Chapter 1

Sometimes people are too chatty in the morning. And according to the Coffee Gods, it’s okay to kill those people. Slowly.

-Ruthie’s secret thoughts

Ruthie

“Shit, fuck, shit fucking hell,” I growled as I ran from my car to the convenience store where I worked.

The convenience store was one of three in the city of Benton, Louisiana, and I happened to work at the one in the harsher side of town.

But I liked it.

My boss gave me the hours I wanted.

I could go to school, and I could still work at my other job at Halligans and Handcuffs, seeing as it was the job that made me the most money.

Sterling and his two brothers, foster care brothers not club member brothers, came in every three days before they worked out.

Each would grab an energy drink. A Monster for Sterling, and Nos for his two brothers, and two Gatorade’s a piece. Only ever in the red. No blue, orange, or yellow for those guys.

Then they’d take turns paying.

I’d gathered over the last half a year that the middle brother was a baseball player, and the other two supported him during workouts and practice.

Or, at least, when Sterling was here, he did.

He’d been deployed about five months ago, and had just returned two weeks ago.

And I’d missed my time to see him if I didn’t hurry!

Shit!

I stepped in a puddle of water, saturating my pants leg all the way up to my knee.

“Dammit,” I growled, hitching my bag over my shoulder once more and walking quickly.

I didn’t run, though.

Not once I hit the slick black top near the pumps.

It always seemed to gather oil and the likes, and when it rained, it became like a slip and slide.

I’d seen no less than fifteen people bust their asses over the last six months that I’d worked there.

I’d told my boss that it was a hazard and that one day someone would sue, but all he could say to that was, ‘Let them. Then they can have this place and I wouldn’t have to deal with my mother in law anymore.’

I breathed a sigh of relief when my feet hit the sidewalk that would lead me inside the store, and shivered violently when a bolt of lightning came down out of the sky and seemed to practically touch the tip of a six foot pole that was just to the left of where I’d parked my car.

“Holy hell,” I said in awe.

I’d always been interested in meteorology. I was just not smart enough to go that route when I had the chance.

At thirty two, I was well on the way to middle aged, and there just wasn’t time to go anywhere in life anymore.

“You’re late!” My boss, Dane, growled at my side.

I gasped and jumped, covering my face in reflex.

Not because I thought he’d hit me, but because it was simply just a reaction.

Something that’d been ingrained in me since I was a young kid living in a foster home full of kids that liked to beat you up for the hell of it.

Dane didn’t take offense to my maneuverings, only nodded at me, staying where he was so he wouldn’t scare me anymore than he already had.

“Hey,” I said. “My car’s a bitch in the rain.”

Dane smiled. “You should get a new one. You can afford it now.”

I could. But I didn’t want to waste my hard earned money that I was saving to buy a house on a car. That wouldn’t be practical.

I mean, I already had a car that worked. What was the point in getting something new?

“I know, I know. You’ve been telling me that every day for a month. I just don’t want to get a new car,” I said. “I’m saving up for a house.”

In reality, I was saving up for a house that I could pay outright, seeing as everyone in this stupid town thought that I wasn’t good enough to be here.

Apparently, they looked upon a convicted killer with vehemence.

My husband, Bender, had been a real asshole.

He liked to beat me when he drank.

Beat me when he didn’t drink.

Beat me when he was mad.

Beat me when I looked at him funny.

Beat me when I forgot to wash his uniform.

If you could think it up, Bender beat me for it.

He literally hated everything about me.

But he’d knocked me up when I was eighteen, and his parents had made him ‘do the right thing.’

And he’d hated that.

He wanted to marry another woman. Had had his sights on Lily Brianne, my best friend since I was twelve.

I hadn’t known that, though.

Lily and I had gone through a lot together.

We’d been in the same foster home until we were eighteen and kicked out since our foster mother was no longer under any obligations to allow us to stay there. Plus, she wasn’t getting any more money for us, so what was the point?

I stowed my things in the locker, and headed to the front counter and thought about Lily and me.

Lily and I had moved into a women’s shelter in Monroe, Louisiana the same night we landed in Monroe.

We’d started working shortly after that, and then we shared a one bedroom apartment.

Then we started going to school, where we met Bender.

Well, we’d met Bender before, of course. We’d all gone to the same high school. Bender had qualified for a full scholarship at the same college we had randomly picked to attend.

Yet, we were in such different social circles that we never got a second look from Bender and his peers

Or so we thought.

Lily obviously got a lot more attention from Bender than I did.

Bender got a lot more attention from me rather than Lily, who had her sights set on another man at our college. Bender’s best friend.

And Bender hated that. Absolutely hated it.

So he moved to little old me in hopes that he’d catch the attention of Lily.

I, of course, didn’t know that at the time.

I was too busy being on top of the world that the man that I was half in love with was giving me the time of day.

Too young and eager to please, I slept with him on the first date.

He left once he realized that the tactic wasn’t going to work with Lily.

He never spoke to me again until six weeks later when I told him that I was pregnant.

I still wasn’t sure how his parents had found out.

Whatever the reason, I’d been done with him because I wasn’t into trapping men.

But I had had a difficult pregnancy at the beginning.

Medical bills started piling up.

And then Bender’s parents got involved, forcing us to marry.

The bell above the door rang, and I looked up, smiling at the man that came through the door.

“If it isn’t Mr. Baseball!” I crowed.

Sterling flipped me off.

“You’ve got the wrong guy; that dumbass is behind me,” he said. “I’m just helping him look the part.”

“I take offense to that, you big dick muncher,” a voice said from just behind Sterling.

I stood on my tip toes to see his two brothers following close behind him.

Cormac was the ‘baseball’ player.

He was about a month away from starting his final season of baseball at ULM.

The University of Louisiana of Monroe was lucky to have him, from what I’d heard.

He was older than all the other players, at twenty five, having not started attending college until he was twenty one.

Cormac was six foot of lean muscle and sinew with black hair and a quick smile.

Their other brother, Garrison, was the same age as Cormac.

Although that’s about where the similarities ended.

Garrison wasn’t what I would call ‘cute.’

He was too mean looking to be called cute.

He had a perpetual scowl on his face that rarely could be seen through his bushy beard.

He was in shape, though.

Very good shape.

He’d have to be to keep up with the other two.

He was currently a high school science teacher and baseball coach for Shreveport High School, and probably the most feared man in the school.

I would’ve shit myself had I been sent to the office to have to deal with him.

But he really was loved.

He was a sweet man, from what little I’d spoken to him at Halligans and Handcuffs and here.

But my heart belonged to the man that came up to the counter to talk to me instead of grabbing his drinks.

“How ya been?” He asked.

I smiled at what I now counted as one of my best friends in the world.

“My car doesn’t like the rain. I think I need new tires or something. They wouldn’t grip the pavement for nothing,” I said, shaking my head and reaching behind the counter for a package of sunflower seeds I kept back there especially for him.

Dane didn’t like selling sunflower seeds.

I didn’t know why, and I didn’t ask.

But I bought them at the Sam’s store and brought them up here every day for him.

He smiled and shoved the package into his front pocket.

My eyes followed the movement, mouthwatering as I watched the front of his elastic shorts dip down, exposing the taut side of his stomach before disappearing once again as his hand came out of his pocket.

“Wanna play a game of baseball with us this evening?” He asked.

He asked me every time.

And every time I told him no.

Not because I wasn’t good at baseball, but because I was. Well, softball, anyway.

It brought back memories that hurt.

Memories of Lily and me when we were happy.

Before anything Bender related ever happened to us.

“What will you give me if I play?” I asked, surprising not just myself, but him as well.

“A ride?” He answered helpfully.

I laughed. “Why do you do all these baseball games, anyway?”

“Because it’s easier to see where Cormac is and keep him ready for anything,” he explained.

I wanted to roll my eyes.

“What you guys do isn’t what I would call a game. It’s a bunch of guys drinking beer, while the women watch from the sidelines cheering their men on,” I challenged.

He grinned, and his eyes glowed with happiness.

If times were different…if life was different…Sterling and I might have been able to pursue what I could feel between us.

But times weren’t different, and my life wasn’t all shits and giggles like Sterling needed.

I had demons.

I had so many demons that it was a wonder I functioned at all.

And Sterling deserved a woman that would stand by his side, make him proud to have his arm around her.

And I wasn’t that woman.

So I made a promise to myself, while staring at that smile. A promise that I wouldn’t drag Sterling down with me.

He wouldn’t get caught up in me and everything that floated around me like a hurricane ready to destroy anyone that entered my proximity.

“Regardless of what it is, I want you to come. I know you used to play. And we could use some new blood,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

I blinked as I watched him throw a twenty on the counter as all three men walked out only moments later, bickering about someone having the ‘hots’ for a woman that was way too straight laced to ever date him.

I had a feeling they were speaking about me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Sterling didn’t deserve to have to deal with my crap.

Not even a little bit.

“Now that you’ve had your fun, how about you get your shit together and go clean the bathroom,” Dane ordered.

I smiled at Dane.

He was a great boss.

He knew I had a secret crush on Sterling.

Knew it and loved to tease me about it.

“What’s wrong with Allison doing it like she usually does?” I asked, walking around the counter to grab the mop bucket out of the storage closet.

“Allison called in sick because she thinks she has the flu,” he said. “So it’s just you and me this week, chicka.”

Yay!

Not.

That would suck.

If it was just me and him, that’d mean that I would be needed for more hours, which would hack in to my nap time.

“Just don’t expect me to work tonight or tomorrow night. Or Friday night. I have plans tonight, and the bar the other two nights,” I told him.

Dane nodded. “I know. I was listening to that boy try to ask you out.”

I smiled.

“He wasn’t trying to ask me out.”

Dane gave me a look.

“Honey, I have a dick. I know what it looks like when a guy’s dick is hard. And his was hard. For you. Trust me,” he said, sitting down on the stool behind the register and turning his eyes to the TV screen that was sitting next to the register.

Rolling my eyes, I rolled the mop into the bathroom and started the tedious job of cleaning up the bathroom.

The girl’s room was never that bad.

It was the men’s room that always got me.

How could grown men miss the toilet like that?

By the time I was done with the men’s bathroom, I felt the need for a hot shower and a beer. Both of which I couldn’t have right then…and since I had somewhere to go later, I wouldn’t be having it for a very long time.

But just the thought of seeing Sterling again made my heart race.

“Your phone’s been ringing the whole time you were in there,” Dane said as he shoved three cheese crackers into his mouth.

I rolled my eyes.

Why wouldn’t it have occurred to him that I needed to answer that call if they called that many times?

I smiled when I saw Lily’s smiling face lighting up the screen of my phone.

“Hello?” Lily answered breathlessly.

“Hey! What’d you need?” I asked.

Lily called once a day regardless of whether she ‘needed’ anything or not.

It was just who we were.

And I’d missed her constantly when I was locked up.

“I have someone who wanted to talk to you before you she went on stage,” she said happily.

I smiled as Lily’s daughter, Toni, got on the phone.

“Aunt Ruthie, guess what!” Toni yelled loudly.

I looked down at my hands and smiled through the pain.

“What, stinker bell?” I asked softly.

“I hit a home run today at Putt-Putt!” She squealed.

I smiled, my pain taking a backseat to the excitement in Toni’s voice.

See, Toni and my daughter, Jade, would’ve been the same age right then.

But my husband had nearly beaten me to death when I was almost eight months pregnant, and I’d lost my baby girl before I’d ever even held her.

Lily had found out she was pregnant the week before I’d lost my little Jade, and it was heart breaking to talk to Toni when I couldn’t talk to my own little girl that would’ve been doing something similar had she been able to live.

“Don’t you mean hole in one?” I asked her, a smile in my voice.

I could practically see her shaking her head when she replied.

“No. I mean, daddy tossed me the ball, and I hit it with my golf club. And I hit the ball into the last hole at the very end of the course,” she corrected me.

I closed my eyes. “Your daddy should know better.”

“See,” Lily said as she came back on the line. “That’s what I said. He’s like a big two year old.”

I smiled at my hands.

Dante was such a good guy.

He started an auto recovery business when he got out of the Air Force and, from what I’d heard, was a pretty successful businessman now.

He had my whole heart, though.

He was such a good man, always there for me if I needed him to be.

He’d come to visit me when Lily made the trip.

He was a good father and a good friend.

Something that I desperately wished I had married instead of the man I had.

“So where are you going?” I asked, ringing up a man’s purchase as I did so.

The man gave me a funny look since I was on the phone, but I ignored him, stuffing things into the bag as I held the phone in between my ear and shoulder.

“Nine fifty seven,” I said.

The man gave me a credit card and I swiped it through the card reader before handing it back to him while listening to Lily tell me about Toni’s recital that was scheduled to take place in twenty minutes.

“You’re late,” I laughed. “Shouldn’t you have left already?”

I handed the man his receipt and he took it with a slight huff of annoyance.

“Yeah, about twenty minute ago. But we were having a meltdown because we couldn’t find the pink shoes, only the blue shoes,” Lily said. “We only found a single pink one, so now we’re wearing one blue and one pink.”

“Well, that works,” I laughed.

And it did.

What little girl wanted to wear blue shoes when she could wear pink?

“Alright, gotta go. I love you,” Lily said as she hung up the phone.

I rolled my eyes and shoved the phone into my back pocket before turning to Dane.

“What’s up with you?” I asked.

Dane smiled.

“Well, I have a prostate exam around four, and I have a colonoscopy next Tuesday that they’re going to make me shit…”

I stopped him.

“That’s enough information, Dane. Thanks, though.”

He shrugged.

“Well, you were the one who asked.”

That I did.

And I would not be asking that question anymore.