Page 1 of Ridin' Solo
1
Oakley
Wasn’t every day you attempted to arrest a guy in jorts and a backward baseball cap with Jason Derulo lyrics running through your brain. For the pure spirits and innocent minds, jorts were jeans cut off as long shorts, worn by men who had zero fashion sense. Today must have been my lucky day. Not only was I riding solo still, but I had the great honor of arresting Jeremiah Singleton for the twelfth time in as many days.
“Jeremiah, step away from that door.”
His head swiveled in my direction and the rest of him listed a bit too far left to make me think he was sober. His face crumpled into full-blown tantrum mode, which could compete with my youngest sister, Ulva, affectionately called Vee. Because who the hell would want to go around with the name Ulva? Can you imagine the jokes at school? As the baby of the family, Vee could really put on a performance. Clearly Jeremiah here thought I was born yesterday.
“Come on, Waldo,” he groaned. “I’m jest here to make sure she got my text. She could be bleeding out behind that there door and wouldn’t you feel real guilty for interrupting me bein’ a good Samurai?”
Now it was my turn to frown. I rested a hand on my billy club and rocked back on my heels. Normally, domestic violence calls were taken seriously, and I’d be more prepared for things to turn violent. However, this was the backwoods of Monterey County and I’d known Jeremiah since he cheated in dodgeball in elementary school.
“Do you mean good Samaritan?” I asked dryly.
He nodded vigorously, and I worried his baggy jorts might take the jostling as a sign to slide further down his nonexistent ass. What was with these guys who only lifted upper body? Didn’t they know the ladies appreciated a well-toned lower body? Don’t skip leg day, fellas.
“Dat’s right.” Jeremiah smiled and spun back to knock on his ex’s door.
An ex who had a restraining order out on him.
He may seem harmless to me—annoying for sure, but not particularly dangerous—but it wasn’t for me to decide. The law was the law. He’d violated that restraining order by stepping foot on her property. I grabbed the handcuffs out of the back of my utility belt and climbed the stairs of the porch.
“You know you shouldn’t be here, Jeremiah. I’m going to have to take you in again.” I grabbed one beefy wrist of his and slapped the cuffs on him.
The sound of the metal teeth closing made him jump into action. Getting the first wrist cuffed was always the easiest. It was the second one, when the suspect dropped all pretense of being nice and realized things would not turn out in their favor, that was the hardest. Jeremiah used his bulk to spin around quickly, taking all five foot three of me with him.
In this moment I truly wished I wasn’t riding solo and had a partner to help me out. Hence the Jason Derulo lyrics running through my brain.
Thankfully, I’d taken years of Jiu Jitsu lessons. Dad hadn’t let us girls go through life without some countermeasures to make sure we’d be safe out there in the real world, where fifty percent of the population proved bigger and stronger than us.
So what do you do when you’re up against someone stronger? You use their bulk and momentum against them. He spun, I put a foot out to trip him up. He went down like a redwood. As he flailed, stunned at his new horizontal position, I got the other wrist in the cuffs. I gave him a tug, but he looked like he preferred to camp out here all night.
I rolled my eyes heavenward and asked for patience. This was my last call of the night and then I’d be off. “Could you stand up for me, please?” I asked in my nicest, yet stern voice.
“Nah, I’mma stay right here with my lady love.” Jeremiah gave me a smile, ruined because his mouth smashed into the wood planks beneath him.
I looked around at the darkening trees surrounding the property, the sounds of the night animals starting to make themselves known. “Going to be a cold one tonight. It may technically be spring, but it’s still freezing out here overnight and you have no shirt. I’d hate for you to catch your death out here, Jeremiah.”
He shrugged best he could with his hands tied up behind his back. “S’kay.”
I sighed. I hated to do it, but there was no way I wanted to spend the next half hour dragging his uncooperative carcass into the back of my cruiser. He’d asked for it.
“Welp, looks like I’ll have to get Sheriff Locke down here to collect you.”
The guy moved so fast I had to jump out of the way. He found his feet and hustled toward my car before I could bark out a laugh. Man, I was jealous. I hoped uttering my name one day would make people jump to attention like that. Our county sheriff was a fair guy, but you didn’t want to be on his bad side. He turned fifty soon and seemed to have no time for foolhardiness and shenanigans any more. His almost six-foot-five stature with at least two hundred fifty pounds of bulk helped too. The man was a tank with a badge.
Boots crunching over the gravel, I got down to the cruiser and opened the back door. Jeremiah made a face I couldn’t make out in the dimming light and slid right in. I walked around to the driver’s side and radioed in that I had the suspect in custody and would be in shortly to book him in our tiny county jail.
Getting in behind the wheel, I stopped short, nose lifting automatically. I gave a test sniff and groaned out loud. I radioed in again.
“Got a code brown situation here. Let maintenance know this rig’ll need a full cleanout before tomorrow.”
The dispatcher, a lady in her late fifties whom I liked before tonight, couldn’t contain the peal of laughter before she responded. “Ten-four. What a shitty night, huh?” She broke into laughter again before I cut off the radio and put the car in gear.
“Seriously, Jeremiah?” I asked him in the rearview mirror, none too happy to end my night like this.
He had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I’ve been having tummy troubles, and when you said Sheriff Locke, I just lost control a bit, that’s all.”
