Rolling Thunder

Chapter 3

Curiosity and adrenaline overrode her exhaustion, yet she wasn’t altogether clearheaded. It was a heady rush of freedom to be approached by a guy like this without Trent looking over her shoulder. The thrill was just enough to inspire the impulsive decision to go out with him.

Fresh from a speedy shower, she poured herself into skintight Levi’s, a black Harley tank top studded with bling around the neckline, and her own biker jacket for good measure. She called it “the bitch jacket.” It was adorned with clinking chains that wove in and out of grommets on the outside of the sleeves. It was thin, nylon, and cinched up tight around her waist. She took five minutes for mascara and eyeliner and gulped a shot of vodka from her freezer to take the edge off. She went out the door, braiding her hair as she walked, not noticing that he was already in the driveway outside the gate half reclined on his bike. It was a pretty bitchin’ bike: a custom-painted 116 cubic inch V-Twin Indian Chief Dark Horse with pull-back beach bars, blacked-out anodized engine, milled metal jugs and ground-pounder straight pipes to top it all off. It was mean as fuck and loud. Well, she wouldn’t lose her mind over the badass motorcycle. It wasn’t her first rodeo, and she intended to let him know it.

“Alriiiight,” he said slowly, taking her in. “The girl likes chains.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.

“Honey, I’m full of ideas.”

Surely this was a terrible one, like many others she’d had. But the adrenaline rush of a big bike and a sexy man was too enticing to pass up. A ride on a loud Indian and a beer or ten might be just the thing she needed to unwind after her long day; otherwise, she would just spend it locked up tight in her little house, prowling the dark in terror, hoping Trent would leave her alone, and knowing she would have to go crawling back to him eventually.

She easily swung onto the bike behind him. It didn’t have a sissy bar for her to lean against, which meant she had to hold on to him. She instinctively slid her hands around his waist, noting the hard ridges of his abs, and hooked her fingertips nonchalantly through his belt loops. Without a word, he throttled the bike and pulled smoothly out onto the road.

He handled the big machine with ease. She never got the queasy feeling in her stomach she got with inexperienced riders who took turns too sharply or accelerated fast enough to make her knock heads. The ten-minute ride down to the little honkytonk was too brief, and when he slid the bike into a parking spot and gently leaned it over on the kickstand, she said so.

“We should have gone somewhere farther away. I like your bike.”

“I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go,” he said quietly, without looking at her. Right then, there were lots of places she wanted to go with him. A moment slipped away from her where she still sat behind him, unable to let go of him, magnetized to him. But she’d better get a handle on herself.

“Well, we’re here, so let’s see if there’s a band tonight.”

There wasn’t, so they claimed a booth off the beaten path near the bar and ordered drinks. She was torn. She wanted to knock back some bourbon to settle her nerves, because he was really making her nervous, but she didn’t want to get too intoxicated around a man she hardly knew.

“I’m surprised you don’t ride a Harley,” She commented.

“Nah. Everybody else rides a Harley. It’s not what it used to be. I mean, I was building a vintage bike with my brother, but I decided this suits me better.” That was an incredibly welcome surprise. A biker who didn’t really want to be like all the other bikers.

“How long have you lived out here?” he asked.

“I grew up on that farm. My grandmother left it to me when she died. I’ve been out here trying to make a living the past couple of years.” She had conveniently omitted approximately nine years she hadn’t been on the farm. Or how she made ends meet when she couldn’t pay the mortgage. That left her with the familiar sting of shame whispering in her ear that she shouldn’t even be on this date. If he knew anything about her, he wouldn’t want anything to do with her.

“She teach you to ride?”

“Horses? Yeah. Spent as much time on a horse as I could.” Anything to get away from her mother, Leanne. And despite being tossed, kicked, and stepped on from time to time, no horse had ever mistreated her as badly as her mother and the endless parade of boyfriends had.

“But you’re new,” she said, flipping it back on him to keep from having to share too much about her family.

“Yeah, I just moved out here to help my buddy flip some houses. It’s going pretty good.”

“So that’s what you do?” she asked.

“Yeah. My dad’s an electrician. I had apprenticed with him…when I was younger. My buddy Dan can’t wire a house to save his life, but he’s pretty good with the woodwork. We balance each other out.”

She wasn’t an idiot. He was riding a motorcycle worth at least thirty-thousand-dollars. And it seemed like he might have skipped over some chunk of his past as well.

“It must be going good. That’s some bike,” she said with mild sarcasm.

Something flashed through his eyes, something hidden, something that made her feel truly uneasy for the first time. With her luck, he was riding with an outlaw club and financing his bike with dirty money. She eyed him a little, trying to discern if any of his tattoos were tributes to a one-percenter motorcycle club.

“What?” he asked with a smirk.

“Are you a patch holder?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t ride with a club.”

She stared at him. His gaze didn’t waver. She didn’t see a lie. So then what was that dangerous glimmer in his eyes? There was something more to him that he wasn’t saying.

“You’ve been around some one-percenters, then?” he asked.

Sure, all the worst types came to Trent’s place. “Just enough to know I don’t want to be.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. That shit is dangerous.”

She downed about half her beer.

“Maybe you already know a little something about that.”

She took another gulp.

“Let’s go visit the jukebox,” she interjected, desperate to get this date, or whatever it was, back on the rails. “But I already know there’s no Allman Brothers in there, just this new country crap.”

“Girl after my own heart. You know your way around a motorcycle and like my favorite band.” Her face flushed in response to his twinkling eyes. When he smiled, his eyes smiled. It made the beard and the Viking mohawk of wavy hair falling across his forehead look less menacing. He looked dashing, and she felt momentarily, dangerously flustered.

Feeling the need for a distraction, she scooted out of their booth and made her way to the jukebox. He followed her casually, and when she glanced at him, she saw he was scanning the room in the offhand way of someone always on alert for danger. Between browsing songs, she saw him suddenly laser-focus on someone, and his stance subtly changed from leaning toward the jukebox. He shifted his center of gravity, ready for action.

She followed his stare and saw two young cowboys who had had too much to drink. They were getting rowdy and looking for trouble, either with each other or whatever unlucky soul crossed their path. She had a built-in radar for such things too, and hers hadn’t even gone off yet when he’d zeroed in on it. He shifted again, still so smoothly that you’d have to be really looking at him to notice. This time, he stepped slightly in front of her, placing himself between her and the trouble brewing by the bar.

“Let’s go,” he said quietly. He was as calm as a glass ocean on a windless day. He managed to be on high alert yet appear perfectly disinterested, but she could sense the tension in him, and she knew he was ready for anything. She nodded and ducked behind him toward the door. If he was offering himself as a human shield, she’d take it. She didn’t look back, but she could feel him behind her. He pushed the door open for her and gestured for her to go ahead. Still, he managed to glance back once more without drawing any attention to himself to get one last read on the brewing barfight. Just as the door closed behind her, she heard the first bottle break.

Back out in the parking lot, he acted totally nonchalant. She wanted to ask him where he learned to read a room like that. Was he ex-military? He didn’t seem like a military guy, but he was definitely a guy who could handle himself.

She swung on behind him, relieved that he said nothing. To make up for having cut their drinks short, he took her for a glorious spin through the winding moss-draped live oak-lined back roads of Labelle. She’d always loved motorcycles, second only to horses. Canyon Bill had taken her for motorcycle rides as a child. She remembered his long blond ponytail whipping about and the wind stealing her breath. She remembered packs of dangerous-looking men roaring into the farm to see Bill. Even they throttled the bikes down out of respect for her grandmother’s horses.

Sometimes, he’d taken her along on his bike and she’d gotten a taste of the thrill of being part of the rolling thunder going down the highway.

She’d been on the back of a couple of other bikes in her life, but none had quite the effect that she got with Evan. The roar of the motor, the wind, settled something inside her. For once, the voices in her head and the ghosts that chased her couldn’t catch up. There was nothing but him, and she was calm. She was free.

He flexed a muscled forearm on the throttle and released a growl from the machine, easing it out onto State Road 31, and she watched the miles of pasture go by, dotted with cattle, ponds, white wading birds, palm trees, and live oaks. The faint scent of orange blossoms mixed with smoke from a prescribed burn like incense in the air.

After a time, the pastures gave way to houses, and then neighborhoods. They passed through Port Charlotte crossing Route 41 just as the sun was reaching its nadir. He slowed, approaching the bridge in El Jobean, where he stopped the bike just in time to watch the sun sizzle into the Gulf of Mexico. Florida sunsets never disappointed. People on the coast gathered at beaches just to watch them and clap when it was over. The sky was rich with strokes of peach, orange, and red over the calm purple water. There was a strip of washboard clouds in pastels. Gulls cried on the breeze. She swung off, and he half reclined on the bike, taking it in.

“This is just what I didn’t know I needed,” she said softly.

In response, he squeezed her hand. The silence was comfortable. In fact, it was perfect.

After a moment, she glanced at him and realized he wasn’t watching the sunset as much as he was watching her. He smiled a little and traced a stray wisp of hair out of her face.

“The light on your face is beautiful,” he said. And once again he stole her breath. He looked at her like she was the only beautiful thing for miles, despite the fact that they stood in front of a spectacular ocean sunset.

His touch was both thrilling and terrifying. She couldn’t look directly into those eyes. There was something in his gaze that laid her bare, like he saw her soul. Had anybody, ever? Had anybody really seen her? Was she imagining it?

She swiped windblown hair out of her face and glanced back to him.

“Come here,” he said.

She let him draw her in as he scooted to the back of his seat and patted for her to sit in front him. “Watch out, pipes are hot.”

She smiled a little. “I know.” She perched sideways in front of him, unable to meet his gaze at such close proximity. If she did, what would he see? What would she feel?

Being here with him was as different as her farm was from Trent’s dirty existence in Fort Myers. Her whole body felt raw with vulnerability, and every time he touched her, it was magnified. He reached up to her face, smoothing her hair back and nudging her chin to turn her to him. She glanced up and was taken in by those eyes under his ball cap.

Her insides tangled up and tripped over each other—her heart hit her lungs and missed a beat and stole her breath as he leaned in and kissed her. His arm around her back stopped an easy retreat. There was a promise of what he could do in that kiss, as much by the smooth way he had slipped his arm around her and turned her face to him as his lips on hers. He felt very, very capable. So much so that somehow a gentle kiss where he barely parted her lips felt like a hot, rich glimpse of what else could happen between them. She drew back slightly, as much as she could in his arms. He gave her the space to breathe again. That was the moment her body allowed her to feel the delayed panic of being overtaken by him.

“I hate to cut this short, but I’ve got to go do the night check on the new horse I have in for training,” she said, staring at her feet. She hadn’t counted on his touch being so addictive. This was just supposed to be some booze to unwind, and now she didn’t want it to end. This was just another thing she couldn’t have. Because of what he would think when he knew more about her, and because Trent would ruin it like he did everything.

“The man-eater?”

“Yeah.” She chuckled. “The man-eater. Except I think her real problem is that she’s been manhandled too much, so she’s just got a hair trigger.” His eyes met hers, and something unspoken passed between them. It had nothing to do with the horse. She regretted saying it because it applied to her too. The way he looked at her, she was pretty sure he knew it. There was an understanding in his gaze, and it was demolishing the meager resistance she had left.

“How do you fix that?” He asked.

“She just needs time to figure out that every time someone gets on her, she doesn’t have to run for her life.” Kayla said. Immediately, she realized again that he really wasn’t asking about the horse. And she’d walked right into it again. She cleared her throat and untangled herself from him to zip her jacket. This was going about as well as Rocket’s first training session.

The twilight ride home passed quickly. He pulled up to her gate and cut the engine as she dismounted. She wasn’t sure if she was thrilled or terrified that he didn’t mean to immediately ride off. When he also swung off the bike, she turned hastily to face him. What the hell was it about this guy that made her feel so much?

“I’m walking you up to the door,” he said decisively.

After a short mental gamble, she unlocked her gate. She shouldn’t trust him. He was barely more than an acquaintance.

The moon was a mere sliver, but the stars were like a blanket of diamonds beyond the palms waving gently in the night breeze. He didn’t touch her, didn’t say anything, until they arrived at her porch.

“Don’t you have a porch light?”

“It’s broken,” she said softly, feeling suddenly tired and a little defeated. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Bet I do,” he said, his voice a little quieter. A heavy pause fell between them in the dark. “I can’t figure out if you want me to kiss you or for me to get lost.”

The tension was too much, and a nervous giggle burst out of her. It didn’t last. Then the silence was upon them again, and he turned to go.

“Wait,” she said suddenly, and he turned back in one fluid movement. His dark form overtook her and backed her up against the railing to her porch. His hands moved over her face to hold her still. She gasped a little bit at the shock of his touch. Her heart reminded her of the hoofbeats of a wildly galloping horse; it was equally out of control. His mouth closed over hers; he might as well have shot adrenaline straight into her veins. Everything he did was perfect. Her skin seemed to wake up in the same instant and beg for more. He fit perfectly over her, his hands callused and sure, but not rough where he touched her.

His kiss was a dominant thrill. He had complete power over himself and her, and a mere brush of his fingertips on her could trigger her to swoon into him so that he could enter her mouth with his tongue. It was primal. Her body responded without hesitation even while her mind battled. She was swept away by him, and she wrestled with herself for control. The conflict shuddered through her, making her tremble. It took her a long, long moment to realize he’d stopped kissing her and was softly caressing her face in the balmy night. She waited for him to ask her what her problem was, but instead, he slipped a hand under her hair at the back of her neck and drew her against him, wrapping her in strong arms against his impenetrable chest.

This was worse… If he would just kiss her or grope her, she could topple into the void of numbness where she usually went to protect herself. This tender comfort was something foreign, and it triggered a surge of emotion from somewhere deep in her chest.

She choked back a whimper, then cleared her throat, hoping to disguise it, grateful that it was too dark for him to see her face clearly. She had to get out of this. This was everything she didn’t do. If he’d just taken her inside and fucked her, she could have rolled with it. She was used to that. But tenderness and respect was way out of bounds. It threw her off balance in an unrecoverable way. On a horse, it meant a hard fall was imminent.

Enveloped in his scent of leather, smoke, and the Florida night, he was a strange combination of utterly foreign and totally familiar. Had a man ever held her like this? She didn’t think so.

She steeled herself to disengage from him, the comfort of his embrace a fleeting thing, a small wild animal chased back into the forest by the gnashing teeth of her fear, that would not let her have it. On its heels was a much more practical state of mind. Did he expect sex?

She managed to push back from him. He let her go.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said, testing the waters.

“Why don’t you go inside, so I know you’re safe.”

Inside wasn’t always safe either. A shock of panic shot through her. She hoped he couldn’t see it in the dark.

“Okay, good night,” she said. She felt for the doorknob, found her house key by feel, and let herself in.

“Good night,” he said as the darkness enveloped him, and then he was gone. Had he even been real? She flipped the switch, and the living room lit up. She stood with her back pressed against the door for a few minutes, her heart slamming into her chest like a fist trying to punch its way out. She could still taste his kiss, so yeah, it was real.

As a child, she’d gone riding with her Gram Kay in the Babcock Webb Wilderness area, a 3000-acre wildlife preserve which was only a few miles away as the crow flew. Kay, after whom she was named back when her mother was sober and they still had a relationship, had assigned her a young horse to ride. At twelve, Kayla was athletic and could stick to most any horse like a burr regardless of what they did. Kay took advantage of Kayla’s skills to tame impetuous horses.

They startled a huge alligator sunning by one of the thousands of ponds. With surprising speed for its size, it had launched off the bank and back into the black water with a slick splash. Her horse spooked and bolted. True to form, she didn’t fall off, but she didn’t quite have the strength to wrangle the runaway horse back under control either. For a moment, it was the thrill of her life.

The strides of a horse became almost imperceptible when going that fast. It became a steady staccato rhythm she was irresistibly married to. She had to simply sink her weight into her heels and allow her body to follow it. The slightest loss of balance now meant disaster. But ahead of her, she managed to make out an old barbed-wire fence, fast approaching. Much of this land had once been ranched for cattle, and the remnants were still everywhere, in varying states of disrepair. If her horse ran through that fence at this speed, it might be the end of them both.

Her mouth went instantly dry and tasted of cobwebs. Stopping the runaway horse wasn’t going to happen, and her only hope, she realized, was to try to turn. She had begun to crank on her left-hand rein with all her might. Her muscles shook and the horse veered, but not nearly enough. And just when she thought it was all over, a movement caught her eye, and she saw her grandmother bearing down on her, using her own horse to steer Kayla’s to make up the extra turn. Kay reached down between the galloping horses and caught the flopping right rein that Kayla had abandoned in her frantic attempt for a left-hand turn, and she steered them both into steadily smaller circles until finally, the horse was brought to a halt. Both Kayla and the horse heaved and shuddered from exertion and terror. Kay smiled, crinkling the corners of her eyes.

“Nice riding, kid,” she said. Kayla didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Wasn’t that just what Kay had done her whole life, ride to the rescue when there was no fate left but certain disaster, saving the day with a smile and a steady hand?

Evan had brought the same rush of exhilaration, loss of control and then terror. Evan had also calmed her gently and made her feel safe, holding her in his arms. She had no idea where to put that in her mind. But she had a more pressing issue to attend to.

As she finally got her breathing under control, she began her nightly prowl, stalking through her house like a person in a horror movie, pushing each door open, flipping each light on, holding her breath until she saw the room was empty. Was she alone? Or was Trent waiting in ambush for her? This was total madness. She needed to get a dog, or three. She didn’t because she was afraid of what Trent might do to them too. Another reason she shouldn’t have gone out with Evan in the first place.

At last, she got a flashlight and stepped out to check on Rocket. She’d left her in the pasture closest to the house so it would be easy to see her or hear if something went wrong. Rocket was grazing contentedly in the dark, so Kayla was officially off duty. This little glimpse of peace was what she fought for every day of her life. If only it could last.

Evan’s phone beeped to announce a text from Dan.

Dan: Filming at 2!

Evan: I’ll be there

Evan rubbed his face. His mind kept wandering back to Kayla. It was the dog that first caught his eye in her driveway. He’d pulled over, thinking he would just collect the dog, but that was sort of an excuse. If he was honest, he wouldn’t mind if the dog took up residence on Kayla’s farm instead of his place. He didn’t really want a dog, but he did want to talk to Kayla again.

It was refreshing and alluring that Kayla didn’t seem to be throwing herself at him like the other girls. She had a look of knowing in her eyes, and the motorcycle didn’t awe her. She’d been around some dangerous people, but somehow seemed…innocent?

Kayla was beautiful and delicate, and there was something sad and wary about her that awakened something primal and male in him. It hadn’t been that way with Amber, a party girl who partied her way into his bed until he figured out what she was really up to. Amber was pretty and smelled good, and he was years without a woman and fresh out of prison. He’d been an easy target. Maybe this swamp was going to his head… He was no one’s knight in shining armor. And yet here he was, rescuing lost dogs and fantasizing about the lonely horse girl.

He definitely wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, but he had some primitive response to her that he couldn’t quite explain or understand. He didn’t think she was playing hard to get. There was something authentic and different about her. There had been a spark between them for a moment, and it had ignited a fuse inside him that now just wouldn’t quit. The draw to her was at odds with his desire not to get involved with another woman right now. He’d grown up happy, with two basically stable parents. But his early twenties had shattered his faith in humanity and all his trust in people. At first, that mistrust hadn’t applied to women. But after a bad run of luck that culminated with Amber’s betrayal, now it did.

There was no way any of this was going to end well. For now, he had to put her out of his mind. It was the first day of filming.

Filming the pilot episode was an eye-opener. Evan had never given any thought to what went on behind the cameras for TV, but now here he was, being directed on which way to walk into the house so that the lighting on his face was correct for the clip. He had to walk into the house four times, ride up on his bike three. The first ride up, a passing motorist honked a horn at the cameras and ruined the shot. The second one had been okay, but Duckie—who he’d taken to calling Quack in his head, had decided after the fact that they should begin with a head-on shot and then swing around to the side as he dismounted.

He tamped down his frustration and boredom and played along. Watching Dan in his element somewhat made up for it. Dan schmoozed with Quack, and he could see that even she was taken in by Dan’s charm. The crew requested a shot inside Dan’s cottage.

“I’ve got neighbors camped out in my living room. They lost their place when Ian came through. We really can’t film in there.”

Quack looked annoyed, but acquiesced.

“All right, boys. I think that’s a wrap!” a man with a tablet proclaimed, tapping notes to himself. Evan learned this was Dennis. He oversaw getting the necessary single shots to create the intro for their show. So far, he was the least offensive of the crew.

The crew was an efficient machine when it came to loading and unloading gear. They’d switched effortlessly from filming to packing. They reminded Evan of a dozen ants at a picnic, racing back and forth in lines, carrying one item after another back to the big vans that had brought the equipment.

They still had a house in progress that they had to do real work on, and all they’d done so far today was ride up and down Dan’s driveway and mug for the camera, trying to get the shot that Quack and Dennis wanted. The vans pulled away, and Dan and Evan were alone again. It was a strange sensation, to have spent the day under such an intense microscope only to be abruptly abandoned. It was not unlike being scrutinized under a giant magnifying glass until he felt like he was starting to scorch, then left steaming in the evening coastal breeze. Not entirely unlike stepping out of the prison gates and realizing that no one was going to tell him when to take a piss, when to eat, when to report for lockdown.

“We should go try to wrap up the work we pretended to do so they could film us,” Evan said, hearing the resentment in his own voice. He knew his anger was at the memory of prison, and regretted it, but Dan just laughed.

“Fuck it, tomorrow’s a new day. Let’s have a beer and call it a night. We aren’t filming again until next week. We’ve got plenty of time to get that project done.” They now had the signing money to carry them over if this house didn’t sell right away. Evidently, Dan had convinced them to start work on his neighbor’s house for the first episode. That was a most welcome miracle for the people who had very little hope left besides Dan’s living room floor. Despite the aggravation, it was worth it.