Chapter 3

Beards render birth control invalid.

-Warning to the general population

Sterling

Halligans and Handcuffs was hopping. There were so many people packed in the bar area that I was fairly sure that Ruthie was going to go insane.

I watched her move, studying her facial features to ascertain how she was doing.

She was still pissed from this morning, I could tell right off the bat.

Although she smiled and acted like her normal self, she wasn’t all…there.

“Why don’t you just ask her?” Loki mumbled from my side.

I turned on my barstool to look at him.

“What makes you think I’m going to ask her anything?” I asked curiously.

Normally, I was pretty good at hiding my feelings.

Had to be with a man like my father, I thought darkly.

“Probably wouldn’t have noticed had I not seen you and her together at breakfast. You and her were in your own little world together that Sawyer, nor I, could see. I bet if you asked Sawyer, she’d tell you the same,” Loki explained.

Hmmm. I didn’t know how to feel about Loki knowing.

Because once one knew, they all knew.

But then I considered the question.

Why couldn’t I ask her out?

Nothing was stopping me.

I liked her and I was fairly sure she liked me.

The only thing really standing in my way right now was my inability to pursue my dreams.

Something I’d had a problem doing since I was a young kid and my mother shattered every dream I ever had and left me to fend for myself at a fuckin’ fire station.

Alone and abandoned, I’d had to make a new life.

And the new life I’d made wasn’t even worth it at times.

“Uh-oh. Your girl’s upset,” Loki said, snapping me out of my pity party.

My eyes snapped up to focus across the room on the woman in question.

She was trying to pull her arm away from a man’s grip.

And I saw red.

I don’t really know how I got through the crowd of people, but in about thirty seconds flat I was at Ruthie’s side and shoving the man away from her.

“Keep your hands off of her,” I growled menacingly.

The man’s eyes snapped with subdued fire.

“She spilled a beer on me,” he growled.

“So you show your anger by putting your hands on her?” I asked in her defense.

“I’m the victim here, not her! I was just trying to push her off my junk!” the man roared.

My eyes narrowed. “Trust me, son, if she’d had her hands on your junk, you’d have known. And since I didn’t hear you over here screaming in ecstasy, you obviously didn’t feel the real thing yet.”

I heard a few smothered laughs surrounding me, but the outraged gasp from Ruthie had me wanting to laugh.

I kept my stare on the imbecile, though.

Glaring at me, the man stood and made his way to the front door, knowing when he was no longer welcome.

“Thanks,” Ruthie muttered and hustled to the kitchen without another backward glance.

Catching Loki’s eye across the room, I saw him give me a slight chin lift in the kitchen’s direction and sighed.

Nodding at Sebastian as I passed the bar, I walked into the kitchen to see that it was empty.

“Ruthie?” I called.

Nothing.

Eyes scanning the empty space, I finally saw the kitchen’s back door ajar where it exited into the alley, and decided to follow it.

“Ruthie?” I called once again once I exited.

I could hear the sniffling before I even made it to the mouth of the alley, and my heart broke.

“What’s wrong?” I asked once I spotted her hunched form.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

I blinked, stunned.

“Why?”

“Everyone here is so freakin’ mean. All I was doing was walking with a beer in my hand when somebody pushed me from behind. I swear, I don’t understand what I’ve ever done to them. They don’t know me,” she said brokenly.

My heart broke.

Literally broke into a million tiny pieces for her.

I moved around her until I could see her face.

And it didn’t look very good; she wasn’t a pretty crier.

Her mascara was dripping down her face as the tears flowed steadily.

Her face was blotchy, and her chest was flushed red and getting redder by the second.

“Someone pushed you?” I asked for clarification.

She nodded.

“I-in the back,” she said. “I didn’t see anybody, though.”

My face solidified to stone.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing her by the hand.

“W-wait!” she cried, but I held strong to her protesting yanks and pulled her along with me.

We made it inside in time for Silas and Sebastian to make it through the kitchen door.

“I need to see the feed for the bar,” I told them.

They both nodded and turned to go into the office that Silas had off the kitchen.

Silas went straight to the computer, and Sebastian went around to stand at his back.

“What part of the room?” Silas asked, looking up to stare straight at Ruthie.

Ruthie hiccupped and said, “The back quarter section.”

Silas nodded and turned back to the computer, punching numbers into the computer before he said, “There.”

Sebastian leaned down and pressed a few buttons, pulling it up on the TV screen directly beside us.

We watched as Ruthie passed once, twice, and then on her third pass with two glasses of beer a woman wearing a red dress got up from her chair and shoved Ruthie violently.

The rest happened as if in slow motion.

Ruthie fell forward.

The woman sat back down, laughing.

The man got his front and crotch drenched, and reflexively he sat up and clutched Ruthie by the hand.

Ruthie apologized profusely, but the man kept yelling at her.

“Who’s that woman?” I snapped, watching as Silas rewound.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Sebastian.”

Sebastian didn’t need telling, he slipped from the room without another word.

“Ruthie,” Silas said.

My arm wrapped around her and I pulled her into my side when she still wouldn’t look up.

“Ruthie,” I said softly. “You did nothing wrong.”

She finally looked up at me, and as I took in her eyes filled with tears, I fell in love.

Hard and deep.

I’d known from the first time I met her months ago.

I’d just gotten home, literally just rode in from the base.

I’d pulled into the driveway of the clubhouse, surprised as hell to find that there was a welcome home party for me.

It’d been great, but the highlight of the night had been meeting Ruthie with her long strawberry blonde hair and beautiful dark gray eyes.

She had these beautiful cheery red lips that just begged to be kissed, and a pair of breasts that would fit perfectly into my hands.

The absolute best thing about her, though, was the way she acted.

I’d heard, within an hour of being there, all about Ruthie.

How she was in prison for killing her husband.

But it was how Ruthie told me within twenty minutes of knowing her that she killed her ex that made me the most happy.

She didn’t hide anything.

And she told it like it was.

This sad Ruthie, however, was new.

She’d always been a fighter, ever since I’d met her.

Seeing her crying didn’t make me happy.

In fact, it made me homicidal.

“Ruthie,” Silas said again.

Ruthie finally looked to him.

“I fucked up,” Silas said without preamble.

Ruthie’s eyes widened and I smiled down at my feet.

“You heard him right,” I whispered to her under my breath.

She squeezed my hand tightly as Silas continued.

“It’s my job to keep my employees safe, and I didn’t do that with you. I’m sorry, Ruthie. Please accept my apology,” Silas told her.

Ruthie didn’t say anything for a long time, I thought she wasn’t going to, but obviously with the next words out of her mouth, she was just trying to collect her thoughts.

“This is my every day, Silas. I expect it…and accept it. What I don’t like, though, is when it affects my tips. And lately that’s been happening a lot. That woman right there,” she said pointing at the screen. “Is the same that told the table next to her last week about the fact that I killed my husband. And they wrote a tip on a piece of paper saying that I should ‘turn myself in.’ My question to you, though, is what do you want me to do about it? I don’t want to affect your business. And I feel that it is.”

Silas sat back until his arms were crossed across his chest. “What makes you think that I give a fuck what everyone else thinks? This is about me and mine, not them and theirs. And you’re mine…because you’re Sawyer’s. That’s the end of it. You ever need anything, I’m here. No questions asked. Not to mention that I trust you. Honesty is important to me, and you’ve never given me anything but that.”

Ruthie closed her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Silas stood and walked around his desk, stopping when he was a few feet in front of her.

“Don’t think I don’t notice how you still protect my wife. Something I’ve seen firsthand multiple times now. Trust me when I say that it’s the least I can do,” Silas rumbled.

Ruthie was clutching onto my arm, not that I thought she noticed what she was doing.

She was too busy staring into Silas’ pale blue eyes.

“She got hassled at the grocery store today. Enough to scare her,” Ruthie whispered.

Silas’ eyes narrowed. “That woman sure doesn’t know how to tell me shit when it comes to her safety.”

Ruthie smiled, the first genuine one I’d seen all night.

“If she felt like your life or her child’s life was in danger, she’d tell you. But if it only affects her, you’ll have to pry it out of her before she tells you willingly,” Ruthie informed him.

Silas winked. “That I know.”

Then he stepped back and turned just as a woman was led into the room by Sebastian.

He had a grip on her arm, right below her armpit.

He wasn’t having to force her, but the moment she saw Silas and Ruthie, she started to turn to leave.

“Let go of me,” she ordered, pulling her arm to no avail.

She was prettier than she looked in the video feed.

Short brown hair, kissable lips. Honey brown eyes.

But behind those eyes, I could see instantly that she hated Ruthie.

Her gaze kept turning from Silas’ to Ruthie’s accusingly.

“You can’t hold me here,” the woman insisted, tugging at her arm again.

“You’ve got five seconds to tell me why you’d intentionally try to hurt one of my employees before I report this to the police and get you arrested. And trust me, I can pin shit on you that’ll make you wish you were never such a bitch,” Silas ordered her.

Ruthie’s grip turned painful as her nails started to dig into the skin under my arm.

“That’s the girl whose husband wanted to know all about why I was in prison. She was pissed that he was talking to me,” she whispered.

Silas’ eyes snapped to Ruthie’s, but other than that, outwardly he didn’t show that he’d even heard Ruthie’s comment.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Ruthie clutched onto my hand gratefully.

“We’re going to take off for the night, boss,” I said to Silas.

Silas nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off the woman in front of me.

“Tell her man to come back here as you leave,” he ordered.

I winced, knowing where this was going.

Ruthie didn’t ask what was going on until we’d made it to the entrance into the bar.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

I held up a finger to silence her for a moment as we made it up to the table that the woman’s man was sitting at, drinking a beer as if he didn’t have a care in the world that his woman was being questioned in the next room.

And I knew he’d had to have seen her push Ruthie.

It happened directly in front of him.

I stopped when the table was less than a foot from me, and stared at the man until he lifted his gaze up to me.

“What?” he asked, looking me up and down.

I smiled. “Silas would like to see you in his office, please.”

I said it nicely, but the man blanched.

“Knew she was going to get me in trouble when I saw her do that,” he grumbled, taking his beer with him and leaving without another word.

The man was biker material if I’d ever seen it.

Long beard, bald head. Leather vest and biker boots.

Three chains hanging from his belt loop and connecting to his wallet rounded out the outfit, making him jingle as he walked directly to Silas’ office without another backwards glance.

Ruthie didn’t say a word as I led her out, not even to Sawyer who was trying to catch her gaze from across the room to ascertain that she was okay.

Silas most likely threatened her to get her to stay where she was, otherwise she’d have been over here trying to get all the information out of Ruthie that she could.

It also helped that she was pinned in by Torren on one side and Cleo on the other.

Two more members of The Dixie Wardens MC who were beyond loyal to Silas and the MC just like I was.

“I drove,” Ruthie muttered as I started to lead her out to my bike.

I ignored her, and she didn’t protest again.

Instead, she just followed me all the way to my bike, waited for me to mount and hand her my helmet, then mounted directly behind me without another word.

When she wrapped her hands around my chest, all my demons that never seemed to take a hike silenced.

I didn’t think about what I had to do tomorrow.

Or what had just happened in the bar.

Not about killing people with my Glock when I saw them pop out of nowhere.

Nor did I freak out about the truck backfiring at the stop light twenty yards ahead of us.

No, with her arms around me, everything was right in my world.

Until some motherfucker in a beat up Toyota Corolla in dusty brown pulled up beside me, speeding next to me.

A flashback hit me, and I was no longer driving my bike.

I was in a beat up pickup truck in OD Green.

Parker, my right hand man and fellow BUD/S graduate was sitting beside me.

I looked over at Parker with a smile on my face, but out of my peripheral vision, I glanced a beige Corolla in my rear view mirror, speeding towards us with all the might the tiny piece of shit could muster.

In a split second decision, I decided to haul the wheel to the left just in time for the Corolla to explode.

The impact of the bomb exploding had my controlled turn bursting into a chaotic flip as the truck’s wheel slipped from my hand and was wrenched free, turning so hard that the entire steering column disintegrated before my eyes.

I looked over just in time to see Parker, on fire, pulled from the truck as what was left of the Corolla smashed into the side of the truck.

Fire flashed in front of my eyes, and the last thing I heard was the screams of my good friend being burned.

“Sterling!” a woman’s voice screamed in my ear.

My mind was my own again as I took stock of where I was.

I was pulled over on the side of the road, standing three feet away from my bike and staring at what I guessed was the taillights of the Corolla.

“Sterling?” the woman said again.

My gaze turned coldly to the woman on my bike, and I stared at her a long moment before I finally relaxed enough to say, “I’m sorry, Ruthie.”

“Are you okay? You stopped so fast that I thought you were hurt,” she asked softly.

I nodded sharply.

“That car,” I rasped. “The brown one that started to creep into our lane. It caused a flashback.”

She blinked, turning her head slightly to study me.

“That could’ve been bad,” she whispered.

I nodded sharply.

“Yeah, it could have,” I agreed.

“Do they happen often?” she continued.

I shook my head.

“Barely ever. It was just...” I shook my head. “About a month into my last deployment, the man I counted as one of my best friends in the world, nearly burned to death by a Corolla blowing up directly next to us. He pulled up next to us just like that one did just a few seconds ago. I can still smell the scent of his skin when it started to burn.”

Bile rose in my throat, but Ruthie’s words stopped the panic attack before it started.

“My husband beat me so badly that I lost our baby in the back of our Corolla,” she whispered.

I blinked, turning to her sharply.

All of my problems were gone in the wake of what she’d just revealed.

“I think Corolla’s are bad luck,” she choked.

I made to move forward, but she held up her hand to stay my movement.

“One day I’ll tell you more, but I felt that you needed something personal from me after what I just witnessed,” she explained. “Just don’t ask for information unless I tell you. Because it’ll set off a panic attack that’ll blow the socks off of your panic attack.”

I laughed.

“We sound pretty fucked up.”

She nodded, agreeing.

“I am. Fifty different ways, but they have two way streets and side streets, as well as under ground garages of crazy to add to the mess,” she expanded.

I snorted. “Maybe one day we can compare notes. I’m not sure you could handle mine, though.”

She gave me an offended look.

“I can handle just about anything. Trust me. Even alpha men like you who think they know more about what I want than I do,” she shot back.

I winked at her.

“Hit a nerve?” I asked, smiling inwardly and trying my hardest not to laugh and make her think I didn’t have a heart.

She shrugged. “I spent eight years trying to outtalk guards. Trust me, you’re a piece of cake.”

This time I really did laugh, unable to hold my façade of indifference.

“You can’t handle me.”

She raised a brow.

“I can’t?” she challenged.

I crossed my arms and didn’t flinch as the tractor trailer passed by us in a rush of air and thunder.

She, on the other hand, flinched, throwing her hand up to cover her galloping heart.

“Yeah, I can handle anything you got,” she nodded.

“And how do you propose to do that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Is this something you show me while we play a round of mini golf…or laser tag?” I asked.

I was happy now.

Really happy.

This sparring we were doing was like verbal foreplay.

And I liked it.

A lot.

“I don’t do mini golf,” she said. “I’m more of a hot dog eating competition kind of girl. Or a monster truck rally.”

“Those sound like dates…not challenges between me and you.”

She smiled. “I’m sure we can find something to challenge your mind, if you need it.”

I grinned. “Okay. How about two days’ time? Friday at seven.”

She shrugged, acting like it was no difference to her what I chose. “Okay.”

“So…is this like a date?” I asked, smiling.

She patted the motorcycle seat directly in front of me.

“Dates are for teenagers,” she answered.

I nodded. “And what do you call it when adults go on ‘dates?’”

She grinned. “Foreplay.”