RIDE (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance)

by Daphne Loveling

  “Yeah?” He challenged. “Well, you know what? Patience is not one my virtues.” He swore underneath his breath. “Maybe it’s time to just face the fact that this is how it’s gonna be. Maybe it’s time to admit I’m not gonna ride a motorcycle again. Maybe this is all I am from now on.”

  “Trig, I know how frustrated you must feel…” I began.

  “No!” he growled. “You don’t! You don’t have any fucking idea.”

  I shrank back. “Okay, fine,” I retorted. “Maybe I don’t know exactly how you feel, but I can imagine —“

  “No you can’t. So don’t try to pretend to.” Trig’s eyes locked on mine. “You’ve always been a success, Eva. You were always going to be something. You’ve accomplished your goals.”

  He shook his head. “My goals have been pretty simple. Don’t take any shit from anybody, be loyal to my club, and spend as much time with a Harley engine between my legs as possible.” He scoffed and looked down at his leg. “Now? Christ, Eva. I’m not even thirty years old yet, and I feel like an old man. How the fuck am I supposed to spend my days? like this?” He spread his hands toward his leg. “Hobbling around like a goddamn invalid?”

  “Trig, stop it!” I didn’t know whether to cry or to hit him.“You stop this right now! For one thing, you are getting better. I’m confident of that. You’ve made more progress than you know. And for another,” I continued, “even if that weren’t the case, how dare you imply that your life would be worth less if you couldn’t ride a motorcycle? I’ve seen so many people recover from horrible, horrible accidents, who go on to do great things, with disabilities far worse than your worst case scenario.” My eyes filled with tears of frustration. “You don’t get to say their lives are worth less because of their disabilities.”

  “I’m not.” His voice was angry, but low. “I’m not saying that at all. But I am saying that mine will be.” He gave me a cold, hard look. “You don’t get to tell me what my own life is worth.”

  He ran a hand roughly through his mass of black hair. His face was pinched, his jaw tense. “You know what?” he said after a moment. “I’m not up for this today. Go ahead and bill me for the time. It’s fine.”

  My chest grew tight as I watched him leave, struggling not to limp as he leaned on the cane. A painful lump rose in my throat as I tried to decide whether to stop him.

  But deep down, I knew it was no use. Even if I could make him stay, he wouldn’t be able to work today. He needed time to work through the painful, raw emotions he had exposed to me just now.

  Intuitively, I was sure he hadn’t said anything of his fears to anybody else before this. He was a proud man. That was part of the reason that the prospect of having to accept anything less than a full recovery was so hard for him to do. He could barely bring himself to imagine that a life different from the one he had chosen for himself could have any meaning. It must have taken a lot for him to admit any of this to me, I knew. In a way, I felt honored.

  But I also knew he had every reason to expect a full recovery, or at least full enough that he would be able to get back on his bike. I hadn’t been lying about that. I just wished there was some way I could make him believe it.

  I was still thinking about Trig as I walked down the block to pick up Zoe later that afternoon. Mrs. Hayes was feeling better, and she greeted me at her door saying that Zoe was playing on the back patio with a neighbor girl. “I’m still not quite one-hundred percent,” she said as she led me into her living room, “so I thought it might be better for Zoe to have Olivia over so she wasn’t bored.”

  I peered out the window to see Zoe and her playmate drawing hopscotch boards and stick figures on the ground in sidewalk chalk. The melody of their childish laughter was just audible through the glass.

  “You look a bit tired yourself, dear. Would you like to sit down and have a glass of water?” Mrs. Hayes offered.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, but Zoe looked like she was enjoying herself so much I decided to let her play a little longer. “Yes, thank you, Wanda. I’d like that.”

  She went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses, one of which she handed to me. We sat down in two swiveling easy chairs that turned toward the window to watch the girls play.

  “How are you feeling, Wanda?” I asked her as I sipped.

  “Oh, much better, thank you. I just need to make sure I get enough sleep for the next few days and I’ll be right as rain.” She cast a sideways glance at me. “How are you?”

  I sighed. “You’re right, I am a bit tired. There’s just a lot going on right now.” I hesitated. “There’s a patient at work I’m a bit concerned about.”

  “A patient,” she repeated.

  “Yes. He’s coming back from an injury, and it’s going more slowly than he’d like.” I closed my eyes briefly, remembering his look of pain. “I think he’s lost hope. And he doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell him there’s every chance he’ll make a full recovery.”

  “I see.” She frowned. “And, is there any reason for him to believe that you’re lying to him?”

  “No!” The word came out louder than I intended. “I mean, no, I’m definitely not lying to him. But for some reason, he doesn’t believe me.”

  “Fear.” She nodded. “He’s letting his fear get the better of him. Fear makes people see and hear things that aren’t there.”

  Her words hung in the silence that followed. What she said absolutely made sense in Trig’s case. He was afraid of the future, and in a way his fear might end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy unless he learned to conquer it.

  But what Mrs. Hayes had said was ringing uncomfortably true for me, as well. Was fear making me see and hear things that weren’t there?

  No. No. I knew what I had heard all those years ago. There was no other way to interpret it.

  Was there?

  “Would you like some more water?” Mrs. Hayes asked, interrupting my thoughts. I looked down to see I had drained my glass.

  “No, that’s okay. Thank you, though.” I smiled over at her.

  “Of course, dear.” She stared out the window at Zoe and Olivia playing hopscotch. “About your friend,” she began. “Perhaps there’s something you can do to make him trust you.”

  “He’s my patient, not my friend,” I clarified.

  “Well. From what I gather, patients don’t often make visits to therapists’ homes.”

  Startled, I glanced over at her.

  “That young man I saw limping away from your house toward his truck last night. That’s who we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

  “How did you…” I gaped.

  She laughed. “Dear, don’t you know the stereotype of the nosy old neighbor lady who spies on everyone through her picture window? It’s absolutely true.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Every senior citizen on this block spends more time than you would believe peering out at the neighbors through their curtains. It’s our version of reality television.”

  Wow. Not that I ever did anything all that scandalous on my front lawn, but I was going to have to completely rethink what I wore to go get the mail in the future.

  “So, he’s your patient,” she said gently. “But also something else, correct?”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Honestly? I don’t know. Zoe met him at the clinic that first day you were sick, and she’s absolutely crazy about him. I made the mistake of inviting him over for dinner, and…” I trailed off. “I think it was a big mistake.”

  “Oh, this is the one who gave Zoe the stuffed dragon?” Mrs. Hayes smiled. “Yes, she did spend quite a bit of time talking about him this morning. He sounds like a very nice young man.”

  “You did see his tattoos, didn’t you? Since you were spying on me?” It felt good to not be so serious for a moment.

  “Oh, Eva. Tattoos mean nothing. My Arthur had two of them. A seagull on one arm, and an anchor on the other. From his time in the Navy.” She winked at me. “On some men, they can be q
uite attractive.”

  Yes, they could indeed. A flush of heat warmed my core.

  “The point being, Eva,” she continued, shaking me from my thoughts. “That young man likes you. And more importantly, he likes Zoe. And you like him.” She pursed her lips. “Whatever is holding you back from one another, life is too short to let your fears get in the way.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I wasn’t sure I believed her. In my experience, paying more attention to my fears would have saved me some serious heartache. Fear was nature’s way of protecting us, after all.

  But in Trig’s case, she was right. His fears were mostly groundless, as long as he kept working. And I couldn’t bear to have him let them get in the way of his recovery. I had to find a way to break through to him.

  I flashed Mrs. Hayes a brief smile. “Thank you, Wanda. For the water, and for the advice.”

  She peered at me for a moment. Her brow furrowed. “Of course, dear. Any time.”

  The next day, Trig didn’t bother to show up for his therapy session. It was just what I’d been afraid of. More than likely, I knew, he’d decided to abandon his treatment entirely. I’d seen it happen before. And I also knew that unless I did something to change his mind, he would be walking with that cane for the rest of his life.

  As I wrapped up my paperwork for the day and prepared to head home, an idea came to me. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had at the moment.

  I quickly hopped on the computer and looked up the information I needed, jotting it down on a stickie note that I tucked into my purse.

  One phone call to Mrs. Hayes later, and I headed out the door of the clinic and took the elevator down to the parking ramp toward my car.

  I hoped I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself.

  15

  Trig

  It wasn’t like I’d left the PT clinic the day before deciding I wasn’t going back. But the next day, I just didn’t have it in me to return.

  I like to think I’m tough enough to take whatever life throws at me, but the fucker was lobbing some goddamn grenades lately, and I was sick to hell of it.

  After that night on Eva’s couch, feeling her melt into my arms like it had been ten years in coming, some sort of dam broke inside me.

  I’d never been in love before — hell, I’d never even liked a woman enough to spend the night with her. But damned if Eva hadn’t somehow managed to crawl inside my heart without even trying.

  I wanted her so bad I could taste it, but it was more than that. I wanted to be around her all the damn time. I wanted to smell the lilac scent of the shampoo she used. I wanted to hear her soft laugh and watch her eyes crinkle when she thought something was funny. I wanted to know what she looked like when she slept.

  I wanted all of that, and more. But I was never gonna get it.

  Going to my next appointment after she’d basically made it clear it was over before it started was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I’d told myself I’d manage to keep my cool, but then the very first goddamn thing I saw was that arrogant prick of a doc making a play for her and not taking no for an answer. I’m more used to solving arguments with my fists than with my words, and I was itching to punch that fucker right in his smug face, but somehow I didn’t.

  I knew Eva didn’t want the guy around. It was obvious by the way she looked at him. But I had no idea whether he was an ex-boyfriend, or someone who wanted to be her boyfriend, or what. And the thought that they might have slept together — that he might have seen her naked — almost sent me through the roof.

  After that, any possibility that I was gonna keep my calm through the therapy session was pretty much blown to hell.

  I just couldn’t be around her like that anymore. I couldn’t have her touching me, now that I knew what her soft skin felt like. I couldn’t listen to her voice telling me to do another set with the Theraband, when I knew how she sounded when I made her moan. And most of all, I couldn’t fucking stand to do all those exercises in front of her every day, when deep down we both knew they probably weren’t going to work.

  A man can only take so much.

  I didn’t bother calling the clinic to cancel my appointment. They’d figure it out soon enough.

  Lying on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, I cast about in my mind for something to do to occupy myself, until it was finally time to go to bed and dream about Eva like I did every night now.

  I thought about stopping over at the clubhouse, but I knew that would just make me feel worse. Levi, Grey, and the other Stone Kings had been giving me shit about making myself so scarce, but I brushed it off. Other than making sure I made it to chapel, I couldn’t stand to be around the brothers most of the time. Every minute I was there just reminded me that I still couldn’t ride. And every time I saw Grey with his old lady Seton, or Levi with Cherish, it just reminded me of Eva. I had never been a man to run away from my troubles, but these days it seemed like there was barely anywhere I could get away from them.

  I glanced over at the clock above the table in the dining room: five thirty-two. Good enough. It was happy hour somewhere. And I was gonna get good and drunk.

  It was still a little rough swinging myself into a sitting position, but I managed it, and hobbled into the kitchen without the fucking cane. I had just taken down a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass from the cupboard when I heard a knock on the front door. I ignored it and poured myself a shot. Raising the glass, I tossed back the brown liquid, enjoying the familiar burn in the back of my throat.

  I grabbed the neck of the bottle and started out to the living room when I heard the knock again. Goddamn it. I slammed the bottle and the glass down on the countertop and strode to the door as quickly as I could.

  Not bothering to look through the peephole, I swung the door open furiously and prepared to rip whoever was behind it a new asshole. On the other side, Eva jumped.

  “Oh!” she cried. “You scared me.” She squinted through the screen door at me.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded. She was dressed in a simple black tank top and pair of tight jeans that showed off her curves and made it hard for me to take my eyes off her.

  My mouth tightened into a grim line, determined to scare her off. “I didn’t think physical therapists made house calls. And anyway, I’m not interested.”

  “I’m not here as your therapist,” she protested.

  “Oh yeah?” I scoffed. “Then why are you here?”

  She tucked her arms in at her sides. “As… a friend, I guess.”

  A friend. Right. I didn’t want Eva as a fucking friend.

  “What do you want?” I growled.

  “I…” she glanced down. “I was hoping I could come in and talk to you. And…” she said, pointing to a paper bag on the cement next to her. “I brought dinner.”

  Shit. I had been on the verge of telling her to go the hell away. Now what was I supposed to do, knowing she’d gone to the effort of bringing food?

  I contemplated just shutting the door in her face anyway, but I couldn’t make myself do it.

  “I’m not hungry,” I barked.

  “Well, I am. And you will be, too, once you take the first bite,” she smiled. “I promise.”

  I shook my head sighed. “Fine. Come on in.”

  I pushed the screen door open for her and moved back so she could get through. She picked up the bag and walked in, hesitating only a moment before she spied the kitchen and went toward it.

  “I brought ingredients for my specialty dish. I make a cheeseburger you won’t believe.” She immediately began busying herself taking things out of the shopping bag before I could anything to stop her.

  When the bag was empty, she glanced around and spied the whiskey on the other counter.

  “Have you been drinking?” she asked in a tight voice.

  “Just got started.” I reached for the bottle and glass and poured myself another shot. “Not that you’re interrupting, or anything.”

  She cast me a n
ervous look and swallowed. “Were you going to get drunk?”

  I snorted. “What the hell else do you think a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass are for?”

  “Trig…” she said, biting her lip. “Will you please stop?”

  Her voice was so soft that it cut short the crude remark I was about to make.

  “I was hoping to talk to you,” she continued. “And I won’t be able to if you’re drunk.”

  “What if I don’t want to be talked to?” I said gruffly.

  “Please,” she said again.

  There was just enough of the breathy whisper she had used with me on the couch the other night to stop me in my tracks and make my stomach twist.

  “Okay,” I nodded, shrugging. “But I’m grabbing a beer.”

  She flashed me a dazzling smile. “Get me one, too.”

  I went to the fridge and popped the tops off a couple of bottles. I handed one to her and clinked mine against it, then took a swig.

  “Where’s Zoe tonight?” I asked her. Hell, if I was gonna have to talk to her, I might as well start off with something I didn’t mind talking about.

  “She’s with her sitter, Mrs. Hayes. The neighbor lady who normally takes care of her during the day.”

  Eva rummaged around to find a sharp knife and a cutting board, and asked me to get out a skillet and a pot for her. I watched as she took out a couple of onions and began to slice them, then some other ingredients and some ground beef. I nursed my beer and didn’t say much.

  “Is there someplace to eat outside?” she asked. “It’s such a nice evening.”

  “Yeah. There’s a back patio. We can eat out there.”

  “Great!” she said brightly. “Here, I’ll set some stuff over here for you to take out.”

  For the next half-hour or so, neither of us said much, taking refuge in the practicalities of getting dinner on the table. I couldn’t help but think back to the evening I’d spent at her house with Zoe, and how unexpectedly nice it was to be part of a little domestic scene like that. This was definitely different, though. There was an electrical current of tension in the air, as much as either one of us tried to ignore it.