Page 24 of Fire for Effect

I could wrap my arms around him, and enjoy the wind, with my head on his shoulder, holding on as I let him take control. Wouldn’t that be nice? Letting someone else take control?

But I waved off that fantasy because that’s all it was. A dream I could see but it would never be within my grasp.

I always savored the final rides of fall. I never knew if it could be my last of the year, so I treated it like it was the end. Knowing that something is close to being gone makes it more delicious. And life had too few joys to not savor what we had.

That was how I lived my life. No past, no future. Just the present moment that I knew was mine.

I came upon the edge of town: Mourningkill, population 832. On the day the former members of the “Lucky 13” came in to stop arm’s dealers from taking out one of ours, there was a veritable population boom to 839.

The locals hadn’t forgiven us for intruding in their insular existence.

I turned the final curve of the rural road into the paved Main Street.

Then I heard it. The blare of other motorcycles. I was immediately on edge. My skin prickled with anticipation.

The fuck are those guys doing in town?

Mourningkill didn’t get a lot of attention. It was a crossroads, at best, with no Motorcycle Club in the vicinity. I had checked, searching for my own last name among their rosters only to come up empty.

Because your mom lied to you.

That was unusual. My mom wasn’t much of a liar… even when you desperately wanted her to be.

Will I grow up to be beautiful like you? You’ll be pretty enough.

Will I be successful? Not with grades like that.

Did my dad ever love me?

The moment I took to a motorcycle, she told me that my dead-beat dad had left because his MC was more important than his baby. She said he’d cleared out and never looked back, and that I was just like him - ungrateful, disloyal, and heading for an early grave.

The rumbling bikes on the small street came into view, just as I turned at the town’s single stoplight. The MC was outside the only drinking and eating establishment. It didn’t have a name, but simply had a sign above it that said “Bar”. Much like the Tractor Supply and Hardware store, which was just called… you guessed it… “Hardware”.

These hinterlands didn’t even merit its own grocery store. Not that it mattered. You could get everything you needed from your neighbors at the farmer’s market.

Bikes of all kinds and creeds took over the parking lot in the small alley wedged between the Bar and the Hardware store. Men in cuts hovered, beer bottles in hand. I didn’t pull into that parking lot. That’d be as dumb as going through a minefield instead of around it.

I pulled in beside the fire station, parking my bike and taking up a spot where the firemen left their cars, beside the police vehicle that belonged to the Sherriff.

Daisy the Ducati couldn’t get any safer than that.

Still, I mentally checked myself to feel for the pocket pistol at the back of my jeans, concealed in a flattened holster. The Diamondback DB9 didn’t pack a huge punch but it got the job done. Anyone who got obsessed with the “stopping power” of a pistol was probably a lousy shot.

The eyes of the men in cuts crawled over my skin. I couldn't tell if they were curious, horny, or hostile. I didn’t have that kind of talent. Not like Charlotte who could take one look at a person and tell them everything they were thinking.

But I could feel when someone looked at me with hostile intent. It was sticky, like walking into a wall of spiderwebs.

“Trinity!” I snapped my head to the side, following the voice.

There he was. Riley. Over six feet of raw, handsome muscle in a navy blue fireman’s shirt, his biceps bulging and his ass perfectly sculpted into a pair of wranglers. He was easy on the eyes, and ears. Kind, and sweet. A good dad to his kid. Everything I wanted.

So why the hell don’t I feel more?

I pulled off my helmet, letting my braid fall from the spiral I had it in at the base of my skull.

“Hey, you,” I said as Riley came over to give me a side hug. “Are you working tonight?”

I leaned in and tried to take in his masculine scent. It conjured images of standing at a water side cabin, with marshmallows and the lapping waves. I could imagine him on a schooner, heading out to sea. Dashing, brave, and at ease with the storms that came ahead.

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