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)
“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.