120 mph
Saving the Sinners of Preacher’s Bend
book 1
Jevenna Willow
120 mph
Jevenna Willow
copyright © 2014 Jennifer J. Yost
All work in this book is made up in the mind of the author. No names, dates, or places are real, and only in the imagination of its creator. I thank you for respecting my work. Pirating author’s work is a crime, so please respect my hard work.
Cover art by Linda Kage
Dedication
As life flashes by—lightning on a warm summer’s evening, the roar of an engine during a quarter mile on the hot asphalt track, even the speed of sound drifting past out ears—each of us will end up wondering where it went and why we’d so easily let life vanish from our grasp.
I want to acknowledge and dedicate this novel to two darlings who didn’t slip from my grasp, and who make every second of my life worth living, if done at 120 mph.
To Alex and Ian.
120 mph
Jevenna Willow
Chapter One
Sara’s eyes darted to the speedometer.
Eighty mph, ninety, one hundred . . .
Battling against the pull of the tires against the wet pavement, her one hand clamped on the steering wheel while the back of her other swiped at steadily falling tears, her vision was clouded by little more than fury. Why was it fate seemed only to find those who were trying their hardest to hide from it?
Sara’s eyes darted to the speedometer again.
One hundred ten miles per hour . . .
Jesus! She would’ve never thought this old hunk of junk could even get up to the speed of one hundred ten mph. The first curve had been a little hard to handle, but she didn’t have the time to waste caring how difficult this was, or slow down once the conscience kicked in.
Up ahead, the road was clearly marked with a 50mph curve sign. Sara didn’t see the sign.
Fifty, one hundred, even two hundred miles per hour—this would all be turn out exactly the same in the end. Disappearance and easy escape from wretched fate wanted . . . and all that Sara really desired from this point on.
Her right foot pressed on the accelerator pedal as the pinch to her heart took up its bitter stronghold, holding everything else at bay. She dragged in deep, gasping breaths laced with sobbing, turned the wheel to curve the vehicle a little to the left . . .
Sara’s forehead slammed against the windshield, cracking the safety glass into a billion shards of broken dreams, as the resounding impact threw her forward. Her seatbelt caught at the base of her neck. Airbags would have saved her chest from crushing against the steering wheel, but the seatbelt was all that saved her from visiting St. Peter on a rainy Sunday night born from Hell.
Saving Sara from fate would’ve been far too easy.
****
Twenty-four hours later . . .
Caught up in a web of tangled bed sheets, her legs trapped between the sweat-soaked layers, Sara’s eyes darted to the bedside clock. Two a.m. . . . . And all’s well with the world.
But that all’s well part ended late last night.
She placed her trembling hand over her face, flinching once contact was made with her skin. All she could remember this time, what she most needed to forget, was the burning of tires. But no matter what she did, the sickly smell of melting rubber would not go away.
Damnit. To go through more nights like this . . .
Maybe survival wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. If she died, she wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of her actions.
She pushed aside the sheets, slid her legs out, then darted to the bathroom. The sudden urge to puke had hit her hard and swift. She dropped to her knees in front of the porcelain toilet. Every part of her body hurt as if she’d been broken in two and her life blood drained away. That might not have been such a bad thing right now, either. She wouldn’t have to remember . . . if she simply ended it all, or God ended it for her.
Guilt, remorse, disgust, they all came at her hard, and blindingly clear as the porcelain bowl filled. She sat back on her haunches breaking into a cold sweat.
Sara could not chance looking at her face; knew there were numerous deep gashes, ugly purplish bruises that would eventually heal, given enough time to do so but without the benefit of medical personnel. She vomited once more, pressing down the flush lever as each heave came quicker and stronger and so . . . Well, so damn expected.
Five minutes later, exhausted, her esophagus burning, she wiped her mouth with her now trembling hand, pushed back on her weakened limbs to stand, and slowly turned to face her demons. The cracked mirror above a cheap motel sink wouldn’t be kind to her this time. It wasn’t going to lie to her as it did two hours ago, even five hours ago.
No. This time the three visually distorted images of her face said, loud and clear, she would not get away with what she’d done.
She stared at the sullen eyes all but finished crying, the dark hair matted in dried blood, the huge fat lip cut at the bottom left corner and likely to be a permanent scar. Each malady was set an odd angle against all the cracks in the mocking mirror. God, she even looked dead! Perhaps she was. Every part of her felt as if she’d gone two steps beyond the grave.
Sara closed her eyes quickly, her gut tightening and the bile rising tenfold. Burning tires and swamp water.
She dragged in an unsteady breath, releasing it through her swollen lips. Her nose was surely broken, same as much else was. A broken nose would go well with the eventual scarring.
Burning tires, swamp water, and gasoline.
Every minute upon every hour her subconscious pulled forth from the dark recesses something else, something far more disturbing than before. Her nostrils pinched, she could swear the putrid smell of petrol was soaking her entire being. Her sudden groan made her gag. A smell like that wouldn’t go away through a measly shower, let alone a thousand baths drenched in perfume. So when would this end? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?
She needed that one second, that one blessed moment where she could open her eyes, pretend that it hadn’t really happened, and that she could go on as before.
She reached up and set her fingers to the knob of the medicine cabinet, taking a moment to gather the strength needed to end this once and for all. Another deep breath allowed her to actually pull open the cabinet without having her heart stop her as it had hours before.
Half a bottle of aspirin, a full bottle of cold medicine, a couple of odds and ends she didn’t put inside here but someone else had . . . she located the ill-bought painkillers, dropping them in the sink. One would suffice most anxiety sufferers. Five would be better, but the entire contents, all one hundred and twenty tiny white pills would be damn near perfect.
She had to see what was inside the bottle to make the ultimate choice. Unscrewing the cap with a bit of trouble, four out of five fingers broken on her right hand, she discovered only twelve useable, welcoming pills.
That’s all? Damnit. She couldn’t even kill herself right.
Sara dumped the entire contents into her palm, stared fixated at what her life was now reduced to, and without conscience thought threw all twelve pills into her mouth at once, watching in horror the heartless reflection staring back at her face from the mirror.
So many pills down the throat at once were a little hard to swallow, but with effort Sara gagged them all the way to her stomach. It wouldn’t matter after this. Nothing would matter after this. Two, ten, even five hundred pills wouldn’t matter after this.
She stuck her head near the sink, turned on the tap, and helped finish each pills’ final journey by placing her mouth near the steady flow then taking a small drink.
Burning tires, swamp water, gasoline, and the stringent sce
nt of broken pine trees . . .
Soon enough, the memories would all go away. They had to.
Sara turned, wobbled her way back to the bed, climbed under the clammy sheets, curled into a fetal ball . . . willing away the world. Perhaps this time she wouldn’t vomit the pills back up. Perhaps this time she would be able to forget what she’d done.
Sara closed her eyes as the pinch to her heart took up exactly where it had left off.
Chapter Two
Eight years later.
Yard Sale. The letters had been painted in bright red and likely the leftovers on the bottom of the can from painting the barn.
Sara Ruby’s pulse quickened. Any other color wouldn’t have made much of an impact on her. For the first time today, she was excited. She drew in a deep breath trying to contain herself. Yard sale, to a tried and true county girl, meant something far different than it would to the urbanite—the fifty to eighty years, few generations kind of different. Hot items presented at yard sales were what most hard-working folks had saved their money to buy, used until worn, then put aside when something much better came along.
Sara wasn’t into the trendy stuff; dots and stripes didn’t suit her fancy. She liked the simpler things, from simpler times. She liked old stuff. A yard sale on the side of a country road meant old.
She drove her vehicle to the shoulder, made a hasty glance at the traffic—none seen—then whipped a U-turn, using the few feet of shallow, weed-choked ditch to achieve her goal. The tires on her car would forgive her, but she wasn’t quite so certain the bottom of her convertible would as the muffler dragged against some of the gravel and made a dearly wretched sound.
It was still early in the day. Perhaps not all the good stuff was picked through and she might find the bargain she’d been looking for. Rural folks usually sold their stuff cheap. It made the sellers happy just to be rid of the items from ample storage. It made Sara happy to buy it, then add to her ample supply of stuff already had. No one ever left a yard sale unhappy.
Sara parked her ten year old convertible in a designated spot for customers. With a spring in her step and the first real smile of the day gracing her lips, she drew in another breath, letting the last twenty-four hours drift away.
Country girls knew not to block the drive when it was harvest season. A hasty glance to her right, across the driveway and over the unkempt front lawn, folks around Preacher’s Bend hadn’t the time to mow the lawn during harvest season. They were too busy fighting against the rains; more often than not, lost this battle by the forces of a wrathful Mother Nature hell bent on putting the misery into miserable.
She craned her ears. Yep. There it was. The old diesel pump in the milk house had started up. That meant the items of bric-a-brac on the scattered tables were the really good stuff. Antiques of extreme value and not dime store knockoff, tourist-trap trinkets sold closer to town at the monthly flea market.
Sara reached over the convertible’s closed door, grabbed her purse, then walked straight for the tables laden with dishware. Her course was set by will alone. She had enough of the steamer trunks and hurricane lamps for the time being. What she desired most was the Depression glass. She needed only two more pieces for a complete set of eight. The old banquet table covered in blue check gingham was loaded with Depression ware. Perhaps she could find the exact item she needed and her day could end far better than it started.
Her fingers crossed, she hoped any prized treasure wasn’t overly-priced. Sara hated haggling with owners.
With her thoughts on the glassware, she never noticed the man directly behind her back.
She picked up a fragile relict, a salad bowl by the look of it, turned it in her palm, checked for a date, looked for chips and cracks, then set it back down. There were too many chips and one small crack nearer the bottom. It would have made her collection shoddy. An expert would notice a crack right away. Sara would never claim title to being an expert, but she knew damn well what reduced the value of a proper collection. She grabbed another, more interested in quality than quantity today.
The second bowl had no chips but one small crack near the bottom. She set this one down too. She did keep the bowl in her view, however. Her third selection was a plate.
Trained on the table’s display of treasured items, Sara never saw how close he’d been standing behind her until she physically backed into a firm male ass.
She nearly dropped the priceless piece of glassware onto the ground from the impact, holding onto the plate with both hands, then carefully set it onto the table with now shaking hands. Raised that if you dropped it you bought it, over the years that became a rather costly advice told. Sara was always dropping things, and then having to pay for them.
The plate was marked fifty dollars with a tiny white sticker. Fifty was just too much money for a plate with equal amount of cracks as the bowl. Without the crack, it would have been worth at least eight hundred dollars. She had only four hundred to spend. The money in her pocket was half her paycheck.
She should not have been spending any it, for there was plenty other things wanting a piece of her pie. However, life was short, and rainy days never came her way, so Sara was intent on spending what she wanted for what she truly enjoyed. Old things made her happy.
However, she had to deal with the fact she just slammed rumps with a stranger before she could haggle a price with the glassware’s original owner.
She turned around and felt the old familiar saying ‘Too good to be true’ hit her right between the eyes. Chippendale quality, and certainly too good to be true, he was more man than any man had the right to be. In fact, Sara had ever laid eyes on someone so hot. Her mouth began to water. Good God! She was salivating over a stranger?
Yet hot men were the kind Sara tried to stay as far away from as possible. They knew their shit didn’t stink, and Sara’s stunk worse than stink on a skunk. She hated rejection, and it always came from the mouth of a hot guy. Why was that?
Well, neither here nor there, this town thought she’d done a great injustice to almost all the men living within a fifty-mile radius of Preacher’s Bend, and this had made her enemies. She wasn’t a prude. Hell, no! What she did was because of her job and nothing more; Sara told to close the club, in fact, ordered to close it . . . or else. When an ‘or else’ was involved in any choice made, a person literally had none. An ‘or else’ meant do as told . . . or else! It rather coincided with the rule ‘if you break it, you buy it’. Either way, job loss part of the equation, and lack of funds its sum. She would not have been able to stop at any yard sales. And without a yard sale on red-painted sign to catch her attention, her life would have really sucked.
Sara Ruby’s ‘or else’ had cost her a dear friend, her neighbors to no longer speak to her, and a whole lot more she didn’t want to dwell on for the moment. How much suckier could it get, when dealing with the loss of all that?
Cara wasn’t speaking to her, because Cara had worked at the club and was now out of a job; slightly unemployable by her past experiences. Shay wouldn’t give Sara the time of day and they live seven lousy feet apart. The man at the bank was calling in her student loans, likely for the fact he’d been one of the regulars at the club and was married to the meanest, ugliest woman alive. Guys like him needed the release the club gave him.
Christ! Everything she’d ever worked for now hung on a thread that was too close to the sharpened knife of fate because of her crappy job.
Yard sales were her only outlet; her only escape away from reality. Sara could look at the nearly priceless objects and be taken back to a better time and place. Yard sales were her free shrink.
She pulled her thoughts to the here and now and started to apologize to the man for backing into his ass. Her intent was to form words past stalled lips. What she got instead was a stare, a hasty smile, and a complete brushoff by his moving to another table. He didn’t even say as much as ‘boo’ to her.
Yes. Her shit did stink. However, she did not think it stun
k that much!
Snubbed by friends and co-workers simply because they knew of what she’d done was one thing. Sara snubbed by a stranger at a yard sale in the middle of friggin` nowhere turned into an entirely different sort of snub. She moved away from her table and walked over to his, held out her hand, then introduced herself.
“Hi. Um, sorry about the little shove back there. I guess I got a bit carried away with my interest in one of the bowls. I’m Sara. Sara Ruby.”
With utter surprise, Sara watched the man step back, and then he shoved both of his large hands deep into his pockets.
Okay! Never from anyone met had she held out her hand . . . and he did not shake it. In fact, Chippendale seemed to be openly glaring at her, perhaps for Sara having tried to make an apology toward a rather innocent bump in the first place. Good grief! It was not as if she’d flattened him onto his backside.
Her fists balled while putting more thought to doing just that.
No. Just because her day started out so crappy did not mean she should resort to road rage mentality on the front lawn of a stranger. Her hands released their fists.
“Um . . . yes, I am sorry,” she reiterated, then turned on her heels and moved away. Under her breath, she slipped out the words, “Even though you don’t want to believe me.”
Sara headed back to the glassware and suddenly could not control the fury building inside her. So strong in an otherwise generous nature . . . well, it could not be contained, no matter how hard she tried.
She whipped around, set her hands on her hips, and gave Mr. Chippendale what’s what—right over the span of a table of tools and old bric-a-brac displayed in proper order of rust. The fury released out of her within two beats of a bumblebee’s wing. Surely the man had no need to add to her crappy day just by making it rather tiresome.
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