Devil May Care: Boxed Set (36 page)

I really couldn’t be sure. I’d watched a lot of crime shows, but I’d only had once incident with the police. It hadn’t been a particularly good one and it gave me pause. I’d called them, panicked. Tom was in one of his moods and I was scared, really scared. Normally, he wasn’t violent, but that night he’d made a mess of the home we shared. He’d lost his mind and had been yelling at me, telling me how worthless I was for the last half an hour. He told me that nothing I did was right. All of which wasn’t enough to get me to call the police; his words were pretty standard at that point. But when he’d thrown that vase at my head, when it shattered against the wall and a shard had sliced across my cheek, well, he’d crossed a line.

The police promised to send someone to check on us. They did and they took our statements. It was almost forty-five minutes
after
I had called and by then the whole place was cleared up. I still had a slice in my cheek, but it was bandaged and Tom had said the whole thing was an accident. I had told the officer that he’d thrown it at me deliberately, intending to cause me harm, but Tom insisted that he hadn’t meant for it to get anywhere near me. In fact, all he had wanted was to get rid of the vase because it was a present from his mother who had cheated on his father. Despite the ridiculousness of the story, the police had believed him. They even told me that I should consider being less sensitive, that I should be more patient and try harder to understand my partner.

They told me that a relationship took work. I could have killed them both.

After that, I never called the police. It was the main reason I never bothered with a restraining order after I split from Tom. After all, if the police wouldn’t do anything in person, then what was a stupid piece of paper going to do for me?

Even so, I didn’t want Rome to think he’d won, so I said, “Yeah, I do.”

“Well, I don’t. After all, if you did that, I’d land in jail, too.” He grinned and I opened my mouth to ask him why that would be such a bad thing, when he continued, “And you wouldn’t want your new husband behind bars, would you?”

The reminder that we were married was like a smack in the face. I shut my mouth with a snap and turned away from him as I said, “Shut up.” Finally, we stopped talking and there was silence the rest of the drive.

Rome

The drive was longer than I had anticipated. Most of that was because I couldn’t risk the Renegades following us. I hadn’t been careful enough when we’d left Nevada and as a result, they’d managed to catch up to us. Maybe if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in marrying Olivia—and then determined to
consummate
that marriage, which we most definitely did—then maybe I wouldn’t have been so stupid. Maybe not. Either way, I wasn’t prepared to leave them another easy trail to follow.

Which meant we were driving all over the place. Other than stopping for gas, we basically kept on going through the desert. We’d stopped at a couple of places—roach motels, for all their charm—and allowed ourselves some rest here and there, but I couldn’t let us linger too long. Clearly the Renegades weren’t just going to leave us be.

It would have been nice if I could have switched off some of the driving responsibilities. Splitting any kind of work like that, just so I could catch a few moments of a cat nap here and there, would have gone a long way towards making the drive easier. And to put me in a better mood.

But I couldn’t trust Olivia to shoulder some of that burden.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her to drive. I was sure that she had a license and was perfectly capable of driving a car. Especially out here where the roads, though a little bumpy and rough, were all but empty. I hadn’t seen a passing car in the last hundred miles and so much of the area was like that. Instead, I had to worry about whether or not she would drive where I wanted her to drive. Up to this point we’d more or less been in agreement that she needed to get out of town as much as I did. But I was beginning to think that the little shootout before at the hotel had made her shy away from trusting what was happening.

Not that I could really blame her. Being shot at wasn’t fun for anyone and when it had never happened to you before, you were much more likely to freak out.

She was definitely taking it better than most people would.

That being said, I didn’t think she was taking it so well that I wanted to ask her to take on some of the driving responsibilities. I’d rather pull over to some hole in the wall motel and sleep a couple of hours with the keys shoved down my pants so she’d be a little more hesitant to try to find them than give her free rein of the car.

Especially since then I’d have to give her more of a definitive answer as to where we were going. Which I didn’t want to do in case she decided to do something stupid like talk to the cops.

Which was exactly what she’d just threatened me with. I didn’t think she would really do it—she seemed about as mistrustful of them as I was—but it was hard to say that for sure and I didn’t trust easy. Not anyone. Apparently, not even my wife.

I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to laugh at the idiocy of being married or grin at the pleasure of it. I
had
had a lot of fun driving into her before. Fun I hoped that we’d experience again, regardless of whether or not I trusted her.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen now. She seemed pretty pissed.

The fight with Olivia had riled me up. It wasn’t that most of what she said was wrong—though some of it decidedly was—it was the sense that she and I weren’t looking at things the same way. Yes, I was being cranky with her and I knew it, but she was pushing all the wrong buttons. What did she expect from me?

On some level, I understood that regardless of what a legal piece of paper said, we weren’t in the kind of married relationship that meant we were much of anything to one another. Maybe under other circumstances, that might be different, but who was to say. After all, there was definitely attraction between us, and whatever Olivia might say, I knew she didn’t completely resist my interest and affections. After all, she’d only slapped me after one kiss, and we’d certainly had more than that. The insinuation that this was all my fault stung, but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

If I’d let her be, she would probably have been fine. Well, at least safe from the Renegades, but I wasn’t entirely convinced that that constituted fine.

After all, there was still Tom.

I squeezed the steering wheel in irritation at the thought of him. What a prick. I had the feeling that if I hadn’t inserted myself into her life
,
as she’d put it, he would probably have continued to stalk her until things escalated to extremely dangerous.

Which was why it pissed me off so badly to know that he was still sending her text messages—and she wasn’t doing anything about it. I knew there were some touchy logistics here about blocking Tom’s number, but I couldn’t imagine them being worse than letting him continue to speak to her. He wasn’t going to become less of an asshole just because she stopped letting him text her phone. Especially since she didn’t respond to him anyway, so what did it matter? More to the point, he wasn’t going to stop visiting her if she didn’t block his phone. He wouldn’t stop popping in at her apartment, wouldn’t stop trailing her to bars or to work or to wherever else. One of these days he was going to catch her off guard. And when she didn’t give him what he wanted, what then? Did she think he was just going to say, “Oh, okay. Sure. I was just really unclear about your obvious fear and disdain for me! Glad we got that all cleared up.”

Um, no. I was thinking not.

Which made it all the more frustrating that she was being so stubborn about taking further steps to eradicate him from her life. We’d left her apartment and the general area, so at least Tom couldn’t stalk her; plus, I was here, so I’d pulverize the little weasel if I caught him anywhere near her, so why not go the extra mile? Why not just become a ghost that he couldn’t reach, that way he had no sway over her?

It wasn’t that I was really concerned that she might decide to go back to him. Whatever she thought of me, she had to know she was safer at my side than with him. And even if I weren’t part of the picture, I highly doubted she was going to go crawling back to that piece of shit.

I glanced to my right, examining Olivia. She was pointedly looking anywhere but at me, her arms folded across her large breasts, and her cheeks flushed in anger and other things. I knew she was aware of me, no matter how much she tried to act like she wasn’t, and I took some small pleasure in knowing that I’d riled her up.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly doing a lot for me at the moment, but I’d enjoyed making her uncomfortable before, I had to admit.

Following the curving line of her body down to her full hips, I noticed something square and flat sitting on the seat next to her.
Her phone.
It wasn’t going off—thank god, because I was pretty sure I would lose my mind if Tom chose now to text her—but it wasn’t put up, either. She hadn’t remembered to do so after our argument and now that she was trying her hardest to not look at me, she wouldn’t be looking at her phone either.

A thought flickered through my head,
What if she didn’t have her phone?

I thought about just grabbing it while she wasn’t looking it and heaving it out the window, left to the heat and whatever car came behind us to run it over and crash it into a thousand tiny pieces. It was sorely tempting, but I resisted the urge. If she caught me—and that would be pretty hard not to notice—there would be hell to pay.

Still, it might be worth it,
I thought.

Of course, I didn’t, but the idea of getting rid of her phone stayed with me the rest of the drive. Finally, we were running low on gas and I had to accept that we were going to have to stop again to get some. And the longer I put it off, the more likely we’d end up stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, in a desert without much water, along a highway that barely got any traffic.

Didn’t exactly sound like a good idea under the best of circumstances.

So when I saw the next exit listing several gas stations, I pulled off. I saw Olivia glance at me out of the corner of her eye, but she still didn’t say anything.

“If you need to pee or get something to drink or whatever, now’s the time to do it. I don’t know when we’ll stop again,” I told her as I pulled up next to one of the pumps.

She scowled at me, but as soon as we were stopped, she jerked the door open and stomped out angrily. She headed to the little store, Merkyles
,
some off brand station that I’d never heard of before. I watched her stomp the whole way there, my gaze lingering on her ass as she inadvertently sashayed her way to the door. When she jerked it open and went inside, I finally moved.

Before I could second guess myself—or she could walk back out and see me—I snatched her phone off the seat and popped my own door open. I went to the trash can nearest the car. There was a moment where I hesitated, glancing towards the little store with a frown. She wouldn’t be happy. In fact, she’d probably be downright pissed. And more to the point, it probably wasn’t the right thing to do. This phone was her only means of communication without going through me somehow. Whether that was asking to stop to use a payphone—assuming we could find one that worked out here—or asking to use
my
phone, she’d be in a real spot.

But at least Tom won’t have access to her.

That thought was enough to convince me and I let the phone slip from my hands as soon as it did. It went off as it fell and I just barely caught a glimpse of the screen.
New Message.
And it was from Tom.

Cool satisfaction raced through my body and that was all it took. I couldn’t regret my decision even a little bit now, knowing that Tom would continue to text her and Olivia wouldn’t get any of them. Oh, yes, definitely the right choice.

I went over to the pump after that and started to fill up. Olivia came out a moment later holding a small bag with what looked like several snacks inside. She was carrying a bottle of cola in her other hand, already half drank.

“That bathroom was disgusting,” she told me, sounding pissed. I knew it wasn’t about the bathroom, not really, but about how angry with me she still was. I didn’t care. I was still feeling pretty pleased with myself about the whole phone thing and almost grinned at her as she slid back into the car.

“Sorry to hear that,” I told her, not sounding sorry at all.

She scowled at me. “Yeah, you look real sorry.”

I shrugged.

“Ugh, you probably don’t even care, do you? I’ll bet your place is a total wreck.”

I thought about that. My little place was definitely a bachelor pad, no extra place for a toothbrush and
definitely
no room for tampons or pads or whatever other crap that women needed to have around. There were no empty drawers for a girl to bring some of her stuff over and leave here. There wasn’t much in the fridge beyond beer and a frozen pizza, maybe some leftovers from that Chinese place down on Oak that I liked.

That being said, it was pretty clean. Not spotless by any means, after all, I did have a bunch of bikers as friends. You couldn’t keep a place that clean with those types of friends. Even so, I managed to air out most of the cigarette smoke that they brought in with them, and kept most of my carpet stain free. Even the little couch was in pretty good condition, if a little worn through. And my bedroom was pretty damn clean. I didn’t let anyone in there besides me, so it stayed in good shape even if the rest of the place got trashed. It also meant that the little bathroom that was attached there wasn’t awful either.

After a moment, I said, “It’s better than a gas station bathroom.”

She rolled her eyes at me and I was pretty sure the only reason that she hadn’t slammed the door in my face yet was because she wanted to enjoy a little more of the fresh air. It was hot, but at least we weren’t stuck in a car together with the windows rolled up and the car working hard to try to give us mediocre air conditioning.

The car was solid, but it wasn’t very fancy.

“Did you get me something?” I asked her cheekily with a wink.

She rolled her eyes at me. “No,” she said, but I saw that she’d already taken another cola out of the bag and put it in the drink holder on my side.