Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Born for You
    Born for You
    Born for You
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Born for You

    By M.D. Stewart

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A gay historian inherits a house haunted by a sexy ghost who’s a lot more alive than he expects.


    Josiah: I survived the Civil War only to be murdered thirty-eight years later. Too angry and too bitter to move on, I haunted the land where my blood was shed. I found no peace until Matson Ashby came into my life. I watched him grow into adulthood, never imagining how sexy he’d become. Now I want him for my own, but I’m a ghost, and he’s human.

    Matson: I was born and raised in rural Prenter’s Bottom, North Carolina, on the land my family farmed for more than a hundred years. Being gay in my little town? Well, let’s just say it’s not been easy. When I inherit my grandmother’s estate, I must decide whether to sell or stay where I’m not welcome. The problem is compounded by the ghost of a murdered man who tugs at my heartstrings. Is he real, or just a figment of my imagination?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChangeling Press
    Release dateMay 2, 2019
    Born for You

    Read more from M.D. Stewart

    Related to Born for You

    Titles in the series (5)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    LGBTQIA+ Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Left To Lose

      Jul 10, 2022

      Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore. The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always

      11 min read

    • Article

      Senior Moments

      Dec 1, 2021

      Senior Moments
      1 min read

    • Article

      What We Talk About When We Talk About Reincarnation

      Apr 10, 2023

      My boyfriend, Mike, was talking, just really going on like he was delivering a lecture in one of his economics classes. He’s twice my age, so he thinks that gives him the right. Our friends call us Michael squared when they think they’re being cute,

      18 min read

    • Article

      Snatched From The Street

      Oct 1, 2020

      Climbing on his bike, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling felt very grown up. It was 9pm on October 22, 1989, and he was about to cycle down to the local convenience store to rent a video with his younger brother Trevor, 10, and their friend Aaron, 11. His

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Book of Loki

      Mar 12, 2018

      The Book of Loki
      20 min read

    • Article

      Where Are They Now?

      Apr 20, 2020

      Where Are They Now?
      2 min read

    • Article

      Monster Fun

      Oct 9, 2022

      Monster Fun
      2 min read

    • Article

      What Will We Do for Fun Now?

      Dec 15, 2020

      What Will We Do for Fun Now?
      23 min read

    • Article

      Exodus

      Sep 15, 2018

      My exodus occurred after years wandering the wilderness of my hometown. For bread to live, for bread to leave, I worked a part-time gig at the Oregonian’s downtown insert facility, stacking pallet after pallet of inky-ass newspapers. The day in quest

      15 min read

    • Article

      Letter to My Son

      Jul 4, 2015

      Letter to My Son
      30 min read

    • Article

      The Inherited Imagination

      Aug 18, 2020

      The Inherited Imagination
      9 min read

    • Article

      When You Need The Money

      Oct 1, 2021

      When You Need The Money
      7 min read

    • Article

      Notes on Etiquette

      Mar 1, 2019

      Notes on Etiquette
      10 min read

    • Article

      Nineteen And Pregnant In 1969

      Nov 1, 2022

      I hadn’t been religious for some time, but I prayed, God, please don’t let me die. The post Nineteen and Pregnant in 1969 appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      From Beyond the Grave: Interviews with Dead Authors

      Jul 26, 2019

      Agatha Christie, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, and Oscar Wilde on the secrets they kept and what they think of life in 2019. The post From Beyond the Grave: Interviews with Dead Authors appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Cycles

      Nov 10, 2022

      His online profile was promising: good hair, straight teeth, college degree. And he was nice-looking too, in his photo anyway, standing on a clifftop with the sun rising over his welldefined, muscular shoulder. He was attractive enough, the kind of u

      18 min read

    • Article

      The Courage To Be Happy

      Feb 1, 2023

      MARRIAGE and columns have this in common: you tend to repeat yourself. More than once in these pages, I have quoted the New Yorker’s legendary film critic Pauline Kael. After President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 she wrote: ‘I live in a rather

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Born for You

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Born for You - M.D. Stewart

      imagination?

      Chapter One

      Josiah

      I’ve been stuck on the mortal plane for over a century now.

      I was a kid when the war started, and I thought I owed it to my family to fight. My older brother joined, all my cousins, even my father wanted to join. Pride and stupidity accounted for too many of my decisions, though I was not alone in those sins.

      Can you imagine it? A child of fifteen comes to join your army, and you accept? The truth was, no one cared that I was too young to shave, much less make such a life-altering choice.

      Like so many, I was full of idealism and family-fueled patriotism. When I joined, I had grandiose dreams of riding a horse into battle, shooting the damn Yanks, living in tents with my fellow soldiers, and coming home a hero.

      What I got were long marches over rough terrain, little to no food, kids like me dying from dysentery, and people shooting at me. There were nights it was too hot, too rainy, or I was too afraid to sleep. I knew if I survived, I’d come home a different person. I wasn’t sure I’d like the man I’d become.

      But that wasn’t the worst of it.

      Just before I turned seventeen, I was fighting the Yanks in Tennessee when my legs got knocked out from under me. The pain in my right thigh was almost more than I could bear. I looked down to see blood running down my dirty pants.

      I passed out only to wake up with a Yankee doctor standing over me. Someone had shoved a stick in my mouth and tied my hands to the cot. The doctor was wiping the blade of a saw.

      I spat out the stick and began to plead with him not to amputate. I babbled I’d rather die than lose my leg. I meant it. My mama and daddy would need me to recover from the war, and I couldn’t be of any help crippled.

      He never said a word to me. He only nodded and dropped the saw. I don’t know where he went, or why he even cared enough to do as I asked. Maybe he was just tired of the blood and screaming. What did he care if a Johnny Reb died from gangrene?

      It was just weeks later we heard that the war was over. Most in the prison camp couldn’t believe General Lee had given up.

      All I cared about was getting home. I missed my mama, and I wanted to have her tend to my leg.

      No one cared how I got home, or if I was too sick or injured to travel. Riddled with fever and pain as I was, I’m not sure how I made it. From what I was told, I passed out on the road. An old man loaded me up on his wagon and took me home. Mama said it was a guardian angel, but I tend to think it was someone looking for food or money.

      Mama nursed me back to health as best she could. The house and land were bare as winter, our horses, cows, and crops all gone. Yet there were plenty willing to kill for even as little as we had left.

      Daddy did the best he could to keep most of the marauders at bay, but eventually, he ran out of ammunition. It was easier to hide from the thieves. All we had left were my mother’s few jewels, which I buried in a tobacco tin.

      Soon the carpetbaggers rolled around. We lost the house because we had no money to pay the jacked-up taxes.

      And then it got worse.

      In the army, I’d had an experimental shot to protect me from smallpox. Sadly, my parents didn’t have that luxury and the disease struck them hard and fast. Starved and lost in a different world, I think that’s what finally killed my folks -- losing everything. Not just the illness, but having no reason to live any longer.

      I stayed on the grounds, hiding, biding my time. I became a myth, a scary story parents would tell their children. Eventually, I built a little one-room cabin on the edge of the old family property. The people who owned the land were either too afraid of me or didn’t consider me a threat.

      One night, I was in my cabin, sitting by the oil lamp, watching the flame and enjoying the rotgut moonshine I made.

      That’s when they kicked in the front door.

      By then, I was in my fifties, and my war wound was infected again. I didn’t even move as my killers charged into my cabin.

      All these years later, I vividly remember the last moments of my human life -- the three men, the pistol, and the pain of the bullet slamming into my chest. I knew I had minutes left to live as the barrel of that gun leveled at my head.

      For a moment, I thought I saw another man standing in the doorway, one the others did not. His eyes filled with loss and horror as I took my last breath. For a moment, I thought how handsome he was. His pale face and red beard and hair held my attention as the world went black.

      * * *

      Matson

      The closer I got to the interstate exit ramp, the more I felt a stabbing, burning pain in my gut. I used to love going to my old hometown, but no more.

      I moved from Prenter’s Bottom, North Carolina when I hit eighteen and headed for college. I hadn’t realized how stifled I was in that little rural town until I made it to campus. It seemed I could breathe for the first time.

      That, and I could explore my suspicion I was gay. And boy, did I do some exploring. I’d had no idea how sexually repressed I had been until I didn’t have to be anymore.

      My first experience left me feeling high for days. Having a man’s hand touching me, giving me pleasure, feeling sharp stubble against my thighs, it was freeing.

      Once I got a taste, I never looked back.

      But I had to stuff all that back into the closet when I’d go home. I hated living a double life. I hated hiding who I was around my friends and family. They all saw me as the same high school jock who had excelled in football, basketball, and track. I saw myself as a lying, pathetic loser.

      It wasn’t all that unexpected that I’d do something stupid to out myself. Freud might have said it was an unconscious decision, but I’d say it was one too many beers and an overzealous Mary Anne Watney. She’d been trying to get into my pants all night when I finally reached my limit. Could I have just walked away? Yes. Did I? Nope.

      After slapping her hand away from my crotch for the millionth time, I finally blurted out, Even if I liked vaginas, I wouldn’t be interested in yours.

      It’s amazing how quiet a rural bar can get when someone says something like that. I think even the jukebox stopped.

      I thought about playing it off, pretending what I said came out wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to hide anymore. I turned to the room and announced to no one in particular that, yep, I was gay, then

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1