Ridge Creek (8 page)

Deciding that not even with Jake at my side do I want to
tempt fate and set off a display of
bad-ass-iness
, I reply at the same
time as I let my eyes wander around the room.  “No one said anything.  We were
just discussing your ah… business’s … well…
electronic visibility.”

“What the fuck is that?” Jake asks sounding confused.

“That’s exactly what they said,” I mutter under my breath.

Chewing on my lip I watch in fascination as the whole room
relaxes.  The tension literally flows along the floor and rolls out the door. 
Everyone starts smiling at me.  Giving me a squeeze, Jake seems happy enough
with my response.  “Were you lookin’ for me?”

“I need your postal address to get my goodies delivered,” I
announce as I start to turn us both towards the door.

And I need to get the fuck out of here.

“121 Queen Street, Ridge Creek,” he announces as he pulls
the door open for me.  With a light touch to my shoulders, he propels me back
through to the front desk.

As the door closes behind us, I try to ignore all the soft,
deep voiced voices mumbling, “Goodies,” from the room behind us.

*****

I spend the next hour shopping.  I’m in seventh heaven. 
Jake goes and gets his cordless drill and mounts the tin sign I found next to
the front counter.  I walk around the room, pick up another sign, point to a
spot on the wall and hand it to him.  Without a word, he mounts the second sign
too.

I then spy a massive, very cool, framed print of a motorbike
silhouetted against a sunset leaning against a side wall.  Climbing through
piles of boxes to reach it, I struggle to lift it up.  Still without a single
word, Jake follows me through the boxes, picks it up with one hand and
announces, “Where.”

I look around the room and decide the best place for it is
above and center behind the front counter.  Pointing to my chosen spot, I hear
him sigh as he nods and starts climbing back through the boxes.  I follow and
take a seat back at the computer to do more shopping.

Leaning the huge print against the counter, he disappears
out the door.  Returning a short time later with a ladder, hammer and various
hooks, I smile as he sets about hanging the print.  It’s about fifteen minutes
later that I complete my last purchase for the day and shut the computer down. 
This coincides with Jake climbing back down the ladder one last time after
several adjustments to the picture to get it hanging straight.

Walking around to the front of the counter and stepping back
a few steps, I admire the print.  It looks
awesome. 
Packing up his
ladder and tools he asks, “Any room left on my credit card?”

Grinning, I answer honestly.  “No.”

“I’ll go to the bank tomorrow and clear it for you.”

“Phone banking?” I ask.

“What banking?” He replies.

“Enough said,” I reply with a grin as I round the counter to
open the door for the man and his ladder.

Pizza

After putting his ladder and tools away, Jake suggests we
head out to what he calls the ‘Communal Room’, to order a pizza and have a few
drinks at the bar.  He explains he’s sent his mother home and most of the
‘boys’ have already cleared out.  He’s my official baby-sitter for the night.

Perched at a bar stool, I look around the room to find there
are only two biker’s left playing pool.  They are the blonde and red-haired men
I saw earlier today.  Excluding a quick glance and a nod as I enter the room,
neither of them bother to interact with us.

“Where’s Zane and Pops?” I ask Jake as he rattles around
under the bar before producing a bottle of Wild Turkey and two shot glasses.

“Gone home.  Zane’s been sleeping here all week while Ma nursed
you.  Both he and she needed a break.”

I nod as I silently decide I need to do something
big
to thank them both.  What
big
thing that is, I have no idea.  I’m hoping
it will come to me.  Perhaps Ems can help me think of something when she gets
here.

Pouring the shots, Jake slides one to me as he grabs his
phone from his back pocket.  Raising his voice he calls out, “Bill, Luke, you
in on pizza?”

Two heads lift from the pool table where they have both been
studying what seemingly was a complicated pool shot and nod. 

“Do they talk?” I ask Jake in a quiet, barely there voice.

“Only if you want them to,” he replies as he hits some
buttons on his phone. 

He then places an order with a man named Jerry for the
‘usual’ for four.  (Jake appears to know Jerry well because he asks after his
wife and kids during the order placement.)  Finishing the call and sliding his
phone into his back pocket again, he points at my shot glass.

“Beer?” I ask hopefully.

I figure there is no point in even asking for a wine.

“Bourbon,” he replies with a deep rumble that makes my skin
tingle.

“One way to wean me off painkillers I suppose,” I mutter as
I tip the shot back and swallow.  I don’t even choke.  I’m getting good at
this.  I think I’m becoming an alcoholic. 

I instantaneously decide being an alcoholic could be a good
thing.  Walking around with green eyes, a new hair color and drunk off my ass
all the time, there is
no way
Tony or his thugs will recognize me. 
Apart from the changes to my shell, Tony would never expect me to become a
drinker.

Watching as he slides a stool over and settles himself
opposite me at the bar, I ask, “Where have you been all week?”

His face activates momentarily before he replies, “Away on
business.”

“You’re mother said you went home.”

“I did, for a night.  Then I had to leave to attend to some
business.”

Studying his face I feel an icy chill run through my body. 
My sixth sense is telling me he is holding something back.  Deciding that he’s
a biker and bikers are badasses, I decide that it’s probably a
badass thing
. 
A badass thing that I don’t want to know about.  The equivalent to not wanting
to know what Tony was doing when he took calls at two in the morning that saw
him leave our house in the middle of the night and not return for days.

“You have a home.  Why do you have a bedroom here as well?”
I ask.

“Sometimes I work late and need to crash,” he replies
without hesitation.

Okay then.

“Do you need me to move into another room so you can have
your crash bed back?” I ask as I start lamenting internally that I should have
bought two Queen sized beds online today and not just the one. 

Dammit.

I should have planned for this.  The furniture outlet that
had promised next day delivery had had a fantastic deal on two beds for the
price of one.  With the kickass latex mattress that I’d bought Emma, it would
have been the deal of the century.  Now I’m going to have to order a second bed
for full price. 

Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Fuck no,” his deep gravelly voice snaps me from my revelry.

“Where are you going to sleep then?  Do you have another
room?”

I hear a snort and a grunt from the pool table behind me and
swing my eyes.  I do this just fast enough to catch the two men at the pool
table staring at me.  Aware that I can see them, they drop their eyes back to
the pool table.

“There’s other rooms,” Jake mumbles as he pours another
round of drinks.  “But I don’t sleep in them.  Ever.”

Why not?

Wondering why he said
ever
, I decide to clarify.  “Do
you plan to go home tonight?”

“Maybe,” he replies warily, his eyes becoming intense as he
studies me closely.

“What does maybe mean?”

“It means that my going home depends on how you answer my
next question,” he replies with a hint of caution in his voice.  His green eyes
glow just a little and I find myself mesmerized as I wait for him to ask his
question.  His question takes me by surprise. 

“Why did you hide under the bed earlier?”

I was not expecting that!

“Um…” Watching his eyes closely I try to interpret why this
question is so important.  I can see it holds great weight with him.  By the
serious lines on his face and the hard set of his jaw, I can see my answer
matters.  Deciding I don’t have anything left to hide from this guy, I go with
honesty.

“There was a loud bang.  I thought Tony had found us and he was
shooting people.”

I watch his face as he blanks out for a few seconds before
recovering.  Understanding then dawns in his eyes.  “The bike backfired,” he
mutters.  “They were working on a bike in the garage.  It backfired.”

“Oh…”

God I feel like an idiot.

“You panicked and threw yourself under a bed,” he continues
as if he is talking to himself.

“Um…”

“I’m not going home tonight,” he announces firmly as he
grabs his shot glass and downs another drink.

“You can go home…” I offer.  Because really, why should he
stay?  I’m a big girl now.  I’ve made it this far and if I wasn’t here, I’d
probably be hiding in a dumpster somewhere, scared out of my wits.  Scared out
of my wits and planning to live my life dumpster diving, wearing big overcoats
and filthy hats to disguise my identity.  I’d probably even shave my head.  So
far, things are panning out far better than I could have imagined.  There’s
hope that I can live a
life
and I can do it with hair.

“You don’t feel safe yet,” he explains as he watches me closely.

“I feel safe…
ish,
” I reply without hesitation. 
“Safer than I would feel somewhere else…” 

Say in a dumpster, with bags of left over Chinese food…

And that’s a fact. 

I doubt I could feel safer anywhere else right now.  I’m in
a different State, I’m in a small town in the middle of nowhere and I’m hiding
behind a biker shop.  These three things alone create more anonymity for me
than any plan
I
could have dreamed up.

Just because I’ve become a total nervous wreck doesn’t mean
he needs to baby-sit me.  I’m sure he’s got a life.

Holy shit.

He’s probably got a wife or someone who waits at home for
him and here he is, sitting at a bar, drinking with
me.
  I
don’t
need any more enemies.  I have more than enough already.  Jake’s girlfriend or
wife holding a grudge against me would be horrible. 

Fuck.

It seems that
huge
parts of my brain are no longer
functioning because this is something I should have asked him
waaaay
earlier.  “Do you have a wife?” I blurt out loudly. 

More snorts and grunts from the table behind me.  This time
I choose to ignore them.  Clearly they are listening to every word of our
conversation.

Fascinated I watch as Jake’s face instantly hardens.   He
looks
pissed. 
“Yes,” he grinds the word out as I stare fascinated at
the way his eyes have gone almost yellow green now that he’s pissed.

That’s strange and unusual.

“Oh…” I quickly decide I don’t need to know any more.  The
guy’s got a wife.  I need to
steer clear.
  No doubt I’m already a
complication as it is.  I can just see it now, Jake arriving home to his pretty
wife who’s been slaving over a hot stove all day.  She hasn’t seen him all day
and she’s excited her man is home.  Then he has to tell her he’s picked a woman
up off the side of the road and he needs to spend all his days and all his
nights babysitting her to make sure she doesn’t get herself shot.

Bingo – instantly I become female enemy number one.

Good times.

“She’s a fucking
bitch,”
his words once again snap me
out of my head.  He looks even more pissed.  If that’s at all possible,
considering he looked
pissed
before.

“Oh…” I repeat. 

Well that changes things doesn’t it?  Or does it?  I suppose
he could be happily married to a bitch.

“I can’t stand the sight of her but unfortunately she’s hard
to scrape off.  I’m working on it though. 
You
don’t need to worry about
her.  She’s never set foot in the shop or its surrounds.  It’s too
dirty
for her and she doesn’t like bikers.”

She doesn’t like bikers?

How can you be married to a biker and not like bikers? 

Staring at his face as he pulls his lips up to grimace, I
strike that thought.  Sitting right in front of me is the very reason that
any
woman would like bikers, even if they didn’t
like
bikers
.
  Even
grimacing, the guy hits fifteen on the one to ten scale of hotness. 

“I have to agree with her on the dirty part, you guys live
like pigs in…”

“Don’t you fuckin’ start woman,” he warns, his eyes
darkening again to reveal more green than yellow.  “You’ll wreck the whole
tough as nails image I have of you.  There are several reasons we never let
women into the back of the shop and whinging about our shit everywhere would be
one of ‘em.”

My jaw almost hits the bar.  “You never let women back
here?”

“Fuck no.  Ma’s the second female to have ever set foot back
here and she did it under duress.  She’s avoided it at all costs for over ten
years.  It was only due to the
extenuating
circumstances she even
considered it.”

Holy shit.

My mind flying into overdrive I can now see why I have been
getting so many strange looks as I wander through the place.  Without even
knowing it, I’ve broken one of their Golden Rules.  I’ve entered their sacred
man cave. It dawns on me the
enormity
of what Jake is doing for me.

Thinking that we’ve come this far, I decide I may as well
just throw it out there.  “You’re gunna let Dingo’s wife come back here to fix
my hair too.  And then Em’s is going to arrive.  How’s all that working out for
you?”