by Erin Wright
“To jail. You couldn’t even make it a damn week, could you? You just finished probation and bam! right back into jail you’re going to go.” She opened up the passenger side of the truck and shoved him in, slamming the door behind him. She stalked around to the driver’s side and pulled his keys out of the door pocket where he’d dropped them earlier and shoved them into the ignition, bringing the diesel engine roaring to life.
“And this time!” she yelled, gunning the engine and weaving through the parked cars to get back to the main driveway, “I hope they lock you up and throw away the key! You’re drunk, Wyatt, damn drunk! I can smell it coming off you in waves. After everything that happened, you go and get drunk at your brother’s party?”
They bounced along the rutted dirt road until she spotted the stop sign ahead, gleaming in the darkness. She made a quick check both ways and then ran the stop sign. No one was coming, and at that point, she couldn’t begin to make herself give a damn. She roared down the highway towards Sawyer. Wyatt’s head was lolling around as he mumbled to himself but she didn’t bother asking him to repeat himself louder. Whatever he had to say, he could say it to a judge.
She was sick of defending him. Not when he was going to take that trust and throw it away like this.
The dim lights of Sawyer began to show between the trees, and then Main Street burst into view as she came around the corner. She wished she was in her police cruiser and could flip on the lights and just bust through town, but she’d stupidly been on a date with Wyatt Miller and so she wasn’t driving her cruiser and she didn’t have handcuffs on her, although the idea of snapping them around his wrists just then sounded wonderfully appealing.
She pulled up right outside of the courthouse, the massive truck taking up three spaces because of her shitastic parking job. She couldn’t bring herself to care about that either. She yanked the keys from the ignition and stalked around to the passenger side door, pulled it open and practically rolled Wyatt out of the truck.
Just how drunk was he? He had to have been doing shots outside. Had he carried a flask of whisky in with him without her noticing? Her anger burned hotter as she half dragged, half pulled him into the jail. Officer Rios’ head shot up at her entrance, and his eyes grew wide.
“What the hell?” he asked, bounding around the edge of the desk to stop in front of them. He looked back and forth between Abby in her civilian clothes and Wyatt in his dressy shirt, and then up to his bloodied and swollen face.
“Apparently, this is how Wyatt celebrates his brother having his first child,” Abby ground out. For the first time since it all started, she felt tears prick the edges of her eyes. She’d had so much hope…and it was all gone.
Wiped out in a single night.
“Book him on drunken and disorderly conduct,” she said, the ice closing around her heart in stark contrast to the heat of the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She jerked her arm away from him, half hoping he’d collapse to the floor of the jail office, but he managed to stay on his feet, wavering around, a half smile curling his lips. He looked for all the world like he was enjoying this.
“Is there an officer on patrol?” she barked.
“Yeah, Morland.”
“Can you radio him? I need a ride home since this jackass was my ride to the party. His truck is parked outside; it’ll probably have to be moved to a more…appropriate location.” Considering she was practically blocking the entrance to the jail with her stellar parking job, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care about that at the moment.
Nodding, Rios radioed Morland with one hand as he wrapped his arm around the waist of Wyatt, directing him back to the drunk tank – the cell where they put the drunks to sleep off the alcohol.
Abby tossed Wyatt’s keys onto the desk and went outside to wait in the cold and the dark for her ride, the light wind piercing her dress, and even as her teeth chattered from the cold, hot tears blazed their way in an endless trail down her cheeks.
Chapter 43
Wyatt
He swam to the surface, his head throbbing from the pain. There was light, and he wanted it to go away. He wanted everything to go away. Why was there so much light? He groaned.
“You awake?” he heard a deep voice ask.
He tried to open his eyes but there was pain and light and he closed them tight again, with a louder groan this time. “Where…where am I?” he rasped.
“The Long Valley Jail,” the voice said, a hint of amusement in it. “I would’ve thought you’d had enough of this place, but here you are, back again.”
“Why?” he whispered. His throat was parched and it was hard for him to get any sound out, but he had to know. He had to figure this out. Something was wrong. Really wrong. He peeked one eye open, and Officer Rios’ face swam into view.
“I’m gonna go get the sheriff,” the officer said, blatantly avoiding Wyatt’s question. “He told me to tell him as soon as you were awake.”
“Water,” Wyatt croaked. If he was going to have to face the sheriff, he at least wanted to be able to talk. It wasn’t a fair fight otherwise. The officer nodded and quickly returned with a water bottle. Room temperature, but Wyatt didn’t even care.
After dribbling some into his mouth, he slowly sat upright, trying to keep the world from spinning out of control. It went this way and that on him, and he reached up, cradling his head in his hands. He slowly scanned the holding tank, and spotted a toilet in the corner. Good. He might need to upchuck the contents of his stomach at any moment.
Why did he feel like this? He was so confused. He tried to think back to what he last remembered. Picking up Abby from her house, and petting Jasmine while he was there. Then driving to Stetson’s house. It was the big party. He tried to remember the cake cutting – the big reveal of whether they were having a girl or boy, but it was a dark abyss. Nothing. Why couldn’t he remember them cutting the cake? That was the whole point of the party. Stetson was never going to forgive him for forgetting one of the biggest moments of his life.
Whatever happened, it had to be why he felt like he’d been run over by a one-ton truck. He didn’t get to feeling this way by going out and having a fine time at his brother’s baby shower, for hell’s sake. Especially not one where all he’d been drinking was lemonade.
He sniffed, gingerly at first and then deep breaths.
He sure as hell didn’t smell like he’d been drinking lemonade. He smelled like a brewery.
Which officially made no sense whatsoever. He hadn’t touched alcohol since the night Shelly and Sierra had died. He couldn’t. Not after all it took away from him. It didn’t bother him when others drank around him – unless they were trying to get behind the wheel of a car, of course – but for him? Never.
It sure smelled like he had, though.
The sheriff came through the door separating the front office area from the jail cells and walked down the cell block, his boots loud on the concrete floor. Wyatt struggled to his feet. Whatever he’d done, he wanted to face the sheriff standing up like a man.
He expected the sheriff to bark at him through the bars but instead he pulled his keys from his belt and unlocked the cell. He opened the door wide and stood in it, leaning against the metal frame casually, crossing one foot over the other. But his shoulders and jaw…no matter how casual he was trying to appear, he wasn’t feeling it at all.
In fact, Wyatt would guess he was right on the edge of total breakdown. Or panic. Or something.
The sheriff cleared his throat. “I suppose I owe you an apology,” he said gruffly.
Wyatt stared at him. He felt like he’d fallen down the rabbit hole. He couldn’t have been more surprised if the sheriff had walked in and announced that he was actually a transvestite.
“Wh-what?” he finally got out.
“My momma woulda had my hide for that,” the sheriff continued, ignoring Wyatt’s stuttering. “She sure hated it when people said it like that. So let me try it again. Wyatt, I am apologizing for my behavior in th
e past. And, probably for what I’ll do in the future.”
“Wh-what?” he repeated. Not exactly his finest hour, but he was so far away from being able to make heads or tails of the situation, the sheriff might as well have started talking in Chinese. He would understand just as much.
“Last night, you had the misfortune of running into three of my old employees.”
Jack, Moe, and Larry. The memory was there, clear as day, as if he should’ve been able to remember it all along. They’d been outside when he’d gone out to get a breath of fresh air. How could he have forgotten that?
“My daughter dragged you back here last night and dropped you off with some choice words about you getting drunk. Officer Rios booked you, and as a matter of course, had you breathe into a breathalyzer. Do you remember any of this?”
Wyatt shook his head. For some reason, he couldn’t remember past meeting the three Stooges out on the back deck. Why was it a big blank?
“You blew a zero.”
“Zero?” Wyatt repeated. He really wished he could stop parroting every word the sheriff was saying, but he needed the world to start making sense. Any minute now…
“You hadn’t touched a drop. Which made Rios a might bit suspicious, considering you smelled like you’d taken a bath in alcohol and you were waving around on your feet like you’d just finished a chugging contest at a frat party. So we had you tested for the date rape drug.”
“I got raped?” Wyatt’s voice broke halfway through the question and he stared in horror at the sheriff.
“No, no, that’s just the name most people know it by. We had the doctor stop by – you have some broken teeth that’ll require some dental work, and some bruises to your ribs, oh and a cut over your eye, but your ass was untouched.
“No, you got framed. My three former employees, may they rot in hell, were picked up by Officer Morland after he dropped Abby off at home. They’d made their way down to O’Malley’s and had begun bragging about what they did to pretty much anyone within earshot. They crashed the party, dropped the drug in your drink, and then after they kicked the ever livin’ hell outta you, they poured some beers on ya. They figured you’d get arrested for fighting in public again, and this time, with the charges of drinking on top of it, well, that’d just about finish your time here in Sawyer.”
Wyatt sank back down to the cot and stared up at the sheriff. “Why? How?”
“They’re dumbasses, so it didn’t take much to break ‘em. I basically looked at them and told ‘em to start talking, and it all came out. You fired them when you bought my farm.”
The change in topic midway through his statement seemed to make sense to the sheriff, at least, and he paused, waiting for Wyatt to speak. Finally, Wyatt said slowly, “Yeah, I did. I knew they were troublemakers and I didn’t want them on the place. It’s the first thing I did when I bought it.” He couldn’t figure out what that had to do with anything and just stared at the sheriff, hoping he’d continue his story.
“Well, I guess they’ve been harboring a grudge ever since. They had a hard time finding a job because you wouldn’t give them a recommendation; I figure their reputation also proceeded them and no one with a half a brain would choose to bring them on, but they’re pinning it all on you. Jack lost his house; the bank repo’d it. I think one of the others had his wife divorce him because he wasn’t holding down a steady job.”
He heaved a huge sigh, running his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Truth is, I should’ve fired ‘em myself. I was struggling from losing my wife, and then the rains weren’t coming and I knew I was going to lose my farm, and I just couldn’t get myself to care enough to fire ‘em. It was the last thing on my mind, although they were certainly not stellar employees for me. In your shoes, I would’ve done the same thing as you.”
“So…they’ve been hating me ever since because I fired them? And they tried to make me look bad at my brother’s party last night?” Wyatt felt about seven miles thick, but even through the fog, things were starting to come together.
“Yeah, that’s the long and short of it. I have them en route to Ada County. Being my former employees and all and the fact that we’re not really meant to be a long-term jail here, I’m sending ‘em over there.” He heaved a big sigh. “I should’ve done that with you. We’re not big enough to justify a jail being staffed full-time year-round. I just…didn’t want to send you elsewhere.”
Wyatt nodded slowly, trying to keep his head from bobbing off into Pain Land. He figured if the sheriff was going to spend this much time apologizing to him, Wyatt could give his own apology another shot.
“Speaking of,” he said gruffly, and then cleared his throat. He liked apologizing about as much as the sheriff did, he figured. Maybe even less. “When I bought your farm and went down to O’Malley’s to celebrate, I wasn’t talking about you when I said that I’ll show him how to run a farm. I was talking about my dad. He’d been letting Stetson do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, for years. We’d been knocking heads over the farm for a long time, and I finally had my chance to show him how a real farm was run. That comment had nothing to do with you.”
“I can see that,” the sheriff said, nodding his head slowly. “Thanks for letting me know.”
And just like that, the topic was dropped.
“So, am I free to go?” Wyatt asked.
“Yup. We’ll keep you updated on how the case goes with the numbnuts. Are you feeling well enough to drive home, or should I have one of our officers take you there?”
Wyatt stood and took a few exploratory steps forward to see how his head responded. “I think I’m all right to drive,” he said. “I’ll just take it slow.”
“Sure, sure,” the sheriff said, and they headed up to the front together.
Chapter 44
Abby
Abby pulled into her parking spot at the courthouse, staring out at the frozen, dead landscaping in front of her. Bushes that were nothing but a skeleton of branches, piles of brown, crusty snow littered with dead leaves.
All rather what her heart felt like, actually. Dead and brown and frozen.
Which felt awfully dramatic, but also damn true. Blinking twice, she realized that she was still in her car. She should get out, and you know, go to work or something. She heaved a sigh and clambered out of her car.
Today was going to be awful, no doubt about it. Her father was going to pull her into his office and tell her that this was exactly what he knew was going to happen, and how dare she go to this party with Wyatt; didn’t she know what kind of a guy he was?
Something he so conveniently proved yet again.
She trudged towards the door of the jail. One foot, the other foot. She slipped inside quietly, the bell jingling overhead alerting everyone to her presence anyway. Dammit.
“Abby, in my office please!” her father barked, and then disappeared down the hallway.
That didn’t take long.
Well, it was probably best to just get it over with and move on with her life. She wondered if her father was going to fire her. She saw Officer Rios looking at her as she passed him at the desk, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes as she was raked over the coals…or pitched out on her ear.
She closed the door behind her without even being asked. This was one conversation she didn’t want anyone to overhear. She stared sightlessly at the far wall, her eyes burning from the endless tears that had watered her pillow last night. Jasmine hadn’t left her side once, snuggling against her and occasionally licking the tears away as the clock ticked on. If Abby’d fallen asleep at some point, she couldn’t recall it.
“Abby, I am apologizing.”
Abby snapped her head to stare at her father in shock, and the world swam a little with the suddenness of the movement. Surely he hadn’t said what she thought he said. Maybe she’d gone from depressed to delusional. Her father never apologized for anything.
Ever.
“Don’t give me that look,” he said with a grim chuckle. “This is my second apology in as many hours, and I’m enjoying it about as much as you might expect.”
Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. There were no words left. Her father had apologized twice in one day? To whom? She felt a little faint.
“Wyatt was set up last night at his brother’s party. He was slipped a date rape drug and then those three yahoos who used to be my employees took their time beating him up and pouring beers all over him to make him look like he’d been drinking up a storm. Luckily for Wyatt, they were too stupid to think to make him drink anything, so he blew a zero last night when Rios was trying to book him. Then they were even more dumb as to go down to O’Malley’s and get so blitzed, they thought bragging about what they’d done to anyone within earshot was a damn good idea.
“After Morland dropped you off last night, Steve called from the bar and told him what those idiots were saying. He arrested them and brought them here. I questioned them and they broke after I heavily interrogated them by asking them, ‘What happened last night?’ Hardened criminals we have going on here.”
Abby felt the giggle start low within her and then begin to bubble up until it burst out. She laughed and laughed, leaning against the chair to support herself as her legs grew weak. Her father just watched her and smiled, giving her the time to work through the info he’d just dumped on her head.
“That makes so much more sense,” she finally got out. “I’d never seen Wyatt touch alcohol, so last night, to be so drunk…it confused me, but not enough to make me stop and ask why.
“Oh God, Dad…” She straightened up and looked at him with horror. “He has to hate me right now, for believing the worst of him, when he hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve it.”
“That brings me to part two of our little discussion,” her dad continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. She gulped. Now he was going to yell at her for attending the party last night with Wyatt. She knew the other shoe would drop. “You’ve got the rest of the day off. With pay. You and Wyatt need to go pull your heads out of your asses and talk to each other. I’m hereby ordering you off the courthouse property, with a strongly worded suggestion to go find Wyatt and talk to him.”
