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I shrug. “I asked, didn’t I?”
“I think someone really needs to break that guy’s bones. I think he deserved every bit of what Davey gave him and more. I mean, maybe what happened tonight will keep him from doing the same thing to another girl, and you know, even if it’s only just one—well, I’ll sleep better knowing.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ruth
I don’t mean to do it. I mean, yeah, sure, I obviously got into my car and drove the eight miles it takes to reach his house. Even so, I did not plan on doing it. Some things you just can’t help, and the occasional slip-up where Cole Wheeler is concerned seems to be a weakness I can’t shake.
Cole lives in a log cabin at the end of a long dirt road on property that was once owned by his great-grandfather. It was farm land back then, that for a long time hadn’t been tended to. When it was passed down to Cole, he cleaned it up and built the cabin with his own two hands.
I stand at the door for a second, and then I take a seat on the porch swing. Cole will have heard me come up the long gravel drive, and also, I can’t bring myself to knock. When the door finally opens and the porch light flips on, he steps out and looks at me, almost like he isn’t surprised. He is shirtless, and behind him all the lights in the cabin are turned down.
For a moment I feel stupid, like maybe there is someone else here, someone who’s already beaten me to the punch of warming Cole’s bed. It wouldn’t surprise me. It could just as easily be Gina from the paper, or any one of his regulars. Regulars he pretends he doesn’t have. Cole may be discreet, but the rest of this town likes to talk.
He pushes the door open fully, reaches out, and beckons me in. I exhale a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
I’ve come for sex, and he knows this, but there’s something else. Something more. I need someone to talk to. Someone who will understand. Someone who will tell me the truth.
That’s the deal, even if it’s unspoken. I get a friendly ear, and he gets laid.
“Wanna drink?” he asks, but that’s not why I’m here, so I say I haven’t got the time.
He seems in no hurry, which is pretty much Cole in a nutshell. He’s never been in a hurry for anything, not in all his life, and I don’t think that’s about to change now. His place is neat and tidy. He doesn’t own much, unless you count a lot of dusty old paperbacks. I scan one of the stacks near the fireplace. Heinlein, Levin, Orwell, Burgess, and lots of H.G. Wells. Cole’s always been sort of a cowboy at heart with the brains to back it up. “Do you actually read these or are you just using ‘em to keep the fire going?”
“It gets lonely out here.”
“I’m sure it does.” I pull several from the stack and study the covers. “Which is your favorite?”
“It’s hard to choose just one. I like them all.”
“I bet you do.” His gaze makes me feel uncomfortable, like the room has suddenly grown ten times hotter. “But gun to your head—if you had to choose?”
He walks over and looks over what I have in my hand. “This one,” he says. “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I thought you’d do anything for me.”
“That’s not the same thing as giving you anything.”
“Isn’t it?”
Cole gives me a look. It’s the same one he always gives when he’s had enough conversation. He’s a man of few words and has been since we were kids. I watch him closely as he puts on music, the usual old country songs that make me long for simpler times. “Do you play this for all your women?”
“Just you, Ruth Channing,” he tells me in a way that almost makes me believe him.
“It’s the melancholy, isn’t it?”
“Come,” he says, reaching for my hand. “Dance with me.”
And so I do.
