by Juliette Poe
I return her look, frozen in place.
Laken rolls her eyes, then takes a hand off the wheel to efficiently stab her finger on the connect button. She then pokes at the “Speaker” button, effectively joining Deacon Locke to our conversation.
“Um… hello?” I say tentatively as I incline my head closer to the phone.
“Hi,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m looking for the gorgeous town baker of Whynot.”
My face flushes hot, and I can see Laken pumping her first out of the corner of my eye.
“You found her,” I chirp, a little too jovially, but I’m grateful he’s called. I sound like a dweeb.
Deacon chuckles low, and I think he takes pleasure in affecting me the way he does. And something about the fact he likes making me uncomfortable is actually kind of hot.
Ugh.
Laken starts gesturing with her hand, a quick circular motion to indicate I shouldn’t let the conversation languish.
Rolling my eyes at my sister, who seems to be enjoying this as much as Deacon, I ask into the phone as casual as can be, “What’s up?”
“What’s up,” Deacon drawls, “is I’d like to see you again. It’s so warm out, and I thought I’d invite you for a bike ride this afternoon.”
My eyes go wide, sliding to Laken in question.
He’s inviting me on a date.
To ride a motorcycle.
Which I’ve never been on.
I don’t even own a Harley T-shirt.
Laken starts nodding vigorously, eyes shooting from me to the road to me to the road.
But I’m shaking my head, declining the invitation silently because that’s not happening today. “Ugh… I’m sorry, Deacon. I can’t.”
He’s nonplussed. “If you could, would you want to?”
That makes me laugh, and it puts me more at ease. “Yes. Of course. But I’m getting some Christmas shopping done this morning with my sister, and I have to work at the bakery this afternoon.”
“Tomorrow then?” he asks. “Supposed to be just as warm tomorrow.”
My gaze shoots to Laken. She nods back at me quickly.
“Um… okay,” I say, then an involuntary and quite nervous laugh pops out. “I’d love to. But I’ve never been on a motorcycle before, and I don’t own a helmet. I could probably scrounge one up, I suppose. I think Billy Crump has one. He rides dirt bikes at a local racetrack on the weekends. But those are the full helmets with face masks. Not like the one you have that just sits on top of your head—”
Laken furiously waves at me. When I bring my eyes to her, she puts her hand to her throat to indicate I’m choking.
Deacon’s voice cuts across the abrupt silence, deep and rich and yes… very sexy. “Don’t worry your pretty head about it. I’ll have a helmet for you. But dress warm, because even though it will warm up to the low seventies, it will feel a lot colder riding.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“If you get cold though, you can just snuggle into me,” he adds. I can hear the teasing in his tone, but I can also tell he would not be averse to it should I feel the need to do so.
Laken shakes her head, mouthing the words, “That’s hot,” to me.
Punching her hard in the arm, I shoot her a wicked grin. I’m impressed she doesn’t even yelp. Instead, the glare I get promises retribution.
“I’ll call you later tonight to firm up plans,” Deacon says in that gruff voice, and my spine tingles at the thought of him calling me later. “Later, pretty girl.”
The call disconnects, and I let out an exhale of relief that speaks of my joy Deacon’s still interested in me.
Laken takes the opportunity to pop my arm in retribution, then proceeds to squeal with excitement. “Oh my God, Larkin. I’m actually envious of you right now. This is so exciting.”
I grin at my sister, trading punches forgotten.
This is so beyond exciting. I don’t know how I’ll be able to contain myself until tomorrow.
CHAPTER 7
Deacon
I barely get my engine cut and my helmet off before the screen door of Larkin’s house is flying open. She half stumbles over the threshold that sits a few inches up, her expression one of excitement and awkwardness. She rights herself, smoothing down the edges of her blouse and swallowing hard with nervousness.
God, she’s beautiful and adorable and I have no clue why this woman attracts me so much. She’s so far to the left or right of my normal that it’s not even funny to think about.
I don’t get off my bike but merely lean my forearm on my gas tank, twisted slightly in my seat to get a further gander. She’s wearing an outfit that looks more apt to be traipsing through a spring flower garden than to take a ride on a Harley. Butter yellow pants that will most likely get dirty, a white flowing blouse with embroidered daisies on the edges of her sleeves, and pristinely white tennis shoes. She has a denim jean jacket slung over a forearm and a small yellow purse slung diagonally across her body.
Grinning at her, I give a slow shake of my head. “That outfit’s probably going to get a little dirty on the bike.”
Larkin’s face crumbles slightly, as I can tell she probably didn’t think this through past me having a helmet for her.
“Jeans would work better,” I suggest.
Her face scrunches in consternation before her shoulders slump. “I don’t have any.”
My eyebrows shoot upward in disbelief. “You don’t own a single pair of jeans?” I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a thing before. Everyone has jeans, right?
Larkin’s eyes flash as her chin lifts. “Not a pair that fits me right.”
My gut tightens that I inadvertently forced her into such an admission, as I know she’s sensitive to the ways she looks. I wish she’d understand she looks mighty damn fine to me exactly as is, but I suppose I’m going to have to show her rather than tell her.
I swing my leg over the bike, leaving my helmet on the seat, then bound up her porch steps two at a time. Larkin lives in a really pretty two-story Victorian of pale blue with white trim and black shutters. It sits on the very edge of town on the last block of city houses before turning into Highway 210, which leads out of town and toward the coast about an hour away. I saunter straight up to Larkin, startling her into backing into her closed door. When I come to a stop just inches from her, her head tilts way back to keep eye contact with me.
“Let me start again,” I say with a slight hint of apology in my tone. “What I meant to say is that outfit is beautiful, as are you, and I don’t want my bike to be the cause of ruining it. However, if you don’t mind a little road dirt on it, I sure as hell don’t.”
I’m rewarded with a blinding smile, but it’s not one where I’ve caused her to go silly at my overt flattery. Larkin’s smart enough to know I’m correcting a wrong, but she’s also not one to get tricked by false assertions. She knows I’m being genuine, because I am. She looks sweet enough to eat, and I have no problem with her knowing she affects me in that way.
“I don’t mind dirt,” she replies. “Hell, on any given day, I’m covered in flour and sugar.”
I suppress a groan at the image of her in sugar—not so much the flour—and hold my hand out. “Ready for a bike ride?”
With a nod, she places her tiny hand in mine. It feels right.
♦
There are many things about our afternoon ride I enjoy. The temperature actually tipped seventy-five degrees, which is on the high end of an eastern Carolina December day. But on the bike, it can feel chilly, necessitating the need for Larkin to press into my back. I was so attuned to her through my thick leather jacket and her denim, I can feel her tiny shivers. She tried not to be obtrusive, merely gripping the sides of my leather at the ribs, but I solved that by taking one of her hands and drawing it around my front. She got the hint. Without hesitation, she wrapped both of her arms around me.
Yeah, I hated to put a halt to it, but the second-best thing about a gr
eat ride on an uncharacteristically warm day in December is to stop into a favorite watering hole for a beer. During my time spent in Milner recently, I’d discovered Wolf’s, an out-of-the-way biker bar that has the coldest beer around.
I pull slowly into the dirt and gravel parking lot, finding a spot to park in at the end of an exceptionally long line of bikes. The warm weather is drawing everyone out it seems.
The minute I cut the engine, Larkin withdraws her hold from around my waist. Her sweet voice cuts the silence. “What are we doing here?”
Twisting my upper body so I can see her, I give her a smile. “Thought we’d have a beer.”
She worries at her lower lip a moment before she says, “It’s not cool to drink and drive.”
I incline my head in agreement. “That’s true, if by drinking and driving you mean drinking to excess and getting impaired. But I said ‘a’ beer as in one, and that will not impair me.”
She doesn’t say anything, cutting her eyes over to the front door of the bar. It’s nothing but a low, squat building made of white cinderblock with a dark steel door. At nighttime, we’d be able to hear the thump of classic rock from inside, but given it’s barely noon on a Saturday, it’s fairly quiet.
“I’ll drink water if that makes you feel better,” I offer. “You can have a beer, and we can hang for a bit.”
Her worried gaze focuses on me, and she gives a small shake of her head. “It’s not that. I mean… having one beer is fine. It’s just…”
Larkin’s words trail off, and she averts her eyes. This prompts me to turn even further so I can see her more clearly. I put a glove-covered hand against the outside of her calf and squeeze. “If you don’t want to go in, we don’t have to.”
Sighing, she waves a hand down the contour of her body. “I’m not exactly biker-chick material the way I’m dressed. You should have told me we were coming here, and I’m sure I could have borrowed a black Harley tank top to wear—at the very least—from someone.”
It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying. When I do, my head falls back to let out a booming laugh.
Larkin glares.
I squeeze her calf again. “I’m sorry, darlin’. But I find it hilarious that a smart, beautiful, successful woman like you would even give a crap about what you wore into a biker bar.”
Her glare intensifies as she snaps, “Well, I’m sorry. This isn’t the type of place I normally hang out, and it’s causing me a little anxiety. This is like our second date, and I’m totally out of my comfort zone.”
“Want to go back to Millie’s for tea?” I suggest with a grin.
“No,” she mutters, eyes on the bar.
“Come on, princess.” I offer my hand so she can step off the bike. “Let’s go in for one beer. Wolf, the owner, is a cool guy. We’ll have a beer with him, then we’ll leave, okay?”
“Okay,” she replies softly, putting her hand in mine. She swings a leg up and over, stepping onto the gravel. I follow suit, immediately helping her take off the helmet I’d bought for her. After I put it beside mine on the seat, I take her hand in mine once again.
There’s a brief moment when I lead her into the dim bar that I feel I might have a made a mistake. No one has the jukebox cranked so all talking stops when we enter. There’s probably close to thirty people inside, mostly men, but a handful of women. All eyes come not to me, but to Larkin in her sunshiny yellow-and-white outfit, and she presses into my side. I can feel the uncertainty rolling off her, and I drop her hand to put my entire arm around her.
Ignoring the stares, I head toward the end of the bar where I see Wolf. He’s a seriously scary-looking dude—not to me, of course, but to someone like Larkin, I’m sure. Long, dark hair he wears in a ponytail down his back with a graying beard that tumbles down his chest. Both arms are covered in tattoos. I’m assuming his chest is, too, but that’s only because his ink spreads up from under his collar and halfway up his neck. He’s a big guy with plenty of muscles, and I can feel Larkin hesitating slightly as we move his way.
Wolf lifts his chin in silent greeting before turning to his bartender. “Get Locke a beer and whatever his friend is having. It’s on me.”
“Thanks, man,” I say as I pull out a stool for Larkin, ensuring I leave a space between her and Wolf for her comfort’s sake. She plops on the worn vinyl seat, peeking uncertainly at Wolf.
“What do you want to drink?” I ask Larkin.
“A beer is fine,” she replies before casting a furtive glance around the bar. Everyone has gone back to doing what they were doing, which is basically drinking, although some are playing pool on one of three tables or steel tip darts.
“Make it two, Linda,” I tell the bartender.
“Sure thing, sugar,” she replies.
I don’t take a seat but stand to Larkin’s left, leaning my left elbow on the bar. When Linda slides the two beers to us, she leans her forearms on the table and gives me a salacious smile. Her tight black tank top—worn without a bra—leaves nothing to the imagination.
“Where you been, Locke?” she purrs, tucking a lock of overly bleached hair behind her ear. She doesn’t spare Larkin a glance. “Been looking forward to taking you on in pool again. Let’s face it… not hard to watch you bending over a pool table.”
Larkin gasps almost imperceptibly. While I’d normally smile and flirt back with Linda, because there’s ordinarily no harm in doing so, it would not be respectful of the woman I’m on a date with.
“As you can see,” I say as I slide Larkin’s beer her way and step in closer to her, “got better things to do today.”
Linda cuts her eyes to Larkin, gives a slight sneer, and turns her back on us. That wasn’t because I’d clearly rebuffed her for another woman, but because I brought in a woman who looks like lemon cupcakes and sunshine who doesn’t really fit in here.
Not that I give a crap what they think about her.
“Who’s the pretty lady?” Wolf asks.
I look past Larkin to the owner who serves amazingly cold draft beer. “This is Larkin. Larkin… this is Wolf. He owns the place.”
Larkin turns on her seat to regard Wolf, giving him a bright smile. “Hi. Thank you for the beer.”
Wolf tips his chin up and smiles. At least I think he does. He’s got so much facial hair it’s hard to tell, but his eyes crinkle slightly. His gaze then drifts up to the TV mounted on the wall behind the bar, which currently shows a monster truck rally. We’ve both been dismissed from his mind.
I pick up my mug, then hold it out to Larkin. She does the same, tapping her beer against mine.
“Cheers,” she says before taking a sip.
“Cheers,” I return, doing the same.
“So how do you know this bar?” Larkin asks, setting her drink down on the bar. She surveys the bar again, this time staring at people a little longer, which indicates they’re not paying attention to her. Like Wolf, she’d been interesting when she walked in, but not as much as what they’d been doing just prior.
“I was doing some work in Milner when I stumbled upon this place.”
Larkin nods, possibly thinking back to that day we first met weeks ago when I was searching for lodging. She’d pointed me to Milner, and I picked up a deck renovation and a few other jobs there. I’m glad of it because it kept me in the area a bit longer than I had thought possible, which made it possible to return to Whynot to see the pretty lady sitting beside me again.
“What type of work do you actually do?” she asks, playing a finger over the rim of her glass mug. “You had mentioned working civilian contracts for aircraft and construction.”
I nod. “I’m good at building things with my hands. I just finished up a project Wolf pointed me toward in Milner. It was renovating a back deck and some landscaping. I’ll take military contracts sometimes, since the money is often too good to pass up, but I’d rather be doing small carpentry jobs and such.”
“Wow,” Larkin murmurs with sincerity. “You’re a man of man
y talents.”
“I know a few things,” I admit. “It makes finding work easy when I’m traveling.”
“Do you even have a house somewhere?” she inquires. “Like back in Idaho or something?”
“Nope.”
“Where do you keep your personal stuff then?”
I take a quick sip of beer before answering. “I’ve got a small storage unit in San Diego, which is where my last duty station was before I got out of the Marine Corps. Important papers are in a safety deposit box at a bank. Everything else I carry in my saddlebags.”
“Amazing,” she drawls in awe. “You’re a true nomad. I’ve never known anyone to live like that.”
“Imagine it’s kind of weird to someone like you,” I reply.
She lifts an eyebrow. “Like me?”
“With a big family and deep community roots,” I explain.
“Yeah,” she says with a sheepish smile. “It’s kind of weird. Don’t you get lonely?”
That’s a question I’ve never given much thought to before. I shrug. “I meet all kinds of interesting people in my travels. I’m never really alone.”
“Well, you can be with people and still be alone,” she says, and I’d never really felt the truth of that until she said it.
Yet, it’s not a truth that bothers me.
Much.
“It’s never felt lacking to me,” I maintain, briefly cutting my eyes past Larkin to see Wolf happily ignoring us while he sips on his beer and watches TV. “I love discovering new places and meeting the people who live there. Learning their histories and cultures. Trying their unique foods.”
“Sounds like a very romantic way to live.”
I’m surprised by this observation. “Romantic?”
Larkin laughs. “Romantic as in an idealized view of reality. Not necessarily speaking of love. But you’re out there enriching your life by learning about the lives of others. I expect you take joy in those things. Revel in the best of what you see and experience.”
“I’ve never had anyone explain the way I live my life in quite that way.” I lean toward her, a small smile playing at my lips. “My stepmom calls it shiftless.”
