The Farmer's Son

Chapter 49 Moving On

In the cool and quiet of predawn, they lay together in the darkened room, stretched out on their backs, covered from waist to knee by rumpled white sheets.

"Be nice to stay like this all day," Alan murmured, his voice hoarse from sleep. Head pillowed on Ray's shoulder, his hand lay on the warm chest beneath him, rising and falling with deep breaths.

"Unfortunately, corn waits for no man," Ray murmured back. Left arm under Alan, his hand came up over the bronzed shoulder to hold Alan's, their fingers slowly toying with each other.

"But I'm glad I did," Alan said with a smile.

"Stop that," Ray said. "You already got me." As Alan chuckled, Ray turned to kiss the top of his head. "What do you think of the room?" he murmured into the tousled and damp sun-bleached hair. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah." Alan smiled. This time he was the one with dreamy eyes. "I love it."

"Because I was thinking," Ray said, slowly, hesitantly, "that when the house is done, and ready to open this summer, it might be a good idea for me to...move out here."

Like cold water on his warm skin, it froze Alan. "Move?" he said. Turning his head and shifting to look up at Ray, his eyes were no longer dreamy or sleepy. "But that would mean—"

"Nothing that it doesn't already," Ray said, turning towards him. "I would split my time between your Pa and here, like I am now. And someone would have to live here anyway, after we get all the animals in."

Raising Alan's hand, Ray kissed the back of his fingers, looking into dark eyes he couldn't read. "What do you think?" he asked uncertainly. "It could be home...for us."

Alan's lips parted, but looking up into the hopeful blue gaze, he couldn't bring himself to say what was really on his mind. It wasn't Ray's problem anyway. "So," he began, "last night, when I said you were already home," looking up at Ray, he let his face relax into a smile, "I guess I should have said we were already home."

"Yeah?" Ray asked, blue eyes lighting up, and a grin already spreading his lips.

"Yeah," Alan laughed.

Letting out a sharp breath of relief, Ray kissed his fingers again. Lifting his chin, Alan brought their lips together, and Ray cupped his head. Bodies coming together under the sheets, warm skin pressed against warm skin as Ray rolled on top and Alan's hands circled his waist to the back.

Behind the closed curtains, they lost themselves in each other once more, as outside the sun began to rise, bringing with it a new day.

*

Noah was in the field when Alan got home. He beeped the jeep's horn, and his father raised a gloved hand in greeting as he drove pass, his straw hat poking out above the tops of the corn that was already shoulder height. A quick, but reluctant, shower and change of clothes later, Alan came into the kitchen for a quick breakfast—oatmeal and coffee—because while Ray did plan for breakfast at the Dalton house, they'd used up the time allotted for...other things.

Not that either of them minded.

Alan was washing his dishes at the sink when on the wall of the sun-drenched kitchen, the black telephone began to ring. He glanced behind him, then turned off the faucet and quickly patted his hands with a dishtowel.

"Don't get up, I'll get it," he said to Bear.

Lying on the floor by the table, the dog's head tilted to the side, making Alan chuckle. Hooking the phone with his finger, he lifted it off mid ring to his ear. "Hello, Walker Farm."