Too Bad So Sad

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Way sat up, her face still full of laughter.

  “Oh, come on, Reagan. It’s not that bad.” She wiped her tears away.

  I stared at her.

  “He tried to rape me,” I whispered.

  That cleared Way’s face completely.

  “I went to jail because I fought back when he tried to rape me. To make matters worse, we don’t even know where he is. He’s out there, somewhere, watching and waiting. I know that. I had to file charges against him and to make matters worse, even if they do find him, he will probably get out of it because his father is a dirty goddamn judge who knows other dirty goddamn judges.”

  With that, I pulled away from Tyler’s arm and stalked out of the house.

  My puppy that wasn’t really a puppy anymore followed behind me and I didn’t stop once to look back.

  ***

  Tyler

  “I didn’t know,” Way said, sitting up. “I swear, I didn’t know. I thought she was arrested for trespassing. That’s what it said on the county website!”

  I felt my stomach sink.

  “She was, technically, trespassing,” I admitted, rubbing my hands down my face, relaying just how tired I felt. “Those charges have been dropped now, though. But, you know how she gets. She was there examining a new hydrilla outbreak, or something, I’m not really sure. She was in the boat when someone—IE Dusty—came up behind her. Forced her to get out of the boat. Little prick has been following her around for weeks. And he’s such a smug little shit. Every time I see him, I want to knock his teeth into his throat—not that I’ve seen him since I forced her to press charges.”

  Way hadn’t realized the details because she’d just arrived home from college the day before. I’d also done my level best to reduce the charges against Reagan.

  “I was able to pull a few strings since I know the sheriff well,” I admitted. “But she still has an arrest record. Each time we try to get a restraining order issued, it’s dismissed. The prick whose property it was saw the error of his ways, but he’s not in much better shape. A judge processed his ass and took him off my hands almost before I arrived back at work the next morning.”

  Way was silent.

  Bennett, however, was not.

  “I should’ve fucking killed him when I had the chance,” he snarled, standing up and starting to pace.

  I got up and started to walk outside, but Wade held up his hand. “I’ll get her.”

  I didn’t want him to get her.

  But I also wanted to have a conversation about this before she got back so nothing else was said that upset her.

  Reagan was a hellion. She acted like nothing bothered her, but things did bother her. Deeply.

  She just hid it well.

  “I’ve fought long and hard to do this the right way,” I admitted, looking at Bennett. “I think it’s time to do it the wrong way now.”

  A look passed between Bennett and me.

  “I told you I was down with that two weeks ago,” he said.

  He had.

  I just hadn’t been ready to admit defeat just yet.

  But I also hadn’t realized how upset Reagan still was.

  She hid everything so well and had been acting so normally, that I hadn’t realized what was going on right underneath my own nose.

  “Janie’s been working on some stuff with a buddy of mine, Jack,” Bennett started. “They’re looking into the judge. But, with him running for office this fall, he isn’t likely to allow anything that’ll ruin that to go through the system and possibly taint his chances of winning. Whatever we do is going to have to be big enough that he can’t sweep it under the rug.”

  I agreed.

  I just hoped that I didn’t lose my job over it.

  I liked where I was and who I was with.

  And honestly? That was where I’d met Reagan.

  I wanted to continue living my life the way I wanted to live it and I wanted Reagan to be there with me.

  Speaking of…

  “I have one other thing I need to ask you before she comes back…”

  Chapter 22

  I’m naturally irritated when I first wake up. It’s pivotal that you give me a few days to adjust.

  Reagan

  I made a decision and it was likely a stupid one.

  But I didn’t have a choice.

  I needed to do something and it needed to be done soon, otherwise I might very well go insane.

  Granted, when I walked into the diner—no one with me but myself and my thoughts—I never expected him to just appear almost as if he’d been waiting for me to arrive. Nor did I consider actually having to do anything today without the support of Tyler at my back.

  I narrowed my eyes at the lowlife when he sat in the seat across from me, something calm overtaking me.

  “You came at last,” he drawled, eyes on me.

  My heart started to pound and things inside of me started to shiver in fear.

  “I didn’t know that I was meeting you,” I said sweetly.

  I looked around to see who else was in the building and was thankful that it was only the owner.

  I’d gotten there early. So early, in fact, that the regular crowd that normally congregated there for their breakfast—the eight old men—hadn’t even arrived yet.

  I felt something stir in my stomach and returned my attention to Dusty.

  “I kept waiting for you to be alone.” He paused. “I’m glad that you came today of all days. It’s going to be a good one.”

  I felt myself tighten in anticipation—and not in a good way.

  The way he’d said it made me think that he had something planned and that something wasn’t going to be good—whatever it was.

  Dusty had never been called dumb. He was a schemer and always seemed to get himself into and out of, trouble. Granted, most of those times it was his father pulling him out of the fire, but he always came out whole on the other side and that was one of the things that sucked about him.

  He didn’t have any failures under his belt because nobody ever told him no—nobody but me.

  Which was likely why he became so fixated on me. Why he was doing the things he’d done or was about to do.

  “What did you do?” I asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

  “Call your man,” he ordered.

  A thick slice of fear started to crawl down my throat.

  The phone was in my hand almost before I had a chance to think about it.

  I was dialing Tyler’s number moments later and placing the phone to my ear.

  He answered within two rings, but he sounded out of breath.

  “Hey, baby,” Tyler said into the phone. “I’m not going to be able to talk right now. There’s a suspicious package in the middle of town and since it’s so close to the daycare, as well as the rest home, we’re a little concerned.”

  I felt something inside of me drop like a deflated balloon. “Okay, Tyler. Be careful, okay?”

  “Yeah, baby. Love you.”

  Then he was gone, making tears clog the back of my throat.

  “A bomb,” I whispered, my eyes on Dusty’s contemplative brown ones.

  I used to think they were beautiful. Now I thought they were the color of shit.

  “It’s a real one, too,” he murmured.

  I didn’t doubt it.

  “How do they know to treat it as a bomb?” I asked, not thinking I wanted to know the answer.

  “Because I called in a tip,” Dusty said.

  He sounded so proud, as if he’d done a favor for a friend or something when he was the one who’d freakin’ set it up!

  “It has an hour before it blows.” He paused. “Unless what you say right now changes that.”

  Tears of frustration finally met my eyes.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  Because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Tyler would be the one to han
dle that bomb. Morally and ethically, he’d be unable to send anyone else in and that would likely cost him his life.

  I looked down at my bare wrist, wishing that I’d not made the decision to leave my watch at home today.

  On days that I didn’t plan on working, I left it there because it caused a funky tan line and I didn’t want it to look weird when I left it off—like right now.

  By making that decision, I’d also taken away my covert dialing of 9-1-1, too.

  My stomach soured.

  “I want you to do a few things.” He sounded chipper. I wanted to punch him in the esophagus. Watch him choke as he tried to draw in air. “First, you need to get in the car with me.”

  I wanted to refuse and he saw that, too.

  Pulling up his phone, he pressed a few buttons and I felt my heart start to pound.

  Moments later, he turned it toward me and I was looking at Tyler standing about twenty feet away, along with a few other officers. Tyler was pointing wildly, his mouth moving a hundred miles a minute.

  “We’re going here,” he said. “So, he can see that I have you.”

  I felt my heart start to race.

  That was the one thing that I did not want to do—distract him. I didn’t want him to know that Dusty was anywhere near me, because if he did, he’d freak the fuck out.

  And on top of that, he had a bomb to deal with.

  No. I did not want to do that.

  “Once he sees that you’re with me, I’ll set the bomb back an hour.” He paused. “That’ll give them roughly an hour and forty-one minutes to figure out what they’re going to do with it.”

  “Then what?” I forced myself to ask.

  “Then, we ride off into the sunset,” he replied like I was dumb.

  “They’ll look for us,” I reminded him of the facts.

  “They’ll try,” he admitted. “But they won’t succeed.” He leaned over and extracted a few IDs from his front pocket. “I got us everything we’ll need. And the first stop we’re making is Vegas so you’ll have my name, in real life and in fake.”

  No.

  No, no, no, no.

  “The longer you take to decide, the less time they’ll have to defuse the bomb. And let me just tell you something, where I put it is the place likely to do the most harm. It’s big enough, too, to take half the town with it.”

  I didn’t doubt it for a second.

  “Let’s go.”

  ***

  Tyler

  “You’re saying that it’s rigged to blow the moment that we tamper with the doors?” Johnny asked.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “How do you know?” he pushed, wanting confirmation.

  I gestured to the lower half of the door. “The wires. Right there.”

  Johnny lowered the binoculars and whistled. “Fuck.”

  “Then what do we do with it?” Rodriguez asked, sounding disheartened.

  I didn’t know.

  The closest bomb squad was in Bear Bottom of all places and that was at least an hour away and that was being generous. More like an hour and twenty minutes realistically. The squad would have to get to the station—which would take at least fifteen minutes for all individuals since the bomb squad itself was made up of about eighteen officers from eight police stations within the immediate vicinity. Longview, Kilgore, Bear Bottom, Lone Star, Gun Barrel, Hawkins, Waskom, and Hallsville. And fifteen minutes was just an average time. Some it might take upwards of twenty to thirty—if they were at their stations.

  “I called the bomb squad in Bear Bottom,” I said softly. “And now we…”

  A vehicle pulled up and my anger started to get the best of me.

  “Who the fuck is supposed to be doing traffic control?” I snarled at Johnny.

  Johnny’s eyes were pinned on the car, though.

  “Chief,” he whispered. “Look.”

  I did and saw the last thing I ever thought I’d see getting out of the car.

  Dusty and Reagan.

  Son. Of. A. Bitch.

  Reagan was crying fat tears as she stared at me from across the distance and everything inside of me screamed to go to her.

  But I stayed still, certain in the knowledge that if I made even a single step in her direction, I wouldn’t like the consequences.

  “Well, hey there, Hostel’s finest! How’s it going?” Dusty drawled over the hood of his car.

  Reagan’s eyes stayed downcast and that was how I knew that whatever the hell was going on, she wasn’t there by choice.

  “Can I shoot him?” Johnny whispered.

  My hand clenched with the need to have my gun in my hand.

  “Dusty Rhymes,” I said, my voice coming out calm and even. “Please, tell me why the fuck you’re here…with my fiancée?”

  Dusty stiffened and looked over at the back of Reagan’s head.

  “I don’t see a ring on her finger,” Dusty said. “But it won’t matter. By the end of the day, we’re going to be married, so that’ll cancel out your ‘fiancée’ status.”

  I felt something deep in my gut start to burn.

  That was when Reagan lifted her eyes and her gaze met mine.

  What I saw was not something that was calm and collected. What I saw was the rage of an inferno boiling deep below the surface.

  Her eyes pleaded with me to fix the place she found herself in and I wanted to. Oh God, did I want to.

  I took a step forward almost as if I was being forced to and Dusty lifted his hand. “Take a single step more toward us and I’m blowing this hell hole sky high.”

  I froze, seeing what looked like a crappy cell phone that was one of those ones that you bought at the grocery store—a pay as you go phone.

  “Now that I have your attention,” he said. “We’ll be leaving. I just wanted you to know who this came courtesy of.” He paused as he started to drop into his truck. “If you try to stop us, I’ll blow it. If you try to open those doors to disarm it, it’ll blow…good luck!”

  With that, he dropped in the car, but I didn’t move because Reagan’s eyes were still locked on mine.

  She watched me steadily, her eyes so full and filled with anger that I ached to hold her in my arms. To tell her everything was going to be okay.

  Only problem was that I couldn’t promise her that. How could I choose?

  If I went after her, the bomb blew and who knew how many people would die.

  If I stayed, the love of my life was going to have to be in the arms of that madman.

  I saw her shoulders straighten and resolve steel her spine.

  She mouthed ‘I love you’ at me and then got into the car and didn’t look back.

  The moment that she pulled out of the parking lot, I had my cell phone in my hand.

  Once I relayed what was happening to Bennett, I hung up and made another call.

  “I need a tow truck here in about three minutes,” I ordered Rafe.

  Rafe didn’t argue.

  The moment that he hung up, I placed a third call, this one to Parker.

  “Whatever you need, man,” Parker said once I’d told him what happened.

  “I need you to follow them,” I said. “Keep an eye on them, but don’t get made. He’s got the fuckin’ remote detonator to a bomb that’s smack dab in the middle of the town’s epicenter.”

  The fourth and final call came moments later just as Rafe was pulling into the driveway.

  I swallowed as the phone connected.

  “Yo,” Coke said. “What up, cop boy?”

  I didn’t beat around the bush. “I need to borrow your place…and I need you to be prepared for anything. And…get the fuck out. Just keep the gates open.”

  Coke’s place was outside of town.

  With it being about ten acres of nothing but scrap, it would be as good of a place as any—as long as Coke and June were nowhere in the vicinity when I came rolling through.

  A couple o
f months ago, Coke had done much the same thing with his own little bomb, parking it in his car crusher and hauling ass out of the yard with only moments to spare.

  Me? I only hoped I had that long.

  Chapter 23

  I’m an asshole. Even if I’m nicer to you than anyone else. Even if I love the hell out of you. Even if you’re my favorite person ever. I’m going to be an asshole forever and always.

  Reagan

  I knew that there was someone following us.

  I also knew that, in a matter of moments, my father had known what Tyler knew.

  What I wasn’t sure about was whether I was going to make it even a mile past where we were seeing as Tyler had done something to piss Dusty off—which was tell him that we were getting married.

  Tyler, although he declared that it was going to happen, the asking for my hand in marriage part hadn’t actually happened. So, his words, although true to a certain extent, weren’t a sure thing yet, either.

  Though, that was a lie.

  Tyler was mine. He didn’t have to ask me to marry him.

  I knew I was going to marry him.

  I could feel it in my soul. The man was mine. His love was mine. His kisses and hugs were mine. His sins and doubts were mine. His anger and pain was mine. Everything that he wanted to give and even some of the things that he didn’t, was mine. I’d do just about anything to make that a reality—to make sure he was safe.

  Which meant I wasn’t above punching Dusty in the throat when he was driving eighty miles an hour in order to set a bomb off because he didn’t like someone’s words.

  Dusty fiddled with the phone, flipping it open and closed, as if he was battling a war within himself not to do the thing that some part of his subconscious was urging him to follow through with.

  All I knew was that if Dusty made that final choice and did anything before the time he’d given Tyler as we’d departed, I was going to make my move.

  I knew that Tyler would figure out how to keep the town of Hostel safe—and that included himself.