Page 83 of Something Tangled Something True (Rosa Ranch #1)
TRUTH UNFOLDING
Lola catches sight of me as I fall to my knees in a combination of relief and panic, my vision narrowing as she shouts my name, running to me.
I heave, sucking in oxygen and fighting to keep my eyes open.
“Ryder! Ry!” she shouts, but her voice is barely louder than a hum with the whooshing of blood and adrenaline in my ears.
I give in to the panic when she folds herself around me.
My body crumples in on itself as I gasp for air.
“Ryder, it’s okay. I’m okay. Everyone is alright.
Come back to me, baby,” she whispers in my ear.
The weight of her body over mine acts as an anchor, calling me home to her when the worst of it is over.
My extremities quake, chin quivering as I peel my lids open to see Lola’s mud-soaked curls and deep, cinnamon eyes.
My heart rate slows, galloping along at the realization that she’s here, in my arms, safe .
“Wh-what happened?” I ask hoarsely.
She doesn’t have a chance to answer before Sheriff Wilson approaches. “Mr. Lockhart, I’d like to get you and Lola out of the rain so we can discuss what happened with her ex-fiancé. If you wouldn’t mind followin’ me,” he says, nodding toward Mayte’s porch.
Lola helps pull me up, and I follow her to the steps where Mayte cradles Isabela against her chest.
“Russ was involved?” I ask, whispering to Lola in a daze.
“In a roundabout way,” she mutters.
A whole lot becomes clearer once I’m standing in the middle of the chaos, no longer hidden behind one of the many cars and emergency vehicles parked along Mayte’s property.
A woman I’ve never seen before is handcuffed, arguing with two police officers as she’s pushed against the hood of one of their Dodge Chargers. She’s fighting against them as they shout at her to get in the back seat before they have to resort to other methods of restraint.
I swing around to the sound of a man crying, only to find the guy who looks suspiciously like Nugget’s apparent owner being wheeled into the ambulance bed on a stretcher. He’s attached to it with handcuffs, and I suppose that would be Russ.
“Ryder! Lola! Oh, my God!”
We all whip around to the sound of that voice, my eyes growing wide as saucers as Lemmon barrels toward us. Her mustard-yellow dress stuck to her, hair drenched and plastered to her head.
“Lemmon, what the?—”
She trips, slipping through the mud, body flailing as she lands at Lola’s feet. Lemmon clambers onto her knees, chest heaving as she looks up at Lola, tears mixing with rain running down her puffy cheeks.
“Lola, I’m so sorry, I tried to warn y’all, but you have my number blocked, and then my car broke down, and I’m just so sorry,” she sobs, choking on a cough.
“I never meant for this to happen,” she wails.
“I just—God, I was just so jealous. You came here with nothing and managed to make friends, living out all of your dreams, and when you left Ryder, I thought—” she sniffles, “I thought I’d finally won some of that good luck you seemed to have in truckloads. ”
“You sure like to talk a lot, don’t you?” Russ drawls, and if the circumstances were different, I’d be inclined to laugh. As it stands, I’m in the middle of a goddamn crime scene, and I almost lost my entire world tonight. My stomach churns at the thought.
“It wasn’t luck , Lemmon. I’m kind to people— that is how I make friends. And I’ve worked my ass off for every single thing I’ve got, including my relationships. Your jealousy doesn’t excuse whatever part you played in this,” Lola tells her, and damn am I proud to call her mine.
Lemmon’s shoulders shake, and she smacks a palm over her mouth as another sob tears through her. “Y-you’re right. Th-that wasn’t much of an apology,” Lemmon admits, and I’m momentarily stunned.
This could all be an act, but I’m inclined to believe that, just maybe, there’s some good left in my ex-wife after all. And maybe there’s hope for her yet; it just won’t be here with me or anyone I love.
“What exactly was your part in this?” Mayte asks her, getting right into it.
Lemmon glances up at the sheriff, her gaze quickly darting away. “I wanted to prove they’d gotten married for Lola’s health insurance.”
“And how did you plan on proving that little theory?” Mayte asks, cocking a dark brow as she not-so-subtly tries to get a confession out of Lemmon, but before she can further incriminate herself, one of the paramedics shouts over to us.
“Hey, Sheriff, we’ve gotta get this guy out of here. He’s bleeding bad!”
“Ah, shit. Alright, give me a minute,” he tells us. I nod in a daze, my eyes glued to the scene before me.
“I need your phone for evidence,” Sheriff Wilson tells Russ.
“Baldy over there already took it,” he whines, tipping his chin at Raul, the heavy-set officer.
“Sure did, and you’re gonna love what I’ve found already!
We’ve got everything we need to press charges and make sure they stick,” Raul says, waving the phone around with a hearty chuckle.
“And it turns out this one named Lemmon’s contact with her actual name, even wrote out their entire plan in a notes app.
Included some information about a break-in, tampering with security cameras, and facts he’d researched about recorded evidence and what the Oklahoma law entails about non-consensual audio recordings. ”
“Russ! You stupid bastard!” Lemmon shrieks, picking herself up off the ground and stomping off toward the ambulance. Ah, there’s the ex-wife I know and detest.
One of the officers reaches out and grabs her by the elbow, tugging her against his chest before she can make an even bigger scene and go after Russ.
“Oh, shut it, Lemmon! You’re the idiot who concocted this damn plan that got me shot ! Now, can someone take me to the fucking emergency room!?” Russ yells back at her.
Lola folds her arm around mine. “It turns out Russ threw a hissy fit at the wedding when I didn’t show up.
Seems his investors weren’t as excited to give him their money when they realized how volatile he can be, so he lost everything.
His mom, Amy,” she says, pointing to the woman pinned to the cop car with her chin, “did some digging and reached out to Lemmon, who was all too happy to lend a hand in getting their payback,” she says, rolling her eyes.
She’s far more relaxed than I am, clearly having had more time to process everything, but I know the crash will come later, when the adrenaline wears off.
And I’ll be there to help her through every second.
I wrap an arm around her waist, tugging her against me and kissing the side of her head now that I’m more stable on my feet .
Lemmon is escorted into one of the cop cars, climbing into the backseat without much fuss.
Amy, on the other hand, is throwing an elbow into one of the officers’ sides, twisting around and narrowly evading them.
I pull away to run after her, but Lola’s steady hand stops me. “Just wait.”
Nugget whips out from under the porch, lurching forward and gaining speed, yipping as he chases her, putting those tiny paws to good use.
Amy peers over her shoulder, yelling as she runs, scrambling in the mud, looking unbelievably out of place in her red-and-black leather pants and feather-lined coat.
José’s black pickup pulls down the path ahead of her, illuminating Amy through the dark and rain. He stops abruptly, the passenger door swinging open.
Bexaida tosses herself out the door, bends over to pull off her shoe, and sends it sailing through the air, nailing Amy right in the head. There’s a chorus of “oofs” that meets the thwack sound. She goes down like a domino, and Nugget skids over to her, jumping on her back for good measure.
“That woman is deadly with a chancleta ,” Mayte praises beside us.
The officers rush over to her, pulling her up as Russ yells, “Good boy, Mr. Lickerton!” before the ambulance doors are pulled closed and he’s driven away with sirens blaring.
Amy is shoved into the back of a police car, still yelling obscenities as the officer slams the door in her face.
When most of the officers and the fire truck have cleared out, my entire family sits down to speak with the sheriff and the few officers left behind.
We recount every creepy message, break-in, phone call, and everything else that’s happened here the last few months, gaining clarity on Lemmon’s part in all this with the help of Russ’s phone.
It turns out that Lemmon was suspicious of our marriage from the beginning, leaning on the belief that Lola and I had to have gotten together so soon after she left Russ because we’d been cheating on Russ and Lemmon with each other.
After breaking into my home and confirming that wasn’t the case, thanks to the cameras she had planted, she’d still been hoping to get Lola to leave town out of spite and jealousy.
But then Amy hired someone to sneak onto the property and start the barn fire, and everything became too real for Lemmon.
She tried to cut her losses and separate herself from the whole situation, but when Russ reached out to Lemmon, worried his mom was going off the rails, Lemmon ran over here, trying to warn us and make amends for her role in everything.
Jealousy is a potent toxin, worming its way into your every action, and while I may never fully understand how deep that poison runs within Lemmon, it certainly makes me feel better knowing my ex-wife wasn’t a complete psychopath.
And when the night is over, I take my wife and our furry child home to bed, just like I plan to for the rest of forever.
I couldn’t be more content knowing that through it all, she chose me. And I got to marry my best friend.