Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) (8 page)

“You can’t do this to me!” Liddy screamed, placing
both hands on the bars. She shoved her face to those bars, receiving the
imprints of the steel.

“Oh, yeah? Watch me.” Debra sauntered toward the door
with a nasty grin on her face, turned the knob, then waited.

“I’ll sue! I’ll sue you, this town, and anyone who
dares cross my path while stuck in here.”

“Go ahead. It’ll be fun. I ain’t got much. Neither does
Preacher’s Bend. But you just go ahead and sue for all you want out of us, Miss
Fancy Pants. Right now, I’m looking at a woman who hasn’t got a leg to stand
on, a pot to piss in, or any real brains inside her head. Does the mention of a
stolen car ring any bells for you,
Miss Hussy?
”

With that, Debra slammed the station door shut and
left.

Oh, if the fat deputy called her Hussy one more
fucking time . . .

She turned to Jake who was now grinning from ear to
ear as only an arrogant beast of a man would.

“What is so hilarious to you?” Liddy’s temper snapped
like a twig.

“You.” He moved the ice to his upper arm and flinched.

Liddy caught Jake’s flinch and wondered about it, but she
did not ask. Not yet anyway. Besides, she had other more pressing matters to
deal with than wonder why he looked as though he was in tremendous pain and
about to puke on the floor.

“You’re what’s so damn funny,” he repeated.

Liddy had to bite her tongue to only say, “And why is
that?” The remaining thoughts in her had would have provoked him into physical
violence.

He slowly set the ice pack onto the metal bench.
Without answering her, he gingerly shrugged out of his suit jacket, wincing.

Liddy gasped when she saw his white dress shirt’s
sleeve was covered in blood. She moved quickly over to him and sat down next to
her husband on the cold bench. If there was one thing in her life she could never
ignore it was someone with blood on themselves. It stemmed from her wanting to
be a nurse before shacking up with a lawyer, and then wanting that occupation—
him
—more.

This, in hindsight, was what likely caused all the
trouble in the first place. She’d started working for a man who loved to
control things.

“What the hell happened to you, Jake?”

Jake drew his eyes away from the dried blood and looked
right at her. “A long night. Other than that, nothing much.”

“Your arm is completely covered in blood. Don’t give
me your ‘
nothing much’
attitude. Why didn’t you tell Debra you’re hurt
this badly?”

“The ice pack.” He quickly jerked his head toward the
pack. “She knows about this.”

“But that’s blood, Jake. I tend to panic when it fresh.”

He again looked at his upper arm. “So it is. But it
seems to be dried blood Liddy, not fresh. So stop panicking. There’s no need to
get your undies in a bundle over nothing, Sweetheart.”

“Fuck you, Jake! You don’t have to be so smug and
arrogant all the time. Let me have a look at your arm.” She made a move to grab
for his shirt sleeve, but Jake anticipated the action and moved to the far side
of the cell, distancing himself from her reach.

“I can look after myself, Liddy,” he said. “I’m quite
capable of it. Christ, I’ve been doing it for some time now. And I have
certainly thought myself as a grown man, but I could be wrong.” His words didn’t
quite match the sudden pallor of his face or the fact he was now staring at her
as if he was going to pass out.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t take care of yourself,
Jake. I was only going to take a look at your bleeding arm,” she reasoned.
“Help you, if need be.”

“Well, I sure as hell don’t want your help, and you
don’t need to take a look. Do you? I’m fine. It’s not fresh blood. End of
story.”

“No, you are not fine. You’re in pain. And no it is
not the ‘
end of story
’. You can’t always have your way.”

He flared his nostrils. “Jesus! You just don’t quit,
do you?” As his eyes turned to hers she witnessed the destructive path of fury about
to hit. “You’re now an expert on how I should feel?”

“You’re white as a ghost, Jake.”

“Well, shit, Liddy! That probably has a lot to do with
you sucking up all the oxygen inside our cell with your incessant misplaced
chatter and stupid observations. Any lack of oxygen could easily cause a man’s pallor
to turn into a ghostly shade.”

“You really are a bastard. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“It certainly takes one to know one . . .
Hussy
.”

Liddy gasped, then turned her body away from him.
Seconds later, she picked up the discarded ice pack to throw it at him, aiming
for his head. Of course she wasn’t lucky enough to actually hit her target. Jake
easily caught the flung object with his good arm. Sitting opposite her, he
replaced the ice to his upper arm, then stared her down.

Liddy, by then, had become so absolutely furious with her
estranged husband she didn’t dare speak another word to him. All they had to do
was survive the next seventy-two hours trapped inside a holding cell with each
other.

How hard could this be?

Then again, Liddy was more aware she was going to be stuck
in here for some time. It usually took a couple of weeks to get a judge to come
through and set a court date for any of Preacher’s Bend’s criminals. A town
this old tended to drag its feet according to the usual guidelines of the law,
and these backwoods hick rednecks certainly gave the place a proper definition
to backwoods hicks.

And Debra seemed in no hurry to process her captured
car thief any more than she was at changing her attitude about her
half-brother. She hadn’t even taken down any personal information from Liddy.

Good God! Was she so stupid not to have noticed? No.
Not stupid. Dumbfounded. There’s a difference.

Debra, that fat-ass, disturbing deputy, shoved Liddy
inside a cell, then locked the door. Mind you, with a bit of triumphant glee in
her eyes. If Liddy hadn’t known any better, she would’ve thought Debra as
stalling on throwing the book at her on purpose. But this made no sense. Why
would Debra not want to be rid of her, as much as Jake wanted her gone? As a
free woman, she could leave Preacher’s Bend—for good.

Leave, and never come back to a place sucking the
lifeblood from her veins.

Sighing heavily, she eased her sight from his and
moved it to the other two men sharing holding cells with them. Each man was grinning
from ear to ear.

“What the hell are you looking at?” Since both had
gained her wrath, she was in a suddenly sharing mood.

“Nothing,” the first man offered.

“Me, neither,” came out from the second.

“Then stop staring at us like we’re zoo animals out on
display,” she scolded.

“We can’t,” both men added. Their noses pressed tight to
the steel bars.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because this is some seriously funny shit, Lady,” the
larger of two said.

This time Jake manned up and took charge. “The
lady
told you to shut the hell up.”

Liddy whipped her head around. “You’re not helping,
Jake.”

“Don’t really give a shit if I am or am not, Liddy,”
he said.

Liddy growled, then returned her attention back to the
other men.

“I mean some really funny shit,” restated the smaller man.
“You get stuck in a holding cell with a hot chick for seventy-two hours, and
you can’t do a damn thing about it? I’d say that’s funny. At least to me it is.”

By this time, Liddy was shedding tears as if every
single one of them would save her from damnation.

“Now I? I would much rather let Duke beat the living
snot out of me again,” he pointed at the other man in distaste, “than be stuck
inside a holding cell with a hot little mama . . . and Little Darlin’, let me
be the first to say you are one fine looking woman . . . and then not able to
do a damn thing about it. Deputy
Bitch from Hell
will be watching your
every move, Mr.  So, yeah, it is sort of funny to me.” He even chuckled to the
vile thoughts running about his thickheaded skull.

To Liddy’s heated opinion, too thick to have any
brains insides the bones.

“You have a really filthy mind,” Jake rued. “Someone
should take care of that problem for you.”

“I’d like to see you try it, tough guy.”

Thankfully, Jake wouldn’t dignify the man with an
answer.

“But at least I will be let out of here in a couple of
hours with my filthy mind intact by the time you’ve mulled this over a bit more
thoroughly. Hell, by the time I find a good looking woman, not as fine as she,
but good enough to get the job done, you’ll be sweating it out like a rabid dog.
You’ll have to let it grow, watch it wither and die, and she’ll be allowed the
benefit to gloat. Debra ain’t about to let you have a poke at such a fine-looking
woman while in the poky. Get it? Poke? Pokey? Kind of a play on words there,
ain’t it?”

“Shut the hell up, Larry. It ain’t
that
funny,”
Duke suddenly argued through the bars. “You might hurt yourself trying to be so
damn philosophical.”

“Sure it is, Duke. Our good buddy here won’t be able
to get any action without getting it caught on tape. That, my friend, is funny!”

“The man’s right, Larry,” Duke warned his partner in
crime. “You have a really sick mind. Someone should fix that problem for you.” He
sounded as though he would be willing to take up the job offer; right where he’d
left off, given half the chance.

“That might be the case, my co-incarcerated jail mate.
But at least my sick mind is still working this morning, whereas yours’ stopped
brain functions late last night.”

“Is that so?” Duke ground out, clenching his jaw. He drifted
back from the bars to ball his fists.

Liddy suspected he was getting ready to fight it out
in only words; for there was a four-foot distance and large metal cages between
them in which to stop Duke from beating up loose-lips Larry again.

Yet, through it all, she’d heard more than enough.

“Would the three of you just shut the hell up?” came
out, while a steady stream of tears poured down her face. “None of this is funny!
Jake is not getting into anyone’s pants—today, tomorrow, and certainly not
within his next ten lifetimes . . .at least not with me! No one is taping
anything. And for the love of God, just shut the hell up!”

All three men answered quickly, “Yes, Ma’am.”

Just as they got their words out, Rachel entered the
police station carrying Jake’s tie. She moved through a relative maze of desks,
file cabinets and empty doughnut boxes straight to their holding cell.

“Jake, Darling. I am so sorry about this. I didn’t
know what else to do. You were making such a scene with this . . . this
woman
!
It was driving away my paying customers. And you know Debra. When you don’t
show up for one of your parole appointments, she can get pretty mad at you. I
thought I might be doing you a favor, settle our debt. None of us wanted to
watch you pick trash off the highway again. Good God, Jake! Is that blood on
your arm?”

He stood and took the tie she handed him through the
bars, ignoring the question.

While Rachel’s fingers lingered on his, he asked one
of his own. “You’re the one who called Debra?”

Liddy snorted in the background; Jake turning his head
to glare at her.

His sudden smile pissed her off; he seemed amused by
the fact she’d shown any emotion at all.

“Like I said, I didn’t know what else to do. You don’t
usually bring any of your, um,
problems
into the restaurant.”

“Rach, honey. Real sorry about that. It’s just she is
. . . ,” he started, pausing.

Liddy—the man’s
problem—
cut him off at the
knees before he dug himself into a hole he’d never be able to get out of. “Hey,
Rach?”

Both sets of eyes turned swiftly toward hers. And
Liddy was going to thrust her opinion directly into their ensuing conversation
post haste, whether either cared to hear it or not.

 “You want to do all of us a huge favor here and get
your greasy little paws off my husband?” Her tone was dripped with enough venom
to take down an elephant, because, with everything she had inside her, Jake was
still her husband. What was hers . . . was hers
!
All others had better
back off or suffer the consequences of ill-bred manners.

A little defensive, one would think, for someone
wanting to get rid of that same husband ten years ago and a repeat of it now.

Rachel looked taken aback. For one brief moment, she
must have realized she had her hands on Jake. She quickly sputtered, “Your
what
?”, as she removed her fingers from his flesh in slow motion.

Liddy swiped any remaining moisture off her face with
the back of her hands, then stood up a bit taller than she actually was.

“I said get your greasy diner paws off my
husband
!”