Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

twice
already. Damnit! His gut was sore. His head hurt too; as did the rest of his
body. And his arm? Jesus!He wasn’t going to put any thought on the arm.
    He’d driven
all night in Theo’s beat up `68 Oldsmobile just to make it back to Preacher’s
Bend before eight a.m. It was now nine-thirty. Perhaps Debra would let his
tardiness slide this time. Once he could explain the circumstances, she might even
understand. If not?
    There was really nothing he could do about this now,
if not.
    And still saying nothing to him, Liddy was doing one
damn fine job at pissing him off. All she had to do was look at him, and it
hurt, badly. The pain seemed to be getting worse by each passing second.
    She swallowed, thrust out her chin, and with a tremble
in her voice, told him flat out, “You look good, Jake.”
    His eyes widened.His jaw clamped shut on the
one lone French fry he’d put in his mouth, as it decided to go down sideways
all of a sudden. Hell! ‘You look good’ surely was not what he’d wanted
to hear from her.
    He looked good? Of course he did! Every woman in Preacher’s
Bend thought so. She hadn’t told him anything new.
    He swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the wretched
potato before it got the better of him, and reluctantly admitted to the hot
babe staring back at him, “You too,” while reaching for the glass of water on
the table. Trembling hands, or not, he needed to dislodge the French fry before
he passed out.
    His estranged wife took a deep breath and upon quick release
dragged her sight from his. “Okay. I can see this is going to be extremely
painful for the both of us.”
    Again, not what he expected to hear coming out of her
mouth.
    But again, if Jake did not think this situation to be
extremely uncomfortable, he would’ve laughed at Liddy’s highly unusual play on
words. Of course, this was going to be extremely painful. Coming face to face
with a woman you’ve not seen in years . . . was supposed to be painful! It could certainly make a man squirm.
    He reached for the tie that was no longer around his neck.
    “So I might . . . I might as well get it all out in
the open. Then we can deal with this as mature adults. You can go do what it is
you do; get on with your life . . . somehow . And I can go and do what it
is I have to do. Get on with mine. How’s that sound?”
    “Sounds practical enough,” he slipped off the tongue,
feeling the bitter aftertaste of these ill-spoken words. Why she thought he
didn’t have a life without her, was beyond useful thought.
    “But then I’d have to know exactly what it is I am dealing
with to make any sort of judgment on this . . . or not,” he added.
    Liddy was always good at getting the upper hand on
him. Nevertheless, ten years of absence—h er absence— had finally given him
the time to gain the upper hand on his walkabout wife.
    There was always a first for everything, he suspected;
a first time, and a last that could pull the rug out from under him.
    “I need you to sign something, Jake. I will leave town
just as soon as you do. You will never have to see me again. And you can go
back to doing whatever it is you are doing,” she started, then paused.
    Her mind looked set as she sat opposite him, wringing
her hands together. Liddy then glanced at her hands as if they’d somehow
changed right in front of her eyes. It took her a few seconds to raise her
sight back to his.
    There shouldn’t have been anything stopping either
from getting what he or she wanted from this morning, but Jake Giotti never liked
doing what was expected of him. He enjoyed going against the grain of life. He
liked making people squirm. Most of all, he had to set the pace to this
unexpected horror. Stopping Liddy in mid-stride by simply holding up his hand, he
got his one and only chance, thus far, to get in a word edgewise.
    “Whoa! Hold on there, Little Darlin`. We’ve not seen
each other in ten long years. Can’t a man catch his breath in between you
running him over