Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 75754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
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.
Chapter 15
If I’ve offended you, I’ll gladly point you in a direction of a dick you can suck.
-Sterling to Cormac
Sterling
Later that night, as I walked into Garrison’s guest bedroom, I was thankful.
Thankful that Ruthie had survived.
“Cormac gone?” Ruthie asked from the bed.
“Yeah, he just left,” I said, pinching the collar of my t-shirt in order to lift it over my head. “Let him borrow your rental car, though, since it was raining.”
I’d gotten Ruthie a rental car on the way home from whatever the hell that was with her father.
We’d driven by the scene of the fire, and looked through what was recovered from the fire that was salvageable.
I hunched my shoulders to help the t-shirt off, and then threw it into the corner of the room.