Silver Biker: The Silver Foxes of Blue Ridge

by L. B. Dunbar

  He gave it to me because he was my husband, and I knew in taking me against an alley wall, he wouldn’t let anyone see us.

  Michael had been two years old back then, and we wanted more children.

  That night, I got pregnant.

  And within months, lost a baby.

  “Sleep with me, and I’ll give you what you want,” he blurts. My reaction is to shove at his chest, hard. His upper body leans back, and one foot catches him as he stumbles, but he bounces back, caging me in like the night he kissed me in my hotel room. Hands land on the brick wall on either side of my head. His arms keep him away as his eyes search my face, struggling for control of his expression.

  “Your wife . . .” I begin. “Gave you that night because she loved you. She trusted you. She knew you would protect her and never let anything happen to her.” I pause as my heart hammers, clogging my throat. “I don’t trust you anymore, James.”

  “Because of . . .” James falters, choking on the name he doesn’t speak.

  “Not because of Michael,” I shout, exasperated. “Jesus, James. You can’t even say our son’s name. Michael,” I yell. “I am his mother. Michael’s mother.”

  James turns his head as if I’ve slapped him.

  “I lost him, too. Him. Michael.” I’m really yelling now, and James closes his eyes, his face still turned away from me.

  “When are you going to understand? It’s not about Michael. Not everything is about Michael. You pushed me away. You pushed your family away.” I choke as I consider the two women I just walked out on at lunch. They could have been my friends. They could have been the sisters I never had. “You don’t call me. You don’t open up to me. It’s because of you. Only you, James.”

  10

  Be Angry. It’s Healthy.

  [James]

  With my wife shouting in my face, I want to kiss her. It’s the craziest reaction, but it’s a reaction, and I haven’t felt this alive in a long time. My body vibrates with desire. I want to rip her clothes off, kiss her everywhere, and bury myself inside her against this wall, like our younger selves who couldn’t get enough of one another.

  An advantage of marrying someone who was practically a stranger was discovering each other in our journey to know one another. What soap she uses to make her smell so good. Her favorite food that she can eat repeatedly. What tune does she sing in her head when she concentrates on her jewelry making. One thing we learned over and over again was the heat of our chemistry. Evie and I were off the charts together. The things she’d let me do, considering her proper upbringing and overall good girl vibe prior to me, bolstered me up. I felt like a king when I was with her.

  But this afternoon, she is angry, an emotion she hadn’t ever truly displayed with me. Even when everything had been my fault, Evie never got angry with me. She cried. She sobbed. She wailed, but she never rallied against me, letting me have it, telling me how I was the fuckup for all that happened to us.

  I needed her to be angry with me.

  I face her, and with my hand on her jaw, the other slips to her hip. In one swift move, I flip our position, so I’m pressing myself into the wall holding her against me.

  “That’s it, Peach, get mad,” I hiss in her face. Her fingers fist in my jacket as she tugs the two halves together. Her eyes are wild, and her chest heaves. With the fire in her tonight, I let her lead.

  “How many more things will you keep from me?”

  “Take?” I correct. She must mean take from her. Her eyes narrow to slits. There’s the girl. The one who needs to be angry with me.

  “Keep,” she hisses, surprising me. “You denied me everything. You. Us. Our marriage. You keep yourself so locked up, and you wouldn’t let me in. You still keep me out, but this . . . this I cannot forgive you for.”

  “This?” I stammer. “Of all the things, you’re mad over a name on a building.”

  “It’s more than a name, and you know it. It’s denial. Not telling me. Never calling me. Never opening up and letting me know how you felt, how you feel. What do you want, James? It isn’t me. I get it. You told me it wasn’t me, but what do you want?”

  I stare at her. The list is short.

  I want my son alive.

  I want my wife back.

  “Stop shutting everyone out,” she continues. “Your brothers. Your family.”

  Her chest rises and falls as if she’s been sprinting, and perhaps she has. She’s been running and running away from me because I pushed her to leave. I told her to go and never look back. I wanted her to forget that I’d hurt her worse than anything that could ever happen to a mother, or to a father. I wanted one of us to forget because it would never be me.

  “I’m not keeping anyone out. You could call me anytime,” I state, holding her hips, forcing her body to press against mine as if she and I are the only two people who exist in this world.

  “Bullshit,” she yells at me. “We had a deal. I promised to call you, but you never promised that to me. You could have called me, James. You could have reached out to me. You could have talked to me.”

  Somehow, I don’t think we are discussing a figure of speech related to phone calls. Reach out and touch someone. Evie means I could have reached out to her emotionally. Hell, even physically, I might have been able to use her to forget. We could have used our physical chemistry to mask what was happening to us. She didn’t understand, though, that she was a constant reminder. One look at her eyes, and I saw everything I’d lost. I saw Michael, and it cut me to the bone.

  I risk a glance at those sky-blue beauties raging like an approaching thunderstorm and quickly look away.

  Evie’s fingers release my jacket. Splayed fingers hold open like sparklers during a summer celebration, hover inches above the leather. Her hands shake like she singed them holding the leather, and I tug her hips tighter, hooking my fingers through her belt loops, hoping to tether her to me. In response, she pulls her body back, suggesting she wants off me.

  “Don’t stop fighting now,” I grumble, turned on while equally appalled with myself. I should let her go.

  Slowly, she shakes her head. “I’m done fighting, James. I’m done fighting you. I’m done fighting my feelings. I’m done.”

  “What feelings?” I question. Does she finally hate me? Is that what she fights? The feeling that she should hate me? She really should, even though she’d told me over and over again that she didn’t.

  It wasn’t your fault.

  But it was.

  “No.” Her voice remains stern like when I first walked out the exit door into this alley. I saw her dramatic phone tap across the pub. I also saw the conflict in her face moments before I tried calling her for the fourth time. Then I saw her hasty exit, and I had to follow her. I had to know what those women said to her because I knew it had to do with me.

  “No, I will not discuss my feelings with you. There are no feelings to discuss.”

  Her denial would be cute if it weren’t telling. She’s really done with me. She’s really letting me go, and I realize I’m a contradiction because I told her to leave me. I told her not to look back.

  I can’t look at you.

  With a heavy sigh, Evie places her hands flat on my chest and presses away from me. I tug at her hips once more, hoping to return her against my lower half, but the continued struggle tells me to break free. I release her belt loops and allow her to take a step away from me.

  “I’ll sleep with you,” she says, surprising me. Her eyes remain on my chest as she can’t look me in the face. I hear the shame in her voice. “If that’s what you want, I’ll sleep with you. For the divorce.”

  For the divorce.

  Not because she wants to sleep with me.

  Why would she?

  + + +

  Nineteen years ago . . .

  I quickly learned Evelyn Sue Fitzpatrick was not who I thought she was. I’d met a girl hiking in the woods, camping in a tiny rig, and illegally parked on private property. She was skinny-dipp
ing in a lake, and I thought she was more nature lover, couldn’t sit still, needed to be free, like me.

  She wasn’t.

  Evelyn Sue Fitzpatrick was a Savannah socialite of the highest caliber, and although the Harringtons like to consider themselves royalty on the ridge, it was nothing compared to the wealth and prestige of her family.

  Howard and Susan Fitzpatrick instantly disliked me. The mountain man hick, who wandered the woods as they saw my search and rescue position, did not meet the high standards they’d set for their only offspring. I knew all about Southern princesses and their parents, as my own sister certainly held her share of the market on spoiled. Matilda was the girl child my mother always wanted and the princess my father never dreamed he’d receive. Mati loved sports like the boys in the family, so while she was still precious in Mother’s eyes, she was closer to Dad for her tomboy ways.

  Evelyn was not raised in the same manner. She was raised to exude poise. She actually attended a finishing school, which I didn’t even know was still a thing. She was groomed for a life she didn’t want to lead, but I didn’t know those things at first.

  When I entered her parents’ historic home in Savannah, I was beside myself with worry. Although I was plenty old enough and wealthy enough to provide for my future wife and child, I didn’t know if I’d be enough. It was a surreal feeling as I’d never been concerned before about impressing a woman.

  With Evelyn, I felt the opposite way, especially in her parents’ home. I wanted to be everything to her.

  “What exactly are your intentions, James?” her father asked me. “Is it money you want?” The offer stung, and Evelyn gasped as she sat beside me, clutching my hand as fiercely as I clutched hers. She hadn’t told her parents about the baby. She said she wanted me to be the first to know. She told me she’d need my strength to tell her folks.

  I didn’t know how difficult it would be.

  “I plan to marry her,” I said, turning back to the woman sitting next to me, still holding my hand as though she’d never let go, and a strange sensation came over me. I didn’t want her to let go. I wanted her to hold on to me forever.

  “After three months and only twenty-four hours together?” her father retorted. “Name a price.”

  “There’s not an amount you could place on Evie, and time isn’t a factor either. I’ll have the rest of my life to learn about her,” I said, proud of my answer.

  “Evelyn,” her mother corrected me in calling her a nickname.

  “Peach,” I retorted, growing defensive. I didn’t need their approval of me, but I wanted their blessing because it seemed important to Evie. There hadn’t been a resolution that night after telling them we planned to marry before the baby arrived. I wanted to leave immediately. Evie begged me to stay one night.

  I was given a guest room, separate from my future wife, as if the damage—so to speak—hadn’t already been done. I laid in that bed wondering what the hell I was doing in that antiquated home with its halls of history. Who was the girl who went camping alone up a mountain? How did she get there from this?

  While the Harringtons considered themselves something special in this town, their claim to fame was illegally brewing beer until it became legal. Even then, some looked down their nose on the production of alcohol, although it’s a legitimate business and one that pays nicely. The Fitzpatricks were in shipping and transportation, and somehow that was considered a more noble business practice. Perhaps it was because they were doing it since the dawn of this country.

  Suddenly, the door to my room opened, and Evelyn squeezed into the room.

  “You okay?” I instantly asked, sitting up in bed.

  “I wanted to see how you were doing,” she said, equally concerned. I scooted over in the bed, allowing her space to crawl in next to me. She laid on her back, hands on her belly, and my hand fell there as well, feeling the tiniest of swells.

  “What are you doing with me?” I questioned, propping myself up on an elbow as my hand remained on her stomach.

  Her head turned to face me. “I like you,” she whispered in the dark of the quiet room.

  “I like you too, Peach, but I mean, what are you really doing with me? Why were you in those woods? Why did you do with me what you did?” It was an honest question. Why me? Why camping? Why sex with a stranger? She clearly didn’t grow up traipsing in the woods. She was more a resort vacation in the Maldives type.

  “I was trying to find myself,” she whispered. “Things were . . . difficult here, and I just needed to get away. I wanted something different, something I’d never done before, and I wanted to do it on my own.”

  “Well, you certainly did something,” I teased, squeezing a little at the slight curve to her belly. Her lips twisted side to side, not appreciating my joke. “I’m sorry. Explain more to me.”

  “Have you ever had expectations placed on you, you just knew you couldn’t fulfill?”

  I stared at her, feeling as if she’d read my mind. My oldest brother went off to war. He was a hero just for signing up. By default, that meant I was next in line for the brewery, but I just couldn’t be confined to an office. I didn’t have the business sense for running a company, and I’d never been a conformist. I’d always been the rebel child without much reason. I did what I wanted when I wanted, and I faced the consequences without flinching.

  Drunk at fourteen. Didn’t care.

  Dolores Chance in my bed at eighteen. Oops.

  Got a wild girl pregnant in the woods. Okay then.

  I manned up because I had fun doing what I’d done.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said to her, rubbing the palm of my hand over her belly and then pulling up the short tee to feel her skin against mine. My child was inside this woman. We created something together, and I had confidence we’d create more. We’d be more.

  “I just wanted to get lost,” she said.

  “In order to find yourself.” It made perfect sense to me.

  “Weird, right? It was the wrong thing to do.” Her voice dropped, and I cupped her jaw, forcing her eyes to look up at me. God, I’d give this woman anything she asked as long as she kept looking at me.

  “Did it feel right when you were doing it?” I questioned.

  “So right,” she whispered, and somehow, I don’t think she meant only the hiking, camping, and skinny-dipping.

  “Then it can’t be wrong, can it?”

  She shifted on the bed, rolling to face me, and I dropped my arm, laying my head on the pillow to look at her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I said, lifting fingers to trace the edge of her face and brush back her hair.

  “I know we’ve just reunited, so to speak, and we’ll be marrying soon enough, but would it be too much to ask if I could sleep with you, here, tonight? I don’t like being in this house, and I especially don’t like thinking of you being so far away from me.”

  “I’d love to sleep with you, Peach,” I said, letting my fingers drift down her face and along her neck. “In fact, would it be too bold to ask if I could make love to you? We can be quiet and go slow and—”

  I didn’t have time to finish my speech as she crushed her mouth to mine. Before I knew it, she was rolling me to my back, straddling me.

  “Yes, please,” she begged, grinding herself against me, the thin fabric of her pajamas not enough to disguise the heat and need in her. My hands cupped her face while her mouth took mine wild. She bit me, and I grunted. “Sorry, pregnancy hormones. I’m so horny.”

  She pulled back as if afraid to admit such a thing, but I held her head, keeping her face only inches from me.

  “You can use me for whatever you need, but I’m warning you, Peach. I might fall in love with you.” It was meant to be a joke, to calm her fears, but as soon as I said the words, I found I meant them. I’d fall in love with her. I already had.

  Her smile grew until her face beamed in the dark room.

  “Yeah?” she whispered. Leaning forward, she brought her lip
s so close to mine I could feel her breath.

  “Yeah,” I teased, then lifted my head to quickly take those lips. No more talking, I decided, especially with her moving over me. We didn’t take it slow as we should have. We struggled to be quiet that evening. But I gave her what she wanted and knew I always would as long as she looked at me like all of me was good enough for her.

  11

  True Confessions

  [Evie]

  I step away from James in the alley, out of breath and out of patience. Tugging my bag up on my shoulder again, I turn my back to him and close my eyes. He wouldn’t chase me. He’d told me he wouldn’t follow. He told me to leave him alone.

  And fool that I am, I hold my breath for half a second, waiting to hear if he’ll call my name, hoping he’ll stop my retreat.

  I won’t be standing here waiting, he’d once said.

  I was the idiot who had been holding out.

  Stepping forward, I walk to the end of the alley and turn for the main street where I’ve parked my car. I cannot re-enter the Pub after my grand exit, but I don’t have either woman’s phone number, and I need to apologize for my abrupt departure. I send a text to Giant asking him for Letty’s number, hoping I don’t need to explain myself. I’m sure she’ll fill him in.

  When I return to Conrad Lodge, I debate heading to the lounge for a drink. I’d hardly eaten my lunch. Instead, I decide the privacy of my room is what I need. Although I’d been alone a long time, and desperately in need of people, I don’t think I’d be good company to anyone in my current state.

  To my surprise, I see a newly-familiar man stepping out of a room, and I stop in the hallway.

  “Justice?” He doesn’t seem like the type to rent a swanky resort room for a one-hour tryst. There are places off the highway for such a thing, not to mention I’d been to the clubhouse slash mansion deep in the woods thanks to Giant’s directions. It didn’t make sense to me that Justice would be here, but what did I know? It wasn’t my business anyway.