HANDS OFF MY BRIDE

by Claire St. Rose

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The house was quiet inside; it was lights out and most of the boys were in bed. The young four year old who had been pulled in earlier that day was curled up and asleep with his head resting on Elizabeth’s lap, his arms holding his teddy bear tightly to his chest.

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said. “Where did you find the bear? We couldn’t get one anywhere.”

  “I know people,” Dakota said. What she didn’t add was that anytime there was some hot new toy or gadget that everyone wanted, store managers would hold a few back and either give them away to gather favors or sell them at a high markup. That little boy was currently holding a hundred dollar teddy bear. “Does he have anyone, family?”

  “An aunt, but she’s in the Navy, doing a tour in the gulf. She’s getting compassionate leave to come and get him; she should be here in a week.”

  “Good,” Dakota said, she glanced toward the door and thought about Adam alone in the parking lot. She wondered what he did in the hours he had to wait on her.

  “You know you can bring your fella in here, right?”

  “First of all, Ma Clampet, he’s not my fella; he’s been hired for protection. I told him he could come in, but he didn’t want to.”

  “Pretty hot for a bodyguard. What’s his name?”

  “Adam Mendel.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t keep him waiting. I’ll take this little guy off to bed and you can go home. We need to go over the quarterly report, but it’s late. We can do that tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Dakota said. But for a moment, she didn’t move. Things were now weird with Adam. She had snuck out of the house and been caught like some belligerent teenager. He had been surprisingly cool about it, though, so she wasn’t sure what their relationship would be like now. But she couldn’t hide from him forever, so she gave Elizabeth a wave and walked out into the night.

  Adam was still there waiting, looking like a giant next to her tiny car. He was lost in thought, staring at the street. She had the sudden urge to sneak up on him to get him back for sneaking up on her, but he had such a troubled look on his face that she didn’t want to be cruel. So she walked down the stairs slowly, giving him a chance to come out of his reverie on his own.

  “So, do you want to drive?” she asked, gesturing to the car.

  “Actually, I need to get my bike home, so why don’t you drive your car, and I’ll follow.”

  “Okay,” Dakota slid into her seat and watched as Adam walked over to his bike, put his helmet up and revved the engine.

  He followed her home, keeping a safe distance on the quiet street roads. When they were on the highway, he opened it up and pulled alongside her. Dakota couldn’t see his face under his helmet, but every now and then she could see his visor when he turned to make sure she was still there.

  “Don’t turn off the GPS in your car,” he ordered gently once they were back at the house in the garage. “It’ll make me look bad if I lose you.”

  “Fair enough,” Dakota answered. “And I’m sorry I snuck out tonight. It was silly and immature.”

  “I can see how you might feel a little trapped.”

  “Thanks for being cool about it. I owe you one.”

  “Really?” Adam said looking around the garage.

  Dakota’s stomach dropped as she wondered if he was going to actually ask her for something. She couldn’t help but look at him again, his strong and tall physique, she wasn’t entirely sure what she would say if he asked.

  “Can I take that Caddy for a spin?”

  “What?” Dakota answered.

  “The convertible Cadillac, that’s a good car; tonight's a good night for a late night, top down ride.”

  “Oh...yeah, sure. We never drive that car. I think the last time was for homecoming, I was the...” she stopped, suddenly embarrassed about her high school bragging rights.

  “Queen?” he finished for her, a smirk crossing his face.

  “If you must know, yes. I was Homecoming Queen. And you can take the car anywhere you want. Just try not to crash it.” She walked over to the lock box where the keys were kept and opened it, pulling the Cadillac's keys from off the pegboard. She walked back to Adam and held them out to him, but he just looked at her.

  “You wanna come for a ride?”

  “To where?” she asked. She didn’t know what was happening. She wasn’t sure what she should be doing, what the right answer was. She didn’t know what his intentions were. Adam was handsome, but he was also working for her. Things could get awkward quickly.

  “Anywhere, it’s a car. You just drive it. I know this cool back road not far from here. It’ll be a nice drive.”

  “OK,” Dakota answered, unsure of what exactly she was getting herself into.

  CHAPTER NINE

  She walked over to the car with Adam and he opened the passenger side door, and she slid inside, taking a look at the old fashioned insides. Adam slid into the driver’s side and started the car, lowering the roof above them until it was gone and their heads were exposed to the ceiling of the garage. Dakota could feel a fluttering in her stomach, like she was a teenager again, getting into a car with a boy, with no idea of what might come next.

  Without saying anything Adam started the car, driving the shift stick like he was a pro. Dakota had never quite managed driving stick; if she were lucky, she could get it moving one out of every three tries. But Adam didn’t even think about it. His feet hit the pedals and his hands worked the shifter like he had been raised behind the wheel. In an instant they were out of the garage and in the open air. The night was cool, but not cold, and the air around them had that heavy wetness that came with spring rains.

  Adam drove north and west, the skyline of the city disappearing in the rear view mirror, as Dakota allowed herself to get lost in the passing trees to her right. They looked like a thousand soldiers lined up to protect the forest from the people on the road. She let her eyes see past those front line soldiers and watched the natural monuments that passed behind them, large boulders and fallen trees.

  “This is a great car,” Adam said as they veered around a tight curve. “You ever take it to the beach?”

  “No,” Dakota answered with a smile. The beaches she went to were tropical locals and private; she took jets to get to them, not cars. “I’ve never actually driven this car.”

  “What? Are you kidding me? All I’ve thought about since I started working for you was driving every car in that garage. You should take this car out. It’s too pretty to leave inside.”

  “I kind of suck at driving stick.”

  “You can’t drive stick?” His voice was equal parts outrage and gentle kidding.

  “I can drive stick. I’m just not good at it,” she said.

  “Practice is how you get good at it.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Dakota said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know. I always thought driving was kind of boring. You can’t read or watch TV. All you see is the road. It’s like a chore.”

  “You do a lot of chores in your mansion? What are they, driving and then washing your pony?”

  “Ouch, and painfully accurate,” she couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Buttercup and Violet, the two ponies she had as a child.

  “You have a pony?”

  “I did, but I’m older now...I have horses.”

  “Such a cliché.”

  “Hey, horses are cool, and riding a horse is way harder and way more fun than driving a car.”

  “Your horse has one horsepower. This car has over four hundred and fifty horses. It’s like there’s four hundred horses under the hood of this car.”

  “Well, more is not necessarily better. Besides, I always thought it was weird that they measured cars in horses. I mean four hundred and fifty? That’s a lot, seems to me like we need a new measuring system.”

  “Says the girl who thinks driving is a chore. Why should you get any say in that? You hate cars.”

  “I don’t hate cars. I
like my Prius.”

  “You have no idea what you’re missing.” Adam shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Maybe,” she answered, smiling at him. They drove for a few minutes in a comfortable silence. The car was smooth and quiet, hugging the curves and absorbing the bumps and shocks in the road. Dakota looked straight up and could see the moon above them, the dark night sky dotted with stars. She wondered what would happen if they kept driving. If they stuck to country back roads and filled up at old-fashioned gas stations and just kept driving. She supposed they would eventually reach an ocean and then they would have to turn back around. Still, thinking about it as she watched the budding branches pass above her, she wasn’t sure if she would have minded driving for days.

  “You know, when you snuck out today, I thought you were going to meet a man,” Adam said, making Dakota whip her head around to look at him with a shocked expression. “I’ll look into getting a female guard. I don’t want you to feel like you have to sneak around.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment and, if I were, they could come to me.” Was is just her imagination, or did something in his aspect change at that, at the understanding that there wasn’t anyone she was interested in.

  “Oh, okay. Well, you can just let me know if that changes,” Adam said, sounding incredibly uncomfortable. Dakota couldn’t help but laugh. “What?” Adam demanded.

  “Nothing, you just sound very old fashioned.”

  “I’m not old fashioned. I’m telling you I’m cool with it, just let me know.”

  “You’re cool with it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay, let’s stop at the next bar we find and I’ll find someone who really pushes my buttons,” Dakota said with a laugh. “You can vet him.”

  “Oh, sorry no bars around here,” Adam said, a smile playing across his face.

  “Convenient. What about you, is there some lady in a leather jacket missing you at night?”

  “Nope, only the guys I work with miss me. And not like that! We have a lot of business stuff going on, one of which is you. So, there’s no real time for a leather jacket lady in my life.”

  “What business? Being a bodyguard?”

  “And some other stuff,” Adam paused, debating whether or not to tell her. “You remember that club we were at?”

  “Scarred Angels?”

  “Yeah, I own that. Well, technically the bank owns it. But it’s doing well, so hopefully I’ll own it soon. But it’s a lot of work to run a club on the level.”

  “Wow,” Dakota said. “That’s your club? I didn’t know you owned that. You should have said something.”

  “Like I said, the bank owns it. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it,” Adam said, trying to brush the compliment away.

  “You should make a big deal about it. It’s a nice club. I had a lot of fun there. You should be proud of it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I call bullshit on you not having a lady. You own a hot nightclub. You have to be beating pretty young things off with a stick.”

  “Well, at the moment, I’m not spending a lot of time there, so there hasn’t been much opportunity.”

  Dakota nodded, feeling oddly guilty, though she didn’t have any reason to. Adam was working in the time he was spending with her; no one was making him do it, unless he needed the money. Don’t, she reminded herself; don’t assume anything about him. But it all too often happened like this: a mention here, a nod there, then the outright ask, and then the anger when Dakota said no to a “loan” for money she knew she would never see again. It was true that rich hung out with each other. It was sad, but those were the only people you could (usually) count on to not hit you up for money.

  “What about you?” Adam continued as they traveled farther and farther from the city. There was no GPS on, they had no destination, and they were just driving the night away. “There’s really nobody you’d rather be spending your night with?”

  “Not really. It’s hard when you have a lot of money. And I know I’m privileged and there’s a lot that I don’t have to worry about that other people do, but it’s harder to be close with people. So often I meet some guy and he’s great, but what he really wants is to get close to my father. Guys want an investment backer or a job or a recommendation. It was like I was this stepping-stone for them. When I tried dating “normal” guys, the money thing was always coming up and it was weird and awkward, and I would tell them that I didn’t care that they didn’t have as much money as me, but even though I didn’t care, they did. It just doesn’t work. Besides, charity is work for me. It’s not about good publicity. It means something to me and it takes up a lot of my time. People think I can just put it down anytime I want. I once had a guy tell me it wasn’t a real job, so I could skip it whenever he wanted to do something else, and that hurt. So for now, being single works for me.”

  Dakota let out a long breath. She had never actually said all of that out loud before. She had thought it, and the words were always tumbling about in her head, but she had never actually put those thoughts together before. It occurred to her that it sounded very sad, sad and isolating. She wondered how long it had been since she had a real relationship, not just dinner, drinks, and sex, but holding hands and talking, whispering into a lover's ear late into the night. Waiting for them, wanting to be with them. Somewhere in the last few years, she had decided that she wasn’t ever going to have that, and so she closed and locked that part of her away, the part of her that believed that real, true love was possible. It had been so long since she’d even entertained the idea of having a meaningful connection with someone.

  They allowed a comfortable silence to blanket them as Adam drove the car down back roads that twisted themselves up and down hills, over rivers and under mountains. The car was quiet and the ride was smooth. The stars overhead were eternal and unmoving, always in the same place above them no matter where they drove. The cool, wet air around them, the sound of crickets and birds chirping their coded languages out into the night created a soundtrack that no musician could ever compete with.

  Dakota glanced at Adam; he had one hand on top of the wheel, the other resting on the shifter. His hands seemed impossibly large, and Dakota was fascinated with how they worked. His right hand would rest on the shifter and then, without warning, he would change gears, his hands and feet working in perfect harmony. The car never jerked or bucked, but transitioned from one gear to the next with a beautiful smoothness.

  But it was getting late, and Adam noticed when Dakota stifled a yawn.

  “We should probably get back,” he admitted, finally turning on the GPS and allowing it to guide them home.

  “I’m sorry I made you work on your one day off,” Dakota said as the car took them home.

  “It’s okay,” Adam said with a shrug. “You haven't been that much work, honestly.”

  “Do you even like being a bodyguard? It seems kind of boring.”

  “It is kind of boring, but the money is good, and it’s good for business. Being a bodyguard is good, legal, steady income. I got a lotta guys who need work, so we don’t turn it down when we get it.”

  “Guys?” Dakota asked.

  “Yeah, guys in the bike club. We run the Scarred Angels together. They practically raised me, but there’s not enough work at the club for everyone. Being a bodyguard’s a good opportunity.”

  “What about your parents?” Dakota asked. She had spent years working in the Kane Home for Young Boys and she knew how this worked: the casual offhand mention of parents not being around, not being involved. It was a type of code abused children used. It was like looking at the sun; they didn’t want to talk about it directly, so instead, they talked around it, mentioned it in an offhand manner.

  “Jail. Dad’s dead. Mom’s gone. My uncle raised me; he’s a good guy.”

  Dakota nodded, but said nothing. She knew better than to pry. She knew he would tell her when he
wanted to, when he was ready to. In charity, she had learned that it was dangerous and selfish to be a voyeur. Listening to people wasn't about gathering their stories to use later. It was simply about letting them know you were there when they wanted to talk, making yourself available to them, giving yourself to them and asking for nothing in return.

  “Does your uncle work at the club?”

  “He’s the manager,” Adam answered. “He’s good at it.”

  “Maybe I can meet him one day,” Dakota said, and then she let the topic drop.

  They were almost home already. The GPS was not interested in lazy drives or enjoying the night air. It wanted to get them home in the most efficient way possible. It was good at its job, and Dakota cursed it in her mind. She felt like she could have driven with Adam all through the night and into the next day.