Page 58 of The Wife
“I was bored, so I thought I would stop by Pete’s and have a beer. Then if you needed a ride home, you wouldn’t have to worry about drinking. I was… just pulling up to the bar when Chrissy called me. Said you were acting funny and you had only had one glass of wine. I had a feeling… I told you to watch yourself around Bobby.”
Here it was. Now that the threat was over, it was lecture time.
“I know. I didn’t think he was… I mean I knew he was a jerk, but I never thought... Never once…”
“It might have been my fault,” Jake muttered.
“Your fault. How?”
“I told him he wasn’t good enough for you. He might have seen that as… a challenge. I don’t know. Some kind of payback against me. It doesn’t matter. He’s going to jail for it. You should go up and take your shower. Then we’re heading into town to talk to Sheriff Barling.”
I knew it was the right thing to do. But I also knew the reality of the situation. Sarah Parker, who was two years ahead of me in school, got super drunk at a bonfire. She said Jeff Tillerson raped her and no one did anything about it. Jeff said she consented and it was his word against hers.
This was going to be the same thing. Yes, my blood sample would indicate I was drugged, but all Bobby had to say was that I took the drug willingly. Still, at least by going to the sheriff everyone in town would know. Riverbend liked its gossip. If it came down to people believing me or Bobby, I had to think people would be on my side. At the very least this would also make every other girl in town cautious around him.
* * *
Jake slammedthe door of the truck closed and I winced.
“That is such total and complete horseshit!”
It wasn’t funny. At all. Still, I couldn’t help but smile a little at Jake’s outrage.
Our meeting with Sheriff Barling went as I suspected. While he believed me, there would need to be a witness who saw Bobby intentionally spiking my drink without my knowledge. Sheriff Barling would talk to Pete, who had been working the bar last night, as well as anybody else who he could find who was there. But unless someone actually saw what Bobby did and came forward, there was not enough evidence to actually charge him for a crime.
“He almost… he almost….”
“Don’t say it,” I said, patting Jake on arm. “I can’t stand the word.”
“How come you’re taking this so calmly?”
“Because he didn’t get away with it. You beat the shit out of him, everyone in town is going to know what a creep he is, and I’m a feminist, remember? I’m well versed in the fact that one of the atrocities in this country is that violence against women is often difficult to prove in court.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re not going to kill him, Jake. In fact you’re lucky he didn’t press assault charges against you.”
He was practically growling now.
“Thank you for sticking up for me.”
“This is wrong.”
“Sing it, sister.” I raised my fist in the air.
More growling.
“Let’s go home. You remember what Dad always used to say. A ranch can’t run itself.”
“Your father would have killed him.”
I considered that. My father would have liked to have killed Bobby. That’s for sure. But my father had way more of a hair-trigger temper than Jake did. Jake was always the reasonable and calm one. The guy who could talk two guys down from a fight.
I had never seen him like he was last night. As violent as he was. I remembered thinking if I didn’t stop him he would have beaten Bobby indefinitely.
“Jake, if you go to jail for murder think what that would do to Wyatt? He’d be devastated.”
More growling.
