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

by Willow, Jevenna

  “Jake. You need food. And what you have in there is not food.” She grimaced at the refrigerator’s lack of contents. “I can’t think on any empty stomach. We need to go grocery shopping.”

  “No. We don’t,” he warned. “I do.”

  “Can’t I go with you?”

  “And take the chance of running into someone who might remember you from ten years ago?” His tone hadn’t meant to be filled with open invitation for argument, but that’s what happened.

  Liddy, taken aback by this terribly timed statement, almost hurt, said, “Fine! I get the point, Jake. You don’t want to be seen with me. It might put a kink into your potential conquests. I get it. Good enough to put on the back, but not good enough to be near while standing upright. Is that it? Never mind. You don’t need to explain anymore.”

  Her body language was telling him more than he cared to hear. He reached out and grabbed her before she blew a gasket.

  “Whoa! Hold on there, Little Darlin’. I didn’t say any such thing.” A hard yank and she crashed into his bared chest. “You’re the one who’s been trying to hide from the good folks of Preacher’s Bend. Remember? Julia Hilliard, your best friend. I thought I was trying to be helpful.”

  She punched him square on the arm. “No, you’re not. You want me kept under lock and key so no one knows I’m here.”

  “No. I’d rather have you directly under me, terribly sweaty, and completely satisfied by my many lustful talents. We’ve already done lock and key.” His grin turned dangerously sinful in spite of the fact he was a little rankled she was calling him out for protecting her. Too sinful, perhaps, since the grin had furrowed his wife’s brow.

  A sudden pounding on the only door to the shack had them pulling apart quickly, acting like two startled teenagers caught in the act.

  Liddy made a move to mend the falling bed sheet around her body. She then scrambled for nearest cover toward the only other room he possessed. His bathroom.

  Jake scrambled to find his pants.

  “Just a minute,” he yelled, stumbling across the floor. He shoved a distinctly feminine matching set of hot-pink underwear under his bed with his bare foot.

  Glancing hurriedly around the room, he accepted all as being what it should; chided himself for even caring. They’re married, for Pete’s sake. He could surely have sex with his wife any time of the day; although that sex ten long years in the making.

  The pounding got louder and louder, adding further guilt to an already guilty conscience. “I said . . . just a God damn minute!”

  “I ain’t got a goddamn minute, Giotti. Open up the bloody damn door, or I’ll open it up for you. The hard way.”

  It was Gill Hillard, Julia Hillard’s father, and Jake’s best friend.

  Jake practically ripped the door off its hinges trying to open it before Gill did as he said he would.

  “Hey, buddy. What’s up?” He ran an unsteady hand through his unruly hair, aware he was unable to keep the treble out of his voice.

  Gill looked him over, head to toe, then smiled. “Okay. Where is she?” He shoved Jake out of the way to waltz right into the shack without invitation.

  “Where’s who?” Jake hedged.

  Gill turned quickly and grinned all the more. “Your wife. You know? The woman who’s been missing for a fucking decade?”

  Jake flared his nostrils. Nice of Gill to remind him how long it’s been. He strode toward his small kitchen table set over in the corner and sat down. Gill followed suit; by pulling out a chair and straddling it.

  Jake had some pretty high doubts the man ever sat down on a chair the way it was supposed to be sat down upon. Then again, Gill had a few years on him and could do whatever he pleased. They had an understanding.

  “She’s in the bathroom, getting dressed . . . hopefully.” This last word muttered under his breath. He sure as hell did not want Liddy to waltz out from the bathroom undressed.

  “Jesus! When Rachel said Debra hauled your ass off to jail again, and might I remind, you being late for Debra is a really stupid thing to keep on doing . . . and Rach said Debra took along a woman with you, the ears started to ring loudly my friend. As did the gossip lines. Just about everyone inside town is talking about this. They’re not sure what to make of it. But they sure as the hell are talking about Liddy’s return, nonetheless.”

  “Great,” mumbled Jake. He leaned back on his chair and pulled its two front legs off the floor.

  “No. This is great, buddy. I mean . . . well, what’s she here for? Is the little woman planning on taking you to the cleaners?” Gill had lowered his voice to a near whisper.

  “The little woman wants an annulment.”

  “Sweet Jesus! Theodora Rosebud ain’t about to let that happen. Not on her watch.”

  “Well, neither am I,” he said, calming quickly. “It is a slight moot point between me and her for the moment. The guy she was intending on marrying after I gave her the annulment . . . well, he sort of took off in a pretty big huff this morning. And I bet he’s not looking back.”

  Gill looked him hard in the face. “You’re still in love with her. Aren’t you?”

  “Why would you even have to ask?” Jake ruled.

  Gill gave him another look that said he need not elaborate.

  “I can’t not love her, Gill.” He then caught sight of Liddy peeking through a crack; made by opening the bathroom door just to listen in on the ensuing conversation, and he used her curiosity to his advantage. “You of all people should know I never stopped loving her.”

  “Yeah! I know it. But man, the last ten years have been pure hell on you: first Liddy leaving as she did, and then Desiree, and then that tiny little stint in prison. Christ! Maybe Liddy coming back now is an indication that things are finally looking up for you?”

  “Can we talk about this later, Gill?”

  Jake, with prayer, hoped Liddy hadn’t heard every word said by Gill. But when he watched the door close quickly, he knew he would have some pretty hefty explaining to do. Namely . . . a woman named Desiree, and the fact he hadn’t been in jail as she thought he’d been. He’d been in prison.

  Two years stuck behind a barbed-wire fence over a fucking police station window he’d crashed through with his motorcycle.

  “Sure thing. I can leave it be . . . for now. But do allow me to give you a little piece of advice. If Liddy doesn’t want to stay with you this time, you can’t make her stay. There are a lot of things that need fixing between the two of you. I’m sure Debra didn’t give you much of a chance to talk inside your cell. So, before you go and do something stupid . . .”

  “What? Like having sex with her?” Jake smiled, furrowing Gill’s brow.

  “No. Like getting a divorce from the woman you still love,” Gill warned. “I think you should tell her about Desiree.”

  Ten years of Liddy missing from his life could be overturned; if there was still love involved. But if he got a divorce from her, for simply leaving him in the first place, no one could fix that. Divorce was permanent, leaving very permanent scars, with very permanent voids.

  “What makes you think I haven’t told her?” Rising, he moved for the coffee pot. He turned his back on his best friend to hide his fears.

  “You turned white as a ghost by only mentioning that bitch’s name. Trust me. You’re not fooling anyone, especially me. You haven’t told Liddy about Desiree. But if you don’t . . . then doing what you are doing right now is an act of all-out selfishness on your part.”

  Gill then took in the sight of Jake’s rather messed-up bed on the far side of the room, obviously minus one bed sheet.

  “What makes you think I’m not a purely selfish person?” Jake wondered aloud, motioning toward Gill, asking him if he wanted a cup of the hot brew. Gill shook his head in the negative.

  “Come on, man. Don’t give me any of your unwanted crap! I’ve got my own, thank you very much.” His grin turned into a deep frown. “You’re not a selfish man. You wouldn’t know how to b
e.”

  “And you know this . . . because?” A lone brow rose over the brim of his cup.

  “A selfish man wouldn’t have risked his life for a stranger, as you had. He wouldn’t have thrown away two full years of that life for a stranger, as you had. And he sure as hell would not have wanted it to be hushed over, as you had, just so a certain someone—” Gill jerked his head toward the closed bathroom door, “—would never find out.”

  By the end of his sentence Liddy had come storming out of the bathroom, fully dressed and looking really pissed.

  Jesus! He’d seen tornadoes cross the ground slower.

  “What do you mean hushed over so a certain someone would never find out?” she asked, startling Gill right out of his chair.

  “Sweet Jesus Almighty, woman! Do not sneak up on a person like that! It’s not very nice.” Gill made a play for his heart. The chair toppled to the floor. “And here I thought Theodora Rosebud was the only one who could do that to a man?”

  Liddy ignored Gill and the fallen chair and the comment about Theodora; and headed straight for Jake.

  “What did he mean by hushed over, Jake?” She walked right up to him to poke him hard in the chest. A chest she couldn’t get enough of these days, it would seem. A chest that had a few bite marks placed on it from earlier.

  “I think that was my cue to leave,” Gill offered.

  “No. Stay. I want a witness,” Jake warned, backing up from Liddy’s fury. His butt hit the countertop with nowhere else to run and a now incredibly angry woman standing two feet in front of him.

  “What did Gill mean you risked your life for a stranger? And that it cost you two full years of it?” Her eyes filled with tempered mutiny.

  Jake slipped his sight to Gill, suddenly risking it all: his friendship, his reason for being, all of it. The truth of the matter would come out in the end, eventually.

  But unless he told Liddy the truth, there would not be another beginning.

  Liddy had many, many ways of getting things out of him; whether he wanted to tell her those things, or not. He could see it in her eyes. She wanted answers, even though he did not feel like giving her those answers just yet. But, as was said . . . Liddy had ways.

  She gave him another poke in the chest just to make certain he realized this.

  “He meant . . . ,” Jake grabbed her finger and held onto it so she could not poke him again. It was starting to hurt. “—that it wasn’t me who ran my motorcycle through the window of the police station.”

  There. That should do the trick. Get her off the scent of blood until he had better time to prepare himself for the coming wrath. But Liddy’s eyes grilled him all the more. So, no, a simple statement to get him off the hook was not what she was looking for. He would have to elaborate.

  Up until now, he’d had no great desire to elaborate on what he considered his half-sister’s life. Debra was Debra. She ran by her own rules, making them up as she went along. At times, and according only to her, he and all the other men in town simply got in the way of those rules.

  Jake continued telling Liddy the truth. She deserved the truth. Especially since she’d let him do whatever he had to her body the last few hours—with no complaints, as promised.

  “Had I done it, I wouldn’t be here today to even speak of it. Well . . . I sort of took the blame for the incident. I never once thought it would land me with two full years in prison for doing something good for a change. Hell, Liddy! Two years is an incredibly long time to mull over one’s stupidity. Believe me.”

  He turned to set down his mug, returning his attention toward her again. “I never thought it would get that far. But I underestimated Debra’s potential for revenge. She pretty much had it in for me. At the time I just hadn’t known how much.”

  “Why was Debra involved in your incarceration?”

  “Debra wanted me out of the way. That’s why.”

  “Out of the way? For what? Debra is mean, Jake. We all know that. The beast in her will never change, but surely, to try to do something like that to you . . . on purpose?”

  “By getting me out of the way, Liddy, Desiree could be hers.”

  Gill moved slowly for the door, looking for a clean getaway. Jake knew his friend wanted no part of this.

  “Wait right there, Gill Hillard,” Liddy said. “Jake might need a witness after we are through here. Remember?”

  Gill stopped dead in his tracks.

  The man might be Julia Hillard’s father, and at least twenty years her senior, but Liddy could still keep a man right where he was by using a little heartfelt blackmail within the tone of her voice.

  “This ain’t any of my business, Mrs. Giotti,” he said.

  “Says who?” she warned harshly. She turned her face, and glared. “You’re here. So I would say by you being here it certainly makes this your business. Besides, you’re the one who brought it all up in the first place.”

  “Okay. So maybe it was my fault for saying something about it? But I got a lot of things to do before my Ohio trip takes place, places to go to, and a ranch to run. And staying right in the middle of a domestic argument ain’t one of them.”

  “You can go back to all of that just as soon as Jake tells me the truth.”

  “But I did tell you the truth!” Jake promised. “Desiree was . . . she was in love with the idea of getting my cock into her pants. A sort of ‘haven’t tried that yet.’” His grin was sheepish, and then he frowned. “And dear, sweet, loveable Debra was in love with Desiree. When everything started to crash through windows, the very least I could do was say it had been me, and not the only love of Debra’s life who smashed through plate glass on a Friday night in good old Preacher’s Bend. Desiree stole my motorcycle simply to get back at me for not taking advantage of what she’d been offering on a silver platter. It all turned out pretty bad for her in the end.”

  “Why didn’t you take her up on the offer, Jake? And why did Ceril blame you, if it wasn’t you who crashed through that window? And why on God’s green earth would this Desiree person even want you?”

  “I asked Ceril to blame me,” Jake started. “And what do you mean . . . why would this woman even want me?” A grin formed on his face, hoping to calm her demeanor.

  As Liddy’s glare increased, that grin sobered in breakneck speed.

  “Debra had more than enough problems to deal with at the time. I thought it best no one ever know my half-sister is a lesbian. Or, that Desiree couldn’t make up her mind on what side of the fence she wanted to stay on. But Ceril never thought the judge down in Sparta would do as he had. Or, that Debra would not tell him about Desiree. For the record, Ceril hasn’t forgiven himself for that fact. The chief thought I would get little more than a few months and a few thousand dollars in fines. Not two full years—and a total of forty-thousand dollars in fines and court fee. And, lose my bike.”

  Jake moaned, his mind reliving the past in full Technicolor.

  “So Ceril lets me have a key to the cell whenever I’m late for any of Debra’s parole appointments. I get to use the bathroom, Liddy. A man has his dignity to protect when locked up over a weekend. Ceril hands me tips on odd jobs that pay well, probably why Theodora hired me on the spot. I get to eat dinner at his house every Friday night for the next three hundred years—or so. Grace is still a pretty damn good cook. And the kids aren’t too bad to deal with when at the table.”

  He was speaking of Grace Berken, the dear saint of Preacher’s Bend, and her and Ceril’s four grandchildren. The Chief’s youngest son, Travis, was studying at the police academy looking to follow in his old man’s footsteps, perhaps to be the second Berken to hold the job.

  “Oh my God, Jake!” Liddy’s hand covered her mouth in utter shock. She backed away. “Oh . . . my . . . God!”

  “It isn’t all that bad, Liddy.”

  “Not all that bad? Are you kidding me?” she gasped. “I never knew . . . God! Why didn’t anyone tell me about Debra?”

  “Okay. Time for me
to go,” Gill harped out, moving for the door and practically running through it.

  Neither Giotti gave him any trouble at all toward the hasty exit.

  Jake shrugged his shoulders as his wife found a chair to sit down upon. “How the hell was I ever able to tell you? You haven’t been here for ten years. And besides, pot roast and potatoes every Friday night for the rest of my life? What more could a man ask for?”

  “His freedom. A cleared criminal record. The truth!” Liddy said.

  As Jake followed suit and claimed his own chair, he said, “My freedom . . . I have that now. I’ll never have a cleared criminal record, as you well know. As for the truth, you now know what that is.”

  “But Jake . . .,” she started.

  “No. It doesn’t matter anymore, Liddy. I was okay with what happened. My life has gone on as it should. The world hasn’t ended. No one knows about Debra, other than me, Gill, Ceril, and now you. I had ten years . . . ,” he stalled upon, picking up her right hand. “I now have everything I’d ever wanted.”

  She tried to pull her hand free, but Jake held onto it for dear life. “No. I will not allow you to run from this, not this time.”

  “I’m not running, Jake.”

  “Not now. But later? When you’ve had the time to think this through? Then what? You start to run every time something doesn’t make sense to you, or doesn’t go your way. Do you plan on repeating the past, Liddy?”

  “I’m not going to run, Jake,” she told him.

  “And I’m supposed to believe that?” he barked.

  Liddy tugged her hand out of his. She rose and turned her back to him. “Believe whatever you want, Jacob Curtis Giotti. You always have. You always will.”

  She whipped around, leaned forward, and placed her palms directly on the tabletop, staring at his face. “I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to leave you. I never meant to hide from you for so long. As God is my witness I never meant to do any of this!”

  “Then why did you?” he asked, angrily pushing from the table. He stormed over to the countertop, slamming his fist onto a wooden cupboard. “Why did you leave me if you never meant to?”