She sucked in a gulp of air as emotions clogged her throat. Then she pushed up on my chest and her sad, expressive brown eyes bored into mine.
A tear dripped from her cheek and splashed on my bare skin. I wanted to take all the pain away and protect this woman for the rest of my life.
“I have a sister,” she whispered in agony.
Ruby should have felt joy. She loved her family, but I know she was torn apart because she hadn’t known about her sister or been able to be in her life to care for her. She has a protective instinct a mile long, just as I did.
“I have to find her.”
I rubbed my hand up and down her back trying to soothe her. “We will. I promise you that. It won’t take long. Since the lady gave the police your name and your sister is with CPS I bet they will be contacting you.”
She shuddered against me.
“I can’t wait, I need to do it now.” Her tone was a bit hysterical. “She is three years old and was left alone sleeping while our mother went out to party with some guy, only telling the neighbor to check in on her from time to time.”
I had heard the conversion. Ruby had placed the call on speaker and my blood boiled when I listened to what the woman had to say. She had checked on her and left again only to be awakened by officers banging on the door where the young girl was. She had told police she would contact the family so police must have assumed they knew each other when that wasn’t the case at all.
The neighbor should have also reported this type of neglect to someone a long time ago since she had been witnessing it. My body tensed wondering what else the child had gone through.
“Should I feel something that my mother died?” she asked in a tortured tone. She didn’t wait for a reply and kept talking. “All I feel is anger about what she did to my sister. And for the fact, after never speaking to me all my life that my mother would leave my name for some stranger to contact me to find out I had a sister, only if something bad happened?”
Ruby’s voice was getting louder and the anger she spoke of was settling in. But with it came great despair.
Her mother and the man she was with had drank too much but chose to drive anyway. Something I’d unfortunately seen in my line of work too many damn times. Luckily they hadn’t hurt anyone else, but they had both died when they took a corner too fast and took a nosedive off a cliff. We didn’t have all the details yet, but I would get them. It would be up to Ruby if she wanted to know.
“I have to tell Gramps and Jett, but not tonight. They are going to freak out and I can’t handle that right now.”
“One step at a time, babe. I’ll be with you the whole way.”
When she leaned down and kissed my stomach, it flexed under the softness of her lips and my heart started to beat out of control. Again it wasn’t sexual. This was us coming together, building something real, and her saying thank you.
Ruby looked back up and our eyes met.
“Who does what she did, Lyric?”
I was in the military and I’m a cop, people do crazy things, and a lot of bad shit happened. But I didn’t want any of it to keep happening to Ruby.
My girl was gutted.
The wordsmy girlcame to mind without any hesitation and I realized how true they were.
Tears dripped down her soft cheeks. I reached over and gently brushed them away with the pad of my thumb. Then I tucked her back into my side and wrapped my arms around her, holding her close.
“I don’t know, baby. You can’t possibly begin to understand because you’re an amazing person and wouldn’t hurt anyone. Try to sleep. We’ll figure it all out tomorrow.”
We lay there in silence for a short time and Ruby’s breathing started to even out, but I knew she wasn’t asleep yet.
“It’s my job to take care of my sister now,” she said quietly.
She burrowed closer to me and I felt her shudder.
“ I need to protect Autumn.”
I was going to move mountains and be there to make sure that happened.
ChapterTen
RUBY
