Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) (16 page)

He distanced his entire being from the cell door
before she could change his mind, clearly disgusted by the sight of her more
than by what she’d done with Jake.

“Oh, and another thing . . . you may as well stay in
this two-bit, flea-infested town, for the rest of your miserable life, for all
I care.” Mack grimaced at the mere thought of having to stay even another
second here, let alone a lifetime. “You wouldn’t have gotten your name in
partnership anyway. You’re too unpredictable—too destructive. Oh, and you’re
fired! I called Namsley on my way up here, telling him about the car. And he
agrees with me. You’re too much of a risk for all of us to have at the firm.”

“Well, Hell! I kinda thought you and she might be over
the second she spread her legs apart. Numerous times, in fact,” Jake gloated. “For
a lawyer, it sure took you long enough. She ever purred so damn loud it made
your head spin while you were driving her hard from behind . . . pal? I’d say
she purrs more like a Ferrari than a Porsche, but what the hell do I know.”

Mack actually growled at the man seated inside the
cell; who smiled sweetly at Mack’s face through the thick bars, knowing the
hot-shot lawyer couldn’t lay a hand on him.

Mack did not have the key to the cell. Debra did. Unless
Jake shut his big mouth up, Debra could certainly be persuaded to give the key
to Mack. At least then Liddy would not have to soil her hands killing her husband.
Mack could do it for her.

“We are so over, Lidia!” Mack blurted. “Do you hear me?
Just looking at you sickens me. I’ve never felt this way about any woman, in
all my life. But you, my dear, take the cake.”

“It’s kinda hard not to hear you,” she said, hurt
beyond words any of this was happening to her.

She’d come here for one thing, and one thing only, and
had gotten much more than she’d ever bargained for. Mack to hate her, fired
from a job she’d busted her butt to get, her body hurt, her heart broken in
two, and a wedding she’d been looking forward to ripped right out of her hands.

And every bit of this was thanks to Jake and his
sexual expertise—
six fucking ways to Sunday!

As she watched, horrified, stunned beyond
comprehension, the very angry Mack storm out of Preacher’s Bend’s police
station, slamming the door in his wake, she knew she would never see him again.
If that didn’t hurt, the fact Jake had turned on her hurt worse.

She whipped around to face Jake, and uttered, “I hate
you!” But the infuriating bastard openly smiled at her as if he had not a care
in the world.

“Now how can that be, sweetheart? We just made love to
each other. Over . . . and over . . . and over . . .”

“I truly hate you. I despise you. I abhor you. Fuck!” Liddy
had to close her eyes to add the rest. Jake’s smile pissed her off. “You disgust
me. You’re nothing but filth and scum and you . . . Oh, you! . . . I can’t even
begin to describe how much I hate you at this very moment.”

Jake closed his eyes, then sighed, as did she. Yet Liddy’s
sigh was felt to the depths of her soul, because her husband knew exactly what
making love to him had cost her.

Everything!

Having sex with a man she hadn’t seen in ten long
years, though the sex astounding and enough to have her suddenly wanting more
of it . . . he still ruined her life.

Chapter Seventeen

Seventy-two hours.

She made it.

Seventy-two hours locked up together. Jake released.
Debra having taken down any personal information from her that she might need
later on in life . . . and then, letting her go as well.

But Debra said she was not to leave town just yet.

Duh!
How the
hell could she? Liddy no longer had a car to drive. She had no money to pay for
a ride back to Miami, dared she even try going back there, tail between the
legs.

Debra had, as well, confiscated her purse
and
her
driver’s license just in case she’d be foolish enough to leave town without
permission.

And Jake had run out the door of the police station
the very second Debra opened their cell, leaving Liddy to defend herself with
the deputy.

Walking out into the wretched heat of summer, she
tried to place one foot in front of the other. But each step she took became so
heavy a burden she had to sit down on the edge of the curb, place her head in her
hands, and cry her heart out. She’d never cried so much in all her life as she
had over the past few days. And why? One word. Jake.

Oh, God! She had sex with him!
Though she wanted to kill him, castrate the bastard,
and eat his liver and heart for a snack—beside whatever else she could get away
with—she still had sex with him!

The only good coming out of any of this was Mack
dropped the charges against her. He called Debra five hours after storming out
of the station to inform her of his good deed done.

Liddy knew it wasn’t because he’d forgiven her. It was
because he didn’t want to come back here, stand up in court, and explain to a
judge and jury why he wouldn’t let a woman he’d supposedly loved drive one of
his cars. She guessed he felt guilty. His insurance would cover the mangled
mess. But her being fired was far worse punishment than . . . let’s say, losing
Mack as a future husband. He was also keeping the money she’d earned for partial
payment toward replacing the Porsche.

Since she’d only had about one-fifth of its actual
value this now left her penniless, homeless, and a damn fool. Good old Mack; always
the good guy, always thinking of others.
Yeah right
!

How could she have been so blinded to his many faults?
He’d paid for a fucking boob job! And he’d done so without ever having touched
those boobs beforehand. That just wasn’t right.

For a quick moment she put thought to Mack being gay. There’d
been times when she’d begged the man to have sex with her, and he’d always
claim they were to wait until after the wedding. Was she supposed to have been
a trophy wife to hide his preference? This would certainly make sense.

No. The years she’d known him, he’d seemed more than
attentive to women interested in him than any men. Mack wasn’t gay.

And Jake? Where the hell was he?

Liddy rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands as she
tried to pull herself together. Where was the man who made love to her then
split the scene faster than a jackrabbit in an Arizona desert, and only after
screwing with her life again? Where was the wretched bastard hiding himself
now?

As she slowly turned her head to the right, there he
was. A guy she couldn’t seem to get rid of, the man walking her way. He was now
dressed in faded blue jeans and snug T-shirt, and looking so damn smug Liddy
gritted her teeth.

He moved at a clip, carrying a bundle of something in
his hands.

“Here.” This said, once he was standing just two feet
in front of her.

She looked up at the kind offering with a bit of
disgust.

“What are those?”

“They’re clothes, Liddy.” Jake tried to make her take
them from his hands. Liddy slapped the offer away.

“I can see this, Jake.” She then stood, defending her dignity.

“Well?” He held them out again.

“I don’t want any clothes from one of your castoff
women, Jake.”

“They’re not. They’re yours.”

Her eyes widened in utter surprise to this. “What do you
mean . . . they’re mine?”

“I thought you might want a change of clothes after
the past few days from sitting in a holding cell. The one’s you’re wearing are
getting a bit ripe, if you don’t mind my saying. So I headed straight over to
the garage, where they’ve towed a really messed-up Porsche, and I took the
liberty of removing a lone suitcase from inside the trunk. Your car thief
didn’t want your stuff, only the pleasure of driving such an expensive car.” He
shoved the items directly into her hands, flaring his nostrils. “And, by the
way . . . you’re fucking welcome!”

“I didn’t . . . I did not mean to say . . .” Liddy was
rather surprised by this kind and generous deed, so much so, she could barely
speak.

“Yes. You did,” he warned; the venom strong within his
tone. “You are easily readable, if not altogether predictable.”

She lowered her gaze. “About, um, before . . .” Her mouth
stumbled out the words because she really didn’t know what to say to him about
being predictable. What they’d done hadn’t been predictable.

It was brain-dead.

“What about it?” Jake raised a brow.

She couldn’t look him in the eye. Momentarily, his
smugness was grating on her every raw nerve.

“I’m . . . um, sorry about what Mack said to you back
there.”

“No you’re not,” he determined rudely.

Her eyes slammed into his. “Yes, I am!”

“Why? So your conscience can appease itself for our
dirty little deeds?”

“Jake, please?”

“Please what?”

“Can’t we be civil to each other just this once? Do
you always have to put your two cents into the pot and make what happened between
us shameful?” The clothes tucked under her arm felt like a mountain of rock
carried uphill.

“I thought I’d been quite civil to you inside the holding
cell, Liddy. Very civil, in fact. And shameful would be the last word I’d ever
use to describe making love to my wife.”

“I don’t mean . . . um, not about what we did in the
holding cell.” Her shoulder shrugged toward the building behind her back. “And
it wasn’t love. It was sex. Nothing more.”

He raised his other brow. “Then what, exactly, did you
mean, if it was only sex, sweetheart?”

“You’re not making this easy on me, are you?”

“Should I be?” This time both his eyebrows arched,
matching heights.

“Yes.” And she meant this.

Couldn’t he, just once, have made a rather complicated
life easy?

Jake lowered his smile to cross his arms over his
massive chest, the Boa on his right arm practically dancing by the movement.
“Now why would I do that?”

“So I can tell you I’m sorry. And you can say you forgive
me. And we can simply get on with our lives as quickly as possible.” She’d thrust
this out fast, praying for the best to occur. Actual forgiveness from a man who
barely forgave anyone during the years she’d known him.

“Are you sorry?” he asked.

“Yes.” She was. Liddy was truly sorry for the things
said. For the last ten years, and for what Mack insinuated. For all kinds of
other stuff Jake wasn’t privy too—yet.

“Should I forgive you?” he prodded.

“Yes.”

God, yes
.
Please
do
.
Just get it over with and forgive me
.
I’m having a hard
enough time here
.

Jake easily read her thoughts and played the right
hand; the hand with all the aces jammed up his sleeve . . . and not a single
one of those needed cards supplied in her deck.

“Okay, then. You’re forgiven.”

Liddy did a double take on his thoughtfulness. “That’s
it? Just like that?” She wondered if this was true, or even possible.

This man in front of her wasn’t the Jake she’d left
ten years ago. The Jake she left would not have allowed her off the hook so
easily, or he to do so, so quickly, that it made the head spin.

“Just like that, Liddy,” he admitted; a minute ounce
of looking reluctant, however.

“My, you’re being generous. No wisecracks? No
belittling my lack of moral character? No nasty jokes about my being fired from
a job I put my heart and soul into for ten years? What gives, Jake? Surely you
haven’t turned soft all of a sudden?”

“Nothing gives. I’m trying to be civil, as you asked.”
His smile was sudden; prickling—to a certain degree. Regrettably, it was also contagious.

He was telling the truth. He was doing his best to be
civil. He’d even gotten clothes for her out of the trunk of a mangled car.

Then again, he’d not mentioned a word about the
wedding dress. Probably couldn’t.

Her gaze drifted away while she dropped her matching
grin. “So? What happens to us now?”

Liddy dragged her sight back to one very smug and
smiling Jake Giotti, then frowned.

“Now . . . you follow me back to Theodora’s place. We
get you out of your clothes,” he started.

Her eyes widened in breakneck speed. Wasn’t this a bit
of a hasty expectation on his part?

“I meant you change into clean clothes. Perhaps, take
a shower. And we figure out what it is we are going to do about you.”

“What it is
we
are going to do about me?”

“Yes,
we
. And yes,
you
.” His wording said
very clear. “I would guess Debra did not give back your purse?”

“How the hell . . .”

“Don’t ask, Liddy. Just go with it. I know more about Preacher’s
Bend’s ways and those of Debra Wesley than you can ever imagine.”

Just go with it? She’s to fucking go with it?
She’d been trying to ‘go with it’ for the last few
days, even the last few years. There was nothing to go with. Not under these wretched
circumstances.

“At least that boyfriend of yours’ dropped the charges
against you. That’s a start.”

“Did you somehow mishear the man, Jake? Mack’s slated
opinion as to my personal association toward him altered quite considerably off
course. Somewhat . . . Well, it’s a bit more than off course, isn’t it?”

“As in completely destroyed by what we did?” he asked,
smiling yet again.

Liddy looked away. She couldn’t bear to see his
complete arrogance in the matter. “Yes. But I’m sure it was more on the grounds
of what I’d done, than of what we did.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Her vision slammed into his.

“Yes. Good.” Jake took another step forward to reach
for her elbow. “Come on. You look a mess. And unless you care for Julia to see
you as you are, I suggest we get you into a shower, pronto.” He tugged on her
arm, getting nowhere.

“Why is Julia Hillard going to see me like this?” A
crack in the sidewalk as he pulled her body forward caused her to stumble.

“Because I called her to tell her you’re here. In case
she doesn’t already know.”

“Why the hell did you do that?” She stopped Jake from pulling
her in the direction he wanted, toward Roundabout Road, by digging in her heels.

“Why did I tell her you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“Until I sort out what to do about you being here, I
need Julia to take you off my hands. It doesn’t look as though you’ll be
leaving Preacher’s Bend anytime soon. You need a place to stay. Julia took over
running Petty’s boarding house. She can take you in until you get back on your
feet.”

“Why can’t I just stay with you?” she begged.

Begging was beneath her, but she gave it a try. She
had nothing else to lose.

“Because,” he snapped.

“Because why?” Her curiosity piqued; it poured out
quickly.

“I have a very small bed, sweetheart.”

“So? What does having a small bed matter toward my staying
with you for a few lousy days?”

“For the moment . . . it’s being used.”

Slamming on the brakes, she waspishly asked her darling,
misguided husband, “By whom?”

“Fuck, Liddy! By me. Who else did you think would be
using it? Oh, wait!” His loud chuckle furthered her anger. “You actually
thought I had someone living there with me?”

He was accusing her of being jealous, and with no
actual right these accusations stung.

“I wasn’t so sure. But . . .”

“Dear, sweet, innocently naïve Mrs. Giotti, no one has
occupied that particular space for ten long years. By now I would’ve thought
you understood this. Under the circumstances, green-eyed jealousy is a bit out
of place, don’t you think?” Jake was warning her of things yet to come by
glaring. “You, Little Darlin’, shouldn’t call the kettle black. And you sure as
hell don’t have any rights to tell me I can’t have someone sharing my quarters—if
I’d even wanted someone there.”