Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

March 19th

9:16 A.M.

This couldn't be happening.

Yet the finality of the sound of his front door closing confirmed that it was indeed happening.

No going back.

Panther was all too aware that he might have just ruined the best thing to ever happen to him outside of his son and lost Elle and Ruthie for good.

Anger flooded through him.

How dare Marcia come back now. She'd had seven years where she could have decided that she was sorry she'd walked out on her husband and son without discussion, without warning, seemingly without regret.

So why was she there now?

Not for one second did he buy that she truly wanted a second chance. If she loved Andy the way she was supposed to, there was no way on earth she could have just walked away from him and stayed away. If it was just about their marriage, about her not wanting to live the military lifestyle anymore, she could have just divorced him, there had been no need to sign away her parental right.

Parental rights she said she wanted back.

If he believed her.

Which he didn"t.

"What"s this all about, Marcia?" he demanded, doing his best to ignore the sound of the car engine turning on outside. The car that would take Elle and Ruthie away from him, away from where they belonged.

It was on the tip of his tongue to call them back, to tell them he couldn't bear for them to leave.

But then he glanced at his son and … he couldn't do it.

All Panther had wanted as a child was for his parents to be together. He'd hated the stress of the divorce, hated being bounced between houses, hated that his step-siblings spent more time with his parents than he did, and hated when new babies had come along and he'd felt left out and unwanted.

How could he do that to his son?

There was no way he could allow history to repeat itself, and cause his son the same pain he had lived with, the feelings of being unwanted and unimportant. As much as he hated to send Elle away, he had to be sure he was doing what was in his son's best interest.

"I missed you," she said, batting her big hazel eyes like she used to do when they were young.

Only they weren"t teenagers anymore and too much time has passed. One thing he knew for certain was that he wasn't in love with this woman and never had been. Back then, he'd believed that he was, but now that he'd experienced the depth of feelings he had for Elle, how strong they were already, he knew that it had been a whole lot more lust than love with Marcia.

Giving a humorless laugh he rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Sure. I totally believe that. Seven years, Marcia. It's been seven years since you walked away, I"m going to ask you again, what is this all about?"

Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she wrung her hands together in front of her. "I did miss you guys, okay? I finally realized that I made a mistake and I came back to rectify it. I want to be your wife again, I want to get to know my son."

"I"m not your son," Andy snapped in an angry tone Panther had never heard come out of his sweet little boy's mouth. There had been plenty of times Andy had been angry, thrown tantrums, grumbled and complained, but nothing like this.

"Andy," he warned. Regardless of whether or not his son was hurting, this was the woman who gave birth to him and he needed to show her due respect.

"What?" Andy turned his glare from Marcia to him. It was more than obvious his son was angry, hurt, and confused, and for the first time Panther realized it might have been a mistake to have Elle and Ruthie move in with them so quickly.

Everything had gone at breakneck speed given the situation with Ruthie's abduction. Elle had needed the support, hadn"t been able to stay alone any longer, and he'd been filled with a need to take care of her. Then Ruthie had been afraid to go back home, and he'd wanted the two of them there where he could watch over them.

At the time it had seemed so simple, but now he realized that they might have moved too quickly because he'd just thrown Elle and Ruthie to the wolves. Sent them home alone without the support system they had been used to.

"You show your mother respect," he told his son.

"Why? She didn"t show me no respect when she left. Why did you make Elle and Ruthie leave?"

"Because this is your mother. We were married, I need to sort things out with her." His son was young and didn"t understand about grown-up relationships, but Panther knew how attached he was to Elle and her daughter so he was prepared to explain himself.

"Work what out?"

"Work out where we go from here." Did he believe that Marcia had suddenly had a change of heart and wanted to find a way to get back to where they had been before? No, not completely. Even if she did want to rekindle their relationship, was he interested in doing that? No, not at all.

His future was with Elle, Panther believed that wholeheartedly, but there was no way in good conscience he could not make absolute sure he was making the right choices for his son. If nothing else, Andy should have some sort of relationship with his mother if it was what she truly did want.

Andy tossed a glare Marcia's way. "I don't want it to work out with her. I want Elle and Ruthie back. Ruthie will be scared tonight because she doesn't have the ring, and if Elle has bad dreams then you won"t be there."

"Elle and Ruthie will be okay," he soothed, even as guilt soured his gut. This was their safe place, he knew that, and he had just ripped it away from them, without warning, without explanation. Panther had always felt like he wasn't the bad guy when it came to his relationship with Marcia and the way it had fallen apart, but when it came to his relationship with Elle he was absolutely the bad guy.

"They won"t be okay because we're not there," Andy yelled, then he ran from the room, his footsteps thumping on the stairs as he ran up them, presumably to his bedroom.

This was going from bad to worse. The last thing he wanted to do was upset his son, he was trying his best to do the right thing for Andy.

Seemed like he was hurting everyone.

"Sorry about that," he said as he scrubbed his fingers down his face, wishing he could just go back in time just an hour ago to when everything was perfect. When he was waking up with the woman he was falling in love with in his arms, when they came downstairs to the sounds of the kids giggles as they watched cartoons, when they were all around the table laughing and having breakfast together.

A hand tentatively touched his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

He didn"t want Marcia's touch, didn"t want her comfort, or her presence messing up the perfect life he was building.

Maybe if she had come back earlier before he'd realized the lack of feelings he'd had for the woman he had married, then maybe he would have taken this opportunity for a second chance. But things had changed and he didn"t want to go back, he wanted to go forward, and going forward didn"t include restarting a relationship with his ex.

"I didn"t know you were … involved," Marcia stammered.

"If you had, would you have come back?"

While she hesitated for a moment, she still nodded. "I wanted to see you and my son. I'm sorry to have ruined whatever you had with that woman, but this is my family and I can"t be sorry for fighting for them."

Irritation had him turning his back on her. "Too little too late, Marcia. I won"t stand in the way of you spending time with Andy and getting to know him. But he doesn't know you. You want to see him, you do it here where he feels safe. But just picking things back up like the last seven years never happened, that won"t happen."

"I want you back, Rafe," she said softly. "I want it all. I won"t settle for just a relationship with our son, I want him to have everything. I hate that I stole what should have been a perfect family life for him. The kind of life neither of us were given by our parents. I can"t go back, I can"t erase my mistakes, but I can rectify them. I can fight for my family. I can fight for my son to have the life he should have had all along, with his parents together, raising him as a team. If you don't object, I'll come back tomorrow morning to spend some time with Andy. And you."

With that, Marcia walked past him and out of the cabin leaving him standing there feeling trapped. He didn"t want a future with Marcia, but more than anything he wanted his son to have what he had never had.

A happy family with his mom and his dad.

Problem was, he also wanted a future with Elle and Ruthie, and he couldn't have both.

March 19th

8:41 P.M.

"I don't want to go to bed, Mommy," Ruthie yelled.

Her daughter was distraught bordering on hysterical, and honestly, Elle couldn't say that she was doing all that much better herself.

The little girl wasn't the only one who dreaded going to sleep. It was one thing to know that if nightmares came for you while you were vulnerable that someone would be there to hold you while you wept, to soothe and comfort you. It was completely another to know that if those nightmares came for you, you would have to face them alone.

But neither she nor Ruthie had a choice.

This was their reality now, and the sooner they got used to it the better. For both of them.

It had been a long day. They'd stopped off at the mall on the way back to their house—a house which was no longer home in her mind but just a building—and stocked up on everything they would need to get through the next few days. Clothes, toiletries, food, and toys. Elle didn"t care what it cost to buy stuff they didn"t need so long as she didn"t have to talk to Rafe or anyone else on Bravo Team until she had her composure back in place.

Of course, she knew the conversation was inevitable, she wasn't going to leave behind all her photos and mementoes of Ruthie's life, but she could live without those things for a little while. Once she felt back in control, she'd call one of the women and ask if they could help her organize boxing up all her and Ruthie's things and deliver them to the house.

Problem was, the one thing both she and her daughter needed the most was the one thing they couldn't have.

Rafe and Andy, and the safe place they had been creating there.

With that safety net ripped away from them, Elle knew both she and her child were floundering, left adrift with no life ring in an ocean that would absolutely toss them about and drown them.

Well, it would try to drown them, but she wasn't going to allow her daughter to go under. Whatever happened she would make sure that Ruthie was okay. That would be her entire focus, and maybe then, she wouldn't have to think about the huge gaping hole Rafe had left in her heart when he sent her away.

Doing her best to cling to a calm she most certainly was not feeling—Elle absolutely wanted to yell, scream, and cry just as Ruthie had done all day—she stroked a hand down Ruthie's tangled locks. "I know you don't, my sweet little unicorn girl, but you need sleep and its already past your bedtime."

"But what if a bad man comes? Rafe isn't here to save us, and Andy isn't here, and I don't have the ring and Supergirl." Ruthie sobbed helplessly.

Never before had Elle felt so ill-equipped to deal with her own child.

Sure, there had been a whole lot of challenges, especially in those early months when she was still learning about a baby's needs and how to care for one. But as Ruthie grew older, Elle's confidence grew along with her. Every challenge she faced confident in the knowledge that she loved her daughter and that was what mattered the most.

Now her confidence was shaken.

Knowing that she was responsible for her daughter's ordeal and her current state of hysteria made Elle feel not only incompetent but dangerous to her child. She should have known better than to allow two people she hardly knew to so quickly become so important to her seven-year-old daughter.

Selfish.

That's what she'd been.

She had agreed to stay with Rafe because it was what she needed.

In putting her needs before her daughter's, there was no one else responsible for Ruthie's pain other than herself.

Unable to fight back her own tears, they trickled down her cheeks and she didn"t bother to wipe them away, didn"t bother to pretend that she was a grown-up and that grown-ups could handle anything.

This wasn't something she could handle.

"I"m scared too, baby," she whispered.

Ruthie stilled. "You are?"

"Yep. I"ve never been more scared in my life than when I went out into the backyard and you weren"t there. Every day that you were gone I was scared. I"m sorry that I brought Jimmy into our lives," she gave her daughter the apology she owed her.

Thin arms wrapped around her with a strength that belied their small size. "No, Mommy. It's not your fault. It's Jimmy's fault. I hate him and I"m glad he's dead," Ruthie said with a coldness that would have scared her if she hadn"t felt the exact same way.

"I know I"m not Rafe, or Andy, or Supergirl, but I promise you, sweetheart, I will not let anyone hurt you."

Snuggling closer and crawling into her lap, Ruthie rested her head on Elle's shoulder. "I know you won"t, Mommy."

Something inside Elle settled at her daughter's trust. Maybe that was what she had been afraid of the most all along. That the ordeal that she would forever blame herself for no matter what anyone else said, would have irrevocably damaged her relationship with her child. Ruined it in a way that meant it would no longer be just the two of them against the world.

Ruthie was the only person she could count on to show her unconditional love, how would she survive without that?

"Mommy?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"Will you sing to me?"

"Of course I will." Wrapping herself around her child, Elle settled back against the pillows in the guest bedroom—unable to face her bedroom and what had happened there she and Ruthie had agreed to share this room for now—and began to sing.

For almost half an hour she sang, every song she could think of, over and over again, and slowly Ruthie's cries began to diminish, eventually dying out.

Still she sang and rocked her daughter, cherishing every single second of the slight weight in her arms. Her daughter was home, alive, in one piece, struggling to process all she'd been through but so darn brave it filled Elle's heart with pride.

They would make it.

Together the two of them would rebuild their lives.

Maybe they'd move away somewhere else. With her job, she could live anywhere in the world and she wasn't anywhere close to being ready to allow Ruthie to go back to school. She could move somewhere quiet and remote, hire a tutor and homeschool her daughter so she never had to let Ruthie out of her sight again.

Her voice began to grow hoarse, her throat ached, and in the end Elle had to give up singing only because she had no other choice. Sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. It was one thing to wake her daughter with screams climbing out of her nightmares when she knew that Rafe and Andy were there to have her back. But it was another to risk waking Ruthie with screams when it was just the two of them.

How long could she go without sleep?

Elle had no idea, but she was going to find out. Because she had already put her daughter through so much and she wasn't going to make it worse.

Ruthie needed to feel safe, so whatever she had to do, whatever sacrifices she had to make in order to build that safe place for her daughter Elle wouldn't hesitate to do.

The muted buzz of her phone indicated she had a new message, but Elle didn"t bother to look at it.

She already knew who it would be.

Rafe.

She'd barely made it home when the first message came. An apology for asking her to leave and a question asking how she and Ruthie were doing.

While her heart had soared with hope at first, praying he chose her and Ruthie over his ex, she had quickly squashed it. Rafe was doing what he thought was best for his son, and she couldn't blame him for that. But nor could she allow her daughter to be hurt, and mixed messages from Rafe were going to do just that.

Rafe had made his choice for better or worse, and so she now had to make her own. Already she had caused her daughter so much pain, but no more. She would never allow anyone else to enter their lives, it would be just the two of them because that was the only way to keep them safe.

The two of them against the world, mother and daughter, safe together.

Elle knew that one day Ruthie would grow up, most likely fall in love and have a family of her own, leaving Elle truly alone.

But loneliness was a price she was well and truly prepared to pay for her daughter's peace of mind, and if that meant she would grow old and die alone then so be it. No way was she risking another broken heart.

Her stories always had a happy ending, they wouldn't be romance without them, but it looked like her own life wasn't going to turn out the same way.