Page 1 of A Love So Hard

PART ONE

First Love to Family

Chapter 1

(Lucy – age 16, Double-D – age 19)

My daddy probably never realized how badly he messed up the day he let me hang out at work with him in the shop. He was a hell of a mechanic, especially when it came to working on Harley Davidson Motorcycles. My dad could make them purr like a kitten or roar like a beast, and either way they’d ride like a dream. Since he was the best there was around these parts it stood to reason that the Aces High Motorcycle Club tapped him to be their number one go-to guy when their bikes had serious problems.

We didn’t have school today since it was summertime and I would be starting my junior year of high school in the fall. I was bored and tired of hanging out with my mom learning to bake crap in the kitchen when what I really wanted to do was go learn how to fix bikes and cars with my dad in his shop. Yeah, I was the weird girl who didn’t mind getting a little greasy. My dad secretly loved it, even while telling me that I would probably never do well with the knowledge, because the type of men who rode the Harleys he fixed didn’t trust a woman to tinker with their babies. I thought it was a load of poop, and completely unfair, but daddy said it wouldn’t hurt to learn something I might find useful for myself one day. That was how I found myself, just a couple days post boring baking lessons, up to my elbows in engine grease and oil, when I looked up into the clear nearly sapphire blue eyes of the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. Actually, while he was still definitely young, boy was not the word I should have used to describe him.

The person standing in front of me in fitted denim jeans, a wife-beater tank top, a black leather vest over the top that stated his name was Double-D, and some kick ass black motorcycle boots was quite possibly the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on.

“Where’s Jack?” His voice, deeper than expected, called out causing me to startle a little even though I’d already been staring – I mean looking – at him.

“He just stepped in back to grab a part real quick,” I finally managed to get out.

“Okay,” he stated in a cool manner that had me playing guessing games as to what would come next. “You mind telling me why a pretty little thing like yourself is crawling all around my bike?”

I had a bad habit of scratching at the tip of my nose when I was nervous. My finger slowly went there, rubbing across the tip as I stared into the bluest blue eyes on God’s green earth. The guy smirked like he was in on a joke that I wasn’t aware of, but he just continued watching me, waiting for an answer.

“I work here with my dad sometimes,” I finally managed to answer.

“Uh-huh. Your dad Jack Carter?”

I nodded my head then brushed my hair back out of my face where the flyaway strands had started falling into my eyes again.

“Hey, hey, what’s going on out here?” My dad called and then started double-timing it over to the bay where we had been going over the bike he’d been working on all day.

“Your daughter here was just telling me that she was working on my bike,” Double-D explained. He never raised his voice, but the tone in it had changed a bit, and I watched as my father bristled a bit.

“I was just teaching her some things along the way. She ain’t doing none of the work on your bike though, if that’s what concerns you.”

“She any good at it?” The beautiful man asked, no longer looking at me. As a matter of fact, as soon as my dad showed up it was like I no longer existed. That is, if you discount the fact that they were talking about me while I was standing right there.

“Better than most of the guys I have working here, actually,” my dad admitted as he wiped his brow on a semi-clean rag and then tossed it my way. “Girl, clean your face up, you done got grease all over your nose.”

That made the smirk reappear on the man’s face in front of me. I glanced down at my hands that had caught the rag in mid-air when it was thrown, and sighed. I had just been rubbing my nose nervously, and my hands looked like this? I could imagine what my face must look like now.

“I’ll just go clean up,” I huffed before I started moving away.

“Never caught your name,” Double-D tossed out before I could get even two steps away. I glared back over my shoulder since he hadn’t been gentlemanly enough to tell me I’d gotten my face dirty.

“I never threw it,” I sassed, then turned and kept on going. My daddy chuckled at my response.

“That girl of mine is spunky, for sure. Brains for days, talent with engines, and off limits seeing as she’s just sixteen.” The warning tone in his voice wasn’t to be trifled with. “I know your club’s rules. She might be legal by this damnable state’s standards, but you boys have a hard and fast club-wide 18 and older rule. Best you stick to that,” my father warned as I cringed inwardly. Embarrassment knew no bounds with him.

“Not interested in little girls, old man, but I don’t mind if you have her working with you on my bike. She’s gotta learn somehow.” I couldn’t help the grin that overtook my face then, and was thankful I was walking away so they couldn’t see. Not that I enjoyed the sexy as hell biker calling me a little girl, but the fact that he didn’t mind me working on his bike was amazing. “Not saying all my brothers would feel the same. Better keep that shit under wraps when it’s someone else’s ride.”

“I know it. I’ve tried to tell her how people would feel about that shit, but she can’t stand to be in the kitchen baking with her momma.” I listened as my daddy chuckled. “That girl ain’t cut out for the simple life of a Southern Bell no matter how much her momma keeps trying to make her one, that’s for sure.”

I turned in time to see that Double-D was watching me still. The look he was giving my backside sent a shiver running through me, and lit a fire under my butt to get the heck on out of there before daddy noticed him staring or my reaction to it. I had a boyfriend before. Not that my daddy knew that information, but I wasn’t naïve. I knew when a boy was looking at me a certain way. I also knew that I’d never had the quivers in my stomach quite like I did when I was staring into those brilliant blue eyes of his. I wondered briefly what his real name was, but quickly dismissed the idea of ever knowing. I knew the score. I’d probably never see the man again. If not because of his lifestyle, then because my daddy would make sure he was never around when I was in the future.

I tried to forget about the man with the piercing blue eyes, but as the day wore on and I walked home by myself I knew he would be unforgettable. Sometimes, I hated the fact that I was still only sixteen. Two more years and I could do anything I wanted to. I would graduate; go to college, and date whomever I chose without my daddy stepping in and ruining things. When I got home my neighbor happened to be pulling his new – though definitely used – motorcycle in the driveway next door. It did not sound good at all. I winced as I turned my head to take a look and saw the plume of smoke coming out of his pipes. Nope. Not good at all.

“What’s going on with your bike, Johnny?” I called to him when he killed the engine.

He ripped the helmet free of his head leaving his shoulder length ash-blond hair to blow in the light breeze. “I don’t fuckin’ know. The goddamn thing just started sputtering and coughing the whole way home, and then there’s the cloud of doom it blew out just now.”

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