Sharp inhaled swiftly, his eyes a sudden vat of flame.
“Please, tell me that you didn’t actually just say that… or do that when he was a young child,” Sharp growled.
Oh, boy. He sounded really pissed now.
“Sir.” The butler cleared his throat. “There are some Texas Rangers on our doorstep. Shall I let them in?”
“You shall,” Sharp hissed.
Rebecca took a few steps toward the back door, but Sharp’s hand whipped out and caught her around the upper bicep. “You will stay and answer to your crimes.”
“I will not.” Rebecca tried to pull her arm away. “You were the one that wanted fucking kids. I was happy just the way we were.”
Selfish. Always so selfish.
I was better off without her.
But I spoke the truth earlier.
My life would’ve been a whole lot easier had I not been born at all.
Two very large Texas Rangers walked in, and apparently there wasn’t a single person that Lynn didn’t know, because he greeted both by name.
“Griffin.” Lynn nodded his head and held out his hand to the one on the left that hadn’t taken his hat off when he entered. After shaking his hand, he moved to the one next to him. “Jarock.”
Jarock, the large black man that had arms that strained his uniform shirt, looked over at Rebecca like she was a piece of trash he didn’t want to pick up, yet was doing it anyway.
“You Rebecca Sharp?” Jarock asked.
Rebecca stepped away, her hands up in a placating gesture. “I didn’t do it! The butler did!”
The butler cursed and started to run, but the other Texas Ranger stopped him before he could so much as take two steps out of the room.
“Everybody sit down,” Lynn ordered. “And start talking.”
• • •
We never got dinner. That would have to come tomorrow.
We’d run out of time.
By the time we’d arrived home, Catori was practically hanging on in her sleep, which slightly terrified me.
She barely had enough strength to get herself up the porch stairs on her own.
By the time she got into my place, nearly setting the alarm off in her slowness, I took pity on her and picked her up.
She curled up in my arms like a small child, her head snuggling up underneath my chin and her arm encircling my neck, giving me the weirdest feeling in the world.
Trust.
She trusted me to take care of her.
Laying her in bed, I worked on her shoes, then her pants, and finally pulled the covers up high over her shoulders just the way I’d noticed that she liked it.
And only after I’d realized that I’d been staring at her for way too fuckin’ long did I leave the room.
Though, I may have left the room, but she didn’t leave my mind.
When I finally met up with the rest of the club at the back of my house, all of them gathered around the fire pit—the fire pit that wasn’t lit—they all had grim faces.
“What took you so long?” Hunt wondered.
“Apparently Catori had a really hard day, because I barely got her up the stairs before she fell into bed. Had to take her shoes off.” I shrugged.
Among other things.
“I like her,” Sin said as he lifted a beer to his lips. “All the girls like her.”
“All the boys like her.” Lynn rolled his eyes, coming to a stop on me. “What did you think of your mother?”
I scoffed. “Literally thinkin’ I hit the lottery when it came to her getting rid of me,” I said.
Lynn flinched.
“Not sure that either of us would be in the same place that we are now if we hadn’t been separated, Lynn,” I said. “It fuckin’ sucks. Sucks that I had to go through what I went through. Sucks that you had to lose a child. But in the end, we got here. I don’t hold grudges. I’ve never blamed you. And now, meeting her, I realize that I never should’ve questioned your caring for me, especially since I saw how pissed off you were when you saw her.”
The boys of the group started making excuses to head home, first Sin citing that Blaise needed him. Followed by Hunt who said that he’d been up too long, and Wyett was asking for him to come home.
Zach, who’d been the last to arrive, said, “Gotta go help Murphy with something before I head home. Holler if you need us.”
One by one, they all left, finally leaving Lynn and I alone.
Something that hadn’t happened without at least one person close, since I’d found out that Lynn was my father.
It wasn’t awkward, though.
It was… right.
Like we’d finally gotten some closure, and we could begin to build a relationship where previously there was nothing to be built. We now had a foundation—a mutual hate for the woman that birthed me.
“Can’t fuckin’ believe that she thought she could just go snatch a kid and nobody would notice.” Lynn shook his head. “She’s always had a brass set on her, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Still fuckin’ drop dead beautiful, though.”