Bikers and Pearls (10 page)

She was hoping she wouldn’t have to get up in front of the group so soon, but nothing
else she had hoped had worked out. She shouldn’t expect this to go her way, either.
She stood in her gray pantsuit, feeling about as out of place and out of touch as
she could possibly be, and for an instant she wished she could have blended a little
better.

“The company I work for has offered to provide the insurance for free as a charitable
contribution for Ben’s fundraiser.”

The crowd roared and clapped. She felt like she was a movie star. Wow. They liked
her. They really liked her.

When the applause died down, she began with the details. “All we have to do is follow
a risk-management plan.”

Someone in the crowd asked, “Risk-management plan?”

“Yes. It involves a few simple rules,” she said.

“Like what?” someone called out.

“Like lowering our speed limit, having police escorts, and everyone wearing helmets,”
she said.

The room grew utterly silent. The applause was gone. All of a sudden she knew she
was in trouble.

A man in the back of the room stood up and said, “I ain’t never worn no helmet in
all my life. Law in South Carolina says I don’t got to.”

Whispers of agreement sounded around the room. What could they be so concerned about?
Helmets were no big deal. They could save lives.

“And what kind of speed limits are we talking about here?” a woman at Bull’s table
asked.

“Only ten miles below what is posted,” April replied.

Loud noises once again filled the room, but this time they were sounds of dissention.
No, make that anarchy. The man who said he hadn’t ever worn a helmet stood again.
She noted that he had the same tattoo as Bull. Rebel Angels. He knocked over his chair
and stormed out the room.

The noise made her wince. Not all the bikers there had hearts of gold.

She looked toward Bull for help. Again.

…

Bull knew April was getting herself into hot water. It was his fault. He should have
gone over the details with her, but he didn’t know. She couldn’t have known how so
many bikers felt about putting a helmet between them and nature and their sense of
freedom when riding. She needed saving again, and he was the man to do it.

He stood. “Wait. I asked April to get us a quote and she ended up getting us something
for free. No. She ended up getting something for Ben for free. That means more money
in his fund. More money for his treatment and his family.” He walked to the front
of the room and stood beside the woman who shakily held the terms of the policy in
her hands. “Who knows if anyone else in this area will even write the policy the town
wants?”

The people whispered among themselves.

“I’m with you guys. I don’t wear a helmet either, but this once I think I can for
Ben.” And for April. He looked down at her and she looked up at him with those big
brown eyes. He wanted to whisk her out of the room and spare her any more confrontations.

Crank stepped up also. “I can tell you that I haven’t found anyone in this town to
write a policy. That’s why I called Bull and asked him about any suggestions.”

Ramsey Hall stood and towered over the group. “I say it’s the best deal we’re going
to get. April’s done the work and it wouldn’t be hospitable to turn her and her company
down. It’s Ben we’re here to think about, not ourselves.”

The man in the back stood up again. “What if it keeps people from signin’ up? Won’t
that take money from Ben?”

A few people clapped.

Ramsey answered, “We have a projected amount we’d like to have. Five hundred, I believe.”

“That’s right,” Bull said.

“Well, if we don’t make that number, I’m willing to kick in the money to make our
goal,” Ramsey said.

Bull knew Ramsey could easily pay. He owned apartment buildings and storefronts all
over Summerbrook and beyond.

“But if I know bikers like I think I do, no one will turn down helping a sick boy
on account of anything shy of a hurricane,” Ramsey said.

The crowd erupted in applause again. Bull looked at April. She was smiling.

He liked making her smile, but it certainly wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish.

…

Bull had saved her once again. What would she have done if he’d left her alone, standing
in front of the headstrong bikers? He took the remaining papers from her hands, leaned
down, and said, “Let’s go back to the table.”

She gladly followed.

Marvin came back in and surveyed the room. “Anyone seen Slug?”

Patch and a few of the others pointed to the back of the room. A man had his head
down on a table—apparently asleep.

“Slug,” Marvin called out. “That old chopper of yours has done fallen over again.
And it’s blocking my front door.”

Slug groggily lifted his head. “Mmmmm?”

Bull looked at April and smiled.

Must be a real habit of Slug’s. She shouldn’t have been so worried that night at the
steakhouse after all. She glanced around the room. Why was she so concerned about
even coming here? Nothing had happened. Not really. Nothing more than some hothead
biker storming out, and she didn’t think anything would.

“If anyone would like something else to eat or drink, speak up now,” Marvin said.
A few hands went up and the guy wrote the orders on a little pad he held in his wrinkled
hands.

Bull leaned into her space. “You want something?” he asked.

She was starving, but she had never eaten anything from an establishment like this.
Terms like “greasy” and “stale” came to mind.

“Marvin has the best hotdogs and chili in Summerbrook. Probably the best in South
Carolina,” he said.

“Okay.” That popped out before she knew it was coming. Her alligator mouth just kept
overloading her chickadee brain these days. She hoped those night crawlers had secure
lids on their containers.

Bull ordered for both of them and in moments, Marvin was back with their food.

Bull was right again. The meal was as delicious as he had promised. The only dogs
she’d had before were ones her mother had made for her as a child.

“You did good up there earlier. This can be a tough crowd,” Bull said.

No tougher than April’s crowd was on bikers, though. “I’m beginning to see that. When
I came in, they were laughing at me. What did Marvin mean when he said both things
you told him were right?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I told him to look out for you and that you’d be beautiful and late.”

Beautiful
? She didn’t think anyone had ever thought of her before as beautiful? “What do you
mean by late?” She playfully knocked him on the arm.

“So, you’re denying it now? The steakhouse, the library, tonight? Three for three.
I’d say you’ve got a problem.”

He was right. She did have a problem.

It was
him
.

Chapter Six

April sat in Marvin’s Bait and Tackle shop, eating hotdogs with a motorcycle gang.
If only Jenna could see her now. No. If her
parents
could. Good thing they couldn’t.

In no time, she had devoured that hotdog and in the process, she had completely drained
her glass of sweet tea. It was the kind that tasted like home—like the tea her mother
had made for her when she was a child, the tea Miss Adree made for April on their
lazy summer afternoons, the kind of beverage that she had become accustomed to at
church socials and Humanity Project dedication dinners. Oh, the dedication dinner.
She had almost forgotten. The Summerbrook Humanity Project was turning over another
home to a needy family Sunday afternoon, and she hadn’t done a thing to prepare for
it.

What she needed to do was to have Miss Adree help her pick out a song to play on her
accordion at the ceremony like she usually did. April tried to keep her accordion
playing on the down low. The old instrument wasn’t hip. Bull had already laughed at
it in the parking lot the first night they met. If he only knew she was playing it
regularly at Humanity functions, well, he’d have lots to laugh at.

She looked around the room filled with kind people. They had their quirks—just like
her. They had their leather and fringes, and she had her accordion. But the one thing
everyone had in common was Ben.

Near the end of the evening, April figured the bait-and-tackle shop wasn’t so bad
after all. The worst of everything was over. She breathed a sigh of relief—from hunger
and
from stress.

Crank walked back up to the front of the room and said, “A couple more things. We’ve
been asked to provide something for the silent charity auction another group is having
for Ben. Anybody got anything?”

An extremely skinny older woman with a tattoo of a snake crawling around her neck
stood up.

“What do you have, Scooter?” Crank asked as he gathered the remaining fliers.

“I can donate a fringed leather jacket from my outfitters shop. It’s got Harley patches
all over it. Right beautiful,” the older woman said.

“Thanks, Scoot. I’ll pick it up tomorrow,” Crank said. “One more thing for tonight.
We’re planning to provide lunch for the bikers before the ride. We need some help
from some of our sponsors who know how to cook.”

“That leaves my construction crew out,” a middle-aged man with a plaid shirt and yellowed
gray hair said.

Everyone laughed.

Crank looked around the room. No one offered a thing. “How about you, April? Know
anyone or any group that’d be willing?”

She thought. “Well, I work with the Summerbrook Humanity Project. We’re having a dedication
dinner soon. I guess I could ask then. A lot of the volunteers will be in attendance.
They are usually a generous bunch.”

“I could stop by the dedication myself,” Crank said. “You’ve already done so much.”

Though the little suburb of Charleston was growing, its core still functioned like
a small town. And gossip would still spread like wildfire. If Crank stood at the lectern
in the Summerbrook Civic Center in his chaps and goggles and asked the sweet old ladies
in attendance to fry up some chicken, April’s parents would know in a matter of hours—maybe
even minutes. And she wasn’t taking any chances with her father’s condition.

“That’s okay. I can take care of it,” she said. Maybe she could somehow. Without everyone
knowing exactly what she was up to with the rally.

“You have become an invaluable member of this group here, sweetheart. Thanks so much,”
Crank said.

I’m a member of this group? A motorcycle gang?
April shook her head. She guessed she was.

The people in the room clapped.

Heat ran up into her face. She didn’t deserve applause. In fact, when she got home,
she was going to need to do some thinking. Her gaze rested upon Bull. How deeply she
had become entangled with Patch and Crank…and Bull. And these people thought she was
some kind of hero? What she really
was
, was some kind of selfish, uptight risk-assessment manager who was way too attracted
to a certain rugged biker.

…

Was April even the same woman Bull’d met from the other night at the steakhouse? First
the fliers, then the insurance policy. Now, she was handling the food for the rally
and eating hotdogs in a tackle shop.

No one had put themselves out there like that for his little brother before he’d died.
Bull cringed when he remembered pulling back and keeping quiet at school when the
other kids had poked fun at Adam. If only Bull could live those years over. He hid
his fists under the table.
Let them call Adam “baldy” and “crip” again
.

But Adam was dead.

Bull leaned back in his chair, kicked his feet into the aisle, and crossed his rattlesnake
boots. Just let anybody try something like that now with Ben.

He glanced beside him. April was helping Ben, too. For that reason, she melted him.
It didn’t hurt that her eyes were so mesmerizing and that her smile made him twitch
inside and stare too long. The most tempting thing about her, though, was her curious
mix of fortitude and vulnerability. She was facing whatever it was she had against
motorcycles. Maybe it was some safety thing connected with her job.

The meeting continued. “Patch, did you want to say something before we adjourned?”
Crank asked.

“Yep. As long as we have the insurance policy, I got the city to agree to give us
the town square for two days. We can go ahead with our plans for the bike build-off
and show on the day before the ride to Charleston,” Patch said.

The room erupted in applause.

April leaned in close to Bull. “What’s that?”

“Tell you in a minute,” he said. He was pleased that he would have the opportunity
to spend time explaining more things to her, and he was pleased that the rally was
going to provide him with two whole days with her.

He
wasn’t
pleased that on the evening of the twenty-eighth day of April that it might all end—unless
he could figure out how to find some middle ground for them. To continue to see her.
But from his estimation, that wasn’t going to be easy.

Patch tapped a spoon against the lectern to get everyone’s attention again. “Our members
with computers are putting out e-mails to our friends in other states about the bike
show, and I think this thing is going to be bigger than y’all even imagined.”

Bull’s feelings about the cautious woman beside him were getting bigger than he’d
imagined, as well. He had to keep them in check, though. She had a background that
didn’t agree with his. Growing up poor and without a father had made him distrust
conservative people like April. He’d found that many of them got mileage out of their
facades, and when it came to the insides, they were vacant. He was hoping April wasn’t
like that. He was watching her, though, and he was becoming confused about what he
had at first assessed.

“Thanks, Patch. If that be all, we can call it a night,” said Crank.

Bull turned to April. “A build off is where bikers compete to trick out their bikes.
You know, spice ’em up with detailing, like Vance and Hines pipes, mag wheels, and
chrome fork sliders.”

“Well, I don’t know what any of that stuff is, but I get the general picture,” she
said. “Oh, one more question.”

He smiled. He’d be happy to sit here and answer questions for her all night long.

“I’m visiting Ben on Saturday morning. Would you like to meet me there? We can discuss
some advertising for the build off,” she said.

He couldn’t do that. Even if it meant spending more time with April. He could work
for the little boy behind the scenes, but he couldn’t visit him in the hospital. It
would be too difficult. Too many reminders of Adam and how he’d let him down.

“I’ll have to pass on that. I have to work at the garage.” He did have business at
his shop—not immediate business, though.

“I see,” she said. “Maybe some other time then. I know it would mean a lot to Ben
to see that people are concerned about him. It would mean a lot to his family, too.”

“Yeah, maybe some other time,” he said. “Let me walk you to the parking lot.” He would
have to show his concern for Ben at a distance.

He stood at her car door. This time she didn’t act like she was in an all-fire hurry
to get away. She looked up to him with a gentle smile and said, “Thank you for giving
me this opportunity.”

A remnant of the bad boy he used to be wanted to give her more than an opportunity.
He wanted to give her a kiss. Even if he did, though, after the rally, she’d be going
back to ham and potato salad with her parents on Sunday afternoons, and he’d be going
back to long motorcycle rides on backcountry roads. Alone.

…

April found herself in a most uncomfortable place. And it was in—yet again—another
parking lot with Bull. What was it with them in parking lots? It was fitting somehow.
Outside establishments. Exposed. Like she was on the inside. She looked into his face
to find him staring at her.

He put his hand on her waist and stepped closer to her. All the little fireflies deep
in her belly lit up and took flight. His face moved closer to hers. He was going to
try to kiss her.

In the parking lot. Of a bait-and-tackle shop.

His hand nearly spanned the small of her back, and she felt it pulling her toward
him.

Oh, my goodness
. He was really going to try to kiss her. Her head lightened and her thoughts grew
wispy.

Her insides became Jell-O and clouds.

She lowered her gaze and said, “I shouldn’t.”

“Maybe neither of us should, but I want to,” he said. She felt his warm breath on
her ear.

This couldn’t possibly go anywhere.

He placed his finger under her chin, lifted her face, and moved in to eliminate all
space between them.

She’d only known him a few days. Not nearly enough time to be kissing on him.

She had too many issues right now to be considering becoming some kind of girlfriend—to
a former member of Rebel Angels, no less. The idea of that was completely ridiculous.
She was barely getting used to even looking at all the motorcycles that had been surrounding
her recently.

But instead of assessing and rationalizing her way out of it like she should have,
she let go. When his lips came down upon hers, she allowed them to melt together.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, leaned her head back, and felt their mouths become
united in a way she hadn’t experienced before. Her senses were overloaded. The touch
of him. The taste of him. The heat of him.

This had better stop. Now. Before somebody got hurt. Before
she
got hurt.

She pulled back, breathing heavy, ragged breaths.

“What?” he asked. “I know you felt it, too.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head.

“You did.” He held his palms up at his sides.

“You don’t understand.” She stepped away, backing up toward her car as she was talking.
“I can help you with this rally. Heck, we can even be friends, but—” She took another
step back. “Nothing more. We have too many—too many— too many differences.”

He glanced at the pavement and then at the sign with Marvin’s name on it. “I see,”
he said.

No he couldn’t. He couldn’t see the pain she’d worked so hard to overcome. He couldn’t
see how damaged and frail her father was. And he couldn’t see how the two of them
would never work. No matter how much they melted together.

…

Saturday arrived, and April drove to the hospital to see Ben. As she pulled onto Interstate
26, she wondered what Bull was doing. Did he have on that wickedly exciting leather
jacket of his? When was she going to see him again?

When
those
thoughts weren’t plowing through her head, she thought about tomorrow’s dedication
dinner. What was she going to say to everyone? And how was she going to get the ladies
to cook without actually mentioning the motorcycle rally? If someone found out and
called her father… Mr. Houseman had told her she could have all the time she wanted
for her speech. All she needed, however, was one minute and she’d be out of there.

When she arrived at Children’s Hospital, she parked and put her head on the steering
wheel. She needed strength. To see Ben. To resist Bull. And to finish with the rally.

Strength.

After she got the balloons, another notebook, and a bag of boiled peanuts—Ben’s favorite—out
the back of the car, she went inside.

“Hey, Ben-ificent,” she said. She steadied herself at the door. She wasn’t prepared
for the way Ben looked—sallow and thin. Dark circles cut deep crescents into the skin
under his eyes. He could barely lift his frail arms for a hug.

She leaned over the bed, hugged him, and closed her eyes. She had to be strong. For
Ben.

“Up for some of your favorite peanuts? Got them from the Peanut Man downtown.”

“Yeah. Just what I wanted. Thanks, Miss April,” he said in a weak voice. “I can eat
them later.”

By the way he looked, there hadn’t been much eating going on at all. “I’ll tie these
balloons on the chair over here. Is that okay?”

He nodded.

She set down the peanuts and another notebook on his tray and picked up a small video-game
device and eyed it. “What are you playing?”

“Football,” he said. “Miss Jenna brought it to me last week.” He handed her several
more video games. “Brought me these, too.”

That was her best friend. Few people knew the real Jenna like she did. April was certain
Jenna didn’t even want them to. She had an image to uphold.

April eyed the titles. “Cool. What’s your favorite?”

“The football one,” he said. She put them down beside the device.