Brokenhearted Beauty(Divine Creek Ranch 19)(45)

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.

“If you two bitches don’t pipe down, I’m taking you both in for disrupting the peace and obstructing justice!”

Leah snorted with laughter. “I’d like to see you try.”

Georgina said, “We had a deal, Dicky Bob, you just remember that. I know what side you like your bread buttered on.” Her battered idiom left little doubt what she was offering. Just the thought sickened Leah. As if to make her nausea worse, the wind changed direction and a foul odor drifted with it. She tried to ignore it to pay attention to the debacle unfolding in downtown Tuspita.

Leah knew it was a bad idea to prod the man. He still had a report to write. Dicky Bob’s radio squelched and a garbled message came through. Whoever was on the other end sounded irate.

Leah said, “Officer, I need that report so I can be on my way.”

Georgina screeched, “You keep your fuckin’ mouth shut, Dicky Bob!”

Wondering what Georgina was getting so worked up about, Leah said, “Do you know each other, Deputy? Is she implying you have some sort of ‘deal’?”

Georgina bared her teeth and pointed her finger at him. “You don’t tell her nothin’, Dicky Bob!”

Deputy Dicky Bob responded to the situation by hauling off and kicking the nearby tree stump in the vacant lot that neighbored the gas station property. “That’s it, I’m taking both of you damn bitches down to the jail. We’ll sort all this out down there.”

He grabbed for Leah and she pulled away. “If you’re not arresting me, I’m not going anywhere with you or this skank.”

“What the fuck did you just call me?” Georgina screeched as she ran at Leah, claws bared.

The atmosphere was suddenly split by a high-pitched scream and the most horrendous odor Leah had ever experienced. Her eyes watered and felt like they were on fire and her stomach rebelled violently as she spun around, searching for the cause.

Deputy Dicky Bob was holding his hands to his face, screaming, like a girl. “It sprayed me!”

The source of the odor became apparent as the skunk raced right between Georgina’s legs and across the parking lot in terror. Georgina shrieked like a fire alarm, “No, it sprayed me!”

“No, it sprayed me!” he hollered and then made a gagging sound.

Not hanging around for a debate about exactly who got sprayed, Leah ran with the rest of the crowd, dodging the poor, frightened skunk. Anyone within ten yards of that critter could consider themselves sprayed.