Chapter 2

Wrong. Your mother is wrong. Your face is wrong. Everything about you is wrong.

-Ruthie’s secret thoughts

Ruthie

“Oh my God,” I said into my pillow.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sawyer said from the foot of my bed.

I didn't scream like I wanted to.

I knew she was there…well, at least knew she was in my house.

I hadn’t realized she was that close, though.

“I can’t move,” I whispered. “I think I’m paralyzed.”

“You played really awesome, if it’s any consolation,” she said, bouncing on the bed a few times.

I glared over at my cute pregnant friend.

“Why are you here? It’s my day off,” I grumbled, turning over and yanking the blanket over me.

Or would have had it not been partially under Sawyer’s ass.

“You promised me you’d go to help me register for the baby shower,” she told me.

I groaned. “I meant that in a lying kind of way. The kind of thing where you say niceties, yet don’t follow through with them because you know you don’t really want to do it.”

“Well, you said it and I’m not letting you take it back,” she grumbled. “Get up. I’m making eggs.”

“I don’t like eggs,” I muttered to the now empty room.

How did a pregnant woman have so much energy?

Shouldn’t they be tired all the time? Because I hadn’t seen that from Sawyer yet, and she was well into her seventh month.

Rolling out of bed, gingerly, I walked blindly to the bathroom, only opening my eyes a crack to give me an idea of where I was going.

I left the light off as I took care of business, brushed my teeth, and walked out into the main room.

It didn’t even occur to me that there’d be anyone else there, which was why when I finally opened my bleary eyes and saw the tall, sexy man sitting on my couch talking to Sawyer, I froze.

“Uh,” Sawyer said, finally seeing me. “You could’ve put some pants on.”

I could hear the laughter in her voice as she said it, and I wanted to smack that smile off her face.

I flipped her off and turned on my heel, walking back to the bedroom and pulling on a pair of sweatpants from the top of my clean pile.

Being in my panties next to Sawyer really wasn’t that big of a deal.

We’d lost any and all dignity during our time in prison, so it wasn’t a surprise that I’d walk out there with no pants on.

Hell, we’d peed next to each other for eight years.

Vomited. Shit. Saw each other naked.

There was nothing sacred between us.

But she could’ve at least shouted a warning that she’d let someone into my house!

I came back out glaring at the two people on my couch.

“Where’s breakfast?” I mumbled darkly.

Sawyer smiled.

She’d been the morning person.

I’d been the afternoon and night person.

It was incredibly annoying to be paired with that type of person, but I learned to cherish her nonetheless.

“I got sidetracked,” she said, pointing to Sterling.

Sterling grinned at her and stood, reaching into his pocket for something.

“I brought you your glove and wallet back. You left them in my truck last night,” he said, pointing to glove and wallet before pulling out a piece of paper. “But then I saw this parked on your car, and I felt the need to call Loki.”

I looked at the paper he held out to me like it was a live snake, instead focusing on the fact that he’d called another police officer to my house.

Loki was another member of The Dixie Wardens.

He was the scary one of the bunch.

His blonde hair was cut close to his scalp, and his eyes were hard.

Cop eyes hard.

But the defining factor that made him scarier than the rest was the scar across his throat.

I’d only heard bits and pieces of how he got it, but from what I’d gathered from all of them, it was because of a gang initiation or something.

But it was the way he watched me that made me the most nervous.

Almost as if he could tell I was a bad person.

And I guess most would think I was, but I wasn’t.

I was only protecting myself and my unborn child that, unfortunately, hadn’t made it.

Not that anyone besides me and Sawyer knew about my Jade.

I hadn’t even told Lily about Jade.

Not because I didn’t feel that she would sympathize, but because the fact that I’d lost her still hurt so deeply that I couldn’t talk about it.

Hadn’t talked about it since the day she was taken from me after I spoke to the cops.

“Wonderful,” I muttered, turning on my heel to walk into the kitchen and start a pot of coffee.

But it was already done when I got there, so I guess Sawyer was inching her way off the hook.

I didn’t bother with cream.

This was a straight black kind of day.

I grimaced when I took a drink of the bitter brew, turning to survey Sawyer and Sterling.

They had a good relationship, but Sawyer had that with all of members of The Dixie Wardens.

A perk, I guessed, of being married to the President.

“How do you still not know what you’re having?” Sterling asked my best friend. “Isn’t that something new parents want to know?”

I’d asked the same thing.

How do you have a baby shower if you don’t know what you’re having?

You won’t want to put your kid in yellow for that long, not when there’s way cuter things in blue or pink.

But she’d refused.

She wanted it to ‘be a surprise.’

Something she echoed to Sterling moments later.

“I want it to be a surprise. Silas’ doesn’t care, but I do. I want that experience since I’m fairly positive this’ll be my only one,” she admitted.

That was news to me.

I always saw Sawyer as having five children and a minivan.

Silas, I saw, giving her whatever the hell she wanted, and if five kids was what she wanted, then he’d do it.

Happily.

“Why do you say it’s your only one?” Sterling asked, leaning his slim hips up against the counter.

My eyes went down to the bulge in the back of his jeans that meant he was carrying.

Something that nearly every man that was a member of The Dixie Wardens did, every single time I saw them.

Sterling being no different.

“Because Silas is older than me. And I don’t think he wants anymore kids,” she said hesitantly.

I blinked, surprised by that.

“You think that, really? I always figured him for being wrapped around your finger. Ask him and see what he wants!” I told her.

Sterling nodded. “I agree with Grumpy.”

I glared at him. “I’m not Grumpy.”

He gave me a raised brow, then his eyes moved lower to my breasts.

My gaze followed his to see the Dwarf on my shirt, Grumpy.

Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have worn this one. Not to mention I didn’t even have a bra on yet.

I moved my glare back to his face to see him smiling at my discomfort, and my nipples started to bead in anticipation. Shit, but the man really was sexy.

The perfect example of a military man from the tips of his combat boots to the length of his beard.

I licked my lips as my eyes settled on his mouth, and snapped my gaze away from him.

“Breakfast?” I blurted, trying to get away from his knowing smile.

Sawyer nodded and walked to my fridge where she pulled out a gallon of orange juice, and a package of groceries that contained eggs, bacon, and canned biscuits.

She really was laying it on thick if she was going to go that far out of her way to make sure I was fed.

“What kind of eggs do you like, Sterling?” she asked as she placed the bags onto the counter.

“Over easy,” he said oddly, almost as if he wasn’t aware that there were any other ways to eat an egg.

Sawyer nodded as she started to pull out a frying pan from somewhere I’d never seen before, followed up with a cookie sheet from above my stove.

I narrowed my eyes.

Had she gone shopping?

Because I definitely would’ve remembered having either of those items.

I hadn’t cooked since I’d moved in unless it was microwavable, and I was fairly certain I had a pot only.

“Where’d that come from?” I asked her suspiciously.

“I found it at a yard sale,” she lied.

I narrowed my eyes and went to her purse, pulling out receipt after receipt.

My eyes scanned for it and I found it at the very bottom.

“You lying whore!” I yelled, waving the receipt around.

She shrugged.

“At some point, you were going to need a pot and a pan. It’s not my fault you won’t get one. When I come over to cook, I want something to work with!” Sawyer yelled right back.

I glared at her.

“You need to leave me alone! And I never asked you to cook!” I pointed at her.

She ignored me, though, and started to place the bacon in the frying pan.

I narrowed my eyes at her and walked into the kitchen, picking up the tube of biscuits and peeling the paper off of it.

Before I’d gotten it all the way off, it exploded in my hand and I shrieked.

“Fuck!” I yelled.

“Serves you right, hoe,” Sawyer muttered under her breath.

I flipped her off, ignoring the man that was at my back laughing at our back and forth banter.

I put the biscuits onto the pan and Sawyer stopped me.

“You need cooking spray,” she said, freezing me.

“Why would you need cooking spray when these are made with small bits of butter? Aren’t they naturally lubricating?” I asked her, ignoring her instructions to spray butter on the pan.

“Are you asking me if you can use butter for lube, seriously?” Sawyer asked in exasperation, moving away from the now popping bacon to the cookie sheet where she picked up every single one of the biscuits and sprayed the sheet down before placing them back, this time in a more neat line.

“Seriously?” I asked her.

She glared at me.

“Go sit down. You’re interrupting my flow,” she hissed.

I washed my hands in the sink and sat down at the island next to Sterling, ignoring the smile on his face.

“So, what are you doing today?” He asked me.

I sighed.

“Apparently going to the baby store and registering for things she doesn’t need,” I told him.

He snorted.

“You could come play baseball with me,” he offered.

I sniffed and stood, turning slightly so he could see my side when I lifted my shirt.

He winced.

I’d been hit yesterday by Cormac, of all people, and the ball had struck me in the lower ribs on my back.

I felt Sterling trace around my bruise with one finger, encircling the entire thing before he said, “It looks pretty bad. I can’t believe he hurt you.”

I laughed. “But I got a walk out of it.”

He winked. “Guess if that was worth it for you.”

It was.

They threw really hard, not caring that I was a girl.

Or that the other men playing with us hadn’t played baseball like they had.

So I was happy for the walk, because stealing bases was where it was at for me, hence why I now had huge scrapes on my ass.

Which was where Sterling went next.

“Your ass was pretty raw,” he said.

I nodded, remembering he’d seen it as I’d walked out of the room earlier.

“I’m pretty sore,” I admitted.

He nodded. “You’re gonna need some sliding pants if you keep coming with us.”

I smiled. “I had some before, but I haven’t been able to find them since I got all of stuff. Not that I’ve really had the reason to look for them. It was only a cursory skim through them before you showed up yesterday.”

He nodded. “Do you have to work today?”

I nodded. “At Halligans and Handcuffs.”

He smiled. “Then I’ll see you there.”

I turned my head to stare at him.

“Why?”

He didn’t usually hang out there, at least not when I’d seen him.

His time was usually spoken for, doing odds and ends for the club, or hanging out with Garrison or Cormac.

There were also a lot of women happy to see him home, too.

Sadly, my radar wasn’t the only one he was clocking on.

“There’s a party there later,” he answered. “We’re celebrating Sebastian’s birthday.”

I blinked.

“Really? No one told me,” I said. “Do I even have to work?”

He shrugged. “Shit if I know. All I know is that we’re supposed to be there for a ‘surprise’ at ten until seven.”

I frowned.

“Well, I guess I’ll just go, and if I’m not needed, I’ll head home,” I said, thinking about what I would do without the day’s tips.

It was already a tight squeeze with them. Without them might leave me without the new clothes that I’d intended to buy with them.

“Shit,” Sawyer said.

I looked over to her to see she dropped a piece of bacon, and looked around for her dog, but didn’t see him.

“Where is your dog at?” I asked Sawyer suddenly.

Normally we took him everywhere with us, especially since she was training him as a service dog.

There was no way to acclimate him to new experiences if he didn’t go with her to experience them.

She grimaced.

“He’s getting neutered,” she answered.

I winced.

That’d been a bone of contention between Silas and Sawyer for a while now.

She didn’t want to get it done, and he did.

She wanted her dog, Yogi, to be able to have puppies if he wanted to, and Silas was tired of him pissing all over their house.

His hope was by getting him neutered, he’d stop pissing a ‘river in their goddamn kitchen.’

“So he finally talked you into it?” I asked with a laugh.

“There was no ‘talking.’ Only him ‘telling.’ Trust me, I tried really hard to free him, but Silas was gone before I woke up this morning,” she pouted.

Sterling snorted.

“When we walked into the house yesterday around noon, Yogi had pissed from the front door all the way to the back door,” Sterling told her.

Sawyer grimaced.

I, on the other hand, thought that was quite impressive.

Especially since he had to go through a hallway, past the living room through the kitchen and dining room before coming to a stop at the back door.

Talk about talent!

“Yeah, that’s why he’s being gelded today,” she answered. “I had to listen to that all night long. He’s already pissed that I get down on my knees too much.”

I snorted coffee into my nose, then started laughing as I pictured a man like Silas ever complaining about her being on her knees too much.

Sterling pounded me on the back to help with my breathing, I assumed, but it only ended up making me less able to breathe due to his nearness.

“Loki’s here,” I mumbled as I heard a bike pull up outside.

I was using and distraction I could to get the man’s hand off me.

Because I might spontaneously burst into orgasm right here next to him, and holy hell would that be embarrassing!

“I’ll get the door and let him in,” Sterling mumbled as he slipped from his seat.

Once he disappeared from my sight I turned to study Sawyer.

“You doing okay?” I asked her, really looking at her now.

She had a fake smile pasted on her face, the kind that were always meant to make her look ‘fine.’

However, I knew her.

I knew everything about her down to the very last detail.

I knew when she was getting sick, or getting her period.

I knew when she was having a bad day because the guards were being douche bags, or another woman was fucking with her.

I knew her.

She was my girl, the only person that I trusted all of my secrets to.

Except one, I thought morosely.

But it wasn’t like I was trying to keep that one from her.

It was just too hard to talk about it.

I’d be better showing it to her.

An idea started to form in my mind, and I smiled down at my plate when I realized what I could do.

“I’m having a bad day,” Sawyer mumbled, snapping my attention away from myself and to her.

“Why?” I asked her.

She shrugged.

“Went to the store to get this food, and saw a couple of women who thought it’d be funny to make fun of me. That’s all.” She shifted and looked away like it was no big deal.

Anger pierced my chest, sharp and tight.

Those fucking bitches!

Seriously, all everyone in town ever did was gossip about us!

What was the big damn deal?

So we were in prison?

Whoop-de-fucking-do.

Thousands of people went to prison every year for something or another, yet those stuffy women weren’t talking about them.

Cops were being killed all over the country.

A war was going on the other side of the world.

Children were going hungry.

Animals were being abused.

Seriously, there were millions of things that they could focus on, yet they chose us.

Sawyer in particular, because she was the nice one who wouldn’t say a word in defense of herself.

And she so didn’t deserve their censure.

What she had happened to her was a complete and utter accident.

She’d been driving her drunk friends home when a Ford Bronco had pulled out in front of her.

The truck she’d been driving had pulverized the smaller vehicle, and with it the vehicle’s occupants.

None of the passenger’s survived.

And then Sawyer had been wrongfully convicted of their murders when the father of the teen who’d been in the car falsified evidence to make it look like Sawyer was over the legal blood alcohol level.

Something she hadn’t been.

After being falsely accused, tried, and convicted, she spent eight years in Huntsville Women’s Penitentiary as my cell mate, and call me selfish, but I was glad she was there.

Because if she hadn’t been, I would’ve been raped every single day that I’d been in there.

But I wasn’t.

And I would thank her daily for the rest of my life if I had to.

I owed her that much and more.

“What’d they say?” I asked worriedly.

Sawyer shrugged, flipping the eggs onto the plate in front of her as she slid them out of the bacon grease.

My mouth watered as she set the plate in front of me, but I crossed my arms and refused to eat once I realized she wasn’t going to talk.

She sighed and leaned forward on her elbows, making sure that only I would hear what she had to say.

“They said the same old thing. That I should still be in jail. That I killed four people, two of them promising college students. I don’t know. Most of it wasn’t that bad,” she admitted.

I raised a brow.

“Not that bad? What do you think Silas would do if he heard what everyone was saying?” I asked.

She grimaced. “Silas wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, because they don’t say stuff like that when he’s around. Because they know he’ll fight back. Which is what you should start doing. You, my manipulative friend, should have nothing but roses and fairy dust. Me, on the other hand, I’ve earned everything they call me. I’m a murderer. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let them sit there and talk badly about me while I’m right there. What they do when I’m not there is their own to deal with as they please, but by you not standing up for yourself, you’re basically telling them that you deserve that behavior. Which you most certainly do not,” I insisted.

She bit her lips between her teeth.

“I don’t know how to stop them,” she whispered.

The toast popped, startling us both, and I chose to keep talking while she served up Sterling’s bacon and eggs.

“You tell them to stop. And if they won’t, you call someone who will stop them,” I told her insistently.

She shrugged. “I tried that once, and they never quit.”

I crossed my arms once again and said, “Well, I’ll show you how it’s done when we get you all registered today. It should be a lot of fun.”

She snorted. “You’re lying through your teeth about it being fun. I realize that you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart.”

I winked and leaned forward, sucking half an egg into my mouth at the same moment Sterling and Loki strolled through the entrance way.

I choked, making the egg that I’d shoved into my mouth to fall to my shirt.

Completely embarrassed, I quickly wiped my shirt with the hand towel at my side, but was only effective in spreading it out even more.

Yellow yolk sank into the porous fabric, making a very noticeable stain for all to see.

“You missed your mouth,” Sterling teased as he took his seat beside me.

I flipped him off, causing him to laugh.

As did the scary guy.

“Hi, Loki. How are you?” I asked softly.

I didn’t ever know what to say to the ‘cops’ of The Dixie Wardens.

I felt like they knew I was a bad person, and generally felt the need to stay away from me.

So I came off as a standoffish type of person.

Not because I wouldn’t like to get to know Loki, as well as the other cop, Trance, but because I was trying to protect myself.

Something some people didn’t always do.

Something I hadn’t always done.

But spending all those years in prison had changed me.

Had given me a certain selfishness.

Because, beside Sawyer, I had to watch out for my own back in there.

“Hello, Ruthie,” Loki’s deep, rumbly voice, said.

I gave him a tight smile, and he moved those piercing eyes away from me and settled them on Sawyer.

“Hey, Sawyer. How’s it going, honey?” Loki asked.

See what I mean? Totally nicer to her than he was to me!

“I’m doing well, Loki. Thanks for asking. Would you like some eggs?” Sawyer asked.

I nearly choked on my coffee.

Was she really going to force me to be in Loki’s presence for more than just what I needed to deal with?

“Absolutely,” Loki said. “Love some.”

I closed my eyes and pushed my eggs around on my plate, no longer hungry at all.

It wasn’t that I hated cops.

I didn’t.

It’s just that I felt like they hated me, which was incredibly uncomfortable. Especially when they were standing next to my kitchen counter.

Although, the one cop I did like, Shaw McCormick, was pretty awesome.

He was the one to get to me when I was beaten to death and I lost my little girl.

He’d held me so tenderly, cried with me hours later in my hospital room when we found out Jade wouldn’t make it, and was such a good man and father that I was slightly jealous of his wife.

And still was.

Ruby Shaw was a good woman, though, and she deserved to have that man.

We were now really good friends, and had been one of the few people to stand by my side, along with Lily, when I killed my husband.

I shut off those thoughts before they got any darker.

Especially since when I looked up from my plate I could see both Loki and Sterling studying me.

“What?” I asked, directing my question at Sterling.

“I asked you what was happening with your neighbors,” Loki said.

I winced.

Not only because I was ignoring Loki, either.

“Uhh,” I said. “Just general problems at first. They left me notes telling me that my car was in their way and that I should park it in the driveway because it was hard to get out of their own driveway.”

My driveway was full of cars that belong to the couple I’m renting from.

That’d been a stipulation of renting the house from them.

At the time, it hadn’t been a big deal to me. I hadn’t even had a car.

But as time had gone by, and I’d gotten a car, it started to become a bit of a hassle.

Not because of the cars in the driveway, but because of the neighbors.

I wasn’t the only one who parked in the street.

Hell, the neighbor directly beside me had a fuckin’ boat in front of my house, yet I didn’t see any notes on that.

“The boat is moved,” Loki nodded. “That’s illegal to leave on the street. It’s considered a recreational vehicle. You can park that in your yard, though. It’s good he moved it or I’d have tagged it.”

I blinked.

He would have?

“Technically, it’s also illegal to park your car on the road over night, but it’s never enforced. Mostly because it’s something that everybody does. We’d have to give about half the city a ticket every night if that was the case,” Loki continued. “And normally we only give out tickets like that if the car’s impeding traffic. And I looked when I came in, you aren’t impeding traffic.”

I continued blinking.

Wow.

I didn’t expect him to side with me.

“Really?” I asked. “So what was with the ticket he got off my car this morning?”

“That’s my next step. But, technically, he could’ve felt your car was impeding traffic or something,” Loki shrugged. “It’s up to the discretion of the officer.”

Wonderful.

Yet another thing I had to pay.

I’d have to move.

I couldn’t keep living here.

Not with them calling the cops on me over something I couldn’t control.

Wonderful.

Just fucking wonderful.