BBW ROMANCE: BWWM Romance: A Cowboy’s Southern Comfort (Military Cowboy Pregnancy Romance) (Interracial Army Contemporary Fantasy Romance Short Stories) (61 page)

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Authors: Samantha Forest

BOOK: BBW ROMANCE: BWWM Romance: A Cowboy’s Southern Comfort (Military Cowboy Pregnancy Romance) (Interracial Army Contemporary Fantasy Romance Short Stories)

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She was sick with anxiety, desperately wanting to call him to explain the situation, but she wasn’t really sure what the situation was yet. Did she want to lose everything to go with Spike? Would the Tornados let her in? Or would everything collapse in on top of her and would she find herself with a price on her head by both gangs?

The more she thought of it the more she became aware that she had so little knowledge of Spike’s life within his gang. What if he had another woman, what if she joined his gang and found herself plummeted through the ranks, little more than the girls she had spent the evening ridiculing? It seemed unthinkable. She just didn’t have enough information to make any sort of meaningful decision.

She sent Spike a flurry of fearful text messages, saying they needed to meet the following night to figure out what they were doing, if anything at all. Once again all she wanted to do was to call Carrie and ask her to come rescue her. She wanted to turn back the clock five years ago, when she was still a rebellious high school senior and none of this had happened yet.

Scarlett was too afraid to involve Carrie at this point. She knew that once Nick got started, very little would come between him and causing as much damage as possible. The thought of him following her to Carrie, the thought of her at the wrong end of his temper scared Scarlett to her very core. There was simply no way she could involve her family.

Chapter Four

The following evening she met Spike at the ghost town where they had spent their first night together. The night air was bitterly cold under the cloudless sky. IN many ways, Scarlett wanted to pretend as if nothing was the matter and call the whole thing off, repeat that romantic night but she knew that it was now or never.

She had to make a decision and she had to make a plan with Spike. They sat together on the concrete platform beneath the decrepit ‘WELCOME TO’ sign, watching the lights of the nearby town glittering before them.

‘Nick says we’re moving on, Spike’

‘Well I knew this was coming sooner or later’

‘I don’t know if I can go with him. Being with you has changed what I thought it meant to love someone and what it meant to be a woman in motorcycle gang. I can’t go back to being dismissed and treated like an object,’ she trailed off, her tone becoming more and more frantic.

‘Look I’ve never met this Nick guy but whoever he is, I promise I can show you a better life than he can. You don’t need to be stuck with some guy who can barely bring himself to remember your name when it doesn’t suit him.’

Spike’s eyes were warm and concerned, the sharp lines of his cheekbones softened in moonlight.

‘If he finds out, I’m afraid of what he’ll do to us’

‘Let me worry about that. If it comes down to it, I can leave The Tornados. I don’t need the gang, I need you. We can run away and he’ll never be able to track us down. We can start over.’

‘I don’t know….’

‘Look I’ve seen it in your face since the day I met you that you’re not happy with Nick or the Death Riders. Hell, there aren’t many of us who can say that they’ve stuck with a gang for as long as you have. You’re not bound to stay with them your whole life. You’re young, you don’t need to be tied to this forever.’

He was right and she knew it.

Part of her had felt for a long time that her days in the Death Riders were coming to an end, with or without Nick. She was sick of the moving around and the constant run-ins with cops. The allure of the bikes, the idea of a man that was bad to the bone but good to her nonetheless, they felt like dreams from another time.

She could barely recognize her life from the fantasies that had drawn her here as a teenager. Looking at Spike, she felt like something new was happening in her life for the first time in years, that she could finally go on a real adventure with him rather than just following him.

The way Spike was looking at Scarlett now, it was as if he could read her thoughts. Taking her face gently in his hands, he pressed his lips to hers. She ran her hand across his chest, tracing the outline of the tattoos below. When they were together, their bodies moved together like they had known each other for years. There was nothing unsettled here, no questions.

Chapter Five

She rode back to the motel. The night roads felt like a dream, silent and empty. For a moment she thought about turning around and just leaving with Spike without a word but she knew that would only make things worse. In spite of it all, she and Nick had been together for three years.

They’d been through so many fights, so many stories both good and bad, she couldn’t possibly just disappear into the night never to return. Nick was the leader of the gang because he was intelligent. It wouldn’t take him long before his concern for her rapidly morphed into rage when he found out what had happened and then there would be no stopping him.

At least if she told him in person, she could at least hope to reason with him. Parking her bike outside the motel for what she hoped would be the last time, she fished her keys out of the pocket of the leather jacket and climbed the stairs up to her room.

The entire row of rooms were cast in an eerie glow of fluorescent light against the peeling pink paint. It was the kind of place where anyone who stayed here was running away from somewhere else or had somehow got stuck living here.

A weird mix of permanence and impermanence enmeshed together. She took care to open her door as carefully as possible. Her eyes adjusting to the yellow light of the room quickly saw Nick sitting on the bed. Her stomach dropped, he was supposed to be at the bar. He had the same look on his face that he had earlier when she had suggested they stay longer, mean and unyielding.

‘So where have you been all night Scarlett’

‘Oh just…went for a ride, its so nice and quiet I couldn’t resist’

He was silent as he rose, arms swinging loosely and exaggeratedly at his side.

‘Do you think I’m an idiot?,’ he said quietly.

She was frozen, her mouth refusing to form any sort of response positive or negative.

‘Do you think I’m an idiot, Scarlett?!’ he roared at her. She took a step back, running through in her head anyone who might be nearby. She knew none of the other bikers would step in.

They knew better than to tell Nick how to treat his woman. Scarlett, who always had an answer for everything, now couldn’t think of anything in the world that would get her out of this situation.

‘You think nobody’s seen you sneaking off with that Tornado bastard? Have you no loyalty at all?’ he snarled. Scarlett knew he was more dangerous quiet than loud.

‘Cheating I could take but with the head of another gang? Another gang that we specifically came here to damage? You’ve made us all look like fools’

‘Nick…please, I never meant to hurt anyone’

‘Oh don’t give me that shit you knew exactly what you were doing’ he said, throwing her up against the wall. His eyes spoke of a violence she had seen visited on so many before her.

Other gangs who woke up to all of their bikes destroyed, legs broken, houses burnt down with people still left inside. Scarlett suddenly felt like a fly inside a Venus trap that had been slow to close around her. She had always known what he was capable of, always known that he had no reservations about hurting anyone, whether it was someone he loved or not.

‘Nick I can just go, nobody knows, I can just disappear and never bother you again’ she pleaded, cracking into tears, but it was too late. He threw her to the ground and slammed the door behind him.

Ears ringing from the impact against the tiled floor, she heard Nick’s engine rev up. She knew she had no time to lose as she picked up her phone, fumbling to find Spike’s number. It rang for what felt like years before he finally picked up.

‘Spike, where are you?’ she said, still crying.

‘Scarlett, what’s wrong? I’m at home’

‘You need to go right now. Nick is coming after you and if he finds you he’ll kill you’

Spike was silent for a moment.

‘We’ll loop round the outside of the town, he won’t run into us’

‘Are you sure? Where will we go?’

‘That doesn’t matter. You have to trust me. Meet me out by the highway’

The call hung up. Scarlett found herself sitting in the middle of the room, blood trickling down her forehead, numb with fear. She knew she had to move but couldn’t quite put together the steps she needed to do that. It felt like the whole world had stopped moving.

When she saw Candy’s name pop up on her screen saying that she had heard what had happened, she realized how much time had passed and sprung into action. She through her money and some clothes into a bag and made for the door, praying that Nick hadn’t done anything to her bike.

Thankfully it was fine and she breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the engine rumble into life. She took off at a huge speed, the noise of it echoing out high pitched and angry across the whole valley. The stars were bright, sparkling and seemed to throb along with her pulse. She was running out of time.

If they didn’t get out on the highway before Nick did, he would run them both off the road and they would both be killed. Scarlett had seen it happen before and images of the carnage spun silently at the back of her mind as she sped along the empty night roads.

Soon she heard the low roar of the highway underpinned by the sound of Spike’s engine. She sped up, praying that the tiny blinking light in the distance that she was sure was Nick wouldn’t catch up with them in time. There was only one way onto the highway and it was virtually impossible to get on cleanly even at this time of night.

If they had to wait even a moment they would lose all their momentum. She could only pray that they would make it and that either Nick would give up or he would take the turn too quickly and wipe out. She hated herself for wishing this on him but she knew it was either him or themselves.

They approached the turn and were suddenly plunged into an ocean of abrasive orange sodium light. The roads were filled with cars whipping past them at enormous speeds. She took one last look at spike and he nodded towards her.

A deep breath and she sped up, darting between the cars to a wave of angry horns blaring at her. A few seconds later, another wave and she saw Spike ride up behind her. She wanted to relax but she knew there was one more step. She counted the seconds, praying for the first time in years.

She heard the crash. An enormous, earth-shaking clatter of metal and tarmac and cement. Scarlett wanted to cry and laugh, eaten up with guilt but also light with relief. Drawing away from the noise and the smoke, she looked at Spike in the mirror.

She didn’t know where they were going or what their lives would be like. All she could do was wave goodbye to a part of her life she had never thought possible to leave behind.

*****

THE END

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