Rydin' the Storm Out (7 page)

“Okay. He seems sad
…
But, did you see the arms on him? His body? I bet he works out like crazy. He looks delicious.” Tammy fanned herself with her hand as they laughed and ordered their food. They ate as their friends wandered in to join them. They sat and talked and caught up on last weekend and Molly told them about her night at Ryder’s and the next day going for a bike ride with the group.

“There…see? You fretted over nothing and he was into you all the time, just shy.”

“Well, I haven’t heard from him all week. He did say he had a busy week, but I hoped for a call at least. Besides, I don’t want to be like my mom and, well, you know. So, I’m going to sit back and wait and see what happens. We do have a date tomorrow night.”

“God, Molly. Stop saying that. You’re nothing like your mom. Your mom was weak and needed someone with her all the time. You’re nothing like that. And the rest was not your fault. Stop thinking that way.”

Tammy could walk right up to Molly’s mom and slap her for what she had done to Molly. Poor girl. Her mom really was a crappy mom. All she cared about was herself and being with a man. She never thought about Molly’s needs or wants. Molly had been on her own, in more ways than one, her whole life.

“In my head, I know this. But, I never want to be like that.”

Cara patted Molly’s hand. “Darlin’, you are
nothing
like your mom. Now…to the important stuff. I want to see pictures of these hot guys you two are mooning over. Gimme.”

Molly laughed as she pulled out her camera to show the girls the pictures she had taken of Danny and Ryder.

Saturday morning came early. Pulling into Danny’s driveway with a steaming cup of coffee, the boys each looked at the yard to see the activity had already begun at six-thirty in the morning. Due to the neighborhood covenants, power tools and hammering wouldn’t start until eight o’clock, but preliminaries and unloading were in progress at the moment.

“Okay, let’s get rolling.” Gunnar jumped out of the driver’s seat of the truck and grabbed his tool belt from the back seat. Ryder and JT did the same on the other side. They had decided to ride together to keep the number of vehicles down to a minimum. They walked over to Jeremiah, who was speaking with the contractor, Steve, about the day’s events.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hi guys. Steve, these are my sons, JT, Ryder, and Gunnar. Boys, you remember Steve? We were just discussing the events for today.”

Just then, Danny walked out of his house. He was wearing a prosthetic leg today, covered up by his jeans. If it weren’t for a slight limp, you wouldn’t know anything was different about him. Danny walked up to Jeremiah and gave him a hug.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Dog. I’m overwhelmed, actually.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “No need to thank me, Danny. Just enjoy your home, we’ll be good.”

“Hey guys, how are you today? Thanks for helping on this.” Danny looked at the boys.

“Happy to help Danny,” JT said as he shook Danny’s hand. Each in turn greeted Danny and they turned to Jeremiah to see what they needed to start with. Danny looked over and saw some guys walking with boards over by the flowers.

“They aren’t going to drop stuff on my flowers are they?” Everyone looked over to where Danny was looking.

“No, they won’t do that. I’ll remind them that we aren’t destroying anything, just making it better.” Jeremiah smirked.

“Good. That hot little photographer was here yesterday taking pictures and she liked my flowers. I’ll sic her and her sexy little friend on anyone who smashes them.”

Ryder stiffened at the comment. Molly? Molly had been here yesterday? Did she know Danny? He called her ‘hot.' What the fuck did that mean? Did he want her? Gunnar and JT looked at Ryder and saw his reaction. Danny noticed it too.

Danny pointed his chin at Ryder. “She yours?”

Ryder looked at Danny and furrowed his brows.

“What?”

“The hot photographer. Little gal with dark hair and startling blue eyes, Molly I think. She yours? Everyone just looked at you when I said that. Couldn’t hammer a pin up your ass you’re so puckered up right now.”

Jeremiah didn’t want anything to start. “They’re dating, Danny.”

Danny nodded and started to say something, but they were interrupted by Bryce, Angie, Dayton, and Staci just at that moment.

“Morning everyone. Nice to see you, Danny. Ready for all of this?” Bryce said, smiling.

“Yeah. I’m ready.” Danny looked at Ryder and turned to walk over to the table that was set up outside where the plans had been laid out.

Jeremiah looked at Ryder. “You good? I don’t want problems today. If you have issues, I would rather we work them out now.”

“No, I’m good. I was just surprised that Molly was here yesterday. I didn’t know she was coming.”

“Well, if you don’t fucking call her, you aren’t going to know what she’s doing and where she is, are you?” Gunnar sniped at him.

Gunnar didn’t understand Ryder. He loved his brother with his whole heart, but he didn’t get it.

“If you want Molly, you are going to have to show her that. You can’t be mad that she was here, or anywhere for that matter, if you don’t show her you’re interested.”

Gunnar liked Molly. There was something about her that he couldn’t figure out. Sad? Wary? Something. He just really liked her and wanted Ryder to be good to her.

“Fuck you, Gunnar.” Ryder walked off to go and do something. Right now, he needed to do something physical to get rid of this frustration. Sure, he should have called her this week, but he worked late every day and then stayed at the shop with his dad and brothers afterwards to go over the plans for this week. They made phone calls to volunteers and worked out who had what skills and where they could help out. They contacted the people who were donating items to settle on the delivery day and time, etc. By the time he got home, he was exhausted each night. He knew they had a date tonight, so he didn’t think any more of it. But, she was never far from his mind.

Jeremiah walked over to Ryder and put his arm around Ryder’s shoulders. “Hey, your brothers are just teasing, that’s all.”

“I know, Dad. See, this is what I meant. I don’t know what to do. How often I’m supposed to call her. We have a date tonight and I thought that was good enough. I’m gonna fuck this up.”

“No, you aren’t. Talk to her. Let her know what you just told me. Honesty is the best policy. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ryder mumbled as he walked over to a pile of boards needing to be moved. Physical activity, yep, that’s what he needed right now.

***

Molly and Tammy pulled up the road around seven-fifty to see the street full of parked cars on both sides and a long way from the house. They got out of the car, grabbed Molly’s gear and hoisted the bags onto their shoulders as they walked up the street to the house. There was so much activity already. As they approached the yard, they could see the siding had already been removed from the side of Danny’s house. There were tables and stations
set up
everywhere for measuring, sawing, cutting, etc. They spotted Joci standing by a table that held food and big coffee pots. Molly waved and walked over to Joci. They hugged, and Molly reminded Joci who Tammy was.

“I have coffee and hot chocolate. Which would you like?”

“Coffee, please,” they said in unison.

“I can get it, Joci,” Tammy said. As she was pouring their coffees Molly pulled her camera out.

“We came by yesterday and I got ‘before’ pictures. Take a look.”

They were scrolling through the pictures when Danny came walking over.

“Good morning. How are you two doing this morning?”

“Morning. Glad we came yesterday. With all of this stuff lying around, I wouldn’t have been able to get any good before pictures.”

Danny nodded and looked around.

“Yeah. I guess it’s true what they say, that it needs to get worse before it gets better.”

They all nodded. Molly looked over and saw Ryder looking their way. She waved at him, but he just scowled and looked away. Molly furrowed her brows. What the fuck was
that
for? Molly looked at Tammy and Tammy shrugged.

“He seemed a little pissed when I told him you were here taking pictures yesterday.”

Molly looked at Danny with her brows still furrowed. “He’s mad? Because I took pictures?”

Molly looked at Joci. Joci slowly shook her head. “I’m not aware of anyone being upset this morning. But, you can bet I’ll find out.”

Molly shook her head. “Well, I didn’t do anything wrong, so, whatever. I’m going to snap a few pictures of the progress, then we’ll come and help you here for a little while. Is that okay?”

“Sounds good, Molly. Don’t worry, hon, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Molly looked at Tammy and they started walking over to the side of the house where the siding had already been removed. There were probably a hundred volunteers here and Molly was in her element. She began snapping pictures of the volunteers and the bustle of activity around her.

She took pictures of Joci interviewing Danny on his front porch. Joci planned to add that interview to the end of the DVD. Tammy helped with the video camera while Molly continued taking pictures.

“Tell me about your time in the service, Danny. Where did you do your basic training?”

“I did my basic at Fort Benning. After basic, I went to Fort Stewart until I was deployed.”

“When did you buy this house?”

“I bought it about 2 years before I went into the Army. I didn’t go in straight out of high school; I waited. My dad was sick and I didn’t want to leave. After he had passed away, my mom told me she would be fine if I still wanted to go. I did, of course, but was concerned about leaving her. Then, I had this house. Mom and my brother, Paul, took care of it for me while I was gone.”

“Tell me about your family. You mentioned that your father passed away and you have a brother, Paul; any other siblings?”

“No, it was just the two of us. Paul, he’s so smart and went to college. He’s a veterinarian in town now. He’s married to Grace and they have a baby on the way. Mom still lives in town, close to here, actually.”

“When did you know you lost your leg?”

Danny took a deep breath. “I knew almost right away. I couldn’t hear my buddies because of the ringing in my ears and I didn’t know if any of them were hurt.

“Finally, one of my buddies knelt down beside me and was talking to me. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could tell he was trying to calm me down. Then my other brothers came into my line of vision and I could see they were surrounding me until they could get me to the helicopter. That helped knowing they were there. I settled down so I wouldn’t freak them out. I passed out in the helicopter; on the way to the base, they told me it was gone.”

Tammy was mesmerized by his voice, his eyes, and his story. He didn’t feel sorry for himself and he actually seemed humbled and overwhelmed with the support he was receiving from Rolling Thunder and the community as a whole. The amount of people who had donated food, materials, tools, and their time to help out was astounding. Danny teared up several times talking about everything. Molly thought he was an incredible human being.

“How did you meet Jeremiah and the Rolling Thunder crew?”

Danny smiled. “I called Jeremiah because I needed to see if my bike could be modified to accommodate my new life. I’ve always ridden and didn’t want to stop. Jeremiah started working with me and, from there, the rest fell into place.”

After they finished the interview, Tammy, Molly, Joci, and Danny walked over to the food table where some local women had gathered with pot luck offerings for all the workers. Danny was standing between Joci and Molly.

He leaned down and hugged Molly. “Thank you Molly, for taking the pictures. I’m going to keep an album of them.” He leaned close to her ear and said, “I hope everything will be ok with Ryder. I’m sorry I said anything.”

Molly looked up at him and smiled. “You’re welcome for the pictures. I’ll make you a digital photo album. Don’t worry about Ryder, I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. And, if it’s okay, I would like to mention that Tammy couldn’t stop talking about you last night. She’s smitten.”

Danny and Molly both chuckled. Tammy looked at Molly with her brows furrowed and Ryder chose that time to look over and see them laughing as Danny’s arm rested on Molly’s shoulder.

***

Dammit. She’s his. He was going to have to kick Danny’s ass if he tried to take Molly from him. Bullshit. Nice guys finish last and he was sick of being nice. He put his hammer down just as Molly stepped back a few steps to take pictures of the women gathered around the food table. She took a few pictures of Danny and Tammy. They looked good together, in spite of the fact he stood nearly a foot taller than her. He looked down at her just as Tammy looked up at him and smiled. Ah, that was an excellent picture. Molly took a few more of them talking.

“Can’t get enough of taking his picture?” Ryder’s voice was tight and low.

Molly looked at him, not really knowing what he meant. “They look good together, don’t they?”

Ryder looked over at Danny and Tammy. “Does that piss you off?”

“What? Why would it piss me off? She couldn’t stop talking about him last night. What’s going on with you today?”

It dawned on Ryder that it was Tammy who was interested in Danny, not Molly. His face flamed a bright red. Fuck. He’d jumped the gun. He sucked at this stuff.

“Fuck. Never mind.” He started to walk away.

Molly grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. “Hey. Did you think I was interested in Danny? Is that what this is all about? Is that why you scowled at me earlier?”

Ryder looked Molly in the eyes. They stared at each other for a long time. Molly raised her brows when she didn’t get an answer.