Chapter Two
Tracy walked away, ducking behind a small group clustered around a display with enough leather to put a BDSM convention to shame. So Hoodoo was here. Great. Maybe it was inevitable that she’d run into him again. Sooner or later. It would have been nice if it had been later. Say another 40 years or so.
Once again, he’d been lying on his back. You’d think that someone that size would want to get up and down as little as possible if only to spare the nose bleed from the change in altitude.
Damn, he was still good-looking, though. That massive chest…those thick arms… She forced that thought away and crushed down on it. This was not the time to think fondly of the man. The fact was, it had been a painful break up and she didn’t want to have the good memories. Not yet. It was too soon.
There was a part of her that felt like she owed him. After all, he was spending enough money on a motorcycle for most families to live comfortably on for three years, maybe five. And he’d just given her the bike. Without asking for so much as a kiss.
Back then, she’d been angry that her father was selling it. Angry that he’d spent so many years restoring it, and then…breaking every promise he’d ever made by putting it up for sale. Of course, he’d had his reasons. It hadn’t been his choice to be so ill, to run up the medical bills. He hadn’t been insured properly. Who was, in this day and age? But to sell the bike had seemed a sacrilege of sorts. In no time at all, he’d found a buyer…and one rather large Cajun representative who’d showed up at Christmas time to give her the present of a lifetime. The bike was hers, the title free and clear. He’d paid for the bike and then handed it to her, a perfect stranger, and never asked a damn thing from her. Who did something like that? But because of Hoodoo, they could pay off her father’s medical bills and have a tidy nest egg left over. She’d never have been able to take this trip if it hadn’t been for Hoodoo. Maybe not directly, but indirectly. Her father had been able to heal after his surgery with the peace of knowing the bills were paid, and there was no rush to get back to work. He was down in Florida sunning himself on a beach somewhere and here she was, at the largest Motorcycle Rally in the United States.
How did you even begin to pay that sort of kindness back?
Right. Kindness. Of course, it might have been better if Hoodoo had done that with his own money….
Still, that kind of generosity and compassion from someone who looked like a one-man gang war was not just unexpected, it was heady. Hoodoo could tear a building down with his bare hands. She’d seen him fight, it was frightening. She knew that the demonstration just now was nothing more than exercise for him, that he had been holding back, pulling his punches. If he hadn’t, none of the four men in the ring with him would have gotten up again. Maybe ever.
But Hoodoo saw no issue with paying off a quarter million-dollar debt at ten bucks a month. That was fine. She’d gone through his cell phone as he lay in her bed while the buzzsaw snores rattled the windows. She’d found the benefactor’s number, listed under the name “HITMON.” The man even typed with a Cajun accent.
She spoke at length with the person who answered, a lovely woman who was unaware of Hoodoo’s arrangement with her husband but refused to hear about repayment or reimbursement. It was really that call that began the downward spiral that caused the destruction of the relationship. Not that it was the end cause, rather it had been just the snowflake to set off the avalanche.
In her ruminations, the image of him lying naked in her bed wormed its way to her thoughts. They’d been…amazing…together. Even now she flushed while thinking about it, knowing the scarlet of her cheeks wasn’t stopping there, but blossoming down her neck, pinking her cleavage, displayed to an advantage in the leather vest she wore. Blushing was the bane of the fair-skinned, to have flesh all too ready to contrast the midnight hue of the wild mane of hair that she wore loose about her shoulders now that she was on the ground and not straddling a bike. She braided it then, to keep it out of the way, tucked firmly in her helmet, although she’d been teased mercilessly earlier today for wearing one.
She focused on that thought. Better to remember the taunts, to leave behind memories of nights spent in sweaty passion, where she’d felt absolutely engulfed by him, then the utter joy of straddling him, a ride better than any bike, his giant hands spanning her waist as she rose and fell above him. Yes, better not to think about those things at all, so that her nipples wouldn’t tighten painfully within the vest, her breasts swelling with eagerness for his touch. Better to not notice the heat at her center, driving a very warm moist reaction so that her jeans felt tight and uncomfortable.
Yes, better not to think of those things at all.
Instead, she concentrated on a busker juggling butcher knives outside of a deli. It seemed wrong on so many levels, but watching the bright spinning blades helped put the more sensual images in their places.
Except when that didn’t work either. Hoodoo had loved knives. Had taken out this giant of a blade one night, and very carefully cut away her clothes in an erotic…
No, damn it, she was not going to remember that either.
Arms crossed tightly across her chest, she clenched her jaw and fought to find her focus. Watch the blades spinning. Watch the people watching. Notice the bikes…everywhere. Some were nice. Real nice. Notice the Indian off to the left, and the early Harley just beyond. So unique…and rare.
But not as rare as her own bike. Nothing here was as rare as the Crocker.
She shifted her stance, uneasy and growing colder and unhappier by the minute. So now she had the Crocker. Probably one the rarest bikes in the world. But she didn’t have Hoodoo. And if having the bike, the culmination of her father’s dreams for the last ten years was supposed to bring her father closer to her, well it didn’t. Her father refused to believe that some Cajun showed up in a Chicago blizzard and gave her that much money for no reason at all. Frankly, she’d had a hard time believing that too. Assuming her virtue was now questionable, her father had grown cold to her. Angry.
Because of that damn bike.
Her argument that a one-night stand wouldn’t pay that much anyway fell on deaf ears, because the only alternative in her father’s eye was that her smile and bright company was worth that much money, which was more implausible. Then when Hoodoo had called her a month later and asked her out – and was willing to travel back to Chicago to see her… it had all but nailed the lid shut on her father’s opinion of her.
Damn bike. There were days she hated it.
But then there were days when it thrummed between her thighs and responded to every touch, even to the point where it went wherever she was looking that it seemed a live thing. Alive and devoted to her.
But then, wasn’t Hoodoo? At least he had been… despite the debt. He never even mentioned it, never used it against her, never trotted it out to get into her pants. Hoodoo was nearly perfect. A little rough, a little too fond of fist-fights and beer, but gorgeous, intelligent, funny and compassionate.
And she’d kicked him out. Even the break-up was tainted by that damn bike! How do you break up with a man who just gave you two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of bike, with no question of obligations? Yet, somehow she’d managed it.
Scattered applause brought her back, the busker had finished. Tracy fished in her jeans to find a buck to throw on his mat.
All up and down the street, people were laughing and cheering, from one establishment laughter exploded and Tracy wondered what performer was in there.
A small but very angry young woman shoved past her, power-walking toward the vendor booths. As she stormed by, Tracy could hear her muttering “just a damned expression,” over and over again.
As she passed, Tracy saw the distinctively artistic Gila monster sewn into the back of her jacket. She was one of Hoodoo’s group. Maybe she was Hoodoo’s new girl. Not that it was any of her business. She’d wanted to break up with him and she’d gotten what she wanted.
Tracy sighed. Right, like this is what you wanted. You’re going to go to the little room you were able to rent, one of the few available, and you’re going to take a bath and go to bed. Alone. Again.
And tomorrow would be a new day. Her cousin was even going to buy her breakfast.
Right. The man never had more than a quarter. Ever. He was going to sing her another hard-luck tune and stiff her with the bill. It was old, but sometimes it was worth the price of a meal to hear his latest reasoning for not paying.
The sun was reaching a point where it was becoming a bit cooler, the badlands bracing up for another crisp desert night. The endless stream of bikes was beginning to fade and Tracy turned her mind to the Crocker. They’d been so happy to have it on temporary display at the American Motorcycle Museum that they’d practically piddled themselves like puppies when she suggested the deal.
She’d leave it there for the duration of the rally, it could be a display that brings in the people who really understood its significance, and in return, they would give her a parking space. A parking space with motion detectors, infra-red and motion sensor alarms.
It wasn’t the rally that worried her. It was the drive to and from Chicago.
Because of that damn bike.
Riding behind Hoodoo meant never seeing where you were going. It was too much like sitting against a wall. But he blocked the wind. He was a place to rest her head. He was great to hold on to. And every time she got behind him, she was his. No questions, no doubts.
She spared a thought for the angry young girl that had stalked past her. Whose bike did she ride? A small part of Tracy’s mind recoiled from the thought that the girl might be behind Hoodoo in her place. She fought an urge to find the little bitch and prove…
“It’s over,” she said out loud. “Just let it go.”
“Another performance in a few minutes, love,” the busker said, raising an eyebrow. “I just need to take a break for a min.”
“Sorry,” Tracy mumbled and moved on before her blush became a beacon marking her place in the rally permanently.
Besides, wasn’t that what she did best? Especially since she’d demanded Hoodoo leave. She moved on. Just keep moving.
Damn that fucking bike.