Workin' on the Railroad by Deirdre O'Dare
www.ambeallure.com/WorkinOnRailroad
Sep 2010 release

Blurb: Roane Wellman only intends to work one summer on railroad maintenance to pay for his next semester of college after his party guy ways cause his grandfather to stop supporting his schooling. In a summer of hard work, adventure and danger, he matures and finds a new course for his life. Before the season ends, he knows he’s meant to be workin’ on the railroad as he fights to build a career and a partnership that just might last for the rest of his life.


Alden Prescott is a loner, content to operate his big crane and shrug off the added responsibilities of being a gang foreman. However, his current foreman is a drunkard and so close to worthless that Alden ends up doing a lot of the functions he has tried to avoid. Although he’s strongly drawn to the handsome new summer hire, memories of a past tragedy make him afraid to pursue the relationship. What will it take to convince him that Roane is not going to let him repeat past mistakes? And what will happen when the current foreman winds up busted for his illicit drug use? Workin’ on the railroad packs a lot of danger, challenge and some very hot times—days at work and nights at play.

Excerpt: 
Set up: After a close call that was almost a bad accident, most of the men have left for the weekend. Roane did not and he and Alden went to town to get dinner. They've been talking and getting acquainted--and feeling an attraction simmering under the surface but ignoring it.

Roane's momentum carried him forward, hard up against Alden's body. He probably outweighed the other man by twenty pounds or more, even if Alden had two or three inches of height on him. Alden staggered back a half step and twisted to brace his back against the side of the truck.


For long seconds, Roane leaned into Alden's hard spare frame. He could feel the other man's heartbeat, gaining speed just as his own was. Alden's breath whistled out in a puff, warm across Roane's face. Roane raised his arms, meaning to push himself upright again; at least, that's what he thought he was going to do. But that wasn't how it happened.

His right hand found a spot on Alden's upper chest, just below the shoulder and flattened there. He twisted his left out of Alden's loose clasp, felt Alden's fingers slide down from his elbow to his wrist and then fall away. An instant later, Alden raised his hand again, this time to slide it around behind Roane's head, fingers digging into the thick hair at the base of his skull.

Half a breath later, Alden's mouth crashed onto Roane's in an urgent kiss. Roane's left arm snaked around Alden's waist and welded their bodies even closer together. He forgot to think, forgot to breathe, forget everything in the whole world except the contact, chest to chest, thighs to thighs, stiffening cocks surging against confining denim, and lips clinging, twisting, tasting and claiming.

So abruptly Roane could not either respond or resist, Alden shifted his right hand to Roan's shoulder and brought his left up to add to the sudden hard shove--back, away, apart.

"What the hell's happening here?" he grated out, echoing Roane's earlier exclamation. "I know you weren't agreeable to Flannery's games, so what's this about?"

Roane shook his head, trying to claw his way through the cobwebs of lust and confusion. "I don't know, Prescott--Alden." The sound of the other man's name on his tongue seemed both strange and right. "And no, I wouldn't play Flannery's games for...well, the starting quarterback slot on the Lobos' lineup and a blank check for the rest of my education!"

"So you're not gay?"

"I'm not saying that. I guess I just haven't quite been sure, but I'm leaning more that way all the time. I just didn't figure you were. This evening's been a crazy trip--I'm lost. Something's happening. I think I might like it, but I'm scared shitless, too."

Alden laughed, a deep, ragged chuckle. "Yeah, I'm gay...always knew it from the time I was a kid--one reason I don't go home anymore. Folks don't approve. But I'm not a predator like Flannery and I'm particular about who I hook up with. You caught my eye at the start, but I wasn't going to push anything. If it was to be, it would happen in its own time. Has it?"

The blunt question caught Roane off guard for all he should have seen it coming. "I--yeah, I think so..."

Alden laughed again, softer this time. "Go down to your own bunk and sleep on it, Roane. There's no rush. We may both need a little more time to think this through. I'll warn you though--I don't do one-night stands or blow and go or anything like that. Some guys laugh. They tell me that's pussy-talk, to want to care about the other person, but if you don't you may as well just jack off alone or stick your schlong in a bucket of lard--a real one, I mean, not something like Flannery."

Roane had to laugh then, easing the tension. "You're a damn wise man, Alden. I knew that from the first...knew you weren't ordinary. I spotted you for the leader, the one who ought to be foreman anyway, that first evening. And in reality you are--nobody looks to Flannery for anything but a ration of shit. If they need help, advice, even an ass-chewing, you're the one to do it."

Alden cuffed him on the shoulder. "Get on with you, boy. You don't need to butter me up. I like you already and when the time is right, I'll show you just how much. Get out of here now before I change my mind."

He turned away then and started for his own door. Roane hesitated a few seconds, reluctant now to end the evening, although he knew it was right. For here and now, it was right.

There'll be another time, the right time. He liked the inherent promise of that very much.

* * * *

Alden let himself into the car, stumbled to the beat-up couch and dropped onto it.

Thank the gods Dom is gone. He'd want to know what's wrong, and I don't think I could tell him. Shit, I've stepped in it again, right up to my fucked-up eyeballs. What did I just do? Why? What was I thinking? How in the depths of hell did I let this happen?

Life was beginning to look like his luck had totally gone south--at least as far as keeping a clear head and a secure heart went. Common sense told him he'd better clamp down right now and stop thinking with his cock if he didn't want to watch history repeat itself. No way could he survive a repeat of that summer eight years ago. He'd end up slitting his throat or blowing his brains out. For just a few crazy minutes, he'd let himself forget...