Mack had done everything he was supposed to do. He was a good guy. Doing what he was supposed to have done led him to consider having her walking down the aisle toward him.
Nevertheless, Mack wasn’t here. Jake was; stood right in front of her. Judging her!
This brought back a lifetime of memories at full tilt, and all of those memories collided inside her to produce one hell of a heartache beneath the breastbone. It staggered her to acknowledge Jake could do this to her; make it hurt as much as it was hurting. Then, get away with it!
Liddy did not come to this point in her life, or all this way, for Jake Giotti to get away with judging her so unfairly. Or, for him to hand her ultimatums she couldn’t accept. There was a fifty-thousand-dollar wedding dress in the back of a stolen car, for Pete’s sake!
This should have spoken volumes to her mental stability.
“I need your help,” she pleaded.
Jake looked at her as if she’d lost her ever lovin’ mind.
“No way, no how. You got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out of it. I don’t have time for this, Liddy.” He even held up his hand as if to ward off the idea.
“This is your fault, Jake. If you’d been smart enough . . . Damnit, Jake, you have to help me,” she finished with instead, slapping down his hand and using her best, ‘But, It was your fault to begin with’ stare down.
She even stomped her foot on the hard pavement for good measure. Failing miserably on all accounts, she watched in horror Jake balling his fists on his hips.
Liddy suspected he was about to give her what she was due, posthaste.
He must have decided his fists placed on his hips were not the best place for them to be; instead, he shoved them into the deep pockets of his suit coat, quite frantically. The action pulled the material of his suit coat taut over the large wall of steel, and had her groaning inwardly out of pure and utter frustration.
Warm? No. She wasn’t warm. Liddy had suddenly turned into a towering inferno on a poorly maintained parking lot. There was sweat rolling down her back, for Pete’s sake! Sweat never rolled down her back unless she was in the throes of doing a full workout at the gym.
“Just how the bloody hell do you figure on this being my fault?” he asked.
There was a glimmer of mutiny within his silver eyes, which translated into this was not going to turn out good for her. Or should she have said it was not going to be any better than their little lopsided conversation back inside the café.
“If you didn’t have an affair with that . . . that sex-starved hussy! . . . I would not be standing here, discussing our past, wanting an annulment, both of us hating each other, and you ripping what was left of my courage to shreds! And I wouldn’t have had my car stolen!”
Okay. Round one was about to go to her. It certainly looked this way. Jake flinched.
However, it was hard to tell with the man. He could easily be winning this hand and not show any outward sign of doing so until his opponent felt the stinging pain of loss.
And if winning, or he just faking it, Liddy felt fate could be generous just this once; allow her to win a small round against an arrogant jackass of a man.
“Good God, Woman! You’ve got a ton of nerve.” His words were harsh. Crisp. Ice cold, truth told. “Did you not just tell me it was you who stole it in the first place?”
So what if she had? Surely the supplied information was not somehow useable against her in a court of law. She had her rights toward this. Jake was still her husband. He could plead the fifth. In fact, he could keep his big fat mouth shut for a change. Case closed. Problem solved.
Good God! She could only hope he’d go along with this plan. By the gleam in his eyes, however, it looked a million to one shot.
Chapter Seven
Million to one or not, there wasn’t much Liddy could do about her betraying body language. As her lower lip started its revolt, out of the corner of her eye she could see a rather large and endearing Debra Wesley crossing the street. She was moving at a clip, and there was a dangerous looking gun at the hip. Her hat was tipped down and she looked meaner than ever.
Jake must have seen her too, because he groaned as loudly as Liddy would have, had she not been so distraught over Mack’s missing car and what next to do about it.
But Jake hadn’t groaned the kind of groan saying he was somehow frustrated with life, in general, but the kind of groan that said he was very much aware he was now in deeper shit with his mean half-sister than ever before. Right up to his eyeballs and sinking fast.
“Jake Giotti! Just who the hell do you think you are?” Debra’s voice carried clear across the parking lot. Perhaps she was the only officer within the county who could forego the use of a blow horn and still get her point made.
Jake groaned again. He raised his eyes and looked straight through Liddy, ignoring Debra.
Liddy could read his thoughts quite clearly. Jake in trouble with his parole officer was going to be her fault. In his mind, he’d most likely figured out she should and would . . . God, would have she ever . . . pay dearly for the consequences about to happen to him over his untimely tardiness.
He turned his head toward his half-sister’s hasty approach and smiled sweetly. “Debra.”
“Don’t you dare Debra me, you lowlife son of a bastard!”
Debra Wesley never cared one way or the other if she had an audience to her anger. Three ten gallon hats were making their way out of the café, and in the process of getting into their very expensive SUV held their smiles on their faces.
This was surely not a deterrent to her yelling at the either of them. Debra liked to have others hear whatever it was she had to say, and simply said it like it was, no matter what.
This was a bad trait for a woman to have.
Liddy thoughts moved quickly to why the hell whoever took her car did not take theirs? It was certainly worth more—at least fifteen thousand dollars more, and bigger, and cleaner. Hers was filled with the remnants of too many drive-thru meals half-eaten, tossed on the floor, and completely forgotten about until now. She didn’t like others to think of her as a slob. But, her mind had been on other things while driving here. Like, getting to Preacher’s Bend in once piece, finding Jake as quickly as possible, then getting the hell out of Preacher’s Bend as soon as humanly capable.
She hadn’t been able to finish a single one of her hurriedly purchased meals because her stomach had been tied up in knots the entire trip here.
She wasn’t exactly a messy person. But when time was not on her side, Liddy did not waste any cleaning a car of its trash. Especially a car she’d borrowed for a few lousy days . . . of which, the owner did not know as even borrowed, but would have—eventually.
Jake cleared his throat. This pulled her attention swiftly to the here and now.
“I was just . . . ,” he started with, only to be cut off at the knees by the stinging whip of his half-sister’s tongue.
“No, you were not!” Debra bit out. “Don’t you dare start lying to me today, Jake Giotti? You’ve been doing nothing, whatsoever, but standing here lollygagging and preening your arrogant feathers. I was watching you from the police station’s window. You do remember that window, don’t you Jake? The same window you decided to attack with your motorcycle a few years back. You’re over an hour late with your parole appointment, and by all rights your tardiness should earn you another six months incarceration. I’d be doing the world a favor by putting you back in there.”
Liddy gasped, unable to control her reaction. Six months? Jesus A. Christ!
Somehow, the idea of six months for being late for a parole appointment seemed a bit harsh. Yet still in plain sight of the fat, overbearing, genetically flawed officer? This was Preacher’s Bend, however, and Debra Wesley they were dealing with. As his parole officer and sworn keeper of the law, if she felt like being mean about this, then Debra could be as mean as she wanted to be. It was simply her nature.
Liddy very foolishly added
words to her gasp. “You wouldn’t dare!” Was she actually standing up for a man she hadn’t seen in ten years?
Unfortunately, her thoughts had slipped out before her brain had the time to stop them; or, time to avoid the inevitable consequences headed her way.
Jake groaned again, closing his eyes. Even a deaf mute could’ve seen he did not want her here, and was simply vocalizing this.
Debra turned her head toward Liddy and lost her cool. “And just who the hell do you think you are, you uptight hussy?”
Boy! When Debra’s hackles rose, they rose quickly.
Somehow, snorting in Debra’s face was not the best thing to do at the moment, because this time Jake did not groan. He gasped. Same as Liddy had.
The man was in enough trouble. She surely did not need to add more to it. Yet Liddy was adding to the pot anyway. Why? Hell! This should be self-explanatory. Debra called her a hussy! That’s why! A fat, nasty, bitch called her . . . a hussy! What else was she supposed to do? Let the woman get away with it?
Hussy around these parts was the patented name for the very woman who’d completely ruined her life, Ms. Fuckanotherwoman’s husband Porter. Gun or no gun on the deputy’s hip, Liddy had her pride to protect, her name, and her reputation. She had to defend ten years of getting as far from this place as possible. Ten years of becoming someone others now looked up to, and respected.
Most of all . . . she had her misplaced Humphrey pride to protect from the likes of one Debra Wesley calling her a hussy.
Jake stepped between she and Debra; protecting one, but not the other, with his large and muscular body. His doing so had Liddy’s thoughts headed to which one of them he’d meant to protect, using his body as a shield. Debra? Or her? Somehow, she had her doubts he was coming to the rescue of a soon-to-be ex-wife.
“Debra,” he said, while looking not at his half-sister, but directly at Liddy’s face. “Do you not recognize this particular hussy?” His shameless grin was caustic and full of pure vengeful attitude.
Liddy would’ve kicked him in the nuts, not only for his thoughtlessness and for an equally thoughtless repeat of Debra’s nasty definition to her character—would it not have landed her in jail instead of his arrogant ass.
She was already walking a very thin line within their judicial system with Mack’s car taken without permission. Okay! Stolen. She most certainly did not need to add any more.
Debra pulled up short. She stared Liddy right in the face. And Liddy had no idea how she did it, but Jesus, Debra did it, so bloody damn great.
Deputy Wesley made Liddy feel one inch tall under her tight scrutiny. One inch tall, in four-inch heels! She turned on Jake. “Yes. So?”
Debra completely ignored Liddy’s presence.
Fuck! That’s all I get? A yes? A mere so?
She hadn’t been gone that long, had she? The very least Debra could’ve done was tell Mr. Giotti they’d already talked, and she hadn’t been any friendlier to Liddy then, than Debra was being to her right now.
Jake kept his eyes locked on her face and he started to laugh.
Her expression to a much-clipped personal association must have been priceless to him, because she sure as the hell was in no mood to chuckle. It would have been at her expense.
“Debra! You don’t recognize Preacher’s Bend’s very own two-timing, walkabout wife?” he asked his half-sister.
Jail or no jail cell, Liddy kicked the bastard in the shin. She’d been intending to aim a bit higher and missed only because he anticipated her action and moved. The wretched man!
She was not the one who had an affair. He was! And not a tiny, inconsequential affair. Plural!
Jake flinched to the sudden pain in his leg but he surprised her by not doing anything toward retaliation. Yet.
Besides, Debra was watching his every move very carefully. If he so much as even moved a muscle to hurt her, Liddy was sure his half-sister would’ve had him in handcuffs. Perhaps on his knees seconds later, begging for mercy. Debra loved to get her highs off hurting Jake.
“Liddy?” Debra suddenly asked, startling Liddy’s thoughts to the here and now.
Liddy could do nothing more than nod at the woman. Debra was a very scary person. Liddy’s mind was still reeling, so forming real words would have been near to impossible.
“You haven’t left Preacher’s Bend?”
A statement, more than a question from the deputy, which held tremendous innuendos.
Liddy stood a little taller knowing Jake’s shin was hurting. He looked to be in great pain. Surely, she hadn’t broken an artery or two? No such luck! Nevertheless, there was telltale moisture forming on his upper lip and an icy glare in his eyes. This meant he indeed was in some sort of pain, somewhere. And she’d been lucky enough to give it to him.
Wow! She’d finally scored a point against this man.
“Was I supposed to have left?” she answered, dragging her eyes away from Jake’s paling face.
“Damn, Liddy! A good ten years and you come back to start sassing me?” Debra was slightly taken aback she even dared.
Okay. Maybe it was not the reaction anyone expected from a woman packing heat. And Debra’s eyes did widen just a bit more to Liddy’s refusal to back down. But Liddy was a grown woman. She could handle the likes of one very large, very mean Debra Wesley. Perhaps if handed a bit more than this she might have caved.
“I’m not sassing you, Debra.” And she wasn’t, at least not in her mind.
If Debra really wanted her to start sassing, it wouldn’t have taken too much of an effort on her part.
“No. You’re simply not listening to me. And that is about the same thing as sassing, in my book.” She moved a bit closer to Liddy.
Liddy could see the sugar from a doughnut still stuck to Debra’s bottom lip and a few crumbs stuck on her usually pristine Preacher’s Bend police uniform. Debra must have been partaking in a bit of Ceril’s doughnut stash while the man called away to the quarry. Shame on her!
Licking her own suddenly dry lips toward whatever was to come next, Liddy waited with baited breath. Debra was dangerous; when mad at Jake she was volatile.
Put the both of them together, and a town had on its hands one very mean, very troubled sister-in-law.
“I listened to you,” Liddy repeated. She tried looking sheepish. And humble. She must have failed miserably on both accounts, since both thought her anything but either of these.
“Then why are you still here?” Debra asked, eyeing her up and down—heels to crown. There was disgust at what she saw written all over her face. Disgust and something else Liddy dared not put thought to.
“I had to find Jake. I already told you this.” Hadn’t she? Because she surely thought she mentioned this; and more than once when she’d run into Debra last night. Wasn’t Debra listening to her during those lousy ten seconds she’d allotted Liddy yesterday?
“Now that you’ve found him, you can leave again.” Debra’s hand moved to the butt of her gun. “Today.” She even pulled the wretched thing out of its leather holster, checking the chamber.
Good God! Was sassing this bitch actually pushing Debra into wanting to shoot her? Debra had taken the gun out of the holster while grinning.
Jake held up his hand in his half-sister’s face to stall the hefty woman’s movements. “Now hold on there just a dang minute, Debra. Liddy wasn’t hurting anyone. She’s simply being . . . Liddy.” Jake gave her the evil eye. “She can’t help her distinct lack of manners. Surely you don’t have the need to draw your gun on her?”
He backed up a bit to the look suddenly filling the depths of Debra’s eyes.
Liddy supposed he never thought he would see the day where he had to make an actual choice of protecting someone from the likes of a police officer.
But Liddy’s head was screaming ‘Lack of manners?’ What the hell . . .
“Who said it was only she I was drawing my gun on?” Debra warned Jake, purposely playing with the safety on the weapon just to s
care them a bit. “Besides, I got a very legitimate call to check out a domestic disturbance right here in this parking lot. And this is exactly what I am doing, Mr. Giotti. I’m checking out a domestic disturbance.”
She then glared at not only one, but at the both of them.
“That’s bullshit, Debra! And you know it,” the foolish man said.
Liddy’s first thought was ‘you stupid, stupid moron!’ She could’ve told him allowing his temper to rise, just to get his way, would get them into far more trouble than already in. Could not normally smart men read warning thoughts sent their way, especially when those thoughts were silently screamed at the top of one’s lungs through a heated glare?
She was telling him to shut the hell up. Mentally, of course. Verbally would have gained her another sneer, and she’d more than enough of those to last her a lifetime from this man.
“No, Jake. You’ve got it all wrong. Bullshit is what’s coming to town the early part of next week.” Debra was reminding her half-brother of the rodeo about to hit Preacher’s Bend. Four hundred men looking for a good ole` time could have their small jail filled to capacity within a fortnight, and have one very lonely woman hating the male species, all the more.
“Bullshit is what comes out of an animal that has no mammary glands, and very little useful brains inside its head.”
Okay! Now there was the real Debra Wesley they all knew and love. Calling bulls brain-dead and not much else was funny. But Debra added more—a lot more. And both she and Jake had to wait it out until the deputy done with her tirade.
“Bullshit is what gets stuck to the bottom of my boots whenever I’m around you. But my checking out a domestic disturbance in a public parking lot, with gun drawn, is not bullshit. It is official police business. And you know I take police business very seriously.”
He flared his nostrils, and to Liddy’s utter surprise slowly let his half-sister win this war. After all, Debra was right. They’d been arguing inside Rachel’s. And technically, were still married to each other. So, technically, what they’d been having all along was a domestic disturbance—of sorts.
Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) Page 6