Page 89 of The Rut in the Road

“Or there’s a guest room down here,” he added, not meeting my gaze. “If you don’t want to share a bed with me, but don’t want to sleep on the couch.”

I frowned at him. “Why wouldn’t I want to share a bed with you?” I asked him. I’d been sharing a bed—well, a mattress—with him off and on since late July.

He shrugged. “You’re injured.”

“I’m fine,” I replied. Except I did still have a headache, although it was much better than it had been earlier, and I knew that my head and face around the injury were discolored and still puffy. “I want to share a bed with you.” I paused. “I just don’t want to have to get up off the couch.”

That made him huff out a little laugh. “If that’s all it is, I can carry you.”

I scowled up at him, then yelped when he bent and scooped me up in his arms.

“See?” he murmured into my hair as I instinctively clung to his neck.

“Yes,” I breathed out, surprised at how easily he moved through the room, then climbed the stairs, still with me in his arms.

He laid me down on the bed, which he’d already turned down, then bent over me, catching my lips in a kiss. I kissed him back, but the emotion behind it was tenderness rather than passion—I was exhausted and my head still hurt, and while I never wanted him to feel like I didn’t want him, my body probably wouldn’t have cooperated with anything more amorous.

He stripped me of my black slacks, socks, and button down shirt, leaving my shorts. Then he undressed and slid into bed with me, pulling me against his warmth. I turned so that his chest pressed against my back, my injured temple out of the pillow.

“Sleep well,mera ravi,” was the last thing I registered hearing as I slipped into sleep.

15

She couldn’t help herself,even though she knew she should have more shame. She sucked on the end of the pen, watching him. She liked watching him.

It wasn’t just that he was a fairly attractive man. In fact, although she did find him attractive, it wasn’t in the conventional sense. In fact, when she’d first joined the Church, she hadn’t thought him all that attractive, although he wasn’tunattractive, either. But the longer she was with the Church, the more she found herself awed and infatuated by the Reverend Preacher Dale Durant.

She would do anything for him.

Die for him, if that’s what he and God wanted her to do.

Kill for him, although the thought of that made her nervous.

She was glad she didn’t have a driver’s license. She didn’t like taking the bus to work or here, to the Church, but she was afraid to drive. Sometimes, one of the others would drive her. Monica or Sharon, usually. Sometimes Rick or Bill. Jerry had driven her once, but she didn’t like the way he drove, a little reckless, it seemed to her.

Of course, she shouldn’t judge, because hadn’t Jerry been chosen by God and the Reverend to act as Their Hand of Holy Judgment?

I swallowed,setting the pen—a generic Bic ballpoint—back on the table, then looked up at the three pairs of eyes that were watching me. Raj wasn’t. He was staring out of the glass wall of the conference room at whatever was going on out on the main floor of the federal office building. Or maybe he was just intentionally not looking at me.

“Did—” I had to swallow again. “Did you want me to keep going?” I asked. In theory, I should have been asking the question of Raj, but since he wasn’t looking at me, I asked Hart, instead.

The look of revulsion on Hart’s face—like that on Cass’s and Drew’s, as well—told me he didn’twantme to, but they might need me to keep going, nevertheless.

“No.” Even though he kept staring out of the room, the answer came from Raj, his tone just as disgusted as everyone else’s expressions. “That gets us what we need. Namely, that others in the Church of Holy Judgment?—”

Hart let out a rude noise, and that did make Raj turn to shoot a mild glare at the back of his head.

“Others,” Raj repeated with emphasis, “in the Church of Holy Judgment were aware and approving of Durant’s promotion of anti-Nid rhetoric.”

“Not sureanti-Nid rhetoricis quite the fucking point,” Hart grumbled loudly. “Pretty sure he told his asshat minions tokill people.”

Raj sighed, his eyes seeking the ceiling, a sign, I knew, that he was frustrated. “Except that we don’t actually have an account of him saying that, explicitly.”

I tried to catch Raj’s gaze, but he was still avoiding looking at me. I wondered if I’d done something to make him upset withme, not just upset about the situation. But he wasn’t giving me the kinds of clues I could read, so I couldn’t tell.

Worry about that added to the churning mess of acidic FBI coffee, acetaminophen, and anxiety about the Church of Holy Judgment in my stomach, and I shifted uncomfortably.

“You okay, Rayn?” Cass asked, reaching out a hand to gently touch my arm.