Proving His Worth

by Cari Quinn

  Before he could figure out how to restart his heart, she’d run back upstairs.

  Minutes passed before either man spoke.

  “Sounds like you don’t have everything figured out as perfectly as you thought.”

  Marcus’s smugness set off a fury inside him, one he hadn’t even realized was building. It had all started from that phone call he’d gotten a short time ago from Bob Collins. Sterling had asked him just that morning to start tailing Pete again. His spidey senses were going off big time in Pete’s direction lately, and he’d decided he would rather have extra eyes on the man even if Pete did figure out he was being followed. Collins had called back to inform him that he’d heard from a contact in the DA’s office that Pete had filed an order of protection against Sterling, which would impede Bob’s ability to track Pete since he was in Sterling’s employ.

  Now Sterling was distinctly picking up the scent of a rat, one who just happened to have his name tattooed on Sterling’s woman’s back.

  “How did you find out about me and Ang?”

  “Is that important?”

  Sterling cupped his throbbing cheek. “Humor me.”

  “Pete Lamont talked to Sandra.”

  Rat: located. “I just bet he did,” Sterling said darkly. The bigger question was why would Pete go to her parents. He had to know that Ang would most likely reveal the truth about his being the father of her baby, especially if he forced her hand.

  “He confessed that he was concerned that Ang was seeking a father figure in her life and had turned to you. Sandra didn’t want to believe it, of course. Neither did I.”

  “I’m eight years older than her.” Sterling flexed his sore jaw. On the plus side, it wasn’t broken. On the minus, he suspected he had plenty of applesauce and soft foods in his future. “Hardly father figure material.”

  “Eight years is plenty when it comes to Angel. You know she’s never been mature for her age.”

  “Stop right there.” Sterling dropped his hand and curled it into a fist. “You’re my friend—were my friend, at any rate—but I’m not going to let you diminish her into some immature kid. She’s handled a difficult situation with remarkable grace, wit and strength. Perhaps if you weren’t so busy trying to overprotect her, you’d see the woman she’s grown into today. That woman is the one I love.” Sterling stepped closer to Marcus. If he took another punch, so be it. “Believe me when I say she doesn’t need another father figure in her life. She’s doing fine all on her own.”

  The creak on the stairs alerted him that they had company once again. Ang came down fully dressed, though not in the outfit she’d worn that afternoon. The blouse she’d worn earlier was still crumpled at the bottom of the stairs.

  Jesus. Sterling’s ears heated. Hopefully Marcus hadn’t seen that.

  “Your reaction is exactly what I was afraid of, Daddy,” she said quietly, clutching a sheaf of papers to her chest. “I know how you and Mom see me. How I’ve encouraged you to see me in some ways. I never tried to hide my partying, and maybe that was a mistake. Making good grades and working part-time and staying out of serious trouble aren’t enough once you’ve been caught drunk skinny-dipping in the family pool with your high school boyfriend, I suppose.”

  Sterling was about to offer his support when the last bit of what she’d said pierced the haze in his brain. “You really did that? I thought it was an urban legend around town.”

  She shrugged. “Urban legend based on fact.”

  “Angel, that isn’t important now,” Marcus began.

  “Yes, it is. I didn’t tell you and Mom right away because I wanted time to prove to you—to myself—that I’d changed. I was going to get a cozy apartment, paid for with my own money, and a nice stable job while I socked away money for the baby.” She sucked in a breath. “Instead I shacked up with Sterling and screwed up things for him while I worked in a bingo hall and tried to keep my ex from interfering in my life.” When both men started to interrupt, she held up a hand. “I got another job, as a technical writer for a great magazine. I have a list of apartment candidates, some of them strong. And I—”

  “No.” Sterling folded his arms. “You think you’re moving out now, when Pete has been hassling you? When we’ve been—” he glanced at her father, “—what we are to each other?”

  Marcus stepped forward. “What do you mean, Pete’s been hassling her? Angel, what is he talking about?”

  She scrubbed her palm over her face. “I’m not saying I’m moving out. But I refuse to assume you’d want me here forever, not before we discussed everything.”

  Sterling tried to temper his annoyance at the situation and failed. Miserably. She was being smart and sensible, but he wasn’t in that place. For once he wanted to be utterly rash. Needed to be. “Assume it,” he said in a low voice.

  “Not now,” she murmured, sparing Sterling a look before she directed her gaze toward her father. “I promise, we’ll talk this through. I’ll come by later, see you and Mom. We’ll spend some time together. I’ve missed you both.”

  “Honey, your mother has missed you so much.” Marcus stroked his hand over her hair and swallowed deeply. “So have I.”

  “I’ve missed you too. I’ve screwed this up royally, but I won’t anymore.”

  Her father smiled faintly. “Come back with me now then.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. There’s something I need to take care of, and it can’t wait.”

  She turned toward Sterling. “We’ll talk too, when I get back.” He opened his mouth but she closed it with her fingers, her gaze steady on his. “I’m asking you to trust me. Not to ask me questions, not to demand to stand in front of me. Let me handle this, so I can get back to you that much quicker.”

  His skull pounded as too many thoughts rushed to the forefront at once. And beneath them all, the stomach-tightening fear that something was off, that her running out alone was absolutely the worst thing she could do. He didn’t know what that text had been about, but he had a damn good idea who had sent it. “Let me go with you.” He cupped her cheek, his only aim to convince her, no matter who was watching. “You don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to do anything alone ever again.”

  “That’s exactly why I can. I know you have my back, always.” She gave him a tremulous smile and stepped back. “I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  “It’s not you I don’t trust,” he said, clenching his jaw in spite of the agony.

  “I’ll be back soon.” She crossed the foyer and kept going, softly shutting the front door.

  Taking his heart with her.

  Sterling pinched the bridge of his nose and stemmed the nearly overpowering urge to follow. He’d give her one hour. Trust only went so far when every one of his instincts was shouting she was heading right for trouble.

  One hour. Then he would head straight for that bastard Lamont.

  “You’re going to go after her,” Marcus said after a moment.

  “Yes. Soon.” Sterling rolled his shoulders. Tension lined his spine, completely erasing the effects of his encounter with Ang. It felt like hours had passed since then, not minutes. “Until then, she asked for my trust, so I’m giving it to her.” Trying to.

  “Is she truly in danger from Lamont?”

  “If I believed she was, do you think I would’ve let her walk out of here?” But that voice at the back of his mind niggled. Loudly.

  Marcus narrowed his eyes. “Better hope you’re right.”

  “I know you’ve lost faith in me.” Sterling didn’t shirk his friend’s gaze. “She’s not the only one who’s sorry. I handled all of this horribly. I know better, and still, I let you find out this way. That’s on me. I owed it to her and you—hell, even to myself—to be honest about my intentions.”

  A muscle ticked in Marcus’s temple. “Which are?”

  Sterling exhaled and searched for the right words. He was having trouble focusing on Marcus when Ang was putting herself on the line. “I’m going to marry her,” h
e said when he finally found his voice. His gaze connected with his old friend’s. “I know my recent actions haven’t made you think that I’m a man worthy of your daughter, but I promise you, she is now and will always be my first priority. Her and our baby.” The word our rolled off his tongue and not because he intended to lie. For all intents and purposes, Ang’s child was his. Biology didn’t change that.

  “Sounds like you’re telling me.”

  “I am. I’m also asking you for your blessing. She loves you and her mother very much. I want her to have your support, always. She needs that.” He cleared his throat. “I’d also like to hope that one day we could be friends again. That you will grow to understand that my actions might’ve been misguided at times, but my feelings for her never were.”

  Marcus raised a brow. “And if I refuse to give you my blessing?”

  Sterling locked his throbbing jaw, wallowing in the pain that blazed through him. It felt fitting somehow. Just. “Then I’ll marry her anyway, assuming she says yes.” A very important part of the plan. “I’d rather do it knowing you’ve put your trust in me. No one will ever love her and our child more than I do. I’ll die proving that to her, and to you.”

  Marcus studied him steadily, then shook his head and crossed the foyer. “Save the proving for Angel, Vance.” He yanked open the door, staring outside for what seemed like an eternity. “You have my blessing. But so help me, if she ever tells me you’ve hurt her, I will gladly rip every limb from your body and spread your ashes in the Hudson River.”

  “Understood. Thank you.”

  “Go put some ice on that jaw,” Marcus added before he stepped out and shut the door as softly as his daughter had moments before.

  Sterling checked the time as he went to retrieve his phone from the bedroom. Fifteen minutes since Ang had left. Forty-five minutes until his conscience would let him go after her.

  Zero minutes until he found the loophole that would allow someone else to go after her now.

  He hit speed dial on his phone. Cursed. Dammit, Jax had gone into the city with Cass. That meant he only had one other viable option.

  Pressing his fist against his thigh, he hit the next number programmed into his cell. He gritted his teeth at the growl that sufficed as a hello on the other end of the phone. And paid the price when his jaw started to throb all over again.

  “I need your help,” Sterling said in lieu of his own hello.

  “I care because?”

  “Because you’re not a dick deep down, despite the damn fine imitation you do of one on a daily basis.”

  Chase surprised the hell out of him by chuckling. “Don’t spread that around. What do you need?”

  “I think Ang might be in trouble, but she asked me to give her some space.” He unclenched his hand and immediately clenched it again. “To trust her to handle it.”

  “So that’s where I come in, right?”

  “Right.”

  “This have to do with that fucker Lamont? I’ve read your file on him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did she go? His apartment?”

  “My best guess.”

  “Lucky for you, I’m on the highway outside of town already. I just dropped Summer off at a friend’s. Won’t be much effort to get off the highway and do a U-turn to head toward Lamont’s.”

  “You know his address?”

  “I know everything that goes on in my office, Vance. Everything,” Chase added with an ominous finality that made Sterling’s thoughts veer to unpleasant places. Like his desk when Ang was spread out half-naked on top of it.

  His lips lifted in spite of himself. Not so unpleasant after all.

  Sterling cleared his throat. “That’s, ah, a good thing in this case.”

  “So brief me on what’s new. Lamont’s a piece of work, but something must’ve happened to send Ang out after him. She seems intent on staying as far away from him as she can. For good reason.”

  Sterling spelled it out for him in the briefest terms possible, mentioning the protection order he’d just found out about and the text Ang had gotten that had probably been from Lamont. When combined with Lamont’s bizarre decision to set Marcus on the warpath regarding Sterling’s relationship with his daughter, it added up to a hell of a lot of tension knotting his stomach. He suspected Ang hadn’t told him some bit of vital information, and that made for too many wild cards in an already unpredictable situation.

  “My gut’s telling me that waiting is a mistake,” Sterling said, striding toward the bedroom door. “I can’t give her that hour. Every minute that passes, I’m more certain that she needs me there.”

  “Well, she’s about to get me first. See you when I see you.”

  “Thanks, man.” Sterling clicked off and grabbed his jacket. On second thought, he followed impulse and went back to the dresser to grab the little black box he’d tucked into the top drawer.

  The time for waiting and biding his time had passed—on every level.

  Ang exhaled a long breath and tightened her fingers around the wheel. She’d been all hell-bent to get to Pete’s after that obnoxious text he’d sent—time’s up, unless you get over here and change my mind—until she’d realized her gas tank was hovering on E. She’d gone to the closest station, only to find it closed for renovations. Yardley wasn’t exactly the size of New York City, so she’d had to drive across town to get to the nearest other station. The good thing was that put her closer to the highway. She’d gotten a later start to Pete’s than she’d intended, but it wasn’t all bad. At least the gas station had a working Slurpee machine. Lime and grape were actually kind of good together.

  She smiled. Anal sex and Slurpees in one day. My, how unusual her life had become.

  If only she could focus on the fun and games portion of her reality. Unfortunately not. The fact that she’d had to walk away from an important conversation with her dad and Sterling to deal with the messes she’d made proved that well enough. But if she finally turned over those signed papers to Pete, she’d be that much closer to getting him out of her life. And her child’s. That made everything worth it.

  She still needed to have a stepparent in place to ensure the agreement would be binding, but she had faith that Sterling loved her and the baby enough to commit to the real deal. Perhaps she and her Maybe Baby would gain a Maybe Family too.

  She turned up the radio and started to sing along with P!nk. She’d be damned if she let Pete rattle her. She was in love. Real, honest-to-God love with a man who loved her back and had said so in front of her father. Pete couldn’t hurt her if she didn’t allow him to. She signaled to switch lanes. It sucked she wouldn’t be able to tell him that in person for another oh, hour and a half if traffic cooperated, but—

  The brake felt spongy under her foot, so she tapped it harder as she swung into the other lane. She frowned and gripped the wheel tighter, perspiration beading up on her forehead. What the hell? She hadn’t been driving her car much lately, outside of driving to the bingo hall, but that didn’t explain why her brakes didn’t feel right. She should’ve taken Sterling’s car.

  Sterling.

  Without questioning the impulse, she turned on her hazard lights and slowed her speed as much as was safe, considering she was on an extremely busy, three-lane highway. There was no safe place to stop and the nearest exit was a quarter mile away. She didn’t want to pull off here if she had any choice, so maybe if she took her time, she could make it. The brakes were probably fine. With all the stress in her life lately, she could be overreacting.

  Except now it was starting to rain, and every experimental tap on the brakes she took felt less right. But the exit was so close…

  She grabbed her phone, gripping it hard in her free hand. If she could just hear his voice, she’d calm down. She couldn’t panic, not now. Not when the truck behind her was bearing down on her little sedan and she couldn’t seem to slow down enough to navigate the exit. All she had to do was turn her signal on and press the button under
neath her thumb. Sterling would come help her. She only had to call. Dammit, why hadn’t she listened to him and let him come with her? If she’d asked for his assistance with Pete, he would’ve given it. Even as far as that whole stepparent thing. He wanted her baby.

  God, her baby.

  Steering into the curve, she pumped her foot and let out a choked cry when the car shimmied and swerved with a loud squeal of the brakes. She tried to steer, overcorrected and swerved again. She jammed the pedal to the floor, panic taking over, but the car barely slowed. Thinking quickly, she downshifted to a lower gear, hit the emergency brake and prayed.

  Then the car was careening off the side of the road toward a sharp outcropping of rocks bordered by a flimsy guardrail. Horns blared and brakes shrieked. Too fast. It was all happening too fast. She couldn’t stop.

  Sterling. She screamed helplessly and shut her eyes as the car tumbled and shook. Then fell silent as everything went black.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ang woke to a gentle voice near her ear. “Ang, it’s me, Chase. Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

  She tried to nod, tried to form her lips into the shape of the word yes. Air hissed out between her teeth, but she couldn’t sound out the reply she wanted. Everything hurt and she couldn’t open her eyes. Her lids were too heavy. She jerked against the restraints that bound her, though she felt like a trout flopping back and forth. No coordination.

  “Shh. Take it easy. You’re okay.” Soft fingers smoothed over her forehead and she whimpered, wishing they belonged to Sterling. Or her mother. “Don’t try to move. The ambulance is coming and—”

  “The brakes…failed. Sterling,” she whispered, unsure if she even said it aloud or only in her head. She tried again, forcing the word out past her dry lips. “Sterling.”

  “He’s on his way,” Chase soothed, his hand stroking over her hair. “You’re going to be fine. Just fine.”

  “B-baby?” she managed.

  “Your baby will be fine too.”