Bobbi

After receiving an email from Amazon that book number six in the biker series had been released, I eagerly clicked the link. Frustrated to find that the book had been out for almost a week, I eagerly downloaded it and took my Kindle to work. My day was then spent anxiously waiting for my lunch break to arrive. Now that it was finally time, I sat in the observation station with an apple in one hand and my Kindle in the other.

“Must be a great book if you can’t wait until you get home to read it,” Perry said. “Never had one that I was that worried about reading.”

I seriously doubted he’d ever read a book. I glanced up, gave him a quick glare, and then went back to reading. Two chapters in, and it was so gripping that I couldn’t put it down. It followed the life of an ancillary character from book four. He was proving to be more interesting than any of the previous characters from the series.

His name was Becker Wallace, and he went by the road name Cricket. It’s been said that crickets are a sign of good luck, and Cricket was the club’s good luck charm.

He’d been riding with the MC for sixteen years, and was only 34 years old. Set in his old-school ways, he was a man well beyond his years in persona, actions, and state of mind.

He wore short unkempt hair, a full beard, and smoked a pipe – which he carried in his front pocket. Despite living in southern California, he always wore a flannel shirt. He didn’t have a television, carried a flip phone, and didn’t use the internet. He didn’t send text messages or have Facebook, and believed social media was the beginning of the downfall of the entire nation. If you wanted Cricket, you had to call him or somehow find him. If you weren’t one of his MC brethren, you couldn’t call him, because he wouldn’t give out his phone number to anyone. He only had it because the club demanded it in their bylaws.

He despised anyone who made online purchases for anything they could otherwise buy in person, and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. He didn’t carry a gun, a club, or a knife. He did, however carry a straight razor in his back pocket, and made it know if anyone ever aggravated him enough to cause him to use it, that they’d end up being cut three ways.

Long. Deep. And, forever.

He worked as a jewelry smith, making custom rings and pendants by hand in his garage. He often turned work away if it was simplistic in nature, believing the complex designs challenged him more. All his work was obtained by word of mouth, as email, telephone conversations, and texting were out of the question.

When he wasn’t sketching his next creation in his notepad, he read literature, focusing not on the likes of The Grapes of Wrath, Pride and Prejudice, or other well-known works. He read pieces of lesser known literature that he believed had artistic merit, most of which his late father left him when he died.

With a jeweler’s magnifying visor affixed to his head, and one thousand watts of light illuminating his workbench, he delicately tapped a sterling silver strap with his brass hammer and awl.

Crafting the flat piece of silver strap into an intertwining string of roses, he worked all day and into the night until the piece was done. Upon completing it, he inspected it under a twenty-power microscope for any imperfections.

After finding none, he set the piece of jewelry aside, removed his visor, and reached for his book.

One thing that I liked about Tate’s MC series was that each book gave a totally different perspective into the lives of the men. They weren’t simply men on motorcycles who sat around the clubhouse drinking beer, farting, and screwing strippers.

They were men who had lives outside the club. Where one man might look at the MC as nothing more than an obligation, another may see the MC as his only family. One character might spend all his time in the book at the clubhouse or with the other men, while another rarely mentioned the men in the club.

I suspected Tate’s portrayal of the men in the fictitious club was accurate, and that in real life, MCs were comprised of people from all walks of life.

To Becker, the club was not a way of life, it was life. The only life he had, the only life he wanted, and the only life he knew.

I flipped through the pages with my thumb, soaking up every morsel of information about Becker Wallace that was available. After what seemed like a matter of minutes, the sound of Perry’s voice caused me to divert my attention to the other side of the observation station.

I lowered my Kindle and gave him a look. “What?”

“It’s one o’clock,” he said. “Time to get back to work.”

I glanced at my watch. Somehow, an hour had passed. I looked at the apple that was clenched in my other hand. One bite had been taken out of it.

Reluctantly, I turned off my Kindle and tossed it in my purse. I took a bite of my apple and then looked at Perry. With his thumb hooked on his belt and his keys swinging at his side, he gazed beyond his reflection and into the silent cellblock.

It irritated me that he spent three or four hours a day looking at cars on the internet, and if I wanted to read, I was chastised for it. Nonetheless, I sat and silently ate my apple.

“So, what’s that book about, anyway?”

“A jeweler,” I said.

He chuckled. “A jeweler?”

“That’s right.”

He gave me a look of disbelief. “Doesn’t look like a book about a jeweler.”

I raised my eyebrows in wonder. “What’s a book about a jeweler look like?”

He stopped swinging his keys and turned to face me. After swiping his flattened palm against the strands of hair that formed his makeshift toupee, he dropped his gaze to my purse. “I saw the cover of it when you got your Kindle out. Had a guy on the front without a shirt that was covered in tattoos and shit. Doesn’t look like a jeweler book.”

“Should he be wearing a suit?”

“He should be wearing something.”

“If he was an old man in a suit, would it look like a jeweler’s book?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

I wasn’t surprised. He was a narrow-minded bigot who was incapable of seeing beyond the surface of anything.

I wondered what someone like Becker Wallace would do in prison. My guess was that he would read, fashion objects out of what others considered to be trash, and take no shit from any man, guards included.

I watched Perry’s reflection in the glass as he walked to his desk, logged onto his computer, and began scoring the internet for cars.

I finished my apple, tossed the core in the trash, and reached for my Kindle. “When you stop looking at cars, I’ll stop reading.”

He looked up. “Excuse me?”

“When you stop looking at cars on eBay, I’ll stop reading.”

He glared at me for a moment, and then shifted his gaze to his monitor.

He continued to look for cars, and I began to read. As the straight razor toting biker forged a piece of gold into a ring, I relaxed. When the club went on a fact-finding mission at a rival club’s watering hole, I squirmed in my seat. Page after page, and chapter after chapter, I allowed Becker to wiggle his way into my heart, having no alternative but to accept him with open arms.

Tate’s previous books were narrated in first person, using an alternating point of view. The chapters were written from both the hero’s and the heroine’s points of view, giving an insight into the lives, thoughts, and feelings of both characters.

This book, for whatever reason, was narrated by an omniscient protagonist. It was different, but I was enjoying it immensely. Becker had just finished an engagement ring for a local attorney, who planned on proposing to his would-be wife over the weekend while on a cruise ship.

Under the illumination of the streetlight, Stephen inspected the ring at his leisure. His previous examination, while in the confines of the jeweler’s home, left him feeling anxious and rushed.

Using his thumb, he roTated the magnificent piece along the tip of his index finger, admiring the detail given in the placement of each of the hand-picked diamonds. His painstaking examination produced not a single imperfection. Finding it to be flawless, and much to his liking, he imagined what Julia would say when he offered it to her. Wearing a grin of anticipation, he folded the blue velvet cloth over the ring and pushed it deep into the pocket of his slacks.

“Give me the ring,” a voice from behind him demanded.

Stephen’s mind told him to run, but his feet refused the instruction. With his hand still in his pocket, he clutched the velvet cloth and said a prayer.

“I…I can’t. It’s…” Stephen turned around, hoping a heartfelt explanation would spare him from being robbed of the precious hand-made ring.

The tip of the assailant’s knife struck the left side of Stephen’s neck, severing his carotid artery. As his hands rose to the gaping wound, the thief thrust his hand into the prospective grooms’ pocket, retrieved the ring, and ran.

With a crimson trail leaving proof of his every step, Stephen stumbled toward the jeweler’s home. Fighting against time and his own beating heart, he somehow managed to stagger to the porch.

His vision blurred as he pounded his bloody hand against the door. “Please,” he pleaded, his voice weakened by the loss of blood. “Help me.”

The jeweler, immersed in reading, rose from his position in his favorite chair. As he took his first step toward the door, Stephen drew his final breath and collapsed on the porch.

The jeweler opened the door, and upon recognizing Stephen, lifted the lifeless body and cradled it in his arms. He tilted his head toward the star-filled sky and asked his glorious maker how nothing more than greed could empower one man to take another man’s life.

The sound of an approaching vehicle caused the jeweler to divert his attention toward the street. He raised his hand at the passing car.

The driver, a school teacher on her way home from a winter social engagement, shrieked at the sight of the jeweler’s blood-soaked shirt. Instead of stopping, she pressed the button on her steering wheel mounted controls, activating the vehicle’s cell phone.

She cleared her throat, and with a shaking voice, gave the command that would change the jeweler’s life forever.

“Call 9-1-1.”

I looked up. My heart was racing. I felt sick to my stomach. I scanned the observation station. Perry was no longer at his desk. I looked at my watch.

3:25.

In five minutes, my shift was over. I tossed my Kindle into my purse. I would be so pissed off if Tate let Becker go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Tate wouldn’t do that to his readers. He knew exactly what it was like to have that happen, and I doubted he wanted to wish it upon anyone else, book character, or not. I stood, let out a breath, and looked around the room.

Damn you, Tate.