Ride Me Right

by Michele De Winton

  “Jake! It’s on the roof!”

  Her scream wrenched his eyes away and he found Lucy, a black streak of soot on her face, fear stalking her in the way she was hunched and rigid.

  Get. It. Together. Hands shaking, he forced his legs to work and walked stiffly toward her, helping to drag the hose and opening the faucet to full so the water started gushing in earnest.

  “It’s not close enough. I’m going to pull that wooden box out, that’s what’s feeding it.” Lucy started in toward the fire.

  “Don’t be crazy. You won’t get that out without getting burnt. It’s too hot in there now.” But it was too late.

  “I can do it,” she yelled over the noise and ran toward the fire. He stood there, immobilized, not helping, not stopping her.

  “Ouch. Fuck.” Lucy got a hand to the box when another gust of wind blew the flames down and they scorched her hand. Amid the acrid smell of smoke, the unmistakable scent of burning human hair rushed into his nostrils.

  “Lucy!”

  She backed away fast and he wrapped her in his arms. “Are you hurt? Hell, woman. We need to get you in a cold shower.”

  “I’m fine. It got a bit of my hair. You were right. It’s too hot in there.”

  “Shit.” Hade had come running out to help and Jake passed Lucy to him. “Don’t let her near it.”

  “Those bikes are gonna go if we don’t get them out of here. Hell, the whole place is gonna go,” Hade said. Jake looked to where Hade was pointing. He was right, the flames were licking the top edge of the hotel roof in earnest now, and a line of three bikes was close enough that if anything fell out of the pile, at least one of them would get hit. “Be right back, there’s six guys inside. I’ll get them.”

  Hade ran off, and finally sparked into action, Jake grabbed Lucy’s hand. “The hose isn’t long enough. Find a bucket and throw as much of this water onto the base of the fire as you can. There.” He pointed to where a stack of wooden boxes was glowing white from the heat.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to try and push the whole thing out.”

  “What? Are you crazy? You just told me not to touch it.”

  “The Dumpster is on wheels. If we can get it moving, we can get it out from under the roof and stop it from setting the whole hotel on fire.”

  There was a loud crack and a large wooden crate, thrown carelessly on the top of the cardboard pile, fell out of the Dumpster and tumbled onto one of the bikes. “Shit. Go and get Hade. Now.”

  “No way, I’m moving those bikes.” She shrugged him off and got one of the bikes moving before Hade and the others appeared wide-eyed, shielding their faces from the heat.

  “We’ve got to get that Dumpster away from the hotel,” Jake yelled, pointing to the wheels on the metal frame.

  Hade understood immediately and yelled to three of his guys to help Lucy with the bikes, while the others ran with him to push the Dumpster out. They started in toward it, but the heat was too intense.

  “Blankets. You two go grab all the blankets you can carry,” Hade said. “We’ll smother it.”

  “That’ll be too late.” Jake was lost, he was in charge of his sister’s hotel and what was he doing? Letting it burn to the ground.

  “That.” Hade pointed to an empty Dumpster behind them. “That will move it.”

  The Hell’s Boys dragged it out from its corner and shoved it, hard, toward the other Dumpster. The fire shuddered, but didn’t move.

  “Again!” Hade yelled and all of them shoved it a second time. “It’s working. Again!” The wheels of the burning bin squealed in protest, clearly not having been moved in a long time. But it moved a good five inches, making the space between the leaping flames and the hotel bigger and shoving Lucy’s bike forward in the process.

  Running around the front to check that the other bikes were out of the way, Jake ducked as with a shout, the Dumpster scraped its way clear of the hotel, the burning bike in front of it as it started to pick up speed down the slope . . . toward Lucy. But its rusty wheels were unbalanced and it toppled, a pile of burning boxes and embers falling over the bike and scattering over the concrete parking lot.

  Jake watched in horror as Lucy turned to see the mess of flames heading toward her. As if in slow motion, his steps didn’t seem to have enough speed to get to her in time and he urged his body on. Just as it seemed like he wouldn’t make it, that she would get caught up in the fall of embers, time slipped back into its correct plane and he powered toward her, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her into a roll that took them away from the bikes and flames.

  Still holding Lucy, Jake looked behind him as they came to a stop a few yards away and saw a halo of a heat haze around the tank of the bike.

  “Move, now!” Dragging her up, he pulled her farther away, just as the gas tank of Lucy’s bike exploded, sending a plume of flame far up into the air and searing the retinas of his eyes with the flash.

  Ears ringing, heart screaming, Jake patted Lucy down, but they’d gotten out of range just in time and apart from grazes up and down her arms from where he’d pulled her away into the roll, she was fine.

  The Hell’s Boys were back with blankets but there was no chance for anyone to get close enough while the gas burned and the contents of the Dumpster trickled onto the ground as it broke off in burning chunks.

  Now that it had devoured everything through and didn’t have the hotel to feed its licking tongues, the fire wasn’t growing. In fact, its color was dimming and the smoke was getting blacker and thicker, rather than wafting out in hot plump clouds as it had earlier. The roof was scorched, but not on fire. Still, the mess would be hot and dangerous for a while yet.

  “Anyone call the fire department?” Jake said. His voice was flat even to his ears and he didn’t dare look at the others in case they saw through him. Saw how close he’d come to losing it. Again. Clenching and unclenching his hands to hide their quiver, he counted his breaths, in and out, to try to calm his body. He was not going to fall apart now. Not out here. Not in front of Lucy.

  “I’ll check.” One of the Hell’s Boys headed inside to see if the call had been made and the others stood around watching the fire burn.

  “Fuck me, that was close,” Hade said.

  “No shit,” Lucy said and laughed.

  “You’re laughing?” Jake said, his voice high with incredulity.

  She shrugged then wrapped her arms around herself.

  Jake’s body tensed, and lost in the face of her indifference he let fly. He took her by the shoulders and almost shouted in her face. “What the hell were you thinking? Going in after that bike? I’ve never seen such—such recklessness, such an irresponsible attitude. You could have been—fuck, Lucy, you were almost killed. What the hell are you doing laughing about it?” He made himself loosen his grip when he realized her shoulders were going white from his hold.

  “I know, I just, I can’t help it.” Her laugher changed gears and got higher, thin and ragged. Then she started shivering and Jake kicked himself as he saw the shock physically take over her body.

  “Chill, man. She was looking out for the bikes. Deserves a medal, not having her boss rip into her.” Hade took a step toward them, but Jake wasn’t having it.

  “Of course she deserves a medal. But not from you, not when this is on your guys.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. Don’t lay this on me.”

  “I’m not laying it on you. Just on your gang.”

  Hade drew himself up to his full height, a full height that would have taken Jake a heck of a lot of fighting to beat. “Say that again.”

  “We saw them. Two guys in black leather. They set fire to Lucy’s bike.”

  “As if we would do that. Probably the Reapers of Menace. Fuckers.”

  Jake shook his head. “Probably the ones who had been laying into Lucy earlier. I saw them down here, starting the fire before they bailed. Your crew has a lot of explaining to do.”

  “
This true?” Hade turned to Lucy and she nodded.

  “I tried to see their faces but they had helmets on before I got down here.”

  “What were they giving you shit about?”

  She gulped, the shivering still holding her in an icy grip and her jaw had trouble getting the words out through her chattering teeth. “Break-in. Gav’s shop. Martinez’s bike got damaged.”

  Hade stroked his chin. “Doesn’t make sense that they’d try and torch this place though. Anyone knows they’d be out of Hell’s for that. Bri doesn’t need to come home to that sort of shit to clean up.”

  “I don’t think they were exactly thinking things through. They torched Lucy’s bike, might have just been shit luck that it was parked close enough to those Dumpsters to light the whole place up.”

  “Idiots.” Hade’s face reflected Jake’s mood and he was grateful that one of the gang’s most senior members wasn’t taking this lightly.

  “Exactly.”

  “Thanks, Luce.” Hade turned to Lucy. “Not many people would bother trying to save the bikes of a bunch of idiots who decided to give her crap. I get how much you give a shit. Appreciate it. Things are changing in Hell’s. Not fast enough for you, I know, but we’re getting there.”

  She nodded.

  He addressed Jake again. “I’ll sort the boys out.”

  “You’ll have to.” Jake pointed toward the fire truck with flashing lights that was fast approaching. “They’ll want to have the police involved.”

  “No need for that from my end if you’re okay with that. You tell the cops what you saw, do whatever you need to for insurance or whatever. But I’d appreciate if you left the gang’s name out of it. If the idiots get caught, well, tough shit. They deserve what’s coming. But better if I’m not involved.”

  Jake nodded.

  “Sorry again, Luce. No one deserves to be caught up in this sort of shit.”

  “Damn right,” she said, and Jake was pleased to hear that her teeth had stopped chattering.

  Jake grabbed a blanket from one of Hade’s boys and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Someone go get her coffee. Hot, black, lots of sugar.”

  The Hell’s Boys left, leaving them outside to meet the fire engine.

  “Go up to my room?” He hoped his voice was soft, gentler, but the shock was still coursing through his bloodstream too and he had trouble making the words sound like a question rather than a command.

  “I’m fine. Will be fine. I’ll just talk to the firefighters then go back to the bunkhouse.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m sorry I yelled earlier. It was shock. I—I saw the whole thing in slow motion, if you’d been hurt I just—”

  “I know.” She put a hand to his arm and the contact soothed him. “Don’t worry about it.”

  But he did. He worried that he’d broken the fragile thing that was building between them. Worried that he’d lost it when his sister’s hotel was in immediate danger. Worried that his shakes were back.

  Clenching and unclenching his hands made him feel better, but it couldn’t hide the fact that the tremor in his hands was worse than ever. In his left hand especially, his fingers couldn’t have held a bike steady with the throttle on. Couldn’t have done much except be a menace on a movie set and a danger to anyone around him.

  Right now though, he just needed to talk to the firemen who were piling out of the truck in front of them. And then take his own advice and have a hot, strong cup of coffee and with a whole lot of deep breaths.

  * * *

  True to her word, Lucy had gone back to the bunkhouse after being given the all-clear by the paramedics, pleading the need to be in a dark quiet space for a while and sleep. Given how long he’d kept her up last night, Jake didn’t argue. The firemen had checked them both out and made both of them promise to get a workup from a doctor to make sure they didn’t have any issues with smoke inhalation. Their account of events wasn’t questioned, and when the truck drove off, Jake let out a huge breath, unaware he’d been holding it.

  Heading up to his room, Jake was lost. He paced the space, unable to settle on anywhere to sit, or stand, or be. Now what? Rewinding to before the madness of the fire, Jake tried to recall what he had been planning for his day. Stuffing his hand in his pocket he felt his cell. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he’d last had it in his hand, thinking about saying yes to the work.

  “No way that’s happening now.” Looking down at his hands, Jake’s heart dropped at the sight. He wouldn’t employ someone like him, so no way anyone else would. No one else should.

  Slumping onto his bed he tried to turn off his brain for a second, counting his breaths, in and out, focusing on the air rushing in and out of his lungs, rather than the blood still beating a fast and heady beat around his body.

  Eyes closed, black smoke coiled out from his imagination instead of the calm white light he’d been hoping for. In the midst of his mental picture, he saw himself, frozen, stuck as if he’d been caught in a tar pit. Lucy ran past him, heading toward the fire but unlike in real life, the bike she ran to exploded just as she reached it.

  The scene of Sarah’s accident flashed over his eyes again, wrapping the world in red, hot blood.

  Eyes open, wide awake, Jake stared, hard, at the ceiling. Lucy was fine. No one had died.

  But they almost did. “No. Lucy is fine. I pulled her out.” Just. It was true. It had been the absolute last minute.

  Running in late didn’t cut it on set. Not when people’s lives depended on split-second decisions. On razor-sharp reflexes. Reflexes that he didn’t have anymore.

  Rubbing at the smoke that still clung to his hair, he rolled off the bed and headed for the shower. Maybe that would change his focus. Get him out of himself.

  But nothing helped. Everywhere he looked, every time he took his attention off the present, the seconds that he failed Lucy came back at him full force.

  He’d failed her. Failed Briony. Failed Sarah. What was he thinking, believing he could go back to work? He couldn’t even protect the people around him. The people he loved.

  The word hit him. Right in the chest as the shower water pounded down over his back. Love? It was a bit of a stretch to call what was growing between his stepsister and himself love, but there wasn’t much else to describe it. And it was something he already knew was going to grow. Sarah he’d known long enough to want to protect her like a favorite niece. And Lucy? This time it wasn’t a hit in the chest when he thought about the woman who only hours ago he’d been unable to keep his hands off of. Lucy was a foil to his hard edges, softness to his stiff temper. Rubbing his hands over his arms he realized his body was a mess of aches. He’d taken most of the fall when they rolled away from the bike and more than that, every muscle in his body had tensed to its breaking point over and over when he’d thought he’d been unable to help her. To save her.

  But love though? Did he love her? The idea tumbled around in his head with all the rest of the mess in there. His body was such a mess because he was so scared of losing her. Of breaking the thing between them that had barely even started. But . . . but it had started. Something had started. And it was something he could hardly fathom.

  This ache was sharper than what he’d experienced after Sarah had died. Sure, it didn’t compare, but the ache was because he’d come face-to-face with what could happen if he lost someone else. Someone he was even closer to.

  You’re falling for her. He was. And it was a bad idea. Real bad.

  He turned the water to cold, and jumped as it shocked his skin. But it did the trick and focused his mind toward what he needed to do next. No matter what Lucy thought she knew about him, no matter that she’d been the one to reignite the flame of passion for his profession, he knew that he was too far out of himself to do that now. And he was no good for her.

  Building his relationship with Briony had to be his priority. If he couldn’t protect her, and her hotel, he wasn’t worth anything. Shutting off the shower, he steppe
d into the bathroom, his skin pimpled from the cold, but feeling fresher.

  Next step was to let go of the past. For real.

  Clean, dressed, he picked up his phone to call Javier but couldn’t even make himself do that. The actor would laugh him off; he knew Javier’s reputation. Better to go and see him in person. Lucy would have to wait until he’d worked out what he was going to say to her.

  10.

  Lucy was ripped from a deep sleep by her phone’s incessant ringing. For a minute she thought it was the sirens from the fire engine and stiffened, remembering the shivers of shock that had run through her body earlier. But the noise wouldn’t stop. Dredging herself up, Lucy rubbed her smoky eyes and scrambled for her phone.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. What’s the deal? Did you get your tools and the parts list?”

  Recognizing Sly’s voice but struggling to put it into context, Lucy sat up, only to hit her head on the metal frame of the top bunk. “Ouch. Shit. Hang on.” Rolling out of bed, she blinked, slowly, three times, and the room finally took on the solid shape of the bunkhouse.

  “Hey. Again. Sorry, mental day. That you, Sly?”

  “Who else would it be? You doing the dirty on me already?” His voice was full of suspicion, not the awkward, gentle boy-man she had come to know. Something was up.

  “Whoa there. Maybe you’d like to back up the truck a little. Girl hasn’t even had a coffee yet.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. I forgot you were on nights.”

  “Yeah. There’s that. And the fact that I just about got blown up by my bike this morning.”

  “What? You do something wrong to it?”

  “I didn’t do shit, meathead. Some fuckers set fire to my tires and it fell over and set the Dumpster in the back of Wilde’s on fire. Things got a bit out of control, the Dumpster tipped over on my bike. Gas tank got too hot. Boom.”