Brokenhearted Beauty [Divine Creek Ranch 19] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Heather Rainier

  “Oh, dear. Those slacks are soaked. I think the dirt will come out, though.”

  “It’s all right. I brought an extra pair. I’ll just run in and change real quick.” Mrs. Miller’s cheeks were bright red and she looked mortified. “I’m really so sorry, Miss Woodworth. I probably should’ve put out some sort of sign. I just wasn’t thinking.” She must’ve been thinking of her online reviews and sounded worried.

  “I promise it’s all right, Mrs. Miller. It was just a little accident.”

  Her butt throbbed miserably where it’d impacted the hard cement as she changed clothes. Looking in the mirror, she took in and let out a couple of slow breaths. She liked running early and hated when her schedule got off kilter but what was really bothering her was the fact that each delay meant it would take her that much longer to get back to Divine.

  Denny caught up with her as soon as she walked in the store a few minutes later and beckoned her into his work space.

  “I have tile samples for the manager’s office to show you. Might as well do that while you’re here, right?”

  “Probably a good idea, although I think as long as you choose something neutral it should be just fine.”

  He laid out several pieces for her on the dusty surface of his work bench and she shuffled them around as she compared them to the paint samples. She carried two of the samples to a window and held them up.

  From his spot at the bench, Denny spoke in quiet tones. “Was everything all right last night? I don’t mean to pry or make you feel uncomfortable. It was obvious that guy cares about you but…I hesitated about leaving you alone with him.”

  Turning back to look at him, she smiled. A person couldn’t have too many friends. He didn’t need to know that the night had turned into a disaster of possibly life-changing proportions. “I appreciate that you were concerned but he’d never do or say anything that would hurt me.” Ugh! Besides forget to wear a condom! “He’s just a little possessive.” Stop talking or he’s just going to ask more questions.

  He nodded in understanding. “I get the possessive thing. I might be the same way.”

  Heat filled her cheeks as she gripped the tile samples and then pain seared one of her fingers and she dropped the tiles. “Ow!”

  “Oh, crap!” Denny said, taking a look at her clenched hand as blood flowed out between her fingers. She opened it, revealing a copiously bleeding slice on one of her fingers. “This needs stitches. Hang on a second.” He pulled out a first aid kit and ripped open a gauze square and wrapped it around her throbbing finger. Awesome. Another delay and now I have a pain in my ass and in my hand.

  “Those samples were left over from a couple of tile jobs I did. I’m sorry, Leah. I didn’t realize that one was so sharp or I never would’ve put it out for you.”

  He apologized several more times in his truck on the way to the emergency medical care center down the street. He looked at the soaked gauze wrapped around her finger as he pulled the door to the care facility open for her and said, “I’m sorry your visit is ending on a negative note, Leah. I know you wanted to be on the road by now.”

  “No, it’s all right. You really don’t have to keep apologizing. I mean it’s not like you put that sample out there so I could cut myself. You had no idea. And I need to work at being more flexible. This trip is important and I’m not leaving until we’re done.”

  She bit her lip as her finger throbbed when the nurse on duty met them and peeled away the gauze and clucked as the bleeding started up again. “Let’s get you in a room and stitched up, honey.”

  Thirty minutes later they were back at the store. She began to wonder if she was going to get out of Abilene whole when a piece of drywall toppled over on her, scaring the daylights out of her and giving her a goose egg on the side of her head. Afterward she felt silly for being so startled by it, but she stepped carefully from that point forward.

  Late in the morning she finally said her good-byes and wished Denny luck. She stopped in for a quick lunch at a sandwich shop. When she came out, she discovered that someone had dinged her driver side door and left a vicious red dent in the white paint of her car.

  She sat in her car and prayed for the rest of the day to go smoothly before she turned the key in the ignition. Figuring it might be good therapy, she pulled out a George Strait CD she hadn’t listened to in a long time and popped it into the player. It certainly couldn’t make the day any worse. She pouted over the dent, wondering if James might know someone who could fix it for her.

  With him on her mind, her mood improved a bit. The situation was a little more complicated than it had been just a few days ago, but she honestly missed him, a lot. She had to admit that even though she was still angry with Vincent, she missed him, too. She was ready to get home. Her ass ached, her finger stung, her noggin throbbed, and her formerly pristine car now had a boo-boo, too.

  With everything else that had gone wrong, George singing to her in the background didn’t even faze her. She could even sing along to “Marina del Rey” without getting tears in her eyes, and the memories of Patterson that inevitably came to her made her smile. With a start, she realized the nightmare that had been nagging her every morning since his death hadn’t been what woke her up. She’d still been upset over Vincent’s lapse but at least it was different. Maybe the cycle had been broken.

  Feeling a little more confident, she put the car in gear, turned the volume up, looked out at the road ahead of her and declared, “Bring it on.”

  It wasn’t very far down the road that she was regretting her cockiness. She’d stopped in a little town that looked as though neglect was about to kill it outright. The only thing decent about it was the highway that ran through it. Of the buildings she’d seen on the way through, half had been boarded up or abandoned. The rest looked in poor repair, including the gas station and convenience store she stopped at out of necessity to fill up her gas tank. The air even seemed a little foul and she couldn’t wait to be on her way.

  She went inside to pay the nice lady behind the counter, because the card reader on the pump outside was out of order. Her stitched up finger was starting to throb and after climbing into her car she shook it a little, hoping the ibuprofen she’d just taken worked quickly.

  Movement drew her eye as a dusty older Toyota slowed on the highway and then swerved into the gas station parking lot at a cockeyed angle and slammed right into her front end, knocking her into the steering wheel.

  “Ow! My car!” she screamed, as water spilled all over her navy blue slacks and made a mess of her bandaged finger. “Son of a bitch!” She squinted at the car in disbelief and yelled, “What the hell?”

  A woman who might’ve been in her late twenties or early thirties jumped out of the driver’s seat and yelled, “What the fuck’s your problem?”

  Incensed, Leah climbed back out of her car and said, “Excuse me? What’s wrong with you? I was parked here and you just slammed into me!”

  “Don’t get snippy with me, bitch,” the slattern yelled, slamming her door and coming around to look at their mutually crushed front bumpers. “Look what you done to my car!”

  “No! Look what you did to my car! You just ran into me.” The smell of coolant rose in the air and steam wafted out of Leah’s hood. She wanted to cry but she didn’t dare show weakness.

  The woman bobbled her head and waved her finger dramatically. “I pulled in because you waved me forward, bitch! I got places to go and people to see and now instead of doing what I need to be doin’ I’m standin’ here while you bitch at me!”

  Leah wondered where it was she needed to go and who would want to see this woman braless, in a mustard yellow tank top, with grease-stained raspberry-colored sweat pants, wearing white socks and rubber flip-flops. She’d taken time to do her hair, at least. There were two skinny pigtails at odd angles on top of her head that would’ve been cute on a two-year-old. She’d topped her look off with crookedly drawn eyebrows and a lit cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth.


  “I’m talkin’ to you, bitch! I wanna see your fucking license and your insurance papers. You’re buying me a new car.” The sparkle in her eyes spoke volumes.

  Leah stood her ground on the other side of the mangled front bumpers, looked at the front of the building, and nearly shouted a prayer of relief. The nice sales attendant stood outside of the convenience store on a cell phone and she was waving at Leah and gesturing at the security camera directed right at them. Then she pointed at her eyes and at the wrecked vehicles. Leah had a witness and there were cameras.

  Okay, so the town wasn’t completely decrepit. She still wanted the hell out of it but that clearly wasn’t happening for a while.

  Leah pointed in the direction of the surveillance camera. “Lady, you’re about one brick shy of a load. The entire accident, for which you are at fault, was recorded. And if you think I’m buying you a new car to replace your jalopy you’d better think again! I’m not giving you anything but an insurance claim for the damage you did to my car.”

  The woman snorted and showed her dirty, crooked teeth. “You think so, huh? You ain’t from around here are ya?” She waved her hands at the damage and her boobs danced with the movements. “This is all on you, bitch, with your fancy clothes and hair and expensive car.”

  “We’ll see about that,” she said, gesturing with her thumb at the sheriff’s deputy who had just pulled into the parking lot. Leah waited for him to get out of the car, hoping to get this problem cleared up quickly so she could call a tow truck, her insurance company, and to see about a rental. She’d probably be there until the early evening as it was. The lady from the store looked worried for her as the woman kept yelling at her.

  She hated feeling so alone and resisted the urge to simply go sit in her car, ignore the crazy bitch, and wait for the deputy to come get her side of the story.

  You can’t do that. She probably knows him. She’ll talk circles around you. Stuff that wimpy introvert down deep and let the tigress out. Pretend she’s a shoplifter and be firm. The law is on your side.

  “Now…someone tell me what the hell happened here,” a fat pig of a man in a rumpled brown uniform drawled in a thick accent as he waddled over to the two vehicles. The air carried a whiff of skunk on it as he approached and she resisted the urge to point out the crumbs littering the front of his uniform. As he approached she realized he wasn’t but an inch or two taller than her. She removed the insurance card from her visor and pulled her driver’s license from her wallet.

  “This damned mouthy bitch wrecked my car!”

  The sheriff’s deputy hitched up his pants, which jiggled his belly and knocked some of the crumbs loose, and growled something into his radio. He looked at her papers and said, “Mizz Woodworth, can you tell me your version of what happened?”

  “Deputy, my car was parked beside this pump while I went inside to pay for my gas. I got in my car and before I could even start it, this person pulled in and slammed into my vehicle. What this person is telling you is a bald-faced lie. She hit me. That’s not only my version of what happened, it is also the truth.”

  The entire time she was speaking, the crazy bitch was talking over her. The sheriff’s deputy narrowed his eyes at Leah and said, “Are you getting snippy with me?”

  In shock, Leah somehow managed to school her reaction. “No. I just told you exactly what happened. Ask the lady in the store. She saw the accident and the security cameras will verify what I’ve told you.” The other driver kept yelling. To herself she muttered softly, “What kind of town is this?”

  The deputy’s unibrow shot up and he put his hand on his hip. “’Scuse me?”

  “Nothing, officer. That’s what happened. You have my information.” She crossed her arms and held her tongue. The deputy waddled over to the other driver.

  “All right, Georgina, tell me your side of the story.”

  Leah frowned when she realized that the woman hadn’t handed him any paperwork.

  Oh, shit.

  They knew each other.

  The officer stood in front of the woman as she suddenly adopted an innocent demeanor. She put a hand on her cocked hip and thrust out her boobs in a move so blatant Leah wondered if she might put her back out. She rolled her shoulders as she spoke, obviously drawing attention to her lolling boobs and the deputy’s eyes were riveted. Georgina was speaking in tones too low for Leah to hear but she could read body language.

  The deputy asked, “You got your driver’s license and insurance?”

  More smooth talk from Georgina and Leah watched carefully as Georgina gave Deputy Dawg a come-on gesture with her chin and she looked down at his crotch and smiled.

  “Oh, no fucking way,” Leah whispered softly.

  She pulled out her cell phone and called the first person she thought of. The call connected and that blessed angelic, gravelly voice answered, “Thank you for calling Stigall’s Department Store. This is Evelyn. How may I direct your call?”

  “Evelyn, it’s Leah. I’ve been involved in a minor car accident.”

  “Oh, dear Lord. Where are you?”

  Leah looked at the gas receipt and said, “I’m in Tuspita.” She inhaled and let out the deep breath and turned away to give their conversation a little bit of privacy. “I’m having difficulty with the person at fault in the accident and the sheriff’s deputy knows her. I have a bad feeling about this situation.”

  “Leah, I think it might be a good idea if I call one of the Elder brothers. They’ll know what to do.”

  “No. Don’t bother them.”

  “Fine, then I’ll call Hank for you. Perhaps he can make a call that will help. What else can I do?”

  She explained what she needed and said a prayer of thanks for Evelyn after hanging up.

  Once she was off the phone, the deputy approached her, hitching his pants up under his belly again. As he walked, he dug his finger in his ear, looked at it and then wiped his finger on his pants. Leah shuddered.

  The crazy bitch was still standing by her car and she had a smirk on her face, which she promptly wiped off when the deputy looked back at her. She puffed on her cigarette and crossed her arms under her boobs so they practically popped out of the neckline of the tank top.

  “Mizz Woodworth, we have a quite a complicated situation here.”

  “I don’t see where it’s complicated at all, Deputy. My vehicle was parked. She rammed into me.”

  The deputy nodded slowly, condescendingly. “So you have said.”

  “What about the witness and the security footage?”

  “That camera is hooked up to a VCR that hasn’t worked in ages and old Mizz Anders in there is half-blind and going a little senile in the head. I’m gonna write up a report for you and you can report all of this to your insurance and you can be on your way—”

  “No.”

  He dropped his fat jowl and did a double take. “No?”

  She pointed a finger at the other driver. “I want her insurance information because the only claim being filed will be against her insurance policy. That’s why we’re required to have insurance in the state of Texas, so the responsible party can pay for the damage. She is responsible.”

  Don’t you back down, girl! She kept telling herself that, but her heart was hammering.

  The deputy shook his head and put his hands on his hips as if she was just ruining his day. “Now, Mizz Woodworth—”

  “Write your report if you have to and I want her insurance and driver’s license information. Senile or not, I want Ms. Anders’s statement included in the report, and I’ll need proof that security camera is inoperative. I’m sure the insurance companies will want all that information.”

  The deputy stuck a finger in her face and said, “You just better reel that snippy tone back in, missy.”

  “Missy? I don’t think so. You took an oath to enforce the law, so do it.”

  The crazy bitch yelled, “Tell that prissy little bitch, Dicky Bob!” She cackled and sucked on her ciga
rette.

  Dicky Bob? Seriously?

  “You shut the hell up!” Dicky Bob yelled back at her.

  Leah took in a couple of calming breaths and smiled at Dicky Bob, doing her best to hide her repulsion and tried a different tactic. “Deputy, I promise I’m not trying to be snippy. I’ve had a terrible time on this trip home from Abilene. I had a fall this morning, I cut my finger and my head aches like crazy. I just want to go home.” She blinked slowly and even got her chin to quiver a little.

  The deputy looked shamefaced for a moment before glancing back at the crazy woman, who was now glowering at her. Two can play this game, bitch.

  Dicky Bob sidled up as though Leah had gained his confidence. His breath wreaked of Funyuns as he quietly said, “Well, all right now, Mizz Woodworth. Maybe I can get you on your way a little faster if you’re amenable. Ya see, Georgina doesn’t actually have any documentation for this car and if we report it, the repo people will know where it is and will come and get it. I’m sure your insurance won’t give you a lick of trouble—”

  “I’m sorry, did you say she doesn’t have insurance? And you want me to let this go?”

  The deputy’s eyes flitted around as several people gathered to listen in on the conversation. A man called out. “Everything all right there, Dicky Bob?”

  The deputy waved a hand. “I got it. Y’all go on.”

  “I can call your daddy if you need me to.”

  Dicky Bob turned beet red. “I said I got it!”

  Leah took her license and insurance papers back from the deputy and said, “Deputy, regardless of what happens today, I can promise you that I’ll be letting my insurance company know what you suggested.”

  Dicky Bob’s face turned redder. “Damn it, woman. I told you to not take that snippy tone with me! You wanna be like that, we can just take this here whole mess down to the police station.”

  “I’m sorry, Deputy. I think I have a right to be irate. You’re suggesting I condone insurance fraud, knowing that she plans to hit my insurance company up for a new car, which will never happen,” she said loud enough for Georgina to hear. Georgina offered her middle finger and the deputy turned and began yelling at Georgina.