Bikers and Pearls (18 page)

Marvin brought in their food. The chili was deliciously spicy, but she continued to
be distracted by Bull. There’d be no organized reason for them to see each other after
the rally. And he hadn’t really asked her out for anything that hadn’t been related
to Ben’s fundraisers. “What’s wrong?” Bull asked between bites of chili.

“Nothing.” Really, it was everything. She forced a smile, but her heart was draped
in sadness. She hadn’t yet told him about her father’s three heart attacks. No matter
how she spun it in her mind, her parents couldn’t deal with the motorcycles and his
past.

It was going to end. She knew it.

Crank started the meeting. “Okay, this is our last gathering before the rally this
weekend. First thing I want to show you is this.” He held up the
Summerbrook Gazette
.

There she was again. Front-page news. A picture of her accepting the keys from Bull
and the biker team and the check from the golf tournament was there for all to see.
But this time, she had an authentic smile, and she was genuinely happy to be there.
Let the entire world see her. It was all for Ben.

“I want to put this in perspective for you. The whole golf tournament only netted
around twenty-five hundred dollars. That is until Bull gave up the car and he put
in the team’s winnings.” Crank tossed the paper aside. “Now for the really good news.”
He held up the rally’s sign-up sheets to the crowd. “We exceeded our goals. Bare minimum,
we’ll bring in twenty-five thousand from the rally.”

The group erupted in cheers and shouts.

Well, wasn’t that something? A group of Easy Riders came up with ten times more than
a group of uppity ladies and golfers. Though they had predicted it the entire time,
the realization of it hit her in her stomach. Hard. She was so glad she’d stayed to
help. To be a part of the success.

She watched Bull as he clapped. The lines that framed his smile deepened. Some emotional
tide within her was drawn to some invisible lunar pull within him. They were as one
at that moment. Unfortunately, their fusion had an expiration date.

They could share a bowl of chili together. They could work on the rally together.
But they would never spend a leisurely afternoon with her parents under their magnolia
trees followed by Sunday dinner. With all the work that she had done on herself, she
knew this had to come to an end.

Chapter Fourteen

April rolled out of bed at six the morning of the twenty-seventh. It was the first
day of the two-day rally for Ben.

After she took her shower, she picked up the black T-shirt that said STAFF on the
back and put it on. It matched the pair of black jeans she had bought yesterday on
her way home from work.

Before she walked out the door, she checked her phone one last time. Still no call
from Jenna. April would be at the square in a few minutes, and as soon as ten o’clock
rolled around, she was going to stop by
Enjoliver!
to see why Jenna had been so out of touch.

She was supposed to be helping April and lending moral support. Good thing her friends
at the Humanity Project had come through.

As April drove and meandered through the blossoming town, she couldn’t believe the
traffic—and the lack of parking. She had to stop her car eight times to allow pedestrians
to cross in front of her. The police had an area of Main Street cordoned off with
bright yellow tape. The lights on the cruisers blinked as the officers directed traffic.
Finally, she found a spot.

Bull spotted April and came walking toward her. “Good morning.”

She surveyed all the motorcycles around her. She started to embrace him like she did
when she greeted her fellow volunteers at the Humanity Project but instead she touched
his arm.

April was not prepared for her reaction to all the bikes. Energy buzzed in the air.
The hair on her arms stood up. This was going to be way more difficult than she had
imagined.

“You want to walk over for a cup of coffee?” he asked.

“Sure,” she replied, and they started to stroll.

They passed a woman wearing leather pants. In springtime in the South? April wondered
how hot the lady was.

As they meandered through the crowd, she noticed a lot of biker T-shirts. Most were
black, and many had Harley-Davidson insignia on them.

“Don’t other companies make motorcycles?” she asked.

He smiled. “That’s a touchy subject amongst some of these guys. Yeah. Honda. Yamaha.
Others as well. But they’re not American made. This group of people is very patriotic.
Harley-Davidsons are made in the good ole U S of A.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about it like that before,” she said.

They walked by a beautiful woman with deep red hair who had on way too much makeup
and black fingernail polish. She had on a T-shirt that read Born to Be Wild. How appropriate.
An appropriate slogan for April, however, would have been Born to Be Mild.

At a tent near the front, Bull took two coffees from a table. “Cream and sugar?” he
asked.

She nodded as she looked at some of the religious art items on the table. Everybody
under the verdant canopy had on a shirt that had a biker slogan on it. Posters with
motorcycle sayings hung on the back walls of the tent. Several easels held framed
pictures. One depicted a winged man on a chopper, and it read Heaven’s Highwaymen.

Another had bright rays of light beaming down from the clouds onto bikers headed off
into the sunset. It read Ride to the End.

Though they were not exactly her glass of skim milk, they were actually very beautiful.
Bull handed her the warm cup. “Let’s look at the motorcycles in the show.” He started
walking.

“I was thinking,” he said. “About after the rally. We don’t really have any plans.”

She looked away and took a deep breath. This was the talk they’d been needing to have
for a while now. The talk that was the white alligator in the room. Where she’d have
to deal with her father’s condition. And her fear of the motorcycles that surrounded
her. The fear that was gripping her throat and heating up the back of her neck. “I
know. What I don’t know is where this could go.”

“What do you mean, where it could go? We could have dinner. Go for rides.” He stopped.
“I could meet the rest of your friends. And parents.”

She looked around. Her words were tied in knots. Like her stomach. “I’m like a duck
in a desert here. What do we really have in common? Besides working on this rally?
My father’s had three heart attacks. They retired away from here to escape the stress.
I can’t park a motorcycle on his doorsteps and tell him to deal with it.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry about your dad.” Something twitched in his jaw. “Maybe we could
figure something out later.” He grabbed her hand. “Well, let’s enjoy the rally. For
now.” He pointed in the direction of a sign and touched her back. “Let’s go.”

She took a deep breath and followed Bull. She’d come this far. She simply couldn’t
see how she’d ever get over this last hurdle.

“First off, we’ll look at the special entries.” He led the way to an area cordoned
off with car lot flags. “These can be a riot,” he said.

The first entry was a three-wheeler entitled Hunting Machine. It was a conglomeration
of hunting paraphernalia attached in various ways to an old chopper.

Bull chuckled. “Would have been heresy to mess up a Harley that way.”

A gun rack was mounted to the sissy bar. Raccoon tails were hanging off the handlebars.
Deer horns were attached to the front of the bike. Turkey feathers hung from the back
fender. And a giant-sized holster held a shotgun on the right side.

“Who built that? Davy Crocket or Jeff Foxworthy?” she asked.

He grabbed her hand and smiled. “Wait till you see the next one.” He led her on. “This
trike is called The Saturday Night Camping Special.”

The cycle had a lightweight aluminum frame attached that created a canopy over it.
From the frame hung old pots, pans, cups, and other well-worn kitchen utensils. A
trailer hitch mounted on the rear of the bike held a barbecue on wheels. A rubber
chicken hung out the back of the grill. In case the camper preferred fish, a cane
pole and net were secured to the roof of the metal beams. To top it all off, firefly
lights blinked off and on all around the top of the monstrosity.

“That, I’m afraid, is an insurance nightmare.” She shook her head and chuckled. “Looks
like a wreck on wheels to me.”

He leaned down and spoke softly into her ear. “I wouldn’t want a child of mine to
be frightened by such a thing. Would you?”

She shivered at his words. Or the warmth of them on her ear. “So, you want a family
one day?”

“Of course, don’t you?” he asked.

She nodded. “One day.” She stared at him while he was checking out the bike. He’d
probably make some child a good father. And some other woman a good husband. She didn’t
want to think about that, though. She
couldn’t
think about that.

“Okay. Now for the real bikes,” he said, and he walked away from the sideshow.

Taking a sip of her coffee, she remained a few paces back as he stepped up to the
first entry.

He brushed his hand over the big metal part that held the gas behind the front wheel.
It was burgundy with orange-and-yellow flames painted on it. “This is a Harley-Davidson
Road King Custom.” There was a look of admiration in his eyes. “Buckshot hand control
levers and chrome belt guard. Just beautiful.”

The temperature inside her rose—from the coffee. And the black get-up she was wearing.
She pulled at the neckline to allow some air to cool her body’s reaction to the motorcycle.

“Great bike, man,” Bull said to the guy who was sitting in one of the chairs behind
the metal ogre with two wheels.

“Thanks,” the man said. His forearms were covered in tattoos. Barbed wire around a
crown. A heart with more wire around it. And a cat. Go figure.

Bull and the owner talked about trim rings and other terms she hadn’t heard of before.
The language sounded foreign to her. The two men shook hands, and she and Bull continued
their stroll.
Boy, was it getting hot.

He stopped again. “This one’s called a Fat Boy.” He squatted down to get a better
look at something. His golden-streaked hair had as much sunlight gleaming off it as
the bike.

That same sunlight was making her uncomfortable. And she could feel one of her headaches
coming on. No matter how much she wanted to push through it, though, motorcycles would
always be an obstacle between them. Even if she could overcome the heat of being around
them, her parents couldn’t. There was no middle ground. Anywhere she could see in
the sea of cycles.

The machine before her was black and had rivets trimming out every inch of every piece
of leather. The owner walked toward Bull, wearing a jacket that had more rivets on
it than the bike. He had to have been burning up. It was way too warm, and it was
still early in the day. She checked her watch. Almost ten and almost time for her
to check on Jenna. She could use the excuse to escape the motorcycles.

Bull said, “Sweet ride.”

April took a step closer to try to see some kind of “sweet” in it. She wanted to appreciate
at least a small piece of what Bull saw. It was very shiny.

She startled when she heard a loud boom followed by a deafening rumbling.

“Your little woman ain’t used to the noise yet, is she?” the man asked.

“Not yet,” Bull said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

She could never be. And she wasn’t his little woman, either. Little—maybe. Woman—definitely.
But his woman? She was trying so hard to be okay around the motorcycles; however,
she was failing, and she knew she’d have to be around the machines to be with Bull.
That would be step one. Step two would be even more difficult. Find something beyond
the rally that they had in common. Step three would be impossible. Have her parents
understand his past and what they saw as a dangerous future for her.

“Looks like the passenger rides around the square have begun,” Bull said.

“Yeah, I’m gonna take Terminator here and give about ten rides or so around eleven,”
the man said. “Gonna raise even more money for that poor boy.”

Bull smiled.

She thought about the time and money these good people were giving up for Ben. And
nearly every dime was going into the boy’s fund. She loved what the bikers were doing
for Ben, but motorcycles were still dangerous, and no matter how hard she tried, she
couldn’t get beyond that fact.

“Let’s walk over to the build off,” Bull said as he took her hand.

“Don’t we need to be doing something for the rally?” she asked. She felt moisture
on both her palms—the one wrapped around the coffee and the one covered by Bull’s
strong grip.

He rubbed the top of her fingers with his thumb. “I think you’ll find that these guys
may not look like it, but they’re the most organized group of people you’ll ever meet.”

“I can see that,” she said.

He continued walking. “They have everything under control. As each person attempted
to join us, he got a copy of the restrictions and wasn’t allowed to actually register
until he agreed to the requirements by signing.”

“Wow. That was pretty easy. I thought I was going to have to stand in front of everybody
and say something and cause a riot,” she said. She let out a breath that seemed to
have been held in for weeks.

He stopped and turned toward her. “You would’ve done that?”

“I would have,” she said. “I’m glad you guys were watching my back on that one.”

They both laughed.

His eyes caressed every part of her face, and then he gazed beyond her, like he couldn’t
look any longer. “You amaze me.”

That was good. At one point she had frustrated him, confused him, and had even made
him angry. Amazing him felt great.

When they finally made it across the square to the build off, an announcer on what
looked like a covered lifeguard’s chair was providing a running commentary on the
progress of the builders.

“This is where all the real action is,” Bull said. His face lit up.

She dropped his hand and lagged a step behind him as he made his way down the line.

“Look at that spoiler on that Roadster,” he said pointing to one of the bikes.

She turned her head in the direction of where he was pointing, but she didn’t know
what a spoiler was.

He walked along the line of motorcycles. “Look at those chrome discs on that V-Rod,”
he said.

More than ever, she realized she came from a different world. She spoke a completely
different language and was from another culture. She was surprised, though, at how
much she was learning about all the accessories and motor part things.

“This next motorcycle is a tribute bike—some call them memorial bikes. The old man
and his son are paying their respects to the man’s wife who died recently.” The machine
had red seats and saddlebags. The name Rose was written in script everywhere it would
fit. April walked a bit closer. The woman’s birth date was inscribed on the front
fender and her death date on the back.

There was sadness in the old man’s eyes as he polished pictures of roses on the tank.
It reminded her of the streaks of blue upon her own heart since Miss Adree’s death.
He looked up and smiled at April. The bike was one of the most touching things she
had ever witnessed. A memorial motorcycle? It was far more meaningful than a barren
gravesite or a cold, rock-hard tombstone. The bike was dynamic and personal and the
old man would probably ride it everywhere he went, taking his wife’s memory with him.
It moved April. Imagine that. A motorcycle had touched her.

She wished someone would do something like that for Miss Adree. April still missed
her so.

Bull motioned with his head and said, “Wait till you see the next one.”

She looked to her right and almost couldn’t believe her eyes. There was a beautiful
woman in skinny jeans kneeling beside a bike. She had a pink ribbon in her short,
blond ponytail. Her hair danced as she helped the man beside her tighten some kind
of screw or nut on the machine they were working on. April took a step closer and
couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Jenna?”

Jenna jumped up. “April,” She took out a rag she had stuffed in her back pocket and
wiped her hands. “I was going to call you—”