Bikers and Pearls (21 page)

Was he dead? He remembered a loud crash as he had pulled away from his shop. There
was an icy knife embedded in his head. Maybe he was gone.

If he were, Adam would be here. Right? And his mother? He searched the crowd again.
Again the lights blinded him.

There wasn’t a frightened bone in his body, though. Everything was going to be fine.
The peace bathed him in warmth.

The music in the background quieted, and the beings all turned around to gaze at a
light-filled door. A trumpet heralded a musical proclamation of an important arrival.

His eyes grew fixed in the direction that the others were beholding.

A figure stepped through the light and the light receded.

It was April.

She was dressed in a
white gown. And she was the most beautiful thing he had ever beheld.

The faces on the people around him drew into focus. There was Bertie Houseman and
Miss Velma. Hogan was there with Jenna.

Little Ben stepped out of the back row and in front of April. He held something in
his hands.

As she walked down the aisle toward Bull, he realized he was at his own wedding, and
then he heard the voice—deep, rumbling, internal.

It said, “She must be his wife.”

…

“She must be his wife,” a voice said. April lifted her head. Brilliant orange and
gold light streamed from the eastern-facing window against two silhouetted figures.

She still held Bull’s hand in hers. Removing her left hand, she rubbed the glare from
her eyes.

“Good morning,” one of the women in white said as the other turned up the slats on
the blinds, making it easier to see the two nurses. “You his wife?”

“Is he going to be…okay?” April asked.

“That depends,” the nurse with red hair said.

April kissed Bull’s hand. “On what?”

“On how quickly he comes out of it,” said the tall nurse. “It’s only been about twelve
hours. The longer he stays under, the worse the prognosis.”

April didn’t want to ask another question because she didn’t want to hear anything
negative. It was a stupid thing to do, but she had to bolster her hope.

“We’ll be back in a while to check his vitals again. Call us if you need something,”
the tall nurse said as she placed the call button next to Bull.

They couldn’t give her anything she needed. Unless it was some good news. What she
really needed was Bull. Healthy. Whole. And in her arms.

His hair had been shaved off and replaced by gauze bandages. She remembered last night
the doctor saying something about relieving the pressure in his brain.

Maybe she could have some kind of operation to relieve the pressure in her heart.
It was swelling out of her chest. If only he would wake up.

She bent down to his ear. “I know I shouldn’t be making demands on an unconscious
man, but I need a second chance. I need you to wake up, Bull.”

She stopped and wiped her eyes. “I can be the kind of woman you need me to be. I promise.”

She looked out the window. “I was wrong about everything. Everything. And you are
the only thing that matters right now.” She leaned even closer. “I love you,” she
said and gently kissed his lips.

As lightly as firefly’s wings, she felt his finger move in her hand. She stood up.
His face twitched. One of his eyes opened and then the other.

Her heart beamed and glowed like the sun outside the window.

…

“You must be my wife,” Bull said. He could hear the grogginess in his own voice.

April looked confused and disappointed. “You mean you don’t know who I am?”

“Yes. I know who you are. I’m
telling
you. You
must
be my wife,” he said.

She smiled, sat in the chair beside him and said, “I know.” Lines formed between her
brows. “I
think
that was a marriage proposal. Though, not a very good one. Am I wrong?”

“More like a marriage…demand,” he said. He tried to sit up, but it felt like sharp,
hot spears were darting through his head.

“Stop,” she said. “You’ve got some healing to do first.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, April, or your father. I’m willing to do whatever it takes,”
he said.

The red-haired nurse came in, saw him coherent, and ran out, probably to alert the
doctor.

“I’ve got a plan with my parents, sweetheart. They’re going to absolutely love you
when it’s all over,” she said.

“They’ll never go for the motorcycle.” He reached up and felt the bandages covering
his head.

“Well, after you wrecked it yesterday, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.”
She straightened the sheets around his chest. “I don’t know that I’ll ever let you
buy another one after this accident.”

“What?” He was confused. “Unless I lost half my brain, I wasn’t in a motorcycle accident
yesterday. I was in the Escalade.”

April’s face was covered in astonishment.
“I…I…I just assumed.”

He said, “Guess I won’t have to buy a new motorcycle then, huh? Got my good ole Harley
Cruiser safely stored away in my garage.” He chuckled, but it hurt his head. “And
don’t forget. We still have your bike, too.”

April shook her head. “I’ve done it again—jumped to conclusions—wrong ones.” She took
a deep breath. “I wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but I can’t. I can promise
you, however, that I’ll work on it every day of my life—if you’ll have me.”

He lifted their locked hands. “I’ve already got you.” He kissed her fingers.

The doctor came rushing in with the nurse. “Good morning,” he said. He grabbed the
chart and started poring through it.

April smiled at the nurse and then at Bull.

“Back to your parents. What about the ponytail?” Bull asked.

“That’s not a problem.” She kissed
his
hand this time.

“I beg to differ. They appeared to have quite a problem with the whole thing when
they saw us together on the Charleston Battery.”

The doctor glanced up and said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Canfield. Nobody’s going to have a problem
with your hair for a while.”

Bull was really confused now.

“I cut it all off in the emergency room last night,” the doctor said.

April stared at Bull with a smirk on
her
face.

He saw the wheels turning. Him sitting in her parents’ parlor with a necktie and a
crew cut—looking like some Jim Dandy boy scout. He shook his head and winced. “Give
me a break!”

Dr. Canfield lifted his head. “Women can give us a hard time, can’t they?” He observed
the readings on the monitor. “And they put up with us through hard times, as well.
You know she sat in that chair beside your bed all night?”

Bull stared at her angelic smile. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

“Yep.” Bull had waited and his hopes were finally going to be realized.
She must be my wife
.

Epilogue

April sat in a lacy, wrought iron chair at the side of her parents’ home. In her lap
was an ever-increasing guest list for her wedding. She tapped her pen on the notebook.
The Sunday afternoon sun scarcely reached the ground around her under the big old
magnolia tree.

She watched Bull. His upper body was sprawled on one of those mechanic’s sleds underneath
her father’s car, his long, lean legs jutted out from the side of the vehicle. One
leg was bent. Blue jeans hadn’t ever fit a man so perfectly before.

Her father had squatted beside Bull like a nurse ready to slap a scalpel into the
palm of a surgeon, poised to hand him any kind of tool he needed.

“Here we are,” April’s mother said as she set a tray filled with glasses of lemonade
and a pitcher on the table beside April. “Darrell, come here and make yourself really
useful and get Bullworth some of this lemonade.” She took one of the yellow plastic
tumblers from the tray and held it out. “He’s got to be hot under that car.”

“I’m coming, Shirley. Hold your horses,” April’s dad said.

Her father pushed up from the ground, took the cane he had leaned against the car,
and slowly made his way over to them. It was hard for April to see her father’s limp
grow worse as he aged. She was so glad that Bull had offered to change her dad’s brake
shoes on the Town Car.

Bull scooted from under the vehicle when her dad returned with the lemonade.

He looked at April and smiled. She just loved that man.

“April, dear,” her mother said in a hushed Southern drawl. “Is Bullworth going to
cut his hair again before the wedding?” She took a sip from her glass. “He looked
so clean cut when the two of you first came for a visit.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. I really like it at his shoulders.”

“
Tsk, tsk
,” her mother said. “He’s such a handsome man when it’s trimmed.” She paused. “Don’t
get me wrong, dear. I love him to death. And your father does, too.” She took another
sip. “Even if he does ride a…motorcycle now and then.”

“You’re right, Mom. I think he’s handsome on a bike, behind the wheel of an Escalade,
with disheveled hair, under Daddy’s car, or merely sitting with me.”

“He’s got the most beautiful blue eyes,” her mother said.

“You’d better not let Daddy hear you say that.”

“That old coot couldn’t get jealous of Bullworth if he sat down on a stump and tried.
After all he’s done for your father—fixing the roof, helping him with his garden,
teaching him how to work on that computer of his.” She gazed at the two men beside
the Lincoln. “Look at them. If you didn’t know, you’d think they were father and son.”

April laughed. “I guess I should tell you that the whole male side of the wedding
party will probably be sporting ponytails, too.”

“Oh, my,” her mother said. “But certainly not Jenna’s fiancé…Pig or Sow or whatever
his name is. I know Jenna wouldn’t stand for that. When it comes time, I can guarantee
anyone that she will have the most traditional wedding anyone’s ever seen.”

“Actually, his name is Hog. Short for Hogan. I’m afraid that he’s going to have sort
of a ponytail, too. Jenna said she thought that with his hair long he resembled those
hunks on the covers of romance novels.”

“Come to think of it, he would. In fact, there’s a guy on the one on my nightstand
right now who sort of favors him,” her mother said. She shook her head.

“Jenna reads a lot of those things, too. Or rather used to,” April said.

“Jenna is a dear. What ever happened to your plans to join her in the Ladies League?”

“Well, Jenna hasn’t even had time to attend any of the league functions lately—not
since Hogan. Also, we’ve got this new project we’re working on.”

“What kind of project?” her mother asked.

“When Bull and I were preparing dinner one evening in his kitchen, I saw an old notebook
and thumbed through it. It was a stash of his family’s old recipes. He told me how
his mother had wanted to share them before her death. Anyway, I saw a way to raise
more money for the Humanity Project. So Jenna and I are our own cookbook committee
now.”

Shirley Church nodded. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie.”

There was a comfortable silence between the two women.

“So, about Daddy. Have you prepared him for the wedding…with all the…ponytails and
motorcycles that’ll be there?” April tapped her pen on the arm of her chair. “We don’t
want him falling out with pains in his chest or anything.”

“Oh, that kind of thing doesn’t bother your father like it used to,” her mother said.
“Since that last episode with his heart, he started questioning what was in it—and
found he needed to do some spring cleaning. Don’t tell anybody, but he even reads
my romance novels when I’m finished with them. He’s done a lot of changing lately.
Not nearly as stubborn and as closed-minded as he used to be.”

“Well, I hope he’s open-minded enough when he learns about Mr. Houseman,” April said.
She poured herself another glass of lemonade from the pitcher. “He said that for his
entire life, he wanted to try growing out his hair just once, and since everybody
else in the wedding party will have a ponytail, he said this is his chance.”

“My, my, my,” her mother said, rubbing the cold tumbler across her forehead to cool
herself off.

“Miss Velma’s about to have a fit. Last week at a Humanity Project build she told
me and Bull that she’ll have a pair of scissors wrapped in a handkerchief and tucked
in the waistband of her pantyhose to cut the thing off as soon as we pull away from
the reception.” April shook her head at the thought.

“Oh, well, everything can’t be perfect.” Her mother filled her glass again.

Bull and April’s father walked toward them.

April stood and wrapped her arms around Bull’s free one. “Daddy’s not working you
too hard, is he?” she asked, looking up into his eyes. She eyed how his lip inched
up on one end and remembered teasing it with her kisses last night.

Bull smiled and kissed her. “Everything’s wonderful—just wonderful.”

“Speaking of wonderful,” her mother said. “I’ve got a fabulous meal finishing up for
Sunday dinner—a honey ham, my mama’s recipe for potato salad. And I’m trying this
spicy new recipe for a guacamole dip for Bull. Saw it on the Food Network this week.
It calls for jalapeño peppers, but your father came home with bell peppers yesterday.”
She rolled her eyes at her husband.

She was going to have to pay more attention to her mother’s cooking, now that she’d
be preparing meals for Bull. She squeezed his arm, buried her face into it, and inhaled.
He intoxicated her.

“I didn’t know,” her father protested.

“Silly, a jalapeño is smaller and more narrow, and a bell pepper is kind of roundish,”
her mother said. “But they’re both the same shade of green. And if you didn’t know,
ask someone.”

April squeezed Bull’s arm even harder.

“Anyone could have made the same mistake,” Bull said. April could tell that he was
simply trying to have a bonding moment with her father. Bull definitely knew his Mexican
peppers.

“I guess I’m going to have to go to the store myself,” her mother said.

“You won’t be going anytime soon,” her father said. “We thought we’d take a break
and eat and finish the car up when the sun went down a little.”

“We won’t be eating without my jalapeños,” she said, and put her hands on her hips.
“It’s got to be perfect. Bull didn’t come all this way to get grease on his hands
for some half-cooked meal.”

April gazed up at Bull. He smiled at the banter. He was going to fit in just fine
with her family.

“I can take you, Miss Shirley,” Bull said.

April’s mom looked toward the car on the two drive-up ramps. “I thought it won’t be
done till evening.”

“I can take you on my bike. On the back roads. Real slow. I won’t go more than twenty
miles an hour, and it’s only a few blocks,” Bull said.

April shot him a look. Her parents adored him, but he’d probably gone too far this
time.

“She’s an ornery woman,” April’s dad said. “Won’t be happy till she gets her way.”
He turned to his wife. “You might as well get yourself on the back of his Harley if
you can’t do without your…jalapeño peppers.”

Had April heard what she thought she’d just heard?

“I believe I will, old man,” her mother said, defiantly walking toward the motorcycle.

What? There was absolutely no apprehension in April for her mother’s safety, but what
April was surprised to find was that there seemed to be no fear left in her parents.
Bull had transformed them with his thoughtfulness and charm. Exactly as he had done
with her.

“Get April’s helmet from my saddlebag and put it on, Miss Shirley,” Bull called out.

April’s mom and dad tentatively approached the Harley and tried to pull open every
satchel and pouch Bull had on the bike until they found the helmet. April laughed.
She turned to face Bull. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I’m going to buy some jalapeño peppers, that’s what,” he said.

“No. You’re taking Shirley Church for a ride on a motorcycle. That’s a miracle,” April
said.

“No, April. Your love is a miracle—my miracle.” He searched her eyes with his and
held her gaze as he kissed her hand. Then he kissed her cheek. And then he covered
her lips with his.

April’s heart was bursting with tenderness. She loved that man.

“Look, just get Shirley Church back here in one piece for me…with her jalapeño peppers.
That will be miracle enough for one Sunday afternoon,” April said, reaching up and
tenderly kissing his full lips again.

“Yes, ma’ am.” He looked behind him.

April peered around his side. Her parents were working together to tighten the strap
on the helmet. One more tug and her mother would have that facelift she’d been talking
about for the last several years.

Bull bent down and kissed April again on the lips. “Gotta go.”

She watched his powerful stride as he walked toward her parents.

He steadied the bike and helped her mom onto the passenger seat.

April and her father stood on the front lawn and waved like they were at a parade—an
Independence Day Parade—as Bullworth Clayton and Shirley Church pulled into the quiet,
two-lane street.

April loved that man.