“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.”
Chapter 4
“I can’t eat anymore. I’m full.”
“Do you want dessert?”
“Yesssssssss.”
-Text from Ruthie to Sawyer
Ruthie
I got ready for our date, butterflies swirling around in my stomach like bees swarming their hive at a disturbance.
My hands were jittery.
My feet were bouncing, making the process of putting on mascara rather trying.
Once done, I smoothed my hands down my sides, surveying my appearance.
“Jewelry!” I exclaimed, almost as if I’d solved the world’s hunger problem.
I closed my eyes and choked back an excited squeal as I fit my earring into my ear, finishing off the final touches of my ensemble.
I studied myself in the mirror.
I was wearing my tightest pair of jeans that I owned, which meant I probably couldn’t sit down, but that was neither here nor there.
I couldn’t believe I was actually going on a date with him.
It went against every ingrained protection that I’d instilled in myself.
Don’t put yourself out there, and you won’t get hurt.
It’d been my motto since the day I was sentenced.
I smiled at myself, leaning forward to check my teeth.
Finally happy with my appearance, I walked out of my bedroom stiffly, rethinking the whole tight pants thing.
But I decided to keep them on.
I liked the way my ass looked in them, and I assumed he would too.
That was, if he ever came.
Two hours later and there was still no Sterling.
Resigned that I waited for over two hours before I realized he wasn’t coming, and when I finally did, something inside me, the only thing happy left, died.
The old Ruthann was no more.
In her place was a bitter bitch who knew she shouldn’t rely on anybody.
Shouldn’t have been surprised that a man like that wouldn’t be interested in a woman like me.
I closed my eyes and reached my hands up to my earrings, the only ones I had left that was worth something to me.
Once they were both off, I walked to the back yard and threw them hastily in the grass.
Fuck the earrings.
Fuck my life.
Fuck everything.
I didn’t care anymore.
Why bother?
Because I was only a worthless piece of shit like he’d always accused me of being.
The lowliest of the low.
I closed my eyes, sank down to my knees on the back porch, and cried.
***
Sterling
“Come on, come on,” I growled as I called Ruthie once more.
“Shit!” I yelled, pulling my teammate’s attention from their own musings to me.
“What the fuck?” Beacon, the weapon’s specialist for our team, said.
“I can’t get her to fuckin’ answer. Do you realize what’s going to happen? She’s never going to give me the time of day again. Goddammit. Motherfuckin’ piece of shit!” I seethed, pressing redial on my phone once again.
Once again, I got seven more rings before it went back to the generic voice message of a woman said, ‘you have reached the voice mailbox of 9-0-3-7-7-7…’
“Motherfucker,” I growled, hanging up before the num
bers were finished. “Motherfucker!”
When I went to call Silas, the sign on the plane went on indicating that all cell phone devices should be turned off, and I realized I was out of time.
Goddammit!
Seems that was my favorite word for today.
As well as all the other words.
I’d been called in less than an hour before on a mission that was ‘paramount’ to national security.
Seven hours before my date with Ruthie.
I’d totally forgotten about her in my haste to get my things packed and get to base.
And why it hadn’t occurred to me in my six hours driving to base that I had a fuckin’ date today, I didn’t know, but I did forget.
And now I’d royally fucked myself.
In the ass.
With a fire poker.
A fuckin’ hot one, too.
“Fuck!” I growled.
“Dude, learn a new word,” another teammate, Ruben, growled.
I glared at him.
“Fuck off,” I growled, roughly shoving my useless phone into my backpack and zipping it closed.
As of one hour ago, myself and my seven teammates, Parker, Ruben, Beacon, Chace, Donnie, Ellis, and Estes were all being sent to the Middle East, Iran to be specific.
The specifics of the mission hadn’t been explained to us as of yet, we’d only gotten the ‘get your ass on a plane’ speech, and that was it.
I hadn’t even realized that it wouldn’t be a ‘practice mission’ which narrowed the amount of time it took us to get back on base and get ready until our CO was ushering us into the back of a fuckin’ plane.
“Someone pissed in your cornflakes,” Donnie said lightly.
I turned my glare onto him, but the man didn’t flinch.
Which wasn’t surprising.
He was a badass, stone cold killer.
Then again, we all were.
That was what Uncle Sam trained us to be.
“Does anybody know what we’re going for?” Donnie asked, looking away from my scowl with a smile.
It wasn’t Estes, our CO, who answered like I thought it would be. It was the man I’d seen in the pilot’s uniform that answered the question on all of our minds.
Usually in a circumstance where we’re called in like this, we know ahead of time what’s on the agenda.
This time, though, we had no clue.
And I knew why moments later.
“The speaker of the house’s ex-wife was visiting an army base when she was captured,” the man in front of us said.
I blinked, surprised.
Why the fuck wasn’t he flying the fuckin’ plane?
“That’s the speaker of the house,” Donnie whispered at my side.
It was then I realized where I’d seen him.
On TV the night before, the one where the Speaker of The House spoke about his pregnant ex-wife who was missing.
He’d said that at that time, nothing was being done to bring her home, and he pleaded for her life.
And with us now on a plane to the very location she was stolen from, I assumed that something was now being done.
Must be nice to have that kind of power, I thought darkly.
It wasn’t that I was objecting to saving a pregnant American’s life, it was that there was no forward planning that’d taken place.
It was all thrown together too quickly, and we should’ve deduced a plan before we went off half-cocked.
Because that was how people got fucked up and killed, was by assholes like this who had too much power and money.
Chace was the one to ask the question that I knew everyone wanted to ask.
Chace was what I’d like to call blunt.
He said what was on his mind, and didn’t give a shit who he offended in the process.
“And why are we going in without any knowledge of what’s going on? Why rush this when this is a still hostile country? Are six lives worth it when we may get killed before we even get in there?” Chance asked.
The man, Jason Reid, turned towards Chace and narrowed his eyes.
“What your job is, Marine, is to follow orders,” Reid growled.
Chace narrowed his eyes and stood, moving closer to the man.
Estes stopped him before he could get up in his face.
“I’m a fucking SEAL, not a goddamn Marine. And maybe you should get that straight before you send us in somewhere where we won’t come back out alive…unless that’s not your main priority here,” Chace hissed.
I looked around the belly of the transport plane we were currently flying in, and wondered if it could withstand hurricane Chace. I decided that it should hold up to him if we were able to take Chace’s rifle away from him.
Silence continued, so long that you could practically cut the testosterone filled air around us with a fuckin’ knife.
“All you guys have to do is find my ex-wife, get her out, and we’ll get home. She’s in a hotel with a man named Yamir Drakmar. She was taken the moment she got off the plane. He’s got no men in the hotel and, as far as we can tell, she was meant to meet him there. However, my ex-wife sent me a picture of the man the moment she touched down just to be safe, and I had my closest advisor run the picture through facial recognition software. And he’s wanted in over fifteen countries, and is on our Most Wanted Terrorists List for a bomb threat at the Seattle Airport in November of 2007.”
I should’ve known that this mission wouldn’t be like all the rest.
Should’ve known that it wouldn’t be that easy.
Should’ve known that we’d all die.
Chapter 5
Don’t hate me because I’m beard-iful.
-Bumper Sticker
Ruthie
Three weeks later
SEAL Team eleven has been missing for three weeks now with no bodies or demands from Iran. From what we’ve been able to tell, the negotiation for The Speaker of the House’s ex-wife, Darynda Reid, was not successful.
I closed my eyes as I listened to the word of SEAL Team eleven from the reporter on CNN’s mouth.
How I knew that that was Sterling’s team, I didn’t know.
I didn’t have any confirmation.
It was only a hunch.
Because after I got over my pity party, I knew that he wouldn’t have left unless he absolutely had to.
I also knew, by way of Sawyer asking her husband, that Sterling hadn’t been seen at the club, either.
And he wouldn’t have just left Cormac and Garrison, nor the club.
Which meant he didn’t leave me.
But I wasn’t happy about hearing that, because it meant I was hearing what I was hearing from the stupid blonde reporter’s mouth, and seeing a fiery wreckage where some fleabag motel used to be.
No names have been released by the Pentagon as of yet, but we expect it to be only a matter of time before the president holds a press conference releasing the information on the eight man team.
“Oh, no,” I moaned. “Oh no.”
It was later that night that I stupidly sent the text message.
It was short and sweet, but it relayed every bit of emotion I felt.
Ruthie: You owe me a date, or was what you said all for show?
There was no reply.
***
Three weeks later
The Pentagon still refuses to give out the names of SEAL team eleven. They’re still convinced of the safety of this team, even though all evidence shows to the contrary.
I’d been torturing myself by watching CNN for going on six weeks now.
When I wasn’t working at the bar, the news was on.
Dane absolutely hated watching the news, but when I reacted rather flamboyantly when he tried to change it the first time I watched it at work, he stopped complaining or trying.
I couldn’t really tell you why I was watching the news.
Most of the time they didn’t
even cover SEAL Team Eleven’s disappearance.
As the weeks had passed, slowly the new news started to cover up the old.
Now they were playing the same story of a man who’d tried to kill his wife, over and over again.
They were dissecting his motives, as well as his past life.
At night, though, when my favorite reporter came on, was when I got the real information.
It seemed that the show’s host and reporter, Gordon Matthews, cared about his country and those that protected it.
He of course touched on the other hot topics, but the majority of his time was spent on what was happening with our troops on the other side of the world.
Gordon, what do you think is the White House’s reasoning behind their refusal to give any names out? A woman on the screen asked him.
I froze in the kitchen of Halligans and Handcuffs, where I sometimes snuck breaks so I could see if anything new had transpired over my shifts, and stared at the flat screen hanging on the wall.
Being a Navy SEAL is a tremendous accomplishment. However, they put a lot of time and effort into becoming a SEAL, and maintaining their status as a SEAL. Their identity is their protection. They rely on their identities being secret while they’re over there. What if they’re alive, and their pictures are splashed all over every TV screen in the world? If they’re taking cover waiting for the fire to die down, and see their face on the TV screen, how are they supposed to protect themselves? They’ll be sitting ducks in a country that still doesn’t trust us, and no one to protect them or have their backs. Trust me when I say what they’re doing is protecting themselves as well as the soldiers that protect this country by not giving out names.
I smiled at the screen.
That’d been about what I was thinking, and he’d said it eloquently.
“He’s okay,” Silas’ deep voice rumbled from my side.
I whipped around; heart pounding a million miles an hour.
“How do you know?” I gasped.
He winked. “That boy has street smarts that you wouldn’t believe. Met him when he was eighteen and a thief who thought I was trying to steal his dinner. Trust me when I say that he’s alive. They wouldn’t be stalling for time if they didn’t think the same.”
Right To My Wrong (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 8) Page 5
