Chapter 50 #2
I should step back, let her off with a warning to show one-percenters, hell, any riding club more respect next time, or she might meet a club that doesn’t have the same respect for the fairer sex.
Then leave her to go wherever she’s headed and never give her another thought except when brothers are sharing tales of things that have happened on the road.
But something stops me. She intrigues me.
While not in the first flush of youth, and with her skin weatherbeaten, she’s not unattractive.
For some fucking reason that I can’t find words to explain, I want to know her name, her history, where she’s been, where she’s headed, and maybe whether she’d like to spend the night in my bed.
Which isn’t like me. I like sex easy and uncomplicated.
And I suspect with this woman, it would be anything but.
Instead of shooing her off on her way, I snap, “Get off your bike.”
She raises a brow, then, taking her own damn sweet time, then, as if it had been her idea all along, swings her leg up and over the saddle and dismounts, giving me a bird’s-eye view of the way her jeans hug her ass, she reaches into the pocket of her jacket and extracts a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
After tapping one out, she lights it. Then, belatedly, in an unexpected effort to be polite, she offers the pack toward me.
I don’t often smoke, unless it’s a joint. But I accept the offer. Flicking the lighter and cupping the flame, she leans toward me. Lowering my head, I light my own cancer stick. As I breathe in, I think it might not be weed, but it does hit the spot.
Holding the cigarette in her mouth, she shrugs out of the denim jacket she’s wearing, wipes her hand across her face, then fans herself.
I wonder whether she’s unused to the dry desert heat.
Then my attention is caught by the full tatted sleeves she’s revealed, and I’m again intrigued.
It’s professional work, obviously done years earlier due to the fading, though up toward her neck are undeniable, and more recent, amateur prison tats.
“What’s your name?” I ask, ignoring the curious audience around us who are no doubt wondering why the fuck I haven’t just instructed us to get back onto the road.
“None of your business,” she retorts.
I’m not the prez of a one-percenter club for nothing. With just a flick of my hand and a tilt of my head, Words and Genie step forward and snatch the woman’s jacket off the seat of her bike.
“What the…?” Throwing down her half-smoked cigarette, she launches at them to retrieve it.
But they dance away, holding it out of her reach, and Genie delves into her pockets. He pulls out a wallet and extracts a driver’s license. “Mhairi McDonald,” he reads out.
Her eyes darken. “It’s pronounced Vah-ree,” she emphasises.
“Definitely said Mhairi here.”
She moves fast. Her hand snakes out, retrieving her ID. “I think I know how to say my own fucking name.”
“Irish?” I ask.
“Scottish,” she snarls.
Her accent’s pure American, so I guess it’s a family name that goes generations back. Vahree I sound in my head. Then I step to her still-glowing cigarette and grind it out with the heel of my boot.
“What’s your story, Mhairi?” I ask.
“None of your business,” she repeats.
“You still live in Flagstaff?” Genie’s obviously seen her address. “You’re a long way from home.”
“And headed the wrong way,” Words adds.
Maybe if I hadn’t been looking at her closely, I wouldn’t have noticed the falter in that hardened expression she’d maintained since we’d pulled her off the road, a crack in her defences. Gesturing to Tempest, I walk with my sergeant-at-arms off to one side.
“Reckon she’s got troubles,” I tell him.
He looks at me strangely. “Yeah, hers but not ours.” He stubs out his own, having also used the time to get in a quick smoke break.
“Prez, talking straight. All of us are fuckin’ tired and want to get home.
I want a drink, a toke and a fuck, and not necessarily in that order.
” He pauses and casts an eye at the woman standing by her bike, seeming unperturbed that she’s surrounded by a horde of angry bikers.
“If he was a man, he’d be missing a few teeth by now, but she’s not.
We’re not going to touch her, so what’s the point of hanging around? ”
Because I’m intrigued by her? Of course, those words don’t come out of my mouth. Instead, I suck in my cheeks, then puff air out. “Get Woody to get the brothers ready.”
He offers a sharp lift of his chin, then marches off. I pause for a minute, letting my eyes linger on Mhairi, wondering what her story is. Then I shake myself. Why the fuck should it matter to me? We’re ships passing in the night. Once I ride on, we won’t meet again.
“You wait until we’ve gone.” I return to my bike, hearing Woody issue her instructions. “You don’t fuckin’ pass us. You’ve got a pass this time as you’ve got a cunt. Next time we’ll overlook that. Don’t fuck with us, you got that?”
“Got that.” She sounds disinterested. Then she makes a shooing motion with her hands. “You get your little club back on the road. I’ll have another smoke.”
Satisfied, Woody slings his leg over his saddle at the same time I mount mine.
After checking that the brothers are ready and signaling we’re ready to go.
Engines start, the throaty rumble of Harleys, even after all these years, gets my blood flowing and my heart beating in anticipation.
Then, after some traffic has passed, he extends his left arm and, while pointing, sweeps it toward the edge of the highway.
He and I are the first to pull out, all the brothers following.
Within seconds, we’re back in formation, leaving the mystery woman in my rear view.
I doubt our paths will ever cross again.