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But she’d let blind anger guide her and now, not surprisingly, things hadn’t worked out according to her initial plan.
All of a sudden, Abby realized the serious predicament she was in. This had been a foolish way to handle things. She was smarter than this, but her whole world had turned upside down with her unexpected suspension. She reacted without thinking everything through. And yet another of many things she needed to work on in the future. She’d been so incredibly foolish.
She turned to the people surrounding them with a beseeching expression. “Someone please help me get loose. I’m innocent.”
The people in the crowd laughed in amusement, clapped, and generally acted like this was a fun joke. Furthermore, not one of them offered to help her. They were all cheering for Zane.
With his arm still securely wrapped around her, and one hand holding her handcuffs in front, he led her all the way to the Old West Town Jail House. It said so on the sign above the door of the building he steered her nearer and neared to.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded. But it was pretty clear where they were headed and made her heart sink to her belly with dread.
“To jail,” he said sedately, confirming her worst fears.
* * * *
Zane pushed the deliciously sexy woman toward the Old West Town Jail House. He wanted to get her off the street before an even larger crowd assembled.
He wished she had introduced herself before the accusations had started flying, but hopefully he could ratchet down the tension she’d caused during her unexpected outburst by taking her someplace much quieter.
With each step forward he was both furious and turned on by what she’d said. Furious to be accused of being a scumbag, criminal, and especially a thief. But also very turned on by the utter wicked fire in her eyes as she accosted him.
His first gaze into her incredible and passionate brown eyes had burned a permanent spot onto his soul. And he was a man who’d never before believed in love at first sight. She made him rethink his stance. Then he remembered what she’d said, and he tucked away his lust momentarily. He truly didn’t like being called a thief.
In his younger days, all that she’d said would have likely been true, but Zane had caught a break before any possible juvenile offenses had gotten too bad to be forgiven or his life completely ruined.
A chance meeting with a fellow jailbird the night of his first and only arrest had given him not only a new lifelong best friend, but also a great chance for a better life. Which he’d taken secretly and very gratefully, if a bit sullenly due to his general persona as being a brooding teenager at that time.
In point of fact, Zane had turned his life around completely by age twenty-one, and made his first million before he’d turned twenty-five, with a small measure of luck and a whole lot of working his ass off. These days he enjoyed a very early retirement to live all aspects of his life exactly the way he wanted.
Having this woman spin him around and start spitting out all the hateful names he’d been called in his more colorful teen days put him on an immediate offensive. The fire in her eyes looked much like the expression of the unsympathetic and mostly neglectful adults who’d nearly put him down a terrible path.
A trail that he’d never felt he deserved way back then because life was often not fair. But those days were gone. Since that fateful introduction to Cooper so long ago, Zane had made good choices and lived by his own personal mantra of success. He was a different person now. He worked hard to maintain the life he enjoyed.
But still, in the recesses of his private thoughts he often wondered if his life had all been simply a foolish, wishful dream. Her accusations had brought all his youthful transgressions to the forefront of his brain to remind him that he wasn’t perfect. He likely didn’t deserve the life he now enjoyed, contradicting all the hard work he’d put in to make a different way in the world. Her allegations made him think for a moment that all he’d done in the name of self-improvement had been for nothing.
However, a fatalistic attitude would not win the day. So he shook off his difficult history and persevered forward. Currently, forward meant taking a rash but beautiful stranger to a fake jail to contain a growing problem, and besides, being close to her was not a difficult choice.
