Chapter 15
CATCHER
The room goes quiet in that way people get when something ugly has been dragged into the light, and there isn’t a damn thing anybody can do to shove it back where it was.
Ruby’s mother has her arms wrapped around her, holding tight enough that Ruby’s cheek presses against her shoulder.
Her father stands near the couch, one hand dragging over his mouth while he tries to swallow the kind of rage a man gets when someone threatens his kid, and he wasn’t there to stop it.
His eyes cut to me, hard and measuring, not because he thinks I’m the threat, but because I’m the man standing in the middle of his living room telling him one exists.
“What does handled mean?” he asks.
Ruby lifts her head from her mother’s shoulder. “Dad—”
“It means…” I say, keeping my voice even, “… the man who put his hands on your daughter won’t be doing that again.” Her mother’s arms tighten around Ruby.
Her father stares at me for a long second. He doesn’t ask for details. Smart man.
His gaze drops briefly to the cut stretched across my shoulders before coming back to my face.
“You planning on staying close?” he asks.
There’s weight in it, not judgment or fear.
Just a father figuring out how dangerous this is and whether the man in his living room is ready to finish what has started.
Ruby stiffens already bracing for an argument.
“Yes.”
Her father studies me harder now. “And my daughter’s safe under your watch?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
Ruby’s eyes flick to me. I feel it without looking.
Her father nods once, but tension still rides his shoulders. “Because I don’t care what kind of trouble Robby’s in or who he owes, nobody’s using my daughter to settle it.”
“No one’s touching her again,” I say. The promise leaves my mouth before I think about it. Not because I’m trying to reassure him, but because I do mean it… every damn word.
Ruby’s mother looks between us, her hand rubbing slowly up and down Ruby’s arm like she’s trying to soothe the fear sitting under her skin.
“That doesn’t mean I need a watchdog,” Ruby says. There it is, that fire, that damn stubborn streak that makes me want to shake her and pull her close at the same time.
I turn my head enough to look at her. “Beg to differ.”
Her eyes narrow. “Of course, you do.”
“Good,” I mutter. “You’re catching on.”
Her mother glances between us, because even with fear thick in the room, she can feel whatever keeps sparking between her daughter and me.
Ruby catches the look and flushes. I’m too far gone to pretend I don’t know what’s there. Doesn’t mean I know what to do with it.
Her father clears his throat. “Ruby, honey, this isn’t about pride.”
Her head turns fast. “I know that.”
“Do you?” he asks, voice gentler than mine will ever be. “Because from where I’m standing, your brother dragged trouble to your door, and you’ve been carrying more than anyone should carry alone.”
That lands, and it should.
And her face tightens.
Her mother reaches for her hand. “We’re not angry at you.”
Ruby lets out a brittle breath. “I’m angry at myself.” Ruby looks down, her fingers curling into her palm.
Her father looks back at me. “What happens now?”
“We find Robby, find out who he owes, and make sure nobody uses Ruby to collect.”
“And until then?” he asks.
“She’s under the Kings’ protection,” I say, and Ruby scoffs softly before I cut my eyes to her. She opens her mouth, and I shake my head once. “No.”
Her spine straightens. “You can’t just no me.”
“I just did.”
Her father makes a rough sound that might be the start of a laugh, except there isn’t enough humor in the room for it to live long.
Ruby glares at me. “I’m not helpless,” she says.
“No,” I answer. “You’ve got men watching your house and cornering you in bars, though.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to take over my life,” she scoffs.
“I’m not taking over your life.”
“What do you call this? Babysitting me and going through my mail?” Ruby’s jaw tightens.
I say nothing.
She looks at me as if she wants to hate me—part of me still needs her to—then she exhales hard and turns back to her parents. “I really am sorry about all of this.” Ruby looks like she wants the floor to open under her feet.
Her dad looks at her. “What about work?”
Ruby straightens. “Why wouldn’t I go to work?”
I give Ruby a look.
“I have bills to pay, Catcher.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re already planning how to ruin my day.”
I hold her stare. “I’m planning how to keep you alive through it.”
Before anybody can say another word, Ruby’s mother pulls in a steadying breath and says, “Well, I’ve got lunch ready, and nobody’s leaving this house hungry.” Her gaze lands on me. “You too, Catcher. Stay and eat something.”
Ruby opens her mouth like she might argue, probably on instinct more than anything else, but her mother gives her a look that shuts it down before it starts.
I can’t shake the feeling I’m walking into something I’m not ready for.
Give me a fight, a threat, a man dumb enough to make a move, and I know what to do with that.
Ruby, her family table with all this fear, gratitude, and suspicion piled on top of each other? That’s a different kind of trouble.
Lunch is set out with sandwiches neatly lined up, a bowl of potato salad in the middle of the table, and cold, sweet tea sweating in cloudy glasses.
Ruby’s mother keeps her hands moving the entire time, as if she might stop for too long, and everything waiting underneath might catch up to her.
Ruby helps where she can, quietly stealing glances my way.
I take the chair offered to me, feeling too damn out of place.
The rest of the visit passes in the kind of silence that isn’t really silence at all. Ruby and her mother do most of the talking, and even then, it stays careful, circling safer ground like both know one wrong word could send the whole afternoon splintering wide open again.
They mostly talk about her mother’s rose garden. It’s ordinary soft talk. The kind built to patch over rough places for an hour or two, even if everybody at the table knows the ground underneath is still split open.
I answer when spoken to. ‘Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am.
The food’s good. Thank you.’ That’s about the size of it.
Ruby quickly glances at me now and then.
I keep my mouth shut and my shoulders loose, though every instinct in me stays wound tight, because the entire damn time, her father keeps cutting his eyes at me from the head of the table.
Not enough for his wife to call him on it.
Not enough for Ruby to notice more than once or twice.
Just every few minutes, I catch it—that sideways look, sharp as a blade and gone just as fast. He’s measuring, weighing, judging whether I’m exactly what his daughter needs or the next bad thing she’ll have to survive, and I can’t even blame him for it.
So, I sit there, eating a sandwich I barely taste, listening to Ruby and her mother talk while her father keeps cutting those looks at me, trying to read every ugly thing I don’t bother hiding. It makes the whole meal tight and awkward.
By the time lunch is finished, I’m more certain than ever of two things—Ruby’s mother will keep trying to make a normal afternoon out of a mess that doesn’t allow for normal, and her father hasn’t decided if he trusts me or hates that I’m necessary.
Maybe both. Ruby gathers plates with her mother, and I stand when she does, already ready to get her out of here and back under my watch.
The awkwardness of it all hangs in the air right up until we finally leave, heavy as summer heat and twice as hard to breathe through.
A few minutes later, we head for the door.
Ruby hugs her mom one more time, then leans up to kiss her dad’s cheek.
“I’ll call later,” she says softly. Her father walks us out onto the porch.
He stops beside me while Ruby moves down the steps ahead of us, shoulders tight, purse strap clenched in one fist.
“You staying close to her?” he asks, looking for reassurance.
“Yes.”
“Not just today?”
“No.”
He nods, his gaze fixed on Ruby. “She’s always been stubborn.”
“I noticed.”
His mouth twitches faintly. “Gets that from her mother.”
I glance at him.
He looks back, and the faint humor dies fast. “Keep my girl safe.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
The next morning, we are up and out the door by seven.
The silence between us isn’t new. It’s been hanging there since lunch at her parents’.
She’s mad, and I know it. Truth is, I don’t mind the quiet.
Makes it easier to keep my head where it needs to be, the bigger picture.
Her safety. That’s what matters right now, whether she likes me or not.
Ruby slides into the passenger seat without a word. I get behind the wheel, turn the engine over, and the vents push out nothing but warm air while my jaw tightens.
I back out of her driveway as she stares out the window, arms folded, mouth set like she’s building an argument and waiting for the right second to throw it at me.
I make it three blocks before my phone comes out. I hit Riggs’ name and put it to my ear.
“Talk to me,” Riggs answers.
“I’m taking Ruby to school. Need someone to relieve me there in thirty. I’m getting her car fixed.” Ruby turns her head slowly, eyes narrowing the second the words leave my mouth.
Riggs doesn’t miss a beat. “Done.”
I hang up. Ruby is staring at me like she’s considering committing a crime with her bare hands. “You are not taking my car.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes,” I say, pulling onto the main road. “I am.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I did.”
Her fingers dig into her purse strap. “This is exactly what I mean. You bulldoze.”
“Your AC’s been out for months. You need maintenance done on it. You’re driving in the Louisiana heat that can drop a grown man, with your brother’s bullshit circling you. You need something more reliable, so yeah, Ruby, I’m fixing the damn car.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”