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)
Was that how he’d gotten that scar?
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep so well that night, worrying about Sterling and whether or not I’d have to kick this Parker guy’s ass for slitting Loki’s throat.
***
Day 54
Kraken (10:22): I’m fine.
Ruthie (10:24): You better be.
Kraken (10:25): I am, promise.
Ruthie (10:26): What happened?
Kraken (10:27): Don’t drink a foreign country’s water without boiling it first.
Ruthie (10:28): That’s not funny.
Kraken (10:28): Trust me, I’m not being funny.
Ruthie (10:30): When are you coming home?
Ruthie (10:42): Sterling?
Ruthie (12:22): Shit hell piss.
***
Day 63
It’d been sixty-three days since I’d seen Sterling.
And in that sixty-three days, a lot had happened.
I’d rented the house across the street from Garrison and moved what minimal things I had into it.
I’d started school.
Sawyer had had her baby.
I’d worked.
Mostly, though, I’d listened.
Which was a good thing, because I’d learned all kinds of things.
Such as the fact that Sterling was on another dangerous mission that involved the same senator’s wife that he’d been on months before.
I’d also learned that Cormac’s death wasn’t an accident.
That somebody had cut the brake lines on my car expertly, which had contributed to why he hadn’t been able to stop.
Which I’d found out only moments before during a party celebrating the birth of Silas and Sawyer’s child.
Apparently bikers tended to have chatty, loose lips when they were three sheets to the wind.
Which had a lot to do with why I had heard in the first place.
Silas and the rest of The Dixie Wardens were pretty tight lipped about things when they didn’t want their women to know.
And since Sterling wasn’t here to tell me, the bunch of badass bikers, and one really annoying baseball coach, had taken it upon themselves to hide it from me as they discussed whether it was a good idea to tell Sterling.
I’d stood listening outside the door that Baylee, Sebastian’s wife, had told me was ‘church.’
A place where the members went to discuss important matters that involved other people’s lives, apparently.
“Debated on whether to tell him anything…” Silas muttered darkly.
My mouth dropped open as I listened to Silas tell the group about how the brake lines on Cormac’s car were purposefully cut.
“You can’t tell him. If he finds out, he’ll be focusing on what’s going on at home instead of what’s going on there,” I declared, bursting through the door.
“He deserves to know,” Garrison defended, surprising me.
“And do you remember the last freakin’ mission he went on? Do you really want to add to the burden right now by telling him that Cormac’s death wasn’t an accident, but murder?” I hissed.
“I think that you should let him decide that,” Sterling said angrily from behind me.
I winced.
Maybe I should’ve scanned the room before I went bursting into rooms.
Then again…one would think that the man that loved her would’ve told her he was home instead of hiding out in a room!
“What are you doing here?” I yelled somewhat irately.
His brows lifted at my tone.
“Where else would I be?” He asked.
I stomped my foot. “In Iraq?” I asked snottily.
“I got home,” he explained.
“And what…” I asked. “You weren’t planning on telling me?”
“I would’ve told you…had you arrived on time,” he growled.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I had to work! What’d you want me to do? Leave early just because there was a party going on…one in which I didn’t know you were going to be at?” I asked. “Why would I want to be around here when every single one of them,” I said, pointing my fingers at the men on either side of him. “Remind me of you. Do you know how torturous that is?”
The nerve!
Then he smiled!
Smiled!
“I missed you too, Ruthie,” he said. “Now come here and give me a freakin’ hug.”
I ran and threw myself into his arms.
My body hit his so hard that he bumped backwards against the wall, but he held me tightly throughout.
“I hate that you’re gone so much,” I whispered to him.
He kissed my forehead.
“It’s my job, baby,” he whispered.
“I know,” I told him. “It still sucks, though. Don’t do anything stupid, either,” I continued.
He leaned back from me.
“Whatever I do won’t be stupid, honey. What I do will be justice. For Cormac,” he insisted.
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t want you to be going to jail, a place I know you won’t like. Nor would he want you to be dishonorably discharged from the SEALS, when Lord knows he was so proud of you for accomplishing that honor,” I informed him.
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Looks like they’ve got the guy anyway.”
I scowled. “Who was it?”
He looked at me warily before turning me to look at a picture I’d not noticed sitting on the table.
And my whole world dropped, and I fainted.
Fucking fainted.
Chapter 19
If you don’t want to be with me because I’m loud and speak my mind, fine. Go be with that boring bitch who’ll probably only give you missionary and never suck you off. You deserve the bitch and her Hamburger Helper.
-Ruthie’s secret thoughts
Ruthie
My eyes were wide as saucers as they stared at the man that had been partially responsible for me marrying Bender.
“What…why…how?” I asked Bender’s father, aghast that he was even standing in front of me.
Well…sitting. He was currently being held in a sort of cell type thing that was at the Dixie Warden clubhouse.
His hands were in cuffs on the table in front of him, and he was really not happy to see me.
I hadn’t seen him in years upon years, and he was all of a sudden here? Why?
John, Bender’s father, glared at me.
“Why should you be happy when my boy is dead and in the cold ground? I never should’ve listened to Reena,” he growled.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, startled.
“But no, I did, because I loved her. Then look where it got us. Bender dead. Our grandkid dead. All because you couldn’t keep your fucking legs closed,” he hissed.
My spine straightened. “What are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t believe it when I got the letter saying you were let out,” he hissed. “You were supposed to be in there for another year before I had to worry about you getting out. Then there was the letter, and Reena started to freak out about it all. She wouldn’t leave well enough alone. Things would have worked out. I would have had you taken care of but she just had to get me involved right now. So I had to come take care of it…of you…before you could make this world even worse than it already is. But those stupid neighbors of yours…fucked everything up. Bunch of imbeciles. So here I am, sitting in a jail cell when I should’ve been at home with my wife.”