Page 10 of Riding the Edge

Which is a lot more than any of those hooligans seem to be giving him. Odd, considering one of the first things I noticed about this gang of misfits is that they travel in packs. If one of them sneezes, there is always someone with a leather vest holding out a tissue. I often wondered if they doubled up like a bunch of school girls when one of them had to use the bathroom.

“So, you become a candy striper or something?” Wolf asks, pulling my attention away from the empty waiting room. Turning my head, I meet his gaze.

“Do I look like a candy striper?”

His eyes do a quick scan over me before meeting mine again.

“I’m not really sure what a candy striper looks like,” he admits.

“Well, I can assure you it doesn’t look like this,” I say waving a finger around my face.

“Then what are you doing in the hospital?” he questions, pushing his elbows off his knees and straightening in his seat.

“I had an appointment for a mammogram,” I tell him, watching his gaze lower to my chest. Clearing my throat, I cock my head to the side and snap my fingers. “Eyes up here, buddy.”

Lifting his head, he narrows his eyes and studies my face almost as intently as he did my breasts.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” I scoff. “Just a routine exam and another one of the perks of being over forty,” I add, watching as he continues to stare at me. “Anyway, I took a wrong turn and ended up here.”

“Lucky for me,” he says.

“Apparently,” I reply, glancing around the room. “You going to tell me why you’re sitting here by yourself while your son is in surgery with a gunshot wound?”

“Ain’t sitting here by myself, am I? Got you at my side and my boys are probably raiding the cafeteria as we speak. Patty’s here too.”

Oh, yes, that was fun.

Nothing quite says consoling like two feuding exes.

“You know what I mean,” I say instead. Thankfully, I’m learning to put a filter on my otherwise big mouth. “Where is the club and why the hell do you smell like gasoline?”

“I had an accident while pumping gas,” he replies, diverting his eyes.

“Yeah, right. I’m getting a contact high sitting next to you.”

He turns back to me.

“Now, that I’d pay good money to see, lady.”

“How many times do I gotta tell you to stop calling me that?” I ask rolling my eyes.

“You know me how long now?” he counters.

“Six long years” I mutter, crossing my arms under my chest. “What’s your point?”

“In all those years have I called you anything other than Lady?”

“No,” I reply. I’m starting to wonder if he even knows my real name.

“There’s your answer,” he says.

As I start to object, he silences me by placing his wandering hand back on my knee and leans closer.

“Besides, never met a woman better suited for the title.”

Like crying, there aren’t too many times in my life I can say I’ve been rendered speechless and certainly never at the hand of a man.

Yet here I am, completely at a loss for words and all because a man in leather decided to call me Lady.

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