Page 43 of The Summer We Kept Secrets (The Destin Diaries #4)

“No, sir,” she said, sucking in the thick and sticky air.

“I am not an old lady hitting the sauce. I’m merely trying to get home—well, it’s not really home, it’s a summer house—because my grandson’s girlfriend died in a car accident and he has their newborn baby and…

and…” Tears of pure frustration and fear sprang.

“And I am old, and I am not very good at highway driving but my friend has cancer and?—”

He pointed to the ground and took out a phone. “Walk in a straight line, heel to toe. Please note you are being recorded.”

“Oh, don’t put me on one of those arrest shows. I hate those shows.”

“Ma’am. A straight line. One foot in front of the other, please.”

She swallowed and looked down at the mix of gravel and dirt and cursed herself for pridefully choosing sandals to walk around West Palm Beach so she didn’t look like a tourist in big white sneakers. Now she couldn’t walk like the sober woman she was.

Taking a breath, she put one heel in front of the other toe and tried to step in the darkness—he couldn’t give her some light? She took two steps on the unforgiving gravel and a mosquito dive-bombed her ear.

“Oh!” She waved it away, which cost her some stability, making her flail and lose her straight line, but she didn’t fall. “There. Okay? Are you happy now?”

Herman didn’t look like he was ever happy.

He produced a device about the size of a walkie-talkie, but she instantly knew that thing wasn’t for communication with his cop pals. He pointed to the clear plastic tube on the top. “I need you to put your mouth right there and breathe.”

He might as well have asked her to run into the highway and lay down.

“Um, no.” She lifted her brows. “I have no idea whose mouth has been on that.”

“Oh, I do. And every one of them was over the limit. It gets wiped after every use.” He held it closer. “I’m officially ordering you to take a breathalyzer, ma’am, and if you decline, you will be arrested for refusing a roadside sobriety test.”

“Not taking the test cannot be against the law!”

He lifted a brow, cool as a cucumber, but she suspected his stoic patience was waning.

“Florida Statute 316.1932, also known as the implied consent law, which you agree to when you get a driver’s license in any state. In addition, driving with an expired license is also a misdemeanor.” He gave the box a little shake. “Breathe into it.”

She recoiled, making a face. “I can’t. I’ll faint! I’ll literally pass out on this street.”

Jo Ellen leaned out the driver’s side. “Officer, please. We’ve been on the road for eleven hours. We had fast food and bad coffee and she’s just tired.”

“Exactly,” Maggie said. “Fatigued. Not inebriated. There’s a difference.”

“Florida law doesn’t require drugs or alcohol for someone to be considered impaired. Exhibiting signs of extreme fatigue, impaired behavior, and reckless driving is also against the law.”

Oh, good heavens. Maybe they would have to flirt their way out of this. She lifted her chin and attempted a smile.

“Herman. Do you really want to arrest a sweet old lady like me?”

Iceman didn’t even hint at a smile. “I don’t want you driving one more mile tonight, Mrs. Lawson.”

“Well, I’m in the middle of nowhere, so…I’m going to have to drive eventually, right. Right?”

“I’m sorry,” the officer said, clearly not sorry. “But I’m going to have to ask you to place your hands behind your back.”

Maggie stood frozen for a full second. He could not be serious!

“Oh, this is rich. This is fantastic. This is…oh, God, I’m glad my husband isn’t here to see this. He’s dead, you know. I’m a widow.”

He responded by twirling his finger in a circle, instructing her to turn. “With your hands behind you.”

Helpless, she turned, her hands behind her, and heard the soul-stealing sound of handcuffs clicking. Hard, cold…cuffs.

“What do we do about the car, Officer Herman?” Jo Ellen asked.

“Whatever you want but Mrs. Lawson will be at Crestview substation on East James Lee Boulevard. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive. This way, Mrs. Lawson.”

As she stumbled away, she looked over her shoulder. “Call Frank. Call Betty. Call the Pope. But don’t you dare call my children and do not let those kidnappers know I’m in prison! We’ll never get to keep that baby!”

“Maggie, hush! You’re making it worse!”

How could it be?

The officer gently guided her toward the cruiser.

She slid into the back seat of the police car, her knees cracking, her pride shattering, and her entire sense of newfound freedom crumpling like an old-school map that Jo “We’ll Just Ask Oscar” Ellen refused to use.

The door slammed shut. Sirens chirped.

And Maggie started to cry.

There was, indeed, a toilet and sink in her jail cell. Just like the movies.

Although Deputy Herman had told her it was a holding room, not an actual cell, but he also told her, “This is for your own good,” and nothing about this moment of hell felt good.

In addition to the toilet and sink, wafting with the nose-itching stench of bleach, there was a metal table bolted to the ground. Did they think she was going to try and steal it? Maybe throw it? She was mad enough that she might try.

And tired enough that she almost sat on the chair, dropped her head on the table, and cried herself to sleep.

She stayed standing, though, under the most unflattering and unforgiving fluorescent light and directly in front of a large surveillance camera. Who was on the other side of that camera, she wondered, and what on Earth did they think of her?

She shut her eyes and tried to recite lines from Gone With the Wind , one of her favorite ways to calm down and pass time.

“‘And not even a regular jail, Rhett! A horse jail!’”

But she wasn’t Scarlett O’Hara in a dress Mammy had made from velvet curtains. She was Magnolia Fredericks Lawson, taken down to her last shred of humility.

Accepting that she couldn’t stand one more minute, Maggie walked to the chair, perched on the edge, and folded her hands on her lap. She tried to imagine her poor husband, who’d breathed his last breath in a room very much like this one.

“Oh, Roger,” she whispered, closing her eyes and remembering the young man who’d swept her off her feet with the same charm and smile as Rhett Butler. “I miss you so much.”

She felt the fight go out of her, and lost the will to hold her head high, and very, very slowly let it fall to the table. Dropping her cheek on her arms for a tear-soaked pillow, she closed her eyes and fell sound asleep.

The metal clang startled her and she jumped up, wiping a shameful amount of drool from her face before turning. A different officer opened the door, stepped back, and one very spunky-looking Jo Ellen walked in.

“You’re free to leave, Mrs. Lawson,” the deputy said. “Everything’s taken care of.”

Her jaw fell. “Jo? What?—”

“Oh, my darling.” Jo Ellen shot forward, arms out. “Was it awful? Were you scared?” Then she drew back and pointed at the toilet. “Did you use that?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Maggie said, releasing the hug. “What did you do? How did you?—”

“Don’t ask,” she said.

“Oh, no.” Shame crept through her. “Eli’s out there, isn’t he? And Vivien. How can I possibly face them?”

“Come on,” she said, sliding an arm around Maggie. “Let’s get out of this place.”

Unable to put up a fight, Maggie walked with her best friend, each step heavier and sadder than the ones she took to get into this particular hellhole.

“Please tell me. Eli or Vivien? Or, gracious, did I sleep so long you got Crista?”

“None of your kids are waiting out there, Maggie.”

As they made their way down the short hallway toward the front office, Maggie looked around furtively, the humiliation rising like steam. “You swear to me there’s no one out there?”

Jo Ellen gave her most innocent smile. “Not a soul from your family.”

Maggie exhaled, heart easing—until her eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. That look. You made up another whopper of a story, didn’t you? Told them I had three months to live and wanted to check ‘jail time’ off my bucket list?”

Jo Ellen let out a delighted laugh. “Tempting. But no. Your real story is colorful enough, Mags. Besides, you already spilled most of it to Deputy Herman.”

Maggie froze. “I did not.”

“Oh, you did. You pulled out all the stops, including flirting with the guy.”

Groaning, Maggie rolled her eyes. “That man could use a little sense of humor, don’t you think?”

“Which is why I didn’t even try any tricks,” Jo Ellen said. “Just…got help.”

“Help? Who?”

“Let’s just say…I called in the most obvious person to know their way to a sheriff’s station.”

“Tessa?”

Jo Ellen gave a pretend swing at Maggie’s arm. “Hey, that’s my daughter you’re disparaging.”

“Well, we don’t know any…” Maggie stopped cold. “Jo…”

“Mhmm?”

“I’m begging you, not the biker.”

Before she could answer, Jo Ellen guided them around the corner and into the front lobby…where none other than Brick the bearded biker stood tall and rumpled and grinning like a man who’d just pulled off the heist of the century.

His scruffy salt-and-pepper beard looked like it had survived a wind tunnel, and his leather vest was emblazoned with enough patches to start a quilt. A helmet dangled from one hand, and his eyes—those mischievous, twinkling blue eyes—landed on Maggie like they’d been waiting all day just for her.

She froze, mouth open. “You…”

Jo Ellen gave her a little nudge. “Turns out he did leave his number in that helmet after all.”

Brick strolled closer, his smile growing and making the creases around his eyes even deeper.

“Mags, I liked you before. But springin’ you from jail?” He dipped a little closer and held her gaze. “Now, that’s my kind of girl.”

Maggie blinked, then did the only thing she could do—she laughed. One of those startled, out-of-body giggles that slipped right past her ego and straight from her soul. Because of course this ridiculous, grizzled, helmet-toting biker was the one to show up.

He grinned wider. “There’s the laugh I’ve been dreaming of.”

Still stunned, Maggie managed, “How…how did you?—”

Jo Ellen leaned in. “It turns out Brick knows every deputy in Okaloosa County on a first-name basis. Brings them his homemade cheesecake on birthdays, holidays, and days that end in Y. They owed him.”

And he used his cop favor for her. Maggie inched back, seeing him in a new and grateful light. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“Come on, Mags.” He gave a wave to the woman at the front desk. “Thanks, Mary Beth. Tell that daughter of yours to stay off Harleys.”

She laughed. “I will, Brick. And thanks for the cheesecake.”

Feeling like she was in a bad, bad dream, Maggie let Brick lead them through a thick glass door. A sticky Florida night greeted them with all the subtlety of a wet towel.

Maggie looked around, her chest squeezing. “Where’s the car?”

“Angel drove the T-bird to Frank’s house,” Jo Ellen said. “He’s going to park it in the driveway with a little note and we can go get our stuff tomorrow.”

Maggie stared at her. “Then how are we supposed to get home?”

Randy appeared from the shadows with two shiny Harleys parked behind him.

Brick stepped forward like a magician presenting the grand finale. He held out the helmet. “Only one way, Mags. Wrap them legs around me, woman, and let’s ride this hog.”

Her mouth dropped open again. “You cannot be serious. I’m…I’m…I’m wearing linen pants.”

He threw his head back and laughed, then put the helmet over her hair. “And I’m wearing denim dreams, baby. Come on.”

She turned to Jo Ellen for backup. “Tell me we’re not doing this.”

“We are absolutely doing this,” Jo Ellen said, adjusting the chin strap on her own helmet. “They’ll have us home in forty-five minutes and we can sneak into our apartment with no one the wiser.”

“Ooh, I like a woman who sneaks in past curfew.”

“Will you shut up?”

Brick just laughed again, taking Maggie’s hand and walking her toward the bike. She gave a fleeting, desperate look to Jo Ellen, who was laughing with Randy.

She sighed and looked up at him, barely seeing him through the thick edge of the helmet. “Thank you, Brick.”

“Pleasure’s mine, darlin’.”

With no fight left in her, Maggie tightened the chin strap with trembling fingers, slung one leg over the bike, and settled behind Brick.

“Hold tight,” he said, voice low and gravelly. “And you can scream if you want. It’s kinda hot.”

She smacked him in the shoulder. “Just drive, you numbskull, and do not do that tipping sideways thing that makes my heart stop.”

He laughed. “Haven’t you figured out by now that you should never challenge me, woman?”

She hadn’t figured anything out.

But the engine rumbled to life like some feral beast waking from a nap, and Maggie felt her heartbeat sync to the thunder in her ears. Jo Ellen was mounted behind Randy, giving Maggie and Brick a ridiculous thumbs-up like she was some kind of biker babe.

As they peeled away from the curb, Maggie looked up at the stars. No T-bird. No jail. No family watching. Just wind, warmth, and the man in front of her who smelled faintly of leather, danger, and vanilla bean cheesecake.

The end of what had been, without a doubt, the most unforgettable adventure.

She was definitely going to miss the car, the laughs, the bad decisions, and the best time of her life.