“About getting any or not getting any?” Thomas asked.
“Getting.”
“Tell me that it’s that hot little singer you had relations with over the summer.”
“Nicely put.”
“Answer.”
“Yes, with her. She’s been avoiding me for months, but yesterday her grandpa collapsed and was sent to the hospital. Her friend got me to go out to her farm.”
“Forced you, I bet. You were fighting it the entire time,” Thomas teased.
“Shut up. So anyway, things happened. Things I shouldn’t have let happen.” He was letting the guilt get to him about sleeping with her. He wanted to date her and, yes, sleep with her. But with his job, he knew he shouldn’t be sleeping with her. And yet here he was, driving toward her place.
“Rusty, you’re in a little town, and you’re supposed to be asexual. It’s hard when you’re twenty-eight and have the hots for a sexy little woman.” Thomas understood completely, even if he had never been in this type of situation. His love life was in the open for anyone to see.
“Very hard.” He blew out a breath.
“Do you want me to forgive you? Do you want me to say way to go? Do you want me to tell you that you made a mistake?” Thomas asked.
“I want you to tell me that what I feel is real and that she feels it too. And maybe that it’s okay.”
“I will tell you what your dad would tell you: God has a plan for you, and you don’t know what it is. You just have to go with it.”
“She doesn’t believe in God,” he told his friend.
“From what you’ve said, she believes in him, she just thinks he’s abandoned her. She doesn’t see that God has a plan for her too. Hers is just harder than others. It’ll make her stronger in the end,” Thomas said. When Ruston needed real advice, Thomas was his man.
“You’re good with advice. That’s why I called you. Thanks,” Ruston told him.
“I hope I helped. Say hi to Hazel when you get home.” Thomas chuckled into the phone.
“How do you know I was going to see her?”
“Because I would be if it were me.” Thomas was a player, so Ruston didn’t really believe he would be settling for one woman. Not any time soon.
“I’m not going home; I’m going to her place.”
“Ruston, homeisher. You’ll realize it soon enough.” Thomas hung up on him. For a guy with a new girl on his arm every week, Thomas was quite the romantic.
Ruston quietly walked into the house, just then wondering if her grandma was home. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. What would she think of him sneaking into her granddaughter’s bed in the middle of the night? That thought alone should send him home.
It might have if he hadn’t spotted Hazel lying on the couch. She was reading a book with only a lamp for light. Well, she wasn’t reading it anymore; it was lying over her chest as if she had fallen asleep reading it.
Quietly, he walked over to her. She looked younger and innocent, sleeping there. She was in a T-shirt and shorts in the warm house. Picking up the book, he read the cover. ‘Serial Killers’ was all it said, and he looked back down at the innocent sleeping face. Closing the book, he thought maybe they should spend more time talking—he had no idea where her reading interests lay.
Carefully he picked her up into his arms. She was light and snuggled into him as he carried her up the stairs. Setting her in the bed, he pulled back the covers and slid her under them.
Glancing at John Henry, he reached into the crib and touched his head, touched the hair he had inherited from his mom. The boy was easy to love, like his mother. But John Henry was quick to return the love he was shown.
What he should’ve done was leave. She was sleeping, and he didn’t want to disturb her. Instead, he stripped down to his underwear, carefully climbed into bed with her, and pulled her to him, so her body fit into his. Ruston let out a sigh. This was what he had been waiting for all day, just to feel her close to him.
CHAPTER15
Hazel had beena little late getting to Ruth’s house for book club. The day had gotten away from her, and John Henry had been crabby for most of it. Today would have been a day to have stayed in bed. Of course, she had thought about staying in bed all day when she had opened her eyes to see Ruston looking at her. The moment her eyes opened, he ran a finger over her cheek, like he had been waiting to do it for hours.
She had trailed her hand up his bare chest until it ran up his neck and into his hair. The sun had barely started to rise as she pressed her body to his and lifted her head to kiss his neck. He made a noise at her touch, and then his eyes went to John Henry on the other side of her.