Ride to Redemption (27 page)

Chapter
54

S
till,
holding onto the fence, I felt a soothing arm wrap around my shoulder. “Damn,
D, she got me good!” exclaimed Vic. “But she sure as hell got you worse.
Woo-eee, that girl can act. Damn, if I wouldn’t nominate her for an Oscar,” Vic
continued. “Ten million dollars goes a long way toward devious and deceptive.”

“Stop
it, Vic,” I implored. “I don’t need this right now.”

Frank
and the Marines pulled up in the Suburban, whereas Frank jumped out and ran to
my side. “Are you okay, D? Are you hurt?”

“He’s
hurt all right,” quipped Vic. “But nothing a case of beer and a good lay won’t
cure. His girlfriend ‘blindsided’ us. Those are his words, not mine. Basically,
she screwed his brains out over the last three months for a $10 million dollar
reward.”

“Man,
I’m sorry. I really thought you had something going with her,” Frank said. “It
was all an act? Someone should nominate her for…”

“An
Oscar, I know,” I replied, right before I laid my head once again on the fence
rail.

“Frank,
did you make the call to Jim?” I asked hesitantly, without lifting my head.

“No,
sir, but I have the phone right here.”

“Don’t.
Just give it to me, please. I’ll handle it myself.”

“I
need a beer,” Vic said. “On second thought, I need a case.”

“Works
for me,” echoed Frank, and it was seconded by both Ron and Terry.

“Are
you up for some company, D?” asked Vic. “If you are, I’d like to ride along.
Hell, I’m not doing anything later, either. If you’d ask me nicely, I might
even ride all the way home with you.”

“You’re
welcome to ride back to the Inn with me, beyond that, we’ll see.” Handing her
Candi’s helmet, which fit surprisingly well, I took off balls to the wall,
trying to get as far away as I could from that last gut-wrenching picture of
Candi waving the ledgers in the air.

“D,”
shouted Vic, over the motorcycles roar, “don’t you just love to feel the wind
in your face? I especially like it when it blows through my hair.”

“I
used to,” I replied in the same volume. “But now, I’m not so sure I believe
anything I feel anymore.”

Chapter
55

P
ulling
up at Josie’s Inn turned out to be the absolute highlight of my day. Plus, I
knew there was ice-cold beer and lots of it, just beyond the door.

Josie
greeted me as usual with a warm hug, “I’m glad you’re back, Jon David,
Victoria. Where’s Candi?”

“You
tell her, Vic. I hear a Molson calling my name,” I whispered, grabbing a
six-pack from the fridge on my way out the patio door. Tossing myself into a
lounge chair, I drained the first beer in one long pull. I imagined how many
times I’d been played … not once, not twice, but three times.
That has to be
a record,
I thought, as I drained the second Molson and opened a third.

I
heard the door open and shut and watched as Victoria settled in beside me. “Are
these other three mine?” she playfully asked, “Or should I go get my own?”

“You’re
welcome to them, Victoria. There’s more where those came from and I know where
to get ’em,” I shared, already starting to feel the alcohol buzzing in my
system.

Frank,
Terry and Ron, joined us as I finished my third. “Let’s do dinner out, but in,”
I offered, while laughing at myself. “Is that okay with everybody? I bet Josie
knows the best restaurants that deliver. Ya’ll work it out; I’m buying,”
dropping two Franklins on the table, before rising from the chair. “Right now,
though, if you’ll excuse me. I need to go to the room.“

I
felt a headache coming on, grabbing three more Molson’s from the fridge to take
the edge off, before I attempted to negotiate the stairs to our room. Our room,
what am I thinking? It’s just mine now … all mine. When I opened the door,
Candi lingered everywhere.
 
But, in
reality, she was so long gone.. Yesterday’s thong was tossed on the chair next
to her backpack, her makeup bag and mirror were sitting on the nightstand, and
her perfume and mousse were on the bathroom sink next to my shaving kit, along
with the Advil I desperately needed this moment.

Opening
Molson number four, I popped three Advil in my mouth and washed them down with
half the bottle. Crawling onto the bed, I rolled over on my back and stared at
the ceiling. Closing my eyes, I reflected on our very first encounter at
Starbucks, our first night together at the Inn in Alabama, followed by our
first bike ride through the cornfields of Iowa. Rounding out those three firsts
came the confessionals, with each one adding a little more distrust. However,
after last night’s heart to heart, I’d thought she finally turned the corner.
Those hopes all washed away today.

Reaching
the edge of sleep, I was startled by a loud knock at the door. “D, are you
okay? Can I come in?” Vic asked, barging into the room without waiting for a
response. It's Victoria; I would expect nothing less.

Climbing
onto the bed beside me, Vic propped her chin on her elbows, “I’m worried about
you, D. Drinking won’t fix it. Time won’t fix it. Hell, even
I
won’t fix
it.” She rolled off the bed and stood in front of me. “However, it’s possible
that some delicious, wicked combination of all of the above might work. D, look
at me. Do you remember the last night we were together?”

“I
remember, Vic. Oh, how I remember. You’re just as beautiful as ever, actually
more so now that I’ve seen how you operate. You see things that others don’t
and you read people, oh so well.”

“Thanks
for the compliments. I’ll take all those I can get. I will disagree with one
thing, however. I’m not able to read people as well as you think. Like today, I
did my best to read between the lines Candi was spewing, before boarding that
plane. She seemed sincere, but emotionally distanced when she announced her $10
million dollar windfall. That blew me away. What I couldn’t wrap my head around
was her comment that she knows where there’s a snake when she needs one and
she’s going to need one very soon.”

“Vic,
I’m sorry. Everything you just said went right over my head. I can’t for the
life of me remember her mentioning a snake.”

“Not
a snake, per se, D. I believe she called it a boa. Like that frilly thing you
wear around your neck.”

Vic rose from the bed and released her luxurious red
hair from its bun and shook it out so that is cascaded down her back shoulders.
Undressing before my eyes, she revealed a black and red lace bra holding back
her voluptuous, milky white breasts. Turning her back to me, she dropped her
pants, showcasing a matching black thong.
Déjà vu!
Standing somewhat
naked before me once again was the beautiful redhead I’d spurned repeatedly.

This
and all the events from earlier in the day, along with Candi’s parting words
were rolling ‘round and ‘round in my mind trying to distract me from the
exceptional beauty standing deliciously in front of me.

“D,
I guess you didn’t hear me. Do you still like what you see?”

Woo-hoo
is all that comes to my tossed and troubled mind right now. I longed for …
wanted … needed someone right now. But who?

To
Be Continued…

A
sneak peek at book two,
Ride to Restoration

CANDI

Tampa Bay

I
n the dark of night, the
Gulfstream
V
touched down at Peter O. Knight Airport in Tampa, Florida, enveloped in
sweltering humidity; a far cry, from the crisp fall air the passengers left
behind in Calgary, just a few hours before. Multiple, nondescript black SUVs
sat just off the tarmac, their engines idling, ready to whisk Candice, her cousin
Gio, his girlfriend, her ex and his bodyguard away. More important than the
passengers, however, were the encrypted ledgers Candice was carrying, which
provided incriminating details about the Family’s money laundering practices,
including a detailed list of their numerous off shore and Swiss bank accounts.

Helping Giovanni deplane,
his crutches clanging toward the waiting car, I saw Joseph hurriedly closing
the distance between us.
Here comes the talk!

“Did you mean what you said
earlier, Candice?” Joseph asked, grasping my hand in the process, longingly
gazing into my eyes. “If you meant it, I mean really meant it, I’d like you to
come home with me tonight. I’ve missed you. Your being with D, I’m sure banging
his brains out all this time, pushed me to the brink. And I know you don’t want
me on the brink. I can’t think of a better way to prove your sincerity than to
make love to me again, like you used to.”

What is it with men and
their penile thinking? They think that having sex will make everything all
better, regardless of how tumultuous the state of the relationship might be,
Candice asked herself before answering. “I meant
what I said in Calgary, Joseph. Much has happened while we’ve been apart. I’ve
changed; you’ve changed. It’s important to me to take it slow this time around.
Be the man I fell in love with a long time ago. You may be ready to jump back
in the sack with me, but I’m nowhere near ready to jump in it again with you.
I’m sure you’ve had your share of sluts — I mean girls — who have
satisfied your daily animal urges. Go hook up with one of them if you need to
get off so bad right now.”
There he goes, hanging his head again!

“Damn you! You still don’t
get it. I see that hurt puppy dog look in your eyes. I want to be courted. I
want to be wooed. I want you to make me feel special again. Go buy a motorcycle
and I’ll ride with you,” I caught myself saying aloud, dreaming fondly of the
memories I made with D — not him, not ever. “I want you to convince me by
your actions. I want to know that, unlike before, you want me for me, not just
as an avenue to get closer to my family. Besides, you’ve got to prove to me
that you will keep your end of the deal and leave D and Victoria alone. They
deserve to be happy, without continually looking over their shoulders for you
or anyone else. We’re splitting the ten million,. Surely you don’t need to
worry about collecting that ridiculous bounty that Standford put out on D... Do
you?”

“I guess that all depends
on you, sweetheart,” Joseph said, the familiar indignation of times past rising
in his voice. “If you really created this whole ruse to retrieve the ledgers
for us, then I guess not. Only time will tell if we’re on the same page or if
you’re blowing putrid smoke up my ass. Let me tell you straight up, baby girl
— your family be damned — if you screw with me, you’ll not like the
results. But hey, if you keep your end of the bargain, I’ll gladly keep mine.”

Threats ... He’s
threatening me in the same breath, through the same lips that want to make love
to me tonight? It’s not happening!
“Go away, Joseph. It’s late. I’m going to ride with Gio and Mile to Mom’s.
We’ll continue this talk tomorrow.”

Climbing into the black
Suburban with Gio and Mile, I replayed the absurd promises I made to Joseph in
Calgary over and over. I did it to keep him from harming D and Victoria.
What
was I thinking? Leaving D with Victoria was like leaving an injured lamb in a
cage with a ravenous lion. What else could I do? D called and Victoria dropped
everything and came with reinforcements. That’s loyalty, love or lust, or
possibly some combination of the three. D has a way with women and men, too,
that’s for sure — me included.

“Candice, you okay?” asked
Gio, while Mile expressed the same question to me through the sadness that
filled her eyes. “D, he good guy. You see. He save me, he fix leg. You wait, he
come for you.”

“I’m no good for him. Look
at all the trouble I’ve brought him, and the two of you for that matter,” I
stated factually, while the tears I’d bravely held back for so long started to
flow.

Mile handed me a tissue
from her purse, while Gio continued undaunted, “You wait. I tell your momma,
he, how you say, special. He care for you. I know it. You know it. We fix it.”

“He did, before I sold him
out and got on the plane with Joseph.”
I couldn’t tell him what I had to do
to protect him. If I did, he would have never let me go. Bodies would have been
scattered everywhere. I did what he taught me to do, put other’s needs before
my own. What a difference a few months make. When he met me, I was a selfish
spoiled bitch. Now, I have a hole in the pit of my stomach. Doing the right
thing was supposed to make me feel better. It doesn’t!

“You reach him, you tell
him why you leave. He understand.”

Sniffling and snorting was
so unladylike, but we’re family here so I continued, “How will I find him now,
Gio? He’s still on his bike trip, riding who knows where and for how long,
before he makes his way back home — if he even goes home. His identity
has been compromised. There’s a bounty on his head. For all I know, he may just
keep on riding.”

“He and you talk about his
dog, you call
May Jore
. He will not leave his dog. You look there.”

Cousin Gio thinks like a
man, not some silly broken-hearted girl. I appreciate that
! “Good idea, Giovanni. There can’t be that many
kennels near where he lives. I’ll send my girlfriend, Marcy, to visit all of
them until she finds him. We find Major, we’ll find D or at least I’ll be able
to get a message to him. He needs to know the truth about what happened and
why. He has to know I did what I did, for him, for Victoria. For once in my
life, I didn’t do it for me.”

Get the full story in
Ride to
Restoration
, available now!