Chapter 14

I suck at apologies. So unfuck you…or whatever

-Ruthie to Sterling

Sterling

“Thanks,” I muttered, walking inside the restaurant and walking straight past the hostess stand.

“Sir, can I help…”

I held up my hand to the woman and kept walking, heading straight to the woman that had left without so much as a word.

Who would’ve left me had she not been stopped.

By the man I’d had under surveillance since I’d come home from that clusterfuck of a mission.

I’d been talking to Loki about the man we saw set fire to Ruthie’s house when I’d received a call from the prospect saying he couldn’t find Ruthie. Then another, not even twenty minutes later, saying that the man I was watching, Able, had picked up whom he thought was my woman.

And when I’d come to the restaurant that the prospect, Alfie, had followed them to, I’d seen the two of them in a deep conversation.

Which led me to now as I stalked into the building and headed to the table I’d seen her sitting at through the window.

She was in the exact same spot, only I couldn’t see her face.

Able saw mine, though, and stiffened.

Ruthie didn’t, though.

She kept talking animatedly, moving her hands and body as she spoke.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel somewhat responsible. I knew my mom’s information. I could’ve told them what it was…I just didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be associated with her anymore. I hated her…hated how I wasn’t allowed to go outside. Hated how she kept me in a closet when she had her men over. Hated how she ‘forgot’ to feed me. Hated how I had to listen to her and her conquests have sex all night long. Hated that I had such a drive to learn…yet she wouldn’t let me. I hated her. Hated my life. I wanted something different…so I just didn’t tell them who I was. Had I done that,” I shook my head. “I could’ve had a different life.”

“But you wouldn’t have me,” I whispered darkly from behind her.

She shivered, and my heart leapt at seeing the way she reacted to my voice.

“Why are you here?” I asked Able, moving forward to tangle my hand in Ruthie’s hair.

His jaw clenched as he glared at me.

He didn’t want to talk to me.

He knew me, as I knew him.

Knew I was his wife’s son.

Something he wouldn’t want to tell Ruthie, but I had a feeling he knew.

Knew I was with Ruthie, and didn’t like it.

When I read the knowledge in his eyes, I smiled at him.

“How about you tell me why you’re having breakfast with my stepfather when you should be waiting for me at the hotel room I paid for,” I said, tightening my hand in her hair and pulling her head back to look at me.

She blinked.

“You never came home,” she accused.

I let her hair go when she stood and turned to me.

“That was because I was trying to find the man who lit your house on fire!” I growled. “Why are you here with him?”

“Why didn’t you let me go to your place?” She countered.

I blinked. “Because I don’t have a place.”

“You don’t have a place…for real?” She asked.

I shook my head. “Normally, I just stay at Garrison’s, and I couldn’t get ahold of him. When I couldn’t get ahold of him, I did the only thing I could and took you to a hotel.”

She instantly slumped. “Well how the hell have I not known that before?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Guess it never came up.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head forward, but the man at her back stood and glared daggers at me.

“Why do you have your hands on my daughter?” He asked.

I stilled, hand tightening on my arm that was around Ruthie’s body.

“Daughter?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

Ruthie leaned back. “Yeah…so I found out he’s my father.”

“What I’d like to know is why you have your hands around her…especially if, in all technicality, she’s your sister,” Able said.

Out of all the words that could’ve come out of the piece of shit’s mouth, ‘sister’ hadn’t been one that I was expecting.

Denial, yes.

Hatred, yes.

Incest accusations, no.

“She’s not my sister,” I said forcefully.

“She’s my daughter and I’m married to your mother. That makes you family,” Able contradicted.

I felt Ruthie stiffen, then look up at me in concern.

“No, that makes it a coincidence. Especially since we haven’t seen you all in a very long time. Hell, I didn’t even know my mother was still alive until a few days ago when my president told me she was back in town,” I told him. “And I met Ruthie over nine months ago.”

Able ground his teeth and I could tell he wanted to say something to the contrary.

But as soon as I’d found out about him and my mother being in town, I’d had Silas start looking into why the two of them were here since she’d dropped me off and forced me to leave her.

Why she’d, all of a sudden, popped up out of nowhere. Why now?

But I hadn’t been able to figure out why they were here.

So I’d just had them followed.

Done some research on Able Spiers.

“Sterling,” Ruthie said, not loosening her hold on me, even after the revelation. “What the hell’s going on?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, baby. I think it’s time for your father to talk.”

“You’re married to his mother?” Ruthie asked a little bit loudly.

Which garnered the attention of the patrons surrounding us.

“Sit down,” Able ordered. “And try not to talk too loud.”

Ruthie looked to me, and I nodded, helping her back into her chair before taking the one beside her.

It made me happy that she’d deferred to me.

That she looked to me before the man in front of her that very well could be her father, although it’d yet to be determined.

“Talk,” I demanded. “How’d you find her? Why’d you come here?”

Able’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.

He didn’t look to be the type to take orders.

“Your mother doesn’t realize that you’re here. She thinks you’re still in the Navy, as happy as could be,” Able started.

My brows rose. “Really? But I am in the Navy. And I am happy.”

He waved his hand in the air. “I know that. She thinks you’re stationed in California.”

“Why would she think that?” I asked, anger bristling my words.

“Because I told her.”

“Why?”

That came from Ruthie.

Always the protector.

“Because it hurts her to know that her son won’t talk to her.”

“She wrote you constantly. So much that her fingers bled. She sent you a note every day for ten years…until I asked her to stop,” Able said.

“Why would you do that?” I asked. “And why didn’t I get any of these letters?”

He shook his head. “I just figured you were being a little fucker. Which was why I protected her…now I can see that maybe I was mistaken.”

My brows rose. “And you didn’t think to say…talk to me?”

His eyes narrowed. “I had tabs being kept on you. Knew you were okay.”

I laughed humorlessly, and Ruthie wrapped her small arms around me from the side, pulling me into her and hugging me as tightly as she could.

She probably knew that I was going to fucking detonate.

She knew that it was a sore subject.

It’d already caused a lot of problems between the two of us.

She’d accused me of never telling her anything.

In all honesty, I didn’t like talking about some things.

But what I most hated talking about was my mother.

I’d loved the woman to death, yet that woman hadn’t actively tried to search for me…which was why it didn’t matter that she’d written me letters.

I was a fuckin’ kid when she abandoned me.

I knew, that on some level, she thought she was doing the right thing.

And from an adult’s prospective, thinking about the fact that I was an abused child and she couldn’t protect me, it made sense.

It didn’t make it hurt any less, but it still made sense.

But that didn’t matter right now.

What mattered was that my woman’s father was in front of her, and she was probably feeling a lot like I’d felt when I heard my mother was in town.

Betrayed and a little bit sad.

“Okay, that still doesn’t explain why you’re here, talking to her,” I continued.

He nodded. “I saw her picture in the paper. Your mother likes to keep up with the happenings from ‘home,’ so we get the Benton Chronicle sent to us in the mail. It was there I saw the article on her and her job at the gas station.”

I nodded. “Okay. So you what, saw her and felt that you needed to come up here urgently?”

His eyes narrowed. “I saw her photo standing next to the older man and knew in my heart that it was her. My kid. So I sent some investigators to find out everything they could about you.”

There’d been a picture in the newspaper with Mr. Adam’s in front of Dane’s Stop and Go. It’d been in celebration of Mr. Adam’s massive catfish that he managed to catch.

It’d been a new state record, and he’d attributed his win to Ruthie and her coffee.

Something that Ruthie thought was hilarious.

“And you found me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I did. Found that you were dating her…and I had to let her know she was making a mistake.”

“Sterling’s a part of my life. Let’s just get that straight now. If you don’t like it, then you’re going to need to back off,” Ruthie said softly. “Because I’m not ever giving him up. He was there when nobody else was. There’s nothing you can say or do to change my feelings for him.”

My heart felt full as she declared that, and smiled at her.

Then Able rocked our worlds.

“Your little brother and sister won’t understand that their brother and sister are together.”

We both froze.

So we had a brother and sister?

What the fuck was that about?

I could tell Ruthie was getting upset, as was I.

What every foster kid secretly wants is a family, and to know that we both had that under our noses this whole time was a little hard to hear.

“Well… I just won’t be a ‘step brother.’ I’ll be Ruthie’s husband. Won’t make a difference then,” I challenged.

“You look just like your mother. Trust me when I say that she’ll know instantly who you are,” Able informed me.

I shook my head.

“Well, then I won’t go over there at all,” I said stiffly.

Able looked at me with all too knowing eyes.

“So you’ll withhold your affections from your siblings when it was me and your mother that hurt you?” He asked carefully.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

That was a low blow.

And he knew I’d respond to it.

But not yet.

Now I wanted to know more about why he was here.

“So what were you going to do when you spoke to her? Lead her away from me? You don’t even know me,” I said, leaning forward.

Ruthie’s head met my shoulder, and I wrapped my free arm across her belly to latch onto her hips, hugging her to me as I waited for Able to speak.

Her small hands wrapped around my arm like she would never let me go, and I realized, in that second, that she wouldn’t.

It was the first time I let myself realize that, too.

That maybe she felt the same way about me as I felt about her.

That maybe she could deal with my brooding.

She’d run, but I’d always find her.

And I think realizing that I would chase after her had comforted her in some way.

“I would’ve tried to talk her out of you…after I introduced myself,” he said, studying the two of us. “I realize now that there would be no breaking the two of you up, though.”

I nodded in confirmation.

He had that right.

Nothing was going to come between us but us.

And that’s the way it should be.

Other people didn’t need to be in our business, because our business was our own.

“You could’ve just asked. Maybe sent a letter introducing yourself instead of just throwing it at both of us. You gave Sterling more worry than he needed, at a very bad time that could’ve gone a lot different had you just introduced yourself more gently. Our last week has been fraught with worry over why you were here and we left things on a bad note,” she said to her father. “And that’s not something that’s going to happen again. If you want us in your life, you need to be the father that you are wanting to become; not one that we’ll later realize we don’t need.”

She totally got me.

She’d realized that I was in a bad place, and she’d let me be. She’d known exactly what was wrong, too. Which helped slam home the earlier point.

She was mine and I’d make her realize it.

Once she realized it, she’d be permanently, and irrevocably mine.

Because I was about to put a freakin’ ring on it.

The ringing of Able’s phone had our conversation halting, and I knew instantly he was speaking to his wife.

His entire tone had changed.

His body had softened; the wariness went out of his eyes.

Then he said the words.

The ones I that sounded so utterly different when they came from Ruthie’s mouth.

“Alright baby. Ich liebe dich.”

And it was right then that I decided that the ring would need to come. Soon.

Because I wanted what he had.

I had it…I just needed to make sure it would stay mine. That she’d be with me forever.