My Cowboy Husband Neglected Me Ignored Our Baby for Another Woman's novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: Highway 2

The deputy reached the corner of the house before I did.

Behind it, Lottie's truck sat in the dark with the engine running and the headlights off.

Its bed was stacked with boxes, a lamp and a laundry basket.

Birdie was in the booster seat beside her with the horse in her lap, wide awake in the dash glow.

The deputy planted himself in front of the bumper and held up one hand.

"Lottie, shut it off."

She rolled the window down two inches.

"I'm not under arrest."

"No, ma'am, you're not. You're free to drive wherever you like tonight. Nobody has a paper that says otherwise."

Dean made a sound behind me.

I took his arm and held on.

"But Mr. Odom's complaint goes in this evening," the deputy said. "Taking money under a threat is a felony in this state, and it follows a person over the line. A deputy in Wisconsin gets the same call I do. He'll want to know what's in your truck bed and whose child is in your front seat."

"She's my daughter."

"Yes, ma'am. And he's her father. A judge can sort out the rest. I'd rather it was a judge than a ditch on Highway 2 at midnight."

Lottie stared out through the windshield.

Her hands were tight on the wheel.

I watched her work it out.

If she drove, she drove as a woman running from a complaint.

If she stayed, she stayed as a woman who'd been caught, with four hundred people who had watched her do it.

She turned the key.

The engine died, and the quiet came down over the yard.

"Monday I'll have a lawyer," she said. "And there won't be a Wednesday."

"Mama," Birdie said. "Are we going to the lake?"

"No, baby."

"Then why are the boxes in the truck?"

Nobody answered her.

Dean walked up to the passenger window.

He didn't reach in or touch the glass.

He crouched by the door until his face was level with hers.

"Goodnight, Birdie," he said.

She looked at him for a moment.

"Goodnight, oil man."

"Dean is fine."

"Goodnight, Dean."

Lottie lifted her out of the booster by one arm and carried her into the house without looking at any of us.

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