“A ride?” She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Yeah. We haven’t gone out on the bike since the beginning of the summer.” That was on him most of all. He was so tired after working fifty-five hours at Essert’s that most Sundays all he wanted to do was sit on the sofa, drink beer, and stare at the television.
That job was every bit the hell he’d thought, and Essert every bit the demonic boss he’d expected. Still better than temp factory work.
With him working a real job, and now that Mo was starting her teaching job, they’d be able to get ahead, though. Start saving up again for a house of their own. With a VA loan and both of them working, with what was left of his nest egg from the family farm, they could make it happen sooner than later. Once they were sure they were on solid ground financially.
Part of him hated that he couldn’t support them on his own well enough to do things like buy a house, or new furniture. In fact, all of him hated that. And Mo’s teaching salary was noticeably higher than his hourly wages at Essert’s. He hated that, too. He hated it a lot. A man should be able to take care of his family.
Mo wasn’t ready yet to get pregnant again, and Brian suspected her hesitation was as much about money as it was about her new job, or her fears about miscarriage. She didn’t trust his ability to take care of a family.
Oh yeah, he hated that.
She’d never said anything of the kind, of course—because they didn’t talk about money at all. And he tried hard not to think about it.
He pushed the thought out of his mind now and wrapped his arms around her. “C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s get on the road.”
“Where?” She tipped her head against his, leaning into his embrace, and he knew she was already on board with this plan.
“Who cares? Let’s just ride. We’ll find somewhere to stop off for supper, and I’ll have you home in time to get a good night’s sleep before your big day. If I don’t get you out of this house, you’re gonna spend the whole day fussing with your bag. So let’s get outta here.”
She turned in his arms, smiling happily. “I love you,” she purred and hooked her arms around his neck.
He’d give just about anything to keep her happy like this. “I love you, Irish. So damn much.”
~oOo~
They rode east, keeping on side roads where Brian could get up some speed and not worry about cops or traffic, and kept going almost to the state line. He could have kept going; nothing was better than the wind in his face and Mo at his back, her chin resting on his shoulder, her arms around his chest. But they’d been riding almost four hours, had the same ride back, and Mo was starting to squirm a little on the seat. She didn’t have the bladder he did for long rides.
Back in his carefree single days, before he’d joined the Army, when he’d first gotten this bike, he’d ridden all over Oklahoma and some ways beyond it. Those long days spent riding the state had helped him work up the courage to spend a year riding the whole country. He thought he knew every diner and dive bar these back roads had to offer. But that had been, damn, almost a decade ago now.
He was pleased to see the bar he remembered, a bar here in the middle of nowhere, where the only people who might pass by were on the road for the fun of it, was still there. A painted sign above the peeling front door identified it as The Pit Stop.
Brian pulled onto the balding, weedy gravel lot and parked the chopper at the end of a line of bikes. When he cut the engine, he heard the juke, playing, appropriately, ‘King of the Road.’
He helped Mo off and kicked the stand down. She pulled the elastic from her hair and did that thing she did, shaking her head so all that near-black mane swung around and settled over her shoulders and down her back. Goddamn, he loved that. His cock gave an appreciative nudge, and he shifted himself in his jeans. Riding with her had his motor rumbling anyway. Wouldn’t take much to get him fully charged.
She noticed and lifted an eyebrow at him.
He grabbed her and yanked her close. “Watch yourself, woman, or I’ll bend your foxy ass over the saddle and have my way with you right here, in front of God and everybody.”
She looked up at the building. “You think God is here? At The Pit Stop?”
Just then, a couple of very drunk men stumbled out the front door. They reeled toward the lot, where a few old trucks and cars were parked.
“Maybe not. But that just means more fun. And the food was good when I was here last—and the bathrooms were clean.”
“Then lead the way.”
He hooked his arm over her shoulders, she tucked her hand in a back pocket of his jeans, and they strolled into The Pit Stop.
It looked like he remembered, and like hundreds of bars just like it—dim, dusty, lit mainly with neon. The tables were wood-grain Formica, and the chairs were green vinyl. A massive old Wurlitzer juke took up one corner, and was filled with country tunes. Now Merle Haggard was singing. The place smelled strongly of stale beer and old grease. Just like dive bars all across the country.
“Bar or a table?” he asked.
She slipped her denim jacket off and handed it to him. “Surprise me. I really have to find the john.”
“In back, that hallway in the middle.”
With a nod, she left him. The bikers were all sitting at the bar. They were obviously a gang, all wearing vests and jackets, leather or denim, with the same patch on the back. The Poison Cobras—which was a pretty stupid fucking name for a biker gang, seeing as all cobras were poison, but okay.
He was more interested in how they all turned and, without one ounce of respect for him, watched his woman walk back to the bathroom.
Brian’s fists clenched. He wasn’t quite stupid enough to think he could fight eight men on his own, but he was plenty proud enough not to be able to let that just go without response. If it ended in him getting his ass soundly kicked, so be it. Nobody disrespected him or his woman. Period.
He went to the bar and took up the empty seat immediately to the left of the last ‘Cobra.’ To the bartender, raising his voice enough to be heard down the bar, he said, “I’ll take a draft of Schlitz, and a rum and coke for my wife.”
He hit that last word hard, then turned to the row of ‘Poison Cobras.’ They were all looking his way, so, without breaking eye contact with the biggest of them, he nodded. One move of his head, not too fast, not too slow. Big Cobra repeated the gesture, and the rest followed.
Brian let a held breath quietly free. Okay. Territory defined. Boundary acknowledged. No bar brawl tonight. Mo would be proud of his restraint.
When she came from the bathroom, he watched the bikers. They noticed her again, but how could they not? She was dressed in jeans that hugged her amazing hips and delightful ass, and she had a skimpy kind of top she called a ‘halter’ on, showing her glorious arms and perfect back. She was a goddamn vision. Noticing her was fine. Noticing her was a compliment. But this time, they didn’t ogle. Good.
She came up and sat beside him. “How long since you’ve been here?”
“Nine, ten years. Why?”
“The toilets are not clean. That was practically a safari.”
He chuckled. “Sorry, sweetheart.”
She shrugged and picked up her rum and coke, taking a sip from the swizzle straw. “Ach! That’s a lot of rum. Are you tryin’ to get me in a compromising situation, lad?”
“A boy can dream. You hungry? I remember their burgers being good.”
“They are good,” the biker beside him agreed. “Rudy’s been makin’ ‘em twenty years and ain’t never made a bad one yet. Get the soft cheddar. It comes in a scoop on the meat, and it’s the best thing this side of a good lay—sorry, ma’am.”
Mo laughed. “You’ll have to try harder to offend me, love. And as long as Rudy doesn’t cook them up in that horror of a lavatory, a burger would be grand.”
~oOo~
By the time they’d finished their burgers and chips, they knew the names of all the Poison Cobras and had begun an
incidental friendship. One of them, John Patterson, had done a tour with the Marines in ‘Nam. Neither he nor Brian shared more aloud than their dates in-country and their units, but they’d both understood how much wasn’t being said.
The Poison Cobras were based in a small town in Northern Oklahoma and were just out for a weekend ride. They got to talking about bikes, and finally Mo sighed dramatically and slipped off her barstool. She put her hand out. “If you lot are going to blather on all evening about motorcycles, I need jukebox change.”
Brian laughed and dug into his pocket. “Your dowry, milady.”
She took the coins and sauntered off to the juke. Brian couldn’t help but watch her go.
“That’s a fine woman,” Patterson said. “You’re a lucky man.”
“You have no idea.” Suddenly, he didn’t want to talk bikes. He was out with his woman tonight. They’d left the weights and worries of real life back in Shayton, and there she was, at the jukebox, leaning on one leg, her hip popped alluringly as she studied the musical offerings. “Excuse me, fellas.”
To a chorus of understanding chuckles, Brian walked across the bar to his wife.
When he stood behind her, she reached back for his hand and hooked his arm around her waist. “Good. Help me pick. No more wailing country boys, though.”
He scanned the choices. “It’s all wailing country boys—wait. That one.”
She nodded. “And this one.”
“Good. One more?”
“Yep. Three on a quarter. This one.”
“You feelin’ romantic?” he asked as she pushed the buttons.
“With you? Every second.”
As the first bars of Elvis’ ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love,’ began to play, Mo turned to face him. She smiled and slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders.
“Dance with me.”
Brian’s skill on the dance floor was nonexistent, but he could hold his woman and sway to a beat.
He did just that, and she settled close, resting her head on his shoulder.
As Elvis ended and Ray Charles began, Mo sighed and tightened her hold on him, but he hadn’t been going anywhere. This was perfect.
“This is a perfect day,” she said. It wasn’t the first time she’d spoken his own thought out loud.
“Yeah, it is,” Brian agreed. He turned his head and kissed her temple. “I love you.”
“I’m ready, Brian.”
“Ready?”
“For a baby. I’m ready to try again.”
He stopped and lifted her head. “Yeah? But you’re just starting your job.”
“If we get pregnant now, or in the next month, I’ll have the baby at the beginning of next summer. I’ll be able to be home with him or her all summer. Then when school starts back up, Aunt Bridie will babysit. Maggie might have a baby by then, too. She and Roger started trying on the honeymoon.”
“You’ve been thinking about this.”
She nodded. “Aye. Have you?”
He had, but he’d been sure she wasn’t ready. He’d always loved kids, and that brief time he’d thought he’d be a dad had unleashed the need in him for his own, but since he’d been home, with his struggles finding work, and Mo finishing school and starting this job she’d worked so hard for, he’d thought she’d set the idea aside.
“You want to keep working after the baby?” If she thought she wouldn’t have a choice, because he couldn’t support them …
“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I?”
“I can support my family. I’ll find a better job.”
“I hope you do find a better job, because I know you hate that place. But even so, I won’t stop working. I want to be a teacher. You know this, Brian.”
Well, her wanting to work was better than thinking she had to work, but he still didn’t like it. “Don’t you want to raise your own kid?”
He’d said something wrong; he knew it at once, as the soft romance in her eyes became blue fire. “I do, and I will. Aunt Bridie will help me. And you will raise our child, too. But I won’t be like my ma, living in my man’s shadow, with no life that you don’t provide. I worked hard for my career. I want to be a mother, too. I want both.”
They had an audience of bikers at Brian’s back, and a love song playing all around them. Brian didn’t want to lose this perfect day, and he didn’t want to fight with an audience. Besides, if any woman could be a great mom and have a great career, too, it was Mo.
“Okay, Irish.” He smoothed her hair back. “Okay. You can have both. You can do anything.”
Her eyes narrowed to icy slits. “Don’t condescend to me, Brian Delaney.”
He nearly laughed. It took a daily act of will not to feel inferior to this woman, who had accomplished so much, overcome so much. When she set her mind to something, she achieved it. The traumas she’d lived through, even losing her own child, didn’t haunt her sleep or stymie her success. She persevered. She overcame. She accomplished.
And he’d had to beg for a piece of shit job in a piece of shit service station in a piece of shit town. The only place he’d ever really succeeded had been the Army. He was good at making war.
So no, he wasn’t condescending.
“I’m not, Mo. I’m in awe of you. You can do anything. If you’re ready, I’m ready.”
She believed him, and relief broke across her face, like a sunbeam through a cloudburst. She snuggled in close again, and Brian held on tight while Ray Charles sang ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You.’
He held on for dear life.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Mo stood up from the little chair, where she’d been sitting with a group of students, and looked around the room.
She smiled. Only two weeks into the school year, and already her students had learned to wait until she released them. They all sat with their eyes on her, and she could feel their collective will begging her to free them from their educational torment.
“Very good, class! I’m quite impressed. Right, put all your supplies away carefully, and pack up your things. When everyone is sitting quietly again, we’ll be ready to line up.”
They leapt up and got to speedy work. Mo felt a tug at her skirt. She was teaching third grade, and most students had matured past the skirt-tugging stage, but some were still young for their age. Mo knew immediately who was attached to her now.
She turned and smiled at the little blonde girl with tangled pigtails. “Yes, Lindsay?”
Lindsay held up the art project she’d just finished—a family portrait, for tomorrow’s open house. “Can I bring this home, Mrs. D?”
“Are you asking if you’re able, or if you’re allowed?”
Lindsay frowned, not understanding. They’d been learning the difference between ‘can’ and ‘may’ this week, but clearly Lindsay hadn’t quite grasped the lesson.
“You’re supposeda say ‘may,’ dummy,” Justin sniped from his desk nearby.
“Justin, we don’t use unkind words. Because you forgot, you will sit now and work on making sure you remember, and wait to walk out with me at the end of the line.”
“Aww, Mrs. D! But Jerry—”
“Your brother will have to wait. Sit. Now.”
He sat. Keeping an eye on the other students, almost all of whom were tidied up, packed up, and anxious for freedom, Mo told Lindsay, “Remember, when we’re asking for permission, we ask if we may.”
“May I take this home?”
“I’m concerned that if you put it in your bag this afternoon, it might get rumpled before we can hang it up for your mother and father tomorrow night.”
“They’re not comin’. They never come. They don’t care about school. But I like this. I think I did good. I want to take it home. Can—May I?”
Mo thought. She was hoping to see all her parents at the open house, and she wanted all her students represented in the artwork and schoolwork displayed. What if Lindsay was wrong, and her parents did show u
p, only to find their daughter’s work missing? Or what if they truly didn’t care, and she’d deprived Lindsay of this moment of pride in her work?
“I think you made a beautiful portrait of your family, and I would very much like to display it for everyone to see. Would you mind leaving it in my care until after the open house?”
Lindsay considered her work—which was, in fact, quite good, a torn-paper collage that showed the seeds of real skill—and finally nodded. “That’d be okay. But then I can—may—take it home?”
“Of course! Thank you, Lindsay.” Mo took the paper from her, and Lindsay went to catch up with her tidying and packing.
Finally, all her students were seated, practically humming with the shared need to be done with school for the day. From sheer puckishness, Mo went to the door and paused a few seconds more before she grinned and said, “First row, you may line up.”
~oOo~
After the children were on their various ways home, Mo went back to her classroom, did a more thorough tidy, and then sat at her desk to catch up with her grading and prep for tomorrow. She tried to do all her work at school. Brian worked ten-hour days Monday through Friday at a job he hated, with a boss he despised, and he resented any time she took away from him at home. He didn’t say so outright, but he got moody and snappish if she tried to grade papers or make mimeo masters at home. Even if he was sitting on the sofa, drinking too much beer and watching sports she didn’t care about, she could feel his mood darken if she opened her school bag. But if he had her attention, he was calm and sweet and her good man.
So she stayed at school until her work was done, and she did all she could to be home before he was and preparing their dinner.
She didn’t mind—her classroom made her happy. Just to look around, to see all she’d made, informed by all she’d learned. The bright colors, the students’ names on their desks, the work they were accumulating, the activity centers and reading nook she’d created. The mobiles they’d all made the first week, to hang from the ceiling.
Wait: The Brazen Bulls Beginning Page 22