Second Chance Love (Heaven Hill Book 6) (23 page)

“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” Tyler asked, swinging his arm around her shoulder and clasping his hands together at her collar bone. “What if this kid has other people out there who would like to find her?”

“That’s why I called the attorney for CRISIS. This is on the up and up, Tyler. We will look for a next of kin. If there isn’t one, then we’ll deal with it as it comes. Until we find out for sure what we’re dealing with, she will be taken care of. That’s what we’re here for, even though we’ve never been called to be in a placement situation. If Rooster thinks we should do this, then we should. I feel that in my heart”

He sighed heavily into her hair. He had to ask the one question that was burning at the back of his mind. “Okay, then my real question is, can you handle this? What if they do find a relative and the baby goes back?”

“It will be hard, but I have a good feeling about this Tyler. I feel like things happen for a reason, and there was a reason that Rooster and Layne found this child today, of all days. There was a reason they called us, and there was definitely a reason that CRISIS is full and can’t take any more people, no matter how little they are. This will work out fine,” she assured him.

It was hard to trust that things would be fine, especially after they’d gone over a full year, each month hoping that she would be pregnant, and that positive pregnancy test never came. She’d stopped coming to him when it was negative or when her period would come. She’d stopped crying to him about it, and while he wanted to ask her what was going on in her head, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. There was still a part of him that wondered if she blamed him, if she thought that he was the reason the two of them couldn’t have children. They’d undergone every test imaginable. Nothing was wrong with either of them. It just wasn’t meant to be right now, that’s what they kept telling themselves.

“You okay?” she asked, running her hand along his arm.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Just wondering what she looks like.” It was becoming easier to lie to her, to tell her what he thought she wanted or needed to hear. There was a part of him that worried about that. He’d never lied to her before, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her all the things he wanted to about their lack of a child. He felt like he would put their relationship into a much harder place. Instead, he smiled, nodded, and went on about his business. It wasn’t a question of love. He loved her more than he’d ever loved another person in his life, and he would die if he didn’t have her to share his life with, but he wanted to give her everything. Until they had the missing piece, they wouldn’t have everything.

“Is that them?” she asked as she saw a trail of gravel dust coming up the drive.

“Probably, we really need to see about getting the driveway paved,” he mumbled. It had been something that had been on his to-do list forever, or so it seemed.

“Not right now.” She smacked him as they made their way out of the house and onto the front porch.

Layne and Rooster came to a stop, both getting out of the truck. Layne had his arms full of the stuff he’d found that the baby might need, Rooster carried the car seat.

“She’s asleep right now,” he told them, handing it over to Meredith. “But I’m not sure for how long. When she did wake up, she was very disoriented, and we’re not sure how old she is. There’s baby food in the bag, so we’re assuming she’s no longer bottle-fed, but we don’t know for sure.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Meredith assured them. In her time volunteering with the CRISIS center, she had become accustomed to working with whatever information she had. She was good at observing and figuring out on her own what people needed and what needed to be done. It was something she’d worked very hard at doing.

“We think her name is Adalynn,” Layne said as he handed the things over to Tyler. “That’s the name embroidered on the diaper bag and on the car seat, but we weren’t able to find a last name.”

Tyler took the stuff he was handed and started taking it into the house.

“I was worried about bringing her here ’cause I don’t want you to get too attached,” Rooster told her. “But I knew if anyone could love this child, it would be the two of you.”

“We’ll take care of her, and I will look for next of kin, just like I’m supposed to. We’ll do this by the book, Rooster. I promise.” She reached over to hug him. They’d done work together at the CRISIS center that they couldn’t tell other people about, and they knew each other well.

“I know, but I felt the need to lay it out there again. Just in case. You know me; I have to cover all my bases.”

“I know,” she laughed. “But we’ll take good care of her.” Meredith looked down at the baby that slept peacefully in the car seat. Her heart squeezed slightly in her chest and she breathed a sigh of relief. This was one child that wouldn’t be out on the streets tonight, one that would have a warm bed to sleep in and a safe place to rest. Those were the most important things to her, and she wouldn’t stop until she’d helped as many as she could.

“I know you will,” he told them; Tyler had come back out to stand beside her. Reaching out, he shook Tyler’s hand and then reached down, running a finger down the baby’s cheek. “I hope to see her again sometime.”

“I’m almost positive that you will.” Meredith waved at them. “The two of you better get going. It’s getting dark.”

Rooster and Layne made their way back to his truck. He started it, put it in drive, and took off towards the clubhouse. The faster he dropped off Layne the quicker he could be at the one place he wanted to be more than anything—Roni’s arms.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

R
oni was worried. Not thirty minutes ago she’d gotten a call from Rooster, and he’d not sounded like himself. It had been a long time since she’d heard his voice take the tone it’d taken while she was on the phone with him. He’d specifically asked to meet her out at their swimming hole. He’d asked her to bring a case of beer and a change of clothes.

She parked her car next to the pool of water and wondered whether she should get out and wait for him or stay there. It was late August, but in south central Kentucky they had just hit their stride. What had started out as a cool summer for the most part had turned hot and humid. It was hard to breathe, and she’d heard more than one person at the shop refer to it as feeling like the armpit of Satan.

Oh hell, she was going to be swimming anyway, what did it matter if she got a little sweaty before that happened? She got out, thinking of the last time they had been here. It seemed like so much had happened in such a short amount of time. That was always how it seemed to go with them. They were balls to the wall in everything they did. She leaned against her car and listened closely, she thought she heard someone approaching. When she turned, she saw Rooster’s truck making its way towards her. He stopped beside her car and cut the ignition.

“Hey,” she called to him as he got out and walked over to her. Her breath caught as she got a good look. He was wearing a pair of worn jeans, a tight white T-shirt covered his body, and he had flip flops on his feet. It looked like he’d either been really hot or just gotten out of the shower because his hair was a little wet around the collar.

“Hey,” he said back as he made his way over to her and picked her up in his arms, twirling her around. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. He needed the grounding she gave him after what he had just witnessed. “I missed the hell out of you.”

“It’s only been hours,” she told him.

His reply was to tilt the side of his mouth up. “A full twenty-four. Far too fucking long, especially after what I saw today. I need to be with you,” he told her. There was nothing he wanted more; he had to bury himself in her, whether that be her core, her mouth, didn’t matter. He needed to forget the things he’d seen, the things he’d done. He wanted to just be, and the only place he could do that was with Roni.

“I got you.” She smiled up at him. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but she’d had some strange text messages, and she’d been able to talk to Meredith for a few moments. She knew some, but not all. Grasping his hand, she pulled him around her car and back to his truck.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his eyebrows coming together. He was a little on edge, just because of everything that had happened. It made him the least bit nervous.

She winked and reached over, letting his tailgate down. Without speaking, her fingers went to the button of his jeans and unhooked it, pushing them down to his knees. He wore no underwear. “Commando?” She quirked a brow at him.

“I knew we were going swimming,” he whispered, stunned when she pushed him back onto the tailgate.

He was hard, his erection already there waiting on her. The tailgate gave her some room so that she wouldn’t have to drop to her knees. She was short enough that all she had to do was bend at the waist.

When she did, the air whooshed out of his body. He anticipated the warm heat of her mouth, and when it did encompass him, he threaded his fingers through her hair, pushing down hard on her. “I’m sorry,” he apologized when he felt her gag reflex kick in.

She put a hand on his thigh and inhaled deeply through her nose before she slowly inched down his length, taking him further and deeper into her throat.

“Damn, Roni,” he moaned, as he untangled his fingers from her hair and reached down to pull the ends of her shirt up. “Move your mouth,” he commanded, and when she did, he got rid of the shirt, leaving her there in a lacy pink bra. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he told her, reaching out to palm one of her breasts, squeezing and pressing it up against her chest.

She took her hand and tightened it around his erection, moving it up and down on the hard length, using the palm of her hand to brush across the head. “You like that?” she asked as he hissed a breath, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back.

“I need your mouth back.” He pushed the words out through clenched teeth.

Not waiting, she moved back down around him so that she did just as he asked. With the flat of her tongue, she licked him up and down, getting him nice and wet, which allowed her to push him further back into her throat. She moaned against him, feeling her nipples harden as she did it. Giving blow jobs had never been one of her favorite things, but with him it was turning her on like it had never turned her on before.

His hands went to her sides and moved up, pushing the cups of her bra down. Using his thumbs, he brushed her nipples, making them even harder. He bit back a curse when she moaned even deeper against him this time. “Son of a bitch, Roni.” He breathed out when she brought her hand back into play. She stroked against him hard and fast. “Do you want me to come?” he questioned.

She nodded, her hair moving in his way so that he couldn’t see her. With his hands, he picked up the strands and held them in a ponytail on top of her head. He wanted to be able to see everything she did to him, for him. When he wasn’t sure he could handle it any longer, she hollowed out her cheeks and sucked against his length hard. A tingling started at his back, and every part of his body tensed. “Move back, baby,” he warned her, but she didn’t. She took every bit that he had to give her.

Before he could even say her name, she’d pushed him back against the bed of the truck, gotten herself out of her jeans and was straddling his waist, using him the same way he’d needed to use her. Crazy to some people, but perfect for the two of them.