Rainbow Snippets: Held Close to My Heart

This week for Rainbow Snippets, I’m snipping from my June bookversary story, Held Close to My Heart, which I can scarcely believe has been published for 2 years!

Held Close to my Heart and all my stories are included in the Father’s Day weekend 45% off ebook sale at JMS Books until Monday, June 17^th.

Authors who take part in Rainbow Snippets each weekend are encouraged to post a few lines from one of their stories on their blog and then link back to the group post on Facebook. I always enjoy joining in with Rainbow Snippets, especially to read and comment on everyone else’s choice of snippet.

Held Close to My Heart is set in 17^th century Oxfordshire and relates the love story between two very different young men. Luke is the clever, bookish dutiful son who runs the family farm with his disabled father while Jem, his boyhood best friend and lover since adulthood, is a social butterfly who spends much of the year in London at the decadent court of King Charles II.

This is a story of miscommunication, told from Luke’s point of view as Jem spends the summer at home, along with some visitors from the royal court. Luke is desperately in love with Jem and jealous of any rivals for his attention, but cannot bring himself to admit his feelings in case Jem rejects him.

This unresolved tension inevitably affects their close friendship over the course of the summer. This snippet shows a brief respite between them when Jem offers to help Luke’s family with their harvest. After a long day in the fields, the two young men go for a swim in the nearby river.

~~~

We were both laughing as Jem rose in the water, his hair clinging halfway down his back, rivulets streaming over his body, and droplets of water in his eyelashes.

“I think we’re soaked through enough now,” he joked as we waded to the shore.

Naked, we lay contentedly side by side, letting the sun and the breeze do their work. After a while, Jem knelt to wring out his wet hair, leaning over the edge of the riverbank, squeezing out the excess moisture from his long mane. As I watched, he wrinkled his nose at me, “Damned impractical,” he said, tossing the damp strands over his shoulder, shaking his head from side to side like a wet dog attempting to dry its coat.

I deliberately ran my hand through my shorter hair as though to demonstrate a superior style, “You should crop it like mine, then you can wear a fancy wig like a proper courtier,” I said. In reply, Jem casually bent further over the water and scooping up a handful, he threw it over my nearly dry form.

“Wretch,” I laughed, playfully reaching out to grab him in a mock fight, but with ease of long practice, he leaned backwards out of my grasp.

“Can’t catch me,” he teased as I lunged for him again, and he swerved away, as supple as a snake.

Then to my surprise, he halted, allowing himself to be caught, and we fell together, my superior weight on top of him, pinning him to the grassy bank.

“You lose! What’s your forfeit?” I asked in triumph.

“A kiss,” he smiled up at me, eyes as blue as a cloudless sky.