Chapter 1

Rhett

One of my favorite things to do was to read under a tree. There was something special about the dappled light falling through the branches onto the pages, wind and birdsong the only soundtrack. I could sink into the fantastical worlds of witches and magic, and forget my daily worries.

Hansel preferred modern distractions and a faster-paced world, but I liked my quiet alone time. It was probably sad having my younger brother as my only friend, but living further out from town and not having gone to school in years meant I was fairly isolated. That and I spent most of my free time now caring for Father.

All modes of escape came to an end eventually. And the world came crashing back in, and I was ripped from my safe space in the clouds in an instant.

"Rhettel," a shrill voice called out, making a mockery of the nickname Hansel called me after years of being Gretel.

Helga treated me like she was the evil stepmother in my fairytales, and I was Cinderfella. Her personal servant and errand boy.

Whatever she needed me for, she would only get louder and more annoying if I waited. I tucked an old receipt into my book to hold my place and got up from my grassy spot in the nearby woods. She wasn't very patient, so I picked up my pace.

Helga was all too good at punishing me in new and inventive ways. Oops, looks like we're out of bread, guess you only get beans for dinner. Or more recently, she'd taken to hiding my books or helpfully returning them to the library before I was done reading them.

When Father married our stepmother, everything truly changed…

He started wasting away. Not just physically, but also mentally. The doctors had no answers for us. Helga seemed to suck the life out of him, and I felt similarly exhausted by her almost daily.

Our cabin by the woods was provided by Holzhauer, where Helga had begged for her job back after Father was injured. With her ample chest and pouty lips, Helga was good at getting men to do what she wanted. I didn't care how she secured our home. I was just glad we got to stay.

Even if it meant she stayed as well.

The short walk home had me passing a smaller cabin owned by the same company, where Helga was waiting for me. She couldn't even wait for me to walk the last bit of distance to our house.

"There you are." Helga sighed as if I'd taken more than a minute to appear.

She stood with her hands in fists at her hips, and was dressed in a too-tight red dress. I was too surprised by Helga's outfit to notice she wasn't glaring at me like I expected. Normally I'd be getting an earful about abandoning my father even though I knew Hansel was home doing homework and looking over him.

A shadow overtook her smaller frame and I lifted my eyes. Then kept going.

The mammoth figure towered over us, blocking out the setting sun, and I was stunned speechless when I saw him in the light. Dark blonde hair was cropped short on his head, his beard thick and framing red lips. A red plaid shirt showed a peek of chest hair and his trim waist was accentuated by dark blue jeans. I had the urge to lean into the bear of a man and smell him.

He stepped around Helga and held out his hand. "Hello, I'm Jakob Braun. The new woodcutter at Holzhauer."

On instinct, I shook his hand, Jakob's engulfing mine in rough warmth. Our gazes met as he held on a beat longer than necessary, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. I wanted to see him smile with his whole face.

"Hi, I'm Rhett," I finally replied, still holding his hand. "Nice to meet you, Jakob."

"Did you hear what he said?" Helga cut in with her overly-sweet voice I knew meant trouble.

Letting go of him, with reluctance, I thought back to everything Jakob Braun had said. Panic struck me. "Wait, new woodcutter?"

"Yes." Jakob smiled politely, but it didn't reach his eyes this time, possibly sensing the shift in my mood. "I just moved here from Nordschwarzwald in the Black Forest. Your mother was showing me the cabin."

"Not my mother–" I said at the same time Helga protested, "I'm not old enough to be their mother!"

She was almost two decades older than me, so that wasn't true, but I wasn't going to argue the point in front of the man sent to replace my father.

"Which cabin?" I had to ask, praying we weren't being put out on our asses without a pot to piss in.

"This one." Jakob pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the one-room structure behind him and Helga.

It was bare timber, unlike ours, which was painted red, and hadn't been rented for more than a weekend since I was young. I sighed with relief that even though Holzhauer seemed to think Father was never coming back, we didn't have to leave.

The lumber company paid me to clean their office and some of their properties, including the small cabin we stood in front of, but we somehow never had enough to make ends meet.

The implications of us still not having enough money and being faced with the reality of Father never getting better had my head spinning.

"Well, it was nice to meet you," I repeated, internally rolling my eyes at myself. Jakob was too good-looking to think straight in front of. "I'm going to go make dinner."

"Set an extra plate for Jakob," Helga instructed as I rushed away. "We're feeding him until he gets settled."

Great, that meant nothing for Father or me. Judging by his size, Jakob likely ate enough for two. Father was mostly reduced to broth fed to him, though he was rarely hungry, but I still tried at least twice a day to get fluids and nutrients into him.

We had the ingredients to make a stew if I didn't save the broth for Father, and I set about it, all the time aware of Helga flirting with Jakob through the kitchen window. To his credit, he didn't seem to be interested and crossed his arms when she touched his chest.

While dinner heated and I baked a loaf of bread, I took my fill of the sexy man. He looked at least a half decade older than me, though I didn't take testosterone regularly and hadn't grown much body hair. His beard might give him an older appearance, but no way was he even thirty.

The truth was, all I'd ever do was look. I was only twenty, and had yet to date. The small, forested town of Kleinholz wasn't queer-friendly.

People saw Germany as progressive, but the rural parts were not at all. I was lucky I got my name and gender change along with top surgery before Helga came along. She wouldn't have been supportive.

Relegating Jakob to a fantasy and knowing he was way out of my league helped a little, but I still barely spoke throughout dinner.

How was I going to live next to the man?