Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Avery Jane
Gran and Mama showed up at the station five minutes after Abey reluctantly led her brother into a cell in the back room.
There were only two cells in there, so for a short time, until Cody’s lawyers or his parents showed up, he and Dixon had to face each other.
Fortunately, another deputy, Frank Sims, was back there with them to stand guard.
As far as I could tell, Dixon hadn’t said a word, but Cody could be heard all the way to the street, still puffing his chest about retribution and making threats against Dixon’s family.
Mama ordered me to tell her what happened, but all I could think about was Dixon.
“Is Dixon okay, Abey?” I asked while she removed her tool belt and gun and locked them in a desk drawer in the main room of the station. The receptionist, Shelley, sat behind her computer screen, clearly listening, but she pretended to type.
“Physically,” Abey said, “yes. He’ll be fine.”
“And e-emotionally?”
She looked up at me, exhaustion playing at the edges of her eyes. “I don’t know.”
The weariness in her voice made me feel like screaming. This was a setback for her family. And how would Dixon handle it? Jail and possibly court?
Would this be the thing that led him back into his addiction? Would the fight with Cody derail his confidence, his happiness, his safety? Was it all my fault?
Had he just lost his chance to make things right with Stuart?
Maybe I should have left Dixon alone. I’d practically pushed him into loving me, and now, had I ruined the rest of his life?
Deputy Roxi had been trying to calm my mama down and get her to sit and at least attempt to relax, but she had probably already decided that wasn’t going to fly.
“He’ll be okay,” Roxi said as she stood next to me and patted my shoulder softly.
“I don’t know about that,” Abey mumbled. “Mr. Mahone hasn’t shut up about pressin’ charges.”
“But he attacked me! He violated the restraining order. And Justin came at Dixon from behind and surprised him. That’s gotta count for somethin’, right?”
“You mean the guy who was completely unconscious when Roxi showed up?” Abey challenged.
“Yeah, he’s Cody’s cousin.”
Abey closed her eyes and shook her head.
“It does count,” she said. “And Cody will do some time for disobeyin’ the restraining order, but that doesn’t stop him or his family from pressin’ civil charges against Dixon.
And I’m not sure you and I are talkin’ about the same fight, because the one my deputy just described to me was the definition of excessive force.
Dixon could’ve stopped after the first punch.
But he didn’t, and I’m pretty sure Mr. Mahone’s nose is broken, at the very least.”
The sound of my voice was steady, but it came out of me wrapped in barbed wire. “He deserved worse.”
“That may be,” Abey said, “but it’s not Dixon’s job to deliver justice.”
“Abey.” I grabbed her arm. “Can I take him home? Please?”
She laughed mirthlessly and shook me off. “Home? Where is that? He won’t come home. The boarding house? No offense to Mrs. Ellison, but that ain’t his home. It’s not anybody’s besides Mrs. Ellison’s.”
“I meant my house.”
“Your house isn’t Dixon’s home either, Avery Jane. What? Did you expect that you’d just crook your finger and everything would be alright? He’s an addict. He’s somebody’s father. He can’t play house with you just so you can relive your glory days.”
The sheriff’s comment was a blow. Was that what I’d been doing—playing house?
Mama jumped to my defense. “That was uncalled for, Sheriff Lee. Avery has loved that boy since the first day they met. She wants what’s best for him.”
Eyes firmly on mine, Abey said, “I’m sorry. It was uncalled for, but is your mama right? You want what’s best for Dixon?”
I nodded. “Yes. It’s all I want for him.”
“Even if it means him walkin’ away from you?”
Abey finally let me back to see her brother, and when I found him locked behind bars, he wouldn’t look at me. He sat bent over, with his elbows on his knees and his head hung. His hair lay loose and tangled over broad shoulders rising and falling slowly with every breath he took.
Deputy Sims stepped back and pressed himself into the corner of the room to give me space, but the guy was huge. Besides, there was no way Dixon and I could have any privacy with Cody right there, still spouting bullshit.
But I couldn’t let Cody deter me. Not anymore.
I needed to look in Dixon’s eyes. I needed to see for myself that he was okay.
“Tweedledum?” I said softly, but Dixon didn’t move.
Cody snorted, then caught the blood seeping from his nose with the neck of his shirt.
He tried to swallow but decided instead to spit the blood in his mouth on the floor.
“That’s your pet name for your boyfriend?
Fitting. He is dumb. It was the dumbest fuckin’ thing he’s ever done, comin’ at me like he did.
Layin’ hands. I’m gonna sue him for every penny he’s got. ”
He lifted his head toward the ceiling, trying to pinch the bridge of his nose to stem the flow, but he winced at the pain.
Finally, Dixon huffed a laugh. “Go for it, asshole. After dinner tonight and my piece-of-shit car, I’ve got less than two grand to my name. You’ve probably got more in your change jar in your bedroom at your mommy’s house.”
Cody’s eyes narrowed. “You may be destitute, but I know who your brother is, and he’s got plenty of money. I also know about Spitfire Ranch, and I’ll be runnin’ it by the time we’re through.”
Dixon didn’t respond. He looked up at me through the cell door. “You okay?”
Stepping closer, I nodded and smiled pathetically. I hoped it conveyed how utterly sorry I was that I’d gotten him into this mess.
He stood and approached the door too. “Your dress,” he said, pointing to the strap that had been ripped in my struggle with Cody. Roxi had given me a safety pin to fix it so I wasn’t flashing the whole town, but dirt and dust covered the material and made it look gray. “It’s ruined.”
“Serves you right,” Cody sneered. “Only whores dress the way you did tonight.”
Dixon’s hands balled into fists, but Deputy Sims beat him to the punch.
He yanked the Billy club out of its holster on his belt and slapped it against Cody’s cell bars.
The sound of wood hitting metal reverberated around the small room loud enough to make me cringe.
“Sit down and shut your mouth,” the deputy ordered, then stuffed a towel through the space between two bars for Cody’s nose.
“I can fix it,” I told Dixon, ignoring Cody completely as he all but fell onto the rickety cot in his cell. He seemed a little too scared of Deputy Sims to reach for the towel on the floor.
“Good,” Dixon said. “I like that dress.”
The radio on Deputy Sims’s shoulder coughed with static, and then we heard Roxi telling him to bring Cody out. “His ride’s here to take him to County. He’ll be spendin’ the night in their presidential suite after a stop at the hospital to crack that broken nose back into place.”
Cody groaned, and I smiled. He deserved jail. No doubt his lawyers and his family would be working overtime to set him free, but at least for tonight, he’d have to live with what he’d done.
I kept the smile on my face while Deputy Sims opened the cell door and dragged Cody out by the neck of his shirt. “Have fun,” I said unapologetically, and I winked as Frank cuffed him again.
Cody had nothing more to say to me, and as soon as they had gone, Dixon’s eyes met mine through the bars.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You have nothin’ to apologize for. I’m sorry. Sorry I got you into this mess. Are you okay?”
“I… I’ll be fine,” he said, but he cast his eyes to the floor.
“Your hands.” I pointed to his knuckles, bruised already and still covered in Cody’s dried blood.
Dixon held them up and looked at them, but then he swiped them over his jeans, trying to brush the dark red crust off. “I dunno what this means for me. Nothin’ good, that’s for damn sure.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything—”
“I didn’t do anything wrong?” he argued. “Do you live in some kinda la-la land so filled with hearts and flowers that you can’t see out? I beat that man tonight. I could’ve beaten him to death.”
“But you didn’t.”
“In the eyes of the law, I’m not sure how much that matters.”
“You were protectin’ me.”
“God,” he breathed, “did you see my sister’s face? I let her down. I’ve let them all down. And Stu? I’ll be lucky if Bax lets him so much as say my name after this.”
“Don’t say that. I’ll explain it to Bax, to all of them. They’ll understand.”
“What exactly will they understand, Avery Jane? That I had a choice tonight, and once again, I chose wrong? That instead of choosin’ my family—my son—I chose violence? I chose to let my demons out. I chose the easy way out.”
“Dixon, you didn’t—”
“Goddammit, Avery. Stop! You’re doin’ it again, and I can’t stomach you tryin’ to make up excuses to forgive me. I need you to go. I’m sorry, but I need to think this through, and I can’t do that with you here.”
An invisible wall came slamming down between us, the same one I still recognized from high school that Dixon used to wield like a shield, and it cut our connection right down the middle. “Dixon?”
“Please, AJ? Please just let me be?” His hands gripped the cell’s bars, and I slid mine over his, ignoring the dried blood and dirt.
“I’ll go,” I said, “because you asked me to, but don’t you dare think I’m givin’ up on you.”