The men around me laughed.
Fuckers.
“Let’s go home,” I ordered.
She snorted. “It should prove fun.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
***
“Help me out!” I yelled for the fourth time.
She’d somehow shoved me into her tin can of a piece of shit car, and I was stuck.
Really fucking stuck.
“You’re not stuck, so quit your bitchin’,” she growled, opening the door that I couldn’t manage to get open.
I fell out, catching myself before my face hit the ground outside our rented house.
“Help me!” I whined, lowering myself down to the ground and laying my hot face against the cool grass.
When no help was forthcoming, I rolled over and stared up at my soon to be wife.
She was so fuckin’ beautiful.
And sexy.
“What are you looking at?” I asked her.
She hissed at me. “Shh!”
I blinked, sitting up to see where she was staring, and gasped.
“No!” I bellowed. “Don’t do it!”
The two people across the street sprung apart like they’d been cattle prodded.
Thomasina and Garrison had been in each other’s arms…seconds away from making a huge mistake.
“You’re step sister and step brother!” I yelled.
Ruthie started laughing.
“They are not. They’re foster brother and sister. We are the nasty ones, step brother!” She laughed, kicking me lightly in the side.
I thought about that for a few long moments, then nodded my head.
“Okay, y’all may proceed!” I yelled.
Ruthie snorted a laugh, then helped haul me to my feet.
“Goodnight!” I yelled at the pair that were staring at me like I’d grown horns. “I’m going to make some babies with my soon to be wife!”
Ruthie’s peals of laughter followed us inside.
And we did make a baby.
Mostly because I had told her to stop taking the birth control and she had.
I didn’t realize it’d happen so soon, though.
Chapter 21
I hope you get a mosquito bite between your toes.
-Ruthie to Sterling
Ruthie
“You look a little green,” I said, trying hard not to smile.
“That’s because I’m fucking hung over,” he growled.
“You were the one to set up this time. Why didn’t you just reschedule?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t think that it’d be that bad,” he answered.
“Sterling,” I said slowly. “You drank a fifth of whiskey all by yourself. What’d you think was going to happen? And the sad thing about it all was that you drunk dialed your mother and not me. I mean…who does that?”
“I used to be able to do that and wake up and run five miles the next morning,” he grumbled.
I snorted.
“When you were what, eighteen?” I asked. “And you still ran today.”
“I ran down the road and had to walk back. That’s what took me so long,” he confided.
I closed my eyes and smiled as I thought about that.
“I’m sure they’ll understand if you want to reschedule,” I hesitated. “Although, last night, you kept going on and on about how excited your mother was to speak to you.”
“Shit,” he sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.”
He bailed out of the car, and we started walking up the front walk of a huge house that Able had told me he’d rented temporarily.
They usually lived in South Dakota, but had taken up temporary residence here for the summer in what originally had been an attempt to get closer to me.
And was now an attempt to get closer to the both of us.
“There are kids watching us,” I whispered to him.
He looked up, and it was freaky as hell to see kids that had both of our features.
“You know,” he said under his breath. “That’s what our kids are going to look like.”
I nodded.
It really was weird.
The kids had my gray eyes, but Sterling’s dirty blonde hair.
Sterling’s nose, my dimpled butt chin.
“We must’ve gotten all of our features from our parents,” I surmised.
“Yeah,” he said. “Jesus Christ, look at the girl.”
The girl was smiling, and she had my smile down to a T.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “How are we ever going to explain this off to our friends?”
“We’re going to have to move to Arkansas,” he teased.
I slapped his arm.
“Shut up!” I laughed as we arrived at the door.
The boy opened the door before we even made it to the door to knock.
He swung it open wide.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” we both replied back.
“Are you my brother and sister?” He asked.
We both nodded.
“God, you’re real,” a woman said from beyond the door.
We both moved our eyes from the little boy in front of us to the woman standing behind him.
She was in what I would call the entryway to the entrance.
The room was freakin’ massive, like one of those ones you’d see on HGTV’s Dream House.
I was scared to step on the carpet, it was that nice and extravagant.
And they were renting this place?
“Come in, come in,” the woman rushed out, pulling her smaller son’s hand so he backed up so we could make our way inside.
Able appeared in the doorway and my heart skipped a beat at the sight of him.
He was really intimidating, and that air of intimidation surrounding him backed up his claims of being an independent contractor.
He probably only had to show his face and the people were scared to fuck with him.
Not that Sterling was any less intimidating; he just knew how to turn that ‘power’ as I liked to call it, off.
He could talk to damn near anybody.
Stranger on the street.
An old lady in the grocery store.
The teller at the bank.
Able, though, looked like the type of person that people ran away from.
“Glad y’all could make it,” Able said in his deep voice.
I smiled shyly at him.
“Would y’all like something to drink?” The woman asked.
“No thank you, Mrs. Spiers. We just got done eating at Whataburger,” I answered.
I almost brought my drink in, but I was pretty sure that the house might fall down around my ears if I brought a fast food cup into it.
“Oh, I made lunch. Oh well, there’s dessert!” She cried, turning around to head to the kitchen.
Sterling and I stayed frozen in the entrance, both too scared to follow.
“Did she think we were eating here?” I asked Able.
He shrugged. “Call her Ann Marie, and yes, she thinks everyone that comes to our home is hungry.”
Sterling’s hand tightened on mine, and I looked up at him.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyes looking pointedly at the two kids in front of us.
“What’re y’all’s names?” He asked them.
“Dalia,” the little girl answered.
“Dylan,” the boy answered.
“How old are y’all?” I asked.
“I’m ten,” Dylan answered. “And Dalia is twelve.”
“Cool,” Sterling said. “What was for lunch?”
“Tuna fish,” Dylan answered. “Even though we all hate it.”
I blinked.
I wasn’t very fond of it either, but if I had to venture a guess, the tuna fish was for Sterling’s benefit.
He loved it and ate it like it was the best
thing on earth.
Something about it being healthy, filling, and cheap.
But whatever.
His mother must’ve remembered how much Sterling liked it, because she made it even though the rest of them disliked it.
Which said something.
I gestured to the kitchen with my eyes; Sterling sighed, taking the hint.
He moved past us, and I admired his ass as he walked stiffly past me.
“Daddy, she’s watching his butt. I thought you said they were our brother and sister,” Dylan said, sounding amusingly confused.
I rose an eyebrow at Able, wondering how he’d explain that to them.
I smiled when he didn’t know what to say.
“Sterling and I are getting married,” I said. “And I happen to like looking at his butt.”
***
Sterling
The nerves that’d been crawling around in my belly like a nest of agitated snakes became even worse when I walked into the kitchen to find my…mother…putting away what she’d made.
“I like tuna fish. Thank you for making it. Wish I’d known that you were making it,” I said softly from the doorway.
My mother’s shoulders hunched and she whirled around, the Tupperware in her hands as she finished securing the lid onto it.
“I know you like it,” she smiled.
She looked just like I’d remembered.
Long wavy blonde hair the color of the Galveston beach we’d gone to one summer when I was young.
Eyes bright green and shining with love aimed at me.
Beautiful white smile.
Long, elegant fingers.
She was slim.
Not even an inch bigger after two more kids.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally.
She frowned.
“Sorry for what?” She asked.
“Sorry I didn’t get a hold of you earlier,” I said.
I could’ve spoken with her months ago…but I hadn’t.
I’d been that poor, scared kid again watching as his mother walked away from him.
Watching as life as he knew it ended.
A tear slipped out of the corner of one eye and she smiled sadly at me.
“It was me who messed up, son. It’s always been me. I couldn’t make good decisions to save my life, and you were the one who suffered because of it,” she said solemnly.
I shrugged.
“And from what I understand, you didn’t get into any better of a situation after I left you. So I didn’t win, and I could see why you never answered my letters,” she said softly.
I shook my head. “I didn’t answer your letters because I didn’t get them. My foster father…” I didn’t want to say anything about Thomasina. She’d suffered enough at that monster’s hands. She didn’t need any more scrutiny. “He wasn’t a good man. Never saw a single one of the letters that came there.”
She frowned.
“I personally delivered two to that man…” she said. “Delivered money there, too. Every time I’d ask about you, he’d say you didn’t want to see me.”
My jaw clenched.
“He was a piece of shit that deserves to fuckin’ die,” I growled, eyes going far away as I dreamed about all the ways I could kill him.
“Sterling, darling,” she said. “Don’t you do what I see dancing in your eyes. He’s not worth it.”
I crossed my arms over my chest as I watched my mother, the woman who’d been stolen from me by my foster father.
“You don’t know me that well,” I said defensively.
She laughed.
“Oh, honey. I was the one to diaper your bottom. Hold you in my arms when you were born. I saw you through the chicken pox, pneumonia, your first steps, potty training, your first broken bone, your first lost tooth,” she smiled fondly. “And a mother never forgets, trust me. She knows when her child is thinking devious thoughts. Just like I knew you were here, and why I pushed Able to come meet his daughter. Two birds with one stone.”
My mouth dropped open.
“You knew I was here all along?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I was there the day you graduated high school. The day you went to prom with Lizzette Boreguard. The day you graduated from boot camp. I’m very proud of you,” she whispered.
I blinked.
“Does your husband know all this?” I asked carefully.
She smiled a secret smile at me.
“My husband doesn’t know everything about me.”
I shook my head.
“I thought you forgot about me.”
Tears instantly filled her eyes.
“I’d never forget about you. You were my first baby,” she whispered fiercely. “Not one day passed that I didn’t cry for you. But I didn’t know what else to do. I just kept digging myself deeper and deeper, and pretty soon I just couldn’t see my way clear of the hole I’d dug for myself. I just wanted you to be happy…and safe.”
My eyes drifted closed, and only opened when I felt my mother’s warm embrace pulling me into her.
“I love you, Sterling. Always have, always will.”
I coughed to cover up the emotion roiling through me.
“I’m marrying Ruthie,” I told her.
My mother leaned back and placed her hands on my cheeks.
“I can’t wait to have grandchildren,” she said enthusiastically.
I smiled.
“Hopefully that’ll come sooner rather than later.”
She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek.
“Now, how about you introduce me to your fiancé.”
So I did what my mother asked of me.
I introduced her to my Ruthie.
***
Later that night
“I need you to give me everything you have on Pete Sorbet,” I said to Silas later that evening.
Ruthie was asleep in the bed on the opposite end of the house, and I knew that if I didn’t go take care of this, I wouldn’t sleep.
It had to happen.
“I’ll come get you, you can follow me,” he answered instantly.
I smiled.
Pete Sorbet wouldn’t know what hit him.
And he had some penance to pay.
I would see to it for all of us. Thomasina, Cormac, Garrison, my mother and me.
Chapter 22
Powered by bitchdust.
-Car Decal
Ruthie
One month later
“I never wanted to be here, doing this. I wanted to sit in those stands right there,” Sterling pointed to the spot next to me from his spot near the batter’s circle, “and cheer Cormac on. I wanted him to see me sitting there encouraging him, and know that he had love and support. Something we didn’t have when we were growing up. It was the Three Musketeers. Us against the world.”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
“So I’m going to try out, because I know that’s what he always wanted to do. I’m going to fulfill each and every item on his bucket list with our other best friend, Garrison. I’m going to hit that home run that’ll shatter all kinds of records. Garrison and I are going to go mountain climbing, even though we’re both scared of heights. Because Cormac deserved to live longer than he did, and for that I’ll try my hardest to do everything he wanted to do, and live my life the way he wanted me to live it.”
Sterling handed the microphone back to the reporter, whose face showed tears just as I had on mine.
Just as everyone in the entire stadium had.
I was sure he hadn’t meant for that to go to the entire stadium, and if he’d been thinking a little more clearly he would’ve noticed how his face was on the huge screens sporadically placed throughout the stadium.
But he wasn’t in the best state of mind.
He was somewhere he never wanted to be…at least not for this reason, anyway.
I smiled as he took a
couple practice swings.
“Little tight,” Garrison called. “Loosen it up.”
Garrison and he had been working for this day for a few good weeks, now.
They’d hated every minute of it, not having Cormac there with them, but they knew how important this had been to Cormac, so they did it anyway.
Even though it tore them apart.
“Number 10, Sterling Waters, is the next batter,” the announcer said from his perch up high above our heads.
Every last one of Sterling’s entourage sat forward in anticipation.
The pitcher threw a couple practice throws, as he, too, was trying out.
And Sterling watched with a practiced eye.
“He’s pitching from the stretch,” Garrison whispered.
“What does ‘pitching from the stretch’ mean?” Baylee asked just as quietly from somewhere behind me.
“It means he’s not pitching from the wind up,” Garrison said distractedly.
I rolled my eyes.
Like that meant a freakin’ thing to her!
I would have to explain it to her.
Later.
Because my man, in his tight white baseball pants that were tucked neatly underneath his knees, exposing his bright red socks, was up to bat.
“He looks mean,” I whispered.
“That’s ‘cause he is mean,” Torren said from behind me.
I didn’t rise to the bait.
He really liked to pull my tail.
Instead, I kept my eyes on Sterling.
He was so focused, and unbelievably still.
The red helmet he was wearing shielded his eyes from me, but I knew they were on the ball.
He was watching, taking in the pitcher’s movements.
The first ball that was thrown went directly into the catcher’s glove, landing with a solid thud.
“Strike,” the unofficial ump said.
Sterling didn’t fight that call.
We both knew it was a strike.
The next two pitches were balls.
The fourth pitch, though, was the one.
The one that was in Sterling’s sweet zone.
Thrown exactly where he wanted it.
He swung for the fence.
Fucking jacked it so freakin’ hard that the wooden bat split.
Pieces of wood went flying as the bat connected with the ball so perfectly that everyone’s inhalation was heard throughout the stadium.
Right To My Wrong (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 8) Page 20