Proving His Worth

by Cari Quinn

But she heard the hesitation in his voice and her eyes filmed, everything inside her drawing impossibly tight. “B-baby?” she repeated, demanding another answer from him that contained more certainty. She didn’t fully remember what had happened, but she knew she’d had a mishap of some kind. A car accident. Sliding on a wet road. Rocks. The guardrail. Wheels spinning so fast, not gripping the road.

  “Oh God.” A sob bubbled out of her throat. “My baby. I couldn’t…stop the car. Brakes. Ch-Chase—”

  “Shh. You have to stay calm. You had quite a jolt and you’re hurt. But they’ll be here to patch you up and take care of that hard-headed kid of yours in no time. See, that’s them now. Hear the sirens?”

  She shook her head or tried to. She couldn’t hear anything over the tidal wave of fear. She was so cold and she ached. Every time she attempted to move, Chase’s hand swept over her brow while he made those same shushing noises she figured were intended to bring her comfort. But she couldn’t be comfortable, not when she didn’t know if her baby would be okay.

  Yet again she tried to open her eyes. They flickered open and she quickly shut them, wincing at the pain from the light. Already that fuzzy blackness was coming back for her, blurring the edges of her consciousness. It took so much strength to stay awake, to stay lucid, and she didn’t want to. Floating away was so much easier.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Chase murmured before the darkness claimed her once more.

  Two-thirds of the way to Lamont’s place in Long Island, Sterling’s phone rang. Expecting Ang, hoping for Ang, he glanced in the rearview to check for cops and grabbed his cell, not checking the readout. “Baby?”

  “Not her, man.” Chase sounded entirely too somber, especially considering the joke fodder he’d been handed on a silver platter. “Where are you?”

  “On the road. Almost to Lamont. What is it? Did you find her?”

  “I found her.” He cleared his throat. “There was an accident and we’re on our way to the hospital. I’m following right behind the ambulance. She’s okay. I think she’s okay. She spoke to me.”

  The words accident and hospital rang in Sterling’s head, forcing out anything except the numbing fear icing his throat. “The baby?” he whispered.

  Chase’s pause told him everything he didn’t want to know. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Dammit, how? How did this happen?” He punched the steering wheel and nearly swerved off the road, causing a flurry of horns behind him.

  Another of those pauses. “It’s raining and slick, maybe she wasn’t paying attention—”

  “Chase, damn you, don’t sugarcoat. Tell me what happened.”

  “I found her off the side of Exit 16. Her car hit a guardrail. If I hadn’t been looking for her, I never would’ve seen the car because there’s so much underbrush in that area. The passenger’s side and the front took the brunt of the damage, but I managed to get the hood open. When she was drifting in and out, she mentioned not being able to stop. I wanted to see for myself what was going on in the engine before the cops got there.” He swallowed audibly. “Her brake line was tampered with, Sterling.”

  Sterling stared unseeingly out the window, hardly cognizant of the traffic passing him by. He managed to keep driving, but the light seemed strange, pulsing like a heartbeat. Like the fury in his skull. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. He knew what he was doing, making a small enough slice that the brakes wouldn’t have failed right away. With a cut that small, it takes a while to run out of brake fluid. If I hadn’t known what to look for, I wouldn’t have seen it. And if I hadn’t been certain that Ang would never take chances with her baby.” Chase swore under his breath. “What the hell kind of man would do that to his own kid?”

  “Try to do that,” Sterling corrected, voice tight. “The baby is going to be fine. She’s a fighter, just like her mom.”

  “Jesus, man, all she kept mentioning was her baby. Over and over. And you. I took some of the stuff from her car and your number was already on her phone screen, as if she’d tried to call you.”

  Sterling locked his already pounding jaw, using the pain to center him. If he didn’t focus on that, he’d tear the car apart with his bare hands, and he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything until he’d taken out the trash. “Lamont’s not a man. He didn’t want that child from day one. He didn’t want her to have her either.” Sterling clenched the wheel until his knuckles strained against the skin. “You need to go to the hospital and stay with her. Please.”

  “I am. I will. Of course. What about you?”

  “I’m almost to Lamont’s. I can’t turn around now.” He exhaled and forced himself to think it through, to follow the steps. “You have her phone.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure the cops will want it, once we get to the hospital. I didn’t give it to them at the scene. I wanted to look through it first, to see what we were dealing with. If he’d been harassing her.”

  “No ‘if’ there. She got a text that made her leave. That was him. I have no doubt.”

  “Yeah. I also took some papers off the passenger seat. Looks like some paternal rights thing. Part of the custody case. She’d signed off his rights. Guess that might’ve been what she’d been on her way to deliver to him.”

  Pieces of the puzzle started sliding into place in Sterling’s mind. The protection order he’d put on Sterling somehow connected to the paternal rights papers. He wasn’t sure how. Didn’t matter. He knew they were linked. Then there was Pete’s phone call and his likely demand that she come to him right then. The bastard had cornered Sterling in his house with Ang’s father, probably hoping Ang would come alone while Sterling stayed behind to make nice with his wounded friend.

  Planning all along that she would take her own car.

  “Goddamn him.” Sterling flipped on his signal, swerved into the next lane. “You have her phone. I need you to do me a favor. A couple of them actually.”

  “You’ve got it. Anything.”

  Later, much later, after he’d dealt with Lamont, Sterling would take a moment to reflect on Chase’s eagerness to help. Right then, he could only feel immense gratitude. “Don’t call her family yet. Don’t call anyone but Jax.”

  “I already called him. He and Cass are about to head back here. And Summer’s on her way too. They’re her family.”

  “Yes, thank you. She needs them.” Sterling rolled his shoulders, stared straight ahead. “But otherwise, don’t tell anyone yet. I’ll get there as fast as I can, but word spreads too fast in our hometown. I need him not to suspect.”

  “Suspect what?”

  “You’re going to text Lamont from Ang’s phone.” He gripped his cell in tense fingers and flipped through his memory banks, settling on the name he needed with a relief. “Tell him to meet her in the alley next to Shooters Bar.”

  “What are you doing, man? The cops—”

  “Don’t talk to me about the cops. They’re the side of the law that’s going to serve me with a temporary order of protection from that asshole while he’s going around messing with brake lines. I intend to hand him over to them when I have enough evidence to nail him. Right now, he’ll walk. You said that cut was small.”

  Chase blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

  “Small enough for the nephew of a judge to wiggle out of a conviction and he knows it. He was careful never to stalk her in any measurable way. She had plenty of feelings in his direction that something was off, and so did I, but nothing concrete. I should’ve paid more attention. Now I have to live with that.”

  “Do whatever you need. I’ll be here with her. Let me know if I can help. If Jax and I can help,” he amended. “You know he’ll have your back on this too, no matter what.”

  Sterling fumbled his spare tape recorder out of his glove department before signaling for the exit that would take him home. “Tell her I love her,” he whispered.

  “I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No thanks needed. She’s o
urs too,” Chase said before clicking off.

  Forty-five minutes later, Pete strode into the alley beside Shooters Bar, his mouth set in a grim line. That line hardened when he looked up and locked gazes with Sterling rather than whom he’d expected.

  “Surprise, surprise,” Sterling said, stepping out of the shadows. “Weren’t planning on spending some quality time with me this evening, were you?”

  Pete stopped dead and shoved his hands in the back pockets of the jeans slouching off his hips. “Where’s Ang?”

  Strolling forward, Sterling smiled. “She sends her regards. But we have a bit of business to discuss, and I’m sure you don’t want to trouble her.”

  “Try again, big shot. I have no business to discuss with you.” He started to turn away, only to be stopped by Sterling’s hand on his shoulder, dragging him back.

  “I’d listen if I were you,” Sterling said close to his face. “Unless you want the cops I have waiting for my signal to pin your worthless behind to the wall like you deserve.”

  “Cops?” Though Pete shrugged off Sterling’s hold and affixed a bored smile to his face, his eyes glinted as he turned to face him. “I’d think you’d be afraid of them since you’re the one under their watch, not me.”

  “Am I? I’ve not been alerted to that fact.” It took everything Sterling possessed to keep his smile in place. “And since you make your living as a mechanic rather than in the law, let me inform you that a temporary order of protection isn’t valid until the respondent is served. I haven’t been as of yet. Pity you filed so late on a Friday. Monday’s such a long time away from now, isn’t it?”

  Pete glared. “You know about it before you were served?”

  “I have my ways.” Sterling slipped his hand in his jacket, eased his thumb over the start button on his recorder.

  “Yeah, well, I have friends too, fucker. One of them’s Judge Pederoy.”

  “I wondered how you got an order through with so little evidence. Helps to have relations in high places.”

  “So little evidence? I have pictures of the black eye you gave me. And I saw you skulking around the body shop where I work—” As if he realized he’d gone too far, he fell silent, clamping his teeth together with an audible click.

  “Yes, you work in an auto body shop. And you’ve been to my home. You know where Ang most often parks her car on the street. God knows you had opportunity, since from what your boss told me, you usually don’t roll out of bed until close to noon. Must be hard keeping a job when you’re out all night.”

  Pete crossed his arms. “You talked to Jack? See why I filed those papers? You’ve taken it upon yourself to save your little knocked-up piece of ass, but—”

  Sterling grabbed him around the throat, shoving him back against the brick wall so fast that Pete barely had time to make a noise. “You mention her again and you’re dead. Lucky for you that you’re not already.”

  “Hey, man, I get it. She’s hot in bed.” Pete flashed a pained grin. “I remember well.”

  “What else do you remember? Do you remember driving to my house in the middle of the night and tampering with her car? Perhaps you recall putting a hole in the brake line, small enough that she wouldn’t lose all the brake fluid right away. Maybe she’d make it a distance away first. Like a highway, going sixty miles an hour in the rain.” Sterling’s hand clutched Pete’s throat, squeezed. Continued squeezing when Pete kicked out, one of his fists coming up in a wide swing. Sterling batted it away as if he were a minor annoyance. “You wanted to kill her and her baby. Be a man for once in your life and admit it.”

  “Her baby? It’s fucking mine and I don’t want it. I told her to get rid of it, but the stupid bitch never listens. It’s not my fault she wouldn’t sign those goddamn papers—”

  “The papers agreeing to sever your parental rights.” Sterling nodded, struggling to keep his temper in check. If he lost it before he got what he needed for the tape, Lamont could walk. Stay the course. “If only she’d signed those, we wouldn’t have had any of this trouble. You wouldn’t have filed that order of protection against me.”

  “I told her. I gave her plenty of time to sign. It’s not my fault she didn’t. So I had to take care of things in a different way. Better for her parents too. They don’t need that fuckin’ embarrassment in their lives—” Pete broke off, eyes bulging at the increased pressure from Sterling’s hand. “Fuck you. Let me go.”

  He threw up his arm again, and this time the punch connected with Sterling’s temple, knocking him backward. Fuck. Two punches to the head in one night equaled a big problem. He stumbled over a rut in the concrete and something fell out of his jacket.

  For an instant, visions of a shattered tape recorder played through his head. Then Pete’s laughter cut through the din and he narrowed his gaze on the little black box sitting in a puddle.

  “Aw, how sweet. A ring. No wonder you’re playing her savior. You and Ang and her little bastard baby make three. Too bad there’s probably nothing left of either of them. You wouldn’t be here if there was. You’d be holding her hand and cooing, not trying to get some petty revenge on me.” Pete took a step forward, hands bunched, eyes narrowed and gleaming. “Tell you what. Walk out of here right now and I’ll pull the protection order before you’re ever served. I’ll even do you a favor and won’t rip your pansy ass to shreds. It’ll be all over.”

  Sterling met Pete’s gaze, knowing full well if he bent to pick up that ring that he’d get a knee to his throbbing head for the trouble. But if he let it sit there, if he pretended for a second longer that he could tolerate this murderous bastard for the purposes of the tape, he’d lose something far more precious.

  Time to take out the trash once and for all.

  Sterling stepped forward, jaw set. Fists clenched.

  “Wanna fight then?” Pete’s smirk never wavered. “I’ll even let you take the first hit.”

  “Let me? Try to fucking stop me.”

  Before Sterling could move a muscle, a shot rang out. Pete gripped his shoulder and fell back into the trash cans, scattering them with a deafening clatter.

  Sterling cupped his damp temple—he hadn’t even realized he was bleeding—and pivoted to glance at the mouth of the alley. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Jax lowered the pistol he held, his lips twisting into a semblance of a smile. “I was in town and got a call you might need some backup. So I sent my lovely fiancée home in a pricey cab, dug out my weaponry from the glove box and came here to do battle.”

  Sterling pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and blotted up the blood on his forehead. “Appreciate it.”

  “What are friends for?” Jax’s smile broadened as Pete whimpered from his pile of garbage cans. Though Pete wouldn’t die from the wound, at least he appeared to be in a world of pain. “Looks like he got the first hit anyway.”

  Ang pressed her head back against the pillow and shut her grainy eyes. As tired as she was, sleep wouldn’t come. Well, other than her fainting episodes right after the accident, though that didn’t count as rest. Her dizziness had started to abate once she was in the ambulance and too scared to pass out.

  Now it was so late that Chase and Cass and Summer been ushered out. The activity in the ward had settled down to a low hum, but she was still awake, still headachy, still winding the thin slip of paper between her fingers into a braided band to give herself something to do.

  She’d been tested and retested. The results were a mild concussion, various scrapes and strains, and a good amount of soreness. Overall, she wasn’t in bad shape, though she sure wouldn’t be doing any jigs anytime soon. Most importantly, her baby was okay. She’d been attached to enough fetal monitors to prove it. Her child’s heartbeat was strong and steady, thank God, and the doctors would monitor them for a few days just in case.

  The baby had gotten lucky. She was lucky, in so many ways. True, her car might be headed to the junkyard and she’d lost three-fourths of a perfectly good Slurpee, but
she’d made out damn good overall.

  Still, every time she thought of those frantic moments of panic behind the wheel, she wanted to cry. So instead she cupped her belly and sang her repertoire of remembered songs—which consisted of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “London Bridge”. With a little bit of “Ice, Ice Baby” thrown in for entertainment value.

  “We’re going to be fine, Maybe Baby,” she murmured, fisting her hand in the sheet as the door opened once more. Jeez, no more shots.

  Her stomach gave an agonizing lurch as a familiar head poked inside. “Can I come in?”

  Finally. Her MIA lover had returned.

  “Sure.” She nearly pelted Sterling with questions about where he’d been all night, but from the way Chase had diverted her every time she’d tried to get answers on that score, she figured she might not want to know.

  When he stepped into the light and revealed the bruise on his temple to go with the angry one on his jaw, she decided she absolutely didn’t.

  “Sterling,” she gasped. “You look as bad as I do.”

  The smile he gave her nearly broke her heart. Or stitched it back together, she wasn’t sure which. “Then I must look pretty damn incredible, because you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m not crying anymore.” She wagged a taped finger at him. “So don’t press my luck.”

  “Can’t stop a guy from stating the obvious.” He pulled up a chair and took her hand. “Are you in pain?” His voice sounded raw, as if he’d rubbed his vocal cords with rocks.

  “I’m okay. Head hurts and Tylenol’s not really getting the job done, but I could’ve been worse. I thought I was worse. Hey, can you look at me?”

  “I am looking at you.” He didn’t lift his gaze. His thumb worried her abraded knuckles, sweeping back and forth, over and over again. “You even hurt your hand.”

  “I must’ve bumped it against the door. It was a rough ride down.” She tacked on a chuckle, mainly to see if he’d glance up at her.

  He didn’t.

  “Okay, you’re seriously starting to freak me out. You’ve been gone all night and Chase wouldn’t tell me where you were. When Jax finally showed up, he looked about as worn out as you do right now. Except at least he managed to look me in the eye. What’s going on?”