stop at fast-food joints and take the chance to stretch my legs, but pretty soon my restlessness drives me onward.

Darkness falls somewhere outside Columbia. Spring’s approaching, but the days are still short. I should probably pull in and stop for the night, get some sleep and some perspective. But something in me is scared to lose momentum. If I hesitate now, I might think better of this whole drive. My future feels poised on the edge of a knife, and I can’t lose my balance now. I drive on.

The rain ends. That’s something. I’m passing the signs to places I’ve played, towns where I swaggered in, guitar in hand, and made them listen to my songs. They all blur into one mess of before and after and I leave them in my rearview, the pavement humming under the truck’s tires.

Gas is cheaper here. Must be the taxes, or something.

The rain starts up again.

I take a corner too fast and my tires slide on the damp pavement. My heart tries to pound its way out of my mouth and I pull over on the shoulder, turning on my blinkers. Before I can get my shit together, a passing cop pulls a U-turn and comes up behind me, lights flashing. I cut the stereo, roll down my window, and wait.

He takes his time, but eventually approaches my side. He’s younger than I expected, pushing his hat back to peer in the window. Hey, it is you. Trevor Stone, for real. I thought it’d be a same-name thing, even with the Tennessee plates.

Howdy. I country it up a bit, accentuate the twang. All good ol’ boys here.

Everything okay? You out of gas?

No, sir. Just takin’ a bit of a break. I’ve been on the road a few hours, and need a stretch.

Don’t you call me sir. He laughs. This isn’t a great spot to stop. There’s a bar a couple miles down the road. Closed at this hour, but you might pull in the lot for a bit.

No, I fucking might not. Definitely not there. But I say, Thanks. Might do that.

Would you, um, sign an autograph for me, before you go?

Sure, let me get something, Officer…? I reach into the glove compartment. This isn’t