CRASH (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance)

“
H
urry up
, Cherish, we’re going to be late!” Sarah squealed from the bedroom doorway. “Father’s waiting!”

I smiled in spite of myself as I coiled my long auburn hair into the severe bun that was my daily hairstyle, securing it with pin after pin so that no stray locks would find their way loose.

“Late for what?” I teased her, turning to inspect the twelve year-old girl and the three younger siblings who stood impatiently next to her. “Your father’s not going to leave without us, you know.” I was sure my quaking voice would betray the nervousness behind my lighthearted tone, but none of them seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

A groan escaped Abigail, the second oldest of the four children at ten years old. Her perpetually solemn face was twisted into a scowl of frustration. “We’re never going to get to Coraza,” she grumbled.

I opened my mouth automatically to chastise her for speaking immodestly, but shut it again without saying anything. In truth, I could hardly blame any of the children for being impatient. It was so rare that we ever got to leave the compound, much less venture into even a medium-sized town like Coraza. The prospect of a whole afternoon to roam the streets and glimpse the outside world must have been a much-awaited holiday from daily life for all of them.

Besides, I didn’t want my interactions with them today to be anything but loving and kind. Not today.

I finished securing my hair and crossed to the far side of the room, risking a final nervous glance inside the covered basket I had prepared for the trip. Finally, Aaron, the youngest, could stand it no more. “Come
on,
Cherish!” he whined, moving forward into the room to grab my hand and tug it toward the door. At five years old, he still had the pink, chubby cheeks of his toddler-hood, but his form had already begun to lengthen as he grew taller, and I could see hints of the boy he would be three or four years from now. A sharp tug at my heartstrings surprised me at the thought, almost making me rethink my plan.
No
, I steeled myself.
Don’t lose courage now. This is your only chance
.

Securing the basket under my arm, I allowed myself to be led out of the room and toward the front door. The other children rushed ahead, blazing an excited path in front of us. Outside, the white minivan was waiting, inside it the children’s father, Isaiah.

My husband.

I opened the sliding side door and the children piled in, making my face a mask of solemnity in their father’s presence as I had been taught. Once I had slammed the door shut, I opened the passenger door and got in, being careful to place the basket unobtrusively by my feet.

“It’s about time,” Isaiah growled. “There’s no call for you dawdling.”

I didn’t answer. There was no point. Anything I said would only serve to anger him. I had learned that from bitter experience.

We rode along in silence, with only the occasional subdued whisper from one child to another. The trip into town took almost half an hour, and I stared out the window as we rode. This was where I had grown up, and where I had spent all of my almost twenty-two years. In some ways, I knew the landscape like the back of my hand, having ridden along this road hundreds of times before. But in other ways, it was as though the scrub and red sands of the mesa passing us by were a landscape I had only seen in a movie about someone else’s life. I tried not to think about anything, to clear my head completely of both the sorrows of my past and the uncertainty of my future.

Soon enough, we arrived in town, and the younger ones piled out of the back of the van as I modestly stepped down from the front seat. I tucked my basket under my arm and stood patiently as the children assembled in a line next to me at the curb. Finally, Isaiah came around to speak to me.

“I’ll be occupied over at Joseph Stubbs’s place,” he said sternly, looking only at me. “Be back here at two o’clock.”

Three hours. I had at least three hours before anyone would suspect anything, if I was lucky.

I nodded looking down at the ground in a gesture of submission. “Yes, Isaiah,” I murmured.

My husband turned on his heel and headed off down the street. As soon as he was out of earshot, the children began clamoring their agendas and begging for treats. “Can we stop for ice cream?” asked Matthew hopefully, his eyes beseeching mine.

“Of course,” I nodded, a lump rising in my throat. This was exactly what I had been planning to do, and yet, now with the reality of it facing me, I almost lost my nerve at the thought of leaving my four stepchildren with their father. An argument that I had had with myself a thousand times flooded me with doubts, but I pushed them away with resolve. I had made my decision. There was no turning back now.

“We’ll go to Clancy’s,” I suggested, nodding my head in that direction.

“I like Maybelle’s better,” Abigail frowned, pointing at the gaily colored pink-and white storefront across the street.

“We’re going to Clancy’s,” I said firmly. “It’s closer to the shops I need to go to. You four can sit and have your ice cream while I run my errands.”

A couple of the children grumbled, but the prospect of having unsupervised free time and ice cream meant that they couldn’t sustain their bad mood. By the time we arrived at Clancy’s, the younger ones were practically bouncing with joy. We walked into the ice cream parlor, a wall of cool, air-conditioned air hitting us as we went through the door. I closed my eyes for a moment to savor the feeling. I was unaccustomed to air conditioning, and it felt heavenly given the itchy, figure-concealing dress that all women of the WFZ Ranch were obligated to wear.

I stood in line with the children, waiting patiently as they hemmed and hawed over their selections as though the decision meant life or death. “Are you
sure
we can have anything we want?” asked Matthew, wide-eyed. Usually, on the rare occasions that the children were allowed an ice cream treat, they were limited to a small cone with no extras. But today I wanted to give them something special. Something I hoped they would remember one day. A small kindness by the woman who had deserted them without so much as a goodbye.

“Yes, anything,” I smiled. “As long as it’s meant for only one person.”

Finally, after much deliberating, all of the children had ordered and received their treats. I told Sarah to get the children seated while I paid, and then I went over to the booth they had chosen, close to a window with cheerful sun streaming through.

I drew a deep breath. “All right, children,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “You stay right here and finish your treats. I have errands to run.”

“Aren’t you going to get ice cream, too?” inquired Aaron as he attacked a hot fudge sundae that was much too large for him.

“No, I’m not hungry,” I replied. At least that much was true. My stomach was doing flips and flops as though it was trying to leap out of my throat. “Sarah, you keep an eye on the children for me, you hear?”

“M-hm,” Sarah said dreamily as she took a spoonful of her malt, then realized she had been impertinent. “Yes, ma’am,” she corrected herself.

I smiled, and suddenly I felt as though I might cry. I swallowed hard and blinked my eyes. “You children be good,” I said, willing my voice not to crack. I touched little Aaron’s blond head one last time, and left the ice cream parlor.

Outside, I turned right and walked hurriedly the few blocks toward my destination. Once I arrived in the noisy terminal, I strode as quickly and unobtrusively as I could toward the bathroom. Mercifully, no one was in it, and I went to the large handicapped stall, shut the door, and quickly stripped off my clothing. Opening the basket, I took out the worn, faded jeans I had purchased at the Goodwill on our last trip into town. Next, I took out an ill-fitting yellow T-shirt that said, “One in a Minion,” with a picture of a strange, bespectacled cartoon figure that I recognized and seemed popular. I hoped it would somehow make me look less conspicuous. Finally, I kicked off my hot, heavy shoes and exchanged them for a pair of cheap flip flop sandals that I had chosen because they would take the least amount of room in the basket. It made me feel uncomfortable having my bare feet so exposed, but I told myself that I didn’t have time to fret about such things now.

When I had finished, I exited the stall and stuffed the clothes I had been wearing at the bottom of a large wastebasket by the door. Covering them over with paper towels. I turned to the door to go, but decided to give myself a quick check in the mirror. I was horrified to discover that I was still wearing the tight bun that marked me unmistakably as from the WFZ Ranch. I began to sweat as I quickly removed pin after pin from my hair as fast as I could, until finally, they were all out and my long, uncut hair hung loose to my waist. I frowned at my reflection. I knew young “worldly” women didn’t wear their hair like this. An idea came to me then, and I went back to the wastebasket and rooted around until I found one of my shoes. I quickly undid the lace and tied my hair back with it in an approximation of a loose ponytail that hid its length.

Finally, when I was satisfied that my appearance wouldn’t cause suspicion, I exited the restroom and went to the ticket counter. I paid cash for a one-way ticket on the next bus that was leaving. It was going to a town that wasn’t in the direction of my final destination, but I planned to change buses a couple of times to throw anyone who might come looking for me off the scent.

A few minutes later, a voice over the loudspeaker announced that they were beginning to board. I handed the driver my ticket, took a window seat toward the back, and tried to calm my hammering nerves. I knew no one would be looking for me yet, but I also knew my heart wouldn’t stop pounding until the bus had pulled away from the station and had passed the city limits. I thought back to the children. I knew that by now they would have finished their ice cream and were probably horsing around and riding their uncharacteristic sugar high. By the time they began to get antsy, I would be gone, but they were obedient children and would not move from the parlor until the time to meet their father had come and gone. I assuaged my guilty conscience at leaving them by telling myself that Sarah was old enough to get the children back to the minivan and meet their father on her own.

The bus pulled backwards away from the curb, and I stared out the window, scanning the street for Isaiah and the children as we drove away and headed out of town. Sighing, I sank back into the surprisingly comfortable window seat I occupied and tried to take comfort in the peaceful rumble of the bus’s tires under me. By the time I had been on the bus barely half an hour, the landscape was already beginning to change, a visual reminder that I really was leaving the only life I’d ever known behind. As I rode, I made plans for the next few hours in my head to calm myself. I made a mental note to buy a pair of scissors in the next town and cut my hair to a more reasonable length. I would also need to buy some food so that I wouldn’t go hungry during the long hours on the bus.

Two o’clock arrived. Soon, I knew, the children would go find their father, and tell him that I hadn’t come back from my errands. I got off in the next town and purchased another ticket for another bus, which luckily was leaving in only an hour. I resolved to be on it by the time Isaiah came looking for me. I got directions to a convenience store, where I purchased scissors, some food, and a map. As I waited for that bus to come, I borrowed a pen from the lady at the ticket counter and drew a circle around my destination.

Lupine, Colorado. The last known whereabouts of the only person in the world who could help me.