I looked into her eyes.
Then she shocked me by lifting a hand and brushing the hair off one of my shoulders.
“Told you not to get an eye for Tate,” she whispered.
“He got an eye for me,” I whispered back.
“Same thing, honey.”
I looked away and bit my lip.
“There’s nothin’ special in this world, we girls know that.” She was still whispering and I looked back at her. “You were right, Laurie, hold tight to that peace you found. Don’t look for somethin’ special. It ain’t out there. We know that. Just hold tight to that peace. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
“’Night, darlin’,” she replied and stepped aside.
I walked out the door.
* * * * *
It was tough, three waitresses working a biker bar that was in a town in Colorado that was shaking off a spring that, I was told, could last deep into summer. But the days were longer, almost always bright and consistently warm, then hot so the bikes were out and the bar was buzzing, especially on the weekends.
Carnal was a hotspot for Harleys and even Ned and Betty’s business picked up. There were four or more bikes in the parking lot every night. Come Friday and Saturday, there’d be far more and SUVs and mini-vans besides.
Unless there were kids, though, the pool was all mine. And I used it to swim and lounge nearly every day but only in the day. It wouldn’t be December until Tonia’s madman struck again but I wasn’t taking any chances.
* * * * *
Tyler was trying out a new boot camp schedule, doing his seven o’clock one but he started a one o’clock one that I thought he started just so Wendy could go to it. It wasn’t easy for her to crawl into bed at three thirty in the morning and be ready for high intensity interval training three and a half hours later.
I went with her three times a week mainly because I liked spending time with her and Tyler was a great trainer, very positive and upbeat and he made the whole thing seem like we were all a team getting prepared to compete in the Olympics, but we had to do it together. United we’d stand, divided we’d fall, so we all gave it all for Tyler and each other.
I kept going to the camps mainly because in two weeks I felt my muscles make themselves known under my flesh and not only because they ached.
And in two more weeks they made themselves known visibly and I no longer had back fat.
Tyler had started his one o’clock classes with five of us. With me and Wendy talking them up, and Wendy saying I was Tyler’s success story, in a month there were twenty of us.
I still thought all of us were nuts because it was still torture.
* * * * *
On the Monday after Tate left, I went into town to hang with Sunny and Shambles and then I wandered town just because I had time on my hands.
I walked by the florist, then walked back, went in and ordered some flowers for Betty. I waited while the florist made them up, paid for them and walked out.
I stopped on the sidewalk and walked back in.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Could you make up a bouquet every Monday morning? Thirty dollars worth. I’ll be in late morning to get them. If I’m not in by noon, could you deliver them to Betty at the hotel? I’ll set up an account.”
“Standing order?” she asked, her brows going up.
“Yes,” I answered, smiling.
“Sure thing, precious.”
I stuck out my hand to her. “I’m Lauren.”
She shook it. “Holly.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said and left the shop.
From then on, Betty got a thirty dollar bouquet for her reception desk every Monday.
Every Monday I walked up carrying the flowers, she’d watch me through the windows and I’d watch her face light up.
Sometimes, payback wasn’t a bitch.
* * * * *
On the second Monday, after La-La Land and before picking up the flowers from Holly, I walked the length of Carnal.
I’d been careful getting ready that morning, a bit more makeup, a few more pieces of jewelry, a nice skirt (that hung nicer when I had more meat on my bones but was clinging on my hips now). Nice sandals, flats but not flip flips. And I went all out on my hair.
I turned the corner at the end of Carnal and walked into the forecourt of the mechanics.
The gray-haired man was standing in the forecourt talking to a man in coveralls. He looked at me, said something to the guy he was talking to, the man walked away and the gray-haired man walked to me.
“Hi,” I said and stopped at him.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said back.
“We never met,” I stuck out my hand and saw it was kind of shaking so I was relieved when his fingers wrapped around it. “I’m Lauren.”
“Pop,” he replied and gave my fingers a squeeze before he let them go.
“Pop?” I asked and he grinned.
“Pop, Wood and Neeta’s Dad. They called me Pop and since every kid and then every kid who had kids raced through my house, wreckin’ it in one way or another, I got to be known as Pop. It stuck.”
Neeta’s Dad. Also Wood’s.
“Is Wood here?” I asked and I thought it sounded like my voice was trembling, I just hoped he didn’t think so too.
He examined me a minute, his eyes kind but his face blank then he grinned and shouted, “Wood!”
I looked beyond him to see that Wood was already halfway to us. I forced my feet to stay planted and not turn and take flight.
Pop turned and announced, “Lauren’s here to see you.”
Wood hit us, his eyes didn’t leave me as he replied, “Take a hike, Pop.”
“No respect,” Pop muttered good-naturedly but walked away.
I was too busy freaking out to react to their exchange.
“Hey,” Wood said.
“Um…” I replied.
His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”
“Um…” I repeated.
His eyes stayed narrowed. Then they un-narrowed and he grinned at me. He did it slow and I watched his mouth while he did it.
My heart started racing and I bit my lip.
“You work tonight?” he asked.
I found my voice. “These days it seems I work every night.”
He got close, wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and then he pulled me close. I put a hand on his chest.
“Then Bubba’s just got itself a new regular.”
I smiled up at him.
* * * * *
Wood didn’t lie.
For the next week he was a regular and he always sat in my station. I took my breaks with him and we walked to the diner to have a quick bite during my dinner break.
I didn’t know he worked so early because at three o’clock at night I was on his bike and he took me home.
He kissed me the first night, right outside my hotel room door. It wasn’t a Tate kiss but it was a great kiss, far better than any of Brad’s so I felt I was still coming out on top.
He also kissed me the next night.
And the next.
I was off the night after that, Wood took me for a ride where he took me for a steak dinner at a nowhere joint which was a nowhere joint because it was in the middle of nowhere.
The steaks were fabulous.
I told him why I was in Carnal which meant I told him about Brad.
He told me about Maggie who got custody of their two kids and moved to Gnaw Bone. He had them every other weekend, alternating Christmas and Spring Breaks and four weeks in the summer. He also told me it sucked his kids were growing up essentially without him. But he said it sucked more, living with Maggie, because she was a bitch. Further, he told me she was a shit wife but a good Mom and his kids needed her to be a full-time good Mom and not see her being a most-of-the time shit wife and all-of-the-time bitch.
When he took me to my hotel, I let him in and the kissing turned to fooling around.
/> The same the next night.
The night after that, I was wiped and so was he. He spent the night but we both slept in our clothes on top of the covers. That was when I found out he worked as early as he did and that was when the spending the night at his house verbal dance began.
I was able to resist twice.
Then he had me.
* * * * *
Now it was now, Carnal had become home, I was in Wood’s bed more than my own (even though we had yet to do the deed) and Tate was still gone.
But for me, he’d always be gone. I used to pretend he didn’t exist; now he simply had.
Any man who slept with a married woman he knew was married and didn’t care didn’t exist.
And any man who could take me for a ride like that, kiss me like that, in less than an hour changing my world, then walk away without looking back and not even call, not for days that turned to weeks that turned to a month definitely didn’t exist.
I peeled off the new bathing suit I bought with Wendy in the shop-a-thon we had the day Dominic, the gay stylist to all Carnal biker babes, gave me a new look. Wendy had gone with me and had been so overawed by my transformation she forced me to go to the mall with her.
“I gotta admit,” Dominic had said at the time, standing behind me and fluffing my hair while looking at me in the mirror. “I’m thinkin’ you’re my masterpiece.”
I was looking at me in the mirror too and thinking he wasn’t wrong.
He’d taken my dark blonde hair which I hadn’t had cut in over six months and given it bright highlights around my face, some in the back. The effect was dazzling, especially against my tan. I’d always worn my hair just passed my shoulders but it was now down my back, nearly to my bra strap. He cut it to frame my face with a deep, heavy bang and the rest of it in chunky layers that flipped here and there in a glamorous and saucy way that, coupled with the highlights, made even Stella, the Premier Biker Babe’s hair look dowdy.
“You’re a miracle worker,” I breathed as I stared into my hazel eyes that suddenly looked startling green.
“You aren’t the first person who’s said that, darlin’,” Dominic told me without the least hint of humility.
Wendy barely let me pay him (and give him an enormous tip) before she had me out the door and in her CR-V and we headed two towns over to the only mall in the vicinity. Luckily it was a big one and it was a good one because Wendy was determined to get me “out of those clothes that just do not fit you, sistah!”
And she did. We filled her little SUV with bags – skirts, jeans, shorts, t-shirts, tank tops, camisoles, blouses, shoes, boots, underwear and pajamas.
A whole new wardrobe except two sizes smaller.
It was good I was working nights, Bubba’s was busy and I was getting great tips or that shop-a-thon would have bit huge into my nest egg.
But I had to admit, it wasn’t just Wendy. It was me being tan, having fabulous hair, being a biker babe with a biker who liked me on the back of his bike and, most of all, being two sizes smaller.
It had been over five years since I was that size. Before Brad started fucking Hayley and my life disintegrated. It felt like a rebirth mainly because it was.
I tossed my new bathing suit into my new laundry hamper (wicker, I bought it at a cute little country shop that had opened in town the week before). I had five new suits, two tankinis and the only bikini I’d ever owned – it wasn’t a teeny weeny bikini, but it was still sexy (at least I thought so) and therefore it worked for me – for laying out by the pool and two suits for swimming. Then I jumped in the shower. I got out, toweled off, lotioned, spritzed perfume and put on a pair of my new matching undies. They were deep purple with lots of black lace.
I did my makeup (I’d settled on halfway between Krystal and the Old Me and it was working for me), blow dried my hair with a roller brush like Dominic showed me, pulled on a dusty lilac tank that was half tank, half camisole because the straps were thinner than tank but not spaghetti and if I wasn’t careful, my bra straps showed. The tank looked great with my tan, not being conceited or anything but even I had to admit that. I yanked on a new pair of jeans, a wide, thick dark brown belt and my new purple strappy, stiletto-heeled sandals. It took nearly the whole month to get used to traipsing around in high heels for hours – but I didn’t even feel it anymore and the effect on my tips was astounding.
I threw some fresh underwear in my purse, my deodorant, put the guard on my toothbrush and tossed that in as well as a ponytail holder, slung my purse over my shoulder and left my room.
I waved to Ned, he waved back, I got in my car since I was driving to Wood’s later (and Ned would know the sign, he had to be getting used to it by now) and headed to Bubba’s.
Chapter Seven
All the Rest
“Jack and Coke, three Coors bottles and a Tanqueray and tonic,” I ordered from Bubba, looking down at my pad but, even with head bowed and not looking at him, I still teased (as I usually did with Bubba). “And get the lead out, big man. The last order you filled my grandma could fill faster and she’s in a wheelchair.”
“Fuck,” Bubba muttered, my head came up because this wasn’t his usual witty reply to my teasing and I saw he was pale and looking over my shoulder.
I started to turn to see what he was staring at that made him look like he’d seen a ghost but I didn’t get to do so because suddenly my hair was swept from my neck, a pair of abrasive lips were there and an arm had snaked around my belly, pulling me back into a tall, hard body.
“What –?” I started to say as my body went solid but a hand came up and yanked the pad out of mine and tossed it on the bar.
I felt the pencil yanked out of my other hand when I twisted my neck to see Tate had hold of me. Tate with a beard, a full beard. It looked a little straggly but it also looked hot.
His eyes were aimed at Bubba. “Get Wendy to serve her drinks, Bub, Laurie’s on break,” he ordered then he had my hand and he was dragging me down the hall.
“Hey!” I snapped, trying to tug at my hand but he held true and kept dragging me. “Tate!” I cried but he kept going, right by the office, right by the storeroom to the dark, poorly lit, very back of the hall.
Then his hands were at my hips and he was pushing me against the wall.
“Tate,” I snapped but he was concentrating on studying my body, his eyes at my chest as his hands slid up my sides to stop with his thumbs right below my breasts, his fingers splayed at my sides.
“Jesus,” his eyes came to mine and then scanned my hair, “what’d you do to yourself, baby?”
“Tate,” I repeated but said no more because his head bent and he kissed me.
His lips and tongue worked wonders against my mind, as in clearing it of all thoughts of him being a cheater and not calling for a month and me being with Wood and filling it with only thoughts of kissing him back as hard as I could. The beard helped, I’d never been kissed by a man with a beard – it was scratchy but in a very sexy way.
When his lips broke from mine, they didn’t actually break, they just stopped kissing me but stayed where they were so our breath mixed.
“Sweet as I remembered,” he muttered against my lips.
“Tate,” I whispered.
His hand left my side and came to the side of my neck and his head lifted two inches.
“I couldn’t find him, babe,” he said as his thumb trailed my jaw.
“Sorry?”
“That fucker who killed Tonia. Been everywhere. Asshole left nothin’. He’s a ghost.”
“Oh no,” I breathed.
“Cops, Feds, everyone’s fuckin’ baffled. Includin’ me.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Now I gotta tell her folks that I got nothin’,” he went on.
“Tate.”
“That’s gonna suck,” he finished.
I pulled in breath and in pulling it in, life as I’d come to know it re-established its place in my brain.
“Tate
–” I began and his thumb slid across my lips.
“Sucks, but fuck Laurie, it’s good to be home,” he whispered, his thumb disappeared and his head started to come down.
“Tate!” I cried and pulled back against the wall.
His head went up.
“What?” he asked.
“Can you please step back?” I requested.
His eyes scanned my face in the dim light.
Then he answered, “No.”
“We need to talk,” I stated. During his kiss my hands had slid around his neck. Now they were pressing lightly against his shoulders.
“All right,” he replied.
“Later. I’m working. Tomorrow, we’ll, um… go to the um –”
He cut me off. “You’re right here,” his hand beside my breast slid around my back, “I’m right here,” his hand at my neck slid up into my hair, “talk.”
“I need you to step back,” I said to him.
“And I been gone a long time, Ace, I need you where you are.”
My head tilted to the side. “You mean you didn’t swing by Neeta’s any time this past month?”
It was more than a little scary feeling his body go rock solid against mine.
“What the fuck?” he asked in an even scarier voice.
“You might want to let me go,” I suggested.
“And I might not,” he shot back.
“I know about Neeta,” I told him, trying not to make it sound like an accusation but pretty certain it did.
“Yeah? What do you know?”
“I know enough that that’s the last kiss you’ll get from me.”
“Maybe you’ll explain,” he bit off, his voice even scarier.
“Okay, I’ll explain this.” I pressed on his shoulders but nothing came of it so I gave up. “My husband left me for my best friend and he’d been fucking her for five years.”
“I already knew that, Ace.”
“So let’s just say that I’m not fired up to get involved with a man who doesn’t care that he’s carrying on a long term affair with a married woman.”
He let me go then, faster than I’d ever seen anyone move. So fast I wasn’t ready for it and both my hands had to slam back in the wall to hold myself upright so I wouldn’t tumble over.