Chapter One #3
Her mouth tightens at darlin’, and I make a note. Not that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
I pull my phone and call Wildcat.
He answers on the second ring with noise in the background. Clubhouse noise. Men laughing, music low, someone arguing about bourbon like it’s a constitutional right.
“What’d you break?” Wildcat asks.
“My patience. Also maybe a woman’s vehicle.”
“You hit a woman’s vehicle?”
“No. Her panties hit me.”
Silence.
Then laughter.
I close my eyes. “Laugh later. I’m on Hell Road past Dead Man’s Curve. Got a woman, a kid, a flat tire, and a truck full of boxes. Need a cage and a trailer.”
“Dead Man’s Curve?” Wildcat’s laughter dies. “You good?”
“Does everybody in this county think the damn road listens?”
“It does if you talk about it too much.”
“Bring the truck.”
“Who’s the woman?”
I look at Amelia.
She watches me like I might sell her name to the night.
“Possible Welles problem,” I say.
Wildcat goes silent for a beat. “Legend know?”
“Not yet.”
“Jesus.”
“Probably not involved.”
“Funny. I’ll get Oaks.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Wildcat.”
“You said possible Welles problem on Hell Road with a kid. I’m getting Oaks.”
He hangs up.
I glare at the phone.
“Problem?” Amelia asks.
I slide it back into my pocket. “Figure of speech.”
“You called me a Welles problem.”
“You listened close.”
“When strange men call other strange men about me, I pay attention.”
“Fair.”
The corner of her mouth almost moves.
Almost.
I’ll take it.
“We’ve got a few minutes,” I say. “Pack what matters. Papers. Medicine. Clothes for the kid. Anything you can’t lose.”
She looks at the mess on the road, then at the truck, then at me. “I can’t lose any of it.”
That’s the first thing she says that sounds young. Not in age. In fear.
Like the whole life in those boxes is cheap to everyone else but expensive to her because she had to fight for every piece.
I nod once. “Then we’ll move all we can. But you pick the first bag.”
She studies me.
I don’t move.
Finally, she turns to the truck, reaches behind the seat, and pulls out a battered tote bag. She clutches it to her chest like it has bones in it.
“That,” I say. “Good. What else?”
“August’s backpack. His medicine. My documents. My mother’s box.”
“Mother’s box?”
She looks at me.
Right.
None of my business.
“For now,” I add.
She looks away first.
While she gathers things, I clear the road.
Boxes first, because a car coming around Dead Man’s Curve too fast won’t see them until it’s too late.
I drag the plastic tub to the shoulder, then the lamp, then the coffee maker.
A pair of shoes. A kitchen pan. Three paperbacks with cracked spines.
A framed school photo of August that I set carefully on the passenger seat because even I know better than tossing a kid’s face into a box.
Amelia notices.
Says nothing.
Her silence is less sharp that time.
August stays in the booster, half-awake, watching me carry their scattered life out of the road.
“What’s your dinosaur’s name?” I ask him after the third trip.
He lifts the stuffed one. “Blue Rex.”
“Looks like a judge.”
His face brightens. “He is.”
Of course he is.
“What’s he judge?”
“Bad guys.”
I glance at Amelia.
She freezes for half a second over a stack of clothes.
Then keeps packing.
I crouch near the open door, careful not to crowd the kid. “He give fair sentences?”
August nods. “Sometimes volcano.”
“That’s strict.”
“Bad guys need lava.”
Can’t argue with that.
Amelia whispers, “August.”
“What? Jeremy said bad boys get punished.”
There it is. A name. Jeremy. I look at Amelia. She doesn’t look at me.
Good.
Let that name sit where I can see it. I’ll pick it up later.
Headlights appear around the far bend, slow and controlled. Not some drunk local. Not a stranger. A truck. Then another bike behind it.
Wildcat’s tow rig rolls into view, followed by Oaks on his Harley.
Of course he came.
Oaks kills his engine and swings off before the truck even stops. Big, broad, beard dark, eyes already taking inventory. He looks from me to Amelia, then to August, then to the panties clutched in Amelia’s fist because God hates mercy.
Oaks lifts a brow.
I point at him. “No.”
He holds up both hands. “Didn’t say a word.”
“You thought several.”
“Whole paragraph.”
Wildcat hops out of the tow rig grinning like Christmas came drunk. “I hear laundry’s declaring war now.”
Amelia’s face goes red again.
I step between them without thinking.
Wildcat’s grin dims.
Oaks notices.
Everyone notices too damn much.
“Truck first,” I say.
Wildcat nods, business settling over him. “Keys?”
Amelia hesitates.
I hold out my hand. “Your call.”
She looks at my hand. Then at Wildcat. Then gives the keys to me. Not because she trusts me. Because she trusts me a hair more than the man she don’t know. I pass them to Wildcat.
“Careful,” I say.
Wildcat looks offended. “With vehicles or possible Welles problems?”
“With both.”
He glances at Amelia, then softens. “I got it.”
Oaks walks closer, keeping his hands visible because Oaks can be a scary bastard when he forgets other people don’t know he’s mostly gruff wrapped around old guilt.
“Ma’am,” he says.
Amelia gives him a suspicious look. “Ma’am?”
Oaks shrugs. “My woman says I need manners.”
“She must be patient.”
“No,” he says. “Armed.”
A reluctant laugh slips from Amelia before she can stop it.
Good.
I like that sound.
I don’t like that I like it.
Wildcat loads the truck while Oaks helps gather boxes. I put August’s backpack in the tow rig and keep Amelia near the cab because she looks one loud noise from bolting into the trees. Hell Road ain’t the place for a woman to run into the trees. Too many stories start that way and not enough end.
When everything that matters is loaded or tied down, Wildcat looks at the shredded tire. “This thing didn’t just go flat. Sidewall’s cut.”
Amelia’s head snaps up. “What?”
I crouch beside it. He’s right. The rubber is torn ugly, but under the damage is a clean slice. Not road debris.
A blade.
My jaw tightens.
Oaks sees it too. His face changes.
Amelia grips the side of the truck. “No. I must’ve hit something.”
Wildcat meets my eyes. I shake my head once. Not in front of the kid. Not yet.
“Could’ve been something on the road,” I say.
Oaks says nothing.
Wildcat says nothing.
Amelia hears all of it anyway.
She looks toward the dark bend behind us. Dead Man’s Curve. Hell Road. The place where her boxes spilled and her underwear tried to kill me.
Someone cut her tire.
Maybe Jeremy. Maybe somebody else. Maybe it happened before Hell Road and the road just finished the job. I don’t know yet. But I know this woman’s trouble has hands.
The Widow can wait.
Oaks walks over to me while Wildcat secures the truck. “Legend’s going to love this.”
“Legend don’t love anything before coffee and murder.”
“Mike?”
“She says maybe.”
Oaks looks toward Amelia. The joking leaves him. “You believe her?”
“I believe she’s running from someone. I believe her tire was cut. I believe the kid knows a man named Jeremy taught him bad boys get punished.” I look at the old road, then back at Oaks. “The Welles part, I don’t know.”
Oaks nods once. “Clubhouse?”
“Yeah.”
He glances at August. “Old jail ain’t great for a kid.”
“No shit.”
“But it’s closest.”
“And Legend needs to hear it before half the county does.”
Oaks looks at me, then at Amelia again. “You riding with them?”
I look toward Widowmaker. Then toward the tow rig. Then at August, whose eyes are starting to droop again.
I hate the answer before I give it. “I’ll follow.”
Oaks smiles faintly. “Look at you making responsible choices.”
“Tell anyone, I’ll deny it.”
“Already forgot.”
When I walk back to Amelia, she has one arm around August, who is half asleep against her shoulder now that he’s out of the booster.
She looks too small holding him. Not physically.
She’s got curves and spine and that mouth that keeps making trouble in my head.
But there’s a way a woman looks when she’s been carrying too much alone. Like even standing still costs her.
“Wildcat’s taking your truck,” I say. “You and August ride in the tow rig with him. Oaks is behind you. I’ll follow on Widowmaker.”
She looks at my bike. “Widowmaker?”
“That’s her name.”
“That’s not comforting either.”
“She wasn’t built to comfort.”
“What was she built to do?”
“Survive stupid men.”
Her mouth almost curves. “Does she?”
“Depends on the man.”
August lifts his head. “Can I ride dragon?”
“No,” Amelia and I say together.
He sighs and drops his face back against her shoulder. “Rude.”
I stare at the kid. Then at Amelia. She looks as surprised as I feel. The chuckle erupts from me before I can hold it back. Amelia looks away fast, but I see her mouth soften.
Wildcat opens the passenger door of the tow rig. “Ma’am.”
She looks at him. “If every biker calls me ma’am tonight, I’m walking.”
“Amelia,” I say.
Her eyes come to me.
“There ain’t no walking on Hell Road.”
The joke dies before it lands. Because it’s true.
She looks back at Dead Man’s Curve. “Why is it called Hell Road?”
Oaks lets out a low sound like he’d rather I not answer.
Too bad.
“It’s the road folks take when they’re too proud to use the main way into Hell,” I say. “Dead Man’s Curve is back there. Some say the Widow watches it.”
“The Widow?”
“Old road story.”
Her face is pale in the headlights. “A ghost?”
“Maybe.”
She waits.
I should shut up.
I don’t.
“Men say they see a woman in white before they wreck. Some say she warns them. Some say she steps out so bad men swerve.”
Amelia looks toward the bend again, then at the scattered little bits of her life we couldn’t save from the ditch. “And what does she do to women?”
That question lands different.
I glance at the road.
At the fog.
At the place her truck sits broken.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
Her eyes hold mine.
Then August mumbles against her neck, “Maybe she helped.”
Amelia goes still.
Oaks looks away.
Wildcat suddenly becomes real interested in a strap.
I don’t say anything.
Because what the hell do you say to that?
Maybe the Widow helped.
Maybe Hell Road got tired of watching Amelia run alone and threw her panties in my face because fate’s got a filthy sense of humor.
It's possible that a slashed tire, a stalled truck, and a wicked curve have brought me a woman who could dismantle Legend's entire world before the sun comes up.
All I know is this.
I was riding Dead Man’s Curve alone, and now I’m not.
Amelia gets into the tow rig with August. Wildcat shuts the door gently, which is probably the first gentle thing he’s done all week. Oaks swings onto his Harley. I walk back to Widowmaker and run a hand over her tank.
“Don’t start,” I mutter to her. “You still get the road.”
Her engine answers when I start her.
Loud.
Possessive.
Mean.
We pull away from Dead Man’s Curve with Amelia’s broken truck on the tow rig, her boxes strapped down, August asleep against her, and my headlight catching the fog behind us one last time.
For a second, in the mirror, I see something pale at the shoulder.
A scrap of fabric.
A branch.
A woman.
I blink.
It’s gone.
Hell Road falls behind us.
Ahead, the lights of Hell, Kentucky flicker low in the dark.
Not many. Hell ain’t never been a town that wastes light on making itself pretty.
I follow the tow rig toward town, toward the old jail, dubbed the Lockup, our clubhouse, toward Legend, toward whatever truth Amelia dragged onto Hell Road with her.
I should be thinking about the cut tire.
About Jeremy.
About Legendary Mike Welles and the woman who thinks he might be her father.
Instead, I keep seeing Amelia’s face in the headlight. Scared, furious, embarrassed, still standing.
Poor Legend.
Poor me.
Poor every bastard who thought tonight would stay simple.
I almost smile.
Almost.
Then Widowmaker carries me into Hell.