“You shouldn’t talk to me that way,” Bobby said. His fingers grazed my cheek while they found their way to the back of my head. They clenched into a fist around my hair and used the grip to pull my head back.
In all the excitement, none of them noticed the burbling growl of the motorcycle engine come closer, hesitate, and then turn off.
“Please, Bobby. Please,” I said.
Bobby smiled. It was a shark’s grin.
Chapter 3
DASH
I sat on my bike, which was quiet and still between my thighs. The carb pinged while it cooled.
None of my business, I kept thinking. Two men had a pretty blond girl in jeans held between them. Some greaser wannabe who chewed on a toothpick like he was Clint Eastwood stood in front of them.
He had a pretty painful looking grip on the woman’s hair.
None of my business, I thought again. I wanted to stay incognito. No attachments. No long stays that would get me noticed.
If that’s the case, then why did I come back here? Back to this place where I used to live?
“Let go of me!” The woman spat.
“This is nothing you don’t deserve,” the toothpick chewer said.
My stomach churned. I missed my chance to start the bike up again and just keep on riding. Instead, I stepped off the bike. My thighs and lower back ached from the long ride, ached as the blood returned to them.
I pulled my helmet off and set it on the seat.
The toothpick punk, still gripping the woman’s hair, drew his other hand back into a fist.
“What the hell are you people doing?” I said.
The girl looked over her shoulder while the men glared at me. She was beautiful. It was the first thing I noticed. Even without any makeup, even with her hair in disarray.
And she was also familiar, her lovely face tugging at the strands of my memories from this place.
“Uh, Robert?” One of the goons said to the toothpick man. Robert, is it?
“Shut up,” Robert said, then he let go of the girl and moved so that he stood between me and her. “This is none of your business, man.”
He looked me up and down with contempt. The other two gave me more nervous glances. My bike may have been old, but my riding gear wasn’t. It looked rather like armor, which it was. Kevlar plates were sewn into it in the elbows and knees and across the chest and down the stomach.
My gloves had reinforced knuckles, too.
Although now I wished I’d left my helmet on. My face felt naked without it. For a second there I wondered if any of them might recognize me from the news reports. My heartbeat quickened with the worry.
I was risking a lot for a woman I didn’t know.
If they did, no one said anything.
“I’m making it my business,” I said.
I recognized the voice that came out of me. The voice of the man I thought I left behind in New York. It made people listen, and I needed it then.
The girl’s eyes dart towards me. “You should get out of here,” she mutters. “You don’t wanna get involved in this.”
That gave me pause. But not for long. I don’t think she knows the sort of trouble she’s in.
“She’s right, you know,” Bobby said. When she called him that, I took another look at him. He was definitely more a Bobby than a Robert. And I could tell he didn’t like that much.
“If you leave, no one gets hurt,” I said.
“You know how to count, friend?” Bobby said. His two goons laughed at his apparent wit.
“Yeah, I see one woman and three little boys,” I shot back.
Bobby’s smile fell for just a moment. I guess he thought himself some sort of big deal around here. His two buddies looked shocked, confirming that theory.
“John, I think the stranger needs taught a lesson,” Bobby said.
“Right,” John said. He let go of the girl and ran at me. I balled my hand into a fist and sunk it into his stomach when he came close enough. His breath whooshed out of him.
When I pulled my hand back he crumpled into a ball on the ground, trying to get his breath back. The Kevlar knuckles on my gloves really were unforgiving.
“Dave!” Bobby shouted.
The other goon came at me. This one came swinging. He hit me in the stomach, right on an armor plate. His face went white with the pain.
I turned him around and sent him on his way with a quick boot to his doughy behind. He staggered a few paces and fell, clutching his hand.
Bobby looked at me. I shrugged.
Then he spat his toothpick out. Getting serious now, I thought.
He was faster than his buddies. He pulled his fist back and swung before I could duck. Hard knuckles crashed against my cheek.
I staggered, dizzy, and fell to one knee.
Damn, I thought, waiting for the next punch to connect. It didn’t.
“You leave him alone, Bobby!”
“Get off me!” he said.
When my vision cleared I looked up in time to see Bobby throw the girl off his shoulders.
If I was fighting fair, I’d wait for him to regain his balance. But this is no prize fight. He had the kind of hungry evil in his eyes that I knew all too well.
This time I used my elbow. Elbows are far more effective than fists. The only drawback is you have to get so much closer. But that was no problem with Bobby distracted.
“Hey!” I shouted.
He whipped his head around in time to catch the point of my elbow on his chin. His lights went out, his eyes glazing, and dropped to the pavement.
“That was stupid of you,” the girl breathed, but gratitude shone in her eyes.
I frowned at her. My cheek started burning. Bobby may have been an asshole, but he knew how to throw a punch.
“No good deed goes unpunished, right?” I shrug.
She looks so familiar.
“Oh, it’ll be punished, all right. His father’s the sheriff,” she said.
That's my cue to leave, I thought. Sheriffs had offices. Offices had pictures. Even though they probably didn’t think I’d run this way, my picture probably hung on a cork board somewhere in that office.
Given who I was, it was almost a certainty. Not that I thought I resembled any old pictures of me anymore.
Then again…
“First, they’ll have to admit that three of ‘em got bested by one guy.” I smirk at the girl, and her shoulders drop slightly. She knows I’m right.
“I should get going anyway,” I said. I’d been planning on finding some place to camp out for the night, but right then I just wanted a gas station to fill up at so that I could hit the road again.
It was too bad, really. I kind of wanted to stay a while longer. I was more disappointed than I thought I’d be. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
I grabbed my helmet and started pulling it down. When it hit my new shiner I sucked in a breath at the pain.
“Oh, come on. At least let me take a look at that,” she said.
“No. I have to get going…”
She grabbed my helmet and pulled it off again. I got my first good look at her.
My first impression was accurate. She had a beautiful face. Something about the way her hair fell around it after the little fight just improved on her looks.
Her old sweater hinted at a lithe, luscious body hidden underneath.