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

by Willow, Jevenna

  Oh, God! Of course he could tell. Jake was half dressed. Her hair was a complete mess. She was very certain she no longer had on any lipstick. She’d even chipped a nail. They’d been very creative against the wall; equally on the bench, floor, and if there’d been a chandelier, she did believe they would have tried a trapeze sex act.

  And Debra was smiling like a damn Cheshire cat over at her desk. Debra’s not stupid. She knew what went on inside this holding cell.

  The fact of this produced the words, “Deputy Wesley put the two of us in here because there was no other cell to stick me into until possible sentencing. And I would not be in here—at all—if you would’ve answered one of my many numerous phone calls during the last seventy-two hours to tell you where I was and why I needed your car.”

  Her brain suddenly worked far faster than any of her nerve endings were. “You should have considered that, before coming all this way just to accuse me of taking a bit more time than you think as necessary in obtaining my husb . . . um, Jake’s signature.”

  “Have you?” Mack asked. The veins in his neck were protruding.

  “Have I what?” Her words stalled midway through the tirade.

  “Have you gotten this man’s signature?” He pointed at Jake, Mack’s face reddening. “Never mind that what is smashed against a tree wasn’t just a car, but a five-hundred-thousand dollars, custom specific Porsche Carrera GT, signed by the owner of Porsche!”

  Liddy couldn’t help the large gasp coming out of her mouth. “Are you kidding me?” She even snorted in Mack’s face.

  “Not really. So have you?” he repeated, raising his brow.

  Liddy turned her head toward Jake; a man who was highly amused at this newest predicament within her life. Signed by the owner of Porsche? Oh, Jesus!

  Out of turn, Jake answered Mack. “No. She did get some pretty intense sexual activity, however. I don’t usually hand away my signature without physical payment. In fact, right in this very cell Liddy got exactly what she deserved. Lots and lots of what she deserved. Care to see the bite marks . . . pal?” He even made a move to show Mack the actual places.

  All . . . of them.

  Mack’s eyes grew wide as his face reddened all the more. “Y—you bloody hell did what?” His fingers clamped the cold steel bars, clearly pinching off blood flow since his knuckles had whitened.

  “Allow me to explain,” Liddy pleaded, trying to capture his hands before he could pull them away.

  Mack lurched back and held up his hand, clearly disgusted. He looked as though he wanted to strangle her. Had there not been bars between them . . .

  “There is nothing more you can say to me Lidia to explain any of this.”

  “But he’s lying!” she blurted; though, now lying all on her own.

  “No I’m not,” Jake said. “If she hadn’t asked something so incredibly foolish from me in the first place, we’d still be having pretty demanding sex right about now, right here on the floor.” He pointed to the smaller pile of their clothing, much to her chagrin and absolute horror he would turn on her in this way.

  Mack white as a ghost by the end of Jake’s rather rude assessment to the last few hours, he whispered at her, “You didn’t, oh, God, did you?”

  Liddy took a very deep breath and answered the tall man standing in judgment. “Yes.” Her lone word slipped out of her mouth in a squeak. It was followed closely by Mack slamming his fist against the bars of their holding cell, causing her body to recoil.

  Jake then added, “Over, and over, and over, until she got it right. And believe me Liddy is still as hot as ever. Incredibly talented, too. See the bite marks?” His finger pointed at the one on his neck. “She’s a damn wildcat if you ask me.”

  He then pointed to his shoulder, smiling evilly at her betrothed, as his finger lowered in slow motion to point at his cock hidden under suit pants.

  Liddy’s head hung so low at that crass action she doubted it would ever come back up to see what was right in front of her face. The muscles in her neck were little more than goo. She was surely going to prison now for stealing Mack’s car. So she might as well kill Jake while she still had the chance, before the grand opportunity slipped from her grasp.

  “Okay, you three. Enough already,” Debra yelled. “Jake got a little action from his missing wife. So what?” She moved toward her file cabinet.

  Mack turned on the large woman quicker than wildfire. “So what? So what!? Might I remind you this woman is betrothed—to me?”

  “Hey, I don’t do well with polygamy, pal,” Debra tossed over her shoulder. She then turned toward Mack. “I just take care of the law around here. And if she’s betrothed to you, then why the hell is she still married to him?” Debra pointed at Jake, having a tit for tat with Mack.

  Besides, no amount of flashy cash would ever make Debra buckle to any man.

  Sometimes trailer trash needed to stick together, and for one brief moment Liddy felt a kindled friendship with her sister-in-law. A sisterhood of the damned! That moment passed.

  “Because!” Jake and she blurted in unison. He then took over briefly, toning it down a bit. “Just . . . because.”

  “Jesus! I fucking don’t believe any of this! Christ, Liddy!” Mack, a man who barely swears, threw his hands into the air. “I drove all the way up here, thought you hurt in some terrible car crash . . . and you haven’t taken the time to get a lousy signature on any one of those annulment papers, but time enough to fuck your soon-to-be ex, and it would seem more than once?”

  He didn’t wait for her response. “I no longer have a cherry red Porsche. It’s a mangled mess. I no longer have my sanity, of which I do need to practice law. And you, my dear . . . we are no longer betrothed. It’s over between us. Do you hear me? Over! Don’t you dare come crawling back to Miami on hands and knees, begging for forgiveness. I won’t stand for it. And I’ll make damn sure you pay dearly if you even try.”

  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, pr
aying 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.